by Cynamin

Part Seven

The screams were a familiar part of her life, now. Sometimes, she wasn’t sure whether they were real or simply within her own mind. Of course, there was nothing simple about her mind these days. Quite often the screams were real and in her mind - or, more specifically, the vampire’s. Corliss could block her mind from the vampire’s, but he did not return the courtesy. Besides, she could not find him as well when she closed him off.

This scream, though, this one was real in every sense of the word. It echoed in her mind. It was a scream of mortal terror, the scream of someone dying. The vampire, in the back of her mind, rejoiced in her screams as he fed. The Slayer felt nothing; she’d long since used up all of her tears.

It took her a moment before she realized that the same screams she heard in her mind were echoing off the walls around her as well. Actually, it was not until the two cries cut off in unison that she recognized this fact. The sense of her vampire, momentarily sated of his need for blood, stirred more nearby than it had ever been.

Resolution. It would all end tonight.

When Corliss entered the alley, the vampire straightened, his back to her. He dropped his prey with a sickening thud, and laughed darkly. “You’ve come to commit suicide?” he asked.

“I’ve come to end this.”

The vampire turned, regarding her unemotionally in the dark. He looked exactly as she remembered him. It was the years in her head that made him in particular to be a monster. He smiled at her in the darkness. “Then end this.” With that, he attacked.

Corliss joined the battle without hesitation. She parried his awkward blows with strong, fast fists, one of which clasped a sharp stake. It did not take her long to notice that he, too, had some disadvantages from their bond. While he had gained the ability to hunt in the sunlight, he had lost some of his speed and agility to her. It was a perfectly even match.

But the ancient Slayer was determined, vengeful and angry for the years she had to live with him, sharing her life. She knew she was going to die; she welcomed it. And so she dove into the vampire’s deadly embrace, grasping the necklace he wore and pulling it from around his neck with all of her strength. While the vampire gaped at her in surprise, she pulled away to plunge her stake into his chest. Neither of them said anything as he exploded to dust.

It was over. For a moment she breathed a sigh of relief, a breath that became a gasp as pain began to spread from her stomach. She sank to her knees in the cold alley, grateful for the pain. She had not felt its like in 700 years, not real pain.

Corliss lay in the darkness, waiting to die. There were no regrets, not really. Maybe once she had regretted that she couldn’t have lived and died as a normal person, but she was empty of that now. It was appropriate that she die alone. After all, that’s what she truly, finally was. Alone.

As the world began to blur around her, Corliss’ still enhanced senses picked up the sounds of approaching footsteps. Part of her hoped that they would continue on their way; another part welcomed seeing a final, friendly face. It had been so long since she’d seen a friendly face - she doubted she’d be seeing one now.

But the fates were kind in the end, and the one who approached her meant her no harm. He was a handsome man, dressed all in black with a wooden stake in one fist. A fighter like herself, then, who might care if someone died. He knelt close when he found her, and spoke with urgency. “Hold on. I’m going to call an ambulance.”

Corliss grabbed his arm to prevent him from leaving. She couldn’t let him. “Don’t. It’s long past time for me to die. I want to.”

The man’s face took on a pleading expression. “Please, let me try.”

Corliss would not release him. She had the odd urge to explain it all to him, so someone would know her, but not the time. “I will not survive the time it takes you to make the call. You cannot do anything. This wound killed me 700 years ago. It has only taken me a long time to die.”

His eyes went wide with surprise when she revealed her age. He stopped resisting her, however, and knelt calmly beside her as she released her hold. With compassion for the dying, he asked, “Do you want me to . . . do anything?”

Reaching for his jacket again sent fresh waves of pain through her, but she had to do it. She would not be alone in the end. “Just stay,” she gasped out. “I don’t want to die alone.”

The man’s reaction to her touch was far different than she expected. With a slight growl, he tried to pull away again, this time to hide his face from her. A horrible face it was, suddenly, demonic with golden eyes. A familiar face, though.

“You’re a vampire!”

The vampire’s expression was hard to read through the change. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them they were brown again, his face normal. “Yes.”

It was cruel, that the one who should see her last moments would be a vampire. But something did not fit - he had wanted to help her. A vampire would not help those it would kill. She did not have much time left for him to ply her with false hope. “Why do you care about me, vampire?”

“Because I care.”

It was a simple answer, but Corliss understood a deeper meaning. No vampire - no true, normal vampire - ever cared for another. Especially not a human. Perhaps one of their own kind, one who made them or whom they made, but never in her experience did they really care for a human they had never met. Besides, there was another matter, that of the stake still clenched in his hand, forgotten. “And you kill your own kind.”

“Yes.”

The pain was coming in waves now, and Corliss had to close her eyes to think at all. A regret, one, odd regret, had sneaked up on her as she spoke. All these years she had owed her life to a vampire, one who no more asked to be in that situation than she had. She had lived with him in her head, hunted him down, and finally killed him, yet she had never learned his name. It was such a small thing to bother her, but it suddenly felt important. There was only one way she could think of to make up for it. “What is your name, vampire?” she whispered.

The vampire seemed surprised at this request. “Angel,” he replied.

One, final thing was bothering Corliss as she felt her death approach, but she perhaps had a solution now. She did not want to die alone, true, but she also did not want to die unnoticed, unknown. Perhaps this odd fighter knew more of today’s world than she did. “Do you know today’s Slayer, Angel?”

It was a dangerous request she had for a vampire. Any demon in their right mind avoided the Slayer, any vampire especially. Still, this vampire had already surprised her more than once. He did so again.

“Yes,” he said, his eyes closed again as if warding off memories, “Buffy.”

What an odd reaction. Corliss may not have spent much time in the last several decades around people, but she knew enough to notice certain things. The expression on the vampire’s face was not one of a demon thinking of the Slayer, but something very different and deeper. Painful in a personal way. Ah, you’re more than familiar with her, aren’t you, Angel? She continued with her request. “Could you give something to her . . . or her Watcher, rather . . . for me?”

“Yes.” Another surprise.

“Then take this.” Corliss reached out and placed the necklace she held in Angel’s hand. “Take the one from around my neck as well. Give them to the Watcher - he will know what they mean.”

She gasped in fresh pain, her vision dim, as Angel shifted her head so that he could remove the necklace she had worn since this all began. The Watchers had begun this. Now they would know it was over. Corliss smiled. “Thank you,” she whispered with her very last breath, and then the world around her, her prison, faded away.

It’s over.

It was very strange, but Buffy just didn’t feel like a part of the group tonight. They had gathered in Xander’s basement for New Years. There was plenty of junk food, silly movies to watch, and things to talk about, plus the keepsake box Willow had bought. As a matter of fact, everyone else seemed to be having a good time.

No, Buffy had other things on her mind. Giles had actually requested that Buffy not patrol tonight, concerned for her welfare with the Council’s killers still in town. He wasn’t the only one concerned for her, though, as the little time tonight Buffy had been outside she had felt Angel nearby.

She couldn’t explain the whole reason she was mad with Angel, and the whole reason she’d been distracted the last two days. It was connected to Angel, but it wasn’t his fault, really. It was Corliss, the Slayer whose life Buffy had been living in dreams.

Last night, she had seen Corliss’s death. Experiencing it wasn’t what disturbed Buffy; it was that Corliss had died at all. For the last week the dreams had become a part of her. Now that part was gone. What bothered her more, though, was that the dreams had been a very private thing. The ancient Slayer had shared parts of her life that no one else would ever see. To have her life ended in such a way that privacy was shattered . . .. That was the root of her anger.

Corliss had died in L.A., of all places, and on such a street that Angel might be drawn to her death. The coincidence was phenomenal, but there it was. Corliss’s life was Buffy’s and Buffy’s alone to know, but now everyone knew her death. Angel had been the only one to actually see her alive, and now he and Giles studied her death like it was a puzzle to be solved.

Buffy knew her feelings were silly, but she couldn’t help it. As she watched her friends - or not-friends, in the case of Spike - she could not bring herself to join in their fun. She kept going back to the night’s dreams, playing them in a continuous loop.

Suddenly Buffy stood. Willow glanced up at her and frowned. “Where are you going?” she asked.

Buffy sighed. “I just need some air.”

“But . . .”

“I’m taking a walk, Willow. I’ll be back.” Buffy left before anyone else could protest. She didn’t want to explain herself to anyone. She couldn’t.

The night did little to calm Buffy’s restless thoughts. It did not help that the night reminded her of Angel, and that she knew he was near. It just kept bringing Buffy back to her dreams. Dreams of the dead. Her steps continued without thought to guide them down the darkened Sunnydale streets.

Her distracted reverie meant she did not hear the car until it was almost on top of her. It sped noisily down the street, its squealing tires bringing Buffy back to her senses. Too much to drink already, she thought, stepping further onto the sidewalk to avoid the car should it swerve.

It wasn’t the car itself she should have been wary of though, but its passengers. Not so drunk, they watched her step back and slowed as they came near.

Buffy’s senses were assaulted. A shot rang out. Pain blossomed.

A scream. “Buffy!”

The killers racing on, their job done.

Then the fall, and darkness.

“Buffy!”

There was so much blood. For a moment Angel’s thoughts went as dead as his heart, but then he heard her weak heartbeat. She was still alive, but barely and fading fast. Angel panicked. She would never make it to the hospital, and he could not leave her. The panic ebbed but did not die when his surroundings came through to Angel. Buffy’s wanderings had brought them very close to Giles’s house. Quickly Angel scooped the dying Slayer into his arms and ran to Giles’s home. They did not have a lot of time.

He did not pause when he reached Giles’s door, but rather used the brute strength of his own body to run right through it. Giles looked up in fearful surprise at the intrusion, then gasped when he saw Angel’s burden. He led Angel to lay her on the couch quickly.

“What happened?” he asked urgently. “The council . . .?”

“I think so,” Angel replied softly, not tearing his attention from Buffy, lying still and near death.

“We need to get her to the hospital,” Giles began to say.

“There’s not enough time.”

Giles stilled at that. “Oh.” Then, as if they were his final words to them both, “I’m sorry.”

“No!” Angel yelled suddenly, tearing his gaze from Buffy to glare at the ex-Watcher. “We have to do something!”

Giles shook his head. “I can’t. Even if I could . . . this is the way it has to be. Another,” he looked devastated at this, “another Slayer will be called.” He was silent then, already mourning for the girl he thought of as a daughter.

“No, there won’t be,” Angel whispered. “It’s already past midnight in England. The new year has already begun.”

Giles sank to the floor beside Angel and Buffy. “Oh,” he whispered. “Oh my.”

The two of them sat for a while in silence. Angel’s heart broke a little more with each of Buffy’s weakened heartbeats. They were growing weaker by the second. There was nothing they could do now but wait and watch her die.

A glint of red on the table caught Angel’s eye, and he looked at Giles sharply. There was a way . . . “Giles,” he said urgently, “the binding ritual.”

It took Giles a moment to realize what Angel meant, and when he did to scowled. “No,” he replied sharply.

“Why?” Angel cried. “It’s the only way!”

Giles was angry now. “Do you have any idea what that will do to her?” he yelled.

Angel shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does! I can not force that sort of immortality on anyone!”

“If she hates me for it,” Angel replied softly, “I’ll let you stake me.”

Giles seemed to consider that seriously for a moment. The two men, forever untrusting of each other, regarded each other in silence. Many things passed between them at that moment.

Angel knew that Giles suspected him of asking for this for a far more selfish reason: the chance to see sunlight again, to come closer to humanity. But those things did not matter; he had already given them up twice. All that mattered was Buffy.

Giles saw this resolution in Angel’s look, and recognized something else. Both of them would gladly die if it meant they could save Buffy’s life. It was all for Buffy.

“Let’s do it, then.”

For Buffy, and for the world.

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