"Elizabeth"

Author: Vatrixsta Cruden
Contact: trixieangelsomething@hotmail.com
Notes: This was written in three hours last night at two AM. Judge it accordingly. (It is, needless to see, supremely un-beta'd.) Disclaimer: Pffffft.

---

It had been the strangest day from the moment she'd opened her eyes.

Buffy sat in McArthur Park, her fist clutched around a diary that was over a hundred years old. Willow had warned her not to come to Los Angeles,  especially not so soon after Buffy's mother's death. Buffy hadn't felt she'd had a choice, though. The city had been calling to her soul

Her father was on a business trip in South America; she hadn't even had a chance to inform him about his ex-wife's death yet.

Dawn was her sister, but now, Buffy had to assume the role as primary caregiver for the girl. There was no way Buffy could allow herself to lean on Dawn, to burden her with yet another heavy load. Finding out you were some kind of freaky key instead of a normal, fourteen-year-old girl was bad enough. Tack on losing your mother a short two weeks later, and Buffy was amazed Dawn hadn't lost her mind.

Giles had offered to take care of her sister while Buffy took this trip. Her great aunt still lived in one of those houses in the Hollywood Hills that were built back in the 20's. Elizabeth "Buffy" Foster had been a silent film actress; had made a tidy sum of money before she'd quit the business. Buffy herself had been named after her. Joyce had never been close with Elizabeth, but had always told Buffy she'd owed her aunt more than she could say.

Ever since Joyce's death a few weeks ago, Buffy had been remembering comments her mother had made like that. The curiosity had been driving her crazy. Why had this woman Buffy had never even met been special enough to Joyce that she'd named her firstborn daughter -- her only =real= daughter -- after her?

A single tear fell onto the diary, and Buffy looked down, mildly surprised to find that she'd began crying again.

And why did everything that happened to her always have to come back to Angel?

---

"Excuse me, I'm looking for Elizabeth Fo--"

"Good God," a young man breathed from beyond the rod iron security door, "you look..."

Buffy glanced around. "What? Did I wear stripes and plaid together again?" she worried, checking her outfit.

"Who are you?" he gasped out.

"Buffy," she answered, a bit defensively.

If possible, the man grew paler and made an odd choking sound in the back of his throat. Both he and Buffy jumped when the intercom to her left crackled to life.

"Bring her in," a deep, throaty voice instructed. Sounded like a woman, Buffy thought.

The gate open, and the man held out a hand. "Timothy Kramer," he introduced properly.

"Buffy Summers," she greeted, shaking his hand firmly. He winced, and she was immediately contrite. "Sorry. Don't know my own strength."

"Seems to run in the family," Timothy muttered.

Buffy took issue with that, but didn't comment. Her only objective was to find Elizabeth, and this glorified gopher wasn't going to stand in her way.

It was a short walk up the drive. The place had been built in the 20's, a single level, sprawling Spanish style ranch house. Assuming something could be described as a 'ranch' without any sign of so much as a chicken.

Timothy led them out back to a small patio overlooking the pool. A small radio played a song Buffy didn't recognize, but was drawn to against her will. Her gaze scanned the area, settling on the two lounge chairs, ends barely touching the lip of the pool. There, hidden behind the brim of a large, garish sun hat, was the woman Buffy presumed to be her namesake.

"So you're Joyce's little bundle, hmm," she murmured, glancing up at Buffy.

"That's me," Buffy replied with forced cheer. The other woman's eyes were still concealed by the dark sunglasses she wore, but her age was obvious.

Elizabeth looked Buffy up and down so long, even the slayer started to feel a little uncomfortable. Timothy cleared his throat loudly, and the older woman's attention was thankfully diverted to him.

"You still here?" she asked grumpily.

"I didn't think you'd want to be alone with your... guest," he murmured tastefully.

"And I don't pay you to think," she snapped, then added, "thankfully."

"But Ms. Foster--"

"Take a long lunch, Timmy," she instructed. "And don't bother coming back until the sun has set."

With a frown, Timothy scurried away. Buffy withheld a smirk.

"I don't really know how to do this," Buffy confessed once they were alone.

"Bullshit," Elizabeth said flatly. "What you don't know how to do is make this visit seem like something other than it is."

Buffy was flabbergasted. "I beg your pardon?"

"This is a selfish endeavor, young lady," Elizabeth pronounced. "You want to know all my secrets. It's about time you ended up here. I really thought your mother would be the one to disobey that idiot sister of mine and seek me out."

"That's my grandmother you're talking about," Buffy said coldly.

"And she was a silly fool, incapable of facing the monsters under the bed," Elizabeth insisted. "'Course, she never really had to face them head on. That privilege was all mine."

"I don't understand," Buffy said weakly.

"Did you know I was adopted?" Elizabeth asked, changing tactics.

"No?" Buffy offered, growing more confused by the second. Maybe she should have waited longer after her mother's death before trying to confront all the secrets she'd taken to her grave.

"Well I was. I was born in China, the turn of the century." A smile curved her wrinkled lips. "I'm a hundred and one years old."

Buffy gulped. She'd suspected 'Aunt' Elizabeth was old, but she hadn't guessed at just how old. As she thought that, Elizabeth took her sunglasses off, and Buffy gasped, sitting down heavily on the lounge chair opposite the other woman.

Elizabeth's eyes were blue. Of course, that's like saying the ocean is 'deep' and outer space is 'big.' This was the kind of blue that captured your attention, kept you in its thrall for a lifetime. Those eyes on the silver screen... no wonder she'd been a successful actress. They were ancient eyes, with a great deal of wisdom locked behind them.

The only eyes Buffy had ever stared into that held more wisdom belonged to a man who'd lived for over two centuries.

"Your grandmother ever tell you I saved her life when she was barley out of diapers?" Elizabeth sat up straighter. "If it weren't for me, you never would've even been born." A shadow passed over her eyes. "And if it weren't for him, I would've died with my real family in that godforsaken war."

"Him?" Buffy asked, fascinated. The intricacies of death had interested her more and more since she became the slayer. A woman decides she wants a bagel for breakfast, skips across the street to Noah's Deli, and ends up flattened by a semi. Some guy gets in a fight with his girlfriend because he forgot to put down the toilet seat, gets lured out of a bar by a hot looking girl and ends up with her fangs in his neck in a urine soaked alley.

A girl makes love to the only man she's ever really loved, and it was so bad, he tries to suck the world into hell...

"Him, of course, him," Elizabeth muttered. "That's why you're here, isn't it?"

"I don't--"

"You do," Elizabeth insisted. "You know very well. He saved me. It was supposed to happen like that, you realize. He saved me, so that you could one day save him."

"But--"

"Help me up," Elizabeth ordered, and Buffy complied, too confused to put up much of a fight.

With Buffy's assistance, Elizabeth led them into the house, and down a long flight of stairs. Elizabeth talked the entire way.

"He's been visiting me, you know," she confided. "Ever since he moved here. Had that girl that works for him look me up in one of those damned computers. Found me in under an hour. He sneaks in at night. Timothy hasn't a clue," she added with a chuckle as they reached a door.

It was odd to Buffy that finding this woman had some kind of secret, underground facility in her house wasn't all that odd.

Once inside, Buffy had to work hard to remember how to breathe. It was like a shrine to the movies of the 20's. Posters adorned the walls, one in particular entitled "The Flying Giraffe" caught Buffy's attention. There were shots of what was obviously a young Elizabeth Foster, and Buffy finally realized why Timothy had been so stunned by her at the gate.

Buffy could have =been= Elizabeth at twenty.

"But that's impossible," Buffy mumbled. "We're not even related by blood!"

Elizabeth clucked her tongue at Buffy. "You think something as basic as family, as connection, comes through blood, little girl?"

Numbly, Buffy shook her head, and began investigating the room closer. For some reason, she was drawn to a pile of photographs taken in the late thirties.

"That was the 'Wizard of Oz' premiere," Elizabeth said over her shoulder. "You'll be interested in one of those."

Buffy was confused for a moment, until she came across a picture of Elizabeth, arm in arm with a handsome young man.

That picture froze every molecule in Buffy's body.

It could have been her and Angel.

Another realization slipped into place.

That =had= been Angel.

"Him," Buffy whispered, tears coming to her eyes. She'd cried far too much the last few weeks...

"Him," Elizabeth confirmed. "He saved me. Brought me to America with him. I don't recall the trip, having been so young. Once we were here, he found a family for me, left me with them. I didn't know who he was until I was twelve. He'd been watching me, making sure I was safe, lurking in the shadows."

"He's good at that," Buffy agreed, tracing the features that hadn't aged a day since that picture had been taken.

"I knew him the second I saw him," Elizabeth said with pride. "Some sense memory in me recognized him. Not in the silly, romantic way they always talk about in books, but in the sense that... he was my family, come to claim me."

"Did he?" Buffy asked, even though she already knew the answer.

"Did a vampire walk into someone's home and demand the child they'd adopted years before?" Elizabeth shook her head sadly. "No. But he did stay for years. Until I married someone else. Then he left, because he felt he'd be in the way." She chuckled bitterly. "My husband only married me so I would help him sell his screenplay. He left, too, after awhile."

"Were you in love with him? Not your husband," but amended quickly.

"It's hard to know him and not be a little bit in love with him," Elizabeth confessed. "But did I love him the way you do? No."

"I don't," Buffy began automatically, then stopped herself. What was the point?

"He came back again sometime in the fifties," Elizabeth said, a shadow passing over her face, "but I wouldn't see him. I blamed him for my mistakes, and I turned him away. Said my life was better without him in it."

"And of course he just left again, without even trying to put up a fight, or call you on what a bitch you were being..." Buffy bit her lower lip. "Sorry. My stuff."

"A little bit our stuff, I think," Elizabeth noted wryly. "But then he came back again, a little over a year ago. He went through a bad patch for awhile, but he seems better now."

"Bad patch?" Buffy asked weakly.

"Didn't tell me much before he stopped coming around," Elizabeth said, "but he mentioned 'unfinished business' in that ominous way he has. If I were a betting woman, I'd of put everything I had on a woman, but meeting you, seeing how you have no clue what I'm talking about, I think that maybe I'm
wrong. To hear him talk, you hung the moon, and I doubt he even realizes there are other women in the world."

"He talks about me?" Buffy hated the needy tone her voice had taken. I don't need a man, she thought intently.

"He doesn't refer to you by name, if that's what you mean. It's more how he says things. We get into a conversation about love, for instance, and he starts speaking of unspeakable loyalty, honor and courage like he's quoting sonnets."

"Knowing Angel, he might be," Buffy said with a nervous little laugh.

"Congratulations."

"Why?"

"You just said his name out loud."

Buffy sucked in a sharp breath. "It's hard to--"

"You don't need to tell me," Elizabeth said, waving her explanation off. "Whatever the emotion, I've lived it, played it, and immortalized it for all time." A glint appeared in her eye. "Come here, let me show you something."

The woman Buffy had learned was over one hundred years old practically =ran= across the room. Buffy raised her eyebrows, reconsidering her idea that Elizabeth was anything approaching 'frail.'

"I had them all transferred to video a decade ago," Elizabeth hollered over her shoulder as she rooted around through a small cabinet. "No, no, no," she muttered to herself. "Aha!"

"Aha?"

"Here it is," Elizabeth crowed triumphantly, popping a videocassette into the VCR. It was hooked to a large screen TV, and the picture began to flicker.

"What are we watching?" Buffy asked, taking a seat on the small daybed toward the back of the room.

"Home movies," Elizabeth said cryptically.

Must have picked that up from Angel, Buffy grumbled silently.

"That song," Buffy murmured as the video started.

"Mary Chapin Carpenter," Elizabeth sighed. "I have this song dubbed over all the home movies. Best damn singer there is since Frank died."

"Sinatra?"

"Badalucco," Elizabeth corrected. "Never made it big, but he used to play the parties back in the thirties. Beautiful set of pipes."

"Not that I don't find it fascinating -- cause I do -- but why are we watching this?"

"There. Right there." Elizabeth indicated the screen, and, dutifully, Buffy looked.

"I don't see -- oh!" Leaning in closer, Buffy felt her mouth drop open slightly.

A small suburban home was in the frame when Elizabeth paused the VCR. On the lawn sat a group of people. Grandma Linda, who bore more than a passing resemblance to Buffy's mother; an exact replica of Buffy, who surely must have been Elizabeth; a tall, refined gentleman Buffy assumed was her great grandfather, though she'd never even seen a picture of him.

And to Elizabeth's left, standing removed from the group, yet oddly present, was Angel.

"I brought him home under the guise that he was a young man come to court me." Elizabeth chuckled. "He'd take me out, supposed to dinner, and then drive me into Hollywood, take me from audition to audition until I finally got a job. I always arranged them at night, and he never once stood me up." A tear ran down Elizabeth's cheek. "He told me once that I'd made him realize the path he'd chosen to walk was wrong. He said that saving me was what gave him the courage to change."

Angel, dressed in clothes from the nineteen-thirties, looking so protective toward her mirror image, fascinated Buffy. Was that how he looked at me? she wondered. Like I was made of glass and he'd lay down his life if it would spare me a moment's pain?

"He loved you," Buffy said without thinking first.

"Of course he did," Elizabeth said, as though it were obvious.

Buffy stared down at her hands, trying not to feel the way she was feeling. It was ridiculous, being upset over this. He'd told her that in two hundred and forty years, he'd loved exactly one person. Then he'd let her believe it was her. What if he'd never loved her at all? What if he'd only been drawn to her because she'd been the spitting image of this woman he'd loved and lost so many years ago? What if--

"Good God, you've got insecurities that go around knocking out other insecurities," Elizabeth declared.

"Huh?"

"He loved me," she explained patiently, "like a daughter. You -- you he loves in a way I don't think there are words to explain."

Buffy stared down at her hands, embarrassed, only to snap her gaze back to Elizabeth at the older woman's next words:

"But I may have a few words that'll suffice."

---

"No, Cordelia, it's not that ... look, I know I have to practice, but I'm pretty sure the apocalypse is more than a few months away, and I've probably got some wiggle room..." A sigh. "Fine. No, you're right, I agreed to do it, by the time you get back from your audition, there will be a freshly baked chocolate cake with raspberry sauce for dipping."

Angel smiled at something Cordelia said. "Good luck... no I don't think you =need= luck, I'm just wishing you some anyway. Goodbye, Cordy."

Hanging up the phone, Angel clicked up the volume on the TV a few notches. "Iron Chef" was on, and, as per Cordelia's instructions, he was learning how to cook at least six different meals in preparation for the day his "liquid diet" no longer appealed.

He'd already mastered the fine art of Kraft macaroni and cheese from a box. At least, Gunn and Wesley had eaten it without complaint. Cordelia had turned her nose up at it, but Angel noticed the leftovers he'd put in the refrigerator had mysteriously disappeared when she took her lunch the next day.

Dessert, or so he'd been told, was the most important meal of the day. Memories of chocolate and peanut butter briefly flitted through Angel's mind, and he had to ruefully agree that whoever said that was absolutely right. Of course, his opinion could have more to do with the company than what they'd been consuming.

Humanity had always loomed on the edge of Angel's consciousness, but hadn't taken quite so predominant a role until Wesley had correctly deciphered the shanshu prophecy. Then, the thought of being human one day had consumed him to the point that he'd stopped doing the job he'd been called back from hell to do, to the best of his ability.

After that, he'd started a downward spiral exasperated by Darla's return, but not entirely dependant on it, either. Depression was an old friend of Angel's, but after getting a taste of what life could be -- and giving it up, in the case of that lost day with Buffy -- Angel was ready to admit defeat.

Eternally screwed, was the phrase that occurred to him most often. Nothing had mattered to him but taking Wolfram and Hart down. It was so convenient when you could pin everything wrong with your life on a single entity. It focused your rage, narrowed your vision, and gave you reason to lay everything on the line.

Angel regretted firing his crew more than almost anything he'd done during that darkness; regretted it even more than he regretted locking that door.

They hadn't come back together easily, but they =had= come back together. Cordelia, especially, had been difficult to persuade, but once he had, she admitted the blame didn't solely rest on Angel's shoulders. He wasn't sure he agreed with her, but the fact that she'd said it meant the world to him.

"Come on, you can kick his ass," Angel muttered to the television as the Iron Chef prepared to do battle.

He'd just taken the cake out of the oven, and put the finishing touches on the raspberry sauce when his phone rang.

"Angel Investigations, we help the hopeless," he greeted as cheerfully as he could manage.

His brow furrowed. "Elizabeth... slow down... what do you mean she just left? What was she doing there in the first place?" His eyes shut, and the phone nearly dropped from his hands. "Buffy," he whispered, thinking of Joyce, the last stable influence Buffy had had in her life, all her life, taken so suddenly from her.

"Elizabeth, where did she go?"

---

Buffy,

---

"And if you ever think of me, let it be around twilight, when the world has settled down and the last round of sunlight is waning in the sky, as you sit and watch the night descending..."

Angel turned his head to look at the breathtaking creature singing on stage. Her hair fell in soft golden waves around her face, a few subtle shades darker than he remembered it. He'd seen her a few days after her mother's death. Taken her in his arms and let her sob out all her sorrow into someone who wouldn't need her to be the strong one.

Every demon in the place couldn't take their gazes off of her. Of course, that might have more to do with her being the slayer...

Or perhaps it was because she actually had a worse voice than Angel had.

In her hands, she held the journal Elizabeth had warned him she'd given up. I should have known better than to leave it with the old bat, he thought fondly. An incurable romantic to her core once you get past her crusty exterior.

"Hello there, tall, dark and intense," the Host greeted as he sidled up to Angel, "say, you didn't happen to misplace a slayer, did you?"

"How long has she been here?" Angel asked, his gaze not leaving Buffy onstage. She'd sensed him the moment he'd entered the bar, and he felt like she was singing the words of that song right to him.

"She showed up fifteen minutes ago, clutching that journal and asking if I was the one who told fortunes." He sighed. "I have a gift, and she tells me I'm a fortune teller. I swear, if it wasn't for everything I read in her, I'd be insulted."

"What did you read?" Angel asked, curious, and, truth be told, a bit concerned.

"Sorry, Angel baby," the Host soothed, "but Goldilocks' internal demons are just as private as your internal demon."

"And this is love, all it ever was and will be, this is love, when you let it, if you let it now, this is love, all it ever was and will be..."

"She went full-tilt wacko looking through the book to see if that song was on the play list," the Host remarked, indicating Buffy, crooning her heart out on stage. "Ooo, she tries so hard, and yet only succeeds in arousing the neighborhood alley cats."

"I could listen to her all night," Angel confided quietly.

"Well, isn't that just like a big, mushy superhero in love," the Host gushed. "And if I haven't mentioned it, so very nice to have you back in the land of the living."

"So, what'd you see? Is there torrid romance in my future? Big ugly demons I have to slay? An ounce of stability?" Buffy had hopped down from the stage and joined their conversation, Angel's journal still clutched tightly in her hands.

The Host smiled kindly at her. "You know, I'd love to oblige, but there's nothing I could possibly tell you about your future that you don't already hold in your hands." He gave Angel a pointed look. "He knows what I mean." With a polite bow, he left Angel and Buffy alone.

Buffy glared up at Angel. "So it's all in this book, huh," she groused quietly.

"Buffy," he began softly.

"No. How is my future in this book, Angel?"

Staring down at the journal, Angel silently admitted that he knew exactly what the Host was referring to.

That day. That day that had never happened. It hadn't been a test, so much as it had been a premonition. And if he hadn't given it all up, it never would have been his to hold for the rest of his life.

How he knew that so certainly in this moment, he couldn't say. Maybe it was this crazy bar finally starting to rub off on him.

"You haven't read it yet," he clarified.

Buffy frowned. "No. I read the 'forward' you wrote for it."

"Then you know."

"I don't know anything--"

"Buffy," he interrupted, pressing two fingers to her mouth. "If you read the forward, you know how it's going to end. You know there's no other way it could end."

Her lower lip quivered. "Maybe I'm just afraid then. Maybe I'm scared to death that this is just going to be one more thing in a long line of things in Buffy's life that don't go the way they're supposed to, the way I thought they would."

"This isn't working," he said at last.

"What?"

"This. You and I, being apart. I thought it would. I thought it would be best for you. But it's not, and I know damn good and well it isn't best for me.

"What are you saying?" she asked, and he could have sworn she sounded lost. That scared him, Buffy being lost. As it was, she was the only thing that helped him find his way home.

"I'm saying that... you should bring Dawn to visit for the summer," he said, talking before he'd thought things through. "You should stay in the hotel, and get to know my world, the life I've been building here.

"I'm saying that when it's time for school to start again, I should drive you both back, and stick around for a few weeks, and learn all about your world again. I'm saying that I want you to know me, Buffy. I want you to know me so that when the time comes, and we're free to be together, we won't waste a second of it feeling anything but bliss."

Buffy blinked, and he wondered if he'd said the wrong thing...

...but then she threw her arms around his neck, pressed her nose to his jaw and inhaled deeply. He wrapped himself around her in return, and experienced something he hadn't in longer than he could remember. The sensation of holding Buffy, of imagining a life with Buffy, without feeling sad or frustrated about it.

He had hope now, and after she'd read his journal, so would she. They'd take that hope and use it as a defense against the sorrow. Now, they could move beyond the pain, to get to something that wasn't quite lovers yet, but was far beyond friendship.

Something that would always, always be filled with love.

The End

And here's Cynamin's original challenge:

Okay, okay, I know only two people have ever answered a challenge of mine....but I'm begging. I'm really, truly begging. I'm cranky, I haven't been able to watch in over a month because of my class schedule, can't record either, and the less I watch the less I seem to care about the shows. Plus, most of the B/A fic has been of a rather depressing nature lately! So, help me find a reason to watch again and a reason to keep reading fanfic - answer my challenge!

The Challenge (big thanks to NutMeg and Alan for helping me come up with this):

Anyone else remember one of the episodes I really liked this year, the "crossover event" that was nearly entirely flashback? In the 1900 China (Boxer Rebellion) part of the Angel episode, Darla tried to get Angel to feed on the missionaries' baby. Instead he grabbed it and jumped out the window. So, here's the basic idea for the challenge - Buffy actually is descended from that baby. Somehow or another she finds out about Angel's connection to her family from some old relative she hasn't seen in years. What she does from there is up to you.

Here's what else I want:
- The story should take place this season, because that's the season you're trying to make me start watching. :P
- Get B/A back together. I guess that's pretty obvious, hmm? And if you can actually give them some time or thought about rebuilding a *healthy* realtionship. You can make the story as angsty as you want, but give me a happy ending. I need one badly.

Something else that would make me happy, but is not required:
- I'm obsessed with making Angel human. Be creative. Think of all the little, sometimes annoying but mundane human things he'd have to get used to. - The song "This Is Love" by Mary Chapin Carpenter. I think it's just perfect for B/A. Lyrics included at the bottom.
- a Buffy/Darla confrontation. I *really* can't stand Darla.

Silly stuff to include or not as you see fit:
- the show (on the food network) "Iron Chef"
- Spike playing a harmonica
- Someone trying to teach themself a language (outside of classes)
- Live Giant Squid
- A flying giraffe (the animals were Alan's contribution)
- a crossover element (as in non-BtVS or Angel)

"This Is Love" by Mary Chapin Carpenter -

"If you ever hear a voice in the middle of the night
When it seems so black outside that you can't remember light
Ever shown on you or the ones you love in this or another lifetime
And the voice you need to hear is the true and the trusted kind
With a soft, familiar rhythm in these swirling, unsure times
When the waves are lapping in and you're not sure you can swim
Well here's the lifeline

If you ever need to feel a hand take up your own
When you least expect it but want it more than you've ever known
Baby here's that hand and baby here's my voice that's calling

This is love, all it ever was and will be This is love

And if you ever need some proof that time can heal your wounds
Just step inside my heart and walk these empty rooms
Where shadows used to be, you can feel as well as see how peace can hover
Now time's been here to fix what's broken with its power
The love that smashed us both to bits spent its last few hours
Calling out your name, I thought this is the kind of pain
From which we don't recover

But I'm standing here now with my heart held out to you
You would've thought a miracle was all that got us through
Well baby all I know, all I know is I'm still standing

And this is love all it ever was and will be This is love

And I see you still and there's a catch in my throat and
I just swallow hard til it leaves me
There's nothing in this world that can change what we know
Still I know I am here if you ever need me
And this is love

And if you ever think of me let it be around twilight
When the world has settled down and the last round of sunlight
Is waning in the sky, as you sit and watch the night descending
A car will pass out front with lovers at the wheel
A dog will bark out back and children's voices peal
Over and under the air, you've been there lost in the remembering

And if you ever wish for things that are only in the past
Just remember that the wrong things aren't supposed to last
Babe it's over and done and the rest is gonna come when you let it

And this is love, all it ever was and will be
This is love, when you let it, if you let it now
This is love, all it ever was and will be
This is love"

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