| Title: Page 2 (Second in the set of “Pages”) Author: Gillian Silverlight Distribution: My site, those that have permission to post my fic; all others please ask first. Disclaimer: They belong to Joss and the WB; I just play with them. Summary: Angel finds more pages from Buffy’s diary Lyrics By ‘Lisa, Lisa and the Cult Jam’ Page 2 Spike took the page, tightly clutched in his hand, to Angel. He didn’t even bother to knock on the front door. The blonde vampire burst through the doors, stumbling on his feet; searching for Angel with his eyes and sense of smell. Angel heard the doors slam open and caught the scent of his favorite childe. He walked toward the front doors to see why Spike was there. “Angel… Angel, I found this.” As he held out a tightly clutched piece of paper in his hand. “ I don’t know what to do, Angel. Please help me.” Spike collapsed on his knees, crying like his heart had broken. Because it had. Angel helped the younger vampire up and guided him to a chair. After Angel had gotten Spike to sit down, he read the paper. “Oh my god! Where did you get this, Spike?” Angel was trembling, tears threatening to fall down his cheeks from the over-flow in his eyes. “I was walking behind Buffy’s house, it blew out of the trash when the wind caught the lid.” “What can I do Angel?” Spike did what he vowed he’d never do with his sire. He begged. “You really do love her, don’t you, Spike?” Angel asked his childe quietly. Spike never uttered a sound. He simply raised his head and looked at Angel, the bloodstained tears leaving discolored runnels down his cheeks. “Let’s go see if there are more pages. If she ripped this one out, there may be more.” Angel urged Spike. “I can’t. I can’t do it. Will you go look? I’ll wait here.” The grief stricken Spike told the older vampire. Angel understood, so without another word, he drug on his coat and walked out the door heading for Buffy’s. ******************************************** In the same waste can behind her house, Angel found several more pages ripped from the same diary. He gathered them up and started to read them as he walked back to the mansion. ********************************************* ‘All alone on a Sunday morning Outside I see the rain is falling, whoa... Inside I'm slowly dying But the rain will hide my crying, crying, crying’ It’s good when it rains. I can even go for a walk and no one can tell I’m crying. They think its just rain on my face. I felt this way when he left me. I thought everything I was, just withered away and died inside of me. I don’t want to do this to you, but I don’t know how to stop it. I think everything did slowly die. I couldn’t love afterwards. I tried; oh god, I tried! You saw what happened with that. And you want me to do that to you? How can I? Knowing how bad it hurts! Don’t you understand?! He ripped me apart and threw me into the corner. To know that I was responsible for what happened? That because I loved him, he lost his soul. He killed, he tortured. I did that! Because I loved him… and you want me to love you?! Why? So I can find some unthinkable torture to inflict on you without even knowing it? I thought I’d killed him, you know. I felt that sword inside of my heart. I saw the accusation in his eyes, the betrayal every time I closed my eyes. He was there to accuse me and forgive me. What a joke.. Did you know someone can forgive you forever, but it means nothing if you don’t forgive yourself. I never did. I never have. He spent 100 years in hell all because I loved him. Then he came back, and I thought I had a second chance. I still loved him. And because of my love, his soul was in danger again. So he left me. He left me because I loved him and could rip his soul away again just by loving him. ‘Don't you know my tears will burn the pillow Set this place on fire 'cause I'm tired of your lies All I needed was a simple "Hello" But the traffic was so noisy that you could not hear my cry’ That leaving hurt so badly. We blew up the school, you know. I ran ahead of the demon and we blew him up. There was fire all around, but I didn’t really notice it. I knew he was leaving afterwards, and the pain burned my heart; burned into my soul, and leaked out with every tear I shed. The tears burned my skin. I was so cold outside but the pain was a raging fire, agony inside of me that leaked out. It finally changed. I pushed the fire outside. It’s that anger you see in me so much. I pushed the cold inside. It’s that wall of ice I keep around my heart so that I don’t dare love anyone. The ice trapped my love for him in there. I can’t break those walls and let it out without the danger of letting someone else in. And of course there you are just waiting to come in. But I finally learned that love is a lie. Forever doesn’t exist. They’re all just lies. So I keep the wall of ice, the noise of slaying, the noise of my friends around me. That way no one can hear the pain in my heart. They can’t hear how I scream inside of myself at the unfairness and loneliness of it all. ‘I gave you my love in vain My body never knew such pleasure My heart never knew such pain’ That first night.. It was the most wonderful thing in the world to me. I gave myself to him, body, mind, spirit and soul. I was scared at first, but then.. It was the most wonderful thing I’d ever experienced or felt in my life. And it all turned to ashes and agony in my mouth, in my heart. How could I take that risk with you? How, knowing that I could love you so easily? Knowing you could melt away the wall of ice that imprisons me inside of my self? How can love mean anything but a lie, when I gave it in such beauty and innocence and it turned so dark and terrible, causing him as much pain as it cause me, as much pain as he caused me. Don’t you understand? I care about you, so I can’t do that to you. ‘And you, you leave me so confused Now I'm all cried out Over you’ But what do I do? I can’t even think straight around you sometimes. I know you’ll never know, but I think I’ve cried over you almost as much as I have over him. Cried because I can’t be with you, because I can’t let you know, because I can’t tell him any of this, because I want you and can’t have you. I’ve cried because you want me and I can’t let you have me either. Now.. You finally told me your feelings, then I lost my mother.. I just don’t have any tears left any more. Sometimes I think if I try to cry, it will be those ashes I have in my heart that will come out instead. ‘Don't you know the hurt will cause an inferno Romance up in flames Why should I take the blame? You were the one who left me neglected’ Sometimes, I wish I could tell him what he did. But that would hurt him more than I’ve already hurt him, or than he’s hurt me. That one thing, that one act of so-called love, caused a fiery destruction to our love. It was like setting a match to years-old dry tinder. I always take the blame for it, you know. He’d been telling me no, but I insisted. It was what I wanted. I didn’t know what it would cause. He didn’t know. But he should have known! It was his soul after all! Don’t you guys keep up with your own souls and what the warranty labels say about them? Then he left.. I can’t get over that he left. He left, the next one left, this last one left. My dad left, and now my mommy has left me too. I couldn’t stand to have you leave me. So to keep you from leaving me, I can’t let you near enough to leave. Does that make any sense at all? I hope so, cause I struggle to make sense out of it. ‘Apology not accepted Add me to the broken hearts you've collected’ You know, he did apologize to me for everything his ‘Hyde’ self did. He apologized for leaving me. I said it was ok, that I understood. But I can’t accept it down inside. It can’t get past that wall of ice. I imagine over the years, as a human and as a vampire, he’s piled up a good little total of broken hearts in his wake. I guess I’m just one more. How many do you have carved in your headboard? And now you want to add me? ‘I gave you all of me How was I to know You would weaken so easily I don't know what to do’ So my brain or lack of one, has gone full circle again. I gave him everything I was and had. I had no idea of that tiny weakness. Where is yours? Will it take just, as you always put it, ‘one good day?’ I can’t take that risk. ‘Now I'm all cried out Over you......’ Now that I’ve spilled my feeling all over the page again, along with my tears; the tears have turned back to ashes again. At least I can tell you these things this way, even though you’ll never see them. And that’s the way it has to be. Goodnight. To you, my would-be-love; and to him, my used-to-be-love. ************************************* Angel had finally stopped walking as he read the top page of the ones he had found. He wanted to die, except he was already dead. He had no idea how badly he’d hurt her, how much of it she had taken to heart, had taken so personally. Now it was killing her inside. If it couldn’t be stopped, one day it would kill her for real. He realized that neither he nor Spike could stand that. Angel had planned to go back to LA later this evening. He couldn’t go now. He’d have to let Spike read this page too. It had as much to do with the blonde vampire as it did with himself. They had to come up with some way to fix this, to save Buffy from what he had done and from what she had done to her self and was continuing to do. Angel walked with leaden feet to match his leaden heart, back to the mansion with the rest of the pages. It was Spike’s turn to read this one. Angel suspected they’d better read the rest of them together. Gillian Silverlight 4/16/01 |