22 - This is the First Day of the Rest of My Life
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Buffy slowly regained consciousness, knowing that she was getting closer to the waking world due to the increasing sensation of a throbbing pain somewhere in the general vicinity of her head. After some time she found the muscles necessary to open her lids and did so, immediately squinting as light stabbed into her poor eyes.
"Buffy! Are you all right?"
That was her mother's voice, wasn't it? She carefully opened her eyes once more and the blurs and blots slowly resolved into her mother's face.
"Mom?"
"Hey, darling! How are you feeling?"
"My head hurts!"
A doctor came into the room, summoned by the nurse, and gently pushed Joyce aside.
"Hi, Buffy. I'm Dr. Greene."
He proceeded to ask her a few questions, shone a light into her eyes, and then concluded that everything was all right inside her head. He checked on her wound, impressed by the speed of the healing process, and then left again after informing her that she would have to stay for observation for a few days.
"Mom?" Buffy asked once the doctor was gone. "What happened? Last I remember I was ... I was visiting a friend and ..."
"Your friends told me the whole story, Buffy!" Joyce said, smiling. "Everything is all right, none of them was seriously hurt."
"My friends? Angel? Is Angel here?"
"He didn't want to leave," Joyce said, "but it's day outside now and I'm afraid those blinds are not worth much. He promised to come back as soon as the sun went down."
Buffy smiled, looking forward to sundown for the first time she could remember. Then her gaze traveled past her mother and she saw the other person sitting inside her room. Her face immediately hardened.
"What is he doing here?" She looked at Giles, her voice trembling with anger.
Giles rose. "Buffy, I ..."
"I'm not talking to you!" She yelled, turning her head away. "You attacked us! You wanted to murder us!"
Joyce took her daughter's hand. During the day Giles had told her the parts Angel had left out earlier. How he had been a Watcher and had been unable to believe that Vampire's might be capable of decency and compassion. He had told her how he had accompanied the attack on the Hotel and what had happened then.
Joyce believed him. After seeing the deep concern in his eyes, she was sure that this man cared about her daughter. Also, after seeing the incredible depth of feelings Angel had for Buffy, Joyce was quite sure that the Vampire wouldn't have let Giles come within a mile of her daughter if he wasn't sure about him.
"Buffy, please! Just listen to him for a few minutes, okay?"
Buffy stared at her mother in surprise, but then nodded. Giles' betrayal had cut her deeply. She cared about this grumpy old man in ways she didn't quite understand. That he wouldn't believe her ...
"I ... I have been taught a painful lesson today." Giles said, rubbing his eyes. "I always figured myself a man ... a man of knowledge, but I had to realize that I know only very little. What happened today ... God, I still can't believe that Travis ... that we actually did that. I mean, we were supposed to be on the side of good."
Buffy watched him as he tried to find the words to express what he felt, a glimmer of hope shining inside her.
"What I'm trying to say is," Giles continued, "is ... well, I think you were right. I should sometimes take my nose out of the books and take a long, hard look at the world. I did so today and I ... I didn't like what I saw. Especially when I looked at myself. To even think that I actually considered ... Buffy, can you ever forgive me?"
He looked at her with so much in need in his eyes that Buffy was tempted to just forgive him. She wanted to forgive him. For the last year she had depended heavily on his advice and support. But he had been wrong. What he had taught her had been wrong.
"You believe me now?" She asked him.
"I ... I am not sure what I believe anymore." Giles said honestly. "There are but few things I am certain of any longer. One of them is that, that any organization that would just, just try and kill you ... is not on the side of good. Not even close."
Buffy looked at him and knew that he meant it. It would take some time for her shattered trust in him to be restored, but she wanted to trust him again. She wanted him to be there, with all his old books, his snotty British attitude, and his glasses that were constantly in need of cleaning.
"Welcome to the good guys, Giles!" She said, holding out her hand to him. "Looks like we both finally figured out what the right side is."
Giles walked closer and clutched her hand in his.
"Thank you, Buffy! Thank you!"
#
It was barely five minutes after dusk when Angel walked into the room. He'd had a guard posted to the door, just in case the Watchers tried another strike at her, and Doyle and Wesley had spent most of the day here as well, keeping an eye on things without making their presence known. Angel had checked up on Spike, who was healing nicely, as well as gotten the various bullets inside his body removed.
Buffy was awake and looked up as he entered. Her eyes lit as she saw him.
"Buffy, thank God!" He was by her side instantly, tenderly touching her cheek. "How are you? Did they say anything?"
"I'm gonna be all right, Angel! Thanks to you. Giles ... he told me that you got me back."
Angel sat down beside her, wrapping his hands around her smaller one.
"Did you and Giles ... did you talk?" He asked her.
"Yes. I think I will need some time to trust him again, but ... but I think I will. I think he's seen the light. Just like me."
He smiled at her.
"Angel?" She asked him.
"Yes?"
"I ... well, it's been a long day and I found myself with little more to do than think. Which wasn't easy, my head still hurts a lot. They told me I was grazed by a bullet, so I think it ought to hurt, but ..."
"Is there a point?" He asked her, smiling.
"Sorry, babbling! Anyway, I was thinking. A lot. Thinking about what you said, how I still had a place in this world. I am the Slayer, no matter what happened with the Council, and I guess I can't just, you know, turn my back on it. The whole fighting evil thing, I mean."
She sighed.
"So the point of this is, well, I think I will need someone to show me."
"Show you?"
"How to do it! I don't have a clue, Angel. And neither does Giles. Just like me he was taught what was good and what was evil, only that doesn't hold true anymore. I ... I guess it sounds corny, but I still want to help people. Or start to help people, actually, seeing as I ..."
"It doesn't sound corny, Buffy."
He smiled again and she found herself beaming back at him.
"I need you, Angel! You opened my eyes and showed me a part of the truth, just enough for me to realize that everything I thought to be true was a lie. I need more than that, Angel. I need someone to show me how to do this. Because I want to do it!"
She looked up at him, hoping that the words made more sense to him than they did to hear upon hearing them.
"And I want you, Angel!" She added. "I think ... I think I love you."
The moment she said it she felt incredibly stupid. He hadn't even said a word about helping her yet and here she was practically throwing herself at him. How could he say anything but ...
"I don't think I love you, Buffy Summers!" He said. Seeing the expression spreading on her face he smiled. "I know I do. And whatever help you might need, I will be there for you."
" Really?" She asked, not quite ready to believe what she had just heard.
"I will show you!" He whispered and leaned down to kiss her.
23 - Loose Ends and Unfinished Business
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Buffy had to spend another three days at the hospital until the doctors would finally let her go. During the days she was bored out of her skin, even though she had plenty of visitors. Her mom, Xander, Giles, Cordelia, Wesley, even some of her so-called friends from High School, who thought it incredibly cool that she had been wounded in a shoot-out with Vampires.
The nights were better. Angel always appeared no more than five minutes after dusk and they spent most of the night talking. That and kissing. She loved kissing him and couldn't wait until she was fit to do more.
On the day she was supposed to go home her mom came by again and sat down next to her bed.
"Hi, honey! Ready to go home today?"
"More than ready. Ready to go up the walls, I think."
"Good." She hesitated a moment. "Honey, I had a talk today with Principle Snyder."
Buffy groaned. Her school's principle was just about the most terrible monster she had ever met and, inexplicably, a human being, so she couldn't just slay him. She was convinced he had it in for her personally.
"What did he want?"
"Well, we did talk about how much school you missed and why. He told me that, well, seeing as your grades were never the best ..."
"Did he throw me out of school?"
"Not exactly. But he says you will have to catch up on the work you missed and do some additional tests, otherwise ... otherwise you won't graduate."
Buffy nodded, having expected something like that. It had been the topic of several of her conversations with Angel about what to do with her life. And she had come to a conclusion.
"Mom, I ... I've decided to quit school."
"What, but ..."
"Mom, let's face it! I was never the best of students. My grades are nowhere near good enough to go to college anyway. Besides, I'll be eighteen in a few weeks and I already know what I will do with my life. These last few weeks really did open my eyes."
Her mother didn't look too happy, but Buffy wasn't telling her anything she didn't already know or had suspected. So she nodded after a moment.
"Okay, I ... well, it's your decision. What will you do instead?"
"I've talked things over with Angel, mom. I ... we ..."
"I'm not blind, honey. I know."
"So ... you're ... you're okay with that?"
Joyce sighed. "I can't honestly say that the idea of my daughter being with a Vampire is especially endearing to me, no. But I've seen the way he looks at you, Buffy. I've seen the way your eyes light up whenever he's close. So I guess ... well, you won't get any static from me."
Buffy couldn't help but grin like an idiot. This was too good to be true. Her mom was okay with her quitting school AND with Angel?
"Okay, who are you?" She asked jokingly. "What did you do to my real mom?"
Joyce smiled and hugged her daughter. "I just want you to be happy, honey! But you better believe if he ever does anything to hurt you I will personally cut his head off."
"Thanks, mom!" Buffy whispered into their embrace.
When both had settled down again Buffy told her mother what she planned to do with her life.
#
Later that day Buffy walked into the lobby of the Hyperion Hotel, bag slung over her shoulder, and was impressed to see that most of the damage done by the shoot-out had already been repaired. Several workers were still busy at the receptionist desk and in several places of the wall paneling, apart from that, though, the place looked pretty spiffy again.
"Buffy! Hi!" Cordelia came over to greet her, smiling broadly. Buffy suspected that it might have less to do with her presence than the fact that Cordy was turning into a pretty important person right now. The press had descended on the Hotel shortly after the shoot-out and Cordelia had utilized every second of it.
Buffy had seen it on the hospital TV. Cordy had performed brilliantly, pumping the 'cowardly and despicable attack' for all it was worth. It had sent her recognition factor through the roof and she was to attend several TV discussions during the next few weeks, as well as a dinner with several highly placed senators just three days from now.
From the looks of it Cordelia was on the verge of becoming a politician. A very successful one to boot, judging by several public opinion surveys done by a TV station.
The two girls hugged briefly and Cordelia had no problem identifying the searching look Buffy had in her eyes.
"He is upstairs!" She told Buffy. "Just don't take too long, okay? Since you're here you might as well start working today. We have to leave for an interview soon."
Buffy nodded, smiling. It would be very strange working for Cordelia, especially since she hadn't realized, until a few days ago, just how much Cordelia really did. Her father might have taken her credit card away when he disowned her for running with Vampires, but that didn't mean she was poor. Not only had her late mother set her up with an enormous trust fund, Cordelia was also the head of the largest pro-Vampire lobby in the states, which received monetary support from several very wealthy people.
All of which meant that Cordelia had more than enough money to pay for the services of a certain super-powered girl. It had been Angel's idea, of course, who, incidentally, was one of the lobby's very wealthy backers. The incident with the Watchers had had some positive impact for them, but it also made them more vulnerable to attacks from hate groups. Especially Cordelia, who was the most visible of them.
The idea of being Cordelia's bodyguard would take some getting used to, but Buffy believed in what they did. Besides, helping Angel's cause was almost an end in itself.
She found him in his room on the first floor of the Hotel, in the middle of getting dressed. She knew that he had wanted to drive her home from the hospital, but Buffy had been too impatient to wait for dusk. She had gone home just long enough to pack a few things and then headed here.
"Hi, Angel!" She greeted him, smiling broadly. Angel had heard her coming up the stairs and had hurriedly finished dressing before greeting her in turn.
"You could have waited for me to come get you." He said, moving to hug her.
"It's at least another two hours until dusk. I could think of better things to do until then."
"Really? What is on your mind?"
She started showing him. He needn't have bothered with the hurried dressing.
Downstairs in the lobby Cordelia heard a few noises from upstairs and wrinkled her nose.
"Guess she'll be concentrating on guarding a different body today."
She shrugged and went to search for Spike. The interview was to be held after dark anyway.
#
Faith watched everything with seething anger settling low in her body. Everything had gone wrong. Oh, no one had noticed that she had not warned Buffy when the Watcher shot her, but neither had anyone taken notice that she had been the one to call in Kate for the rescue. And after that little smooching with the mouth-to-mouth Buffy and Angel had only gotten closer. As was evident by what they did right now only a few rooms away.
Okay, she forced herself to calm down. Right now there was nothing she could do about it. For the moment she would just have to take her time and see how things developed. Angel would soon get tired of his new lady love once she started hanging around here 24-7, that she was sure of.
And when the time came, Faith would show them just what kind of girl she had grown into. That stabbing pain, that feeling of drowning in fire she had experienced only seconds after Buffy had been shot, it would be worth it when her time finally came.
With a smile spreading on her lips Faith bent the bed's iron railing with one hand, relishing in her newfound strength.
"This has possibilities," she whispered, "oh yes!"
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