Chapter 6 He awoke slowly, a strange lethargy clinging to him relentlessly. He moved carefully, his body tensely awaiting the expected pain that never came. He sat up, a dizziness overtaking him for a moment, forcing him to slow down. He raised his head as soon as he felt steady enough to do so, and was startled to see a small blonde figure draped across a chair beside him.
"Buffy?" He murmured. The figure stirred slightly in her sleep, strands of golden hair falling across her cheek, tickling the long, dark lashes. Is this real? He wondered. He remembered waking, before. People staring down at him, then leaving quietly. He shook his head trying to sort fragments of memory from dream, the effort making his head spin.
He rose to his feet, tenderly testing his body, but still no pain came. Other then the strange fog in his mind and an irritating chafing against his skin he felt perfectly fine.
He smiled, the expression slightly odd across his pale features, there was one thing he could take care of. With a few quick motions he tore away at the bandages wrapped around his body, wincing slightly at the dried blood splattered across everything, mute evidence of near fatal wounds. He rubbed away at the bits clinging to his body, brown flakes dropping away to expose unblemished pale skin.
He walked across the room silently, flexing his stiff muscles, relishing in the feel of a healthy body. A small pile of clothes rested on a chair in a corner of the room, suddenly very aware of his nudity he tied a pair of sweatpants to his waist.
He could feel something pulling at him from outside, calling to him with the sweet voice of memory. Fire crackled in the hearth, emitting a soft inviting glow that beckoned him to stay. He ignored the golden warmth as the pull grew harder, more demanding.
He moved towards the garden, the fog in his mind making all conscious thought impossible. His body led the way surely, although it had been uncountable centuries since he had last walked these halls.
He saw her picking roses in the garden, her pale dress mingling curiously with her skin in the wan moonlight, making her seem sensuously nude.
Her dark hair was elaborately made around her face, framing her delicate features with a startling clash of black against white.
For a moment memory mixed with reality. He saw her as she once was; innocent and lovely, fresh and full of life. Then a breeze brought the cloying stench of death to his senses and reality planted itself firmly in his bewildered mind.
"Drusilla..." He murmured, his voice gruff and unsteady.
She turned towards him allowing him to see the true difference between memory and reality; all light of sanity was gone from her eyes. "Angel," she whispered, her little-girl voice grating against his tender nerves. She eyed him appreciatively, taking in his smooth bare chest and the flimsy cloth covering him from waist down. "Not my Angel anymore."
"Was I ever?" He asked. The haze in his mind was beyond his control now, and he felt as though he was moving in a dream. The moon's silvery light drew an ethereal quality, painting the world in unrelenting shades of black and white. Her skin seemed to glow in that light, her face a masterpiece of creation spoiled only by the light of madness beaming in her eyes.
She giggled sweetly and brought a rose to her lips, sniffing at it coyly. "You were always my Angel. Even when you thought I was yours and made me scream out your name..."
"When you were human?"
She nodded, "and later when your heart reeked of the Slayer," her voice took a hard edge, her fingers callously crushing the delicate rose. "You were such a bad daddy and even then you were mine. Every time you wouldn't kill me, every time you wouldn't let that nasty Slayer kill me." She looked at him sadly, her fingers reaching up to touch him, "but you're not mine anymore. You're hers."
She had cut herself from the rose's thorns. Her fingers were bloody, a dark contrast against the chalky whiteness of her skin, but he let her touch him anyway. "Whose am I, Dru?" His voice was deceptively patient.
She looked at him as if she could see right through him and giggled, her fingers tracing a bloody signature on his pale chest. "Do you know why the Slayer brought you out of hell?" She asked, completely ignoring his question.
He took a deep, unnecessary breath. A small flame of anger began to smolder in his gut. Inhaling deeply again to control that flame he shook his head.
The dark vampiress glanced around as if afraid of eavesdroppers. He bravely resisted an urge to break her neck. "You're supposed to save the world," she confided. "Or destroy it." Then she laughed, no longer a little girl's laugh, a laugh full of malicious hate. "The moon sings to me. She tells me you don't know who you are. How can you do anything if you don't even know who you are?"
The small flame in his gut rose to a full-blown inferno, he could feel his face changing even as he took a menacing step towards his insane childe. "What are you talking about, Dru?" He demanded.
"Impotent!" She screeched at him, "all that power, all that rage and still you're impotent!"
He lost control, grabbing her roughly by the waist he pinned her against his body, "am I impotent, Drusilla?" He snarled, pushing against her, forcing her to feel him, to acknowledge him. His hand wrapped around the nape of her neck, a dark warning to the ease with which he could end her life. She paused only to laugh in his face before sinking her fangs into his lips. Realizing he was fooled he dug his claws into her cool skin, pulling her away from him.
She broke away with a soft growl, her demon marring her perfect features, "so powerful, and so impotent," she moaned, his blood dripping from her lips, staining her chin crimson.
"I think you'd better leave now, Dru," A calm, hard voice said from behind them. Buffy stood leaning against the door, subtly toying with a sharp stake, her eyes as hard as flint.
The vampiress backed away with a snarl, fear evident on her demonic face, "sometimes, when the moon would hide from me and the nights were dark," she whispered in a child's voice, her eyes never leaving the Slayer. "I could hear you screaming in hell." Only then she risked a glance at her Sire, "It used to make me want to laugh," She told him as she disappeared into the night. "Are you all right?" Buffy asked softly. Angel snarled, his lip had already healed, but the blood dripping down his demonic features made him seem like an insane beast in the darkness. She waited as his anger slowly drained and his face reverted back to its human facade.
He watched her leaning against the doorway, her lithe body filled with catlike grace, firelight from inside made her hair blaze like a golden halo. "You're hurt," she said, reaching up delicate fingers to his lips.
For a single moment memory and reality mixed in his tortured brain. He could see his lover's face clearly in the soft moonlight, and just as clearly he could see a demon's face, lovely and perfect, sneering at him with contempt. He instinctively recoiled from her, "don't touch me!" He gasped, the words flying out of his mouth beyond his control, fear shining in his eyes.
"I'm sorry," she choked, the words holding more meaning than she could ever explain. "You slept through the entire day, and when I woke up and couldn't find you after you nearly," she noticed his bare chest, marked only by his childe's blood, for the first time and her eyes narrowed with confusion, "died," she finished lamely. "Angel, what happened to your wounds?"
You don't know who you are. He brought a trembling hand to his lips, wiping away at the drying blood. How can you do anything if you don't even know who you are? "Is it true?" He asked. "Did you bring me back so I could fight some evil?"
She flinched as though he had struck her a blow, "damn Drusilla!" She muttered. "It's not like that," she explained lamely, "it was just this weird coincidence where we had one part of the key and Spike had the other part. I guess we needed some sort of mutual crises to come together and..."
He ran a shaking hand through his soft, dark hair, "I think I need to be alone now, Buffy."
She reached out for him instinctively, "Angel, I..."
"Please, Buffy!"
She nodded weakly, her hand dropping lamely beside her, "I'll come see you later tonight," she promised. He nodded as she disappeared into the night, a distracted gesture of a man with too much on his mind.
Confusion eddied around him as she left, slivers of memory cutting at him with jagged edges of truth. A bullwhip gleefully biting into his skin, implemented by an insanely laughing demon. Can you feel it? Claws tearing across his body with the abandon of a lover. I love you, Angel.
He sank to his knees on callously discarded rose petals, his hands clasped against his ears, his eyes tightly shut, trying to blot out his senses, trying to shut the memories out. Hellfire burning away his skin, the stench of brimstone boring into every crevice and pore in his body, choking him, suffocating him. Hanging on a cross as the early light of dawn gently burned his awareness away. How can you do anything if you don't even know who you are?
"Stop!" He screamed. The night carried his voice away, accepting his madness as it echoed into nothing. "Please stop," he begged, his hands dropping to the ground to support his trembling body.
The fog slowly seeped out of his mind, illusive memories clearing way to reality as in a sudden moment of absolute clarity he understood what he had to do.
He's all right, he's just in shock, Buffy murmured to herself as she headed towards the library. Don't touch me. The bitter taste that left in her mouth refused to go away. Did he hate her? Was it so bad that he couldn't stand the mere sight of her? She shook her head trying to dispel the distracting thoughts and tried to concentrate on something more immediate. Those wounds should have taken several months to heal at best, yet they were gone as though they had never existed. And he hadn't even answered her question about them. She shook her head again, she was getting nowhere on her own, she definitely needed to talk this over with Giles.
"Where is Giles?" She asked as she stepped into the library. Her friends were lounging around, talking quietly and reading books. Or in Xander's case eating too many donuts.
"He said he was going home to get some sleep," Cordelia replied, looking up from the book she was reading. "All this time I thought he lived here."
