Disclaimer:The characters of BTVS are owned by Joss Whedon and Co.
Outside the window the weather raged. Lightning brightened the sky in flashes while thunder rumbled ferociously and the wind howled like a coyote baying at the moon. It was the kind of night she loved. The forces of nature coming together in a symphony of light and sound.
She sat in the window seat of her bedroom staring out into the night, oblivious to the wind and rain. Occasionally, the wind switched direction and the breeze sprayed droplets of water in the open window, splashing her face with drops of cool water. But she didn't notice. Her mind was other places then, drifting back to her mother's words earlier that evening, to the sadness in Willow's voice as she spoke of how she was losing her best friend.
Struck by a vision of a happier place, and by a need to banish her darker thoughts, she rose from her perch and walked over to her closet. Pulling out her trunk, she grabbed a few stakes, just in case she ran into a vampire hungry enough to brave the storm for a bite, and placed them strategically on her body. Grabbing a jacket, she headed out the window and into the rainy night.
Not knowing what exactly had possessed her to go out into the rain, she just let her feet guide her to where they wanted to go. Within minutes of stepping outdoors she was soaked to the bone, but she hardly felt it, her mind so intent on its destination. The tree by the back wall of the cemetery. Her favorite spot in the place where she spent a good deal of her time.
She wasn't really sure what made her think of her special place on such a rainy night, but she didn't question her need to be there. Her best guess was that she needed a place untainted with bad memories, a place where she felt secure. Ever since she had returned to Sunnydale, things hadn't been the same. Her summer away from home had changed her. She'd come back a more independant, more confident Slayer. Her skill had improved tremendously, and she no longer considered her duty a burden. However, her friends were having a harder time adjusting to the new Buffy.
Willow said they never talked, really talked, anymore. Xander, well, Xander just complained, about the hours she patrolled, about the less and less time she spent with the gang. Giles, while excited with her progress as Slayer, didn't like the way she shut the others out and kept all her feelings inside. Joyce who, despite knowing the truth about Buffy, still felt as if she didn't know who her daughter really was. And Angel. Well, she and Angel had reverted to the relationship they'd established when she first moved to Sunnydale. As always, when they finally moved two steps forward, life managed to knock them two miles back. Only this time, she thought the distance they needed to make up was too much, even for them.
And that was really what drove her out into the rain in search of her special place. Her relationship, or lack thereof, with Angel.
Entering the cemetery gates, she allowed her thoughts to drift of other, happier times in the cemetry. She and Angel had discovered the tree one night during an uneventful patrol. They'd been walking along, deep in conversation when she'd spotted it. She ran over to it, and declared, loud enough to raise the dead, Angel had muttered, that from that night forward that tree would be their special place.
Whenever she needed to get away from everything, her Watcher, her friends, the ever constant prophecies foretelling her doom, she would go to that tree, and Angel would always be there waiting for her. He would take her into his arms, hold her close, and, for a moment, all her troubles would fade away. She questioned him after the third time in a row he'd been there waiting, wondering how he was always knew when she needed him. He would simply smile and say that he just knew.
When patrols were slow, she and Angel would sit under their tree and talk, mostly about the things she did during the day when he couldn't be with her, and on a rare occasion, he'd talk of some memory from long ago. She liked to call it their little piece of heaven and he would say that only they could find heaven amongst the dead and buried.
The tree was the one place where things were always happy and nothing ever interupted their time there. They thought they would always have that tree, that nothing would ever prevent them from being together there. But things had changed and the last time she'd gone to their special place, Angel hadn't been there waiting for her.
That was why Buffy was so shocked to find him standing there now, watching her from beneath the the branches of their tree. Knowing he couldn't really be there, she walked toward the image, refusing to get her hopes too high. But when she stopped in front of him and he wrapped his arms around her and held her close, she knew that he was really there.
She pulled back from his embrace and looked up at him. "Why are you here?" she asked him after a moment. "How did you know?"
"I just did," he answered her, smiling. Slowly, his smile faded and the look he gave her was serious. "So, we're back together under our tree. You know what that means, right?"
Reluctantly, she pulled away from him, nodding her head in answer to his question. "It means we finally get to do that talking thing, huh?"
He smiled. "Yeah, no running away, no avoiding the issues," he replied. He gathered her against him, his arms wrapping around her waist. "And who knows, maybe when this is over things will be better."
Then together, they sat down under their tree and, still wrapped in each others arms, they talked, about anger, about pain, about love.
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Where Evil Reigns