Angel regarded the former Watcher sceptically. “I don’t understand what you’re asking me to do.”
“Stay here and help Buffy,” Giles pleaded with him. “She’s been going through some problems lately, nobody can get through to her and I think…I think you may be the only one left who can make her better.”
The vampire frowned. “Giles, my son’s life is in danger,” he dropped his voice to a whisper. “My child, the only one I’m ever likely to have. I don’t have time to stick around and play psychotherapist. I won’t risk letting Connor die.”
“But you’ll risk letting Buffy die?” Giles asked quietly. He knew it was a low tactic, but he had no other choice but to use it. Buffy was his child and just as Angel had to do everything he cold for Connor he had to do everything for her.
“What?” Angel snapped, the sharpness of his tone a clear indicator of the anxiety beneath it.
“She tried to kill herself. It was a…a vampire attack,” he decided to omit the exact details, knowing however long Angel and Buffy had been broken up he was probably still not going to react particularly rationally to the news she’d been sleeping with Spike. “She just stopped fighting back,” Giles said instead, knowing whatever else may have happened that at least was the truth.
Angel sighed heavily. Somewhere inside he’d known – Buffy had given up, on love, on hope, on life, on everything. The idea that she would try to get herself killed, the girl who had always been so strong inside, made him shudder, squeezed his chest with icy fingers until it felt like he was going to choke, despite never needing to breathe. But it wasn’t only Buffy making him feel that way at the moment. After years of being alone he’d suddenly found himself with another life to be responsible for. And as a parent that life was more important to him than anyone’s – even Buffy’s.
“I’m sorry,” he shook his head. “I can’t, I’m needed elsewhere. You understand, don’t you? I have to find my son.”
“Buffy can help you!” Giles called out quickly as the vampire started to edge towards the door. “You’ll cover twice as much ground with the two of you working together. It could be just what she needs – a distraction from her problems back in Sunnydale, something else to focus on.”
Angel levelled a sceptical glance towards the other man. “You really think telling her I had a child with Darla is going to help her? If she actually is as…as bad as you say she is, then it’ll destroy her.” His tone became low and urgent. “She mustn’t find out, Giles; she can’t.”
“I disagree,” Giles shook his head. “I think she has a right to know. Maybe you’ll be surprised, maybe she’ll understand better than you think.” He thought about how low Buffy must have been to end up sleeping with Spike and imagined the same thing happening between Angel and Darla. Oh, Buffy would understand, all right, the question was, would Angel?
“No,” the vampire shook his head. “How could she understand something I can’t even explain myself? I know you want to help Buffy, but I can’t right now. I have to go.” He turned to leave, his long black duster swirling as he walked.
“Do you still love her?”
Angel stopped at the sound of Giles’ soft question, his back stiffened, the strong shoulder muscles coiled with tension. The Watcher sighed with relief, knowing the answer before Angel could even turn back and speak.
“O-of course I do,” the vampire admitted with a sigh. “But it’s not that simple – it never was. You more than anyone should know.”
“Maybe it’s not supposed to be simple,” Giles suggested with a shrug. “God knows, the best things generally aren’t. Just go and talk to her Angel. Have a conversation, tell her how you feel…”
“It won’t work,” Angel’s attitude suddenly hardened again, his expression immediately closing off.
“Why not? Why won’t it work?”
He paced back and forth across the small kitchen several times, hesitating over answering, pain making the eyes in his eternally young face seem ancient. “Because…” Angel began slowly. “Because she doesn’t want me anymore, Giles.”
“What?” the Watcher frowned in confusion, this was not the direction he had expected the conversation to take.
“Believe me when I say I know Buffy’s feelings on the subject,” Angel said with a wry half smile. “She made them very clear to me.”
“I-I don’t understand…when was this?” Giles felt the situation slipping out of his control. Suddenly his ideal, straightforward plan didn’t seem to be either of those things. But then that was always the case with Angel and Buffy, there were things between them they kept from the rest of the world; feelings, circumstances that were so complicated Giles doubted even they themselves could keep track. Even after three years apart their relationship was clearly as intricate and as pain laced as ever. Giles rubbed his eyes tiredly, he should have known better than to mess, not just this time but before as well. Three years ago when he had still been hurting over Jenny’s death he’d presumed to know so much about Buffy’s love affair with Angel when really he had no idea. No more of a concept of what he was disapproving of then than what he was trying to encourage now.
“When we talked after she…came back.” Angel stared down at the floor, his mind in a separate place to the rest of him, memories playing in his head, feelings he had being trying so hard to suppress lately coming back with almost total intensity and clarity. “Buffy…dying…made me realise something. Hit me with how much of a fool I had been,” he emitted a short bitter laugh. “In so many different ways.” He shook his head. “I just wanted her back, wanted to never lose her again. But she didn’t want me.”
“Wait, so you offered to be with her and she turned you down?” Giles was more lost than ever, unsure of whether this explained Buffy’s present behaviour or contradicted it.
“She told me it was over, that we should both move on, stop clinging onto something that was never even possible in the first place,” Giles heard Angel repeat the words in a flat, emotionless voice and was sure of only one thing. They didn’t come from Buffy’s heart. The cynicism and the hopelessness just weren’t her – or at least they had never used to be.
“So that’s what I’ve been trying to do,” Angel continued. “Move on. What I am doing with Connor, with…” he trailed off, suddenly aware he was going to say with Cordelia. Cordy, the woman who was most accepting of him, his best friend, the closest thing to a mother Connor had. Wasn’t she perfect to start a new life with? Absolutely ideal for him, apart from one tiny thing.
She wasn’t Buffy.
He’d spent so long away from the first real love of his life, that he’d forgotten – or at least made himself forget – what it was really like to be around her. How he could suddenly feel everything so much more acutely, his senses on high alert, picking up the scent of her hair, the soft sound of her breathing, the electric spark that jumped between their skin when they got too close. With Cordelia it was different, comfortable, safe, fun even, and he guessed that was love. It just wasn’t Love.
Two-hundred-and-fifty years of history, of art and poetry, blood, torture and sex, of travelling across every continent to the very ends of the earth, and still Angel knew he was essentially naïve. Love was not something he’d ever experienced much of, not in his home life as a human and certainly not in all the dark and horrific years he’d spent as a vampire. When he’d met Buffy, he’d been as inexperienced in the art of falling in love as she had been. So, he’d fallen hard, and fast, with no idea of what his feelings had meant. And eventually he’d been through Hell because of it – both literally and metaphorically. Hell on the end of Buffy’s sword for the sake of the rest of the world, and Hell after leaving Sunnydale, for the sake of the girl who meant more to him than life itself.
But the three short years he had known her were nothing compared to the centuries of solitude that had gone before and it was all too easy to become accustomed to being on his own again, to forget the way life and strength radiated from her, the way he felt like a man when he was with her and not a monster, forget how a room seemed to light up when she walked into it, like the sunshine had followed her there. There was a time when he would have given everything to be able to touch that light that shone so brightly from her heart. A time when he would have died for her, and a time when he actually did.
Now she needed his support to get some of that vibrancy back, some of the glow he’d sensed was missing from her right now. He wasn’t sure he would be able to help, though, didn’t think he had anything left to give.
But that didn’t mean he shouldn’t not try, he owed her at least that much. Now matter what had happened to her she was still Buffy, still his first, his last, his forever. Still the one whose vague image haunted his dreams, heart beats and breathy kisses flavoured with ice cream fading away as he struggled back into wakefulness. She was the woman he loved without even conscious awareness of the fact – and she needed him.
“With who?” Giles forced his tone into a polite enquiry, even though his mind was spinning. Things were changing so rapidly, personalities and truths he had thought sop constant and fixed remoulding themselves before his eyes. It was enough to make him feel old and very much stuck in his ways.
“Nobody,” Angel shrugged, meeting the other man’s gaze squarely. He felt a tiny pang of guilt at his lie and regret he would never know what could have happened between him and Cordelia. But it soon faded, because deep down, beyond the superficiality of his day to day world where he smiled and laughed and tried to pretend that he was just another normal guy, deep in his heart he already knew what would have happened. An empty affair and a ruined friendship – that was all he and Cordelia could ever have come to. There just wasn’t the depth of love or passion between them for it to have been anything else.
“Then you’ll stay?” Giles pushed away his concerns, concentrating on only one thing – Angel would make Buffy better.
“On one condition,” the vampire answered. “That I won’t leave her again. I won’t force myself back into her life, become close to her then just walk away again. I can’t do that to her and I can’t do it to myself either.”
The older man nodded in understanding. “I wouldn’t expect you to, Angel. And I’m sorry that I did in the past. I was wrong. No matter what Buffy said recently I know that she needs you, that she still cares about you – that she never stopped caring. And as long as she feels that way then I won’t just accept that you’re with her, I’ll expect it.”
Angel smiled, giving Giles a curt nod in return. “Good, then we have an understanding.” He held out his hand and the two men shook on it, Giles feeling suddenly paternal. He felt like father-of-the-bride passing on the care of his daughter to another man. He only hoped that the man in question could do a better job at looking after Buffy than he had.