1 - Empty Mirror, Empty Bed

#

Buffy Summers, the Vampire Slayer, stood nude in front of the large mirror and watched as the hands of an invisible sculptor moved across her flesh, unseen fingers leaving visible markings as they moved over skin, playing her passion like a violin. She shivered under the touch of her unseen lover and had to bite her lower lip to suppress a moan.

"Like it?" He asked her, his words coming from thin air.

She looked into the mirror again and saw unneeded breath flowing across her neck, softly moving strands of her hair, even as the invisible hands softly kneaded her breasts. It was incredible to watch herself this way.

"Very!" She whispered as she felt soft kiss trail along her neck and shoulder.

"Look at yourself!" He whispered. "You look so very beautiful, beloved."

She gasped as her invisible lover entered her from behind, imprints of large hands on her belly and chest holding her steady as they rocked back and forth in an increasing rhythm.

"Angel!" She whispered.

They came together, but the mirror in front of her still showed but one body in the throes of orgasm. Buffy watched herself with fascination, even as invisible arms slowly lowered her to the floor and she leaned back against an invisible chest.

"What would I do without you, Angel?" She asked him, turning around to look at the beautiful man the mirror refused to show her.

Angel smiled. "Well, you have the chance to find out now, don't you?"

With those words he was gone.

#

Buffy woke from sleep and stared around the dark bedroom, drenched in sweat. A dream, yet another dream. Unconsciously she reached out with her hand, searching for the cold body that had shared her bed for nearly three years.

He was not to be found, of course.

She sighed. Angel wasn't there anymore. Or rather he was still there, but she wasn't. This wasn't their bedroom in the Hyperion. It was the bedroom of a small and lonely apartment Buffy had rented for herself when living in the Hyperion had ceased to be a possibility for her.

Angel was gone. Once upon a time, with the portal of hell opening in front of them, he had promised that he would never leave her. Two months ago he had broken that promise and sent her away.

She drew her knees up and hugged her legs, trying to keep the cold of night at bay. He had sent her away. One angry word had resulted in another until they had screamed at each other, bodies trembling with fury, both saying things they knew they would regret later on, but unable to keep them inside. Until they had both had enough and she had stormed off into the night with Angel yelling after her, telling her not to come back until and unless she came to her senses.

She sighed. All because of one argument. They had had arguments before, of course. What couple didn't? Looking at the fact that they had different opinions about a lot of things, it was a miracle they hadn't argued more often. After all there were more than 250 years between them.

Yet they had never had an argument of the screaming kind until that one night two months ago. That one had been uglier and more severe than ever before and they had lashed out at each other like she never would have believed either of them able to.

He was the one who was wrong, she knew that. He had to know it, too, didn't he?

Then why didn't he call?

She looked at the clock standing beside the bed. Four o'clock in the morning. She had gone to bed but two hours earlier. Even without a Vampire lover by her side she was still mostly a creature of the night. She wouldn't have to get up for work until well past noon, yet she knew that she wouldn't be able to go to sleep again tonight.

She didn't want to dream of him again.

Ten minutes later she was out in the streets, looking for something to distract her. She had turned twenty-one this year (she had still celebrated with Angel on that day) and was now allowed to drink herself into a coma, wasn't she? Maybe she should try that one of these days. Maybe it would make her feel better.

Then again, it had never worked for Spike, the only hard drinker she knew, so she was a bit discouraged. Spike. Faith. Darla. She hadn't seen most of them either these last two months. Small wonder, she thought. All of them had been Angel's friends long before they had become her friends.

Giles was still there, of course, the man who was more her father than the seldom present Hank Summers ever had been. Through him she kept more or less up to date about the others, as Giles still had an on-again, off-again relationship with Darla, Angel's Sire. She wondered whether Angel asked him for news about Buffy in turn.

She shook her head. It shouldn't matter to her. Angel was the one who was wrong, he was the one who had to make amends. Some days she cursed that stubborn pride she felt, the one that prevented her from just going back to him, yet she could no more turn it off than she could take off her skin. He was the one who was wrong, he was the one who had to crawl.

Didn't he?

One stupid argument, she thought once more. She had been so sure of herself, so sure that he would be happy with her decision. Didn't he see it was for the best of them both? She still couldn't understand why he'd been so mad about it. The only reason she could come up with was one that she didn't want to consider.

Angel still loved her every bit as much as she loved him. That couldn't possibly have changed.

Could it?

She turned around a corner, still lost in thought, and almost bumped into a man going the other way. Before she even properly saw him her instincts were already screaming at her.

Vampire!

Old habits died hard, so she had her hand on the stake she always carried with her before she even knew it. The man she had bumped into, though, just fought for balance a moment and then apologized to her, smiling.

"I am sorry, I did not see you." He said.

She studied him for a moment. These days the average Vampire was no more a potential danger than any given human man she might meet after dark, which wasn't to say she could let her guard down. But he just smiled at her and seemed uninterested in a fight.

Too bad, Buffy thought.

"I wasn't watching, either." She told him.

She was about to walk past him when he moved a step to the side, halfway blocking her route. She looked up, a bit of anger penetrating into her face.

"I am sorry to intrude," he said, "but you look rather down."

Only now did she notice that he had a pack of fliers under his arm. That, combined with the tone of his voice, told her all she needed to know.

"I am not interested in whatever you're selling." She said and started brushing past him.

"I am not selling anything." He said and put one of his fliers into her hand with practised speed and ease. She was tempted to just crumble it up, but one look wouldn't hurt.

CHURCH OF THE HOLY BLOOD
BECAUSE PARADISE IS HERE ON EARTH

She looked up at the Vampire again. She knew that some Vampires practiced religion despite their inability to face the cross or other symbols of faith. She had been to a ceremony once herself. She had never been overly religious, though. She believed in God, more or less, but didn't see the need to visit a church or memorize prayers because of that. She was sure the big guy didn't mind.

"Why don't you come by once, when you have time?" The Vampire said. "Listening to what we have to say won't kill you, will it?"

Again she was tempted to just throw the flier away. The honest look on the Vampire's face dissuaded her, though. With a sigh she tucked the piece of paper into her pocket.

"I might." She said. This time the Vampire did nothing further to keep her.

Half a minute later she had forgotten him, her thoughts once again returning to the topic that had plagued her non-stop these past two months.

When would Angel call? Would he?

2 - Beer, Bars, Brawls, and Thoughts On Safer Sex
 

"Marilyn Monroe?" Faith asked him.

"Met her just once!" Spike said between two sips of beer. "Looks better on celluloid than in real life, I tell you."

"Don't they all?" Faith said, laughing.

"Don't know. Never saw you on film, pet!"

She gave him a mock slap on the shoulder and took a swig from her own beer. Spike marvelled at how much he had become used to having her around. Hard to imagine that, just three years ago, she had been a brat whose favourite pastime had been driving him up the nearest wall (and succeeding at it much too often for his taste). Now he could barely imagine that he had ever hated her guts.

Faith had changed a lot since then. Not only had she grown up to become a truly beautiful woman, she had also matured from the brat into a someone he wasn't shy to kiss in public. She still practiced her constant one-up-manship with him, but he no longer minded and gave as good as he got.

He shook his head. So much had changed and not just concerning his sex life. He carried an ID with his real name in his pocket these days, complete with his real date of birth. September 3, 1873. There had been some problems, of course, since he wasn't technically an American. But seeing as he'd come here long before they'd closed down Ellis Island he had been given citizenship without too much fuss.

He even had a job these days. He and Faith were both in the bodyguard business, having taken a page out of Buffy's book. Spike especially was much in demand, as lots of rich people liked having Vampires as bodyguards, go figure! These last two years Spike had met more movie stars than in his preceding century of life.

"You jobbed for this Raven chick last week, didn't you?" Faith asked. "Rebecca something, right?"

"Rebecca Lowell, yeah. Chick told the police she was threatened, but it was just a publicity gag. Also she wanted to become one of the club. Tried to make me turn her, can you believe that?"

"You didn't ..."

"Of course not, do I look dumb to you?"

"Well ..."

"It was a rhetorical question pet, don't get your little brain in an uproar about it!"

"Talking about little brains, when did you learn to use fancy words like rhetorical anyway?"

They both laughed. Of course he hadn't turned Lowell when she had tried to seduce him, and not just because it was illegal to do so without the written consent of both parties, as witnessed by an attorney. Most humans didn't understand it, but eternal life wasn't all it was cracked up to be, especially with the limitations a Vampire had to deal with.

"Where do you get off ...?" Someone yelled from the other side of the bar.

"If the shoe fits ...!" Someone else yelled back.

"What's going on over there?" Faith asked, leaning out of their booth to look.

Spike followed her gaze and saw three people standing near the pool tables, two of them staring at each other. He didn't need over a century of experience to interpret their body language. The two staring ones had their fists clenched and looked like they would start hammering each other in a second.

"Just a few fellows that can't hold their beers." He told Faith and turned away again. "Ignore them. Maybe they'll do us the favour and beat each other into submission real soon."

Faith nodded, but didn't take her eyes away from the quarrelling threesome just yet. Spike downed another sip of beer when the sound of a breaking glass drew his attention back.

"They going at it yet?" He asked Faith.

"Just about to, I'd wager."

Spike turned around again and saw that one of the men was right in the face of the other.

"You're a fuckin' traitor to you race, that's what you are!"

"If you're an example of 'my race' I'd just as well quit the club, all right!"

"You wanna turn yourself into a bloodsucker? Fine! I'll give you some blood to suck, all right!"

That drew Spike's attention more thoroughly than before. One of the men wanted to become a Vampire? Apparently the other didn't like that. The third man that stood with them gave a half-hearted attempt to break up the other two, but without much success.

"You think we should ..." Faith began.

"Godless mother-fucking son of a bitch!" The swearing was followed by the sound of a fist hitting flesh and bone, shortly followed by that of a large body smashing through a cheap table. Spike jumped to his feet, as did Faith.

"You're not gonna live long enough to spend eternity, boy!" The man who had been put through a table staggered back to his feet, murder in his eyes.

"Okay, boys!" Faith and Spike walked between them. "That's quite enough!"

"Mind your own business!" Both men snarled at them almost at the same time.

"I never do!" Spike grinned.

The guy who didn't particularly like Vampires launched himself at Spike and threw a fist. Spike caught it and applied some pressure, forcing the man to his knees with a pain-filled groan.

"Are you quite finished?" He asked, sounding bored.

"Let go of Marty!" Another man joined the fun and raised a bar chair to smash it across Spike's back. He never got that far. Faith snatched the chair away, kicked his legs out from under him, and pinned him to the floor with the chair, on which she sat down to smile at him.

"No cheap shots allowed!" She told him.

"You stupid bitch! Get off me!"

"I didn't need your help!" The man who wanted to become a Vampire told Spike.

"Mate, you sure do need help!" Spike shook his head. "Go home and take a good, long look at the sun when it rises, okay? Believe me, it's not worth giving up. I speak from experience!"

The other man froze. "You're a Vampire."

"Yeah, me and Dracula! It's not fun, okay? Now go home and sober up!"

"We don't want no stinking bloodsuckers here!" Three more men had risen from their tables and stood behind Spike, looking eager for a fight.

"You talkin' to me?" Spike turned to look at them, his face changing in the process.

One of the men took a step back, but none of them turned to run.

"We don't need you or your stinking heresy!" Another man snarled. "You and yours got some nerve, calling the good Lord Jesus a Vampire! Get your fuckin' church out of our city or, by God, we will give you some of God's own kindness!"

Spike had no idea what the man was talking about and didn't particularly care.

"I haven't been to church since your granddaddy shit his diapers, mate. Now you better get out of my face before you regret it, boys!"

Faith saw that they wouldn't back down and neither would Spike. She knew her bleached lover quite well by now and while he wasn't the sort to start a fight unless seriously pissed, he was the sort to finish it. She rose and walked toward him. The man she had held down got out from under the chair, gasping for air.

"I ain't finished with you, bitch!" He snarled between gasps, having a hard time getting back to his feet.

She didn't pay attention to him. What she did notice was the fact that three more men had entered the bar. Her Slayer sense tingled. Vampires, all of them. She knew them, in fact. Some of Lenny's men, the local Vampire gang leader. One could call them friends of Spike and Angel's, if one used the term loosely.

None of them were too shy of brawling either.

"Hey Spike," one of them called over, "got a problem there?"

Spike looked at them. The men facing him looked at them. Human faces morphed into demonic ones. Fists were clenched and tempers flared high.

The man called Marty was back on his feet and punched Spike in the face.

"Oh great!" Faith mumbled.

"You got it coming, bloodsucker!" He screamed.

Spike slowly and deliberately wiped the droplets of blood from his split lip and stared at the man who had struck him.

"You're gonna wish your daddy'd pulled out early, mate!"

Ten minutes later the police arrived and arrested everybody they found, conscious or not. There were quite a few of the latter by that time. The bar was so much splinters and wreckage.

Another twenty minutes later Angel received a phone call, swore under his breath, and got his coat to make a trip to the local Police station.

3 - The Word is Forever

Giles and Darla looked up as Angel walked into the lobby of the Hyperion, closely followed by Spike and Faith. The sun was about to rise outside, the Vampires were cutting it close. It wasn't the rising sun, though, that had put the dark circles under Angel's eyes. Darla knew better than that. They all did.

"Not as if it was our fault!" Spike complained.

"Oh, it wasn't?" Angel said, sounding not the least bit amused. "Which of them forced you to knock five men unconscious in that bar, William?"

Darla shook her head. Boys would be boys, she guessed, no matter how many centuries they had under their belts.

"They started it!" Faith muttered, hands thrust deep into her pockets and looking to all the world like a sullen teenager.

"So you had to finish it?" Angel asked.

"Damn right!" Faith said, daring him to continue the argument.

Angel just sighed and dropped into the love seat near Giles and Darla, looking incredibly tired. All of them knew that he hadn't slept much these last two months. He had also started to brood again, a lot. Darla had gotten so used to a livelier, happier Angel that she almost didn't recognize her Childe anymore.

"You said the fight started because one of those men wanted to become a Vampire?" Angel asked Spike.

"Yeah, stupid idiot. His fellows didn't feel so hot about that idea, it seems. Then they started throwing something about bloody Jesus Christ in my face. No idea what that was about. I was too busy pounding them into the floor a minute later to ask."

Angel shook his head, but didn't say anymore.

"It could be connected with that new Vampire religion we have heard about." Darla said. "The Church of the Holy Blood. It's one of those that make the Last Supper into a Vampire ceremony, you know the kind."

Angel nodded. During the last hundred years there had been a lot of Vampires that, looking for answers about their cursed condition, had turned toward religion. Angel admitted that the Last Supper ceremony could be interpreted in a certain way. Jesus sharing his blood with his apostles, promising them eternal life. Then rising after three days and such.

Angel didn't believe a word of it. He had been a good Christian, more or less, before he had died. These days he didn't give much of a damn one way or the other.

"We should probably look into that." He told the others. "The state of affairs between humans and Vampires is still fragile enough as it is. We don't need religious nuts around jeopardizing things."

"I will call Wesley and Doyle to make some discreet inquiries." Darla said. "You should probably put Gunn on the case, too. Cults like to recruit among the poor and displeased."

Angel nodded.

"Sun's up!" Spike said. "So unless you want to bitch some more, peaches, I will hit the sack!"

Angel didn't say anything and Spike shrugged, heading upstairs to the suite of rooms he used when staying at the Hyperion. Faith followed him after a moment, looking eager to get the stench of spilled alcohol and overcrowded holding cells off her.

"Giles, do you have a moment?" Angel said when the ex-Watcher and Darla were about to retire as well. Giles nodded at Darla to go ahead.

"Any news about Buffy?" Angel asked the other man once they were alone.

"It would be easier for you to keep apprised about her if you picked up the phone and called her."

Angel just looked at him and Giles sighed.

"Nothing new." He just said. "She keeps working overtime and doesn't sleep all that good. I really think you should ..."

"Anything about her mad idea?" Angel interrupted her.

Giles shook his head. He hated being stuck between the two lovers, if lovers they still were. Under normal circumstances he would have been solidly on Buffy's side in any argument between the two, even though he regarded Angel as a friend and an honourable man. In this special case, though ...

"Nothing. Though I doubt she has let it go. She can be stubborn that way. Besides, if she had, I have no doubt she would have called you by now."

Angel sighed, clearly not very happy with Giles' answers.

"I am doing the right thing, am I not?" He asked the ex-Watcher after a moment.

"I am honestly not sure." Giles said after a moment's consideration. "I agree that you could not just go along with her, Angel, but I don't think this separation is doing either of you much good, either."

The Vampire nodded. "I want to call her, Giles! Every day I have to restrain myself from picking up the phone and calling her. Or going by her place to knock her door down."

"Then do it!" Giles urged him.

"And then what? The argument would just continue where it left off, Giles. Buffy needs to see that she is wrong."

"And you think she will see that while she is alone, holed up in that apartment, while you are holing up in here?"

Angel sunk deeper into his seat, sighing deeply.

"I don't know what to do, Giles. I love her, but right now I don't particularly want her around, not as along as she persists with that idiot idea. How anyone could want ..."

He stopped himself. Giles wasn't the one he had to have that argument with. He knew the ex-Watcher shared his sentiments on that topic.

"Something has to be done, though." Giles reminded him. "I don't want either of you to be this unhappy, Angel."

"I am open to every idea, Giles, believe me."

Both men fell into silence as no ideas were forthcoming.

"Did the topic ever come up with you and Darla?" Angel asked all of a sudden.

"Not in so many words, no." Giles said after a moment. "The idea occurred to me, of course. I would be more than human if it hadn't. I have lived a long and mostly good life, though. The idea of mortality doesn't frighten me much."

"Buffy is still so young, though." Angel said.

"That she is, yes. To be honest I was afraid something like that would come up between you sooner or later. I have seldom seen people so much in love with each other, Angel. Is it so far-fetched for Buffy to hope that it will go on forever?"

Angel shook his head.

"I will not turn her into a Vampire, Giles. Under no circumstances."

He still remembered the day Buffy had approached him with the idea. She had beaten around the bush for quite some time, dropping hints. Angel had ignored them, hoping he was just reading her wrong. Then she had gone flat out and asked him.

He had not seen her since that night.

"I am just afraid," he continued, "that Buffy will do something stupid, Giles. There are a lot of Vampires running around these days. Some of them are bound to be willing to give her what she wants if she asks them."

Giles shook his head.

"I don't think you have to worry about that. The only reason Buffy wants to become a Vampire is to be with you forever. She wouldn't want anyone else as her Sire."

"And I won't do it!" Angel repeated.

"I hope not." Giles said. "I don't want her to become a Vampire anymore than you do, Angel."

"She has no idea what she is giving up." Angel said. "Sunlight. Food. Children. I can't take that away from her."

Giles sighed.

"I just hope that, given time, she will come around."

"What if she doesn't, Giles?" Angel asked him. "What if she doesn't?"

To that the former Watcher knew no answer.

4 - What's That Look In Your Eyes, Girl?

"For centuries, no, millennia we were hunted as monsters!" The speaker in front of the crowd said, his voice ringing out across the room. The building had started life as a warehouse, it seemed, but had undergone extensive renovation in the not too recent past and now looked like the holiest of churches.

Except for the conspicuous absence of crosses and other items of faith.

"When our savior Jesus Christ," the speaker continued, "shared his gift of eternal life with his apostles, they did not understand him. They did not know what power flowed through their veins now. They thought his giving them their blood but symbolic in nature, when in truth it was so much more. One of them betrayed him. And so the gift was tainted and those who received it were found wanting.

"And so, yes, we were monsters! For we had fallen away from our true path. We allowed ourselves to be seduced by the gift we had been given. Like Judas Iscariot once turned away from the savior, so did we. We fled into the dark and preyed on those whom we should have enlightened."

At the back of the crowd, close to the exit, Doyle listened to the words of the speaker and gave the man in the long black robe a quiet nod of respect. He was an excellent speaker. He had charisma, no doubt about that, and knew how to make the crowd listen to his every word. There had to be two to three hundred people assembled here and everyone was hanging on his lips.

He was a Vampire, as were many other people present.

The presence of Vampires always made Doyle a little nervous. One would think he'd gotten used to it after so long in the company of Vampires, some of whom he considered his closest friends. Yet something about them always gave him an itch somewhere he couldn't scratch. Maybe it was just the demon part of his being, telling him to stay away from the predators.

He didn't like being here. Over the years he had done a lot of things for Angel. As the Vampire had done for him in return. They were friends, they helped each other. That was what friends did, especially when you only had very few to begin with. Still, this place gave him the creeps, and not just because of the many Vampires.

Doyle had a few unpleasant memories concerning churches and religious men.

He sighed. Ever since Harry had left him for good, he hadn't had much of a social life. He had started drinking again, too, which didn't help much, but made him feel better for a short time. He never drank when he did a favor for Angel, though. The Vampire knew that and knew he could count on Doyle.

Sometimes he thought it was sad that the only people who thought good of him were Vampires.

"Now, though, we are on the road to redemption." The speaker's voice rang out again. "The Restoration has given us a second chance. We have a lot of things to make up for. The Lord still rejects us, his symbol of purity repulses us. We may not walk in the light of day, for to look upon his face is to be found wanting. Yet we are on the way, my brothers and sisters. We are on the way into the light and soon, soon we will prove ourselves worthy of his grace once more."

Doyle subtracted a few points from his estimation. The guy had emphasized the down points of becoming a Vampire a little too much for his taste. The crowd, though, the better part of them human, didn't seem to mind. Doyle wondered how many of these people actually wanted to become Vampires. How many of them would get their wish fulfilled? Maybe tonight? Did the church accept on-the-spot converts?

He toned out the ongoing preaching and concentrated instead on the man who was talking. Young on the outside, but with a feeling of power around him that the demon inside Doyle couldn't have missed. A Vampire, and rather old at that. Maybe older than Angel even. Doyle wished that Angel or Darla were here, they would be able to tell such things with a glance instead of having to rely on gut-level estimation.

The Vampires in the crowd, though, those were mostly fledglings, none of them with that sense of age about them that helped identify those truly ancient. Most of them had probably been turned after the Restoration, meaning none of them had ever known what it was like to be a bloodthirsty demon without conscience or compassion.

Doyle nodded. Those were probably the best to use in converting others. They didn't know about the downside of being a Vampire and could honestly say that being a Vampire was a blast. Nothing comes over better than naive honesty.

The humans present all looked like they hailed from the lower levels of society. Figured, Dolye thought. Those with no hope and nothing to lose are always the easiest to recruit into this kind of cult. He looked up at the people assembled around the speaker.

There were a dozen of them, all dressed in the same black robes with a few patches of red visible on the shoulders and the hems. The costumes didn't look that impressive, but the people wearing them had that same smell of age around them.

More old bloodsuckers. Doyle wondered if any of them truly believed the crap they were telling.

He looked at the speaker again. According to the leaflet he had been given upon entering this 'church' he was called Revered Geoffrey Jerome, founder of the Church of the Holy Blood. Doyle slowly made his way forward in the crowd until he was close enough to see Jerome's eyes.

They were almost glowing, not with the demon amber  of a Vampire's demonic face, but with the kind of intense fervor Doyle knew only too well.

He had seen it in the eyes of the village priest that had ordered him burned at the stake as a child when his demonic side first manifested.

Yes, he thought, this man believed every word he was saying. That made him dangerous, Doyle knew. A man who thought he was doing God's work was hard to argue with.

He shook his head. Angel wanted this church checked out because he believed it could become a threat and Doyle found himself forced to agree. Immortality delivered on a silver platter, along with a little mythology that made the monsters into God's chosen, what was not to like about it?

How were they to prevent people from joining up in droves? Vampires were legal. Religious freedom was part of the Constitution. Sure, a lot of hardcore Christians would probably get in an uproar about this blatant rewriting of Christian mythology, yet legally there was nothing wrong about it. And if people wanted to have themselves turned into immortals, there was nothing to stop them from doing that, either.

Doyle thought on possible consequences. Lots of static from the established Christians, that much was for sure. Maybe enough to really get ugly. If that didn't happen, a rapid increase in the Vampire population would certainly spell trouble. If everyone stopped aging and started sucking blood, what then?

He resolved to let the deep thinkers figure that out. Wes and this Giles guy would probably have a field day doing estimations and shitting out theories about a world filled to the breaking point with Vampires. His job was to check out this gathering.

His eyes moved across the crowd again as the Revered droned on in front. He saw no familiar faces as of yet, which made him glad. He had few friends and figured all of them too smart to be caught up in something like this. He knew that Gunn had to be around here somewhere, also checking things out, but he hadn't seen the black boy yet.

Suddenly, though, he did see a familiar face.

"Buffy?" He whispered to himself. Yes, it was the little Slayer. What was she doing here? Also checking things out? Doyle knew that she and Angel had had some trouble lately, though he wasn't much into details about them. Had he sent her here as well?

Doyle was on the verge of going over to join here, but then he thought it better not to. This was a covert mission, kind of, so better if no one saw them together. Yeah, better that way. He was about to look away again when Buffy turned her head a bit, allowing him to see her eyes.

He didn't like what he saw in those eyes, not one bit. The same thing he saw in the eyes of lots of other people present.

Why was she looking at that Revered with this longing in her eyes?

She couldn't possibly be considering ...

Could she?

Go to Part 5