The Cure:
Episode Two: A Moment on the Lips
by Ducks

Chapter Three

Buffy's first instinct was to run home to Rubello Drive, and to her mother. Even now that she was a vampire, Joyce still loved her and treated her the same as she always had. So that was where she went.

Joyce greeted her warmly at the door and asked her to come in for coffee. Buffy gratefully accepted. They wandered into the kitchen and sat with two cups of hot joe...

I took Buffy an hour to get her Xander lament out, tears overcoming her every time she repeated one of the hurtful things he'd said to her. When she was done, Joyce held her in her arms and just rocked her.

"This is harder than anything I've had to face as the Slayer..." Buffy wailed, "All my friends are abandoning me!"

"Aww... honey... you have to be patient with them. This is very difficult for the people who are close to you to get used to..."

Buffy pulled away to see the tears in her mother's eyes.

"I know." she said, and Joyce smiled her little mom smile at her.

"It's hard for me, and you're my own flesh and blood."

Buffy nodded, wiping at her face with the back of her hand. "Don't you think I know, mom? I mean... I'm dead. My heart doesn't beat... I don't breathe... I have to drink blood, and sometimes when I'm fighting, I have the urge to kill. I don't mean slay, I mean like, cold- blooded murder! It's awful! I have to sleep all day and do everything else at night when everybody else is sleeping..."

"Well, at least that isn't a change." Joyce quipped.

Buffy reward her mom's joke with a smile. "Thanks, mom." she said, immediately beginning to feel the tiniest bit better.

"Give everyone time, Buffy. Give yourself time...eventually, they will see that you are still the same you, on the inside..."

At this point, Buffy wasn't so sure anymore...

She spent the rest of the night patrolling, running over the evenings events again and again in her mind.

Maybe her mom was right. Maybe in time, Willow and Xander and the others would get over their fear of her...not feel so uncomfortable... not spend so much energy trying to avoid her. She told herself that all they needed was time. Besides, Willow seemed to be ok, usually, and Oz, and even Cordelia, who didn't spend much time in Sunnydale anymore anyway. And Giles seemed more fascinated with her new state of being than anything else...

She found herself in front of the mansion before she knew it. Sometimes it still surprised her, that she lived here, the site of so many dramatic moments in her life. And that she lived there with Angel... well, that was its own bittersweet little miracle. She felt buoyed, thinking of his smile, as she walked through the door...

...into a pile of rubble. The living room was trashed. Furniture knocked over, artifacts shattered...

"Angel?" she called, frantic. She ran from room to room, calling his name.

He wasn't anywhere in the house. His coat still hung on the hook, and a cheery fire still flickered in the fireplace.

She didn't think she'd ever been this frightened before.

"Calm down, Buffy. The first thing you need to do is collect yourself." Giles said, handing her the glass of water her brought from the kitchenette. "You say the mansion was demolished."

Buffy gulped down the water, and nodded. "Mmmhm. Totally. Someone had been there. I could... smell someone strange."

"You're certain it was a someone?"

Buffy nodded. "I can tell the difference between a human smell and a... not human smell. And it was definitely a human smell. Giles, what if something happened to Angel?"

She was in a state of sheer panic. Who had been in her home? And where was Angel?

"We will figure this out, Buffy. Do not fear..."

Buffy yawned through her tears. "Oh, I fear. It looked like there was a fight... I was only gone a few hours..." she yawned again.

"You need to get to bed, Buffy. Dawn is coming."

"I know. But we have to find Angel."

"You can't while it's day. You know that."

Buffy frowned. 'Tired' meant something completely new to her, now. When the dawn approached, she had no choice but to head for her bed, or she would drop where she sat. Angel promised her it would get better in time, that eventually she would gain some control over when she slept.

Angel... she cursed her need to rest, which was overcoming her intense desire to search for him immediately.

"I'll patrol the graveyards and the warehouse district while you sleep." Giles promised, rising to walk her to the door.

Buffy nodded. "Okay. Please. And I'll meet you back here at nightfall. Giles... please be careful."

"I will." Giles opened the door for her, "Go directly home, Buffy. You don't have much time."

Buffy looked dolefully up at him.

"I know you're worried." Giles said, "But getting yourself turned to dust won't help us find Angel. And Buffy...

We will find him."

Buffy hugged him quickly, turned, and sprinted for home, racing the sun that threatened to rise over the horizon.

Buffy's sleep was tormented with nightmares: dreams of Angel's death, of her friends hunting her down and staking her... and of the sun. It was this last dream that woke her -- her nifty vampire internal clock alerting her to the setting of the sun, and to her hunger.

She dressed in record time, gulped down a bag of blood and was on her way to Giles before any conscious thought entered her head. Her distraction as she ran allowed her to plow into Willow, coming from the opposite direction.

"Buffy!" Willow screeched.

"Oh. Hi. Sorry, Will." Buffy said, her mind still not fully in the moment.

"I was just coming to see you. What's going on? Where's Giles? I stopped at his place and there was no one home... and all his weapons were gone..."

"Angel is missing. When I got home from patrolling last night, the mansion was trashed and he was gone..."

"Oh my god." Willow gasped.

"Giles went to look for him while I slept. I was on my way there now." her voice sounded flat -- as flat and lifeless as she herself felt.

"Come on!" Willow grabbed her and the two continued to run toward Giles' house.

Willow found she could barely keep up with Buffy, whose terrific Slayer speed, the enhanced speed of a vampire, plus her frantic rush to find Angel, made her Olympic-material times two. Willow ran at the fastest pace she could manage, ignoring the rapidly grown stitch in her side.

Willow felt terrible. First, she'd blown Buffy off last night, and now this. It was just... she didn't know why she'd done it. It wasn't like her. But sometimes being around vampire Buffy made Willow a little bit nervous. Who knew what could happen? After what they'd gone through with Angel, who they'd thought had been their ally... And when Oz called that afternoon, asking if she wanted to cruise to Santa Paulo with him for a gig with him...it seemed the most fun of the two options... and maybe the less dangerous.

She was still struggling for both something to say, and the air and energy to say it, when someone clostheslined her, knocking her to the ground.

"Buffy!" Willow screamed.

Buffy was several yards ahead, still sprinting, but came to an immediate stop. She turned and ran back to where Willow was pinned to the ground, and pulled the attacker off of her, flinging him away.

"Ah!" he said, "Now there's the one I've really been looking for!"

The boy was barely taller than Buffy, built like a wrestler, dense and muscular, with scruffy mid-length black hair and pale skin. A vampire... the smell was unmistakable.

"Well, here I am, then." Buffy snapped, whipping a stake out of her jeans and preparing to put a quick end to the severely unamusing banter.

Willow struggled up off the ground and back away, fighting for the breath that was stolen by her fall... which she didn't really have to begin with because of the running...

"Whoa!" The vampire grinned, holding his hands up in surrender, "I'm not here to fight, there, Chosen Chick."

"Well, if you were looking for a date, you've got the wrong vamp." Not letting down her guard, Buffy turned to Willow, "Are you okay, Will?"

Willow could do nothing but nod.

"What do you want?" Buffy said to the young vampire.

"I know where Angel is." He said simply.

Buffy glared at him. "This couldn't possibly be a trap, now, could it?" She said with all the sarcasm she could muster.

The vampire shrugged. "I couldn't tell you. I saw him get taken. Last night. A vampire hunter named Marcus. He's been holed up down in the old paper factory..."

Buffy was skeptical. "Who? And I should believe you why?"

"Marcus is his name. A Slayer wanna-be. Word has it his family has been hunting Angelus for a hundred years." he hesitated for a moment, "And I'm helping you because Angel helped me once. You need to stop this guy... he's after you, too, Buffy. There's a price on your head -- the vampire, vampire slayer?"

Buffy looked away. Now the forces of good were after her, too? This was too much.

"Why would a vampire hunter kidnap Angel?" Willow asked finally, "Why wouldn't he just..."

"Kill him?" the vampire said, "Beats me. Listen, you better get to it. I believe my work here is done."

The little vampire turned and ran back the way Buffy and Willow had just come. Buffy growled after him, as Willow jogged up beside her.

"Do you think he was telling the truth?" she asked, still mostly out of breath.

Buffy shrugged.. " I don't know. But I'm gonna find out..."

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