Rating: umm...I'm thinking along the lines of PG...in the meantime. Who knows what the future might bring:).
Disclaimer: nope, last time I checked, nothing was mine.
Spoilers: well...better safe than sorry: everything up to the end of season 3 can be spoilery.
Synopsis: I have a strange drive to rewrite season 3 of BtVS. I just don't seem to like the way it ended...beats me why. Anyway, so despite the fact that the original plan was to begin with "Helpless" (that's around the time everything really started getting screwed up B/A-wise), as you can see, plan's changed and I'm going to start with "Anne". If you expect to find in this series events/quotes from the original season....I seriously mean it - I'll try my hardest keeping them to the very minimum. But all in all - it's probably a yet another attempt to end the season on a more "positive" B/A level. See how it goes:).
Pairing: the conventional ships: B/A, W/O, C/X. If I decide to torture any/all of them, you'll be the first to know:).
Distribution: ask first.
Feedback: please, yes, please.

When will you believe me
When I say these things to you
No one likes a liar baby
No one at all
When will you receive me
When I say these things to you
No one like a liar baby
No one at all

- Vast, "A Better Place"

*******

"What about this one?" the Slayer held up a blue shirt in front of her friend.

Willow beheld it for a moment, then grimaced, shaking her head resolutely, "No."

"I think it's nice," Buffy shrugged, hanging the shirt back where she had found it.

"No, it is, just…" the redhead scanned it anew, "it's nice on someone else. I just don't see Oz in it."

"Guess you're right," the blonde observed. "But that kinda narrows down our options, since that would be…the twentieth gift idea you turned down within the last half hour?"

"I know," Willow whined. "I just want it to be something...special."

"If you ask me, the fact it's coming from you should make it special enough," Buffy remarked.

The witch took a moment to reflect upon that, then looked at her friend again. "Did you already get Angel's gift? You know, today is your last chance."

The Slayer sighed, a saddened expression creeping up to her face. "No. And...I'm not going to."

"Why not? I know it's Angel, which makes it kinda hard to shop…for a guy who's pretty much seen it all…"

"That's not it," Buffy shook her head. "I'm just not getting anything for him…he's not getting anything for me either, or at least, I don't think he is. Gifts is not what this Christmas is gonna be about for us. Frankly, I consider myself lucky to just have him for Christmas."

"Yeah," Willow offered a weak smile, "and plus, he's so much better than he was…"

"Almost normal," the Slayer smirked. "Almost," she muttered, as she turned her attention back to clothes.

"It'll be better than this, too, one day," Willow remarked encouragingly, knowing precisely what her friend was thinking about.

"No, it won't be," Buffy dismissed it rapidly. "Or maybe it will," she shrugged, "but whatever it is…right now, with what I have now, with Angel…I don't think I could ever be happier than I am now," she beamed candidly as she looked back at the witch, who returned her an equal smile.

"Ladies," Xander's voice broke into their conversation as he approached them with a beige jacket in his hand. "I'm in need of a feminine opinion."

"Incredible," the Slayer affirmed with a playfully grave nod, then turned to her friend. "You're gonna give us a head start before moving to Alaska, right?"

"Behold me crack," he gave her a look. "Or maybe that was your snowball I was gonna bring you from Aspen."

The Slayer pouted and turned away from him. "What's in Aspen?" she asked abstractly after a few moments, while seemingly going through shirts.

"Snow..."

"And Cordelia," the real answer followed from her sister-Slayer that only now approached the trio. "He couldn't shut up about it for the fifteen minutes it took him to *finally* set his mind on this stupid jacket. Who would have thought guys were so picky, anyway?"

"You said it looked good," Xander briefly scanned the jacket again, as if not quite sure if he should buy it after all.

After a first moment of shock, Willow pulled herself together. "*What?*"

"Cordy's parents have a villa in Aspen," Xander replied evenly, as though he'd been anticipating that very reaction from his best friend. "They're going there for the winter's break, and…she kinda invited me too…"

"*Kinda* invited you?" the Slayer gave him a look. She seemed to be taking it much better than Willow though. "You two've been pretty tight lately, but that's a big step, don't you think?"

"Yeah, you're one to talk," the boy quipped, then looked at Willow, "and you, too. You're dating a vampire, and you're dating a werewolf, so…let me date Cordelia in peace."

The blonde chuckled, rolling her eyes.

"Besides, don't get any *ideas* into your heads," Xander went on, speaking to both his fiends. "It being a Chase mansion, we're not gonna be sharing a room."

The two girls exchanged knowing half smiles, shaking their heads.

"What?!" Xander threw his hands in the air.

"Faith, what are you doing on Christmas?" Buffy turned to the brunette Slayer, completely dropping the subject of Xander and Cordelia.

She shrugged, somewhat uncomfortably. "I'm…I'm having this party…I've been invited to a party," she mumbled, looking down on her shoes. She had no plans for Christmas Eve, and normally, it wouldn't bother her one bit, in fact, it would have been a-yet-another-Christmas-Eve in her life. But a part of her preferred to remain loyal the image she had created for herself in the eyes of the Scooby Gang over telling them the truth.

"A party?" Willow frowned. "I never heard there was a party somewhere, they even closed the bronze for some reason-" she muted when Buffy's elbow connected with her stomach unbeknownst to Faith and luckily, the redhead instantly picked up on the subtle hint.

"It's in some guy's house…I met him a couple of days ago."

"That's great," the blonde nodded, "that you have plans…is great. But you know…I was actually gonna ask you, before you said you had planes, if that…party thing doesn't work out…you could come join Angel and I," she suggested carefully, keeping her eyes on the other Slayer's the entire time. Her lover and her sister-Slayer had been slowly moving towards a friendlier form of relationship the last few weeks, or rather, they weren't avoiding each other the way they used to. A part of her prompted her not to take advantage of the current situation, because she was risking ruining what she already had, but another part didn't want Faith to be alone for Christmas, if such thing could be avoided by her.

The brunette Slayer gave her a long look, not saying anything, then sighed. "Maybe," she shrugged indifferently. "If I get tired of the…party I'm gonna go to, maybe I'll drop by."

"Okay," Buffy grinned. "That'd be great."

"Yeah," Faith nodded. "Swell. Thanks anyway though. I'm gonna go...home," she gestured at the store's entrance with one hand, not understanding herself her abrupt need to leave. "I'll see you later."

Willow cleared her throat next to the Slayer after Faith was already out of sight. "Umm…that could just be my observation, but…don't you think you should have asked Angel before you did that?"

Buffy glanced at her, then looked back at the spot where she had last seen the brunette Slayer. "I do now," she mused ultimately.

*********

Buffy crept up behind Angel and snaked her arms around his waist, gently bumping her forehead into his back. "Hey," she whispered.

The vampire pushed himself off of the brick wall he had been leaning on with his right side and whirled around, greeting her with a smile Buffy found a bit too odd to be realistic, but before she could say anything, he drew closer and captured her lips in a kiss, urging her head up and digging his fingers into her golden hair as he was deepening the kiss. "I liked that," his girlfriend announced with a content grin after they had pulled apart. "But you better keep that attitude to when I tell you what I did in the mall today."

He gave her a questioning look, while his fingers were abstractly clearing blond locks of hair away from her face.

"I invited Faith," she said, checking his eyes for a reaction. "Here," she added, when nothing came. "For tonight..."

The vampire nodded, looking away uncomfortably for a moment.

"I know I should have asked you before, but anyway, the chances she'd actually show slip to beneath none," the Slayer took his hands in hers. "Just...she had nowhere to go, and I thought...well, I *didn't* think, actually..." when she realized he hadn't been attentive to anything she'd been saying, she emitted a sigh. "Angel?"

After a moment of silence, her eyes left him, and briefly scanned the hall they were standing in and after finding nothing out of the ordinary, lay back on her boyfriend. "What is it?" she probed gently, reaching her hand up to his face.

Angel carefully winced out of her touch and made a few steps back, eventually wordlessly sitting down by the fire.

"Angel?"

"Nothing," he murmured.

"You know, if you were really that much against the…Christmas-of-any-kind idea in general, you could have just said so, I wouldn't have done anything. I didn't know it meant so much to you that…"

"It's not it," he shook his head.

"So it's Faith?" she acknowledged. "You're upset that I invited her without asking you..."

"No," he muttered.

She beheld him skeptically for several seconds, then swallowed, nodding, "But it's something."

"I…" he lifted his eyes from the floor to meet hers, but couldn't find the words to tell her what he wanted. "It just…" he looked away again, combing his hands through his hair in frustration.

The Slayer's eyes wandered about the room again, this time, stopping on a stock of papers on the couch. She glanced at Angel one last time, then, not saying anything, walked over there and sat down on the sofa, bringing the papers onto her lap and leafing through them with interest mixed with perplexity.

There maybe were twenty of them, all exquisitely done sketches of the same face. It was a girl, she appeared to be young, but Buffy was unable to determine the precise age. She had dark hair and dark eyes, eyes that reminded her of someone. In one, she was laughing, in another simply smiling, in the third she was thoughtful, in the fourth…sad… And so they continued on and on, always displaying the face of the same girl. And as hard as Buffy endeavored to think back to every possible person who had ever crossed her way, that girl, she couldn't recall.

"Who is she?" she looked back at Angel, her eyes asking the same question as her voice.

His eyes hadn't left her since she had started browsing through the pictures, and now they were silently answering her question with only a rueful gaze she had already seen in them many times before.

"She liked Christmas, too, you know," he spoke suddenly, his voice quiet and somewhat lost. "Like you."

The Slayer looked at him strangely, then glanced back at the drawing on the top of the pack lying next to her, then back at him again. "I don't *like* it, I just…like it," she pointed out, but quickly realized she was sliding completely off-topic. She rose from the couch and made her way back to where the vampire was sitting, occupying the empty spot next to him. She wrapped her arms around him, and reposed his head on her shoulder, planting a soft kiss on his skull and exhaling a sigh.

"She was born…the day before Christmas," he chuckled ruefully and sniffed, closing his eyes momentarily at the mild caress of her hand through his hair. "My father called her Catherine, after Saint Catherine," he smirked, briefly rubbing his eyes. "But I always called her Kathy. The name in Gaelic means 'pure'…" he trailed off, as a solitary tear slowly made its way down his perfectly sculpted cheek and was gently wiped off by the Slayer's finger.

"She was the reason I woke up every morning," he went on, laying his hand over hers on his cheek. "She was sweet, and innocent…and so beautiful," Angel squeezed his eyelids shut against the overwhelming memories of centuries ago that swamped him so abruptly it made his entire body stiffen in her arms.

"I love you," Buffy used that opportunity to tell him that, following the advice of an inner voice that had prompted her that was the time he needed to hear that the most.

The vampire shook his head and opened his eyes. "She adored me," he whispered hoarsely. "She opened the door and looked at me like I was a miracle, she invited me in…and called me an angel." He paused, drawing in a deep, unsteady, breath, while his girlfriend reinforced her arms around him, shifting herself to a position that allowed her to hold him as close and tight as was possible.

"Angel of death," he let out a bitter chuckle, pulling out of his girlfriend's embrace and creating distance between the two of them. "I didn't feel anything…*anything* when I grabbed her and sank my fangs into her small throat. I didn't feel anything when I broke her neck, just for the heck of it, and arranged her body the way I wanted it for my father to see. I didn't feel anything but pure pleasure."

The blonde Slayer clutched her hands into fists at the abrupt shudder running through her bones and seemingly piercing her from the inside. She had known from the start it was going to be the 'end' of Angel's story, but nothing could ever prepare her to the way in which she would take it. A part of her couldn't be happier for the fact that her lover had opened such an enormous part of him for her, while her other part couldn't help but dread whatever else he was still keeping hidden inside of him, and wondering if it would ever come out. Though she was always aware of the dark secrets constantly tormenting his soul, and knew they were in truth far more horrible than how she imagined them, whenever one of them was revealed to her, it always seemed to catch her unprepared and unsuspecting.

She realized a long time ago, that in Angel's eyes, the more she knew about his past, the more unworthy he was of her, and the only way for her to preserve a human image of him was to know as little as was possible about what he had done. Hence the fact he had never appeared *inhuman* for her was practically inconceivable to him.

"Angel?" the Slayer softly whispered his name, moving her hand to rest atop his on his knee.

He turned to look at her, at loss of words after he had let everything out.

She swallowed hard, then moved closer and carefully wrapped her arms around him, as though wordlessly letting him the time to back away if he wanted to. When he didn't and simply lay his head on her chest, she released a sigh of relief, and kissed his head gently. "I love you," she whispered, and though her rational side told her it wasn't going to help, her heart knew otherwise.

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