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Disclaimer: I write this while worshiping at the lotus feet of Joss Whedon, and all his minions, who own all the characters which I humbly barrow for the purposes of this story. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and this is merely my way of expressing my love for "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
Feedback: Any and all praise/ constructive criticism/ questions/ brownie recipes accepted with pleasure and gratitude. :-)
Night had fallen, the moon was full, and the vampires were on the prowl.
So was the vampire slayer. Buffy allowed the driving beat emanating from the Bronze's speakers to wash through her, focusing her attention instead on more subtle stimuli.
When she allowed herself to consider the subject, Buffy was sometimes bothered by how well she had learned to think like her prey. To a vampire, the dancing masses that frequented the Bronze were like one big smorgasbord. An easy place to target a victim, and then draw the unsuspecting meal to a more private corner, or to the alleyway, to feed.
Of course, hunting among the young was risky. Get carried away, and kill one, and the death would be noticed. But that only added spice to the meal, really, and a smart vampire could add the variety of an occasional draught of young blood to his or her diet without calling too much attention, leaving their light headed victim to pass off their experience as a kinky make out partner, or a bad trip. And as much as Buffy would have liked to write off her prey as feebleminded, the fact remained that for a vampire to survive in the modern world, with its overcrowded population, and correspondingly few places to hide during the day, required a certain amount of intelligence.
Well, Buffy was smarter. And, as much as she disliked the idea, she had indeed learned to think like the vampires she hunted.
All the better to kill you with, my dears.
Completing her circuit of the Bronze, and finding only human couples seeking privacy in its dark corners, Buffy slipped outside and began her search of the alley, pausing only a moment to let her eyes and ears adjust to the soft moonlight and muted sounds of the open air.
That moment was long enough to let her know that she was being followed.
She drew her wooden stake and spun around to face her unseen companion in one graceful movement.
Only a vampire could have blended into the shadows so completely, and only the slayer could have known that someone was there anyway.
"Aw, now, don't be shy," she crooned, mockingly. "Why don't you come out and play?"
A figure stepped forward with his hands raised in a gesture of surrender that was belied by the wry smile accompanying it.
"Angel," Buffy exclaimed in pleased surprise. She replaced her weapon, and with a concerted effort of will, resisted the urge to step forward to put her arms around him. Despite the smile, she could tell from his face that he wasn't there for personal reasons. Business. It was always business with Angel.
"Should have known I couldn't hide from you," Angel acknowledged with a shrug and lowered his hands.
"You've been doing a pretty good job of it lately," Buffy observed, trying to keep her voice from betraying how much she had missed him. "Where have you been?"
"I've been around," he said vaguely. But then, Buffy had learned to expect vagueness from him by now. Reticence had become a habit with him after a century of self-imposed exile. "Listen, Buffy, I think something weird going on, but I can't seem to figure out what it is."
"So what are the details?" she asked, folding her arms and listening to him intently, falling easily into the old pattern of having to draw the words out of him.
"I think I'm being followed. That's why I didn't want to approach you inside."
"Followed? Do you know by who?" Buffy was surprised. Angel was her regular man of mystery, appearing and disappearing out of thin air. How did one go about following someone like that?
"Vampires. They hang back too far for me to catch them at it, but I know they're there. The only thing I can figure is that it must have something to do with Spike. He's always been unpredictable. That's what I liked about him, back when we were on the same side. It's also what makes him the most dangerous. But the one thing that you can predict about him is that he likes to be in control, always has a plan up his sleeve. And whatever it is, it's bound to mean trouble for us."
'Us,' Buffy thought. 'I like the sound of that.'
"Why are you smiling?" Angel asked, confused by her reaction.
"Oh, no reason," she covered quickly. "So, how long has this been going on?"
"About two weeks."
Buffy raised an eyebrow at him. It had been about that long since they had last spent time together.
"Is that why you haven't been around?" she asked, her suspicion clear in her voice. Angel ducked his head just slightly, but to Buffy it was a clear admission of guilt. "You're been running around playing decoy, haven't you?"
"Well, not exactly..." he wavered.
"Yes, exactly! Angel, how am I supposed to keep tabs on the undead population around here if you deliberately... keep... information... Oh my gosh! You weren't even going to tell me tonight were you? You were just checking up on me! If I hadn't known you were here, you would have..."
"Buffy," he tried to soothe her. "It's not like that, I just wanted to..."
"I know what you wanted to do. You wanted to hide this from me..."
"I just wanted to protect you, until I figured out what was going on!"
"I don't want you to hide things from me! And if you want to protect me, then guard my back. And let me guard yours. It's you that's being followed." She took a deep breath, and calmed herself down. "Besides, we make a pretty good team when we work together. For now, since we don't know what Spike and his pals are up to, I suggest we just keep our guard up, and carry on as usual."
Angel smiled and nodded his assent. He held out one hand, and she took it, lacing her fingers with his and falling into step with him.
"So, partner," Buffy continued. "Things on the slaying front seem pretty dull around here tonight. Any suggestions on where we might find some more stimulating company? Besides on your trail, that is."
"The park's always a likely spot," Angel suggested with a shrug. "Lots of dark corners, vagrants and such who won't be missed if they die during the night..."
"The park, it is, then," Buffy agreed and set off in that direction with Angel falling into step beside her.
It felt good to walk beside him. Even though they did not speak, and their attention was focused on their surroundings, rather than each other, his welcome presence at her side still caused a little thrill with in her. He was her own knight-errant, who had strayed from the path for a hundred years, but returned to it by way of a curse, or a blessing, and through his own strength of will. Who had seen things in his long lifetime that she could only imagine. And who was as handsome as a Michelangelo. For all the complications between them, she still treasured him and the little time they could spend together.
The park was as innocuous as the Bronze had been. Buffy turned to her companion with a sigh of frustration, and asked:
"Well, where to now?"
"I don't know," Angel replied, still searching the shadows with piercing eyes. "I suppose we could try..."
His words were interrupted by the three vampires who stepped out of a grove of trees and stood shoulder to shoulder, their mere presence an invitation to fight.
"Oh, look. We have company," Buffy said with studied nonchalance as she assumed her fighting stance.
"Oh, look," one of the vampires said in response. "The slayer. And Benedict Angel."
The three convulsed into giggles at the quip and Buffy and Angel took advantage of the moment to strike.
The vampires quickly forgot their mirth in the fight, and even more quickly, it seemed, gave up the battle to take flight.
Buffy turned a surprised glance at Angel, who shrugged, and both of them quickly took up the pursuit.
"Why did they run, Angel?" Buffy called out as she chased the fleeing vampires.
"I don't know," Angel called back. "Catch them first and ask questions later?"
"Sounds good to me."
But a moment later, their prey had disappeared into the labyrinth of storm drains and sewer lines that underlay Sunnydale. Buffy and Angel pulled up short at the hole which had swallowed their prey.
"Second thoughts," Buffy said, uneasily eying the dark depths of the tunnel, "questions now might be a good idea."
"I think you're right," Angel agreed.
"I don't think I've ever seen a vampire run away that quickly before."
"They wouldn't," Angel concurred. "Not without a reason. They may be afraid of you, but showing their fear would be unthinkable. You're the slayer, but you are still a mortal, and they would rather stand and fight you than turn tail and run."
"So this is a trap."
"That's the only explanation I can think of."
"Then the question is, do we take the bait?"
"Well, in close quarters, we probably have the advantage. We can stand back to back and deal with any two footed threat that comes our way, but..."
"But there's no telling what other kinds of dangers are in there."
"Right."
Buffy stared into the darkness for a long moment, as if by doing so she could divine what dangers were waiting for them inside. At last, she reached under the back of her jacket and retrieved the slim line flashlight that was clipped to her belt. Thus prepared, she turned to Angel and grinned.
"I say we go for it. I came out here to do a little hunting. It'd be a shame to go home empty handed, so to speak. Besides, this whole set up just gives me a weird feeling. I want to see what they're up to."
"Ready when you are," Angel agreed with a nod, and one by one they dropped down into the tunnel.
Once inside the tunnel, Buffy paused, senses attuned to any hint of their prey. The echoing scrape of a footstep told her which way the vampires had gone. Together, Buffy and Angel followed the tunnel until they came to the first intersection, where, again, the scrape of heel against stone led them deeper into the labyrinth.
As they followed the auditory trail, they found themselves leaving the safety-lit concrete walkways and venturing out into an older section of the maze, where the walls were constructed of brick, shored up at intervals by ancient-looking wood scaffolding, and the only light was provided by Buffy's flashlight.
"I guess this cinches it," Buffy whispered to her friend as they turned towards the rattle of a loose pebble under foot. "They had enough of a head start to just disappear, but they're leading us deeper into the catacombs."
"Yeah. Are you sure you want to walk into their trap?" Angel asked.
"Well, the tunnels are getting narrower. I don't think there's going to be room for them to be setting up an ambush. And as for some other kind of trap, as long as we know it's coming, I figure we'll be okay when we get there."
A couple of twists and turns later, they were confronted with their prey, who were standing several yards in the distance, watching them expectantly. One held a torch, illuminating the dark passageway. Buffy clicked off her flashlight and slipped it back onto her belt, exchanging it for her stake.
"We're there," Angel observed.
"So it appears," Buffy agreed, letting her eyes scope out the situation quickly, and seeing nothing out of the ordinary besides a pile of timbers, like those used for the scaffolding of the tunnels, lying benignly to the side. "Well, I vote for the direct approach," she said, adopting her fighting stance for the third time that evening.
"Suits me," Angel agreed from behind her.
Buffy carefully approached the trio of vampires, who grinned and waited for her.
But when she had taken no more than half a dozen steps, bringing her just abreast of the pile of heavy timbers, the three of them suddenly tensed expectantly. Buffy paused, quickly taking stock of her position and surroundings. The enemy was before her, Angel was just behind her, and beneath her...
Beneath her, the bricks had shifted underfoot when she had taken the last couple of steps. Clarity dawned over her with a rush of adrenalin. It wasn't an ambush, but it was a trap.
Within a heartbeat, Buffy had realized the danger and spun around to warn Angel back, but he had already taken the last step towards her. Their combined weight was too much for the precarious facade beneath them, and the false floor collapsed.
The next few moments were a cacophony of falling brick and splintered wood. Buffy was slammed onto her back at the bottom of the pit, with Angel right on top of her, the impact knocking the breath from her lungs. She felt him curl his arms around her head, trying to protect her from the bricks that had tumbled in after them, but in the next moment she felt a heavy thud, and Angel went limp above her.
She wanted to scream, but didn't have the breath to do so.
Meanwhile, the sky was falling.
When everything was still, and Angel still had not moved, Buffy felt a second rush of panic.
"Angel?" she called to him, protecting his head with her hands as she rolled him off of her and onto his back. Debris from the false floor spilled off of them as she shifted their positions in the cramped quarters at the bottom of the pit.
"Oh, I'd say my old buddy Angel is the least of your worries, my sweet little slayer," drawled a mocking voice from above them. "Or at least he is until he wakes up. Pity about that knock on the head, really. I'd have liked to hear what he thought of my little trap. After all, he taught me everything I know... Well, maybe not everything..." The blonde countenance that grinned down at her from at least three times her height was, none the less, unmistakable.
"What's the matter, Spike?" she yelled up at him. "Afraid to face me on level ground?"
"Tut, tut. You'll bruise my ego with such accusations," he chastised. "No, I just thought that this little set up would be more, oh, I don't know, suspenseful."
As if on cue, one of the timbers that had been piled at the side of the tunnel was dropped across the mouth of the pit, followed in quick succession by another, and another. Buffy quickly untangled herself from Angel's inert form and tried to scale the side of the pit, but all she achieved was to scrap handfuls of loosened soil from the wall of earth.
"Call it my own little time capsule, if you like," Spike called down to her as he backed out of the way of the vampires who were closing her in. "See you later, slayer. If you survive."
And with that dark thought, the last of the timbers was dropped across the opening, closing them in, like two bodies in the same grave.
Buffy stared up into the darkness, fighting back the panic that that sight aroused in her. Taking a deep breath, she retrieved her flashlight and turned back to her unconscious companion.
"Angel?" she called as she fell to her knees, straddling his chest so that she could get a good look at him. She set the flashlight down in the rubble beside his face and ran her fingers carefully over his scalp, praying that he would open his eyes.
"Angel?" she cried out again as she discovered the swollen lump at the base of his skull. She felt her breath quicken with fear. Giles had taught her CPR and first aid, but head wounds had not been the focus of his lessons, nor had saving the life of a vampire been high on the list of things to learn. She knew better than to check for breathing. Giles had explained that while vampires often appeared to breathe, as part of their disguise, or out of habit, they had no physiological need for oxygen. But she checked anyway, and sobbed at the lack of that sign of consciousness in him. She checked for a pulse and sobbed again in relief when she felt that slow, steady rhythm against her fingers.
"Angel," she called to him again, stroking his face, his hair, his neck, trying to coax a response from him.
After a long, tense moment, she was rewarded. His eyelids flickered, and he groaned in pain.
"Angel, can you hear me?"
He groaned again and opened bleary eyes. After a moment of blinking at her, his gaze came into focus.
"Buffy," he murmured, his hands coming up to hold her sides. "What are you doing here?"
Buffy raised a worried eyebrow at him.
"Do you remember where you are?" she inquired carefully. His eyes traveled from her face to the walls of earth around them, and to the new ceiling of lumber blocking their escape route.
"Oh, yeah," he said, as if they were discussing nothing more important that the weather. "How could I forget?"
"Well, personally, I think it has something to do with the goose egg on the back of your head," she lamented.
"Ah, I'd wondered what that was," he gritted out between his teeth.
He reached up with one hand and carefully tested the lump on his head, hissing with pain as his fingers made contact. Checking his fingertips, he sighed, "Well, at least I'm not bleeding."
"That's right. Optimism. Optimism is good," Buffy encouraged.
Looking back up at her, Angel asked:
"What about you? Are you all right?"
"You mean besides being trapped in here with no foreseeable chance of being rescued? I'm fine," she answered.
"Whatever happened to optimism?"
"Oh, yeah. Thanks for reminding me," Buffy said with a panic tinged laugh.
"Buffy, we're going to be okay," he promised her, stroking her sides with his strong, soothing hands.
"I know," she nodded, taking deep breaths. "We just need to figure out a way to get out of here."
"Right," he agreed. "But first, there's just one thing I need you to do."
"What's that?" she asked.
"I really need you to get off of me now," he said, letting his hands slide down to her hips. "Not that this isn't nice, but it's getting a bit distracting."
She glanced down at the way her hips were nestled against his torso and blushed.
"Right," she said with a nod and pushed off of him with a quick, efficient movement.
Angel quickly made her forget her embarrassment, though, when he attempted to sit up. The groan that escaped his lips made her wince in sympathy as she reached out to support his shoulders with her arms. He wrapped his throbbing head in his own arms and tried not to move again for the next few moments.
"Are you okay?" Buffy asked, feeling helpless.
"I'll be all right," he gasped out, shifting over so that he could rest his back against the wall, bricks and splintered wood shifting underneath him as he moved..
"You might be interested to know that you were right. Your old friend Spike is behind this mess. I don't get it, Angel," Buffy said, glancing around them. "Why go through all the trouble of trapping us here? Why not just kill us?"
Angel sat with his knees drawn up against his chest, holding his head, and considered for a few moments.
"I think I know," he said, his voice heavy with remorse.
"Well?" she prompted.
"Spike knows me. He knows us. He knows that you're not that easy to kill. He's tried and failed, so he's trying a less direct approach. Secondly, he knew that if I caught wind of his plan, I'd come to you. So he arranged this to trap us in here together. Kill two birds with one brick floor, so to speak."
"He called it a time capsule. I guess that means he plans to come back and check on us, eventually."
"Frankly, I'd rather not be around when that happens. I figure he expects this to go one of two ways. First, I get hungry and kill you.
Then the slayer is out of his way. Second, I get hungry and attack you; you kill me. Then the traitor is out of his way. So he either leaves us here forever, or comes back in a few days to dig out either a weakened slayer, or a suicidal vampire."
"Whatever happened to optimism?" Buffy quoted with a sinking heart.
"Oh, yeah. Thanks for reminding me," Angel quoted back. Buffy sat looking at him for a long moment.
Then she spent a moment examining the walls and ceiling and thinking over his words.
"Angel, I don't want you to take what I'm about to say the wrong way," she began slowly. "I mean, I'm only asking out of concern for you, not myself, but... Are you hungry?"
"I'm a vampire, Buffy. I'm always hungry. But I'd take a stake and drive it through my own heart before I'd hurt you."
"I know," she whispered. "That's why I'm worried."
Angel looked up at her with soulful eyes.
"Vampires don't actually need to feed every night. It's just that most of them like to. When the Romani returned my soul, I discovered that, under normal circumstances, I could go four or five days without blood."
"Define normal circumstances?"
"A vampire really only *needs* the blood for energy, unless it's been wounded, or there's some need for an unusual amount of activity." His eyes flickered to the ceiling.
"So we're two for two."
"Right."
"Angel, how long has it been since you last, um, fed?"
"Four days."
"I see."
"I swear I won't hurt you," he promised again, his eyes shining with conviction.
"I know, Angel. I'm just wondering how we're going to get out of this mess. If you're not at full strength it's going to be a lot harder for us to shift those beams and get out of here before the fang gang come back to settle the office pool on who kills who first."
"Probably best to get started right away, then."
"Okay," she said, retrieving her flashlight. "You stay put. I'm going to see if I can find a better place to climb up there, and then I'll see how heavy those things really are. When I find a place to start, you can come help. Okay?"
"Okay," Angel agreed, still holding his head as if it were about to split apart. Buffy nodded and stood, looking at the surrounding walls to find a safe handhold. "Buffy?"
"Yeah?"
"I sorry for getting you into this."
"What? When did this become your fault?"
"When I let them trick me into making contact with you. You wouldn't be here now if I hadn't..."
"And you wouldn't be here now if I hadn't been overconfident enough to willingly walk into a trap. Besides, if you hadn't tried to protect me during that fall, that brick would have smacked into *my* skull. The way I figure it, I owe *you* one."
He didn't look like he agreed, but he kept silent while she tucked the handle of the flashlight between her teeth and began to search for hand holds, which were few and far between. At one point, she had managed to climb about four or five feet up when her foot slipped and sent a shower of gravel to the floor. Angel surged to his feet as if to catch her if she fell, but collapsed back against the wall, clutching his head again.
"Are you all right?" Buffy asked from her perch, as soon as she could get one hand free to hold the flashlight.
"Are you?" he asked back.
"I'm doing a whole lot better than you, from the looks of it," she said, with concern darkening her eyes.
"I'll be fine," he insisted.
Buffy turned her attention back to the wall, but a few moments later, she removed the flashlight and spoke again.
"Angel?"
"Yeah?"
"If you did have something to, um, drink, would that help?"
"Why do you ask?" he said darkly.
"I'm just curious," she answered. "Well? Would it?"
"It would help some."
"Would it help enough to let you stand up and climb this wall without falling over?"
"Since we don't have anything for me to 'drink' it doesn't really matter, does it?" he insisted.
"I was just asking," she insisted back "Well?"
"Yes, it probably would," he muttered.
Buffy let the subject rest and turned back to the wall of earth, poking and prodding, searching out hand and footholds, which were few and far between. But her mind was preoccupied with Angel's sate of health. Although she was trying to put on a brave face, she was becoming increasingly worried. The trap had been well planned and well executed. The vampires that had led them in here had known what they were doing, first arousing her curiosity with their behavior in the park, then leading her safely through the tunnels just long enough for her to let her guard down...
'Giles is going to be pissed!' she lamented to herself.
"Angel?" she called down from her perch halfway up the wall. She seemed to remember something about keeping people with head wounds awake, and while she wasn't sure if the same advise held for vampires, she didn't want to chance it. Besides, his continued silence was making her nervous.
"Yes?" came his reply.
"How long do you suppose it took them to set up this trap?"
"I don't know... But Spike must have quite a hold over the locals to organize this kind of thing. Come to think of it, that's probably why no one was out hunting tonight... to make sure we'd take the bait... Damn it! I should have known..."
Buffy winced at the pain and self recrimination in his voice.
"You should have known? How about *I* should have known? Your man Spike goes and uses one of the oldest tricks in the book, and I completely fall for it! Literally."
"What better way to be unpredictable? I can see him now. 'Oldest trick in the book. They'll never see that one coming.'" Angel said with a dark laugh. "I should have known..."
"It's not your fault, Angel," she told him firmly. But when he didn't answer, she knew it was because he was being too polite to argue with her, not because he agreed, so she decided to try teasing. "And may I add, that I find the fact that you do such a good Spike impression a bit frightening?"
Angel's head snapped up and he stared at her, his consternation almost great enough to hide the fresh onslaught of pain he had caused himself.
"It was a joke, Angel," she reassured him. "A joke? You know, ha ha?... Okay, so it was a bad joke. Never mind."
Several minutes more of concentrated climbing, and a few near slip ups later, Buffy managed to find a perch where she could hang on with one hand and test the weight of one of the timbers with the other.
The damn thing wouldn't budge. She was going to need Angel's help, and she wasn't sure if he could even stand, let alone climb up the wall. Still, she knew he would be determined to pull the macho act on her... After a moment's consideration, she climbed down to within a couple of feet of the floor.
"Okay, Angel. I think I've got it. This wall is a bit rockier than the others, so it's a bit safer to climb, but I can't budge the timbers up there by myself. Are you ready?"
"I'm ready," he said and took a moment to brace himself before he rose to his feet and shakily approached the wall. Buffy watched him carefully, silently believing that he wouldn't be able to climb his way out of a wet paper bag with that head wound. She replaced the flashlight between her teeth so that she would have one hand free to catch him. Something would have to be done, and she was beginning to feel certain that she knew what the only solution would be.
As she suspected, it didn't take long for him to falter. He had climbed barely a foot off the floor, with Buffy watching him intently, when he missed a handhold and began to slide back. Buffy's hand shot out and grasped his collar before he could fall.
"Mm hm," she murmured around the flashlight, her tone conveying her lack of confidence in his state of health as she helped him climb back down to sit against the wall. Removing the flashlight from her mouth, she tucked it, still lit, into her belt, and straddled his legs, placing her hands on his shoulders so that he could look no where but at her. She had decided on her course of action. It was the only possible solution to their dilemma. The pile of lumber between them and freedom was too heavy. She needed his help to break out. The only problem would be to convince Angel of the necessity of her plan before her own doubts overwhelmed her.
"Angel," she said carefully, "I want you to listen to me."
"No," he said, anticipating from her determined expression that he was not going to like her words. She ignored him.
"We're in trouble here. I can't get us out of here without your help, and you can't help me with that head wound."
"No," he repeated, fearful speculation lighting in his eyes as he began to follow her train of thought.
"There's only one way to get out of here, and only one way to restore your strength."
"No!" he shouted at her, and winced at the pain it inflicted to his head.
"So I want you to feed from me." She marveled at how steady her voice sounded when she spoke those words.
"No!" he shouted again. "I won't do it. I swore to myself that I would never feed off another living human being ever again. You can't ask me to feed off *you*," he said with tears stinging his eyes.
"I'm asking."
"I can't," he insisted.
"You can. You must. Angel, I know what you're worried about. You don't want to go back to being like them, but if I want to give this to you, then how can you even compare it to what they do? This isn't you hurting me, this is me helping you."
"This *isn't* going to happen!" he said fervently. "I can't believe you'd even suggest it! After what the Master did to you..."
"That was different," Buffy interrupted. This was the argument she had been dreading, and now that he had used it, she knew he was going to have to hear the full truth of it to understand. "I had no choice then, and even when I tried to do the right thing, he turned that against me. I was scared. Not just of the prophecy, but of what would happen afterwards- what the power he got from my blood would allow him to do. And in the back of my mind, the part of me that was too scared to worry about the ramifications, I was afraid to the pain..."
Angel remained silent, but she could feel the intensity of his attention. She had never said these things out loud, and now, knowing that he was the only one who might possibly understand, she let the words spill out of her.
"And when he... when he started to bite me, when I felt his fangs pierce my skin like two hypodermic needles, all of my thoughts and fears for the future fell back in front of that pain, and then..."
She paused, reliving the confusion she had felt at the time.
"And then it stopped hurting," Angel finished for her, guessing the direction of her tale.
"Nobody ever told me that. Nobody ever told me that after the vampire breaks the skin it's your own heart that does the work, that it just keeps pumping the blood out of you to feed the vampire. It was like my own heart beat had turned traitor against me... I wanted my heart to stop beating, but I couldn't make it stop... It might have been easier if he had hurt me; I could have focused on the pain, maybe used it to fight back, but all I could hear was my own heart betraying me. I was petrified..."
Feeling relief at having spoken of the fear that had consumed her for months after the fact, Buffy brought her attention back to the present. She took one of Angel's hands and laid it over her heart so that he could feel it beating.
"I'm not afraid now. I am making my own choice, and my choice is to help you. I'm not afraid of you."
"Well, maybe you should be! Listen, Buffy, if the Master didn't cause you pain, I'm glad, but the feed doesn't always work that way. If a vampire gets greedy and tries to speed things up, it can hurt in every vein and capillary of your body!"
"Trying to scare me is not going to work, Angel. I know you won't hurt me."
"You can't know that, Buffy, I..." Suddenly he paused, and his eyes turned pleading as he tried to express his fear. "Buffy, I haven't tasted fresh blood in a hundred years! What if I..."
"You won't. You won't hurt me. I trust you."
"But I don't trust myself."
"Then trust me," she said, stroking his face with both hands.
"Angel, if I could get a Bloodmobile down here to draw my blood into a nice, sanitary bag of plasma, and give it to you that way, I would, but that solution is just a bit impractical now. I know you. I know you won't take any more than you need. And I'll be fine. I had a hamburger for lunch, and my iron count is fine. I'll be able to replace what ever you need, no problem."
"Buffy, please listen to me! I can't do this!" The conviction in his voice finally reached her, and she softened her approach.
"Why not?" she asked.
"Because I love you!" The declaration was pure, helpless, and straight from the heart.
She smiled a slow, beautiful smile as she absorbed his words, and felt a delicious shiver pass through her at hearing those words from him for the first time. Her eyes shining, she leaded forward and rested her forehead on his and whispered:
"If you love me, then help me get out of this trap. If you love me, then take what I'm offering," she pleaded with him.
"You don't play fair," he accused, trembling with the need to resist both her and himself at the same time.
"All's fair in love and war," she countered. "And this is both."
Carefully, tenderly, she kissed him, willing him to feel her trust, her need, and her love in the way she touched him, opened her mouth to him. Still breathless from that kiss, she laid her head on his shoulder, pressed his mouth to the nape of her neck with one hand, and whispered in his ear.
"Drink."
Angel held her in his arms, frozen by indecision for a long moment. His mind raced for some reason, some argument she couldn't counter, but both she and that damned brick had blind sided him, and he couldn't think, couldn't argue...
And with her throat bared willingly for his fangs it was so hard to ignore the desire that he had always felt for her. The desire to feel her in his veins the way she was already in his heart. For a hundred years, he had been alone, and the memories of indiscriminate feeding and killing had haunted his existence. Never before had the feed meant anything more to him than a callous act of violence. But now Buffy offered it to him as an act of love. As an act of redemption, even.
Surrendering to her, even as he vowed to keep his own dark desires at bay, he gently pressed his lips to her throat in a loving kiss, and murmured a prayer for strength against her skin.
A moment later, Buffy felt the sting of his fangs pierce her skin.
Despite her brave words, she felt a little surge of fear at the first sting. But it was much more pleasant to concentrate on the way Angel held her, the way his strong arms tightened around her, the way he shuddered with pleasure at the taste of her.
After only a few heartbeats, he withdrew his mouth with one last, sensuous lick of her skin. And then he leaned his head back with his eyes closed, savoring her. As his vampire features faded to be replaced by his human ones, Buffy thought she had never seen anything so beautiful. He was like a painting of the rapture of a saint, agony and ecstasy apparent together in perfect balance.
She wondered if that was what a man looked like when he made love.
Slowly, Angel's eyes opened, and Buffy was thrilled by the pleasure she saw in his shining eyes, but quickly that pleasure faded and was replaced by fear as he examined her face, trying to gage her reaction.
Before he could pile more guilt on his own back she smiled.
"Angel?"
"Yes?"
"I love you, too."
"What?" His tone was shocked.
"I said that I love you, too," she repeated, feeling strangely shy, all of a sudden, saying the words out loud.
"How can you say that?" he asked, his eyes awash with self imposed guilt. "How can you say that after..." His eyes strayed for the first time to the bite mark on her neck, and he quickly averted his eyes, reaching down to tear a patch from the hem of his t-shirt and press it to the twin puncture wounds. "How can you say that after what I just did?" His tone was dejected, and she strove to undermine the mountain of remorse he was busy building.
"I can say it because it's true. Because you make me feel beautiful and precious and strong and smart all at the same time. Because of the way that you look at me and talk to me, and occasionally, when I'm very lucky, touch me. Because no one in the whole world could possibly understand me as well as you do. Not Xander, not Willow, *not* my mother. Not even Giles, and he understands everything."
"I sure as hell don't understand you right now," he admitted, shaking his head in bewilderment, but a tender smile was curling his lips as he began to accept her declaration.
"Well, every girl wants to have a hint of mystery," she confided with a teasing grin, startling a quiet laugh from Angel.
"Angel, if there's one thing I've learned from being the slayer, it's that there are some things not to be dwelled on, and some things to be savored. This," she said touching a fingertip to one of his canines, "is not to be dwelled on, and this" she touched her hand to his heart, and then to her own, "is to be savored, and this," she touched the cotton pressed to her throat, "is one of the few things that is both. Don't you see what you proved here? You proved that you really *can* control your hunger, and you did it by facing your deepest fear, for me. How could I not love you for that?"
And, leaning forward, she kissed him again, although when her tongue sought entrance at his lips, he resisted, until, under her sensual assault, he gave in and opened to her. She caressed his mouth with her tongue, tasting the last tangy hint of her blood in his mouth, showing him that she was not repulsed, that she did not think him a monster or an animal. Showing him that she loved him not in spite of what he was, but because of everything he was.
When at last the kiss ended, and she leaned back in his arms, breathless, he stroked her hair back from her face and smiled tenderly.
"In two hundred and forty one years, I have never met another woman like you," he said reverently. She beamed at him and blushed to the roots of her hair.
"Who me?" she teased. "Aw, but I'm just your everyday, average kind of bane to the forces of evil."
"Everyday? Average? Never!" he said, staring so deeply into her eyes that it sent chills down her spine.
Then, coming back to her senses, she leaned over his shoulder to check the bump on the back of his head.
"I think the swelling has gone down," she observed.
"It feels like it," he agreed. "How do you feel?"
She took the scrap of cloth from her neck, checked to see if the bleeding had stopped, and cocked her head back and forth to check for any dizziness.
"I feel fine," she assured him.
"Good. Then I guess we should take a crack at that wall, hm?" he said, loosening his embrace.
"I guess so," she sighed, reluctant to let their intimacy fade back into reality, and stood, taking his hands to help him to his feet. He rose hesitantly, but with increasing confidence as each movement failed to inflict a stabbing pain to his head.
"Well, you don't look like you're about to fall over. How do you feel?"
"Better," he admitted.
"Good," she said, then adopted her best school marm voice: "And what have we learned from this?"
"Buffy knows best?" he answered on cue, grinning.
"And don't you forget it," she said with a sharp nod. But when his grin was replaced by that deep penetrating gaze again, she had to remind herself to breathe.
"Not if I live a thousand years," he vowed, and she knew he was speaking not of her teasing, but of what had preceded it. This time the shivers extended right down to her toes, and she had to wrap her arms around herself to keep from wrapping them around him.
"Are you cold?" he asked, immediately solicitous. She shook her head.
"Just the opposite actually," she said, and saw a flash of heat in his eyes. "Um... the wall," she reminded him.
"Yes, the wall," he agreed, but his eyes still held hers as she backed up, until the jolt of nearly tripping over a fallen brick cleared her thinking enough to let her turn around.
And, sticking the flashlight back between her teeth, she began to scale the wall, this time with Angel right behind her.
It took some maneuvering to balance themselves side by side at the top of the wall.
"Okay," Buffy said, tucking the flashlight into her belt so that she could place her hand next to Angel's on the beam. "On three. One. Two. Three."
They both gave a determined push, and this time the log moved.
"Two inches!" Buffy said, catching her breath. "Oh, good."
"Damn!" Angel exclaimed. "How many guys did it take to put these here?"
"Don't know. I couldn't see them all. But believe me, they moved pretty fast. I'm just relieved to know we can move it at all. I was pretty worried there for a while. You ready for another push?"
"Yeah. Do I get to count this time?"
"Sure. Knock yourself out... Um. Figuratively speaking, that is," she amended.
"Right," he said with a wry smile. "Okay. One. Two. Three."
They quickly fell into a pattern, interspersing their pushes with conversation.
"So what do you think Spike and his friends will do when he finds out we're gone? One. Two. Three."
"Oh, curse me for a traitor to my kind. One. Two. Three. Curse you for a worthy adversary..."
"One. Two. Three. Oh, that'll be nice..."
"One. Two. Three."
"...Always nice to be considered a worthy adversary. One. Two. Three."
"Oh, make no mistake. One. Two. Three. He'll consider this a challenge..."
"One. Two. Three."
"...And Spike thrives on a challenge. One. Two. Three. *Woah!*"
The edge of the timber clearing the rim of the pit caught them by surprise, but with a final push, they both managed to avoid being hit with it as if fell between them to the floor of the pit.
"We did it! Nice work, partner," Buffy grinned with relief.
Angel opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the arm that shot down between the remaining timers. As Buffy reached for her stake, which was, unfortunately, on the floor under a rubble of bricks, Angel grabbed the searching arm, and with a hard yank, pulled its owner through the gap between the timbers to tumble to the floor. He then dropped down after his prey, grabbed a large splinter of the wood that had been part of their trap, and staked the other vampire through the heart.
Buffy peered down at the resultant puff of smoke and ash in approval.
"You *are* feeling better!" she grinned.
"Good as new," he smiled up at her as once more that night she watched his featured fade back into humanity. Her expression softened with the feelings the sight recalled in her. She knew she'd never again watch that change in him without remembering that night.
Angel climbed to her side, handed her a passable stake from the rubble below, and nodded at the opening.
"Ready when you are."
"Ready," she said, and, reaching up between the remaining timbers. She found a hand hold and pulled herself quickly up and out. The vampire who had been lying in wait for her, having taken warning from his partner's mistake, none the less, never had a chance. No sooner had he rushed her, than she had caught him on the stake in her hand, using his own momentum to drive it through his heart.
Angel emerged from the pit and observed the gently falling ash.
"I see you're feeling all right," he said, and this time when his gaze flickered to her throat, his eyes where clear.
"Me?" she grinned, holding out her hand. "I'm good as new."
Buffy threaded her fingers through his as they turned towards home. She dared a sidelong glance at him, and smiled to herself. They did make a good team, she reflected, with a rush of euphoria. Together they could stand back to back and face just about anything, find their way out of any trap. And every time they did it seemed they grew further and further entangled with each other. She tightened her grip on his hand, and felt for a moment the pulse of her own blood through his veins. This was one trap she didn't want free of.