Chapter Five

Giles drove Buffy home the next morning, her lips remaining stubbornly closed despite the number of pointed observations regarding the bite marks on her neck and the need to know details about her back wound. Everything hurt; her back, her neck and her heart and Buffy was so tired of all the images that flashed in her mind.

She'd awoken to an audience.

Her friends and watcher had kept her safe through the night and had stayed to support her when she realised she was in a hospital bed. She'd had a steady flow of doctors and police officers questioning her on the apparent attack and all she would say was that she didn't see it happen. She couldn't tell them anything, and they left not wanting to know.

For her friends, she wouldn't tell them anything.

For Giles, she cried, clamped her mouth closed and gave in to her grief and stress.

They pulled to a stop in front of her home and she was so glad that her mother was away again on business. Wondered at the convenience of being almost killed while her closest relative was out of town.

Giles turned the ignition off and sat in silence, staring forward like Buffy and saw a house. A home, and wondered why his Slayer couldn't have been in it that night instead of being caught by vampires. The marks on her neck told a bare bones story that Buffy herself seemed yet too traumatised to reveal. Having seen the telltale marks of defeat once before on her flesh, he was almost grateful to whichever vampire had felt the impulse to end his feeding on the Slayer enough to spare her life.

He wondered if Buffy had dusted the vampire that had done this, and again thought of the possibility that it was Angel, just as Willow had suggested. The ensouled vampire was yet to turn up—had been almost classified as missing in action since the night Buffy made her way to the hospital. If it was he who had done this damage, and Buffy had staked him to save her own life, then he felt a rush of sympathy for her refusal to speak of the matter just yet.

Angel. Giles didn't even feel a smidgeon of grief if the vampire was indeed dusted. There had been a subtle glint in his deep brown eyes that the souled one had kept desperately hidden that made Giles more than careful while he was in the vicinity. Of course, the unpredictable nature of his appearance was enough to give even the most calm a heart attack.

It would explain Buffy's reluctance to get the events of her abduction off her chest. Share the burden of something that quite obviously pained her to remember.

"Buffy," he began, hoping to at least reassure the girl that he was here should she feel a need to talk.

"It was Angel," she reported in monotone, still staring ahead at her house. "He found me, and...he stabbed me in the back. I guess he thought I was a vampire."

"What...but...surely he could hear your heart beating?" Giles was stunned, despite suspecting something of the nature.

"I guess he was too busy seeing me in a vampire's lair to wait and listen for proof." And her hand moved to the door handle and pushed the door ajar.

"Wait, Buffy. Did you dust him?" Giles leaned over the front seat as Buffy left the car, more questions tickling the tip of his tongue.

"No." And she was walking away from him, up the path and steps, then through her front door into safety, leaving Giles to wonder if his sigh was in irritation or relief.

Buffy leaned back against the door, flinching as her back hit the cold wood against her bandaged wound, and let the tears finally fall. It was so confusing. Should she be grateful that Spike left her behind and she saved herself—losing the monster who took advantage of her in her innocence? Should she be grieving for the vampire she could never forgive for wanting to end her life, without the benefit of talking to her first and finding she was still very much human? If it were true, if those were the things she should feel now, why was there a great ache in her heart?

Through blurring tears Buffy made a slow start on the stairs, feeling the sobs as each foot took a step up, taking her closer to her bedroom. Still, she held the better of it in until she had tripped over the threshold into her own room, collapsing finally on her bed to release the grief that welled furiously within her body.

She hated Angel.

It was true. How could she forgive him after he almost took away her life? Even if she had been turned, and ewww to that thought, she would have been part of his family. Wasn't it worlds of wrong to kill your family? Well, considering he dusted Darla with seemingly little pain, Buffy was guessing of the not. For some reason, that hurt even more and Buffy felt herself swept along that same tide of livid anger that had seemed to dissolve Spike's sense.

And Spike. She didn't miss him exactly, but the itching of her insides was all for him. She craved his skin against hers and she felt so cold and broken without him to curl up into. Was it normal to have this kind of craving for whoever took your virginity? Was she destroyed now because she couldn't think of anything but the pleasure he had turned her pain into while he attempted to make her scream with agony?

The crystal blue of his eyes couldn't be clearer to her now than if he had been sitting across from her, and she miserably wished he was. Sitting on her bed and stroking her hair as he did nothing but smile. No words would be needed so long as she could just feel him close to her. It was like he'd taken more than something physical away from her. Buffy felt like he'd moved a part of her emotionally that was now so displaced, it couldn't return whole.

She'd been crying for what felt like a physically draining hour when she felt the tingle at the back of her neck, felt the shiver skate over her sensitive skin that indicated a vampire was near. The insane urge to scratch forced her to the realisation that her enemy was close—she just couldn't tell who it was.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Buffy took deep steadying breaths as she sat up and turned toward the window. They felt the same to her, but still Buffy expected it to be him, peering through her window to check she was okay, to make sure she'd made it home alright. Clear caring blue to take the edge of darkness off her night and reduce the hollowness that was breaking her heart.

When her eyes finally parted, sluggish and reluctant with tears, the image sitting at her windowsill cleared. An adrenaline rush tore a harrowing scream from her throat and she ran, snapping up a stake from her dressing table as she departed her room in a frantic search for safety. She bolted through the house, worrying over invitations that now seemed the epitome of stupidity, soul or not. At least this time she was prepared. This time she wouldn't let herself be vulnerable.

This time it wouldn't be her that so nearly ended up dead.

Angel felt like his entire being had cracked. Too much alcohol pushed him to thinking some kind of drug might bring him relief. It wasn't like he hadn't partaken in ease and fashion of opium pipes and other sources of artificial relaxation when he was bad; when he was evil.

Several bottles of whisky told him he still was. Underneath all those lies of offered help, of cryptic clues to ward the Slayer from danger, and he'd killed her with his own hand. On the streets he'd encountered the trail of Spike and his fury and it left him wondering if his own impact on Spike's rigid following of tradition had prevented him taking care of Buffy as he originally would have.

He was evil, no matter which way he wanted to spin the blame. With soul or without, he'd attempted to kill the Slayer, Buffy, and he had no idea how successful his aim had been. He'd staked to kill, and a vampire had to be pierced in the heart—an action that would be just as effective in human and demon alike.

When he passed the turn to Revello, and his unsteady feet picked up a rhythm in the direction of her house, he soon spied lights. Well, a light. One in her room that seemed enough to either prove she was alive or dead. Alive and in her room, or her mother grieving in the space her child had lived.

The light gave him no answers at all.

Without reason or conscious thought, his morbid curiosity propelled him forward. He leapt silently to the roof under her window, staying low in case her mother should chance to look and see him hanging around. Buffy's cries were the first thing to be heard, and then the stable but heightened beat of her heart as she sobbed uncontrollably into her pillow.

Angel knew he should have left the second she took deeper breaths and the crying jag tapered to a slow hiccupping resignation. Tenseness settled on his shoulders as he watched—the eyes of a vampire picking up every slow, pained movement as her body slowly twisted to face him. Except she held her eyes closed, great blobby tears almost melding them shut as she took deep breaths and took courage to see him.

Only as they parted did he think she might not be wanting to see him. Thought that she might feel a vampire presence and be expecting Spike. When frightened jade alighted on his still pose at her window, the deafening pitch of her scream almost threw him back to the grass. Instead, he stayed in devastation as she snatched up a stake and left through her door, heavy and determined footsteps pounding down the stairs.

The panic in her heartbeat met him in her room even as she skidded to a stop at the kitchen door. It seemed overtly thunderous in the quiet night, even drowning out the crack of the door as it hit the wall and she rushed through it outside.

Angel was past caring how badly thought out his actions had been lately. He was causing pain and confusion everywhere he went. He knew he was mostly biding time until Spike finally located him and could take whatever fury out on him the younger vamp decided he deserved. But Buffy was now in her yard and armed with a stake. She had hurt and revenge on her side, and he had much alcohol and mind-altering substances filtering through his blood.

He almost wished he could meet her and let her give him what he deserved, but brave he was not. He fell less than gracefully from his perch and hunched in the grass for a handful of seconds, then made his way to his feet and sped away into the night, leaving the trail of a coward behind him.

Buffy felt like she couldn't breathe as she tugged on the locked kitchen door, desperate fingers prodding at the lock as she finally managed to click it free and slammed the door open. Her frenzied rush into the cool night air came to an abrupt halt as she slammed into a body and fell hard to the ground. As prepared and fired up for action as she'd felt during her initial adrenaline driven flight, she felt the determination leech from her body, leaving her feeling flat, shocked and frightened.

Buffy rested her hot cheek against smooth black leather. She felt a sickness well in her belly as arms crept around her, her skin flashing cold then hot and cold again, not knowing how to settle when her own heart couldn't decide if he was her friend or foe. Hands that rubbed soothing circles on her arms, that kept her lying upon him while he left his back on her turf, that had killed. She was being held and soothed by a murderer, a monster and her heart still wanted her to kiss him. Wanted her to rest in the protection of his nearness and bathe in the familiarity of being with him.

Spike.

Buffy couldn't believe how affected she was by this vampire who had raped her of innocence, kept her chained while he bit hard into her flesh and tore her skin in a revenge that was unworthy. Yet her mind shut down now, welcoming the strange vampire into her home even as she kept him balancing on the edge of her heart. A heart that couldn't believe what she'd done in such a short space of time. Couldn't believe how quickly her views and beliefs had twisted around and in on themselves.

The giant clash of thoughts and actions left her bereft of energy and Buffy succumbed to the hypnotic rocking as Spike cradled her in his arms and carried her upstairs and to her bed. Eyes tightly closed even as her body shuddered. If this moment was to lead her to madness, she felt wholly incapable of preventing it. Panic over Angel's appearance seemed long gone as Buffy curled away from this other vampire she had been so intimate with recently, her heart and mind fighting the tiny points until she was so confused she could do nothing but whimper in fear.

The tears had returned, though they had probably been prematurely pushed away in light of Angel's unexplained visit. Now they seemed the only way to deal with having another vampire in her house; in her bedroom. She felt so ashamed; so disgusted with her weakness as a cold hand settled on her neck. In twisted logic Buffy arched away from his touch, instead allowing for more of his long fingers to find a grip on her throat.

"Please don't hurt me anymore," she begged, angry and frustrated that she was giving in and doing the one thing he said she would do. Begging him for her life.

A chance look at his eyes had Buffy gasping, the fear escalating as his fingers squeezed and she found oxygen a depleting reserve. His stare was a sharp blade that hit her from hundreds of different angles. Pain seared through her body as the last of her oxygen gasped past her lips and she welcomed the only thing she could depend on.

Buffy kissed the darkness and died.