Coincidence (1/2)
Fic Title: Coincidence(1/2)
Rating: R for language and sexuality
Word Count: 5698
Spoilers: Anything from any season is fair game
Summary: 5 years after “Not Fade Away,” Buffy is living in Pennsylvania when she discovers that Angel didn’t die in LA after all.
Notes: I tried to stay as close to the request as possible, and, while this is B/A, there is some B/OC (though nothing explicit). Flashbacks are in italics. Written for the cya_ficathon
The Request: 5 years after the Angel finale, and B/A haven't spoken since "Chosen". How does their reunion go? Can be set anywhere the author is comfortable with, include any other characters, any rating - I don't really want a super fluffy or super angsty ending - somewhere in between. Things to include: a dinner out, an old photograph (or drawing, I guess, since this is Angel...), no Shanshu.
It had started innocuously enough. She had been erasing the board after her first day of student teaching, her back to the departing class, and when she turned around, there was an envelope resting atop her open grade book. The envelope was yellow, almost the color of parchment, and it was heavier than those that she had in her desk; a red wax stamp kept it sealed and it seemed delightfully old-fashioned in a way that tugged at her memory.
Sliding her finger beneath the flap, she carefully peeled the seal back until she could reach the piece of paper that was inside. In a bold hand, it announced, You are cordially invited to the opening of Club Caritas, Saturday the 19th at 12:00. An address followed in a neighborhood that she was unfamiliar with, but it was something about the name, something about the Latin word that made her memory flutter and grasp at something that kept alluding her.
Tucking the invitation into her bag, she shrugged it away. Maybe she’d give it to Rona; she was always looking for a new club. Besides, Buffy had lectured her on her club-hopping ways.
“If you’re gonna be a teacher, Dawn, you hafta grow up.”
Dawn Summers, technically only 8-years-old, realistically ageless, didn’t tell her that if growing up meant she had to be like her big sister, she would rather be childlike forever.
* * *
Buffy had not wanted to return to the States. When Giles had suggested it, she had immediately balked, saying that she liked Europe, had enjoyed Italy, England, and Spain, and did not want to go back to the place that held so many memories. In her mind, if she kept an ocean of space between her and those she had buried, that would mean they would fade away.
Except that nothing ever seemed to fade for her. Those that she had lost haunted her, their spirits clinging to her heart and refusing to let go. Sometimes, if she allowed herself to remember back to her life before this, she would remember the smell of her mother’s morning coffee as she would walk downstairs for school, the sound of Anya’s unerringly embarrassing stories, the gentle touch of Tara’s comforting hand on her back.
If she let her mind go further, she would remember tobacco and leather, pain mixed with pleasure, the rough syllables in a Cockney accent breathed into her ear with lifeless breath.
She always stopped herself at those memories. She knew that if she let herself remember any further, if she permitted herself for one moment to think back beyond those last few years in Sunnydale, she’d feel whisper soft kisses on the back of her neck, the tantalizing touch of a cool hand against the curve of her belly, that deep voice that always seemed to vibrate down to her very soul.
If she wandered too far back, she’d remember that the only man she had ever truly loved had died five years ago and she hadn’t gotten to say good-bye.
They had been in Italy when she had gotten the call. She had been in the middle of making French toast for Willow, who had just returned from one of her magickal quests and had decided to stop in Italy before heading to England to see Giles. Kennedy had been getting on her nerves, and Buffy had seriously been contemplating the consequences of maiming her best friend’s girlfriend with a butter knife when the phone had rung. Her hands covered in egg, she had asked Willow, “Can you get that? And if it’s Faith, tell her that I am not sending her anymore money until she finally says yes to Robin!”
Willow had laughed and picked up the phone, and Buffy’s stomach had dropped when she saw first the confusion and then the pain flash across the redhead’s face. Immediately fearing that something had happened to Dawn, she had wiped her hands and swiped the phone before Willow could say a word.
“What’s wrong?” she barked into the phone, the time for propriety gone.
“Is this Buffy Summers?” an unfamiliar male voice asked.
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“My name’s…” He faltered, as if unsure of the answer, before finally saying, “I’m Connor.”
Connor. She knew who Connor was. She remembered the relish with which Spike had informed her of Angel’s son, recalled how he had waited until he had her handcuffed to the bed in his crypt before whispering into her ear, “Peaches went and got himself a baby with that bitch of a sire of his. Heard he’s a real pretty thing with blue eyes like his mum. You’ll never have that, pet. The only thing that’s ever gonna come from you is death.”
“Connor,” she had echoed. “What do you want?”
“He gave me an envelope with some papers, a list of people I was supposed to contact. You were at the top.”
“Angel told you to call me?”
His voice sounded thin, the way that Dawn’s had when their mother had died, as he reported, “There was something that happened in LA. He tried to take down Wolfram and Hart. The whole city was under attack. They stopped it, but…Well, I tried to find them but they’re all gone.”
“Gone? Angel’s…gone?”
His next words were rushed, as if he didn’t want to handle the explosion of emotion that was inevitably going to occur. “He gave me some things to send to you, and he told me that if I couldn’t find him that I was supposed to call you and tell you that he’s sorry for everything and that he loved you until the end. I don’t have your address to send you the things-“
“I hafta go,” she managed before dropping the receiver into the cradle.
She was halfway to the ground before Kennedy and Willow caught her.
But that was a lifetime ago in Slayer years, and she wasn’t little Buffy Summers anymore. The young woman that had stood at the Mouth of Hell and dared to stare it down had retired; the woman that had been born at the edge of the crater was who was real now. Europe had been a pleasant distraction, but she needed to start a life again, and she knew it. She was tired of the looks and the questions, the way that Giles always seemed to try to talk her out of the second or third glass of wine she wanted, or the way that Xander had suddenly returned from South America and found a thousand reasons to stick around.
When she had finally given in to Giles’s plea to return to the States, she had placed the stipulation that she would not return to the West Coast. It was too close to comfort, too close to everything she had lost and everything she wanted back, and so they had settled on the East Coast, in a town in Pennsylvania called Serenity, twenty miles outside of Philadelphia. The air was cold except for the summer, when the humidity was unbearable, and it never smelled of salt water from the Pacific or sulfur from the fire and brimstone that seemed to always want to break free. Their house was split level, nothing like 1630 Revello Drive, and the neighbors were friendly with the Summers sisters. Buffy got her license and bought a Volvo before taking a job at a local private school as a guidance counselor, courtesy of a glowing letter of recommendation from Robin Wood, former principal of Sunnydale High School, and Dawn enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania where she majored in Secondary Education with an emphasis on history.
Their lives were painfully normal, and Buffy realized that, even though this was everything she had ever wanted, she wasn’t exactly satisfied either.
It had been two years after LA when Faith had waltzed into her house, her dark hair shockingly well-kept, dressed in a pair of jeans and a loose sweater. Her fellow expatriate no longer infused her language with Boston slang and jail lingo, and, though she was still technically a fugitive, upon LA’s demise, the manhunt had been called off. Faith had cleaned her life up, and she had accepted Robin’s marriage proposal, a small but pretty diamond residing on her left hand. When Buffy realized that beneath the loose sweater, Faith’s stomach was swelling from pregnancy, she had felt vaguely ill.
“You gotta start dating again, B,” she had all but ordered as she went around Buffy’s kitchen making herself a cup of tea. “I know you miss him-“
“I-“
“But it’s gonna be a long life if you’re gonna do nothing but mourn him. And don’t say that you’re not and that you’re happy, cuz if Red had to call me and I had to fly five thousand miles, I’d say they think you need an intervention.”
Buffy hadn’t said anything for a long beat as she watched Faith’s practiced hands make the tea. When she finally spoke, she asked, “How far along are you?”
She had smiled at Faith’s shocked expression. “Four months.”
“You know what you’re having?”
“A boy.”
Buffy nodded, trying to imagine how they had gotten his way, how Faith had transformed herself from murderer to domesticated housewife, and she realized that everyone had changed but her. No one had the same life they had even a year before, but here she was, sitting in her kitchen, getting a lecture from Faith.
“You’ll be a good mom.”
Deliberateness in her tone, Faith replied, “You would be too.”
The date had been a set-up courtesy of Giles of all people. He had been working at a local museum when Jon had come in asking about ancient weaponry. Jon was an adjunct professor at a small college just outside Serenity and was lecturing on medieval times. He wanted to know if he could borrow some weapons and maybe be told how they were used. Giles had referred him to Buffy, saying she could do a demonstration.
Xander had laughed hysterically at the idea of Giles the Matchmaker, but Buffy had agreed to do the presentation for Jon’s class. After fascinating both the students and Jon with the way she swung a mace, Jon had asked her out to dinner. The dinner turned into another and another, and soon they were a “serious item,” as Giles liked to say.
Jon Larson was a sweet man a few years older than she was. He had grown up in Atlanta and spoke with a slight Southern drawl that she had to admit charmed her; his family was large and welcoming when he had taken her home for Christmas the year before; he was meticulously organized and lived life by a schedule. To someone who had spent her entire life flying by the seat of her pants, Jon was a welcome change. But best of all, he didn’t ask questions.
He never asked why she was so proficient with so many different weapons. He never asked why an Englishman that was of no blood relation to her guarded her as if she was his only child. He never asked why she flinched when he had taken her to Midnight Mass and the priest had shaken her hand. He never asked why she stopped conversations with her friends when he would enter the room.
No, Jon had stopped asking questions after the first time. He had simply asked how she had gotten the scar on the side of her neck as he brushed a thumb across it, and she had jerked away as if scalded, snapping, “It was nothing!”
Yes, Jon Larson was a good man, but Buffy sometimes wondered if she was doing him a great disservice by letting him love her.
A hand was waved in front of her face, the owner of the hand calling, “Earth to Buffy! Come in please!”
Rolling her eyes, she turned towards Rona and Vi, both of whom had followed them back to America, both of whom had an annoying knack for popping up at the least convenient moments. Of all of the Slayers they had rounded up and begun to train, Rona and Vi were some of the last of the Sunnydale Slayers, as Xander liked to call them. They had faced the Turok-Hans and they had lived to tell the tale, and it gave them an edge over the others. Unlike Kennedy, they didn’t use it to lord it over the other girls; they just did their jobs all the while living normal lives during day hours. Their friendship seemed to be unbreakable; they did everything together, including raiding a vampire nest in downtown Philly that resulted in Vi needing patched up.
“You know, every time you do that, you’re risking that arm.”
“You zoned out again, and she’s losing blood,” Rona replied, not giving any ground. “I’ll be polite when she’s bandaged.”
“Um, getting lightheaded,” the redhead announced, her voice thin.
Applying heavy pressure to the side wound, Buffy snapped, “How can you be so careless? It’s not like you’re new at this. You should’ve waited for more back-up before you went into a nest.”
“You used to do it without backup.”
“Because I had to! You don’t!”
“God, we’re sorry, Mom,” Rona sniped.
Vi hissed as Buffy pressed too hard in anger. “Um, Buffy-“
Relieving some of the pressure, Buffy began to expertly bandage her side, securing the gauze with tape, instructing Vi to hold it tightly against her. Washing her hands of the blood, Buffy asked, “Why didn’t you go to Giles?”
“He went with Willow to see the coven,” Vi reminded her, gently lowering herself into one of the dining room chairs. “Kennedy’s number one on the contact list, but-“
“But I’d rather be set on fire than have to call her to bail us out,” Rona cut in. “She thinks she’s Queen of the Slayers now or something. You should have heard her the other night, going on about how she was the Slayer in charge cuz Faith’s busy being Carol Brady and you don’t care anymore. Where the hell does she get off, right?”
“Where does who get off?” Dawn asked as she entered the kitchen, tugging at the bun at the nape of her neck.
“Kennedy,” Rona and Vi chorused while Buffy queried, “How was school?”
Dawn groaned at the mention of both the witch’s girlfriend and school. “Some football player thought it would be funny to set off a firecracker halfway through a pop quiz and I had to break up a fight. All though, I did get invited to a club.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to date your students, Dawnie,” Buffy teased.
Withdrawing the invitation, she handed it to her big sister. “Do I look like Mary Kay Letourneau? You ever hear about this place?”
“Club Caritas?” Buffy read. “The name sounds familiar.”
“That’s what I thought too! I know it’s Latin. Maybe Giles knows.”
“A club opening? When?”
“Saturday.”
“Awesome. We should go.”
“And miss Buffy’s birthday?”
This time, Buffy groaned. She hated the “b” word, had hated it since the day after she turned seventeen, and she didn’t want to think about what horrors her twenty-eighth year would bring. At first, she had thought the Buffy birthday curse would end once she got out of Sunnydale, where birthdays were marked with Angelus, Kralik, Ethan Rayne, Glory, and vengeance demons. But on her twenty-third birthday, her first since leaving California, she had contracted a stomach virus that had dehydrated her to the point that she had been forced to spend a few days in an Italian hospital. Her twenty-fifth birthday had been celebrated with a car wreck, and on her twenty-sixth the kitchen had caught fire. If she had her way, she would sleep through this weekend and wake up as if nothing had happened.
“Oh, yeah, it’s your birthday. How old are you gonna be?”
“Twenty-eight,” Dawn answered, “which means that thirty’s just around the corner, followed by forty. You’re getting old.”
“Shut up!” she ordered, throwing a washcloth at the brunette.
Buffy didn’t want to think about getting old. Once, Angel had told her it was a gift to be able to age, to watch as those around you grew and changed; now, every year that passed was just another year that she wasn’t with him.
* * *
Faith had stopped believing in coincidence long ago. Even though she had always mocked Buffy back in Sunnydale about fate and destiny and the universe, she had learned that, at least in her life, things always seemed to fit together no matter how strange they seemed. She realized now that fate obviously played a part in her life. After all, if Spike hadn’t killed Nikki Wood a decade before Faith was even born, Robin wouldn’t have sworn vengeance; if he hadn’t done that, he never would’ve come to Sunnydale, where, “coincidentally,” Spike had lived for years helping out the current Slayer, Buffy Summers, whose nemesis was none other than Faith. And if Faith hadn’t gone to work for the Mayor, she wouldn’t have ever had to ask Angel for help, which meant that Wesley never would’ve bailed her out when Angel’s soul was lost and she wouldn’t have ended up right back where she started in Sunnydale, the place where she met Robin. That was just a little too much happenstance in Faith’s opinion.
Sometimes it amazed her that she was married, that she was a mother. She had expected to die long ago; instead, she had a three-year-old son to a man who was a teacher. Faith, who hadn’t even finished the ninth grade, was married to a teacher. If the old gang in Boston could see her now…
But even though she was a wife and mother, she was still a Slayer, and occasionally her blood just screamed at her to go out at night. Robin knew about her “walkabouts” as he called them. She’d usually just walk around the Philadelphia suburb where they lived, a stake hidden in her waistband, savoring the call of the night. Tonight, though, she had gone farther, gone into the city.
Tonight, Faith needed a good, hard fight.
And she found it in a gang of vampires that were congregated in an alley, waiting to jump unsuspecting passersby. Faith played the victim, and they bought it hook, line, and sinker. Soon, she was beating the crap out of them, the adrenaline buzzing through her blood, her need starting to become satisfied. She was enjoying the fight until she was caught off guard when one of the vamps hit her in the back of the head with something heavy. As she tumbled to the ground, her palms painfully sliding across asphalt and broken glass, she felt real fear as they flipped her over.
One was leaning in for the kill as the other four held her when he suddenly burst into ash, startling the others. Soon all of them were nothing but ash, Faith hearing the sounds of blows connecting with their bodies, and she tried to focus through her hazy eyes. She could make out the blurry figure of a man dressed in black, another one in a leather cat suit, and Faith moaned, her words seeming to have failed her.
Finally, when the fighting stopped, she heard a cold, detached voice announce, “The woman is alive but injured. Her head was hurt. Should we take her to the hospital?”
“She could have a concussion,” the male replied, and there was something familiar about his voice, something that pulled Faith enough out of her semi-conscious fog to focus her gaze.
And then she simply gasped, “Holy fuck.”
There, standing alongside a blue skinned demon, was Angel.
* * *
“You’ve been distracted tonight,” Jon said, no accusation in his tone despite the fact that Buffy knew this restaurant was one of the most expensive in Serenity.
“Just thinking,” she lied. “I’m sorry I’m not better company.”
“Oh, it’s fine. You wanna talk about it?”
“Dawn called me old today,” she said, latching onto the most innocuous of her thoughts to share.
Jon laughed. “She’s twenty-three. I’m sure twenty-eight seems ancient to her.”
“It’s not that I’m getting older that bothered me. I was just thinking…By the time she was my age, my mom was married and was having Dawnie. She could do everything, do anything, and sometimes I just worry that I’m…dishonoring her by not doing more with my life.”
“Buffy, that’s ridiculous. Your mother is damn proud of the way you took care of Dawn and how wonderful you are at your job. She couldn’t be anything else.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. It’s just always weird celebrating another birthday without her.”
“You still have a family though. I mean, Dawn is always there for you, and I’m fairly certain that Xander or Giles would kill for ya. Or, at least, Xander would kill me for ya.”
Buffy chuckled. Xander, as usual, did not approve of her boyfriend, nor, ironically, did Andrew, who thought that Jon was “too boring” for her. Of course, if Buffy made her dating decisions based on who Andrew Wells approved, she’d be celibate and clinging to the memory of Spike.
“I know I have family. It’s just hard to explain.”
How do you explain that you’re still desperately in love with your first boyfriend who died five years ago?
Before Jon could offer more insipid platitudes, Buffy’s cell phone began to ring within her purse. The caller ID read Robin, and she couldn’t help but answer with a tease, “I’m not baby-sitting Liam until you reimburse me for that pair of heels he ruined.”
“It’s Faith,” was all he replied, causing Buffy’s blood to run cold.
“What?”
“She went on one of her walkabouts, and she isn’t back yet. It’s been three hours, and she’s not answering her phone. Is she-Is she with you?”
“I’m out with Jon right now. Do you know where she was going?”
“No.”
“I’ll call Willow, have her do…what she does, and I’ll be right over. Stay calm, Robin. I’m sure she’s fine.”
“What’s going on?” Jon asked the moment she had hung up, her face bone pale.
“Um, Faith is missing. She probably just lost track of time, but Robin’s pretty freaked out so-“
“I’ll take you home.”
* * *
“You’re dead,” Faith pronounced as she unsteadily got to her feet, shaking off Angel’s proffered hands. “Buffy said-“
“Faith, you’re hurt. You’re bleeding.”
“LA was in ruins. Connor called her. He said that you were all dead. And why does Fred look like a Smurf?”
“Faith-“
“What the fuck is going on?!”
“She’s hysterical,” Illyria observed. “Should I slap her?”
“No. If you’ll just calm down, I can explain.”
“You’re the First,” Faith decided. “God, you’re back. Of course we couldn’t beat you. You decided to finish the job.”
“I’m not the First.”
“You’re not Angel!”
“Yo, Angel! That you?” a new voice boomed from the alley entrance. When he walked closer, he moved with a severe limp, leaning heavily on a cane. It wasn’t until he was only a foot away that Faith saw it was Gunn, nearly identical to the last time she saw him albeit the left side of his face appeared to be…well, droopier for lack of a better term.
“Holy shit, Faith!” the man exclaimed, surprising her by catching her in a hug. “What are the odds?”
“What is going on?” Faith demanded.
“Let us patch you up and we’ll explain,” Angel swore.
Despite her better judgment, Faith agreed, following the trio to the large blue car that Gunn had been driving, sliding into the front seat next to Angel.
She couldn’t help but stare at him, horribly fascinated by the sight before her. Willow was the one who had made the call to tell her that Angel was dead, killed battling the evil law firm, and Faith had cried for the first time in years. Angel had been her first real friend, and knowing he was gone for good had upset her.
But she had also known that her grief was nothing compared to Buffy’s. Poor Buffy hadn’t been able to get out of bed for almost a month, and when she did, she wasn’t her anymore. It was like all the fight had gone out of her, and, though they were hardly BFFs, she had wished with everything she had that she could make it better.
“What have you been up to?” Gunn asked as if they were just old friends going out for coffee.
“I got married.”
“No way! Who to?”
“Robin Wood. He was in Sunnydale when it…got swallowed.”
“The Slayer’s son?”
Not glancing at the vampire, she confirmed, “The Slayer’s son.”
“You got kids?”
“A little boy. He’s three.”
“That’s great. What’s his name?”
This time, Faith did look at Angel. “His name is Liam.”
Angel’s head jerked towards her, shock on his face which quickly melted into sorrow. He had hated keeping himself hidden for the past five years, but he had no other choice. If he hadn’t, he would’ve endangered those he loved, and he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself if they had been hurt because of him. He all ready carried Wesley’s death with him, a pain that was nearly as sharp as Fred’s, and he also held himself responsible for Spike’s. It was he who had told his childe to take Gunn and get him to a hospital as he started to bleed to death on the wet pavement outside the Hyperion. Spike had got him there, though Gunn had suffered a stroke on the way, and he was on his way back when one of the demons had dusted him. Angel had felt it like a knife in his gut, and he had known that Spike, his annoying, mate stealing childe, had died.
“Are Wes and Cordy here too?”
The car was unnerving in its sudden stillness, and Faith knew that the answer was not going to be good.
It was Illyria who reported, “Wesley died in Los Angeles. A demon stabbed him. I killed the demon.”
Faith swallowed hard, regret ripping through her as she remembered torturing the poor Watcher so many years ago. “And Cordy?”
“She went into a coma not long after you left LA, and she never came out of it,” Angel said, his tone full of practiced detachment. “It’s just us now.”
“Where did you go? Why didn’t you contact us? Do you know what it was like? Do you care?”
“Faith, you don’t understand-“
“You’re right, I don’t. What I do understand is that you’ve been alive for five years, and you let all of us mourn you. You let Buffy mourn you until it almost killed her. Nice way to treat the woman you love.”
“She’s better off.”
“Yeah, whatever. Look, just take me home.”
“You’re still hurt.”
“I don’t want to be around you right now. You disgust me.”
There was such venom in her words that Angel flinched. It was the first time since they had become friends that Faith talked to him like she hated him. It was also the first time since LA that Angel let himself feel real shame for never calling Buffy.
But she deserved more than a vampire; she always had.
* * *
Robin was frantic by the time Buffy reached their house in Quakertown. She had called everyone she could think of and told them to get there, and, when she arrived, Dawn informed her that Rona and Vi had organized every Slayer in the area into looking for Faith, but so far there was no sign of the dark Slayer. Buffy didn’t want to admit that she was scared, but Faith had been extra careful since Liam was born. If she wasn’t home by now, things definitely hadn’t gone as planned.
“Aunt Buffy!” Liam cried, charging towards her the moment she was inside the door. He was wearing his pajamas, and, when Xander came charging after him from his bedroom, Buffy realized that it was way past his bedtime.
“What are you still doing up?” she asked, scooping him up into her arms, cuddling him close to her chest.
She adored Faith’s son with every fiber of her being. At first, when she knew Faith was pregnant, she had been simultaneously jealous that she got to be a mother and nervous that Faith was going to be considering she appeared to lack maternal instincts of any sort. When Giles had convinced her and Robin to move back to the States and they had settled close to them, Buffy had started to associate more with her, even going to the occasional doctor’s appointment with her. It was Buffy that had suggested the name Liam, telling her that it had been Angel’s human name, and Faith had made her his godmother. Buffy sometimes thought that he was going to be the closest thing to a child she would ever have.
“Mommy’s not home,” the little boy informed her.
“I know.”
“Is she lost?”
Her tears blindsided her, hot and stinging, and she suddenly didn’t have any words for the toddler. She didn’t want to lie and say that Faith would be back, but she also didn’t want to tell him that his mother might never come home. This was a no-win situation, and she had no idea how to handle it.
“Hey, buddy, you ran out on our story,” Xander said, forcing merriment into his tone.
“I wanna stay with Aunt Buffy till Mommy’s home.”
“Liam, go back to your room with Uncle Xander,” Robin ordered, barely glancing at his son. Though it was hardly noticeable, his hands were shaking as he dialed the telephone again.
“Daddy-“
”Now!” the usually soft spoken man roared, causing Dawn and Buffy both to jump and Liam to dissolve into tears, clinging even tighter to Buffy’s neck. She carefully unwound his arms around her neck and handed him to Xander.
“Robin,” Buffy ventured.
“Why isn’t she answering her phone?!” he exploded, throwing the cell against the living room wall, the plastic breaking apart. “Where the hell is she?!”
“Robin, you need to calm down. You’re scaring Liam.”
“I told her a thousand times that if she’s gonna be longer than an hour to call me. She’s got a child now; he comes first, not slaying. We established that. Why would she do this?”
“If you think that anything could keep Faith from that little boy, you’re nuts.”
“You hate her,” he accused, pacing the length of the room. “You always have. You’re probably happy about this.”
Recoiling as if slapped, Buffy snapped, “Yeah, I rushed right over cuz I hope she’s dead. Quit throwing yourself a goddamn pity party and get focused! Faith is out there and we are going to find her. Now where does she usually patrol?”
“She doesn’t have a set path.”
“Willow’s locater spell said she was in Philadelphia, but she couldn’t get a more exact location,” Dawn piped up. “But she can only locate people that are alive, so that’s a good sign.”
“Well, gee, I’ll start dancing then.”
“Robin, shut up!”
“Rona and Vi sent out every Slayer in the area through Philly, even Kennedy. They’re searching every nook and cranny. We’ll find her.”
As if on cue, the front door burst open, Rona propping up Faith, who was unsure on her feet, the palms of her hands cut and bleeding, blood matting in her hair. Robin was instantly pushing Buffy out of the way to get to her, throwing his arms around her, simultaneously praising her and berating her, while Dawn went to the kitchen to get the first aid kit. As they lowered the Slayer onto the couch, Vi came in, pushing along a tall, African-American man with a cane while Kennedy and four Slayers Buffy didn’t know were standing outside the doorway, Kennedy shouting, “We got the vamp that did this!”
“He didn’t do it!” the man objected, earning a painful squeeze to the back of his neck from Vi.
“There was some blue demon with them, but this one told her to get out of here!” Kennedy continued, exertion obvious in her voice. “We figured Wood would want to dust him!”
“Damn right,” Robin agreed, walking over to the weapons cabinet and extracting a stake.
“No,” Faith moaned, trying to shake her head but the nausea stopping her. The longer the trip home had gone on, the weaker she had gotten. She definitely had a concussion, and, once the adrenaline had subsided, it was kicking her ass.
“What happened? And if you lie, I will hurt you.”
The man swallowed hard, trying to shake Vi off again. “We were helping her. I was trying to help her out of the car when these psychos jumped us.”
“Yeah, cuz so many vamps want to help a Slayer,” Dawn spat as she carefully removed bits of glass with a pair of tweezers, glaring at the man.
Robin was in the process of stepping outside, prepared to dust the vampire on the front steps, when Faith slurred, “Angel. Ish Angel.”
Buffy’s heart dropped. “What?”
“Ish Angel,” she repeated, jerking slightly at the pain of Dawn attending to her hands.
Buffy hurried after Robin, almost certain that Faith was simply delusional in her concussed state yet too afraid that she might not be to risk it. And when she saw the vampire that was trying to fight off the Slayers, she immediately caught Robin’s arm that was cocked back to strike.
“Buffy, what-“
Her grip never faltered as she stared into the chocolate eyes she had once known so well, the eyes that she had thought she’d never see again.
He stopped struggling, such complete and total astonishment written on his face that he had obviously not been playing his old game of “Let’s Stalk Buffy.” No, it looked as if he had no idea that she was even on the same continent as he was, let alone in the same city.
“Angel?”
“Buffy.”
Part Two: http://total-fangirl.livejournal.com/7238.html#cutid1
Rating: R for language and sexuality
Word Count: 5698
Spoilers: Anything from any season is fair game
Summary: 5 years after “Not Fade Away,” Buffy is living in Pennsylvania when she discovers that Angel didn’t die in LA after all.
Notes: I tried to stay as close to the request as possible, and, while this is B/A, there is some B/OC (though nothing explicit). Flashbacks are in italics. Written for the cya_ficathon
The Request: 5 years after the Angel finale, and B/A haven't spoken since "Chosen". How does their reunion go? Can be set anywhere the author is comfortable with, include any other characters, any rating - I don't really want a super fluffy or super angsty ending - somewhere in between. Things to include: a dinner out, an old photograph (or drawing, I guess, since this is Angel...), no Shanshu.
It had started innocuously enough. She had been erasing the board after her first day of student teaching, her back to the departing class, and when she turned around, there was an envelope resting atop her open grade book. The envelope was yellow, almost the color of parchment, and it was heavier than those that she had in her desk; a red wax stamp kept it sealed and it seemed delightfully old-fashioned in a way that tugged at her memory.
Sliding her finger beneath the flap, she carefully peeled the seal back until she could reach the piece of paper that was inside. In a bold hand, it announced, You are cordially invited to the opening of Club Caritas, Saturday the 19th at 12:00. An address followed in a neighborhood that she was unfamiliar with, but it was something about the name, something about the Latin word that made her memory flutter and grasp at something that kept alluding her.
Tucking the invitation into her bag, she shrugged it away. Maybe she’d give it to Rona; she was always looking for a new club. Besides, Buffy had lectured her on her club-hopping ways.
“If you’re gonna be a teacher, Dawn, you hafta grow up.”
Dawn Summers, technically only 8-years-old, realistically ageless, didn’t tell her that if growing up meant she had to be like her big sister, she would rather be childlike forever.
* * *
Buffy had not wanted to return to the States. When Giles had suggested it, she had immediately balked, saying that she liked Europe, had enjoyed Italy, England, and Spain, and did not want to go back to the place that held so many memories. In her mind, if she kept an ocean of space between her and those she had buried, that would mean they would fade away.
Except that nothing ever seemed to fade for her. Those that she had lost haunted her, their spirits clinging to her heart and refusing to let go. Sometimes, if she allowed herself to remember back to her life before this, she would remember the smell of her mother’s morning coffee as she would walk downstairs for school, the sound of Anya’s unerringly embarrassing stories, the gentle touch of Tara’s comforting hand on her back.
If she let her mind go further, she would remember tobacco and leather, pain mixed with pleasure, the rough syllables in a Cockney accent breathed into her ear with lifeless breath.
She always stopped herself at those memories. She knew that if she let herself remember any further, if she permitted herself for one moment to think back beyond those last few years in Sunnydale, she’d feel whisper soft kisses on the back of her neck, the tantalizing touch of a cool hand against the curve of her belly, that deep voice that always seemed to vibrate down to her very soul.
If she wandered too far back, she’d remember that the only man she had ever truly loved had died five years ago and she hadn’t gotten to say good-bye.
They had been in Italy when she had gotten the call. She had been in the middle of making French toast for Willow, who had just returned from one of her magickal quests and had decided to stop in Italy before heading to England to see Giles. Kennedy had been getting on her nerves, and Buffy had seriously been contemplating the consequences of maiming her best friend’s girlfriend with a butter knife when the phone had rung. Her hands covered in egg, she had asked Willow, “Can you get that? And if it’s Faith, tell her that I am not sending her anymore money until she finally says yes to Robin!”
Willow had laughed and picked up the phone, and Buffy’s stomach had dropped when she saw first the confusion and then the pain flash across the redhead’s face. Immediately fearing that something had happened to Dawn, she had wiped her hands and swiped the phone before Willow could say a word.
“What’s wrong?” she barked into the phone, the time for propriety gone.
“Is this Buffy Summers?” an unfamiliar male voice asked.
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“My name’s…” He faltered, as if unsure of the answer, before finally saying, “I’m Connor.”
Connor. She knew who Connor was. She remembered the relish with which Spike had informed her of Angel’s son, recalled how he had waited until he had her handcuffed to the bed in his crypt before whispering into her ear, “Peaches went and got himself a baby with that bitch of a sire of his. Heard he’s a real pretty thing with blue eyes like his mum. You’ll never have that, pet. The only thing that’s ever gonna come from you is death.”
“Connor,” she had echoed. “What do you want?”
“He gave me an envelope with some papers, a list of people I was supposed to contact. You were at the top.”
“Angel told you to call me?”
His voice sounded thin, the way that Dawn’s had when their mother had died, as he reported, “There was something that happened in LA. He tried to take down Wolfram and Hart. The whole city was under attack. They stopped it, but…Well, I tried to find them but they’re all gone.”
“Gone? Angel’s…gone?”
His next words were rushed, as if he didn’t want to handle the explosion of emotion that was inevitably going to occur. “He gave me some things to send to you, and he told me that if I couldn’t find him that I was supposed to call you and tell you that he’s sorry for everything and that he loved you until the end. I don’t have your address to send you the things-“
“I hafta go,” she managed before dropping the receiver into the cradle.
She was halfway to the ground before Kennedy and Willow caught her.
But that was a lifetime ago in Slayer years, and she wasn’t little Buffy Summers anymore. The young woman that had stood at the Mouth of Hell and dared to stare it down had retired; the woman that had been born at the edge of the crater was who was real now. Europe had been a pleasant distraction, but she needed to start a life again, and she knew it. She was tired of the looks and the questions, the way that Giles always seemed to try to talk her out of the second or third glass of wine she wanted, or the way that Xander had suddenly returned from South America and found a thousand reasons to stick around.
When she had finally given in to Giles’s plea to return to the States, she had placed the stipulation that she would not return to the West Coast. It was too close to comfort, too close to everything she had lost and everything she wanted back, and so they had settled on the East Coast, in a town in Pennsylvania called Serenity, twenty miles outside of Philadelphia. The air was cold except for the summer, when the humidity was unbearable, and it never smelled of salt water from the Pacific or sulfur from the fire and brimstone that seemed to always want to break free. Their house was split level, nothing like 1630 Revello Drive, and the neighbors were friendly with the Summers sisters. Buffy got her license and bought a Volvo before taking a job at a local private school as a guidance counselor, courtesy of a glowing letter of recommendation from Robin Wood, former principal of Sunnydale High School, and Dawn enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania where she majored in Secondary Education with an emphasis on history.
Their lives were painfully normal, and Buffy realized that, even though this was everything she had ever wanted, she wasn’t exactly satisfied either.
It had been two years after LA when Faith had waltzed into her house, her dark hair shockingly well-kept, dressed in a pair of jeans and a loose sweater. Her fellow expatriate no longer infused her language with Boston slang and jail lingo, and, though she was still technically a fugitive, upon LA’s demise, the manhunt had been called off. Faith had cleaned her life up, and she had accepted Robin’s marriage proposal, a small but pretty diamond residing on her left hand. When Buffy realized that beneath the loose sweater, Faith’s stomach was swelling from pregnancy, she had felt vaguely ill.
“You gotta start dating again, B,” she had all but ordered as she went around Buffy’s kitchen making herself a cup of tea. “I know you miss him-“
“I-“
“But it’s gonna be a long life if you’re gonna do nothing but mourn him. And don’t say that you’re not and that you’re happy, cuz if Red had to call me and I had to fly five thousand miles, I’d say they think you need an intervention.”
Buffy hadn’t said anything for a long beat as she watched Faith’s practiced hands make the tea. When she finally spoke, she asked, “How far along are you?”
She had smiled at Faith’s shocked expression. “Four months.”
“You know what you’re having?”
“A boy.”
Buffy nodded, trying to imagine how they had gotten his way, how Faith had transformed herself from murderer to domesticated housewife, and she realized that everyone had changed but her. No one had the same life they had even a year before, but here she was, sitting in her kitchen, getting a lecture from Faith.
“You’ll be a good mom.”
Deliberateness in her tone, Faith replied, “You would be too.”
The date had been a set-up courtesy of Giles of all people. He had been working at a local museum when Jon had come in asking about ancient weaponry. Jon was an adjunct professor at a small college just outside Serenity and was lecturing on medieval times. He wanted to know if he could borrow some weapons and maybe be told how they were used. Giles had referred him to Buffy, saying she could do a demonstration.
Xander had laughed hysterically at the idea of Giles the Matchmaker, but Buffy had agreed to do the presentation for Jon’s class. After fascinating both the students and Jon with the way she swung a mace, Jon had asked her out to dinner. The dinner turned into another and another, and soon they were a “serious item,” as Giles liked to say.
Jon Larson was a sweet man a few years older than she was. He had grown up in Atlanta and spoke with a slight Southern drawl that she had to admit charmed her; his family was large and welcoming when he had taken her home for Christmas the year before; he was meticulously organized and lived life by a schedule. To someone who had spent her entire life flying by the seat of her pants, Jon was a welcome change. But best of all, he didn’t ask questions.
He never asked why she was so proficient with so many different weapons. He never asked why an Englishman that was of no blood relation to her guarded her as if she was his only child. He never asked why she flinched when he had taken her to Midnight Mass and the priest had shaken her hand. He never asked why she stopped conversations with her friends when he would enter the room.
No, Jon had stopped asking questions after the first time. He had simply asked how she had gotten the scar on the side of her neck as he brushed a thumb across it, and she had jerked away as if scalded, snapping, “It was nothing!”
Yes, Jon Larson was a good man, but Buffy sometimes wondered if she was doing him a great disservice by letting him love her.
A hand was waved in front of her face, the owner of the hand calling, “Earth to Buffy! Come in please!”
Rolling her eyes, she turned towards Rona and Vi, both of whom had followed them back to America, both of whom had an annoying knack for popping up at the least convenient moments. Of all of the Slayers they had rounded up and begun to train, Rona and Vi were some of the last of the Sunnydale Slayers, as Xander liked to call them. They had faced the Turok-Hans and they had lived to tell the tale, and it gave them an edge over the others. Unlike Kennedy, they didn’t use it to lord it over the other girls; they just did their jobs all the while living normal lives during day hours. Their friendship seemed to be unbreakable; they did everything together, including raiding a vampire nest in downtown Philly that resulted in Vi needing patched up.
“You know, every time you do that, you’re risking that arm.”
“You zoned out again, and she’s losing blood,” Rona replied, not giving any ground. “I’ll be polite when she’s bandaged.”
“Um, getting lightheaded,” the redhead announced, her voice thin.
Applying heavy pressure to the side wound, Buffy snapped, “How can you be so careless? It’s not like you’re new at this. You should’ve waited for more back-up before you went into a nest.”
“You used to do it without backup.”
“Because I had to! You don’t!”
“God, we’re sorry, Mom,” Rona sniped.
Vi hissed as Buffy pressed too hard in anger. “Um, Buffy-“
Relieving some of the pressure, Buffy began to expertly bandage her side, securing the gauze with tape, instructing Vi to hold it tightly against her. Washing her hands of the blood, Buffy asked, “Why didn’t you go to Giles?”
“He went with Willow to see the coven,” Vi reminded her, gently lowering herself into one of the dining room chairs. “Kennedy’s number one on the contact list, but-“
“But I’d rather be set on fire than have to call her to bail us out,” Rona cut in. “She thinks she’s Queen of the Slayers now or something. You should have heard her the other night, going on about how she was the Slayer in charge cuz Faith’s busy being Carol Brady and you don’t care anymore. Where the hell does she get off, right?”
“Where does who get off?” Dawn asked as she entered the kitchen, tugging at the bun at the nape of her neck.
“Kennedy,” Rona and Vi chorused while Buffy queried, “How was school?”
Dawn groaned at the mention of both the witch’s girlfriend and school. “Some football player thought it would be funny to set off a firecracker halfway through a pop quiz and I had to break up a fight. All though, I did get invited to a club.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to date your students, Dawnie,” Buffy teased.
Withdrawing the invitation, she handed it to her big sister. “Do I look like Mary Kay Letourneau? You ever hear about this place?”
“Club Caritas?” Buffy read. “The name sounds familiar.”
“That’s what I thought too! I know it’s Latin. Maybe Giles knows.”
“A club opening? When?”
“Saturday.”
“Awesome. We should go.”
“And miss Buffy’s birthday?”
This time, Buffy groaned. She hated the “b” word, had hated it since the day after she turned seventeen, and she didn’t want to think about what horrors her twenty-eighth year would bring. At first, she had thought the Buffy birthday curse would end once she got out of Sunnydale, where birthdays were marked with Angelus, Kralik, Ethan Rayne, Glory, and vengeance demons. But on her twenty-third birthday, her first since leaving California, she had contracted a stomach virus that had dehydrated her to the point that she had been forced to spend a few days in an Italian hospital. Her twenty-fifth birthday had been celebrated with a car wreck, and on her twenty-sixth the kitchen had caught fire. If she had her way, she would sleep through this weekend and wake up as if nothing had happened.
“Oh, yeah, it’s your birthday. How old are you gonna be?”
“Twenty-eight,” Dawn answered, “which means that thirty’s just around the corner, followed by forty. You’re getting old.”
“Shut up!” she ordered, throwing a washcloth at the brunette.
Buffy didn’t want to think about getting old. Once, Angel had told her it was a gift to be able to age, to watch as those around you grew and changed; now, every year that passed was just another year that she wasn’t with him.
* * *
Faith had stopped believing in coincidence long ago. Even though she had always mocked Buffy back in Sunnydale about fate and destiny and the universe, she had learned that, at least in her life, things always seemed to fit together no matter how strange they seemed. She realized now that fate obviously played a part in her life. After all, if Spike hadn’t killed Nikki Wood a decade before Faith was even born, Robin wouldn’t have sworn vengeance; if he hadn’t done that, he never would’ve come to Sunnydale, where, “coincidentally,” Spike had lived for years helping out the current Slayer, Buffy Summers, whose nemesis was none other than Faith. And if Faith hadn’t gone to work for the Mayor, she wouldn’t have ever had to ask Angel for help, which meant that Wesley never would’ve bailed her out when Angel’s soul was lost and she wouldn’t have ended up right back where she started in Sunnydale, the place where she met Robin. That was just a little too much happenstance in Faith’s opinion.
Sometimes it amazed her that she was married, that she was a mother. She had expected to die long ago; instead, she had a three-year-old son to a man who was a teacher. Faith, who hadn’t even finished the ninth grade, was married to a teacher. If the old gang in Boston could see her now…
But even though she was a wife and mother, she was still a Slayer, and occasionally her blood just screamed at her to go out at night. Robin knew about her “walkabouts” as he called them. She’d usually just walk around the Philadelphia suburb where they lived, a stake hidden in her waistband, savoring the call of the night. Tonight, though, she had gone farther, gone into the city.
Tonight, Faith needed a good, hard fight.
And she found it in a gang of vampires that were congregated in an alley, waiting to jump unsuspecting passersby. Faith played the victim, and they bought it hook, line, and sinker. Soon, she was beating the crap out of them, the adrenaline buzzing through her blood, her need starting to become satisfied. She was enjoying the fight until she was caught off guard when one of the vamps hit her in the back of the head with something heavy. As she tumbled to the ground, her palms painfully sliding across asphalt and broken glass, she felt real fear as they flipped her over.
One was leaning in for the kill as the other four held her when he suddenly burst into ash, startling the others. Soon all of them were nothing but ash, Faith hearing the sounds of blows connecting with their bodies, and she tried to focus through her hazy eyes. She could make out the blurry figure of a man dressed in black, another one in a leather cat suit, and Faith moaned, her words seeming to have failed her.
Finally, when the fighting stopped, she heard a cold, detached voice announce, “The woman is alive but injured. Her head was hurt. Should we take her to the hospital?”
“She could have a concussion,” the male replied, and there was something familiar about his voice, something that pulled Faith enough out of her semi-conscious fog to focus her gaze.
And then she simply gasped, “Holy fuck.”
There, standing alongside a blue skinned demon, was Angel.
* * *
“You’ve been distracted tonight,” Jon said, no accusation in his tone despite the fact that Buffy knew this restaurant was one of the most expensive in Serenity.
“Just thinking,” she lied. “I’m sorry I’m not better company.”
“Oh, it’s fine. You wanna talk about it?”
“Dawn called me old today,” she said, latching onto the most innocuous of her thoughts to share.
Jon laughed. “She’s twenty-three. I’m sure twenty-eight seems ancient to her.”
“It’s not that I’m getting older that bothered me. I was just thinking…By the time she was my age, my mom was married and was having Dawnie. She could do everything, do anything, and sometimes I just worry that I’m…dishonoring her by not doing more with my life.”
“Buffy, that’s ridiculous. Your mother is damn proud of the way you took care of Dawn and how wonderful you are at your job. She couldn’t be anything else.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. It’s just always weird celebrating another birthday without her.”
“You still have a family though. I mean, Dawn is always there for you, and I’m fairly certain that Xander or Giles would kill for ya. Or, at least, Xander would kill me for ya.”
Buffy chuckled. Xander, as usual, did not approve of her boyfriend, nor, ironically, did Andrew, who thought that Jon was “too boring” for her. Of course, if Buffy made her dating decisions based on who Andrew Wells approved, she’d be celibate and clinging to the memory of Spike.
“I know I have family. It’s just hard to explain.”
How do you explain that you’re still desperately in love with your first boyfriend who died five years ago?
Before Jon could offer more insipid platitudes, Buffy’s cell phone began to ring within her purse. The caller ID read Robin, and she couldn’t help but answer with a tease, “I’m not baby-sitting Liam until you reimburse me for that pair of heels he ruined.”
“It’s Faith,” was all he replied, causing Buffy’s blood to run cold.
“What?”
“She went on one of her walkabouts, and she isn’t back yet. It’s been three hours, and she’s not answering her phone. Is she-Is she with you?”
“I’m out with Jon right now. Do you know where she was going?”
“No.”
“I’ll call Willow, have her do…what she does, and I’ll be right over. Stay calm, Robin. I’m sure she’s fine.”
“What’s going on?” Jon asked the moment she had hung up, her face bone pale.
“Um, Faith is missing. She probably just lost track of time, but Robin’s pretty freaked out so-“
“I’ll take you home.”
* * *
“You’re dead,” Faith pronounced as she unsteadily got to her feet, shaking off Angel’s proffered hands. “Buffy said-“
“Faith, you’re hurt. You’re bleeding.”
“LA was in ruins. Connor called her. He said that you were all dead. And why does Fred look like a Smurf?”
“Faith-“
“What the fuck is going on?!”
“She’s hysterical,” Illyria observed. “Should I slap her?”
“No. If you’ll just calm down, I can explain.”
“You’re the First,” Faith decided. “God, you’re back. Of course we couldn’t beat you. You decided to finish the job.”
“I’m not the First.”
“You’re not Angel!”
“Yo, Angel! That you?” a new voice boomed from the alley entrance. When he walked closer, he moved with a severe limp, leaning heavily on a cane. It wasn’t until he was only a foot away that Faith saw it was Gunn, nearly identical to the last time she saw him albeit the left side of his face appeared to be…well, droopier for lack of a better term.
“Holy shit, Faith!” the man exclaimed, surprising her by catching her in a hug. “What are the odds?”
“What is going on?” Faith demanded.
“Let us patch you up and we’ll explain,” Angel swore.
Despite her better judgment, Faith agreed, following the trio to the large blue car that Gunn had been driving, sliding into the front seat next to Angel.
She couldn’t help but stare at him, horribly fascinated by the sight before her. Willow was the one who had made the call to tell her that Angel was dead, killed battling the evil law firm, and Faith had cried for the first time in years. Angel had been her first real friend, and knowing he was gone for good had upset her.
But she had also known that her grief was nothing compared to Buffy’s. Poor Buffy hadn’t been able to get out of bed for almost a month, and when she did, she wasn’t her anymore. It was like all the fight had gone out of her, and, though they were hardly BFFs, she had wished with everything she had that she could make it better.
“What have you been up to?” Gunn asked as if they were just old friends going out for coffee.
“I got married.”
“No way! Who to?”
“Robin Wood. He was in Sunnydale when it…got swallowed.”
“The Slayer’s son?”
Not glancing at the vampire, she confirmed, “The Slayer’s son.”
“You got kids?”
“A little boy. He’s three.”
“That’s great. What’s his name?”
This time, Faith did look at Angel. “His name is Liam.”
Angel’s head jerked towards her, shock on his face which quickly melted into sorrow. He had hated keeping himself hidden for the past five years, but he had no other choice. If he hadn’t, he would’ve endangered those he loved, and he wouldn’t have been able to live with himself if they had been hurt because of him. He all ready carried Wesley’s death with him, a pain that was nearly as sharp as Fred’s, and he also held himself responsible for Spike’s. It was he who had told his childe to take Gunn and get him to a hospital as he started to bleed to death on the wet pavement outside the Hyperion. Spike had got him there, though Gunn had suffered a stroke on the way, and he was on his way back when one of the demons had dusted him. Angel had felt it like a knife in his gut, and he had known that Spike, his annoying, mate stealing childe, had died.
“Are Wes and Cordy here too?”
The car was unnerving in its sudden stillness, and Faith knew that the answer was not going to be good.
It was Illyria who reported, “Wesley died in Los Angeles. A demon stabbed him. I killed the demon.”
Faith swallowed hard, regret ripping through her as she remembered torturing the poor Watcher so many years ago. “And Cordy?”
“She went into a coma not long after you left LA, and she never came out of it,” Angel said, his tone full of practiced detachment. “It’s just us now.”
“Where did you go? Why didn’t you contact us? Do you know what it was like? Do you care?”
“Faith, you don’t understand-“
“You’re right, I don’t. What I do understand is that you’ve been alive for five years, and you let all of us mourn you. You let Buffy mourn you until it almost killed her. Nice way to treat the woman you love.”
“She’s better off.”
“Yeah, whatever. Look, just take me home.”
“You’re still hurt.”
“I don’t want to be around you right now. You disgust me.”
There was such venom in her words that Angel flinched. It was the first time since they had become friends that Faith talked to him like she hated him. It was also the first time since LA that Angel let himself feel real shame for never calling Buffy.
But she deserved more than a vampire; she always had.
* * *
Robin was frantic by the time Buffy reached their house in Quakertown. She had called everyone she could think of and told them to get there, and, when she arrived, Dawn informed her that Rona and Vi had organized every Slayer in the area into looking for Faith, but so far there was no sign of the dark Slayer. Buffy didn’t want to admit that she was scared, but Faith had been extra careful since Liam was born. If she wasn’t home by now, things definitely hadn’t gone as planned.
“Aunt Buffy!” Liam cried, charging towards her the moment she was inside the door. He was wearing his pajamas, and, when Xander came charging after him from his bedroom, Buffy realized that it was way past his bedtime.
“What are you still doing up?” she asked, scooping him up into her arms, cuddling him close to her chest.
She adored Faith’s son with every fiber of her being. At first, when she knew Faith was pregnant, she had been simultaneously jealous that she got to be a mother and nervous that Faith was going to be considering she appeared to lack maternal instincts of any sort. When Giles had convinced her and Robin to move back to the States and they had settled close to them, Buffy had started to associate more with her, even going to the occasional doctor’s appointment with her. It was Buffy that had suggested the name Liam, telling her that it had been Angel’s human name, and Faith had made her his godmother. Buffy sometimes thought that he was going to be the closest thing to a child she would ever have.
“Mommy’s not home,” the little boy informed her.
“I know.”
“Is she lost?”
Her tears blindsided her, hot and stinging, and she suddenly didn’t have any words for the toddler. She didn’t want to lie and say that Faith would be back, but she also didn’t want to tell him that his mother might never come home. This was a no-win situation, and she had no idea how to handle it.
“Hey, buddy, you ran out on our story,” Xander said, forcing merriment into his tone.
“I wanna stay with Aunt Buffy till Mommy’s home.”
“Liam, go back to your room with Uncle Xander,” Robin ordered, barely glancing at his son. Though it was hardly noticeable, his hands were shaking as he dialed the telephone again.
“Daddy-“
”Now!” the usually soft spoken man roared, causing Dawn and Buffy both to jump and Liam to dissolve into tears, clinging even tighter to Buffy’s neck. She carefully unwound his arms around her neck and handed him to Xander.
“Robin,” Buffy ventured.
“Why isn’t she answering her phone?!” he exploded, throwing the cell against the living room wall, the plastic breaking apart. “Where the hell is she?!”
“Robin, you need to calm down. You’re scaring Liam.”
“I told her a thousand times that if she’s gonna be longer than an hour to call me. She’s got a child now; he comes first, not slaying. We established that. Why would she do this?”
“If you think that anything could keep Faith from that little boy, you’re nuts.”
“You hate her,” he accused, pacing the length of the room. “You always have. You’re probably happy about this.”
Recoiling as if slapped, Buffy snapped, “Yeah, I rushed right over cuz I hope she’s dead. Quit throwing yourself a goddamn pity party and get focused! Faith is out there and we are going to find her. Now where does she usually patrol?”
“She doesn’t have a set path.”
“Willow’s locater spell said she was in Philadelphia, but she couldn’t get a more exact location,” Dawn piped up. “But she can only locate people that are alive, so that’s a good sign.”
“Well, gee, I’ll start dancing then.”
“Robin, shut up!”
“Rona and Vi sent out every Slayer in the area through Philly, even Kennedy. They’re searching every nook and cranny. We’ll find her.”
As if on cue, the front door burst open, Rona propping up Faith, who was unsure on her feet, the palms of her hands cut and bleeding, blood matting in her hair. Robin was instantly pushing Buffy out of the way to get to her, throwing his arms around her, simultaneously praising her and berating her, while Dawn went to the kitchen to get the first aid kit. As they lowered the Slayer onto the couch, Vi came in, pushing along a tall, African-American man with a cane while Kennedy and four Slayers Buffy didn’t know were standing outside the doorway, Kennedy shouting, “We got the vamp that did this!”
“He didn’t do it!” the man objected, earning a painful squeeze to the back of his neck from Vi.
“There was some blue demon with them, but this one told her to get out of here!” Kennedy continued, exertion obvious in her voice. “We figured Wood would want to dust him!”
“Damn right,” Robin agreed, walking over to the weapons cabinet and extracting a stake.
“No,” Faith moaned, trying to shake her head but the nausea stopping her. The longer the trip home had gone on, the weaker she had gotten. She definitely had a concussion, and, once the adrenaline had subsided, it was kicking her ass.
“What happened? And if you lie, I will hurt you.”
The man swallowed hard, trying to shake Vi off again. “We were helping her. I was trying to help her out of the car when these psychos jumped us.”
“Yeah, cuz so many vamps want to help a Slayer,” Dawn spat as she carefully removed bits of glass with a pair of tweezers, glaring at the man.
Robin was in the process of stepping outside, prepared to dust the vampire on the front steps, when Faith slurred, “Angel. Ish Angel.”
Buffy’s heart dropped. “What?”
“Ish Angel,” she repeated, jerking slightly at the pain of Dawn attending to her hands.
Buffy hurried after Robin, almost certain that Faith was simply delusional in her concussed state yet too afraid that she might not be to risk it. And when she saw the vampire that was trying to fight off the Slayers, she immediately caught Robin’s arm that was cocked back to strike.
“Buffy, what-“
Her grip never faltered as she stared into the chocolate eyes she had once known so well, the eyes that she had thought she’d never see again.
He stopped struggling, such complete and total astonishment written on his face that he had obviously not been playing his old game of “Let’s Stalk Buffy.” No, it looked as if he had no idea that she was even on the same continent as he was, let alone in the same city.
“Angel?”
“Buffy.”
Part Two: http://total-fangirl.livejournal.com/7238.html#cutid1