Thoughts are enclosed in // //,
Sighing loudly, Buffy slumped against the unforgiving brick of the apartment building. She was tired and filthier than she had ever been before, and she just couldn't bring herself to care.
//Like it matters that I'm a total skank? I don't think so. The vamps don't care that I'm not a beauty queen, and since they're all that matter...//
Suddenly, she heard a loud scream, and the sounds of a physical confrontation. She jumped to her feet and headed towards the piercing sound. The scream sounded again, this time from the alley. Flying around the corner, Buffy came face to face with what she had least expected.
She had been anticipating the normal cause of noctournal trouble -- a vampire. But this was no vampire; instead it was a mortal boy, perhaps fifteen years old, holding a knife to the throat of an even younger street urchin.
Slowing down, Buffy raised her hands, palms up. "Whoa, whoa, calm down there. It's okay. Really. You don't have to do that." Carefully, she advanced on the pair. "How about you put that knife down and we talk about it?"
The boy sneered at her. "Fuck off, bitch."
"Okay, so you're gonna take the non-verbal approach. I can deal." She shrugged, trying to edge closer to them.
Whimpering, the smaller child tried to avoid the knife. Buffy met her scared eyes, trying to convey calmness.
"C'mon, you don't want her when you can have me."
The boy's eyed darted from his captive to Buffy, rapidly back and forth. "Why should I do that?" he questioned, not realizing that Buffy was gaining ground on him.
Buffy shrugged again. "I don't know...except maybe it would have saved you this?" Quicker than the boy could see, she wrenched the little girl away from him, shoving her in the direction of the alley, and then wrenched the knife out of his hands. Buffy watched the little girl take off, frightened out of her mind.
Buffy turned her attention back to the boy after that split second's distraction, but that split second was all it took for the kid to pull another knife out of his jacket and stab her through the abdomen.
Buffy let out a low groan as the knife sliced through her gut, blood pouring out even before the knife stopped its deadly motion.
The boy looked down at the blood covering his hand and paled. Ripping the knife from her, he turned and ran out of the alley as fast as his legs could carry him.
Staggering backwards, Buffy clutched her abdomen in a futile attempt to halt the flow of blood. She fell to the ground, whimpering in pain. She started to shake, suddenly freezing cold.
She gave a short, humorless laugh through her chattering teeth. //Killed by a mortal. How embarrassing. Giles would be so humiliated...oh, Giles, I'm so sorry, so sorry for all of it...//
Buffy knew that she was going to die there in that filthy alley, and she took some small comfort that her friends would not see her like this, as she was right then. It was better that they remember her as the Slayer, as the girl who could handle anything, not as the pathetic scrap of humanity that she had become. She curled more closely around herself, moaning slightly as she jarred the torn flesh.
As her life drained out of her, she found herself thinking of only one thing -- her beloved, precious Angel, whom she had betrayed in every way possible. She could almost imagine that he was there before her, reaching out to her...she stretched out her hand, whispering his name.
His face was the last thing Buffy Summers saw before she died.
*****
The next thing Angel knew, he was on a streetcorner in LA. "What the hell...?" Whistler turned around to look at him. "She's here somewhere, we just have to find her.
"Where IS she?" Angel demanded, reaching over to grab the smaller man.
"I don't KNOW, man, I can't..."
"You can't WHAT?" Angel bellowed, completely losing his cool. "Why can't you feel her, damn it?" Just then, he gasped, his hands grasping his stomach. Ice filled his veins. "It's her," he gasped out, "She's been hurt." He took off running, guided by an unexplicable awareness of her.
Whistler had no choice but to follow him.
*****
Angel got there too late. Running into the alley, he found her, lying in a pool of her own blood. He froze, agony tearing through his heart. Dropping to his knees before her, he reached out a tentative hand to her face.
"Buffy," he called her name softly, willing her to wake up. "Buffy, wake up and talk to me." He gathered her into his arms, rocking her gently, unable to comprehend her stillness.
Whistler, completely out of breath, finally caught up to Angel, who had been moving with the speed of one possessed. The sight before him rendered him speechless. It just wasn't possible, after all they had just been through, that Buffy had died anyway.
Angel was on his knees, the limp Slayer laid out across his lap. He was calling her name, hoarsely begging her to come back to him, the blood tears streaming unashamedly down his face.
Finally finding his voice, Whistler spoke up. "Angel, man, I'm so sorry..." He trailed off, unable to think of anything even remotely comforting to say to the man whose heart was clearly breaking in two right before Whistler's horrified gaze.
Angel raised his head, and the look on his face made Whistler's gut lurch. His eyes were empty of anything, dead, cold, unfeeling. "This is not what she deserved, dying by herself in a gutter. She saved the world countless times, and this is how you thank her? By letting a punk with a knife do what innumerable demons tried to do and failed?" The words welled out of him on a tremendous tide of bitterness. "If this is how you treat your Chosen One, then I'm glad I wasn't so lucky."
Whistler closed his eyes, unable to believe what was happening. Angel focused his attention back on his lover. Tenderly, he brushed the hair out of her eyes, noting dispassionately the scratches marring the beauty of her face.
"She's gone, Whistler. And I --," Angel's voice broke, unable to finish his sentence. He began to sob, throat rasping out his agonized cries. Setting his jaw against the flood of tears, Angel continued. "I never got to tell her again that I loved her. She died not knowing how much she means to me, how much I need her..." Dropping his head to rest against hers, Angel let the tears flow freely.
Whistler strode over to his friend, placing a comforting hand on Angel's shoulder. "C'mon, man, let's get out of here. We'll take her someplace nice and -- and --" He found that he couldn't complete the thought -- the concept of Buffy encased in the ground was just not happening.
Angel shrugged off Whistler's touch. "NO!," he shouted, "NO!! DAMN IT!!! I CAN'T LET HER GO!" With that, he began to shake her violently, grasping her shoulders and roughly jerking her body back and forth. Buffy's body shook limply, like a rag doll.
Whistler reached down to stop Angel's frantic motions. "Angel -- ANGEL, man, stop it, stop it, STOP IT, damn it, Angel, she's gone. GONE. You can't bring her back. You can't do it. I can't do it. No one can do it."
Angel looked up at him, tearstained face reproaching him. "That's not true, Whistler. You know that's not true. She can be brought back. If I can be brought out of Hell, she can be brought back to life. Please, please. I'll do anything. They can take my soul back, they can send me back to Hell, I'll go willingly, just let her live. She's so good, she deserves to live her life, a normal life. Please," Angel begged, his heart in his eyes.
Whistler swallowed hard. It could be done. It wouldn't be simple, but then again, nothing involving these two was simple. The Big Guy could do it. He could restore Buffy's life, and Angel's soul, and give them happily ever after. If He was in the mood. And that was a big if. But they deserved that chance. If nothing else, Whistler could at least try.
Nodding, Whistler held out a hand, and pulled Angel, bearing Buffy's body as though it were a piece of the most delicate glass, up to his feet. "All right. Now let me tell you a little something about where we're going. It's the Committee Headquarters."
Angel opened his mouth as though he was going to say something.
Whistler cut him off. "Don't say nothing until I'm finished, please. It's a long story, but I'm gonna give you the Cliff Notes version. The Committee is made up of angels and good demons working together to keep the balance of good and evil constant in the world. It's supervised by the Big Guy himself. We're basically His problem solvers. He has a problem with something, one of us gets dispatched to fix it. I'm in charge of both you and the Slayer. Because I didn't do my job so good, they're kind of after me, but that's a story for another time. I'm gonna take us there now. I don't want you to speak until I say it's okay. Trust me, they'll eat you alive if you offend them, and then Buffy stands no chance whatsoever. Capisce?"
Angel nodded dumbly, trying to absorb the concept of a group of angels and demons presiding over the world. He clasped Buffy more firmly to his chest and dropped a kiss on her forehead. "Soon, my love, soon."
Whistler grasped Angel by the shoulders, and suddenly, they were at Headquarters.