APOLOGY: Okay, guys, I know it's been a few weeks. But I hope you find chapter 6 worth waiting for. This is the first half: the second half of the chapter will be up next week. Unfortunately, it will be another wait before I can even look at chapter 7, so I hope these tide you over until then. Time? What's that? Any relation to the other thing I know nothing about…sleep?

RATING: R (for this half.)

DISCLAIMER: Even though Joss has said that BtVS was meant to be a show about which fanfic was written, he can't keep the WB or Fox from doing things like taking down AleXander's transcripts. So, I can only reiterate that I don't own any copyrights to the characters who are owned by Joss, the WB and Mutant enemy, and that no infringement is intended. I just own my own depraved thoughts about how the story should go…

ACKNOWLEGEMENTS: The usual suspects. See Part 1

WARNING: This two-part chapter has a couple of plot twists that might alarm some of you. Keep in mind that I am a fan of strong, kick-ass Buffy and that the title of this section is "Journey." We haven't arrived where I intend to go yet, but we can't get there if I don't go here first. Trust me.

RANT: When I started to write this, I had just read a spoiler for Harsh Light of Day. And I hated it. I hated it even more when I actually saw the ep. I hated that Buffy slept with Parker. No, hate isn't really what I mean. I loathe and despise the fact that Buffy slept with anyone but Angel. Even though the ep as a whole rocked, I love Jane Espenson's work, and she wrote a lot of really great lines for this ep. My reaction may be irrational when I write fanfic in which Buffy sleeps with people who aren't Angel. But even when I do, it's always clear that Buffy loves Angel most, and is only with other people because he is either temporarily dead, or for some other reason involving a certain outrageous "happiness clause." But I always felt that in the show, Buffy should be Angel's and Angel's alone. I just feel…violated. Because the truth is I am a diehard romantic B/A shipper and it just seems that for Buffy to be with anyone else is not only a violation of what B/A feel for each other, it is a question of Buffy being forced to settle for less than she deserves. Which is Angel. So, at least in my fic, she's gonna get him.

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The knocking at the cabin door roused her. Angelus was already there, taking the inevitable tray, and exchanging brief words with the sailor appointed to serve them. In the few hours since she had fallen asleep, the light in the cabin had gone from unrelieved black to murky gray. Still, Buffy tried to get a glimpse of the man delivering her breakfast. Angelus, looming in the doorway, obscured most of her view of him, but what she saw was not reassuring. The sailor looked…hard. The eyes staring unflinchingly into Angelus' were every bit as cold and soulless as the demon's. Buffy suspected she would not be getting any help from the men on board this ship if she ever managed to get away from Angelus.

"Do the crewmen know what you are, or do they just think you're selling me into slavery?" she asked as Angelus shut the cabin door. He chuckled at her exasperated tone.

"Does it matter?" he said taking the tray to the table and setting it down. "In either case, they're not apt to help you, now, are they?"

"Are you so sure?" she said, pushing herself into a sitting position. "I mean, it's one thing to cut a deal with someone who's every bit the unscrupulous bastard you are. It's another thing when said unscrupulous bastard is a bloodsucking fiend from hell. Even a gang of cutthroats might think twice about siding with a monster." Angelus laughed outright at that.

"You should know better than that, sweetheart," he said, and began walking toward her. He hadn't bothered getting fully dressed, yet. He wore only his pants, an undershirt and the silver jewelry he had always worn. He looked graceful and deadly and she hated the fact that she was growing wet just thinking of the things he had done to her a few hours ago, right before dawn…things she knew he was going to do to her again and again if she couldn't get away. He continued speaking. "Remember Ethan Rayne? Willie the Snitch? Since the first humans overran our home, demons have been subverting them, finding those willing to betray their own kind for the right price. You think Rayne and Willie are the only ones who've ever trafficked with us? They're just two small strands in a web that spans the globe, a web that's been spun over the course of centuries. The men on this ship, Buff? Part of the same web. They know what I am, and they know what it would cost them to cross me." He had reached the bed and bent over her, his hand stroking her cheek with deceptive gentleness.

"If you're little trick with the chopstick had worked, lover, you'd be spending the rest of this voyage chained to this bed. Very probably with your legs spread for any member of the crew who decided that you were too hot a piece to let go to waste. But make no mistake. When the boat docked and my boys came to meet it, the crew would be turning my ashes over to them with all apologies…and turning you over to them to visit their anger upon."

"Thanks for the warning," she said sweetly, pulling away from the unnerving caress. Made awkward with her still-bound hands, she nevertheless managed to wrap herself in the bath towel that was tangled in the bed sheets. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, preparatory to getting up. "I'll just have to wait 'til we dock and I can take out my own anger on all of--" He caught her before she fell, dizziness coming over her as soon as she tried to stand.

"Rough night?" he asked with mock solicitousness even though he held her steady against the inexplicably whirling room. When things slowed down and she recovered her balance, she pushed away from him once more.

"Blood loss," she said coldly. "I guess it's catching up with me." He said nothing but smirked down at her. She ignored him, heading for the bathroom.

Today's dress was white cotton trimmed in eyelet lace and embellished with tiny ribbon bows in the center of which were even tinier blue ribbon roses. A larger blue ribbon rose decorated the bodice just above her breasts. It was cut identically to the dress she had worn before, and similarly, it came with matching undergarments: eyelet lace panties and slip. Once more, her silken bonds were no hindrance to dressing. Buffy stood on tiptoe to see if she could get an idea how she looked in the tiny mirror. The number of ribbons and roses had been kept to a bare minimum, so the dress wasn't too fussy. The effect, rather, was of feminine softness, of delicacy and innocence. What a crock, she thought bitterly. Over the past two days, Angelus had thoroughly stripped away whatever innocence she had clung to after the first time he had appeared. No, she felt anything but delicate or innocent. But neither did she feel strong. Which was a pity. She was going to have to be strong to get the better of Angelus.

Sighing, she bowed to the inevitable and left the bathroom.

He was seated at the table, waiting for her. His eyes flicked over the dress in appreciation. She was barefoot and dressed in bridal white. Buffy forced down hysterical laughter. What was the old saying about keeping a woman barefoot and pregnant? Angelus would never make her pregnant, but he would repeatedly perform the act which could make her so had his seed been vital, and not as unliving as he was himself.

As she walked toward him, Buffy briefly considered renewing her demand to be allowed to feed herself. But the second chair was clear across the cabin, and Angelus was seated before the food tray, expectantly. She slipped onto his lap, hating how well she fit there, how comfortable her body was with his. The smile with which he rewarded her seeming docility was chilling. She lowered her lashes and leaned against him, allowing him to feed her.

She must have slept too much. Or maybe the lack of training was getting to her. But she felt enervated and physically depleted. Then, too, there was the worrisome matter of the bruises that weren’t fading as quickly as normal, as well as that morning’s dizziness. It had to be the blood-loss, she thought as she dutifully swallowed her soup. Drinking her blood made Angelus stronger, even as it weakened her…

But he hadn’t drunk from her in any appreciable way since two nights before. Angelus held a mug of tea to her lips, and she sipped it thoughtfully. She should have been recovering, she realized, getting stronger. If blood-loss really were responsible for her dizziness, it should have affected her when she woke up yesterday, not this morning. Instead, she was more debilitated, not less so. She couldn’t ever remember feeling this fragile, this helpless…

Except on her eighteenth birthday. Her green eyes widening as the clues came together, she straightened up in Angelus’ lap, staring into his cold brown eyes accusingly.

"You’re poisoning me," she said slowly. "Like the Watchers did."

He smirked back heartlessly, spoon poised in his hand.

"Steal from the best, I always say," Unbelievably, he attempted to feed her again. She turned her head. He chuckled and put the spoon back in the bowl. "Oh, c’mon Buff. I’m not trying to kill you, just taking a page out of the Watcher’s book. They had a millenium of practice keeping Slayers weak. And before the invention of convenient intravenous delivery systems, the best way to introduce the compounds was in a Slayer’s food. After your birthday, I confronted Giles about the issue. Angel was concerned about after effects. Giles showed him his journals. Your boy Angel did a lot of research on the various herbs they used before he was satisfied that you would be okay. Oh, and on the couplets of the binding spell they use to make sure the ingredients have the proper effect. And of course, I remembered every single herb and every single line of the spell.."

She felt tears gathering behind her eyelids, knew that she wouldn’t be able to keep them from spilling over.

"That’s why you aren’t drinking from me. Not because you give a damn what it does to me, not that it would matter to you if you took too much and I died," she said bitterly. "You just don’t want the drugs in my system to weaken you."

"Why, darling, I’m crushed. You make it sound as if I don’t care. I told you, Buff. I don’t want to kill you. And if I did, there are ways of doing it that would give me far more pleasure than stuffing you full of organic compounds. Far more pleasure." His voice and the look in his eyes as they raked over her left her in no doubt as to precisely how Angelus would take pleasure in killing her. "The thing is, vampire physiology is pretty impervious to most things that affect humans. Goes along with being immortal. Nicotine, alcohol, some of the synthetic hallucinogens and stronger experimental drugs may affect us as much as they do our victims, but that's the exception rather than the rule. Add to that the fact that the spell makes the target rather specific, and the drugs in your system, my love, aren’t going to inconvenience me at all."

"I won’t take them," she said fiercely, angrily brushing away tears. "I’d rather starve."

"And if it ever suits me to let you starve, that’ll be just fine. But it doesn’t. Give it up, lover. I have the upper hand. I will always have it. I told you that you draw your next breath at my sufferance. Why are you surprised that what you eat is also at my pleasure?"

"You bastard," she said. He said nothing, but his amusement faded. He looked at her coldly, lifting the spoon once more to her mouth. His expression was implacable. She couldn’t look away from his compelling eyes. Lying eyes. Deep, chocolate brown, velvety soft and bottomless as an ocean. The truth of them was other: a demonic, glaring saffron. She was watching his dark brown eyes as he pressed the spoon to her lips. Helpless, she opened for him, feeling the tears slide down her cheeks and mingle with the tainted broth.

He made her finish it all, his tender concern a mockery. Her tears fell faster and harder as she drank. When he finally set down the spoon, she was sobbing openly. He was poisoning her, and she was helpless to prevent it. Her body wouldn't die from what he was doing…but in some ways, everything that made her Buffy would be murdered. Her Slayer's strength and reflexes were going to be stripped from her, had already been seriously compromised.

She was trembling and weeping in his arms, and the demon in him was utterly enchanted. Angelus pushed their chair away from the table and rose with her in his arms.

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The rest of this chapter will be posted next week. There are more chapters to come.

PART 5                    FEMFIC              PART 6b           FEEDBACK