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Feel so Low
Part 4
“Where *are* they?”
Willow was getting impatient. It had been dark for a half an hour, and Buffy and Angel still hadn’t arrived. She was waiting near the door in her wheelchair. It had taken her nearly an hour to persuade her mother that she felt well enough to go out, and she didn’t want to waste any of the hard- earned time she had. “Giles, you don’t think that anything could have happened....” As she spoke, they heard footsteps outside the doors.
Slowly, the doors swung open, and Buffy and Angel walked in. Buffy looked awfully tired, and she leaned heavily against Angel when they stopped just inside. But above the dark circles, her eyes shone happily, and she seemed more alive than she’d been in months. Angel looked nearly as exhausted as Buffy, and his face was a mask of guilt and sorrow.
“Oz, help me.” Willow was struggling to stand, but her legs just wouldn’t hold her up, and her head whirled. Oz was at her side in a second, and she leaned on him as she walked slowly towards Angel and Buffy. Buffy stepped away from Angel and Willow enveloped her in a huge hug. “We were all so worried.... I wasn’t sure if it had worked.”
“It worked perfectly, Will. You were great.”
Over Buffy’s shoulder, Willow looked at Angel and smiled. She was rewarded with a small smile in return, and as she watched, he mouthed the words, “I’m sorry about your fish.”
“It’s all right,” she mouthed back. She released Buffy and took a few shaky steps towards him, and Angel, to his surprise, found himself enfolded in a hug just as warm as the one Buffy had received. He returned it, and whispered softly in her ear, “Thank you.”
“No problem.” He released her, and Oz helped her back to her wheelchair. Buffy was narrowly escaping being squashed by Giles, who was hugging her so tightly she could barely breathe.
“My dear girl...” Suddenly Buffy realized how close she had come to losinghim, and she pressed her face against the comforting roughness of tweed, clinging to him as tightly as he held on to her.
Giles watched Angel as he hugged Buffy. He hadn’t been sure how it would be, how he would react to seeing the..... *thing* that had killed Jenny. To his surprise, when he looked at Angel, he only saw vague traces of the monster that had killed the woman he loved, and tortured him. The arrogance was gone from the eyes, the self-confidence from the stance. It was a person that stood before him. A person eaten up with guilt.
He stretched out his right hand. Slowly, Angel reached out and grasped it. Their eyes met, and held. They said everything they needed to say in that silence, apologies and forgiveness alike.
Xander’s voice cut across the silence. “Well, the Prodigal Son has returned. Shall we kill the fatted calf, or, in a new twist invented by me, throw him back out in the alley?” Sarcasm dripped from his words.
Buffy’s eyes narrowed as she pulled away from Giles. Slowly, she walked across the library to where Xander sat at one of the tables, next to Cordelia. “Take that back, Xander. Now. I’m sick of your petty rivalry issues.”
Xander looked at her steadily, chin raised slightly in defiance. He remained silent.
“I mean it, Xander. You owe me.”
His eyes started twitching slightly. “What do you mean?” he asked, glancing at Willow nervously.
“You know what I mean, Xander. Wasn’t there something you forgot to *tell* me a couple days ago? Something having to do with a *curse*, maybe?”
Willow sat up straighter in her wheelchair. “Wait a minute. You didn’t tell her? Xander, how could you? I asked you to tell her, I told you.....” She trailed off, leaving Xander to squirm under her hurt gaze. Giles was staring at him in astonishment, even Cordy was looking at him like he was some sort of bug. Wait, that was how she normally looked at him. It seemed worse this time, somehow.
Buffy was in full Slayer mode now, angry and dangerous. “Who’s decision was that to make, Xander? Too tough a question for you? I’ll answer it.” She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him to his feet. Her face was less than an inch from his, and he could see the cold fury in her eyes. “It was *my* decision. *Mine*. Not yours.”
Xander finally got up enough courage to answer. “You wouldn’t have made it. You would have waited, and the whole world would have been sucked into hell because you couldn’t bear to kill your precious boyfriend!” He was yelling now, nearly as angry as Buffy. “He killed people, Buffy! He tortured your friends! So now he gives you the ‘I feel so guilty, can you ever forgive me’ act, and you just forgive and forget? Wake up!”
Shaking, Buffy struggled to contain her urge to punch him as hard as she could. “For your information, Xander, I *did* kill my ‘precious boyfriend’. I shoved a sword into his stomach and sent him to hell. I did it even though his soul had been restored, even though it almost killed me. The only reason he’s here now is because somehow he knew that I needed him. By some miracle, he got to me before I could -” She cut herself off suddenly, and let go of his shirt, pushing him back against the table. She took a few steps backwards, and practically fell into Angel, who’d come up behind her during the argument. He took her in his arms, and she buried her face against his chest. Her next words were slightly muffled.
“You do *not* have the right to make my decisions for me, Xander.”