AN UNEXPECTED SONG, Chapter 2
(sequel to "The Power Of Love")
DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the characters from BTVS or ANGEL. They're owned by Joss Whedon, MutantEnemy, etc.
SUMMARY: Buffy's in the hospital, following her return from near-death. Angel has just told her that when Willow re-souled him ("Becoming 2") the curse she used didn't contain the true happiness clause.
A/N: This takes place in the spring of 2001, two years after Angel left Sunnydale. It's set in an alternate timeline from the shows, so none of the events of Season 5/Season 2 have happened. There is no Dawn, Joyce isn't ill, Darla wasn't brought back by Wolfram & Hart, etc.
A/N2: A big "thank you" to Ashes at Midnight for pointing out something I'd completely overlooked regarding Angel's curse. I've done my best to fix it.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
There was a long silence while Buffy stared at him. Finally, she cleared her throat. "So . . . the one Ms. Calendar found was the traditional curse, not the changed one?" Buffy also spoke carefully, needing to be sure she understood. Angel nodded. "And that's the same one that Willow used to re-soul you three years ago?"
"Yes."
"So . . . your soul is safe. It's been safe the whole time."
Angel just looked at her without speaking. What was there to say, after all? It was the truth, bitter as that knowledge was.
"So all of this could have been avoided?" Distraught, Buffy jumped up and began pacing around the room. Joyce, or someone, had brought her a replacement for the hospital gown, and Angel was distracted by the motion of her breasts beneath the pale blue top. Reflexively, out of long habit, he started to push the thought away, then stopped in stunned realization.
His soul was safe. There was no reason now for him to avoid noticing how the outline of her nipples showed through the thin fabric, or how incredibly beautiful she was, even with a portion of her hair clipped to a stubbly patch. He could make love to her right now, this minute, without consequences - at least not of the soul-losing kind.
"Riley," she continued. "Parker. . . ."
Angel blinked, coming back to the moment. Parker? Who was Parker? Buffy swung around to face him, and again he noticed the enticing sway of her breasts. "None of it ever needed to happen. You didn't need to leave Sunnydale in the first place."
"Wait." Focused again, Angel held up a hand. "Buffy, I didn't leave Sunnydale because of the risk to my soul. I left because I thought you could find a more normal life without me, and just maybe that would increase your chances of living past twenty-five."
"Huh?" Momentarily diverted from her lament, Buffy waited for enlightenment, so Angel explained his theory of Slayer Early Death Syndrome as he'd told it to Giles and Joyce the night before. "I hoped that a normal relationship would give you a better support group, with added security and . . . stability," he finished.
"And it never occurred to you that the biggest part of that support group was you? Your backup, your encouragement . . . your love?" Her gaze was unblinking and slightly incredulous.
"No," Angel replied, simply. "Buffy, ever since I've known you, you've fought tooth and nail to have a normal life despite being the Slayer. You tried out for cheerleader when Giles forbade you to; you insisted on your right to have dates, go to parties . . . do I need to go on?"
"I also told you that you were the only thing in my freaky world that made sense. Obviously you didn't believe me," she said sadly.
Angel was silent. It was true; he hadn't believed her - or not completely.
Buffy sat on the edge of the bed. "In fact," she continued, studying him with a frown, "you've never really believed that I truly love you. Have you? You really thought it was just . . . what? A schoolgirl crush? An adolescent fascination with the forbidden? The Slayer dating a vampire - the ultimate taboo, perfect for teenage rebellion."
"No!" he was moved to protest. "Buffy - " he groped for words. "I knew that you loved me. God, how could I not know it - when even after everything that happened when I lost my soul, you took me back and forgave me?"
"Because it wasn't you who did those things," Buffy said, with a touch of anger. "Why can't you accept that?"
"It was my body. My voice said all those terrible things to you." Angel held out his hands, palms up. "These are the hands that snapped Jenny Calendar's neck and arranged her body for Giles to find."
He stopped her angry retort. "I know it was the demon who was in control, not me, but at the time you were the only one who was able to make that distinction - because you loved me. God, yes, I knew."
Subsiding, Buffy listened as he went on. "But things change, Buffy. People change - and even the strongest love can fade. It happens all the time; you know it does. I believed that if I left, your yearning for a normal life would eventually grow strong enough to overcome . . . the other feelings."
"You thought that I'd stop loving you?"
Angel ignored the pang that smote him at the thought. Evenly he said, "I thought that as time passed and you got used to my not being here, it would no longer be as important to you, and, yes, that you'd find someone else to love."
"You were wrong," she stated quietly.
"I know that now," he replied. "I'm sorry." Then, before the silence grew more awkward, he took another breath and got to his feet. "Buffy, there's something else - another reason why I left. A selfish reason, one I didn't even fully realize until today, when I was thinking about . . . everything."
Buffy's eyebrows rose a little, but she waited to hear more.
Turning and walking a few steps away, Angel plowed on. "I wanted to give you a chance for a longer life, but . . . there was also something I needed. I needed a chance at redemption."
Silence. Then, "You wanted to atone for everything he did. Angelus." A frown of hurt puzzlement creased Buffy's forehead. "Okay, I guess I can understand that. As you said, it was your body that was used and unfortunately you share the memories of what Angelus used it for. But isn't that what you were doing by fighting here, with me? Weren't you already making amends?"
Angel stood still. "It wasn't enough." He turned to face her. "Buffy, Sunnydale already has you to fight the Hellmouth. And you don't really need my help."
"What?" Buffy was stung. "How can you say that? Angel, how many times did you protect me, when we were fighting and some big ugly was about to sink its teeth or a knife in me? You killed almost as many demons as I did."
"And after I left, you killed just as many without me," Angel interrupted. Buffy stared at him, shaken. "Didn't you," he persisted, gently. It wasn't a question.
"Do you have any idea how lost I felt without you?" Her eyes filled with tears.
"The first week of school I discovered a nest of vampires on campus," she whispered. "I fought the leader, a girl named Sunday. She whipped my ass, single-handed. I ran, Angel, as fast as I could with bruised ribs and an arm that I thought might be broken; and the whole time I was running I was praying that she wasn't coming after me and wishing you were there to back me up."
Angel was more perturbed than he let on. The image of Buffy turning tail and running away from a lone vampire was one he could hardly picture. "What happened? Or is the vamp - Sunday? - still running her campus nest?"
Buffy hesitated, then looked away. "Well . . . no," she finally said. "I, uh, went back a couple of nights later and . . . took care of it." The last words were mumbled.
Now Angel raised his eyebrows. "You staked them? The entire nest?" When Buffy gave a reluctant nod, he raised them higher. "Alone?"
She flashed him an uneasy look and, even more reluctantly, nodded again.
Angel continued, quietly relentless. "Without my help. Without anyone's help."
Silence. He waited.
Buffy sighed. "All right; point taken. But just because I was able to take them on later doesn't mean that I couldn't have used your help the first time. And who knows how many people they killed in between?"
Angel sat next to her. "Buffy, I know you appreciated and maybe even relied on my help. But you didn't really need it, not then or now. You're the Slayer, and a damn good one. All I was accomplishing here was a higher body count for demons. I needed to go someplace where I could actually help people."
"Someplace that didn't already have a Slayer," Buffy murmured. Her expression closed in. "I understand. Sunnydale can't offer the scope for redemption that L.A. does, it's true."
She got up again and went over to the window, where she stared out into the night, her back to him, forehead resting against the glass. "So what I'm hearing you not say, is that even though you don't have to worry about losing your soul now, we're still not going to be together."
Her voice was flat, toneless, a sharp reminder of the defeated, apathetic Buffy he'd found in the otherworld the night before, the Buffy who'd found life too much to take anymore and was willing herself to die. Angel walked up behind her, so close that he could feel her heat.
"That's not what I'm saying," he said firmly. "Buffy, you've only just found out about this. When you've had time to think about it, like I have, you'll realize that we can't just pick up where we left off two years ago. Too much has changed. We're not the same people we were then."
"I guess not." Her lone reflection showed clearly in the darkness of the window, and in it Angel saw a tear roll down her cheek. His heart twisted. He had to bend his head to hear her whisper.
"Just once I'd like to have a Hallmark ending."
He kissed the top of her head and gently turned her around. "Would you settle right now for a Hallmark moment?"
Another tear spilled onto her cheek. "Please," she whispered. Angel gently wiped the tears from her face, then leaned down. She closed her eyes as their lips met.
His kiss was like cool water following a long drought, refreshing her parched soul. She drank it in, and all the sore places in her heart, the doors she'd unknowingly slammed shut when he left, slowly opened again to receive the wonder of his touch, his love. She could feel it washing through her, a sparkling elixir, soothing the hard, dry cracks caused by his absence, softening the hurt.
Healing.
A soft little sigh escaped her, and she leaned in closer, wrapping her arms around Angel's waist and holding him tightly. Just before they kissed she'd wondered if, after being with Riley for so long, she'd have to get accustomed all over again to the lack of a heartbeat and body heat. The answer, she now discovered, was an emphatic "No."
The moment they touched it was as if Riley had never existed. She'd come home again. Her body remembered him - the coolness of his skin through his clothing, the icy burn of his lips, the muscular planes of his unbreathing chest, the solid waist beneath her arms . . . the firm pressure of his thighs against hers.
She deepened their kiss, instinctively rising up on her toes for better access, her arms relinquishing their hold on his waist and trailing upward to wind around his neck. Their mouths opened. Angel's tongue brushed hers. Soft. Tantalizing. Thrilling. She shivered with delight, and his arms tightened, pulling her closer. Her heart began to pound and she felt a tingling warmth between her legs.
When they finally pulled apart, Buffy was breathing hard and her blood was racing. She swallowed. "That hasn't changed."
'No," Angel agreed huskily, shaken by the speed with which their desire had roared to life with merely a kiss. "That will never change. We'll make it, Buffy. This time we'll make it work. I love you and I'm not going to lose you again."
They remained in each other's arms for another moment, then slowly separated. As they went over to the bed, Buffy suddenly frowned. "Angel, you said the original curse had a time limit?"
"Yes. The curse ended after one month." Then Angel's jaw dropped as realization hit. How could he have overlooked that? Well, he knew exactly how: all he'd been thinking about was the fact that no True Happiness clause existed; the time limitation hadn't even crossed his mind.
"One month?" Buffy exclaimed. "But if Willow's curse was the original one, how come you're still you? Why is your soul still here?"
Angel opened his mouth, closed it . . . and finally said, "I have no idea. Maybe the Powers That Be did . . . something?" He grimaced, realizing how lame that sounded, but he had nothing better to offer.
Buffy snorted. "That would be surprisingly helpful of Them."
Silently agreeing, Angel looked away and noticed the claddagh ring sitting on top of the nightstand, where he'd placed it after Joyce left.
Buffy followed his gaze. "What's that?"
Angel picked up the ring. "Willow found it in your jewelry box yesterday. She gave it to me when I got here last night and I - well, I put it on your finger. I thought it might help me bring you back. But you've lost so much weight, it slipped off while you were sleeping. Your mother found it and - "
She interrupted. "This is the ring that was in my jewelry box?"
"Yes." Why was she so upset? Was it because Willow looked through her belongings without her permission? Or was there another reason? Angel watched in confusion as Buffy turned away. He licked his lips nervously.
"Buffy, it's okay if you don't want to wear it again. I mean, I'm not trying to pressure you or anything. I understand that maybe it's too painful a reminder of everything that happened that year - "
Again she interrupted, still turned from him. "Angel, that's not the ring you gave me."
"What?"
"I don't have that ring anymore." She turned to face him. "Several months after - after I sent you to hell, I brought it to the mansion and put it on the floor where I stabbed you. I was . . . saying goodbye. I turned and walked away and that was the last time I saw it. This ring is one that I bought for myself, after you left Sunnydale."
"Why?" was all Angel could say. His mind whirled with disjointed thoughts and images. Foremost among them was the memory of flying/falling through a great distance and the impact as he landed, of his confusion as his tormented mind realized that his torturers had inexplicably vanished and he was lying on a cold, hard floor, naked as a babe and almost as weak.
Another image appeared: Buffy placing the ring he'd given her on the place where he'd been sucked into hell.
He paid only scant attention to Buffy's mumbled explanation of an impulse buy that she didn't really understand herself except that she had been feeling so lonely. Something was trying to penetrate the jumble in his brain.
Acathla . . . his soul returning . . . the piercing of the sword . . . the vortex claiming him . . . hell . . . Buffy . . . the ring on the same spot . . . falling . . . finding himself back in the mansion. . . .
Suddenly it all came together. "My God," he interrupted. He turned to her in a daze. "That's what brought me back. The ring."
"The ring brought you back from hell?" Buffy repeated. She blinked, adjusting to the change of subject.
"I know it sounds crazy," Angel began.
"Oh, I don't know," said Buffy judiciously. "No crazier than a fifteen-year-old girl discovering she's the Chosen One . . . or there suddenly being two Willows and one of them is a skanky vampire. Or, for that matter, no crazier than a Slayer and a vampire falling in love."
"True," Angel smiled. He reached out and caressed her cheek. "Buffy, remember the scorched outline on the floor of the mansion after I returned? That was where I landed. It's the same spot where you stabbed me, and you said that's where you put the ring."
She nodded.
"I think that somehow the ring changed places with me. Or, well, something like that, anyway," he finished, running out of steam a little.
Buffy looked thoughtful. "I did wear it the way you showed me – for the short time that I actually wore it." They exchanged a look that said everything without a word being spoken: the anguish and regret they shared about all that had happened when Angel lost his soul.
Buffy put her hand on Angel's chest, flat over his heart. Angel instantly flashed back to the Day That Never Happened, when she'd made the same gesture, only that day his heart had been beating. He swallowed, hard.
" 'If you wear it with the heart pointing toward your heart, it means you belong to someone'," she quoted softly. "That's what you told me, and I did. You were there, in my heart."
"As you were in mine," he murmured.
Her smile was misty. "The ring connected our hearts, Angel. Of course it brought you back to me."
He kissed her, gently, tenderly, then he said, ruefully, "But apparently it wasn't what brought you back, since it's not the same ring."
"No," she murmured. "You did that all by yourself."
They kissed again, and his heightened senses were thrillingly aware of every spot where their bodies touched: of her shoulders beneath his palms; of the twin points of her breasts pressing against his chest; of her hands caressing his neck, pulling his head down to deepen the kiss.
"Buffy," he whispered, "this doesn't solve anything." But he made no move to pull away.
"Nope," she agreed, and promptly kissed him again.
"I mean," he gasped in between increasingly passionate kisses, "this isn't helping – "
"It's helping me," Buffy whispered, tightening her arms around him and pressing closer.
Angel forgot his misgivings and surrendered to their kiss. God, it was just like he remembered it in his dreams: hot and sweet, burning through him like fire, and more intoxicating than any liquor, so that the more they kissed the more he thirsted for the touch of her lips, her hands. He didn't realize they'd moved until he found himself sinking onto the bed with Buffy in his arms.
The sound of shattering glass jerked them apart. A vampire in full game face burst in through the window, a second vamp right on his heels. They paused, looking considerably startled. "Angelus!" the second vampire exclaimed. Taking advantage of their hesitation, Angel and Buffy instantly attacked.
"Wrong." Angel tackled the surprised vamp, crashing him against the wall. "The name's Angel."
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the first vamp fighting with Buffy. His attention quickly returned to his own opponent when, with an agile twist, the vampire slipped out of his hold and attached himself to Angel's back, with an arm around his throat as he tried to twist Angel's head around. He was strong, but Angel was stronger still.
He staggered toward the broken window, turned, and with unerring accuracy heaved the vamp straight through the opening. The vampire's shout of alarm broke off abruptly. Angel knew he hadn't killed it – after all, they were only two storeys* up – but with luck it had broken a leg or arm or sustained some other injury that would keep it out of the fight. He checked on Buffy.
She was doing her best, but he saw in a flash that she wasn't back to full Slayer strength. She'd managed to fend off the knife in the vampire's hand, keeping it from her throat, but couldn't throw off the vampire. Slowly, despite her best efforts, the long blade was descending, inch by inexorable inch.
"Buffy!" Angel lunged, hooking his arm around the vampire's neck and hauling back with all his strength. They went stumbling backward. Suddenly the vampire twisted around and before Angel could react, he stabbed him in the chest. As Angel gasped in shock and pain his attacker suddenly exploded in a shower of dust. The entire fight had lasted only a couple of minutes. He staggered back, slumping against the wall.
"Good thing Mom left her wooden letter opener here," Buffy panted. Her eyes fell on the spreading stain on Angel's shirt. "You're hurt!" She helped him into the chair, which he all but fell into.
"I'm all right," he gritted. Buffy flashed him an incredulous what-the-hell-are-you-saying look. "Buffy, we need to get you out of here. They might attack again."
Paying no attention to this, Buffy lifted his sweater and sucked in her breath in a loud hiss. She lifted an ashen face. "Angel, it missed your heart by less than an inch."
"It was a knife, not a stake," he said impatiently, trying to ignore the pain and the weakness spiraling through him. "Buffy, you have to leave. You're still weak and now I'm injured. We've got to find a safe place for you."
"And for you," Buffy added. "I'll call Giles." As she reached for the phone the door to her room suddenly flew open.
"What's going on in here?" demanded the nurse from the doorway. "Who's making all that noise?"
Her glance fell on the pile of dust that was all that remained of the vampire Buffy had destroyed, then flew to the shattered window. Her demeanor shifted from aggressive to confused and then to alarmed. "What in the world?"
Upon her entrance, Angel immediately turned so that his wound was out of her view. Buffy said, smoothly, "Something came through the window. When it landed on the floor it just disintegrated into that heap of dust there. Like a dirt clod." She dialed Giles' number.
The nurse only looked more puzzled. "A dirt clod? How could that break a window?"
Buffy shrugged. "Beats me." Her attention snapped to the phone. "Giles, it's Buffy. I'm leaving the hospital now. Would you please pick us up in front?"
She listened impatiently for a moment. "I'll explain when I see you. I need to call Mom now and tell her I'll be home before long." She hung up.
The nurse was gaping at her. "Ms. Summers, you can't leave the hospital now! It's the middle of the night." Angel glanced at the clock on the wall, which read 8:05.
Buffy looked at her. "Am I under arrest?"
"What?" The nurse was shocked. "Of course not, but – "
"Then I'm leaving. I assume there are papers I need to sign?" The nurse shut her mouth and nodded silently. "Then why don't you get those ready for me so I don't have to leave without signing them? Because in five minutes I'm going to be out of here. I really don't feel safe in a place where people throw things through the windows."
The nurse looked helplessly from Buffy to Angel, who shrugged, then gritted his teeth against the pain that careless gesture cost him. It was taking all his concentration to remain upright in the chair. Throwing up her hands, the nurse left the room.
Buffy moved to Angel's side. "How are you doing?" She inspected the injury again. "I think it's stopped bleeding at least."
"Probably." They both were aware that vampires never bled for long; there simply wasn't enough blood in their systems. "Call your mother and then let's go."
Buffy picked up the phone and explained the basic situation to Joyce in a few terse sentences, then went over to the tiny closet. It was empty except for a long robe. Frowning, she walked over to the tiny dresser next to Angel and pulled open the drawers.
"Damn!"
"What?" With some effort, Angel focused his eyes.
"I don't have any clothes here." She gave a frustrated sigh, then stalked over to the closet again and put on the robe. "This'll just have to do."
She threw a few personal belongings into a plastic sack she found in a drawer, and helped Angel to his feet. "Can you walk?" she asked, concerned, as he swayed.
'Yes," he assured her grimly. Taking a deep breath, he summoned every ounce of strength and moved toward the door.
END OF PART SIX
*I've started using the British term "storey" to indicate the floors of a building, instead of our American "story"; I think the different spelling makes it easier to differentiate between the two (though, admittedly, the context should do that on its own). I have a few quirks like this, lol. *shrug*