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DISCLAIMER: I disclaim.
SUMMARY: B/A. Post-Chosen (but without AtS5 spoilers beyond your basic 'Spike's
back!').
DEDICATION: To all my fellow B/A lj-ers. *hugs all* Merry Christmas!
WORDCOUNT: 4470
THANKYOU
to DarkStar for having the Rosebud idea. This began as a sweet Christmas ficlet
but it grew and grew and I still have to get to that original idea.
to Sharon for betaing it even though RL was attacking her. *hugs* Thankyou
sweetie! Oh, and she wrote Wolverine/Rogue fic for me!!! *SMOOCH*
to Laura for helping with some details. of course, I haven't yet gotten to that
part but I'm working on it. :-D
to Eleni (for mentioning 'Ten Weak Reasons to Break up') and Meghan (for
supporting me since the first moment.)
to Ashley, author of 'Plan: Revenge' because she used carnations in her story and
that helped A LOT.
Information about the Language of Flowers can be found here and here (only roses).
Nothing But The Truth
NO WORDS TO TELL YOU GOODBYE
by Leni
There were few things worse than realising a whole year had gone by and you
couldn’t remember what you’d done with it.
An apocalypse right when she was having cramps was one of them. Or maybe seeing Xander
devour the last donut on an all-night research. Oh yes, the last was definitely worse.
Buffy was sure she’d seen Willow glare at her best friend, back in the times
when it was only the three of them. Funny how it’d ended with the three of them, too.
Breathe. Don’t think about that end.
Oh yes, Xander and the last donut. That was safe. Anya’s reaction had never been as
surreptitious as Willow’s. She had slapped his hand, promptly grabbing the sweet and
biting it. Buffy still remembered Xander’s amused shrug and his philosophical
‘Fiancée’s Rights’ comment as he gazed lovingly at said fiancée who was
busy licking the jelly off her lips.
Back then Buffy had sighed romantically before she could stop it. She remembered thinking
that her life was too crazy already to envy the freakiness that was Xander and Anya
getting married. Weeks later, after that non-wedding, she’d wish she had told them
how envious she’d been, how perfect they’d seemed together. Maybe... Maybe if
Xander had been more sure that they were right. Maybe....
Stop.
Rewind.
There were few things worse than a year passing by you...
Buffy looked at the calendar hanging from the wall. 15th December, it said. She sighed and
ripped a leaf. There, 16th now. Really, where did the last three hundred forty nine days
go?
The coffee was already perked. Good. A Sunday morning begun at 10:00 am with strong
coffee. She could have the blues but she was determined to make of this a good day. There,
determined stare at the mirror, determined stare looking back. Buffy mused that it should
be harder to feel this determined with red eyes from crying all night and cheekbones which
were this close from being prominent. God, you should eat some more, she could
almost hear Xander’s voice in the tiny living room. Buffy smiled. Really, an ocean
and months apart and they still worried too much.
She brushed her teeth and smiled a white smile at her reflection. What to do with a free
Sunday all to herself? She thought of calling Connie or maybe even cranky Beth but her
smile disappeared when she remembered that her fellow secretaries were on holidays with
their family (Connie) and boyfriend (Beth). And she was not desperate enough to call
Marlene. Buffy had told the fourth member of their clique that she didn’t have
anything against lesbians, she had even told her about Willow and Tara and that phase of
Dawn’s three years ago. But Buffy knew that Marlene was after more than friendship,
for some reason the brunette thought that Buffy might be a lesbian still in the closet.
Probably because Marlene had seen her break relationship after relationship in the months
they’d worked together.
Buffy sighed. No, no thinking about being single and lonely and why her boyfriend in
London hadn’t been angry when she broke up with him out of the blue. Instead Mark
hugged her, kissed her brow and murmured ‘Until you understand yourself’ before
leaving his own bedroom to give her the time to dress and quietly leave through the
window.
Old habits die hard, Buffy thought with a bitter chuckle.
But she wouldn’t think about that.
She wouldn’t.
Instead she would go running. That was it. She changed into her favourite sportswear and
decided that the wind blowing against her face as she ran though the lonely streets of
Liverpool would make her forget. Forget what? Buffy laughed aloud. A sad joke, true, but
someone had to make them, especially in difficult times. She learned from the best,
didn’t she?
Laugh again.
The laugh died as soon as she opened the door.
This time it was a yellow and red blur greeting her. Yellow roses mingled with red
carnations against his black clothes.
She backed away. “You shouldn’t be here.”
Angel shrugged. He. just. shrugged.
Bastard, Buffy thought with all the resentment she saved only for him. “They
wouldn’t have given you the address this time. I told them I’d vanish and
they’d never find me.”
He nodded. “Willow said that, just as she shut the door on my face. Of course, that
was after the twentieth time she slammed the phone as soon as she heard my voice.” A
chuckle. “And I thought Xander was the one with no manners.”
Buffy rolled her eyes. She had spent her teenage years defending one male from the other,
now she thought she should just leave them at it. Of course, from Xander’s tone over
the phone every time he ‘casually’ mentioned Angel and the small smile on
Angel’s lips right now, Buffy felt safe in guessing that the situation wasn’t
tense anymore.
“Your friend only threatened to tie me to a cross if I dared contact you again,”
he continued nonchalantly.
Or she could be wrong. “Did he?”
Angel nodded. “Harris even said he’d build the cross himself. Oh well,” The
corners of his lips lifted a bit more. “At least it’d be a well crafted
torture.”
“Yeah, I guess you’d like that,” she whispered.
Angel frowned but let it go. “He’s a new man, and excellent at what he does.
Judging by the work he’s done for me-“
Buffy gasped. She’d known that Xander was maintaining contact with the vampire but
she hadn’t thought they’d be working together. “I- I didn’t
know.”
“I doubt he’d rush to tell you that he was working with,” He made quote
signs in the air. “The only being in the world I wish I never see again. Including
the Master.” A small pout marked his lips. “Really, did you have to be so
harsh?”
“Yes.” He cocked an eyebrow at her. “No. I mean....” Damn. When had
she lost control of the situation? It always was the same. She would move and he would
follow, appearing on her doorstep with flowers and a smile. Only that this time she had
made her friends swear that they wouldn’t give him the address or any hint of where
she might be. She had made them swear even as they repeated – even Giles, for
God’s sake! – that it was a mistake. “You didn’t answer me.”
Angel sighed, a patient parent explaining something to a little child. “I owned a
detective agency. Do the math.” He shook his head. “Really, Buffy, how many
‘Buffy Summers’ do you think there are in the world?”
Buffy swore, she knew she should have changed her name. But when your name was the last
tangible thing you have of your mother it’s impossible to part with it. She looked at
the man in her doorstep and decided that it didn’t matter. He might be talking softly
and even joking but from the glint in his eyes she knew that he’d have found her
anywhere, under every pretence.
He shifted on his feet and pointed at the flowers in his hand. “These need
water.”
Buffy knew what he really meant. It didn’t matter, she wouldn’t let him enter
her life again. “Give them over,” she said, holding her hands out.
She didn’t contemplate the beauty of the roses as she went to the kitchen. She
didn’t smell the carnations as she filled a vase with water and carefully arranged
the flowers. She didn’t. But she did shriek when she came back to find Angel
comfortably sitting on her favourite couch. “Wha-?”
Angel smiled. A smug smile that told her that she definitely wasn’t in control of the
situation. “Oh, your landlady is quite the kind woman,” he said offhandedly.
“I’m very glad to see that she kept her promise and didn’t ruin your
surprise.”
“Surprise?” Buffy squeaked.
“Didn’t you know? I’m here to surprise one of my dearest friends –
that is, you – for Christmas.” He reclined further into the couch. “Myrtle
seemed quite happy that there was a young man like me interested in you. Tsk, Buffy, is it
true that you broke up with one of your boyfriends because of his hairdo?”
“What? No!” Buffy blushed, remembering what she’d shouted down the corridor
as Bobby left.
Angel laughed. "Of course not. That's why poor Myrtle spent two hours and half her
tea supply convincing Mr. Duncan that he was a fine man and that you were just too
stressed."
“Well, I *was* stressed,” Buffy defended, “and Bobby knew I loved his long
hair. Cutting it was a direct blow to our relationship, it meant he didn’t care about
my opinion.”
“Yes,” Angel said condescendingly. Buffy bristled, she hated that tone.
“I’m sure *Bobby* was plotting with the evil hairdresser against you as he cut
his hair so he’d fit better at his new job. By the way, did you even let him tell you
that he had been promoted?”
Buffy sat on the sofa’s arm rather abruptly. No, she had thrown him out before he
could say a complete sentence.
“But you didn’t break up because of the hairdo, did you?”
She shrugged. “What does it matter anymore?“ Buffy raised her head and stared at
him. “Besides, it isn’t any of your business.”
Angel didn’t answer as he usually did. Buffy had divided his reactions in two
categories. One, he threw some cutting remark which prompted her to leave his presence as
soon as possible. Two, he insisted that they were still part of each other’s lives
even though they only saw each other when he meddled in the life she tried to rebuild. She
had never guessed there could be a third one until Angel threw his head back, laughed and
finally said “Fair enough,” with a chuckle.
This was new territory and she didn’t like it one bit.
“Come on, Buffy, you surely understand the anecdote was too funny not to have your
side of the story.”
Her eyes furrowed dangerously. “That’s what my love life is to you? An
anecdote?”
“Well, your relationships never last long enough to write a novel about them, so I
guess ‘anecdote’ is a good term. Though maybe ‘short story’ could
apply. Of course, short stories are rich in interpretation, one has to read them
caref-“
“Damn, Angel, I do remember what a short story is, okay? Yo-“ Buffy flushed,
wishing she could take the last second back. “You explained it to me,” she
finished in a much softer voice.
Angel’s eyes brightened for a second and Buffy knew he remembered that as well. A
night at the cemetery, like so many others, with a stake in one hand and her Literature
book in the other. Her head comfortable against Angel’s chest as he patiently
explained about James Joyce and how it was possible to read so many things from such brief
texts...
“Don’t you have a half-evil firm to lead on the other side of the
Atlantic?”
Angel stared, a silent reprimand for changing the subject. She didn’t care, she just
wanted to lose the memory of his fingers playing with her hair into a mindless chat.
“Actually,” he replied when it was clear she wouldn’t budge,
“we’re going through a calm phase at W&H.”
Buffy snorted. “The calm before the storm, you mean.”
He shook his head. “Wesley and Gunn assure me it’s not that. I believe them, no
irregular activity has occurred in the last weeks.”
“Well,” she said breezily, “Must be the Christmas Season, after all, what
self respecting demon would work on Christmas?” Buffy only noticed it had been a big
mistake when a flash of hurt crossed his eyes. “Except the really evil ones, of
course,” she said lamely. “I’m sorry.”
Angel shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
But Buffy knew it did matter. He had almost died that night and she had been so
desperate... so desperate... “We don’t have to talk about that night, do
we?” Her voice was strangled and she hated that.
“No.” No other word was necessary.
This silence was strange.
Even stranger than those uncomfortable silences in his last year in Sunnydale. Back when
they were still girlfriend and boyfriend and yet every two minutes reality showed then
that their relationship was nothing but nominal. At least then there was a reason to stay
silent, a mute agreement that words only brought reality closer and they had wanted to
escape so badly. So badly that she had ended up in another continent and he worked on the
fine line between right and wrong.
Look how far we’ve gone, Buffy thought bitterly. But she still didn’t say
anything.
Normally it was Angel who broke the silence. He and his questions, his explanations, his
demands. And always his hope. “We can work through this,” was what he had said
the first time she opened her door in Cleveland. “You are too damn stubborn!” he
had shouted from the New York street while she packed her bags in a hurry and left through
the back window. “I don’t understand,” a desperate tone carried by Boston
winds as she ran down the corridor, leaving him standing in her kitchen. All of them had
been said to break the silence. “I love you damnit, don’t you get it?” he
had whispered against her hair the last time in London, “Even Spike admits I really
love you, why can’t you believe me?” It had been a mistake to let him hug her,
to let her head rest on his chest and feel the rumble of his words through her body. Angel
had dared kiss her then, a quick peck on her hairline, just like a brother saying
good-bye. But Angel was anything but her brother. And he certainly hadn’t meant
good-bye. If he had, he wouldn’t have traced her to Liverpool just to appear with
carnations and roses.
She hadn’t cried that night five months ago. But she had practically begged her
roommate for tissues when Mark had unknowingly mirrored the scene the day afterward. Karen
had been annoyed by the nightly sniffles and loud nightmares which followed, she
practically grinned and clapped when Buffy had told her that she’d be moving in few
days.
Angel still had the knack to disrupt her life and turn it upside down. It wasn’t
fair. It wasn’t. She was a 26-year-old woman who wouldn’t let her life be lead
by a stubborn vampire whose idea of romance was to stalk her.
She was tired of changing towns and jobs and friends every time Angel showed up. She was
tired of running across countries and oceans and always having him on her heels. She
didn’t want to wake up every morning wondering if this’d be the day he’d
‘visit’ her, she didn’t want his presence in her space because it
confused the hell out of her. She couldn’t breathe for long in the rooms he had stood
in, and yes, she realised the irony of that statement. She hated the memory of his voice
reminding her of the girl she’d been, of the love she’d felt oh so long ago.
Buffy hated what his visits meant. The walls she’d carefully built around her past
closing in on her when his eyes asked for a chance. Her secrets, the ones he shared,
picking at every lock they could find while the other ones, those he’d never learn
about, ran havoc with the conviction he’d discover them somehow. Buffy didn’t
like the uncertainty he caused, the questions he left her to fight with. She had tried so
far to drive him off, had told him many times that she didn’t need him.
That she didn’t want him.
And that she definitely did not love him.
Angel never heard her, his protests and promises deafening her until her only option was
to run far away from him. How many times had she left him standing in her apartment? Nine
times for nine apartments, and this one made for the double digits.
Buffy sighed. He never understood and she hated this situation. She hated him. Oh, how she
hated him. “Why are you here this time?” she bit off, not realising that for the
first time she’d been the one to break the silence.
The question was foolish, of course. His answer only confirmed it.
“Why do you think?”
Buffy bit her lips. She hated him, she reminded herself. She would not let him play with
her life anymore, she swore silently. “Get out.”
Angel didn’t move a muscle. He had been regarding her carefully for the last minutes,
content that her features were still as easy to read. Buffy had finally grown exasperated
with their charade and she believed that he didn’t give a damn. He didn’t, but
he still had news for her. “I’m tired of this too, Buffy,” he confessed,
looking at the ceiling in the worldwide gesture of helplessness. “I’m tired of
running after you and I’m tired of your stubbornness and of finding a line of lovers
at your doorstep.” Buffy wanted to protest, she didn’t have ‘lines’ of
lovers, but Angel’s pensive face made her pause. ”How long since this
began?”
“Three years and five months,” she replied automatically. In that time he had
knocked at nine different doors with nine different flowers. This was actually the first
time he’d brought two types of flowers in the same bouquet.
“And another year during which I left you in peace because you needed time to
bake.”
She chortled. “Bake?”
He shrugged. “Your words, not mine.” He stood up. “Why are you still here,
Buffy? Shouldn't you have walked out on me by now?"
Buffy narrowed her eyes. “It’s *my* living room.”
Angel shrugged. “That never stopped you before.” He glanced at her up and down.
“You’re dressed for the occasion anyway.”
Buffy remembered her sports wear. Right, she had planned to do some exercise before the
stubborn ex had decided to interrupt her Sunday. “I’m rescheduling,” she
said daring him to contradict her.
He gave her a small smile and looked past her at the flowers in Buffy’s only vase.
“Did you like the flowers?”
What? Buffy glanced at the flowers too, the yellow and red brightening the grey atmosphere
of her little apartment. “Yes, yes, they are beautiful. Angel, won’t yo-”
She turned around to see him opening the door. “What are you doing?”
“You asked me to leave,” he answered calmly. Too calmly.
Buffy studied him. It was a trick. He wouldn’t give up so easily, he’d spent
years chasing her and swearing eternal love. It had to be a trick. Did he really think
she’d go after him and beg him to take her back like some paperback novel heroine?
“I did. Bye Angel.”
She nearly rolled her eyes when Angel closed the door and took a small step towards her,
of course he wouldn’t leave so easily.
“Call Willow, she’s worried about you.” He picked up a kerchief that was
laying on her centre table, then took the door knob again. “Oh,” he threw over
his shoulder, “Dawn says you better go home for Christmas because she won’t
accept not having her family with her.”
Angel opened the door and let himself out.
Buffy followed to shout at him down the corridor. “Until the next time, isn’t it
Angel? You’ll have to work even harder this time, I promise you that!”
But he didn’t answer.
The next day Buffy came home from the store carrying her new travel bags. Some had given
out in her last trip. It was only expected after carrying them through the States and then
across the ocean.
It was time to begin again. England hadn’t done the trick to keep him out of her
life. She should have known it, how many times had she heard from Giles about the
resources of Wolfham and Hart in Europe? Maybe she should try another continent, India
sounded great. Buffy had always wanted to visit the exotic land, maybe she could even find
a work as tour guide and see all the sights before Angel found her in another few months.
Or maybe Africa. Egypt. Yes, Buffy had always wanted to visit the pyramids. She sighed, at
this rate she’d see the entire world before her thirtieth birthday. Not that she
minded meeting so many people and knowing so many places but she’d have preferred to
do it out of her own volition, not because Angel was chasing her.
She put the bags against the wall and opened the door.
Buffy wasn’t surprised when she found Myrtle inside, dusting the furniture. The
landlady, even in her late sixties if Buffy was guessing well, was a very active woman and
Buffy couldn’t remember a time when the fragile old lady wasn’t doing something
in her property or caring for her precious roses in the garden.
“Oh, Miss Summers, you are back already!”
Buffy smiled, of all the landladies she’d had in the last years, Myrtle – as she
didn’t let anyone call her Mrs. Whitmore – was definitely her favourite. Always
happy and helpful, Myrtle treated everyone in the building as part of her own family.
“I didn’t stay long at work,” she said as she carried the bags to her
bedroom. She opened the closet doors, deciding quickly what would have to be packed first.
“I just handed in my resignation and then stopped at a store,” she called
through the door. Finally deciding that for a better job she’d have to have all her
bags at hand, she went to the kitchen. As she had never used the kitchen much, she kept
things in the cabinets that would clutter her private room.
“Your resignation, darling?” Myrtle asked from the living room, “Did you
finally find a better job?”
Buffy stopped looking for her bags realizing she still had to tell Myrtle that she was
moving. She'd have to break her lease on the flat and she hoped her landlady would
understand. “Myrtle, we have to talk,” she said and, walking to the living room,
she motioned Myrtle to sit.
The woman looked at her with a curious expression but sat anyway.
“I’m leaving.”
Surprise crossed past Myrtle’s face but immediately her features changed into an
apologetic gesture. “Oh, Miss Summers, I hope this has nothing to do with Mr.
O’Connor.”
Buffy looked at her, “Mr O’Connor?”
“I’m sorry, I know I should have told you of his visit, but he seemed such a
fine gentleman. So correct and educated! He told me he wanted to surprise you.” She
bit her lip slightly. “I never thought he meant a surprise break up. I’m so
sorry, had I known-“
“What?”
Myrtle raised startled eyes to the younger woman. “Oh, he wasn’t a- a boyfriend?
I thought... He knew your address and he spoke so sweetly of you, so I assumed-“
“Angel and I,” Buffy pursed her lips. “We have a complicated history. But,
where did you get the idea that he’d had broken up with me?”
“I didn’t mean to pry.” Of course not, Buffy thought. The older woman was
very kind, true, but she also was too curious. “I saw him leaving alone yesterday,
then you slammed your door and Mr. Dean in the corner said that you were running as if
there was no tomorrow.” Buffy closed her eyes for a second. Fantastic, even if it
wasn’t customary for her to leave after Angel’s visits she’d have to do it
anyway or the whole neighbourhood would pity her as the girl who couldn’t keep a
boyfriend for a complete hour. “Today I came to clean your apartment and there were
those flowers, so, as everything fit together-”
“Flowers?” Buffy asked before she could contain herself. What did Angel’s
flowers have to do with this? If she had thrown them to the trash as every dumped
girlfriend maybe she’d have understood Myrtle’s assumption. But no, she glanced
at the colourful vase in her kitchen, the roses still bright yellow while the carnations,
if a bit wilted, still were an intense red. “What happened with the flowers?”
Myrtle just looked at her for a long while. Finally she chuckled. “Oh, of course,
such a young thing like you, what would you know?” She laughed, “I’m just
an old woman who thinks the worst. Of course that young fine man couldn’t have lied
to me, he was too courteous for stooping so low.”
“I still don’t understand,” Buffy said, totally confused now.
Myrtle got up and smiled. “I forgot that you two are too young to know these things.
In my day, those flowers alone would have meant the rupture of a compromise. Now they are
only pretty flowers.”
“Rupture?”
“Oh, darling,” she soothed, noticing Buffy’s paler face, ”Don’t
you worry about it, I’m sure your Angel doesn’t have any idea of the language of
flowers. Just like you.” She laughed again.
Buffy stared at the flowers. Angel was not a ‘young fine man’, he was older than
Myrtle could imagine. He had been around in the era where romanticism was in the air and
everything could be said with flowers. She looked back at Myrtle, who was now dusting the
table. Myrtle knew what those damned roses and those damned carnations meant. Just like
Angel had known when he brought them.
What the hell was he trying to tell her?
“Myrtle,” she began in a low voice, “what do those flowers mean?”
The older woman smiled indulgently. “Don’t worry about it, Miss Summers. It was
just an error on my part. I’m sorry for worrying you unnecessarily.”
“I’m curious.” Buffy told herself that she didn’t care, whatever
Angel’s message was she didn’t care. She was just curious. Just curious.
“Oh well, if you want to know.” Myrtle walked until she could touch the petals.
First she caressed a yellow rose, blowing away the bit of dust that had accumulated on it
during the day. “Yellow roses stand for friendship, that everyone knows. But when
they are mixed with other flowers, they mean ‘Let us forget’.” Myrtle let
the rose go. “For example, with purple hyacinths, which mean ‘Forgive me’,
they’d only ask a lady to forget an offence.”
“But?”
Myrtle smiled comfortingly. “But with these.” She pointed at the red buds among
the yellow. “They mean something among the lines of ‘It’s over’. Red
carnations carry one of the saddest messages, in my opinion, they mean ‘Alas for my
poor heart’.”
“Alas for my poor heart...” Buffy repeated, suddenly making sense of too many
things.
“But I’m telling you, Miss Summers, I’m completely sure Mr. O’Connor
didn’t know about it. Men pay so little attention to the details!” Myrtle turned
so she could reassure the other woman but Buffy wasn’t there anymore.
The End
22/12/03
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