"Requiem - A Sorta Fairytale"

"I don't want to have a church service. They're for the living, not for the dead, and Gunn would have hated it. Hell, he'd rather we just go to Vegas and get drunk."

The entire group had agreed on Cordelia's pronouncement. There had been so much death and pain over the past year that the idea of saying an unconventional goodbye to the people they had lost suited everyone just fine. Plus, "Funerals are morbid and I doubt I'd be able to explain to Uncle George exactly what the circumstances surrounding Dad's death were. Not to mention, he'd want a daytime service and it'd look majorly strange when I burst into flames," Buffy noted sadly.

Willow said they should have it at night (Angel and Buffy supported this idea enthusiastically), somewhere outdoors with lots of lights. Wesley had suggested candles and some sort of prayer they could say in a circle, which had caused Willow to beam at him. Buffy had hesitantly requested white Christmas lights because Christmas had been Dawn's favorite time and her mom hated decorating the tree with those multi-colored bulbs. This request was approved and the garden outside the hotel was picked as the perfect location, especially given that Xander's living monument to Anya was thriving, even in the dead of winter.

Of course, "dead of winter" was relative, given that December in Los Angeles barely dropped below 40 at night. Willow had gone into whirlwind mode as she searched through all the texts she could find (Giles', Angel's, and Wesley's) until she located the perfect ceremony. As it turned out, there was no perfect ceremony in Willow's mind and, with Cordelia and Buffy's help, she had managed to bastardize several different rituals into what was, as Cordelia termed it, a "see you soon -- but not too soon" goodbye.

Buffy and Angel had, for the time being, decided to keep their spiritual marriage and literal engagement a secret. It was something sacred that they wanted to keep private as long as possible, and hoped to share the news with the rest of their family when the idea of joyfully embracing the future felt less indelicate.

Time moved slower as the big day approached. They all found themselves wishing it would hurry up and get there, so it could hurry up and be over, so they could stop obsessing over it.

"This is why I hate funerals," Buffy said quietly at dinner one night.

"Which is why this isn't a funeral," Willow steadfastly maintained.

"Call it what you want, Will," Buffy said tiredly. "We wait, we plan, we mourn, and in the morning, everybody's still dead."

"You've been Down in the Dumps Girl lately," Cordelia pointed out, casting a sidelong glance Buffy's way.

"Excuse me for having a problem planning the memorial service of people that I killed," Buffy huffed.

"You're right," Cordelia said archly. "Maybe you shouldn't come."

That brought Buffy up short. "What?"

"You certainly racked up quite the body count," Cordelia continued. "Clearly, the most honorable thing you could do is slink away off into the creepy shadows you like so much and let the rest of us say goodbye to your family."

Buffy pursed her lips, then blew out a puff of air, nearly smiling. "Nicely played, Cordelia."

"Thank you," Cordelia said, popping a grape into her mouth.

"This really isn't just about us, you know," Willow said after a moment. "I think . . . I think that maybe =they= need this. You know -- to move on."

Everyone nodded in agreement, and the subject was dropped. They'd been doing that a lot lately. Grief was oppressive, and it threatened to suffocate even those in their ranks who did not technically require oxygen to live. When the opportunity to stop thinking about all that they'd lost presented itself, they reached out and held on tight.

The time for distraction was drawing to a close, however. The big day loomed ominously in the distance as everyone sought to reconcile their own jumbled emotions in preparation for the tribute they wanted to pay those dearly loved and forever lost.

Other than the not-funeral preparations everyone found themselves consumed by, several things of note transpired:

Cordelia spent a lot of time avoiding Angel without it seeming like she was avoiding Angel. Her lunch breaks grew longer, she retired to bed long before she was tired, and offered to run every out-of-hotel errand that cropped up. After a few days of this behavior, Angel couldn't take it any longer and started spending more time with Buffy in their room, or locked up in his office with Wesley, pouring over some archaic text or another.

Every day, Cordelia tried to rap on whatever door Angel sat behind and say it was okay; he could come out now and everything was fine.

Every day, her hand remained at her side.

Xander had trouble distinguishing whose mental state he worried over more -- Cordelia's or Willow's (Buffy, after all, had Angel worrying over her 24/7) -- which made him expend a little extra energy not looking too closely at his re-emerging feelings for Cordelia. Now was the time he felt he should be focusing on Anya, on saying goodbye to her. He wondered if it was disloyal to be experiencing the attraction he felt for Cordelia. He wondered if Anya minded. He wanted to believe she didn't.

Somehow, he knew she did.

Wesley stopped sleeping altogether. For seven days straight, he asked Willow if she would be coming to bed. On seven different nights, she confirmed that she would, then fell asleep wherever she happened to be -- the couch in the lobby, the floor of Xander's room, once, even, in the garden near Anya's rosebush -- never quite making it to his bed. For seven days, Wesley told himself it was nothing, just like the way she kissed him, always with her eyes closed, was nothing. He wondered if she even realized she did that, closed her eyes before their lips touched. After their first time together, it was as though she'd gotten her fill of looking at him.

On the eighth day, Wesley stopped asking, hoping that an absence of pressure might spur Willow to make an advance of her own.

It didn't.

Buffy spent a great deal of time thinking about her life, about the lives she had been responsible for, the trust her family had placed in her that she'd betrayed so completely. When those thoughts grew too dangerous, she tried to shut them off, tried to imagine Angel or Giles assuring her that everything would be all right, and given they were a great deal older than she was, Buffy was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. After the mini-confrontation with Cordelia, Buffy was almost willing to admit that she felt better.

Then, she started to have the strangest dreams. She knew she ought to tell Angel about them.

But somehow, she couldn't find the words.

Outside the Hyperion, a shadow watched the proceedings with a great deal of interest. It always remained unseen, as shadows do, stuck to the people around it, but possessed of no real substance to call its own. It mirrored, it echoed, but it never belonged, never took form or became real.

But it could watch; it could always watch. And wish.

And hope.

"So after this prayer deal . . . we party?"

"Pretty much," Willow answered, her voice a bit tight. It bothered her that she still felt uncomfortable around Faith, but no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't seem to make a connection with the Slayer. Old grievances, both real and imagined, clung like vine.

"There will be considerable amounts of alcohol consumed, I imagine," Wesley noted wryly.

"Alcohol sounds decidedly necessary," Willow confirmed. Wesley placed a comforting arm on her back. "No!" Willow yelled, pulling away from Wesley. She leapt up and stormed over to Giles, leaving Wesley and Lindsey to stare after her. "Not like that -- you're doing it all wrong."

"I most certainly am not doing it wrong," Giles said. "I think I know how to hammer tiny nails into wood after several rather exhausting decades on this planet. Now go away and hover over someone else."

"Willow -- I know a guy," Lindsey said, trying to diffuse some of the tension in the room (the nature of a lawyer, natural arbitrator, died last), "who can get the best of the best for next to nothing."

"Good," Willow called back, her eyes shadowed with sadness and lack of sleep. "Because that's about all we can afford -- if you forget about the 'next to' part."

Lindsey smiled tiredly. "I'll convince him he owes me a favor."

"If that doesn't work, just tell him your girlfriend can beat him up," Faith said with a smirk.

"I doubt that'll be necessary, Darlin', but you can bet I'll keep you in mind." He looked at her fondly as he said this, then gripped her fingers tightly for a moment.

"I'll come with you," Wesley said as Lindsey started to leave. Lindsey raised an eyebrow at this, but didn't comment as he and the former Watcher left Giles, Faith, and Willow in the courtyard outside the Hyperion.

Willow left Giles in peace for a moment and returned to her seat across from Faith. "We should string some of the white lights here," Willow said, indicating Anya's rosebush, "and get them to sort of arch up so it's like she's surrounded in light."

Giles began doing as Willow instructed and Faith went to work on stringing lights through an arched ceiling Xander had built for the courtyard. After a critiquing session ended with Giles glaring murderously at Willow, she left him alone and moved to sit opposite Faith.

"Need some help?" Willow offered in a falsely cheerful voice.

"Sure, Red," Faith agreed, trying to smile.

In truth, both women were unsure why they couldn't seem to get past their mutual animosity. Willow was no longer threatened in the least by Faith, and Faith had stopped thinking of Willow as a stuck-up goody-two-shoes ages ago. Since Faith had more than proved herself to be a team player who'd lost nearly all of her psychotic tendencies, Willow couldn't say she feared Faith, either. Why, then, was her back so stiff as they strung Christmas lights through dark cherry wood?

"I don't hate you," Willow finally blurted out after a few minutes of awkward silence. "I don't, really."

"Me neither, Red," Faith said after a minute, looking distinctly uncomfortable in the lavender dress she'd borrowed from Cordelia. Pastels weren't exactly Faith's thing.

"Why are you wearing that?" Willow asked curiously. "I mean, I know Cordelia isn't big on leather, but she must have something that isn't so . . . so . . ."

"Not me?" Faith asked with a grin. "Yeah, she does. But . . ." She bit her lip.

"What?" Willow asked gently.

"It just doesn't seem right," Faith said at last. "Dressing like me at a . . . funeral."

"It's not a funeral!" Willow almost wailed. "Why does everybody keep calling it--"

"Chill," Faith said in an exasperated yet soothing tone. "Whatever you wanna call it, it's still something sacred, and me and sacred don't exactly go hand in hand."

"It's just . . . you look so unhappy like that," Willow said lamely. "Like all that lavender is going to start strangling you."

"It's just going to take some getting used to," Faith insisted. "And it's only for a day, right? It's the least I can do for the dearly departed."

"If anyone who knew you before saw you looking like that, it would freak them out," Willow said. "This ceremony tonight is about making peace with the people we've lost, with all the honesty and affection in our hearts. You've always dressed like a skank, right?"

"Yeah," Faith said. "And hey!"

"Sorry," Willow said, "I didn't mean you =were= a skank -- though I guess you kinda were . . ."

"This conversation really isn't doing much for my self-esteem, chickie," Faith pointed out dryly.

"Sorry," Willow said again, waving her hands in nervous apology. "It's just . . . wear what makes you feel like you. As long as you know who you are . . . it doesn't matter what you look like."

"I know," Faith said unconvincingly.

"Right," Willow said with a smirk, "which would explain all the dainty lace you're wearing."

"You keep noticing all the dainty lace I'm wearing," Faith said, grinning, "I'm gonna start wondering if you're a little bit hot for me."

"I am not!" Willow said, then blushed. "Besides, I'm . . . you know . . . Wesley!"

"That won't last," Faith said.

"What? Why not?" Willow was curious, not worried, by Faith’s casual pronouncement. Maybe a little worried.

"Because pretty soon, he's gonna get sick of your unsatisfied lusty obsession with me," Faith said with a put upon sigh.

Willow opened and closed her mouth in mortified astonishment until she saw the grin on Faith's face.

"Oh, you bitch!" she laughed, smacking Faith squarely on the arm.

"Please, please tell me you're about to start rolling around on the floor, pulling hair," Xander said as he entered the room. "And if you are, can you give me a second to race across the street and buy a video camera from that demon pawn shop?"

"Sorry, Xan, no cat fight today," Willow said. "But we’re almost done with this archy thing."

"Thing of beauty," Faith commented.

"That it is," Xander agreed. "Nice work, lovely ladies. Now, to hang it. Where'd McDonald go?"

"Booze run," Giles said from his crouched position near Anya's rosebush. "With Pryce."

"Giles just said booze," Willow said in a falsetto whisper.

"Booze run," Xander said, nodding. "Nice to see they've got priorities."

"Linds said they'd be back soon," Faith offered.

"Best to wait 'til they are to hang this sucker," Xander said. "McDonald's got some construction experience, and between the two of us, and a little preternatural super strength, we should get this baby up in no time."

"Does that mean we're done here?" Willow asked, standing. "Because if we're done here, I'd like to practice a spell for tonight."

"Go to it, Sabrina," Xander said. "Oh, but first -- has anybody seen Queen C.?"

"Not since breakfast," Faith said.

"Me too," Willow said as she left the room.

"I believe she said she was going out for a walk," Giles said helpfully. "But that was hours ago."

Xander sighed. "I guess this means a quest is in my future."

"She's a big girl," Faith pointed out. "I bet she can navigate her way around L.A. for a few hours without you."

"She seemed kinda off today at breakfast," Xander said. "I . . . I just want to make sure she's okay."

Faith smirked at him knowingly.

"I do," Xander insisted. "Because she's my friend. My old, old friend who I care about as a friend because that's what friends do. I'd do the same for my friend Buffy."

"I might believe you, Harris," Faith said as she stood up, "if you could stop using the word friend with quite so much frequency."

"Shut up," Xander said after a moment of silent blustering.

"You should really have this monstrosity looked at," Wesley noted.

"Wasn't my truck," Lindsey said as he drove one-handed. "You should never take another man's truck into the shop without his permission."

"Gunn isn't exactly in much of a position to be giving permission," Wesley said tightly.

"Yeah, but he sold his soul for this truck, so I'd say it was a pretty big deal to him."

Wesley paused for a moment. "What was that?"

Lindsey glanced over at him, grinned, then looked back to the road. "I bet he never told any of you that, did he?"

"He sold his soul for a truck?" Wesley said, hoping he'd heard wrong.

"Years ago," Lindsey said. "When he started working for Angel, Wolfram and Hart naturally did a background check on him."

"Naturally," Wesley said dryly.

Smirking, Lindsey glanced at Wes again. "We did a background check on you, too, you know."

Wesley appeared unconcerned.

"Most of it was pretty run of the mill, average youthful Watcher stuff. Except for this one thing in Surrey--"

"Yes, you were saying something about Charles," Wesley interrupted hurriedly, nearly blushing.

His smirk slid into a fully amused grin, but Lindsey decided to let it go. Old Wes had been having a trying week. "Seems his soul was in the possession of a certain demon that runs a casino downtown; makes most of his business trading in souls."

"If that's true," Wesley said slowly, "that would mean Charles' soul isn't at rest--"

"I told Red about it," Lindsey said, looking straight ahead. "She took care of it."

"Ah," Wesley said. "She, uh . . . she didn't mention it."

"Probably just didn't want to upset you," Lindsey said easily. "You and Mr. Gunn were pretty close."

"Yes," Wesley said, "we were."

They drove in silence for a while. Lindsey was battling his conscience. Pryce clearly wanted to talk about something, but Lindsey was almost positive that he wasn't the guy to hear it. He'd never been a particularly good listener unless whatever was being said affected him and his career in some way. His mother used to go through fits trying to get Lindsey to do chores when he was a kid. It wasn't that he minded helping out -- his mind was just always a million miles away, trying to figure out how he'd be able to make enough money to get his mom out of his father's debt.

When his mother died, she took a big part of Lindsey's soul with her. She had died in squalor and his father had soon followed her. The man who'd taken everything life had ever done to him with a fool's grin on his face crumbled after his wife's death, and Lindsey left home, never looking back.

Until recently.

Lately, all he seemed to do was look back. He looked back on the two siblings he'd lost as a child, on the third who'd disappeared years ago, and who he feared was lost forever. He looked back on the first girl he ever kissed, and wondered how different his life would be if he'd married her and gotten a job in the small Texas town he’d grown up in. Thoughts like that led him to Faith, and how much a part of him she'd become, and he realized it might all be worth it if he could just manage to not screw things up with her.

Atonement was the name of the game. Lindsey had never been very good at it. Being sorry wasn't in his genetic makeup. He'd always had a rather ambiguous moral code, but it had been a code of sorts. Don't hurt children. Be kind to old ladies (assuming your law firm doesn't require their entrails for a ritual of some sort). Do anything to keep from becoming your father.

The hardest thing to accept about his old man now was that, given time and distance to reflect, Lindsey had to accept that he hadn't been that bad a guy; that his mother hadn't been all that unhappy. Lindsey had the corner office, the fancy suits, and the beautiful apartment, and every night, he'd had to come home to a scalding hot shower to scrub the filth off. Some days, he missed what it really felt like to get your hands dirty, to spend a day working in the dirt. That was the kind of grime that actually came off if you scrubbed hard enough.

"She doesn't love me, you know."

Lindsey turned his head, a little startled to hear Wesley speak. He'd almost forgotten the other man was in the car with him. He ran Wesley's words over in his brain, trying to make sense of them.

"What makes you say that?" Lindsey asked slowly. Why, he thought, why did I ask? I don't really want to know. I don't =care=.

But the funny thing was, he did. Just a little bit; just enough.

"She likes me," Wesley continued. "We have fun together. But she doesn't love me. And I don't think she ever will."

"I thought . . ." Lindsey tried to think of a good way to phrase it. "I thought she wasn't really . . . all gay." Good one, Counselor, he thought sarcastically. With smooth talking like that, how could you have ever lost a single case?

"I shouldn't have allowed things to progress to this point," Wesley said, and Lindsey thought that he was probably talking to himself. "She was so vulnerable, so confused, and I was just so attracted, so drawn to her that . . . she loved Tara so much, and she needed to move on, but I'm afraid that's all I've been -- something that helped her to move on. She doesn't really want me. For a time, I think, she did, but . . ."

"Because she's gay?" Lindsey said slowly.

"She may be," Wesley said slowly, "but it doesn't really have anything to do with it, one way or another." He sighed. "Willow . . . she loves so totally, so completely. She's given her heart to two people in this life, and I just don't think she's any left to give."

"Tara's dead," Lindsey said bluntly. "I don't mean to be harsh, but--"

"She is dead," Wesley agreed, "but also very much alive in Willow's heart."

Lindsey pulled the truck over. They were at their destination, but he wasn't quite ready to get out yet. "Why are you telling me this?" he asked. "Not that I really mind, I'm just curious--"

"Why I'd trust someone who’s tried to kill me and my friends in the past?" Wesley supplied with a smirk.

"Something like that.".

"I knew you wouldn't feel compelled to assure me that Willow loved me after all," Wesley said after a moment. "That she doesn’t hasn't been an easy conclusion to come to, and I don't want to believe it just enough that I might be willing to let someone else dissuade me."

"Courage, then," Lindsey said, "for the road you are about to travel." He looked at Wesley until the other man met his gaze. "But, for what it's worth -- I think you're wrong."

Wesley paused for a moment, a pained expression on his face.

"I don't," he said softly, sadly, and turned away.

They opened their doors and got out of the truck, and Wesley paused a moment once he'd gotten a look at his surroundings.

"Aren't we--"

"Gumdrops!" Lorne said as they walked into Caritas. "What can I do for you Ministers of Grace this fine evening?"

"=This= is the guy you know who can 'hook us up’?" Wesley asked, amused.

"We need a mixed basket," Lindsey said.

"Vodka, bourbon, scotch, and tequila?" Lorne suggested as he went behind the bar.

"And some strawberries and Triple Sec, if you've got 'em," Lindsey added. Wesley gave him a funny look, and Lindsey looked down at the ground, and mumbled, "Faith likes strawberry margaritas."

"I didn't say anything," Wesley said with a smirk.

"Shut up," Lindsey muttered, running his one good hand through his hair.

"No," Cordelia said into the phone, her voice harsh and tired, "I do =not= want carnations. I want the white spider mums that I ordered a week ago." There was a pause, and a muscle on Cordelia's forehead began to tick. "I don't =care= if they didn't come in. If there was a chance there would be no spider mums, you shouldn't have =promised= me spider mums! I gave you money for spider mums, and by God, I'll have spider mums!" An inarticulate scream of frustration escaped her lips. "Don't you DARE talk to me about MY tone! Your total incompetence is responsible for my mild irritation-- Hello? HELLO? Oh, you did NOT just hang up on me, buddy…"

"Hey," Xander said timidly from the staircase, "is this a private bitch-out, or can former-bitchees join?"

"If you're going to be obnoxious, Xander, you can turn right around," Cordelia snapped.

"Woah," Xander said, holding up a hand, "there's the bitchy Queen C. I remember. I =knew= that nice Cordy girl was just a clone or something."

"I'm sorry," she whispered, slamming the phone down. "I just . . . I can't . . . they don't have spider mums! They offered me =carnations=! Can you imagine?"

"No," Xander said with a strange face, "few things are as heinous and tragic as carnations."

"I ordered spider mums," Cordelia continued as though he hadn't spoken. "When you expect one thing and you start to count on it, you can't just replace it with something inferior, you know? There's a lot of instability in this world -- especially in =our= world -- and it's not a crime to want a few real, fixed things."

"Are we still talking about spider mums?" Xander asked carefully, moving to sit on the edge of her desk.

"I had three real, fixed things in my life," Cordelia continued, pushing back from her desk to pace. One of her hands had flown to her hair, and Xander was concerned she would start ripping it out at the rate she was raking through it with her fingers. "I had Angel, I had Wesley, and I had Gunn."

"Forgive me for pointing out the obvious," Xander said, "but you shouldn't be using the past tense with two of those guys."

"Gunn's dead," she said with a hard edge to her voice, "and no matter how much I try to see things differently, Angel took him from me."

"It wasn't Angel," Xander said. "Remember? You guys were always hammering that into my head back in the day."

"I love Angel so much," she whispered, "and he always warned me, he always said that this could happen, that I would have to . . . and I didn't. I couldn't. I had a stake in my purse that night, I always have a stake in my purse, and when he killed Gunn right in front of me I was so scared, I was scared for my life, and for Gunn, but my first thought was . . . ‘Oh, God, Angel's never going to forgive himself for this.’"

"Cordy," he said softly, "that's not a bad thing--"

"Yes it is!" she hissed. "I cared more about Angel than I did about Gunn's =death=!"

"That's okay!" Xander yelled, moving to Cordelia, his hands tightening around her shoulders so that he could shake her, once. "Angel is your family. I know about finding people to be your family because the one you were born into couldn't care less about you. He's your best bud and your brother and . . . maybe even a little more, every once in awhile?" Xander smiled a little. "Like me and Willow?"

"Yes," Cordelia whispered, pulling away from Xander. "Just like you and Willow. Except . . . imagine Willow killed the first guy to kiss you since . . ."

"Since," Xander prompted gently.

"Since the last guy who kissed you died," Cordelia said, a hysterical edge to her voice. "Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree, huh, Harris? Maybe I'm not mad at Angel. It's not really his fault, right? I mean, I'm the girl with the kiss of death."

"You've totally lost me now," Xander said, confusion knitting his brow together.

"Doyle," she said softly. "He loved me and I didn't realize it until it was too late. Then he kissed me . . . and he died." Her lower lip began to tremble. "Gunn . . . I realized he loved me a lot sooner, but I was too scared to do anything about it. I didn't want to get hurt." She laughed for a moment, then grew very quiet. "I didn't want to get hurt."

"Cor," he said gently, trying to find the words -- any words -- that would comfort her. He came up empty.

"After Doyle died," Cordelia continued, "we didn't have a memorial service. Angel and I just sat around, watching this tape Doyle made just before . . . it was a commercial for Angel Investigations. He was so sweet and wonderful and . . . we didn't have prayers for him or liquor, and he really would have wanted us to get drunk for him, it would have been the best way we could have remembered him, but we didn't, because it was just me and Angel, and then Wesley came, and we had to . . . we had to forget about Doyle, because it hurt too much to remember him." She shook her head. "We always say we'll remember the dead, but we can't, not every day, because we miss them too much that way."

"Have you thought about saying all this to Angel?" Xander said after a tense silence had passed in the wake of Cordelia's outburst.

"I can't say any of it to Angel," Cordelia explained wearily. "I can't burden him with this. He has so much to carry around with him already, I can't--"

"What about what =you= have to carry around?" Xander interrupted heatedly. "Now, Dead Boy and I haven't always been the best of friends, but we're getting there, and if there's one thing I know about him, it's that he doesn't want to be the cause of any more pain, and Cordy . . . you're in pain."

"I don't want him to blame himself for any of this," she said firmly. "I'll . . . I'll deal, okay? I promise, I'll deal and I'll be okay."

"I don't like this," Xander said stubbornly.

"So what else is new, Harris?" she said.

"What are you thinking?" Angel asked softly, the backs of his knuckles brushing the small of her back in tactile ‘how do you do.’

"Shallow answer or deep answer?" Buffy asked, fingering the black silk of the dress she was going to wear that night.

"Let's wade in slow," he suggested.

"My skin is so pale now that I really look dead when I wear black," she answered honestly.

"Dive," he prompted, bringing his arm around her middle.

"The best friends I've ever had have never understood me," she stated quietly, though he detected no self-pity in her tone; only weary resignation. "And now . . . they never will."

"And?" he murmured against her ear.

"And I'm so happy for them," she whispered. "I never wanted them to understand what I was, what being a Slayer meant. And now . . . I never want them to know what being . . . whatever it is that I am is."

"We are," he reminded her gently, tightening his hold almost imperceptibly.

"I'm not sure that you even understand completely," she said honestly, because after all, they had promised to be honest now that they would have to fill an eternity together, and they did not want to fill it with awkward half-truths and well-meaning betrayals.

"What is it that I don't understand?" he asked, pawing at her hip until she turned toward him. Angel found that whenever he was trying to understand all the things she couldn't say, it was imperative he be able to look into her eyes.

"There was a trust placed in me," she said quietly, her head down, great shame filling her posture. "A =sacred= trust, and I . . . I broke it." She looked at him then, her wide blue eyes filled with the guilt and sorrow he would see every day in the mirror, if he could see himself in the mirror at all.

Perhaps some sides of vampirism really were for the best.

"You were a Slayer," he said, after he'd taken a moment to gather his thoughts. "You were sworn to protect human life, to put it before your own. You were a weapon and a tool, and in a moment of weakness, you turned your back on your Calling."

"All better now," she said sarcastically.

"But more importantly," he said, tilting her chin up toward him, "you were a girl. And you were hurting so bad, you'd been hurting for so long, that you gave up. But you didn't give up for good. It's human nature to fight and claw for existence, Buffy, and that's all you did. And now you've got a chance to make it right. It's not what we've done, Buffy; it can't be. It's what we do that counts."

"Sometimes I can tell you've been around awhile," she said in a teasing voice.

"I'm pretty smart, huh?" he murmured, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

"Yep. Except for when you couldn't figure out how to work the microwave and dinner was still frozen--"

"Well the terminology is ridiculous," he burst out, "how is a rational person supposed to know that you have to do more than hit 'defrost' to thaw a London Broil?"

"The big honkin' 'start' button tips most of us off," she confided with a grin.

"Silence, Woman," he muttered, scooping her off the floor and carrying her to the bed. "You should try to rest before tonight. You haven't slept all day."

"That's because someone left me all alone in bed so that he could prowl around the hotel like a big cat," she pointed out reasonably as he joined her on the bed.

Resting her cheek against Angel's chest, Buffy threw a leg over his hip, relishing how soft the cotton of his shirt felt against her naked skin.

"What were you really thinking about?" he asked after a moment of silence. His hand cupped her cheek and his thumb made gentle, delicate circles against the tip of her chin.

She smiled because he was the only one who knew her so well. Memories assaulted her; Jenny Calendar and that terrible time before senior year when she'd spent the summer missing Angel and hating Angel and hating herself and trying to forgive everything that he'd done, that she'd done, that she hadn't done soon enough, that she'd had to do at all.

"When you changed," she began quietly, because he always knew when she was referring to the horrific events that followed her seventeenth birthday, "I didn't understand before . . . not really. I tried, I really did, and I forgave you, but when I told you I understood . . ."

"I know." A little smile tugged at his mouth. "I knew. It actually made it easier to . . ."

"Leave me for my own good?" Where once bitterness colored her words, now they were filled with the understanding of a mile walked in too-big shoes.

"Did I do the right thing?" he asked after a moment. "Was it . . . because I've second-guessed it a thousand times--"

"I don't know if it was the right thing," she interrupted. "I don't know that we can ever really know. But right or wrong . . . I think it was the only thing."

"The only thing." He tilted his head against hers and thought of the lost and the dead; so many, many dead.

"I feel weird," she said at last. "I'm thinking about everything and nothing at once. I'm sad and guilty and at the same time, I'm -- excited? -- because maybe tonight means that things are finally going to . . ."

"Be okay?" he offered.

"Yeah," she confirmed, so quietly, that had he not possessed a predator's hearing, he would not have heard it. "'Cause . . .I think my mom would have wanted that. Wouldn't she?"

That soft, pleading tone in her voice, so like that of a child's, was when Angel was always reminded of just how young Buffy really was. By the laws of society she was an adult, but when you could measure your life by century, it was easy to forget that the very young were still old, in their way. Especially when they looked at you with eyes desperately needing reassurance. Angel was certain he had looked at Buffy the same way in the past.

"Of course she would," he said slowly. "It's not a matter worth questioning. Joyce loved you, Buffy, loved you fiercely and wanted nothing but the best for you."

"But...?" she said. "You have 'but' face."

"No buts," he assured her with the amusement he always felt at her abuse of the English language. "I do have something else to say, but it doesn't pertain to your mother's wishes in the least."

"All right," Buffy said with a deep sigh, "lay it on me. Lay your big, soul-saving, hero of the universe advice on me."

Angel turned onto his side, took her hands in his, stared solemnly into her eyes, and said in a gentle, serious tone--

"Be okay."

Buffy blinked at him. "That's it? That's your advice? 'Be okay’?"

"Be okay," he said again, squeezing her hands for emphasis.

A moment passed, then another, and she tried to find fault with his advice, wanted to yell that she didn't know how, that most of the time, it felt like it would =never= be okay again. But then she heard a voice in her head, something her mother used to say to her whenever Joyce was trying to reassure her daughter that Mommy was just fine.

"I'll be okay, honey," Joyce would say, "because if I'm not, I'll be miserable forever, and that's no way to live your life." Her logic had been irrefutable to a nine-year-old Buffy, and twenty-year-old Buffy was finally beginning to see her mother's words in a new light.

"I'll be okay if you will. You have to be okay, too," Buffy said sternly.

"I will be," he promised, bringing her knuckles to his mouth for a brief kiss.

They snuggled back down into the bed, Angel spooning around Buffy's back, his arm heavy and comforting across her chest. Buffy's lids felt heavy and thick and the chaotic thoughts that had been plaguing her all day began to fade away like a strong gust of wind had blown through the room.

"I can only sleep for an hour," Angel mumbled, burying his face against the soft skin at the back of her neck. "There's so much to do, to get ready before . . ."

But he was already out.

"I'll wake you up," Buffy said, before she, too, drifted to sleep.

They did not move again until Cordelia woke them several hours later. She informed Buffy in no uncertain terms that she would not be wearing that 'drab' black dress to the service, and if they weren't downstairs and ready to get things moving in five minutes, they would start without them.

As ever, Buffy chose to appreciate Cordelia's candor instead of beating her to death.

There were candles lit for each of the beloved dead, plus two in memoriam for those long lost: Jenny Calendar, at Giles' request, and a single burning flame for Alan Francis Doyle; Cordelia did not ask anyone's permission. She merely placed the candle alongside the others, and stated simply, "For Doyle."

No one but Willow spoke. Pretty words for the dead were not exchanged. They sat quietly in small groups while Willow conducted a ceremony that was said to allow the dead passage to the afterlife if it was their wish. She had not shared her experience with Tara's soul with anyone but Spike, before his departure. She spared a moment's grief for the loss of a confidant, but pushed it aside -- perhaps what had transpired between Willow and Tara's soul wasn't meant to be shared.

They were cloistered together in small, connected groups scattered along the floor, forming a circle -- Giles sat to Willow's left, lending moral support, and Wesley sat to next to Giles, a comforting arm around Faith. Faith held Lindsey's hand and, next to Lindsey, Cordelia sat, their legs brushing. Xander held Cordelia's and Buffy's hands and Buffy rested her head against Angel's shoulder. Angel took Willow's other hand, completing the circle.

One at a time, they silently said farewell and tried to reconcile their sorrow and guilt over their losses. Buffy's and Angel's guilt was the most obvious, but they were not the only souls in the room who blamed themselves for the tragedies that had befallen the group. Willow, Xander, and Giles were filled with doubt that they had done everything they could to help Buffy or, when it became necessary, to stop her. Cordelia wondered if she really was cursed and if falling in love was an activity she should abstain from. Gunn would be alive now if they hadn't stupidly left the hotel for a date.

Wesley thought that if maybe he'd just read up more, paid more attention, he might have figured out what Wolfram and Hart were planning and seen to it that Angel would have never been unsouled. He thought of his father, and how the old man was right -- he was useless, even at this, what he was best at -- watching. Faith wished she'd been a better Slayer, hadn't fallen off the edge into despair when she did -- if Buffy had had her in this, a sister, a friend, someone who understood her in a way no one else ever would, would things have been different?

Lindsey had spent the better part of the last few months reevaluating life, and his place in it, and so his thoughts were full of Faith and how inadequate he felt at the task of helping ease the guilt he knew she felt. His life had been a series of choices no one forced upon him. It had been a hard life, but certainly not one full of insurmountable odds. He could have been anything that he chose to be, and he had chosen to be evil. It was a choice made each and every day until, finally, he stopped making it. Faith had tried to explain her decision to him once. All she'd been able to say was that it wasn't just a choice to be bad or good (although you did have to choose your path); it was more a choice to stop feeling so worthless and alone.

None of them were alone now, and Lindsey was confronted with these people's grief, with their loss, with their love, and against his will, he took it in as his own. For as long as he could remember, there had been a barrier keeping him from people, from their pain, from anything that stood in the way of his ultimate goal -- to be so powerful that all the trappings of his youth would never be able to touch him again.

They touched him now. He had no prospects and no future, beyond the one he couldn't imagine living without the damaged woman to his right. He lived as an unwanted guest in a hotel in need of too many repairs, with too few financial resources. He was one of Robin Hood's merry men, if Robin Hood had been a bloodsucking creature of the night searching for redemption, and the Sheriff of Nottingham a sycophantic mutant of some kind.

And somehow, this woman and these people were healing him.

So as they all said goodbye, as they all bid farewell to those lost to them, Lindsey bowed his head and prayed for the strength to keep making the right choice every day.

In the solemn quiet, they felt great burdens lifting from their shoulders. The guilt wasn't so oppressive, the pain so raw. They were not healed, but they realized, almost as one, that they were healing.

"Um, that's sort of all for the main prayer part," Willow said after a moment of silence had passed, "but I was hoping that you all wouldn't mind if I read something?"

Murmurs of assent were given from everyone, and Willow smiled, releasing Angel's hand so that she could root through her backpack.

"Tara loved 'The Little Prince.'" Willow's voice was much too high, and she cleared her throat and tried very, very hard not to cry. "She loved 'The Little Prince,'" she repeated, quieter this time, staring down at her feet where they were crossed at the ankle, Indian style. The ugly brown shoes she was wearing had been Tara's; the indigo sweater, too. She'd wrapped herself in Tara's things like battle armor, because being surrounded by Tara was the only hope Willow had of surviving this.

It wasn't a final goodbye; Willow had said goodbye to Tara in the Hyperion's kitchen; had felt Tara's spirit warming her own for the last time. This wasn't about goodbye, not for any of them, really. This was about how hard it was every single day to really, truly believe that she would never see her again, never hear her voice, never tell her about the day she'd had, never practice a spell, never steal a kiss, never, never, never . . .

"But I thought it might be appropriate for all of us," Willow said, her voice strong and clear. Some unknown reservoir of strength possessed her, holding her up, taking control of her vocal cords, forcing her to speak.

"In one of the stars," Willow read from her own neat writing, "I shall be living."<never make love again never make jokes no one gets again never be afraid again> "In one of them, I shall be laughing." <never hold hands again never study all night again never research again never be whole again, never> "And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing when you look at the sky at night."

Willow closed her notebook, bowed her head, and cried. She stared at Tara's ugly brown shoes and wept.

Xander held Cordelia's hand so tight, he nearly cut off circulation. Cordelia stared at Anya's rosebush as though it contained in it all the secrets of the world.

Buffy thought of the way Dawn used to smile on Christmas morning, then wondered what had possessed the monks to give Dawn such simple joy in something as stupid as chocolate omelets and the obsessive need to record her every thought in a diary. Angel allowed himself to remember the way his sister used to look at him, as if he hung the moon, and a time ages ago, before it had all looked so hopeless, when his father had gazed upon him with pride.

Giles and Wesley bowed their heads solemnly, looking extremely uncomfortable with the outward displays of grief, even as Giles wiped a tear from the corner of his eye.

Faith looked like she wanted nothing more in the world than to bawl her eyes out, but something held her back. Something always held her back. Lindsey began tracing gentle circles along her spine.

Minutes went by and no one spoke, no one moved, beyond the indefinable brush of hands against hands, fingertips against flesh, soothing, healing, aching. Finally, Willow lifted her head and murmured an incantation. The candles around them burned so fiercely bright, she was forced to close her eyes. When she opened them again, she saw that everyone was blinking, staring, mouths slightly ajar, at the center of the circle, where the candles had been extinguished, knocked down, wax and soot mating together to form an image.

"What is it?" Buffy was the first to speak.

"It's 'Death,'" Willow answered.

"Death?" Xander actually gulped.

"It doesn't necessarily mean it's bad, Xander." Wesley was transfixed by the center of the circle. "However, Willow is mistaken -- it isn't 'Death.'"

"No." Giles was also staring at the center of the circle. "It's not. It's 'The Emperor.'"

"I see a Moon," Buffy said.

"With eight rays?" Angel asked.

"Yes." She looked at him hopefully. "Is that what you see?"

"No. I see the 'Sun.'" Angel looked to Willow, almost for confirmation. "They're Tarot."

"Oh." Buffy sounded dejected.

"I think . . . I think we're all seeing different cards from the Major Arcana." Willow looked around the room for confirmation.

Most of those gathered began to slowly nod.

"Oh, Goddess," she whispered, "maybe mixing and matching rituals wasn't the best idea."

"This is nice." There was a genuine smile on Willow's face as she looked around the darkened interior of the back room at 'Mama's Place,' a small restaurant in Santa Monica.

"It is," Xander agreed. "People having fun, laughing . . . I think it's what everyone would have wanted." He smiled a little. "Well, Anya would have probably liked a lot of weeping, but I think this is better."

"We'll weep for her later," Willow promised reassuringly.

"I don't know." Xander looked sad for a moment. "I'm not sure I've got anything left inside me. You know?"

"I do," Willow said, "and you do." She looked down at the floor. "I don't think it ever stops hurting, Xan. I just think it gets bearable."

After everyone had calmed down, Willow took out her notebook and asked them to describe exactly what image they'd seen in the center of the circle. Wesley fetched a deck of Tarot cards from Angel's desk while Willow took down names -- or descriptions, in the case of Xander, Faith, and Lindsey -- in her notebook. Soon, she had nine different cards from the Major Arcana, with absolutely no idea as to what order she was supposed to read them in, how she was supposed to read them, or what any of it was supposed to mean.

It had been Giles' suggestion that they put deciphering the cryptic meaning on hold until after the service, but Angel did mention that he would contact Lorne as soon as possible to see if the green demon knew of a psychic or mystic who could work with Willow to decipher the meaning of the cards. But, he assured Buffy, 'as soon as possible' would not be tonight.

They had already conducted a service of mourning; they had a celebration of life to attend. Mama, a robust Puerto Rican woman whose family Angel had saved from a former-gang-turned-pack-of-vampires a year before, had offered her restaurant for the night, free of charge.

And what a restaurant it was. Tiny white lights littered the ceilings and along the edges of the stone finished walls. The only other illumination came from small tables scattered throughout, tiny pinpricks of light shimmering from the tops of vanilla- scented votive candles. In the corner, a CD player was turned way up, blasting everything from Jimi Hendrix to the Dixie Chicks. Angel and Wesley had paid a visit to the restaurant earlier in the week, detailing just how important it was to honor those they had lost with loud music, good food, and dancing. Mama had gone all out.

Cordelia was trying very hard not to cry. This may have been the day of a funeral, but the night -- the night they had all reserved for celebration. They had moved beyond the weepy stage, and were supposed to be at the ‘letting go and getting on with life’ part. Which meant that seeing a large arrangement of spider mums proudly displayed on one of the side tables shouldn't reduce the bitchiest girl in Sunnydale history to a blubbering mass of mush.

"Xander mentioned you were sort of upset earlier."

No matter how long she knew him, Cordelia was constantly amazed at Angel's ability to always be standing right behind her.

"I was."

They were quiet and Angel moved to stand beside her, both looking at the arrangement. Cordelia broke the silence.

"Where did you find them?"

"Someone owed me a favor," he said simply.

"People in the florist industry owe you favors?" A raised eyebrow displayed her skepticism.

"Friends of the florist industry, maybe," he conceded with a smile. Another moment passed, and he finally asked, "Spider mums?"

A real, honest smile spread across Cordelia's face. Memory tugged at her icy façade again, and again, she was forced to blink back tears.

"Spider mums?" she'd asked Gunn, her nose wrinkled as she stared at the bouquet he held before him like an olive branch.

"They remind me of you."

It was their first date, and in her estimation, first dates weren't spider mum dates. First dates were definitely one dozen long-stemmed red roses occasions. Such observations made her reply less charitable than it might otherwise have been.

"I'm pale and straggly?"

Gunn had sighed, an incredibly put-upon sound.

"If you don't want 'em--"

"I love them," she'd said, taking the flowers and his hand in the same grip, holding both to her heart, the look of contrition on her face the only apology he would ever receive. Cordelia Chase didn't apologize, but she wasn't above showing that she was sorry.

"Gunn liked them," Cordelia said now, glancing at Angel out of the corner of her eye. She opened her mouth to say something else, then fell silent, and they stood together until the silence grew awkward and Angel squeezed her hand, once, then left her in peace.

What had surprised them all was the turnout -- Gunn's crew was there, mostly keeping to themselves, but there, still; Lorne, the demon Host of Caritas came and even sang a few bars for all those gathered. There were demons in attendance, people who knew Angel's crew and wanted to offer condolences; old demon friends of Anya's, including a vengeance demon named Halfrek ("Just call me Hallie."), and her old boss, D'Hoffryn ("Anyanka is deeply missed."), came to pay their respects. A few of the spellcasting friends Willow and Tara had exchanged information with had driven down from Sunnydale. And Anne, who ran the shelter in town, mingled with Gunn's crew.

"Lily?" Buffy had gone up to Anne soon after her arrival.

"It's Anne now," she'd answered with a shy smile. "It's been Anne for awhile. And you?"

"Still Buffy." Her voice was proud. "I think I might stick with it for awhile."

They shared fond smiles and Lorne started belting out 'My Guy' and both women asked a couple members of Gunn's crew to dance, and that was the end of self- imposed segregation for the night. Buffy didn't mention her undead state to Rico, her partner for the moment; Angel had mentioned Gunn's people might not take it too well and the last thing she wanted this evening to regress into was some kind of bigoted cocktail party.

"Watch it, Tarzan." Faith dodged around the loincloth-clad lanky yellow demon without spilling the two Cokes she carried.

"Nice to see you putting that Slayer grace to good use." Lindsey's voice was teasing, and Faith offered him a grin and one of the drinks.

"So," she said, leaning up against the wall next to him, "how long do you think politeness dictates we hang around?"

"Are we into being polite now?" He grinned and took a sip of his coke. "Must have missed that memo."

"These people are family." Faith stared at his profile. "I may be vile, and I may be crude, but I sure as hell ain't gonna upset anyone today."

"Getting through today was hard." Lindsey glanced at her for a minute, then went back to contemplating the melting ice and soda in his glass. "Harder than I thought it would be."

"Just because you didn't know most of 'em up close and personal doesn't mean you're exempt from feeling sorry they're dead." Faith gestured to the room at large. "People who command a turnout like this -- gotta be a bummer they're worm food."

"You did know most of them up close and personal, though, didn't you, Faith?"

She shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Ain't me that misses 'em most."

"True. But maybe it's your loss I'm interested in."

"Aw, shucks, sweet talk like that might make an ex-con think you care."

"You know I care, darlin'." Lindsey set his glass down on a nearby table and reached down to lightly stroke Faith's jaw until she turned to look at him.

"Yeah." Her voice was husky and she cleared her throat. "I just . . . on the inside . . . I thought about all the people I owed serious amends to. Joyce and Dawn -- they were big time on that list. Hell, even Captain America made the top ten. Though my issues with him, causing friction between him and B, it . . ."

"All seems sort of moot now?" Lindsey offered.

Faith laughed. "I just . . ." Her eyes narrowed.

Lindsey turned his head to look in the direction she was staring. "What?"

"I'll let you know later," she said, but she sounded distracted. Lindsey looked back to where she was staring at, and when he turned back to regard her, found that she was gone.

"That," he said to no one, "is going to get real old, real fast."

At the other end of the room, Buffy watched as Faith edged toward the door. The two Slayers' eyes met, and Faith gave an almost imperceptible nod (Everything's five by five, B; don't sweat it) and Buffy smiled (If you need me, I've got your back) in acknowledgement.

"Was that some kind of Secret Slayer Communication the rest of us aren't privy to?" Angel wrapped an arm around her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder. She hadn't heard him approach, but she wasn't surprised to feel him suddenly next to her.

"Just girl stuff." Buffy turned in his loose hold. "How's Cordy?"

He winced. "She won't really talk to me. She's so caught up in her own head, I think she barely noticed I was there. Which, you know -- kinda for the best?"

"She doesn't blame you."

A wry, humorless chuckle left his mouth. "A part of her does."

"A bigger part of her loves you and understands and accepts," Buffy insisted.

"I'm not worried about that. I know we'll be able to move past this." Angel's expression took on a melancholy slant. "I just also know . . . things are never really going to be the same again."

"True." Buffy traded him melancholy expression for melancholy expression. "Things were never the same with us again, either. After. Any of those times." She laughed, a bit self-consciously. "But hey . . . we're here. And wherever 'here' is, gotta say, I'm not hating it."

"Ringing endorsement, Ms. Summers." He affected a wounded expression, but she heard the teasing in his voice; the gentle affection.

Buffy regarded him for a moment. "Can we talk?"

"We are talking," he noted lightly. However, she could sense the seriousness lingering beneath, the thousand things he didn't say, the are-you-all-rights and the did-something-happens and the can-I-fix-its.

"Alone. We need to talk. Alone."

"So . . . alone, then?" He reached down for her hand. "Buffy, what's this about?"

"Letting go of the past. Making sure we're not carrying old baggage -- old secrets -- into the future with us, after this night."

"This sounds pretty heavy. Did something happen?"

"I was helping Will research the ceremony. I was looking through your books. I found something, wedged between two boring old books. Any idea what I found, Angel?"

"A not-so-boring old book?" It was a question, but it was decidedly rhetorical, and he sighed. "I can explain--"

"I know." She smiled. "But not here. Not with everyone watching. We've had enough public displays of frustration, don't you think?" She squeezed his hand and he squeezed it back.

"I'll tell Wes we'll be back at the hotel if we're needed."

"I'll say goodbye to Giles."

They parted and went in opposite directions. Angel's brain began working overtime, dreading the conversation that awaited him and feeling relieved all at once. He hadn't known how to bring the subject of his and Buffy's past lives up; how to say, "Hey, Honey, by the way, I've got this journal that paints a somewhat sketchy picture of the doomed romance we lived out a few hundred years ago. Wanna take a peek?" when they were in the middle of such turmoil.

The turmoil, at least, seemed to be coming to an end. While they were all still hurting, they were definitely walking wounded at this point, and Angel was confident they were all ready to move on, as far as they could when every step they took echoed memories of the past. Dodging small groups of people, Angel finally spotted Wesley on the other side of the room, engaged in conversation with Willow.

"Buffy and I are taking off."

"Already?" Willow looked a little distressed. "I mean, good for you."

"Nice cover," Wesley chided gently.

"It's been a long week for everyone," Willow conceded.

Angel laughed a little. "It's been a long year, Will." He kissed her cheek and patted Wesley on the back. "We'll be back at the hotel if you need us."

"Take care of each other," Wesley called quietly to Angel's departing back.

"Don't worry." Willow smiled up at him. "They haven't always, but lately, Buffy and Angel have gotten really good at taking care of each other."

"It's amazing what the absence of fear can do for a relationship." Wesley couldn't stop staring at Willow's profile as she gazed off into the crowded restaurant, seeking, he thought, anyone that was not him.

"Hmm?" Willow turned toward him, a distracted look on her face. "Did you say something?"

Wesley smiled as much as he could manage. "Nothing important."

"I want to go talk to Xander." Willow had already started moving away. "He looks so lonely over there."

It seemed to Wesley that Xander did not look nearly as lonely as Wesley himself felt, but did not think that was the sort of thing he ought to mention to Willow at the moment. Mostly, he feared, because she wouldn't hear him right the first time, and if forced to repeat it, he was likely to scream.

"You look a bit like I feel." Giles offered Wesley a glass of what looked suspiciously like scotch. Wesley took a cautious sip and confirmed that it was indeed very good scotch, straight up.

"Nothing another of these won't fix," Wesley declared, knocking back the glass in a single swallow.

"Perhaps you should take a breath before starting on a second," Giles suggested.

A wry grin answered him. "That =was= my second."

Giles sighed but said nothing further, taking a sip of his own scotch. It was his third, but he saw no need to let such information muddy the waters.

They contemplated the room at large for awhile, watched as Buffy and Angel sneaked out the back of the restaurant like a pair of shadows returning to the pale blackness where they belonged. At length, Giles broke the silence with a thought that had been niggling at him for years now.

"Do you find you think about death more since you've begun working with Angel, or less?"

"Far less," Wesley answered without hesitation, and Giles smiled, because it was the sort of thought Watchers might share. "As you well know, the bond between Watcher and Slayer is an extraordinary one, and while it is not identical, I fancy the bond between Angel and me to be comparable. At the Council . . ." He paused for a momentary breath. "They go to such extensive length to make you aware of the perils a Slayer faces, the average life expectancy. They caution you not to become attached, to not develop a bond with your charge . . . with anyone, really, and so you become consumed with the idea of death as it exists in rational fact. You memorize statistics, note the likelihood of losing people that you care about . . ." A wry smile tugged at his lips as he set his empty glass aside. "You can even begin speaking of yourself in the second person."

"I find the idea of contemplating Buffy's death with any frequency more distasteful than I can express." Giles stared down at his nearly-dry-glass. "I tried very hard to keep a respectful distance, to keep myself from loving her so dearly, and I did quite a good job of it until . . ."

Wesley turned away from him, leaned over the bar and came back with half a bottle of scotch. He refilled both their glasses, took a healthy sip of his own, then looked at Giles with an expectant look on his face. "Until?"

"Her name was Jenny," Giles whispered. "I'm sure -- you read the diaries before you became Buffy's Watcher, so I'm sure you know the story."

"Yes." The answer was clipped and precise. The story of Jenny Calendar was, in fact, one of the reasons it had taken Wesley a very long time, indeed, to trust Angel.

"She was the first person in my somewhat long life that I've ever truly loved and lost. Loving her opened my heart, and when I lost her, I lost the ability to close it again. Buffy became even more precious to me afterward and I became determined that, in spite of the odds and the dry numbers and the logic of it, that she would. Not. Die."

"And then she did."

Giles snapped his head around to glare at Wesley, but he saw in the other man's eyes, not malice or animosity -- but a deeply felt understanding.

"But it wasn't a solid death," Wesley continued, "no, that sort of thing, you can mourn for. When Buffy died, it was a death of spirit, and she left a fiendish shell behind -- a shell you didn't like, couldn't trust, but somehow, still loved; still supplied you with damnable, useless hope."

"That second person narrative certainly does sneak up on you, doesn't it?" Giles took a healthy sip of his drink.

"We lost Angel for awhile there. I've told you the story. We had no way to reach him, no idea where to begin, but we couldn't truly move on because he was out there somewhere. He was out there and for once, he was the one in need of help." Wesley placed a hand on Giles' shoulder. "Never forget, while you're indulging moments of self-pity and flagellation, that we =did= save them -- both of them -- in spite of the cost. And that perhaps, finally, we are all ready to begin to truly live again."

"I feel as though there's one last ghost to lay to rest first," Giles confessed. "It was such a difficult time . . . there was barely a moment to order the headstone, let alone conduct a proper funeral. I feel as though I've never had a chance to mourn her."

"So mourn her now," Wesley said.

"It's never seemed like the right time," Giles continued. "As though there could ever be a right time to let go of someone so dear . . ." He seemed to grapple for words and Wesley squeezed his shoulder, once, offering strength. With his other arm, he gestured to the grieving but smiling -- sadly smiling, but smiling nonetheless -- people gathered around them.

"There will never be a better time than now."

"Gotcha," she whispered close to his ear, causing him to jump.

"Bloody hell," he groused, "don't go sneaking around like that."

"Or what, I'll give you a heart attack?" Just seeing him made her feel snarky.

"Sod. Off," Spike said clearly.

"I thought Red banished you to wander the moors or something dramatic like that," Faith noted.

"I'm still banished." His gaze was drawn inside, face almost pressed against the filthy window that shielded the party inside from the relative cold of the Los Angeles night.

"FYI, Blondie, but banished souls don't traditionally spy on their former residence."

He laughed a little.

"Fat lot you know 'bout bein' banished," he muttered. "That's about all you want to do, is stand around on the outside and press your nose against the glass." He seemed to shake something off with a physical twist of his shoulders. "But that sure as hell's not what I'm doin'."

Faith snickered.

"Could've fooled me."

Spike opened his mouth to say something, then froze. He snapped out of his paralysis quickly, though, grabbed Faith and pulled her with him into the darkness. She was about to kick his ass when his motives became clear -- walking out of the back of the restaurant were Buffy and Angel, arms around one another, looking pensive and dire about something. Faith rolled her eyes. She couldn't believe neither of them could sense Spike -- whatever they were thinking about must have been heavy. How unusual for their relationship, she thought with a mental snicker.

Releasing her, Spike gave a shake to his shoulders and continued speaking as though nothing unusual had happened. Faith decided to take pity on him and not mention it.

"Just making sure Red's getting along all right, that's all," he insisted. "Wanker she's with looks to be starting something. Been fixin' for a fight all week."

Faith stared at him with her mouth open slightly.

"All week," Faith repeated slowly. "You haven't been gone at all, have you? You've been skulking around, watching everyone--"

"Shut your hole," Spike snapped. "It's not like that. I was just . . . I just wanted to . . ." He cursed under his breath, something Faith didn't quite catch, and angrily lit up a cigarette. "After tonight," he said calmly after a few long puffs, "I'm gone."

Faith was torn between feeling sorry for this pitiful creature, and angry that he'd been stalking her new family. While she still didn't completely understand what had driven Willow to banish Spike -- Buffy was, after all, just as culpable for what had nearly gone down between them -- Faith also couldn't find it in herself to fault the little witch for her reaction. Mostly because every time Faith looked at Spike, she remembered the intense coupling they'd shared; it was only the last in a long line of sexual exploits Faith would just as soon forget, but the reasons behind it were what really shamed her.

Afraid of feeling something real, of risking her heart big time, Faith had chosen to screw a demon. The part that annoyed her the most was that it hadn't even worked. Staring into Spike's deadly cool blue eyes had only served to remind her of the reluctant warmth she saw in Lindsey's. Lindsey hadn't been a prick about it, and the incident hadn't soured their relationship, but Faith still didn't like to think about it. So, yeah, she'd been okay with Willow kicking Mr. The Bloody out on his ass.

But as she looked at him now, his gaze plastered all over what appeared to be the bickering forms of Wesley and Willow, Faith realized she felt more than shame around Spike; had been driven toward him by more than an imperative to mate and blot Lindsey McDonald from her mind.

"You and me," Faith said as she leaned against the rough brick of the restaurant, "we're a lot alike."

"Sure, pet." He threw his cigarette to the ground and stamped it out violently. "You've got no concept of what I am."

"I know that you're fucking scared. I know that you're lonely as hell and confused and angry that you're so lost you can't remember who you're supposed to be. I know you've got something inside you screaming to fight and maim and kill and that there's something else holding you back from doing it. Me, I had a soul. You've got a chip. Maybe it's different on some cosmic scale, but from where I'm sitting, debating the philosophical bullshit of it is just technicalities."

"Got it all figured out, have you, love." His voice was tired and fed up and aching the way she remembered hers so long ago.

"They'd take you back." Faith let herself move a little closer to him. "Willow was angry, and God knows, Angel still is, but they believe in forgiveness and the good fight and all that shit that seems impossible to you right now -- but they'd take you back. If you asked."

"What's that they say, love?" He seemed to lose himself in thought for a moment. "Home is the place where, when you turn up, no matter what, they've got to take you in?"

"Something like that," she conceded.

"That," he hooked a thumb toward all the people inside, "is not my bloody home. I'm not a part of that world, or this world," he indicated the night sky. "I don't belong with humans or demons or anywhere else. I've got no home and I've got no family and I don't bloody want either. Having loyalties . . . just fucks everything right up."

"Fine. This isn't your home, your family -- what right do you have playing peeping Billy on their grief--"

"I've got a right!" He wheeled on Faith; got in her face. "Joyce used to make me hot cocoa with little marshmallows in it, and the Niblet . . ." His face almost crumpled, and Faith reached out a hand to him, but he shook her off. "I'm losing my mind," he muttered after a minute.

"What makes you say that?"

"I keep seein' things. Feelin' things. Wantin' things. Things I've got no business with."

"What have you been seeing?" Faith was pretty sure what he'd been feeling and wanting.

"Crazy things," he whispered. He hastily lit another cigarette. "Been wondering if this is how it always was for Dru." He shook his head and exhaled a long drag. "Been seeing the faces of people I killed. Not in a haunty way, just blending into the crowd at night. Been rememberin' things my mum used to tell me. Seein' bloody 'signs' everywhere. Thinkin' about Dru and her fortunes and her sight, the way she would sit and stare at Tarot spread after Tarot spread, like they meant something; like she didn't already have all the future she needed in her head. That sorta crap."

A chill ran up Faith's spine. Ever since she'd had her first real prophetic dream, Faith had been noticing something about herself -- she could read people. Not in an obvious way, and not like a Seer, but she had instincts that she could not ignore, instincts that screamed and pled and implored her one way or another.

And right now, those instincts were howling.

Her question, when it came, was soft and measured.

"Spike, were you at the prayer circle?"

"So what if I was?"

"Did you see anything?" She tried to stay casual. No need to bring him into this whole mess if he didn't really--

"What, you mean the bloody magic smoky spectacle? Yeah, I caught it. Got out of there before you all joined hands and started singing 'Amazing Grace,' or whatever, too."

Faith let out a breath.

"It's cold out here," she said. "Why don't you come inside?"

"Don't feel the cold, love."

"I think you do." She spoke quietly, and though he gave no indication, she knew that he'd heard her. "Take care of yourself, William." She turned to leave.

"Why'd you ask me what I saw?"

Freezing in place, Faith didn't look back at Spike.

"We all saw something." She paused, waiting for a response. "Our futures or some shit like that, symbols in the center of a circle. Everybody got one. Red's gonna start trying to figure it all out tomorrow." There was only silence from Spike. She turned around. "You didn't see one, did--"

But he was already gone.

"Hey. I'm almost all mourned out, how 'bout you?"

Willow looked up at him with wide, guileless eyes, and Wesley felt hollow. He also felt more than a little drunk, which he would later blame for most of what was about to follow.

"Yes, I'd say I've had quite enough." Knocking back the last of his drink (his fifth), Wesley set the empty glass on a table and turned to regard Willow fully. "How is Xander?" he asked. That sounded polite, didn't it? Not at all like the whining cry of a wounded dog.

"Not bad. He's driving Cordelia home. Buffy and Angel already left, and I think Giles is ready to go, too. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm the only sober one here. Do I need to take everybody's keys?"

"The hotel is within walking distance. Angel's already offered everyone a room for the night. There's no need to play designated driver."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Someone sounds extra-super-grouchy. No more scotch for you, Mister."

"I am not--" Wesley gritted his teeth, because the beginning of that denial =had= sounded a trifle grouchy. With a sigh he felt in his very marrow, Wesley pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry. I'm just . . . I'm tired of this night. I'm tired of missing my friend, and tired of mourning for people I was barely acquainted with. I'm tired of being forced to think about death."

"Death is a fact of life," Willow pointed out reasonably. "It's okay to think about it sometimes."

Shaking his head, Wesley ran a hand through his hair. Even after all that she'd lost, all that she'd been through, she -- and the others, he suspected, all of the others outside Giles, Faith, Buffy, and Angel -- still didn't understand. Hell, he hadn't even understood, not really, when he'd been Buffy and Faith's Watcher in Sunnydale. He hadn't understood any of it until he'd had a real charge, one that he tried so very hard not to fail.

Staring down at Willow's honest, bewildered face, Wesley wondered just when he'd begun to realize that he'd failed her, too.

It was at that moment, he would realize later, that he made his decision.

"Let's talk about the future, instead," he suggested, leaning close to her. "Our future."

"Okay," Willow said slowly. "What about it?"

"Would you like to go away somewhere? Just the two of us? Just for a weekend, even, at a lovely bed and breakfast I know up the coast. Give us some time to really . . . get to know each other."

"Wes, we know each other," she said with a laugh. "We don't have to spend a weekend at some overpriced, highfalutin bed and breakfast to prove it."

"I think it would be good for us." Wesley tried to impress upon her how much they -- all right, =he= -- needed her to say yes.

"Maybe," she said at last. "We'll talk about it later, okay? Let's just go home for now. I don't want to think anymore." Her eyes begged him to let her forget about all the things she didn't want to think about, and he wanted to, very much. Wasn't that exactly what he'd been doing for her these past weeks?

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course you can." She tried to laugh. Rolled her eyes a little as Xander and Cordelia walked past them, casting curious eyes in their direction. That's right; he's drunk and she's humoring him and nothing is really wrong at all.

"Are you in love with me?"

"Wesley! Of course I love you."

"That wasn't my question," he said through teeth that were gritted hard enough to grind diamonds.

"Why are you getting so angry?" She laid a hand on his arm. "Look, if this is because I don't want to go away for the weekend, excuse me--"

"Why don't you?" He almost didn't care that his voice sounded so petulant, even to his own ears. "You love me, I love you, why wouldn't you want to spend a relaxing, romantic weekend away with me?"

"I don't know, maybe because you're acting like an ass at a funeral for people we both cared about?" That look was coming over her eyes, match striking rock and sparking.

"You never want to talk about the future." He had ceased allowing her touch, and she had stopped trying to offer it. "Every time I ask where you want to live one day, what you want to do with your life, how you might see our relationship progressing one day, you put me off."

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe -- just maybe -- I don't like to =think= about the future anymore? Because every time I have, every time I plan on someone or something, it falls apart!"

"You'll forgive me if I have some difficulty subscribing to that theory," he noted derisively.

"Actually, I don't think I will." She stepped away from him. "Sleep it off, Wes. If you want to talk about this tomorrow, if you want to apologize, I'll--"

"Apologize?!" Wesley crossed the distance between them. "You've been using me. You've been using me to sublimate the grief you feel over losing the love of your life and I've gotten bloody sick of it! What do I have to apologize for?"

"Hey, Wes, when did I become some kind of punching bag? I must have missed the memo, you know, since I've been using my every waking moment for the last week to plan this service. I'm so sorry if I've neglected to attend to your fragile ego--"

"This has nothing to do with my ego!" Their faces were nearly pressed together and he felt like he was screaming, though his voice didn't sound that loud. "This has to do with . . . with you not wanting me. With you being so confused about your own identity and where your heart lies that you can't even see how goddamned guilty you are being with me!"

"Guilty?!" Willow's jaw dropped. "Why would I be--"

"She died. You made promises to her, and she died. And so now, while you're trying to move on with your life, you only do it in half-measures. You talk about your dreams with me, but you never share the ones that truly mean something to you. You share my bed, but keep your eyes tightly shut when we make love--"

"That is =enough=!"

"It's not! It's not enough, not until you admit--"

"What do you want me to admit so badly, Wes?! Why do you need to hear that I don't love you?!"

Wesley stepped back from her. His face was stricken, but almost satisfied. Willow shut her eyes tightly and began shaking her head in automatic denial.

"There. That's better." He was speaking quietly, almost to himself, his tone pleading. It had to be better now, it had to feel better to know, to be sure . . .

"I didn't mean it like that," Willow weakly. "You just -- you pushed and you pushed, and -- I didn't mean it like that."

"However you mean it," Wesley said finally, "it remains true." He started to walk away, then stumbled a bit. Giles caught him before he could fall.

"Time to go home, old man," Giles said quietly. "I think you've done quite enough damage for one evening."

Xander took one of Willow's arms, Cordelia the other, and they led her, unresisting, from the room.

After he was sure they'd gone and there would be no confrontations in the parking lot, Giles steered Wesley to his car and placed him firmly in the passenger's seat.

"I had to do it," Wesley began babbling as they drove the short distance back to the hotel.

"Did you?" Giles wondered absently.

"No one ever loves me." Wesley's head was resting against the window, his glasses crooked, his eyes closed. "They say they do, but they don't, not really, because I'm not worth it, you know. I'm not worth anything. Totally useless and it would have been better for everyone if he'd never let me out of that closet. Yes. Should have stayed locked up there for . . . Willow." He snapped his head up so suddenly, he got dizzy for a moment. "She's all right, isn't she? I -- I didn't mean to . . . I don't want her to feel badly."

"Yes, good show, then," Giles muttered caustically.

"It's for the best," Wesley repeated again. "She'll see, you'll all see . . ." With that he passed out against the window again.

"Poor bugger," Giles noted compassionately as he pulled into a space across the street from the Hyperion.

He was going to have to find Faith and get her to carry her unconscious former Watcher to his bed. Giles' back wasn't what it used to be.

"That's it -- from now on, Wes is laying off Angel's cooking. Drunken idiot nearly gave me a hernia."

"If you ask me, you should have let him sleep it off in the car." Lindsey was lying on the bed in their room as Faith flopped into one of the armchairs, coat and shoes still on. "A stiff neck and being enclosed with your own stink is punishment enough to warn otherwise sane men off overindulging."

"I wouldn't call the little performance Wes put on tonight sane." Faith tiredly kicked off her boots. "Would you mind if I just went to sleep right here?"

Lindsey flashed her a grin. "I would indeed mind, Sweetheart." Lazily rolling off the bed, he strode over to her and knelt at her feet. With his good hand, he took hold of her left foot and rested her heel against his thigh, slowly massaging the arch with his thumb.

Faith moaned and let her head sink back against the chair. "When does everything stop turning to shit?" she wondered after a moment.

"Wish to fuck I knew." He planted a kiss on the tips of her toes and went to work on the other foot.

"The whole way up to his room he kept muttering. Waking up, going back out, over and over again. Shit, the things he said. About his dad, about that Bryce chick he was dating, about Willow. Never knew my poncy ass Watcher had so much dark in him."

"Everybody's got a whole lot of dark in them." Lindsey moved up a little higher, to her calf, and began stroking more than rubbing. Faith purred a little in response. "It's what you do with your dark that decides who you are. From what I can tell, Wes pushed it down until there was nowhere left to stuff it. You and me . . ." Another grin. "We gave it free rein and it tried to swallow us whole." Another kiss to her foot, and another sinful caress followed.

She let him attend to her for a few more minutes, then nudged him gently away so that she could stand. Her coat was tossed back to the chair and she started slowly unbuttoning the tight black jeans she'd finally decided on wearing for the night. The lavender dress was neatly hung back on its hanger in the May Queen's room.) Faith stalked toward him, then unbuttoned the first few buttons of his shirt and let her hand snake inside to give his bare skin a loving pat.

"Speaking of swallowing things whole . . ." Her lips met his in an open-mouthed caress and she felt his sigh against her skin, in the way his chest moved against hers, in the way his eyelashes brushed his cheeks.

Her seduction was going very well until Slayer grace deserted her and she tripped over her discarded boots.

Feeling mortified, she turned her back on him and bent over to pick up the boots and toss them a safe distance away. However, while she was eye-level with the chair, her eye caught on something sticking out of her coat pocket. A sense of inevitability stole over her and she reached her hand out toward it as she stood. Before she read it, somewhere inside of her, she already knew what it would say.

"Don't worry," Lindsey crooned in her ear, wrapping an arm around her waist. There was laughter in his voice, and part of her that wasn't distracted noted that she didn't mind him being amused at her clumsiness one bit. That had to be progress. "I won't tell a soul." She didn't answer him, and the next time he spoke, she heard a trace of concern in his tone. "What is it, Darlin'?" He peered over her shoulder at the small item she had in her palm -- magic marker written on the cardboard insert from a pack of cigarettes.

"'The Hanged Man,'" Lindsey read aloud.

"Where was my coat?" Faith asked quietly.

"In the coatroom. With mine."

"I left it on a chair." Faith stared down at the piece of cardboard in her hand. "I left it on a chair because I was so cold I didn't want to take it off right away when I came in after . . ."

"After?"

"Remind me to give this to Willow in the morning."

"Something you want to talk about?"

Faith smiled brilliantly, turned and bestowed another long, deep kiss on his surprised mouth. With the tips of her fingers she brushed his short hair back, taking a few precious moments to look deep into his ocean blue eyes. There was home all around her now, but none of it felt as real as this man's eyes looking back at her with love.

"We've talked a lot tonight. I wanna do something else."

"I'm nothing if not amendable to the wishes of my partner," he said. He did that sometimes, slip from redneck to slick lawyer and back again in the blink of an eye.

She was really starting to like him.

"Come on, Cowboy. Take me to bed."

"Can you believe him? Him and his being drunk and disorderly and just -- =mean=! He was just mean!"

"So I've heard," Cordelia muttered. She shared an eye roll with Xander as Willow continued to angrily pace around her room.

"Anything I can do?" Xander asked helplessly, casting a concerned gaze between Willow and Cordelia. It almost felt like high school again, being torn between his best friend and his girlfriend--

Xander shook himself. He did not just think that. Not now, not yet, not =ever= . . .

"Xander?" Cordelia was looking at him strangely. "You look like you're having an aneurysm."

"What? Why? No! Fine. I'm fine." He turned. "I'm just gonna go get you guys some chocolate -- girls like chocolate when they're upset, right?"

Cordelia stared after Xander as he fled the room. "What's his damage?"

"Chocolate," Willow said morosely, coming to an abrupt halt in the middle of her floor. Cordelia hoped she hadn't hurt anything, the way she just crumpled down like that. "This whole thing with Wesley started because of chocolate. I blame chocolate."

"That," Cordelia noted as she carefully sat down across from Willow, "is blasphemous. Don't blame the chocolate because you couldn't control yourselves."

"I'm just so tired of hurting." Willow rested her arms on her bent knees and let her head hang in between.

"Me too." Cordelia sighed and leaned back on her elbows. "Any suggestions?"

"I could do a spell." Willow glanced up at Cordelia from behind a curtain of red hair. "I could make it so that we never fall in love again, never hurt again."

"As tempting as that sounds, it also happens to sound a lot like something Xander would have done back in high school." Cordelia looked at Willow for a moment, sizing her up. "I know we've never been particularly close, Will . . ."

"That's not true," Willow automatically denied.

"It is." Cordelia smiled as much as she could manage. "And it's okay. I mean, it's not like we all have to be best friends forever or anything. You and Xander and Buffy -- you were always enough for each other. And I understand. Because that's how Angel, Wes and I are. Which brings me, oh so subtly and tactfully, to my question -- are you in love with my best friend?"

Willow stared down at the floor. "I am not in love with Angel; Buffy would kill me."

"Oh, nice try," Cordelia said with false approval. "Points for absurdity. Try again."

"I thought I was until he went all psycho tonight."

"A little bitter," Cordelia said, "but the fact that you won't look me in the eye is worth a deduction."

"Yes!" Willow snapped her neck up and looked Cordelia in the eye. "Yes, I'm in love with him, yes, yes, I love him, he's made my whole stupid world okay again and I love him! Are you happy now, Cordelia?"

"I'm far from happy, Willow," Cordelia said stiffly. "What I don't understand is why the two of you aren't happy, given how clearly in love with you he is."

"I . . ." Willow swallowed deeply. "I never told him. Not really. And he's right. I do -- I hold myself back. I . . ." A tear spilled down her cheek. "I loved Tara with everything I had inside of me, and when she died I don't know how I kept putting one foot in front of the other. I just don't know how. And then there was Wesley, and he was so sweet, and shy, and gentle . . . and he was just so =there= for me. It didn't seem like he needed anything, and I guess . . . I needed him to not need anything from me." A look of horror crossed the witch's face. "Oh, God, Cordy, no wonder he thought I was . . . I wasn't, I swear, I wasn't!"

Cordelia sighed. "I believe you, Will. But I'm not the one who needs to hear all this." She sighed and stared down at her hands. "And I would never betray a confidence a friend placed in me, but -- I think you need to know that this isn't all your fault."

Willow scooted a little closer to her. "What?"

"I don't know how much Wes has told you about his past . . . but he's talked to me a little bit, to Angel a little more, I think, and . . . things happened to him. With his father, with the Council, the way things ended with Virginia -- he's got a lot of pain inside of him, Will. A lot of pain and this thing that makes him think he can't share it because no one will ever care enough to listen." Cordelia reached out and took Willow's hand. "The best thing that you can do for him is to let him know that it's okay to need you. If you're not sure about the way you feel about him, then you need to tell him--"

"I'm sure," Willow said quickly. "I swear to God I'm sure." She angrily swiped at the tears on her cheeks. "I've just been so manic this week, and so . . . and then he brought it up after -- when we were -- and I just couldn't." She made a frustrated sound. "I just didn't want to plan out my whole life with him, so that if something happened, it wouldn't all get ruined, because if there's nothing there to ruin in the first place . . ."

"Yeah," Cordelia with a heavy sigh. "I know all about rationalizing yourself out of happiness."

The two women shared something that was as companionable and close to friendship as they ever had. Xander broke the moment with his somewhat loud arrival.

"Chocolate," he announced, weighed down with candy bars left over from Halloween. "Not quite as good as sex, with twice as many calories, but at least no one kicks you out of bed afterward."

Cordelia stared at him. "Your life makes me sad."

Xander joined them on the floor and quirked an eyebrow at Cordelia.

"Imagine how it makes me feel."

"So," Buffy said as she glanced to her right at Angel's decidedly naked form, "that didn't really so much resemble talking."

Angel lifted the corner of his mouth at her in a half-smile. Turning onto his side, he brought one of his hands to gently rest over her abdomen, noting, dispassionately, the way it did not move up and down with her breathing.

They had gone back to their room with every intention of having a long, drawn out talk about everything they hadn't talked about yet, and a few of the old issues that were always between them.

But, as so often happened, things did not go according to plan.

He hadn't meant for anything to come of such a simple gesture; he'd just noticed that some of Buffy's hair had fallen from the upsweep she'd put it in and he reached a hand out to brush it behind her ear. Then it had occurred to him how much he loved her hair down, and his other hand had come up to remove the clip that held the mass of tangled gold captive. His fingers stroked through it as it came down, and she'd leaned into his touch. It seemed only natural to kiss her, and when she kissed him back it became even more natural and rational thought was blotted out right along with any considerations about what they really ought to be doing instead.

The dress she'd worn tonight had shredded beneath what he'd been sure was the gentlest tug. She didn't seem to mind the loss, and ripped what was left away, going to work on his clothes as they tumbled back onto their bed together. They furiously came together again and again, moved to soothe and comfort, to love and take, give and pull until they reminded themselves and each other that no matter what they were about to discuss, or what came before, or what came next, there would always be what came after, and this, and the way his hand held her lower back and the press of her lips to his breast and the feeling of safe, warm, home, with every unneeded breath they took together.

"So," Angel said, moving a gentle thumb against her belly, "how about them past lives?"

"I'm mad at you." She laced her fingers through the hand resting against her stomach.

"I know."

"I'm mad at me, too."

He furrowed his brow at her. "Why?"

"Because you're not the only one who was keeping something pretty huge to themselves this time." A forlorn sigh tore its way through her body. "When are we going to stop being so afraid of just telling each other everything?"

"We're getting better," he said in their defense. "It's just -- hard -- to stop protecting you."

"I know the feeling." She brought his palm to her lips briefly before returning it to her abdomen.

"And," he added, "I wasn't sure what it all meant. When it first came to my attention, I was still pretty much a basket case." He paused for a moment. "Care to enlighten me about whatever it is you've been clamming up about?"

"In a minute -- you first. How did you find that thing in the first place?"

"Lindsey."

"Seriously?"

"He liberated it from Wolfram and Hart before he left. Studied it, apparently."

Her nose wrinkled up. "I don't like the idea of him knowing so much about . . . I mean, they were =us=, Angel. No one but us should know so much about -- us."

"You've read all of it, then?"

Buffy nodded. "Once I started, I couldn't put it down. A real page-turner," she joked lightly.

"For all we know, it isn't even accurate," Angel pointed out. "Maybe we're getting worked up over--"

"It's accurate." Buffy turned onto her side to face him fully, her head propped up on her upturned arm. "My turn. Didn't you wonder, just a little bit, how I =knew= it was us?"

Angel shrugged. "I just assumed you . . . I don't know, felt it. When Lindsey told me, when I held it in my hands, I just -- knew -- that it was true."

"Angel, I'm very glad you've got such good intuition, because what I get is strange, disjointed dreams that paint an unclear-yet-vivid picture."

He sat up straighter. "You've been having dreams?"

"For a little over a week now." She sat up against the headboard next to him. "I don't know why I didn't just tell you. At first, I didn't think they meant anything -- you know I've had some weird ass dreams. But then, it seemed the closer we got to the service, the more I . . ." She shook her head. "I should have told you."

"There's a lot of that going around," he noted quietly.

"What does it mean? What are we supposed to do? They . . . Angel, the journal is more clear than my dreams, but there's still so much we don't know. And -- does it even matter?"

"It matters. Buffy, why would we be confronted with all of this now, if it didn't matter?"

She let her head rest on his shoulder. "I don't know. But I guess we should talk to Giles and Wes."

"Tomorrow." He pulled her down to lie flat with him, their heads sharing a pillow, noses almost touching, and let his hand sift through her hair again until she closed her eyes, his name and something left unsaid the last whisper on her lips.

He continued to stroke her hair long after she had fallen asleep.

It was afternoon before Buffy and Angel were finally able to bring the information they had to Giles and Wesley. Giles seemed most interested that Buffy had retained some sort of ability to psychically dream, and Wes looked pained at the thought of doing anything beyond moaning quietly. Both Watchers, however, immediately bent to the task at hand and the rest of the hotel's inhabitants divided their skills between two groups -- the Watchers' team busily researching past lives and any mention of the Soul Blessing, and Willow's Tarot hunt.

The first week, everything was fairly awkward.

Cordelia did her level best to avoid working in close proximity with Angel, and Xander, out of some sense of loyalty to his -- whatever she was -- did likewise. As far as he was concerned, Angel had a lot of people around him -- Buffy in particular - - and the one person Cordelia had left that she truly counted on was Wesley. And to Xander, Wesley looked like he had his hands full just trying to take care of himself, let alone Cordelia. That meant the burden of caring for Queen C. fell to him, and he was still marveling over a Cordy that willingly allowed herself to be vulnerable.

The day after his inebriated ranting, Willow walked up to Wesley and began, in her Willow way, to apologize and ask if they could start again. Wesley, in his Wesley way, shut her out and folded inward, barely sparing her the courtesy of looking at her as he told her, in no uncertain terms, that it was better this way, and do, please, have a good life. Willow was so hurt she hadn't spoken to him in days and forced Faith to relay any messages it was imperative they communicate. They both began to close in on themselves, Willow, because she had been hurt so many times, and Wesley, because he could not stop hearing his father's voice in his head. Angel tried to talk to Wesley, and Buffy tried to counsel Willow, but both remained stubbornly adrift.

Lindsey and Faith, in between studying various forms of Tarot (all they could say for certain so far was that the Tarot symbols everyone saw were definitely from the Rider Waite deck), began discussing just what, exactly, they planned to do with the rest of their lives. As easy as it was to do so, neither felt comfortable imposing upon the Hyperion forever, and Faith had begun to feel a niggling sensation in her belly -- the Hellmouth was speaking to her. And, she began to remember, it currently stood without a guard. By the same reckoning, Buffy and Angel had the City of Angels pretty well in hand -- but given the usual grab-bag of evil mayhem Sunnydale usually sat on, Faith was beginning to itch just thinking about all the vamps and demons having run of the town.

Giles overheard Faith discussing her decision with Buffy and Angel, and an idea began to take seed in his mind. Faith would need a Watcher, someone she could trust, someone who would be in tune with her mood; someone who would not be afraid of her, as a new Watcher from the Council might be. Giles spent hours watching Buffy, observing her interactions with Angel's family, with Angel himself. Willow and Xander would be staying; that decision had already been made. But Giles -- Giles felt that perhaps he was not needed here. Wesley was their Watcher, the keeper of the books, and despite how very badly Giles wanted to stay by Buffy's side, he knew the only true decision was to go where he was most needed.

Buffy kept focusing on her dreams. She would sit quietly in a corner, never having been good at research, and try to call to mind more specifics from them. The images were jumbled: the face of a girl, dark hair, dark eyes that Buffy felt an intense longing for. It was a slightly uncomfortable sensation; uncomfortable and intriguing. The more she thought about her dreams, the more she began to be haunted by that woman's face. Her face became clearer to Buffy, and her dreams intensified. Angel hovered close without becoming suffocating, and she was grateful for his solid, beloved presence.

By the second week, everyone was getting into the rhythm of research.

Wesley and Willow had become civil and no longer required Faith as an intermediary, for which Faith was grateful. There were many things that Faith had not been cut out for in this life, and she was the first to admit that diplomacy was one of them. Willow attempted several overtures, all of which Wesley steadfastly rebuked. He did not, it soon began to occur to Willow, particularly care if she did love him, and that knowledge confused and pained her.

"Please," he said to her finally, "just let it be. It's for the best."

"Why are you so afraid?" She reached out a hand and enfolded his tense palm inside it. "You don't have to be afraid of me. I'm really not that scary."

"I'm not afraid of you." He brought her hand to his lips. "I'm afraid for you."

That was the last he spoke on the topic, and Willow decided not to broach the subject of their personal relationship until this most recent crisis had passed. The fact that this would give her time to mount a more successful offensive battle plan against his defensive fear was a happy coincidence.

When Giles told her he would be going back to Sunnydale with Faith, Buffy smiled, hugged him, and told him she expected them all back for Christmas and birthdays and any other excuse they could think of to sneak away from the Hellmouth for a weekend or more. Giles was both relieved and disappointed by her easy acceptance of his eventual departure from her everyday life. Yet another part of him was immensely proud of her maturity. Her reaction was all the validation he needed that his decision had been the right one.

As soon as they had a moment to themselves, Buffy flung herself into Angel's arms and wept. He let her cry for a few minutes, then dried her tears and asked her if she was all right now.

"I'll miss him so much." She smiled, and this time she meant it. "But it's not like I'm alone."

"No," he agreed, tracing one of her eyebrows with the tip of his finger, "it's not."

The dreams grew more intense. Buffy became an active participant in them. During a particularly intense installment, she awoke panting and aroused, the memory of the dark-haired woman's phantom touch warming her cool skin. The ache she felt beneath her flesh was as vivid as anything she had ever felt in reality, and it itched and pulled at her skin until she woke Angel and all but attacked him. From his response, she was fairly certain that he hadn't minded.

Angel found numerous small ways to help Cordelia without infringing himself upon her. He refilled her coffee and then let Xander bring it to her; he tuned the radio to her favorite station then scurried away from it as though it were on fire; he took her favorite sweater -- ruined in a fight -- to an all-night alteration shop and let Willow present the good-as-new garment to its owner. He continued in this vein for some time until Cordelia intervened.

"I know it's you," she'd said in no uncertain terms.

He felt more uncomfortable than he had wearing a tuxedo at Buffy's prom.

"I don't know what you mean." It was lame. He realized that.

"You don't -- Angel, you don't have to keep . . ." Tears sprang to her eyes. "You can't make this up to me."

"I know." His voice was laced with tears he didn't feel he had the right to shed. "Cordy . . ."

"Just stop it, okay? Because you're making me feel guilty and I hate that."

"I can't stop taking care of you. I don't know how."

Cordelia sighed. "Fine. Then if you're going to do stuff for me . . . =you= do them, okay? Because sooner or later I'm going to get used to you hovering around like a mother hen and we'll be okay, but not if you keep skulking around like a shadow. Deal?"

"Deal." He looked at her for a moment. "You haven't eaten today."

She grinned. "There you go."

When she wasn't planning to locate the cause of, and decimate, Wesley's apparent icy-calm exterior, Willow continued her research on Tarot. The traditional uses were abundant and useless; the order and number of the symbols had no meaning, and no practicality in any conventional reading. And the unconventional methods she pursued proved fruitless. Soon, she would have to broaden her search, which she was not looking forward to -- once she moved out of the realm of the occult, it meant the answer could lie =anywhere=, and the sheer breadth of information to sift through was daunting, even to Sunnydale's most effusive nerd.

Feeling useless in the search, Faith began looking through old neighborhood maps of Sunnydale, trying to figure out where she and Lindsey would live. It didn't occur to her that she'd never officially asked if he'd be making the journey back with her; she'd just assumed that he would. Luckily, he assumed the same, and began giving her input on their future home. Giles began making calls, trying to see if he could renew his lease on the Magic Box. Buffy decided that if you couldn't beat 'em, join 'em, and began looking forward to the frustrating dreams, because when she woke up, with Angel by her side, they ceased to be quite so frustrating.

Everyone was growing restless, the lack of information beginning to dampen their spirits.

Then, in the third week, Giles found something.

"So you're telling me that after three weeks of exhaustive researching, your big cure for my chronic dreams is to give us both even more chronic dreams? Giles, are you sure you're getting enough sleep?"

"You only grow more amusing each and every day," Giles noted dryly as he, Wesley, and Willow positioned candles, incense, and several herbs Buffy couldn't really pronounce around the room.

Buffy and Angel were standing aside, watching as three of their friends prepared their bed for the spell Willow would cast. Buffy felt a bit surreal watching the man she considered her father fluffing pillows on the bed she shared with her lover.

"It's actually really cool," Willow noted with an even-though-I'm-a-kickass-wicca- I'm-still-a-nerd grin on her face. "Your subconscious soul's memory is always with you -- you just can't access it. Because you've already got some latent psychic ability, Buff, you're already beginning to tap into it. And, because the Soul Blessing has already sort of activated your past life awareness, with a few shakes of incense and an incantation, you and Angel should be able to actually step inside your soul's memories and take a peek around."

"Well, that's essentially it," Giles conceded, "but you won't -- you won't have control over what you'll see and feel."

"Will it be random?" Angel, too, looked like he felt the whole situation was bordering on the surreal as Giles made their bed with fresh sheets.

"No," Wesley said as he monitored the positioning of the candles Willow was lining up on the dresser, comparing them to the helpful diagram in the book he held. "The strength of the memories will greatly influence your ability to experience them. The stronger the recall, the more vivid the imprint on your souls, the clearer you'll be in the moment."

"You'll essentially be dreaming about a life you can't remember," Giles concluded. "However, I must caution you, this isn't going to be full sensory recall. There will likely be many gaps left. Some instances you may remember as clear as day, others will be insubstantial, barely coherent enough to piece together what's happened. I cannot stress enough that none of this would even be possible were it not for the extraordinary strengthened connection between your souls. When you wake up, these dreams should be like any other ephemeral memories you currently possess, similar to early childhood."

"With maybe a little extra added weirdness since Buffy's never been a guy before, and Angel's never been a girl. And not just any girl, but a Slayer." Willow glanced at them briefly. "You haven't, right? I'm not forgetting some Hellmouthy badness?"

"Not that I can remember," Angel said.

"Let's see . . . ah, yes. Here. Drink this." Giles removed two small bottles from his pocket and handed one each to Buffy and Angel. They silently toasted each other and downed the contents in a single swallow.

Buffy made a face. "What was that? Some kind of mystical mood enhancer?"

"In a manner of speaking," Giles said evasively.

Angel licked his lips and sniffed the now empty container. He narrowed his eyes. "Giles!"

"I thought it would help," the Watcher said primly. "If you're not relaxed, all this preparation is for nothing."

"What did I just drink? It wasn't anything gross, was it?" Buffy was looking worried.

"Um, Buff?" Willow was grinning a little. "When you drink blood, can you really judge 'gross' anymore?"

"Trust me," Buffy said sternly, "there's gross, and then there's =gross=. Tell me I don't have to go scrub my tongue."

"Don't worry," Angel assured her. "It was just something you can order at Caritas." He shut his mouth tightly, but Buffy kept staring at him and he cracked like a walnut. "It's a magically enhanced liquid that assures lack of inhibition and calming properties without the impairment of good judgment."

"Your big plan for success is to get us =drunk=?!" Buffy turned to regard Giles.

"Yes, and you shall behold my success in the morning. I believe we're finished here?"

Willow murmured a few words in Latin, then blew out one of the candles. "Ready."

"Try to relax," Wesley advised gently as he patted Angel on the shoulder. "Fall asleep within the next few hours and you should have a very productive night."

"Yay productivity," Buffy muttered as Wesley closed the door behind them.

"Hey," Angel murmured into her ear as his arms went around her waist. He let his hand drift a little lower on her abdomen than propriety normally allowed and she arched against his seeking fingers. "I've got a surefire way to relax."

"I thought that's what the demon liquor was supposed to do," Buffy pointed out with a slow smile.

"And just why do you think Lorne put it on the menu to begin with? He's a lover, not a fighter." His voice was a lascivious chuckle.

Buffy gasped, half in outrage that Giles had apparently seen fit to slip them both demonic Roofies, and half because Angel had just abruptly sank his fangs into the side of her neck. His fingers drifted a little bit lower and she moaned.

"I wouldn't call what I’m feeling right now relaxed," she panted.

He retracted his fangs and gave her a long, loving lick.

"Just give me time, baby."

He felt as if he had been waiting forever.

The Watchers had summoned him yesterday, which was an unusual occurrence in and of itself. He was one of the first vampires to be transformed by the foreign magicians, and as such, was deemed a test subject. Those who came after him were afforded the benefit of Council training and control, but his was a time before such things had become routine, and the Watchers, he had learned over time, wanted nothing more than to keep unstable elements as far from the Slayer as possible.

Three hundred years had passed since he had regained possession of his soul; three centuries and he had never been asked beyond the walls of the Council. Certainly, he'd never been asked to Germany, the current residence of the current Slayer due to a Hellmouth opening just outside Hamburg. And most certainly, he had never laid eyes so closely upon one of those precious, doomed, chosen girls since the restoration of his soul.

Until yesterday. Until Philip Cornswad told him what the Council required of him.

"You are the oldest of your kind," Cornswad said. "And living near a Hellmouth, this child needs all the assistance she can garner."

But she did not look like a child when he first laid eyes upon her. Her hair was black like ebony and she radiated strength and power. There was an ancient quality to her; in her eyes, he saw centuries laid out before him. It shook him deeply and he had to look away from her, but he could not do so for long. Had Cornswad not called him into an office to explain the situation fully, he wagered he would still be looking at her now.

Instead, he waited for a chance to see her again.

A door opened on the other side of the room, and he sighted Cornswad, who was speaking to someone behind him. A flash of black and he saw her face, and gave leave to his last shred of hope; he had not imagined her beauty or the feelings she sparked to life within him. Cornswad signaled him over and he came.

"John Thomas Moore," Cornswad said, "I present to you Natasha, the slayer of Vampires."

"A pleasure," John said, giving an elegant bow.

"Yes, well, you've both been made aware of the new arrangement; I'll leave you to get acquainted. Mr. Moore, I trust you will be able to find your new accommodations?"

"I am sure I will," John agreed, his eyes never leaving the Slayer's face. Once they were alone, he spoke again. "I don't wish to be imprudent, Natasha, but I was never given your last name."

"I have no last name." Her voice was cultured and proper, as though she had been tutored in English schools; it belied her features, which he would have pegged as Hungarian, or Russian. "When you have cause to address me, I would prefer you refer to me as 'Miss.' I have been with the Council since infancy. I have no memory of my parents or my life before I was told the very real possibility of becoming the Slayer existed. My ancestry is Russian, but as you've no doubt noticed, my upbringing is reflected in my speech patterns. I've no patience for anything outside my sacred duty. Further, I do not trust you and I do not understand why the Council has seen fit to outfit me with an assistant, as I have never had cause for assistance in the past. I work alone; I am alone." He quirked an eyebrow at her. "Is that all?"

She frowned. "Yes. I believe it is."

"Good. May I speak my own mind as freely, Miss?"

"Of course." She almost looked contrite. "I did not mean to imply that you should hold your tongue for my sake, Mr. Moore."

"I am your partner," he said flatly.

Now, she looked confused. "I beg your pardon?"

"You've expended a great number of words informing me that I am your assistant. You're mistaken. There are dozens of Slayers in Training, each assigned a vampire to work with, to study with, and, if necessary, to fight alongside. It has been done this way for a century, though only recently have the vampires actually begun partnering with the current Slayer. The Slayer before you walked with a vampire and, as I understand it, he was with her until her death; it is a close bond, fighting and dying beside someone. As much as your very nature must inspire you to resist it, it is imperative that we trust each other, Miss, or we're already as good as dead."

A long moment past between them while she studied his face, in particular, he thought, his eyes. Then, she did something he had to wonder at: she smiled, and the sun came out for him for the first time in nearly four hundred years.

"Perhaps I am glad to meet you after all, John Thomas Moore."

"How old are you?" he asked her the first night they left the compound together, walking the streets in the snow; looking for monsters. "Twenty," she answered. "Nearly the oldest Slayer on record."

"And what does the record say of the oldest Slayer?"

"That she was twenty-two when she died; a Master took her."

"Do you think of that often?"

"Only every night when I close my eyes and a few hundred times during the day." Her voice was low, an endless breadth of sorrow. Her eyes were made for the rest of her, dark and lost and full of inexhaustible strength.

"I know that we do not know one another well yet," he began hesitantly. "And I know that you do not yet trust me."

"I am beginning to like you," she offered at his side. "There is that, at least."

He paused and waited until she halted as well. "I am quite confident that a day will come when you shall trust me; when you shall know me and understand that, despite what I am, I am a man of my word."

"Why do you tell me these things?" she whispered.

There was nearly five feet of space between them, but somehow, he felt as though he stood at her side, her small, strong hand enfolded within his.

"I tell you these things," he said quietly, "so that you will one day believe the promise I am about to make."

She laughed. "What sort of promise do you plan to make me, John Thomas Moore? Do you promise to slay the dragons in my path?"

"Nothing so fanciful," he assured her. "But I do promise that in this life or any other, I will see to it that no harm shall come to you. And if harm should find you, then so shall I. And if you should be lost, I will walk the ends of the earth until you are found again."

For a moment, she was speechless, standing in the cold night air, bits of snow catching in the blackness of her hair.

"If that is not fanciful, I wonder at what you would deign call so," she finally said with a voice that ached.

"Perhaps I'll tell you one day," he said as they began walking again, "after we've celebrated your twenty-third birthday."

"How old are you?" she asked him several months into their partnership.

It occurred to her that she never had before and it seemed wrong not to know something so basic about the person she was closest to in the world. She did not like to examine too precisely why she felt closer to him than even to her own Watcher, preferring to accept the surface obviousness of the situation -- she spent more time with him than anyone else. What was that old saying? Familiarity bred companionship. Except she knew very well that wasn't the old saying at all.

"The time I was without my soul included?"

"You were still alive," she said, then grimaced. "Or something approximating life, I suppose."

"I sometimes feel something approximating life now," he answered. "I've existed on this earth for four hundred and thirteen years, my soul restored three hundred and three years ago."

"Did it hurt? When they restored your soul?" It was something she'd thought about frequently but always felt uncomfortable just coming out and asking.

"Not in the way you mean," he answered simply.

There was so much that was gentle about him. She always felt hard and old and alone; he seemed, despite the considerable burdens of his life, to be so alive, so trusting in the world. His hair was nearly black from years out of the sun, though he told her that, once, it had been a fair brown. His features were strong and delicate all at once and she knew instinctively that more than one demon had been lulled by the seeming elegance of his beauty.

Over the course of five months, they had slain seventy-nine vampires together and eliminated twenty-four extraneous monsters John knew the proper names of and which Natasha filed under a simple mental category -- evil, and added them to a sub-category -- dead. One night several weeks before, Natasha had come dangerously close to being killed, and before she could work up a good fright about it, her face had been covered in ash and John had been standing above her, wooden stake thrust forward. He had taken her hand and helped her up and asked if she was all right and generally fussed over her until she agreed to have the gash on her forehead looked at by one of the Council's doctors. It was nothing, but something inside Natasha flared up as John hovered around her and snapped at the doctor to be gentler; no one had ever cared about her before, not for the reasons John seemed to.

Natasha was only valuable because she was the Slayer; to John, she felt as though she were valuable to him because she was Natasha.

Something came over her as she watched him walk beside her, lost in his own thoughts. Remembering a time before he was souled? He would ask her, many years later, what made her do it, and she still wasn't sure. The only answer she had in her heart was that, in that moment, she could do nothing else. Her steps faltered, then came to a stop.

His gasp against the soft touch of her lips was more gratifying to her than anything could have been. Genuine surprise meant that he had not expected her to kiss him, and the fact that he did not pull away surely meant that, even though she had never kissed a man before, she must be doing something right.

A few seconds passed, and she felt his mouth move against her own. Then, his hands found purchase in her hair and she realized that she had been mistaken, because what he was doing then, that was a kiss, and what she had been doing before was but a prelude.

They held each other in the snow for hours, and when they returned to the Council's rooms, Natasha felt a pang the likes of which she had never known before when parting from him. Letting go of him was difficult, but she comforted herself with the knowledge that he would be waiting for her tomorrow, ready to train for a few hours before they patrolled. She drifted easily asleep, a smile on her face.

When she woke, thoughts of him immediately filling her mind, she wondered how long she would be able to bear even such short separations as the length of a night.

"Shh," he whispered to her as she moved beneath him. "You mustn't--"

"I can't," she whispered back, gasping. "I did not know -- I never imagined it could-- "

He kissed her and swallowed another of her moans as she wrapped her muscled legs around his waist. They rocked together in slow, sweet abandon, and when moments of lucid thought made their way into his fevered brain, he reflected that this was the first time he had ever made love to a woman. He had been chaste and waiting for marriage before he had been turned, and the lecherous encounters he experienced as a demon certainly could not be classified anywhere near the rapturous sacrament he experienced inside and surrounded by the woman in his arms.

After the restoration, there had again been no one. The newly souled vampires had formed friendships, but most were wary of deeper relationships. John had been wary; he was still wary. For three hundred years he had had but the scarcest of contact with others, only consulting on the very periphery of the council when they sought his advice or recommendation concerning one of his own kind. But, when confronted with the depths of his devotion to Natasha, wariness was overridden.

"I love you," he murmured as she scratched his back with her strong fingernails. "I love you," he repeated as she drew blood and arched her neck.

Tears filled her eyes and overflowed across her cheeks. He felt his own damp with moisture. The sheets whispered secrets as they moved and stilled, became frantic and gentle.

Later, as they rested together, her head pillowed against his breast, he played with the ends of her hair.

"Happy birthday."

"Thank you." She looked up at him. "Twenty-three. Does that mean you're released from your promise?"

He did not have to ask what she referred to.

"My promise had no expiration." He pulled at her until she rested full length atop his body. She folded her arms over his chest and rested her chin atop them. "I will protect you as long as you live in this life, and follow you into the next."

"The next." She laughed. "I've read some of the Council's texts on reincarnation. It sounds utterly foolish, if you ask me."

"Perhaps," he allowed. "But I've lived a very long time and seen things that defy explanation. I have looked into the eyes of a woman no more than a child and seen an ancient soul looking back."

"Whose?" she asked, curious.

"Yours," he confided with a smile as he traced the strong, proud lines of her face with the tip of his index finger.

"Hmph," she muttered, turning her head to rest her cheek over the spot where his heart once beat. "If you insist on subscribing to such a fanciful belief, then I shall have to indulge you. What shall our next life be like, then?"

His smile kissed the top of her head. "Blissfully normal," he pronounced. "Perhaps we'll own a farm somewhere and raise a gaggle of children and live out our days in as much peace as a house full of screaming, happy babes will allow."

"I wonder sometimes -- does it frighten you?" She rested her hand against his cheek and let her thumb make gentle, delicate circles over his chin. "Me being what I am, and you being what you are -- does it worry you when we're together that one day nature might overcome affection?"

"No," he answered easily and firmly. "I believe in us. I believe we're stronger than even the very tenets of biology." She smiled and snuggled her cheek against his chest. "And, if pressed, I'm fairly certain I could dispatch of you in combat."

"Bastard," she laughed, thumping her fist against his chest.

"Hush, woman," he whispered, pretending to wrestle with her until he hovered above her again and he remembered this was how all of this had started; an innocent birthday celebration, and he'd teased her, and she'd called him a bastard, and they'd somehow lost all their clothes and ended up pressed against one another.

"I love you," she said. "And I know we should be cautious, but I fear I have lost the knack for cautiousness. I feel as though I would die if I could no longer hold you."

"Then there will never be a need for your death," he swore as he bent his head to hers for another kiss, and another, and another, and another.

"Natasha!" He was exasperated with her, but he was laughing. She delighted in provoking such opposite reactions at once.

"Come on, my love," she urged, "it's the first snow of the year. It's bad luck if we don't play in it."

That was patently untrue, and she knew he knew it, but she also knew he would do anything for her, and this was one of the few pursuits outside of taking to his bed that brought genuine joy to her heart. It was a month before her twenty-sixth birthday and the Council was beginning to show concern that she had lived this long. The Slayers in Training were restless, and Natasha knew they resented her for not doing her part and dying already so that they might fulfill their own destinies.

The Council was as aware of the relationship John and Natasha shared as they could be without actually acknowledging its existence. Philip frowned at them every time he saw them, and for the most part, they were left alone as long as they kept Hamburg safe and relatively evil-free.

Over the years, the Council had sent them on long journeys out of country to look into the demon population there. John had a carriage outfitted especially for him to keep the daylight away (he still preferred travel overseas by freighter) and together, they had traveled to Paris, England, and, once, Russia. Natasha had never seen her homeland before and John had held her as she cried at the beautiful countryside bathed, as it had been when they visited, in snow.

"You know how I love the snow. You know it was the only enjoyable part of my youth."

She grabbed his hand and pulled, but he held fast. Natasha knew that, to him, she was still very young and that he worried over her more than he should.

"They let me make snow angels," she said leaning close to kiss him. "Do you know what those are? I didn't, but my Watcher taught me. You lie down in the snow and stroke your arms and legs back and forth. It makes impressions in the ground, brings angels to life. Let's make angels in the snow." Another kiss, and she tugged him a little further. "And catch snowflakes on our tongues." More tugging, more kissing. "And make love in the snow."

"It's too cold for you," he cautioned, though she could already tell that she had won.

A brazen smile flitted across her mouth and she dragged him outside.

"I'm Russian, remember? We don't feel the cold."

"This is unacceptable! Genevieve Randolph might have been a Slayer one day, and she died for one of those -- monsters!"

John winced from his place near the door. Vampires were not welcome inside the Council meetings, but none of the Watchers had yet truly begun to comprehend just how refined vampire hearing was. Inside, he could smell Natasha, worry and fear beginning to overpower the scent he normally associated with her.

"Genevieve was brave," Natasha said firmly. "And Marcus was her friend--"

"That thing is a friend to no one!" the Watcher insisted. "The Council agreed to the foreign Magicians' outlandish gambit over three centuries ago in order to preserve the lives of our Slayers. We did not do so to give them additional reasons to die! If Genevieve had been the first, such a thing might be overlooked, but she was not. There has been a growing sense of disquiet spreading through the Council for some time now, disquiet that demands address."

"What are you talking about?" He could almost see Natasha, sitting up straighter in her chair, spine arched with indignation and confusion.

"The Slayer before you," another Watcher continued, "died protecting the vampire charged with her protection. He fell in battle minutes later and so the matter was not given due consideration. Both were deemed casualties of war, and in war, decision making is impaired. Genevieve and Marcus were on a routine patrol. They were taken by surprise and she laid down her life for a demon."

"A demon who had risked his life for her dozens of times before," Natasha maintained.

"You speak out of turn," the first Watcher informed her coldly. "You would do well to remember that it is only by our allowance that you are given voice to speak here at all."

"I was under the impression that I was given voice by being much older than any other Slayer on record." Natasha sounded as angry as he could ever remember her. "Perhaps it is I who am mistaken."

"Enough of this," the second Watcher declared. "Obviously, the situation with the souled vampires has grown beyond our control. The girls are becoming attached to these creatures. The matter requires our attention."

They hadn't worried about that even fifty years ago, John thought, when the odds of mankind beating back the demon herds had seem far less likely than they did now. His soul had been restored to him as a test, a means to control the vampire population, but there had been no true need, and so he was easily forgotten, an oddity to be looked upon with pity and curiosity. It wasn't until a hundred years ago that the Council began working in earnest to soul and reform the vampires of the world.

"What sort of attention?" Natasha's voice brought John out of his reverie.

"The Slayer will be removed from this proceeding," the first Watcher instructed. John heard the soft footfalls of three Watchers coming closer to Natasha's position in the room.

"Try it," she warned them softly and he heard her chair scrape the ground as she stood.

John entered the room. "The Slayer is required in the library," he said.

Natasha met his eyes and nodded once, briefly, before leaving the room with him.

"Attached!" she growled once they were out of earshot. "Of course we've grown attached. They take everything from us, our families, our sense of ourselves, and tell us our lives are to be dedicated to the Cause. Of course we're going to identify with the only other creatures on Earth who have a hope of understanding us!"

"You've got to calm down," John told her. "Making a spectacle of yourself isn't going to accomplish anything."

"It might accomplish something if I began throttling them," she said darkly.

"You're a comely wench when you get that look in your eye." He meant every word, but primarily, he was hoping to distract her.

Judging by the look she gave him, he was largely successful. She allowed him to take her arm and they went for a walk to the library, where the most pressing matter awaiting the Slayer's attention was a volume of poetry John had found and thought she might enjoy. It was there, bent over a large tome, that Philip Cornswad found them over an hour later.

Vampire and Slayer looked up from their reading at his strained, conflicted expression. Finally, he told them that the Council had reached a consensus that would be voted on within the next week, a test for the current Slayer. He was not at liberty to share their initial findings. He was, however, made privy to a rather large nest in Berlin. He would be officially giving them a two-week clearance to leave the compound, travel to Berlin, and extinguish them.

He kissed Natasha's forehead before he left and wished them luck.

As they left late that night, they both knew that they would not return.

The Council's test was that of a Slayer's loyalty to her calling versus her misplaced affection for a monster. Given their hasty flight before the test could be administered, most agreed the Slayer had failed. The mandate was swift and absolute: souled vampires were an abomination, a plague that was infecting the minds and judgment of the Slayer and future Slayers. Natasha's defection was not noticed immediately, as Philip Cornswad had hoped, but it was still noticed faster than either would have liked. A dozen Watchers attempting to halt their flight caught John and Natasha at the German border. They attempted diplomacy, but when it became clear that no negotiation other than total surrender and John's imminent death was acceptable, they fought.

Only one man survived the encounter long enough to send word to the Council.

Cornswad was executed a few days later. The Council named treason as the charge. Natasha learned of his death a year later when she and John were in Denmark destroying a nest of Fyral demons who had been tormenting local shopkeepers.

Souled vampires were given a choice -- surrender, and willingly face deaths that should be nothing but an end to suffering, and those deaths would be swift and painless. Run, avoid the inevitable, and death would not come so peacefully. The vampires who ran were very old, and, the Watchers knew, the very old were quite adept at sensing when death was near; often, even the greatest marksman would be unable to deliver a killing blow with a bow and arrow, and hand to hand combat proved fatal -- for the Watchers.

And so, they rediscovered older magic and brought forth righteous vengeance to the beasts that dared corrupt the heart of a Slayer -- they called it Killer of the Dead. Arrows tipped with the poison need not strike the heart -- any direct hit ensured an eventual kill. An elite subsection of the Council was formed -- they would one day be known as black ops, but in this time, they were called Bringers of the Dead. Armed with bow and arrow, they traveled the countryside, notebooks filled with the names and descriptions of souled vampires. Cryptic communications came by messenger on horseback from assassin to assassin with new orders, new destinations from the Council. Mostly, the vampires were easy to find, and easier to kill.

All but one.

For one traveled with the Slayer. At first, the Council hesitated to fire upon the girl -- they were here for her protection, after all, and she could not be held accountable for the manipulations of the vampire. But soon it became clear that she was unsalvageable, and the order was given -- a cryptic message delivered to all Bringers of the Dead: "For every one that dies, another is called."

They found them some three years after the initial decree was made; three years of running and hiding, living and loving, fighting and hoping. It took three shots before one finally hit John in the leg during a fight with a band of soulless vampires. Natasha let out a horrified wail when she realized what had happened. The Watchers attempted to extract John then, but she fought them and only two managed to escape once more. Orders were given that the Slayer must be eliminated; a new girl had to be Called.

But John and Natasha had disappeared without a trace.

"It's all right," she whispered, grunting with the effort it took to bear his weight along with her own. "We're nearly there."

"Where are we?"

She inhaled deeply and bit her lip to fight back tears. He had been asking her the same question practically since they left Prague. He had moments of great lucidity, but they were fewer now. She feared for him like she had never feared for anything.

"Romania," she said again. "There's a woman here. A healer. She can help you."

John grunted in acknowledgement and they continued on. The horse had given out a mile ago, refusing to walk another step while carrying two riders, and John could not stay upright alone. Now, Natasha was fighting against the oncoming day -- only an hour or so, she thought -- and the almost overwhelming desire to simply give up. To lie with him cradled in her arms, to feel the sun take him, and to find an end of her own soon after.

But she could not -- would not -- just give up. She had to save him.

It was a few minutes before sunrise when they arrived at the small cottage a man in the gypsy village had described to Natasha. She nearly wept as the grizzled face of an ancient looking woman finally answered the door to cease Natasha's frantic knocking.

"You must help him," Natasha pleaded in a voice that cracked from days with little water.

The old woman narrowed her eyes. "You bring this creature to me and ask me to help him? He is an abomination!"

"No!" Natasha yelled, using the arm not supporting John to bar the door from being slammed in their faces. "He is not! You must believe me, he is -- he's --" Her mouth opened and closed as she searched for words to adequately describe him.

The old woman's eyes narrowed further. "He is everything to you," she exclaimed in a soft, wondrous voice.

"Yes," Natasha whispered as she lost the battle with her emotions and tears began to leak out of her eyes. "Please . . ."

Slowly, she nodded. "I invite you to bring him here." She indicated a small straw mattress in the corner. "I am called Lysandra."

"Lysandra. My name is Natasha, and his is John. Please, I beg you--"

She held up a hand that called for silence and Natasha closed her mouth immediately. Instead, she went down on her knees and began gently stroking John's face, letting the stubble from his jaw abrade her fingers. It reminded her that he was still alive even when he gave no outward sign.

Soon, Lysandra began to hum, low and with no discernible tune. Her hands hovered centimeters above John's chest, then moved to the wound on his leg.

"I keep giving him blood," Natasha whispered, more to herself than anything, "but it's never enough, it never helps."

"Nothing will save this one," Lysandra pronounced finally.

Natasha began shaking her head. "No -- you're wrong! He can't die, I won't let him die!" She licked her lips and glanced from John to Lysandra. "Can't -- there has to be something I can do. I know deep magics exist, there has to be something I can offer -- myself! A Slayer's life has to be worth something, enough to . . ."

"Child," Lysandra said softly, compassionately, "you do not realize what you wish to bargain with."

"Yes, I do." Natasha no longer cried. She had seen a hesitation in Lysandra's eyes and knew there was a way.

"You speak of your life as though it meant nothing to you."

"I speak of his life," Natasha said strongly, "with the surety that without him, mine is meaningless."

"No life is meaningless, Child," Lysandra said calmly. Her wise old eyes looked closer, and something like a smile pulled at her toothless mouth. "Yours least of all. But then I see that his is the same." Her wizened old hand moved over John's chest to his forehead and she let her palm hover over his eyes for a moment. "Yes," she whispered quietly to herself.

"What?" Natasha felt a chill run up and down her spine. "What do you see?"

"The blood of the holy is his only hope," was all she said in reply.

"Holy." Natasha shook her head. "I don't understand -- a priest?"

Lysandra snorted. "Priests. They believe themselves to be holy, and perhaps they are, but they know nothing of true divinity. The passion and spirit in a woman's soul, in her heart -- A Slayer's, most of all -- that is holy." Lysandra placed her hand over Natasha's heart. "You, child. You are holy. Your spirit, your calling, your soul."

"I'm not," Natasha denied immediately. "We're -- we're dark and tools of the fight. That is all we are. That is all we are ever meant to be."

"So young," Lysandra murmured. "So very, very young, yet. You will see. You will both see. Save your vampire, for I have looked into the future and it is meant to be so. Save him, for his spirit, his calling, his soul is yet holy, too. You will see, Child."

"I do not understand," Natasha whispered helplessly.

"And so you are not yet meant to," Lysandra said kindly. From the pockets of her dress she produced a small bottle. "I had a vision earlier that a very sick man would require this; I did not imagine the man trapped within a monster you would bring to my door. Have him drink this. It will make things easier for him."

"What is it?"

Another of Lysandra's ancient smiles transformed her face.

"It is a vision of what has not yet come to pass."

"Angel. Angel."

Natasha looked down at John worriedly. He had been mumbling about angels since she had given him Lysandra's potion. She wondered at her own willingness to trust the old gypsy, but also knew all her decisions of late had been born of desperation.

"No angels for you yet, my love," Natasha murmured as she brushed his hair away from his forehead. "One day, but not yet."

His eyes came open suddenly and he stared at her in horror. "No," he whispered. "No."

"It's all right," she tried to soothe him. "Don't you see, this way one of us will live--"

"You," he gasped out. "You =have= to live--"

"They will never stop searching for me." She squeezed his shoulders tightly. "They would hunt me the rest of my days, because until my death comes, no other Slayer will be Called. But you, my love -- you they believe as good as dead already. For you there will be a chance. And John, I'm simply not strong enough to go on without you." She laid her head against his chest and wept. "If it were not for me," she sobbed, "you would not be dying now."

"Not true," he whispered. "Was already dead before . . . brought me to life . . ."

"You brought me to life," she promised him. "You'll never know -- you'll never understand what it was like for me before I had you in my heart."

Beside him, she had placed a small dagger and she used it to cut a vein in her wrist. His eyes widened at the quick and precise slice she made and he shook his head as she brought her hand to his cheek. With her thumb she traced the gentle circles that had soothed him in the past against his chin, and, before he could protest, pressed her bleeding wrist to his mouth. He fastened his lips around her and drank deeply, his demon uncontrollable in the force of his hunger and sickness.

She had seen him like this few times before. John was adept at keeping the demon at bay, and his generally good temperament kept him on an even keel. The wild, unleashed passion she felt in him now was comparable with the emotions he allowed her to see and feel when he made love to her. Soon, her wrist was not enough; she felt the beast howl within him and he pulled her against him. She bared her neck and gasped as he bit roughly into the flesh there, holding her writhing body firmly atop his.

For as long as she had the strength, she stroked his face, her thumb to his chin and jaw that worked with effort to drain her. It was the cessation of her touch that finally broke through to his mind and banished the demon to the background again. The sudden press of her back to the cloth she had laid for him on the ground was one of the last clear sensations she felt.

"No, no, no," she heard him whisper harshly.

"You have to go on," she whispered. "If you don't live, if you don't try to do good, then it was for nothing. I was for nothing."

"I can't," he whispered. "I-- I killed you--"

"The old woman," she forced out, "the old woman said it was meant to be. It was meant to be, we were meant to be, all of it."

"How can I live my life without you?" He sounded so afraid, so genuinely unsure that her heart broke.

"I will find you," she whispered and he gathered her into his arms and pressed his wet face against the crook of her neck. "In this life harm has come to us both, and we have been lost. You must walk to the ends of the earth for me. You must walk the earth until I find you again. Do you understand?" She wasn't sure that she understood. She only knew that he had to.

"Yes," he whispered, though he wasn't sure that he did; only that she needed him to.

"I know that one day, I will again be granted the grace to look upon you with love and know that you are mine." He heard her heart pound twice, furiously, then still.

"I swear it," he whispered into the still warm skin of her neck. Then, sliding back from her body, he huddled into the corner of the worn-out shack she had led him to and howled.

Three days later, John finally wandered out into the night carrying her body in his arms. He found a cemetery not far from the place of her death and dug a grave with his own two hands. Out of wood he carved a headstone in the shape of a cross. It left him with burns for days, but he did not so much as flinch.

At the top of the grave marker, he carved her name as he saw it -- Natasha Moore -- and laid her to rest. Below her name, he left a simple message for the future:

'She lives in me.'

He left Romania and swore never to return.

Buffy was disoriented, ready to wake up and share with Angel the memories that had solidified when she realized that she was not John anymore, but was not yet herself, either. She felt afraid -- desperately so -- and had no idea why. Opening her eyes she saw that she was in a small home, a fire burning in the hearth. She tried to move and realized that her wrists and feet were bound. Her mind began blending with the body she had become a part of and she realized that this girl, too, had once been her. But she did not understand -- John had died, she knew, a few years after Natasha, and Angel's soul -- which had been waiting so very, very patiently for quite some time -- had been reborn in Galway almost immediately after. They had no other past life to relive together.

The girl that struggled with her bonds on the floor had a family, a large one that loved her. Her father, especially, would lay down his life for her, and Buffy was momentarily saddened by all that had been lacking in her relationship with Hank Summers.

Voices came from the door and Buffy froze, recognizing them, but not understanding the significance. Surely this was too bizarre a thought to contemplate. It was depraved and horrifying -- and yet . . . It held the sort of twisted irony everything in their lives seemed to hold.

"Can I take off this blindfold yet?"

"No."

"Can I take off something else?"

"After I give you your present."

Buffy tried to speak, tried to say something, but found that she was gagged. Funny how she hadn't noticed. She renewed her struggle with the bonds that held her; it was not Buffy's consciousness controlling the scene before her, but the girl's. Buffy wanted to ease her fear, but knew there was nothing -- save the promise of what this life's sacrifice would yield for the future -- she could do. But finally -- finally -- things were becoming clear in Buffy's mind. They were connected, she and Angel, on the most intrinsic of levels; he had died so that she could live in the last life; in this life, she would balance the cosmic scales.

And Buffy knew, suddenly, that the gypsy girl did know, did understand, in some way, what this meant before her death; that when the veil between this world and the next faded into another, she remembered, for an instant, who this one was, and knew, in a moment of clarity, what he would one day become, and as she died, she knew that it could not be much longer now; not long at all.

"Happy birthday, Angelus."

Rats and garbage and stink. This, then, was familiar, even if it had been years. Angel felt almost like himself again, though the spirit of the girl he had been lingered beneath his skin; the spirit of the Slayer he had been. The sun was bright and he shied away from it. He was in a car, but the stink was no less oppressive; he was as aware of it as he was the harshness of the day.

But then it all began to fade away as his vision lit upon a Goddess walking down stone steps. For a moment, he knew her, his dead heart thumping, his soul screaming with the need to run to her. He knew the day would burn him, and so he was silent and still.

He was not a fanciful man and he did not believe in love at first sight, but he had no other frame of reference for this -- feeling -- that overcame him. When night fell, he followed her; watched her. He sensed, already, that he would quickly become accustomed to this. A spark in him grew brighter, and for the first time, he felt what he had allowed himself to become out of guilt and pity; wondered at how he could have wasted the last twenty years feeling sorry for himself.

And, as he watched her cry through her bedroom window, watched tears of frustration and confusion leak down her cheeks, his soul howled a new old song and Angel came alive again.

When most people thought of the waiting room between this life and the afterlife, the automatic, human reaction was usually to conjure up an actual waiting room, complete with uncomfortable plastic chairs, outdated magazines, and screaming children.

In actuality, the waiting room in limbo more closely resembled the Gateway for Lost Souls, done up in columns and grape leaves, with the added bonus of great lounging cushions and chess boards and libraries with books never seen on earth for the dead, the lost, and the waiting to amuse themselves with for whatever chunk of eternity they had.

The people in their not-quite-corporeal bodies that littered it, however, were not so unfortunate as to wear togas and glitter. They were dressed in the clothes they died in, whatever debilitating wounds they received at the times of their deaths present, but not paining them. They carried the marks of their death as tribute to their lives; the scars of war bravely fought and inevitably lost.

"I still can't believe I have to wear this Backstreet Boys t-shirt forever. I mean, they are =so= over. Can't I at least upgrade to Dido?"

"Dawn, upgrading to Dido is a poor choice. I've lived a long time, and I can assure you, you'll wish Dido dead soon enough. Pick something old and timeless, like the B- 52s."

"Anya, stop helping. Dawn, try not to focus on your t-shirt and look on the bright side -- at least your shirt isn't decorated with various mysterious ancient filthy kitchen stains for all time." Tara grimaced and looked down at her own attire. She was absurdly happy that spiritual apparitions appeared to those left behind looking however the living wanted them to. The idea of Willow seeing her eternally filthy resurrected a very human sense of vanity.

"And we can't ever let them know we're here? Not even like, long enough to say 'Hey, sis, I'm over you sucking me dry'?"

"Nah, sorry, half pint. Rules are rules, y'know?"

"That's a load coming from you, Alan Francis," Jenny scoffed.

"At least I'm not an uptight gypsy whose own clan won't even have her," Doyle sniped back.

"You two, I swear, you're worse than the girls when Dawn borrowed one of Buffy's sweaters without asking."

"Hey, the blonde chick told me I'd be able to go back and visit Cordy someday." Gunn was still glaring around at everyone with several heaping doses of wary suspicion.

"You will. Just not . . . not yet. Not until . . ." Tara trailed off.

"Not until what?"

"Not until the end."

"I dislike being dead." Everyone rolled their eyes at Anya's pronouncement; it was not the first time she had made it, and, all gathered were sure, it would not be the last.

"It's no picnic for the rest of us either, sweetheart," Doyle said.

"I also dislike that woman engaging Xander in a blatantly sexual manner."

"Cordy ain't engagin' no one. I =just= died."

"So you and her were . . . you know . . ." Doyle did something with his hands.

"That lewd gesture's 'bout to get you my fist in your face, almost-angel or no."

"I'm just wonderin' what it was like with her. I checked out before I got more than a kiss."

"Then it looks like you and me got somethin' in common."

"I'm beginning to wonder if you've lied to all of us. You said I would get to see Xander again, you promised this black gentleman a reunion with Cordelia . . . The Irish guy is the only one being honest. You probably don't even know what's going on."

"Hello, been dead for close to four years now. Was the first of the group to eat it at the hands of a recently de-souled friend. I think I know just a little bit more about the inner-workings of the interim than you, a teenage girl--"

"Actually, a former-eleven-hundred-year-old demon."

"Thank you, Tara."

"Put a sock in it, all 'a ya." Doyle looked like he was getting a headache to rival the vision induced ones he hadn't had in ages.

"Why? It's not like we've got anything else to do," Anya groused.

"With the intel Tara had, the Tarot objective is strategically sound. Willow's smart, she'll figure it out. And if she can't, they'll get help."

"Thank you, Riley."

"And if it still doesn't work, we'll regroup and try that whole haunting plan Anya came up with," Riley added.

"I'm not even sure if we =can= bloody haunt them. The rules aren't exactly crystal clear, if you catch my drift, Captain America. Blondie's witchy woman Tarot card mumbo-jumbo isn't going over too well at the moment. I mean, the possibility exists that there's just nothing we =can= do but wait."

"That's the first intelligent thing you've said all eternity," Jenny said with a sigh.

"You know, I'm really glad Buffy went all fierce and fangy. I was dyin' for some interesting company that didn't make my interim a living hell."

"Don't worry, you may be headed there yet."

"Children, stop fighting."

"Yes, mother," seven voices chorused sarcastically.

"Fine, but I'd like a straight answer. You spiritual types =never= give a girl a straight answer, not eleven hundred years ago, and not now. Just how long, exactly, are we expected to wait in this simplistically constructed version of limbo?"

"As long as it takes," came the curt reply from the gypsy.

"What are we waiting for?" the youngest of their ranks asked timidly.

The gypsy's answer, when it came, was filled with ethereal joy, and longing.

"The rest of our party."

"Buffy, calm down."

"I will =not= calm down!" She continued to pace the floor of their room -- naked -- running frustrated hands through her hair. "I =killed= you. Am I destined to spend every life killing you somehow?"

"At least in this life I've gotten pretty good at coming back," he offered weakly.

"Not. Funny."

"It was a little funny," he muttered to himself. Frankly, watching her pace around was starting to turn him on. They'd only been out of the dream state for a few minutes now and the magic was still working double time on his system. The urge to tumble her onto the bed was almost overwhelming.

"What does it mean?" Buffy was practically fuming. "I mean, what the hell? What great cosmic force decided we were supposed to live these incredibly tortured lives, reincarnation after reincarnation? And why did it have to be so hazy? Giles said we'd have the fuzzy flashback feeling, but I thought it would be a =little= more substantial! I can barely remember what Natasha looks like, I have no idea how she dressed, but I still kind of want to bone her. Is that as deeply screwed up to you as it is to me?"

He waited for the perfect moment, and just when she passed close enough to the bed, he grabbed her around the waist and pinned her to the mattress with his body.

"Angel," she half objected, half laughed. "We have to--"

"What? Talk about what it all means?" He brushed the hair back from her face. "Buffy, I know what it all means. As much as I can."

"Really? Care to share with the rest of the class, Angel?"

"Everything," he said quietly, "that I have ever felt for you is not wrong. I didn't ruin your life and I didn't take anything away from you. You wouldn't be better off if I'd stayed away from you and no matter what the future holds, I don't have to give you up; not ever." He laughed quietly and tried to project what he was feeling into the exuberant kiss he delivered to her mouth. "In my whole, long life," he whispered against her lips, "that is all I have ever needed to know."

She kissed him back and realized, for the first time, exactly how much Angel worried over her happiness, how much he regretted his vampirism when she'd been human, how much he questioned the decisions he made. It was a cautiousness, a lingering sense of wrongdoing that was solely the responsibility of his vampiric nature, something she now knew she had shared with him when she had been a vampire in love with a Slayer.

And it was freeing, securing his big body on top of hers with arms and legs and the force with which she kissed him. It was like letting a pair of long-lost lovers reunite as she took him inside her body and she felt John's love beside her own as she kissed the lips of her lover and stroked the lines and angles of his body. They had made love multiple times in the past three weeks, and every time, she only wanted him more. Instead of slaking her thirst for him, her hunger deepened, and finally, she understood why.

John's hunger had added to her own in recent weeks, had sensed how close he was to reaching Natasha again, and had clawed and ripped at her very subconscious to force her to =remember= him. Angel's touch on her body was heated and intense, and she felt Natasha's desperation to reassure herself that John was all right, that he still existed, still lived in some way.

Their coupling was quick and powerful, and Buffy found that she was shaking as Angel pulled her body to lie atop his. They lay quietly together, and she smiled as his hand came up to her face, index finger extended outward to trace small, slow circles on her chin.

"I'm disappointed in my soul," she said at last, a deep sigh punctuating the statement.

"How's that?" Angel asked, his fingers brushing up and down her spine like feathers.

"You knew," she said. "On some level, you just knew me, the second you saw me, you recognized that it was -- me -- and it . . . it took me longer. I mean, I was attracted -- hello, have you seen you? -- but . . . I don't know if I felt it until -- later."

"I'm not so disappointed in your soul," Angel said easily. "After all, I had a lot longer to get acquainted with mine than you did and it had been something of a point of contention with me. Besides, you had a whole world to obsess over, along with a pretty scary Calling and a whole new town. I wasn't anything before Whistler showed me my future, Buffy. And, I guess, as it turns out, my past."

One of his hands slid up the side of her ribcage and began teasingly caressing the side of her breast.

"Aren't you ever satisfied?" she groused with mock exasperation.

"Never," he assured her.

"It makes me sad to think about them," she said. "How they ended. It makes me hurt for them, and not just because they were us."

He smiled gently, and pressed a kiss against her forehead, and her eyelids drifted shut in bliss, so he kissed them, too.

"I don't know. If you look at the big picture . . . they didn't end so tragically, did they?"

She looked up at him and kissed him, because she could, and placed her hand over his heart, feeling raw all over. But in a good way.

"So what you're really trying to say is -- they lived happily ever after?"

Chuckling, he pushed her back into the bed again and hovered above her, his hands framing her face.

"Maybe not happily ever after," he conceded, thinking of all the pain, all the loss they had faced; all the pain and the loss that no doubt lay ahead. "They were happy, yes, but, Buffy . . ."

"What?" She kissed his nose, his chin; ran her foot along his calf and let her hands stroke up and down his back.

"They lived." He gave her an Eskimo kiss and smiled at her with his eyes. "That's the good part. That they lived."

"You've watched 'Ever After' way too many times," she declared, and laughed into his mouth when he growled at her.

And the rest of the night was sweat and souls and bliss.

 

The End

 

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