Buffy/Trigun - Twilight (4/5)
Title: Twilight
Fandom: Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, Trigun animeverse
Disclaimer: They belong to Yasuhiro Nightow and Joss Whedon
Rating: PG-13
Original Publication: FF.net, November 2002 - February 2003
Summary: Something is killing the colonists in cold storage. And if Rem can't figure out what it is, the crew of Projest SEEDS may be its next victims.
Night:
Found here.
Previous Parts:
Prologue: What You Are, What's To Come
Part One: Out of the Mouths of Babes
Part Two: Things Fall Apart
PART THREE: RE VERITAS
Knives first noticed a general soreness in his muscles as consciousness returned. He grimaced and shifted onto his side, frown deepening; he didn’t remember the bed being quite so hard before.
Awareness set in and he realized he lay not on the bed he’d fallen asleep in only a few hours earlier but on cool metal. His eyes snapped open and he sat upright. He was on a walkway, surrounded by the sleeping colonists in cold storage. The observation window hung some two hundred meters above him and if he moved a few feet to the left he could look over the edge of the suspended bridge down to the main animation chamber just barely visible below. He swallowed against a parched throat and had to grip the steel grating to regain his equilibrium after a wave of vertigo. How had he gotten here?
And where was Vash?
He sent out a wild empathic message consisting of little more than a panicked demand and felt immediate relief on getting a sleepy, confused reply. He spotted his brother lying only a meter or two away and half-scrambled, half-crawled to his prone form. Vash was just waking up when Knives placed a hand on his shoulder. “Vash?”
“Mmmph,” his brother grunted. “’s cold.”
“I know. Wake up.”
“Don’ wanna.”
“Don’t care. Get up!”
“What? Why?” Vash yawned and opened his eyes, glaring at this intrusion into his slumber. He blinked and glanced at their surroundings. “Knives, why are we in cold storage? We’re not allowed down here.”
Knives sat back on his haunches. “I don’t know how we got here.”
Vash sat up, shivering a bit. “My mouth feels all funny.”
“Mine does too.”
The younger twin seemed to be more alert now and taking better stock of their surroundings. He shifted closer to his brother and seized Knives’s hand in his own. “I don’t like it down here.”
Knives glanced towards the far wall where the ghostly images of human forms could just barely be seen behind frosted glass. With the cool glow coming from blue lights and the shadows cast by the walkway, the storage unit didn’t look like a comfortably distant scientific experiment. It looked like a tomb. Knives suppressed a shudder of his own. “Me, neither.”
Vash bit his lip. “I want to go back to our quarters.”
Knives opened his mouth to answer when a shadow fell over top of them. The boys slowly looked up, then turned their heads to see this new visitor. Knives bit back on his scream.
It smiled. Vash really did scream. That made its grin wider.
“Can’t have my bait doing that, can I?”
***
Rem felt as if the world stopped. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t even feel her heart beat.
Her boys had been stolen.
She had to face it: she was a failure. She’d failed the boys yet again, failed Angel, failed the colonists. She was the worst Slayer who’d ever lived, the greatest disappointment in the line of Eve. Alex would’ve hated her.
“HEY!”
The scream in her ear jolted her out of her paralysis. She turned towards a distraught Mary clutching tightly to her arm, leaving painful indents under white-knuckled fingers. The doctor looked paler than usual.
“Rem, where are the twins?”
Not here was the obvious answer but the question brought her back to herself. If whatever it had been had wanted to kill the boys, they wouldn’t have bothered to move them. Or at least she hoped they wouldn’t - god only knew. But that line of reasoning would get her nowhere. It didn’t matter what had brought her to this point, she had no choice but to deal with the situation at hand. And the situation was: find the boys, fix the mistake. That was all that mattered.
She straightened and took Mary’s hand from her arm. “I’ll find Vash and Knives. I need you to go get Joey, tell him we have an intruder.”
“You’re going after it yourself?”
“We don’t really have any choice.” Rem walked back to her room, Mary following behind.
“But what if it’s that - that thing that killed Angel?”
“Then it is and I’ll deal with it.” Where had she left that box? She’d always been so organized but the last few days...
Mary persisted. “Rem, you didn’t see it! You can’t possibly go after it alone!”
Found it. It’d been shoved under the bed. Rem turned to the slender doctor and gave her what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “I can take care of myself, don’t worry.”
“This is insane. You’re insane.”
“Then I am.”
“At least wait for me to get Joey. Or-or Steve. Or someone. Don’t go out there alone.”
“And do you want to risk more time we may not have?” Rem asked. Mary grimaced and looked away. Rem placed a hand on her shoulder. “Please trust me. If I find the boys, I’ll intercom my position. But I can’t take the chance of waiting. Do you understand?”
Mary sighed. “Yeah, I do.” She looked Rem eye to eye. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Rem nodded curtly and while Mary looked like she might want to say more, she instead turned and walked back out of the room. Rem hunkered down next to her box again. It was rather simple, maybe a foot long with a polished walnut finish. The only ornamentation was a small, engraved figure on the lower left side of the top that Rem had always thought was a cat. But now that she saw it again, she thought maybe it was a larger animal. A mountain lion perhaps.
She took a deep breath and opened the lid. Nestled within a shaped velvet lining was an elongated piece of wood that tapered to a fine, sharp point. She seized the blunt end before she could re-think her decision and felt a small, betrayed thrill of excitement as she weighed it in her palm.
Perfect fit.
She glared at this reminder of her heritage but knew the time for recrimination had past.
Time to go get her boys.
***
Mary found herself stumbling for a second time and cursed out a long string of expletives her Uncle Albert had taught her at a highly impressionable age. She stopped to take a breather, leaning heavily against the wall and massaging her pounding temples. Concussion seemed unlikely but her head still ached and she desperately wished for an aspirin.
She recognized part of her reaction as shock. After the initial hysteria, she’d tapered off into a rather dazed, automatic state that had kept her moving but done little else to calm her nerves. She knew once she had the time to look back and reflect on the events of the evening, there’d be a rather large breakdown on her part but for now she just had to keep going. Rem was depending on her. She started moving again.
Oh god, she had tried to seduce Angel.
That really wasn’t what she should be thinking of right now, but the scene kept replaying itself in her head. It was, after all, the last time she’d ever see him and it was difficult not to dwell on it.
And now that she did reflect, seduce wasn’t the right word. More like she had thrown herself at him. Which she just didn’t understand. Sure, she liked to flirt and she’d always had a small thing for the tall, dark and brooding types, but she hadn’t ever intended to make a move, to follow through on any of her feelings regardless.
So what had she done? What was wrong with her?
Mary didn’t even realize she’d arrived at the captain’s quarters until she was standing in his bedroom, looking down at an empty bed. In fact, all of his rooms were empty.
Where had everyone gone?
***
“O’Reilly to Captain Adams. O’Reilly to Captain Adams. Joey, where-”
Rowan cut off the intercom with the flick of the wrist. Mary had sounded high-pitched, upset. He really didn’t feel like listening to her whine right now. Not when he had more important things to do.
He looked at the fractals that danced across his screen. He typed in a few commands, made an adjustment here and there, and watched as the patterns shifted, changed, became greater. Some more tests, a few more sims, and they’d be perfect. Absolutely perfect.
Because he was right. He was always right.
***
Steve thought he might have heard Mary over the intercom a little while ago but it’d been so brief he decided he’d just imagined it. He took another swig from his beer and resumed his staring contest.
So far it was Steve: 10, Plant: 0.
He smirked, raising his bottle in toast to the humanoid form hanging just within sight in the bulb.
“Not so smart now, are you?”
The Plant, of course, didn’t answer. He grinned.
Yeah, that’s right. Who was out here? Who was free? Who was the one making all the rules? Him, that’s who, Not some twisted freaks that pretended to look human but were nothing more than tools to be used and discarded. And if those two little shits wanted to act like it was any different, well, he’d show them their proper place. He’d show them all.
Because he was right. He was always right.
***
Joey sat in the captain’s chair on the bridge. He’d programmed the forward view screen to its maximum capacity, filled with nothing but stars. It was the closest he’d come to a true spacewalk in some time - physics and light-speed preventing him from experiencing the real thing - and the peace that settled over him was a welcome respite from the chaos of the long journey he’d begun so long ago. Just him breathing and the stars slowly dying. So many already dead in all likelihood, with only the ghosts of their light reaching out to him across the light-years.
He’d never been a particularly poetic man or a truly religious one. But out here he often wondered what was beyond this. Could there be greater meaning to the cosmos than what he imagined?
With the events of the last few days behind him, he felt fairly confident in assuming that there wasn’t. No higher purpose, no gentle god leading his people ever onwards. And it wouldn’t matter even if there was. They were on their own, eventually forgotten like the dying starlight.
Joey had indeed never cared much for philosophy but he was a soundly practical man most of the time. Except for nights like this, when he turned his intercom off and through the solid walls of the ship below him, his crew slowly fell apart.
***
As she moved further into the ship, Rem realized she had very little idea what she was doing. Adrenaline and sheer stubbornness had kept her going thus far but with the inevitable drawing nigh, she felt the first stirrings of panic settle in. She was no warrior, no savior to look towards, just some simple girl who’d been told all she ever believed in had been wrong.
A child’s voice in the back of her head howled at the unfairness of it all. But the faces of her boys sitting so firmly in her mind’s eye allowed her to ignore that part of her that wanted to find a deep dark hole to crawl into for the next ten years and continue moving.
She switched the stake to her left hand, wiping her free palm along her jeans and leaving behind a small smear of sweat. She paused, slowing her breathing, allowing her senses to reach out to their fullest extent. She heard and saw nothing more than what she normally would, but when she turned her head, she felt the skin crawl on the back of her neck as the cold storage window came into view. There was nothing outwardly wrong with it but she approached it nevertheless and looked down into the stasis chamber. Within the gloom of the soft lights and flickering shadows, she could just make out two solitary figures lying along one of the walkways.
Vash. Knives.
Rem ran for the lift, nearly breaking the door open herself when the elevator didn’t arrive right away. It finally came and she spent an excruciating thirty seconds riding it down toward her missing children.
The cold blast from inside the chamber nearly took her breath away but the sight of the two small bodies across from her sent all caution flying to the wind. She immediately ran towards them, collapsing next to Knives, his pale skin and hair making him appear washed out against the steel gray of the grating. She placed a trembling hand against his throat and released a shuddering breath she didn’t even realize she’d been holding as she felt the steady beat of his pulse under her fingers. Vash was breathing as well but both boys had been raggedly cut along their shoulders, blood splattered against the sky blue of their clothing. They would need those wounds attended to.
She was so absorbed in her task that she almost missed the slight flicker to her right. Another hesitation would have cost her dearly had she not ducked at the last second, the claw missing her head by mere centimeters. Six months of training kicked in and she swept her leg behind her, connecting solidly before rolling into a somersault and allowing the momentum to bring her to her feet. She faced her attacker, knowing what to expect, only to find her throat dry upon the sight.
It looked like a damaged angel, something of great beauty that had had its fine features cruelly destroyed. Its eyes bulged too large above sunken cheeks painted with angry splashes of red and a mouth filled with sharp, filed teeth. It had no weight to its body, so far emancipated it appeared as only a skeleton hung together with strips of skin, hands slimmed into claws, feet bent nearly backwards. On its back hung the ruination of wings, slowly rotting even as it flicked them back with an almost arrogant air.
She opened her mouth before she could stop herself. “You’re not a vampire.”
It smiled, wide and terrible, speaking in a voice the consistency of raw wounds. “No, Slayer. I am Kakos but no nosferatu.”
Her mind raced - obviously not what she expected, not at all. Kakos, Greek, it meant - meant -
Something hit her from behind, pinning her to the floor and jamming a knee into the small of her back.
Meant evil.
“My companion, on the other hand,” the Kakos continued, “is.”
The vampire on her back entwined its fingers into her hair, yanking her head up painfully before slamming it back into the floor. Stars burst in front of her eyes and she struggled to stay conscious as her head was raised for another pounding. Reacting on little more than blind instinct, she reversed her hold on her stake and jammed it back and to the side. Something yielded and the vampire roared, drawing away. It gave her just enough space to wriggle out from underneath it and stagger to her feet, facing this new threat.
The vampire she saw was enormous, nearly towering a foot above her and apparently made of little more than muscle and bloodlust. She saw no intelligence in his eyes, merely brute, animal cunning. She doubted he had walked under his human face in years and with dread, realized that the stake he now pulled out of his side was her only weapon.
The vampire seemed to recognize her panic for he grinned, displaying his fangs for her as he threw the stake behind him and lunged. She sidestepped and sent a quick kick to his mid-section. Before she could hit, he grabbed her foot and sent her crashing to the floor once more. A large, meaty fist came shooting for her head and she rolled, allowing his hand to connect with the metal grate while another roar of pain filled the air. She pulled herself upright only to stumble as her vision threatened to cloud over. Her opponent recovered first and with a slap of his arm sent her careening into the side rails. She landed on her feet only to receive another jab to her jaw.
The Kakos continued to speak as the vampire threw her from one side to another, battering her body into submission.
“Doesn’t speak much, does he?” A fist in her gut. “I suspect that so much time in this ship without consistent sustenance has reduced him to little more than a beast. Unpleasant thing, watching a vampire starve yet never die.” She blocked his next blow with the outside of her arm and sent a punch out, only to be blocked as well. “Though I doubt he ever had the intelligence to open the meat lockers in here in the first place. He’s lucky I awoke from hibernation at all.” A kick missed his stomach, landing against his hip instead, throwing both Slayer and vampire off balance. “And, oh, how very lucky of me to do so. Lovely people here, to have such darkness to feed from.”
Roundhouse, block, block, block.
“I hardly expected to have that young physicist save me the trouble of manufacturing a flaw when I allowed my friend over there access to the colonists. I thought it would take far more work to spread corruption so thoroughly.”
Her guard faltered and another punch sent her reeling.
“Nor to end up killing a Slayer in the process. Did you know she didn’t wake once even as she bled away? Not so much as a twitch. Just like those two boys of yours.”
She couldn’t lose, not now, not with the twins so close, so vulnerable, not when everything was almost over. But as she felt the crack of a rib underneath the unrelenting blows, she knew she would.
“And then, oh, the fears, the desires, the madness you and your friends had to offer when I clawed out of this cold. The only one seemingly without was your late teacher but he’s no longer a problem, is he?”
Was Angel dead then? Was this how it was to end? Her mind wandered as she made a half-hearted punch, easily blocked, twice over retaliated.
“I whisper into their ears in the night, a hidden thought brought to light and it was ever so easy to watch you struggle.”
Rem fell to the floor, spent, beaten. The vampire backed off by some unseen signal and the Kakos approached her, lifting her by her chin to stare into fathomless eyes.
“How does it feel, little Slayer?” it asked. “To know even with your death, you have failed?”
Her eyes flickered to the vampire behind him and the boys lying further than that. And beyond them all, a hint of movement, a shadow that wasn’t. She looked back to her tormentor and croaked, “I’m not dead yet.”
Fury came flying at the beast vampire with deadly speed, Angel more than ever resembling his avenging namesake in fists and fangs. The attack was so sudden the other vampire didn’t even have time to defend himself, giving Angel the upper hand. Despite his shirt hanging in tatters and the puncture wounds in his chest still not fully healed, he had a manic smug grin spread across his face.
“Word of advice?” her teacher remarked. “Next time you try to kill someone, make sure they aren’t already dead first.”
The Kakos hissed. “Impossible.”
Angel rolled his eyes. “Villainous plan explained and overused exclamations. Any other clichés you haven’t used yet?”
The Kakos was saved from an answer when its vampire friend chose that moment to re-engage Angel. The distraction allowed Rem a chance to slap away its hand away, shoving it back. She rose, swaying on unsteady legs but facing her opponent with fists raised. Something like a sneer flittered across its face before it lashed out again. Rem ducked and danced around it, avoiding the snarling pair of vampires and placing herself in front of the twins. This only seemed to amuse the Kakos.
“Little Slayer protecting her own?” It punched at her, blocked with her arm. She kicked out, forcing it back but not pressing the advantage. “Playing mother to those without?” Another fist at her head which she dodged, retaliating with a palm to his gut. “As if you could hope to save them. You are nothing, a hypocrite. Why do you bother in this futile effort?”
The question hit so close to home, she could suddenly see it for what it was, a moment of crystal clarity coming on a wave of epiphany.
what is it you wish daughter
“You can’t keep avoiding it.”
...out of the mouths of babes...
“Killing is still killing, Angel.”
...a crumbling well and rotted rope...
“The colonists are the Project!”
...blood on fangs...
...she wasn’t like other girls...
decide
“What’s in a name?” Alex once asked her, the memory of his smile whispering softly in her ear. She looked to the Kakos standing across from her, ugly, terrible, cruel, pitiful when it just couldn’t understand. She smiled without pain.
“Because,” she said, “I should protect this thing.”
The Kakos howled and attacked. It moved swiftly, limbs a blur of unspoken fury that fought to penetrate her defenses. But she was herself again, choice giving her all the speed she needed and he could not make her falter. She would push when needed, moving to offense if necessary, but only enough to give her some breathing space and she never once pursued.
“Fight me!”
She shook her head. “No.”
The attacks sped up. So did she.
“I’ll kill them all!”
“No. You won’t.”
The veneer of icy intelligence permanently fell and she faced nothing more than a sad, wounded animal which lashed out because there was nothing left for it to do. A kick slipped through to land on her left side but she ignored it and held steadfast. Her muscles ached from blocked blows, bruises no doubt coming in the morning should she survive the night, yet all pain came secondary, a part removed from her, easily dismissed.
A dull rush of wind told her that a vampire had met its end. There was no doubt in her mind that Angel was the one left standing. He was a survivor.
Like her.
A claw raked along her cracked rib. Her forehead trickled blood from a cut. But the Kakos was growing sloppy, the punches coming with less ferocity than before, the kicks all but stopping. Simple exhaustion or something more? Her own strength perhaps, coming out in force, her refusal to acknowledge its power robbing the Kakos of all that held it together.
Evil was only a human made abstract, after all.
She dodged, allowing her leg enough room to trip it up. Although she was ready for it to rise, it never did. She didn’t think it ever would again.
She felt rather than saw Angel approach her from behind as she looked on the face of her fallen foe. Lying on its side, breathe coming out in rapid shallow pants, ribs protruding through thin skin, it didn’t look so frightening anymore. She knelt beside it and reached out a hand to lay upon its head. It growled and feebly tried to brush off her touch, but it couldn’t shake her.
“What did you do?” Angel asked.
“Nothing.” She smiled sadly at the Kakos, brushing aside thin hair from its forehead. Clumps had already started to fall out to rest beside her. “It only bore my own fears away.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Honestly? I don’t think I do either.” The Kakos had stopped breathing and lay inert on the walkway. A lone feather fell from its right wing. She looked up at her friend and mentor, noting the blood that had dried along his torso. “You better go.”
He looked down at himself and frowned. “Are you sure?”
Her wounds seemed to come over her all at once, pain and exhaustion pressing heavily upon her, but she still managed a small smile. “Mary saw you die. It’ll be hard to explain anything else to her.”
Angel hesitated, but nodded his understanding. “Take care.”
“I will.” She shifted slightly, pressing against her wounded rib. She hissed, looking down for only a moment, but when she turned her attention upwards again he was already gone and Knives had started to stir. She allowed her gaze to travel over the Kakos a final time, before dragging herself towards the intercom.
“Saverem to O’Reilly.” Her voice sounded so old. “I’ve found them.”
***
“...better go.”
Go?
“...sure?”
“...saw you die...explain anything…”
“Take care.”
Angel?
It was with some relief that Knives woke in a bed this time but he felt little better than when he awoke in cold storage. His shoulder ached and when he rolled over, his head started pounding. His eyes flicked open, Rem the first sight to greet him.
She looked awful. Her face was mottled with bruises, a cut stitched up on her forehead and lip split open. When she moved it was stiff, awkward, and he could see additional bruising all along her arms with two fingers on her left hand splintered together. Despite all this, she smiled when she saw his attention on her.
She reached out a hand. “Hey.”
The boy tried to sit up on his own but found himself struggling. Mary suddenly materialized opposite Rem to help him readjust his position. The doctor looked better than the black-haired woman but had a bruise on her forehead as well and she appeared unusually pale underneath her freckles.
“Don’t push yourself,” Mary chided gently. “You’ve been through a lot in the past few days.”
Knives grimaced. “Where’s Vash?” Rem gestured across his body and he turned to see Vash sleeping peacefully in a cot next to him. He suddenly realized they were in the med bay. “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine, sweetie. Just resting.”
Knives bit his lip as he looked at her injuries. “Are - are you okay, Rem?”
“No,” she answered honestly. “But I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me, you just get better.”
He nodded before realizing someone was missing. “Where’s Angel?”
Mary stiffened, trading an unreadable look with Rem. The doctor placed her hand over her mouth before abruptly turning away and walking off to busy herself at her desk. Rem swallowed, blinking back tears. “Knives, Angel, he’s...”
The Plant child couldn’t see what had upset her so. “I-I heard him. Isn’t he here? Doesn’t he want to see me?”
“Oh, Knives.” She took him into her arms, her embrace warm and open. “Angel’s gone.”
Realization came and Knives felt his world forever change. “No. He was here. I know it.”
She shushed him and stroked his hair, rocking him gently. “Oh, honey, I wish he was but he’s not. I’m so very, very sorry.”
Grief was a new experience for the young boy and it was something else he found he disliked greatly. Rem continued to sooth him as he grabbed onto her as a sinking man to a life preserver. She whispered words of sorrow in his ear while the tears he struggled to stop fell.
Yet, despite Rem’s real grief and his own woe, that small, detached piece of himself which had had so many questions of late knew what he had heard, knew that Angel had spoken.
And knew that Rem lied.
***
The questions were many and Rem’s explanations terse but with Mary backing up her story of an unknown saboteur and a few well-chosen words directed at Rowan implying he might want to think about re-checking his calculations, the ship returned to normal. Or as normal as it could be under the circumstances, the loss of a crewmember casting a shadow over them all.
A week passed before Rem could slip out of her quarters undetected, stealing silently through the darkened ship down to the landing bay. She walked carefully through the emergency escape pods that just a few days ago had all but been put to the test and now lay fallow once more.
“Angel?” She spoke softly although there appeared no need to do so. “Are you here?”
“Rem.”
She jumped, prepared for his voice but startled all the same. He stepped out of the shadows, melting smoothly from dark to light. He had changed into a flight suit and the slight tint to his cheeks told her he’d managed a raid on the medical cabinet without Mary noticing.
“You’re terrible about sneaking up on people,” she told him.
“You’re wearing a dress,” he answered. She looked down at her outfit, a simple sundress that fell short of her knees, and blushed, straightening the skirt to give her hands something to do.
“Well, what of it?”
“Just unusual, that’s all.” He smiled. “You ought to do it more often.”
She flustered right up and turned her attention to one of the escape pods, keeping her eyes firmly on the keypad. “I, ah, I’ve programmed the capsule to fire automatically if something happens to the ship. Just, um, just in case anything - anything happens.”
“Rem.” His hand on her shoulder and suddenly she was looking right at him, faces close, a hair’s breadth apart. He’d always been so awfully handsome, with that quirky smile and eyes that had seen so much and lips that were just the right type of kissable, which she found out for certain for herself as she placed her mouth against his.
The kiss deepened, drawing them closer as his arms encircled her waist and she ran a hand through his hair. For the moment of contact, they were no longer student and teacher, Slayer and Watcher, human and vampire, just a man and a woman breaching a chasm that no longer seemed so wide.
Then biology cut in and Rem had to break it off to catch her breath. When she opened her eyes to look into Angel’s equally serious gaze, the absurdity of the situation hit them both and the only solution was to laugh. They rested their foreheads against each other, grinning ruefully.
“Did you really wear that dress for me?”
“Yes. Do you purposely sneak up on me just to keep me unbalanced?”
“Yes.”
“We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “But doomed from the start.”
Her grin faltered but she felt no regret. “I suppose so.”
He placed a palm against her cheek, tone turning serious. “Will you be alright? Truly?”
“Yeah, I will.”
“You know that demon didn’t actually create any of the thoughts within the crew, right? That all of those feelings still exist?”
“I know, I know. I’ll be careful.”
He drew her closer, the embrace no longer charged but the normal, comfortable hold of an old friend. “I just want you to be safe.”
“I know.” She drew back and gave him a reassuring smirk. “And I will be. I’m the Slayer, remember?”
“Are you?”
“Yes. I’m just not a killer.” She placed a finger against his mouth before he could speak. “I’m at peace with my decision, Angel. I’ll manage.”
He nodded and glanced at the awaiting shuttle. “So, this is it.”
“Yeah, I guess it is.” She typed in the opening command on the keypad, opening the door for him. “You know how to run the stasis pod in there?”
“Yeah. I’ve had plenty of practice.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
They hugged again to fill the sudden silence, then separated without a word. He stepped back into the pod opening, giving her curt nod. She smiled briefly, readying herself. He had already reached for the interior console when she blurted out, “Angel?”
He paused. “Yeah?”
She suddenly realized she had no idea what she had wanted to say and asked the first thing that popped into her mind. “What was your name?”
He blinked. “You know my name.”
“I know Angel and Angelus. But what was it before? When you were human?”
“Why are you asking?”
“Just something I always wanted to know.”
He hesitated and she wondered if he’d answer. But he finally said, “Liam. It used to be Liam.”
“Liam,” she repeated and he frowned.
“You don’t like it.”
“No, I-I do.” And that was the truth. She smiled. “It seems to suit you.”
“Really?” He looked surprised by that revelation.
“Really.”
He swallowed that for another moment before giving her a smile in return. “I’m glad.”
“Me, too.”
He raised a hand, palm out, an old fashioned and oddly formal farewell. “Goodbye, Rem.”
“Goodbye, Angel.”
He keyed in the final sequence and the shuttle door slid shut with a soft clang that echoed through the open interior of the shuttle bay.
It was the last time they would ever see each other.
END PART THREE
Fandom: Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, Trigun animeverse
Disclaimer: They belong to Yasuhiro Nightow and Joss Whedon
Rating: PG-13
Original Publication: FF.net, November 2002 - February 2003
Summary: Something is killing the colonists in cold storage. And if Rem can't figure out what it is, the crew of Projest SEEDS may be its next victims.
Night:
Found here.
Previous Parts:
Prologue: What You Are, What's To Come
Part One: Out of the Mouths of Babes
Part Two: Things Fall Apart
PART THREE: RE VERITAS
Knives first noticed a general soreness in his muscles as consciousness returned. He grimaced and shifted onto his side, frown deepening; he didn’t remember the bed being quite so hard before.
Awareness set in and he realized he lay not on the bed he’d fallen asleep in only a few hours earlier but on cool metal. His eyes snapped open and he sat upright. He was on a walkway, surrounded by the sleeping colonists in cold storage. The observation window hung some two hundred meters above him and if he moved a few feet to the left he could look over the edge of the suspended bridge down to the main animation chamber just barely visible below. He swallowed against a parched throat and had to grip the steel grating to regain his equilibrium after a wave of vertigo. How had he gotten here?
And where was Vash?
He sent out a wild empathic message consisting of little more than a panicked demand and felt immediate relief on getting a sleepy, confused reply. He spotted his brother lying only a meter or two away and half-scrambled, half-crawled to his prone form. Vash was just waking up when Knives placed a hand on his shoulder. “Vash?”
“Mmmph,” his brother grunted. “’s cold.”
“I know. Wake up.”
“Don’ wanna.”
“Don’t care. Get up!”
“What? Why?” Vash yawned and opened his eyes, glaring at this intrusion into his slumber. He blinked and glanced at their surroundings. “Knives, why are we in cold storage? We’re not allowed down here.”
Knives sat back on his haunches. “I don’t know how we got here.”
Vash sat up, shivering a bit. “My mouth feels all funny.”
“Mine does too.”
The younger twin seemed to be more alert now and taking better stock of their surroundings. He shifted closer to his brother and seized Knives’s hand in his own. “I don’t like it down here.”
Knives glanced towards the far wall where the ghostly images of human forms could just barely be seen behind frosted glass. With the cool glow coming from blue lights and the shadows cast by the walkway, the storage unit didn’t look like a comfortably distant scientific experiment. It looked like a tomb. Knives suppressed a shudder of his own. “Me, neither.”
Vash bit his lip. “I want to go back to our quarters.”
Knives opened his mouth to answer when a shadow fell over top of them. The boys slowly looked up, then turned their heads to see this new visitor. Knives bit back on his scream.
It smiled. Vash really did scream. That made its grin wider.
“Can’t have my bait doing that, can I?”
***
Rem felt as if the world stopped. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t even feel her heart beat.
Her boys had been stolen.
She had to face it: she was a failure. She’d failed the boys yet again, failed Angel, failed the colonists. She was the worst Slayer who’d ever lived, the greatest disappointment in the line of Eve. Alex would’ve hated her.
“HEY!”
The scream in her ear jolted her out of her paralysis. She turned towards a distraught Mary clutching tightly to her arm, leaving painful indents under white-knuckled fingers. The doctor looked paler than usual.
“Rem, where are the twins?”
Not here was the obvious answer but the question brought her back to herself. If whatever it had been had wanted to kill the boys, they wouldn’t have bothered to move them. Or at least she hoped they wouldn’t - god only knew. But that line of reasoning would get her nowhere. It didn’t matter what had brought her to this point, she had no choice but to deal with the situation at hand. And the situation was: find the boys, fix the mistake. That was all that mattered.
She straightened and took Mary’s hand from her arm. “I’ll find Vash and Knives. I need you to go get Joey, tell him we have an intruder.”
“You’re going after it yourself?”
“We don’t really have any choice.” Rem walked back to her room, Mary following behind.
“But what if it’s that - that thing that killed Angel?”
“Then it is and I’ll deal with it.” Where had she left that box? She’d always been so organized but the last few days...
Mary persisted. “Rem, you didn’t see it! You can’t possibly go after it alone!”
Found it. It’d been shoved under the bed. Rem turned to the slender doctor and gave her what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “I can take care of myself, don’t worry.”
“This is insane. You’re insane.”
“Then I am.”
“At least wait for me to get Joey. Or-or Steve. Or someone. Don’t go out there alone.”
“And do you want to risk more time we may not have?” Rem asked. Mary grimaced and looked away. Rem placed a hand on her shoulder. “Please trust me. If I find the boys, I’ll intercom my position. But I can’t take the chance of waiting. Do you understand?”
Mary sighed. “Yeah, I do.” She looked Rem eye to eye. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Rem nodded curtly and while Mary looked like she might want to say more, she instead turned and walked back out of the room. Rem hunkered down next to her box again. It was rather simple, maybe a foot long with a polished walnut finish. The only ornamentation was a small, engraved figure on the lower left side of the top that Rem had always thought was a cat. But now that she saw it again, she thought maybe it was a larger animal. A mountain lion perhaps.
She took a deep breath and opened the lid. Nestled within a shaped velvet lining was an elongated piece of wood that tapered to a fine, sharp point. She seized the blunt end before she could re-think her decision and felt a small, betrayed thrill of excitement as she weighed it in her palm.
Perfect fit.
She glared at this reminder of her heritage but knew the time for recrimination had past.
Time to go get her boys.
***
Mary found herself stumbling for a second time and cursed out a long string of expletives her Uncle Albert had taught her at a highly impressionable age. She stopped to take a breather, leaning heavily against the wall and massaging her pounding temples. Concussion seemed unlikely but her head still ached and she desperately wished for an aspirin.
She recognized part of her reaction as shock. After the initial hysteria, she’d tapered off into a rather dazed, automatic state that had kept her moving but done little else to calm her nerves. She knew once she had the time to look back and reflect on the events of the evening, there’d be a rather large breakdown on her part but for now she just had to keep going. Rem was depending on her. She started moving again.
Oh god, she had tried to seduce Angel.
That really wasn’t what she should be thinking of right now, but the scene kept replaying itself in her head. It was, after all, the last time she’d ever see him and it was difficult not to dwell on it.
And now that she did reflect, seduce wasn’t the right word. More like she had thrown herself at him. Which she just didn’t understand. Sure, she liked to flirt and she’d always had a small thing for the tall, dark and brooding types, but she hadn’t ever intended to make a move, to follow through on any of her feelings regardless.
So what had she done? What was wrong with her?
Mary didn’t even realize she’d arrived at the captain’s quarters until she was standing in his bedroom, looking down at an empty bed. In fact, all of his rooms were empty.
Where had everyone gone?
***
“O’Reilly to Captain Adams. O’Reilly to Captain Adams. Joey, where-”
Rowan cut off the intercom with the flick of the wrist. Mary had sounded high-pitched, upset. He really didn’t feel like listening to her whine right now. Not when he had more important things to do.
He looked at the fractals that danced across his screen. He typed in a few commands, made an adjustment here and there, and watched as the patterns shifted, changed, became greater. Some more tests, a few more sims, and they’d be perfect. Absolutely perfect.
Because he was right. He was always right.
***
Steve thought he might have heard Mary over the intercom a little while ago but it’d been so brief he decided he’d just imagined it. He took another swig from his beer and resumed his staring contest.
So far it was Steve: 10, Plant: 0.
He smirked, raising his bottle in toast to the humanoid form hanging just within sight in the bulb.
“Not so smart now, are you?”
The Plant, of course, didn’t answer. He grinned.
Yeah, that’s right. Who was out here? Who was free? Who was the one making all the rules? Him, that’s who, Not some twisted freaks that pretended to look human but were nothing more than tools to be used and discarded. And if those two little shits wanted to act like it was any different, well, he’d show them their proper place. He’d show them all.
Because he was right. He was always right.
***
Joey sat in the captain’s chair on the bridge. He’d programmed the forward view screen to its maximum capacity, filled with nothing but stars. It was the closest he’d come to a true spacewalk in some time - physics and light-speed preventing him from experiencing the real thing - and the peace that settled over him was a welcome respite from the chaos of the long journey he’d begun so long ago. Just him breathing and the stars slowly dying. So many already dead in all likelihood, with only the ghosts of their light reaching out to him across the light-years.
He’d never been a particularly poetic man or a truly religious one. But out here he often wondered what was beyond this. Could there be greater meaning to the cosmos than what he imagined?
With the events of the last few days behind him, he felt fairly confident in assuming that there wasn’t. No higher purpose, no gentle god leading his people ever onwards. And it wouldn’t matter even if there was. They were on their own, eventually forgotten like the dying starlight.
Joey had indeed never cared much for philosophy but he was a soundly practical man most of the time. Except for nights like this, when he turned his intercom off and through the solid walls of the ship below him, his crew slowly fell apart.
***
As she moved further into the ship, Rem realized she had very little idea what she was doing. Adrenaline and sheer stubbornness had kept her going thus far but with the inevitable drawing nigh, she felt the first stirrings of panic settle in. She was no warrior, no savior to look towards, just some simple girl who’d been told all she ever believed in had been wrong.
A child’s voice in the back of her head howled at the unfairness of it all. But the faces of her boys sitting so firmly in her mind’s eye allowed her to ignore that part of her that wanted to find a deep dark hole to crawl into for the next ten years and continue moving.
She switched the stake to her left hand, wiping her free palm along her jeans and leaving behind a small smear of sweat. She paused, slowing her breathing, allowing her senses to reach out to their fullest extent. She heard and saw nothing more than what she normally would, but when she turned her head, she felt the skin crawl on the back of her neck as the cold storage window came into view. There was nothing outwardly wrong with it but she approached it nevertheless and looked down into the stasis chamber. Within the gloom of the soft lights and flickering shadows, she could just make out two solitary figures lying along one of the walkways.
Vash. Knives.
Rem ran for the lift, nearly breaking the door open herself when the elevator didn’t arrive right away. It finally came and she spent an excruciating thirty seconds riding it down toward her missing children.
The cold blast from inside the chamber nearly took her breath away but the sight of the two small bodies across from her sent all caution flying to the wind. She immediately ran towards them, collapsing next to Knives, his pale skin and hair making him appear washed out against the steel gray of the grating. She placed a trembling hand against his throat and released a shuddering breath she didn’t even realize she’d been holding as she felt the steady beat of his pulse under her fingers. Vash was breathing as well but both boys had been raggedly cut along their shoulders, blood splattered against the sky blue of their clothing. They would need those wounds attended to.
She was so absorbed in her task that she almost missed the slight flicker to her right. Another hesitation would have cost her dearly had she not ducked at the last second, the claw missing her head by mere centimeters. Six months of training kicked in and she swept her leg behind her, connecting solidly before rolling into a somersault and allowing the momentum to bring her to her feet. She faced her attacker, knowing what to expect, only to find her throat dry upon the sight.
It looked like a damaged angel, something of great beauty that had had its fine features cruelly destroyed. Its eyes bulged too large above sunken cheeks painted with angry splashes of red and a mouth filled with sharp, filed teeth. It had no weight to its body, so far emancipated it appeared as only a skeleton hung together with strips of skin, hands slimmed into claws, feet bent nearly backwards. On its back hung the ruination of wings, slowly rotting even as it flicked them back with an almost arrogant air.
She opened her mouth before she could stop herself. “You’re not a vampire.”
It smiled, wide and terrible, speaking in a voice the consistency of raw wounds. “No, Slayer. I am Kakos but no nosferatu.”
Her mind raced - obviously not what she expected, not at all. Kakos, Greek, it meant - meant -
Something hit her from behind, pinning her to the floor and jamming a knee into the small of her back.
Meant evil.
“My companion, on the other hand,” the Kakos continued, “is.”
The vampire on her back entwined its fingers into her hair, yanking her head up painfully before slamming it back into the floor. Stars burst in front of her eyes and she struggled to stay conscious as her head was raised for another pounding. Reacting on little more than blind instinct, she reversed her hold on her stake and jammed it back and to the side. Something yielded and the vampire roared, drawing away. It gave her just enough space to wriggle out from underneath it and stagger to her feet, facing this new threat.
The vampire she saw was enormous, nearly towering a foot above her and apparently made of little more than muscle and bloodlust. She saw no intelligence in his eyes, merely brute, animal cunning. She doubted he had walked under his human face in years and with dread, realized that the stake he now pulled out of his side was her only weapon.
The vampire seemed to recognize her panic for he grinned, displaying his fangs for her as he threw the stake behind him and lunged. She sidestepped and sent a quick kick to his mid-section. Before she could hit, he grabbed her foot and sent her crashing to the floor once more. A large, meaty fist came shooting for her head and she rolled, allowing his hand to connect with the metal grate while another roar of pain filled the air. She pulled herself upright only to stumble as her vision threatened to cloud over. Her opponent recovered first and with a slap of his arm sent her careening into the side rails. She landed on her feet only to receive another jab to her jaw.
The Kakos continued to speak as the vampire threw her from one side to another, battering her body into submission.
“Doesn’t speak much, does he?” A fist in her gut. “I suspect that so much time in this ship without consistent sustenance has reduced him to little more than a beast. Unpleasant thing, watching a vampire starve yet never die.” She blocked his next blow with the outside of her arm and sent a punch out, only to be blocked as well. “Though I doubt he ever had the intelligence to open the meat lockers in here in the first place. He’s lucky I awoke from hibernation at all.” A kick missed his stomach, landing against his hip instead, throwing both Slayer and vampire off balance. “And, oh, how very lucky of me to do so. Lovely people here, to have such darkness to feed from.”
Roundhouse, block, block, block.
“I hardly expected to have that young physicist save me the trouble of manufacturing a flaw when I allowed my friend over there access to the colonists. I thought it would take far more work to spread corruption so thoroughly.”
Her guard faltered and another punch sent her reeling.
“Nor to end up killing a Slayer in the process. Did you know she didn’t wake once even as she bled away? Not so much as a twitch. Just like those two boys of yours.”
She couldn’t lose, not now, not with the twins so close, so vulnerable, not when everything was almost over. But as she felt the crack of a rib underneath the unrelenting blows, she knew she would.
“And then, oh, the fears, the desires, the madness you and your friends had to offer when I clawed out of this cold. The only one seemingly without was your late teacher but he’s no longer a problem, is he?”
Was Angel dead then? Was this how it was to end? Her mind wandered as she made a half-hearted punch, easily blocked, twice over retaliated.
“I whisper into their ears in the night, a hidden thought brought to light and it was ever so easy to watch you struggle.”
Rem fell to the floor, spent, beaten. The vampire backed off by some unseen signal and the Kakos approached her, lifting her by her chin to stare into fathomless eyes.
“How does it feel, little Slayer?” it asked. “To know even with your death, you have failed?”
Her eyes flickered to the vampire behind him and the boys lying further than that. And beyond them all, a hint of movement, a shadow that wasn’t. She looked back to her tormentor and croaked, “I’m not dead yet.”
Fury came flying at the beast vampire with deadly speed, Angel more than ever resembling his avenging namesake in fists and fangs. The attack was so sudden the other vampire didn’t even have time to defend himself, giving Angel the upper hand. Despite his shirt hanging in tatters and the puncture wounds in his chest still not fully healed, he had a manic smug grin spread across his face.
“Word of advice?” her teacher remarked. “Next time you try to kill someone, make sure they aren’t already dead first.”
The Kakos hissed. “Impossible.”
Angel rolled his eyes. “Villainous plan explained and overused exclamations. Any other clichés you haven’t used yet?”
The Kakos was saved from an answer when its vampire friend chose that moment to re-engage Angel. The distraction allowed Rem a chance to slap away its hand away, shoving it back. She rose, swaying on unsteady legs but facing her opponent with fists raised. Something like a sneer flittered across its face before it lashed out again. Rem ducked and danced around it, avoiding the snarling pair of vampires and placing herself in front of the twins. This only seemed to amuse the Kakos.
“Little Slayer protecting her own?” It punched at her, blocked with her arm. She kicked out, forcing it back but not pressing the advantage. “Playing mother to those without?” Another fist at her head which she dodged, retaliating with a palm to his gut. “As if you could hope to save them. You are nothing, a hypocrite. Why do you bother in this futile effort?”
The question hit so close to home, she could suddenly see it for what it was, a moment of crystal clarity coming on a wave of epiphany.
what is it you wish daughter
“You can’t keep avoiding it.”
...out of the mouths of babes...
“Killing is still killing, Angel.”
...a crumbling well and rotted rope...
“The colonists are the Project!”
...blood on fangs...
...she wasn’t like other girls...
decide
“What’s in a name?” Alex once asked her, the memory of his smile whispering softly in her ear. She looked to the Kakos standing across from her, ugly, terrible, cruel, pitiful when it just couldn’t understand. She smiled without pain.
“Because,” she said, “I should protect this thing.”
The Kakos howled and attacked. It moved swiftly, limbs a blur of unspoken fury that fought to penetrate her defenses. But she was herself again, choice giving her all the speed she needed and he could not make her falter. She would push when needed, moving to offense if necessary, but only enough to give her some breathing space and she never once pursued.
“Fight me!”
She shook her head. “No.”
The attacks sped up. So did she.
“I’ll kill them all!”
“No. You won’t.”
The veneer of icy intelligence permanently fell and she faced nothing more than a sad, wounded animal which lashed out because there was nothing left for it to do. A kick slipped through to land on her left side but she ignored it and held steadfast. Her muscles ached from blocked blows, bruises no doubt coming in the morning should she survive the night, yet all pain came secondary, a part removed from her, easily dismissed.
A dull rush of wind told her that a vampire had met its end. There was no doubt in her mind that Angel was the one left standing. He was a survivor.
Like her.
A claw raked along her cracked rib. Her forehead trickled blood from a cut. But the Kakos was growing sloppy, the punches coming with less ferocity than before, the kicks all but stopping. Simple exhaustion or something more? Her own strength perhaps, coming out in force, her refusal to acknowledge its power robbing the Kakos of all that held it together.
Evil was only a human made abstract, after all.
She dodged, allowing her leg enough room to trip it up. Although she was ready for it to rise, it never did. She didn’t think it ever would again.
She felt rather than saw Angel approach her from behind as she looked on the face of her fallen foe. Lying on its side, breathe coming out in rapid shallow pants, ribs protruding through thin skin, it didn’t look so frightening anymore. She knelt beside it and reached out a hand to lay upon its head. It growled and feebly tried to brush off her touch, but it couldn’t shake her.
“What did you do?” Angel asked.
“Nothing.” She smiled sadly at the Kakos, brushing aside thin hair from its forehead. Clumps had already started to fall out to rest beside her. “It only bore my own fears away.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Honestly? I don’t think I do either.” The Kakos had stopped breathing and lay inert on the walkway. A lone feather fell from its right wing. She looked up at her friend and mentor, noting the blood that had dried along his torso. “You better go.”
He looked down at himself and frowned. “Are you sure?”
Her wounds seemed to come over her all at once, pain and exhaustion pressing heavily upon her, but she still managed a small smile. “Mary saw you die. It’ll be hard to explain anything else to her.”
Angel hesitated, but nodded his understanding. “Take care.”
“I will.” She shifted slightly, pressing against her wounded rib. She hissed, looking down for only a moment, but when she turned her attention upwards again he was already gone and Knives had started to stir. She allowed her gaze to travel over the Kakos a final time, before dragging herself towards the intercom.
“Saverem to O’Reilly.” Her voice sounded so old. “I’ve found them.”
***
“...better go.”
Go?
“...sure?”
“...saw you die...explain anything…”
“Take care.”
Angel?
It was with some relief that Knives woke in a bed this time but he felt little better than when he awoke in cold storage. His shoulder ached and when he rolled over, his head started pounding. His eyes flicked open, Rem the first sight to greet him.
She looked awful. Her face was mottled with bruises, a cut stitched up on her forehead and lip split open. When she moved it was stiff, awkward, and he could see additional bruising all along her arms with two fingers on her left hand splintered together. Despite all this, she smiled when she saw his attention on her.
She reached out a hand. “Hey.”
The boy tried to sit up on his own but found himself struggling. Mary suddenly materialized opposite Rem to help him readjust his position. The doctor looked better than the black-haired woman but had a bruise on her forehead as well and she appeared unusually pale underneath her freckles.
“Don’t push yourself,” Mary chided gently. “You’ve been through a lot in the past few days.”
Knives grimaced. “Where’s Vash?” Rem gestured across his body and he turned to see Vash sleeping peacefully in a cot next to him. He suddenly realized they were in the med bay. “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine, sweetie. Just resting.”
Knives bit his lip as he looked at her injuries. “Are - are you okay, Rem?”
“No,” she answered honestly. “But I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me, you just get better.”
He nodded before realizing someone was missing. “Where’s Angel?”
Mary stiffened, trading an unreadable look with Rem. The doctor placed her hand over her mouth before abruptly turning away and walking off to busy herself at her desk. Rem swallowed, blinking back tears. “Knives, Angel, he’s...”
The Plant child couldn’t see what had upset her so. “I-I heard him. Isn’t he here? Doesn’t he want to see me?”
“Oh, Knives.” She took him into her arms, her embrace warm and open. “Angel’s gone.”
Realization came and Knives felt his world forever change. “No. He was here. I know it.”
She shushed him and stroked his hair, rocking him gently. “Oh, honey, I wish he was but he’s not. I’m so very, very sorry.”
Grief was a new experience for the young boy and it was something else he found he disliked greatly. Rem continued to sooth him as he grabbed onto her as a sinking man to a life preserver. She whispered words of sorrow in his ear while the tears he struggled to stop fell.
Yet, despite Rem’s real grief and his own woe, that small, detached piece of himself which had had so many questions of late knew what he had heard, knew that Angel had spoken.
And knew that Rem lied.
***
The questions were many and Rem’s explanations terse but with Mary backing up her story of an unknown saboteur and a few well-chosen words directed at Rowan implying he might want to think about re-checking his calculations, the ship returned to normal. Or as normal as it could be under the circumstances, the loss of a crewmember casting a shadow over them all.
A week passed before Rem could slip out of her quarters undetected, stealing silently through the darkened ship down to the landing bay. She walked carefully through the emergency escape pods that just a few days ago had all but been put to the test and now lay fallow once more.
“Angel?” She spoke softly although there appeared no need to do so. “Are you here?”
“Rem.”
She jumped, prepared for his voice but startled all the same. He stepped out of the shadows, melting smoothly from dark to light. He had changed into a flight suit and the slight tint to his cheeks told her he’d managed a raid on the medical cabinet without Mary noticing.
“You’re terrible about sneaking up on people,” she told him.
“You’re wearing a dress,” he answered. She looked down at her outfit, a simple sundress that fell short of her knees, and blushed, straightening the skirt to give her hands something to do.
“Well, what of it?”
“Just unusual, that’s all.” He smiled. “You ought to do it more often.”
She flustered right up and turned her attention to one of the escape pods, keeping her eyes firmly on the keypad. “I, ah, I’ve programmed the capsule to fire automatically if something happens to the ship. Just, um, just in case anything - anything happens.”
“Rem.” His hand on her shoulder and suddenly she was looking right at him, faces close, a hair’s breadth apart. He’d always been so awfully handsome, with that quirky smile and eyes that had seen so much and lips that were just the right type of kissable, which she found out for certain for herself as she placed her mouth against his.
The kiss deepened, drawing them closer as his arms encircled her waist and she ran a hand through his hair. For the moment of contact, they were no longer student and teacher, Slayer and Watcher, human and vampire, just a man and a woman breaching a chasm that no longer seemed so wide.
Then biology cut in and Rem had to break it off to catch her breath. When she opened her eyes to look into Angel’s equally serious gaze, the absurdity of the situation hit them both and the only solution was to laugh. They rested their foreheads against each other, grinning ruefully.
“Did you really wear that dress for me?”
“Yes. Do you purposely sneak up on me just to keep me unbalanced?”
“Yes.”
“We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “But doomed from the start.”
Her grin faltered but she felt no regret. “I suppose so.”
He placed a palm against her cheek, tone turning serious. “Will you be alright? Truly?”
“Yeah, I will.”
“You know that demon didn’t actually create any of the thoughts within the crew, right? That all of those feelings still exist?”
“I know, I know. I’ll be careful.”
He drew her closer, the embrace no longer charged but the normal, comfortable hold of an old friend. “I just want you to be safe.”
“I know.” She drew back and gave him a reassuring smirk. “And I will be. I’m the Slayer, remember?”
“Are you?”
“Yes. I’m just not a killer.” She placed a finger against his mouth before he could speak. “I’m at peace with my decision, Angel. I’ll manage.”
He nodded and glanced at the awaiting shuttle. “So, this is it.”
“Yeah, I guess it is.” She typed in the opening command on the keypad, opening the door for him. “You know how to run the stasis pod in there?”
“Yeah. I’ve had plenty of practice.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
They hugged again to fill the sudden silence, then separated without a word. He stepped back into the pod opening, giving her curt nod. She smiled briefly, readying herself. He had already reached for the interior console when she blurted out, “Angel?”
He paused. “Yeah?”
She suddenly realized she had no idea what she had wanted to say and asked the first thing that popped into her mind. “What was your name?”
He blinked. “You know my name.”
“I know Angel and Angelus. But what was it before? When you were human?”
“Why are you asking?”
“Just something I always wanted to know.”
He hesitated and she wondered if he’d answer. But he finally said, “Liam. It used to be Liam.”
“Liam,” she repeated and he frowned.
“You don’t like it.”
“No, I-I do.” And that was the truth. She smiled. “It seems to suit you.”
“Really?” He looked surprised by that revelation.
“Really.”
He swallowed that for another moment before giving her a smile in return. “I’m glad.”
“Me, too.”
He raised a hand, palm out, an old fashioned and oddly formal farewell. “Goodbye, Rem.”
“Goodbye, Angel.”
He keyed in the final sequence and the shuttle door slid shut with a soft clang that echoed through the open interior of the shuttle bay.
It was the last time they would ever see each other.
END PART THREE