*~* The Courage Love Takes *~*

Part 1

@~>~~~

By: ScarletDeva

Disclaimer: Yes bow all to Joss, lord and master of Buffy.

Rating: G

Author’s Note: This is set a little after ‘Pangs’ (the episode where Xander gets STD’s from Native Americans), and ‘I Will Remember You.’ Buffy and Riley are still in the we-are-we-aren’t stage.

The room is small, with a large window that lets in the late evening sun. The posters on the pale walls are sometimes peaceful, sometimes gruesome and always beautiful.

The redhead gets up from the side of the bed where she was caressing the sobbing blonde’s hair. She walks over to the door and turns to face the other girl. “I have to go to the library now, Buffy. But if it means that much then tell him… tell him Buffy.” She shakes her head and closes the door softly behind herself.

Buffy watches Willow leave and, as soon as the door closes, she drops into her patterned blue pillow and continues to cry. Her body trembles harshly. The stereo accompanies her sobs in a rising swell of a heartbreaking alto. Finally, the singer slowly winds down to soft finale and Buffy’s sobs slowly soften. She rises up stiffly and brushes the wrinkles out of her soft violet tank top and dark blue knee length skirt. She wrinkles her forehead and stands still for a moment. Then, she grabs her little black handbag and slides her feet into her slip-on platform shoes. The door slams with a click.

Buffy stalks across the campus with a glare in her eyes that those closest to her would recognize as the one demons fear. It is the one that Xander and Angel saw when they followed her to take care of the Master. It is the one that Angelus put there when he attempted to open the portal to Hell. It is the one Buffy uses when someone close to her is being hurt. In this case, the one being hurt is she. She nears a bus stop and perches on a bench, her face set in a steely look of determination.

Demons would run.

He will not.

Cars whiz by leaving dust and gas fumes in their wake.

She doesn’t move until a large gray bus barrels down the street and creeks to a stop before her. Buffy lifts herself with ease and bounds up the short steps into the bus, handing the driver three scrunched twenty dollar bills. He nods and she makes her way to the nearest empty seat. She curls back into the seat and firmly closes her eyes.

Two hours later, Buffy has not moved. The bus quickly enters the glittering jewel they call LA. It is beautiful and clean and dirty and ugly and so much more that many aren’t aware of.

Selective memory comes in handy here.

The bus stops and the door opens.

“LA,” the driver calls, tiredly. Buffy is out of the door before he finishes. He shakes his head at her speed, closes the door and moves on, with only the dusty road to keep him company.

She goes back to stalking again. The pedestrians unconsciously give her a wide berth. She turns a corner and there it is, the object of her search, Angel Investigations. She stops, breathes in deliberately and pushes the door.

Cordelia sits behind a desk, twirling a lock of dark hair around her fingers.

“Cordy, where is he?” Buffy startles her and Cordy looks up, preparing a scathing remark that is her trademark. Yet, at the sight of that familiar and rather frightening glare, she wisely keeps it in.

“He is in his office,” she replies, waving her hand in his direction. Without another word Buffy marches up to his door and flings it wide open.

“Buffy…”

“Angel.”

They look at each other, drinking in the view that has been long forbidden. She is his light, the very creature that keeps him sane. He is dressed in the darkness she knows he thinks he’s part of, the darkness that is twin to hers.

Pain bursts in them, identical and the very brand that makes them one.

Buffy would cry but she has come to say something and nothing will stand in her way, not even her own weakness. “You jerk.” She calmly backhands him. He staggers back, confused, hurt. “How could you?”

At that, a worm of understanding burrows up from the depth of his mind. “I had to,” he hangs his head, his hair beckoning her to curl her fingers in it, to grab him close, to never let go.

“No, god damn it, you didn’t,” she replies in a louder voice, “I love you! You love me! That is the only answer that matters, everything else is pure crap, pure meaningless dust.”

He backs away from her words, his fear drowning him and all that he hears is “I love you” pounding on his heart over and over again. Images of her in the sun swirl around him and the pain is so much more fierce knowing that she doesn’t remember.

“You left me,” she says, as if still disbelieving, “After the promises of forever, after coming back to me from Hell, you left because you wanted to give me sunshine.” She laughs bitterly.

He recalls that laugh from his memories of Angelus, when his demon took her heart and stomped on it. Now he doesn’t even have the comfort of knowing it wasn’t him, because it was and it is and it always will be. He is causing that pain and he wants to make it go away… but he’s too scared. Angel, the Scourge of Europe, is scared of a tiny blonde.

She steps closer, his scent drawing her closer and if someone told her she would die if she didn’t step back, she would keep moving forward anyway. “I am darkness, Angel,” she intones and he doesn’t want to hear that. “I carry it just like you do. You can’t fight it for so long and not be a part of it. Willow is darkness too and Xander and Giles and Cordelia.” She looks at him. “And Oz,” she adds. “He left because of his darkness and the rest of us stay because of it and the only thing that makes it better is love.” She can’t seem to draw a breath anymore.

All he hears is “love” and he doesn’t know how much longer he can take it, how much longer he can hold it in.

“I love you,” she whispers and is startled as a tear slides out of the corner of Angel’s eye, followed by many, many more.

Angel is crying. He is undone by her love, by the feeling of that connection that has held strong ever since she dumped him on his ass at their first meeting.

She comes closer and her arms snake around him. She feels feverish and his cool skin calms her. He buries his face in her neck. She tightens her hold and if he was a normal human he wouldn’t be able to breathe but he’s Angel and it doesn’t matter.

“I love you,” she thinks she hears but she’s afraid to believe it.

“What did you say?” the need for his love flames up higher and higher, consuming her.

“I love you,” his words are muffled, but unmistakable. The connection between seems to grow thicker, stronger. “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you,” he chants as if these words are all that is keeping him here, keeping him sane, and in some way it’s true.

She suddenly feels tired, drained of all the burdens that have been keeping her awake at night. They slump to the floor together and curl into each other. He leans back onto the wall and they drift off to sleep, together at last.

Buffy’s last thought is, ‘must call Willow and badger for soul-bonding spell.’

Cordelia carefully opens the door and sees the Slayer intertwined with her vampire. A smile plays on her face as she soundlessly closes the door and tiptoes away.

*~* The End

or

Not? *~*