Chapter 24: An Inconvenient Truth


As if in answer to her thoughts, Buffy could suddenly sense Angelus behind her in the cemetery. “Miss me, Lover?” he cooed. Could he possibly think that she didn’t know what he had done?

Her eyes glowed yellow with suppressed outrage. “How dare you? How could you do such an awful thing? I believed you when you said you wouldn’t kill! You’re not Angel. There is no part of Angel left in you, that you could do that to Ms. Calendar.”

Angelus shrugged, but took a step back nonetheless. “I didn’t drink from her. That’s what I promised Buffy, not to feed. I didn’t break my word to you.”

“God, you’re a monster. How could I ever have let you touch me!”

“You stopped complaining pretty quick as I remember it,” Angelus smirked. “Besides, B you’ve always known what I was. I never lied to you about that. Angel may have been a saint, not likely, but possible. But I’m not, and I never pretended to be. Besides, I only did it to protect you.”

He was circling her, staying just out of reach. Buffy was angry enough to kill, but confused by his reaction. He hadn’t even tried to deny it! He acted as if it was no big deal. As if he didn’t expect that she would be so upset about it.

“Buffy, she wasn’t what you thought she was. It was more than just coincidence that she was teaching at your school. That she met Giles, and they started dating. It was a set up from the beginning. She belonged to the gypsy tribe that cursed me. She would have betrayed us both had I let her live.”

“I know who she was,” Buffy spat. “And that doesn’t change the fact that she was my friend, and that you killed her.” Ms. Calendar can never forgive me now, Buffy thought. I never should have refused to accept her apology. If anyone should know, I should. Sometimes, we are who we are, and there is nothing we can do to change that. Just as I am the Slayer, and Angelus is Angelus…not Angel.

“Oh, so you trusted her anyway, is that it?” Angelus taunted. “Somehow I don’t think that was a good idea. Besides, there was another reason the gypsy was a danger to you, even if she wasn’t planning to betray you, which I doubt. She was putting it all together, Buffy. You, me, what’s been happening between us. She was there that first night – she was the one you called. I remember. She was going to figure it out, and then tell Giles what’s been going on behind his back.”

“So what? He should know! It was a mistake to try and hide it from him.” She had just spent the past few months hiding her relationship with Angelus and Spike from her Watcher. In hindsight she realized that may not have been the smartest plan. “Maybe he could have helped us, could’ve brought Angel back somehow. Could have cured us of this unholy addiction to my blood.” Why was she even talking to him? She should dust him and be done with it. He was evil through and through. There was no good left in him. But some of the things he was saying made an odd kind of sense.

“No.” He relaxed his fighting stance, and ran his hands through his hair before settling down on a tombstone. “Do you really think you’re the first, Buffy?”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

At least she was listening now. But would she accept his judgment? She was nothing if not stubborn. “This attraction you felt towards Angel – feel towards me. Even I suppose, to a lesser extent, for Spike. You’re not the first Slayer to be drawn to the creatures you are trained to kill. Probably won’t be the last. Hell, maybe all Slayers feel it. I know vampires certainly do.”

“What are you talking about?” Buffy shook her head to clear it. She needed to stop listening to his lies and get on with the stakeage. “ Make it quick, so we can get on with the fighting to the death, already. I’m getting tired of hearing you try to rationalize away all the horrible things you’ve done.”

“What you feel, Buffy, what we feel, it’s not unnatural, is all I’m saying. Not even unusual, although the Council wants to make you believe it is. There’s a reason we’re drawn together. We are two halves of the same whole. We’re meant to be together. You’re like us. Slayers and vampires. Why else would you crave what I can do to you?”

Trying not to listen, she made a half-hearted feint at him with her stake, but he deflected it easily and held her close to him.

“Do you know what the Council does to Slayers who let themselves get too close to their prey? They kill them, Buffy. No excuses, no parole, no trial. They order the Watcher to do it – and if he refuses or is simply too slow about it, they send in a team to take care of them both. It’s happened before, B. When a Slayer and a vampire have been…intimate. And it wouldn’t have mattered to them whether it was Angel or Angelus, Buffy. They wouldn’t see the difference. Is that what you want, Buffy? For Giles to be forced to a choice like that?”

“Giles would never – he wouldn’t turn on me like that!”

“Who’s to say? But then the Council just would have killed you both. Probably him first – to make you more vulnerable. Hell, they might even have tried to bribe me into doing it for them if you proved too difficult to get rid of. Course they’d run the risk of my turning you instead. But you’d be easier to kill that way – you’ve seen how disoriented most fledges are. And vampires have so many vulnerabilities, once you know what they are. But one way or another, they’d have killed you and the Watcher both, for incompetence if nothing else. And if they knew you’d been turned, you’d be their top priority. Probably send the new Slayer after you, as a cautionary tale.”

“What have I done? God, what is wrong with me?” The stake was almost forgotten in her hand as Buffy sank to the ground.

Angelus moved to take her in his arms again. “Nothing that hasn’t been wrong with women since the beginning of time, Buffy. You’re in love. You let your emotions overrule your reason. Despite our differences, deep down, Angel and I are the same, B. We’d both do anything to protect you. Anything. Even murder.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Come on. You think that you know how Angel felt about you? If you understood just the barest hint of how much he loved you…” Angelus paused at momentary loss for words. He finally settled on the truth. “Well, it was enough that the emotion still lingers, affects my actions, even without the soul. He would have done anything for you, even if it damned the soul that he was so proud of. Is it so odd that I would feel the same way? Look what I’ve done for you already. Changed my entire unlife, my clan. Forced them to change the way they’ve lived for centuries. Because you asked me to. And that teacher; she was your enemy, Buffy, whether you choose to believe it or not. Even if she didn’t mean to be. Her mere existence was a threat to you.”

“I don’t want to hear this.” Buffy put her hands over her ears and stumbled towards the edge of the cemetery. She had to get away. She needed time to think. “I can’t hear this. Stay away from me. It’s over.” At the gates she turned back and faced him once more.

“Whatever this was between us, it’s over. Next time I see you, you’d better run, because I AM going to dust you. I should have done it a long time ago. This isn’t about me anymore. It’s about keeping other people safe. That’s my job. I am the SLAYER, and you are nothing but dust.”

“Well, you can try. But I wouldn’t be placing any bets just yet.”

Angelus knew that time was on his side. The longer Buffy kept herself away from him, the stronger the craving would become. She didn’t know it, but it wasn’t the blood she was addicted to, it was the feel of his fangs. Her watcher would never be able to come up with a cure, because he was looking for the wrong thing. All he had to do was wait for her to fall apart. After all, where else could she go?

“You won’t dust me. You can’t. I know that you’ll come back to me – and it won’t take long. I give it a week, tops. And you’ll be begging me to take you back. We belong together, Buffy – and nothing can change that.”