Gray by Dazzle
Summary: Angel returns to Los Angeles from Sunnydale and tries to understand what happened between him and Buffy -- and the many forces pulling him back home. Second in the Prism Series, which follows Cordy and Angel's developing feelings throughout the previous year.
Spoilers: Carpe Noctem, Season Three.
Notes: Thanks to Inamorata for the great beta-read and encouragement.
The symbolism of gray:
reliability, maturity, old age, sadness
*****
"If you ever need me --"
I say it because it's true, because I mean it. But even as the words leave my
mouth, I realize how it must sound, here and now.
Buffy is staring at me in the twilight, her face ashen and unmoving. For one
moment I almost believe that she is the dead one. That she is still dead.
"I told you what I need," she says, her voice quavering with her
effort at control. And more horrible than anything that's gone before is the
realization that even now, as I am walking toward my car, she hopes I might
still change my mind.
Or maybe it is my own realization that I won't.
"I can't," I say. "I wish I could, Buffy. But I can't."
This is when she should start yelling at me, or make a joke to try and prove
that she doesn't care, or even cry -- it hurts to realize how well I know the
way her face looks when she cries.
But she doesn't. Her head droops slightly. I am seeing something I've never seen
before or wanted to see: Buffy accepting defeat.
Standing here are two star-crossed lovers, saying our final farewells without
passionate kisses or promises of devotion. Instead, we are awkward, dejected
people standing in a parking lot, illuminated only by the pale silver of
streetlights and a hotel sign. My hands are folded in front of me, guarding me
(from her, from Buffy), and one of my fists is squeezing the car keys so that
the metal edges cut my hand.
"So," she says with a shrug as she turns on one heel, "Nice
seeing you. If the world starts ending, keep me posted."
Not like this. "Buffy, I'm sorry."
She doesn't look back. "You're always sorry."
And I watch Buffy get into her car and drive away. I watch the taillights vanish
on the road; they blur along with my vision, and I realize that I'm crying.
Breaking down in a gravel parking lot, like a particularly pathetic drunk.
You'd think she was the one who'd said no.
I slide into the Plymouth and start the engine. It's time for me to start
driving in the opposite direction.
As I wipe my cheeks with the back of my hand, I can feel that my lips are still
swollen. The tiny cuts have healed -- the nicks of her teeth and mine as we
kissed. We were devouring each other, as though there were no curse, no years
between us; how could that have been just yesterday?
But yesterday was different. Yesterday was the day she returned from the dead
into my arms. And she was as beautiful as I remembered her, and she needed to
talk about being dead, about heaven, about wondering what her place was in the
world now. All I had to do was hold her and listen. We spent all night wrapped
in each other's embrace, enclosed in shadows and our own shared nightmares. And
I was a such a fool that I told myself nothing had changed. That nothing could
ever change for us, not really.
Today, we slept, side by side, in peace. But in the afternoon she awoke, and she
said the last thing I thought she would ever say.
"Angel -- come back with me."
That, alone, didn't set off any alarms. "I can drive back to Sunnydale with
you," I said, mentally calculating the amount of time I could spend there
before I would be needed back in L.A. "Maybe hang out for a couple of
weeks. I could patrol with you and we could just - - be together. Would that
help?"
"That's not what I mean," Buffy said. She smiled hesitantly. "I
mean, come back to Sunnydale. To stay."
"It won't work," I said automatically. I'd had the talk with myself
enough times to know my lines by heart. "We've been down this road before,
Buffy. I won't put you through it again."
She laughed, and it was a sound unlike anything I'd ever heard from her. Like
glass breaking. "You think that's such a terrible thing to be put through?
I don't. Not anymore. Not compared to --" Buffy shook her head. After a
moment, she said, "Angel, sex -- it would be nice, sure, to be able to just
-- be in your skin. Not to have to think or feel. But that's just running away.
Just bodies. What we used to have -- that's what I need."
Maybe it was the fact that she used the past tense -- "used to have."
Maybe it was the way she said "just bodies" -- I've thought of our one
night together more times than I can count, and I never thought of it as
something purely physical. Whatever it was, I wasn't moved by what she said. I
was -- uneasy.
Buffy didn't notice. She wasn't looking at me; she was looking through me,
clutching onto my arm with all her considerable strength. I could feel her nails
digging into my flesh. "You can come back with me, and, and -- you can live
at the house. Mom's room -- well, it's empty now, but you could stay
there." Her voice rattled on and on, hollow of thought, hollow of any
emotion save raw need. "We can patrol, and you can help me look after
Dawnie, and it'll be like old times. But better, because we won't have to hide,
and the -- the rest won't matter. And I won't have to be scared anymore, because
you'll be with me."
"Buffy," I said, cutting her off before she could say any more.
"What you're afraid of -- I can't protect you from that. Nobody can."
She shook her head. "You can, Angel, I know you can --"
"What you need now -- it's not something I can give you." If only it
were. I owe her that much; don't think I don't remember it. At my lowest point,
Buffy was the one who inspired me to get back up again. But what she's going
through -- it's different. I wish it weren't, but it is. "What you need has
to come from inside you."
And that was the first time her eyes filled with tears. "It's not in me.
It's not there anymore."
I can't stand thinking about it anymore -- not right this second. I force myself
to concentrate on the road as I merge onto 5 South, already thick with the
traffic that will slow to a crawl once I reach home.
Home. L.A. is home now. I don't know when it happened, and I don't care. All I
know is that it feels good to be going back there, even as much as it hurts to
have left Buffy behind. When I get home, I can feed, and go up to my own room,
my own things. If Cordy's there, maybe we can talk; if she's not, I can call
her. She'll understand why I did it. I'll feel better once I can talk it over
with someone who understands.
"Cordy?" Buffy's voice was blade-sharp. "You won't help me
because you're so worried about Cordelia?"
"It's not just Cordelia," I said. We were fighting by this time,
pacing back and forth within the confines of our little hotel room. The mirror
was behind her; from the reflection I saw there, it looked as if she were only
arguing with herself. "There's Gunn, and Fred, and Wesley --" Buffy
made a rude sound, and I felt a quick surge of anger before reminding myself --
she doesn't know him now, she just remembers the way he used to be, and you
weren't so wild about him then yourself. "We have an agency to run. And
Cordy's visions -- those are missions, Buffy. They're as important for me as
your slaying is for you. I can't walk away from that, and in the long run, you
wouldn't respect me if I did."
"The long run? Since when do I get to think about the long run?" Buffy
held out her hands; her fingernails were broken off down in the quick.
"Tell it to somebody who hasn't had to dig her way out of her own grave.
There isn't any long run, Angel. That's the mistake we made. We made all these
decisions for my future? I don't have a future. I don't have anything I can't
hold in these hands."
I wanted to say, If you're immortal, actually, there is a long run to think
about. But I held my tongue. "You have a future, Buffy. You've got this
whole new chance --"
"There's nothing new about it --"
"-- and you have a job you have to do." She's still the slayer. She's
that down to her bones, and I knew even if she'd forgotten everything else in
her terror, she couldn't have totally lost sight of that. "I have a job to
do. Cordelia's visions show her -- murders, rapes, assaults, attacks, all
horrible, but we can stop them. I can stop them --"
"Did Cordy have a vision of my death?"
That hit me hard. Because I'd asked myself why not a hundred times, a thousand
times, and there was never any answer, ever. I didn't have to reply to Buffy;
she saw the truth in my face. Her lips twisted in a bitter smile as she said,
"Do you think that means I'm supposed to have stayed dead?"
I take a deep breath of the night air rushing around me in the convertible. The
oxygen can't do anything for me -- not that there's that much oxygen in the air
here on the freeway -- but the pressure in my lungs seems vaguely reassuring,
nonetheless. I'm calming down. Buffy's words still hurt; I imagine they always
will. But the fact is that I find myself turning them over in my head almost
calmly, wondering whether or not they might be true.
Was Buffy meant to stay dead? A part of me rejects that, wants to believe that
any moment Buffy's here on this earth is for the better. But another part of me
knows -- there's worse things than staying in your grave. I'm one of them. Is
Buffy enduring another?
If so, shouldn't Cordelia have seen Willow pulling Buffy down from heaven? If
she had seen it -- if the Powers had told me that this was what I had to prevent
-- would I have done it?
Maybe that's another question for Cordelia later. Or maybe that's not a question
I ever need to ask again. I sure as hell don't need to keep pushing it all off
onto Cordelia. I hadn't realized how much of a habit that was, until Buffy
called me on it.
"Cordelia needs this, Cordelia needs that, Cordelia's visions hurt --
" Buffy sing-songed, tilting her head back and forth.
"They do hurt," I said, fighting to control my temper. "They hurt
her a lot. I worry about her. If you saw her, you'd be worried too."
"Excuse me, but when do you think I'd have time to worry about poor little
Cordy? After taking care of my orphaned sister? Between slaying vampires and
demons? Maybe I can schedule some concern for Cordy's headaches between
repeatedly getting killed."
"They're not headaches!" I yelled. I can count the number of times
I've yelled at Buffy on one hand, but I yelled at her then. "If she sees a
vision of someone's eyes being torn out, she feels her own eyes being torn out.
If it's someone being boiled in lead, she has to feel what that's like. Being
boiled in lead. She feels all the pain and all the fear and all the agony of
every single death, every single time. Cordy's lived through all those deaths. I
know it doesn't compare to actually dying, but -- it's not nothing, Buffy. Don't
talk about it like it's nothing."
Buffy's expression didn't soften. "You worry about her a lot."
"It's because of me she has the visions," I replied. I'm not sure
that's true, but it feels true. "And they're getting to her more and more.
They're worse than they used to be." For the first time, I said aloud,
"I'm frightened for her. For what it might mean."
"Can you protect her from them? Make them stop?"
If only I could. "No."
"Then you can't help her any more by being there," Buffy said.
"But you can help me. Don't you think I need your help as much as she
does?"
"It's not about Cordelia."
"It sounds like it's about Cordelia."
"Well, it's not." Not only about Cordelia, anyway. "It's about
the ones she sees. The ones I have to save."
"Of course," Buffy said. "And she never did see me."
The road sign's markings gleam white in the reflection of my headlights: Los
Angeles, 15 miles. Add in the traffic, I'm probably looking at half an hour to
home. I feel the last thing I'd ever imagined I could feel when I left Buffy's
side, not so long ago -- relief.
I'm going home. To the hotel, to my rooms, to funny little Fred and her wall
paintings, to Gunn and his pseudo-tough attitude, to Wesley with ink marks on
his fingers. And to Cordelia, who will listen to all of this and tell me what's
true. Or maybe just listen to me. That might be about as good. For a guy who's
spent most of his unlife finding ways not to talk to people, I'm learning to
enjoy telling Cordelia what's on my mind.
Weird. I never talked to Buffy like that -- or when I did, it was because it was
forced out of me, by events or her own desperate pleading. And it always felt as
though I was burdening her, weighing her down with my own troubles.
Should I feel that way about Cordy? An uneasy haze of guilt settles over my
determination to talk to her about this. Telling her would feel good -- God
knows why, but it would. But it won't solve anything. And I know how Cordy will
react: She'll be mad at Buffy, and upset for me, and confused by my questions
about the visions.
In other words, Cordy will feel worse, so I can feel better. Maybe I should
start keeping a few more things to myself. Or at any rate, keep this to myself.
No matter how much it hurts.
"I have a mission too, you know," Buffy said. The anger and bitterness
were gone from her voice then; she was pleading by that point, and it was a
thousand times more painful than her wrath. "I have to be the slayer. I
have to protect Sunnydale. And I don't see how I can do it anymore, Angel. I
need help. I need you."
She held out her hands, beseeching. Her eyes were brimming with tears, and her
tears have always melted me. I looked into her pale, colorless face, and if I
had seen even a shadow of the love we once felt -- of the love that won't ever
stop having power over me, even if we go through a thousand days like today -- I
would have broken. I'd have said yes to her, gone back to Sunnydale, given up my
home and my mission and everything else, for the sake of what we had been. I owe
her so much, and it would be the best part of my atonement if I could pay a
little of that back, and I wanted to do it so badly it felt like it was ripping
me open. And if Buffy still loved me, I might have had a chance of helping her.
I stared at her then because I wanted to see that love, wanted to know that I
had the power to bring her back from darkness.
But I didn't. Buffy's face showed nothing but fear.
"You don't need me, Buffy," I said slowly. "If I could help you
-- give you what you need -- I'd come. But I can't. And down deep, you know
it."
She didn't argue the point. Instead she said, "You don't want to come back
to me? You really don't want me anymore?"
I tried to ask myself the question. I couldn't. I answered her differently.
"You're desperate," I said. "If I took advantage of your
desperation, you'd hate me for it someday."
"You think I don't hate you for this now?" Her voice was leaden and
dull. I didn't hear hate; I wished I could have heard anything as alive as hate.
My car is in the heart of the L.A. traffic labyrinth, an endless skein of
winding asphalt. But it feels almost refreshing to steer my way through it, find
the path I need to get home. I should feel worse than I do. I should feel --
something else. Something for myself.
But the fear I have, the pain, isn't for me. It's for her. I know the anguish
she feels can't last forever. What I don't know is -- what will be left, when
she's done being afraid?
It could be something very dark. I know that from my own experience. But in my
heart I have to believe there's something better ahead for Buffy. For her sake,
I hope she finds it soon.
For my own sake, there's nothing like fear. There's only a sense of gratitude as
I drive toward the Hyperion. I imagine coming through the doors and seeing them
all, seeing Cordelia's smile. And I can only think how good it will feel to be
back home.
End.
Contact Dazzle