IWRY Fic: "Return to Me" 2/3

[thecarlysutra]

See the first part for notes.

Later that night, she watched Sana change Angel’s bandages. She would have turned her face away, except he was watching her, and she didn’t want him to know how bad she thought it was. And he’d been in the hospital almost a week . . . He was injured enough that it almost didn’t feel intimate to sit there and watch him twist and arch half-naked. Almost. She still had a little flutter between her legs, and the same nervous feeling in her stomach from when she was sixteen and writing about him in her diary. But there were the shadows of bruises speckled over his shoulders and ribs, his hips, and deep, oozing wounds in his belly and back . . . Buffy wanted to cry.

Instead, she set her voice like cooling caramel and asked questions like whether there was much pain and how was he healing. Sana said that he was healing remarkably well and Angel lied about how much it hurt, dropping his eyes when she asked. He could lie to her, but not to her face. Fine. She’d let him keep that secret in order to keep his pride, and because she wasn’t going to injure him more when Sana was sponging fluids out of wounds that weren’t healing properly. The demon might have poisoned him and he couldn’t tell now that he was human, but she couldn’t say anything about that, not in front of the doctor. What would she think? In lieu of that, she leaned in and kissed Angel’s cheek, and he reacted like he understood perfectly, just stilled and told her it was all right. Buffy held her tongue and Angel’s hand until Sana was finished rolling fresh wrappings around his middle, until she’d left the room; then she let loose of both, her eyes flashing, demanding to know if he’d done any research, what kind of demon was it, why hadn’t he called her sooner?

“I was dying,” he reminded her, voice low. One of them remembered that they were in a hospital.

She tried to calm down because she knew he was right, but she was still angry so it was hard.

“Well . . . no idea what kind of demon it is?”

He shrugged, then flinched from the effort. “I don’t know. You know as much as I do; feeds off lust.”

“What does it look like?”

He frowned; he didn’t appreciate being interrogated.

“Demony,” he replied impudently.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I thought you didn’t want to fight.”

“I don’t!”

“You’re not going a long way toward not fighting!”

He sighed. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Most of the anger leaked from her immediately. “Really? It’s over, just like that?”

He chuckled. “Really. I don’t want to fight; I’m sorry. I’ll sketch the demon for you, okay? Just get me some paper and a pencil.”

She looked around for the items he’d requested.

“It doesn’t have to be right this minute,” he added. “Whenever you want it. It won’t take very long.”

“Oh,” she said. “Right. Then what?”

“Well, the usual. We get books, talk to sources, find the demon.”

“I could call Giles,” she offered.

He frowned. “Are you going to spend your whole life leaning on your Watcher, Buffy?”

“I don’t think I’m being unreasonable here, Angel; we’re kind of resourceless, here, and he’s big with the resources.”

He sighed. “I think it’s a little premature to go running to Giles.”

“Fine. I won’t call him.”

***

Buffy made a phone call anyway, but not to Giles. She called her sister. Dawn had been working as a Watcher for several years now – not Buffy’s first choice of careers for the girl – and was smart as a tack, and nearly as good a resource as Giles . . . without the disapproval she’d get from him on the issues of Danny and Angel. She wasn’t quite prepared to deal with that, and she’d rather do it face-to-face. She was a grown-up now; she owed him that much.

“Hi, Dawnie!” she said brightly upon hearing the younger woman’s voice only slightly separated by distance and static. The reception was actually worse here than it was calling from America, even though they were closer – Dawn, the world traveler, was presently in Rome again – how strange.

“You sound guilty,” Dawn said suspiciously. “You’re not fooling me with that bright and cheery tone. I hear you left your husband.”

Buffy wilted. “Where’d you hear that?”

“From your husband,” Dawn said cheerfully, happy to be in the know. “He called me last night, wanting me to talk some sense into you.”

“What did you say?”

“I said it sounded like the first time in years you had any sense in you.”

Dawn had never liked Danny.

Buffy let the edge of a smile creep onto her face. “Nuh-uh.”

“Yeah huh! He hung up on me.”

Buffy giggled, felt a stab of guilt, and then immediately swallowed it.

“So, you’re calling from Sudan, huh?” Dawn asked slowly. There was a slight leading edge to her question that Buffy interpreted as being dangerous.

“Yes . . .”

“How’s Angel?” she asked, the glee bursting forth; she wasn’t able to contain it anymore.

Buffy sighed, readjusting the receiver. “How did you know?”

“I have ways of finding these things out,” Dawn answered cryptically.

Buffy rolled her eyes. That could mean any number of things, but it probably meant that somebody had told her. The trick was finding out who it was, so she could figure out who to pummel.

“Have you two rocked the sheets yet?” Dawn asked, giggling. It was hard to believe sometimes that she was an adult who spoke seven languages and taught Slayers how to fight. She was Giles, the Next Generation.

“Dawn!”

“Have you?”

“No!”

“Well, why not? He’s human, isn’t he? You’re both there, aren’t you? You want to, don’t you? What are you waiting for?”

“We can’t! He’s hurt!” Buffy blurted.

There was a moment of silence from the other line.

“Hurt?” Dawn asked finally. “How badly? What happened?”

Buffy filled her in quickly. “He drew a picture of the demon,” she concluded, “but it’s not like there’s a fax down here or anything.”

Back when Dawn’s tone had gone serious, she’d heard the rustling of papers: her sister taking notes.

“Describe it to me,” Dawn said.

Buffy did; there was more note-taking from Dawn. Buffy wondered if she was doing a sketch of her own; she’d always been fairly decent in art class.

“All right,” Dawn said after a long moment of mm-hmms, ookays, and big pauses from her end of the line, “I’ll do some heavy research, and get back to you as soon as I can.” There was a beat, almost a falter, before she added, “How bad is he hurt, really?”

“He’s healing, and he’ll be okay, but . . . he was really scared, or he wouldn’t have called me.”

Dawn made a little frustration noise. “I didn’t know about that.”

“It’ll be—”

“How are you, with all this?”

She was caught a little off guard by the question, and it took her a moment to answer.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “It’s weird. I want it to work. I want him.”

“Don’t screw it up,” Dawn advised baldly. “Don’t let him screw it up, either.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Thanks, Dawn.”

“No problem.”

***

“How’s Dawn?” Angel asked when Buffy returned to his bedside. He didn’t look cranky, just omniscient and calm, maybe a little tired.

She stilled like a deer in the headlights, absolutely petrified halfway between standing and sitting in the chair beside his bed.

“How did you know?” she asked finally.

“Sit down,” he said wearily.

She sat heavily, not knowing what else to do, the corners of her mouth falling into a frown as a similar effect of gravity.

“I asked Sana where you were and she said you were making a phone call to Italy. I’m not stupid.”

She hung her head. “Oh. I . . . look, Angel, it’ll help us find the demon, and—wait.” She looked back up at him, confused. “Why do you know where Dawn is?”

He smiled a little half-smile. “I have a life outside you, sweetheart.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning Dawn and I have kept in touch since I left Sunnydale.”

Her jaw dropped. “Since you left Sunnydale when?”

He sighed. “Buffy . . .”

She stood up, towering over him. “You mean, all this time . . .”

“That’s right,” he said passively. “All this time.”

She frowned, half-disappointed that he refused to be cowed, half-confused.

“How come I never notice?” she asked, sinking back to her chair.

“Well, when she lived at home, we mostly used that . . . what is that Internet thing, with the blinky boxes?”

She stared at him blankly, like he had a mongoose on his head.

“Instant messenger?”

“Yeah. That.”

“Let me get this straight,” she said with infuriating calm, “you and my little sister used to chat on instant messenger?”

“She made me. Cordelia set it up for me – I’m not good with computers – so I could talk to Dawn. Sometimes we’d talk on the phone, but I figured if we wrote letters, you’d get cranky . . .”

She just stared at him. This was a dream, or they had slipped into some bizarro world . . .

“. . . when she started university, we started writing proper letters and phoning more often, but when she lived with you? We used that blinky box thing.”

Buffy leaned back in her chair, shaking her head in disbelief.

“I think I’m having a stroke,” she murmured absently.

Angel looked concerned. “What? Why, what’s wrong?”

She started laughing all at once, like breathing after drowning.

“Buffy?” he asked, worried. “What’s wrong?”

“I can—I can just imagine it,” she whimpered when she could catch a breath. “Dear Angel, I just found out today that I exist . . . Dear Dawn, that’s very interesting, today I killed some monsters with big—big weapons and—and thought about your sister . . .” She doubled over, clutching at her stomach. “What was your screen name, DeadGuy243?”

She’d crossed a line, and the laughing died. For the most part. She crossed a hand over her mouth, in disbelief of what she’d said, and to cover up the few remaining hiccups of laughter that gurgled up from her belly. When she finally felt her flesh was sound enough that she wouldn’t erupt in torrents of giggles again if she uncapped her mouth, she slowly removed her hand long enough to whisper, “I’m sorry,” and then quickly slapped it back over her lips.

Angel was looking a bit chagrined, but not really angry or hurt.

“Stop that,” he said finally, and sat up – wincing only slightly; everything was getting easier for him – and took her hand away from her mouth.

Buffy looked up at him sheepishly.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “It’s just . . . it’s hard for me to imagine you doing—”

“Human things?” he guessed.

Realization dawned on her.

“Yes,” she answered, surprised. She hadn’t known that that’s what it was, but it fit.

“Well, get used to it. That is, unless you don’t want to get used to me—”

She shook her head. “Oh, no, I would very much like to get used to you. And all your human things.”

He smiled. “Good. Glad to hear it. Now. Tell me what Dawn said about our non-human thing.”

***

Dawn called back two days later. Buffy spent the time in between waiting in the tautness of not-quite-anxiety, filling up the meanwhile with conversations that were disappointingly shallow and helping Angel out of bed to shuffle like Frankenstein up and down the halls. He was hurting, and frustrated that he wasn’t healing faster, and she was concerned about his wounds, and they were both worried about the demon and the not knowing and their inaction and the four new bodies that turned up while waiting to hear from Dawn; tension crackled in the air like electricity. Everyone felt it: the other patients avoided them even more than they deserved for being white devils polluting the air with English, and even Sana shied away from them at times. Buffy was insanely relieved when Dawn finally called; it had been too close to before, the wreck in Los Angeles after Angel had shanshued, and she didn’t think she could take that again. Don’t screw it up, Dawn had said. Don’t let him screw it up, either. Buffy didn’t know why she had to be the grownup if he had two centuries on her, but she would be, if she had to. It would be different, this time. It would work. She honestly hadn’t planned on jumping into another try at life with Angel when she’d left Danny, but if she could have it, by God, she was going to go for it with every fiber of her being. This time, it would work if it killed them both.

“I need more information,” Dawn said as soon as Buffy picked up the receiver, skipping pleasantries.

Buffy’s enthusiasm flagged. “What?”

“I’ve got your demon narrowed down to, like, twelve suspects. But I need more information before I can give you a definite answer.”

“Dammit. How do I get more information?”

Dawn made a noise of frustration. “Has the Saharan sun shut your brain off, Buffy? How do you always get more information?”

“Well . . . recon, pummeling of local sources, but—”

“And there’s no chance of any of that in Sudan? Please.”

“I don’t speak Arabic. I can pummel, but that won’t get me any information—”

“Angel speaks Arabic.”

“Yes, but—”

“He’s not bedridden, is he?” Silence. “He’s not, is he?” she asked again, her tone worried this time.

“No. He’s getting better; we’ve been going on walks around the hospital and stuff.”

“Take him with you. You punch, he’ll translate. Also, that mug shot Angel drew would be helpful for the narrowing.”

“I told you, there’s no fax—”

“In all of Sudan? Doubtful. There’ll be one at the US Embassy, at the very least.”

“Where’s that?”

Dawn snorted. “What am I, a tour guide? Ask Angel, he probably knows. He has a photographic memory, or have you failed to notice that in all your years of lusting after him?”

Buffy searched for a snide retort and came up blank. Instead, she said, “Is that something you two discussed in your little online communiqués behind my back?”

Dawn giggled. “Did you two have a little soul-baring session?”

“I cannot believe you—”

“That’s how I knew he was in Sudan, by the way, although Danny mentioned something about it, too, when he called me. Angel called me before he left Egypt, said he was following some tips to Sudan.”

Buffy felt a little wash of envy run over her. “Do you, like, talk every night? Before bed? Brush my teeth, pull down the covers, call Angel? Or—”

“Don’t be jealous,” Dawn said gently. “It wasn’t like that at all.”

Buffy sighed and brushed tears out of her eyes with the same irritated movement of shooing away flies. “I know. I know it wasn’t. I’m sorry. We’ll find the embassy, we’ll do some recon, we’ll get more clues so you can narrow down the demon so we can kill it and get out of this godforsaken country and start over.”

“You’ve already started over,” Dawn soothed. “And it really wasn’t like that. He only has eyes for you. He’s only ever had eyes for you; you’re the only one who’s ever had a problem seeing that.”

“Yeah,” Buffy grumbled. “Me . . . and him, on occasion.”

“No, that’s never been his problem. He always sees it, he just gets confused sometimes about what to do about it. Make sure he doesn’t screw it up this time, Buffy, please? Both of you, just do something selfish for once. You deserve to be together.”

***

Angel had been taking a nap when Dawn called. Buffy thought about rousing him, but he needed his sleep to heal, so she waited for him to wake up, sitting pensively at his bedside, wrestling with her thoughts. Don’t screw it up this time.

As soon as his eyes opened, the words jumped out of her throat: “We need to go to the US Embassy.”

He blinked druggedly. “What? Why?”

She faltered at first; she hadn’t meant to jump all over him, but she was wound a bit tight from sitting so long with just her anxieties to keep her company.

“Sorry. Um, Dawn called. She says there’s not enough information to pin down the demon . . . she’s got it narrowed down to a dozen or so, but that she needs more intel before she can figure out exactly which one is ours, and one of the things she wants us to do is fax that picture you drew. She said the embassy would have a fax machine, and that you’d know where the embassy is. So, where is it?”

He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “Khartoum.”

“Huh?”

He cleared his throat and sat up delicately, waving away her assistance.

“The American embassy is in Khartoum,” he elucidated. “And what’s more, it’s not always what you would call open for business. It has a nasty habit of shutting down whenever the wind blows too hard.”

Her face fell. “I really don’t want to go back to Khartoum.”

“I don’t think we need to; I can’t imagine there not being a fax machine in the entire city. Or, failing that, I know there are witches in Kassala; we can have one of them send her the image magically.”

She relaxed. “Oh. Okay.”

“Now . . . what else? Recon?”

Buffy squirmed. She didn’t really think Angel was well enough to be doing reconnaissance; she had planned on sliding by this point and doing it on the sly while he healed. Alone.

“Well . . .”

He frowned. “Well what? What did you have in mind?”

“Going out after clues by myself while you stayed here and healed,” she mumbled in one short breath.

“Oh,” he said curtly.

“Angel, look, I’m just worried—”

“No, I get it—”

“You said you didn’t want to fight—”

“I meant with you,” he snapped.

Her mouth twisted into a pout. “Then why are we bickering almost constantly?”

“Because we’re shut up in an enclosed space and you don’t trust me.”

“And you don’t realize that you can’t do the same things that you could when you were a vampire,” she countered. “We all have shortcomings.”

He glared at her. She glared back.

“Fine!” she exclaimed finally, throwing up her arms. “We’ll go. We’ll go and do very light, non-dangerous recon, and if you get hurt it’s all on you, because I was against this from the start and I warned you and you were stubborn and stupid about it, you ass!”

Angel looked slightly amused. “Do you feel better now?”

She huffed and leaned back in her chair. “I kind of do. Where’s this demon live again?”

***

Kassala’s jebels and the village of Khatmiya were just shy of half an hour from the hospital. Buffy was not really looking forward to another trip in a Sudanese cab, especially not one that would last thirty minutes, but then Angel told her they were going to take the bus, and she was looking forward to that even less, thinking it would be reminiscent of the train. Of course, it would be better this time with Angel there with her, but still . . .

They walked from the hospital to Souq Ash-Sha’abi, which confused Buffy until Angel explained that it was the name of the bus station, and that she’d probably passed right by it during her maniacal cab ride. Angel was healing very well, but he still wasn’t up to his full strength, and Buffy took the several block walk to watch him for signs of weakness; he didn’t limp, and he wasn’t particularly ginger, but he was careful, and she worried a bit. But quietly, to herself. This was just reconnaissance, she reminded herself. No chance of peril, nothing to worry about. Besides, it wasn’t really like she could go alone: the jebels were a tourist spot, but they were an Arab tourist spot, and her Arabic was non-existent. And she didn’t know where Angel’d been attacked, and apparently there were four separate hills that made up the jebels, and they were all . . . well, hilly and complicated, and she couldn’t just guess where he’d been. She wouldn’t know where to start.

He’d be fine.

Souq Ash-Sha’abi was a madhouse, people running about everywhere, shouting at each other and waving tickets and zooming by on bicycles. There didn’t seem to be any traffic laws in Sudan. Angel snaked through the crowd like a ghost and managed to buy tickets quietly and without fuss; Buffy didn’t know how he did it, but he always managed to look like he fit in everywhere. Or, more than that, he just blended away, which seemed impossible, as beautiful as he was. She guessed it was one of his gifts, and she was jealous of it: he wouldn’t have had any trouble in the airport at Khartoum. She hugged to his arm, silently thankful for his presence. Angel, surprised at her uncharacteristic dependence, wrapped his other arm around her waist and pressed a kiss to her forehead. He liked being allowed to be protective of her, and if he was given an inch, he’d take two.

***

The bus driver spoke English. Sort of. He’d learned some from magazines and the infrequent American or European tourist he’d get, and he loved the occasion to use it. He was not Arab but Dinka, over six-and-a-half feet tall and darker than midnight, with a smile made for show business. He caught sight of Buffy and Angel’s pale faces and the golden gleam of Buffy’s hair and grinned: he’d get to use his English today.

“Hello!” he boomed as they stepped aboard. Buffy jumped; Angel swallowed his chuckle and caught her before she bumped into him, jarring his bandaged middle.

“Hi,” she replied weakly. She hadn’t been expecting his enthusiasm or to hear English from anyone but Angel on this trip.

“You are going to the jebels?” he asked happily.

She exchanged an uneasy glance with Angel. “Yes . . .”

Angel smiled. “He guesses where everyone’s going. It’s a matter of professional pride.”

Professional pride had apparently been accomplished; the bus driver was grinning triumphantly. Angel slipped him a folded banknote before he could alarm Buffy anymore, and sidled by him and to a seat. It was either such a large tip or he was so pleased to have the opportunity to practice his English – or some combination of the two – that he translated his tour notes – which he wasn’t required to give, anyway – from Arabic to English for the duration of the ride solely for their benefit.

Buffy almost would have rather taken a cab. After the initial shock, the bus driver was nice, even if the alternation of Arabic to English was starting to lull her into a stupor. But there was almost no legroom, and she was certain there were no shock absorbers, and the seats were rock hard, so she was stuck in one position, bouncing up and down and landing over and over on this hard metal seat. Her bottom was going to be so sore tomorrow. . . . She glanced over at Angel, and winced. He was being stoic, but it was probably too soon to take him on a machine like this for a ride this long: his cheeks were drawn, and one hand was subconsciously cradling his side. Poor baby.

She glanced over his broad frame and through the window – which was kind of a loose word for it, because there was no glass in the metal frame – to the landscape beyond the bus. It almost didn’t look like desert anymore; tall bushes and lush clutches of exotic desert flowers bloomed everywhere.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “How does it all grow with no water?”

Angel looked over at her, his mouth quirked a little, the semblance of a smile.

“There’s water. Wait.”

Her brow creased. “Wait? Angel, wait for what?”

He shook his head. “Wait.”

She lay her head on his shoulder – slowly; she waited to make sure he didn’t flinch – and watched the beautiful landscape go by. She heard it before she saw it and straightened, met his eyes. He was smiling, amused by the wonder written all over her face.

“Is that . . . is that a river?”

Angel laughed. “Yes. The Gash.”

At the front of the bus, the bus driver was saying, “. . . if rains are heavy, the Gash may flood Kassala and leave thousands of people homeless; although beautiful, the Gash can be a killer . . .”

Buffy’s eyes flickered back to the window. Now she could see the thick white rope of the Gash fighting against the arid land. “I didn’t know there were rivers in the desert.”

“Didn’t think something so strong and wild and beautiful could live out here with something so dead and old?” Angel asked softly.

She looked back at him quickly. He looked so sad . . .

“That’s not what I meant,” she said earnestly.

He didn’t answer.

“Look,” she said gently, not looking herself, not really expecting him to look . . . instead, capturing his gaze, cradling his face in her hands. “The two of them . . . they made flowers.”

He didn’t answer again, but this time it was because his mouth was enveloped in kissing her.

***

Buffy almost ran off the bus as soon as it crashed to a stop. It probably meant something obscene in Muslim etiquette, and she knew it didn’t look pretty, but as soon as her feet touched terra firma, she began rubbing her abused posterior like a child after a sound spanking. Angel, after covertly handing the chatty bus driver another folded bill, hopped down gingerly beside her and grinned openly at her display. She blushed and stopped.

“Shut up,” she mumbled. “Like you don’t want to.”

He irritated her further by looking perfectly innocent. “Just enjoying the view, sweetheart.”

It was a spectacular view. Though they’d left behind the raw power of the Gash and the unexpected exotic beauty of the desert gardens as they’d climbed higher and higher, the jebels were beautiful in a different way. They, too, had a busy sort of air to them – this was by far the most touristy place she’d been in Sudan, which surprised her; Angel said that Khatmiya used a well for water; didn’t that mean the village didn’t have proper utilities? – but the whole country was apparently a bazaar, so she was getting used to that. There was the ever-present mix of Arabs and blacks of every shade of brown, and there were even other white faces, and some Asians, too. The bus driver had said that business was down, and it wasn’t as busy as the bus station, even; it must be something to see in full season when it wasn’t being attacked by a lust demon. It wasn’t quite the desert, though, although the colors were right, golds and browns and reds. But the ground wasn’t made of sand: instead, it was made of long, smooth slabs of stone, the same stone as the huge, sugar loaf hills that rose up around them. There were four, rising around them like hulking gods: Taka, Totil, Aweitila, and Mukram. The bus driver had named them on the way there, and Angel had repeated them patiently, managing a straight face, when she butchered them.

And then she realized that he hadn’t taken his eyes off of her. Her blush blazed; she seemed to be flushing constantly around him. That couldn’t be good for her circulatory system.

“Shut up,” she repeated, lowering her eyes.

Still smiling, he scooped her into his embrace, then let a hand snake stealthily down her back to cup her sore bottom.

“Or maybe I do want to,” he purred against her ear when she gasped.

“Angel . . .” she said weakly. “We’re in public.”

“Does that mean stop?”

He gave her backside a little squeeze. She mewled. She wasn’t sure.

Fortunately for her, she didn’t have to make a decision. There was a sharp whistling noise behind her; she turned abruptly to see what it was. Three Arab teenagers were leering at them, and one of them was whistling crudely.

Angel growled something in Arabic, his hand sliding subtly up to her waist. Her eyes flickered up to his face; his eyes were hard, his jaw set. She wished she could understand what he was saying, and she realized with a sudden and complete flush of warmth all over her body – he was absolutely murdering her circulatory system – that she was aroused at his protective stance; she was pressed so close to him that she wondered if he knew, if he could feel her rushed breath against his throat, her palpitating heart and alert nipples against his chest.

“Khawaja!” the boys shouted, but they ran off. Angel was human now, but he could still be scary. Her arousal was testament to that.

She looked up at him breathlessly. She suddenly wished that they weren’t in public, that they didn’t have demons to hunt . . . bad Buffy, she needed to focus . . .

“What does that mean?” she asked, stepping away from him a little. She figured it would be better if her sensitive, raised nipples weren’t brushing his chest; there was still the chance that he could see them, but at least she wouldn’t be rubbing up against him, which would increase the likelihood that she’d be able to concentrate on the task at hand. “That cat water thing?”

“Khawaja,” he corrected. “It’s a derogatory term for foreigners.”

She frowned. “That’s stupid. You speak Arabic as well as they do. Probably better; they’re punk kids and they probably use contractions and stuff.”

He smiled wanly. “Part of being as old as I am and of traveling as much as I have . . . you fit in everywhere, but you’re foreign everywhere, too.”

“Well, just be at home wherever I am,” she offered, taking his hands in hers, forgetting that she was being self-conscious.

The poor smile faded. “Don’t say things like that unless you mean them.”

She responded slowly, measuring her response: “And what if I mean them?”

“Then say them often,” he said chivalrously, spinning her around and then pulling her back against him, holding her little body against the solid form of his. She laughed at the unexpected joy of the movement even as Angel was bending down to kiss her; Angel rarely did things out of spontaneity and delight. He needed to do things like that more often.

She would make sure that he did.

***

They spent several hours talking to people around the jebels; a few tourists, but mostly the people who were there all the time: the bus drivers and the people who worked at the little cafes and the souq. Buffy asked questions and Angel translated quickly. She tried to focus on the job at hand and not get distracted by how attractive he looked under the glow of the Sudanese sun, and how strangely alluring his velvety voice was purring out Arabic, but it was difficult, and on more than one occasion she got lost and fumbled. She finally blamed the heat, and after they’d made a good sweep, Angel led her down to the base of Totil, into the shadow of the hill and the village of Khatmiya proper. There was a great domed building, the same sand color as the jebels; Angel took her hand and led her inside.

It was cool inside! Good God, she felt like she hadn’t been cool since she’d arrived in Sudan . . . She arched appreciatively under the precious climate and then looked around; it was impressive architecture, ancient and distinctly non-European. There was no roof, and she squinted as her eyes caught a great glance of the heavens. She looked to Angel.

“What is this place?”

“It’s the Khatmiyan mosque,” he said quietly. He was using church voice – mosque meant church, right? – and she made a note to modulate hers accordingly. “It’s one of the only mosques in Sudan that allows non-Muslims inside, and it’s also one of the oldest in the country.”

“It’s beautiful,” she said softly, looking around some more. She meant it. “Not like European churches . . . it’s simple, but beautiful. They all have a lot of paintings and steeples and marble and stuff. But this is . . . I don’t know. Impressive without all that.” She huddled closer to him; suddenly, she felt small. “It’s so big.”

He smiled a little. “It’s really not; there are plenty larger mosques, and Khatmiya’s a small village. It’s just that you’re used to Christian churches; they’re full of pews and pulpits, things that take up space. Mosques are open.”

“Can we look around?”

“Certainly.”

She led, still holding his hand, like a child walking her father around a museum. She walked him to the end of the hall to inspect closer the inscrutable dome; her brow wrinkled.

“It’s not supposed to look like this, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean . . . I thought at first, that it was supposed to be like that, open to heaven, but . . . it wasn’t made like that on purpose, was it?”

“No.”

She turned to look at him. “What happened?”

“It was destroyed by the British during their occupation of Sudan, if I understand correctly.”

“Was that kind of thing common?”

He shrugged. “It wasn’t uncommon.”

She frowned. “I don’t like that. There are so many evil things living in the world without people doing bad things to each other.”

“True.”

She spent a moment brooding over this thought and the uneven, sand-smoothed edge of the mouth of the dome before Angel roused her from it.

“Turn around.”

There was a long stone tablet behind her. Buffy moved to touch it, but Angel stayed her hand.

“What is it?”

“It’s a shrine to a local holy man. They say that though the British took the roof, they couldn’t take the mosque’s power; when it rains, it never gets wet.”

She looked up again, to the huge hole in the ceiling. “But . . .”

She glanced over at Angel. His eyes were twinkling.

“That’s a good trick,” she said finally.

“It is,” he agreed.

They left the shrine and walked the cool corridors to the other end of the mosque. The roof was destroyed here, too; Buffy looked up. It was starting to get dark out.

Angel’s big hand curling around her upper arm arrested her movement; she’d been looking up and not paying attention, and it surprised her, even as gentle as he’d taken care to be.

“What’s wrong?”

“If you want to go any further, you’ll need to take your shoes off.”

She creased her brow. “How come?”

“You’re about to enter the prayer hall; it’s custom. Even though this isn’t a working mosque, even though you’re not Muslim, it’s only respectful.”

Buffy debated with herself for a moment. The floor looked very sandy, and she’d probably be walking around with sand in her boots for the rest of the night if she did, but when was she ever going to be in a mosque again? Using Angel for support, she slipped off her boots one at a time and then walked in stocking feet into the prayer hall. Angel stayed by the entrance with her boots, leaning slightly against the doorframe. He was getting tired, she suspected; today had been too much for him.

The prayer hall was twice as wide as the rest of the mosque, and roofless, too; great, yawning space. Angel said there were plenty of bigger mosques, and she didn’t doubt him, but she was having difficulty getting over just how much space seemed to be in this one. Of course, she hadn’t really spent much time looking at the churches of Europe; those were supposed to make you feel all tiny and insignificant before God. But she wasn’t much for history-related sightseeing; maybe it would be different with Angel as a guide . . .

She made a full circle of the space and then arrived back in Angel’s arms feeling strangely calm. She kissed him soundly enough to suggest that she’d forgotten that they were in a house of worship on a respite from chasing demons, and then brushed the sand from her feet and put her boots back on.

“Okay, ready to go? I think we’ve got one more stop left.”

Angel looked confused. “I think we’re done for the day.”

“Nuh-uh. I wanna see where you got jumped by this demon.”

***

Angel didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to use the word “afraid,” but he was bordering on it, tense and bothered, trying overly hard to convince her to leave. It was getting dark, they had already talked to all sorts of people, what if they missed the bus back and got stuck out here to be snacked on? And him, still injured. Buffy knew he must be very nervous to play the but-I’m-still-hurt card, but she pressed on.

“Oh, Angel, relax. It’s not even dark out yet—” This point she was fudging a bit on; the sky was getting inkier by the second. “—and he’s probably just sleeping, and even if he’s not, what’s the worst that can happen?”

Angel started to answer that the worst that could happen was that they could get mauled and end up in a Sudanese hospital thinking they were going to die and calling old girlfriends, but Buffy cut him off.

“We’ll just run away if we see any big bad lust demons. It’s not like we’ll be all stupid on magic water or anything, right?”

“Right,” he agreed reluctantly. “But Buffy—”

“Just a quick look around,” she reassured him. “You show me where he attacked you, and then we’ll go.”

Angel frowned but recognized that there was no way he was going to win the argument, and led the way.

Angel had been attacked on Aweitila, rather near the village of Khatmiya, on the side facing the mosque. They trekked in silence; Angel was upset, unhappy with being forced into this position, and Buffy was looking for clues along the way. A whole lot of nothing but the strange rounded sugar loaf rocks and curious shadows provided by the ever-darkening sky.

After a long time, Angel’s voice cut through the night.

“I’m not sure exactly where,” he said. “I wasn’t really tracking it, just looking for clues, kind of like we are now.”

Most of the other tourists had gone, and the café vendors were packing up. In any event, most of the activity was on Totil; all the noise seemed far away, and Buffy’s whole universe, suddenly, was focused on Angel. In the strange glow of the descending twilight, he was oddly framed by the reds and purples of the Saharan sun cutting over the jebels, ethereal. She felt strangely febrile all of a sudden, even though the coming night brought a reprieve from the damning heat of the midday sun. Her head was swimming. Maybe she’d been out too long . . . absently, she wiped her brow with the back of her hand, fought to keep focused on what he was saying.

“Uh huh,” she replied. Good. That was an intelligent answer.

He started to ask if she was feeling all right – she looked so feverish, and she was so, so small; even if she was the Slayer, she was still so tiny – but all of a sudden he was struck by how beautiful she looked with the setting sun highlighting her gold hair and dancing off the sheen of her lips and brighting her eyes. The words caught in his throat and he was so taken that he felt dizzy, literally weak in the knees.

“Buffy,” he whispered instead. No matter what was happening, his lips could always find her name.

“Uh huh,” she said again, coming closer to him.

“I . . . um . . .”

He took a step toward her, as well, and soon they were tangled in each other’s arms, and they were kissing desperately, with the same kind of frantic intent as mouth-to-mouth but instead of live, dammit! it was I want you, I own this, and the need wasn’t for the restoration of life but the reclaiming of territory. Buffy’s skin was on fire, and her heart was pounding in her chest, and when she grabbed Angel’s jaw to steady the kiss she felt his pressure point and felt his heart racing and felt his skin desperate with fever and she was so buoyed with the proof of his humanity that she laughed joyously, her mouth twisting against his, her ribcage arching against his chest, pressing her pert, alert-nippled breasts against him.

“I want you so badly,” she moaned, suffering to break off their kiss. She had to, she had to say it, and she was rewarded: he responded ferally, using his freed mouth to nip at her neck and earlobe. She gasped, shivers running through her; funny, but she remembered his teeth as well as his kisses. The strange things you come away with when your first love is a vampire.

She brought her hands down from cradling his jaw and started unbuttoning his shirt; Angel made a soft, silly noise of assent and kissed her mouth once with gentle intimacy.

“Buffy, I—there’s something I need to tell you,” he murmured.

She had half his shirt buttons undone, enough to allow a peak of bandages, and she’d gotten so aroused just seeing his bare chest that she hadn’t been able to work the rest of them and just abandoned the task, slipping her hand inside his shirt to caress the naked flesh that way; Angel was talking to her, but he was still touching her, one hand circling her waist, holding her close to him, the other massaging her breast, his mouth pressing tender kisses to her face and throat in between words. She didn’t know why she was so aroused but she was on fire, just his simple caress was maddening, she was melting, she was burning up, crazy, dizzy, oh God, oh Angel . . .

“I . . . I’m glad you left your husband,” he finished, his lips brushing her cheek.

She gasped, her dark lashes fluttering. She wasn’t sure if it was from what he’d said, or how he was making her feel, or both, but . . .

“Oh, Angel—”

“It’s okay, you don’t . . . I just wanted you to know . . .”

She ran her hand through his hair and then curved her hand around the back of his head, bringing his face crashing into hers, bringing their mouths violently together again. With the other hand, she started clumsily to unbuckle his belt. Angel started to question her but then the fire that had been kindling in him sparked up properly and he couldn’t see reason for the flames, and just folded his arms around her and lost himself in kissing her. Buffy finally managed to get his belt buckle undone, and unbuttoned his jeans. He was panting, his mind swollen with the constant mantra: I love you, I want you, I love you, I want you . . .

Then, somewhere, in his periphery, he heard an unfamiliar noise, something harsh: a scraping. Rocks moving. He couldn’t tell.

But it didn’t matter, because Buffy had unzipped his jeans and snaked a hand between the denim and his flesh.

“You don’t wear underwear,” Buffy said throatily. “I remember that. That’s kept me up nights.”

Angel lost his breath. He wasn’t sure the last time that had happened, or if it had happened ever that it didn’t involve Buffy. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move; all his senses narrowed in on her with a predator’s practiced grace. He knew this, he knew it; years of vampire/Slayer had prepared him for this one single moment of being with her.

She was kissing him again, now that her numbing words were done with, and she’d slid her hand down past the angled peaks of his hipbones and the dark forest of hair and was cradling his member in her hand, rubbing the heel of her palm slowly down the length . . . he couldn’t move, couldn’t move even against her mouth. This was ridiculous, he was two hundred and fifty years old and he was absolutely burning for her but he couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything, couldn’t even respond to her kisses.

Because . . . there was something . . . not right, there was something . . . he’d heard something . . .

“Baby,” she whispered, in that sweet little girl voice that women learned to do very early in life, the one that turned men malleable. “Where are you, baby?”

He forgot all about the wrong feeling and kissed her with renewed fervor, pulling her close against him again; they both moaned at the shift in position, pleasure and surprise. Buffy curled her hand around Angel’s cock and began pumping at a slow and tantalizing rhythm. Angel groaned against her mouth and brought one of his hands under her shirt, cupping one of her luscious breasts, mocking the motion. Buffy keened quietly, arching so eagerly into his touch as to abandon their wanton kisses, her supple neck stretching vulnerable and bare in the moonlight. There was a part of him, still, that stirred to see her like that, and he made a low guttural noise of wanting, panting, pressing insistently against her teasing palm. Not enough, not enough, he wanted to be inside of her, wanted to claim her again. His.

Oh, God, she was so hot . . . and dizzy, she felt overcome with fever, overcome with him, and she didn’t want to hurt him but it was getting so difficult to contain herself, she was inches from tearing him apart . . . Angel was half rutting her hand, he wanted her so badly, and that look in his eyes . . . ? He was hers, if there was ever any doubt, it was gone now, he was crazy for her, and she was so eager for him that she could feel the need for him to fill her pulsing through every inch of her being; not just there, but in my blood, baby, my marrow, can you get that deep? How far can you go?

Buffy stopped her tormenting rhythm and withdrew her hand from Angel’s jeans. He groaned and stopped grinding against her, took his hand from her agitated breast and used it to draw her hips flush against his.

“Be patient,” she whispered against the harsh cut of his cheekbone.

He growled quietly in response. Mating growl. She remembered that; she didn’t know he could still do that. Her nethers flooded with moisture and her head swam. She saw stars, bright lights, nothing but heaven and Angel.

Nimbly, unable to contain herself anymore, she hopped up into his arms, wrapped her legs around his waist. She wanted to position herself so that she was open for him, so that she’d have the best pressure against the aching flower between her legs, regardless of how much clothing she still had on. There would be plenty of time for stripping later; right now she just had to silence this insane buzzing in her flesh, or she would go mad, she knew it.

But there was a problem. Angel’s face contorted in pain, and he cried out, harsh. And then something else happened, unexpected: he looked away, his eyes narrowed, then widened.

“Shit,” he whispered.

Angel pushed Buffy undelicately from his hips and then grabbed her by the wrist and began pulling her at a flat run in the opposite direction, down the hill, down towards the village of Khatmiya. She’d jarred something greatly painful when she’d jumped up, and it was a damn good thing, because she’d shaken him loose of whatever spell he’d been locked in and let him see the eyes glowing in the dark not three yards from them.

“Angel,” she said vaguely, “what are you doing?”

She wasn’t all there; he looked briefly back at her and saw that her eyes weren’t quite focused; she was still gone. He felt fever burning at his flesh and knew that he’d be pulled back under, too; they needed to be far enough away before that happened.

They all but tumbled down the last part of the hill. Smaller rocks followed them down, and Angel’s palms were abraded as he used them to break their fall more than once. He wasn’t even sure if the demon was following them anymore; his only thought was to get away, and the memory of the last time he’d been on Aweitila, the claws slicing open his belly, the teeth tearing his flesh . . .

Suddenly, they were on the ground, looking up at a great stone shadow. Angel squinted; the mosque. They were at the base of Totil; they’d come further than he’d thought. Angel forced himself to his feet, pulled Buffy to her feet; forced them to keep moving; they passed the mosque, ran as far into the black as their muscles would take them before collapsing.

They lay for a long while in silence, watching the black night for the sheen of eyes, before realizing nothing was following them. Slowly, the fever burned over them again, and they became a single creature, a tangle of wandering fingers and syncopated rhythm.

***