Disclaimer: Nothing's mine.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!

A new year, a new decade, is beginning, and what better way to do it that to update? (And dare I add review for you? Oups, I did it ^_^)

Your reactions to the last chapter were amazing. A really really big thank you for those of you who take time to review and thank you for the one who still take time to read this story. I still hope that one day you will take some time to let me a little piece of your mind.

It's been one year now since the last chapter, give or take a couple of weeks. Thank you to have followed me until now.

Now, I'll let you with this chapter and I'm going to start waiting for your reviews.

Enjoy !

Chapter Eighteen

The Morning After

Buffy moved and groaned when pain engulfed her. She stopped breathing for a few seconds then tried to move again. She was exhausted. Emotionally and physically. Last night had taken a toll on her. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed and never ever move again. But she was realistic enough to know that that wasn't possible. She needed to take a shower. Her skin was sticky. She felt dirty. Her muscles were tight and sore. And she was sure her several fights last night had done damage. Maybe that was why she couldn't move? Adrenaline had long since disappeared and now that she was awake, pain claimed her.

Someone put a hand on her arm and she could only whimper. "Pain."

The sheet was pulled away and cold fell over her. Realizing that she was naked, she suddenly remembered where she was, with who and why. She had sex with Rude-Guy. Several times. Her love life really was doomed. Owen took her in his arms and she kept her eyes tightly closed. She wanted to cry now and she wasn't going to let him see her break down. They had all seen enough yesterday. They all knew that she had died. She had wanted to keep that to herself but now they knew and she didn't want them to talk about it. She didn't want to talk about it.

She was put down somewhere cold and smooth. A bathtub. She heard the water before it started to fall on her. She didn't know how long she stayed unmoving under the artificial rain. But it felt good. She could feel the stickiness disappear, being washed away. After a while, she opened her eyes. Owen was kneeling down beside the bathtub and watched her carefully. He leaned down and grabbed a bottle. The shampoo's odor was masculine and strong. It smelt like a forest. He began washing her hair without a word. She leaned into his touch. It was so much more gentle than their passionate embrace the night before. And now that all her aggressiveness was gone, it felt really good.

When he was done with her hair, he focused on her back. His touch was a caress, feather light. He was particularly cautious around her injuries. She watched his reflection in the mirror above the sink. He was only wearing boxers and she could see here and there the traces she had left the night before. She hadn't pulled her punches. His face surprised her the most. She had never seen him so relaxed. In fact, she hadn't believed it possible for him to be so relaxed. It seemed like his perpetual anger was gone, at least for a while and she wondered what happened to him. The thought that he was pitying her crossed her mind. Her, the poor little woman who had died. She closed her eyes. She didn't want to think about that. She didn't realize when she whimpered.

"Hey, did I hurt you?" he asked, concerned.

She opened her eyes and saw him looking at her with worry.

"No! No, you didn't hurt me."

She looked down and whispered, "Thanks. You don't have to do all this."

She felt suddenly ashamed. What did he think of her? She felt herself blushing and moved away from him. She was sitting in a bathtub, unable to wash herself. That was so humiliating! Owen noticed her sudden change of behavior but instead of letting her alone, he said, "Don't push me away now. I… We're not really close and last night… Sometimes, you just need to open up to someone, to just be held or taken care of by someone else. Right now, I need it as much as you do."

She relaxed almost immediately. She laughed a little.

"It's really weird."

"Just, don't tell anyone."

"What? That I slept with you or that you washed my hair?"

"Presumably both. It would certainly complicate things at work."

She agreed with him. After a few seconds, she said, "You know, there's enough room for two in here."

He looked at her.

"I know. But you weren't really fine when you woke up."

"I'm better. A little. I'm more awake and less depressed. Okay, I'll feel a lot better after a dozen painkillers but until then I should be able to share a bathtub with you."

"And I'll certainly feel better after a shower."

She stood up and smiled at him. He hesitated for a second confronted by the strangeness of the situation. But he finally stepped inside the bathtub after having removed his shorts. He almost lost his balance and automatically put a hand on her waist to steady himself. She held her breath and stared at him. When was the last time she had taken a shower with a man? Was it possible that she had never done it since Riley? On reflection, she hadn't really 'dated' anyone since the soldier. There had been Spike but he weren't the dating type. It had been sex and break-up. She hadn't experienced this kind of intimacy in years. It was strange to have it now, with a man she had made fun of since she had met him. But her world had always been strange.

She stopped thinking when his hands started wandering over her body…

A couple of hours later, she was sitting at his kitchen table, a generous breakfast in front of her. Her clothes were beyond repair so she was wearing one of Owen's shirt with a set of his boxer shorts. Painkillers were working their magic and she was relieved. Owen had played doctor with her and she had let him. In fact, she really had needed some things patched up.

After swallowing a mouthful of omelette, she said, "This is delicious. You're a mystery Owen Harper."

"How?"

"Most of the time, you're rude, angry and cynical. But you're a great cook and what you did this morning? You obviously know how to take care of a woman."

He shot her a proud smile and she couldn't help but laugh.

"Not the sex part! But all the little attentions. The shower and the washing my hair part."

She watched him closely and didn't miss the pain in his eyes. She knew the reason behind it because she had felt it before. He wasn't replying so she just added, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

He sat down in front of her and played with his food.

"I was engaged. She died. We thought it was a tumor. In reality, it was an alien, growing inside her skull. That's how I met Jack."

"I'm sorry," she breathed out.

He scowled and they finished eating in silence. Then tended to the dishes. Buffy left him for half an hour. She went home to change clothes and breathed a little easier. Her big dark secret was out. All of them were going to want some sort of explanation. You couldn't just drop a bomb like that and expect no reaction. And Owen and she had greatly messed things up after that night. Okay, they were adults and they had never been as close, or as friendly, as right now. That could be a good point. Right? She just was so used to drama, especially when it came to relationships.

She decided to stop thinking so much. Owen was waiting for her. She grabbed her bag and left her apartment. Owen was in the corridor, in front of his door. She smiled and they went to his car in the same pleasant silence they had shared all morning. When they entered the Hub, the others were already there.

Tiredness was easily readable on their faces. They had a haunted look that Buffy knew all too well. That was the effect her world had on people. It darkened the soul and scarred you. Nightmares would trouble their sleep. Sadness would cling to them because they were going to remember what they had witnessed all their life now. They would believe they deal with it and shove it into that little box in their mind, the one where they hide the horrors of their life. But it would resurface one day, at the worst possible moment, when they would be too tired and too vulnerable to shield themselves from it. And they would feel the same pain as when it first happened.

Tosh looked at her from her computers and smiled tentatively. Buffy tried to respond but she didn't do much better. Gwen arrived suddenly and hugged her. The brunette had always acted before thinking. She was passionate and followed her feelings, even if they were wrong. When she felt like she had to do something, she simply did it. The gesture brought tears to her eyes. She tried to remember that she was supposed to be the hardened warrior and pulled herself together. She accepted the coffee Ianto handed her with a shy but open smile. She took it and whispered a thanks.

Owen disappeared into his medical bay, ordering her to come by in a couple of hours for a check up. Buffy looked around and frowned when she didn't see Jack. She asked about him and they looked to his closed office door.

Ianto explained, "He locked himself in. There's a lot you don't know about him. What you said yesterday… I think you should talk to him."

The Slayer looked at the man and studied his face. His eyes were sad and worried. He couldn't hide his feelings for Jack, especially when his lover was in pain. She wondered what he wanted to say with his words. She had always known that there was a lot about Jack Harkness she didn't know. Even since that first day, down in the cells, where she had felt him. His wrongness. Silently, she turned around.

Gwen grabbed her arm. "Was it true?"

Buffy could have lied, told them that she just invented all that story to reassure the little boy. She was sure they wouldn't have asked more, even if they would have known she was lying. But it was part of herself. It had been so traumatizing, it had changed her so much. And she trusted them. So, she nodded. Gwen let her go. She was dying to ask more: when? how? But didn't ask. And Buffy thanked her for that. She would tell them eventually. But now, it was time to talk to Jack. Deep down, she knew that the conversation they would have was going to be unpleasant but also, it would help her to know the man better. Maybe she would finally be able to understand what she was seeing in the man that felt so familiar.

She knocked on the door and entered.

Jack was sitting at his desk, staring blankly in front of him. She closed the door behind her.

"Hey."

He looked at her and Buffy nearly gasped. He was a mess. There was no joy in his eyes, no smile on his lips. He was a little paler than usual. Dark circles were visible under his eyes. How could what she had said yesterday could have caused such upheaval?

"Did you really die?"

The question was direct, frank. As was her answer.

"Yes."

"What you said to that boy, was it true?"

Buffy frowned at the desperation in his tone. It was like he was begging her to answer yes.

She repeated, "Yes."

He breathed out deeply and relief seemed to crash over him. Were there tears in his eyes? He stood up, grabbed his coat and said, "I need to get out of here. Care for a walk?"

"Sure."

She wasn't going to let him go now. She wanted answers as much as he did. She followed him out of the office. He just announced they were going out, that they would be unreachable so Gwen was in charge. It made Buffy frown more. It wasn't like Jack to be unreachable. Not if he couldn't avoid it. But nobody asked any questions. She went to the parking lot and took the SUV and they drove in silence. They left the city and went to the forest. He parked in a small dirt parking lot off the road and they left the car. They walked a little ways in silence until they reached a little promontory with a wonderful view of the city. Benches had been installed. Jack stood there, hands in his pockets, looking out at the landscape but Buffy was pretty sure he was seeing something else.

But then, he blurted out, "I can't die."

The Slayer frowned and repeated it slowly. "You can't die."

She walked to his right side and waited for him to talk more.

"Do you remember when I brought you to the cells? You did that thing and asked me what I was?"

"Yes, I remember."

"I told you I was an old man. And I am. Really old."

"Are you human?"

"Sometimes I wonder…"

She tried to digest to idea that the man before her couldn't die. He was breathing, his heart was beating but he couldn't die. And when he said it, there was so much pain in his voice. He didn't want to be immortal. It was something that happened to him. She tried to remember everything she knew about Jack Harkness. He was full of contradictions. His outfit was old, as for his style. Sometimes, he used long-lost expressions. But he was flirty and sexy and omni-sexual. He was too much for this society. He knew alien technology, past and future, like a true historian. And he was watching over a rift through time and space. And most important:

"Twenty-first century is where everything changes. You keep telling us that. But how do you know? You're an old man. But you don't come from the past, right? You're from the future."

He smiled at her.

"You're a smart girl. Even if you play the dumb-blond act really well."

"Do they know? The team?"

"They know I can't die and that I'm old. But they never really asked more. They know I won't tell them a thing."

"So why would you tell me?"

He looked down at her and kept silent for a while. Then he said, "Because their life was too normal before Torchwood. I don't think they could understand my life. But you..."

"I can. Because my life has been weird for so long now. Because we're more alike than we are to them."

"Exactly. We keep secrets for the same reasons."

Their eyes locked and they felt so at ease. They were so different and yet so much alike. They were what they were searching for a long time: understanding. Buffy sat down on a bench.

"Tell me your story."

He hesitated a second before joining her and began.

"I'm a fifty-first century guy…"

He didn't tell her much of the future. He didn't forget that it could be dangerous. He told her about the Time Agency and how he became a conman. He told her about his meeting with a strange blond woman, out of her time, grabbing the cord of a balloon in the sky of London in the middle of a German bombardment in 1941.

"She was the companion of the Doctor. He's a Time lord, the last of his specie. Meeting them changed my life. For better and for worse. But I don't regret it. Most of the time. They made me a better man."

She listened when he told her how he stuck with them, travelling through time and space in a blue police box. She could feel his love for them. They were very important people to him. People who left him behind after his first death. As much as he loved them with everything he got, the pain of abandonment was there. He had found himself alone suddenly, with no explanation of what had happened to him. It was the beginning of his new life. He found himself stuck at the end of the nineteenth century, unable to die. Oh he tried by many ways! It hurt each time and not only physically. But he was a fighter. Deciding he would find the Doctor again, he went to Cardiff where he knew the alien came to fill up his spaceship – how weird did that sound? Buffy thought - directly from the Rift. Then he waited. At one point, he got stuck with Torchwood. And the last few decades went by until now.

"Did you finally find him?" she asked.

"Yes."

He lost himself in his own thoughts for a while and Buffy waited patiently. He was sharing his whole life with her. Something he hadn't even done with Ianto. And he was sleeping with the man! But she understood his motivations. She was like him. She kept everything inside because she was afraid to talk to someone who wouldn't understand, couldn't understand. So when she met someone who could, talking became an urge, a need she couldn't fight. After all, that was what brought her close to Spike. At the time, he was the only one who could understand her. Now, she was Jack's chance to share his burden.

When he didn't come out of his thoughts, she asked, "What happened?"

Her voice startled him, like he had forgotten she was here. He went on with his tale. Yes, he had found his Doctor only to discover he had lost Rose. He had a new companion with him and a new face. Something called regeneration... They had gone to the end of the Universe and came back. He told her about the other Time lord, the Master and the Year-That-Never-Was. How he had been killed so many times in so many ways only for the pleasure of this sadistic alien. Finally, the Master died, thanks to the Doctor's Companion. She had travelled all over the world, spreading hope into the hearts of the survivors by relating the tale of the Doctor. And one day, at the exact same moment, the entire human race joined into the most incredible prayer.

Buffy was listening with fascination now. Jack was completely lost in his memory and he was talking with a passion she had never seen in him. His eyes were bright, his hands were moving widely and his face was animated. The Slayer was literally hanging on his every word. This was so incredibly incredible. Such an adventure. She wondered what she had done during that time. Did she survive? And her Slayers? She focused on his tale. It was the end now. Finally, they had saved Earth, ending the Master's tyranny before rewinding the time. He said goodbye to the Doctor and went back to his team, to his life, to Torchwood. And she arrived a few months after.

Buffy didn't really know what to say. She had never heard such story before. It was incredible. She shook her head.

"You lead an interesting life. It would do great as a TV show!"

He laughed. Then, he breathed deeply. His hands were shaking a little and he flashed her a wavy smile.

"I never told that to anyone."

"How does it feel to talk about that?"

"So good!" he exclaimed, passing his hands on his face. "It's...liberating."

Silence fell over them. It was comfortable so no one spoke. Buffy was trying to digest everything she had learnt and her eyes went up. The sky seemed different. Wider, larger, more attractive. She sighed.

"I would like to meet this Doctor of yours."

He looked at the sky too.

"He's an incredible man! Even after everything, I wouldn't change anything. What I see, what I live! There's no way to correctly explain it. It was just the best time of my life."

"Why didn't you stay with him?"

"Because he's a part of my past. This team is my present and my immediate future. I have responsibilities here."

"And love."

He smiled wider. Buffy decided it was the right moment to clear up a point.

"You care for Ianto, right? It's not just sex."

He didn't say anything but his smile grew larger and it was enough for her.

Jack said, "I hope that one day, I'll have the chance to travel with the Doctor again. After all, I have all the time."

Sadness was evident in his voice. He was living with his condition but it was hurting him. And she understood him in a way. He turned towards her.

"I told you my story. Tell me yours now. Tell me about death."

"For understanding why I die, you have to know about the Key..."

It was her time to share and she did so without holding anything back. She told him about Glory, the Monks and the Key. She explained to him how she discovered that her baby sister wasn't really her sister but a mystical ball of energy forged into a sister and put into her life to make sure she was protected. She summed up this terrible year, when she lost her mother and when her life really went to Hell, but she didn't know it yet. She told him about her sister's kidnapping and the final fight at the top of the tower.

"It was too late. The portal was opening and only her blood could close it. I couldn't kill my sister. But she had been created from me. We had the same blood. Death was my gift. So I jumped. I died for her. For the world. And I went to Heaven."

He was watching her quizzically.

"But you're here."

"Because they brought me back."

She explained how her friends thought, because of where the portal led to, that she was prisoner of some Hell dimension. So they brought her back. Directly into her grave six feet under. She had to crawl her way up to the surface and she discovered Sunnydale under attack from a demon biker gang. She was so lost. And it hurt. So much. She had been in Heaven and they had brought back to Hell. Life was violent and she wasn't strong enough. She told him how she began to have sex with Spike because it made her feel alive. Back then, the vampire was the more able to understand her.

"I think that I didn't forgive my friends. Not really. It wasn't the same any more. It couldn't be. They had never really understood me, what being the Slayer meant or felt like. And they didn't get it when I tried to explain it. But we managed to stay together. After my death, it was too late. The gap between us was too big. And it just went to Hell with time. Figuratively and nearly literally."

"They kicked you out in the middle of a war."

"It was the end. I couldn't take it anymore. I stayed for awhile then I left for Cardiff. And here I am."

"Here you are."

Silence again. They looked at the landscape.

"We're freaks," Buffy dropped.

He laughed.

"Completely! But we're gorgeous freaks!"

"That's right. But I'll grow old and become wrinkled and I'll stop being gorgeous."

"I find it hard to believe. Even wrinkled you'll still be beautiful."

"Thanks for lying."

He passed an arm around her shoulders and she leaned against him. She linked her arm around his waist. They couldn't remember the last time they had been with someone who could understand them, who knew about their life, their feelings, and their fears and understood them. It felt good to just sit there, in silence, with someone else who shared such a deep bond. The last days had been Hell but Buffy had never been so happy to have come to Cardiff.

She snuggled against him and whispered, "I hope that one day you'll find your Heaven."

He kissed her on the top of head, his gaze firmly locked on the landscape, a lump in his throat.

"I hope so."

¤ ¤ tbc ¤ ¤