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“Buffy? Are you all right?” Willow asked into the phone. They had all gathered at the library like usual, but Buffy wasn’t there. She’d gone home earlier, saying she wanted to rest, and she hadn’t come back.
“It’s been five years Will. Five years today,” Buffy whispered into the phone. She was curled up on her bed, holding the cross he had given her in her hand.
“I know. We all know. We’re here for you Buff. What can we do?” Willow asked, concern plain in her voice. Buffy shook her head, then answered out loud, knowing her friend couldn’t see her moving.
“Nothing. You can’t do anything Will. No one can. It’s over. It’s been over for five years. But I can’t . . . I can’t forget him. If I had only waited a second . . . Why couldn’t I have waited?” Buffy asked quietly. Willow strained to catch her last words as she trailed off at the end.
“You did the right thing. You didn’t know. You did the right thing. You just have to realize that and . . .”
“Move on?” Buffy asked, her voice half a sob. “How can I move on! I loved him! He was the only man I’ve ever loved, and it was my fault lost his soul in the first place! And then I killed him . . . even though he was about to get his soul back! I can’t move on from that!”
“I didn’t ask you to,” Willow said, despairing. She sighed and half turned her chair so she could see the others. They were all sitting around one of the tables, talking. Except Brian. Who was watching Willow with a tragic look on his face. Willow couldn’t get Buffy to move on and forget, but maybe there was someone who could . . .
“Another dead-end. The guy died two years ago,” Willow said, turning from the computer. School was over now—it had been for almost a week, but Giles could always get into the library, and it was still the center of Slaying activity.
“How many does that leave?” Cordelia asked.
“Two,” Xander answered. “And one has been ‘missing’ for the last eight months.”
“Great. That’s just peachy,” Cordelia said, throwing up her hands in disgust. They’d been trying to find someone who could change the spell for them for the last two and a half weeks, and all they’d managed to do was narrow the list. Down to one. Or two, with one missing.
“How’s Buffy doing?” Willow asked. The double service—fighting day AND night—had really been wearing on her, though Brian had been helping a lot, and all the rest of them had been doing what they could.
“Not so great. I mean, you couldn’t tell it from talking to her, but she looks . . .”
“Like hell?” Cordelia suggested, when Xander trailed off.
“Those wouldn’t have been my words,” Xander began in his normal, joking manner, then turned serious, “but yes, that’s pretty much right on in the description department.”
“She took the Anniversary really hard this year,” Willow said, worried. “I mean, she takes it really hard EVERY year, but usually by this time of the month, she’s sort of okay again.”
“It is the fifth. That sort of holds some significance, right?” Cordelia suggested.
“I wish we could just forget about the whole thing!” Xander exclaimed.
“Shut up Xander. Just shut up,” Cordelia said, actually meaning it for once, He subsided, glaring.
“It’s just combined with the half-vampires and the end of the world stuff—not to mention that line about the sire being more human—it’s too much, even for her. And I think, Brian, for all the help he’s been, is sort of making it worse. He’s nothing like Angel . . . at all. But something about the way Buffy acts around him makes me think of Angel. And I think it makes HER think of him too, and that only makes it all worse,” Willow said. Cordelia nodded thoughtfully.
“I know what you mean. I think she has a crush on him, but she doesn’t want to admit it. I mean, she hasn’t dated since Angel—she hasn’t even LOOKED at a guy since Angel. Personally, it would sort of freak me out if I suddenly got a huge thing about this guy on the fifth anniversary of killing my old boyfriend,” Cordelia said, then, with a sideways glance at Xander, she added, “Or fiancée.”
“Should I take that as a hint?” he asked, rousing.
“Maybe,” she replied calmly, then turned back to Willow.
“You might have a point. Buffy told me that she thought of Angel as her one and only . . . she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. You know, before he lost his soul,” Willow said. “Anyway, if she does like Brian, I can see her really freaking out about it. She might feel like she’s betraying Angel or something, even though he’s dead.”
“So what do you geniuses suggest we do?” Xander asked.
“I don’t know. Wait. Hope,” Willow said. Cordelia smiled suddenly.
“And try and fix them up!”
“Thanks for walking me home. I never thought I’d see the day when I couldn’t walk two blocks by myself . . .” Buffy said, rolling her eyes and laughing. Buffy had been at the graveyard most of the day and half the night, and she was beginning to stumble when she walked. Or stood. He had taken a nap earlier, though, and was fully rested. And walking her home.
“No problem . . . it’s not like I have anywhere to be,” Brian said.
“Except doing my job,” Buffy said.
“Helping,” he corrected. “No one could do your job. You’re the Slayer. I may be able to kick the little ones into submission, but the big vamps . . . you have power, something I don’t. Besides . . . you heal a lot faster than I do.”
“Yeah, that helps a lot when I fall asleep on my feet,” Buffy said. Brian shook his head, though in the dark street it was a slight movement.
“You’re not used to this kind of load. Nighttime is bad enough, but all day too? We’ll work it out though,” Brian assured her.
“We?” Buffy asked. He stilled beside her and she stopped and turned to him.
“I didn’t mean anything by it. Sorry,” he said.
“No, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just not used to being part of a team. Even with the Slayerettes it’s been just me . . . for a long time,” Buffy said quietly. She looked up at him and felt his eyes catch hers. Even in the dark they were bright, so very blue, and they held hers captive. She heard a swift intake of breath and registered somehow that it was hers. And then he was coming closer and his mouth was on hers . . .
Buffy pulled away, violently, and turned, shaking, sinking to the ground on the sidewalk. He was kneeling beside her a moment later.
“Are you all right? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . . I didn’t think. I’m sorry,” Brian said. Buffy was shaking her head, though whether to deny his words or what she had felt when his mouth had touched hers she didn’t know.
“It’s not you. Not your fault. It’s me. It’s HIM,” Buffy whispered.
“Shh. You’re tired, distraught, let me take you home,” he said, picking her up easily. She struggled against him weakly, than relaxed and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, but he shook her head and carried her back to her house.
He put her down when they reached the door and Buffy pressed her thumb against the new scan-lock. It beeped and the door opened for her. She stepped inside, flipped on a light, then turned back, waiting for Brian. He didn’t come in.
“Aren’t you coming?” she asked.
“I don’t want to impose. You should go to bed,” he said, his face and voice impassive and emotionless. She stared for a moment, then shook her head.
“You don’t understand. I need to talk to you. To explain. Please, come in,” Buffy said, watching him intently. He hesitated a moment, then nodded and stepped inside. She sighed in relief and closed the door behind him.
“Sit down,” she said, gesturing to the couch. He sat. So did she.
“About outside . . . I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to impose, and I—”
“Please. Shut up,” Buffy said, interrupting. He stared at her. “I mean that in the nicest sense of the words,” she assured him. He was still staring. She sighed, kicked off her shoes and drew her feet up to tuck them underneath her on the couch.
“Remember that old story that I said didn’t matter anymore?” she asked. He nodded. “Well it does. I was wrong. You see, when I first moved to Sunnydale, from L.A., I was in major denial about being the Slayer. My life as I knew it had just collapsed because of vampires and I didn’t want it to happen again. Unfortunately, I hadn’t counted on the Hellmouth. Or the Harvest. Or Giles. Or Angel.
“I was in a dark alley and he snuck up on me—well, I don’t think he meant to, but he really couldn’t help it, that’s how he was—and I kicked him. Hard. Well, more than a kick, but let’s not go into that. He told me he was there to help, and he gave me a little silver cross. He also tried to convince me to pay attention to my job. Eventually, I did, and everything worked out, but everytime anything really bad was going to happen, he would show up and warn me about it. I called him Cryptic Guy.
“He wasn’t what I thought though. It’s too long a story to tell, but I found out he was a vampire. A good vampire though. You see, after he killed this gypsy girl about a hundred years ago the members of her tribe placed a curse on him, giving him back his soul unless he experienced a moment of complete and perfect happiness. I . . . fell in love with him. Anyway. I don’t know how, but somehow it happened. And he fell in love with me too. The next school year we dated for a while . . . if you could call it that. But we didn’t know about the condition on the curse. Only the gypsies knew. And they were determined to keep him miserable forever. They even sent one of them to look after him. She posed as a teacher. Her name was Jenny Calendar—the name she gave us anyway.
“It’s too long to tell everything, but there was a huge crisis, and we thought he was going to have to leave for months. He gave me a ring . . . I was so miserable. I didn’t want to lose him. And then he didn’t have to go, but I was scared and all I knew was that I loved him, and we made love. And he lost his soul.” Brian made a little noise, but Buffy didn’t stop; didn’t look at him. She knew that if she did she would never be able to keep going.
“He was so horrible . . . he killed Ms. Calendar, because she found a cure for him. She put it on a disk though, and the disk fell between her desk and the wall. He told my mother what we had done, and he killed a puppy and left it for me . . . but then, on the morning of our anniversary, June first, he raped a girl and killed her and left her outside my window. So I had to kill him. But I couldn’t go to school and that same morning Willow found the disk. They thought Angel had captured me because they couldn’t find me, so they decided to do the spell.
“I killed him. I killed him a second before they finished the spell. Just one moment and . . .” she couldn’t go on, she was crying too hard. “He was gone. I killed him. My Angel . . .”
“Shh,” he said, gathering her into his arms and smoothing her hair. “It’ll be all right. It’s over. Done. It’ll be all right.”
“I killed him though, and now I want to kiss you but I can’t because, because . . .”
“Why?” he asked softly. “What is wrong about it?” She pulled away just far enough to look up at him. Their eyes met. His blue eyes . . . so very different from Angel’s dark, melancholy gaze. These eyes were bright, alive. And he loved her. She could see it. He loved her.
“Nothing,” she whispered, “Nothing is wrong with it.” And then she put her arms around his neck and drew him down to her and kissed a man, for the first time in five years.
It wasn’t an Angel-kiss. It didn’t make her feel like she had died and moved on to a higher realm. If she’d been standing, her knees wouldn’t have collapsed. But they would have been pretty damn wobbly. And if the fireworks were more New Year’s Eve than Fourth of July—there were still fireworks. And with this man, she never needed to wonder if he would grow fangs in the middle of their kiss.
For the first time in five years, the Slayer felt like she was seeing the light. The light that was Brian, banishing the dark that had been Angel’s death.
For the first time in five years, Buffy was happy.