destructo-girl.com

"Angel's Dancing on a Pin"

Author: Vatrixsta Cruden
Contact: trixieangelsomething@hotmail.com
Timeline: This whole deal takes place approximately a year after the events of 'Triangle' and 'Redefinition' -- I bite my nails for a solid week (or two or three, depending on the #$*% WB's scheduling) in-between episodes of BtVS and Angel. The madness must end SOMEWHERE.

"Life is eternal, and love is immortal, and death is only a horizon... And a horizon is nothing, save the limit of our sight."

"Once upon a time . . ."

Doesn't this sort of thing always start like that? Never being the 'normal' types, I suppose our motley crew couldn't settle for something as pedestrian. Let's try something more sinister:

"It was a dark and stormy night..."

Except, well, it wasn't. It was night, but it was neither dark, nor stormy. Not yet. Besides, they already did that in the Dracula episode this year.

Okay, fine, back to the original classic:

Once upon a time, an ancient boy loved a beautiful girl more than life itself.

"Buffy, we can't--"

"We can. We will. And I won't let your overly-developed sense of guilt cheat us out of this."

"This has nothing to do with guilt--" Her tongue interrupted his words by plunging itself between his lips. As usual, her assault stole his ability to form coherent sentences, to do more than moan helplessly against her onslaught.

So this was the way his world would end.

They would make love, his soul would be lost, and she would kill the shell that remained. Given their current set of circumstances, he couldn't ask for a better way to go. It seemed an oddly poetic tribute to the love they'd shared back before the monsters jumped out at them from underneath the bed.

Confused? I was too. Wait: let me give you some back-story.

It all started one sunny afternoon in Los Angeles.

There was so much watching in their relationship, so much wanting and longing from afar, it's only fitting that it all started out that way. Hidden in the safety of darkness his old, borrowed car provided, our hero watched as our heroine stepped into the blinding California sunshine, doing things that were arguably criminal to a small red and white lollypop.

As she told him years later, depth -- or lack thereof -- was not an issue Buffy Summers worried about before she was the Slayer. Her hair was long and hung freely, an attractive quality, but not conducive to bitter battles to the death. Her eyes were deceptively vacant, and even the tone of her voice suggested she would be more suited to perkily uttering the phrase "you want fries with that?" than being the only girl in all the world to kill the vampires.

And, as he assured her years later, she walked down those sun-kissed steps, totally oblivious to the burden that was about to befall her, and he loved her. While it was true that she =was= prettier than the last Slayer, his reasons for loving her weren't what could be called superficial. He loved the way she was made to live in the sunshine, and he loved how the way watching her walk made him swear his heart had begun to beat in his chest. He felt her soul call out to his own, and he was helpless to do anything but respond.

But we're getting off track, and as I think about where this story is going to take us, I realize we've gone back too far. You've already got a hell of a long tale to hear, and if I stop to tell you every poetic little thought that ran through Angel's mind... well, we'd be here until Fox cancels the X-Files. Besides, you already know most of this stuff, anyway. Who am I to make you re-live their star-crossed romance? I'm sure you've got a fine library of video evidence you could be reviewing.

Okay, so skip ahead, skip ahead, skip ahead... All righty, here we go. Our little tale picks up long after our boy decided to become someone, long after our girl came to a little town called Sunnydale, made her new friends into a family, and first set eyes on the only vampire walking this fine earth with a soul. We find Angelus, the one with the Angelic face, former Scourge of Europe, current private detective, about three years after he left the pretty blonde girl with tears in her eyes, for what everyone has accepted to be her own good.

We rejoin our story one bright, sunny morning at the headquarters of Angel Investigations...

Your memory comes back to me to strangle me with its sweet taste

Cordelia Chase sat behind her desk, not even pretending to work as she leafed through the most recent issue of Cosmo. Her posture was deceptive. Cordelia thought it was a waste of time to do anything approaching work for the sake of working.

Life in peril, future of the world iffy, endless suffering of an innocent, even a case of Brooding Vampire -- those were reasons to drag her attention away from what they were wearing this year in Milan. Organizing the files so Angel could easily reference Mrs. Buder's haunting, or whether the slimy thing rose on the full or the harvest moon were not high on her list of priorities.

Besides, Cordelia got her work done fast. Usually, the filing, the researching, she did it in her own time, and in her own way. Was it her fault Angel and Wesley couldn't decipher her system?

Speaking of, the most British man in the world sat at Angel's desk, catching up on some reading of his own. The title of the book he currently read with rapt attention was "Vengeance Demons and You." It was a new book, something Wesley had never really bothered with before. When he worked for the Council, any book that wasn't caked with a few layers of dust wasn't worth his time.

To his utter surprise, he was finding this book to be quite beneficial on a number of levels. Not because it gave him new insight into the mind of a vengeance demon, or even helped him find a way to some day help Angel, to repay him a debt that would never truly be evened. No, Wesley was most grateful to this book for making him laugh at the utter ridiculousness it suggested. Laughter meant he was distracted from his unending infatuation with Cordelia.

Once, he'd felt tremendous guilt for lusting after the girl as he did. For that's what she had been, a girl, barely old enough to vote. Years had gone by, and while she was still youthful, vivacious, and lovelier than any creature he'd ever seen on this earth, some part of him still saw her as the sweetest of forbidden fruit.

Above, in a room he'd occupied in 1954, where not a drop of sunshine could threaten, Angel slept the sleep of the undead. His dreams, for once, were filled not with the horrors of his past, or the trials of his present, but the hopeful, blissful imaginings of a future that might yet still be possible.

There were different kinds of dreams Buffy appeared in. This was the first time he'd had this particular one, and already he judged it as the best. Half-hidden in shadows, she watched as he remembered their lost day, so that it was the two of them, watching themselves. It was creepy and erotic and addictive, almost to the point that he didn't want to wake, not even when the sun set and it came time to patrol.

Had he been awake, he might have been reminded of Darla. These dreams were different, though. He didn't =have= to go back to sleep. He =wanted= to. And when the fog of sleep lifted, he felt refreshed, recharged and ready to fight the good fight again.

That day he'd spent mortal, that day that had never really happened, both haunted and sustained him. In his private reflections, he often mused that perhaps it was meant to be this way. A moment of perfect happiness not marred by the loss of his soul and his subsequent treatment of Buffy. A balm to his tired and weary being, giving him something more than a desire for redemption to keep him going night after anguished night.

But there was no anguish in his dream this day. There was only Buffy, her skin, her sighs, her scent, and all the little quirks and imperfections that made up her wholly perfect self. There was the taste of chocolate accented with the taste of Buffy, and nothing, not in heaven or on earth could possibly hold within its grasp more bittersweet temptation. For a man unable to lie down with the woman he loved, unable to truly appreciate something as simple as chocolate...

To say he cursed and treasured his memories in equal measure would be an understatement.

The people downstairs never realized just how much of the day Angel spent sleeping. He never told another soul that he tried to fall asleep before dawn so he could spend at least a few hours dreaming at the same time Buffy did. If they couldn't be together, they could at least take their rest at the same time. Angel didn't know why the thought that, at the very same moments he was dreaming, Buffy was a hundred miles away, dreaming dreams of her own, gave him such comfort, but there it was.

Imagine how happy he'd feel if he knew they were dreaming the same dreams, at the same time. Worthy of soul-loseage, I'd say.

see God would never be so cruel to make me live without your face

"Come on, Ms. I-Slept-The-Weekend-Away-And-Don't-Care-About-My-GPA-Anymore."

"Go 'way."

"Buffy, I left you alone from Friday night 'til this morning, but I only did that cause you actually left the dorm for a couple of hours to patrol. I would be totally slacking off in the best friend department if I let you miss class. And you know how I feel about slacking."

"Extenuating circumstances," Buffy mumbled into her pillow, although to Willow, it sounded more like "Xtn-uting circmces."

"Riley wouldn't want your grades to suffer."

"Riley damn well should've thought of that before he went back to Iowa!" Awake now, Buffy threw off her covers and ran an annoyed hand through the small furry animal that had somehow nested on top of her head while she slept. "Oh God, is that my hair?"

From the look on Willow's face, she guessed it was.

"Buffy, I think you've just got to get up, and move on--"

"Oh come on, Willow! This coming from my best friend whose current romantic entanglements--"

"Hey! I have no romantic entanglements! I untangled them! I am tangle free."

"Sure, Will," Buffy said in a patronizing tone of voice as she dragged herself out of bed.

"I am," Willow insisted as Buffy grabbed a towel and headed for the bathroom. "I am," she grumbled to the now empty room.

Meanwhile, in the bathroom, Buffy pretended this wasn't really her life.

"Had this been an actual life, you would have been given an instruction manual," she muttered as her clothes hit the floor. "Maybe I shoulda asked Giles for a look at that slayer's handbook after all," she added, stepping into the shower.

Hot, steamy water washed over her skin, and she sighed at the simple pleasure. There were so few pleasures in a slayer's life. The high she got off an efficient, challenging kill didn't keep her warm at night.

Riley's second departure had hurt. Although, Buffy was somewhat ashamed to admit that she missed having someone beside her when she slept, not being alone all the time, more than she missed Riley as a person. In fact, if she was honest, she didn't really miss Riley much at all. His sweet earnestness had been nice to have around, but she had never really loved him, not the way he deserved.

Buffy wanted Riley to have a great love, a woman who would give him her whole self without reservation. That woman would never be this slayer, and it had taken his distance, his justified petulance over the past few months to make her realize it.

What if she'd actually caught him?

That thought kept occurring to her. Xander's impassioned speech over a year ago had really gotten to her, she admitted freely. It took Riley himself returning from his undercover mission, ready to start things anew, to make her realize she hadn't had the epiphany she'd thought she'd had. It was something she'd so desperately wanted to believe. In the end, it would have been so simple. Love Riley, let Riley love her, and live happily ever after with a nice, sweet, reliable guy.

That fantasy was at the very center of everything Buffy craved, and would never have. Normalcy, stability, and a man who would never leave.

And somewhere, tangled within the sticky web Buffy liked to think of as her soul, was Angel.

In her more fanciful moments, Buffy thought of the ensouled vampire as a fine mist, one that touched every part of her in some way or another. A very large part of her strength came from Angel. His gentle, unconditional love and support had helped her through so many difficult moments, given her a base to fall back on before she'd trusted Giles completely.

Contrarily, when he lost his soul, Angel was also the one who put her through a kind of hell she hadn't faced before, or since. Evil, the man she'd loved with the wide-eyed idealism only a girl of seventeen could manage, had nearly destroyed her. Her defeat of him, despite the horrible cost, had fundamentally shaped the woman she was today.

It had killed something inside her to do so, but she =had= done it. Sacrificed him and their happiness to save the world. Whatever the Watcher's Council wanted to think, that had been the day Buffy had known The Powers That Be had chosen correctly. She was the slayer. It was the destiny to which she was born. It was a heavy burden, one she now carried with pride, rather than scorn.

Just as she had come to terms with all that had happened before, the most miraculous thing happened -- Angel came back. Those same powers had judged him worthy of a second chance. Buffy had always known he was capable of so much good, and when she wasn't still bitter over him leaving her, she felt a
twinge of pride over the work he did in Los Angeles.

Steam slid insidiously along her body, and she felt a pair of phantom arms wrap around her waist. Tears sprung to her eyes. It had been years since she'd felt him like this. Once she and Riley had gotten serious, he'd faded from her every day thoughts. Secretly, she'd always known that was why she needed Riley so badly. He had kept thoughts of Angel away, had kept her from wanting everything she could never have.

Lips she could recognize anywhere pressed against her temple, then slowly made their way down the side of her face, to her neck, before settling over the marks above her rapidly beating pulse. Hands she'd ached to feel on every part of her body slid up her ribcage until they cupped her breasts in a firm, gentle embrace. Blunt teeth began to scrape over the marks his sharper canines had made years ago, and Buffy's eyes snapped open.

"Crap," she muttered to no one, wrapping her arms around her middle, shivering slightly as the water started to go cold.

Riley had only been gone for a weekend, and already He was back, like he'd never been surgically removed from her life to begin with. While part of her had always known she'd never be able to completely exorcise Angel from her heart, she hadn't thought that after all this time, his hold would remain quite so powerful.

She wouldn't think about this, she decided as she stepped out of the shower, already reaching for a towel. Angel hadn't lived in her world for a long time now, and she refused to allow him back in when they'd both decided so long ago it hurt too much to press their noses to the glass and cry over what they could never touch. So no thinking about Angel.

And definitely no thinking about the dreams she'd been having all weekend.

While most people would bask in the glow of being unconditionally loved by two desirable suitors, Willow Rosenberg was about to lose her mind.

First of all, there were finals to be considered. Not to mention an end of the world prophecy Giles had discovered and asked for her help on. Like she didn't have enough to worry about. But being good 'ole dependable Willow, she'd agreed, and now she didn't have time to try out that cool new binding spell Tara had found...

Tara.

Willow frowned, her attention completely diverted from the textbook on her desk. She hadn't seen her fellow witch since the whole thing with Oz had come to a head a week ago. When she'd untangled her entanglements.

Oz.

Willow's frown deepened. Was there no escaping them? Even up to her neck in advanced physics, she couldn't seem to stop thinking about the two loves of her life.

Imagining the look on everyone's faces if she announced she'd decided to date them both, she couldn't quite contain a mischievous giggle.

There was a knock at the door, and Willow straightened, glancing from side to side in a borderline manic movement, terrified that someone might have seen her entertaining naughty thoughts.

With a mental smack upside the head at inhibitions that hadn't even gone south when she'd taken a female lover, Willow got up to answer the door.

The two people causing her more trouble than she was beginning to think they were worth stood on the other side. Each held a single red rose. Each wore guardedly hopeful smiles, though in Oz's case, that wasn't unusual.

"Hi," Tara greeted, more shy than Willow could remember her being since the first day they'd met, in that pathetic excuse for a Wicca group.

"Hey," Oz added, the word deceptively casual. Willow read a thousand things into it, though, just as she always had. The curse of knowing the love of a taciturn man was being able to understand all the things they didn't say.

Almost as one, Oz and Tara brought their arms forward, offering their flowers.

Willow nearly burst into frustrated, touched, anguished tears.

"You guys have to stop doing this."

"Doing what?" Tara asked.

"This!" Willow gestured at the two of them, in =her= doorway, holding flowers. "I can't... I can't think straight when I'm around either one of you."

"So don't think."

Both women looked at Oz, puzzled frowns marring their brows. He looked back and forth between them before elaborating.

"Seems to me whenever people start thinking about love, about who they =should= be with, they end up thinking themselves right out of happiness. You should do what your heart tells you, not your head." He paused. "So don't think."

"He's right," Tara concurred. "Willow... you know how I feel. And I don't want to pressure you, neither of us do," she said, looking to Oz for confirmation. He nodded in his so-reserved-as-to-be-catatonic-yet-oddly-lifelike way.

"But you are pressuring me!" Willow burst out. "You pressure me," she directed at Oz, "by just being here, and acting like you're not pressuring me. You left me, and then you came back, and then you left again, and now you're suddenly back, telling me you'll never stop loving me... well, I'll never stop loving you, either, and it's just impossible!

"And before =you=," she turned to Tara, "start pouting, and making that wounded, oh woe-is-me-my-family-made-me-think-I-was-a-demon-for-18-years-and-you're-all-I-have-Willow face, I love you, too. And I don't think I'll ever be able to stop. Which means following my heart leads me to =both= of you." There was silence, and Willow took a few deep, calming breaths. "That leaves us back at square one," she added, much quieter now.

"Willow, I know how hard this is. But... you will have to choose eventually. And I for one promise that no matter who you choose, I'll always be in your life." Tara smiled. "I'll always be here to do a spell, or just... listen."

"You know it's the same for me," Oz confirmed. There was a pause. "Except for the spell part."

"Don't you see..." Willow really did feel near tears now. "Oz, I let you go once. I made that terrible choice, and I sent you away, and I don't think I can do it again." Now tears really were falling down her cheeks, and it was that conversation in his van all over again, she was losing her first love, only she wasn't really losing him, because she never really could, but...

"If... if I'm in t-the w-way, I'll g-go."

"Why do you do that?"

Both girls turned to Oz when he spoke. "D-do what?"

"Underestimate yourself like that." Oz shrugged. "I'm not saying she won't pick me. But I pretty much just heard what you heard, and it sounded to me like she loved us both."

"I do," Willow assured them. "If only I didn't."

"Will," Oz began.

"No. No more talking from you. Or you," she added, looking to Tara. "In fact -- no more talking." Lightning fast, she bolted into the room, grabbed her textbooks, and pushed past the two occupants of her doorway. "I'm going to the library. A place of no talking. And I'm studying. And =not= talking."

Oz and Tara stood in the doorway, a little surprised by Willow's abrupt departure, both still clutching their roses.

"I'm guessing she's done talking," Oz remarked.

Tara tried, but couldn't stop the laugh that left her mouth.

Now that I have made you crawl it does you good to see me fall

"Bloody hell."

It had been a tense last few days for Spike.

If you'd asked him a year ago what his most difficult moment had been, he would have said, hands down, the night he staked Dru. That particular defining moment was a cakewalk compared to the humiliation he'd subjected himself to the day before.

Last night, though...

After he'd made his usual flamboyant return to Sunnydale (complete with driving right over the 'Welcome to Sunnydale' sign) he'd nearly told the bloody slayer he was still in love with her. Nearly bawled like a baby, clutching her skirts, admitting that he'd been in love with her the entire time, even while he was gone...

Thank God he'd been unable to enter the chit's dormitory. Whatever un-invite spell they'd done had saved him a grave humiliation. Because she'd never love him, and he couldn't even kill her to make himself feel better.

The sun had come up a few hours ago, and Spike supposed he should be thankful he hadn't been in direct light when it did.

This would teach him to get blind stinking drunk anywhere but the safety of his own crypt. As he looked around the mausoleum he found himself in, he wondered if whoever owned it ever bothered to dust.

It didn't really matter. He had enough whiskey to last him 'til sunset, and then he could go and buy some more. 'Course, there wasn't enough whiskey in all fifty states to get him drunk enough to endure the living hell that was his existence.

He couldn't kill, or hunt, or maim, like any other self-respecting vampire, all thanks to the chip in his head. He was an abomination for that reason alone. If you took into account his other little 'quirk'... He sighed aloud at the unfairness, the sheer wrongness of the whole situation. A vampire in love with a slayer. He was no better than Angel, and at least he'd had a soul to fall back on.

"Poofy, do-gooding, gel wearing bastard," Spike mumbled aloud.

And then he thought of her, yet again. Buffy. It was pathetic how consumed he was by the silly chit. He wanted to dance with her, kill her, shag her, drain her, worship her, turn her, fight her, die for her. He'd loved Dru with all his dead heart, yet that love hadn't obsessed him to this degree. When she'd threatened Buffy's life, he'd staked her without a moment's hesitation. Had it been that easy for Angel, with Darla? Spike had never understood how the old sod did it, not 'til he was faced with the same horrible choice.

There hadn't been many other women in his un-life, or the life he'd spent human, for that matter. Harm had left him, and while he'd missed a cool body to lie beside at night, he couldn't say that her annoying ass was one he'd pine for on a cold winter's night. The first girl he'd ever loved... he could barely remember what she looked like, whatever the silly poetry he'd written for her might have promised.

"No, you bloody pansy, instead you're pining for the blasted Slayer. An enemy," he muttered, taking a long swig of whiskey. "=The= enemy of all vampires, and William the Goddamned Bloody's 'round the bend hot for her. Bloody fool."

With a great scream of rage, Spike hurled the bottle toward a wall, just to watch it shatter.

Unfortunately, his current state of inebriation caused his depth perception to become slightly altered, and he struck a window, which meant a large beam of light hit him directly in the forehead.

With a curse, he dove for the very corner of the mausoleum, now the only safe spot afforded him.

"Bloody Slayer," he growled just before he passed out.

"It's Buffy."

Angel's chest tightened at Cordelia's whimpered words. At times like these, he was almost thankful he didn't have to breathe.

"Oh God, she's... trapped. And... scared." Cordelia's voice reflected how much it terrified her to think of the slayer afraid. "She's scared and..." Her eyes drew together in puzzlement. "Hopeless. Buffy's feeling hopeless. But she can't be. I mean, she's the slayer, and if the slayer's hopeless..."

"Wes, take care of her," Angel ordered, black duster already halfway on as he strode towards the hotel's front door.

"Where are you going?" Angel didn't even pause at Wesley's question.

Cordelia took a moment away from clutching her head in agony to give Wesley a "duh" look.

"Right," he mumbled, embarrassed. "Angel," he called out, halting the agitated vampire's progress. "Your car's in the shop. Take my bike."

Angel caught the keys Wesley tossed at him without turning around.

Supporting Cordelia's elbow, Wesley led her to the small love seat in the center of the lobby. On the desk sat a pitcher of water and several different bottles of over-the-counter relief. "What shall it be today?" he asked as he took a seat opposite her, on the edge of the desk.

"I'd say this is definitely a four Advil size headache."

Shaking the little pills into her hand, Wesley gently supported the back of her head as he helped her take a sip of water. They fought like cats and dogs most of the time, but she was so very dear to him.

"Jeez, it would figure a slayer vision would bring about a slayer size headache."

"Are you all right?"

"You ask me that every time. I'm fine, Wes. Good as gold. I just =love= that the PTB need to inflict pain on me so Angel can help the downtrodden." She paused for a moment. "Is Buffy downtrodden? I didn't think a slayer could be downtrodden. Of course there is Faith, and she's always been kinda skanky, even after the reform act of 2001, but..." Cordelia trailed off as she got a look at the expression on Wesley's face. "What?"

"I love you," he blurted out, then widened his eyes in horror when he realized what he'd just said. "That is... I mean..."

"You love me?"

"I... I... I..."

"Like, love, love me? Not, love you like a sister, Cor, but I want you to have my children, love me?"

"I would be honored if you would have my children. Oh, good God, I can't seem to stop," he muttered. "What the hell. Cards on the table, then."

"There are cards?" she asked absently, a bit dazed.

"I love you, Cordelia Chase. Have done, for quite some time now. Since you were eighteen years old, I'd wager. And the time I've spent with you and Angel...it's been the happiest of my life. And such a very large part of that is due to you. I can't offer you everything you deserve, all those things you want, but I can offer you myself, my whole self, and the promise that I'll never ask you to change, should you decide that a foppish man such as myself might be worth loving. Back."

He cut off the flow of words right then. Good God, he'd just made a bloody fool of himself in front of her. Of course she couldn't love him back. She thought of him as a brother, the same as Angel. And really, if she were going to fall in love with one of the men she worked with, it would most likely be with the brooding, tortured vampire. Or perhaps Gunn. Gunn, too, possessed that certain tormented quality. Girls always loved the dark, bad boy types--

"If you're asking me to marry you, you'd better have a ring."

He looked positively green. "Well, actually... that is to say... I didn't have a chance, this being a rather spur of the moment, spontaneous burst of affection..."

"You don't even have a ring?" Cordelia rolled her eyes at him, a stern line of disapproval marring her otherwise flawless brow. "Wesley, this is just not going to work. If you think that every time our anniversary, or my birthday or something comes up and you don't have anything for me, I'm just gonna forgive and forget, because I'm basking in the glow of your love, or whatever, you're gonna be spending one sorry night after another on the couch, buster."

A sort of wary joy entered the ex-Watcher's eyes then. "Do you mean then...?" he couldn't manage to get it out. What if she said no?

"I'm not saying anything." She gave him a tiny smile that said everything would be all right. "No way am I marrying a guy who doesn't give me a ring, =or= actually ask me the most important question of my life, not including 'would the presidential suite be acceptable, Mrs. Pryce?'"

"Cordelia," he whispered, hating the needy tone that entered his voice, but powerless to quiet it.

With a smile, Cordelia moved to the edge of the couch until their knees touched. Her lips grazed his cheek, then came to rest near his ear.

"I love you, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce," she whispered, covering his hands with her own. "Now let's go get Angel's car back from that shyster repair guy. We can browse for rings in this absolutely fabulous little shop in Sunnydale after we swing by and pick up Gunn. If the Slayer warrants a vision, I'd say Angel could use all the support he can get."

"In that case, I should call Faith as well."

Cordelia made a face. "Uh, Wes? No offense, cause I know we just shared a very tender, beautiful moment, but -- are you stupid?"

Wesley rolled his eyes. "I realize Faith and Buffy have had their difficulties--"

Cordelia blew a great puff of air out of her mouth.

"-but nevertheless," he continued, undaunted, "they are the chosen two. Sisters in a way we can never understand. And Faith has worked hard for her redemption. Perhaps this is the final step she needs."

"Hey, no one is prouder of Reformed Psycho Girl than me. I just don't want to see Slayer War III go down. Especially not while Buffy's in trouble and not at her strongest. Which doesn't mean I like Buffy," she hastened to add. "Just that I'm a firm believer in fairness."

"Of course," Wesley soothed. "And in the spirit of fairness - we shall bring Faith and Gunn with us to Sunnydale to balance our numbers against the considerably larger hellmouth contingent."

"Oh, it's the Scooby Gang versus... what are we? Do we have a name?"

"No."

"We've gotta get a name. What about the Fang Gang?" she wondered aloud as she started gathering her coat and purse together. "No, that's terrible. Not to mention obsolete as soon as Angel shoeshines. Well, we'll think of something good on the way."

"Indeed," Wesley murmured diplomatically, pondering the exquisite irony that allowed the things that most annoyed him about Cordelia to be the very things he loved so dearly.

"What about The A-Team? Get it? Cause they lived in Los Angeles, and A could stand for Angel..."

"You were flirting with her. You let her into your apartment!"

"Anya, honey, I wasn't--"

"I saw you give her money. Was it for sexual favors?!"

"For God's sake, she was the pizza girl!"

"Then where's the pizza?!"

"She brought the wrong one! I ordered pepperoni and anchovy, because for some sick reason that's your favorite. They brought pineapple and sausage."

"I like pineapple," Anya supplied mournfully.

Xander began muttering to himself. Anya could only distinguish every third word or so, but she definitely picked up on "crazy," "jealous" and, for some odd reason, "hyena possession."

"Okay, I'm now going to attempt to be Calm Reasonable Guy." Xander closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them again, his face a mask of serenity. Then the little vein in his forehead started throbbing. "How the hell could you think I'd cheat on you?! With the =pizza= girl, no less! When I =knew= you were coming over! Were you playing a swell game you vengeance demons used play when women-scorning was in a slump, called most illogical, irrational conclusion jumping.. game!" He finally gave up, his breathing erratic at this point.

Then, instead of fighting back, instead of doing any one of the dozen or so things he expected of her...

Anya burst into tears.

"Honey..."

"Why did you even ask me here, if you were only going to yell at me and hatefully mock my past?!" she sobbed.

"An, I... I... I..."

"Stop stuttering like an idiot and speak!"

"I was going to ask you to move in with me over pizza and beer!" he yelled right in her face.

"I can't have beer because I'm pregnant!" she shouted right back.

Xander's entire body stilled, and he blinked a few times in succession. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He repeated the whole process. Finally, the stunned look faded into something approaching dazed confusion.

"You're... pregn-- what?"

"I'm pregnant. Nearly six weeks along. I keep very strict track of my menstrual cycles--"

"Really not needing this information right now, An," he interrupted, somewhat of a manic edge to his voice.

Her eyes began to water again. "You're upset. You don't want me to be fat and bear your young."

"No, An, I do," he corrected immediately.

"You want me to be fat?!" she cried.

At that point, Xander did the only thing he could think to do, the only recourse she ever left him at this point in their most irrational conversations.

He kissed her.

For a very, very long time.

"I'm pretty much thinking this has gotta stop, and soon. For Willow's sake, if nothing else."

"T-true. B-but what do you suggest we d-do about it?"

"Tara..."

"J-just ask."

"Do I make you nervous?"

"No. I mean... n-not in the way that you think."

"'Cause I'd understand if you were a little afraid of me, given how I tried to eat you that time."

"I'm not afraid of you."

"That's the first complete sentence you've spoken without stuttering. At least when we've been alone."

"Oz..."

"Just ask."

"I feel things for you."

"I feel things for you, too."

"But... I-I feel things f-for you that I should only f-feel for Willow."

"I... I know what you mean."

The witch and the werewolf were deadly silent as they considered one another. Finally, Oz spoke:

"I've got a really wild idea."

like poison apples from the tree as heavy as a honey bee

Angel stalked through the dark Sunnydale night, alternately blessing and cursing Cordelia's visions. Forewarned was forearmed, but he still felt uneasy showing up in Buffy's town, offering his help when it hadn't been asked for.

Buffy was bound and determined to show she could do everything -- go to college, destroy an underground army installation, and conduct a relationship with Soldier Boy, all without his help. Seemed like every time he tried to make things better between them that she snapped his head off, making it damned clear her life was just peachy without him in it.

Bitter much?

He couldn't quite contain a tight smile at Cordelia's voice in his head.

They'd called from the road. The whole gang was driving in to lend their help and support. His family was coming to back him up while he faced his ex. Just the thought of it made something settle peacefully inside his chest. There were people who loved him now, and accepted him, just as he was. They were a motley crew, unwanted and unappreciated by the rest of the world, and they were his family.

Curse or no, miles to go before he slept or not, Angel suspected he might just be the luckiest son of a bitch on the face of the earth.

To serve as antithesis to that very thought, Angel's next stride never met solid earth. Instead, he found himself falling for what seemed like forever until he hit the ground with a resounding thud. It took him a moment to focus, and when he did, all he could see was the darkness that surrounded him.

With nothing but the purest of intentions, he'd come back to this hellmouth of a town, only to find himself literally sucked into a pit of blackness.

"Crap."

"Xander, I want to talk about--"

"One more slice. You're eating for two now."

"Xander--"

"No eat-y, no talk-y."

With an impatient sigh, Anya shoved half a slice into her mouth. That... girl -- Mindy, the jealous part of her brain supplied -- had returned shortly after Xander had kissed Anya, and Mindy apologized for the mix-up. The piping hot pizza the girl carried was the only thing that prevented Anya from stealing one of Willow's spellbooks so she could turn little Mindy into something scaly and slimy.

Giving a triumphant smile, Anya swallowed the last bite of her pizza. Her success was short lived, however, when she remembered why her boyfriend -- boyfriend, such a trivial thing to call the love of one's life, especially given just how very long her life had lasted thus far, she thought, annoyed -- had insisted she eat it in the first place.

"So... what do you think?"

"As little as possible?"

"Xander." Tears were forming in her eyes again. Good God, she hadn't leaked this much since before he admitted he loved her.

"Sorry. I know, not the time for me to display the maturity of a gnat." He fidgeted, rubbed his palms back and forth over his knees, a mannerism she'd always found adorable, and sexy as hell. Of course, everything about Xander was sexy to her, which, she admitted ruefully, might have something to do with their current predicament.

"Gnats show more maturity," she assured him without rancor. "Now please... tell me what you're feeling." That was good. She'd read that in a book. Saying please before requesting a man to talk about his feelings lulled them into a false sense of security.

"I'm feeling... that we're too young for this. And," he held up a hand, successfully forestalling the lecture she'd been about to give him, "before you remind me you're 1100 years old, may I remind =you=, my little cuddle bunny of love, that you were a demon for most of those years. Whatever human feelings and reactions you might have had were cut off. The only real growth you've done as a person... has been since you were turned back."

"Actually, it's mostly been since I've been with you," she admitted quietly. It was hard being open, honest and trusting with any man... but Xander, somehow, made it seem worth it. A thought occurred to her. "Little cuddle bunny of love?"

His eyes widened. "Let's forget I said that."

"Agreed."

"Okay. Great. Where was I? Oh, right, too young. We're too young for this. I've got a job, and you've got a job, and we can support ourselves just fine, but it would be hard to take care of a baby." He winced. "I forget to water my plants, An. I leave food in the refrigerator until it molds, possibly spawning new and exciting types of demons for Buffy to slay. What kind of father..." He grew quiet, more than a trace of sadness, and fear, coloring his voice. "What kind of father will I be?"

"A wonderful one," she said immediately. "I know... I know that you haven't had the easiest upbringing. We've already established how much I dislike your parents, mostly for their drunken screaming matches, and for making you live in that basement for--"

"An," he interrupted gently. "Thanks, my sweet, for the reassurance. But... that was me copping out. I know... I'll be a better father than mine. Not exactly setting the bar very high, but--"

"You'll be a great father, Xander," she said again, fervently. "You... you saved me, you know that, don't you?"

A puzzled look crossed his face. "Saved you? An, you've never needed saving from anyone or anything."

Smiling brilliantly at him, she laid her hands over his, stilling them against his bouncing knees.

"You're wrong. You saved me from myself. From what I was, from what I might have become again. Xander, you have loved me, given me friends, even if they don't really like me, you've helped me find gainful employment, helped to give me a purpose. And... you've given me many orgasms."

He laughed at that, laughed like she loved to hear. "I do love you, Anya. Every part of you, every crazy thing that comes out of your mouth. And while we are young--"

"Enough with the young stuff. I'm tired of it, and forbid you to use it as an excuse again."

"We still have a baby on the way," he continued, as though she'd never interrupted. "And... I know I don't have much to offer you, except me, plain old Xander Harris, King of Cretins, Number One Zeppo, but, I wanna do this the right way, and if you'll have me..."

"Xander," she whispered, pressing a hand to his cheek. "Will you marry me?"

A grin the likes of which she'd never seen spread across his face, and she fell in love with him all over again. That seemed to be a habit with her. Falling in love with Xander Harris was the easiest thing she'd ever done. Living with him sometimes threw her a curve or two, but she fell in love with him in dozens of new ways every day. The way he was looking at her right now... she thought that maybe it might be the same for him.

"An," he murmured, nuzzling her nose with his, "I thought you'd never ask."

Hallelujah
I gave you away so easily it makes me wonder why

"Why is that sign =always= knocked down?" Cordelia wondered absently as the Angel Mobile entered Sunnydale.

"Damn kids with no respect for the law," Faith commented from the back seat, a heavy dose of irony coloring her words.

"It's good to know you ain't one of those people who found God in prison," Gunn added from his seat beside Faith.

"Never happen. God doesn't want me." Her voice was teasing, but the occupants of the car heard the underlying depression in her voice.

"Say, Faith, love ya, you know I do, so don't take this personally, but will being back in Sunnydale cause you to lose your tenuous grasp on sanity, go nutso and kill us all?"

"You're safe, cheerleader," Faith assured her, a wry note to her voice. "Although Wes here might have to watch his back."

"I shall sleep with one eye open," Wesley assured her, not a single note of genuine fear in his voice.

"Are you ready to face them?" This time, Cordelia's voice was sweetly caring. "Cause believe me, I know what it's like to be deemed unworthy of the perfection known as Scooby status."

A quiet beat filled the car. "Maybe you should drop me here. I'll do a quick patrol, see if Angel's wandering around, try to hook up before I show at Papa Giles' pad."

"You want company?" Gunn asked.

Faith flashed him a killer smile. "I got it handled, G. Catch you later."

Wesley pulled the car to the side of the road, near Restfield Cemetery, and Faith hopped out, disappearing into the shadows, though not quite as seamlessly as Angel always managed.

"So..." Cordelia's voice trailed off as Wesley pulled back onto the road. "What about the Magnificent Five?"

Wesley pushed the gas pedal a little harder, praying that the magic shop they'd been told Giles owned would come into view very, very soon.

Willow did not want to believe what her eyes were telling her.

Blinking several times in succession, she was upset, but un-surprised, to find that her vision was not deceiving her. Beyond the glass of the library window, Oz and Tara stood, side by side, gesturing emphatically for her to come outside.

Why they hadn't just come inside, was beyond her. And why should she go out there, anyway? They'd just try to confuse her more. It seemed impossible for her to be more confused than she already was, but Willow was positive the two of them could manage it. They were driving her crazy. If only they weren't so =cute=...

The mantra she'd been repeating since leaving her dorm -- I am me, I am fine, I am free -- began blaring as she slid out of her chair, abandoned her text books on the table, and walked towards her destiny.

Whichever of them that might be.

A deep sigh came from the tiny redhead as she moved to stand before her once and former lover. Although none present could say which was which.

"Willow," Oz greeted warmly.

"We've been talking," Tara said, indicating herself and Oz.

"We think we might have come up with a plan," Oz continued.

"A plan that would satisfy all of us."

"I am me, I am fine, I am free!" Willow burst out suddenly, causing Oz and Tara to share a worried look with each other. "I mean...there is no way to satisfy us all. No matter what we do, one of us is left =very= unsatisfied--"

"Really not seeing dissatisfaction in the near future for any of us," Oz interrupted, a crooked grin crossing his face.

Tara actually blushed.

Willow let out a nervous bark of laughter. "What... I mean, the only way for us all to be happy, is if you guys decided to share me, and I mean..." Her eyes bugged out. "No! No way! You didn't decide to share me... " Her voice trailed off, then got very small. "Did you?"

"Not just you," Tara said quickly, staring down at the ground.

Oz reached out for the blonde's hand, holding it gently but firmly. He then offered his other hand to Willow, who took it automatically, unable to fully process what they were telling her.

Tara then reached her free hand to Willow, and the three of them stood under the full moon (for Oz was still able to control the change), easily drawing comparisons from anyone who saw them as some sort of bizarre trinity. Two witches and a werewolf. Welcome to Sunnydale.

"This is really weird," Willow muttered.

"So is everything else in our lives," Oz pointed out reasonably, just as Tara said "Weird good, or weird bad?"

Willow's gaze darted from Oz, to Tara, then back to Oz. "I think," she began, squeezing both their hands, "this might be a definite good."

Before any further plans or propositions could be made, however, the snazzy new pagers Giles bought everyone for Christmas went off with a '911' page.

Moving through you every night the lovely girls in dresses tight

"Jeez, a girl has a little psychotic break, and she misses out on how popular being undead is," Faith muttered, staking her third vampire of the night.

Unfortunately, the one vampire she =wanted= to encounter was nowhere to be found.

"Come on, Angel," she muttered quietly, "give me a break. You know how cranky I get when the Stooges wake me up cause you need me to bail your ass out of some damn mess you should've called me in for to begin with."

Faith sighed.

"And now I'm talking to myself. I swear, it's =all= your fault if I go crazy again..."

A sound caught her attention. It sounded like... moaning. Coming from one of the nearby crypts. Worrying over Angel like a mother hen, or a psychotically over-protective older sister, Faith wasted no time in sprinting across the cemetery to the mausoleum she was positive the sound came from.

Pressing her ear against the door, she waited, listening carefully. Movement, rustling... more moaning. Definitely 'I'm in terrible pain, I may die' moaning, not 'oo, yeah, right =there=, harder' moaning.

With a muffled grunt, Faith pushed the door of the crypt open, carefully making her way around what appeared to be broken glass. The place stank of alcohol, and Faith nearly gagged. Fortified with Slayer endurance, she concentrated on her objective and moved further into the crypt.

When she set eyes on William the Bloody, huddled in the corner, whimpering like a lost kitten, she nearly busted a gut laughing.

Spike peered at her through heavy eyelids, and when he tried to look menacing, she only laughed harder.

"Oh, look," he remarked, pulling his coat around his body tighter, "it's the evil one."

"I'm not evil," Faith denied, despising the tremble in her voice. It was a demon, and had no bearing, no insight into what she really was. Why did it rattle her so badly when people -- =things= -- called her evil?

"Sure you aren't, ducks," he agreed easily enough.

"I'm not," she insisted, moving toward him. "I'm as cuddly as..." A cruel smile crossed her face. "As a vampire with a chip in his head."

Spike growled, an unearthly, demonic sound, and lunged for the slayer's throat...

...only to curl up in a fetal ball before he reached her, clutching his head and moaning again.

Faith squatted down to Spike's level, feeling almost... sorry for him. Must be hard, going against nature, being unable to do what your baser instincts demanded. In a way, she could relate. It was in her nature to kill, to hunt, to slay.

"We're the same, you know," she found herself saying to the vampire curled up on the floor.

A bitter laugh escaped his mouth. "How do you figure that, slayer?"

"Two sides of a coin. Darkness and light." Her attention shifted just beyond Spike's left shoulder, to an untouched bottle of bourbon. "Though in my case, it's more like darkness, and more darkness."

"That's just what I told her. The coin thing. But she wouldn't listen." Spike turned and snagged the unopened bottle, ripped off the cap, and took a long swig, sitting up against the back of the crypt.

Weighing the pros and cons for a moment, Faith joined him, a couple of inches separating slayer and vampire against the wall.

"Who?" she asked casually, snatching the bottle from his grasp.

"Buffy," he admitted, a lovesick note to his voice.

Faith couldn't help it. She rolled her eyes, and made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat.

"What?"

"Nothing," she muttered.

"You got something to say, say it, pet. Don't mess around with this tact bullshit. Everything I heard about you, it doesn't strike me as your style."

"Fine. You wanna hear what I have to say? You're pathetic."

"All right, that's it, you're leaving, find your own crypt."

He tried to take the bottle back. She held it out of his reach.

"What, you can dish it out, but you can't take it?" Again, she laughed, though this was a bitter, hardened sound. "Little Ms. Mary Sunshine is like a magnet for doomed love. And she gets these guys, these amazing guys who worship and adore her for the perfect goddess she is -- and it's like she doesn't see it. Doesn't even see what's right in front of her, always whining about the burden of slayer-hood. God, she's such a sanctimonious, holier-than-thou bitch."

"Hey, shut your hole."

"Oh my God," Faith mumbled. "You're actually gonna sit here and defend her to me?"

"I sure as hell ain't gonna sit idly by while you call her petty names."

"Are you for real?"

"No," he said, surprising her. "I haven't been real in years. I haven't been =me= in years, and it's eatin' me alive.

There was real emotion in his eyes, the kind she'd never seen inside any demon, with the exception of Angel.

"Who are you?" she whispered.

"Someone who's tired of this bloody existence." He shook his head, successfully wrenching the bottle from her hands this time. Drinking deeply, he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye when he was done. "I wanna dance again," he whispered, more to himself than to her.

"Dance," Faith repeated. "You wanna dance?"

Moving closer to her, he laid a hand on her shoulder. Against every instinct, she didn't jump away. In fact, she leaned closer to him. What was the allure, she wondered? What did Buffy see in a vampire? Was it the vampire thing? Granted, Faith had gotten to know Angel a lot better over the past two years, and if she weren't sure the fool would always be head over heels for her former friend, she would have jumped him ages ago.

"I wanna dance in the worst way," Spike breathed against her ear. Of course, vampires didn't have breath, but she could have sworn she felt it anyway.

With a howl, Faith pushed him away, hard, and leapt to her feet. An agitated hand ran through her long, dark hair, and she started pacing.

"No way. No. Fucking. WAY. You are NOT gonna use me as some slayer substitute for the chick you =really= want." What the fuck? There were tears in her eyes. What the =hell= was wrong with her? It was a =vampire= and it was in love with =Buffy= -- what the hell did she care?!

"Hey, you're the one that barged into =my= crypt, pet. I was having a perfectly lovely drunken pity-party without you--"

"Shut up! Shut your damn mouth! You wanna dance with me. I can't believe I almost fell for that. I bet that's what you say to all the slayers stupid enough to get near you."

"As a matter of fact," he muttered, but before he could say more, she slammed his body backwards until he was on his feet, pinned to the wall by her forearm. "Hey! Watch the coat!"

"I don't know how much you've heard about me, but I tend to be a little unstable, especially when someone fucks with my emotions."

"So get all unstable then," he taunted. "Dust me. I dare you. Better to be taken out of this existence because I inspired a little passion in someone, than to have some damned chaos demon squash me like a bug." His eyes were wild, and she believed him, believed he wanted her to end this for him. "End
it. Buffy won't do it. I begged her a year ago. I've been aching for the chit one way or another since the moment I met her.

"I wanted to kill her, because Angel loved her, and because she was the new girl in town, and I've got a thing for slayers. I was obsessed with killing her, the more I knew her, the more I respected her, the more I wanted to be the one who took her out of this world. Then one night she comes up to me in that stink hole of a bar, a swagger to her step, and she goes on about riding me at a gallop, and something about warm champagne and me begging her to hurt me just a little bit more..."

His eyes shut tightly. Faith could see he was trying to gain a modicum of control, but she really wasn't preoccupied with it. Most of her attention was focused on trying to breathe. That had been her. Not Buffy in the bar, but Faith in Buffy in the bar. It had made an impression on him?

"I just wanted her after that," he finally muttered, as though he heard her silent question. "I've been bloody achin' for her, and I'll never have her."

"That was me." Faith had no clue what made her say it, but the words left her mouth before she could stop them.

Spike looked so baffled, Faith found it almost adorable. "What?"

"That was me. In the Bronze. In Buffy. I was playing a fun slayer switcheroo game. That was me, playing with your head. Let's see if I remember..." She pretended to think about it, when the event was burned into her brain. "I could ride you at a gallop until your eyes rolled up. I've got muscles you haven't even dreamed of. I could squeeze you until you popped like warm champagne, and you'd beg me to hurt you just a little bit more." Their faces were close now, closer than they'd been that night in the Bronze.

"Bloody hell."

"Sorry if it's not word for word. I'd been asleep for a long time, takes awhile to get your groove back on."

He looked dumbfounded for a moment, then he shrugged in her now-slack grasp.

"At least I've been hot for the evil one."

Faith kneed him in the groin, then held his shoulders up so her mouth was level with his ear. "Let's get this straight. I. Am. NOT. Evil."

"Yeah. That's really comin' across," he managed to groan, his sarcasm evident.

Growling, she spun him until he fell to the floor on his back. She followed him down, straddling his waist, grabbing the stake from her belt, all in one, fluid motion. Stake poised an inch above his heart, however, she hesitated. Looked into his eyes. Saw something human staring back at her. Her heavy panting was the only sound in the room.

Spike lifted a hand to the side of her face, brushing a piece of her hair back. His gaze held hers, and Faith almost bought into that hypnotic crap she'd always heard about vampires. Except for the fact that it wasn't the vampire in him holding her captive: it was the man.

"You've got fire, don't you, love," he murmured.

And, since looking before she leapt had never been Faith's style, she kissed him.

The angels dancing on a pin the people we are drowning in

"Pryce?"

"Mr. Giles. A pleasure, I'm sure, but I'm afraid we've no time for pleasantries."

Cordelia rolled her eyes. "Could you please not talk like an ass pansy? If you think this is gonna fly when we're married, you are =so= In Denial Guy."

"Woah, woah, woah -- hold up. Married?!" Gunn looked between his two friends. "I know you been bickering for years, but I kinda got the sibling rivalry in competition for Angel's Favorite vibe, not the secretly wantin' to jump one another's bones vibe."

Giles just looked confused. "You mentioned some sort of vision, but you weren't terribly specific over the phone--"

"It's about Buffy," Cordelia explained.

"What's about Buffy?" Said slayer entered the Magic Box, gaze automatically searching out Giles behind the counter. Her senses finally picked up on the other occupants of the room. "Cordy?" Her nose wrinkled in distaste at the man standing beside the bitchiest former member of the Scooby Gang. "Wesley?"

"And I'm Gunn. Now that we've learned everybody's name, can we please get on with business?"

"Which would be, precisely..." Giles let his sentence trail off.

"Why aren't you at death's door? You should so be about to croak right now." Cordelia's voice was accusing.

"Look, Cordelia, apparently I came in after the first intermission. Update me on act one." Buffy was getting a little panicked, and she felt her soul shrink back along with the volume of her voice. There was only one reason she could think of that these particular people would be here without their
boss. "Is... Did something happen to..." *God, I can't even say his name. I'd know if something had happened. I would. He has to be okay.*

"Angel is fine," Wesley assured her.

"Yeah, fine. He only drove Wesley's bike all the way from LA, probably breaking a thousand laws just so he could save your bony ass, which, apparently, doesn't even need saving. God! I am so sick of these un-specific visions. You were probably freaking out over those hideous pants you're wearing."

"You're the famous Buffy?" Gunn asked, looking the blonde slayer over. "Huh."

Buffy looked offended.

Gunn shrugged. "Sorry. Just thought you'd be taller or something."

"I get that a lot," Buffy muttered, unconsciously rubbing the small scar on the side of her neck.

"So sorry to trouble you," Giles cut in sarcastically, "but if you could please explain, a bit more clearly why you're standing in the middle of my magic shop, most likely scaring the customers away--"

"It's like, midnight," Cordelia interrupted. "Why are you open at midnight?"

"It's a midnight madness sale," Giles admitted reluctantly. "Anya insisted it would be beneficial, though she hasn't deigned to put in an appearance all evening."

"I had more important matters to attend to," Anya announced as she came through the door, Xander close behind. "Besides, you only agreed to this so the woman who runs the 24 hour coffee shop across the street might stop in, and agree to have sex with you." She smiled brightly. "I'm ready to collect and protect the money now."

"And dutifully serve the customers to the best of your ability," Xander reminded her. Giles was taking great interest in cleaning his glasses after Anya's perceptive, if wholly inappropriate, observations.

"Yes. What Xander said," Anya agreed, as though it physically pained her to admit it. She turned to Cordelia, Wesley and Gunn, who appeared in deep conversation with Buffy. "Cordelia. And... new people." Her eyes narrowed at Wesley. "Do I know you?"

"Wesley Wyndam-Pryce," he answered, puffing up a bit out of reflex. A solid jab from Cordelia's elbow to his solar plexus deflated him like a punctured balloon. "I was Buffy's watcher for around fifteen minutes a long while back."

"This is Gunn," Cordelia added, indicating the black gentlemen at her side.

Gunn nodded in greeting.

Anya licked her lips.

Xander cleared his throat. Loudly.

"Beeped, yes, for some purpose other than ogling," Xander reminded everyone, glaring pointedly at Anya.

"I'm allowed to look. You're allowed to look. It's when there's touching that something unpleasant will occur."

"I paged you all because I got a frantic telephone call from Wesley, insisting there was mortal danger," Giles explained. "However, given the total lack of danger currently surrounding us, mortal or otherwise--"

"Look, my visions are never wrong. Incredibly painful, ill-timed, and totally vague, yes, but they've never come up with a wrong number yet." Cordelia looked away for a moment. "Maybe I interpreted it wrong... but it was pretty clear cut. Buffy. Hopeless. In the dark. I felt what she felt, and she felt like her life was about to end."

"You said Angel's out there," Buffy reminded them, speaking for the first time since she'd been assured of his safety. "Looking for whatever this thing is that you're so sure was going to end my life."

Everyone looked at her as they seemed to get it at the same time.

"Buff, I know I don't need to remind you that Dead Boy is a grown vampire, perfectly capable of taking care of himself." Xander's voice rose in volume as Buffy, completely ignoring him, hurried out of the magic shop. He sighed. "I'm tellin' you, that's never been right, a slayer caring so much for a fangy undead guy."

"Clearly they're both freaks of nature," Anya agreed breezily as she began methodically counting the money in the cash register.

"So how serious was it between Angel and Buffy?" Gunn asked innocently.

Five pairs of eyes snapped around to look at him with a combination of awe, annoyance, and pity.

Gunn did his best to blend in with the shelves of potions.

Like a needle going in into the shining city skin

Spike felt her stretch beneath him, and he rolled to the side, though he was loath to leave her. The moment he moved, she began gathering her clothes, dressing faster than he'd ever seen anyone move. He pulled on his pants, but didn't bother with anything else. Grabbing her arm, he pulled until they were eye to eye.

Her hair was wild around her face, the dark red lipstick she'd worn had been kissed off, and she was no longer wearing a bra under her fetching little tank top. Right. He'd sort of... rendered that garment un-wearable earlier.

"You look flustered, love," he commented, smoothing his thumb over the corner of her eye, removing some of the much-too-dark make-up she wore.

"I'm not," she denied, half-heartedly trying to shake off his hand. But she didn't shy away from his touch on her face. He wondered at that.

"Are you afraid of me?" He wouldn't allow her gaze to avoid his, though she tried damned hard.

"No."

"Yourself, then?"

The denial almost came, he saw it. But for some reason, she decided to play things differently. "Maybe."

His fingers trailed down her face to the side of her neck, feeling her blood pulse beneath the surface of her skin. God, how he'd wanted to taste her...

"I wanted to, you know." *What the hell. Honest dialogue with a slayer. Will the world never bloody cease to amaze.*

"But you couldn't," she answered.

"I couldn't," he agreed. "But... I also wouldn't." The look on her face was question enough, and he grinned, a predatory sight. "You're much too fun to kill, love."

There was a smile on her face, and he thought maybe, just maybe he'd finally found someone who could appreciate his charm. Before they could comment further, though, they heard a shriek from outside.

Faith took off, and he was right behind her. They got outside just in time to see Buffy fall into a hole that hadn't been there a moment ago, and wasn't there again as soon as she disappeared.

Oh I recall the moment when you ruined me for other men

She never thought he'd come back.

Buffy stalked through one of Sunnydale's many cemeteries, keeping her eyes, and that sixth sense that tingled when he was near, out for Angel.

He wasn't supposed to come back.

Maybe that was why she had been so angry with him the first time he tried, that Thanksgiving. It's not like he hadn't made a career of skulking around in the shadows, being all noble and protective of her. Just because their relationship had ended didn't mean he'd just stop caring, even if her childish heart had feared that very thing.

When he left, long black coat flapping in the wind, surrounded by sirens and mist, like some gothic fucking vampire from an Anne Rice novel... that had been it. He said he wouldn't say goodbye, and she had believed him. They'd spent their last year together saying goodbye, denying they'd have to, hanging on to what they'd had with desperate fingers.

But it was all for nothing. He left, just like everyone left her... hell, Riley had left her twice now. Her father hadn't actually left, she supposed. He had just never bothered to follow.

So Angel was gone, and she knew that's how it would be. Final. Be the Buffy who lives in the sunshine, he'd told her. Find some other man to make love to, some other man to have children with. Never mind that he was the only thing in her life she'd ever wanted enough to die for.

Their children would have been beautiful.

Buffy felt the tear roll down her cheek at that thought. There would probably never be children in her life, certainly not Angel's, most likely no one else's. The only guarantee she had, was that of a painful and certain death. Anyone who said differently was a fool, and Buffy was fast learning she had no patience for fools.

With a deep, bone-weary sigh, Buffy reached a hand up to the back of her neck, rubbing at it gently. Shivers were running up and down her spine, and her senses were tingling...

Spinning, Buffy's gaze darted around wildly, searching the shadows, trying to find him lurking among them. *Please, just be watching me. I promise, as long as you're safe, I won't be a bitch about it, I'll give you a hug and thank you for coming for me when I needed you, just please, please be all right...*

It was as though the ground opened up beneath her feet. She was swallowed whole, and she barely noticed, too consumed with her soul reaching out for Angel's to care. The falling was what finally penetrated, for Buffy had nightmares about falling. They had started when she literally leapt into the mouth of hell to stop that demon from sacrificing itself. A person didn't really get over something like that.

Letting out a little 'oof' noise, Buffy automatically braced her hands against whatever she'd landed on. Given how far it felt like she'd fallen, her landing hadn't been that difficult. The thing below her was soft and hard at the same time. It was pitch black, and the only thing she could be sure of was that the thing was a someone, a him, whose hands were on her shoulders, whose face was centimeters from hers, whose lips were so close that if he had breath, it would be puffing against her mouth...

With identical moans of panic, Buffy and Angel sprung away from each other, flattening themselves against opposite walls of the small enclosure they found themselves in.

It did little good given just how small a space it was, and no matter which way they sat, no more than three feet separated them. Buffy moaned again, a scared, inarticulate expression of the sheer terror she felt.

But her fear wasn't directed at Angel. No, quite the contrary. When she thought of how much she wanted to kiss him, scream at him, fuck him, kill him, and love him, all at the same time, it made her dizzy. And they were trapped. Together. Alone. For who knew how long.

"Crap," she muttered quietly.

Even in the dark, she caught Angel's smirk.

"I don't care what you two book worms want to do. I say we head out and help the Buffster. If what you guys say is true, and Cordy's getting visions, and she had one about Buffy, and she actually bothered to put down the fashion magazine and come down here, it's gotta be pretty serious." Xander was working himself into quite a state, having slipped into Massive White Knight mode.

"Gotta say I agree with Shaggy, here," Gunn cut in. "Delightful doesn't get visions on a whim, and if the big guys upstairs called Angel out to this hellhole, you can best believe they got a good reason for it."

"Thank you," Xander said, then did a double take. "Who the hell are you?"

Before anyone could answer, Willow, Oz and Tara entered the magic shop. All those gathered aware of the dynamic between the three of them were unable to contain their surprise at the threesome arriving together. Imagine if they knew they really were a "threesome" threesome. That'll be a fun day, eh?

"Hi. Paged. Here to serve the forces of good." Willow smiled, a bit too cheerily.

Oz and Tara exchanged a worried look with each other. Both shared concerns that Willow wasn't as receptive to their solution as the two of them were.

"Will, tell Giles and Giles Jr. that we should damn the research, and go find Buffy and Angel now," Xander implored his best friend.

"I don't know, Xander. Not liking the sound of damning the research. Of course that could just be my inner nerd asserting itself."

"I love your inner nerd," Tara whispered, only loud enough for Willow's ears, though Oz seemed to catch it. Werewolf hearing. He smiled in agreement.

"We will not do Buffy or Angel any good until we've determined just what it is that is threatening them," Giles stated firmly.

"Precisely right," Wesley agreed. "To that end, I've brought a scroll."

"What scroll?" Giles asked, curiosity piqued as he moved closer to his fellow ex-watcher.

"This prophecy deal that talks about Angel, his destiny, his reward, and his ultimate purpose on this earth," Cordelia rattled off helpfully.

Those who knew her in high school stared at her strangely for a moment.

"Yes, well, that's it, in a nutshell," Wesley admitted. "Angel discovered this scroll some time ago during an altercation with a law firm in Los Angeles."

"Evil lawyers," Cordelia supplied.

"Tautological," Oz countered.

"We got trouble," Faith announced as she burst through the magic shop doors, Spike on her heel.

Xander began pointing in an exaggerated fashion. "Psycho slayer!" His gaze darted around the room, and noticed Faith standing in-between Cordelia and Gunn, neither of whom seemed phased by the killer in their midst. "Which you seem to have noticed. Guessing I've missed a chapter or two in the Faith chronicles," he added.

"Knowing you, you've missed entire books, Xander," Cordelia hissed, placing a hand on Faith's arm in a show of support. Spike hovered just beyond Faith's shoulder. Cordelia shrieked. "Spike!" She whirled on the vampire, fumbling for the stake in her shoulder bag.

"Hey, Cordy," Xander called with a smirk, "you've missed a couple of weekly installments there yourself.

"He's with me," Faith said quickly. "We just came from Restfield cemetery. B was wandering around, probably looking for Angel like I was, when she..." she trailed off, for once in her life trying to find a way to put things delicately.

"The slayer fell into a hole in the ground that kinda swallowed itself back up into the earth once she was gone," Spike announced.

"Research," Giles ordered once he'd found his voice.

"Quite," Wesley agreed, already unrolling the scroll onto the table toward the back of the shop.

"Just so we're all clear," Xander began, moving a little closer to Faith. "You're not evil, plotting to steal someone's body, or kill us horribly when our backs are turned... right?"

Faith swallowed, rubbing her left hand against her hip nervously. Gunn's shoulder touched hers lightly, and Cordelia's hand still rested comfortably against her upper arm. Angel trusted her, gave her a room in his hotel, a job at his firm, and a purpose in her life. Wesley acted as her watcher again, even though the council didn't want either of them. Faith was a person again, and she drew confidence from that fact as she faced Xander.

"You're safe," she answered. "And... I owe you an apology." Her gaze moved around the entire room, meeting everyone she'd hurt head on, before returning to Xander. "I'm sorry. For everything."

Xander eyed her for a moment, before slowly extending his hand, acting as speaker for the Scoobies. Faith placed her hand in his, and shook firmly.

A crooked grin crossed Xander's face. "Considering I'm hopelessly in love with a woman who tortured my gender for countless centuries, I suppose I can cut you a break."

Faith grinned.

Anya paused in the middle of her money count and addressed the room: "It wasn't countless centuries. It was eleven hundred."

Hallelujah
I gave you away so easily it makes me wonder why

"This scenario wasn't exactly on Buffy's Top Ten Fun Summer Activities List," she grumbled from what had been deemed "her side" of the eight by eight "prison" they currently found themselves in.

He'd felt her before she'd literally dropped in, but even with that brief moment to prepare, he hadn't the least idea what to say to her. What did one say to one's ex when trapped in some kind of elaborate cage, only able to see her because predators have excellent night vision?

Buffy was mad at him. He could tell. He'd always been able to tell. Granted, in this particular situation, her ire would be obvious to a blind man.

Desperately, he searched for a topic of conversation that might make her stop glaring at him. So far, his inquiries about school, the Scooby Gang, and slaying had been met with a trio of "Fine's" as her only response.

"How's, uh... Riley. How's Riley?"

"I don't know, Angel. When we get out of here, why don't we go to Iowa and ask him?"

A wince was his only response to that. So Riley was of the past. A moment of sheer, male triumph shot through him. He really hadn't liked the boy when he met him. Angel's desire for Buffy to find a suitable mate had been genuine, but in no way, shape or form did Angel consider Riley to be 'suitable' for his slayer.

Oh, he was an okay guy. And if he'd been in love with anyone but Buffy... they just didn't fit in each other's worlds, Angel decided. Not that he and Buffy did, but at least with them, there had been a certain level of understanding. At least, he'd understood her. One of the last times they'd spoken at length, Buffy had claimed to have never even known him at all.

Maybe it was old wounds feeling raw again that made him say what he said next. He really didn't know, and if he had a thousand years to think about it, he still wouldn't be able to tell you.

"I had sex with a woman last year," he blurted out.

At the stricken look on her face, he would have turned to dust in an instant if it would recall his last words.

"Nice ice breaker, smooth-guy," she muttered, curling up into a slightly tighter ball in the corner.

"Buffy, I'm sorry, I didn't mean--"

"So it is me, then," she mumbled. "Cause I was curious if it was me."

"Buffy, you don't understand--"

"Oh, I understand =perfectly=," she practically hissed. "I understand that you left me, some dumb schoolgirl, in a =sewer= so that you could go and get this great new life in L.A., where you can have... sex... with... =women=," she finally spit out, her tirade coming to an un-spectacular end.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he slid across the floor. It wasn't very far, but the gesture spoke volumes. Their knees touched, they were so close, and he moved to cover her hand with his own. She flinched from that, but didn't try to push him away, so he counted his blessings.

"When I was with her... Buffy, I was going through a very dark time in my life. And... I think that maybe I didn't care if I lost my soul. I almost... I almost welcomed it," he confessed, ashamed now of how far he'd fallen barely a year ago.

"Do you want my pity? Do you want me to hold you, and rock you, and tell you it's okay, that obviously you're here, so you beat it?" He looked up at her, and now he was close enough that he could see her eyes. They were livid. "Because I'm not allowed to do that, Angel, no matter how much... " Her voice caught on a sob, and she swallowed it, forcing iciness instead. "You broke up with me. You ended it. You took away my comfort and yours."

"How long are you going to throw that in my face?" he asked, his hard-fought for control snapping like an over-taxed rubber band. "In case you haven't noticed, my leaving probably saved our lives. I went into a serious downward spiral without the temptation of having you near me, but only so close before I had to stop. How hard would it have been, Buffy, for us to stop when it got to be too much, and neither of us wanted to anymore?"

"If you're insinuating that I would have put the fate of the world in jeopardy because I needed to get laid--"

"I'm insinuating that we would have gotten to the point where we didn't even =know= the fate of the world was on the line, we'd have wanted each other so badly." His gaze moved from her eyes, to her mouth, then back again. "At least, that's how it was for me."

"It's just sex, Angel," she gritted out. "Just. Sex. You make it out to be this huge deal, and really... it's not. It's fun. And with you, it was life-altering, in more ways than one, but it's still just sex."

"Not between us," he corrected calmly. "It was more than just sex between us. It was joy, perfect bliss, and people died as a result of it. When I'm with you... I go to a place I never even knew existed. I can almost feel my heart beating when I look at you, and when we touch..." He stared at a piece of lint on his pants. This conversation was almost certainly a bad idea, but he couldn't imagine either of them going on with their lives until they'd had it.

"When we touch," she prompted.

He looked at her again, and he could have sworn he felt his dead heart thump. *She looked at me that way the first time I kissed her... She looked at me that way when I came back from hell... She looked at me that way on the pier, in the sunshine... She looked at me that way when she swore she'd never forget...*

"I lose myself in you," he confessed hoarsely. "I lose myself and I never want to be found again. There's no guilt, and no pain, just bliss. And that's why I had to leave."

"What were you so afraid of? Were you really so scared that it wouldn't work out--"

"No," he ground out, sick of protecting her from the big bad monster that lived inside him. She wanted to know so badly...

"Then what?! What, Angel--"

"I was afraid we could make it work."

And suddenly, the room was deadly still.

"You handled the boy remarkably well, love."

Faith regarded Spike for a moment. They were under orders from the British guys to stay put, because "going off half-cocked without an idea as to what you're fighting will only serve to place Buffy and Angel in even more danger."

Willow, her girlfriend, and -- an amused smile flitted across Faith's face -- =their= boyfriend sat in a corner, trying to find a spell that would assist the ex-watchers with translating the rest of the prophecy. Cordelia was having some kind of conversation with Anya Faith didn't even want to know about, Xander was sitting with Wesley and Giles, delivering supplies when they requested something, and Gunn was sitting on the steps playing with a... rat.

*Huh.*

"You ignoring me, pet?"

An automatic smile flirted with the corners of Faith's mouth. Odd as it was, Spike was the first guy she'd ever wanted to 'get' her. Assuming you didn't count Angel, Wesley and Gunn, which she didn't. There was nothing sexual between them, and the bleached blonde vampire sitting so quietly, so comfortably to her left most definitely stirred something sexual beneath her skin.

"No. And don't call me pet."

"Why not?"

"'Cause it's demeaning, and you shouldn't demean someone who can kick your ass."

"Willow, are you all right?"

Tara's voice was low, and Oz was guardedly looking back and forth between the two women. The three of them were trying to research various demon languages in the hopes that they might recognize something from the scroll. They weren't having a lot of success.

"I'm okay," the redhead answered.

"Really?" Oz wondered.

Willow bit her lip and looked between the two of them for a moment. Slowly, she inched her hands forward until she held one of theirs in each of hers. A tentative smile pulled at her lips.

"I was shocked. And then there was terror, and guilt, and oh my god, this is so wrong... but underneath it all, way deep, deep, =deep= down inside... I feel how much I want this. And how right it feels. And... I love you both =so= much..."

"We love you," Tara replied softly, checking with Oz to gauge his reaction.

"Speak for me anytime," he assured her with a smile.

"Gunn! Don't let that rat get away!" Willow sprung away from the table, having caught Gunn out of the corner of her eye.

"Chill, dog," Gunn instructed, laughing a little as Amy ran down his shirt.

Willow looked horrified. "No, you don't... I mean..."

"It's cool. Elana and I had one of these when we were growin' up. Actually, we had a whole bunch a rats, but the one was a pet, if you know what I mean." Gunn grinned at her.

"No, you don't understand... Amy is... special. She's sort of... "

"She's a girl who turned herself into a rat to keep from being burned at the stake by Buffy's mom," Cordelia explained smoothly. Then she turned to Willow. "You haven't changed her back yet? What are you, Sabrina the teenage witch?"

"Spells involving animagus reactions are very complex," Willow defended.

"We actually found one," Tara added. "But even with Anya, we'd need a fourth."

Cordelia shrugged. "I'll do it."

"Um, Cordy," Willow began.

"What? Don't even start. I get skull-crushing headaches from the PTB, all in the name of helping the hopeless. They owe me. At the very least, they can let me help de-rat some poor girl."

Gunn looked down at Amy the rat, peered deep into her eyes. "Man. That's creepy."

"Welcome to Sunnydale," Faith called out from the other side of the room.

"So what are we supposed to do while you go casting about?"

"You could try to be helpful, Spike. Maybe try to identify a few demon languages." Willow smiled hopefully. "Given that you're a... well, a demon yourself, you might be more familiar with some of them than, say, me."

Anya, Cordelia, Willow and Tara had formed a circle. Gunn sat in the center of it, Amy perched on his knee. When they'd asked him to place her in the circle, the little rat had refused to let go, winding her tail around his wrist in protest. Willow had assured him there should be no adverse effects to him remaining in the circle while they did the spell, so he'd agreed to stay with Amy until they were done.

Wesley and Giles were huddled in the corner with Oz, Xander and Faith, still pouring over volume after volume of translations, legends and fables. Wesley was mostly concentrating on the scroll itself. Since the moment he'd realized his mistake in reading that 'to shanshu' implied Angel's impending death, he'd been bound and determined to check and double check every passage.

Smelly herbs lit, dust arranged, scattered, and properly shaped, the four girls joined hands and began to chant.

"Blessed be in the name of Alaura
We beseech thee
Hear our plea
That which was
Will be again
The sun will rise
As will it set
Restore
Restore
Restore!"

Oz glanced up from his research when Willow squealed. The sight that greeted him actually prompted an expression to appear on his face.

"Did it work?" Xander asked, not looking up, obviously not expecting anything but more bad news.

"You could say that," Oz replied.

"You have got to be the best looking rat I've ever seen," Gunn assured the very naked, very ecstatic girl on his lap.

"Dear God."

All eyes turned to Giles.

"The prophecy," Wesley added, pinching the bridge of his nose as though in great pain.

"I believe we have a problem," Giles explained.

Hallelujah
I gave you away so easily it makes me wonder why

Their labored breathing filled the silence, his an unnecessary affectation he couldn't shake, hers a concentrated effort to calm down before she lunged across the room and choked him. It wouldn't kill him, after all, and she just might feel better.

"Wanna run that by me again?"

"Buffy, my curse... the true nature of it... we don't... we =can't= know what the term "perfect happiness" really means."

"Still missing the you-being-afraid-it-could-work argument applied to the you-leave-me-forever line of thinking."

"Say we were strong enough to be together, without really ever "being" together again. Say we even managed to build some kind of life together, despite our tremendous differences." Angel stared down at his hands, trying to ignore how warm her breathing made the air in this tiny space. "Say one day," he began quietly, "I woke up with my cheek pressed against your breast, your heartbeat echoing in my ear, and a moment of pure, perfect happiness overcame me."

"Angel," she whispered, her voice catching slightly.

"That's how happy you made me, just by being," he admitted quietly. "I could feel the joy inside me, bubbling up whenever you smiled, or held my hand, or looked at me like I was a person, instead of a monster. The guilt and the pain... you kept it all at bay, and it was only a matter of time before you pushed it away completely." His eyes were wet, but he ignored the tears. He had no right to cry, he'd done too much, with and without a soul.

Buffy had no such internal censor, and a few tears trickled down her cheeks. Wiping them away with impatient fingers, she kept her gaze fixed on his, before emitting a semi-hysterical laugh.

"Why are we even doing this to ourselves?" she wondered aloud. "It's not like all the rehashing is actually going to solve anything. We live in different worlds, remember?"

"I remember," he replied quietly. "We haven't lived in each other's worlds for a long time now."

There was a sadness to her eyes, a pout beginning to form on her lips. He had the strangest compulsion to kiss it away, an impulse he just barely managed to control. Had he not spent a hundred years fighting back the demon, he doubted he would have managed it.

"What's your world like?" she asked finally, the longing of a little girl requesting a bedtime story reflected in her voice.

"Better, now," he answered honestly. "Faith works for me."

"Is she... I mean..."

"She's better now, too," he said with a smile. "We're... we're a family, Faith, De, Gunn, Wes and me."

"De?"

Angel laughed. "Sorry. Cordelia. It's something Faith and Gunn started that's sort of caught on. Gunn started calling her Delightful, with much sarcasm coloring his voice, Faith naturally turned that into something much simpler, and... we all use it now, except for Wes, who feels the need to enunciate her full name each and every time he addresses her."

"Very proper and British," Buffy guessed.

"Very madly in love with her," Angel corrected. "Though I don't think he's mentioned it to her yet."

"But he told you." It wasn't really a question, but Angel answered it anyway.

"We've talked a bit. He feels guilty, loving her when he can remember what she was like her senior year of high school. Makes him feel like a dirty old man."

"So your life is a big 'ole slice of perfect pie," she concluded, trying to sound cheerful.

"Wasn't always," Angel countered. "It's still hard. But for awhile, it was nearly unbearable."

"What happened?"

"A whole lot of bad I don't want to get into."

"Summarize me, then."

Angel sighed. "This evil law firm brought Darla back. Human. I tried to save her soul. I think that maybe I did. But before we had a chance, the aforementioned law firm brought Drusilla in, and she vamped Darla." Once again, his hands fascinated him. "They made me watch while they held me down."

"Oh, God, Angel," Buffy whispered, covering his hands with her own. It was instinctual, and natural, and they both sighed at the contact.

"I uh... I sort of went over the edge after that. I was already starting to lose it, but I shut everyone out. At the time, I felt like it was the only way I'd be able to beat them, when they were together. I did things I regret now, though I can't say I'd change them, because my actions somehow got me here. Maybe it was meant to be."

"Zen Angel," she teased lightly.

"Maybe," he conceded. "Or maybe I'm finally getting wise."

"Nah," she immediately disagreed, a soft smile still firmly planted on her face. They shared a silent laugh.

"I lost my way for awhile," he finally summarized.

"But you found it again."

"I did," Angel assured her quietly, squeezing her hands gently. "Around the time Faith got paroled, actually. I mended fences with my family, and... we kicked some ass." He grinned widely.

"Go Angel," she cheered softly.

They gazed into each other's eyes for a moment, captivated, as always, by what they saw.

Angel broke the silence. "So, how about your world?"

"My world," Buffy repeated dully, "has somehow managed to suck beyond the telling of it over the last year."

His thumb was tracing circles over her hand. It was soothing, and that simple touch was making her want to crawl into his lap, find a loose place in his skin and let him envelop her.

"Tell me whatever you feel comfortable sharing," Angel suggested. He didn't mention that he was starved for details of her life. As Buffy would say, there was no good there.

"My mom died," she said abruptly.

"Buffy," he whispered, unconsciously moving closer to her. "God, I didn't... when?"

"A few months ago," she answered. This was why she didn't let herself think of Joyce being gone. It hurt so much she thought she might die from it. The ache in her chest was worse than when Angel left. At least then, she'd known he was alive somewhere, trying to make amends.

"What about Dawn?"

A bitter laugh escaped Buffy's lips. "Dawn," she murmured, a bit unstably. "Dawn is fine. Dawn is at this very moment sound asleep in her room, in the house she's living in with my dad who hit town three months after mom died." More tears began to course down her cheeks. "I had to take a semester off, to deal with Dawn's grief. I didn't even have time to deal with my own."

Angel brought a hand to her face, smoothing it back until his fingers lightly pushed through her hair. When she leaned into his touch, he began gently massaging her scalp. He made no move to speak. This was something he sensed she'd needed to get out for a long time.

"I hate him," she said quietly. "I hate him for not being there, I hate him for being unreachable when I tried to tell him she was sick, and being even more unreachable when I had to tell him she was dead. And I hate him for not knowing that Dawn isn't really his daughter."

Now Angel was confused. "What?"

"She isn't real, Angel," Buffy murmured. "Except for all the ways that she is."

"I'm not really getting this," he said, an apologetic note to his voice.

"Not really surprised." Buffy sighed. "Dawn wasn't always here, even though we remember that she was. She's the Key, energy, whatever... only thing is, after she did this thing she was supposed to do... she didn't go away. Giles thinks it's because once a person is made, they can't just be... un-made. So even though she isn't real, was created by these monks, we still get to remember her forever as my little sister... as my mother's other daughter."

"That must be hard for you," Angel said lamely.

"Understatement," she agreed. "And then, right in the middle of it all, Riley got into a snit about how I didn't really love him, or need him, or want him... Xander claims I treated him like rebound guy, which... I guess I did. But..."

"But?"

"I'm sorry. I just realized you probably don't want to hear about this part."

Angel winced. "I admit... as someone who loves you, I don't enjoy hearing about your life with other men. But as your..."

"Friend?" she offered, a sad note to her voice.

"Not that," he admitted. "I don't know what to call myself in relation to you."

"I've always just thought of you as Angel," Buffy answered. "My Angel," she clarified. "There really isn't a category for what we are to each other. Especially not when we tried to convince ourselves that we were ex."

"Except for the part where we are," he noted ruefully. This time, the smile they shared was tired.

"Back to my world," she muttered. "Riley left, the Watcher's Council came back, I went through some... stuff that I think is a little similar to your stuff, I got through it, somehow, and now I live my life with my fake sister. I went back to the dorms when my dad came. It was hard, living in that house without mom."

"I thought, the way you spoke of him, that Riley's departure was a more... recent thing." He could have cursed himself for bringing it up. "You just seem more raw than you should be." He shut his eyes tightly. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to..."

"It's all right," she assured him, squeezing his hands. "I'm not still all torn up over Riley leaving so long ago. I'm still a little chafed from where he left a few days ago."

"I'm confused again," he joked mildly.

"It was weird," Buffy confessed finally. "Riley blew back into town about the same time Oz did. And Willow's been really upset over it, really... really upset." Buffy's voice grew quieter and quieter as she spoke. "I had convinced myself I loved Riley, really, truly loved him, and that if he'd only come back, only give me a chance to prove it..." A bitter laugh echoed through the cave. "I did love him. At least a little bit. But not like it should be."

An internal debate went on in her mind, and finally, she decided to say it out loud. If they died here, she wanted him to know. And if they got out, she wouldn't be able to pretend like she'd felt nothing with him. It would be out, uncontained and dangerous, just the way she secretly liked things.

"Not like I love you."

"Buffy--"

"That's how I finally realized it, you know," she interrupted, not wanting to hear his oh-so-logical "let Buffy down easy" speech. "Willow loved Oz so much. She would tell me how this little space in her heart waited for him, no matter what happened. How her bones ached for him, in the quiet, stillest parts of the night. And I could totally relate, you know?"

Buffy's gaze was cast down, but she lifted her head, wanting to see the look in his eyes when she said this.

"But... it wasn't the Buffy that loved Riley that got the place Willow was in. It was the Buffy who always had, and always would, love you that got it, in the most scary, totally all-consuming way."

And there it was. That look she'd been starved for, for ages. His eyes were portals to his soul like no one else's, and right now, that look on his face told her he wanted to devour her whole, and God help her, she wanted to be consumed by him. He wanted to say something. She could tell. But he was hesitating. Whatever he could possibly say wouldn't fit with the perfectly rational little plan he'd concocted sometime before her high school senior prom.

"Do you love me?" she asked finally, when it seemed his hesitation was getting the best of him. It wasn't like they both didn't already know the answer. But sometimes, a girl needed to hear it. "Do you?"

"I think maybe I was born to," he answered honestly, that hunger morphing into longing, then need, lust, love, then some intoxicating combination of all five.

He was still in control, though. *Damn him* With a deliberate motion, Buffy pressed the very tip of her index finger against his inner wrist, then began to gently trace little patterns on it. The letter A, for his name, a little stake, a heart... And he was affected, just not enough to snap that damn control. *Damn him*

Buffy had felt something from the moment she landed in this pit. There was no way out of this. No one had seen them fall, no one even knew they were down here. There were no doors, no windows, no vulnerable places to attack and escape from. They were going to die down here, and Buffy wasn't about to leave this earth without feeling him against her one last time.

That thought firmly in mind, she flicked her hair behind her shoulder, discreetly slid the shirt she wore an inch or so to the side, baring his mark on her neck. Still smoothing a finger over his wrist, she lifted his hand until it was pressed against the tiny scar on the side of her neck. The tips of his fingers reached out, and began gently rubbing back and forth.

Buffy shivered.

Angel pulled her head to his for a kiss.

"You're telling me my boss is trapped in some kind of pit, destined to die with the only girl he's ever loved, and you can't even give me some evil demon to kill for it?!"

Faith was understandably livid.

"Hey, I know things are kind of tense... but could someone lend me a couple of bucks? I'm sort of dying for something other than cheese and wood chips to eat." Amy stood, dressed finally, in a pair of Buffy's sweat pants the slayer had left in the training room, and the flannel shirt Gunn had worn over his t-shirt.

Everyone but Gunn ignored her.

"Soon as we figure out this Angel/Buffy mess, how 'bout you and me grab a bite together?" He grinned. "Cheese free, I swear."

Amy smiled at him gratefully.

"It was what Spike and Faith witnessed that finally clicked for me," Giles admitted, addressing the room.

Wesley plucked a book from the center of the table. "And so the darkness shall open its jaws and swallow the world's greatest warriors," he read aloud. "Their burden is the future, and they must be tested." He put the book down. "A part of the scroll I had previously been unable to decipher is worded almost identically, and it most definitely relates to the vampire with a soul."

"And this passage, here," Giles continued, indicating the prophecies of Aberjian, "clearly states that the vampire with a soul dies."

"But Wes said that before," Cordelia argued. "And he realized that shanshu didn't mean to die, it meant to live. It meant Angel was going to become human." Her voice was firm. "Angel =is= going to be human. I already bought him sunglasses."

"Cordelia, the passage Giles is referring to is separate from the shanshu prophecy," Wesley explained.

Cordelia had no answer to that.

"From what we can determine, this... trap is some sort of test," Giles began. "The gist of it is that the only way out is for one of them to kill the other, and, ideally, the victorious one has proven his or her worth. However, the catch is, if they =were= to kill each other, neither would win, as only an 'unworthy' person would destroy a fellow soldier, and the 'victor' would spend the rest of his or her days trapped in the very pit they sought to escape from."

"However," Wesley continued, "it doesn't say how either of them are to escape, even if they refuse to fight."

"So what does that mean?" Cordelia asked.

"It means we figure out how to bust them out," Xander answered for everyone present

"Quite," Giles agreed. "I need everyone to go through every magic book that isn't for novices we have here. Look for location spells, transportation spells, anything that might help us locate Buffy and Angel, and bring them back from wherever it is they've gone."

Xander cracked his knuckles. "Witches: Man your broomsticks."

If I die before you do believe me I'll be haunting you

So this was how her world would end.

The thought flitted through Buffy's mind as Angel's mouth sought to devour hers. This assault was welcome, longed for, and she threaded her fingers through his hair to hold him closer.

His hands were moving up and down her back, and she utilized her slayer speed to un-do the first four buttons on his shirt. A moment of sanity seemed to run through him, and he pulled his mouth from hers savagely.

"Buffy, we can't--"

"We can. We will. And I won't let your overly-developed sense of guilt cheat us out of this."

"Buffy. Stop." His hands found the side of her face and he held her away from him just enough to look into her eyes.

"No stopping," she insisted.

"I need to know that you realize what we're doing," he said firmly.

"I'm not stupid, Angel," she whispered, running her hands up and down over his on her cheeks. "I'm tired. I'm so, so tired."

"So am I," he whispered back, leaning his face toward hers until their foreheads touched. Her body was kneeling over his lap, and he could feel her heart beating against his chest, echoing like the phantom heartbeat that he sometimes swore he still felt.

"Let's just be," she murmured. "Let's just love each other the way some stupid power that plays with our lives decided we never could."

"You know what this means," he argued. "Buffy, you'll have to kill me--"

"Shh," she whispered, two fingers pressed against his beautiful mouth. Buffy knew that her next words would seal both their fates, for she could never kill him again. They would die here together, slayer and demon, as it was meant to be. "Just kiss me." Her voice was a whisper passed between them, the memory of a rainy night so very long ago flowing through their beings like a cool stream.

It would have been easier to stake himself than to refuse her in that moment.

He did neither.

Instead, he pressed their lips together, gently, reverently, committed to this path they were taking. He'd been so lonely for her, so lost without her love in his life. The ache was beginning to fade, the emptiness filled up with her light. That light didn't burn him now, it made him whole and happy and content. A monster didn't deserve a death so sweet.

"I missed you," he whispered into the stillness.

"So much," she agreed, running a hand up his stomach, to his chest, resting it against his breastbone. "God, Angel, so much."

A tug of her hands against his back, and he let her bear his weight, his hands still occupied with her face and hair. The sigh that left her mouth was pure contentment, and her legs twined more intimately with his, one strong thigh firmly anchored around his hip.

This was going to go slowly if it killed him. To that end, Angel held her tight against him and turned until they faced each other on their sides. Buffy caught on, and slung her leg more firmly over his hip, rubbing their bodies together lazily.

"What do you wish, Angel?"

The question almost caught him off guard. As she'd asked it, her fingernails had been scraping along the back of his neck.

"That I could grow old with you," he answered without hesitation. "There's nothing I want more than to see your hair gray, your face wrinkle, and to know that the eyes I'm watching you through are lined with age. I want to know there's an end to it."

"An end," she repeated quietly, her mind drifting back to something Spike had told her once. Was that all this was, here, with Angel? Was she in love with death, ready to meet it?

"I've lived a long time," he said quietly, cutting into her thoughts. "I think there's a reason vampires are evil." Her eyes asked the question, and he gave her a weary, aching smile. "Human souls weren't meant to live this long."

No, this wasn't death she was in love with. It was just him. Granted, there was nowhere else she would want to die more than in his arms. But this wasn't about death. Buffy knew she wasn't ready to go yet. But if she had to, if this was the only way she'd ever have him again...

*So be it.*

"What about you?" he asked her after a moment of quiet breathing, and soothing hands. "What does Buffy Summers wish?"

"To be loved by a man who will never leave, no matter how hard, or scary my world gets. Someone who loves me for me, for Buffy, and for the slayer."

One of his hands crept down her throat, to her collarbone where he let it rest, his thumb just barely brushing against her clavicle.

"I know I left Sunnydale," he said quietly, "but I swear, I never left you, Buffy. I carried you with me every day."

"That made it harder," she confessed. "Because I did still feel you with me, so much that when I saw a guy who sort of looked like you at the Bronze..." A tear slipped down her cheek.

Nuzzling her cheek with his nose, he pressed his lips over the tear, his tongue coming out to lick it away. A gasp left her mouth and she moved even closer to him, sliding her hands beneath his shirt to press against bare skin.

"No more tears," he whispered. Nimble fingers slid her t-shirt up and off, and her bra soon followed. Pants and panties came next, until her body was spread out before him like the greatest of feasts. His hands passed over her skin worshipfully, silently saying grace.

There would be death, a slow, perfect one in his arms, and the world would be safe, because the demon would still be trapped. Buffy pulled his head to hers again, pressing her naked body to his still fully clothed one, hands moving to divest him of the barriers that kept their skins from touching. Against her will, more tears began spilling down her cheeks.

*This is it... I'll never wake up with him again, there's no happily ever after for us, Will and Giles and Xander will never know I died at peace...*

"Buffy." His voice called her back from wherever it was she'd gone, and she looked into those chocolate brown depths she adored beyond reason.

Lips and fingers brushed her tears away, and she returned the favor when she felt his own cheeks damp with moisture.

"It's just the two of us," he whispered into her hair, "no demons, no darkness, just us, alone without fear, and tomorrow I'll bring you breakfast in bed."

"Pancakes," she whispered against his mouth, pulling him closer.

"Fresh squeezed orange juice."

"Hot maple syrup."

"And a long white rose, with a note, that says--"

"I'll never leave." Her eyes thanked him for this beautiful lie.

"That's what it says," he whispered, pressing her back to his coat as his lips caught hers once more.

"I found it!"

Willow's triumphant cry drew the attention of everyone present, including Amy who was looking doubtfully at a half-eaten Mars bar she'd found behind the counter.

"It's a relocation spell," Willow continued. "All we need is Tantun root--"

"Which Giles got a butt load of last week," Anya supplied helpfully.

"And it has to be raining," Willow said, her voice falling.

"Hey, no problem-o, Wendy," Xander reassured Willow. "You and your good little witch buddy here can do that elements thing and make the water fall from the sky."

"We could," Tara confirmed, brightening considerably.

"But we'd still need someone to conduct the spell itself," Willow reminded them.

"Um, hello! De-ratted someone an hour ago," Cordelia cut in.

"Thanks, by the way," Amy called out, regretfully abandoning the stale piece of chocolate.

"Spike, Faith, take us to the precise location you last saw Buffy in," Giles instructed as he began gathering the supplies they would require.

"Oh my," Wesley explained.

Ten sets of expectant eyes turned toward the former watcher.

"It seems we've made yet another miscalculation in regards to the prophecy concerning the vampire with a soul," Wesley announced in a weary voice.

A cacophony of groans accented Cordelia's "I am =not= taking back those sunglasses. They're Raybans and I was going to show him that vampire commercial before I gave them to him."

Angel's mouth was still buried against the side of Buffy's neck when they both felt their surroundings shift and change.

Suddenly, Buffy no longer felt Angel's soft greatcoat beneath her back. Wet grass pressed against her naked skin, and her horrified eyes opened, only to shut again instantly as they were assaulted by warm rain.

Angel sprung away from her, hitting his knees on the ground, her name pulled from his throat in a whisper as he clutched his head in pain.

Every thought in Buffy's head floated away as she watched him, kneeling, panting. It had never made sense to her, how he kept up the affectation of breathing. One of her greatest weaknesses was her need for oxygen. Certainly it would be a handy advantage to be able to do without.

*And I'm babbling in my head so I can pretend this is not happening as long as possible*

Angel staggered to his feet, then looked up at her, the rain pouring down around them.

Another memory assaulted her, standing in what hadn't been, but certainly felt like rain. Then, her world had crumbled around her, the hateful gaze of the man she loved crippling her. That had been the night the very last of her innocence had been swept away like dust.

*"You know what the worst part was? Pretending that I =loved= you."*

Deep inside, her heart broke all over again. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. They were trapped, below ground, they were both going to die... she'd had a plan, however disjointed and sacrificial.

They were going to dance, slayer and demon, in a way they never would, were he in possession of his soul.

And now there was only the hunt, only the kill, and she'd have to watch him turn to dust, not just tonight, in the rain, but every night afterward and her hair was in her eyes and her clothes were still below ground, she was naked, dripping wet in more ways than the obvious, still feeling him inside her, his seed on her thighs, the rain washing it all away, purifying before she committed this sin, this duty, always her sacred duty, to kill the man she loved, and what the hell was she supposed to use as a stake?!

Buffy."

Buffy. Not 'Lover,' not 'Slayer,' but... Buffy. Her name.

"Angel?

Wary, she was so wary, she had to be. If she wasn't, he could kill her, and while she'd be okay with that, he'd also kill her friends, and most likely turn her so she could help. That she couldn't allow.

"It's okay," he whispered, stepping toward her slowly, hands raised in supplication, as naked as she was.

Of course he's naked, she thought, we were just making love and if we made love his soul is =gone= cause I'm pretty damn sure I felt a moment of perfect happiness run through us both...

"How?" she croaked, her fists raised.

"I don't know how," he murmured, closing his palms over her fists. She did not fight him. Wasn't sure she could. "But it's okay." He brought one of her hands forward, pressed it palm down over his chest.

thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump

"Angel," she practically sobbed, seeking his gaze for confirmation that this was real, and not some delusion she'd made up to keep the misery at bay.

"I think you brought me back to life, love." His smile was beautiful and unrestrained.

With a cry of joy, she threw herself at him, arms around his shoulders, legs climbing his body to twine around his hips, her lips peppering kisses over his face, his jaw, his throat.

In their exuberance, Angel was unable to continue standing, and they fell to the wet ground, kissing and groping and necking in the rain, without fear of what consequences this touching might bring.

They were so absorbed in one another, they didn't hear the approaching footsteps, nor notice the somewhat large audience they'd attracted.

"Oh, dear Lord."

"Watch out! He's evil again!"

"He's not evil, dorko. Were you even paying attention to Wesley?"

"Did Angel neglect to mention that this weird ass town was some sorta nudist colony?"

"No, we're not usually this... naked. You just caught us on a... naked day."

"Naked day might be fun, actually."

"Oz!"

"Should we leave them here to copulate?"

"What if they get attacked by something? I can't get a new job, nowhere decent hires ex-convicts."

"I'm sure they can handle themselves in a fight, love. Though if they keep goin' at it like that, it might scare all the demons away."

"Um, could we debate this over french fries? Maybe a milk shake?"

"I've got it! 'The Bat Pack'!"

Dead silence followed Cordelia's outburst.

"I like that, actually," Buffy said, before going back to happily covering Angel in kisses.

The End.

Um, excuse me, I said =the end=. Dense, much?

What?

Oh.

Someone here tells me you want to know how everything turned out. Everything inside me rebels against telling you...

Oh, fine, just stop whining. It's beneath you.

Remember that "sudden insight" Wesley had into the prophecy? It seems the trials outlined for the vampire with a soul actually began when Angel first arrived in Sunnydale. Having already assisted in averting the apocalypse twice (three times, if you count closing his eyes so complacently for Buffy), Angel's final large trial was defeating Wolfram and Hart. Having done that, he only needed a single moment of 'perfect happiness' to kick off his shanshu.

Anya and Cordelia bonded over fashion and Xander stories. They elected to have a joint wedding, despite Xander and Wesley's vociferous objections and claims that it was "weird." Angel acted as Wesley's best man, Faith as Cordelia's maid of honor. Oz stood up for Xander, and Anya surprised everyone by enlisting Tara as her maid of honor.

Giles gave Anya away, and Angel did double-duty, escorting Cordelia down the aisle before taking his place at Wesley's side.

Cordelia never won her Oscar, but her family (not the losers she was born into, but the one she made, first in Sunnydale, then later, in L.A.) bought her half a dozen Golden Globes. Xander escorted her to each and every ceremony (her husband, Wesley, having no patience for the sort of travesty Hollywood parades out each year). He even wore a tux. And =not= a rented one.

Willow, Oz, and Tara enjoyed an open, giving, sexual, spiritual, and monogamous relationship. They also held fast in their belief that none of the above adjectives conflicted with the rather obvious fact that there were three of them deeply involved in the relationship. They eventually purchased the Crawford Street mansion, and lived there quite happily their entire lives.

Faith lived hard and died young. Unlike most slayers, however, she also rose again a day or so later. Spike, still unable to hunt, took her under his wing. They spend a lot of time in Alaska, so they don't have to worry about the sun every bloody day, thank you very much, and, for you Watchers out there -- Fun Fact: a Slayer turned does retain possession of her soul.

Amy put on nearly twenty pounds her first month back to being human. This sat well with Gunn, who, after holding her "naked, bony ass" decided she definitely needed to fatten up. Amy accompanied Gunn back to L.A., and took a job at Angel Investigations. Because, as is their motto, 'you never know when you might need a witch in your pocket.'

Anya finally got back into vengeance -- she's a divorce attorney in the "classy" part of Los Angeles. Xander made an enormous amount of money when he sold the plans for one of L.A.'s hottest nightclubs, "The Darker Side," where patrons and staff alike dressed as vampires. His large salary for that project allowed Anya to quit her job, and go to night school while Xander stayed home with the kids.

Ironically, Anya's own marriage is solid as a rock, and while she still feels a pang or two of jealousy, she doesn't mind when Xander takes Cordelia to those functions. Instead, she invites Wesley over, they let their kids play together, and he quizzes her about what life was =really= like in thirteenth century France.

Giles is exactly the same. He visits England several times a year, and has become "very close friends" with the woman who owns the coffee shop across from The Magic Box. Everyone in their group still considers him the father figure, even going so far as to send him cards on Father's Day, and bring their children up to call him "Grandpa". He remains secretly thrilled with the entire affair.

Angel continued to run the agency, though for the first few years after his transformation, he did so almost exclusively from Sunnydale. There were plenty of hopeless souls to save in a town that sat atop a hellmouth. Unlike the first time he turned human, Angel's strength didn't completely desert him. He wasn't as powerful as he was as a vampire, but nor was he as helpless as every other 'normal' human. Plus, 200 years fighting experience was nothing to sneeze at.

He stood by Buffy's side when they sealed the hellmouth for the last time. Him retaining his strength was either an after-effect of having lived as a supernatural being for so long, or The Powers That Be's subtle way of giving his and Buffy's relationship their blessing at last.

And as for Buffy...

Once she was able to leave the hellmouth, she went into business with Angel. They were successful partners until they turned the agency over to the homeless kids who'd lived in the area all their lives. A new generation runs "Angel Investigations" and it will no doubt be standing until no one needs helping anymore.

Buffy's 'hobby' was Angel, and how many different things she could do that would make him smile. Her most successful endeavor was giving him the news that they were expecting their first child. That smile was only bested by the one he gave her when he learned they were expecting their second.

Buffy never had normal, but if you asked her, she'd tell you she got something that kicked normal's ass. Buffy lived longer than any slayer on record (if you don't count Faith, who lived to be nearly 300), and when she died, it was as an old woman, with wrinkles, a rocking chair and everything, wrapped in the arms of a man who'd never really left her at all.

But that... that's another story.

I'll come upon you while you sleep
to drown you in a kiss so deep -- Joan Osborne

The End

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