The Road Home Series:
The Road Home
by Gem

Part Two

The U.C. Sunnydale campus was still quite active when Angel parked his car in one of the student lots. Somehow he’d expected the students to be studying after dinner, but it had been a long time since his own college days. A very long time.

As he walked around the campus, he realized he had no idea where Buffy lived. Cordelia had always handed him the tapes after she listened to them, so he rarely saw, and never studied, the packages. He thought of stopping a student to ask about her, but it was a big campus and he didn’t think even Buffy could become known by the whole student body in just a few months. After all, she’d only mentioned burning down one building so far.

If Giles had been working on campus, Angel would have tried the library, but since he wasn’t... Angel couldn’t see his girl spending much quality time in a place with that many books. Now if he could find some place with music, like the campus pub, he mused, he might have a better chance.

Directions to the pub were easily obtained, but he didn’t see Buffy anywhere in the swarm of bodies. Or anyone else he knew, for that matter. At this point, he would almost have welcomed Xander’s insults, if he could drag Buffy’s whereabouts out of the boy.

He was on the point of abandoning the campus in favor of her high school haunts when he sensed her presence nearby. He scanned the shadowy grounds for the small blonde form that haunted his dreams, and at last he saw her on a distant path. He started towards her, then froze when he realized she was not alone. There was a tall young man with her, dirty blonde head bent towards hers as they walked arm in arm through the darkness.

Angel could only stare in shock at the evidence of his lost dream. Her laughter, the laughter he could so seldom give her, floated through the night, and scattered the shredded remains of his heart. She was with him, with Riley, Angel knew it. And she was happy. She had exactly what he always wished for her, and he should be grateful his sacrifice was not in vain, but he couldn’t get past the fact that Riley made her laugh.

"Hey, are you okay?"

A voice finally penetrated his consciousness, as he came back to his body and found a girl holding his arm. She sounded friendly, and a little worried, but he wasn’t sure if the concern was for him or for what he might be doing.

"Are you okay?" she repeated. "Do you need some help, or are you just lost?"

He couldn’t help the bitter laugh if she only

knew."Lost," he said at last. "Definitely lost." With one last agonized look at his love, he melted into the night.

Strolling through the gathering darkness with Riley’s arm securely wrapped around her own, Buffy couldn’t shake the feeling she was being watched. It was a feeling she was used to, after all these years of slaying, but it wasn’t the "heads up, vamps at twelve o’clock" sensation she normally experienced. This particular set of eyes she felt she knew much better than that, but it couldn’t be him. He was in LA, and even if he were here, he wouldn’t be lurking in the bushes.

Just to be on the safe side, she began to scan the campus for him. She took particular care to look for crowds of girls, knowing how Angel tended to attract female attention whether he wanted it or not. She didn’t see any such gatherings, however, and there were no tall dark figures waiting ahead of them. She had the sensation of his eyes on her back, but she couldn’t check out the impression without alerting Riley. In the end, she decided it was probably her imagination.

With a mental shake of her head, she returned her attention to Riley and the joke he was telling. It wasn’t very funny, but she could tell he was trying to please her, so she laughed anyway. Unfortunately, this only encouraged him to tell another joke. Not for the first time, Buffy reflected on the extreme weirdness of their relationship, where she felt comfortable enough to sleep with this guy, but not enough to tell him his jokes were lousy.

He was still in mid-joke when her feeling of being watched disappeared. She was curiously let down, but tried not to let her date know. It would only lead to questions she didn’t want to answer and parts of herself she was still unsure of sharing. Telling him she was the slayer was one thing explaining Angel was entirely different story.

Angel wandered the campus for hours, not really seeing anything but his beloved with another man. Eventually he realized the crowds of students had dwindled down to a very few, and most of them were also heading home. Dawn was only a few hours away, and he had no idea what to do. With no place else to go, he returned to the mansion on Crawford Street.

It felt strange to him to be there again, after so many months. He had only returned to pack his bags after leaving Buffy at the hospital on graduation day, and he had done his best to get out of there fast. He wanted to be anywhere else in the world by the time the sun came up that day. As it turned out, the eclipse had allowed him to abandon shelter and help Buffy and the others to defeat the mayor. When the fight was over, he took the bags he’d left at the library, and walked away.

Today he drifted through those same cold stone rooms, now dusty with disuse. He avoided looking at the fireplace, in front of which they’d shared so many meals before he "fed" that final time. His old bedroom brought back memories of the morning he’d woken up to find her sleeping in his arms, worn out from a late night slaying. Fortunately the sun prevented him from entering the courtyard, where she’d told him she wasn’t coming back after Spike’s earlier visit to Sunnydale, but everything in the Great Hall reminded him of her. He saw her everywhere training, eating, studying, napping, dancing. Even when he closed his eyes against the visions, he could still smell the faintest traces of her vanilla perfume.

He was caught, in a trap of his own devising. Surrounded by memories of the love he had given up, with no way out that didn’t involve flames. Until dusk, he would have to endure the thousand ghosts of Buffy-past who danced around him, all bright hair and boundless energy.

With a low moan, he sank down to the raised hearth and huddled there, waiting for sunset to release him from the prison he once thought of as home. Not Crawford Street Buffy.

Buffy was in the middle of a familiar dream. She walked through a graveyard at night, but not searching for vampires. Angel was there, waiting for her, in "their place." When she saw him, she wanted to berate him for leaving her alone, but the only words that she could say were "I miss you." Then he held out his arms, the arms that were her only safe haven in the world, and suddenly the past didn’t matter anymore. As he cradled her to him and whispered apologies and endearments in her ear, she felt whole again, and free. The future was something to be excited about, not dread, and nothing else in the world existed except the two of them and the love they shared.

"I’ll never leave you again, I promise," he whispered as he slipped her claddagh ring back on her left ring finger.

A sudden burst of the Goo Goo Dolls on the radio dragged her from his arms as the waking world claimed her. She sat up groggily, rubbing her eyes and trying to push away the warm, safe feeling his embrace had given her. He left her and she was way over him, she told herself firmly. It didn’t matter what Cordy counseled about giving him time to make amends he had made his decision, and hers right along with it.

"Bad dream?" Willow asked sympathetically from the other bed when she noticed Buffy’s frown.

"Not exactly," Buffy replied slowly. "Just something I thought was over." She climbed out of bed and grabbed her towel and toiletries bag from the dresser, preparing to wait in line for the shower. Before she could make herself leave the room, though, a sudden impulse made her turn back to Willow.

"Will, I had the weirdest feeling last night when Riley walked me home."

Willow had been settling back down to catch a few more winks, since her first class wasn’t for another two hours. Buffy’s words made her pop back up like a jack-in-the-box.

"Weird how? End of the world weird, or just run of the mill weird?" Willow tried to keep her voice calm, but Buffy’s "weird" feelings usually presaged disaster of some kind. It wasn’t always apocalyptic...but sometimes it was.

Buffy sighed, unconsciously caressing her towel as she spoke. "Not end of the world weird, just...I felt like someone was watching me."

"Someone usually is," Willow pointed out helpfully. "Vampires, demons, frat boys...take your pick. You’re kind of far from invisible around here, even before you pulled five people from a burning building. Thank you again for that, by the way."

Buffy waved away Willow’s thanks, intent on recapturing her feeling from the previous night. "It wasn’t that type of sensation. It felt like..." she paused, not wanting to commit herself. She was a romantic fool, she told herself, still hopelessly hung up on a guy who dumped her months ago, when she had a perfectly nice boyfriend who didn’t have any demonic tendencies or crippling guilt trips.

"It felt like..." Willow prompted gently.

"It felt like Angel was around," she finally burst out, not daring to look at Willow for a few moments. When at last she did, she couldn’t stand the pity on her best friend’s face.

"He’s not here, Buffy," Willow said patiently. "He’s in LA. But even if he was, what does it matter? You have Riley now." Willow drew her legs up to wrap her arms around them, preparing for a long chat.

Buffy dropped her shower gear on her bed and sat on the foot of Willow’s bed. "I know all that. Don’t you think I’ve been telling myself that since I felt him? But it really seemed like...I know when he’s around, I always have. I can’t explain it."

"When he first left, you kept seeing him all over, remember? Even when we got to school, you thought you saw him in the Bronze, and in the pub, and at the..."

"I know," Buffy said impatiently, getting up to pace. "I know I said I thought I saw him all those times and I was wrong. But this wasn’t seeing, Willow I didn’t say I saw him. I felt him."

"Then I repeat, what does it matter? You’re with Riley now Angel can’t hurt you anymore."

Buffy stopped pacing and grabbed her shower gear. Talking to Willow wasn’t going to help her any she had a blind spot where Angel was concerned, not to mention Riley.

"No, Will, Riley is the one who can’t hurt me. Angel is the only one who ever could."

Dusk finally arrived, releasing Angel from his physical prison, if not his mental one. He told himself he was going straight back to LA do not pass go, do not collect $200.00. Instead, he found himself on the Sunnydale campus again, searching for the other half of his heart.

He found her at the pub this time, dancing with her new boyfriend. Angel stood in the shadows watching her, as he had done so many times before. Every time she touched Riley, or smiled at him, Angel felt it like a blow to his chest. He wanted desperately to leave and end this torture, but seeing her, even like this, was like water to his parched and barren soul. He couldn’t make himself walk away.

Buffy felt his eyes on her again, but with the shifting crowds of people, she was unable to get a fix on him. She was sure he was lurking somewhere close, just like he used to do when they were little more than strangers. She wanted to call out to him, or maybe yell at the other people to stop creating so much confusion so she could find him. Instead, she continued to dance, waiting for him to be pulled from the shadows by the jealousy she knew he must be feeling.

Finally, Angel had his fill of watching his woman adoring and caressing another man. With the faintest hint of a growl, he started towards the dance floor, intent on ending her charade once and for all. She belonged to him, only to him, and no two-bit college boy...college boy. The kind she was supposed to be dating, instead of a centuries-old vampire with her own blood on his hands. One hundred years of remorse stopped Angel in his tracks, then propelled him out the door before he undid the one completely selfless act he ever committed.

Buffy lost her focus when she felt him leave. She knew Riley was talking to her, and she knew she was responding, but for the life of her she couldn’t say what they were talking about. Mechanically, she accompanied him to his apartment, but when he leaned over her on the sofa and began to kiss her, she came back to her body with a vengeance.

"What are you doing?" She jumped up and backed away from this relative stranger who was being so familiar with her body.

Riley was confused make that dumbfounded. He and Buffy had never even had a fight, least of all tonight, and from the way she’d been behaving on the dance floor...As far as he knew, God was in his heaven and all was right with the world. Apparently he’d skipped a page.

"Buffy, what’s wrong? Are you sick or something?" He stood up and reached out to her, intending only to comfort. He was the one more in need of comfort when she continued to back up towards the door.

Buffy grabbed her coat and backpack from the chair, looking everywhere but in Riley’s eyes. "I’m fine, I just don’t want to...I needed to tell you something, but I can’t...I have to go."

She bolted before Riley could even say good night.

Somehow Buffy got through the next day she wasn’t sure how. She managed classes, a visit with Giles, even a chat with her mother, without revealing her inner turmoil. Willow was too preoccupied herself by a fight with Oz to worry about Buffy, so only Riley felt the effects of Angel’s presence. He did his best to redeem himself for whatever he had done or not done, but he didn’t make much headway since she still refused to talk to him, or even look at him, in class.

It was almost a relief when night fell and she could seek sanctuary in the graveyard. She prowled between the headstones, restlessly tapping her stake on the palm of her hand. Suddenly she stiffened as she felt him again, behind her. She didn’t bother to turn around when she spoke.

"All right, Angel, time to show yourself. I know you’re out there I’ve known it for days."

She heard a rustling behind her, then the voice that threatened to melt her frozen heart.

"About time you noticed me. I thought you were slipping."

He was a few feet behind her, standing very still. It took all of her strength not to run into his arms when at last she turned and saw the weariness and pain on his face. His was not a beauty that would ever fade, but the past few months had clearly left their mark on him. He was so close, and all she wanted to do was hold him tightly and smooth away the lines of sorrow. Instead, she clenched her hands into fists to keep from reaching out to him.

"I told you once that stalking was not a big turn on for girls. Actually, I think I told you twice. Why are we renewing bad habits?"

He winced at the cold edge to her voice, not realizing the enormous effort it was costing her to preserve it.

"You’re in danger," he began. "I wanted to warn..."

"I don’t believe it!" she shouted. "After all this time with no word, and after all that we went through together, you’re reverting to Cryptic Guy?" She threw her stake on the ground and closed the distance between them, until she could pound her fist on his chest. "You are so not doing this to me. Not again."

Her hand rested briefly on his chest after she hit him, and he tried to take it in his own, but she pulled away. "Oh no, you are not doing that either," she warned. "No hand-holding and pretty speeches are going to make this right. You chose to leave, but you don’t get to say when and why you come back. That’s my call. And I say no Cryptic Guy."

"I’m worried about you," he said urgently. "You’re about to make a big mistake. Something that could be very dangerous."

She couldn’t hold back her harsh burst of laughter. "More dangerous than giving my heart to a vampire? Do tell." She backed further away and sat on the edge of a tombstone. Arms crossed and foot tapping, she nodded to him to continue.

"I’m not kidding," he said impatiently. "I know you’re about to tell that Riley guy about being the Slayer, and I think you should know..."

Buffy stood up abruptly, her anger momentarily abandoned in favor of confusion. "Wait a mo. What do you know about Riley? How do you know about Riley?"

Angel pulled an audiocassette from the pocket of his duster. "Cordelia let me hear your tapes. She works for me now. Actually, she asked you to make the tapes so I could hear them. And when you started talking about this Finn character, I had her run him down and..."

"You’ve been listening to the tapes I made for Cordelia," she repeated slowly, over his attempts to warn her. "Private tapes, filled with very personal thoughts, and you listened to them without ever letting me know...where’s my stake?" She began searching the ground for the one ally that never failed or betrayed her.

Angel grabbed her arm and jerked her upright so he could look her in the eye. "Buffy, I’m sorry you feel I’ve violated your privacy, but that’s really not the point right now. Finn isn’t telling you everything, and I think you should know that before you expose yourself to...I mean, before you bare your...I mean..." Angel ground to a halt, too miserably lost in his metaphors and the painful images they produced to continue.

"You know about that too, don’t you?" she said softly, looking away from him. "Well duh, if you’ve been listening to those tapes, you would know. About Riley, and about...Parker." She slid free of Angel’s grasp and walked back to the nearest tombstone, leaning on it for support. "You must think I’m pretty pathetic."

Angel wanted to take her in his arms and make all the pain in her voice go away, but her problems could no longer be solved by a simple embrace. The tangle they had made of their lives was too big and complex for that.

"No, I think they are fools." He took a step toward her, but dared go no further until she regained her equilibrium. She wouldn’t take kindly to him crowding her right now. "Not as big of a fool as me, of course, but right up there."

She drew a deep breath and tried to pull herself together. She wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes before she turned to face him, but she knew he had seen the gesture. She also knew he’d let her pretend he hadn’t.

"No one is as big of a fool as you, I’ll give you that one. But Parker is a major jerk, and so was I. Riley is okay, though. I don’t know what big secret you think you’ve found out, and by the way, I don’t appreciate..."

"He’s involved in some sort of para-military group," Angel interrupted. "It’s all very hush-hush, and I think it’s government-funded. I don’t know if he already knows who you are and is setting something up or if he’ll just use the knowledge to his advantage when you tell him..."

Buffy’s humiliation was swept away in a great tide of anger. "I can’t believe you! Isn’t it possible that he might just happen to be a GI Joe and happen to also like me? Did that ever cross your conspiracy-ridden little mind, Mulder?"

"I think it’s barely possible you manage to walk across campus without every guy following you home," Angel said honestly. "But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s been hiding this from you. There has to be a reason."

"Yeah, there does. But that is my business, not yours. So why don’t you do what you do best and leave?" She finally spotted her stake on the ground and reached down to pick it up. "Me, I have some work to do before my date."

Angel didn’t move. "You can push me away all you want, Buffy, but it won’t change how I feel. I’m worried about you. I think this guy is up to something."

She tossed her hair out of her eyes and looked coolly at him. "I’m pushing you away? That’s a laugh. You’re the expert on distance, pal."

"I left to give you a better life," he protested.

She raised her hand to prevent the continuance of a familiar refrain. "Second verse, same as the first. I’ve heard this routine before, Angel, and I don’t buy it anymore now than I did then. You left because you were scared. Scared of me, of us, of the future. It had nothing to do with protecting me or giving me anything. You wanted a way out."

"And what about you?" he shot back. "Every time things got a little tough, you bailed on me. When you got scared, you were supposed to come to me, not run in the other direction. How many times did you leave me before I finally said good bye, Buffy?"

"Great, so we both failed Relationship 101. Guess it’s a good thing you walked." She started to walk away, but he grabbed her arm as she passed and held fast.

"I left because I love you," he said harshly through the tears in his throat. "Yeah, I was scared, but I was willing to face those fears until...someone...convinced me there was no reason you should have to be afraid too."

She used to wonder what she would do or say if Angel touched her again. Would the anger or the love take precedence? Tonight, with his hand on her arm, all she could feel was pain.

"You took the advice of a demon, Angel! He wanted to divide us, and boy did it work. Now let me go on with the life you left me. And I hope you saved those tapes, because I won’t be making any more."

Angel wanted to tell her it was her mother who tipped the scales, but he couldn’t hurt her like that. It was obvious she wanted nothing to do with him, and he couldn’t take her mother away too. He dropped her arm and started to leave.

"Why aren’t you wearing the ring?"

The question stopped him dead in his tracks. Did she know what was in his pocket, and what he’d foolishly believed he could do with it?

"What ring?" he asked warily, his back still to her and his hand poised over his duster pocket.

"The Gem of Amara. I sent it to you why aren’t you wearing it?"

Angel’s hand fell to his side as his hopes came crashing down as well. "I destroyed it," he said steadily as he turned to face her. "I told you once I didn’t want immortality. I meant it."

"But I sent it to protect you," she protested, unthinkingly closing the distance between them, at least physically. "I want you to be safe, and I want you to have the sunlight. You’re always talking about how you can’t walk in the daylight, so I gave you the chance, and you destroyed it!"

"I found other things I needed more."

"Like what? Night-blooming orchids or a 24-hour bagel shop? I gave that to you to help you. How could you throw it back in my face like that?"

"You didn’t give it to me you sent it to me," he returned bitterly. "If it meant so damn much to you that I keep it, why didn’t you bring it yourself?"

Buffy was stunned by the raw pain in his voice. Angel was always so calm and cool even when she lost her temper and beat on him, he kept himself, and her, together.

"I couldn’t," she admitted softly, looking him straight in the eye. "I knew if I saw you, I’d do something stupid like beg you to come home, and I don’t want to do that."

It didn’t come out the right way she knew it the minute her words touched air. She wanted him to know how deeply he wounded her, but she couldn’t bear the look in his eyes when she returned the favor. She wanted to take back everything she’d said for the last 10 minutes, but she didn’t know how. Before she could even begin, he once again settled things for both of them.

"Don’t worry, I won’t put you to the test anymore." With a characteristic flap of his duster, he was gone.

Leaving behind one very heartsick, but increasingly angry, Slayer. And an angry slayer is a slayer with a purpose.

"Oh no, lover, you don’t get to just walk off into the sunset twice in my lifetime. I need closure and I’m going to get it. With or without a stake."

Part Three

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