Chapter 17
When Giles told Buffy that they would be going to L.A next so that they could clean up the mess Angel had started, to say she was pissed was an understatement. Her rage intensified when she learned that the urn they’d retrieved was for that sole purpose. After everything she went through, after everything she gave up, it was all for a demon that she’d stupidly thought she loved for so long. A demon who she’d kissed as a reflex when he came to deliver the item that would end the life of the man she did love, a vampire that was cursed with a soul and somehow, with all his brooding and self-righteous brouhaha he’d managed to turn evil.
Well, the irony of that stunk to the high heavens and she was suddenly anxious to get there, kick his sorry ass and let him know that her long speech about cookies being baked or whatever she’d spouted off to him was a direct result of being incredibly confused at the time. Obviously! Cookies? What the hell was she talking about? She’d only kissed him that day because she was so ramped up from finding the scythe, the weapon that would help destroy the first, the item that would change the future of slayers forever. And well, a part of her was just happy to see him. Perhaps that kiss was the last vestige of her innocence, the last remaining piece of her heart that had once belonged to him. Of course Spike had seen it and it was just one more thing that convinced him she didn’t really love him. If Angel thought for one second that she was holding out for him, for a future without happies, then he was in for a seriously rude awakening.
She could see it now. He’d give her his sad puppy dog eyes once she’d saved the world again, maybe he’d bite his lip and look sheepish in a way that used to turn her knees to jelly and now only made her want to retch. How could she have been so blind? Why did she spend so many years comparing Spike to him simply because they were both vampires? That was like comparing Xander to Hitler! They were both human, so surely, their actions were all the same, right? God, she’d been so stupid! Angel was the absolute antithesis to Spike. Perhaps her anger towards Angel was slightly skewed due to her feeling incredibly jilted of late, but for the moment, he represented yet another obstacle in her path towards happiness, and it was monumentally pissing her off that she never realized it until it was too late.
And really, she needed to calm down because she’d been flying off the handle for no reason for the past day or so. The only thing that managed to calm her down was the crystal she kept in her pocket at all times. Just knowing it was there brought her some peace of mind and acted as a balm to her frayed nerves. Though it did nothing to prevent these momentary lapses of unreason from occurring at random, it did bring her down a notch when she’d put her hand in her pocket and grasp it.
She and Xander had shared many long, heartfelt talks about William and it did help, it did, but instead of feeling sad when she spoke of it, she felt angry and extremely tired…all the time. She couldn’t remember being so exhausted before but she figured it was a result of traveling through time since Giles was suffering the same bouts of lethargy. However, she’d returned over a week ago and surely by now she should be over the time-lag, as she’d been calling it.
Willow and Giles were walking on eggshells around her, afraid of her wrath or saying something that would make her cry for no reason, one more strange development in her behavior since she’d returned from the past. Xander said she was just depressed and after the excursion to L.A., she might consider seeing a therapist or getting a prescription to get her through the despair. He’d paid dearly for that suggestion with a screaming match that came out of the blue and if he hadn’t seen it coming in time, he would have walked out of it with a black eye. Luckily, he’d ducked out of the way before the damage was done and was stunned when Buffy collapsed in tears, apologizing over and over for being irrational. She’d left abruptly and ran to the bathroom, leaving him puzzled and concerned for her wellbeing.
At the present moment, she felt ok, but her nerves were on edge. Her foot swung impatiently after they boarded a plane to fly to Boston before catching their second flight to LAX and she was in serious need of a neck massage. God, why were flight attendants so damn chipper? Take the one who was currently walking down the aisle, for instance. Buffy eyed her suspiciously. She had that sickening smile that made you want to punch it right off her face and she was majorly Bogarting the peanuts. Ten peanuts were hardly a sufficient snack and Buffy would have appreciated it if the stewardess weren’t so damn bitchy when she asked for another bag. Unable to let it go, Buffy tried harassing her again to see if she could knock some sense into the woman and force her to realize that Buffy needed food and Buffy needed it now.
“Excuse me, I’m hungry!” she shouted down the aisle, wildly waving at the attendant as she walked towards her. Giles covered his face in embarrassment and Xander chuckled, unable to contain his mirth at Buffy’s behavior.
“I’m sorry, miss, but there isn’t another meal scheduled for another hour.”
Oh, Buffy really hated how she said, “Scheduled,” all proper and British and pronouncing every consonant like her language was so much better than hers. Stupid, British, Peanut Nazi!
“Well, I’m hungry now,” she said with a saccharine grin and batted her eyelashes.
The stewardess pursed her lips and placed one hand on her hip as she looked the blonde girl up and down, wondering how offended British Airways would be if she booted her out one of the emergency exits, which she’d clearly pointed towards at the beginning of the flight with grand arm and hand gestures, thank you. This little American girl had been a royal pain in her ass since she boarded and was getting on her last good nerve. “Well, you’ll just have to wait like everyone else.”
Buffy glared at her and clenched her fists, calming slightly when Giles placed his hand on her arm. “Gosh, I’m so glad we forked over the cash to ride first class with this kind of treatment!”
“This is coach, darling,” the stewardess smiled in triumph and walked away.
Buffy gasped and looked at Giles incredulously. “You said we’d have first class tickets!”
“Yes, that was before you insulted the man at the ticket counter.”
“It’s always a little uncomfortable when I see a grown man cry,” Xander interjected.
“He had shifty eyes!”
“Christ, Buffy, get a hold of yourself,” Giles said sternly, snapping his In Flight Magazine open and putting an end to her temper tantrum. “We have much to do in L.A. and I need to know that your mind is on the task at hand.”
She folded her arms over her chest and pouted, kicking the chair in front of her and ignoring the groan of complaint from the passenger she’d roused from sleep. And then she started crying and boo hooing pathetically and wiping at her eyes with her complimentary socks, a gift from British Airways for A most pleasant and enjoyable journey.
Giles, who’d finally grown accustomed to her mood swings and knew the tears would stop as soon as they started, said casually, “Hand me a pen so I can finish this crossword puzzle.”
“Ohkay,” she sniffled and reached into her purse, crying softly and finally located a pen and handed it to him, her tears stopping immediately. “God, I have to pee again!”
She unbuckled her seatbelt and walked down the aisle, scowling at the flight attendant when she passed her on the way to the bathroom.
Giles shook his head and sighed, wondering how much longer she’d be in this state. Eight days she’d been like this. Eight!
“Willow said she gave her some kinda herb drink to help with her depression,” Xander offered as he, too, was wondering the same thing. “Kava root or something? Anyway, I think she needs to stop drinking it. Pronto.”
Giles chuckled. “You may be onto something there, Xander.”
Once they’d landed in L.A., Buffy, Giles, Willow, Xander and a group of slayers stood in an inconspicuous alley just after nightfall, going over their game plan. The sounds of battle rumbled loudly in the distance, forcing them to shout at one another to be heard over the raucous din. Several of the girls started complaining when it started to rain and Buffy glowered at them.
“Get over it and focus,” she snapped, turning back to the map that Giles held and glossed over the death glares shot in her direction from her slayers in training. “How the heck am I supposed to get in the middle of this? You saw how crowded it was!”
They’d scoped out the perimeter of the battle scene before gathering together at a safe point to prepare for battle and realized there was no way into the center without risking all their lives. There were hundreds, if not thousands of demons filling up the downtown L.A. streets, spanning a three mile radius. It was supposed to be a simple mission: Get in the center of the action, let the urn work its magic doo-dah, punch Angel in the face, and then bolt. So the Angel punching was a little addition she hadn’t told anyone about, but it was in Buffy’s top three.
Several minutes passed with every member of their party offering up game plans and completely ridiculous ideas, except for Buffy, whose eyes were trained on the rooftops above her. Hell, she’d done it before, who’s to say she couldn’t do it again? With one last glance at the map to get her bearings, she plucked the urn from Willow’s grasp, leapt in the air and grabbed hold of the bottom rung of a fire escape ladder and started climbing.
“Buffy, what are you doing?” Xander yelled.
Once she made it to the top, she shouted, “Holy crap, there’s a dragon over there!”
“Buffy! What are you doing?!”
She turned to face them, her eyes wide in a mixture of panic and excitement. “I need two teams! Willow, Giles, you lead a team to the eastern front and hold your ground in case things get crazy. Wait twenty minutes and if this urn doesn’t work, I’ll need you to come in after me. That’s the weakest part of their army, mostly vamps, and you’ll have the best chance of getting through there. Xander, you lead the second team to the northwestern exit near Main and keep the van running!”
“What about you?” Willow shouted up to her.
“I’m going to the epicenter…and I’m going alone,” she added when they started to protest. “If it doesn’t go according to plan, hopefully I’ll be the only one at risk. Should that happen, I want all of you to get the hell out of there and drive as fast as you can, got it?”
Without waiting for their response, Buffy started running, clutching the urn under one arm. Her boots sloshed in the puddles formed on the rooftops from the rain and she leapt towards the next building in front of her. Her feet cartwheeled in the air to cover more distance and she landed effortlessly, never losing her stride as she bolted as fast as she could towards battle. She was completely drenched by the time she neared the roaring sounds of demons she’d yet to encounter before, but she couldn’t think about that. She kept running, kept jumping until the reverberating sounds were accompanied by the familiar tangs of swords clashing together. Taking a moment to catch her breath, she looked down and spotted Angel as he drove his weapon into the stomach of a particularly noxious looking demon.
She flipped off the roof and her feet landed hard on the ground, air shooting from her mouth as she grunted from the impact, and seconds later, she was in the middle of an alley, setting an urn on the rain and blood-slicked cement and placed her hand on the lid. She shouted at the top of her lungs, “Everybody get down on the ground, NOW!”
She lifted the lid and somersaulted away, covering her ears when the sky seemed to scream in agony, and then a stranger sound followed, like a sonic boom in a vacuum, muffled by the force of whatever magic the urn contained as it rushed through her body like a tornado. The earth shook and a bright green light shot out of the urn and up into the cloudy night sky. She screwed her eyes shut to ward off the blinding light and started panting as she heard the protesting screams and wails of demons, plummeting towards the light and being sucked into it.
The light finally dissipated and a noise similar to a trash can lid swirling and jangling to a stop sounded from the lid of the urn that flung from Buffy’s grasp into the air and landed, sealing it shut. Breathing heavily, she stood up and turned around; her eyes wide in shock when she realized that every single demon from the apocalypse had been sucked into that thing in a matter of minutes. She was starting to feel lightheaded and placed a hand to her forehead, licking the water from her lips and she squinted through the heavy rain, searching the dark alley for any signs of life.
“Buffy?!”
She turned towards the voice that called her and she propped her arms on her hips and tilted her head with a sickeningly sweet smile. “Hey, Angel. I know I wasn’t invited but I just love crashing parties.”
“How did you—” he shook his head in disbelief, turning around in circles as he made sure every demon was gone, amazed with her ability to constantly surprise him. “Why do you always get the cool stuff?”
Buffy heard a rustling from the end of the alley and a skinny, blue haired woman emerged, dragging an injured and unconscious bald man behind her. “Who are they?”
“That’s Illyria and Gunn. Is he ok?” he asked Illyria once he turned to face her.
“He is not dead. I wanted much violence today.”
Buffy sighed and folded her arms, closing her eyes as her head started pounding. “What the hell did you do to cause this?”
“It’s kind of a long story,” Angel said with a wrinkled forehead as he lifted his brows apologetically.
“I have plenty of time. In fact, I’ve got nothing but time! So let’s hear it, Angel. Let’s hear the story that’s so damn—”
Her chest constricted like someone was squeezing the life out of her, the feeling so powerful that she stumbled on her feet to stay standing as a fourth member of Angel’s party stepped into view. It couldn’t be…
There was no way.
Awkwardly standing off to the side of the alley with an expression that could only be described as rueful, the bleached blond vampire that she’d always presumed dead shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged as he said, “’lo, Buffy.”
“Sp—” her eyes rolled into the back of her head, she teetered on her heels and then, she fainted.