It was early in the morning on a Wednesday four months and four days after the Alpha Christmas bash when Buffy’s phone started ringing. She groaned and looked at the clock. It was seven AM. She groaned again. Wednesday was her day to sleep in because her first class was at ten. She was going to strangle the person who had the gall to call that damn early.
“Hello?” she mumbled into the phone with her eyes still closed.
“Miss Summers?” an unfamiliar female voice returned.
“Uh huh,” she grunted back.
“I apologize for calling at this early hour, Miss Summers. I’m Lilah Morgan with the law firm Wolfram and Hart. I regret to inform you that your stepfather, Mr. Ethan Rayne, passed away,” Lilah said in a very cool, professional voice.
“Oh shit,” Buffy said, sitting up in bed. “What happened?”
“He had a massive overdose and was found dead when an anonymous person called an ambulance. It appeared that he had been dead for twenty-four hours when he was found. We’d like you to come in to discuss the property and burial of Mr. Rayne as you are his last living relative.”
“I’m not his relative,” Buffy said, staring blankly at the bedspread. She clenched her jaw and closed her eyes again. “Ethan was married to my mother. I haven’t spoken to him in almost a year.”
”Be that as it may, Miss Summers, the house reverts to your ownership. I would like to discuss the details with you in person if you could come in and meet with me.”
Buffy made the appointment with Lilah for that morning and by the time she hung up the phone her whole body was shaking. Panic filled her as she thought about dealing with Ethan’s death alone. Tears filled her eyes and flowed down her cheeks.
She hated that bastard. He raped and beat her and did everything he could to destroy her, maybe because her mother was gone, maybe because he could only abuse himself so much. She never knew. She spent countless nights washing the stench of him off, cleansing the wounds he had inflicted and wishing him dead. She had thought about ways to kill him, to stab him to death in his sleep, but she never went through with it.
Her house, her mother’s house, was waiting for her to claim it and she couldn’t seem to wade through the memories, to separate the good from the bad. The last thing her mother had left her had died. As horrible as Ethan was, her mother had loved him. Buffy spent years trying to figure out why.
With a shaking hand, she picked up the phone and dialed. She held her breath and tried not to cry out loud. She let the phone ring until the answering machine picked up. She listened closely to the melodious, deep rumbling of Angel’s voice. When the beep sounded, she didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds, then finally she said quietly, “Angel, are you there?”
No answer came and just as she was about to hang up, he picked up the line. His voice was groggy and thick with sleep as he said, “Buffy? Is that you?”
“Angel…” she said, sniffling. “I need a favor, okay?”
“What’s wrong?” he asked, worried. “Are you alright?”
“Can you just come get me?” she asked in a whisper.
“Ten minutes,” he said and hung up. Sleepily, she trudged to the shower and turned the water on as hot as she could stand. She felt like she was washing him off all over again.
***
By the time she finished in the shower, Angel was in the living room, seated at the small table. He was holding a cup of coffee though it didn't look like he'd taken a drink. Jenny was leaning against the doorway to the kitchen watching him like a hawk.
Normally, Jenny would have already been at the shelter, but she'd turned in her resignation two weeks ago. Jenny returned from her trip to England, three weeks after Buffy had initially moved in, newly engaged. Rather than helping Buffy find a new place to stay, Jenny simply let her stay in the spare bedroom and they both saved money on rent. Now, Jenny was planning to move permanently to England to be with her future husband, Rupert Giles, and Buffy was in the process of looking for her own, smaller, apartment.
"Didn't mean to interrupt your packing," Buffy said quietly to Jenny.
"It's not a problem," Jenny said tightly. She motioned to Angel. "He swears that you asked him to come over. If he's lying, I'm calling his mother right now."
Angel's look of indignation would have made Buffy laugh if her insides weren't twisted in knots. "I asked him," she said quietly.
Nodding, Jenny turned and went back into her bedroom to resume packing. Angel quickly scrambled to his feet. "What's wrong?" he asked.
Buffy opened her mouth, but nothing would come out. She clamped it shut tightly, her eyes shimmering with tears. A sob tore out of her throat and then another. "Ethan's dead," she managed to choke.
“I thought you hated him,” Angel said softly. He reached out to touch her and then pulled away. A second time he reached out and brushed a tear from her cheek, then retreated once more, unsure of what he should do.
“I do,” she said sobbing. “I did.”
Angel pulled her into his arms and she wept silently. The feeling of her nestled against his chest, even if she was crying, felt so right. He was proud that he was the one she called rather than anyone else, that he could be the one to comfort her. He only wished that this was a small step in the direction of healing what was between them. Maybe if she trusted him with this she would be willing to take another step toward forgiving him.
When she finished, she pushed herself away from him reluctantly and wrapped her arms around herself. “My mother loved him,” Buffy said quietly. “He was all I had left of her. I don’t know why I feel so sad about that bastard’s death.”
“It’s okay to be sad about it, Buffy,” Angel offered.
“I have an appointment to meet with this lawyer in an hour. I don’t want to go by myself,” Buffy admitted. “What if she treats me like I’m a piece of trash? What if I can’t understand everything?”
“No one will ever treat you like you’re trash again,” he said, clenching his jaw. “And you’re smarter than you think you are, Buffy. You would be fine without me, but I’ll be happy to go with you.”
“Thank you,” she sniffled. “There is one condition of this trip and you have to agree before we go.”
“Okay….”
“No talk about getting me back or about what happened before,” she ordered. “I just need you to be my friend.”
“I can do that,” he managed to choke out, but his heart sank. Maybe this wasn’t going to be a way to have a second chance after all.
***
Buffy couldn't stop shaking. Angel had given up trying to calm her down and watched her pace around her small living room. "What am I going to do?" she demanded, her voice tinged with hysteria. "I don't have the kind of money they want."
"Look," Angel said smoothly, "we'll get a lawyer to look at this. There has to be a way out. Ethan wasn't even your father. This can't be legal."
"They're going to take everything," she cried. "They're going to auction off my mother's house."
"Buffy," Angel said, gently clasping her hands in his own. "I promise, sweetheart, I'll make it better."
"You can't promise that," she yelled. "You don't know."
Sighing, Angel gave up. He walked over to the phone and dialed. "Linds," he said. "It's Angel." He was quiet for a few minutes. "Yeah, okay. Fine. I'll be sure to eat shit and die, now will you just listen to me for a second?"
***
"This is absurd," Lindsey said, leafing through the stack of legal documents Lilah Morgan had given her earlier this afternoon. "Those bloodsucking bastards are trying to take you. Whoever drafted this is counting on the fact that you will be so scared you will just roll over and do whatever they say."
"So we have a chance?" Buffy asked, hopeful despite her better judgment.
“We have more than that, Buffy,” Lindsey said, setting down the paperwork and looking at her and deliberately ignoring Angel. “Your mother left the house to you, not Ethan, but you were too young to take ownership so it was left in Ethan’s care as your guardian until you were old enough.”
“She left the house to me?” Buffy whimpered, her eyes filling with tears for the thousandth time that day. “It’s mine?”
“Yes, it is yours, Buffy,” Lindsey said, “but the debt is not. In fact, you’re not legally obligated to bury that piece of shit either. They’re trying to satisfy his debtors by the sale of the house and then putting it on you, but if you don’t sign this, it won’t wash. I’ll go talk to Lilah and we’ll have this settled before dinnertime.”
”And I’ll have my house?” she asked hopefully.
“You’ll have your house,” he affirmed, nodding. He stood and was gathering the papers when Buffy launched herself into his arms, hugging him tightly. “Thank you so much,” she whispered, pressing their bodies together in a way that made Angel want to cry out in fury, but he said nothing.
When Lindsey walked out, Angel walked with him. “Look, I’ll really appreciate what you did for Buffy today,” Angel said. “If you have a fee for this, I’ll cover it.”
“I don’t want a godamn thing from you,” Lindsey snarled. “I’m doing this for Buffy, because she deserves more than you. Not everyone who makes the mistake of becoming your friend should be hung out to dry.”
“Linds, I didn’t know you loved Darla, if that’s any consolation,” Angel said quietly.
“The fuck you didn’t,” Lindsey spat back.
“I knew you liked her,” Angel said, “but I didn’t know you were in love with her. You know that with Darla it doesn’t matter. She takes what she wants and she doesn’t care about anyone’s feelings but her own.”
“Eat shit and die,” Lindsey growled again. “I don’t want to talk about this again. That is the price of this little session with Buffy.” He climbed into his truck, started it and then rolled down the window. He propped his arm out and looked at his former friend. “You know, I think our little Buffy’s getting over you. Maybe I’ll ask her out.”
“You son of a bitch,” Angel roared, but Lindsey had already peeled away from the curb. He watched the truck for a long time, until it was completely gone and then turned toward the apartment. He hated to admit it but he was beginning to think that despite what Buffy felt, that she was never going to let him back into her life again. He followed her every day, tried everything he could think of but she still hadn’t budged. How long was he going to beg?
Sighing, he headed back to the apartment. He found Buffy daydreaming by the window holding a cup of coffee in her hands. She looked gorgeous there with her hair down around her shoulders, streaming down her back. She had gotten it cut awhile back, just a couple of inches, and it seemed bouncier and healthier than it ever had before.
“Hey,” he said quietly.
She turned around to face him and took a sip of her coffee. “I appreciate what you did today,” she said. “I know it wasn’t easy to call Lindsey for help.”
“I did it for you,” he said, snagging his keys from the table and slipping them into his pocket. “I’d do anything for you, Buffy, but you should know that by now.”
He looked over at her for a second and felt his heart breaking. She was never going to take him back again and he knew it now. The idea of spending every day and night without her for the rest of his life was too much to think about.
“I’m going to go,” he mumbled. “I’ll see you around, Buffy.”
***
Lindsey had called her later that night informing her that the lawyer at Wolfram and Hart were pissed, but that they wouldn’t bother her anymore. Buffy had cried in relief, thanking Lindsey before she hung up the phone.
First thing the next morning, Lindsey picked her up. They went down to the courthouse and made sure all of the documents were in order. The house was Buffy's. Lindsey had also made the startling discovery while researching Buffy's plight that Joyce had left a few investments for Buffy - investments that she'd made when Buffy was just a baby and that had never had Ethan's name added to them. It wasn't a lot of money, a little over fifteen thousand dollars, but it was more than enough to begin the work to make the house habitable again. Between what she'd learned working on campus and her own frugal nature, Buffy was certain she could restore her home to its former glory without going over budget.
She met Willow for a late lunch to tell her the good news and then almost missed her afternoon Sociology class. After that, she caught a bus over to one of the giant home improvement stores where she priced materials and looked at paint swatches, tile, carpeting and a billion other items. That took hours and it was late evening by the time she arrived back at home. After a quick shower, she was sitting on the couch looking over her notes, doing some calculations when it hit her. She hadn't seen Angel all day.
She tried to shrug it off, but it kept nagging at her. He hadn't been there. For the first time in months, he wasn't the first person she saw in the morning.
She tried to be casual about it the next morning, but after fifteen minutes of milling around in front of her apartment, she decided that he really wasn't going to show. She didn't know why it bothered her. It shouldn't have. She'd been telling him to get lost for months. Now, she was beginning to wonder if she had ever really meant it. She was walking to the bus stop when Gunn pulled up beside her in his beat up old truck.
"Hey," Buffy said, confused.
"Hey back," Gunn replied. He opened the door and Buffy crawled in. "Stopped by the shelter this morning and Jenny was there. She told a few of us regulars about your new house. I figured you might need some help. You really can't ferry supplies on the bus and the delivery fees from those places are murder."
Buffy smiled, sniffling.
"Whoa," Gunn said, "I wasn't trying to upset you."
"You didn't," she said quietly. "It's just … really nice."
They had just pulled up to the house with their second load of supplies when Buffy realized that the front door to her house was open. She wasn't particularly worried about the house being damaged - it really couldn't get much worse - but it would be just her luck if all the supplies she just bought had been stolen.
She was jogging up to the door when Lindsey stepped outside. He was wearing a ratty old t-shirt and pair of ripped jeans. His entire body was powdered with a fine white dust. He smiled and it was so damn sexy, Buffy couldn't help but smile back.
"Hey, darlin," he drawled. "Really hoping the living room was going to have the dry wall replaced because … uh …" He held up a pry bar. "We took all the old stuff down."
Cocking her head, Buffy said, "We?"
Lindsey rolled his eyes. "Your stalker's inside sulking," he said. "But at least the son of a bitch is strong. He's working out some issues on your house. Took us half the time I was estimating to get done."
Buffy rolled her eyes too, but had to smile. If Angel was over here working on her house, he couldn't be completely over her. She walked into the living room and saw that Angel was like a whirling dervish. All of the drywall in the living room was gone, the furniture was in the dining room, the mess was cleared and Angel was already replacing the drywall.
He didn’t bother looking in their direction at all. His old jeans and t-shirt seemed to be hanging off of him and it was then that she realized how much weight he had lost. She saw that there were dark circles under his eyes when he bothered to look in her direction. With a sigh, she headed out to help Gunn unload the truck.
“Buff, you hanging on to any of this furniture?” Gunn asked, looking over the stuff that was now piled in the dinning room.
“Uh…” she said, looking over it all. She hadn’t really gotten that far in her plans. “Anything that’s wood can be refinished, I guess,” she said thoughtfully. “I definitely want to get rid of that nasty couch and the bed in my mother’s room. Every single thing in my old room has to go too. Anything else that can’t be fixed or that’s ruined we should toss.”
“I’ll get your ex-lump to help us lug it out,” Lindsey said. “We’ll haul it over to the junkyard.”
“Thanks guys,” Buffy said, hurrying over to kiss both of them on the cheek. “You don’t know how much your help means to me.”
“No worries, Buff,” Gunn said, winking. “I just expect a cold beer at the end of the day…and maybe some pizza.”
“I can do that,” she said with a smile.
***
The guys brought back lunch when they were done moving the furniture, but she noticed that Angel didn’t eat. He slammed a beer and then kept working. When they stopped working that night, he didn’t stay for dinner, he grumbled a goodnight and promised to be back the next day before heading out to his car.
Buffy watched from the door as he drove away, her face showing her concern. Angel usually ate at least as much as she did but it looked like he hadn’t had a thing all day. He looked horrible. She heard footsteps behind her as she looked out and knew it was Lindsey.
“He doesn’t look good,” Buffy said quietly. “I’m worried.”
“He definitely looks like shit, darlin’,” Lindsey agreed. “But then he’s been on a mainly liquid diet since you left him. I hear he does have a nice collection of pizza boxes stacking up at his place, so he is eating something. Or fuck, maybe it’s art.”
“I don’t know what to do,” she confided. She shut the door and then turned around to face Lindsey. She crossed her arms over her chest and met his gaze.
“He doesn’t deserve you,” Lindsey growled, clenching his jaw in anger.
“I love him,” Buffy said, her eyes welling with tears. “I can’t stand to see him this way.”
“It’s his own fault,” he answered. “He fucked you over, just like he fucks everyone over. He treated you like a piece of shit, when it should have been the other way around. That bastard destroys everything he touches. I’m glad he’s hurting. It’s about fucking time.”
“He hurt you too.”
“Yeah, him and that bitch he cheated on you with,” Lindsey admitted, “but that’s in the past. Now we’re talking about you.”
“And you think I should just walk away from the only man I’ve ever loved?” Buffy whispered painfully.
“No, darlin’, I don’t. It’s a damn fucking shame, but I don’t think that at all. Just because I can’t stand him doesn’t mean you should spend your life missing him.”
***
"I thought you made a firm vow not to give me alcohol," Buffy admonished Lindsey with a small grin. They were in a rundown little bar called Willy's. Buffy was shocked that she'd never heard of the place before. She was certain she knew every dive in L.A. Linds was a regular, apparently, and they didn't card hard, so they were sharing a couple beers.
Lindsey smiled and slid the beer across the table to her. "It wasn't a hard and fast rule," he said. "Just something particular to that moment in time."
Buffy laughed mirthlessly. "I was a mess," she said quietly.
"You were a mess," Lindsey agreed, taking a swig of beer.
"And you were a perfect gentleman," Buffy continued.
Lindsey waggled his eyebrows. "I was hard as a rock and I wanted to fuck you on my living room floor."
Buffy stared at him blankly for several heartbeats before letting out a loud cackle of laughter. She laughed until tears were streaming down her cheeks. "I never knew," she admitted.
Lindsey cocked an eyebrow. "I'm not sure if I should be offended by that comment or not," he said.
"Not," Buffy assured him. "And thanks, Linds. You were a real friend that night and I appreciate it."
He shrugged and glanced at the bar. He went still, his expression sobering. Buffy followed his line of sight and saw Angel sitting at the bar watching them. Buffy didn't know when he'd come in, but it was apparent he had been watching them for quite some time. He probably saw her braying like a damn hyena.
Buffy swallowed thickly, looking away from Angel. She took a drink of her beer. "Did you love her?" she asked bluntly.
"Darla?" Lindsey mused, knowing exactly what she was talking about. "I thought I did at the time. I don't know. I mean, isn't love perception? If I thought I was in love, does that mean I really was?" He took another drink. "Whatever it was, I wanted her. Exclusively. I thought she felt the same way, but looking back, I think that's what I wanted to see. I stopped by her apartment early one morning - ran into Angel coming out."
"I'm thinking that didn't go over well," Buffy said with wide eyes.
"You could say that," Lindsey said darkly.
Buffy picked at the label on her beer bottle for a few moments. "So … uh … Angel and Darla?" she prompted, almost choking on the bitch's name. "Were they?"
Lindsey snorted so loudly Buffy thought half the bar probably heard it. "Definitely not. They're both hedonists. They enjoyed each other, but I'm not sure they even actually liked each other very much. I don't think Darla is capable of caring about anyone or anything. I didn't think Angel was either."
Buffy took a deep breath. "And now you think?"
Lindsey shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "I think he's pretty damn miserable without you. He's a shithead and I have no desire to see the two of you back together. But I think yeah, he does love you."
Buffy blinked back her tears. "Seeing him with Darla … "
“Knowing Darla, she climbed all over him the second he was at the party,” Lindsey said, taking another swig of his beer. “I hate to defend the bastard, but she takes over the men she’s with. She always gets what she wants…except this time.”
“Are you so sure?” Buffy said, looking down into her half empty drink.
”He hasn’t been with her,” Lindsey said firmly.
“How can you be so sure?” Buffy asked. “He could be screwing her every night and I wouldn’t know about it. I ran into her at the coffee shop the other day and she insinuated-“
“No one who had been riding Darla every night would look like he does now. I guarantee you that much, darlin’. Besides, she came to me the other night.”
“What?” Buffy said, her eyes widening. “Did you…uh…did you two…?”
“Hell yes,” Lindsey said chuckling. “I hate the bitch, but I have no problem whatsoever fucking her. I see it as revenge. Anyway, my point is that if she was fucking him she wouldn’t be with me. She’s only with me when he’s not available.” Lindsey paused and looked over to where Angel was drilling holes in them with his eyes. “Look at that loser,” Lindsey chuckled. “He hasn’t had any since you left him.”
***
When Lindsey took her home that night, Angel followed. He knew they saw him and he didn’t give a rat’s ass. He just had to know if Lindsey was sleeping with her. That’s all. He wasn’t sure what he would do if he was, considering Buffy would never speak to him again if he beat up her shiny new friend, but he would have thought of something.
Thankfully, Lindsey gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek and went back out to his car. He smiled menacingly at Angel and then drove away. Angel watched Buffy go inside, watched the lights turning on and then awhile later turning off again as she went to bed. He slouched in his front seat and closed his eyes.
He had to accept the facts. Buffy was a beautiful and now well-adjusted girl. She didn’t need him anymore; she didn’t trust him and she sure as hell didn’t love him. She wasn’t taking him back. Just thinking those thoughts made his stomach flip flop. He fucked up and had lost the only woman he had ever loved. She was gone. Permanently.
His eyes pricked with the first tears he had even thought about shedding since he broke three ribs in the sixth grade falling out of his tree house. He started the car and headed straight to the liquor store where he bought enough Jack Daniels to intoxicate a small village and went home.
“Fuck it,” he said as he entered his apartment and opened the first bottle. “Fuck it all.”
***
TBC
on to part 9