Beholder

Beholder by Rhi

Disclaimer: I don't own them. Mutant Enemy does. All hail Joss Whedon.

Spoilers/Ships: This is AU. Angel/Buffy.

Distribution: Sure, just let me know.

Feedback: Is always nice. darkrhiannon@aol.com

Rating: NC-17 for violence and sex.

Author's Note: AU BtVS Season Six and Angel Season Three if Cordy were still the snarky friend who dealt with the pain of the visions because she wanted to help and the fang gang had well, talked to each other.

***

Cordelia stood in the capacious kitchen of the Hyperion eating a doughnut and watching Wesley fuss over his tea ball as Angel sipped distractedly at a lukewarm mug of blood.

"You know, the scruffy, unkempt, manly look only works when you're not trying to get the perfect amount of Earl Grey into that ssssssst, ouch!" she hissed as the vision hit. It felt as if her skull would split from the pain. As Wes caught her head, mere seconds before she cracked it against the counter, she spared a thought to be grateful that Angel had allowed him to return to the fold, however tense things had become between them all. That fleeting thought vanished into the fog of her impending vision, then Cordelia was inundated with a barrage of images that assaulted her brain.

She saw a short blonde woman fighting an immense demon. Light scintillated off of panes of glass, momentarily blinding Cordy’s inner eye and she realized that the oddly familiar woman--Buffy?--seemed to be fighting the demon in a reflective maze.

Flickering images offered glimpses of the demon fighting the Slayer as they exchanged brutal blows. Despite their disparate sizes, they seemed evenly matched, and for a moment, Cordy was able to draw far enough back from the images flooding her mind to wonder why the PTB would bother splitting her skull to send her a play-by-play of Buffy kicking demon butt. Just the the demon feinted, slicing one wicked claw toward Buffy’s face. She flinched a bit too slow and with a roar that rocked Cordy's head back as if slapped, the demon slammed Buffy's face through the glass. She went down in a shower of shards. Cordy gasped in shock, afraid for the first time that the vision could be--she watched the Slayer climb slowly back to her feet as the jumbled flow of images dissolved once more into chaos. The vision ended before Buffy turned aroundd, id, isn’t that just like her…slam her head through glass doors and she just keeps on going. What is up with that outfit, though? Was she shopping at dykes-r-us again?

Cordy came out of the vision to find herself on the couch in the foyer, cradled in the sturdy coolness of Angel’s arms. Eyes closed, she groaned at the pain of the Sight still throbbing through her head and clutched gratefully at her friend. She opened her eyes to glare at him. “Like I really need to see play-by-play of your…”

Wes backed into the room from the door, overburdened by three huge boxes marked Nordstrom-by-mail and Cordy pulled rapidly away from Angel to jump up and run to Wesley instead.

“They’re here, they’re here!” she squealed, jumping up and down as he piled the boxes carefully on the floor.

“I beg pardon, but what, pray tell, are ‘they’?” Wes asked skeptically.

“My new clothes! Remember that photoshoot that I actually managed to attend, no thanks to you and these stupid visions that keep making me look like an epileptic? Well, they promised me the clothes from the shoot! Oh, my god, I can’t believe it!!
An
Angel smiled wryly at Wes and then turned to Cordy, who was wildly unpacking and looked as if she might burst from excitement. “So, Cordy, the…”

“Aaaah!” Cordy collapsed and Angel darted forward to catch her, staring at her pale face as her eyes flickered back and forth rapidly. The vision was short—Wes barely had enough time to grab pen and paper before Cordy turned to him.

“3rd and Ash,” she groaned. “Smelly yuk demon, one horn, bluish green skin and slime. Why is it always slime? Eats little kids! Uck! Aspirin!”

“It eats small children and aspirin?” Wesley queried.

“No, dufus, get me aspirin, now! Angel,” she said, turning her head to look at him, “you don’t need Wes on this, just take Gunn. Kill the demon with a sword, then have Gunn dump some coke on it. The acid will keep it from resurrecting.”

Angel settled Cordy gently on the couch and moved fluidly to his weapons cabinet, Gunn behind him. His mind focused on the upcoming battle and picking up a coke before he went.

*
One night later.

“What kind of demon grabs people at carnivals, anyway?” grumbled the Slayer as she trekked through dirty paper and refuse left by the fair-goers. "It's totally not in the spirit of fun." It was late, past 3 am, her least favorite time of night. Dusk was more fun, despite the large numbers of early rising vamps out prowling the streets.

Buffy smiled to herself. Actually, that was probably why she preferred it. Dusk and pre-dawn were her best hunting times…more bang for her buck. Even the vamps tended to disappear in the middle of the night, though…they had either already hunted and returned to their lairs, or were waiting for careless humans to begin stirring before dawn. Early vampire gets the worm…ewww.

This demon had been a pain in her ass for days now…ever since the carnival had come to town. She’d been extra alert on those nights and had actually managed to take out a nest of vamps that apparently traveled with the carnies and fed off of the local populations before moving on. It was a surprisingly slick operation…never take too many from one place and move on before getting noticed. She wondered angrily how many teens had “run off” in those towns, never to be seen again. No one would think to connect them with the carnival.

She listened carefully. This demon breathed funny…a slushy snorting sound that carried surprisingly well on the night air. She tracked it past the now-shut-down Ferris wheel and through the food court, redolent with the greasy smell of funnel cakes and curly fries. Ick! This demon must have unbelievably high cholesterol, she thought. She turned the corner and saw the demon dart quickly into the funhouse mirror maze.

“Swell. That thing is way too ugo aco actually want to see its face in mirrors.” Sighing, the Slayer followed the beast in and began wending her way through the maze. It was easy enough to do…they hadn’t cleaned the glass and it was far from clear…covered with grimy handprints that fogged the surface enough that there was no chance anyone would walk into it.

She paced forward, all senses alert for the beast, and came round a bend to an open area. Probably the heart of the maze, she thought, then ducked as a huge clawed hand swiped the air directly above her head.

“Damn!” That was close…too close. Buffy rolled to face the beast, startled by her first good look at it. Once again, Giles’s books failed to do the monster justice. Its claws were easily 6 inches long and they dripped with something viscous that just had to be poison.

Buffy spin-kicked the demon backwards and it shattered the glass behind it. Snarling, it shook its head and charged er, er, bleeding copiously from the pieces of glass now embedded in its thick hide. Buffy side-stepped neatly and stabbed at its slime-coated back, but her stake slid harmlessly off the plates of scaly skin there.

“That’s not gonna work. Need something sharper….” Buffy lunged forward and grabbed for a large piece of the shattered glass. She ignored the flare of pain in her hands as it sliced her fingers and pivoted to thrust the glass spear deep into the demon’s chest, just as it feinted, sliding one wicked claw toward her face. When she released the glass, now deeply embedded in its chest, she flinched back from it. The demon grabbed her by the back of the head with one scaly paw. With a thunderous roar, it pivoted and slammed her face directly into the mirror frames. Buffy went down in a shower of glass and blood.

Buffy could barely breathe through the pain as it exploded across her face directly into her eyes. She screamed as the shattered glass penetrated her skin and the delicate membranes of both eyes.

The world went black, but horribly, she was still conscious. The pain was unlike anything she’d experienced before—the loss of sight seeming to enhance rather than distract from it. Her wounded hands instinctively clawed at the shards tormenting her and she sobbed in anguish as she pulled them from her face. Warm sticky fluid was pouring down the lacerated skin of her cheeks to choke her still-open mouth as she knelt in the splintered glass.

Thmon!mon! Was it even now approaching, ready to gut her while she howled? Buffy forced her shaking hands away from her bloody face and climbed slowly to her feet, glass sliding and splintering further underfoot and threatening to send her falling back to the floor. She turned in the direction she thought the demon had been and took one tremulous step forward, probing with her toe and holding her bloody hands out before her in a futile attempt to guard against its next attack.

She took another step, and another, her senses straining despite the pain that jarred her head at eveootfootfall. Abruptly, her foot rammed into something, and she fell forward, catching her balance at the last second before she impaled herself on the glass she’d skewered the demon with. It was dead.

"Thank god, thank god, thank god." With her foe dead, Buffy’s brief adrenalin rush faded and she sank to her knees by its sidecaricaring of the splintered glass. Now that self-prvativation ceased to be utmost in her mind, her hands went back to her face.

"My god, I can’t see. I CAN’T SEE!" She wept.

*

Giles crept stealthily through the abandoned carnival lot with Willow behind him. Buffy had allowed them to come along, but only if they held back. Given the virulence of the poison with which the demon attacked its victims, Giles was delighted to oblige. Anya and Xander approached them from the other direction.

“Why do we have to be here now? There’s no money anywhere,” Anya complained, cuddling into Xander’s tall form.

“An, we’re not here about the money. Though I really got taken the last time I played that baseball game…are you sure the carnies aren’t demons, Giles?”

“We’ve already established that the demon is merely a parasite, Xander. Do pay attention,” the former Watcher chastised. “This is merely an ideal feg grg ground for it. Now, if you’ve not seen anything that way, I suggest we move toward that maze attraction. Perhaps Buffy managed to corner it there.”

The group moved toward the maze and split up to enter through both doors, not knowing where Buffy might have cornered the demon. Giles led Xander and, much to his annoyance, Anya, while Willow made her way in through the exit, a softly glowing ball of witchlight guiding her.

Giles cringed from actually touching the smeary glass of the maze. The numbers of revolting little children who must have been through this made him loathe to brush against anything. The maze was not terribly complicated, much easier than the hedge mazes he’d grown up amongst. Now those could be bloody difficult, he thought reminiscently. The group reached the open center of the maze shortly and Giles made out countless shards of broken glass scattered across every portion of the floor. In the gloom, he almost missed the kneeling form of his Slayer next to the bulky body of the (he hoped) now-dead demon.

Buffy was rocking back and forth and moaning so softly it was barely audible. Giles felt his stomach clench with dread as he made his way toward her across the treacherous glass shards.

Just then, Willow appeared from the opposite direction, bringing with her the handy ball of witchlight. Willow gestured it fit floated slowly center and brightened enough for all of them to see.

“Buffy, are you injured?” Giles asked in concern when the Slayer’s frenzied rocking was uninterrupted by the improved lighting.

Buffy flinched from his words, stilled, then slowly rose.

“Giles?” her voice was ragged, barely more than a hoarse whisper. “Please, help me.”

She turned to face them and Giles recoiled. Buffy’s lovely face was a ruin of blood and shattered glass, much of it still embedded in her delicate skin. Her hazel eyes were utterly obscured by blood and he realized with horror that she was blind. She reached one wounded hand toward him and collapsed forward to fall limply in the chaos of glass.

*

Sunnydale Hospital saw its share of horrific injuries, but the girl lying still and silent in the ICU was one of the worst any of the surgeons had ever seen. Despite painstaking repairs and nearly 16 hours of surgery, she was blind. The plastic surgeons had done their job well, removing every sliver of glass from her face, but the damage to the eyes was far too great. A corneal transplant was out of the question due to the scarring on the eyes themselves. The surgeons contented themselves sadly with mending as much of the cosmetic damage as possible and restoring the girl to at least some semblance of the beauty she’d clearly possessed before. She would still have extensive scarring around the eyes, but the rest of her face was miraculously untouched.

Willow sat numbly outside the ICU. With all that Buffy had been through since her resurrection, it was inconceivable that this was her reward. Hould uld the powers let this happen? And what would the Hellmouth do to them all without a Slayer to protect them? She whispered under her breath, a delicate and utterly benign spell of strength and healing to speed her best friend’s recovery. It was all she could do for Buffy, and she feared it would not be close to enough.

*

Buffy lay silently in her hospital bed. The drugs they gave her wore off too quickly to dull much of the pain she was still caught up in. Her Slayer metabolism wast tst too strong. She laughed mirthlessly to herself. Too strong, but not strong enough to heal this. What use was a blind Slayer? She couldn’t fight--couldn’t protect her friends. She should have just stayed dead.

*

Buffy was moved to a regular hospital room quickly, once her preternaturally strong body healed the grievous wounds it had received. Her hands were stiffly bandaged over slowly fading scar tissue. She had kept them from her face, not wanting to know how hideous she must appear to those around her. The bandages around her eyes were lightened gradually, until only a thin gauze remained to protect her healing skin. She learned to feed herself, awkwardly at first, but with greater ease once the bandages on her hands were finally removed. She combed her own hair, brushed her teeth, and learned to dress herself without the use of her eyes. The doctors pronounced her fit to go home and she left with Giles, Willow, Xander and Anya at her side. No one suggested calling Angel.

*

“This is worse than high school, Giles,” Buffy complained acidly.

“Buffy, you have no choice in this. You need to learn Braille if you’re to function. Your counselor from social services concurs. Since you refuse to deal with her, you shall have to study it with me. Come, we’ll learn together.”

Buffy grimaced and dropped her sightless gaze to the large book on her lap, running the tips of her fingers over the raised bumps that everyone insisted spelled out words. She reached one hand up to push her dark glasses back up her nose. Now she knew why Giles played with his glasses so much. They were a pain in the ass, always sliding down her nose. But she didn’t want her friends looking at her scarred eyes and pitying her. So she wore them.

They hadn’t left her alone for one minute since she arrived home from the hospital. The bandages were gone, the antibiotics, completed, yet they lurked, ever present, suffocating her with good wishes and care. Buffy felt like screaming, like killing something, like crying, but dared not do any of those things with her ever-present guardians.

At least tonight, Xander, Anya and Willow had gone out together. They’d begged her to come with them, but Buffy had declined. Her remaining senses seemed to be getting stronger to compensate for her loss of sight, and she’d heard all of them gasp in dismay at her face when the final bandages were removed. She knew she must appear hideous…a freak. She couldn’t be with them in public and not react when strangers recoiled from her in horror. So she stayed in the house and pretended to care about Braille.

Giles saw the weariness on Buffy’s face and sighed. His Slayer had been through so much. She’d died twice, she’d lost everyone she’d ever called family, every man she’d tried to love, and now this. He’d known the life of the Chosen was difficult, Hell, he’d told her that himself on too many occasions to count. But this, this was beyond anything he’d imagined happening to his charge even in his worst nightmares.

“Giles,” she whispered. “Could we stop for tonight? I’m…tired.”

“Certainly, Buffy,” he answered. “It’s only been three weeks. I don’t expect you to learn this all in a fortnight. Why don’t I help you upstairs and you can rest? Perhaps I could draw you a bath?”

Buffy smiled gratefully in his direction and he smiled back at her, then realized that of course, she couldn’t see him. He walked to her, took the book gently from her hands, and slid his hand under hers to help her to her feet. He knew that her hands and knees still pained her where the glass had damaged the muscle, but she didn’t even flinch when she stood. She’s becoming adept at hiding her pain, he thought ruefully, even from me. But then, she’s had years of practice.

Giles guided her carefully to the stairs. Buffy was learning to count steps around the house and her friends were learning not to move things, but the situation was difficult for them all. Just that morning, Xander had left his jacket on the stairs and Buffy had slipped on it and fallen. Xander had apologized profusely, but Giles had hated him in that moment, actually hated him, more for the look of shame on Buffy’s face than for any actual hurt she’d felt from the fall. She was withdrawing further and further from them with every passing day and he was helpless to draw her out.

Buffy moved slowly up the stairs, one hand gripping the rail tightly, the other feeling the wall. She was counting silently to herself, Giles could tell. She reached the top and turned toward her room. “I’ll just draw the bath for you, Buffy,” he said. “Do you want lavender?” It was her usual choice in scent, but one with which she hadn’t bothered since her return home.

“Lavender? Oh, um, yeah. Lavender is fine, Giles. Make it hot, please.” Buffy responded, turning toward her room. Once inside, she closed the door firmly before moving slowly to her bed. Buffy undressed and folded her clothes neatly, then moved toward the closet, which she’d left closed that morning. She opened the door on the left and reached down for the laundry basket there, placing her clothes carefully into it. Then she pulled her pajamas from the hook to the right and closed the door. She took two steps toward the bed and stopped when her knees brushed it. She laid the pajamas there and moved to the door of her room, pulling her long fuzzy robe from it and wrapping it securely around herself.

She opened the door and counted steps to the bathroom. She could smell her favorite scent wafting on the steamy air. Giles spoke from the end of the hall, “Buffy, I’ve left everything I thought you might need on the counter to the left of the sink. Why don’t you see…” he paused awkwardly…”find what’s there and tell me if you need anything else before I retire for the night?”

Buffy nodded and walked slowly into the bathroom. In that moment, Giles desperately missed the darting grace with which she used to move. The slow, methodical pace she kept to these days seemed so very…wounded.

Buffy reached her hands out tentatively over the counter and found soap, washcloth, towel, shampoo, conditioner, and comb there. “This is fine, Giles,” she called. “Thank you.” She closed the door and hung her robe on the hook before gathering the bath things and stepping into the tub.

The water was hot, as hot as her tears, as hot as the hell to which she’d sent her only love, as hot as the bile that rose in her throat at the thought of what she must do tonight. Sunnydale needed a slayer. A functional Slayer, not the crippled freak that she had become. Buffy bathed herself slowly, lathering the soap with her scarred hands and rubbing it into the washcloth. She ducked under the water and washed her hair, turning on the faucet to rinse it briefly. She didn’t bother with the conditioner.

She stayed in the tub until the water was cool to the touch, as cool as the skin of her lovers, first and last. Fitting that her sterile life was bookended by death. She drew Angel in her mind’s eye…the tall, powerful body, the huge but oddly graceful hands, so talented and gentle with her despite their size. The thought that she could never again gaze into his deep brown eyes and see their beauty drew a sob from her. She muffled it in her towel--choked it off--so Giles wouldn't notice and come running.

Buffy climbed from the tub, drained the water and set her things neatly into the basket on the side. Mom would be so proud, she thought. Finally Buffy learns to put her stuff away. She moved to the counter and picked up the comb, working it quickly through her hair, then placing it in the drawer. She folded her towel and felt for the towel bar, hanging it carefully before grabbing her robe from the door. She put it on and opened the door, realizing as she reached automatically for the light sw tha that she’d never even turned it on.

Buffy walked slowly to her room, entered it and closed the door behind her, hanging her robe upon its hook. She walked to the bed and felt for her pajamas, pulling them on before moving to her desk. She felt around until she found of hef her old, spiral bound notebooks from college. She’d had space left in all of them at the back…her note-taking abilities less than stellar, even after high school.

She fumbled for a marker and ripped a page from bookbook.

“Dear Willow and Xander,” she printed as carefully as she could, feeling her way with her left hand as she printed with her right. It would be sloppy, she knew, but she thought it should be pretty legible. “I’m sorry. I love you both. Buffy”

Her note to Giles was similar. She couldn’t write much, it was too difficult to tell where her letters were going. She thought about writing to Angel, but couldn’t bear the thought. It was night. He would be out helping people.

She called his number carefully, her fingers finding the pattern on the phone’s keypad without difficulty. How many times had she dialed that number only to hang up before it even rang? She had lost count years ago. Years before boys or Keys or death or pain had separated them so surely that they could never regain the comfort of each other’s arms. She listened to the phone connecting and ringing, one hand on the receiver poised to hang up if someone actually answered. But no one did.

Cordelia’s canned voice came on the line. “You’ve reached Angel Investigations. We help the hopeless. Please leave a message.”

Hopeless. But they couldn’t help her one one could. Willow had tried, god knows, but her healing spells had only sped what the Slayer’s own body was doing already. She couldn’t restore lost sight. Buffy didn’t blame her.

“Angel,” she whispered, his beloved name lilting from her mouth like one last kiss. “I’m sorry I haven’t called before this. Sorry I didn’t get to see you one last time before…anyway, I just…” her voice broke. “I just want you to know I wish you happiness and joy. I wish…I wish I could have seen your son in your arms. If I still had our ring, the heart would point in…always.” She hung up abruptly, afraid that she’d said too much already.

Buffy left the notes on her desk and rose from the chair. She walked decisively to her closet opened it, and reached for the chest that had remained untouched for the last month. The lid opened with practiced ease and she pulled out the tray and set it on the floor next to her. She reached in and felt carefully inside for…yes, there it was. Faith’s knife. Buffy smiled mirthlessly at the irony. It had nearly killed one sr inr in her hands. Now it could kill another. She laid it carefully on the floor by her scarred knees, lifting the tray and replacing it before she closed the chest.

She grabbed the knife and rose to her feet, closing the closet door with absent-minded care. She paced slowly to the door, counting steps and listening intently before opening it. Giles was in his room, her mother’s old room, listening to his ancient records. She smiled wistfully, remembering them together that night and her mother, looking like that Stevie Nicks woman in the long floaty coat. They’d seemed so young to her then.

She walked carefully to the top of the stairs and inched her way down, listening for any sign that her friends had returned. All was silent. She made it to the kitchen, still counting to herself, trying to picture everything in her head. She unlocked the door and stepped out into the cool California night, closing the door behind her. The porch steps should be…there. She sighed with relief. She’d not been out of the house since she’d returned from the hospital, and she hadn’t been certain she remembered this properly. Three steps down into the backyard.

She leaned against the post and placed the knife handle carefully between her knees, pressing them cautiously together to hold it steady. This was too messy to do inside, where her friends would have to clean up after her again. Better out here under the stars. The night was her time and she had missed it this past month, trapped inside where she’d never belonged. The Slayer needed to be free. Since that wasn’t possible, and Faith was in prison, she’d free a new Slayer to take her place, to do the job she could no longer handle.

Buffy grit her teeth and clasped her hands, then felt for the knife blade with her wrists. It was…there. She pushed inward with both wrists until she felt the sharp kiss of the blade, so like the kiss of fangs she’d once felt from her Angel. That gave her the strength to pull her wrists sharply upward. She knew she’d cut deep, nearly to the bone, and blessed Faith for having such a good blade. She felt the blood gush from the deep cuts and her head lolled back as she sank into blissful calm.

*