disclaimer in part 1

Swan Song
By Diane
-----
THE CHOICE OF ROADS

Someone was staring at him, eyes burning into his face. He
could feel it the second he woke up. And then he felt the
developing ache in his stomach, ripping into him until it
became a lot more than just a twinge. It _hurt_.

He felt cold.

"What?" he whispered to his watcher.

Something shuffled around behind him, the carpet scraping
with bare footsteps, and then he felt the bed sink with
weight as someone sat down. A hand brushed his face. "Hey!
You're awake," Fred's bell-like voice stole away what little
sleep was left in him.

Opening his eyes, he stared into the dim, hazy light at her.
"Apparently," he answered.

"You really do heal fast..." she announced, her voice
dripping with a certain amount of awe. "That looks like
someone got you with a viper-blade, not the sword Wesley
dragged back with him. I got stabbed once, see? It hurt
so bad I just wanted to scream, AH!" she belted out a shriek
and then got instantly calm. "But not anymore." She
pointed to a long, jagged slash mark that went from her
elbow to her wrist. Her lips dripped into a smile, eyes
wide.

Angel blinked. "Viper-blade?" was all he could think of to
ask.

"Uh..." She appeared to be in deep thought for a while, her
eyes dark and intense. "I don't know what you call it
here."

Angel rolled to his feet, letting out a groan as the muscles
in his abdomen pulled along the still-large hole in his gut
and stretched it open a bit. "Oooh," she said, "You really
shouldn't get up, yet..."

He ignored her, even as the pain made him more than a little
bit dizzy. The room was doing a topsy-turvy game of ring-
around-the-rosie, with his head as the focal point, it
seemed. "I'm fine." And he was on his feet. Beads of
sweat littered his forehead as he wobbled over to the
dresser. Maybe a shower would be better. A mental
evaluation of his injury list told him that he was not going
to be able to stand that long, but he shrugged the
developing nausea away. He would take his shower and he
would go back to see the--

"That's what you said before you broke all the bones in your
hands, too," she replied, strangely objective. "I almost
did that once..."

That made him pause. "What?"

"Approximately one minute after the thousandth time I tried
to start the quaking and quivering."

"Oh." He didn't really know what to say to that.

"What'cha doin'?"

"I'm trying to get to my shower," Angel mumbled grimly as he
scaled his way, inch by inch, along the wall. He could
almost feel the warm water streaming down his skin. He had
always liked scalding showers for some reason, maybe because
they made him actually feel warm, rather than his standard
operating room temperature.

Buffy had always thought his obsession with being clean was
rather amusing. He wondered if it was more of an obsession
with being warm.

He shook his head at the thought, still unable to reconcile
'Buffy. Dead.' with his memories. He was still unable to
reconcile it with himself, no matter how many times he said
or thought it. Buffy. Dead. It just didn't seem real.
Nothing seemed real, even as the last vestiges of sleep were
peeling off of him in agonizing layers.

"You might not want to take a shower while that wound is
still open..." Fred cautioned.

Buffy. Dead.

He didn't really care about what he felt, at this point. He
just wanted the shower.

Angel curled into himself as a biting wave of pain almost
floored him. He gasped as spots before his eyes, but he
blinked them away. Fred was helping him, at once, her hand
on his shoulder, offering support.

< Yeah? Well, maybe I don't want a friend... >

He didn't take it.

"I really want to take a shower..." he said.

She smiled at him. "I like showers. Almost as much as
tacos."

He winced. And then he peered around the room. It was
dark, undisturbed since his brief time back from Pylea. The
wall near the door was cracked, blood stains smearing the
sheet wall that he had broken through to with a powerful
rain of slamming punches. The little powdered pile of dust,
caked paint, and smashed wall bits, was still heaped up at
the base.

Hysteria, undisturbed.

The refrigerator humming... The usual drip, drip, drip of
the leaky faucet. But despite that granted ambience, he
heard nothing. Nothing at all. The overall silence sank
in. Cordelia wasn't downstairs arguing with Wesley. No
shrieking of metal as Gunn sharpened their arsenal of
medieval weapons. "Where are the others?" he grunted.

"Oh," she smacked her head with the palm of her hand, as
though she had forgotten a very important detail. "They're
waiting downstairs in Wesley's office for you. I was sent
to wake you up."

Angel frowned as he fell further against the wall, free arm
clasped around his midsection while the other draped above
him for some vestige of shaky support. He closed his eyes.
"Why didn't you tell me before?"

"You wanted to take a shower..." She shrugged, that
innocent look of hers flooding her big, doe eyes. Blinking,
she gave him a second shrug.

"Never mind." He shook his head. "How long have I been
out?"

"Two days. Cordelia was _very_ worried," she said, her own
particular inflection creeping over her words.

He scaled the wall another foot before he had to stop, and
he hunched there, gasping. He heard her swallow and she
looked at him seriously. "Who is Buffy?"

Buffy is dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

He grimaced and continued, not answering.

Fred didn't seem to mind. "I know what you mean. I've
never loved like that. I wish I did. The closest I ever
came was Sam, in my sophomore year at UCLA," she prodded,
tagging along with him. "I checked. While you guys were
in Sunnydale. He got married to some nice girl named
Cheryl."

Fred looked downcast for a moment, but then a smile spread
across her face. "But don't worry, I don't mind."

Finally, he made it to the door.

"I know you want her back," Fred continued to babble. "I
remember wanting home. I cried for it a lot. Sometimes I
just curled up and shook, all night long, like a big, shaky,
leaf trying to hold onto a branch, but then they would come
and chase me down and I had to run away..."

That made him pause. He gritted his teeth and turned to
face her. "Fred, I'm sorry."

She shook her head and smiled lightly, that same, careless
smile -- like she didn't have a thing in the world to worry
about anymore. "It's all right, I'm home now, I--"

"No," he cut her off, "I mean, I'm sorry. I'm not being
good company right now, I'm just--"

"Hollow, I know. It's all right. I was hollow too. I used
to wonder if my insides were all gone, but then I poked
myself and I didn't explode, so I'm pretty sure I'm all
there..." She made a show of poking her belly. "See?"

Hollow. That was a good description, and he was finding
himself once again surprised at how perceptive she seemed.
Sure, she was a little... strange. But everyone had their
quirks.

He smiled weakly at her. "Yup. All there."

Hollow.

< We still remember the blood of our warrior on your Slayer's
hands... >

Had he given it all up for nothing?

When he reached for the doorknob, the stitch that pulled
through his abdomen was too much. "You know, Fred, I think
I could use that help now..."

She grinned and let him rest his arm on her for balance,
and they slowly made their way downstairs, into the office.
Cordelia was sitting on one side of the desk, staring off
into space, and Wesley was on the other side, nursing a
steaming cup of tea. Gunn was leaning up against the wall,
arms crossed over his chest.

"Angel," Wesley greeted him, the grim look on his face
betraying the fact that whatever news he had, it wasn't
good. "How are you?"

Angel glanced between Gunn, Cordelia, and Wesley, a wary
look pasting itself across his face as Fred brought herself
around to provide him more ample support. He hobbled over
to the chair. "Terrible, why?"

"Will you be ready to fight again, soon?"

Angel grimaced at the thought of walking... But, fighting?
"Why, what happened?" he asked, avoiding answering the
question until he had a better grip on what was going on.

Cordelia was still staring off into nowhere. He looked at
her more closely. In front of her, was a glass. Empty, but
little droplets of water still clung to the insides. Her
vacant look was tinged with ache. Ache, and pain, and
horror.

"She had another vision, didn't she?" Angel asked, but he
knew the answer. They didn't even have to hint, he could
see it in their faces.

"How many Mohras is it this time? How many do They want me
to kill. Hmmm?" He stood up despite the awful pull in his
stomach. He groaned, winced, and continued. "Let me guess.
A hundred?"

The anger was bubbling up inside of him. Why couldn't They
leave him alone? He just wanted to be left alone...

"I couldn't count them," Cordelia whispered, her eyes
lifting up to him, sad, and weighted with the bloody vision.

Gunn smashed a fist into the wall. "I say we get my boys
and kill them all. They weren't so tough..." His lip
curled upwards in menace.

"Yeah, because Angel played pincushion with the one who
could actually fight," Cordelia growled at him, slamming her
fist down onto the table.

Angel's world was spinning around him, even as he felt
Fred's warm hands trying to hold him upright. He stumbled
backwards. A step closer to the door. A step farther from
them.

"Angel, I suggest you rest up. I'll try to ascertain what
is causing the portals to open, perhaps we can circumvent
the entire--"

Angel didn't listen to him. Something was beginning to
bleed back in to him. Something desperate, and longing, and
something he thought had abandoned him as the 'You are now
leaving Sunnydale' sign flew by the side window of the
Belvedere.

Blinding, painful want.

< I'll never forget. I'll never forget. I'll never
forget... >

Buffy's long ago mantra flooded his head -- a riptide. He
squeezed his eyes shut. He could feel her, clutching at
him, curled in his arms as she sobbed, and sobbed, telling
him that she would never let herself forget that day...

< Together you are powerful. Alone, you are dead! >

"This isn't how it was supposed to happen. Buffy was
supposed to be here to fight this. She was..."

Eyes darting back and forth between his friends, he backed
away even further. Only Fred was making any effort to keep
him from bolting. His mind was racing. Racing away with a
billion thoughts that could have been his, but were now
fleeting away on the wind.

"Angel, I'm sorry about Buffy, I truly am, but there is a
time that one must put his grief aside--" Wesley sighed,
his eyes crinkling with sadness. He had been affected by
Buffy's death, as well, that much was clear, but Angel
didn't have time to worry about that.

No time. No time. No time.

< It's not enough time! >

"NO. We have to bring her back. She can help."

Cordelia frowned. "Bring who back?" From the look on her
face, she was merely playing dumb and praying the answer
wasn't what she thought it was.

"Buffy!" Angel replied. "She's supposed to be here."

Cordelia stood, at that. "Angel, don't," she snapped,
prowling towards him with a terrified look on her face.
"Just don't. She's gone."

He was frantically coming up with ideas. Frantically
clawing for anything that might work. Something had to.
The Powers had all but told him that Buffy was supposed to
be alive right now, he was sure of it...

Positive. Almost burning with the realization that he
should have thought of trying to get her back before.
Desperation began to eat him away from the inside like acid.
He was snapping apart. Dissolving. He could feel it.

"But we can bring her back. We have the ritual used for
Darla..." he paced wildly, like a prowling beast.

"Angel, be reasonable. That is for bringing demons back
from the Hell dimension. Buffy is at rest in the ether.
Let her stay that way--"

"You're bleeding!" Cordelia was suddenly in front of him,
blocking his path.

His hands went to the gaping wound in his stomach, and came
back sticky and red. Funny. He didn't even notice the pain
any more... He backpedaled away from her worried look.
Gunn swept up behind him like a panther, but he dodged, and
was dashing through the lobby. "I'm going to bring her
back!" he shouted after them, mindless of the fact that he
was bloody, sweaty, and barefoot, running around in a pair
of old, ratty sweats. He didn't care. Not at all.

"Where are you goin', man?" Gunn called after him.

Angel didn't answer, running blindly through the Hyperion
towards his car, skidding on the floor as his feet failed to
purchase the slippery marble. He was running. Running.
Flying.

Leaving.

But not before he grabbed an exquisite dagger from its
place adorning the wall.

continue