Title: Happy Beginnings

Summary: Post NFA by a year or two. B/A Apocalypse again?

Rated: PG-13

 

 

“So the place is going to be empty? I mean I’m not going to have to deal with tourists and tour guides and security guards…right?” Buffy asked. She poked around her hotel room, opening cabinets and drawers, her cell phone wedged between her ear and her shoulder.

 

“There is a night security guard. He’s expecting you but not to despair. They all refuse to leave the gate booth since the last guard came up missing,” Giles assured her. “Other than the one guard, all of your work will be done at night when the place is empty.”

 

“And nothing happens during the day?” Buffy asked as she flopped down on the bed.

 

“A few fairly benign things such as doors slamming, rocks thrown. A window broken last week during a tour and a few tourists claim they’ve seen things…some of them more demon in nature, some of them human but then people have always claimed to see ghosts there. A place with such a violent history tends to fuel the imagination,” Giles explained. “In any case, I’ve arranged for you to take a day tour and then tonight there will be a boat waiting for you at Pier 42. It will take you back under the cover of night as that seems to be when the most activity occurs.”

 

“What kind of activity are we talking about?” Buffy asked as she flipped through the file folder Giles had compiled for her.

 

“Hellhounds from the descriptions the guards have reported-“

 

“Hellhounds? And where do they go in the daytime?” Buffy asked.

 

“These aren’t quite the same sort of hellhounds you remember from Sunnydale,” Giles explained. “The…entity, for lack of a better word, lacks solid form and true power right now, but it can summon certain minor beasts, minions from hell. When daylight comes the dregs of power are leeched away and the creatures and minions are returned to where they came from.”

 

“Okay…so hellhounds…what else?”

 

“Vengeful spirits made solid. In fact I believe the primary servant,” Giles told her.

 

“And what is it I’m dealing with exactly? The entity I mean.”

 

“I don’t have a name for it yet. I’ll keep looking and up date you. You should take the sword I sent to you though, the Blessed Sword of Braun. He was quite a famous knight in his day, rumored to fight all kinds of hell beasts. It was blessed by a dying saint and is said to be particularly effective against the sort of things you’ll face,” Giles suggested.  “Try to enjoy the day tour though. I think you’ll find it fascinating.”

 

“And I didn’t think I’d get to do any tourist-y things while I was here,” Buffy quipped.

 

“Well, I do try to please.”

 

Buffy could hear Giles smile over the phone. “Okay, I know it’s late there…or early…something. I’ll take my tour, do my night time slaying and give you a call to let you know how it’s going.”

 

 

 

 

 

“You sure you wanna go in there, honey?” the balding security guard asked with an ominous look toward the main structure. “There’s been some strange things happen and you’re a little girl.”

 

“I’m sure,” Buffy told him with a less than amused look on her face. She’d wrapped the sword Giles had suggested she bring in one of the extra hotel blankets. “Besides, I can take care of myself,” she said as she unwound the blanket, letting it slip to the gravel. The sword was beautiful, three feet of shining, sharp edged silver with an ornate, gothic cross for a handle. 

 

“At least take this,” the guard said handing her a walkie talkie, a magnum flash light and a ring of keys. “That big key is the master, gets into just about anywhere not administrative. I’ll be out here all night if you need anything. M’name is Pete.”

 

“Thanks, Pete,” Buffy said, tucking the walkie talkie into her jacket pocket along with the key ring.  She headed toward the main structure, eyes open for anything moving about and ears alert for sounds. The entire place made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. “Welcome to Alcatraz,” she muttered under her breath, reading the sign that had greeted her by the dock.

 

 

Buffy was grateful for the flash light when she let the door shut behind her. The barred windows threw striped squares of gray light across the concrete floor but it seemed to create more shadows than it relieved.  The click of her boot heels echoed, repeating off metal bars and concrete walls.  “As long as our demons and vengeful spirits don’t wear Marc Jacobs’s heels, I should be able to hear them coming a mile away,” she grumbled into the darkness.

 

The screech of something inhuman shattered the cloying silence and Buffy started to run. She rounded a corner, sword held at the ready. A hellhound lay on the floor, its neck broken. Her stomach dropped out and her heart jumped in her chest. She spun on her fashionably pointed heel, her hair making a blonde arc as she did.

 

“Hey, watch where you’re pointing that thing.”

 

He was there, barely concealed in the shadows, his hands up in a surrender position, the half grin on his face belying the irritation his words implied.

 

“Angel.” The wish hidden in that one word echoed through the darkness.

 

“Buffy,” he answered as he took a step toward her. She lowered the sword and gestured toward the dead hell hound.

 

“Your handy work?”

 

He shrugged, taking on the stance and mannerisms of a sixteen year old boy just realizing he’d impressed the girl he liked. “Seemed like the best way to handle it when it was running at me. Never liked hell hounds.”

 

“Yeah…they’re a bitch,” she responded, her tone befuddled but quickly putting the pieces together. “What are you doing here?”

 

“Same thing you are? It’s a guess, but I’m going to say apocalypse.”

 

“Ahhh, newest partner got a vision?” Buffy said, jealousy creeping into her voice.

 

“I work alone now,” he answered curtly. He walked over to the hell hound, nudging its body with the toe of his boot.

 

“Let me guess…you couldn’t find another one of my old friends…enemies to work with you…fall in love with…same thing with you from what I hear,” Buffy sniped.

 

“Cordelia and I weren’t…it’s not as if you’ve got a lot of room to talk. Spike told me all about the way things were in Sunnydale while I was gone,” Angel snapped back.

 

“You were the one who left me so I could move on,” Buffy smiled saccharine at him.

 

“Yeah, I just didn’t think you’d move on to Spike,” Angel growled. “This really isn’t the time for this kind of conversation. We’ve got hell hounds to kill,” he pointed out as one rounded the corner, lunging toward him. He grimaced as the creature’s claws dug into his shoulder and its teeth gnashed at his face.

 

“It’s not my fault that you can’t hold a conversation and slay at the same time,” Buffy bit back as a zombie shambled toward her. The moment her sword touched the zombie it turned to dust.

 

“Sorry, I don’t have a neat sword that turns things to dust,” Angel growled as he pushed back against the hell hound’s snout, trying to keep it clear of his throat and face while it’s claws scrabbled for purchase on his chest, stomach and shoulders. He slammed the creature into the wall, causing it to whimper. He got his hands around the creature’s nose and twisted, snapping its neck. It fell in a heap to the floor.

 

“Oh, you wanna use my sword?” Buffy asked, a hint of malice riding just under the feigned innocence. She tossed the sword to Angel who reached up instinctively to catch it. He dropped it just as fast when the cross hilt burned his hand. The clatter of silver against concrete was loud in the empty building.

 

“That was mean,” he told her, shooting her a look that would kill.

 

“So was leaving me for Cordelia,” Buffy snapped back at him, fire in her eyes.

 

“I didn’t leave you for Cordelia,” Angel growled, frustration replacing his anger. “God, I forgot what arguing with you is like. Besides, you slept with Spike before I ever even considered Cordy a love interest.”

 

“Oh! Oh! You want to talk about that? You really want to go there?” Buffy railed as she swept her sword up from the concrete. She advanced toward Angel, the tip of the sword pointed at him but not touching him. “Do you know what happened the night I slept with Spike? Do you have any clue what happened that night? I found out via some scum I shoved a stake through that the night before you’d had a human son with Darla. Wow…excuse me if I was a little pissed, a little disillusioned and a little vengeful. I’d come back from Heaven and you’d told me that we couldn’t have a relationship because of your soul. Yeah, I slept with Spike before you considered Cordelia a love interest but you slept with Darla first.”

 

Angel stepped toward Buffy, putting the point of her sword in the center of his own chest. The flesh in contact with the sword smoked. “I will not apologize for my son,” he hissed.

 

“And I’m not asking you to,” Buffy snapped back at him. She leveled him with a hard look before stepping back and lowering the sword. “At least I had an excuse. At least I hadn’t told you I couldn’t have a relationship.”

A pair of zombies dragged themselves from an open cell, interrupting the conversation.  Buffy dispatched of her zombie quickly with the help of the sword. Angel was still wrestling with his, having divested it of one arm, a portion of its head and a leg below the knee. It was still fighting against him, trying to get its teeth into him.

 

Buffy leaned against the wall, examining her nails as Angel and the zombie fought. “You know, if you’d like some help all you have to do is ask…oh wait, you’ve got issues with that too.”

 

Angel growled and grabbed the zombie by the shoulders, shoving it away from him and into a wall head first, destroying its head completely and leaving it nothing more than a decaying body on the floor. “Didn’t need your help,” he snapped.

 

“Really? That’s not how I heard it,” Buffy snapped back at him as they started walking down the hall way.

 

“I’m here aren’t I?” He purposely walked in front of her, taking long strides so she couldn’t walk beside him comfortably.

 

“Minus half your crew,” Buffy responded. She’d forgotten how fast he could move. He reminded her by trapping her against a wall with his body. He didn’t hold her there or even touch her but she would have to shove him out of the way or wait for him to move.

 

“You don’t know a damn thing about my crew and I’ll thank you to keep the hell out of it,” Angel growled. He stared her down for a moment before spinning away from her and continuing down a hall way.

 

Buffy hesitated, watching Angel walk away before she broke into a sprint to keep up with him. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “You’re right. I know nothing about them and I shouldn’t have said anything.” When he didn’t answer her she apologized again.

 

Angel stopped and fixed her with a hard glare that softened after a moment. “It’s alright…you didn’t know.”

 

“Yeah, but I shouldn’t have said anything anyway. They were your friends and I know how hard losing friends is. You know me, foot in mouth isn’t a phrase with me. It’s a way of life.”

 

 

 

 

 

Angel rode back across the bay in the boat Giles had hired for Buffy. It dropped them at the pier. Buffy hesitated there, pulling the collar of her coat up around her ears. “So…uhm…” she trailed off. The anglers were just beginning to take their boats out for the morning.

 

“Can I walk you back to your hotel?” Angel asked, shoving his hands into his coat pockets.

 

Buffy smiled. It was such an Angel thing to ask. He knew that she could take care of herself, yet he still made the offer. “Yeah…that’d be nice.” She wrapped her arms around herself as they started down the wharf toward her hotel.

 

“Can’t get used to this cold,” she said to fill up the space in between them.

 

Angel took off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders as they walked. She murmured thanks, pulling the lapels tighter about her. In way things were the same comfortable they’d always been. Buffy realized it wasn’t Angel that made things uncomfortable, it was the question of where do we go from here? It was knowing that no matter how much either of them wanted to they couldn’t stay in this moment, just the two of them alone.

 

“Ho-how are things in Los Angeles?” she finally choked out.

 

Angel shrugged. “I’m beginning to get things back together. I moved back into the hotel…the Hyperion.”

 

“Yeah…Willow told me about it. It sounds like a great place. She said it was very Angel-y.”

 

“Angel-y?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

 

Buffy shrugged. “It became an adjective about the time you and I started…whatever we started when you were in Sunnydale.”

 

Angel half nodded and decided he probably didn’t want to know.  He was thankful when Buffy indicated that they’d reached her hotel.

 

“Come on up. It’s been too long since we’ve caught up and I know your hand is burned from the sword…not to mention I think one of the zombies took a chunk out of your arm.”

 

“You brought a first aid kit?” he asked.

 

“Never leave home without it,” Buffy quipped. “A prepared slayer is…something I forget,” she said as she dug her hotel key out of her jacket. The lobby and elevator were empty at this time of night. She paused at her door, half surprised and half pleased when Angel took the key from her. She had to bite her bottom lip to keep from laughing when the electronic lock appeared to get the better of him and he erupted into a string of curses muttered under his breath.

 

“I miss keys,” he said with a sigh as the light finally turned green and he opened the door, holding it for her. Buffy stepped inside, slipped out of her coat and hung it in the closet while Angel followed after her, closing the door behind her.

 

“Would you like…never mind. I brought a first aid kit but I left my supply of blood at home,” Buffy attempted to joke. She twisted her hands in front of her and picked at the hem of her sweater.  “First aid kit…that’s why you came here anyway,” she said turning toward the bathroom. She emerged a few moments later with a travel size first aid kit.

 

Angel had taken a precarious seat on the edge of a chair that looked too small for him.  He’d slipped off his jacket and was prodding at a deep bite on his calf.

 

“Don’t…you’ll make it worse,” Buffy said as she knelt beside him, opening the first aid kit. She pulled his pant leg up over his knee, exposing the long, alabaster line of his shin and calf.

 

“It looks like a Hell hound bite,” she said as she pulled out antiseptic and bandages. She winced in Angel’s stead as she dabbed the bite with the antiseptic. “Tore right through some of the muscle.” She took out the gauze and cut a length of it, wrapping it around Angel’s calf. She couldn’t help but notice his skin was almost the same pristine white as the gauze.

 

Angel watched as she bandaged his calf, her brow furrowed in concentration and concern. She’d always worried over him more than he thought warranted. He remembered admonishing her for it in Sunnydale, reminding her that vampires didn’t get infections and that they’d heal from almost anything. She’d scolded him with tear filled eyes, worry making her voice tremble and then gone ahead and put antiseptic and bandages on every tiny wound.

 

“I’ll be fine,” he said, nostalgia washing over him. It’d been a long time since anyone had worried over him this way, not since Cordelia long before Wolfram and Hart.

 

“After I get the rest of your wounds treated and bandaged you will be,” Buffy said, her voice hardening in anticipation of his protests.

 

He half smiled at her words, banishing it before she looked up to assess his other wounds.  “What else have you got?” she asked as she stood up, her hands going to her hips in a stance that said she would not tolerate any waffling around.

 

“My shoulder, but it’s not as bad as my leg. My leather jacket is ruined though,” Angel told her.

 

“Not to mention your shirt,” Buffy said as she inspected his shoulder. His shirt was in tatters over his shoulder and she could imagine what his jacket looked like. “Take it off,” she instructed. Angel quirked an eyebrow at her in askance. “Your shirt…I have to look at your shoulder,” she explained.

 

He nodded and slowly unbuttoned his shirt, slipping it off his shoulders. Buffy kept her eyes on his shoulder, determined not to let her gaze slip down to his chest or his stomach. She didn’t need the visual anyway. Her memory was more than happy to provide that for her along with vivid pictures of her fingers gliding over his smooth skin. She cleared her throat, banishing those thoughts to the back of her mind and drew her eyebrows together as she studied Angel’s shoulder.

 

He was right, it wasn’t nearly as bad as his calf but the skin was broken. She cleaned it up, treated it and taped a square of white gauze over the wound.  Most of the other scrapes and scratches were superficial including the burn on his hand from the cross hilted sword she’d tossed at him. She let the minor wounds go but insisted on looking at his hand.

 

He couldn’t deny the thrill that ran through him when she took his hand in hers, her skin warm against his own cool body temperature. She held his hand tenderly, the action swimming with regret. She lightly dabbed at the burn with cream. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

 

He shook his head, unable to stop himself from reaching out and taking her chin in his free hand, forcing her to meet his gaze. “It’s okay. By this afternoon it won’t even be red.”

 

“Yeah…but like you said, that was mean,” Buffy sighed as she finished dabbing the cream on and started winding gauze around his hand. “You’re all fixed up.”

 

Angel stood up and shuffled his feet. “I need to get going if I’m going to make it back to my hotel by sunrise.”

 

Buffy crossed the room and pulled the drapes aside slightly. The rising sun glowed molten on the bay beyond. “You’re not going anywhere unless San Francisco has Sunnydale sewers. Sunrise is already here.”

 

Angel grumbled in frustration, raking his hands through his hair. “I’ll go see if they’ve got a vacant room here.”

 

“Don’t be silly,” Buffy told him. “The couch pulls out to a bed. You can stay here throughout the day. Giles will be calling with more information. You can help me with the research. I don’t have any blood, can you hold out until evening when you can get back to your hotel?”

 

Angel nodded. “Are you sure you don’t mind?” He glanced to the door and then to the couch before meeting Buffy’s eyes again.

 

“Not at all,” Buffy half smiled. “It’ll give us a chance to catch up.”

Buffy wasn’t sure she’d sleep with Angel in the room but she found herself drifting off almost the moment her head hit the pillow. “Angel,” she whispered, half asleep.

 

“Hmm?” He asked, looking over at her sleeping on the bed a few feet from him.

 

“Do you snore?” she asked a sleepy smile on her face.

 

He chuckled softly. “I don’t know. It’s been a long time since anyone’s been in the position to let me know.”

 

 

 

It was mid afternoon before Angel woke up to find Buffy sitting cross legged on the bed talking on the phone. She was taking notes and flipping through books. She smiled and waggled her fingers at him as he sat up, scrubbing his hands over his face.

 

“Alright, this information should help a lot. I’ll share it with Angel and call you but if the world doesn’t end, you can assume we were successful. Thanks Giles,” she said before hanging up the phone. “Sleep well?” she asked Angel.

 

He nodded. “Very,” he answered. The truth was he’d spent half the night listening to Buffy’s heartbeat and her breathing. He’d itched to sketch her, hair fanned out on the pillow, lips parted just slightly, closed lashes casting a shadow on her cheeks. He hadn’t had anything to sketch with so he’d contented himself with watching her.

 

“Giles has pinpointed the supposed end of the world to tonight. Apparently, what we’re dealing with isn’t a demon…per say. It’s a fallen angel with a grudge.” Buffy affected a horrid fake English accent as she said the next. “He strongly suggests we take care of this before the angel comes into full power.”

 

“Great…it’s always nice when we’re dealing with a pure demon as opposed to a half breed,” Angel sighed as he got out of bed and folded up the sofa.  He replaced the cushions and sat down. “What kind of timeframe are we talking about?”

 

“Well…Giles was kind of vague about exact time but definitely tonight. He wants us to get over there as soon as it’s dark and mostly it’s a lot of waiting around,” Buffy said as she got up from the bed and moved to sit on the couch.

 

“We’ve always done alright with the waiting around,” Angel reminded her.

 

Buffy bit her bottom lip. In the past time, waiting with Angel was synonymous with making out. “Yeah…I’m sure we’ll find a lot of things to talk about while we wait. It’ll give us time to catch up.”

 

“Yeah…time to catch up,” Angel agreed after a moment. He stood up and paced across the room. “After the apocalypse maybe it’s best if I-“

 

“Wait, I know this one. You’re not going to say goodbye. You’re just going to leave,” Buffy snapped, her eyes lit with a fire that he missed seeing.

 

“Buffy…” he started.

 

“Don’t…there’s only so many ways you can reject a girl and I think I’ve heard all of them. Funny though, you’re trying to break up with me and we aren’t an item. We haven’t been for a long time, Angel and I’m over that. I’m fine. I’ve moved on,” Buffy interrupted him.

 

“Yeah, so I heard in great detail from Spike,” Angel growled.

 

“And we’re back to that…” Buffy sighed. “This isn’t about Spike or even Cordy. This is about us. It’s always been about us. Do you still love me, Angel?”

 

Shock colored his features as he ceased his pacing and looked at her. His mouth worked wordlessly for a moment before his jaw squared and he sat down, adopting a complete still that was almost unnerving. “I don’t know how to not love you.”

 

“Then why do you spend every moment with me trying to run away from me?”

 

He shook his head. “I’m not running away.” His voice was flat, calm, every syllable controlled.

 

“Bullshit. You’ve already run away emotionally. You’re in the room but you’re not really here,” Buffy accused him.

 

“What do you expect me to do, Buffy?” he shot back at her. “I’m not the same person that I was when I lived in Sunnydale.”

 

“Neither am I!” she shouted. “I went to Heaven and back. I-“ she stopped and shook her head. “There is nothing about me resembling that girl you fell in love with…except that I’m still in love you.”

 

Angel swallowed hard, his eyes fixed on the floor. After a moment, his gaze went back up to her eyes. He hesitated, knowing the way he could shatter her.

 

“Have you changed that much, Angel?” she prodded him with a soft whisper. Her eyes held a hope that would have crushed him had he seen it. It was a hope that hadn’t existed since he’d disappeared through the smoke at her graduation.

 

He shook his head. “No…that has never changed. There were times…there were times I wish it would. So much has happened to me, Buffy. Things I can’t even explain to you.  Things I don’t understand myself sometimes,” he sighed and buried his head in his hands, raking his fingers through his hair. Buffy knew about Connor but she didn’t know about him and Connor, the things that had happened, the things he’d done. He wasn’t sure he could tell her about them, not so that she would understand.

 

“It doesn’t matter what’s happened as long as that much is still true,” Buffy told him. She got up from the couch and walked toward him, hesitating before she reached him. “So…” she trailed off.

 

“So…” he half smiled at her, stepping closer to her. Buffy’s head tilted up naturally to look at him and his hand came up to caress her cheek.

 

“Is this what we’re doing? Where we’re going?” She broke the silence with a throaty whisper.

 

“Yeah…we can take it slow.”

 

Buffy nodded, tiptoeing slightly. “Slow is good,” she whispered as she let her lips brush against his cool ones. She’d forgotten how she melted into a kiss…how he made her knees weak and how a kiss with him could turn needy and passionate in the space of a heart beat.

 

She pulled away breathless and laughed softly. “So much for slow.”

 

A smile crept across his face and he laced his fingers with hers. “Come on, we’ve got an apocalypse to advert.”

 

 

*

 

 

 

They’d spent the bulk of the evening wandering through Alcatraz, trying not think or discuss the decisions they had made earlier.  Buffy walked with her arms wrapped around herself to avoid touching Angel and falling into the same old make out routine most of their patrols had become in Sunnydale. She couldn’t help but notice that Angel kept his hands shoved in his pockets.

 

Flickering lights and a minor earthquake that only affected the island they were on warned them of Balam’s arrival. They found him in the dining hall, rising from the concrete, half wraith and half much too solid for Buffy’s liking.

 

“Wow…someone took their steroids,” Buffy said as they stepped into the dining hall.

 

Angel looked over at her and back at Balam. “It’s not nice to taunt the fallen angel, Buffy.”

 

Buffy shrugged. “I was always a little unclear on who to taunt and who not to taunt.”

 

Balam didn’t even acknowledge their existence, merely stretched the wings of blood, burnt bones and gore, swept them up and back down creating a wind hard enough to make Buffy stumble back. Angel reached a hand out for her and caught her wrist. He had more bulk than her and was able to withstand the sulfur smelling wind the angel created.

 

 

Giles had warned them that only Buffy’s sword would deliver a fatal blow to Balam so during the waiting interim they had devised a plan of distraction and strategy. Angel would launch a full frontal attack while Buffy darted in and did whatever damage she could with her sword. She managed to get a couple of slices in but nothing serious enough to make him flinch.

 

Angel watched as their plan crumbled when Balam was only not distracted but managed to sling Buffy across the room. She hit the wall and slipped to the floor like a rag doll. For a crystalline moment, Angel didn’t care if the world was ending. He forced himself to concentrate and listen to the sound of her heartbeat, strong and steady. She wasn’t moving but she wasn’t seriously injured either.

 

He was distracted long enough for Balam to lash out at him, unholy fire scorching down his side as it blast him across the room. He shook his head, trying to clear it and started to get up, spotting Buffy’s sword lying on the concrete floor.  He rolled, barely dodging another blast and ignoring the excruciating pain in his side. Smoke blinded him and the only way he knew he’d found the sword was by the sting as his fingertips brushed it.

 

His hand curled around the cross hilt of the sword, his skin protesting at the treatment. Under the cover of smoke and the bellowing Balam made as his rise to this world, Angel charged toward him. He met with resistance as the sword plunged into Balam’s torso. The angel’s bellows turned to outright screams as Angel continued to shove the sword into his torso all the way up to the hilt. His hand had lost all feeling by the time he let go of the sword.

 

Balam’s screams shook the very foundations of the old prison but when the screaming ceased and the rumbling was gone, the only thing left of Balam was a scorched circle thirty feet across on the concrete.

 

Angel wasted no time in reaching Buffy. He pulled her into his arms, favoring his right hand.

 

“World’s still here, guess you finished him off,” Buffy mumbled as consciousness filtered in.

 

“Yeah, we got him,” Angel answered as he pushed a strand of hair back behind her ear. “How do you feel?”

 

“Headache…everything ache,” Buffy mumbled as she instinctively buried herself in Angel’s chest.

 

Angel dipped his head, drinking in the scent of her as he placed a kiss on the crown of her head. “Let’s get you back to the hotel so you can rest,” he whispered into her hair as he stood up with her in his arms and carried her out to where the boat waited for them.

 

*

 

 

The smell of breakfast roused Buffy from the deep sleep she’d been in for several hours. She rolled over with a half smile and opened her eyes to find Angel sitting in a chair next to the bed and a room service cart next to him.

 

 

“You ordered me breakfast?” she said with a yawn.

 

Angel shrugged slightly. “You’ve got to eat something. Sit up slowly though. I think you might have had a mild concussion.”

 

Buffy did as Angel order, her stomach lurching slightly as she sat against the headboard. Angel got a bagel off the cart, spread strawberry cream cheese on it and passed it to her.

 

“Small bites,” he reminded her. He caught sight of the massive bruise that had formed on her shoulder from being slammed against a wall and his throat closed. “I’ve never seen you go down like that,” he half whispered as he sat back in his chair and avoided her eyes.

 

“It’s happened a time or two,” Buffy answered as she tore her bagel into small pieces.

 

“Yeah…but I’ve never seen it,” Angel repeated. He steepled his fingers as he spoke, keeping his eyes trained on his hands. “I’ve always had this misconception that somehow you’d beat the odds…you’d be the slayer that lived.”

 

“Kinda like Harry Potter,” Buffy quipped, not quite getting the brevity of the situation, or rather getting it and trying not to allow it to scare her.

 

Angel glanced up at her quirking an eyebrow before continuing. “I realized that no matter how long you live, you’re not immortal and I am.”

 

“Wow…slow much, Angel?” Buffy continued to joke.

 

“Buffy, please,” Angel said as he pushed himself up out of his chair and started pacing the room. “The point is we’re wasting time. Time you don’t have and time, I’m not willing to waste anymore. I know I said I wasn’t getting any older. I know you said you needed time but you are getting older and the apocalypses are still coming and I’m tired of waiting.”

 

It was almost as if time stopped. Buffy froze with a bite of bagel half way to her lips. She sat there for a moment before putting it back down on the plate. Quiet covered them like a wool blanket, almost suffocating in its thickness.

 

“All the problems we’ve got…” Buffy finally spoke up.

 

“Can be worked on. Together,” Angel said as he ceased pacing and looked at her.

 

She nodded for a moment, her features filled with contemplation. “One condition,” she said, her eyes catching his.

 

He nodded, urging her to continue.

 

“This isn’t a try and see thing. This is a work it out until we’re both blood, beaten and half dead…even then we don’t give up. This is…permanent.” She watched him as she spoke, trying to gauge his reaction.

 

She held her breath until that particular half smile that was hers alone curved his lips when it did, she half laughed. It was nervous and filled with hope.

 

“I don’t know the meaning of the word quit when it comes to you, Buffy.”