Title: Bound, Pt 5: Too Many People
By TrinityLast
E-mail: trinitylast@wambtac.com
Disclaimer: I own nothing, ok?
Distribution: My site (Thedge), Starkitty and Forbidden Dreams. Otherwise, ask first.
Rating: If you can watch, you can read. This chapter, anyway. :p
Spoilers: Parts 1-4 of this series, really.
Feedback: Please!? I really really need it. If I don’t get it...I die. :p
Note: Per thousands of requests, here we have Part Five. Wow. Five. Y’know, this was gonna just be a standalone? :p So...wow. Ok, Uhm...for those who asked, Quentin was killed by Spike. I kinda thought that was obvious, but I’m guessing not. So, Spike. He asked if he could, remember?
Anyway, this Part should mostly deal with Buffy’s mom, and I might have a few scenes that’ll hint at what’s been up with Riley and Darla. Plus, of course, what Angel was doing in LA, and what Penn had to do with it. :p
And, I think it’s time we saw someone at college hit on Buffy, don’t you? Just to liven things up a bit.

// = thoughts

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

Chapter One

_______________

"Ok, say that again?"

Buffy frowned and flopped down on the couch next to her mother. "Which part?"

"The part about you being bound."

Buffy sighed. "Mom, that was most of the last two hours. Why did you even have me come over here if you weren’t going to listen?"

Joyce stood up and put some distance between herself and her daughter. "I’m just trying to understand, Buffy. I mean...you say this only happens in the Slayer’s first year, but it happened in your fifth? So, how do you know it’s real? Maybe he’s just trying to get into your pants. He could be using you. He’s a vampire! You’re supposed to kill them, aren’t you? I mean, we haven’t talked about it a lot, but..."

"Try at all, mom. You didn’t want to know." Buffy frowned again and stood up, making an exasperated face. "So, why am I sitting here trying to explain it now? I’m outta here."

She made it almost to the door before her mother called out.

"What?"

"Where are you going?"

Buffy looked around her mother’s house and shook her head. "I’m going home."

**

"You just walked out?"

"Yeah."

Angelus frowned. "Do you think she understood why you left?"

Buffy shook her head. "No, and I’m starting to understand why parents aren’t supposed to know the truth. I think I liked it better when I could just sneak out at night and she never knew."

Her mate chuckled. "I’m sure she knew something was up."

"No! She didn’t. She was completely oblivious. The only reason she knows now is because I told her then. You think she would have given any thought to what my father said if I hadn’t told her? She’d have thought he was crazy, and called me. I’d have denied it, and the whole thing would have gone away."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Huh." Angelus let go of the foot he’d been rubbing and took the other in his skilled hands, kneading the bottom of her heel. "That’s a shame." He hit a particularly sore spot and Buffy moaned.

"I know."

**

"She just left! I want to know the truth, and I want to know now!"

Giles stared at the irate woman at his door and frowned. "Buffy left? In the middle of a sentence?"

"No. But we weren’t done talking."

Giles flashed a wry grin. "It appears that you were."

Joyce jumped back as he slammed the door in her face. As she walked back to her car, she reflected that the Watcher seemed to be making a habit of it.

**

Jenny frowned at Derek. "Ok, so, why can’t we just call and warn them?"

Derek threw the rest of his clothes into a bag and turned to his mate. "Because the demon wants her mother. You remember how they were getting along when we left."

Jenny nodded. "So? I’m sure they’ve worked it out by now."

"Not according to Giles." He sighed. "I like Buffy. A lot. And I know that she’d do everything she could to protect her mother, no matter how they felt about each other at the time. I just don’t want to put her in that position."

Jenny giggled. "My god. I’ve really rubbed off on you. Look at you! You’re good!"

Derek growled. "Take that back!"

"No!"

Derek made a move to grab her and she ran from the room giggling. Derek took off after her but checked his watch first.

He didn’t want to miss the plane.

*******************
Chapter Two
_______________

Buffy dropped the phone back into it’s cradle and glared at it. Angelus came into the room fifteen minutes later and Buffy hadn’t moved. He sat down on the hearth next to her and raised an eyebrow. "Something wrong? Who was that?"

"Giles. Mom showed up demanding answers. Not asking, demanding."

"Demanding?" Angelus ran a hand down her back and started rubbing little circles on the small of her back. "Answers about what?"

Buffy looked down. "You."

"Ok. So, what did he tell her?"

She shrugged. "Nothing. He slammed the door in her face again. Said that if she wasn’t willing to get the answers from me, or to listen to what I had to say, he certainly wasn’t going to help her."

Her mate smiled. "Good for him."

"Hmm." She closed her eyes and leaned into his hand. Angelus smiled and moved them so he was slightly behind her and started rubbing her shoulders.

"Ok, you know that at some point, you actually have to fix this. Or at least make a decision."

"A decision?" Did he have to talk to her while he was doing that with his thumbs? It made it so hard to concentrate...

"You have to decide whether you want to fix the relationship with your mom, or cut her out. *You* have to decide."

Buffy groaned and pulled away. She had to be able to think for this. "Yeah. And I have to decide soon, because we’re coming up on Christmas." She sighed. "But if I decide to let her in...I have to make it clear that you come with. It’s a package deal. And I’m not quite sure how to word that. And even if I *can* word it right, and if it doesn’t split us again, or it does and I somehow fix it, then you have to come to Christmas dinner and deal with her parents. They’re worse. Angel, they’re so much worse! And you’re older, and we’re married, and don’t think that my grandfather won’t have something to say about that. He’ll have something to say. He’ll have a lot to say. He’ll have hours to say. I’d be shocked if we even got to the dinner table before ten, because he has this rule about talking about upsetting topics at Christmas dinner...or any dinner, really, and this is going to be upsetting to him. He’s not going to handle it well, Angel. And that’s only if I can get past my mother. And to get past her, I’ll have to acknowledge that she doesn’t want to know. We’ll have to go back to the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy. You’ll just be my husband. Can I live with my mother looking at us like that? With blinders on? I mean, after all this, we go back to her knowing the barest minimum about my life? How can I go through life associating with my mother when she has no desire to actually be my mother? Angel, how can I..."

Angelus covered her mouth. "Stop." He caught her eyes and shook his head. "Just stop. Take a deep breath, ok?" Buffy nodded. "Ok. I’m going to let go, and you’re going to stop panicking, alright?" She nodded again. "Good."

He took his hand off and started running his hand through her hair while Buffy caught her breath.

"Ok, so what do I do?"

"First question first. Do you want to go to Christmas dinner?"

"Yes. I want to see Grams."

"Ok, so second. What will it take to get us there?"

Buffy cast a wry look at him. "Nothing. I just have to stop bringing it up, and tell her that I’m married, and this is my husband."

"Ok. Let’s go."

**

"Wow." Angelus looked back at the Summers’ house in awe. "She’s really into that ‘denial’ policy, isn’t she?"

Buffy nodded. "Yep. A cup of coffee, a nice intro, and you’re a nice young man her daughter married. Nothing about bindings, or slaying or immortality. So, nothing she can’t handle." Buffy looked down at her hands which were playing with her Claddagh ring. "Nothing not normal. Nothing real."

"Buffy." They’d gotten a few houses down, so Angelus stopped her and turned her to face him. "She can’t handle it. She loves you, Buffy Summers, her daughter. But she can’t handle you, Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. In twenty years, when you still look...twenty, maybe she’ll wake up. But for now...what?"

Buffy was shaking her head. "No. I’m going to get through the holiday. I might even wait until after New Years. But she and I? We’re going to have this out. She needs to accept me. All of me. I’m her daughter, whether she likes it or not. And she is going to have to at the very least acknowledge that. Just...after I’ve seen Grams. Because after we have that conversation, and mom sees who I am...I may not get to again. Not like that."

Angelus frowned at her but didn’t get to reply, because Buffy started walking ahead of him. He followed, still upset.

**

"I’m sorry, Mr. Wills. We can’t do anything about the delayed flight."

Derek sighed and ran his hand across his eyes. "Is there another flight you can get me on in the next hour that goes to LAX instead?"

The flight attendant typed the instructions into her computer and waited. "Yes. There’s a flight leaving Gate fifteen to LAX in ten minutes. There are two seats available, but they aren’t together."

He glanced at Jenny who raised an eyebrow.

"How far apart are they?"

"Two aisles. One on either end."

"And the flight’s how long?"

"Four hours."

Jenny bit her lip, then nodded. They could always trade seats with the people between them if it got to be too much.

Derek turned back to the woman behind the counter. "We’ll take them."

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

Chapter Three

_______________

Derek was getting restless. The flight was still circling LAX, trying to land through the sudden rainstorm that had appeared. It had been circling for the last hour. Jenny was still two seats away, and the business men between them had made it very clear that they weren’t going to change seats with them. They didn’t want, quote, ‘a couple of lovesick nymphos getting it on next to them’, unquote.

And after several hundred years of literally being side-by-side, never apart for more than an hour at the most, Jenny was starting to show signs of illness.

And Derek was getting scared for her.

**

"Alright. What did we get for Randy?"

Angelus glanced at the list and then at the pile of gifts to make sure it was there. He reached over and grabbed a box. "One very large, very noisy toy-gun thing."

Buffy giggled. "Sharon will *hate* it! Ok, wrap it up."

Angelus smirked at her as he dropped the toy into a gift bag and tied the strings closed. He stuck a sticker-tag on the top flap with "To: Randy, From: Buffy and Angel" on it and set it with the others.

"Buffy, don’t you think there’s something wrong when you buy gifts specifically designed to drive the parents up the walls?"

She shook her head. "No way. It’s my job as the screw-up cousin. I was expelled, I was accused of murder a few times, I am the ultimate bad influence. Now, I’ve married a guy *way* too old for me on the spur of the moment without any family there. I’m just stayin’ true to my rep." She opened her mouth to ask about Randy’s brother, Tim, when a loud scream echoed through the mansion. Angelus’ head whipped towards the basement and Buffy frowned.

"Angel? What was that?"

He shook his head absently. "I don’t know. I’ll be back."

He wrenched open the basement door and started down, making sure to lock it behind him. Buffy frowned at his back for a minute, then shrugged and reached for the next gift.

**

"Ok, who’s making the noise?"

Angel hit the bottom step and sighed. Darla was chained to a large, comfortable chair that Angelus had brought down the first week of her captivity. Just because he couldn’t trust her was no reason for her to be miserable. She *was* his Sire. She was filing her nails and looking bored.

Riley was chained a few feet away to a few metal loops embedded into the wall. He did *not* look bored.

He was backed up against the wall, staring in sheer terror at a very large rat.

Angelus had not, despite his threats, bothered to torture Riley. In fact, other than that first session with Darla, he hadn’t bothered with torture at all. His days and nights were effectively filled with his mate, and he didn’t see the need. The only time he came down was to feed them, and even then, he usually had one of the new minions do it.

Angelus raised an eyebrow. "It’s a *rat*, Riley."

"I hate rats."

Darla shook her head. "He’s trained to take on almost all the bigger demons. I give a description, he gives a name. It’s actually pretty impressive. And he can’t stand rats. There’s something wrong with this picture."

Angelus sighed and, grabbing the rat by it’s tail, threw it into a sewer grate. Riley immediately calmed down.

"Better?"

Riley nodded sheepishly. Angelus shook his head and walked over to the commando. "You’re starting to be just a bit more trouble than you’re worth. No." Riley’s eyes had gotten wide, thinking Angelus meant to kill him. "I’m not gonna kill you. If I let you go, you think you could go back to Iowa, and just, oh, I don’t know...disappear?"

Riley frowned. "I’d rather not."

There was a pause. "You’re getting at something."

"Well...I’ve had some time to think." He gave a wry smile. "And I think I’d want to stick around. I’m remembering all the guys who used to hit on Buffy right in front of me." This time the smile was actually evil. Angelus raised an eyebrow. "I was just thinking, if it happened, and you had someone to let you know *when* it happened...I can think of several guys who I’d *love* to see chained down here."

Angelus reached for the manacles. "If you do that, and I find I can trust you, how do you feel about eternity?"

Riley just gaped.

**

The plane finally landed and Derek bolted out of his seat the minute the seatbelt sign went off. He’d just reached Jenny’s side and had taken her hand when she passed out.

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

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Chapter Four

_______________

Derek looked down at Jenny, asleep in his arms. A day in a hotel room had her feeling a bit better, and he’d managed to get in touch with Giles in the meantime, something he could not do from where they’d been staying in France for some reason. Buffy was at her mother’s tonight, so they could afford to take a night out and talk to the watcher. Even though Christmas wasn’t until the next night, Buffy wouldn’t be available, because she apparently had to be there for Angelus to meet her grandparents.

That was *not* something Derek envied him.

**

Buffy held Angelus’ hand and stood in front of the doorway, poised to knock. He looked down at her after a minute and lifted the hand holding the bag of gifts, using one finger to push a piece of hair off her face.

"Hey. Just knock. It’ll be fine. I thought you wanted to shock them?"

She shook her head. "Just him. I want her to like you. I really, really do." The Slayer turned and looked up at him, dropping her hand. "She’s the only relative I really have that hasn’t lectured me, or started looking at me differently since the burning of the school incident. It’s important."

Angelus nodded. "Ok. Well, if she’s anything like her granddaughter..." he leaned down and kissed her forehead, "she’ll like me. Just knock."

Buffy sighed and lifted her hand. A minute later, she managed to make it move, and knocked. The door swung open to reveal a friendly-looking woman of medium height. She smiled and strode foreword, hugging Buffy.

"Oh, my Darling Girl! I’ve been wondering when you were coming!"

Buffy sighed and hugged her grandmother back while Angelus stood there, smiling at his wife and leaning against the door. Something to be said for family gatherings after all, if they made Buffy smile like this.

**

"Why are you all standing in the doorway? Come in the house!"

Buffy and her grandmother broke apart and the older woman turned and started back into the house, yelling, "Harold, knock it off! I was hugging my grand-baby!"

"Damnit, Suzan, we’re not all sitting in here for our health. We want to see her too." The man came into the foyer and hugged Buffy, who tentatively hugged him back. "There you are. You’re not any taller. Haven’t you been eating your carrots?"

"Yes, gramps." The blond took off her coat and turned to hang it to have it taken by Angelus. He handed the gifts to Joyce, who simply nodded and put the bag under the tree. Then, to Angelus’ surprise, she came over and hugged him. Then she whispered into his ear.

"I’m so sorry. I’ve been...talking to Mr. Giles. You take care of my baby, you hear me?"

The vampire nodded and hugged her back, flashing a smile at his wife, who’s eyes were bugging out of their sockets.

Joyce let go and led them into the living room where Buffy was promptly assaulted by aunts, uncles and cousins. Angelus watched for a minute, and then Harold came over to him and held out a hand. "And you are...?"

Angelus stared down at the hand before taking it. He met the ‘older’ man’s eyes and said, in a completely even tone, "I’m Angel. Buffy’s husband."

The silence in the room was deafening.

**

After about a minute, Joyce decided to break the silence. "Buffy, why don’t you help me in the kitchen?" She led her daughter into the other room and gave Angelus’ shoulder a gentle squeeze on the way. From the look on his face, she’d made the right decision, and the two women left the room.

Harold was first. "Married! MARRIED! When did my granddaughter get married? How did none of us know?"

Angelus met the man’s eyes. "We got married a little over three months ago. You didn’t know because it happened so fast."

Suzan smiled from her husband’s side, came over and hugged Angelus. "Welcome to the family."

"SUZAN! Get away from him. We don’t know anything about the man!"

She turned and glared. "Buffy chose to marry him. I trust her judgement completely. Therefore, we know all I need to know. And I am going to welcome him, as she obviously hoped we all would when she decided to come at all!" Suzan nodded at her other daughter’s face. "Yes. Buffy almost didn’t come. Because of this exact reaction."

Lilith Summers’ face softened and she nodded at the room and headed into the kitchen. Harold just stood in stoney silence.

Angelus regarded him for a minute before stepping towards him and holding out his hand again. "It’s an honor to meet you. I have heard a lot about you." First was a lie. The second was true...but in the name of Buffy’s happiness, the vampire was willing to compromise.

Harold Summers stared at the hand and then looked back up at this man’s face. He then turned on his heel and walked out. Suzan let out a loud sigh of derision.

"I’ll go get him."

Angelus sighed and closed his eyes. Then they popped open, and he looked down. Looking up at him was a little boy with sandy hair and blue eyes.

"I’m Danny. Do you wuv Bussy?"

He grinned. "Yeah. With everything I am."

Danny grinned back, then pointed at the Christmas tree in the corner. "Can you wift me up? I wanted to put the staw on top, but I was too showt."

The vamp grinned again nodded, picking the kid up. A man handed Danny the star and he giggled as he stuck it on top, crookedly.

When Angelus put Danny down, everyone in the room was smiling at him.

//Guess I passed the test.//

Riley and Darla were a few steps from the building when Jenny suddenly screamed, her slayer strength, which had been holding her up, giving out and making her fall and slip out of Derek's arms, her leg twisting under her in an unnatural position, accentuated with a very pronounced snap. Darla grabbed Riley's arm, then whirled around and spotted the trio behind the trees . Her eyes flashed at the building for a minute, sensing for anything odd, and immediately picked up the dozens of vampires inside.

END

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