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The fluidity of a good kill, the artistry that embodied a soul's last breath -- those were the little things that made unlife worth living.

Angelus watched the shift and pull of Buffy's body as she flirted with the boy at the drive-thru window of a filthy McDonald's in downtown Hollywood. Her every movement spoke of immeasurable grace and confidence. Occasionally, she would bring a finger to the boy's face, caress the tip of his chin with it, her lilting laughter carrying on the wind. Buffy used such skill with her seduction that Angelus was willing to bet the kid had temporarily forgotten he worked at a place so vile that people didn't want their cars near it, let alone their appetites; that such a magnificent creature would never deign to speak with him.

People believed what they so desperately needed to. Human souls had been doing it for centuries, convincing themselves their lovers hadn't been unfaithful, that their children didn't hate them, that they were happy in their jobs. The whole thing made Angelus sick. Their weak, pathetic souls wouldn't allow their true natures to assert themselves.

Pure passion did exist in the human world: murder, rape, torture . . .it all lurked in the darkest corners of every human psyche. Most people would tell you they never thought about their deepest, baser instincts, but Angelus knew better. Vampires were only demons in the strictest sense of the word. Physical affectations and aversion to sunlight notwithstanding, they were no more demonic in spirit than your average serial killer.

When a vampire became, the demon merely fed on every ounce of darkness that dwelt in the heart of the person it now inhabited. The better the man, the purer the soul, the more vicious the demon.

Angelus did not have it in him to be anything young Liam hadn't been capable of. Admittedly, the likelihood of Liam going on a drunken rampage and obliterating his entire village was slim; the boy hadn't had enough drive to do more than fall down after too much ale. His thirst to see the world, to be more than what he'd been born to was something deeply entrenched in Angelus' being.

Liam had never been in love. He'd loved his sister with the manly protectiveness of a fine Irish lad of his time. His mother he'd respected, though he'd spent more time with the scullery maid than he had with her. The father whom he'd always disappointed, whom he loathed and sought approval from in equal measure had certainly shaped the demon's lust for suffering, but hadn't done much to affect his heart.

Never having fallen victim to the charms of the lovely lasses who made routine trips to his bed, Liam had never the inclination, nor the opportunity to fall in love with one of them -- they simply didn't stick around long enough. The demon, having no real frame of reference from its human host, had therefore been unable to love.

Angelus was amazed now at how many vampires had never loved as humans. Truly, deeply loved, to the point that it was able to transcend such a wondrous metamorphosis.

Therefore, contrary to what she'd have liked to believe, Angelus had never loved Darla. He'd never loved anything, not when he'd been weak and mortal, not after he'd regained his soul in those cursed Romanian woods.

But then, at the time, the soul had never laid eyes on Buffy Summers. It had not yet loved her so completely that even after it had gone again, it left echoes of her inside his skin.

Angelus loved her against his will. It had been intolerable when she'd been alive, the very embodiment of everything he was meant to hate. Now, though it wasn't nearly as embarrassing, he still felt unsettled about it.

The Scourge of Europe, loving a little blonde thing barely two decades old; loving anyone at all, for that matter.

Oh, but she was flawless; so young, but so capable already, in her beauty, her cunning, her skill . . . Her vicious nature, her darkness nearly equaled his own. In time, she might even surpass him. Darla's darkness had inspired lust and fear inside his being in equal measures. Despite her protests, however, he didn't believe she'd loved him anymore than he'd loved her. Her human heart, the same as his, had never known love before she was turned.

After she came back again, that was a different story. Angelus was willing to believe that she, when forced to view their history, their relationship through human eyes, had fallen in love with him. That love infected her even after the soul was blessedly removed again.

Before that, though, his relationship with Darla had been a tempestuous thing. A lesson he'd learned not a decade into it with her was that he could never turn his back on her. No matter how long they'd been together, no matter how many times he made her come, hunted by her side, or promised her an eternity, he'd never felt safe enough to let his guard down.

At any moment, Darla might have abandoned him -- as she did when he'd been cursed -- and that sure notion had influenced Angelus' thoughts and actions every moment of their hundred and forty some odd years together.

Maybe it had been love, of a kind. But it hadn't been real, or lasting or . . . a smirk curved his lips. Eternal.

Another of Buffy's laughs drifted to his attention, and he narrowed his eyes, wondering how long she intended to play with her food. Oddly enough, he wasn't concerned with whether she intended to return to him or not. He knew with certainty that she did. There was humanity in him now, emotions that weren't based in evil for this goddess in her red leather pants.

That was what made his hate for her nearly surpass his love. Angelus forced himself to do something he never had before -- curb the instinct to destroy whatever it was that gave him pause. For destroying this beautiful creature might truly be the stupidest thing he'd ever chosen to do, stupider even than accepting Darla's gift of that gypsy girl.

Trust was possible with Buffy. He'd never trusted another demon before. It might be nice, to have a partner in this world, one he wouldn't have to constantly keep tabs on. An equal to hunt with, sleep with, torture with, fuck with -- an eternal mate in the truest sense.

A loud crash drew his attention back to Buffy, and he watched as she ripped the boy through the window, his excited smile turning into an expression of pure panic. Effortlessly snapping his neck, Buffy dragged him to where Angelus waited in the shadows, safely concealed from curious eyes. Not that the eyes in this part of town were all that curious.

Such delightful human behavior, Angelus thought again as Buffy tossed the boy's lifeless corpse at him.

"I got it to go," she declared cheerfully. A concerned look crossed her face. "You didn't want fries with it, did you?"

Angelus smiled. Maybe it would be nice, indeed.

"'Dawn found out she was the key today. I feel horrible for even thinking this, but I'm so glad Riley isn't here. Explaining how I'd lied to the rest of the gang had been bad enough. If I'd had to soothe Riley's wounded ego . . . hell, he'd probably use my not telling him about Dawn as another excuse as to why I was constantly pushing him away. Not that his accusations were the most groundless I'd ever heard. He had ground, all right. I didn't let him all the way in. But I let him in as far as I could; as far as I was capable. I gave him everything I had left, and it still wasn't enough. Why can't they see that'--" A disgusted noise came from the back of his throat.

"What? Why'd you stop?"

"She's bloody moping about Angel again," Spike said, slapping Buffy's diary against his knee. "Girl can't go two whole bleedin' pages without moaning and groaning about some damn thing that's reminded her of Angel. Even when she doesn't expound upon the beauty that is the poof, she finds a way to work his name in somehow, being all 'Angel once told me,' or 'I wonder what Angel would do?'" Spike trailed off as he realized his impression of Buffy wasn't entirely appreciated by the rest of the group.

"Am I the only one who feels reading Buffy's private thoughts aloud is quite reprehensible?" Giles muttered from his place on the opposite end of the room.

"You've mentioned it once, or maybe eight billion times," Cordelia assured him.

Everyone was gathered in the lobby, listening to Spike read Buffy's diary. While he'd attempted to stick to his guns where Willow chickening out was concerned, he'd found half the things Buffy wrote so damned heartbreaking, and the other half so bloody amusing, that he'd had to share it with the rest of the class.

The other slayer was sitting to his left, the little witch to his right. Giles sat as far away from them as he could get, feigning interest in one of his old diaries. Spike wasn't fooled, though. He knew the old man was every bit as interested in what his girl had had to say before her untimely un-death.

That other bloke, Wesley, was sitting next to Willow, and Cordelia had taken the floor at his feet. Gunn was sitting in the exactly same position on the floor in front of Faith, and Spike had been nauseated watching the idiot play footsie with the cheerleader for the last ten minutes. If they thought they were fooling anybody, they were desperately stupid.

Xander was sitting in-between Giles and the group, staring at his hands a lot, being very quiet. Quiet was definitely not a word Spike would have used to describe the little wise-ass, and if he'd cared, he might have been worried about the bloke.

Given that he didn't care, he picked Buffy's diary back up and began to read where he'd left off.

"All right, blah, blah, Angel takes up too much of my heart, yadda, yadda, yadda, I miss him so much when I think about how nice it would be to go to him and tell him all about Dawn, oh, Jesus bleedin' Christ will it never end?" Annoyed, Spike skipped back several pages until he reached a diary entry she'd made nearly a year before, when this journal began. "Hey, now this looks good."

"What?" Willow asked. "And is it really important? I mean, we're only doing this so we can get where she was coming from right before . . . it happened--"

"It's about you, ducks," Spike said to Faith, eyeing her for a moment.

"Me?" Faith asked, and her voice sounded choked.

Spike cleared his throat and began reading. "'Faith stole my body. Faith was in my body. Faith did things in my body. Faith slept with my boyfriend. In my body. I feel like if I keep writing it down it'll somehow cease to be. That it'll be some weird trip my brain took without my consent, and I'll wake up and everything will go back to normal. I'll have my normal demon-hunting boyfriend who's sweet, and loving, and can't even fucking tell the difference between my soul and Faith's. That was so an uncontrollable outburst, and if I weren't writing in pen, that puppy would be history. But I promised myself emotional honesty, at least in my diary, and it stays, even though I do have a handy bottle of white out right here. The thing is, I keep having this thought, this horrible, unfair thought that if only' -- oh, I don't fucking believe this!"

"What?!" Every voice in the room -- Giles and Xander included -- shouted at once.

"She's bloody talking about Angel a-goddamn-gain!" Spike tried to calm himself down. "'If only it hadn't been Riley who Faith was trying to seduce. If Angel was still in my life, if she'd gone after him, I know he would have been able to tell us apart. He would have KNOWN me, no matter what, even if I was trapped in Faith's body. At least, that's what I tell myself. We've grown so far apart now, sometimes I wonder if I'd still feel him, inside, when he's near.'"

"God, what a whiny bitch I was," came a voice from the outer lobby.

"You said it, not me," another, deeper voice answered.

All those gathered rose from their seated positions, unwilling to believe the thought that clouded their minds. It couldn't be. Angel had just gone somewhere to brood for awhile. He wasn't -- he wouldn't have . . . They were all thinking the same thing, and each of their hopes were dashed as the couple strode lazily into the lobby.

"What was wrong with me, wallowing in freakish misery?" Buffy continued, arm in arm with Angel. Outwardly, he looked like a gentleman escorting his lady. "All that angst and woe when all I had to do was get loose and be reborn."

"To become is an art, love," Angel agreed. "You have to give it the proper time. I only wish I could have been there when it happened."

"You and me both," Buffy muttered. "If you'd been there, there's no way I'd have to own up to that loser of a sire."

"Angel," Cordelia whispered.

"Guess again," he smirked.

"Oh, but don't stake him," Buffy warned. "It's only temporary. Well, temporarily." She giggled at her own joke, then fell silent when everyone -- Angelus included -- stared at her. "Jeez, everyone's so uptight," she muttered.

"What do you . . . that is . . .temporary?" Willow stuttered.

"Slipped him a little happy pill," Buffy confirmed. "He'll be back to his brooding self by morning."

"Like what happened with Rebecca Lowell," Wesley murmured quietly.

"That's where I got the idea!" Buffy cried happily. "Kudos, Wes. I see your time clocked working for Angel has improved your ability to think and reason."

"What do you want?" Giles asked, taking a protective stance in front of the 'children.'

"You, I really want to turn," Buffy said honestly. "You would not even believe how many times I've thought 'I should ask Giles . . .' about this 'n that."

"Yes. That's very . . . sweet." Giles shook his head, looking totally ill at ease with the conversation.

"Come on, love," Spike said, turning to Faith. "We can take 'em."

"Yes, but how many of you will we get to first?" Buffy asked innocently.

"Don't much care," Spike admitted easily.

"You care about this one though, don't you?" Buffy said, reaching out a hand and grabbing Willow faster than the human eye could perceive. "My best friend," Buffy murmured against Willow's cheek.

"Buffy," Willow whimpered, tears filling her eyes.

"I think I'll turn you, too," Buffy mused. "It's gotten so tedious without having someone to talk to. And remember that other evil skanky gay you? Oops." Buffy pretended to feel bad. "I guess she wasn't all that different from you after all."

"You're not her," Xander said as he moved to stand beside Giles. "You're not Buffy anymore than he's Angel and you can't hurt us like this, not after everything you've already taken."

"Funny," Buffy said, "because I think I =can= hurt you." She applied pressure to Willow's throat, and the redhead gasped. "I =can= hurt you."

"Temper, temper, love," Angelus murmured from behind her. "If you plan to turn her, snapping her neck is out of the question."

"You're right," Buffy said, visibly fighting for control. "You'll enjoy her," she added, licking the side of Willow's face. "I think we both will."

"That's 'bout enough of that," Gunn said, stepping into the thick of things.

"Oh look, Angel, someone else wants to play," Buffy said with genuine enthusiasm.

"Let her go," Gunn ordered.

"Now, be fair -- what will you give me if I do?"

"How 'bout a cherry oak chair leg through the heart," Gunn said with a shrug.

Buffy frowned and contemplated him for a moment, before smiling brightly. "You know what I want? I want you. Because I've been thinking about this, and it's really not right."

"You'll trade her for me?" Gunn clarified.

"Gunn," Cordelia hissed.

"Deal."

Gunn moved toward Buffy, and she threw Willow to the floor with one arm, while grabbing Gunn with the other.

"Much better," Buffy agreed, making sure she had a firm grip on her new hostage. "A lot more equal, too. About time one of Angel's little friends bit the big one, don't you think?" she asked conversationally. "I've been awfully selfish, only taking care of my needs in this relationship, don't you think so, honey?"

"Absolutely," Angelus agreed, moving closer to Buffy until he could run his index finger down her upper arm. "But you don't get to kill this one."

Buffy pouted. "But--"

"But nothing," Angelus insisted. "This one's mine. He's always challenged my authority, from the very beginning. Matter of fact, when I went through that existential crisis bullshit a few weeks back, this one was the least understanding of the bunch. No, if anyone's going to kill him, it's going to be me."

Buffy stared at Angelus for a moment, then shrugged, tossing Gunn to her lover as though he were a rag doll. Angelus mimicked the hold Buffy had on Gunn a moment before, and let his gaze wander the room, taking in the exact positioning of various Scooby Gang -- current, and former -- members. Then, he looked up at Buffy, a tiny smirk on his lips.

"Guess what, lover?"

Returning his smile, Buffy let herself reflect on how good it felt to have him by her side. "What?"

"Drugs have worn off."

Before she had a chance to process his statement, Angel hurled Gunn toward the rest of the group, then lunged at Buffy.

Shocked though she was, Buffy recovered quickly, dodging the punch he threw at her head, and returning it with a well placed kick at his ribs. The assembled gang watched as Buffy and Angel exchanged blow after blow, each anticipating, then matching the other's moves before they made them.

"They've shared blood," Giles said, looking a bit dazed.

"Not to mention that uber creepy soulmate thing they had going on before," Cordelia added.

"They appear to be evenly matched," Wesley commented.

"So what, we've got two super vamps to handle?" Xander cried. "One of which, I might add, is good, then he's evil, then he's good, then he's kinda evil, then he's good--" A smack from Willow to the back of his head stopped his flow of words. "Shutting up now."

Angel grabbed a huge handful of Buffy's hair, ripped her head back, and slammed her face first into his knee. Everyone present -- Angel included -- winced, then winced again when Buffy delivered a well placed blow to Angel's crotch while she was by his knee.

Buffy must have reached the same conclusion Wesley had, for her gaze began darting around the room while she took a defensive stance toward Angel. The group blocked the front door, and while she might be able to make it, one of them might get lucky with a stake. With a final, savage roundhouse kick to Angel's face, Buffy spun and sprinted up the stairs.

Angel didn't miss a beat, and followed quickly at her heels.

Everyone but Faith made a move to follow Angel. The brunette slayer stood stock still in the center of the room.

"She's going out a window," Faith said with an eerie surety.

"Are you sure?" Willow asked.

"Outside," was all Faith said as she headed out the door.

Sometimes when I'm fighting, it's like I don't exist anymore. Me, Buffy, goes away, and I feel something take over inside of me. Ever since we did that spell and I faced the First Slayer, it's like I can feel her pulsing through me, animating my bones, existing in the action of death she spoke of through Tara. My life is so much more than that, yet when I'm fighting, it's all that exists for me. As I stalk a vampire through the cemetery, I'm not thinking about hitting the Bronze with Will and Xan, I'm not thinking about getting Giles a life. I don't wonder if Dawn's safe, I don't miss Angel or Riley, and I'm not even thinking about the fact that my mom almost died. That scares me, and it makes me think way too much about what Dracula said, about what I've felt from the moment I found out I was the slayer. What =am= I?

Angel caught up with her before she reached a room on the second floor. They burst through the door together, a tangle of biting, kicking, scratching limbs. The intense mating they'd shared earlier briefly flashed through Angel's mind, but he determinedly pushed it away -- now was most definitely not the time; not if he was to see this through.

"I gave you a pill before we left," Buffy spat, springing away from him, both of them falling into a defensive crouch three feet apart.

"A pill," Angel repeated. "Concentrate. The arrow was pure and it went straight into my bloodstream. We were sharing blood after that, so it never quite filtered out. But when we fed on that kid earlier . . . " He forced the guilt down; another something that could be dealt with later.

"My mistake," Buffy said easily as they moved at the same time, she for the window, he to impede her progress.

"Gotta admit," Buffy continued, as she dodged a right hook, "it was fun while it lasted."

"Not my kind of fun," Angel insisted, wincing as she kicked him in the shin. That was Buffy, never afraid to fight dirty.

"You're not ready to kill me," she told him softly, ceasing her movements. She stood still, a few feet separating them.

"I'll never be ready to kill you," he confessed quietly, also stilling, his arms hanging limply at his sides. "But I wasn't ready to die, two hundred some odd years ago, either. I wasn't ready when I was forced to live with a soul; I wasn't ready when it was taken away. I wasn't ready to love you when I did, and I sure as hell wasn't ready to lose you either, any of the times I have. In my life, I don't get to be ready."

Buffy stared into his eyes, and knew with a quiet certainty that he was done; that he would kill her, even if the price was his own life.

"Bummer," she said aloud, a moment before she lunged for a window.

It had been sprinkling for days, but as the assembled group exited the hotel, the skies opened up and pelted the streets in earnest.

They'd been outside barely a minute, gazes riveted to the upper floors of the hotel, when one of the windows shattered, and Buffy and Angel -- gripping each other's arms -- plunged through it to the street below.

"D�j� vu," Faith murmured stiltedly.

The two vampires stood again, and almost immediately resumed their fight. Every time Buffy tried to run away, Angel pulled her back.

Xander watched Faith and Spike watch the spectacle in front of them for a moment before he cleared his throat loudly, and shouted into the wind and rain, "Little help for Angel?"

Faith shook her head, and yelled back, "Angel's fighting her one on one. He's got a rhythm going. Plus, B does better when she's got her attention divided between two or more."

"She always was a good multi-tasker," Willow commented. The stress of the past few days was beginning to show on her and she wasn't sure how many more unpleasant surprises she could take before she cracked.

"I need a stake," Angel called out loudly, once again, preventing Buffy's escape by throwing her to the ground by her hair.

Not a single one of them had thought to bring one out with them.

"Oh, Buffy would be so pissed at us," Xander chastised.

"Believe me, she is!" Buffy called snidely as she sent two, sharp jabs at Angel's nose.

Cordelia noticed a crate slowly filling with water by the steps of the building. She ran to it, and snapped an appropriately sized piece of wood off.

"Here," she called, tossing it to Faith who was closest to the action.

Faith waited until Angel was close enough. She turned him, and slapped the makeshift stake into his right hand.

His eyes widened in confusion. "Faith?"

"Later," she advised, spinning him back toward the fight just in time to avoid a nasty kick from Buffy.

Blood was mixing with the water flowing freely down both their faces, matting their clothes to their skin. Both had several broken ribs and were beginning to show the fatigue of the fight. There would no doubt be bruises later, Angel thought, supernatural healing abilities or not.

But not for her.

His soul weeping the entire time, Angel imbedded the stake into her chest. She saw it coming, though, and was able to move the fraction of an inch it took to save her unlife. Then, she laughed, a low, mocking sound.

"Heart's a little lower, Angel. You of all people should know. Of course, given that you're trying to KILL ME and all, maybe you don't even HAVE one." That barb was followed by a vicious backhand to his jaw.

The stake was still protruding from her chest as they continued to do battle. Angel had to admit that he found the image of the only woman he'd ever loved with a large piece of wood sticking out of her chest more than a little disturbing. He didn't give himself much time to ruminate on it. Thinking led to second-guessing, and second-guessing led to the deaths of people he cared about.

*You mean like the little girl in front of you?* The Host's voice was clear in his head, and Angel shook it off. No time for this, never enough time to think about what had to be done . . .

Catching her with a surprise hit to her side, where he'd heard a rib crack, Angel ripped the stake from her chest, raised his hand and was about to deliver the killing blow when she fell to her knees. Lightning cracked, thunder rolled, and the skies dried up in the space of a heartbeat.

Buffy raised her head, blinked up at Angel from her place on the ground, the expression on her face a mask of confusion, blood and water drying on her cheeks like teardrops. Angel's chest clenched tightly, and he was grateful he didn't require oxygen to breathe, because he was positive his lungs had forgotten how to function.

"Angel?" Buffy asked, her voice catching on the last syllable of his name, just like it always used to. "What's going on?"