A Love Eternal: Talking and Injuries
by flyingbird
7.
Angel and Buffy walked side by side down the hallway, neither of them saying anything although the awkward silence was starting to become uncomfortable. Neither person knew what to say and so they just opted for the no talking route. As they continued along Angel kept stealing sidelong glances at Buffy, watching her out of the corner of his eyes. Using the silence as a good opportunity to sort through his thoughts, he attempted to make sense of the confusing emotions which were coursing through his body.
There was no denying that Buffy intrigued him, she was a beautiful young woman with a mysterious past. He still wasn’t exactly sure what her entire story was. All he really knew for sure was that two male werewolves had been after her, for some time apparently, and this time around they had done some serious danger to her. Where was her pack? That was the part that confused him the most. She hadn’t spoken of them, except for a few times but only briefly and with no real detail. If she was a member of his pack he would never let her out of his sight. He had noticed that he was feeling uncharacteristically protective over the young blond. Well, sure, he was overprotective about his friends and family, but he hardly knew this girl. And what was with the sudden urge he had to grin stupidly every time he looked at her?
Suddenly deciding that his thoughts were becoming too troubling for their own good, Angel turned to his companion and tried to strike up a conversation with her.
“So, you mentioned before that you weren’t from here.”
“What?” Buffy had been drifting amongst her own thoughts and was taken completely by surprise with the sudden question. Angel just laughed at the confused look which was marring her beautiful features.
“Earlier, when you first woke up, you said that we probably hadn’t heard of your pack because you lived quite a ways from here,” he reminded her helpfully.
“Oh, right,” she blushed, for what seemed like hundredth time that day. “Yeah, we live quite a few leagues from here I guess. I don’t know the exact distance, seeing as I don’t exactly know where here is,” she shrugged noncommittally.
“What was your home like?” he questioned, hoping to get some sort of information out of her about her pack.
“Well, my pack lived in a completely wooded area,” she began. For some reason, she didn’t mind talking to Angel about her pack, he just had an easy presence about him that made her relax. “I remember when I was really young we used to move around a lot, we were kind of nomadic I guess,” she paused, a thoughtful expression on her face. Angel simply nodded. He had heard of some packs that had never settled down in one area before, but just kept moving around.
“Anyways,” she continued on, “my father decided when I was about three years old that we should find a permanent place to settle so he choose this one spot among a bunch of trees and we set up some permanent tents there. A few people decided to set up their tents higher up in the trees, instead of on the ground. You would have to climb a latter if you wanted to get up there, and whenever I would go up I was always afraid that I would fall down again, though luckily I never did.” She paused for a moment, thinking, and then went on.
“There were hardly any girls my age in our pack, so mainly I just played with the boys. There was usually a lot to do, when we weren’t being forced to study by our parents. We were right next to a river and me and my sister used to have so much fun playing in the water, sometimes we would stay out there for hours and my mom and dad would have to forcefully drag us in when it started to get dark.” Despite her small smile, Angel could sense the underlying sadness masked within her voice, and he realized that it must be a hard subject for her.
“Was your father the leader of your pack?” he questioned, intent on getting her back in a good mood again, hoping to be graced with her radiant smile. There would be time later to find out the source of her sudden sadness, but now was not the time.
“Yeah, he was,” replied Buffy, her expression instantly lightening. “He and my mom were good leaders. Our pack was pretty small but it was always peaceful and everyone got along really well. I always used to want to be just like them when I grew up. My entire life plan was to find a handsome male to be my mate and…” Realizing just what she had said, Buffy stopped abruptly and quickly covered her eyes with her hands and shook her head, thoroughly humiliated.
“Let’s just pretend that I didn’t say that, okay?” she pleaded with Angel, a small pout forming on her face.
“Well,” he teased, “normally I wouldn’t just let a statement like that lie but this is my mother’s office so I guess I’ll have to leave it there.” Giving a mock sigh of disappointment, he came to a halt in front of a solid oak and raised his hand to knock.
“Thank god! Saved by the, well, I guess the door,” declared Buffy, glad for the narrow escape. She couldn’t believe that she had just said that to him, one of the sexiest guys she had ever laid eyes on. Now he must think that she was just some stupid little girl, if he hadn’t been thinking that already.
Suddenly the door opened and the two of them were beckoned inside by a distracted Giles, who was reading a very old book by the looks of it.
“Hey,” Angel greeted him. “Where’s mom? We were hoping that she could look at Buffy’s injuries and see if they needed to be re-bandaged.”
“Oh, yes, well, she just stepped out for a moment to talk to Marie about some sort of animal or such that has somehow found its way into our gardens.” By the look on his face, you could tell that he had next to no clue about what his wife was doing at the moment, too immersed in his book to give them his full attention. “Anyways, she’ll be back soon, I’m sure. Just go ahead and sit down, make yourselves comfortable.” Gesturing to the couch situated against the wall, he moved away again to the desk in the corner and returned his undivided attention to his book.
Shrugging his shoulders, Angel made his way to the couch and Buffy followed him obediently. Once they were sitting down comfortably, Angel turned back to Buffy, intent on continuing their conversation from before.
“So, you’re the daughter of your pack leader. Was it just you and your sister?” he questioned. Most of the pack leaders that he knew had a son to continue their line, and he was curious to hear about what would happen if one had only female offspring.
“Yeah, just the two of us.” Sensing the direction of his question, she continued on with her explanation. “When Dawn, my sister, got older, they decided that her mate should become the next leader. A young man from a neighboring pack was courting her. He was really very nice, and a complete gentleman. She really liked him and I think they would have become mates, if not for…” Realizing her slip at once, Buffy instantly shut her mouth.
“If not for what?” asked Angel, wondering at the sudden silence from the girl.
“Nothing, it’s nothing, really,” assured Buffy, although she was unsuccessful in convincing the dark-haired youth. Luckily, Jenny chose that exact moment to enter the room and she was once again saved her from her untimely slips. Noticing his mother’s entrance immediately, Angel just shot a look at Buffy, as if to say that this wasn’t over yet, and then moved off of the couch and over to speak with his mother.
“Mom, hey, we came by because you mentioned you wanted to take a look at Buffy’s injuries again today,” he said, as way of greeting.
“Oh, great. Yeah, I do want to take a look at those,” she said, moving over to where Buffy was still sitting. Angel was making his way to the door, uncertain if he was still welcome or not, but Jenny called him back.
“Why don’t you stay, Angel? This won’t take long and I’m sure that after I’m done Buffy will need someone to help her find her way back to you guys.”
“Um, okay, sure,” he agreed, glancing over to Buffy to see her reaction to the suggestion, but she only smiled at him.
0000000000000000
Well, in the end it turned out to be a very good thing that Angel had stayed. Buffy was having a hard time dealing with the treatment of her wounds and needed some back up. Currently, she was lying back on the couch as Jenny meticulously removed the bandages around the slice along the outside of her right leg, and if the pressure being applied to his hand was any indication, the process was extremely painful. After almost ripping apart the pillow she had been grasping, Jenny had suggested that Buffy hold on to Angel’s hand instead. She hadn’t yet drawn blood, but in his opinion it was only a matter of time.
“Alright, Buffy, we’re almost done, just hang in there,” reassured Jenny, sympathizing with the young girl. The bandages were sticking to her skin due to the large amounts of dried blood on them, and removing them had been a tricky business. “Get ready now, because I’m going to pour some disinfectant on this one, so it’s going to sting again, but after this I’m done, I promise,” she rushed to reassure, catching the helpless look the blond was sending her way.
“It’s okay Buffy, it’s almost over,” murmured Angel as he stroked the back of her hand comfortingly, attempting to calm her down. He had been through his fair of injuries, though he couldn’t recall any that had been as bad as this. It made his blood boil in anger to think about those two guys doing this to her. He vowed that somehow he would track them down and make them pay for what they had done.
Gritting her teeth together, Buffy squeezed her eyes shut tight and grasped Angel’s hand in a death grip as the disinfectant was dabbed on the cut. She had never been this seriously injured in her life, and it was definitely not an experience that she wanted to repeated ever again. Slowly opening her eyes once again she watched as Jenny carefully wrapped a new, clean bandage over her wound and secured it with several pieces of medical tape. Then moving away, she gave Buffy’s uninjured arm a light, apologetic squeeze, and then went to put away her supplies.
Extremely grateful that Buffy had stopped gripping his hand so hard, and equally as glad that she hadn’t let go yet, Angel slowly lowered himself down on the couch next to her and gave her a sympathetic smile.
“Well, just think. My mom said that she wouldn’t have to re-bandage your wounds for another couple of days and by that time they should be pretty well healed.” He knew that it was a lame attempt at reassurance but there wasn’t much else to say. Sighing sarcastically, Buffy just rolled her eyes.
“Lucky me. However will I pass the time until then?”
Laughing lightly, Angel just got up and took her hand, pulling her gently to her feet.
“Come on. We can swing by the kitchen and pick you up some ice-cream before we go back and join the guys,” he suggested, thinking that after all that she definitely deserved some sort of a reward. Her expression lighting up immediately she grinned.
“I could certainly do with some ice-cream around now.” Her shyness around Angel had completely dissipated in light of close to twenty minutes of clinging to him helplessly as she whimpered from the pain of her re-bandaging experience. He had been really sweet and, despite the pain, she found that she had thoroughly enjoyed the short amount of alone-time they had gotten to spend together.
“Hey, mom!” called Angel over is shoulder, as he and Buffy made their way out the door. “We’re going back to join the guys, we’ll see ya later!”
“Okay, I’ll see you later. Sorry about the bandages Buffy.”
“No problem,” she chuckled nervously. “Thanks for re-doing them for me.”
With that they left and made their way back down the hallway, in search of the kitchen and ice-cream. It didn’t take them too long to get there and the trip was passed in silence once again, but this time it was a comfortable silence and neither one of them felt the need to speak. Once inside the kitchen they only found two other people there, two seven year old girls who were sitting at one of the tables and giggling uncontrollably. Upon spotting the duo, both girls looked up and smiled.
“Hey Angel!” piped up the girl on the left with short brown hair, giving a small wave.
“Hey, Christina,” replied Angel. “What are you guys doing here?”
“Just talking,” supplied the girl on the right, and with that they burst into giggles again and quickly got up and rushed from the room, clutching their hands over their mouths to stifle the noise. Exchanging a look, the teenagers just shrugged.
“Huh,” said Buffy. “That was weird.”
“Yeah,” agreed Angel, making his way to the freezer he quickly opened it and extracted a container of ice-cream, tossing it to Buffy. She caught it easily and smiled as he took out two more ad then moved over to a drawer to grab some spoons.
“My guess is that the entire gang is gonna want some too,” he said, and then moved back over to her. “So, shall we?”
“Of course.” And with that, they left the kitchen again and headed back towards the recreation room.
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