Unraveled and bewildered, should I not believe
your eyes as they catch mine so deeply
binding me so far inside of you

this loom of words, warped and knotted
my thoughts tumbling into your depths
can't speak or breathe before those

who would destroy me, tangled, captured
so careful not to think of you, of your eyes
or touch, your caress or love unbound

not to feel your face placed gently against mine
these woven threads, I know I'm in a dream
unraveling toward air and sky

but cannot escape this shattering wind,
these bonds burning into wordless despair,
free me now, let me find the end of this love
                                                         -JLS

He saw her face before him, glowing, innocent with love, her love for him flowing out of every pore.

"She can't hide what's in her eyes. Why does she hurt? Why is she jealous? Must be more than shagging. But she says no; says it was just sex; says it made things simpler for her, but she doesn't want that anymore. So what is this complex place she wants to dive into?" he thought grimly.

He'd dropped the other girl off, just blew her off; he wasn't really interested in another dumb, semi-evil love. He'd always thought it was the Slayer's dark side that drew him to her. But remembering her standing before him, glowing with a soft smile, he realized that it was the goodness inside of her that drew him to her. It was that, and her brave face, despite her terrible uncertain fate, that entranced him.

Before, he'd wanted to destroy this innocence in her... wanted to break her of the illusion of her goodness. He thought that if only he could make her see the world through vampire, demon eyes, she'd understand him and love him. But instead, she'd made him see the world through her eyes. He was afraid of that goodness in her and what it invoked in him.

She said she didn't want to use him anymore and had called him William when she conveyed that bit of devastating news. She could see William in him and perhaps it was William who responded, loving her, wanting to be good for her, refusing to let the demon inside of him hurt her, when he realized it was possible. Yet it wasn't just the infliction of physical pain that he'd resisted. It just killed him now to see the emotional pain in her eyes that he'd caused. He'd never do it again, if he could help it.

When she asked him if he'd take the girl back to his crypt, that look of pain in her eyes was more than he could bear. He didn't want to hurt her anymore. He just didn't want to live with the way it made him feel. He could feel her pain. Why could he feel her pain? Dru had left him because she'd told him she was tired of feeling and sensing the Slayer all around him. The Slayer haunted him, she'd complained. Why, he wondered? Why me? Why her and me? And this whole thing with the bloody chip turning him into a lap dog. But when he found the chip didn't work with her, why didn't he just kill her? Have his 'one good day' with her? Instead they'd fallen violently into each other's arms, merged fiercely, completely.

He found that he was mourning for his lost self, for William. He'd always joked cruelly about the person he'd been before Dru turned him. Joked about his weakness and softness that had caused him so much pain when he was human. Didn't want to remember. But Buffy made him remember. Made him want to look again inside himself for lost fragments of William and his tender soul. Maybe that was what he feared so desperately.  Good and evil, love and hate, back and forth, the endless whirlwind of his emotions.

She'd told him that it hurt to see him with someone else. Spoke those very words "it hurts". And he thanked her for those words; it had been his last desperate attempt to invoke a sign of love from her. He had it now, but for what end? What good would it do him to know she cared for him, loved him, but essentially was too disgusted with him, too ashamed of him to stand up and be with him and be by his side. She didn't want to hurt him anymore.
 

* * * * *
 

He had to do something... just couldn't go on like this anymore. He felt so lost, stuck between two worlds, and not accepted by either, a lone traveler, beyond lonely. As he sat in the darkness of his crypt, he realized that he'd never felt so lonely before. He'd always had Dru, then Harmony and then this madness with the Slayer. His choice to love her had completely isolated him from his previous reality.  Couldn't go to his old world since too many bridges were burned there. Couldn't be in her world. She didn't want him there. She didn't want him.

"She doesn't want me." He spoke out loud in the empty crypt. "Why am I here?" For the first time since his realization that he loved her, he paused in his headlong, single-minded pursuit . For once, he completely lost hope.

"Never gonna happen, her and me," he thought. "Never again."

The pain was so relentless, so black; he thought he might just dissolve in the agony of it all. It was so cruel to have had such a hope and then to lose it.  Because he still believed that what was between them was real, so real, so important in some strange way, and he felt helpless to control it. As Dru had said, the Slayer was all around him, all over him, and that was even before, many months before he came back to Sunnydale and realized that he loved her.

What was this love? Was it a last final curse upon him? He remembered Angel's words, right after he'd lost his soul again and turned back into Angelus.

"To kill this girl... you have to love her."

Is that what he was doing? Couldn't kill her physically, but was killing her inside and tormenting her with his love, his passion, taking her places, that she could never fully return from. Killing her with his love. Was this love he felt? Or was it obsession or possession? Had someone cast a spell upon him? Of all the possible beings in the universe for him to love, why her?

"I'm just bloody lost."

He felt completely paralyzed, frozen so deeply in his heart, he wondered if she'd even care if he disappeared one day and just never returned. The problem was he couldn't leave. He no longer had the will to leave. The thought of not knowing if she were alive or dead, if she'd met her ultimate fate, not knowing that she still existed and still breathed in this world was completely unbearable to him. What if she needed him for one moment, just one moment, and called for him and he wasn't there? He couldn't leave. He had no will. He'd never leave her.

But he would leave her alone. He'd become invisible to her: avoid her, never speak to her, just watch from afar, or get news of her second hand. That would be enough. But now, while the pain was still so sharp, he'd go into hiding completely. He'd hibernate for a few months in his crypt... lock himself up somewhere deep in his crypt, or better yet in some hidden crevasse in the tunnels.

He trudged around his crypt, gathering up the supplies he'd need, and then he headed down to the tunnels. Deep under Sunnydale, he found a small natural cave leading out of one of the half collapsed tunnels. It ran steeply down into the earth and ended in a large sized limestone cave covered with stalactites and stalagmites. He found a naturally occurring platform and began to build his new home.
 

* * * * *
 

It was peaceful and quiet in the cave, and except for a small subterranean stream that surfaced in one corner of the cave into a small pool, there was no sound. No demons howling, no slayers slaying, no killing, no one hating him, no one loving him. Only peace, and silence in his cave. And he began to sleep again deeply during the day, and only emerge from his cave at night to get supplies. He bought his blood from a butcher across town. He avoided all places where he might be recognized. And he began to think about William. One night he brought a book of poetry he'd found in a trashcan. That was the beginning of his book collection. He'd spend the nights reading and the days sleeping, night and day merging into one long womb of darkness inside his cave.

After living this way for several months, he began to lurk in shadows, eavesdropping on conversations among the undead for news of the slayer. And this is what he heard: the slayer had become extremely violent. She didn't just patrol for a few hours each night, but patrolled all night from dusk to dawn, relentlessly killing any demon or vampire who had the bad luck to encounter her. No one got away if she had them in her sights. From dusk to dawn, she'd roam the whole city, not just the cemeteries: every decrepit warehouse, vampire nest, demon hideout. She'd scour them all.

Some whispered that she'd almost died a few times, put herself up alone against terrible odds, and then fought with such fierceness and brutality that those who had watched her from the shadows wondered if perhaps she wasn't actually a demon after all.  He'd overheard one of her human acquaintances gossiping about how changed she'd become. Cold as ice. Threw out Willow. Didn't resist when Social Services sent Dawn to live with her father. Lived alone in her dead mother's house on Revello Drive.  Never spoke to anyone, human or demon. Was completely and utterly alone. Like him.

Somehow he didn't feel any satisfaction knowing what she'd become. Dark like him now. Strange, it was what he'd told her he always wanted, but knowing what she'd become left him with a deep hollow feeling. He felt guilt, felt sorry. He'd done this to her. He knew somewhere deep inside him that what had happened to her was partially his fault and that he'd have to do something to make amends and finally free her of his curse.

Somehow he'd have to make her see that she was right about him, that he was evil and bad, a thing; make her realize that she'd made the right choice when she rejected him. Make her feel good again, let her choose the light rather than his darkness. Let her finally do the thing that she was chosen to do – slay the vampire and know it was the right choice. But he knew she'd never do it as long as he had the chip in his head, as long as she saw him as neutered, defenseless, and chained. He had to get it out. Somehow, somewhere someone would know how to get rid of this bloody curse once and for all.