Chapter 23: The Harsh Light of Day

Replete again she reluctantly roused herself out of bed and headed for a long overdue shower. She had been too exhausted to bother the night before as she had slipped through the door just barely past curfew. Thankfully, her mother had already been in her bedroom, although Buffy knew she had been awake since the light had not gone out until sometime after Buffy had climbed gratefully into her single bed.

Humming as she soaped the sweat from her body, Buffy decided that today she would begin her campaign to get her Mom to accept Angel as her boyfriend. Her Mom had already been impressed by Angel’s manners last night, as well as his offer to take Buffy to Primo’s. It wouldn’t take too much to convince Joyce that Angel was totally a good match for her daughter. After her Mom was squarely in the Angel camp, she’d begin to work on Giles. He would be more difficult to convince, but surely even he could be persuaded to see the advantages an alliance with Sunnydale’s strongest demon could bring them both. Perhaps she could even talk him into believing that Angel had been re-souled. It was going to be a wonderful day, and her plans for the night would make it even better.

While the cool embrace of her lovers was exquisite, it was still nice to come home to her own house where she could pretend to still be a child. In truth she hadn’t felt like a child since she’d been Called at the age of fifteen, but it was a nice fantasy. Now she also felt like an incredibly desirable and well-satisfied woman. It didn’t feel incongruous to slip from one daydream to another. She’d never live a normal life, get married, have children; but with two vampires fighting by her side, perhaps she’d have the chance to live long enough to be able to drink in a bar.

A few moments later her Mom’s rap on the bathroom door startled her from her day dreaming, but her offer of a hot breakfast before she left sounded too good to refuse. She could begin talking her Mom around by giving her a totally edited re-cap of the evening’s events. Thank God Angelus had somehow managed to get her back to the house almost on time. They would have to be careful to be sure that they were seen to be following her mother’s rules. As long as she convinced her Mom of that, she shouldn’t have any problems.

Of course her plans, like Spike’s, had a habit of going awry. Instead of a wonderful day of anticipation, the day turned out to be frustrating. Her Mom hadn’t been nearly as easy to convince as Buffy had hoped, still insisting that while Angel was certainly a nice enough boy, he was far too old for her daughter. Even worse, Giles had inconveniently finally located an un-invite spell, and had insisted that Buffy and Willow spend the day casting spells that would keep Angelus from entering their houses. Not wanting to give the reason for her lack of enthusiasm until she got a little farther along with her plan to rehabilitate Angel, she had reluctantly gone along with it.

An early patrol had proven just as frustrating. She hadn’t seen Spike or Angelus, and a stop by the mansion showed that it was presently deserted. As she returned home for dinner with Willow and her Mom, Buffy wondered where the vampires could possibly be. Spike at least should have been there. She wanted to ask him about his injury – she was a little afraid that she might have re-injured him with her enthusiasm last night. As she had re-played the evening in her mind she realized that he had avoided her gaze at the last moment, and while his expressive eyes expressed his deep pleasure as they reached their climax, she had caught a glimpse of something that might have been pain.

When the phone rang she hoped that it would be Spike or Angelus, telling her where and when to meet. She was completely unprepared for what she heard. Dropping the phone she let it dangle uselessly as she fell to the floor.

Everything had been going so perfectly. Her plan to pretend that Angel had been re-souled had seemed so flawless. But now it was all dust. This was something unforgivable. She knew it was selfish, but she didn’t know whether to feel worse for Giles or herself. The love of his life was dead, but it had finally fallen to her that she would have to dust hers.

Jenny Calendar’s brutal murder was a shock she couldn’t comprehend all at once. And that Angelus had been the one kill her…she’d lain in his arms only last night. Just minutes ago she had been planning to hurry through dinner so that she could search out her lovers. She had thought about how desperately she wanted to return to them all day… and now…now it was all over. Why would Angelus do something so horrible? So stupid? He had to know what Buffy’s reaction would be.

Looking back she realized that Ms. Calendar had been a true friend, even though she’d felt betrayed when she had found out who Jenny really was. Even so, Ms. Calendar had never told Giles about the awful night she had found Buffy chained to the bed in Angel’s old apartment. The guilt was unbearable. She could have prevented Jenny’s murder. She had had so many opportunities to kill Angelus. And what had she done instead? Let herself fall in love with a monster. It was sick, and she was thoroughly disgusted with herself. She had let herself be deceived by a few slick words and promises of love.

And Giles, Giles had sounded so broken. Ms. Calendar had been Giles’s girlfriend, and she was afraid that Giles wasn’t going to recover from this.

What was wrong with her lately? Had she really been so bewitched by blood and lust that she couldn’t tell the difference between Angel, the love of her life, and an evil soulless killer? Had she really believed that she could have rehabilitated two soulless vampires merely by the power of her love and the force of her will? She’d been played for a fool all along. Now she knew she’d have to face up to the truth – Angel was gone and she needed to move on with her life.

The best way to do that was to get rid of Angelus once and for all. Now she was hoping that she would run into him while on patrol for a completely different reason. She was kinda hoping that she’d find him and they could have it out once and for all. She would make him confess to killing Ms. Calendar, and then she would give him his long overdue dusting. Now that Jenny was dead, she couldn’t fool herself into believing that anything had been going on between her and the vampires that hadn’t been designed to control her. Angelus had never intended to live up to his part of the bargain. She had been played for a fool, and she was finally ready to do her duty. To kill him, or be killed herself. At this point, once again, she wasn’t sure that she cared which. She needed to get out of the house. She needed to go find something to kill.