Part Four
Watching
every motion in this foolish lover’s game;
Haunted
by the notion somewhere there’s a love in flames.
Turning
and returning to some secret place inside;
Watching
in slow motion as you turn my way and say,
“Take
my breath away.”
The drawn curtains cast the room into permanent twilight, despite the afternoon sun outside. The flickering crystal cast its fitful light over Angel’s face, making him look even paler than before. The light of its magic pulsed in time to Angel’s heartbeat, and flared in response to Buffy’s touch.
Angel’s odd fever had not improved. Buffy frowned, her heart breaking to see him like this. Gently, she wiped his forehead with a damp washcloth. The crystal glowed a bit brighter for a moment.
He blinked at her. “Buffy?”
Buffy smiled as best she could. “Hey,” she whispered. “How are you feeling?”
Angel grimaced, and that was response enough. So was the odd look in his eyes, which made Buffy wonder just how lucid he was at the moment or if he was stuck in the grasp of some sort of fever dream. He swallowed hard. “It hurts,” he said after a moment.
“What hurts?” Buffy asked gently.
Angel opened his mouth to respond, then stopped. He shrugged helplessly.
Buffy touched his cheek lightly. “Hold on a sec,” she said, and rose from the bedside. She could feel him watching as she went to the other side of the hotel room. She poured him a glass of water and grabbed the container of Tylenol she’d bought on her errand for an international phone card. It was supposed to be good for fevers too, right?
She pressed two of the pills into his hand, then held out the glass. “Take this,” she ordered.
He blinked at her and looked about to protest.
“Do it,” she insisted. “It’s not blood – just water. You need to drink something. It’ll make you feel better.”
He looked a bit doubtful, but did as he was told. He sat up higher for a moment, washed down the pills, then drank the rest of the water slowly. That done, he sank back into the bed. His eyes were drooping, and Buffy knew he was near sleep once again.
“I never wanted to leave you,” he whispered abruptly.
Great. More mental meanderings into the past. “Ssh,” Buffy said. “I know.”
“Didn’t want to...” he said again, his eyes closing. His breaths were quickly back to the regularity of sleep.
Buffy sighed. He wasn’t getting any better. She couldn’t just sit here and wait for the gang back home to figure something out. She needed to do something, now.
She needed to find someone who could help him.
Buffy pressed her lips to Angel’s forehead, and he moaned slightly. “Don’t worry, love,” she whispered. “I will help you.”
Buffy was nearly frantic. She hated every moment that she was away from Angel. She found herself thinking horrible things, imagining Angel’s horrible fate the longer she was away. She needed...anything, anyone who could help him.
She found herself, almost without thinking about it, at the gate of the old cemetery. Perhaps she’d set out for here intentionally – her thoughts at the moment were too wild to tell one way or another. She did not slow down, hurrying into the old graveyard until she nearly ran straight into the old groundskeeper.
He blinked at her in surprise. “Are ye all right, dear?” he asked gently.
Buffy struggled to catch her breath. “Please,” she panted. “I need to find...” Oh god, she couldn’t remember the woman’s name! “...Shannon! Please, is she here?”
The older man still looked startled by the urgency of her tone. “Shannon?” he asked in confusion.
“Hello?”
The faintly familiar voice came from behind Buffy, and she turned with relief and renewed urgency. She faced the woman with need clear in her face and tone. “Please,” Buffy said quickly, “I need your help.”
“My help?” Shannon asked, bewildered.
Buffy swallowed, trying to figure out what exactly she could and should say.
Shannon’s eyes went wide before Buffy could say a word. “Where is your companion?” she asked, her voice touched with faint realization and suspicion.
“Angel...he’s sick. Really, really sick, and you’re the only one I could think of to come to,” Buffy explained quickly.
Shannon frowned. “Why come to me?”
Buffy hesitated, barely noticing the groundskeeper moving off to leave the two of them alone. “You’re a medical student, right?” Buffy asked.
“Student, yes,” Shannon agreed, emphasizing the word ‘student.’
Buffy swallowed, then plowed ahead. “And...I saw you watching us when we were here, together,” she said. “You know that he’s not normal,” she finished quickly.
An odd look crossed Shannon’s face. “He hovers a line between life and death,” she said, sounding distracted.
Buffy blinked. “Uh...yeah. I guess that fits.”
Shannon looked at her sharply. “He’s...the one from the empty grave, isn’t he?”
Buffy swallowed. “Yes,” she forced herself to say. The sense of urgency redoubled. “Please. We need you. He needs you. You know something of the supernatural, and you’re the only one I could think of who might be able to help.”
Shannon followed the American girl into one of the finer hotels near the waterfront. Her unusual talent told her nothing about the odd girl, but she didn’t need anything of the sort to comprehend her distress. Her worry radiated off of her in waves. She hurried through the corridor, and Shannon was hard pressed to keep up with her.
“Here,” Buffy said quickly, unlocking the door with an easy movement.
Shannon followed without a word, her extra sense kicking in. She could not make heads or tails of it, except that someone here was connected to the dead.
The hotel room was oddly lit – a creeping of sunlight from between the heavy curtains, a pulsing red light from a large, faceted crystal on the nightstand. The room was a bit too cool, and smelled slightly odd. It was not a comfortable room.
The figure in the bed blinked at them. “Buffy?” His voice was a bit hoarse.
The younger woman rushed to his side. “Angel,” she said, quietly pleased. “You’re awake.”
Shannon hung back, feeling awkward. That sense of the dead she possessed was filling her with conflicting feelings – one moment on the brink of death, the next fading into nothing. It was like nothing she’d ever sensed before, and it confused her.
“Where were you?” Angel asked softly.
“Going to get help for you,” Buffy replied.
He scooted up in the bed, rising to a seated position. The crystal’s light flared across his face, giving it a sickly cast. His hair was plastered down with sweat. “I don’t need help,” he said defensively.
Buffy glanced at Shannon, then at Angel again. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “You’ve been sick.” She reached and touched his forehead. “You are sick.”
Angel pulled away from her touch. “I’m feeling better,” he insisted.
Shannon did not smile at the stubborn patient, though she wanted to. It was Buffy’s earlier frantic state that stopped her. “Your wife has been very worried about you,” she said, stepping forward.
Buffy nodded pointedly.
Angel looked at Shannon suspiciously. “Do I know you?”
“We met her in the cemetery, remember?” Buffy said patiently. “She’s a nursing student. She...also has some knowledge of the supernatural.”
Angel glanced at her, and Shannon nodded acknowledgement. His suspicious gave did not waver, though Shannon was starting to have her doubts as to just how lucid he was at the moment.
Angel looked at Buffy again. “You didn’t tell her....”
Buffy bit her lip. “Not exactly....”
“I don’t need help,” he reiterated. “I’ll recover. I always do, remember?”
“I was worried about you!” Buffy defended herself. “I’m still worried about you! This isn’t like you, Angel. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know....” He looked confused, and started to try and rid himself of the blankets.
Buffy fought him every step of the way, and Shannon’s sense of him flared the whole time from extreme to extreme. Something was very wrong here...or not. She couldn’t figure out enough of what was going on to know. This wasn’t something she learned about in nursing school.
Finally, Angel managed to free himself from Buffy’s grasp and from the blankets. He was starting to try to climb to his feet. “Damn it, Angel!” Buffy yelled in frustration and terrible concern. “Are you being stubborn-delirious or just plain stubborn!?”
He said nothing, visibly shaking as he rose to his feet.
Shannon tried her best to be a voice of reason. “You need to rest,” she said calmly. “You’ve been very ill....”
“I’m fine!” he yelled at both of them. “Please. Just let me....”
Then Shannon’s sense of him flared once more, the crystal flashed brilliantly...and Angel crumpled to the floor.
Buffy screamed.
They were both scrambling to the fallen man’s side when Shannon paused abruptly. Her sense of him...that sense of treading the line between the living and the dead...was gone.
“Angel!” Buffy was calling frantically. “Come on, Angel!” She pulled his head into her lap and looked up at Shannon, terror in her eyes. “Please, help him!”
Shannon crouched beside the two of them, confused but pleased. “There is nothing for me to do.”
Buffy paled. “You don’t mean....”
Shannon gave her a small smile. “No, I don’t. Look at him, Buffy.”
The young woman did as requested. Angel was breathing deeply, a very small smile on his face. “I don’t understand...” she said at last.
“There is nothing for me to do,” Shannon explained, “because there is nothing that needs to be done. The entire time since I have met you, he has felt to me...like neither alive nor dead. Alive but tied to death. I have never felt anything like it. He doesn’t...feel like that anymore. He feels like you do.” She smiled, both reassuring and pleased. “Whatever was wrong, it has fixed itself now.”
Some understanding that Shannon could not grasp passed over Buffy’s face. “So you’re saying....” In her lap, Angel stirred, and her question was forgotten. She smiled vibrantly. “Angel.”
Her husband blinked at her, confused and possibly disoriented. “Buffy?”
“Of course,” she replied, both teasing and relieved. “How do you feel?”
“Different,” he said, still looking confused. Then abruptly he grinned widely. “Buffy...I...think the demon’s gone.”
Buffy gasped, smiled, and held him tightly.
And on the nightstand, the crystal glowed even brighter than before.
On to Part Five
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