(no subject)
When I woke up, Angel wasn’t in the bed. I thought I remembered hearing the phone ring at some point, so maybe that’s what had got him up and moving. Pulling on a pair of jeans, I padded through the house, checking various rooms to see where the hell he was. By the time I reached the kitchen, I was starting to get worried. Sure, the sun wasn’t out, but he hardly ever went outside of the house.
I found him on the back deck. Snow had fallen at some point, his toes looked almost blue. “Angel? You okay?” Of course he’s not okay you idiot, he’s standing outside in the snow. “What happened?”
“She’s gone, Lindsey.”
That didn’t help. Shivering as I stepped out onto the porch with him, I moved close enough to brush my shoulder against his. “Who?”
When he spoke, his voice was that deadly calm that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “They beat the hell god. But it came with a price.”
I waited to see if he was going to say anything else. He swallowed a few times before tilting his face in my direction. “Buffy sacrificed herself to save her sister and to close the tear that would have merged the hell dimension with this one.”
His body started to shake, so I wrapped my arms around it. “She’s dead, Lindsey.” The rest of what he said was muffled as he buried his face into my neck.
I rubbed his back in small circles, whispering about how sorry I was. I knew she’d meant a lot to him, that he’d loved her. Angel started to slump down and I helped ease his decent, taking most of his weight on my body. The snow was soaking through my jeans, chilling me to the bone, but I didn’t let go.
We stayed like that for a while, long enough for my legs to start to go numb. Then I brushed my fingers against his cheek. “Come on Angel, we’ll go get warmed up.”
He leaned on me as we went inside. After I filled the tub, he got in with me, pressing his body as close to mine as possible. “If I would have been there, do you think that could have prevented it?”
Without knowing what went on, I couldn’t really answer that. “If it came down to dying or saving the world, what would you have done?”
Angel made a small sound in his throat. “You know the answer to that.”
“Buffy was like you, Angel. She was a hero, a Champion. She saved her sister and the rest of the world. How many people would do what she did?” I wrapped my arms tighter around his body, running my fingers lightly over his sides. “Are you going to go to the funeral?”
“I don’t know.”
He did know because I could hear it in his voice. A horrible thought popped into my head, one that I tried to squash down again. There was no Slayer guarding the Hellmouth in Sunnydale. As soon as word got out, and it would since bad news travels faster than anyone thinks, the city would be insane. It was already crawling with vampires and demons of all shapes and sizes and somehow I doubted that she and her friends had ever really made a dent in the population. After this though... I wondered how long it would take before people actually noticed something was wrong. Sunnydale was a lot like LA, people pretended the evil wasn’t happening in the hopes that it would go away.
We didn’t get out until the water grew cold. He curled his body around mine once we were in bed and ran his fingers through my hair. “I want to go. You’ll come with me, won’t you?”
“Yeah, I’ll come.” I hadn’t really known her, but I would be there for him.
---
The funeral went as well as could be expected. We all went to the Watcher’s house afterwards to talk. For the most part, I stayed out of it. I had no stories to tell, had never witnessed any of the things they were talking about. I hadn’t exactly done a whole lot of good things before I’d left LA, other than save those kids, which almost made me feel like the odd man out.
I’d gone into the kitchen for something to drink when I heard fighting back in the living room. By the time I got there, Spike had Angel pinned up against the wall. Both of them were bleeding and everyone else was talking at once. “What the hell is going on?”
“She’s going to bring her back!”
Angel pushed against Spike, knocking him backwards. I put my body between the two of them, which was something that I quickly realized wasn’t the brightest move in the world when the blond tried to get around me. “Angel, talk to me. Spike, back the fuck off.”
“I heard Willow in the hall. She said she’s going to bring Buffy back.”
A chill went down my spine. Resurrection spells were incredibly dangerous, not to mention could go horribly wrong. “Are you sure that’s what she said?”
“I might be blind, but I’m not deaf.” He sighed. “Tell her, Lindsey. Tell her about Darla, then maybe she’ll understand.”
I turned to look at Willow. “You really want to talk about this in front of everyone?” She shook her head. “Can I trust you not to kill one another while I’m out of the damn room?”
She followed me into another room and I stood across from her. “I brought someone back once. Didn’t know that’s what I was doing at the time, I picked up where someone else left off. I helped bring Darla back from hell. It isn’t just a puff of smoke and they show up. They can’t remember who they used to be and they don’t understand why they’re back in the world.” Willow wasn’t looking at me, but I hoped the words were sinking in. “You think she’s in hell, don’t you?”
“Buffy fell through the tear. She could be suffering right now!”
Now her eyes met mine and I could almost feel grief coming off of her in waves. “How do you know? There are a lot of hells and there are a lot of other places too. She could be anywhere, Willow. If you rip Buffy from wherever she’s at and it isn’t hell, she might never forgive you. Let her rest.”
“You’re just siding with Angel because he’s your boyfriend.”
I stared at her for a moment. “I’m not siding with anyone. If you do this and something goes wrong... which one of you is going to fix the mistake? Is it going to be you?”
She chewed on her bottom lip and didn’t answer me. “I didn’t think so. Don’t do it, Willow. Let her go. It’s selfish. You aren’t doing it for her; you’re doing it for yourself.”
Something crossed her face and the next thing I knew, I was flat on my back. Willow was staring at her hand in shock while I tried to kick my brain back into gear again. I ran my hand over my chest, touching the charred remains of my shirt. “Lindsey, I...” She took off into the hall.
“Fuck me that hurt.” There didn’t seem to be any blood, which was always a good thing. I made a mental note to never piss off someone with magical abilities. It took me a minute to get to my feet, but once I did, I headed back to where everyone else was.
Spike took one look at me and his jaw dropped. “Lindsey, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Angel, I think we should get going.” I wanted to get the hell out of here before Willow came back.
“Are you sure you’re alright? It smells like something’s burning.” Angel came over to where I was, wrinkling his nose.
“That would be me.” I looked at myself again, checking to make sure that my shirt was the only thing Willow had burned. “We need to get to a hotel before the sun comes up.”
---
He was silent in the car. I kept glancing at him out of the corner of my eye. “Did you get through to her?”
“She blasted me across the room, so what do you think?” My chest still ached from the impact. “I don’t think she meant to do it, but she’s incredibly powerful. Willow could bring Buffy back if she wanted to.”
Angel rubbed his temples. “We tried, that’s the only thing we could do.”
I pulled into the parking lot of a decent-looking hotel. “I wanted to tell you this when we got home, but maybe now would be better.” Taking a deep breath, I reached out and took his hand in mine. “I finally heard back from a former client of mine a couple days ago. He knows a demon in Nevada that can heal the damage to your eyes. You’d be able to see again.”
His mouth opened and shut a few times. “He’s sure it’ll work?”
“This guy is the best.” It had taken me months to track him down.
“What’s the catch? There’s always a catch.”
“No catch. He wants money, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. What do you think?”
He pulled me closer, wrapping his arms around my body. “I say it’s worth a shot. Make the arrangements when we get inside. If it doesn’t work, I won’t be worse off than I already am.”
I wondered if Angel would stay with me if his sight came back or if he’d join his friends in Sunnydale, picking up where he’d left off. I couldn’t picture myself taking on the forces of evil night after night. That just wasn’t me. Shoving those thoughts out of my head for now, I brushed my fingers up his arm. “Come on champ, let’s go inside.”