*****
Part 12:

It's so dark... I stay completely still and let my night vision kick in. One of the fun benefits of Slayer powers -- I can see in the dark almost as well as they can.

(your lovers. your enemies.)

Yeah. Them. How long has we been sleeping, that it's this dark?

I wait for a good while. How long? I'm not sure. But I still can't see. There's nothing but black all around me.

I blink. Shake my head. It can't be this dark in Angel's room, can it? We haven't been in bed that long... the embers should still be glowing in the fireplace, at least.

Am I dead?

Okay. Don't panic, Summers. You're just tangled in the sheets or something. I reach up for the edges... I expect to feel Angel next to me, even in the darkness.

There's nothing. Empty air. I hear thunder rolling in the distance, and I'm so *thirsty*...

Where am I?

Apparently, I'm not lying down, because I can feel floor beneath my feet. Have I been sleepwalking in the hotel?

I take a cautious step, feeling before me with my toes. I've trained like this... sensory deprivation. Earplugs, blindfolds... I've learned to reach out with my other senses to figure out what's going on. Since my sight is gone, there's nothing to touch, and I can't hear anything but the storm outside... I ground and center myself. Concentrate. Sniff. I smell fire... lust... blood.

That could just be us, right? Angel, Spike and I?

I shiver with the sudden memory of Angel's fangs in my throat, the pounding, pulling, rushing sensation of my lover drinking the life flow straight from my heart... the incredibly erotic sucking music of his mouth... and Spike's too. A circuit of sanguine connection...

Okay. Now's not the time for horny fantasies. I have to focus. Figure out where I am. I can do this.

I concentrate on the origins of the scent. Warm air, damp... sweat, maybe? My skin prickles. Up ahead.

I brush my hands off on my... Dress?

I take a moment to feel my outfit. I'm not naked, which I was the last time I checked. I'm not wearing my nightshirt. I feel thick material... not cotton, I don't think. Rough silk? Heavy, floor length skirts, bell-shaped. A corset. My breasts held high out of a gaping, lace-edged neckline.

I've *got* to be dreaming.

I take another step. Another. I'm on solid ground, I think... I must be *somewhere*... the smell is getting stronger, the air heavier.

In the distance, a dim light peeks around the edges of a doorframe. Firelight. A room. The rain, and voices, now.

Right. I'm home.

No, wait... This doesn't smell anything like my house... no teenage sister and sick mom, no memories of vampire boyfriends sneaking in and out my bedroom window... And this dress isn't even something I've ever seen, let alone something I've worn or owned.

But some part of my brain knows the names of the materials... muslin... crinoline... French lace. And those smells -- hearthfire. Tea. Pleasure. Heart's blood. Family. Home.

I hear his voice, and it rushes through me... that too is where I live.

(*this living hand, now warm and capable*)

I take another step forward. Angel. That much I know.

(*of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold*)

It's his voice, but strange... an accent. A chilled edge.

Angel?

(*and in the icy silence of the tomb*)

A woman's laughter. The door comes closer, its framing light brighter.

Another step. The darkness swallows the space behind me. The rustling of my heavy dress echoes even above the storm pounding on the roof, and the velvet resonance of his voice.

My love...

(*so haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights*)

A snap, like leather cracking. Or is it thunder? Someone cries out. Pain, or pleasure? It's hard to tell the difference...

I'm so cold. Thirsty. Starving. It's been so long since I've been home... I reach out for the doorknob, but don't touch it... I need to see if it's hot first, because of the fire within.

The woman within giggles. The doorknob's not hot, so I turn it.

(*that thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood*)

Lightning flashes, blinding me for a moment as I step into the warmth of the room. They look up. I know them. Feel them in my bones, but they look so strange...

(*so in my veins red life might stream again,*)

He looks up. His eyes are dark and empty, sparkling cold and beautiful with lust. His hair is long and silky, blood on his lips. He smiles.

I'm dying of thirst. I want those lips.

Naked, the two of them, pale and gleaming. Spike... No, Not-Spike. His hair is too long, and the color of burnt honey, instead of winter wheat.

"Ah, and there's me mate, now. Where've you been then, love?" Angel asks.

His big hand strokes William's bare arm softly. The room spins around me, and I clutch the doorframe to keep from falling.

"Ooooh! Daddy, she's falling! Into the dark, where the flowers bleeeeed...."

I whip my head around. Drusilla sits on the floor beside the bed, fully dressed, looking up at me with visions and starlight in her dark eyes. Her doll has no hair.

"What?" I ask her. She smiles like she doesn't understand what I'm saying.

Not-Angel sits up, eliciting a whimper of protest from Not-Spike... oh, God, I'm going to be sick... Spike's neck is torn and bloody, and he stares at me with unveiled hatred. He's never looked at me like that before. Not-Angel stands up beside the tall four-poster bed, resplendently naked.

"Ye look ill. Have ye fed?"

What's wrong with his voice?

I blink at him.

"She's singing with the death in her soul...Close your eyes!" Drusilla purrs.

"Angel?" I ask.

Not my voice, either.

I'm going to puke. The room lurches. I stumble, but his arms are around me, and I don't fall. His voice is gentle.

"Come, dove. Sit. Have ye eaten something bad?"

Not-Angel helps me to an old-fashioned chair near the fire... the cushions are hard, and he has to help me arrange my skirts so I can sit.

"'Probly been eatin' whores again," Not-Spike grumbles.

"Hush, boy," Not-Angel snaps.

Oh, my God... where am I?

My hands are so cold... I look down at them. They're tiny and pale... blue veins under nearly translucent skin. No chipped Valentine Pink nail polish on blunt tips. Not my hands. I clutch them together in the lap of my gown, and try not to shake.

Naked Not-Angel crouches before me, examining my eyes. He looks deep... "Pinch! Pinch! Eyes like needles! The raven sees where none else has flown, to drink from the well!" Drusilla rants, "Grandmum... they don't know..."

I hear her, but I can't look away from the fathomless depths of Not-Angel's eyes. He takes my hands.

"Good gods, woman. Yer cold as ice. What've you been at tonight?"

"I don't..." I mutter. I look around. The details of the room... dark woods and tapestries. Statues and oil paintings. Not-Spike glaring at me from the bed. "Where are we?"

Not-Angel blinks. His brow furrows deeply, a look of concern that I know so well... but it's all wrong above those empty eyes.

No soul. Oh, God. Angelus.

"Yer ill." He rests a big, cold hand on my forehead, frowning. "Let me put another log on the fire." He rises, regal and commanding even nude, his height imposing... have I ever seen him stand so straight and proud?

"Get out of bed, ya wastrel! Fetch my mate some tea!" he orders Not-Spike.

Who doesn't curse. Doesn't argue or make a nasty comment about Angel's prowess, sexual orientation, or virility. He averts his eyes and climbs out from beneath the covers, as naked as his Sire but the blood running down his chest. He puts on a billowing white shirt with puffy sleeves, and flashes me a look of consuming loathing as he stomps barefoot from the room. Drusilla watches him go, then turns those haunted eyes on me. "You're not her. My Spike hates her. You... you're bad. Wicked. Evil killer of good children. You've taken them all away..."

What the Hell is that loony-tune...

The dizziness hits me again, stronger this time. I close my eyes and try to will myself awake. I'm dreaming. I don't want to be here. Not with him. Please, Angel...

He stokes the fire... the flames grow, but I keep getting colder.

I take a deep breath... or try to... my lungs won't flex. They won't expand right. It feels like they're cracking, like I haven't used them in a long time. Like I don't make a habit of breathing.

Like I'm dead.

A choking sound I didn't know I made rips from my throat at the realization... at my aborted attempt to take just one damn breath. Drusilla laughs at me from her dark corner, and starts singing about Grandmum's false skin. Angelus returns to my side, and takes my hands.

"Love, you know ye need to be more careful what you eat, here. This is Delhi, not London. The humans have diseases most of the world've never heard of. I shouldn't haveta remind ye that..."

He helps me to my feet, supports me tenderly under the elbow.

"Thirsty... can't... breathe..." I croak. My bones feel hollow... dry and brittle. My skin feels frozen, like it might flake off my body at any moment. Dry. Bone dry. All of me.

"You don't have to breathe, love..." Angelus is kind... which makes all of this worse. He undresses me with gentle, practiced care, and eases me down onto the enormous featherbed.

"He doesn't believe in you, Grandmother..." Drusilla whispers conspiratorially.

I look up at him and wonder... how can soulless eyes be filled with affection? How can he care?

"'Ere's the tea, Sire," William says.

I close my eyes again. Count to 10. 20. 50.

"Whattsa matter with her?"

"I dunna ken, Will."

"Was jokin' about the whores, but... she doesn't look so good."

I'm starving. I can't speak anymore to tell them. They're so far away, but I feel Angelus' weight press down on the mattress right beside me.

"Sh... My Precious Spike... don't tell him, or he'll eat her. Grandmum is hollow and all gone..." Drusilla murmurs.

"Hush, Ducks."

"Love... can ye hear me?"

"Hungry," I rasp.

"What's she sayin'?" William asks.

Lavender. The sheets smell like lavender and blood and cool skin.

"She wants the nectar. Sing sing with the bees!" Drusilla tells them, "Like the kittens down the well...crash! They fly away."

"Drusilla, please."

"Maybe you should feed her."

My family... my beloveds and their insane woman child...

Why am I so empty?

"It's near dawn. We canna go out and hunt now."

"A servant, then?"

"Ye know better than that, Will. They'd be missed right off. I've a better thing."

His weight shifts. I hear flesh tear. Smell blood. Angelus holds his broad wrist to my lips.

"No," I protest.

Thunder crashes.

"She knows the light in the shadows. She is lost in thorns and can't find her way out again..."

"Drink, love."

No. I love him. I love them. I'm part of them, but I don't want to be them...

Do I?

"Sire, she's not drinking."

"Doncha think I can see that, fool?"

"Angel, please..." I whisper. Taste the copper-cold tang of his blood as my lips touch his wrist.

(*and thou be conscience-calmed--see, here it is --*)

Oh... God... he smells so good... He brushes my cheek with his free hand...

(*I hold it towards you*)

"Drink, love. Ye'll feel better. We'll get ye something fresh on the morrow."

Closer. Wet. He smells like night.

I'm so thirsty. I feel my body start to shake.

As my lips seal at last around his flesh... my teeth--no, fangs--clamp down... he grunts as the skin separates and I drink and I'm falling into him...

("show me your world")

("close your eyes")

("I love you...")

("Don't leave me, Sire...")

("run and catch, run and catch...")

("I try not to, but I can't stop...")

("you have no idea what it feels like to have done the things I've done... and to care.")

("BUFFFYYYYY!")

Dust and death and the world in his veins.

("You damned me.")

Is there anything else to believe in, or is this all there is?

Affection and hate... madness, hope, sorrow, jealousy sweet in his blood.

And I drink.

(*I hold it towards you*)

Twenty five decades of life. The edges of the earth. The thrill of the hunt. Cold flesh on cold flesh. Tears and sighs... laughter. The crack of a whip. The call of the moon, craving the stars... howling.

("He was my Sire, ya bloody twit! That's a damn sight more intimate than this!")

("I made him. There was a time when we shared everything, wasn't there, Angelus?")

He tastes like home, and I drink. My everything is in him. It pours back into me, and he moans from somewhere far away.

("For that one moment, I loved her... 150 years, we were together, and it was only then when I saw who she could have been.")

("Haven't you ever wondered what it is we fight for?")

Copper pennies suspended in corn syrup. Bounds that cross centuries and endless, empty miles. The others don't know. They don't understand the taste of life and death in one.

(*so in my veins red life might stream again*)

"Angelus..." I moan into his blood.

Whoever said that demons don't love is a liar. I can taste love in him, or something just like it. Maybe not love like human hearts feel, but love of blood and bed. Sharing the kill and knowing no other way to be. Anchor in darkness.

He pulls his arm away, and I am broken without his nourishment. Alone. Starving.

"Darla..." he whispers, "Can you hear me?"

I open my eyes. The room is dark. The rain pounds on the roof, and Spike is snoring on the other side of the bed.

I turn and look into Angel's sweetly sleeping face... his hair the right length; the length it's been since I've known him, and I realize...

I don't know anything about him at all. I don't understand anything about the Blood, or decades in soft, perfumed beds.

Or what it feels like to love with an eternal heart.

I don't belong with them. I don't belong here.

I jump out of the bed and run. I don't know where... just away. I drank him, and now I swear I can hear his ghosts chasing me... I need the air. I need to see the sky.

I don't know anything.

(*so haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights*)

I'm the Slayer. I'm opposite of everything they are.

Alone.

I burst out the back doors of the hotel and run into the courtyard. The torrent washes over me, cold winter rain. I fall to my knees in the grass and shriek at the sky.

I was Darla. I was in her. I felt what they felt for her... affection... the tie... hatred... jealousy... lust... other things I couldn't identify... I felt all of it, and I'm always on the outside. I don't belong here.

"I HATE YOU!" I scream at the clouds, thick and black as smoke above me, and my tears wash away in the pouring sheets that fall from the sky. I don't know who or what I'm raging at... who or what I hate, and my tears don't count at all against the rain.

Outside. Always outside in the cold. Always alone.

"WHY??? WHY????" I scream.

Why any of it? Why was I Chosen? Why did Angel go into that alley with Darla? Why did Spike choose that path to walk on the night the Initiative took him? Why? Why? I don't understand!

Why are we always outside, alone? All of us... the vampires, the Slayers, the witches, the werewolves, the awkward, big-hearted geeks, the ex-cheerleader visionaries, the dead half-demons, the ex-Watchers, the former-demons, the Key to the Gates of something I don't understand... We're all of us dying over and over again, always losing...

All this water, and still, I'm perishing of thirst.

I fall to my knees in the grass. Fell the mud splash up over my shirt. And I scream.

*****

*Buffy has a disturbing dream, freaks out, and has Spike defend her honor... sort of...

Strong arms encircle me.

"Come on... you'll catch your death out here, Pet," Spike says gently into my ear, "Not that that wouldn't be amusing, but I doubt the Grand Poufter would approve."

He pulls me to my feet and brings me out of the rain. I sob into his chest.

"I was her!" I wail, "I drank his blood, and you brought me tea!"

Spike leads me up the stairs, holding me close to his side.

"Oh, Hell... why do I always pick the psychotic ones?" he grumbles.

Up the stairs, down the hall... Darkness.

He plunks me down on the toilet, and I bury my face in my hands. What's wrong with me? I hear the shower start to run, feel the steam, and still I can smell the sweet solace of Angel's blood... our blood...

"I've never... I haven't..." I hiccup.

Spike pulls me to my feet, and tugs off the soaking night shirt.

"Look atcha... you're a mess," he says, like I'm an errant child he's found wandering outside.

But aren't I?

"Spike, I haven't..."

"Haven't what, Pet?" He helps me into the shower. Kicks off his shorts and climbs in behind me. I lean back against him, not sure if I can stand on my own anymore.

Oh, God... the water feels so good... he's so solid and real against my back...

("Probly been eatin' whores again.")

I want the water to wipe me clean... wash the alone away. Spike holds me gently, like I'm delicate, and might break.

"His blood, Will. I've never tasted it."

He tenses... doesn't respond, at first. His strong hands, slick with Sandalwood shower gel (angelscent) rub into my aching skin. Caring. Soothing. Reassuring. But I don't belong here.

"Tastes like lima beans. You're not missing anything," he lies.

I know Angel tastes like candy and fireflies... wisdom and spice. My everything is in him. No... every everything is in him. Spike's heart. Drusilla's mind. Darla's soul. Me. I cry harder, nearly choking on my tears and the water.

"Aw, Hell, Slayer," he gripes, gently rinsing me off. He climbs out first, wraps me in one of the thick bath sheets, then scoops me up and carries me back into the bedroom, depositing me carefully on the bed beside Angel.

"What happened? Is... she okay?" Gentle Angel-voice. "Buffy?"

The bed sinks as Spike sits down. "Think she caught your bloody dementia or something."

"I was her!" I cry, "I know what she is! I was in her!"

"What?" Angel asks.

"She musta had a nightmare. Ran screaming out of here, ranting about blood and Darla's dress or something."

"Oh," he says. "Why don't you get her some tea, Will?"

I huddle close to Angel's legs, feel his hand soothing circles on my bare back.

"It's okay, love. You just had a bad dream," he murmurs.

No. Not a dream. I want to ask him... were you in India with them, right before you got your soul back?

Blood. I can't stop thinking about the Blood. What it all comes down to. Angel's tasted mine... I run in his veins. Spike's tasted his... he gave him eternal life. I'm the only one not really tied to all of this. The X factor in the equation, and suddenly it sits like a hollow space in my gut... a craving. Hunger to know... to feel. To be.

"Angel... please," I hear myself whimper, "I'm so hungry..."

He slides over, lies down beside me, and we are face to face once more. I look into his eyes... relief to see fire there. Not Angelus.

"Do you want something to eat? How can I help you?"

Feed me... How do I tell him? How can I explain the hunger, the thirst, the emptiness?

("You think you know what you are? What's to come? You haven't even begun.")

"I... n-need... I... want..." I can't say it. I don't know how.

Spike comes back with a cup of tea in his hand.

"Way I hear it, she wants to drink you, plonker. She feels left out or some such bullocks. Been doing this whole 'trying to understand what makes her the Slayer' thing. Dracula put it in her head, I think, stupid drama fag, cape-wearin' bastard."

"Dracula?" Angel asks, obviously confused, "When did you see Dracula?"

How the Hell does Spike know me so damn well?

Angel gently urges me upright, and looks straight into my eyes. Those eyes... God... they've always looked right through me... He looks concerned, perplexed... but not nearly as disgusted as I thought he would be.

He holds both my hands tightly.

"Is this true?" he asks. I don't say anything. "Buffy... tell me what's going on."

Is this really happening, or am I still dreaming?

"I... yes... no..." I stutter, and burst into tears again. "I don't know! I just... feel like there's something... important that I need to know, and... you both already know it, and..."

"I can't believe this," Angel mumbles.

"Why don't you just let her? What's the harm?" Spike asks.

Angel keeps staring at me, his face totally unreadable. I have to look away. There's just too much in those eyes. Too much I don't know... that I've never understood. I don't belong...

"No. I don't want her to have to carry that kind of burden," he says softly... flatly, and glances away.

"Oh, sure. But it's okay for me to bear it, right? Yeah, that's just all bloody fair."

"Will... this is different. If she drinks me..."

"You'll be bloody bonded. Sharing thoughts and feelings, blah blah bloody blah. Yeah, I know all the fuck about it. Newsflash, Peaches! She's already got the pain part! Hell, that night I bagged her in the cemetery, we were like a bloody digital telephone line to your ass! But she doesn't get any of the good stuff -- the comfort, the knowing..."

"She's not a vampire. She can't..."

I close my eyes and fall back on the pillows. I don't care. I'm not here, anymore than I was in India in 1887, wearing Darla's skin. I'm not hungry. I can't still smell his blood.

"She's your bloody *mate*! You *marked* her, you fuckin' idiot! She's as close to a damn vampire as she's gonna get without being dead!"

"It's not right."

"Wait just a goddamn minute. You're only gonna give your bloody *chosen* the *sore* enda the effin' deal? That's real goddamn heroic of you!"

I pull the pillow over my head. I'm not here. I'm not here. None of this is happening.

("He doesn't believe in you, Grandmother.")

I don't care. I'm not here. This isn't happening. I want to go home.

(you are home.)

"Spike, you're scaring her."

"I'm not bloody *scaring* her, ya wank! I'm telling the damn truth -- she knows it, and you know it! I'm not the one who *drank* from her and then bloody *left* her with half a tether, then run off to go nutters in the damn sewers! No wonder she can't keep a bloody man!"

"Spike..."

"Why don't you ever finish what you start, Angelus?"

"It wasn't my choice!"

"No, it never is, is it?"

"Boy, if you don't shut your mouth..."

"What, you gonna dust me? Huh? Beat me raw? Bugger me dry?"

"Don't push me, whelp..."

"Whelp? I'll give you fucking whelp..."

I sit up with a jerk that jars my head. "BOTH OF YOU SHUT UP! Stop this! Just... forget I said anything, okay? You're right. I had a nightmare. End of story. Just... let it go. Pretend I didn't..."

Pretend I'm not sitting here dying...

Spike (totally naked Spike, I might add, wearing nothing but a dark scowl and a cup of tea) glares at me. "Pretend you didn't just go running, screaming out in the damn rain because you're full of his bloody PAIN?"

"Will..."

"Don't fucking 'Will' me, Angelus! You've treated her bad enough!"

"You insolent little..." Angel growls, "You don't know what you're talking about."

Spike flings the cup across the room. Angel and I, a million miles apart on the bed, both jump at the sound of shattering china.

He stalks toward us, pointing an accusing finger at his Sire.

You son of a bitch. It's bad enough you took her to mate to begin with! A little kid, and the SLAYER, no less! You can't do what you did and just walk away, goddamn you! You goddamn well planted something in her, just like you did me, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let you leave her half-bound like she's some chit you picked up in a bar!"

The second unspoken "like you did me" rings in my ears. Is Spike really sticking up for me? Why should he care?

Maybe it's me that's gone crazy. Or maybe I'm just starting to understand something about what vampires really *are*...

Angel flinches and closes his eyes, his face collapsing into misery.

I think I'm more confused than anything. This isn't what I wanted to happen. I don't know what I wanted to happen. I'm not even sure I understand what's happening now.

"That's... that's not... It wasn't like that. I..." Angel mutters.

"No? So you didn't feed from her, leave her alive, then walk away? Hell, she 's a quarter bloody made, you bastard! No wonder she's so damn miserable, and you're half out of your tree!"

"This isn't happening. This isn't happening..." I start babbling.

"What's wrong with me has nothing to do with Buffy. Or you, for that matter, Spike."

The blonde laughs... one of those really cold, hollow sounds that makes me shiver even harder. I'm going to throw up.

"You just get more and more stupid with every orgasm, doncha? You're the Sire, here, mate! You're the one who's supposed to understand how all this bloody bond bullocks works! We knew something was wrong with you --the both of us-- long before your little bimbo secretary ever picked up the damn phone! You think I don't feel you every damn day? But I got the whole package, didn't I? Pain and pleasure for a coupla damn decades. Still got the whole tie, if I concentrate hard enough. What's she got? Fucking bittersweet memories and a bleedin' scar on her neck. She can't bloody well hook up with any other bloke, but she doesn't get to claim you, either! And you three-quarters batshit because your whole damn pack's going all to Hell! Just let her fucking drink you already, seal the damn deal, and maybe that'll clear both your scrambled heads up!"

The silence as he finishes he speech is deafening. I slowly sit up, and find him hovering over us... Angel sits, frozen, eyes wide, to my right.

It can't be that simple, can it? Simple... I almost laugh. This situation can't possibly get any more complex. We're talking about... drinking each other's blood...

"If you won't bloody do it, I will," he concludes harshly. "I'll finish your shoddy handiwork. I'll take her, if you can't handle it."

I stare even harder. Does he mean... kill me? Or... Angel's body goes completely rigid beside me... a low, dangerous growl begins in his chest. I can smell his anger... his jealousy.

"Like Hell, you will. I'll see your Final Death first, boy."

"Okay, that's ENOUGH!" I sit up and take a deep breath, looking back and forth between them. I'm surprised to see neither of them is in game face... but they still look like they're ready to tear each other apart any second. "It was just a damn dream! I had a nightmare -- it happens all the time. You guys are overreacting!" The lie tastes bitter on my tongue, but I say it anyway. We're losing focus, here...

If we had a focus in the first place. I'm not even sure, anymore. I push the memory of blood, of Angel half-dead, of Angel making love to me, and Spike probably being right, as usual, out of my head.

They don't take their eyes from one another. The electricity... the violence and danger crackling between them, makes the little hairs on my neck stand on end, and my stomach cramp. I go on. "Look. Maybe it would be best for all of us if I just... go. Angel's better, and really... we're just going around in circles, now."

I hear myself say it, and feel the words ripping into my heart. Now I guess I know a little bit how Angel must have felt when he left. But I just can't do this anymore...

Neither of them move, but their focus turns to me as I climb out of bed and start getting dressed.

I won't cry. We did what we came here to do. Angel's back, and he's fine. The rest is up to him.

("She is lost in thorns and can't find her way out again...")

Whatever this is... the bond, or half-bond, or whatever... it's obviously not doing any of us any good.

"Buffy..." Angel says softly.

I swear, the scar on my neck throbs at the sound of his voice, and I have to wonder if maybe Spike is wrong... How can Angel and I possibly hurt for and because of one another any more than we already do? This isn't right. It's not fair, to any of us. Our existence can't possibly get any more confused and convoluted.

I don't turn around. I pull on my jacket and just keep walking.

It's better this way. Just go. Leave all this behind. All this pain... the ache in my bones and the fire in my blood. (thirsty...) Maybe he and Spike can work out whatever they have to... but I don't think there's anything else for Angel and I to say. We've hit that wall that's always stood between us... the difference between what he is, and what I am. And there's just no way to get around it.

I make it through the door. That's good. No one's going to follow me. I'll just walk out of here. Call Cordy to take me to the bus station. Leave all this madness (your family. your lovers.) behind.

The hallway is dark. I can hear the rain pounding on the roof. Thunder crashing.

I can barely see, but I know where I'm going.

Don't I?

(away, that's all. somewhere... anywhere... else.)

I can smell the fire behind me. Lust. Love. Blood.

(home)

The tears come again. I'm so tired of crying. I never asked for any of this. I never asked to love him, or need him the way I do. He never asked for it, either.

I make it to the top of the stairs. I feel like I've walked so far, but it's really only a few feet. I have to keep going. There's nothing for me, here. Nothing but this hunger, confusion, agony... I have to go.

A hand stops me, resting gently on my shoulder.

I stop. Automatically reach up and put my own hand over it.

(*this living hand, now warm and capable*)

"Don't go," Angel says softly, "Please."

He gently squeezes. I squeeze in return. A reflex from deep in my cells.

(*of earnest grasping, would, if it were close,*)

I close my eyes. Feel him run through me. He smells like home. Like heart. He wraps his arms around my shoulders, and presses tender kisses into my hair.

"I need you," he whispers, "I know I don't deserve to ask, but... please. Stay."

(*and in the icy silence of the tomb*)

"Spike's right, Buffy. I've done wrong by you. Dishonored you. I didn't mean to, but I did."

"No," I breathe, leaning back into the comfort of his big body. "You did what you had to do. The right thing. You always do."

Where did my conviction go?

He turns me around slowly, and I look up into his face... his eyes so warm and full. (god, I love him...) He shakes his head.

"Not always. Not this time. I was running so hard from what I am, I forgot to realize the implications of things I did. Especially with you and Spike."

(*so haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights*)

His cool fingers brush my cheek. He looks deep into me... so deep, I know that his soul can see mine.

"I'm sorry. Let me make it right," he whispers. "With both of you."

I hear the soft shuffle of footsteps behind us. Spike stands silhouetted in the bedroom doorway, framed by the light of the fire.

I try to smile at him. I don't know if it works, but... Angel looks at him too, and then back at me again.

"I need you. Both of you. You're part of me, and I'm incomplete without you."

(*that thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood*)

"Stay with me... take what I have... please."

His voice is so full... I can feel his pain. I feel them both... their tie to one another. Centuries of memories between them. The ache of a family torn apart, ties stretched to their limit, but never broken. We've all come this far... can we really heal each other?

How am I a part of all this?

("Your power so near our own...")

Angel takes my hand, his mahogany eyes never leaving mine, and we walk back to the bedroom, where Spike is waiting.

(*and thou be conscience-calmed--see, here it is--*)

(*I hold it towards you*)

I guess I'm about to find out.

*****