The Silken Cage: Capture

 

DEDICATION: Tam, Lex, Arcadia and bec, for very many reasons.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Since 1998, my BtVS fanfiction had been hosted pretty much exclusively at a site built for me by a friend.  Unfortunately, the company providing the domain did away with the service in 2011 and the archive was taken down.  I plan to move all my BtVS fanfiction here, to Adult Fanfiction Net, and to complete the stories that have been languishing.  Capture, the first story in The Silken Cage Series, was initially posted in the summer of 1999.  There have been a few very, very minor tweaks to grammar and syntax in this re-posting.

****************

The Silken Cage Series

Capture

Part 1

by

Margot Le Faye

Time: Fall of 1999

She could not expect life to be fair. Buffy understood that. She could fight the forces of darkness every night of her life, and she could win victory after victory. But sooner or later she would lose, would go down into the unending darkness from which she protected the innocents under her care. And in return…she would lead a lonely and brief existence.

Once, she thought it might be otherwise. Once, her life had held the brilliant, fragile hope of unending love to keep her safe from the gathering dark. It didn't seem too much to ask of fate to be allowed to love Angel. In a lesson taught with exquisite pain she learned that she was wrong. She learned, finally and irrefutably, that good does not always conquer and that the tide of evil could be stemmed but never completely turned back. And that love, no matter how deep or how true, could not protect her from these simple, bitter facts.

So, she learned to accept the half-loaves she could have and not think about what she couldn't. She could have friends to share her burdens, the opportunity of a college education. And the memory of a love that was eternal, even if the experience of that love had been more fleeting than snowfall in summer.

She accepted that she was the Slayer and that her path was not to be an easy one.

When he walked away from her, she accepted that he would rather leave her empty and aching for him than risk becoming again the monster who had taunted and nearly destroyed her. That he loved her too much to risk hurting her ever again. That his only safety from the depth of her need was to put the distance of several cities between them. That her only hope for finding someone safe to love was for the one it was not safe for her to love to remove himself from her life. She understood the dangers and the reasons and the needs.

But she couldn't quite forgive him for them.

So, Cordelia's visit rubbed her in all the raw places of her heart. As they sat with Willow in one of Sunnydale's newest coffee shops, downing sugary mochaccinos to offset the healthy, low-calorie salads they were having for lunch, the former high school cheerleader bubbled over with her description of life in Hollywood. While her friends toiled away in academia, living in the Bohemian poverty common to college students, she went on auditions for famous directors and dined in the same restaurants as international heartthrobs who were so often only a table away. And, oh, yeah, she paid her rent with the job she did for Angel.

Buffy's Angel.

Who, according to Cordelia, was doing just fine. He was as happy as his curse would allow him to be, helping people fight their inner demons, making amends for the evil he had wrought. And being helped by the sexy female police detective Cordelia casually mentioned spent a lot of time hanging around the agency.

"Police detective?" Buffy couldn't help asking.

"Yeah. Kate. She's really cool. Takes the whole demon-with-a-soul thing in stride," Cordelia said, oblivious as ever to the effect her words were having on her audience. Willow glanced anxiously at Buffy. But the Slayer had been too wounded, too often, to allow herself to be hurt once more.

"That's good," Buffy said. "I'm glad he has new…friends." She remembered the very second time she had seen him…she remembered every moment she had ever spent in his presence. But that was the first time she had seen the hint of sorrow and remorse that were his burden. She had jokingly asked if he knew what it was like to have friends…and he hadn't been able to answer, making her realize that he was desperately lonely. It would be months before she understood that his loneliness had lasted a century, years before she comprehended how deeply lonely it was possible to be.

"Oh, well, Angel is doing okay," Cordelia continued in her happy, thoughtless manner. "Better than ever, in fact. He's super-strong and stuff."

"Cordy, he's a vampire," Buffy said, amused. "They're always super-strong."

"Well, duh!" Cordy said rolling her eyes. "I mean he's even more strong than before. Super-strong, even for a vampire. Which comes in real handy when he goes up against other demons. Doyle told us it has something to do with the fact that he took so much blood from a Slayer. So I guess he has you to thank, huh?"

Willow choked on her mochaccino. Buffy just stared at Cordy, dumbfounded. The other girl went on, blithely unaware of the consternation her observation had caused. "Anyway, you should see him in action, these days. Kate says she has a heck of a time explaining to her superiors how come when she goes on call, there are demolished walls and doors ripped off their hinges. But she doesn't complain too hard, you know. She likes Angel too much for that."

"Oh. Good." Buffy whispered, ruthlessly pushing back the pain. He had left her, and another woman had found him. Would he turn to this Kate --not for happiness: that would lift the curse. But maybe it wouldn't be dangerous if he spent time with her just to ease the loneliness a bit? Would he share with the police detective his love of books, reading to her the poems he had read to Buffy, playing the music he enjoyed for her, showing her the art he loved? Los Angeles was full of art galleries and bookstores and theaters and she had to stop thinking about this, had to stop torturing herself with images of her beloved finding comfort with another woman. Didn't he deserve comfort?

Didn't she? The resentful thought flashed across her mind, and once more, Buffy ruthlessly pushed it away. She was only hurting herself. She forced her attention back to Cordelia, who had continued to blather on about life in the big city.

"So, now that I've caught you guys up on the sitch in LA, what's doing in the 'Dale?"

Willow jumped in, assuring Cordy that all was well. She and Oz were taking a number of classes together, and talking about moving into an apartment during their sophomore year. Xander had shocked all of them by joining the army, where he seemed to be impressing the officers above him. And Buffy, well, Buffy…

"Is doing just fine, too," Buffy smiled.

"Still terminally single, though huh?" Cordy said with something approaching sympathy.

"I…actually am involved with someone," Buffy found herself saying. Willow stared at her. "His name is Riley. Riley Finn." Buffy didn't mention that he was an adept sorcerer or that their involvement was strictly platonic, a partnership in fighting evil. Riley made it quite clear that while he didn't want things to remain platonic, he wouldn’t rush her into changing matters. She didn't have the heart to tell him that matters would never change. Sooner or later, he'd figure it out for himself.

Or she'd be dead, and it wouldn't matter.

"He's a senior," she added.

"Oh, older man, eh?" Cordy twinkled. "I should have figured that. Seems to be your thing." Willow groaned. "What?" Cordy asked, honestly confused.

Cordy pressed Buffy for details.  Buffy could truthfully tell her that Riley was tall, athletic, studious. Oh, and he had the nicest blue eyes. Cordy was suitably impressed, but Buffy saw to it that the conversation moved on. Over the course of Cordy's visit, though, other questions came up, other conversations. Almost imperceptibly, Buffy embroidered her white lie about Finn and his importance to her. She never spoke an untruth. Rather, it was the weight she gave to certain words, the tone of her voice. She was hurting, but she didn't want Angel to know that. She didn't want anyone to know that. So she tried to make Cordy think she wasn't pining over Angel, hoping that word would get back to him. And a tiny, unacknowledged, part of her couldn't help hoping that if he knew that, maybe he would regret the finality of his break with her. Buffy was unaware that she instead convinced the other girl that she was completely over Angel, had moved on and was happily in love.

Which was what Cordy told Angel when she got back from her visit.

"I knew you'd want to know," she said brightly as she cleaned up her desk for the evening, before heading out to her drama class. "I mean, since you can't be with her and you left her so that she could find happiness, you'd want to know that she found it, right?"

"Right," Angel managed to choke. He tried to listen to the rest of her account of her visit to Sunnydale, but he couldn't make himself focus on her words. He somehow managed to make reasonable responses at the appropriate times, so that Cordy chattered on, unaware of his distraction. But he could only think of one thing: the woman he loved more than life, the woman he had come back from Hell for, the woman who had offered him her blood and her life in order to save him, had moved on to another man.

Cordy said goodnight, leaving Angel to his thoughts. Which were all of Buffy. Her waif-like naiveté when he first saw her, her spunky courage, her incomparable beauty, the exquisite gift of her love. And he thought again of the pain, the hurt in her eyes when he had told her that he had to leave her. Thought again of his own words to her, that she deserved more than the freak show he could offer her. That she deserved to be loved by someone who could walk with her in daylight.

He had no idea it would hurt so much to realize she had found that someone. His time in Hell had taught him nuances and subtleties of pain that his conscious mind could barely comprehend. Somehow, this was worse. He had left her, knowing it was best for her, knowing that she was a prize any man would fall to his knees and thank God for, knowing that someone had to come along and fall in love with her. Buffy was too full of life, too loving, too desirable to be alone for long. And who knew better than he how generous her heart was, how ready to give and receive love? How deserving of it. Angel had known all along she would move beyond the heartbreak of their own doomed love, and find someone to make her happy.

But he could still feel the clenching of her soft body around his own, the one time they had made love, still taste the wine-rich savor of her blood on his tongue. He loved her, and the idea that he would never be with her again had been killing him by slow degrees ever since he had returned from Hell. If he lived a thousand years, a thousand life times, he would never move beyond his love for her, his need, his desire.

The truth was, he deserved that torment. The agony of loving and losing Buffy Summers was an almost gentle punishment for the sins that lay heavy on his soul. Buffy, though, didn't deserve to suffer. Didn't deserve a life of fruitless yearning and unfulfilled longing. She deserved to be worshipped and adored, deserved to be kissed breathless and loved through long passion-filled nights. She deserved to have children nurse at her breast, to guide them to adulthood, to see them have children of their own. She deserved a life of laughter and joy and sunlight. She deserved all the things he could never give her, even if there had been a way for him to make love to her and retain his soul.

And now, she would have those things.

Images tumbled across his mind, bright and fragile as a flight of butterflies: Buffy in an exquisite white wedding gown, radiant, surrounded by friends who shared her joy; Buffy swinging a gleeful toddler up in her arms and spinning with him in a field of flowers until they both tumbled, laughing, to the ground; Buffy pitching a softball to a gangly teenaged boy who had her eyes while a slightly younger girl practiced her mother's cheerleading moves nearby; Buffy, her hair just touched with silver, smiling up into the eyes of a man whose features Angel could not quite see, as they danced at their daughter's wedding…

It could not be said that standing there, remembering the only woman he would ever love and contemplating the future she now had before her, he experienced a moment of happiness.

But a thought came to him. His decision to leave her had been the right one. He had taken himself out of her life so that she would be free to find the love he wanted for her. She had done this, and he could only be glad for her. Relief swept over him. Relief…and some other feeling too long unexperienced for him to recognize. In realizing that his sacrifice had paved the way for her own happiness, Angel felt one pure and pristine moment of contentment and peace…

******************

Kate died an hour later, drained so quickly of blood that she felt no pain.

Which was a damned shame, Angelus reflected as he let her limp body fall from his hands. The bitch had been such a whiny do-gooder, and clearly so hot for his equally whiny alter-ego, that it might have been fun to draw things out slowly, make her suffer for every moment of humanity she had tried to make him feel. But, hey, he had been hungry. And what she had made him feel wasn't a patch on what someone else had made him feel.

Angelus grinned wolfishly. Ah, Buffy. He owed her so much more this time around. Not least for turning what should have been his triumphant entry into the demon dimension of Hell into a century of entrapment inside a body controlled by a mindless, gibbering fool. He had been about to deliver the world to its rightful owners, its original demon inhabitants, but she had closed the gateway, sending him into Hell with the soul restored. He would have to think of the perfect reward for her treachery.

His grin widened as he used his bloody hands to scribble a simple message on the white upholstery of Kate's sofa. When it came to conjuring the perfect reward for Buffy's treachery, he really didn't have to think very long or very hard. Because he knew exactly how to get to her.

With a song in his heart, Angelus left Kate on the floor of her apartment and headed off to plan his revenge.

***************

It didn't take Doyle and Whistler long to figure out what had happened. Not that Angelus was trying at all hard to hide his transformation. The scrawled "I'm Back" he'd written in Kate's blood, which had led the police to think she'd been murdered by one or another of the ex-cons who had finished serving the sentence to which her work had condemned him, had not been lost on the two demons. But then, he wanted them to know that the Scourge of Europe had returned, that all their angst, all their sacrifices, their efforts to stop him had been for naught. That no matter how often they restored his soul, eventually, he would fight free.

Cordy lost no time leaving LA. Remembering Angelus' previous behavior, and his interest in tormenting and killing Buffy's friends as a way of tormenting Buffy herself, Cordy put as much distance between herself and the city he was now stalking as she could manage. There was a lot to be said for building an acting career in New York, after all. Whistler disappeared to inform certain others what had gone down.

So it was Doyle who had to carry the news to Sunnydale.

******************

Buffy was apprehensive from the moment she got the phone call from Giles, asking her to come by his apartment as soon as her last class finished. She knew her mentor too well to miss the strained tone of his voice, and his evasive answers when she asked him why he wanted to see her so quickly only heightened her uneasiness. Her classes were over by early afternoon, and she could usually fit in a few hours of studying before she trained with Giles then started patrol. For him to insist on seeing her immediately always meant something was up. Something not of the good.

Stopping only to drop off her textbooks and pick up a few stakes, she made it to Giles apartment in record time. His expression when he opened the door was as grave as she expected.

"Okay, I'm here, what's the up," she said briskly as she walked in. Willow and Oz were already sitting on the couch, Xander, in his fatigues, stood beside them. Riley was on the other side. She nodded a curt 'hello' to them before turning back to Giles.

"So, Whistler was right," said a voice with a lilting Irish accent. Buffy turned sharply. A shadow moved amongst the bookshelves. When the owner of the shadow came fully into the room, he looked, at first glance, to be a charmingly boyish young man not much older than Buffy herself. Buffy was not deceived. If he knew Whistler the odds of him being human were next to non-existent. "Once Angel saw you, everything else was inevitable. Sooner or later, he'd have to love you. Sooner or later, that had to make him happy. Sooner or later, that'd lift the curse."

"And you are?" she asked, letting the stake slide down her sleeve and into the palm of her hand, just in case.

"Doyle…was an associate of Angel's in LA," Giles said.

"Was?" Buffy whispered, apprehension mounting. Willow was clutching Oz's hand like a lifeline, Xander wasn't even trying to crack wise. Riley, Giles and Doyle, whatever or whoever he was, each looked too grave, too serious for the news to be anything but awful. Intuitively, she knew. Something bad had happened to Angel. Giles had said… was. She came to the only conclusion possible. Oh, God! He had left her, and had died, and how was she supposed to go on knowing that? She closed her eyes, the stake dropping from her nerveless fingers. "Please, no." she whispered. Futile. Her pleas always went unanswered.

"I'm sorry Buffy," Giles said. "But…it seems Cordelia told him something that gave him a moment of peace or contentment. We have no idea, of course…"

No, it wasn't what she had feared; it was the one thing that could possibly be worse. Hot tears came to Buffy's eyes as guilt and remorse flooded her. Willow's gasp told her that her friend had figured out what must have happened. The redhead surged off the couch and went to pull the Slayer into a comforting embrace.

"You couldn't have known, Buffy," she said, her own tears gathering. "How could anyone have guessed that would be all it took?"

"What would be all it would take?" Giles asked gently but firmly.

"I…wanted him to think it was okay," Buffy began. "He left me so I could move on. I wanted him to think I had." And she had wanted him to suffer, just a little, because his leaving had made her suffer so much. But she had never wanted or imagined anything like this

"Ah. You made Cordelia think that there was something more between you and Riley than there was?" Giles said. "Willow is right. I can't imagine him being happy with that news."

"And if happiness were the only trigger for the curse, we'd all be sleeping sound in our beds," Doyle said. "But it wasn't. A moment of contentment will do. And I guess believing you were happy was enough."

Buffy looked at him, and his immortal demonic heart, usually above human suffering, was touched by an emotion he rarely felt: pity and regret. This poor kid didn't deserve what she was going through, let alone what she was going to have to do.

"It's gonna be all right," Willow said firmly. "I still have the spell. We just need to find another Orb of Thesula and get on the next bus to LA, because the range of the spell--"

With another sob, Buffy pulled free of her friend's arms.

"Buffy, what--" the redhead began.

"Not this time," Buffy whispered brokenly.

"I don't…Giles?" Willow was bewildered.

"She finally got it," Xander said bitterly. He shook his head. God, he shouldn't be feeling any triumph right now. He loved Buffy and this was killing her. He would give anything to be wrong about this. But he knew he wasn't. He spelled it out for Will. "As long as that curse has that stupid clause, there will be a chance for Angelus to come out. How often can you do the spell, Will? How many lives are going to be lost while Angelus feeds, until we can bring Angel back? And would Angel really thank us for letting Angelus slaughter even more innocents?"

"But…he's done so much good…" Willow said.

"And as Angelus, he will try to make up for that by doing as much evil as he possibly can," Riley pointed out. He was reluctant to hurt Buffy, but they all had to face what this meant. Xander cast him a look. Riley returned it. What else this might mean to both of them personally, as regarded Buffy, was an issue that could wait.

"If we stop him quickly…" Willow faltered on.

"Will, he doesn't deserve to be forced to remember the evil the demon does when he isn't in control, does he?" Oz said gently. "Doesn't deserve to live with the constant threat of losing his soul hanging over his head." Willow struggled with their words, but she knew they were right. Ever since Angel had come back from hell, she had tried to find a way of keeping his soul permanent, and getting rid of that stupid, dangerous, damnable "happiness clause." Her research had gone nowhere. Every lead she had followed had turned into a dead end. She had concluded long ago that what she sought didn't exist. Only stubbornness and her love for her best friend had kept her looking. She turned to the quietly weeping Buffy.

"I'm so sorry," Willow said helplessly, having no better comfort to offer. The blonde Slayer met her eyes, and Willow saw the pain there. And something else. Determination. Willow ached for her friend. She knew what that look meant. Buffy had faced what had to be done, what she herself, as the Slayer, would have to do. For one minute, Willow fiercely hated whatever force had made Buffy the Chosen, and then let her go through so much suffering. It was the most unfair, unjust thing Willow could imagine.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the only person in the world who had a hope of stopping Angelus, the Scourge of Europe. She would drive a stake into his heart, fulfilling her sacred duty.

At the cost of her own heart.

******************

Buffy made the arrangements quickly, thoroughly. They were going to have to take the fight to him, and that meant Buffy would have to be in LA indefinitely. She spoke to her professors about taking incompletes in all her classes. With luck, she could finish up the remaining coursework between semesters, and be ready for the Spring Term. Without luck…Buffy refused to let herself got here.

It only took a day to pack up her dorm room, and move everything back to her mother's home. Ironically, Joyce was in LA herself, on an art-buying expedition for her gallery. Buffy planned to call her when she got to the city. She didn't bother unpacking her boxes, just transferred what she would need into a suitcase. After she packed, she spent the afternoon writing the letter that was needed, addressed to her mother and Giles. She would leave it with Oz, the practical one. He would understand that she wasn't being morbid, or pessimistic. She wouldn't dwell on the possibility of not winning the coming fight, but she had no illusions. This would be the hardest battle of her life. She had to face the fact that it was possible she might not walk away from it. While her friends didn't need to be worried about that possibility unless it became a reality, she needed to deal with it, now.

I won't run, this time. I'm stronger, now. But so is he. If I don't come back, it's because we both lost, or because he won. And if he wins, there will be another Slayer called. Give her my diaries. She can use them to learn his weaknesses.

Buffy hesitated. She knew that if she didn't come back, her mother, Giles and all her friends would be devastated. She groped for words that would make this easier for them. Finally, she told them the thing that made going through this bearable, the deepest truth she knew.

Don't mourn me. If I die, it will not only be in the line of duty, it will be doing something important to me: killing the thing that killed the man I love. I'm going after him to avenge Jenny, and Giles, and everyone he ever hurt. Especially Angel. If I can kill Angelus, then maybe Angel will be at peace in the aether. But if I don't win, remember that the only thing I ever wanted was to be with Angel. If I don't come back, then I'm with him. And I'm happy…

She finished the letter, telling them that she loved them. Then she called Willow and said she needed to go out that night. On what she coldly realized might be the last night of her life, Buffy Summers wanted --no, she desperately needed-- to go dancing at the Bronze.

Willow didn't argue. She understood. Buffy was going up against the most intimate enemy she would ever face, the demon who wore her lover's body. Of course she needed her friends, needed some illusion of normalcy, needed a moment to forget. Willow made the call to the others, and they agreed to meet at the club at eight o’clock that night.