FIC: Ghosts 5/5 (Buffy/Angel, R)
TITLE: Ghosts
RATING: R
FANDOMS: BtVS/AtS
PAIRING: Buffy/Angel
SPOILERS: Post “NFA.” There are some aspects of the S8 comics-namely, location-but this story contains none of the comics’ original characters or plotlines. The sequel to If You Drive Me Back, though it isn’t really a prerequisite.
SUMMARY: I married my lieutenant.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: For ba4ever, who requested post-NFA with dom Buffy, and for clevermonikerr, for her love of the first one. And it must be said: my beta reader, myhappyface, really went to the mat for me on this one, and I am endlessly, wordlessly grateful. Every little thing she does is magic.
( Part One ) ( Part Two ) ( Part Three ) ( Part Four )
Buffy got Kaya up and dressed. Then she took her daughter down to the morning still kitchen, and let Kaya help her make French toast.
Kaya was syrup-sodden, happily munching on her third plate of French toast, when Dawn tramped into the kitchen.
“I hope some of that’s for me,” Dawn said, depositing Angel’s prescriptions on the island.
“Um . . . of course it is,” Buffy said, immediately slapping some more pre-toasts into the pan.
“What’d you do with Angel?”
Buffy paled. “What do-I really don’t want to talk about this in front of Kaya-”
Dawn frowned. “I mean, he’s not in evidence at the moment; what did you do with him?”
Buffy tried to relax. She did some deep breathing; she thought hard about relaxing. But as she flipped Dawn’s French toast, Buffy saw that her hands were shaking.
“He’s, um, he’s upstairs,” Buffy finally forced out. “Sleeping.”
“In your bed?” Dawn said, raising her brow. “Is that where he slept last night?”
Buffy flushed. “Shut up.”
She pointed her spatula at Kaya. Dawn rolled her eyes.
“Please. Kaya doesn’t have any idea of the implications of your sleeping arrangements. But I do. Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you two?” Dawn’s eyes flickered down to her sister’s stomach. “You three?”
Buffy flushed even further, her cheeks positively radiating with heat.
“I do not want to talk about this in front of Kaya,” Buffy hissed.
“I want to talk,” Kaya mumbled, mouth full.
“Fine,” Dawn said. “But this isn’t over.”
***
Buffy and a tray of breakfast walked quietly through her dark bedroom. She sat at the edge of the bed, balancing the tray on the bedside table. The blankets moved at low tide, Angel stirring.
His dark eyes blinked up at her.
“Smells sweet,” he said. His words were still slightly slurred, but Buffy was unsure whether this was due to the Demerol or what the Black Thorn had done to his face.
“I made you some breakfast,” Buffy said. “If you’re hungry. French toast.”
Angel struggled out from under the mess of blankets and into a sitting position, which was generally the reception Buffy had expected when she made his favorite breakfast. Once he’d sat up, though, Angel frowned, blinked druggedly.
“Where are we?”
“Um, in our bedroom? At the house.”
Angel massaged a temple with his good hand. “How-I don’t really remember how we got here.” His face morphed into a Kabuki-exaggerated mask of fear. “Did-did I lose my memories again? Buffy, what-?”
Buffy brought Angel’s hand away from his head, held it in her own.
“Sweetie, no. You didn’t lose your memories. Just calm down, and think. What’s the last thing you remember?”
Angel thought, though he didn’t appear to calm down any. “I-we went to the doctor. She took an x-ray, and then-I remember getting a shot . . . and then . . . then there’s nothing, just-just right now, and I-”
A hollow feeling ballooned in Buffy’s stomach. The feeling for missing a stair, for realizing the earth’s no longer supporting you. No, I just-love you. I’m sorry and I love you.
Through no magic, some things could just be gone. Forgotten.
“I-you don’t remember anything after that?” Buffy said. Angel looked panicked, and Buffy closed her eyes, steeled herself. She cleared her throat, and when she spoke again, her voice was stronger. “Angel, you didn’t lose your memories. The doctor gave you a shot, and it just made you a little muddleheaded. You’re fine.”
Angel relaxed immeasurably. “Oh. Right. I should . . . I should’ve known that.”
Buffy brought the tray between them. Angel smiled.
“You cooked for me,” he said. “I can’t remember the last time you did that. Thank you.”
Angel went to take the fork in his hand, but the cast made things difficult; the implement slid several times from his clumsy grasp.
“Here,” Buffy said. She picked up the fork and squished off a bite sized square of French toast, which she then speared on the prongs and proffered to Angel.
He looked grim. “I don’t want to be a burden.”
Buffy frowned down at the plate. Errant drops of syrup shone dimly on the crowded plate; Buffy thought of the previous night, Angel’s blood gleaming in the sink. He’d slept poorly all night, his body shaking with nightmares and pain.
“You remember when I was pregnant, and I got so big I couldn’t reach, like, beyond my hugely enormous stomach? And you had to help me shave my legs, and tie my shoes, stuff like that?”
The corner of Angel’s mouth tugged up.
“I remember,” he said.
“Was that a burden on you?”
“What? No, of course not.”
“You do stuff for people you love, because you love them. So me helping you out? Not a burden on me.”
She proffered the French toast again. After a beat, Angel took the bait, and a bite.
He smiled. “It’s good. Thanks.”
Buffy helped him eat. After a long while of silence, she said, “So I was thinking-you know, in the spirit of not burdening each other-that maybe it might not be a bad idea for you to move back here. Just, you know, so I can give you a hand with stuff. You know, since yours is broken.”
Angel ruminated for a moment.
“Just for convenience’s sake,” Angel said, eyeing her dubiously.
“Of course.”
“Well,” Angel said. “I’d hate to be inconvenient.”
***
“Dawn,” Buffy said, descending the stairs. “Can you get everybody together? Angel’s coming downstairs in a minute; we need to do our big reveal.”
“Yeah,” Dawn said. “That’s not going to happen.”
“What? But-”
“Instead,” Dawn said. “That talk that you’ve been avoiding? That’s happening now.”
Buffy squirmed. “Dawn, really-”
“So, Angel’s moving back in,” Dawn said. “Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Because he wants to or because you’re pregnant? You are pregnant, right?”
“Well, yeah,” Buffy said. “What do you think I am, some crazy, desperate Jerry Springer guest trying to sucker in my man with a fake baby?” Dawn just looked at her. Buffy flushed. “Well, I’m not! And-and he wants to!”
“I hope so,” Dawn said seriously. “Buffy, you gotta play this by the book.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I know how tempting it is to just-you know, fix things. But some things you just have to . . . you know, work at. I understand why you wanted to keep Angel’s memories from him before-I do! But if you try a quick fix again, I think you’re going to lose him. For good lose him.”
Buffy slumped against the counter. “Sometimes I think Angel makes me stupid.”
“Well, yeah,” Dawn said. “That’s not news to anyone. But you two deserve each other.”
Buffy frowned. Dawn sighed mightily. “I meant that in a good way, stupe.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
***
“So how’d our fact-finding mission go?” Kennedy asked. “You’re alive, so-”
“-our mighty brains can deduce that you managed not to get killed,” Yael finished.
“That’s not what I was getting at,” Kennedy growled.
“Children,” Giles said. “Let’s not quarrel.”
“I am happy you’re alive,” Sasha said.
Angel smiled.
“Got your ass kicked, though,” Xander said.
The smile slid right off Angel’s face. “I did not get my ass kicked.”
“You did a little, honey,” Buffy said. “But you weren’t exactly evenly matched.”
“Like I said,” Kennedy said. “Slayer entourage.”
“I like to avoid a body count when possible,” Angel said.
“Your record certainly reflects that,” Giles said.
Buffy laid her hand on Angel’s shoulder, held him in place.
“Let’s focus on the present,” she said. “Angel, why don’t you tell us what you learned.”
“Mairatu,” he said.
Buffy wrinkled her nose. “Is that those whale rider people?”
Giles, she realized, was staring at Angel.
“It’s a book of prophecy,” Giles said, in his really thinking about something else voice.
“What’s it prophecy about?” Buffy asked.
“Like most prophecies,” Giles said, “the end of the world. I believe I have a copy in the library. Excuse me.”
Giles hurried off to the library. Angel watched him go with a slight smile.
“What’s so funny?” Buffy asked.
“He thought infiltrating the Black Thorn was reckless and stupid, but it paid off big-and in his arena, no less,” Angel said.
Buffy frowned. “I still don’t get it.”
“The Mairatu,” Giles said, walking back into the conversation with a book spread open atop his palms, “talks extensively about the birth of a child, a child who will rise up as a warrior for the forces of good.”
“Once he’s grown up, of course,” Angel said, noticing Buffy’s confused expression.
“I still don’t get it,” Kennedy said.
“I do,” Dawn said. “The Black Thorn are really worried about this Mairatu guy.”
“And they think they’ve narrowed in on the time and place of the birth, as described in the text,” Giles said.
“But I’m guessing that’s as much narrowing as they can do,” Dawn said. “Because they’re not really being discriminate with the killing.”
“So, what?” Yael said. “They’re just going to keep killing pregnant women forever?”
“No,” Angel said. “I’m sure they’re operating on a window of time; they’ll take out as many possibilities as they can before the window’s over.”
“So the important question is,” Buffy said, “how big’s the window?”
“I don’t know,” Giles said. “I’ll have to consult the text.”
Buffy smiled. “Of course you will.”
“Buffy,” Dawn said. “You know what this means.”
“That we need to buff up our street presence again?”
Dawn zeroed an unpitying look at her sister. “No, you dumbass. It means that you’re a freaking target.”
Buffy hadn’t considered this. “You think?”
Kennedy frowned. “God, is everything Buffycentric? How’d you get to be a target?”
“Oh,” Buffy said. “You know. The usual way.”
“The usual way in which the universe orbits you, or-”
“She’s pregnant, you idiot,” Yael said.
Kennedy blinked. “Oh.”
“Buffy!” Willow said, lunging on Buffy with a hug. “Congratulations!” Without releasing Buffy from her chokehold-hug, Willow showered an enormous grin on Angel. “And, and Angel! Congratulations to you, too!”
Angel smiled. “Thanks, Willow.”
He took Buffy’s hand. Heat surged through Buffy’s body, and her mind bumped off track. She knew she needed to concentrate on this whole mighty evil and being a target thing, but he’d just taken her hand, for no reason, like it was nothing.
***
Angel shook the bed. He’d refused his painkillers, and had fallen into a restless, nightmare-torn sleep. Buffy lay on her back, feeling the transferred tremors tickle through her body, watching the ceiling blur.
“-don’t-I-sorry, so sorry-no, please-”
Angel’s back arched painfully; his fingers grasped desperately at the linens. From his chest, the long, low cry of a cornered beast.
“-please, please-”
The window was open, and night winds pulled at the curtains. The moon trespassed in, making a seascape of everything it touched. Far off in the distance, Buffy could hear the wilderness of the woods around them. This house, like an island of safety amidst the wild unknown of nature.
Angel began to cry, and Buffy rested her hand on his shoulder. Angel twisted, and the sound of his tears was muffled in his pillow. Outside, the ghostly scream of a barn owl, so close the primal thing within Buffy cowered. She slipped her hands around Angel’s ribs and pulled him away from the pillow, turned him to his back.
Angel’s eyes blinked open, strangely brilliant in the darkness, as wild thing’s eyes often are. He blinked several times, his face twitching through expressions: confusion, fear, the baring of fangs.
“It’s okay,” Buffy said. “It was just a dream.”
Angel moaned, arching uncomfortably against the unfortunate physical reality of the mattress. In the moonlight, his bare throat was marble pale.
“It was. Not. Just a dream,” he said. His eyes flickered over the ceiling, the open window, everything but her.
“Angel,” Buffy said. Her hands were still on his ribs, his heartbeat thrumming against her palms. Buffy thought of water pumps, of holding your hands beneath the mouth and catching the water as it was torn out of the ground and thrust into the waiting air. She wondered if the wounds beneath his bandages were still bleeding.
“You’re carrying a murderer’s child,” Angel said. “Does that bother you?”
“You’re not a murderer.”
“I have a lot of memories to the contrary,” Angel said. He squirmed out of her touch. Suddenly he was on his feet, pacing, his head and neck twisting as an unbroken horse’s does. “How-how can I know they’re real? These things in my head . . . it could just be something else she put there.”
“They’re real,” Buffy said.
Angel sat on the bed. “I know.”
He looked at Buffy, sitting on the bed, clothed in moonlight and a cotton nightgown.
“I miss the pajamas,” Angel said. “The ones you used to wear.”
“It’s too hot,” she said, “here in the land of no central air. I’ll get them out when it gets cooler.”
And Angel looked at her, and suddenly Buffy missed the pajamas, too; the cotton, damp with perspiration, was too thin to obscure much of her body, even in the dim light.
“That’s a silly thing to miss,” Angel said. “Pajamas.” He stared at her, in the way that he had that made Buffy think he was looking past her flesh to something more permanent. “The baby, I-you really want me for the father of your children?”
“Of course I do.”
Angel looked down. Buffy took his hand, the good one, in hers. Angel looked up, met her eyes.
“Do you forgive me?” he asked, softly.
Before she spoke, Buffy was aware of her complete failure at obscuring the surprise on her face.
“Angel, yes. Of course I do.”
Angel was quiet for a long moment. Buffy went to touch him, to bring him back to her, but before she could Angel was kissing her, his hands in her hair, against her body, his mouth on hers.
Angel shook the bed.
***
Buffy woke in the golden glow of late morning. She was alone; Angel was gone, his side of the bed cool to the touch. Buffy frowned. As she rose, she found her body throbbed with a raw and insistent ache, blooming between her legs and then radiating out, sickening her whole body. The shower took care of most, though not all, of the pain at her extremities, but did little to extinguish the source.
Buffy dressed and then went to check on Kaya; the girl was gone. Buffy could hear the house bustling with activity. She had not woken this late in a long time; she was used to waking to find the house sleeping.
In the kitchen, two junior Slayers were doing the dishes; another was tidying the counters. At the island, Dawn and Willow were bent over a hundred years’ worth of dusty papers.
“Look who’s up,” Dawn said.
“Save me your we’ve been up all night researching angst,” Buffy said. “Have you seen Angel?”
“At breakfast, almost an hour ago,” Dawn said.
“I think he’s in the garden,” Willow said.
“Thanks, Will.”
There were piles of dark, still damp earth mounded upon the summer green grass. Kaya sat at the edge of one, pail and shovel in hand, making the mud equivalent of a sand castle. Angel was a few feet away, unearthing and replanting tomatoes.
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Buffy asked, slanting a glance at Kaya.
“She’ll wash,” Angel said.
Buffy crouched beside him. Closer, she noticed that his cast was discolored. There was some Cyrillic script, punctuated by hearts and smiley faces, written in baby blue felt-tip pen; a lime green cartoon in what Buffy recognized as Dawn’s rounded script; and “You’ll be kicking ass again soon” scrawled next to a flower of lipstick the color of dried blood.
Buffy smiled wryly. Angel loved girls, and girls certainly loved Angel.
“I see your fan club’s been by with the well wishes,” Buffy said. “How come you don’t have any male fans?”
Angel shrugged. “Niche appeal, I guess.”
Buffy lingered over the lipstick. “Been by to see Faith?”
“No,” Angel said. “She came by to see me.”
“Huh?”
“She’s here.” He looked up, at the great expanse of bright sky and bustling manor. “Around here somewhere, anyway.”
“She just . . . showed up?”
“No,” Angel said, turning back to his replanting. “I invited her.”
Buffy deflated. “Oh.”
“I thought she should be made aware of what was going on. You know, the new information we have on the Black Thorn.”
Buffy relaxed. “Oh.”
“Buffy, about last night . . .”
Buffy’s veins ran with glacial water. Nothing good lasted, and she had been waiting for this; her mind ran through the possibilities. Buffy, we made a mistake. Buffy, we should just forget anything ever happened. Buffy, it doesn’t mean anything. Buffy, it’s over.
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Okay.”
He met her eyes. “Buffy, Dawn’s right, about you being a target. And I just-I just really need you to be extra careful until we figure this out. It’s not just about you; it’s about the baby, too. Okay?”
Buffy blinked. “What? What are you-you’re talking about the Black Thorn?”
Angel studied her oddly. “Yes. What did you-?”
A bubble of giddy, nervous laughter erupted from Buffy’s mouth. “What? Nothing. Nothing. Of course I’ll be careful. I mean, you know me.”
***
“So, we’ve been on this prophecy like white on Pat Buchanan,” Dawn said. “And we’ve narrowed the window. To sometime before the end of the year.”
“And an area of no less than a hundred mile radius of the center of town,” Giles said.
Buffy frowned. “That’s it?”
“Gets better,” Willow said. “We haven’t found-in the prophecy or anywhere else-a single clue as to how to find this woman.”
“What about your magical spell tracker thingie?” Buffy asked.
Willow shook her head. “Sorry, no. Too many variables, not enough solid signals.”
“So there’s no way for us to locate and protect this woman, either,” Buffy said.
“It wouldn’t matter even if we could,” Angel said.
Buffy wrinkled her nose. “How come?”
“Because even if we know who she is,” Angel said. “The Black Thorn won’t.”
“And they’re just going to keep killing every possible pre-warrior until their window expires,” Dawn said. “Salting the earth, or whatever.”
“Well, that doesn’t seem fair!” Willow said. “We have all the information, and there’s still no smart move?”
“There’s only one move,” Buffy said. “I don’t know how smart it is, but it’s our only choice.”
“What’s that?” Kennedy asked.
“We take out the Black Thorn,” Buffy said. “They’re evil-they’re fair game. And if we kill them all-salt their earth-they won’t be able to go around killing people anymore.”
Angel looked extremely tense. “Buffy-”
“I mean, really, it’s just good housekeeping,” Buffy continued, as though she were oblivious to Angel’s taut muscles, to the fear raging in his eyes, “they’re evil, they’re making evil waves; it’s our job to clean up after that kind of thing.”
“I like it,” Kennedy said.
“I don’t,” Angel said. “Buffy, I tried that before, and not only did it not change anything, it rained such hell down upon me-”
“When you and your little group went after them,” Buffy said. “I have an army. An army can take care of it.”
“What if there are repercussions?” Angel said. “Larger, outside repercussions?”
“There won’t be.”
Angel’s eyes were wild, desperate. “You can’t know that.”
“I can’t,” Buffy said. “But I can know that it’s the right thing to do. And I know that sometimes being in our position means doing the right thing, even if it’s stupid. And you know it, too; that’s why you took down the Black Thorn in LA. Because smart and right don’t always meet, and being a champion means having the balls to do the right, stupid thing.”
Angel still looked spooked. Buffy took his hand.
“You know what else I know?”
“What’s that?”
“That you’ll come with me, when I go to do the right thing. Because you’re still that guy.”
Angel looked down at their interlocked hands, then back up at Buffy. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
***
Angel drew a diagram of the Black Thorn’s lair and hung it up on the kitchen cabinets, where the steam from Giles’ tea made it slightly limp, transparent.
“Still rocking the photographic memory, I see,” Dawn said.
“It comes in handy now and again,” Angel said.
Buffy smiled wryly. “Yeah. Mostly when I’ve lost my keys.”
“So they’re, like, having their meetings in someone’s house, or some shit?” Faith asked. “Like a fucking evil bridge club?”
“It’s more of a manor, but yeah,” Angel said.
“What happened to crypts and sewers and all those respectable demon hideouts?” Faith asked.
“I guess the rich really are different,” Yael said.
“It’s definitely good for us,” Angel said. “It’s a house: there are a lot of hallways and staircases and other places to get them to bottleneck. It’s very unlikely we’ll take them all in the meeting room; they’ll run off to other parts of the house, and we can take them one by one.”
“The key thing’s going to be a problem,” Buffy said.
“Which is why I’m going in first,” Angel said.
“Absolutely not. You’re human, and you’re injured-”
“We’ll lose the element of surprise, and we need it. I’ll go in first.”
Buffy frowned. “I don’t like it.”
“It’s tactically the correct decision,” Angel said.
“He’s right, B,” Faith said. “But it’s not like he’s gonna go in there swinging; he can just go in, get a headcount, and get out.”
“I have a better idea,” Yael said.
“Oh yeah?” Buffy said. “Share with the class.”
“I think it might be better if Angel did a little light infantry for us,” Yael said. “You know, while he’s in the area. Plant some things.”
“What kind of things?” Faith said.
“Explosive things.”
“Explosives?” Willow echoed.
“Just a few small ones,” Yael said.
Faith blinked. Then her mouth spread into an enormous grin. “Excellent.”
“Where are we going to get explosives?” Buffy asked.
“We’ll make them.” Yael looked around the kitchen. “I bet you’ve got the stuff under the sink, or in the pantry.” She looked at Angel. “You use fertilizer in the garden, right?”
He nodded.
“Where did you learn to make explosives?” Buffy asked.
“Tzahal.”
“Um, gesundheit,” Buffy said.
“Tzahal is Israel’s army,” Angel said. “You were a soldier before you were Called?”
Yael grinned. “Before and after. Definitely more fun after.”
Faith grinned, too. “That is so hot.”
“Okay,” Buffy said. “Great. Yael whips up some explosives; Angel uses his tattoo key to sneak in and plant them-this is a thing he can do without blowing himself up, right, Yael?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Super. Angel plants them, we blow them up, and when we storm in and set off the alarms, there’s disorientation and injury already. I like it.” She turned to her soldiers. “So. What else you got?”
***
The air was still hazy with smoke, and the smell hung thick in the air: sparklers and gasoline. Buffy sheathed her stake, handed her sword off to a junior Slayer, and walked through the smoldering wreckage of the Black Thorn house. The aftermath was always somewhat surreal: the quiet after the roar of battle. Around her, the walls were black and peeling; pieces of plaster and broken furniture littered the once-plush, once-snow white carpet. Ex-potentials helped each other up, helped each other limp out of the house. In her periphery, Buffy was aware of Faith sticking each of the fallen Black Thorn brethren with her sword, just checking.
Buffy found Angel in the kitchen, picking himself up out of a heap of plaster that had been, until Yael had set off her explosives, a fully-functioning and perfectly contented wall. He was pale.
“You okay?” Buffy asked. She flinched; several thin rivulets of blood trickled from beneath Angel’s cast, down his fingers.
His voice was small, his eyes slightly unfocused. “Sure.”
“I could-” Buffy wrung her hands; her tongue twisted and stalled in finding the right words. “Do you want some help?”
“Okay.”
Angel let Buffy put her arm around him, let her take his weight. Together, they walked slowly through the battleground wreckage.
“You’re gonna be in big trouble with Dr. Morgan,” Buffy said. “You were supposed to be taking it easy.”
“I’ll just tell her I did it to see her,” Angel said. “That I can’t stay away.”
“You can’t go around talking like that,” Buffy said. “You’re a married man.”
Buffy tripped as soon as she heard the words crystallize in the air. She tried to regain her footing, but the going was rough.
Angel was quiet for a devastating minute; finally, he smiled.
“That’s right,” he said.
The debris tripping them up began to thin, and it was a smooth shot out the door and into the waiting night.