Chapter 16: Strange Encounters with Old Friends

Angel cautiously neared her, both of them slowly caught in a muddy haze as they walked towards each other before awkwardly stopping, inches away from each other. Buffy stopped and paused, feeling her heart grow heavy with every step, and noticing how in her chest, an acute pain spread that only occurred in Angel's presence. He stood in front of her, looming and nervous, and for a moment, they just stared at one another. Spike stood on the sidewalk, inwardly feeling a mixture of coldness and bubbling rage. Dawn and Tara glanced over at his emotionless face nervously.
"Buffy," Angel replied, his voice lighter than Buffy remembered. They continued to stand like that for moments, much to the suspense of all observers around them. Finally, Buffy jumped towards him and gripped him into a tight hug that, if he had not been a vampire, would have crushed every bone in his body. Angel's arms slowly enveloped her as well. He could smell something on unusual in her hair, on her clothes, a mixture of smoke and masculine musk. He tried to ignore it.
Spike clenched his teeth. Angel saw him over Buffy's shoulder but gave him no sign of recognition. "Angel," Buffy whispered, clinging to his chest. She loosened her grip as she stepped away from him. It seemed strange that after that intimate moment, they still weren't entirely able to meet each other's eyes. "H-How are you?" Buffy's voice sounded strained, wavering.
Angel's voice sounded equally uneasy. "I-I'm good, Buffy." He turned around to gaze at the rising clouds of smoke and broken buildings off into the distance. "Wish I could say the same for old Sunnydale."
Buffy smiled awkwardly. "Destruction, endless damage, all go hand in hand with the Hellmouth." She stopped smiling. "What are you doing here anyway? A-are you okay?"
Angel looked at her quizzically. "Wha-I thought you knew Buffy. I'm here for the ritual."
It was Buffy's turn to frown confusedly. "Ritual? What ritual?"
Angel furrowed his brows. "The one for Willow? The one to stop this evil warlock guy?"
Buffy's eyes widened in recognition. "Rack. But how did you know about that?"
Angel scratched his head. "Well you guys called me, said that Willow was in deep trouble and that there was this warlock causing chaos in Sunnydale and that you would need my help for a ritual to stop him."
Buffy continued to stare at him confusedly. She turned to Tara. "What's going on? You guys found a ritual to stop Rack and you didn't tell me? You called Angel and you didn't tell me?!" her voice was growing with disbelieving anger. Tara walked up to her nervously.
"Well we were going to tell you," Tara paused and quickly glanced over at Spike who was darkly puffing on a cigarette. "But we . . . we didn't even know that Angel was coming today." She looked up at Angel. "Hi, I'm Tara," she said shyly, offering a hand. Angel smiled briefly and shook it.
Buffy was looking at a grave Spike, who leaned against a tree in his usual fashion. Was he in on this too? She wondered.
"Why don't we go inside," Angel said to break the ominous silence and inauspicious discomfort. He noticed the look Buffy gave Spike and was worried. He didn't make a reaction to it however, only motioned towards the door where Xander and Anya stood waiting. Tara and Dawn followed him as he went into the house, but Buffy remained behind, staring a little wistfully at a motionless Spike.
"Do you want to come . . .' Buffy's voice faded as she motioned towards the house. Spike's face met hers and she could find detect expression of tense anger and more unusually, fear. He pursed his lips and flicked his cigarette.
"Naw, I don't really think I'm down for swapping stories for Peaches and the old gang tonight. I think I'll head home and catch Dawson's."
Buffy's eyes burned into him worriedly and Spike felt his unbeating heart thaw just a bit. But he was determined as he gave her a reassuring smile and said, "Don't worry Slayer, I'll see you tomorrow." He then drifted back into the night, his duster sweeping behind him morosely. Buffy paused a bit, trying to find his shadow before he disappeared completely into the darkness, her heart aching. She then sighed and walked back into the house.


Chapter 17: Things Have Changed

"So then the Pyleans made me their queen and worshipped me, which made for quite the ego-booster. Of course, we found that they weren't totally cool, them imprisoning, not to mention torturing Fred and all. But hey, at least they had good taste in their royalty huh?" Cordy flashed a bright smile as Xander shook his head in disbelief while Anya clutched nervously to his arm.
"Wow, I told you that out of all the senior superlatives, the one called "Most Likely to Be a Hell Queen" belonged to you, Cordelia," Xander was saying, a hint of sarcasm draining into his voice. Expecting Cordy to hit him back with a sardonic witticism, she just returned his snide comment with a slight smile.
"Oh how I've missed you Xander," she said drolly.
"Right back at ya, Cord," Xander said with a wink.
"See, I am not intimidated by that slight exchange," Anya said brightly, waving her hands. "Although you were once the supreme ruler of a far off dimension, I am the one who Xander has chosen as his procreational playmate, and therefore I choose to ignore what might be perceived as sexually-charged flirting between two formerly involved people." Anya smiled proudly as Cordy stared astounded.
"As if dating me wasn't enough for you Xan, this one sets a precedent," Cordy remarked, dazed and shaking her head. Anya beamed, taking that as a compliment.
Buffy walked in rather somberly, looking over her shoulder out the door. Angel, sitting on the couch, noticed it and gingerly rubbed his hands back and forth in discomfort. She turned and was astonished to be greeted by a warm Cordy.
"Cordelia!" she exclaimed as the ex-cheerleader caught her in a hug. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh I'm just here to help Angel," she said. Buffy frowned slightly, and turned to look at a twitching Angel.
"So basically everyone and their mother knew about this ritual and I didn't," she mumbled. She put her hands to her hips. "Why is that exactly?"
"We weren't exactly sure if we could have the proper ingredients and materials for the ritual," Tara tried to explain weakly, lugging a book up from the table. "You see, it's an incredibly difficult spell that might have dangerous consequences if we aren't extremely careful."
Buffy sank into the couch, next to Angel, them both gingerly scooting away from each other. "What exactly does this ritual do?" she asked, varying her timid glance from him to the Scoobies.
"It makes a warlock or a witch like Rack fully mortal," Tara explained as she leafed through the book and Buffy's eyes widened.
"Mortal? As in totally killable? Hack his internal organs into a million tiny pieces killable?"
"Yup," Xander said with his arm around Anya. "Isn't it the pick-me-up of the year?"
Buffy got up and paced. "I can't believe this! This is great! We're finally out of the woods!"
"It's not as easy as all that Buffy," Angel said quietly from the couch. "Any ritual calling for my blo . . . the blood of a vampire with a soul as the high probability of running amuck."
Buffy looked thoughtfully at him. "So that's why you're here." She paused once more to peer into his dark, brooding eyes. She turned to Tara. "How'd you guys dig up this ritual?"
Before Tara could respond, Anya interrupted her. "Spike found the ritual, something out of his bawdy tales of yore. Quite a piece of luck actually, since he remembered the ritual and right at the same time we got the concentric amulet in."
Buffy was shocked. "Spike found this ritual?" she squeaked.
'He was the one who called us Buffy," Cordy added. "It was hard to figure out it was him, he almost sounded like Giles with laryngitis on the phone."
"Spike called you guys?" Buffy continued to question, stupefied.
Angel could detect a strange tone in Buffy's voice. "Yeah, he said it was incredibly important."
"It was so weird, I mean, last time I saw him he was all 'death-rocks-long-live-carnal-violence," Cordy reflected. Buffy stood stock-still, trying to comprehend it all.
Spike had found the ritual. Why hadn't he told her? Was he trying to keep her away from Angel? She reflected on this angrily. But at the same time, she would have never even have thought that Spike could call Angel for something like this. He would have chewn off his right arm rather than see his grand-sire again. But he had done it. He had done it for Willow. He had done it for her.
"Buffy," Angel said softly, trying to draw her out of her reflective trance.
"Huh?" Buffy snapped to attention. "Oh." She strode back to the middle of the room and placed her hands on hips. "So tell me more about this ritual."
A response was loudly cut off by the sound of wailing upstairs. "Oh that's Conner!" Cordy exclaimed, running upstairs to get him.
"Who's Conner?" Buffy asked, perplexed. Xander was about to rushedly answer; his eyes goggled with excitement. Angel interrupted him.
"H-He's Wesley's kid," Angel said, voice strained.
Buffy frowned. "Wesley? Bookish, watcher Wesley actually got a girl to impregnate?"
Xander, shocked, opened him mouth wide to add something, but a fierce look from Angel silenced him.
"Look who it is," Cordy cooed as she brought down a swaddled, soft bundle. Angel's eyes lit up immediately.
Buffy wavered a bit, peeking over to see Conner's full, pudgy face. "Oh my gosh, he's so beautiful," she exclaimed, standing over Conner.
"Isn't he?" Cordy's face shone with love, and something burned in Angel when he saw that. "Did Angel tell you about---"
"About how Conner, this lovable infant here is Wesley's son?" Xander brusquely interrupted, prompting more stormy glances from Angel.
"Wesley's?!" Cordy looked with wide eyes to Angel who gave her a solemn look that sobered her. She understood. "Oh right, Wesley. Yeah, um, this is Conner, Wesley's son."
Buffy was still confused. "Who's the mother?"
"Umm, um, Fred!" Cordy said in a desperate attempt to protect Angel.
"Fred?" Anya wrinkled her nose. "Isn't that the girl you like, just saved from that alternate universe?"
"Oh, but she and Wesley hit it right off," Cordy tried to muster casually. "They met each other and POW. Going at it like bunnies they were."
"They were attacking each other like those bloodsucking mutants of death?!" Anya screeched, clinging to Xander, who merely patted her into tranquility. Cordy looked puzzled. Angel looked relieved.
"Let me hold him," Buffy urged, lightly kissing Conner's smooth forehead. Smiling, Cordy sat down on the couch while Buffy sat next to her and gingerly took Conner from her arms. Angel watched from where he stood quietly, absorbing the scene with both pleasure and pain. Here were the two most important women in his life sitting side by side, leaning in together to fawn over his child. Things had certainly changed.



Angel sat on the back porch in the darkness, soaking in the cool air and stillness. Sighing he looked up to the star-spotted sky and gripped his hands tightly. He was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he had not heard Cordy's quiet, catlike steps on the porch.
"Rough night huh?" she said quietly, sinking down to sit on the step next to him.
He shrugged. "I've had worse. I mean, sitting in a house with pizza and the Scoobs is rough, but not as harsh as battling the next Apocalypse."
"Coulda fooled me," Cordy remarked, swinging her hair aside. "That was some major tension right there. You would need like, a 20-pound ax to cut through the tension that was in that room."
Angel laughed. "Yeah, it was kind of awkward."
"Awkward?" Cordy looked at him sideways with astonishment. "In between the obvious vibes between you and Buffy, Xander's bubbling idiocy, Anya's amazing capacity for randomness and Conners' apparently new identity as Welsey's offspring, I'm thinking it made for a night quite unlike any night seen here in Sunnyhell. And that's saying a lot." Angel continued to laugh, feeling more at ease. He turned to smile earnestly at Cordy, which was reciprocated with her smiling back.
"I just couldn't tell her the truth about Conner, not just yet. I feel like we should be alone, have time to talk it out," Angel quietly reflected.
"I understand."
They sat silently for awhile, just smiling at each other until they heard Buffy yell at Dawn for breaking a dish. Angel's grin faded as soon as he heard Buffy's voice.
"Still hard?" Cordy asked gently.
Angel half-frowned. "I don't think 'easy' is a word that will ever describe my relationship with Buffy."
"Relationship?" Cordy's eyebrows raised as the word was said with caution.
Angel looked again at Cordy. He sighed. "Yeah, you're probably right. There's no relationship left between us." He straightened as he clasped his hands thoughtfully. "Well, that's not entirely true. I don't think that things will ever be over between me and Buffy,"-- he looked meaningfully into Cordy's eyes as he said it, "but I don't think that it will ever be anything more than that either."
Buffy watched Angel and Cordy on the steps from the kitchen window as she washed dishes. Part of her felt slightly pricked, as if someone was pinching her with a pin right in the middle of her heart. She didn't know why the way they sat---Angel and Cordy, reminded her of something. They looked so peaceful, so quiet and at ease with each other, not the agitated Angel Buffy had fidgeted around all evening. With Cordy he was grinning slightly, less tense, even less broody, more . . . himself. Then it hit her. They reminded her of Spike and herself.
Many times had Spike and Buffy sat perched on the back stoop, just gazing out into the night sky, not needing to say a word, but feeling comfort just in each other's presence. They often felt like the only two people in the world at those moments, and that was the only time when they truly made sense.
Watching Angel and Cordy sit and whisper so intimately tugged painfully at Buffy's heartstrings, but more than that, it brought to her attention the perplexing situation of Spike. Why had he not told her about this ritual? What would she do with him now that Angel was in town? How would Angel affect things with Spike? What exactly were 'things' with Spike? Buffy sighed as she rinsed the last plate. "A possessed Wiccan is one thing," she muttered. "But being involved with both of the two scourges of Europe? Nice going Buff."

Chapter 18: Working Together

Buffy stood in the chilly, piercing silence of the graveyard. She was standing all alone, hearing the wail of a small, indistinct voice of a child far off in the distance. As she tried to whirl around, her stake raised in hand to find the source of the cry, she suddenly saw Angel off in the distance, holding a wailing Conner. Angel looked up from Conner and smiled at her mysteriously saying," Why weren't you there Buffy? This . . ." he held up Conner, "this could have been yours. You lost your chance. Conner will never be yours." Buffy, perplexed, tried to move towards him, but found herself unable to move past an invisible barrier separating the two. She called to him, pitching her head up in confusion.
"Angel! What do you mean?" she screamed, but he continued to smile, walking slowly backwards into the mist. Just that moment, Buffy could detect the bright sheen of Spike's hair, bobbing into sight from the darkness. He strode up to Buffy and cocked his head at her while he smirked. Buffy merely gaped at him, trying to ease an explanation out of him. "Spike, what's going on, what's happening?"
Spike laughed harshly. "Hate to agree with Ol' Poofter, pet, but you lost your chance for explanations . . ." Suddenly shifting into game face, he lunged towards her, sinking his fangs into Buffy's neck as she tried, but to no avail to scream out. Dropping her to the ground, he continued smirking, wiping her lingering blood off his face lazily. He walked over towards Angel and both gazed down at her with laughing pity, as she looked wide-eyed towards them with horror. "You're right Peaches," Spike was saying, laying a causal arm across Angel's shoulder. "The only way to kill her is to love her . . . and leave her."
Buffy sprang up in bed, panting roughly and covered with a cold sweat that left a damp outline in her sheets and on her skin. She ran one shaking hand through her hair as she tried to calm her breathing. Still overcome with gasps, she went downstairs to get a drink of water.
She walked into the lighted kitchen, surprised to see Tara up, a steaming mug in her hands, looking down at a thick book. "Tara, what are you doing up?" she yawned.
Tara looked up gently. "Buffy," she said, surprised, closing the large volume with a thud. "I'm up, just looking over this ritual." She cocked her head, concerned. "What's your excuse?"
Buffy sighed as she grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. "Just thirsty," she lied, not wanting to think about her nightmare. "So what about this ritual anyway, I mean I know we talked about it tonight, but I think we were all a little more focused on the intense fun of blazing awkwardness."
Tara smiled sympathetically. "Was it that bad?"
Buffy plopped into a chair. "If by bad you mean gut-wrenchingly nerve-racking and conducive to nausea, then yeah." She sighed. "I just don't know how to feel about Angel being back. I mean, I know I just saw him, but . . . that was no picnic in itself you know?" her voice lingered and faded with apprehension. She looked up and gazed at Tara absently. "And Spike . . . I just don't understand why he wouldn't tell me about something as important as this" Her eyes hardened with anger. "I mean, how could he hide something like this from me?"
Tara shrugged. "I got the feeling he and Angel are not the best of buds."
Buffy nodded knowingly. "That's putting it lightly. I don't know how I'll handle both of them at the same time. After all of this is over, I'm expecting a mess of dust scattered all over my front lawn."
Tara laughed. "Yeah well, I hope they can stand each other enough not to ruin this ritual." Her face turned more serious. "Because from the looks of it, it seems like we're going to need as much cooperation between those two vamps as we can get."
Buffy frowned worriedly. "Well how serious is this whole thing going to get?"
"Well for one thing, it's assumed that Rack's powers have gotten stronger the more chaos ensues in Sunnydale. So it will be all that harder to find his coven. He'll use his powers to make in incredibly difficult for even a demon to sniff out. So we'll need both Spike and Angel on that one." Buffy groaned. "And the actual ritual itself will be dangerous enough as it is. Angel was right when he said that any ritual involving an ingredient as obscure as the blood of a vampire with a soul is bound to have risks a'plenty."
"Risks being?" Buffy's frown burrowed deeper.
"Well . . . a person being currently possessed by Rack will have to be present . . ."
"Willow."
Tara ducked her head and replied softly, "Yeah. Willow will need to be there for spirit transference. And the ritual has to be done at a particular time, the moment Venus rises in the sky due East. If the ritual is done wrong or at the improper time . . ."
Buffy's eyebrows raised in concern. "Tara?"
Tara sighed deeply. "Willow could die, Buffy."
Buffy was silent at her words. "She could die now Tara, if we don't do something," she reasoned softly.
Tara got up from her chair and neared Buffy. "No---not only Willow . . . all the others Rack has touched. And Rack will remain unharmed. He'll be better than unharmed. He'll go from sorcerer to . . . a god."
Buffy gaped at her. "A god . . . a god like Glory?" Tara nodded seriously.
"He'll after that will never be able to be touched and he'll have more than enough power to open the Hellmouth, causing Hell on earth."
"Not again," Buffy muttered. "I just went through this like, months ago." She sighed. "Tell me again why we're choosing this potentially Hadean kicker of a spell anyway?"
"It's the only one we could find for a situation like this," Tara explained, looking deeply into Buffy's eyes. "This is the biggest chance we have for saving Willow." Buffy recognized the look of pure fear and shaded optimism in Tara's eyes and nodded slowly.
"Okay," she sighed. "So what do we do?"
"Well this is something that we again need both Spike and Angel for. If Rack has any idea what we're doing, he'll try to call his legion to him to fight us. Spike and Angel will have to make sure this doesn't happen or it will complicate the spell immensely."
"And we don't kill them?" Buffy asked critically.
"No," Tara agreed. "We do have to keep them under control though, it will be hard to fight them, with Rack making them incredibly, super-human strong and all."
"So I can take care of it," Buffy said insistently, slightly anxious at the prospect of Spike and Angel working side by side.
Tara shook her head with concern. "Buffy, you're going to need all the help you can get. These wiccans are going to be really powerfully possessed. Remember Willow?"
Buffy sighed. "Yeah, I guess you're right. So when does this ritual go down?"
Tara spoke grimly. "I've looked up the next sighting of Venus due East. It begins tomorrow night."
"Tomorrow night?" squeaked Buffy. "That doesn't give us much time."
"Exactly. Which is why we have to start preparing now."
Buffy looked lost in contemplation. "Tara," she suddenly piped up, "Will you make sure Dawn gets to school this morning?"
"Sure. Why, what are you going to do?
Buffy was tugging a long coat over her skimpy nightie and heading out the door. "I'm going to find Spike and Angel."



Spike growled fiercely as he sat up, basking in the midnight glow of radiation emitted from his idiot box. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't concentrate on his favorite infomercial, spouting on and on about the virtues of the Thunderstick blender. His mind kept turning to the sight of Angel and Buffy, arms clasped around each other. Each time he remembered the sight, he felt as if a stake had been plunged into his chest, the wood splintering his unbeating heart. He had tried to drown his memories in a couple pints of Jack Daniels, but it just made him drunkenly antagonized.
Finally, out of rage, he threw an empty bottle at the T.V., causing it to shatter and spark. "Bloody hell," he screamed. "Why the hell did that wanker have to come back after all?!!" He got up, swaying and pacing about his crypt. "Ohh," he slurred to himself. "It's cause you called him, you wanker." Groaning he collapsed onto his sarcophagus and sunk his head into his arms. "God, Spike, what 'ave you done? Ish is all your fault y'know. He's goona get back together with her, she'll get back together with him, and they'll have plenty o' namby pamby, beautiful buggers, and live in a 'ouse with a picket fence . . . She and he'll be smilin' like bloody shiny happy people, and you'll be dust in no flat, him and 'er standing over yer remains, cackling and laughin' their bloody love-addled heads off," he mumbled incoherently.
Shaken, tears were rolling down his slack face as he stumbled up and grabbed an empty bottle of whisky, desperately trying to seek the dregs at the bottom of the bottle. Finding no relief, he screamed again, throwing it to the wall and stumbling again when he heard it shatter. "This is no good," he sighed, "If I need to get m' mind off of 'er, maybe a little killing is called for." Grabbing a stake and dagger, he crookedly walked out of his crypt, leaving the door swinging. He floundered across the graveyard, grabbing onto any tombstone for support. He tripped and was about to collapse completely if it wasn't a leather-sleeved arm to catch him and hold him steady. Spike bobbed his head up to gaze up at the helpful stranger and his glazed eyes met Angel's dark, fiery ones. Spike chuckled, forcefully pushing off Angel as he staggered back and collapsed on his butt onto the grass.
"Spike? Drunk? I guess some things never change." Angel glared at Spike.
"Anshel," Spike garbled. "Just the bleedin' pooker Ish wanted to see." Spike struggled to get his shaky legs under him but he stumbled again, steadying himself by placing a hand on Angel's chest. "You n' me, Peaches, we're gonna duke it out, see?"
Angel laughed louder, more harshly. "Fight? Fight for what?"
Spike cocked his head. "Oh right, like you dun know."
Angel amusedly shook his head. "Poor desperate Spike. I guess this about Buffy huh? I heard you've been pining for her all these months." He pushed Spike off of him again, sending him flailing onto the ground, his duster billowing out behind him. Angel glowered over him. "You called me Buffy-whipped? Look at you. A sniveling, powerless vamp who doesn't have a soul but can't even hurt a fly anyway."
Spike flew at him, grabbing fistfuls of Angel's shirt to hold him up. "I could 'urt you mate. I could stake you into neat little piles."
Angel once again shoved him off. "You're so pathetic Spike. Groveling over Buffy who will never want you."
"Much you know 'bout it," Spike muttered smugly.
"What?" Angel was taken aback but tried not to show it.
Spike straightened himself up. "That's right Peaches. Anyone coulda convinced me months ago that Bwuffy woulda never giv'n me a second look if only to stake me when she got back . . ." He smirked. "But that ain't the case now is it?"
Angel grabbed his duster collar. "What the hell are you talking about Spike?
Spike chuckled harder, his head swinging from side to side. "I hope the irony isn't lost on you, Soul-Boy. You took Drusilla from me, what was I supposed to do but 'it you were it hurt?" Angel gaped silently at Spike for a few minutes before launching upon him, seizing him by the collar and throwing him across the graveyard into a tombstone. Running up to him, he picked up Spike again and punched him across the face. Spike just spit up blood and smiled crookedly at him again.
"I knew that get you, Peaches. Course I figured you knew 'bout us the moment you stepped out o' the door. You can be as intuitive as I am, y'know." He grinned fiercely when Angel winced in reaction to that little word---us.
"Spike, what have you done to her?" Angel growled. "I swear, if you've hurt her, I'll kill you so fast---"
"Relax Poof," Spike drawled, backing away. "I haven't done anything to your Princhessh." He scowled as he said the words. "Thought I could handle 'er, but I did the most unlikely thing." He turned and looked Angel squarely in the eyes. "I fell in love with her."
Angel, uncomfortable backed away slightly, removing his glance from Spike's. "Spike . . ." he said, with hints of rage in his voice.
Spike sighed painfully, as if his lifeless chest suddenly got tight. "You don't have to say it. I couldn't hurt Blondie if I tried. But God" he said, shaking his head, " . . . the number she's done on me."
Angel laughed harshly. "You expect me to feel sorry for you?"
Spike gazed at him again, a surprising expression of sadness and weariness coloring his face. "Not sorry. Though sometimes I feel sorry for you."
Angel was beyond shocked. "You feel sorry for me?"
Spike shrugged as he sank down to sit against a tombstone. "I 'ate you more than anything Peaches. But at least we 'ave somethin' in common."
Angel recoiled from his words. "We have nothing in common, Spike. I'm nothing like you."
"Apart from an inclination to the finer palate o' plasma, I didn't think so neither. But we do, you know. It's that bloody bitch Summers. She's in both of our systems, eatin' away at it, poisoning everything in us. Until there's nothin' left . . . only 'er and her bloody shining hair and her insipidly beautiful smile," Spike shook his head, by now ignoring Angel. "In all my years of unlife, I never felt so dead before as when she was gone." Pursing his lips, he gazed back up at Angel, who stood above him, conflicted and confused. "You know what that's like. Face it Peaches . . . the moment we both fell for Buffy Summers, we were plagued for the rest of soddin' immortality." Spike felt around in his duster for a silver flask, which he promptly opened and gulped deeply from.
Angel was speechless. He had never seen Spike like this. The thought of Spike and Buffy together revolted him beyond belief, but he had to admit that something in Spike had changed. He had to have changed to even think of calling Angel back to Sunnydale. And the fact that Spike as yet hadn't done as much as roughed Angel up a bit certainly spoke volumes. But more than that, Angel understood the reason Spike had drunk himself into such a stupor. He understood the pain of loving Buffy. Surprising both himself and Spike, he collapsed next to the blond vampire. "Give me some," he grumbled motioning to the flask, which Spike handed over in a surprised haze. They sat there awhile, exchanging the flasks back and forth in a strange, sulking camaraderie as they both thought of Buffy.
"So you and Buffy huh?" Angel said testily.
Spike snorted. "I wish." He turned to Angel. "You know you'll always have her bleedin heart at your disposal, Poofter." Angel looked down at his childe, not knowing whether he wanted to hear this or not. Suddenly, Angel could detect a flash of golden hair in the moonlight as well as the sheen of two honeyed legs stalking up to where he was.
"Angel!" Buffy yelled as she approached the two. Angel, still alert sprang up and walked over to her in concern.
"Buffy what is it?"
"Have you seen Spike?" she asked, but before he could answer, she had looked over her shoulder and saw Spike, collapsed on a headstone with blood on his lip. She backed away from Angel in anger. "What have you done to him?" she demanded.
"Wha-Buffy, I haven't done anything!" he insisted, but was promptly cut off with Buffy's fist connecting with his nose. "OWWW!"
Buffy gritted her teeth. "Ok Angel, this is the second time you've shown up here and roughhoused my . . ." she paused panickedly, trying to chose the appropriate words. "One of my friends," she finished weakly.
"Since when is Spike your friend?" Angel scoffed, but Buffy's attention was drawn by Spike calling for her meekly.
"Buffy is that you?"
"Spike!" Buffy walked over to him and leaned down to inspect him. "Are you okay? What did Angel do to you?"
"Wha-Angel did no---" Spike eyes widened before his face fell into a smirk. "Oh Angel here beat me up real bad," he whined. "No provocation on my part, he just showed up here and tried to beat me into a bloody pulp."
"What?!" Angel exploded. "Buffy that's not true! Besides what do you care if Spike dies, much less gets a boo-boo?!"
Buffy placed her hands on her hips, baring her scantily clothed body from her long leather coat. "Look you two---" she firmly started before noticing Angel and Spike's wide eyes and longing stares at her form. She abruptly wrapped the coat tight around her, breaking their glances. "I don't need you guys throwing temper tantrums and getting into hissy fits, especially now. We have something incredibly important to do, and we need you guys to cooperate. This ritual that we are going to do tomorrow---"
"Tomorrow?" both Angel and Spike said in surprise.
"Tomorrow," Buffy continued. "The ritual requires that you two work together. NO fighting."
"He started it," Angel mumbled. Buffy turned to glare at him.
"Enough." She exclaimed angrily. "You two WILL work together or you'll have to answer to me." With that she turned and stalked back into the night. Astounded, both Spike and Angel looked in her direction with admiration.
"God," Spike sighed, shaking his head with amazement. "Is that not the most beautiful woman you've ever seen?" Angel gazed back at Buffy, her billowing coat still visible. The whole while, he was thinking of Cordelia and the way she always looked soft and glowing when she held Conner. Snapping back to attention, he turned to a still transfixed Spike and grabbed his flask away from him.
"Let's go Spike," he snarled, walking away with Spike soon to follow.

Chapter 19: Future Faces Past

"I've got the shrunken goats heads and the chameleon feet," Anya sang loudly, sounding as if she was bringing bundles of gifts and sweets for all. Xander made a face as Anya dumped the large box of limbs and dismembered bodies into the middle of the table at the Magic Box.
"It's like we're making a big pot of ugly for this ritual," Xander gagged.
"Oh this isn't for the ritual," Anya corrected him as she began to dig through the box. "This is for the party favors for the wedding."
Cordy wrinkled her nose from where she was sitting, feeding Conner. "Funny Xander, back in the day, I used to imagine our wedding would have a little less mutilated animal parts, more tea roses," she said, slyly with a twinkle in her eye and suppressed a giggle as Anya's head shot up alarmingly and Xander sputtered. He frantically looked back and forth from Anya's hardened eyes to Cordy's amused ones. Right before Xander could burst from the thick tension, Anya laughed, a series of fake, high-pitched giggles that caught both Cordy and Xander taken aback.
"As highly infuriating as that little comment is and as inclined I am to take you off of the guest list right now, I know it's all in joking fun. Besides, it is thankfully apparent that you are already involved and hence hold no threat to my matrimonial plans."
"Wait," Cordy said shaking her head. "What made you think I'm involved with someone? I'm not involved with anyone."
Anya had turned her attentions to scanning the guest list again. "Really? So what's with the sparkity-spark-sparks you got going on with Angel?"
Xander turned excitedly to Cordy, thankful that Anya had turned her unnerving probing to anyone besides him. "Yeah what's up with that? You guys obviously got something going on."
Cordy looked shocked and speechless. "A-Angel?!" she sputtered. "I AM NOT involved with Angel!"
Anya looked at her absently. "I know you and I don't really know each other Cordelia, but you remember that I was a vengeance demon for roughly a thousand years. So I can totally spot forbidden sparkage."
"That she can." Xander was happy to show support for his fiancée, as long as it distracted Anya from the fact that him and Cordelia's history
Cordy continued to have an expression of sheer terror mixed with shock at what Anya was implying. "Puh-leassee," Cordy scoffed. "Angel and I just work together."
"So you get paid by the hour for following Angel all the way back to Sunnydale to help his ex-girlfriend?" Xander said with deadpan sarcasm.
"No! I mean yes! I mean, I'm Angel's co-worker and friend," Cordy stammered. "I came here to help him as a friend. That does not mean we are 'involved." She wrinkled her nose at the word. "Besides, is everyone forgetting that Angel still carries the torch for Buffy and probably always will."
"Yes but Buffy's gay," Anya said a-matter-of-factly. "Maybe Angel can sense that and is drawn to you, a heterosexual woman."
Cordy shook her head resolutely. "No way. Angel is not drawn to me. Angel can't sense anything!"
"I can't sense what?" Angel asked, striding into the Magic Box, pausing to smile down at Conner and Cordy. Cordy looked obviously agitated and shaken as she rushed out of her chair, dumping Conner into Angel's arms.
"Um, sense, um . . . how wonderful it will be to be Xander's best man at his wedding," Cordy stammered, coming up with something off the top of her head while Xander got up in panic. Angel raised an eyebrow.
"You're right, I can't sense that," said he, shaking his head. "So Cordy---"
"Um, I have to go," Cordy interrupted him, her cheeks suddenly burning a crimson shade.
"Go?" Angel looked confused. "Go where?"
"See . . . people." Cordy rushed out the door with a bang, leaving Angel confused.
"What was that about?" Anya and Xander shrugged. Angel sighed. "So where is everybody, I thought we were going to get started preparing for the ritual."
"Buffy's training, preparing for the good fight," Xander said, cocking his head in the direction of the training room. "Tara is at her place, gathering some witchy dealies for the spell, and Dawn is with Spike."
Angel raised an eyebrow. "Spike? Dawn? Does Buffy know about this?"
"Oh Buffy knows about it. Spike takes care of Buffy all the time. When she died, Dawn was mostly left to Spike's care," Anya reported. "Plus Dawn adores Spike. Treats him like a big brother." Xander snorted, disgusted. Angel looked equally disturbed. Ever since he came back to town, it looked like Spike had firmly established a place and role in both the Scoobies and Buffy's life. And as much as it looked like Spike had truly changed, Angel still couldn't bring himself to trust him. Suddenly Buffy entered from the training room, clutching a bottle of water.
"Oh it's Conner!" she gushed as she saw Angel cradling the plump child. She peered into his gurgling, smiling face. "He's so cute!"
"Yeah, he doesn't even look anything like Angel does he?" Anya suddenly piped up as she distractedly wrapped the heads and feet in tissue paper. Xander, Angel and Buffy whirled around to stare at her.
"Why would he look like Angel?" Buffy asked, furrowing her brows. Angel glared at Anya threateningly which she failed to notice.
"Well it would make sense, Conner being Angel's son and all----" Anya said, but was soon interrupted by Xander clamping one hand across her mouth, but it was too late. Buffy visibly paled and Angel turned to look at her with panic.
"Okay Anya? When we become man and wife, the things I tell you in my loopy post-sex state can never be revealed." Xander exclaimed emphatically to a non-repentant Anya.
"Well its time that we all get honest here," Anya whined. "I'm tired of all the unneeded stress of having to bite my tongue about all these secrets. Conner being Angel's son, Buffy being gay . . ."
"WHAT?!" Angel and Buffy yelled in unison.
"Oh yeah, Buffy's homosexual," Anya nodded affirmatively. "With Tara." Xander groaned. Angel turned in shock to Buffy who just glared at Anya.
"I'm NOT GAY." Buffy scowled.
"Denial. Not coming out of the closet. Typical gay," Anya said flippantly. Buffy sighed in frustration.
"Look Anya, you must have been sniffing the glue on the wedding invitations. I'm not gay and Conner is not Angel's son." Angel almost unconsciously cleared his throat, which prompted shocked stares from Buffy. Her mouth opened in horror and she felt something in her stomach drop. "You mean . . ." Angel's serious eyes confirmed her fears. Buffy continued to stand there, shocked breaths filling her lungs until it became too much for her. "Excuse me," she mumbled as she fled back to the training room.
Angel panicked and asked Xander to take Conner as he rushed back to the room as well. He found Buffy sitting on the edge of a couch, her hands in her arms. She looked up, tears staining her lovely face. "Why didn't you tell me?" she whispered.
Angel sighed and sank down next to her. "I wanted to find the right time. I didn't want to lie to you about Wesley being the father, but I just couldn't tell you with all those people around."
"So instead you just go and tell Xander?" she said angrily.
"I didn't tell him. I guess Cordy did."
Buffy sighed. "Angel how did this happen?" Her eyes carried an agonized look that hurt Angel in the gut to see it.
"I can't explain Buffy."
"The mother?"
"Darla."
Buffy leapt from the couch. She paced around the room, tears continuing to well in her eyes. "I just don't understand this," she said. "You c-can't have children. You're a vampire."
Angel continued to gaze at her deeply from the couch. "I told you I can't explain it Buffy," he said shaking his head.
"Well try!" she yelled, whirling around to face him. "You don't understand, that child . . . Conner . . . that was supposed to be mine." Her voice broke slightly. "That was supposed to happen for us."
"Buffy . . ." Angel started but could not think of a single word to say. This was beyond him. Buffy looked hard and long at him, and she saw something in his face that made her know that he was sorry, but more than that, that he understood. She sighed tiredly as she sank back into the couch.
"Look Angel, I know we drifted apart a long time ago, even before you left for L.A.," Buffy stated softly, gazing down at her hands. "But . . . a part of me . . . I guess the part of every person who still jones after their first love . . ." she looked up and gazed deeply into his eyes. "Saw you holding Conner and wanted so much for that to be my child." She choked back tears and shook her head slowly back and forth, but was determined to finish. "God," she breathed, "I had such plans for us, but I wouldn't even let myself dream them." Angel shifted uncomfortably. "You weren't supposed to be able to have children . . . ever. We held off on so many things because of . . . what you were." She resumed her back-and-forth motion from sitting down to standing up again. "But the moment you get to L.A. you suddenly get to have this wonderful, beautiful, bundle of joy . . . with Darla of all people, or sorry, umm, demonic, hate-filled, un-people??"
"Buffy . . ."
"No, Angel let me finish. You being able to have Conner is an amazing thing. A wonderful, miraculous thing. I'm happy for you. But at the same time it just shows me how far off you really have become. You have this whole separate life I can't understand."
"I know Buffy but . . ."
"But more than that," Buffy's voice wavered, "Seeing Conner reminds me that you left. You left, Angel. That was so hard for me to recover from. I mean, I've dealt with it now . . . but . . . seeing you with this great new life just reminds me of what we could have had if you hadn't left." Tears were running down her face now and Angel approached her slowly, lightly putting his hands on her shoulders.
"Buffy you know that's not what would have happened," he started gently.
"I know," she sighed, brushing her tears away before gazing back into his eyes. "But Angel . . . do you think that things . . . would have been different if you hadn't left?"
Angel sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "We'll never know." He squinted. "But Buffy . . . you know that it wasn't a sudden thing . . . you . . . we were probably over long before that."
Buffy stiffened slightly. "W-Why Angel? What happened to us?" She shook her head in ponderance. She bit her lip as she vocalized one of her deathliest fears. "Was it m-me?"
Angel gaped at her. "You? No Buffy of course no---"
"Well then what was it? Because according my track record, I really don't have a good history of men staying. Maybe it's me, its something about me."
Angel gripped her tightly. "You know that wasn't the reason Buffy. I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to hurt you. I love---loved you," he corrected gently, "more than anything. But you know it wasn't going to work, that it would have just hurt more in the end if I had stayed."
Buffy nodded, but her voice broke once more as she said, "I know, Angel . . . but you were," her voice got softer, gentler, "my first love."
Angel eyes flashed silently with pain as he twined his arms around her, one hand cupping the back of her head that was buried in his chest. "I know Buffy," he whispered. "You were mine too." He paused to look down at her as she broke apart from his chest. "In all my 200 something years of existence, you were my first love, Buffy Summers."
She smiled softly and remained his arms for moments that seemed to stretch for eternity. It felt good, finally for her to be back where it had all started and for her to finally deal with the end of something that had given part of her much pain through the years. She needed closure.
"You still my girl?" Angel asked, a tone of familiarity and comfort in his voice. It seemed that the words were less about the past, more about an understanding.
"Always," she replied. And she meant it. She knew that somewhere in her heart, Angel would claim a small space. Suddenly, she found herself gazing down at his lips. His eyes followed suit and gazed down at hers, and he sighed an unnecessary breath.
"Buffy . . ." Angel started in a voice full of caution.
"Shhh." Buffy placed a finger on Angel's lips as she continued to near them. "Just one last time, just so we know it's really over." Angel nodded, and he ducked to meet her. His lips brushed hers and she pressed a little firmer, although still remaining soft and gentle. It felt good to touch him, and it made her feel better to have the lack of fire burning within her, instead replaced by a sort of sad fondness, a bittersweet goodbye. She knew through his touch that he felt the same thing. Just they were about to part, they both heard a whispered, "Bloody hell," from the door.
Whirling around, Buffy turned deathly pale as her face met an equally pallored Spike and a stoic Dawn, scowling at both Angel and her sister. Angel looked with concern over at Buffy, but her eyes were locked on Spike's horrified, saddened expression. Much to her dismay, she couldn't detect a note of anger in his face, his features taken over completely with morose shock. He started out the door frantically, breaking the intense glance and Dawn started to follow him, only turning to administer a venomous glare to Angel and Buffy. Buffy tried to choke out a word, but her throat felt completely taken over by stifled tears, so instead she ran out of the room, leaving a very confused Angel.



"Spike, Dawn!" Buffy called, chasing the two as they stalked through the graveyard.
"Sod off, Slayer!" Spike growled with familiar fierceness.
"Yeah Buff, why don't you go back and play tonsil hockey with you're ex-boyfriend and leave me and your current boyfriend alone," Dawn snidely shot at a much-agitated Buffy.
"Dawn, go home," Buffy said quietly through clenched teeth.
"Yeah right, so you can plead forgiveness for your flaming infidelities?" She turned to Spike with squinted eyes. "Don't do it Spike, don't give her the satisfaction."
"DAWN GET OUT OF HERE, GO HOME!" Buffy screamed with such intense feeling that it left both Dawn and Spike slightly jarred. He turned to look at her under his blanket while Buffy stared right back, both of them ignoring an unruly Dawn who stomped home. Spike bit his lip to resist the urge to throw something at the lovely, saddened, tear-streaked face in front of him that he loved more than existence itself and roughly turned away, continuing to walk back to his crypt.
"Spike wait-----" Buffy started, trying to hold him back by grabbing one his blanketed arms. He threw it off and continued to stride away, his back facing her. She stood heartbreaking still for a moment before following him. "Spike, where are going, what are you doing?" she asked, voice trembling with fear. She followed him as he burst into his crypt. He leapt to get a worn duffel bag.
"I'm packing," he snapped, avoiding her eyes.
"You don't have anything to pack, you're wearing everything you own," Buffy sharply retorted.
He snorted as he grabbed the half-empty duffel bag and his blanket. "Makes it the much easier to skip town, doesn't it?" he glibbed angrily as he started for the door. Buffy stood in his way.
"Skip town? Why?" Her body was becoming increasingly panicked, she could nearly feel her heartbeat race abnormally within her.
He whirled around to face her, and Buffy could see his demon side peaking, a yellow gem flickering in the center of each of his pupils. "Why do you think Slayer? You think I want to stay here and watch you and Peaches get all lovey-dovey? I'd rather you give me a sponge bath with some holy water right now."
"You can't leave!" she yelled, fiercely grabbing him by his coat but he easily brushed her off.
"Why not? I figure you and my grand pap of a sire will be wantin' some space."
Buffy clenched her teeth. "Angel and I are not------"
"I got eyes Slayer!!!" It was Spike turn to scream now. "What, you were gonna tell me it was a mistake? You tripped and feel onto his lips?!!" Buffy stiffened. Agonized at her silence, he grabbed his blanket and headed once more for the door.
"You can't leave!" she repeated in a voice that made Spike's insides quake. "You were the one who wasn't ever supposed to leave." Turning towards her, it broke Spike to see how lost and frightened she looked. He paused, wanting so much to give in. Instead, he just gritted his teeth.
"Yeah, well that was before you and Peaches decided to set up shop together, Slayer. You think I want to stick around to see that whole circus come to town again?"
"You've stuck around for much worse," Buffy whispered, but was cut off with Spike lunging at her.
"GIVE ME A REASON TO STAY, BUFFY!!" he yelled, but making it sound less like a demand, more like a plead. Buffy stiffened as he said her real name, not the nickname 'Slayer' that she most often detested. She stared up at him, mentally flooded with reasons for him to stay. Because Dawn needs you, because the Scoobs need you . . . because I need you . . . because I lov----
"The ritual," she whispered instead, her eyes narrowing. "Tonight. We need you for the ritual. Advert apocalypse, the whole deal. So you can't just skip town cause you insist on carrying this whole macho, bruised ego thing. You have to stay and help us save Willow."
Spike stared maddeningly at her, wanting so much to smack the simpering scowl of decision off of her face, but knowing deep down that she was right. "Fine," he snarled. "Fine, I'll stay for this bloody mess, but after this, I'm leaving. At least this way, it's a win-win situation. If it's done I get to leave town anyway. If not, at least the bloody end o' the world will let this friggin plastic fantastic town o' Sunnydale be wiped off the map."
Buffy, inwardly shook at the possibility at his departure, but tried to wipe it from her mind. "Fine," she whispered. "Come to the magic box at 6. We'll have to get ready." But she remained there, both of them motionless.
"You'd better go," Spike muttered, pointing to the door, his eyes towards the floor. Tears welling up in Buffy's eyes, she silently obeyed, slowly walking out of the crypt with the door ragingly slaming behind her. Standing in front of the crypt, she could hear sound of violent crashing and bashing inside, knowing that Spike was probably destroying everything in his place. Taking a much needed and tearful intake of air, Buffy wobbled her way home.

Chapter 20: Confessions of the Much Belated Kind

"Buffy?" Tara called softly, nimbly juggling many orbs and magick ingredients in her arms. She peered into the training room where Buffy sat hunched on the couch. "Buffy?" Tara repeated, ducking her head to inspect her.
Buffy gazed up and Tara and she could see that Buffy had been silently sobbing, her eyes blurred and face swollen. Hurriedly wiping away her tears, Buffy sprang up from the couch and weakly smiled. "Ummm, what's u-up Tara?"
"Are you okay Buffy?" Tara's face shone with concern.
"I'm f-fine. How are the ritual plans going?"
"Good. Everyone is mostly here already." Following Tara out into the main shop, Buffy gazed at the whole Scooby gang, minus Spike, which both relieved and pained her.
"Look what Commando Xander's got!" Xander exclaimed, but his voice pitched slightly as Anya slapped his ass. "No, not that Commando Xander," he corrected Anya nervously. He held up a series of tasers, like the ones Spike used on Buffy that one time with Drusilla, she remembered. Memories of Spike, even sadistic ones, made Buffy ache inside slightly. "Got them from my army buds I made back when I had to stock up for Graduation Day." He frowned as he reflected on times past. "Ahh, the days of my youth, spent carefreelly battling apocalypse after apocalypse. Hmm, much like the current day. What, so this makes in end-of-world number . . .?"
"Seven," Tara, Buffy, Angel, Dawn, Cordy and Anya all chimed in unison. Xander whistled.
"We need to get like, a millionth apocalypse consolation prize. Well here you go guys, I stocked up aplenty. These should keep those possessed buggers in tandem, and plus, they're refreshingly murder-free."
"Is there one for me?" Dawn asked eagerly, fingering the load of weapons on the table. Buffy cut her a sideways glare.
"Ummm, let me speak for all when I say hell no, munchkin," Xander replied. Dawn pulled her face into a scowl. "You're a little too young to be fighting to forces of darkness here, Dawnster."
"Am not. I'm almost the age Buffy was when she became the Slayer," Dawn pointed out. "And in the last brink of apocalypse, I was key player." She almost looked proud at her role in the whole Glory debacle. "So cut me some slack here guys?"
"You can help me with the spell, Dawnie," Tara said, not looking up from her magic book. "Help me set up the ingredients and that sort." Dawn smiled happily as Buffy maintained a suspicious frown. Just then, Spike burst into the shop, glowering.
"So what, when do we get started with the killin'?" he asked brusquely, hopping up on the front table next to cash register. "I'd like to get a move on, I got other places to be." He avoided Buffy's pained glance.
"We have a couple hours until Venus rises. We have to get Willow from the hospital and prepare the ingredients." Tara's voice had acquired a sort of new, authoritative firmness to it that had before been limited to Willow and Buffy.
"Willow. But isn't she still unconscious?"
Tara nodded. "You'll have to find some way to get her out of the hospital without endangering her too much, Buffy."
"That'll be tough, considering all the nurses around and everything," Buffy pointed out, frowning.
"I can go with you, if you need help," Angel offered. Spike grunted and made it a point to get up loudly. Buffy hesitated and looked over her shoulder at a sulking Spike.
"Umm, that's okay, maybe you should stay here. We'll need someone really strong to stand guard if any of Rack's gang comes to hassle you guys. Xander, you come with me."
Xander grimaced. "As if my fiancée already doesn't do her part to thoroughly make me feel like a woman . . ." He sighed begrudgingly and followed Buffy out the door.




Xander and Buffy walked into the brisk Sunnydale night in silence. Xander, confused and often alarmed by long stretches of silence repeatedly glanced over to his side, where a hard-faced Buffy stomped alongside him.
"S-So, Buffy . . . not with the lesbiantrics, huh?" Xander cringed at his pitiful attempt to reach out to his friend. He was beginning to sound as curtly tactless as Anya.
Buffy curled her lip into a disapproving half-frown. "Xander . . . you have got to stop believing what your delusional fiancée spouts. I mean, the girl is obviously not right. She thinks Bugs Bunny's the spawn of Satan."
Xander let that one slide. "I'm sorry Buff," he sighed. "Is just that . . . we kept thinking you were hiding something from us. Ever since you came back . . . you've been totally secretive and distant."
Buffy frowned when she heard the tone of hurt and disappointment in her best friend's voice. "I know Xander," she replied quietly. "I had . . . a lot of stuff to work out." She twitched when reflecting that "stuff" included the one person Xander would have most liked to stake off the planet. She was almost crestfallen when she found that Xander had no idea about her and Spike. Not that it mattered now anyway, Buffy told herself, melancholically. "But still," she sighed, wrinkling her nose, "How did you guys ever get the idea that I was gay?"
"Well you weren't reaching out to anyone of us except Tara. And Anya was all hyper-perceptive with the perhaps overzealous gaydar in her regular, un-p.c. fashion. A guy can get confused you know!"
Buffy grinned at Xander and his endearing impishness. He smiled back, but his face grew serious. "But Buffy, really . . . what was going on? We wanted to be there for you, we really did. But you just kept pushing all of us away, even your own sister. I mean, the only people you ever talked to were Tara and Spike. If you weren't involved in something with Tara then . . .?"
Buffy had not heard him. She had stopped dead in her tracks when Xander had spoken Spike's name. The mention of him made her eyes flash with hurt and she closed them briefly when remembering his promises on skipping town. He can't do this, she was screaming to herself urgently, he can't be just one other man to do this to me again. Opening her blurred eyes as she surfaced out of her thoughts, she met Xander's face, a pallor of ghostly shock and recognition. She groaned.
"NOOOOOOOO . . . ." Xander wheezed. "Y-you and . . . S-S-Spike?????"
"Xander I don't want to talk about it . . ."
"Ugggghhh. Highly disturbing visions clouding my pleasantly homespun mind. Just think happy thoughts, Xan, think happy thoughts." He rubbed his head frantically.
"Xander, can we really focus on the task at hand?" Buffy asked urgently, pointing to the hospital they were approaching.
"Task?? Task?? My main task right now is to eliminate the very, very, very bad pictures I have of you and the blond ghoul stuck in my cranium." He clutched and clawed at his head in an exaggerated manner before turning back to her. "Buffy!!!! Spike????? What compelled you to make this frat-boy, binge drinking hangover of a mistake?!!" Xander's eyes were bulging and a vein was pumping prominently in his left temple.
Buffy sighed. "That really isn't much of your business, Xander," she snapped, walking away from the motionless Xander on the sidewalk.
"Uh yeah HUH it is! I mean, it is usually is standard that I make it my business in cases where I go kick the ass of the aforementioned person!" he cried frantically, following her.
Buffy grabbed his arm. "Xander, no," she insisted. Xander just gaped at her.
"What do you mean NO? The guy's obviously drugged you, made you turn away from your family and friends, put some crazy-ass spell on you. Or worse, he found a way to program you, just like the Buffy-bot. Damn technology and it's perverse ways!" he exclaimed.
"Are you quite finished?" Buffy glared at him pointedly. "Look Xander, I'll admit . . . me and Spike had a thing together-----" she winced as she struggled to voice the dysfunction that was her and Spike.
"And by thing you mean lots and lots of sex right?" Xander interrupted, gagging. He rolled his eyes into the back of his head dramatically. "Oh God, take me now, my apocalypse has come." He contorted his face into one of horror and disgust as a light bulb went off in his head. He started to gesticulate madly when it registered. "Oh-Oh! I don't know why I didn't see it before!" he was saying. "That time Spike brought the bra and you were all low key on the bitch meter. A-And all those time you and the demon-bleached cabana boy would pull those all-nighter patrols. And OH! . . . OHH, that time me and Anya founded a mysterious pair of girly, lacy panties in the bathroom of the Magic Box along with that lighter." His face went slack and contorted as he pictured this. "Good God of Gabby Hoffman, Buffy, that's disgusting!!! You and Spike in the . . . EWWWWWW!!!"
Buffy winced at Xander's disgust. "Please Xander, can we not talk about this right now?"
"Oh we'll be talking. No, I'll be talking, you'll be listening. Talking and listening, all in that intervention type way."
"Not this again . . ." Buffy sighed, as they entered the hospital and scanned down the halls for Willow's room.
"Oh yes, Missy, this again. This being a concerned, best friendly attempt to keep you from diving into the dank, bottomless pit of destruction. Spike, Buffy???? What is it with you and sociopathic vampires???"
Buffy narrowed her eyes into dangerous slits. "You'll just find any excuse to throw Angel back in my face, won't you?"
"Umm, Buffy, I don't think it's so much a throw as it is a sobering face kick to the consciousness. Angel tried to kill you and your friends and family. And from what I recollect, Spike attempted much of the same. All around, not a stunning display of good judgement on what's boyfriend material."
"Spike is not my boyfriend," Buffy confirmed, though she was nearly tempted to add "anymore." But then again, she was always unsure if that's what he ever was. She had always been afraid to voice that. "And besides Xander, I'm not sure you're the one who should be doling out the relationship advice," Buffy scoffed. "Cause from what I remember, your current fiancée tried her hand at the murderous-acts-of violence trip. And your only other previous relationship before that was with the campus princess who alternatively ruled as Bitch of the Earth." Buffy's voice spat with new venom.
For once Xander was speechless. "D-don't go around turning this on me Buffy," he struggled to reprimand. "I'm not the one who's regularly doing the nasty with a dead killer who prefers his lunches with the sharp tangy taste of O-neg."
"Just stop Xander, I don't want to talk about it."
Xander ignored her. Jumping in front of her, he waved a maniacally authoritative finger in her face. "Buffy, what is wrong with you? Before you were all 'Spike equals stakeworthy' and now you're all okay with makin' hay with him??" He shook his head. "Look, I know that coming back was really upsetting for you Buff, and that it made you turn to some . . . unsavory characters. And I know you're entitled to let you're aggressions out sometimes with meaningless flings, I mean, even I can boast of dabbling in that sort . . ." Xander's chest swelled with mannish pride when remembering his only one-night stand with Faith, but soon deflated when Xander glanced back at Buffy's stoic face. "But, Buffy . . . involving yourself in a fling with Spike? The guy already drools in your presence, it's not a good idea to lead him on, giving him the hope that you could even possibly care about him . . ." his voice drifted off in panicked silence as he saw Buffy's teary wide-eyes. Incredulously, he exclaimed, "BUFFFY?????"
"Xander---"
"Feelings! For Spike! Non-hatred, non-disgust, non-revulsion feelings!"
"F-feelings. Not of the big. I could have lukewarm hatred feelings! You don't know!"
"But you don't! You m-made with the face! I can tell! Y-you have romantic-y type feelings! Towards . . . SPIKE!!!!" Xander face blackened every time the he said the name.
Buffy frowned with defeat. "I-I don't," she whispered, trying to convince herself more than Xander.
"Umm, with a little, no make that ANY conviction please!" Xander continued to gape at her.
Buffy sighed. "It doesn't matter Xander. That thing we had----over." Xander still glared at her suspiciously.
"Don't think you're getting out of this so easy Missy. The fact is that you had a thing in the first place . . . with SPIKE!!! Young Harris apparently couldn't get enough of that name.
"But nothing is happening now!" she pointed out, wincing at Xander's words. "Me and Spike . . . we're over." Buffy fought to hide her sadness that lie beneath her countenance.
"Um, sorry Buff, I'm still stuck on the part where you were under Spike. Oh god, that just made it worse."
"Xander . . ." Buffy started to say, but abruptly stopped when they both caught sight of Willow in her hospital bed. Both her and Xander ducked and crouched behind the opposite wall. "There she is," she whispered. "I don't see any nurses do you?" Both she and Xander whirled around to see if they could catch sight of any other people in the hall.
"Nope, but I see big bad coppers at 2 o' clock," Xander declared, but sheepishly added as Buffy whirled around to see where he was indicating, "Okay, so, um, not quite sure what 2 o' clock really means."
"They must be guarding Will after what happened at the school," Buffy murmured when she detected them hovering a couple feet from Willow's room. "As soon as she regains consciousness, they'll arrest her. We've got to get her out of here now."
Moving swiftly, Buffy and Xander ducked into Willow's room. Willow, in a sweet tranquillity that many had not seen her don in a long while, lay attached to numerous IVs. "Do you think we'll hurt her?" Xander asked wistfully, sadly gazing down at his best friend. The only other time he saw her like this was all those 4 years ago after the whole Angelus nightmare. He still hadn't gotten over how small and fragile she looked in her hospital bed and how the sight tugged at his heartstrings painfully.
Buffy was reflecting on the same thing. She shook her head. "It'll hurt her later in the end if we don't get her out now." Gingerly tugging off the I.V. tubes, she gathered Willow's limp body in her arms. Just then two cops had caught sight of them and rushed to the door.
"What do you think you're doing Miss? You're not supposed to be in here! That's a suspected felon you've got in your arms!" The taller of two cops roared. He ran up to Buffy in confusion, but she halted him by kicking him powerfully in the chest. Crumpling to the floor, the cop's wide-eyed partner lunged at Buffy, trying to tug Willow's body away from her arms, but she was just as soon stopped by Buffy sharply administering a punch to her face. The cop staggered a bit, astounded by Buffy's strength and did her best to compose herself as Buffy almost made it through the door with Willow. "FREEZE!" she yelled, holding a gun in front of her with shaken hands. Panicked, Buffy slowly turned round, still holding Willow. There was no way to do this now, she thought agonizingly to herself. Just then she noticed Xander behind the cop, slowly fingering a taser that was hidden in his pocket.
"Xander . . ." Buffy whispered urgently. The cop whirled around in confusion to find who it was Buffy was referring to, but soon after collapsed as Xander struck her with the powerfully numbing force. Sidling up to Buffy, Xander pushed them out of the door.
"Let's go," he whispered, and they both broke into a run, with Willow raggedly flopping about in Buffy's arms. Not ceasing to heed the yells and protests of the doctors and nurses they met in the hall, as well as encountering a few stray guards that physically grappled to obstruct the three, Buffy, Willow and Xander finally burst out of the hospital, back into the cool night. In the corner of her eye, Buffy could detect over the horizon a ruby gem-like dot of color. Venus was beginning to rise.

Chapter 21: Feelings Recognized

"We've got her!" The bell on the Magic Box door, poised to make its usual clang of greeting was broken of its hinges by the force of which the door was thrust open. As it opened, it framed a frantic and ragged Xander and Buffy, both clutching an unconscious Willow. Most of the other Scoobies rushed to where the two were standing and helped them with Willow, carrying her to the backroom and laying her on a couch. "What do we do now?" Buffy asked gazing down at Willow and the rest gathered near her. "I saw Venus beginning to rise. When do we start the ritual?"
"Well we have to sniff out Rack's coven don't we?" Angel asked. "We can't start the ritual at all until we've found him."
"Yeah," Tara replied, lost in reflection. "You and Spike will need to get started searching for it right away."
"I'm not working with that ponce!" Spike exploded. "No way in hell!"
"Spike!" Buffy gave him a cold stare with her hands on her hips. "You promised!"
"That was before . . ." he started but became increasingly aware of confused glances his way. He sidled up to Buffy and ducked his head near her and hissed. "That was before you and him" he cocked his head vengefully in Angel's direction, "Resumed old filthy habits." He looked her dangerously in her eyes, his demon side bubbling within. Xander cleared his throat quite loudly, frowning at their obvious display.
Buffy stared back, her gaze caught in his, and almost involuntarily, she teared up. But she set her teeth forward and stuck her chin out with decision. "This isn't about you and Angel," she reminded him. "This is about Willow. About everyone else involved. People who will die if you don't help take care of this. If you don't cooperate," she paused, gaining new strength in her stare. "I swear I'll kill you before you make it out of town, Spike."
Spike cocked his head at her before he pursed his lips and clenched his jaw but nodded as he backed away. Judging by her body language, he knew she meant it. Not like it was such a bad way to go, Spike thought. Nothing worse than dying in the arms of the only person you ever loved. BY the arms, whatever. "I'll go with Angel and Spike," Buffy announced, turning back to the rest of the group. "What about you guys? How does this work?"
"We all need to go," Tara said grimly, arranging a number of vials in a large wooden box. "I have to go along with Willow to do the ritual at Rack's coven. That's the easiest way, bringing the fight to him. All the rest of you guys will need to be there for back up." Buffy was becoming increasingly surprised at the way Tara was really asserting herself with this ritual plan. Buffy herself felt more in the dark about how to handle the whole thing.
"And me!" Dawn beamed with pride at being included. "Don't forget me, big ol' backup provider." Tara nodded gently with a smile.
"That sounds kind of dangerous," Buffy reflected with a frown. "We should really split up, do more damage that way."
"No way." Tara shook her head resolutely. "This is only going to work if we stay together."
"Like the soddin' Brady Bunch," Spike mumbled under his breath.
"What about me?" Cordy asked from the table, still clutching and rocking Conner in her usual fashion.
"You'll have to stay here with Conner," Angel assured her, patting her on the shoulder. "You'll have to stay here, since Rack already knows where Buffy lives. It would be too dangerous for you to be there."
"I have to stay here?" Cordy exclaimed, miffed. "I feel like I'm not helping enough," she said, worriedly looking up at Angel. "I came all this way down here, and I feel like I haven't done anything." Angel hesitated when he saw her earnest, regretful look.
"Well on the bright side Cordy, you've been a breath of fresh bitch to the town of Sunnydale," Xander tried to comfort. He frowned when he saw Cordy's familiar old Queen C glare. "Sorry," he apologized. "Force of habit. I always associated the word bitch with you."
Cordy sighed. "I just wanted to help," she began, but suddenly looked as if she had been gripped with an enormous pain, pulsing through her body. "Quick," she whispered. "Take him." Nearly throwing Conner at Anya, she was thrown to the wall, gripping her head the whole time. "At . . . the . . . pier . . ." she was mumbling through wheezing gasps. Everyone ducked near in concern.
"What's happening?" Xander yelled with concern over his ex-girlfriend.
"She's having a vision," Angel yelled back before jumping in to scoop Cordy in his arms before she was thrown into another wall. It killed him to see how bad these visions were affecting Cordy. "Hey, Cord, are you all right," he asked, painfully concerned as he smoothed her hair from her face.
"The pier . . ." she was still mumbling. "Pier 65, at the marina . . . he's there." In her mind, she saw legions of ghoul-like hippies all fighting powerfully with what appeared to be Buffy, Angel and Spike. She then saw a tall, greasy-haired man, grinning with dark hatred. She saw him suddenly clutching Buffy who soon fell to the floor. Seeing Angel rush near her, she then saw the tall man throw him across the room. "It's him . . ." her eyes glazed over with recognition. "It's Rack." Everyone stared at her in amazement. But soon amazement was replaced by worry as Cordy slumped over and fell unconscious.
"Cordy?!" Angel yelled, trying to shake her into revival. "Cordy, are you okay?!"
"She's unconscious," Xander exclaimed, trying to get to her and feel her wrist. "Oh my God. I don't feel a pulse." Wide-eyed, he turned to a stricken Angel who bit his lip and ragingly shook Cordy further. A few more minutes of the rest of the Scoobies standing over her with fear. Screaming out suggestions ensued.
"Pour some water over her head," Dawn suggested.
"I'll find a spell that can revive her," Tara was saying, running for a spell book.
"Sit the git up! Slap her silly!" Spike yelled.
"I like his idea," Anya exclaimed. "Slap her." She shrugged when Xander gaped at her. "I'm just trying to help," she murmured.
"Or, considering the girl doesn't have a pulse, we could try calling an ambulance. Did anyone think of that?!!" Xander yelled in frustration.
"Right." Buffy immediately grabbed a phone and started dialing. "Hello, 911? We've got a female here, unconscious, no pulse . . ." But just as soon Cordy screamed back to life, her whole body shaking. Angel ducked and caught her, sighing with relief and teary anger.
"Cordy!" he was screaming. "Don't ever scare me like that again!" He reached up and hugged her tightly. "We thought we lost you!"
"W-what happened?" Cordy whispered, still dazed. She struggled to sit up, but her weak arms gave way under her.
"T-that . . . vision thing," Dawn said, shaking with fascination. "T-that's so . . . COOL! Hey Buffy, how come you can't do that? You're the Slayer and you don't do cool things like . . . that." Dawn's alacrity faded when Angel glared at her.
"M-m-my god, a-are you okay?" Tara stammered with genuine concern. "I can't believe you have vision powers. And that powerful too."
"Yeah," Cordy grinned, sheepishly proud. "Powerful . . . visions, the only visions of choice." She winced as she gripped her head. "God . . . can you get me my pills from my purse?" she motioned Anya towards her bag.
"I'm really glad you're okay, Cordelia," Buffy said, trying to mask her impatience with sincere concern. "B-but, you said you saw Rack. Where was he?"
"Pier 65, at the marina," Cordy smiled broadly to finally be of help. "On some huge boat."
Buffy turned to Tara. "This is great. This saves a lot of time of hunting for him." Tara nodded happily. Angel, however, refused to leave Cordy's side.
"Cordy, we have to get you to the hospital," he whispered to her urgently.
"What? No!" she scoffed, trying once more to get up, but slipped once more to the floor. "I'm . . . fine."
"Hey Cord? If your standards of 'fine' is being dead for 6 minutes, than you got a really short, fine life ahead of you." Xander tried to mask his fear with his usual sharp tongue.
"Dead?" Cordy looked quizzically from person.
"You had no pulse for 6 minutes Cordy," Angel filled her in gently.
"Wow. I was dead?" Cordy looked over towards Buffy. "What goes around comes around I guess." Buffy shrugged knowingly. She looked back towards Angel with fear. "Angel . . . I saw Buffy and you in my vision. You guys got hurt."
Buffy snorted. "You guys are worrying your pretty heads about nothing. I keep telling you, I've already taken tough stuff before. Why is this shampoo-deprived loser scaring all you guys?"
Cordy continued to gaze into Angel's deep, brooding eyes. "I want you to be careful Angel," she stated softly, seriously. He nodded, but his impenetrable gaze never left hers. Something suddenly stirred in Cordy, something that she hadn't felt for a long time, at least not since Doyle. Their eyes remained locked until Cordy opened her mouth to say something, instead keeling back over before a word could be said.
"Cordy?! Okay, that's it we're getting you to hospital!" Angel picked her up, but Buffy stopped him by lightly placing a hand on his shoulder.
"Angel, we don't have enough time, Venus is already beginning to rise. We can just let her wait here while the ambulance comes."
Angel stared at her in incredulous anger. "I am not letting Cordy stay here by herself when she's like this," he said through clenched teeth. Buffy was surprised at the intensity with which he had made the declaration. She returned his glare with an equally venomous one.
"Ok, how's this," Xander suggested, trying to alleviate the obvious tension. "Me and Ahn will drive Cordy down to the hospital and then meet up with you guys later down at the pier." Reluctantly, all agreed, and Angel tried to hand over to Xander, who meekly accepted with quivering arms.
"Wait." Cordy groggily lifted her head up before Angel had let her go. Impulsively reaching to grab the back of his head, she swooped him down to crush his lips against hers. Angel, at first confused, responded with equal fervor. As they parted, the rest of the group simultaneously gasped with gaping mouths and wide eyes. Oblivious to the rest, Angel gazed back down at Cordy, equally amazed. "That's something for you if you get hurt," she said sheepishly, with a small smile. "Something for you to fight for." Angel, full of understanding, smiled down at her intensely and pressed another softer kiss to her lips. Spike made an audible noise.
"For a dead poofter, you keep racking up the hot young bodies don't you mate?" he smirked. He stole a furtive glance at Buffy who immediately stiffened. She had her brow furrowed and was looking on with obvious discomfort, but she hurriedly tried to mask it with initiative.
"Okay, so you and Anya take Cordy to the hospital," she said to Xander. "Take extra tasers just in case. Dawn, you go with them, watch over Conner." Dawn opened her mouth to object but when Conner was dumped in her arms, she gleamed with sweet maternalism. They were actually letting her take care of something, someone, she thought with ecstatic glee. They all nodded, taking their roles and emptied the Magic Box, ready for their mission.