Bring Me to Life – A Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Angel Crossover Event
Part 37
Scars to Your Beautiful
There's a hope that's waiting for you in the dark
You should know you're beautiful just the way you are
And you don't have to change a thing, The world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful,
We're stars and we're beautiful
-Alessia Cara, Scars to Your Beautiful
"Buffy."
The soft, husky male voice quietly uttering her name was the first sound she heard in what felt like an eternity.
Through a haze of sleep, soreness and fatigue, Buffy could tell that something was different. The last she remembered, she was staring up at the spinning lights of the Hyperion Hotel, body bruised and broken, all her fight spent as The First..no, Jasmine…no, definitely The First…was looking down at her with that awful, evil smile.
But this was not the cold, hard floor of the crumbling hotel. No, whatever this was her sore head and tender, aching back was resting on was soft, and it immediately smelled warm, nice…familiar…
Her mind groggy, but slowly lifting the heavy veils of sleep and exhaustion, Buffy let out a soft moan as she slowly opened her eyes…
Angel.
The immortal's dark brown eyes were locked with her own mossy green ones, his bruised, still-handsome face creased with worry as his hand gently traced down the tender curve of her sore cheek. He was lying right next to her, and for a moment, all a dazed, confused yet achingly grateful Buffy could see was the sweet, concerned face of the man she loved.
And in the next moment, as her eyes took sight of the familiar shelves behind him, she started to realize where she was…or where she was supposed to be…and part of her started to worry that this was just a dream and nothing more.
Her voice was a hushed, worried question. "Angel…how…how did we get here?"
The souled vampire let out a breathless sigh. "That…is a long story."
1630 Revello Drive, The Summers Home, Buffy's Room—Sunnydale, CA
3 Days Later
Everything hurt. Like…everything-everything.
Her back was screaming in pain. Even on her soft bed, she could tell there were probably a lot of bruises down her left side from the sharp aching prickling at her nerves. Her neck felt tingly, and not in a good way. Her left hand was gingerly wrapped in bandages, her fingers still swollen, but showing signs of healing. And she could tell by the way her face ached that her right cheek was probably mottled with bruises.
And yet Angel still stared at her like she was the most beautiful thing in all of existence.
Buffy wanted to just stay here, in this moment, enjoying a fantasy she had only ever dreamed about since she was 16…Angel, and her, alone…in her bed…but she knew the moment couldn't last. Of course it couldn't. As it inevitably always did, her duty beckoned.
"Okay…what happened?" she asked, groaning as another sharp stab of pain stabbed at her back. "And don't hold back. I can take it."
"Alright," Angel said simply, frowning as looked away for a moment, recalling the last few days. "It looks like The First merged with Jasmine. It got the drop on us. It created a diversion that drew Willow and the others away while it came for the Keystone. We tried to fight it, but the First was just too powerful."
For a moment, Buffy could see her own body being broken all over again at her enemy's hands, could hear the sound of her own spine snapping in her ears, the agonizing wave of unreal pain shooting through her entire being, her lovely body arching painfully as she lay bent, twisted and …
Shaking her mind from the awful memory, she shuddered. "Yeah…I remember that part," she said quietly.
"It brought the hotel down on all of us," Angel solemnly continued. "The others doubled back after they managed to get most of the Potentials to safety. But it took them a few hours to dig us out. Fred got a broken arm, and Giles and Gunn had some injuries that needed treatment, too—"
"Wait…'most of' the girls?" Buffy asked, her eyes suddenly wide and fearful.
The way Angel's eyes sadly fell made her heart sink with dread. "I'm sorry, Buffy. There were too many of those Bringers. We protected as many as we could, but…"
"How many?" Buffy asked, her voice still small, but suddenly sharp. She didn't want to know, but she knew she had to know. "How many girls died?"
Angel sighed as he gave her an apologetic look. "Sixty-seven. We lost 67 of them."
Buffy looked away as a sharp pain knifed through her heart.
"Sixty-seven," she whispered in a stunned hush of a voice.
Sixty-seven girls.
Sixty-seven young lives depending on her to keep them safe. Sixty-seven wide-eyed, scared teens who she had sworn to protect. Sixty-seven beautiful, blossoming girls that would never have a chance to grow up. To know the dizzying highs and trying lows of true love. To explore the hidden corners and untold possibilities the world had to offer. To know the sweet caress of a lover's touch. To blow out the candles on their 18th birthday cake.
Buffy promised to protect them…and now, they were dead. Sixty-seven girls, who would forever remain girls, frozen in time.
All that remained of the Slayer legacy—her legacy-were less than a hundred girls now, because she wasn't strong enough.
Now, more than ever, Buffy was starting to wish that she had taken up the Shadow Men on their offer weeks ago. When they had offered her more power, the power of the original Slayer, the First Slayer, but at a cost of losing part of her humanity. She could feel the unreal power as she fought to expel it from her system, and she knew even then that whatever power that black ether held, it would make the incredible power that she already had pale in comparison to what that dark essence had to offer. But she refused, Buffy unwilling to give up what made her human just to win one battle.
Yet, after what had just happened, part of her couldn't help but to wonder—what if she was wrong?
What if that power she turned away so dismissively would have been the answer? What if she could have stopped the First right then and there? Sure, she wouldn't have been herself anymore, but how much of herself could she have retained? What if she would have had the power to end this awful war and save those girls, and her friends? Wouldn't it have been worth it? Wasn't that why she led this group, because she could make the hard, lonely choices? The choices only a hero could make?
By choosing her own humanity over her duty, did that make her less of a hero? Less worthy?
Angel could see the pain, the guilt in her beautiful eyes and it made his heart ache for her. She blamed herself, he knew that. He knew for some time that Buffy had taken an unrealistic burden upon herself to be able to protect everyone, that her strength alone justified—demanded—nothing less than every life saved, every friend protected. He knew what that was like, too. But if he had learned anything over his long existence, it was that war was ugly. And no matter how strong or brave or smart one was, casualties were inevitable.
"Buffy, don't blame yourself," he said softly, tenderly brushing her cheek. "There was nothing you could have done. You did all you could…we did all we could."
Buffy silently disagreed, but she didn't have the strength to argue right now. "How…how long was I out?"
Angel hesitated, but off the pleading, silent look she gave him, he swallowed as he continued. "Three days. The fight with the First would have killed a normal human. Even as a Slayer, you're lucky to be alive. You had ruptures to several key vertebrae and multiple contusions to your spine, four cracked ribs, internal bleeding, a severe concussion, your right hand had some pretty severe metacarpal cracks and your left knee wasn't in good shape, either. And that's just the short list. Basically, your body was in the kind of shape it'd be in after you got into a major car wreck that landed you inside a building…and then the building came down on top of you." He paused. "And then getting a piano dropped on your head."
Buffy tried to chuckle, but winced as her sore ribs suddenly punished her for daring to find light to this situation. "Great. So, I got my ass kicked. Awesome," she dryly mused, before she grew serious again. "And…the others?"
"Some of them are fine, but we've got a lot of walking wounded. That ambush that Willow and the others—"
"Willow?" Buffy suddenly grew wide-eyed. "Is she okay? What about Dawn?"
"Dawn is fine," Angel assured her. "Connor and the others protected her and the other girls. Willow…she's fine, mostly. They were ambushed in the forest by that Amy girl and someone named…Warren?"
At that, Buffy's eyes went wide. Surely that had to be a joke. It was impossible…"Warren? As in, Warren Mears?"
"I take it that name rings a bell?" Angel asked.
"Try a funeral gong," Buffy replied, her face still etched in disbelief. "He's dead, Angel. I saw…" She swallowed, thinking back to last year when her best friend had crossed the line on that awful night. "I saw Willow kill him myself."
Ah. Then that explains why Willow was so spooked when she was talking about the attack, Angel silently concluded. He didn't utter that aloud, however. There would be plenty of time to catch Buffy up on everything later. Right now, she needed to rest and heal.
Still, he continued with what other knowledge he knew she would want to know. "Drusilla's back, too," he said, drawing another shocked look from Buffy. "That's what Whistler and the others told me after we reconnected about a day after the attacks. And it looks like Drusilla and Warren brought along two others. Old enemies of mine and Spike's from a few decades ago. Their names are Pearl and Nash. Two half-demon hybrids hell-bent on bringing about the next stage of evolution through breeding and mass genocide of the weaker species."
"They sound pleasant," Buffy wryly quipped.
"Trust me. They're not," Angel frowned, thinking back to his last encounter with them that he and Spike barely survived. "They're crazy as hell, but they're extremely powerful. If they're working with the First, this is bad news for all of us." He sighed as he took a moment. "And it gets worse."
Buffy sighed tiredly. "Of course it does."
"Giles heard the First talking while we were…out of commission," Angel continued. "We think that Ethan Rayne is back."
Her jaw dropped in shock. "That…that can't be. That creep is supposed to be locked up in a supermax federal prison. Is Giles sure?"
"It wouldn't be that far-fetched," Angel mused. "If the First can bring back the Beast and a man who was flayed alive is suddenly walking around, breaking out one lowlife warlock from a human prison isn't that much of a stretch, is it?"
"I guess not," Buffy sighed in resignation. Off the still troubled look on Angel's face, she felt her stomach sink. "It gets worse, doesn't it?"
"Yeah," Angel nodded. "They took the Keystone."
"As in, the Keystone that we're supposed to keep out of the First's not-so-incorporeal-anymore mitts? That Keystone?"
Off Angel's nod, Buffy despondently let her head sink into the pillow. "Yeah. Of course."
"The First still can't use it yet," Angel reminded her. "There's still 18 days left before the Awakening. We can still stop it. And we will, Buffy. We will."
"How's everyone else doing?" Buffy asked, ignoring his attempts to bolster her spirits. She didn't really feel up to that right now.
"Willow's fine, but…whatever that Warren guy in that forest, it seems to have drained her magick. Or at least it's messing with it, we're not sure yet," Angel explained. "It took what little magick she was able to summon and a few healing spells Wesley had lying around to keep you from being paralyzed. You were in bad shape for a while, but your healing abilities should have you back up to speed soon. Kennedy had a concussion and some chest burns, but she's healing. Oz's..something happened to him out there. He's not talking about it, though. At least, not to me. And neither is Willow. Same as Faith and Spike. They're healing some pretty bad wounds. But…whatever happened that night seemed to shake them both up. And they've never been the type to open up and share much about anything to begin with. Might be a while before we figure out what happened to them out there.
"Xander and Cordelia are banged up from their run-in with the Beast. Well, Xander more than Cordy. Darla's working on healing him. He should be good to go in a day or so. But the lack of magick available has us working with what we've got. Cordy's taking this pretty hard. She blames herself for losing the Keystone and for Xander getting hurt again, even though there wasn't anything she could do about it. We had to sneak out our wounded before the emergency crews got there. Too many questions."
"How'd we manage to get up here so fast without magick?" Buffy asked.
"Honestly?" Angel asked. Off her nod, he gave her a small smile. "Dwarves."
Staring at him with one eyebrow raised, Buffy scoffed. "Right. Because all the elves and pixies weren't available."
"I'm serious," Angel said. "Apparently, they have a few hundred that live underground in California. We once worked a case where I was hired to find out what was causing a rash disappearance of dwarves in SoCal. Turns out it was a nest of Sevorah Demons. Large, scaly, and with a taste for man flesh. They were working their way up the chain to start targeting city blocks when we intervened and took out the nest. The Dwarf lord was grateful to us, and we've struck up a friendship since then. About a day after the First's attack, which just so happened to be when I woke up from my own injuries, I called in a favor and they were able to provide us transportation through some of their tunnels, safe from sight. They're also working on repairs to the hotel. With a bit of luck, the old girl should be back to normal in a few weeks."
Buffy allowed herself a small smile. "Guess it pays to have friends in low places."
"I guess," Angel smiled, before he traced one of his large fingers down her delicate cheek. "It'll be fine, Buffy. I know it doesn't seem like it right now, but we'll figure this out. We will."
Letting out a tired sigh, Buffy shook her head. "I don't know."
"Buffy, I know—"
"No, Angel. You don't," Buffy replied, looking at her injured hand.
The hand she used to punch the First. The same hand that chokeslammed The Master onto a stake and into Hell. The hand she used to wield a hammer that flattened the hellgod Glory. That she used to rip the heart out of the deadly demonic cyborg Adam. The hand she had used to pummel and stake hundreds upon hundreds of vampires and demons for almost a decade, the hand she had used to save the world time and time again. Her strength, her hands, were her greatest weapon. It had never failed her.
And the First had turned her own strength against her. Buffy Summers, the mighty Slayer...laid low with her own power and conquered beneath the heel of one of her most hated enemies. It was almost more than she could stand to bear.
"Angel, when I hit the First, I hit it harder than I've ever hit anything. Ever. I…I literally gave it my best shot, I unleashed, I let it all out, and..." She looked at her hand despondently. Her voice was a strained hush. "And not only did it not go down, it smiled at me. Like it was laughing at me. Like it….like it knew there was nothing I could do to stop it. I took my shot and...and it beat me with four moves. Five, if you count it trying to put the moves on me with that gross kiss."
"It beat me. Worse, it...it beat me up…it humiliated me. It crushed me. And it didn't break a sweat. Hell…I don't think it even chip a nail."
She turned a confused, lost gaze to Angel as she quietly gave voice to her fears. "How do we beat something that's pretty much un-beatable?"
"By realizing that there's no such thing as unbeatable," Angel replied, brushing a stray lock of hair from her face.
His eyes shone with a rare glimpse of hope and determination that Buffy had rarely seen in him. "Everything has a weakness, every wall has a crack, every armor a chink. Yeah, we both got our butts kicked. But it's not about how many times you get knocked down. It's about how many times you get back up. I know it might not seem that way right now, Buffy, but as long as we're still here, that means we're still in this thing. We can win. We just need to figure out how. But not if we just give up. You're a fighter, Buffy. You always have been. And it's not like you to just give up. But I give you my word that I'm with you on this until the end. I won't give up. So, I need you not to give up, either. Without you, I'll give it all I've got, maybe I'll go down swinging. But, together, you and me…we might just have enough to win this thing."
She took in his words silently. "Together, we are strong," she whispered, her voice tinged with a faint echo of hope.
The four simple words uttered by the small, bruised but beautiful blonde warrior sent Angel's mind reeling back almost four years ago. When for a moment, he had everything he had ever wanted. His once-dead heart beating in his chest, sun shining on his skin without burning, being able to eat like a human, live like a human…and to love Buffy the way she deserved...
And then, being forced to watch helplessly, bleeding and powerless as he lay on the floor, while the woman he loved fought for her life against a vicious Morah demon, the assassin holding her by her slender throat against the wall while its bulbous yellow eyes honed in on Angel. Its taunting words would haunt him long after the battle was over—"Together you were powerful…alone you are dead."
"Something like that, yeah," he replied quietly, silently snapping himself out of that memory.
Buffy took a look at Angel for a moment. Really took a look at him. His own face was a bit bruised, as well. She could see the bandages around his ribs peaking out slightly through one of the slits down the front of his silk blue shirt. And a cut above his left eye was starting to heal, but the wound was still evident. She felt like hell, but he looked like he had seen better days himself.
She reached up her only good hand, gently tracing the lines of his strong jaw. "You look so tired," she softly uttered.
"I'll live," he assured her. "Well, not technically, but…well, you know what I mean."
Off her small chuckle, he gave her a wane half-smile. It was good to see her doubts and fears fade, if only for a little while. Before the storm clouds began to hover over their lives yet again.
"If you want, I could leave, let you rest," he offered.
"You're here…with me…that's rest enough," she offered simply, before she lay her head gently into his chest, allowing him to gently wrap his arms around her in a tender embrace. For a brief moment, she allowed herself to let her fears, her doubts and her misery fade, if only for a moment. She could forget that she was a failed savior, a protector laid vulnerable, a warrior beaten with a race against the clock for the fate of the world still looming and simply be…Buffy.
Here in this moment, she didn't have to be any of those things. All she had to be was herself…for Angel, that would always be more than enough. And for Buffy, right now, that's all she needed.
And all the while, as she closed her eyes and tried to let her worries drift away, she never once looked up at Angel…where she would have seen his handsome face crease in worried thought.
He knew he would be there for her, he always would be…but with the threat of Angelus always lurking beneath the surface, the fate of all existence at stake and the knowledge that he could still not provide her the normal life he knew deep down she wanted and deserved, how much there for her could he really be?
A scarier question crossed his mind as Angel looked down at the small beauty nestled carefully in his arms...How much there for her…should he be? If at all?
To Be Continued…
Next: Tensions build between lovers and friends as our heroes attempt to regroup against the First. Meanwhile, as the White Hats struggle to get themselves together, a new player makes his move on Sunnydale. A player known only by one name: Caleb…
This chapter brought a bit more Bangel back into focus. But I'm focused on a lot of different characters. I'll get to them as things go along, but hold on, because we're heading towards the home stretch of the action. This story's version of "Dirty Girls" is starting soon. Yup: that means Caleb is coming. Get ready for things to get messy.
Please read and review. New chapter coming soon.
Best,
Jean-the Guardian
