Chapter Three

The Watcher and the Slayer sat lost in their own relative thoughts, watching as the double doors swung cleanly behind the long gone vampire.

The Slayer finally broke the tense silence, "is it for real, Giles?"

He looked at her carefully, taking in her round eyes and the pout of her lip. She looked like a little girl again. His little girl, "it looks that way." She rose to her feet in one fluid, graceful motion. The little girl clearing way for the Slayer, Giles thought sadly.

"Good," she said, her tone decisive and in control, "then lets do this now."

"N-now?" He repeated hoping she didn't really say that. "You want us to get Angel out of hell right now?"

She nodded enthusiastically as she reached for the slips of paper Spike had left behind. "You don't really want to wait for Spike and Dru, do you?" She glanced at the papers and put them back with disgust, yet another language she couldn't understand. Was it so much to ask for something to be written in English?

He shook his head, "Buffy, this will require a lot of preparation. There's no way I can do this right now. Besides, this ritual requires the participation of a demon and a witch," among others, he left unsaid.

"So?" She floundered, aching to get her way, "I can hunt us down a demon in an hour, and Willow's a witch, sort of. What else do you need?"

"Buffy, Willow can levitate pencils, that doesn't make her a witch," he said, thankful that the girl and her fragile ego weren't here to hear that. "Besides there's more to it."

Buffy groaned mournfully, why did there always have to be more? "What?" She asked, her voice already defeated.

"We don't know what Angel will be like when we set him free," he said as gently as he could. He had hoped to avoid the issue, but he realized he wouldn't be able to protect his Slayer from this for much longer.

"What do you mean?" She asked cautiously, "he was Angel when he went in." My Angel, she left unsaid.

"Buffy, that curse, it was a human one..." He struggled, trying to find the right words.

"You're saying that they could have broken the curse, that he could be Angelus again," she said bluntly. "That's assuming that he hasn't lost his mind entirely during the torturing."

He gawked at her, speechless. He knew on some level that she'd given this some thought, but her calculated analysis had stunned him. "Anyway you look at it we'll probably need Spike in order to restrain him."

Her eyebrows shot up, "I could do that."

The librarian shook his weary head. This day had been going on for much too long, he somehow doubted that the next would prove to be any better. "No Buffy, there's something else you'll be doing," he warded off her questions with a raised hand. "Not now. I still have to figure some of this out."

"See, I told you she'd be here," Xander said as he burst into the room. "You owe me a double fudge, double chocolate ice cream bar," he called out to Cordelia.

"Fine give yourself sugar poisoning, see if I care." The brunette looked at Buffy with narrowed eyes, "just can't keep away from your watcher, can you?" She looked at them a bit more closely, their serious mood seeping in through her self-centered shell, "whoa, who died?"

The room lay in a hushed silence as the four teens tried to grasp what the Watcher had just told them.

"It's all coming together like it did before," Willow finally murmured. They all stared at her. "Demons and humans joining up to beat a common enemy," she explained, seeing their bewildered expressions.

"I'm just not sure we can trust our own personal demons," Oz said. "How do we know they won't turn on us as soon as Angel's loose? How do we know they're not working together with Cirta, waiting to dust Angel as soon as he's free?"

"Yep," Xander mumbled, "there's a whole lot of trust in this room."

"Well for one thing," Giles answered admiring the boy's quick mind, "if they're not in cohort with Cirta then they wouldn't have anything to gain by attacking us. It would just bring their deaths much closer."

"And Spike is not one for dying," Buffy added then frowned, "well being more dead."

Giles decided to ignore that, "and if they are, then they've got no reason to help us with Angel." He paused to look at the young faces, "I'm afraid that until this is all played out Buffy and I will just have to trust them."

They stared at him. "Buffy and you?" Xander demanded, "you're trying to cut us out!"

The room exploded into sound as each teen voiced his or her objections. Giles leaped to his feet, the chair he'd been sitting on crashing to the floor. That managed to effectively quiet the room. "...sick of those jelly donuts," Cordelia finished lamely, thus sealing the room with silence.

"This is not up for debate!" He snapped, "there is no need for you to endanger yourselves..." He stopped suddenly, looking at them as if he was seeing them for the very first time. For a single, bright moment he wasn't seeing their familiar faces, but the figures they represented. The Witch, the Werewolf, the Iron-Willed Beauty, and the Friend. Above them all stood the Slayer, her immortality shining through the faces of all the girls who had died playing the part. The strong aura their friendship emitted was almost blinding. He gasped as the image vanished, knowing he would never see anything as beautiful again.

"Giles?"

He looked down at their worried faces, he smiled briefly wondering what he must have looked like staring at them with his mouth agape like that. "You can all come," he told them softly.

They exchanged worried glances. "Nice mood swing," Xander complimented him, "it wouldn't happen to be that time of the month, would it?"

"Go home," he told them, "rest. It'll be a trying day tomorrow."

"He couldn't have settled for saying goodnight, could he?" Xander muttered under his breath as they all rose to leave.

"Giles, are you all right?" Buffy asked him gently when her friends had left.

He looked at her, his eyes wide with wonder, "I'm fine. I just get the feeling we're not alone in this particular fight."

She stared at him, "whoa, Giles, don't get all X-Files on me here."

He chuckled, although he hadn't the foggiest idea what she said, "go home, Buffy. Sleep well."

"Yeah," she muttered, pushing her way through the swinging doors, "like that's an option."

Buffy tiptoed into her house, shutting the door quietly behind her. After the day she'd had the last person she wanted to deal with was her...

"Buffy?" Drat!

"Hi mom," she said as cheerfully as she could, wincing at the false sound of her own voice. Oh yeah, mom couldn't see through that one, no siree.

"How did your slaying go?" She said, noting her daughter's scuffed apparel.

"I didn't go slaying, I went Bronzing. Tomorrow I'm slaying."

"Oh." Joyce looked at her daughter closely. Something seemed a bit off, "honey, is there anything wrong? You can tell me."

Buffy cursed silently. Here's one for the developmental experts, she thought, how does one tell her mother that she's going to bust her ex out of hell tomorrow night. With the good help of the school librarian and four close friends, not to mention a demon and a murderous psychopathic witch. She shook her head, till they figure that one out, she'll just have to wing it. "No, I'm fine mom, I guess the Bronze kind of wore me out."

Joyce raised a delicate eyebrow identical to her daughter's, as Buffy told her of recent Bronze developments. "So he actually got up and sang to her?" Joyce asked dreamily.

Buffy nodded. "It was sweet, in a weird computer love sort of way. Willow went nuts for it."

"I should hope so."

"Mom, I should get to bed. It's getting late and it's gonna be a long day tomorrow," she almost kicked herself as her mother gazed at her suspiciously.

"Why? What's tomorrow?"

"Giles is teaching me all about the history of demonology," she lied. Just because her mother knew about the slaying gig didn't mean she had to know everything. Besides, her mom seemed to visibly relax every time Giles's name was slipped into a conversation. The Slayer smiled, Giles had that effect on people.

Joyce sighed mournfully, she and her daughter did not spend nearly enough mother-daughter moments as she would have liked. Of course for that to happen she would have to quit her job and get Buffy to drop out of school. Somehow she doubted Doctor Spock would approve. She smiled lovingly at her daughter, "goodnight sweetheart."

"Mom?" Buffy suddenly called out in a very young voice, "would you come and tuck me in?"

Joyce beamed. The things that mother's live for, she thought.

*************

Angel whimpered from his fetal position in the shadows. Screams of the tormented filling his ears, the stench of the damned in his nose, and the taste of his own blood in his mouth.

They had left him alone to heal for a time, confident that his memories would serve as much of a torment as the physical ones they had inflicted on him. They were right. It was the quiet moments that his own personal demon, his private tormenter would appear. Full of vivid memories that time could not dim. All the murders and atrocities he had committed flashed before his eyes, playing themselves out with agonizing detail.

It was times as these that he awaited blessed insanity, but it would never come. "Insanity doesn't exist in hell," someone had shrieked his way centuries ago, "it's a game for the angels to play." He closed his eyes tighter with remembered grief, that much was true. He had played a wild game with insanity, the same insanity that eluded him now. His mind was as clear now as the day he had arrived.

He whimpered again as his memories unveiled one by one, bringing him to the one that he dreaded the most.

"Close your eyes," she whispered, her hand reaching to caress his cheek.

He did, there was nothing else he could do. He gasped at the remembered pain of her sword sliding through his body, his eyes snapping open at the memory.

"Our sleeping Angel just woke up," a harsh voice rumbled. Angel curled himself into a tight ball, his arms wrapping around his legs. He knew what would come now.

A claw traveled down his naked flesh, gently almost sensually claiming his body for its own delights.

"You're flying out of here soon, my little Angel," the voice whispered near his ear. Angel's body tensed, hope was a thing that did exist in hell. They fed it to him everyday, only to smash it in his face at whim.

The claw's owner laughed roughly at the reaction, twisting his body around suddenly. Angel allowed the motion to carry him, landing flat on his back naked and exposed. Experience had taught him that fighting was pointless and would only result in prolonged agony.

The demon was pale and beautiful, his features as delicate as a child's. His masculine body pale and smooth, almost angelic if not for his hideously deformed hands. Angel watched with muted horror as those hands, more like claws, he thought, connected with his body. He bit back a moan of revulsion as they caressed him like a lover.

He closed his eyes and swallowed hard, they had raped his body, broken him too many times to count. They had driven him to the edges of insanity and sat back to watch him pull himself together. What was pain to a man in hell? It would come and go and continue for an eternity.

The claws ran down his body leaving bloodied streaks behind. He fought back a wave of nausea as the nails scraped down his chest, digging into his stomach and down to the more delicate flesh below. He bit back a scream, it would only serve to send the demon into a frenzy.

"Open your eyes, Angel!" The demon snarled. Angel did, indifferently. Pain would come and go, but he would remain forever in hell.

The face that welcomed him was gut wrenchingly familiar. Large luminous eyes greeted him, blinking away errant wisps of blond hair which halloed her face like a crown. "I love you, Angel," she whispered like the sound of a thousand hearts breaking.

His heart broke free of the restrictions of his mind, "Buffy, I..." His eyes widened with horror as his beloved's face shifted back to the demon's.

"I love you, Angel," the demon spat contemptuously. "I have a little present for your lady love," he said, gripping Angel's head between his claws.

Angel's gaze was mesmerized to the soulless, unblinking eyes, trapped beyond hope of escape. His jaw clenched as the claws pushed down on his temples, the nails digging into his scull. A roar of triumph sounded in his mind, and a scream raged unbidden from his lips as his demon broke free.

"No!" The man within him raged, unwilling to lose control. The demon bellowed in answer as in that moment of resistance demon and man merged into one.

**************

Buffy awoke with a start. Her hands balled into angry white fists as she pounded her frustrations against the mattress. Finally, her rage spent, she wiped the cold sweat off her quivering brow.

She glanced at her clock radio and groaned, "this is getting old," she muttered. She peered outside her window at the uninviting night and snorted derisively, "forget it!" She said, curling up to a pillow and pretending it was her lover.

"So tonight is the big night," Xander said, anxious for conversation.

"Yeah, although Giles refuses to tell me what I'm supposed to be doing," she looked at her two friends. Oz and Cordelia were busy someplace else and it was just the three of them. If I close my eyes and pretend real hard everything will be like it used to. She almost had to laugh at how pitiful she sounded in her own mind. Under closer observation one of her friends was stubbornly avoiding looking at her.

"Will, do you know what I'm supposed to be doing tonight?" The Slayer asked patiently.

"Me? No! I don't know. I'm of the unknowing. I really don't know. Know what?" Willow babbled nervously.

Buffy sighed, dropping the cat and mouse routine. If Willow didn't want to tell her there must be a good reason, "never mind."

Soft lips brushed against her head, and Buffy's body tensed up. I have really got to learn how to control that, she thought. "So," Scott said conversationally, "you doing anything special tonight?"

Buffy shot Xander a dirty look as he almost choked on his soft drink. "Tonight?" Buffy asked regretfully, "yeah, tonight Will and I have that thing. Remember that thing, Will?" She said, nudging the redhead.

"Yeah, that thing. You know how things are, when you got to do that thing, that thing has to get," she thought for a moment, "done," she finished lamely.

"Oh." Scott looked at her with disappointment in his eyes, "look Buffy, why don't you call me when you don't have to do any," he paused, a bit over-dramatically in Buffy's opinion, "thing."

"Want to talk about it?" Willow asked sympathetically as the three friends watched him leave.

The blonde shook her head, "no. I just want to get this day over with. I would've stayed home only I'd probably drive myself insane."

"So you come here to shower insanity on your friends," Xander shook his head with mock gratitude only to receive a nasty poke in the ribs. "Hey, that hurt," he objected.

"Then learn how to stay on a slayer's good side," she replied piously.

The day passed in agonizingly slow motion, driving Buffy nuts with every ticking minute. Finally the last bell to ring for the day did so and she was free. She marched purposefully to the library, meeting her friends along the way. They walked with a firm, silent gate that could easily start a gang war.

Giles raised startled eyes as the five teens burst into his library together, "well what do you know," Spike muttered, "it's the bloody Power Rangers."

Buffy met him head on, "keep THAT away from us," she motioned towards a black clad Drusilla standing in the shadows.

Spike's eyes narrowed, but he held his tongue. "Right then, we'd better get a move on if we want to get anything done today. Chop, chop people." They stared at him, "would you stop doing that?" He demanded, "the novelty of the staring thing wore off somewhere around yesterday."

Giles was first to shake himself, "right! Well, we won't perform the ritual in here. It'll have to be where hell opened last time and that means the mansion."

Spike nodded, and helped the librarian gather his tools. Cordelia stared at the two vampires in wonder, "do they hold beauty pageants when they do the double sucking thing?" She mused aloud.

Spike gave her a feral grin, showing a hint of fang, "would you sign up if we did, luv?"

She gasped, truly caught of guard, then gasped again in thinly veiled rage as Xander made a lame attempt at hero. "You stay away from my girlfriend," Xander demanded stepping between the two.

Spike laughed uproariously and with a sudden, wild motion lunged at the boy, pinning him to a bookshelf. "You know," he said pleasantly, his game face firmly stating that he was anything but, "hating you was probably the only thing Angel and his demon had in common, well that and obsessing over the Slayer," he amended. "Looking at you now, I really do see why."

"Put him down." A cool voice from behind demanded. Spike turned, dropping the frightened boy unceremoniously to the floor. The Slayer stood with a stake firmly clutched in her hand. He rolled his eyes, this again. "Try that again, and I'll make sure you fit in an ash tray." She said coldly. He nodded, that was fair enough. She had promised to play nice so he should do the same. He shrugged and went on piling books for the librarian.

"It's still light out so we'll go through the tunnels," Spike told them once they had finished gathering all their things.

Buffy stared up at the skies only to be met with the library ceiling. Dark tunnels with two vampires to lead them, could this possibly get any worse? Some slayer sense told her it probably would.

The eased into the tunnels, generously allowing Buffy to be the buffer between the two vampires and the humans. Wasn't that nice of them? She thought cynically as she eyed Drusilla. The crazed vampire was subdued and hadn't said a thing since they first met, but she still managed to give Buffy the creeps.

She eyed the vampire highway, as Angel used to call it, taking in her surroundings as best she could. Her senses told her that there were vampires not far away, but they seemed to steer clear of their group in general. She looked at Spike more appreciatively this time, well aware that this was his doing. The vamp's handier then a cross, that thought seemed to amuse her for some reason. Her amusement evaporated when they reached the mansion. Too much had happened here, the memories were still too fresh.

Buffy eyed the statue of Acathala, noting the sword embedded in the solid rock, the sword that had pierced her lover's body to get there. "It must have been hard for you," a voice said, startling her out of her reverie.

She turned in surprise, "it's even harder right now, Spike." She told him, wondering why he cared. "Not knowing who will come out." On second thought she didn't care why he asked, it was good to drop a little frustration from her own shoulders and onto someone else's for a change. If it was Spike's, then all the better.

He frowned in confusion, "who will..." He repeated, then the horrible realization dawned on him. "Bloody hell, Slayer!" He spluttered startling their already tense group, "he was your Angel when you sent him to hell!" He looked at her appraisingly with newfound respect, "they say us vampire's are ruthless, but that's nothing compared to what someone without a personal demon can do."

She glared at him with disgust and stalked away, leaving him to reevaluate his prejudices concerning the living.

"It's done," Giles called to her motioning at the great pentagram Willow and he had created out of black candles and chalk, and other things Buffy was quite sure she wanted no knowledge of. They all stepped inside carefully, Spike gently leading Drusilla. Buffy shook her head, love manifested itself in the strangest of places, who was she to judge?

The simple act of being led into the pentagram seemed to shake the insane vampire from her reverie. She stared at Buffy with baleful eyes, "she's the one who took my Angel away," she whined to Spike in a little girl voice that grated on Buffy's nerves. "I want to kill her, Spike. Let Princess kill her."

"Hush, luv."

"Kill her with my nails, I will," she confided to Spike with a secret smile. "Just like I did the other one, the dark one."

Buffy tensed, she was talking about Kendra.

"Hush," he said lamely, hoping the Slayer wasn't the sensitive type.

"Shut her up, Spike!" Buffy grated. Apparently she was.

Giles waited patiently till Drusilla quieted down then turned to Buffy with a sword in his hand. "Buffy, in order for us to create the energies we need for this to work, we need you to recreate exactly what happened between you and Angel."

She flushed, "how much of what happened between me and Angel?"

The Watcher coughed uncomfortably, "just the last two or three minutes, before he was..."

"Hell bound," Cordelia finished brightly.

"Yes, thank you. Those were exactly not the words I was looking for," the Watcher muttered.

Buffy nodded, holding the sword, watching them take their positions within the pentagram. Willow, Giles and Drusilla chanted in a strangely melodic language as Spike, Xander, Cordelia and Oz waved burning incense around. We make a pretty good team, she thought to herself, well we would if it weren't for the vampire thing. She sneaked a peek at Drusilla, and the insane killer thing.

She felt a bit silly holding her sword, so she brandished it nastily at the stone demon. Take that, you bad Acathala, you. This was going to be easier than she thought, just wave the sword around. Listen to the singing. Inhale some hopefully very legal herbs and roots and poof! Here comes Angel. They should have tried doing this months ago.

The shadowy figure that lunged at her would have killed her instantly if he hadn't been, well, shadowy. She nearly dropped her sword as she recognized the beautiful features, "Angel," she whispered. He lunged at her again, she instinctively raised her sword to meet his and her jaw dropped when they passed right through each other. Of course, she thought, this is just an illusion to get the old energies stirring. She took a deeper look at the face of the man she loved, her energies were definitely stirring.

She lunged and parried, every swipe of her sword making the specter more visible, more real, more Angel.

She gasped as she realized her sword was hitting something real, something that could very well kill her. She knocked the sword out of his hand, slashing it in the process, jumped and kicked with blinding force sending him sprawling before the stone statue. She raised her sword for that final stroke before he could move to attack her again, but something happened. He clutched at his gut, his eyes burning golden for an instant as he gasped with pain.

She paused, staring at him with unsure eyes. "Buffy?" He asked, looking up at her with trust. "What's going on?" He rose to his feet on shaky legs, "where are we? I don't remember."

She relaxed her hold on her sword, somewhere in the back of her mind a voice screamed illusion, but her heart ignored it, willing to believe the charade, "Angel?" She whispered, unwilling to have her hopes shattered once again.

He touched her arm, eyeing a non-existent wound, "you're hurt." Her heart fell. This wasn't real.

He pulled her into an embrace, "Buffy, I feel like I haven't seen you in months." She closed her eyes hard, knowing what she'd see behind his back. "Everything is so muddled. I..."

The hellmouth began to slowly open through Acathala, as she pulled away from him, "what's happening?" His confusion and love for her evident in his eyes.

"Sshh," she whispered, "don't worry about it." Something in her mind snapped. No! She wailed silently, I can't go through this again. She kissed him once, tenderly, proving her love for him through that kiss, as the hellmouth grew steadily behind him. "I love you." She told him, wanting him to know that more than anything."

"I love you."

"Close your eyes," she told him, awed by the way he complied without hesitation. She kissed him again, a whimper escaping her lips at what she had to do. Her fist tightened on her sword, and with a swift gesture she ran him through. His eyes snapped open with shock, his arm stretched out for her to hold him.

She watched as her love was engulfed in the shimmering energies, his expression filled with pain and confusion, "Buffy?"

Then it was over, he was gone and she was crying. The tears in her eyes blinded her as they reflected the light. Light? She raised her head quickly as the hellmouth opened again, this time the pulsating energies pushing something out.

Then it was truly over and a dirty, naked man lay curled up on the floor. She rushed to him with hope in her heart, "Angel?"

"Buffy, stop!" Giles snapped the command like a general.

She obeyed, staring at him with confusion. "Go on, luv." She heard Spike murmur to Drusilla, "you can go see your Angel now, Dru."

Her Angel? "We need to know who he is," Giles explained, his eyes kept firmly on the hesitant Drusilla. "She can tell us that."

Buffy whirled to face the cajoling Spike, apparently they had it all worked out. "Go on, princess. Tell me if he's your Angel."

She reached out delicate fingers, her sharp nails easily cutting away through dirt and crusted blood to make contact with his flesh. He stirred lightly as she closed her eyes. She lifted her hand abruptly, cleaning it on the dark hem of her gown with disgust on her face.

"Well, luv?" Spike asked expectantly.

"He's not my Angel anymore," she said soberly, something closely resembling sanity returning to her eyes. The Slayer's heart leaped with joy. Then the dark vampiress looked straight at Buffy and her heart fell again. An evil grin spread across her exquisite features, "he's not hers, either. Not anymore."

"I don't understand, ducks. What does that mean?"

The moment of sanity was fleeting, however, "I miss my Angel." She explained to Spike, "my dolls miss him too, especially Mrs. Edith."

He groaned, "it's no use." He told the stunned group, "she's like one of her bloody dolls when she gets like this." He eyed his fallen sire, "I'll come and see him tomorrow. Alone," he added when he saw the looks on their faces, "you better keep dear old dad there under lock and key till then. Just in case."

He turned and gently led the babbling Drusilla out of the mansion, "he was all pretty then," she told him, "a real gentleman. My dolls liked him too. Do you like my dolls, Spike? They whisper in my ear..."

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