Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

Summary: In an attempt to get over her grief for Spike, Buffy has cut herself off from her past life, and anything that reminds her of the vampire that's still in her heart.  But when a news story brings her attention to the battle in LA, the Slayer finds herself once again facing old betrayals and old faces.  Returning to LA she finds even newer betrayals and the possible death of her most secret hope.


Faded Hope

by bitchee

Chapter 15

Disoriented by the mystical forces he had called upon to transport him to the oracles, Angel staggered for a moment before regaining his balance. Patting his pockets, he searched for something that would make an acceptable gift for them.

When he failed to find anything of use he sighed heavily and reached down to unstrap the dagger secured to his ankle.

Damn and it’s my favorite one, too.

Shaking his head in annoyance, he turned and faced the two beings as they shimmered into existence. Holding his hand out he proffered the weapon hilt first and waited for them to speak.

Even as the blade disappeared from his hand, Angel heard the female oracles question closely followed by the males resonate within his mind.

They spoke as one being, the male finishing the female’s sentence; he had remembered that from his last visit, but found it was just as disconcerting the second time around.

“Why do you come here lower being? What do you seek that we have not already given?”

Angel met their gazes mutely, his expression carefully blank as he waited for them to signal their acceptance of his dagger. They communed with each other silently before turning and once again invading his mind.

“The gift is acceptable vampire, but we have not the answers you seek”, began the female, her voice inside his head feeling strangely cold.

“Your path has diverged from what was intended… your journey no longer the one we hoped”, added the male.

“We can not tell you what you wish to know” the female continued seamlessly, “our eyes no longer see your course, you have taken the path less traveled”.

The echoes of the male’s voice had barely faded when the two oracles turned as if to leave.

“Wait!”

Angel rushed forward determined to find out what they had meant, but he had only taken two steps when he found himself thrown back against one of the pillars of the oracles chamber.

Pulling himself up he shook his head, rubbing it where he had hit it on the hard stone.

Well that answers that question he thought ruefully. This place is definitely not all smoke and mirrors… illusions don’t normally hurt when you hit them.

His outburst had however, given them pause. When Angel looked up the two silver and gold beings had turned back to face him.

His eyes narrowed in thought as he watched them silently commune with each other, and if he was not mistaken, with a lot more animation than he remembered from the last time.

Studying them warily, he waited to see what they would do next.

The oracles as Angel suspected, were having a discussion, one that for them verged on argumentative.

“Sister, he has done much good and even now still walks the path of a champion, surely it would not harm any if we gave him some small measure of hope?

At his words the female oracle turned her gaze from his and when her answer came it was as cool as it had been earlier with Angel.

“It is not for us to question the powers that be my brother, you have seen the vampire’s fate, and it is his hubris that has led him to it.” With her next words, her expression and tone verged on scathing. “In his pride, he lost the path and doomed the ones he loved. What hope can we give this lower being that he has not already been handed a hundred times.”…

When her brother’s sigh interrupted her lecture she turned back to him in consternation.

“I fear you have watched the lower realms too long brother, mayhap you have become infected with human desire.”

Her tone turned condescending as she studied his expression.

“It is not our place to judge the will of the powers, we are but servants to that will and you would do well to remember that. Need I remind you of the fate of our predecessors?” She asked, her gaze locked with his.

“I need no reminder,” he replied calmly his eyes flickering closed as he bowed his head to her. “Perhaps you are correct to say I have been infected,” he admitted, even as his eyes sought hers again. “But it is not with desire my sister”.

She shivered. Never had she seen one of her kind look at her the way he was. Though never having experienced it herself, she knew that the emotion she could see in his familiar gaze was sorrow, and that it should not be possible.

“I do not understand,” she questioned, long dormant curiosity surfacing within her. “If it is not desire, why then do you champion his cause? You know that he is but dust on the wind. Why would you risk the powers wrath, to give him what would be faint words of comfort?”

He sighed, his eyes taking on a faraway cast that she had never known him to exhibit.

“For hope my sister….” he replied his tone wistful. “It is the one human trait that I envy them for.”

His eyes drifted back to Angel as he continued to speak

“These lower beings live such short ands pointless lives. Destined to be alone always, they will never know the joy of being joined to another in anything other than flesh.”

His expression pitying he continued, not once turning his attention from the vampire.

“So lonely their lives… so short and cruel. And yet… they cling to the belief that there is more for them than what they know. More to touch, more to taste, more than just endless loneliness and the certainty of death.”

Turning back, he reached out to her with his mind and let her see what he had seen, even as he continued to speak.

“They have hope that things will change, that they might find what they crave… they have hope that death is not the end and they believe in their hope. It is what sustains them and makes them go on… Where others would see only futility and despair, the human race sees more… because they have the one thing that conquers all…their hope.”

He was silent for a moment as he let her see all that he had observed since they had been called to take their place as oracles.

He waited until the last of his memories had been shared and then he did something that for their kind was rare. He smiled.

“So you understand why I wish to do this thing, why I must give him that hope?”

She met his gaze thoughtfully and nodded, before turning back to face the glowering vampire.

She studied the being before her, her expression carefully blank as she pondered the best way to fill her brother’s request.

Moving slowly towards him she met the vampires hostile gaze, her own as coolly aloof as her next words.

“Vampire, we can not give you the answers you seek, but my brother has shown me that there may still be… hope for you. So I give you warning.” She offered, gaze boring in to his.

“The choices you make will determine your worth, keep not on the path you tread for you have strayed from the powers sight, and now walk alone,” she said, her demeanor no longer serene and detached.

“You shall be tested one last time,” she warned, her tone grim. “If you fail… your soul will be the price and Angelus will stand at the head of hells armies.

Angel opened his mouth to interrupt and to ask just what the hell she meant, when the brothers voice interrupted first.

Moving to his sister’s side the male placed a gentle hand upon her arm. Without words she acceded to his unvoiced request and allowed him to finish.

“Love is the key vampire. Remember this and all will be well.”

Angel scowled.

Huh? What the fuck was that supposed to mean, Angelus…armies of hell?

“What do you mean love is the key?” he spat indignantly “And straying from the path? What path have I strayed from?”

Eyes flaring with the demons gold he gritted his teeth in fury, his voice dangerously low as he attempted to control his rapidly rising blood lust.

“I have done everything I can to defeat Wolfram and Hart… I have given everything. And you’re standing there telling me I’ve strayed?”

He snarled, his demon clamoring for violence.

“My friends are dead, my son is missing and the love of my life has kidnapped my pain in the ass grandchilde, and you’re telling me that love is the key?”

His eyes flashed golden again as he struggled to reign in the demon that was urging him to rip the heads from the two of them.

“I came here to get some answers” he ground out. “Answers that you say you can’t or won’t give, and all I’ve gotten, if I understand you correctly, is criticism, and cryptic advice that I don’t have time to puzzle out.”

He took a careful step forward; fists clenched at his side.

“If you can’t tell me what I want to know then point me in the direction of someone that can, because I really don’t have time for your mystic crap. You owe me… the powers that be owe me and I want some answers…Now.”

The two beings in front of him seemed to freeze for a moment before the female shot her brother a look and nodded.

“Very well… it will be as you ask.” She said her voice near freezing in its timbre.

Then with a look, that on anyone else Angel would have suspected was pity, she stepped back to her brother’s side.

Seconds later there was a sudden brilliant white light.

Nearly blinded by the glare he raised one hand to shelter his eyes. When it cleared, the oracles were gone and in their place stood Cordelia Chase.

**************************************

As Buffy’s teeth sank into his throat, Spike froze in shock.

The demon however, was not slow to take advantage of Spike’s state of mind. Surging forward with a roar of triumph, it pressed closer even as Spike’s human features changed to that of the demons.

The demon knew only that the woman it considered its equal and as far as it was concerned the only possible choice for a mate, was at its throat.

In the eyes of Spike’s demon, the slayer was acceding to his long held belief that she was the only one for him. By doing so, instigating the hoped for connection in the form of a claim.

Any control that he’d had went by the wayside as he felt the woman he loved start to drink from him.

Moments later when she released his neck and he heard her fierce snarl of “Mine” he was swept away on a tide of emotion that he found he didn’t have the will to fight.

Roaring with a mixture of confusion and elation, he savagely fought the pull of the chains that were keeping him from her. When the chain binding his left arm gave way the demon snarled its satisfaction.

Chain flailing, and hand deliberately tangled in her hair, Buffy could do nothing as he grasped her by the back of the neck and pulled her to him.

Lunging for her throat, Spike bit down hard.

At the first taste of her blood, he very nearly came in his jeans. She was so sweet and the desire for him in her blood so clear that he thought he’d go mad if he couldn’t bury himself in her warmth.

Releasing her throat, he reached down and tore the jeans and panties from her body. The word “Mine” rasping out harshly as he ripped open his own pants before plunging forward and up into her heat.

The slayer met his invasion with a fierce cry of satisfaction, and moments later, both their shirts had followed the path of her jeans.

Buffy was desperate to get as close to him as possible, his cock filled her but she found herself wanting more.

As her inner demon retreated, the woman inside the slayer was overwhelmed with a sense of need that threatened to drive her beyond anything she’d ever experienced before.

Spike was here…Spike was inside her…Spike had claimed her, but it still wasn’t enough.
She needed for him to admit what he had once freely offered. She needed him to tell her that he was hers and more importantly, she needed to let him know that she was his.

Slowing her pace deliberately, she used her internal muscles to clamp down and still his frantic thrusts. Then reaching for his head, still buried in the crook of her neck, she grasped and raised it until his eyes met hers.

Staring hard into his golden eyes she slowly and very deliberately spoke the one word that would give him absolute power.

“Yours”

Spike was lost in sensation. Buffys blood… Buffy’s body… the tightness and heat of her… the scent of her arousal and need.

All of it threatening to overwhelm him with emotions that he’d done his best to bury so far down, that now they were released, it left him feeling as though he’d been living in a dream for the past year.

His desire and love for her flooded through him, bringing back feelings that he thought he’d managed to leave behind.

Flashes of their past together, the good and the bad, rushed through his mind and he found himself drowning in her, all over again.

Memories of the first time he’d seen her on the dance floor of the Bronze, the first time they’d fought, the first time they’d fought together, the first time they’d had sex, so many memories that he’d spent the last year doing his best to forget.

He remembered the crushing loss he’d felt the night she sacrificed herself for Dawn and the joy he’d known months later when she’d come down the stairs and he realized she was back. And he remembered those painfully agonizing months when they had been lovers, and the breath taking pain of her telling him that she was using him when she ended it.

He remembered his desperation as he attacked her in her bathroom and his anger as he traveled to Africa to seek out a legend, just so he could give her what she deserved. And of course, he remembered the sheer agony of his soul and the despair when he realized he would never be what she needed.

Then those last months in Sunnydale, in her house, trying to hold it together against the insanity and the manipulation of the First Evil. Because after everything, it was the only way he knew how to show how sorry he was. To show her how much he still loved her.

He remembered the quiet times when they had been something very like friends. The pride he’d felt when she’d told him that she believed in him and the gratitude he’d felt when she had let him hold her those last few nights.

Finally, he remembered the look in her eyes and the feel of her burning hand linked with his, as she said the words that he had refused to believe.

For Spike, it was if a veil had been lifted. As though his memories of their time together were suddenly illuminated in a way that he had never considered.

For months, he had done his best not to think of her and when inevitably she’d crept back into his thoughts, he’d told himself his own twisted version of the truth. He had done everything he could to believe the worst of her and refused to even consider that he had been anything more to her than someone to use.

In that moment, all the disbelief and anger directed at her left him, as the spells surrounding them were ripped away by the passion of their feelings and the sharing of their blood.

Shame and aching regret swam through him as he realized how wrong he’d been to doubt her in the way he had.

For the first time since he appeared in Angel’s office, Spike finally saw the truth behind her actions in Sunnydale. And it turned his world upside down.

Stunned as he was by his sudden inner revelations he didn’t immediately register the changed cadence of her movement.

It wasn’t until she brought his face up and locked her gaze with his that he realized that she had slowed their frantic rush towards release.

Seconds later when she spoke Spike found himself ashamed and humbled in a way that had nothing to do with his soul.

“Oh God Buffy… Buffy luv…. I’m so bloody sorry.” he managed to gasp. Even as he felt with that one simple heartfelt word, the magic of the claim locked into place.

Tears welled and overflowed as her thoughts were opened to him, and Spike found himself sobbing raggedly as the full extent of her emotions were laid open with her surrender.