I wake up slowly in a warm bed
with soft, silk sheets, visions of pleasant dreams still lingering in my head.
For a second I don’t remember where I am, but I’m so comfortable that this gap
in my knowledge doesn’t particularly bother me. I sit up and stretch languidly,
my features pulled into a large yawn, my eyes blinking in order to adjust to
the darkness of my surroundings.
As the last vestiges of sleep
clear from my mind, my memory gradually returns and I automatically reach up to
touch the already healed wound on my cheekbone. Disjointed pictures come
flooding back. Riley’s face contorted in anger. The shocked looks of our
guests. Angel with his hand held loosely in mine as he led me out of the
airport. For a second it is all too much to comprehend and I just want to curl
into a ball and go back to sleep where none of this existed, where all my
problems were forgotten.
Then the door clicks open and
Angel flicks on the overhead light, illuminating the gentle concern of his
expression.
“Hey,” he greets me softly. “How
are you feeling?”
I shrug and give him a weak
smile. “Numb, I guess. Like this is all a dream and I’m going to wake-up any
second. How long was I out, anyway?”
“About twelve hours. I didn’t
want to disturb you – thought you needed the rest.”
“I did.” Twelve hours sleep
– that’s the most I’ve had since before Caleb was born.
At the thought of my son, my mothering instinct goes into
overdrive. “Where’s Caleb? He should have had a feed by now.” I pull myself out
of bed, searching desperately for the rest of my clothes.
Angel catches the tops of my arms, halting my frantic behaviour.
“It’s okay, calm down. Cordelia’s looking after him for you.”
“Cordelia!” I yelp. “You entrusted the care of my baby son to
Cordelia Chase? What were you thinking?”
He looks a little affronted by my verbal assault, which is
probably justified since he did drop everything to pick me and Caleb up from
the airport last night on no notice whatsoever. And he has taken us in and
given me his bed and listened to me cry over my disaster of a marriage to
another man. And now I’ve just insulted one of his best friends. So much for
gratitude. But still…Cordelia and babies aren’t really mixable things.
“She’s changed a lot since you knew her,” Angel reassures me.
“She’s become a lot more responsible and mature. And she’s got Wesley and Gunn
to back her up if she needs them. Here – ” he produces a cellular phone from
his inside jacket pocket, “you can even call to check up on them if you like.”
The image of Angel with a cell phone is so incongruous I have to
look twice, before shaking my head to decline the offer. “It’s all right. If
you say things are fine, then I trust you.”
“Good,” he smiles softly, touching my hand gently before putting
away the phone and rising from his position seated on the bed next to me. “Now,
would you like some breakfast? Or I should probably say lunch, considering how
late it is.”
My stomach growls hungrily at his suggestion of a meal. “As long
as it’s food then I don’t care what else you call it. It will be food, won’t
it? Because I’m not really a big blood drinker myself.”
He grins. “Don’t worry, I have diversified into solid foods
slightly. How about some eggs?”
I lick my lips. “Sounds good to me. And toast. And coffee. Ooh, and
pancakes, with maple syrup…do you know how to make pancakes…?”
~~~
I push my empty plate away with a
sigh of satisfaction. As it turns out, Angel does know how to make pancakes and
very delicious ones too. If I hadn’t been head over heels in love with him
already then the sudden realisation he can actually cook would have sealed the
deal. He is definitely going to come in useful in the future.
The future. That’s something I haven’t really let myself think about yet.
When I left Riley I wasn’t thinking past the nest five minutes, or I probably
wouldn’t have done it at all. I tore apart my family and my marriage – there
will be no reconciliation now, which I am only sorry about for Caleb’s sake.
Personally, if I never saw Riley again it would be too soon. But I’m going to
have to, we’re going to have to, somehow, resolve the issue of our son. There
will probably be lawyers and fights and almost certainly a divorce case, and
it’s going to be vindictive and painful – something I am not looking forward to.
“So,” Angel begins with a serious expression.
“So,” I echo. “What happens now?”
“That’s what I was going to ask you. What do you want to do
next?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I should be doing.”
He shakes his head. “I didn’t ask that. I asked what did you want
to do.”
I look up at him in surprise. My own wishes and desires have so
long been impossible to fulfil that I have forgotten to even consider them
seriously. My eyes meet Angel’s and my stomach suddenly goes hollow with need.
“I-I want to kiss you.”
He lowers his lips slowly to mine, brushing them tenderly with a
feather-light touch. “I think that’s easily enough arranged.” His tongue traces
my lower lip and teeth, before I lose all patience and crush my mouth against
his, bringing my hands up to caress his neck, closing my eyes and drowning in
the feeling.
We pull away from each other and he smirks good-naturedly at me.
“Feel better now?”
I shake my head. “Uh-uh, I think more intensive therapy is
needed.”
Angel raises one eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
“Yes, really.”
I tilt my face for another kiss, this one teasing and fun,
tongues darting, teeth nipping gently. But the lightness doesn’t last for long.
Soon we are kissing deeply, my arms wrapped around his neck, his fingers in my
hair. Arousal shoots through my body, making my heart pound and my breathing
ragged. This is where we usually stop, where one of us calls a halt to the
proceedings and tries to relieve the hot and heavy mood with a reassuring smile
or a witty retort. But now there is no need to pull away and absolutely no
stopping.
Angel’s hands drop to my waist then slide underneath my
buttocks, lifting me out of the chair and up against his body. I cling on to
him with my legs, never once parting our lips as he carries me in this awkward
position out of the kitchen and into a nearby living room. Finally, unable to
balance any longer he drops me onto the sofa and unwilling to sever our
connection, I pull him down on top of me.
“Buffy,” he murmurs as my fingers fumble at the buttons of his
shirt, tracing the well-defined musculature of his chest underneath. “Are you
sure?”
“Mmm,” I moan, sliding my tongue lower down his throat, to
circle his adam’s apple and then tracing the still veins of his neck. “You
asked me what I wanted, didn’t you?” I whisper hoarsely.
“Yes,” he replies in sort of a yelp, as my hands travel down his
body stopping at his crotch.
“Well, I want you. I love you, Angel.”
“I love you too,” he returns, a film of tears shining in his
eyes. His lips drop to cover mine once more, and after that no words are
spoken.
~~~
The harsh
jangle of a telephone disturbs our post-coital haze. I tighten my grip on
Angel, not wanting him to move away from this delicious position where his
chest his my pillow and his hands rest comfortably on my naked stomach, his
unnecessary breath tickling my ear. I’m afraid it will be bad news, a revelation
that will tear me away from the wonderful feeling of being safe in my lover’s
arms and rip away all the bliss that came with only our second ever time of
making love on Angel’s chaise longue downstairs. And our third ever time on the
bedroom floor. Then our fourth in the bed. Then our fifth, which I’m not sure I
should technically count, since it was more just groping, owing to the fact we
were both too exhausted to really but up much of a serious effort at sex, but
still hadn’t had enough of each other to just be satisfied with simple sleep…
“Buffy,”
Angel interrupts my private reverie. “Can you let me go so I can answer the
phone?”
“No,” I
reply with a pout eerily reminiscent to that of a petulant child. “I’m not
letting you go ever again.”
“I won’t go
far, I promise,” he kisses the top of my head lightly in order to prove his
sincerity. “I just have to get that – it might be Cordelia.”
At this
reminder that my son is out there being cared for by Cordelia ‘You can never
have too many shoes’ Chase, I reluctantly release Angel allowing him to scoot
over and grab the receiver of his bedside table.
“Yes,” he
barks with obvious irritation into the phone. There is a pause during which
Angel listens. “Yes, she’s here,” he finally says and I sit upright in bed,
wondering who the caller is. “Do you want to speak to her? No, that’s okay, I
can pass the phone straight over. Buffy – ” he turns to me. “It’s Giles.”
“Oh,” I let
all the breath out of me in a sigh of relief. I wasn’t sure quite who I
expected – perhaps Riley in a yelling fit, or Mom sounding disappointed in me
for being a twenty-one-year-old with a failed marriage, or even the police
wanting to arrest me for kidnapping my own child – but Giles ranks low on the
list of evils for me to face. “Sure,” I take the phone off Angel, settling back
against his chest as I speak into it, so he can hear both sides of the
conversation.
“Hey,
Giles.”
“Buffy, are
you all right? Riley rang me and said you walked out on him.” Disapproval tints
his voice. “Willow suggested that you may be here,” he sighs loudly. “Buffy,
why?”
“What did
Riley say to you exactly?” I ask, my throat feeling tight.
“Just that
you two had an argument and you stormed out in the middle of a party, taking
Caleb with you. Buffy – he sounded devastated.”
“Did he also
tell you that he hit me?” I say to Giles tiredly, suddenly totally lacking the
patience or the energy to deal with this whole mess. “Did he also tell you that
we’d only been together these past few months, because he threatened to prevent
me from ever seeing my son again if I left.” Angel reached up to my shoulder,
gently massaging a knot of tension from my neck that I didn’t even know was
there until his skilled fingers begin to relieve it.
“Bloody
Hell,” Giles exclaims. “He actually laid a hand on you? Just wait until I see
that boy…”
“No,” I
interrupt. “I can handle this myself. It’s okay. Don’t blame Riley, I don’t
think he meant to do it. He’s just messed up.”
A small
protective growl comes from behind me, and I cannot help but smile. “Besides,”
I joke to Giles. “I think Angel probably wants the monopoly on beating the crap
out of my lowlife husband.”
“Ah, Angel,”
Giles echoes and I can almost see him stood there, phone tucked underneath his
chin, cleaning his glasses thoughtfully. “May I ask what’s going on there?”
“You may
ask,” I reply equivocally. “But I don’t think you’ll get an answer you’ll
approve of.”
“Then it’s
true. Willow said you’d probably want to get back together with him.”
A lump forms
in my throat as I think of all the problems Angel and I have had in the past
and how Giles, especially, has suffered from them. “I’m sorry, I know you
probably don’t like the idea.”
Giles sighs.
“I just want you to be happy, Buffy. And of you can be with Angel, then I can
hardly be against your relationship. Now that there’s no further danger of
Angelus appearing then who you choose to see is really none of my business.”
“But, I’d
still like it of you gave us your blessing…” I persist.
“Buffy,”
Giles interjects. “Would anything I say really change your mind about Angel?”
I smile
softly, leaning back against the subject of our conversation and entwining my
free hand with one of his. “No.”
“Then you should
just go and be with him and forget everyone else’s opinion. Besides, I thought
you and Riley made a good couple – and look how badly that turned out. Who’s to
say my judgement of Angel is any less flawed. Only you know how much you love
him – and from what little I’ve heard, I’m guessing that’s a great deal.”
“Yes,” I
answer in a voice no louder than a whisper. “Thank you Giles.”
“You’re
welcome,” he replies warmly. “Now I’ll be seeing you in Sunnydale soon, I
hope.”
“Tomorrow,”
I promise. “Bye now.”
“Goodbye,” I
hear down the line, followed by the telltale click of the receiver being
replaced.
~~~
“Wow,”
Willow exclaims, hugging me tightly. “I don’t know what to say. Should I be
happy or sad?”
I pull away
from her, smiling. “A little of both I think. I’m sorry for the way things
turned out between Riley and I, but I’m not sorry Angel and I ended up
together.”
I turn to
take his hand, and he plants a soft kiss on my forehead. “It’s not over yet,
remember.”
I grimace in
response, filling Willow in on the situation. “Riley’s flying over tomorrow so
we can ‘discuss a few things’,” I make little quote marks in the air with my
fingers. “Which I’m guessing isn’t going to be pleasant.”
Willow flashes
me a sympathetic glance. “I guess the ends of marriages never are.”
I shake my
head, remembering the Hell that was my parents divorce and how I used to hide
away in my room, night after night, with my pillow held over my ears just so I
wouldn’t hear their arguing anymore. “I’m just grateful that Caleb’s too young
to be aware of any of this,” I look down at my son sleeping peacefully,
blissfully ignorant of all the turmoil going on around him.
“What’s
going to happen with Caleb?” Willow enquires.
I shrug,
suddenly feeling a little lost and glad of Angel’s gentle support at the small
of my back. “I don’t know. Riley said he’d fight for him, but that was before…
I just really have no idea.” I take a deep breath, steadying myself. “Anyway, I
didn’t come visit you to be all depressed, I wanted to say thank you.”
“Thank you?”
Willow questions.
“Yep,” I
force a little cheerfulness. “Thanks for sorting out Angel’s curse. We
appreciate it, really.”
Angel wraps
his arms around my waist and rests his head on my shoulder. “Very much so.”
Willow
blushes a deep shade of pink. “Well, uh, it was no problem. I’m just glad to
help really…”
“Well, we’re
glad to have you helping,” I reach out and touch her arm gently.
“Have you
told your Mom yet?” Willow asks, inviting us both to sit down.
I make a
face. “I ran that particular gauntlet this morning. Needless to say she wasn’t
happy – especially with the ‘me and your grandson are going to live with Angel
at the mansion’ part. There was some yelling over that one – but she came
around eventually.”
“Buffy can
yell louder,” Angel supplies not very flatteringly and I lean over to hit him
in mock annoyance.
“Hey – whatever happened to that
loving support you’re supposed to be providing me with in my time of crisis?”
“It got used
up babysitting Caleb all day,” he shoots back with a grin. I’d be offended,
except for the amazing consideration Angel has shown with my son. Most men
wouldn’t go within a mile of a woman with somebody else’s seven-month-old baby,
but Angel doesn’t seem to care. He treats Caleb like he’s made of glass, some
precious object that would break if he dared handle it without total reverence
and care. And this morning when I had asked him to watch the baby while I
talked to Mom, he looked so incredibly flattered that I considered him worthy
of the task, that I’m convinced he couldn’t possibly have minded it.
“So, she’s
okay now, though?” Willow interrupts my Angel-musings.
“Yeah,” I
offer a small reassuring smile. “She just needs to get used to the idea. I’m
sure when she gets to know Angel she’ll love him just as much as I do.”
Angel
flashes me an incredulous look and I grin back. “Well, perhaps not quite as
much as I do. ‘Cause that would be a little on the disturbing side.”
Caleb wakes
up and starts to cry, so I get up and tend to him, whilst Angel and Willow
continue to talk. Carrying the baby into the Willow’s kitchen I start to make
him up a bottle of formula, finding the mundane task ridiculously satisfying.
For once I am actually enjoying being a Mom, taking pleasure in all the little
things that used to drive me to distraction. In fact, I am enjoying a lot of
things at the moment, and not just the obvious – like my new (and very much
improved) relationship with Angel – but all the stuff that goes in between too.
Just waking up in the morning is nice now, knowing that I am close to the
people I love and not living a lie anymore. I guess I’m happy.
The feeling doesn’t last all the time
– it begins to fade whenever Riley is mentioned, or when I start worrying about
Caleb’s future. But I find it coming more and more often now. It creeps up on
me when I least expect it and suddenly I look in the mirror and there’s a smile
on my face. It’s amazing and I’m pretty clear on who it’s all due to.
Hands land lightly on my shoulders
and lips briefly press themselves against my cheek. “Need any help in here?”
Angel asks.
I twist around to return the small
kiss. “No it’s okay, I think I’ve got this covered. You go back and talk to
Willow.”
“He can talk to me from there,”
Willow says from the doorway. “We thought we’d bring the party in here – keep
you company.”
“Thanks guys,” I smile at them
gratefully. “Thanks for everything.”
~~~
I had
insisted to Angel that I could do this alone and that I didn’t need him here
with me, but now I’m not so sure. Rationally, I know that his presence would
only have caused further upset with Riley and that he couldn’t have come
anyway, since Riley insisted upon a daylight meeting in full sunlight. But I
miss the feel of Angel’s hand in mine, his steadying influence that calms my
nerves and the silent support he is so expert at providing. In summary, I just
don’t like being away from him, especially during such an emotional time.
When I
finally got up the nerve to call Riley, after three days of avoiding him and
living in denial with Angel (and a very nice place it was too), he was already
yelling about lawyers and legal action and how I had kidnapped his son. He
wanted to slap a court case on me right there and then, until I reminded him
how twenty people had seen him attack me and what was the judge going to say to
that.
Silence
stretched long and echoing down the other end of the line, which I finally
broke by suggesting a meeting. We should be able to work something out without
getting the lawyers involved, I proposed reasonably. We just have to be able to
sit down and have a rational discussion – difficult as that may be.
“Hi,” I
greet Riley stiffly, sitting down opposite him in the open-air café.
“Buffy,” he
returns with no small degree of hostility. “Where’s Caleb – you haven’t left my
son with him have you?”
“Mom’s
looking after him,” I reply coolly, trying to ignore his slight on Angel. “I
thought it would be better if we spoke alone.”
He nods,
fidgeting briefly with the saltshaker laid out on the table. Then he looks up
with hard eyes. “I don’t want that thing anywhere my child.”
My anger
rises. “How dare you…” I start to yell, and the people on the neighbouring
table turn around. “How dare you call Angel that?” I continue in a lower voice.
“He’s more of a man than you are.”
“He’s not a
man at all,” Riley hisses back. “He’s a vampire – a cold blooded killer. He may
have you fooled, but I won’t have your naivety harming my son.”
“This isn’t
about Angel,” I refuse to get drawn into an argument I can never win against
Riley. He will never understand about Angel’s soul or ever even see beyond the
black and white of the matter. His point of view just too closed and prejudiced.
He only perceives things in his own ingrained, small-minded way, and there’s no
changing that. “This is about you and me.”
“No, Buffy,”
he shakes his head. “It was never you and me. It was always you and
Angel – I was just some sort of temporary distraction, someone to turn to when
he’d decided he was done messing with your head. You never planned to get
pregnant, you never wanted Caleb in the first place, so what’s the big deal
about him now?”
I lean over
the table, grabbing Riley’s wrist and twisting until I know it hurts him.
“Caleb’s my baby and I refuse to give him up to you. If you want a fight
then I’ll give you one.” I let go of him and stand up, storming away from the
table.
“Buffy
wait!” He calls after me, his voice suddenly small and defeated. “I don’t want
a fight.”
I spin
around on him, expecting some other scheme or tactic to get me to give way on
this issue. What I see instead, however, is a man deeply in pain following the
loss of his wife and child.
“I never
wanted to fight with you Buffy,” He admits. “I wanted us to be happy, to be a
family. But that dream sort of got lost along the way, didn’t it?” I move
hesitantly back to the table, sitting down once more. “Did you ever love me?”
He continues.
I answer
carefully, not wanting to cause him any more pain than I have already. “I
thought I did – at one time. But I never stopped loving Angel either.”
He sighs
long and hard. “I don’t pretend I understand it, but I’m going to have to
accept it.”
I nod. “Yes,
you are.”
“So, what do
you think we should do now?”
~~~
I kick back
on the bed in the mansion, my body exhausted after a tough evening slaying, but
my mind still racing, unable to calm down. It’s Saturday night, so Caleb is
with Riley for the weekend. He’s renting a place in the next town along until
he can settle there permanently. We decided he should be near, so that Caleb
could get to know his real father, but not too close in Sunnydale itself,
because of the inevitable clashes with Angel that would arise. As long as the
two of them ignore each other’s existence as much as possible then peace seems
to reign. Of course, it’s only been a few weeks since we began the arrangement
– there are still plenty of problems to encounter yet.
Angel walks
into the room, dressed ready for bed in only a pair of boxer shorts and a silk
robe. He slips the robe off down muscular shoulders, leaving it slung casually
over the back of a chair, and my stomach flip-flops. No matter how many times I
get to see Angel’s body (or how intimate I become with it) it will always amaze
me. He is – and I know I sound like a bad romance novel here – truly
magnificent and just the sight of him takes my breath away. Suddenly I am not
quite so tired as I thought I was.
“Hey there,”
I sidle up to him as he climbs beneath the sheets, sliding my hand across his
sculpted chest.
“Buffy,” he
smirks back at me, one eyebrow raised.
“So, here we
are, all alone in this big house,” I trace patterns on skin with my fingers. “I
wonder what we could possibly find to occupy ourselves.”
“We could
talk,” he suggests.
I pull away
from him, making a face. “Talk?”
“Yeah,” he
pulls me gently back, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. “About you.”
I turn to
look at him questioningly. “What about me?”
“About what
you want for the future.”
“You know
what I want for the future.”
He meets my
gaze. “Do I?”
“Yes,” I
nod, absolutely sure of myself. “You. I want you and all of this. I want to
carry on as I am now, with my son and my Slaying and our relationship. I was
thinking about going back to college too, in case you were interested.”
“You’re
sure?”
“About
college?” I ask, scrunching up my nose. “I hadn’t really decided yet – I was
going to look into part-time courses – ”
“No,” Angel
interrupts softly. “Are you sure about me?”
I smile
tenderly, touched by his self-doubt. “Of course I’m sure – I’ve been sure for
years, it’s only you who’s had issues with us. Oh, and I don’t think Riley was
too convinced either, but divorcing him seems to be the solution there.”
“But I still
can’t give you a normal relationship…”
“You’re not
going to start that crap again,” I sigh exasperatedly. “I had a normal
relationship. It sucked. I want you back. The curse isn’t an issue any longer.
I don’t want any more children – one is quite enough of a handful. And I don’t
care about sunlight or whatever other problems you can think of. I just care
about us being together.”
“Good,”
Angel sounds relieved. “Because I was worried, you know, that maybe you’d come
to change your mind.”
I kiss him
tenderly on the nose, laughing slightly. “Nothing could ever make me change my
mind about you. Besides, what more could I possibly want other than to live in
a gothic mansion with the man of my dreams?” I pause briefly, touching his arm
reassuringly. “I’m happy – believe me.”
He nods. “I
do. Or at least I try to, anyway.”
“What about
you?” I ask. “Is this want you want? Are you happy?”
He fixes me
with an intense gaze, his eyes brimming over with love and devotion. “Never
doubt it for a second.”
“Ah yes,” I
smile wickedly. “But are you perfectly happy?” I flash him a seductive glance,
going back to my original plan.
He grins in
return, leaning over to whisper in my ear. “Not yet, but we’ve got plenty of
time to remedy that.”
THE END