~~~

Six days later Giles sat at his desk and stared blindly at the book that was open in front of him. His eyes burned with a combination of exhaustion he would not give in to and tears he refused to shed. It was almost over. Every day Buffy had new injuries, wounds inflicted by vampires she should have been able to stake with her eyes closed. Thus far none had been serious but it was only a matter of time.

Every day her reactions grew slower, her senses duller. During training the previous day he had managed to beat her with the quarterstaff for the first time since they had met and he had gone cold with sheer terror. If he could get through her guard how much easier would it be for the enemy?

He had suggested that she should take the night off but, as he had known she would, she had dismissed the idea out of hand. Where once she had fought for a night off so she could 'have a little fun' she now refused to even consider it.

As he forced his tired mind to focus on the words before him he thought sadly of the girl she had been and how he would give every book he owned just to see her smile again. He was so caught up in his thoughts that it took a moment for the words he was reading to register. When they did he shot upright in his chair, exhaustion forgotten as he carefully re-read every word. When he was finished he let out a most un-Giles-like whoop and dashed out of the office with the book clutched in his hand.

"I found it!" he announced to the startled group of exhausted teenagers. "We can do it, we can bring him back to her!"

"Y-you found it?" Willow queried tentatively, her tired mind not quite processing what he was telling her and then in delight, "You found it?!"

Giles nodded vigorously and opened the book, setting it down in front of her. "You see?" he said before she had a chance to read it, "It's a fairly simple spell which retrieves an ensouled being from hell without allowing any of the demons to escape. Best of all, since it was intended to rescue humans who wouldn't survive long in the demon dimension because time there moves so much faster than it does here, the spell bends time and will retrieve him only a matter of days, possibly even hours, after he first arrives. Which means that the hundreds of years he has actually been down there will never have happened. He will undoubtedly have been tortured but he won't have been there so long that he'll lost himself and the spell should heal any physical wounds."

"Giles, this is great!" Cordelia exclaimed, "he'll be able to take care of Buffy instead of her having to take care of him. If Angel had come back hurt she would have survived for his sake but this way…this way she might smile again."

"Yes, that thought had occurred to me," Giles admitted. "For Buffy, Angel is the difference between living and existing and if – when – she gets him back, we may get her back. I hope so, anyway."

They looked at each other and reflected on each of their faces was the thought of how much they hated the empty shell that Buffy had become. She had always been so full of life, lighting up the world around her so naturally that they had hardly been aware that she did so until the light went out and they were left in darkness.

"So what do we do?" asked Oz.

"Well, right now all you can do is-is…er…go home and get some rest, we have just under seven hours as the spell has to be performed at midnight on the night of a new moon, which is tonight. There isn't time for us to wait for the next one and as tired as we all are we might end up making a mistake of some kind, which could prove disastrous. Oh…and the spell requires something which is of personal value to Angel, does anyone have any idea where we might find one?

Silence.

"Ah…I was afraid of that."

"I'm sorry, Giles, the only things I can think of are the things he gave to Buffy and she never lets them out of her sight," said Cordelia helplessly.

"Well we must find something and quickly or it will be too late," said Giles firmly. "Think everyone, you must draw on everything you know of Angel, everything Buffy ever told you about him. What, other than Buffy herself, would he value?"

"Draw on…" Willow repeated thoughtfully, "That's it! Drawings! Buffy once told me that Angel used to draw as a kind of emotional release and he drew the things he cared about. There must be dozens of pictures of Buffy in his apartment and surely one of those would count as something he valued."

The memory of the drawings Angelus had left as calling cards hovered in the room like the ghost at the feast and Giles' eyes grew dark with pain but before it could overwhelm him he felt a soft breeze touch his cheek, though the air was still and the windows closed. The wind seemed to whisper in Jenny's voice, "Remember what I said. It wasn't Angel's fault, you'll see that soon. I'll always be with you…" the voice faded on the last word and the breeze stopped but Giles was suddenly certain that she was there, that his Jenny was always with him.

Returning his attention to the others he discovered that they were all looking at him sympathetically, clearly aware of where his thoughts had taken him even though they were unaware that Jenny's ghost was haunting him – in the nicest possible way. He cleared his throat self-consciously and said, "Um…yes, Angel's drawings sound ideal for our purpose, unfortunately since leaving home, Buffy has been living in Angel's old apartment."

They looked at him in surprise, since Buffy had moved out of her mother's house they had done everything they could think of to get Giles to reveal where she was staying but she had warned him that if he told anyone she would move and not tell him where. With that threat hanging over him, he had reluctantly given his word.

Seeing their expressions he gave a small shrug and said simply, "If this works, Buffy will forgive anything and if it doesn't… If it doesn't then soon it won't matter." The pain in his eyes left them in no doubt what he meant. This was their last – their only – chance to help her and if they failed she would die. They would have no second chances.

"Do we tell Buffy what we're doing?" asked Oz, breaking the silence, which had fallen.

"Uh…no, no, I don't think that would be a good idea." Giles said nervously, "When the portal opens we will be able to see Angel. Buffy carries enough guilt, there is no need to burden her with the sight of his suffering; a memory I am quite certain she would never be able to forget.

Buffy should soon be here for training so as soon as she arrives I suggest that you go and retrieve the drawings, when you've done that go home and sleep. By midnight she will be patrolling and we can perform the ritual. Just make sure that you are back here by 11:30 at the very latest to set things up."

Everyone nodded and sat down to wait for Buffy, the atmosphere in the room more hopeful than it had been for months.

Standing unseen in the stacks, Buffy's eyes filled with tears. She had arrived as usual to train with Giles but had stopped to listen when she heard Angel's name. As she heard her friends make plans to bring Angel back to her she felt hope for the first time in months, not for herself but for him. She didn't believe for one moment that he would forgive her for what she had done to him, first taking his soul and then condemning him to hell just as it was returned, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that he would be free.

She remained where she was until she was able to force her emotions back into cold storage and regain her composure, then she stepped out into the library. Everyone fell silent at the sight of her and after, a long exchange of looks with Giles, they all made their excuses and left the two of them alone to train.

~~~

Willow and Cordelia stood and glared at the locked door of Angel's apartment. One of Cordelia's hairpins protruded from the lock, evidence of their earlier attempts to pick it, which had ended when the pin had somehow managed to get itself stuck, rendering the lock useless even to someone who *did* have a key. Kicking it had proved equally futile since the door was well made and none of them were very strong. Oz had gone to fetch a crowbar from his van, leaving the two girls to curse Angel for not having windows that were big enough for someone to crawl through, their first thought having been to break one and unlock it so that they could enter that way.

By the time Oz returned and they finally succeeded in breaking the lock they had been there for nearly an hour and were becoming increasingly anxious about Buffy's return. Even though they knew that she should be training until sundown and would probably then patrol until dawn, none of them could shake the fear that this would be the night she decided to finish early or decided to stop home before patrol and walked in to find them there. If that were to happen there were afraid that she would disappear into the night and never contact them again.

The three of them stood in the doorway and looked around, reluctant to enter now that they had finally managed to open the door. None of them had ever been there before but it looked almost exactly as they would have imagined it, not in the specific details but in the way it felt. The unique blend of dark simplicity and beautiful art and artefacts was quintessentially Angel and it suited him perfectly.

"We don't have much time," said Oz, quietly taking charge, "I'll check the desk and the bookcases next to it, Cordelia, you check the rest of the bookcases, the drawers and the wardrobe and Willow, you check the bedroom."

Willow and Cordelia nodded their agreement and they moved slowly into the room to begin the search. Oz began to rifle through Angel's desk, trying not to think about what he was doing, only why but he had barely begun when Willow called to him and Cordelia and he hurried to join her, his mind automatically registering the details of the room at a glance.

It was bare except for the bed, a bedside table and a beautiful painting of a sunset on the wall. There were red sheets on the bed and a scruffy-looking toy pig, which had once been pink but was now edging towards grey, was sitting on the pillow. The little pig should have looked out of place and yet, somehow, it seemed to belong there. Just as Buffy and Angel belonged together despite the fact that, on the surface, a more mismatched couple could never even have been dreamed of. The problems of Romeo and Juliet seemed like nothing compared to the obstacles that these two had to overcome.

Willow was sitting on the floor in front of the open door of the bedside table, her eyes full of tears and a sheaf of papers in her hands. "I've found them," she said softly.

Oz reached out a hand to help her to her feet, "Cool! Lets get out of here, we can look at them back at the library."

~~~

Giles sat alone in the library, having sent the others home with instructions to get some sleep and return at half-past eleven. In front of him was the stack of maybe a dozen drawings that the three teenagers had retrieved from Angel's apartment. The others had exclaimed over them at length but he had yet to look at them, afraid of the memories they would stir. Reluctantly he drew them towards him and looked down at the first picture.

His breath caught in his throat. Buffy's face smiled back at him, her eyes glowing with the light that he hadn't seen in so long. The one word title summed up the artist's feelings more eloquently than a sonnet, it said simply: Sunlight.

The style was the same as that of Angelus but somehow this picture bore little resemblance to the ones that the demon had left as calling cards. As he looked at it Giles felt as though he were being granted a look into Angel's soul and what he found there was a love greater than any he had ever dreamed of. Tears burned his eyes and he forced them back as he reluctantly laid it aside and reached for the next one.

Each picture showed Buffy's face in a different mood and the emotions it inspired in Angel. The helpless desire to comfort her when she cried, to support her when she was weak, to soothe her when she was angry or upset, to confide in her when she was strong, but it was the last picture of all that was the most powerful.

The moment he saw it, the tears that Giles had been fighting overflowed. Buffy was looking up, her huge hazel eyes softer than had ever seen them and filled with a glow that he had never seen. The total love and trust in her expression was unmistakable and his throat tightened as he realised that this was the way that she looked at Angel. The title said simply: Salvation.

Giles had no idea how long he sat staring at the picture but he gradually became aware of a sense of peace. The hatred he had harboured against Angel because of what the demon had done was gone. *It wasn't Angel's fault, you'll see that soon.* Jenny's words came back to him and he realised what she had meant. No one who saw the love in the drawings could believe that Angel had had any control over the actions of the demon, he would willingly have died to prevent what had occurred. All this time he had been trying to get him back for Buffy's sake but now he saw that Angel was as much a victim of Angelus as anyone else. He too was a friend and Giles silently resolved to do anything he could to ease the guilt and pain that he was sure to feel.

Giles felt a gentle pressure on his cheek as though someone had just kissed him, then he felt Jenny's pride and satisfaction and heard her say softly, "No wonder I fell in love with you."

~~~

It was time. The stack of drawings lay in the centre of a pentagram that had been drawn on the floor and above it, just touching the top-most point was a circle into which, if all went correctly, Angel would return. Giles took a deep breath and glanced round at the others. Three pairs of eyes looked back at him, their expressions anxious but determined as he lit the candle and began to chant in Latin, the words a simple call for Angel to return home repeated over and over again. One by one the others stepped forwards and used the flame to light the bunches of herbs that they held while, unseen and unnoticed, Buffy watched anxiously from above.

A bright glow suffused the drawings and gathered into a narrow beam of light. Like a thread of glowing cotton it stretched to a point in the air about three meters above the centre of the circle where it stopped instead of continuing until it hit the wall. A swirling vortex, no larger than a penny appeared at the focal point of the beam and slowly began to grow.

When it was about the size of a dinner plate, it stopped and began to flicker, losing substance as it began to contract once more. They exchanged alarmed looks and Willow said faintly, "It isn't going to work, the connection isn't strong enough!"

~~

Buffy looked on in despair as Angel's last hope began to fail and her eyes filled with tears. She began to slump down against one of the bookcases when a sudden thought snapped her upright again. She could hear Giles' voice asking, *"What, other than Buffy herself, would Angel value?"* and, almost before she completed the thought, she was in motion.

She ran at the banister and executed a perfect flip over it, coming to land in the very centre of the pentagram on top of the glowing pictures. The others were astonished by her sudden appearance and Willow dropped her herbs but, with great presence of mind, Giles barely faltered before continuing the chanting.

The flickering stopped and the glow expanded to encompass Buffy. Her skin tingled as though she was suffering from slight sunburn and then she felt a sudden violent cramp in her chest and she went rigid as a great column of light shot from her chest to the vortex.

In seconds it expanded to about a meter in diameter and then it opened, forming a window to a nightmarish world of darkness and pain, fire and demons. The light arched through the ugly yellow-purple sky and the demons, many larger and more hideous that any on earth, cowered back from it in fear. Like the zoom lens on a camera the window followed the light, drawing ever closer to its target.

And then, there he was. Angel. He hung in chains suspended by nothing; the sword still stuck through his torso and surrounded by demons that laughed as they tormented him with fangs and claws, fire and steel. His body was a bloody mass of wounds, little skin remaining and his clothes long since destroyed.

Even as they watched in horror, nausea rising within them, a large, slimy demon that was the colour of a week old bruise, touched a flaming torch to his side. Angel's body was engulfed in flames, yet he remained whole. The relief of turning to dust and having the pain end was denied him and he writhed in agony, screaming Buffy's name. Then the light emanating from Buffy surrounded him and the flames died. The light also touched the demons closest to Angel and they screamed as their flesh melted away like ice cream on a hot day, while the rest cringed in panic and then turned to run.

The chains around Angel's wrists fell away but before he could crumple to the ground the light enfolded him like a blanket, glowing so brightly that he could not be seen within, and carried him back towards the window, retracing its path across the brutal landscape.

When the glowing bundle that was Angel touched the window there was a blinding flash and the vortex disappeared and Angel tumbled to the ground, stark naked and shaking but otherwise physically unharmed. At the same moment, the candle they had lit at the beginning of the ritual flared brightly and went out and as it did, Giles ended the chant. The beam of light had vanished with the vortex but the glow around Buffy and Angel lingered.

Shock that they had been successful held everyone motionless for a moment, then Angel slowly raised his head and the spell was broken. Cordelia and Willow both dropped the herbs they were holding and turned away to be violently sick, while Oz grabbed the blanket that he used when it was his 'time of the month' and draped it over Angel's naked form.

He didn't appear to notice his attention focused upon the small blonde girl who remained unmoving in the pentagram. "Buffy?" he questioned brokenly.

At the sound of his voice the glow surrounding them vanished and Buffy crumpled to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

~~~

Before the others even realised what had happened, Angel was at her side, the blanket falling unnoticed from his shoulders as he moved. Heedless of his nudity, he cradled her motionless form against him and gently stroked the matted hair away from her too-thin face as he called her name.

Buffy's lashes trembled against her pale cheeks and her eyes opened slowly. For a moment they remained unfocused, empty, then they locked with Angel's and slowly filled with tears, which overflowed and ran down her cheeks in a steady, silent, stream that he tenderly wiped away.

"Angel," she said, her voice so quiet that, close as he was, he could hardly hear it, "it worked." Her gaze slid past him for a moment, to where the others stood watching, "Thank you…for giving him justice."

With a great effort, Buffy raised her arm and gently pressed her hand against Angel's cold cheek. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…for everything." He started to speak but a soft brush of her thumb against his lips silenced him. "Be happy, Angel, despite what you think, no one deserves it more." Her arm fell back to her side as her strength failed and her last words were little more than a sigh as her eyes closed, "I love you…always."

Angel's chocolate brown eyes were filled with tears as he bent and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, listening to the reassuring surge of her blood flowing beneath her skin as he did so. The sound was weaker than he had ever heard it but it remained steady and as long as it continued he knew that there was hope. "What's done this to you, Beloved?" he asked quietly, "How can I help?"

"Why don't you bring her into the office and I'll explain."

Giles' voice startled him, he had forgotten that the others were there, but after a moment he nodded and lifted his precious burden in his arms. He carried her carefully into Giles' office and laid her down on the sofa, touching her face gently before reluctantly turning away to face the others.

"Welcome back," said Giles with a small smile.

At his words everything that Angel had pushed aside in his concern for Buffy came rushing back and his eyes filled with horrified memory, "Oh, God! Giles…Jenny…I… Oh dear God, what have I done?"

"Nothing!" said Willow firmly, "It wasn't you and the demon's gone forever, you can never lose your soul again!"

"I *am* the demon! The two of us are the same!"

"You know that's not true," Giles told him, "A monster could never love anyone the way that you love Buffy. Your soul is what makes you who you are, you can hardly be blamed for what your body does during it's absence any more than anyone else who is possessed."

"I don't understand…why don't you want me dead after everything I've done? How can you even bear to look at me?"

"Well it would be a whole lot easier if you'd put some clothes on!" said Cordelia tartly.

Angel glanced down at himself, noticing his unclothed state for the first time, and would have blushed if he'd been able. He gave Oz a grateful look when he handed him the blanket, which he immediately wrapped around his waist.

Willow, who'd been desperately trying to pretend that she hadn't noticed his unclothed state, or been staring at the impressive expanse of male flesh that was on view, was blushing enough for everyone as she slipped out of the room. A few seconds later she was back, holding a bundle of clothes, which she held out towards him saying, "I…I brought these from your apartment in case you needed them and you clearly do so…here."

Despite themselves everyone smiled at Willow's obvious embarrassment and Oz gave her a reassuring hug as they all exchanged glances and then left the office so that Angel could dress.

~~~

As they came back in, Cordelia walked straight over to where a now fully-dressed Angel was perched on the edge of the sofa, holding one of Buffy's hands in his, and gave him a hug. Then she pulled back to look into his astonished face and said simply, "I'm glad that you're back to being…you…again. We've missed you."

The others nodded in agreement and, at Angel's still stupefied expression, Giles said gently, "If you're looking for guilt, Angel, you'll not find it here, you're as much a victim of all this as any of us."

Angel nodded, unable to speak past the confused tangle of hope, despair & gratitude that filled his unbeating heart but one thing outweighed all others within him and after a moment he said hoarsely, "Thank you…for your friendship but now please…tell me what's wrong with Buffy? She looks like she hasn't eaten in months but I can't have been…gone…more than a couple of hours."

"Well…er…it's, it's a long story but you've actually been away for almost six months, Angel."

"Six *months*? I always understood that the time difference in the demon dimensions worked the other way."

"It does, but the spell we used to retrieve you creates a temporal fold within the dimension and returns to roughly the point at which you arrived so instead of more than a thousand years..."

"I was only gone for a couple of hours." He shuddered at the thought of the fate he had so narrowly escaped, and his eyes darkened in memory of the pain he had so recently endured. Unconsciously his unoccupied hand came up to rub the place in his torso where the sword had been.

The significance of the action wasn't lost on any of his watchers and Willow burst out anxiously, "Buffy didn't have a choice, she couldn't help it!"

Startled, Angel looked up at her and his hand dropped as he realised what he was doing, "I know that, Willow, there was nothing else she could have done. She saved the world and I'm proud of her for it."

"Yes, well, Buffy doesn't see it that way, in her own mind she betrayed you and she can't even begin to forgive herself for that. She lost everything that night, her world was utterly destroyed and she ran away." Giles informed him sadly.

"What do you…?" he broke off abruptly, his hand going to the pulse at Buffy's throat to confirm what his senses had already told him, "Buffy! BUFFY!" He looked up at Giles, his expression anguished, and said urgently, "We have to get her to a hospital, her pulse is erratic and it's getting weaker!"

"We can take her in my car," Cordelia offered, "It's fastest."

"It won't hold us all, the two of you go, the rest of us will follow in the van." Oz said.

Everyone nodded; Cordelia ran to start the car while Angel lifted Buffy carefully into his arms and ran after her, as surefooted as a cat, despite his burden.

~~~

They must have broken over a dozen traffic laws during the short journey and they reached the hospital in record time. Angel sat tensely in the back seat, oblivious to Cordelia's driving, curling his body protectively over Buffy's as if to shield her from the world, holding her tightly against him as he pleaded with her to hold on and not leave him now.

He had the door open almost before the car came to a complete stop and by the time Cordelia had shut off the ignition he was already running for the Emergency Room with Buffy's limp form still clasped securely against his heart.

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