A Fallen Angel Rises 1/1 (#6 in Angelic Face Series)
by Philip S.

Summary: The Gypsies' curse has returned Angelus' soul and turned him into a woman. Now calling herself Angela, she is recruited by the Powers That Be to help the Slayer, Buffy Summers. Drusilla, looking for the return of her daddy, uses the magic of the demon Toth and splits Angela in two. Angelus is back, freed of his soul, while his human half, Angela, finally confesses to Buffy her true feelings. Angelus, looking to rid himself of his human half, unleashes the demon Akathler. At the climax of the battle Angela is forced to reunite with the demon to save Buffy's life. Angelus has already unleashed the demon, though, so Angela does the only thing she can and sacrifices herself.

Rating: PG-13, just like the show

NOTE: Many thanks to Dibonium, who reminded me that there are still two stories missing in the Angelic Face series. Here is number 6, a one-shot, and number 7 will follow soon.

"Where am I?"

Angela found herself standing in a large room made entirely from white marble, looking like something the Greek might have built. The air around her was suffused with a feeling of peace and tranquility the likes of which she had never known and sweet music was playing somewhere far off.

Her skin felt warm and alive.

This could not be, could it? The last thing she remembered was that she had been reunited with her vampire half, once again becoming the vampire with a soul trapped in a female body. Her few short months as a human being were over with and done. More, she had jumped into a portal that was supposed to lead to Hell. Jumped after impaling herself on a magical sword.

Only this really did not look like Hell.

Something else was wrong, she realized. She was alone inside her own flesh. But moments before she had barely been able to think due to the insane howling of the demon inside of her, the beast that had been caged once more. She carried Angelus' memories with her, knew everything he had done during those few short months he had been free, but the separation had helped her see that he was in fact a different being. Not her.

Now it seemed, though, that Angelus was gone. She could not hear his howling, could not feel his insane rage at being imprisoned once more. She was alone.

"What is going on?"

"What do you think?"

She turned around to see that someone was approaching her, coming down the marble steps that led up to some sort of corridor. Someone that looked extremely familiar.

"Buffy?"

The woman who looked like the Slayer, dressed in nothing but a white robe, gave her a brilliant smile.

"Not exactly. We just figured that it might be easier for you if you saw someone you know."

It was not Buffy's voice. It did not seem to be a voice at all, really. More like music, a beautiful song playing inside her head.

"Who are you?"

"So many questions, Angela. May I call you Angela? I can understand that you have questions. I am here to answer them."

The Buffy double gestured towards two marble chairs that had not been there a second ago and they sat down, Angela looking at her opposite.

"Is ... is this heaven?" Her voice was filled with uncertainty. She had never even considered the thought that she might have a place in heaven, not after everything she had done when she had still been Angelus. Only now, with the separation from her demon half still so fresh in her memory, she allowed herself a tiny ember of hope.

"This is not heaven," Buffy said, smiling. "Just very close to it. You might want to think of it as heaven's waiting room. And to answer your next question: Yes, you do have a place in heaven, Angela. How could you not after all you have done?"

Angela just gave her a blank look, not quite understanding.

"You took the demon back inside of you," Buffy reminded her. "You willingly reunited with that monster to save another, gave up the humanity you had longed for ever since they restored your soul. More, when you realized that there was only one way to save the world from the demon's deeds, you did what had to be done, even though you had to believe that it would mean eternal damnation for you."

Buffy shrugged. "I don't know about you, but in my book that pretty much qualifies you for heaven."

Angela leaned forward. "Does that mean I ... can I ..."

"You have earned your peace, Angela," the doppelganger said. "If you want to you can go on, right down that corridor, and rest."

She looked up at the corridor the other woman had indicated, looking at it with longing in her heart. Peace. How long had she yearned for that. Peace from the screams, peace from the memories and the pain. To close her eyes and not remember the deeds of the demon, to sleep and dream of beautiful things that were not tainted by the monster's presence.

"Before you go, though," Buffy interrupted her train of thoughts, "I wanted to talk to you about a few things."

"Things?"

"As I said, you have earned your peace. There is another choice for you, though. An offer we would like you to consider."

"What kind of offer?"

Buffy looked her in the eyes, her smile fading. "Do you remember what Whistler told you when he took you to see Buffy for the first time?""

The memory sprang to the forefront of her mind without conscious effort. She had seen Buffy on the steps of her old High School, bathed in sunlight, so beautiful and innocent.

"He told me she would have it hard," Angela remembered. "That she would need someone to help her through the difficult times ahead."

"That still holds true," the Buffy double nodded. "The times to come will be even more difficult for Buffy than what she has already been through. She has come very close to the breaking point, Angela. Seeing you suffer at your demon's hands, seeing you accept back your burden in order to save her, and then seeing you sacrifice your life for the world ... it was very hard for her."

A tear ran down Angela's cheek as she imagined what kind of pain Buffy had to go through. All because of her.

"Don't start with the self-reproach again," her opposite chided her. "You did what had to be done. The question now is, what will you do next?"

"You said I had a choice."

"Yes, you have. You see, Angela, you are not dead. Not dead in the sense that you have not found your final end. You went bodily to hell, or would have if we hadn't snatched you somewhere in-between. You are still alive, or as alive as a vampire will ever be. And that means you have the choice to go back."

Angela was stunned. Go back? Back to Buffy?

"She still needs someone to help her," the Buffy double told her. "If necessary we will send someone else to do so, but we would rather have you."

"You ... you would just send me back? As if nothing happened?"

Buffy nodded.

"You would be as you were. A vampire with a soul. We can not change that, sorry. You need the demon to survive, as you saw. The magic you used to reunite with him can not easily be broken. If you choose to go back it will be just as hard as before." She smiled. "Or maybe not quite. I guess your experience gave you a new outlook as to how little you and Angelus really have in common."

Angela swallowed, not quite believing what she heard. Still, there was something else she wanted ... no, needed to know.

"What about ... what about my gender? Can you ...?"

The Buffy double looked down, clearly trying to figure out the words to use.

"Angela ... what do you think you are? A man or a woman?"

"A man, of course," she said without hesitation. "The curse turned me into a woman, but I'm still a man."

"You have the memories of being a man," her opposite nodded. "That is true. Isn't it also true, though, that Liam is long dead, Angela?"

Liam. The man she had been at one time. A drunken loser, a disappointment to his family, who died in a place befitting his life. A dirty alley behind a filthy pub.

"Liam died all these years ago," Buffy said sadly. "His soul went where souls go and the demon took root in his body."

"But the Gypsies brought my soul back," Angela said, desperation in her voice. "They called it back from the ether and I am here again."

"No."

That single world struck Angela like a physical blow, sending her reeling. She needed several attempts before she found her voice again.

"What do you mean, no?"

"The Gypsies were crafty in magic, Angela, but they were not gods. A dead body has no connection to the soul that once inhabited it. The Gypsies had no way to know where Liam's soul had gone, no way to find it."

The Buffy double gave her a sad look, knowing what her next words would do to her.

"So they took a soul from the sea of unborn life. You were newly born when they conjured your soul from the Orb of Thesula, born into a body inhabited by a demon, born to not one but two sets of memories that did not belong to you. It was a terrible thing the Gypsies did. Burdening all that pain and sorrow on someone who had never known life before that moment."

Sliding off the chair Angela sat down on the marble floor, staring straight ahead without seeing anything.

"I ... I am not Liam?" Her voice was a mere whisper. "I never was Liam?"

"You were born on that day in 1898, Angela," Buffy nodded. "I am very sorry."

Angela did not know how long she just stared, her thoughts going round and round in circles. She was not Liam. She had never been that drunken loser, had never had a little sister that adored her older brother despite all his failings? Had never had a father to whom his son could never be anything but a disappointment? It had not been her that had followed Darla out of the pub and into the alley, letting her make him a vampire?

She had never been a man?

"We are shaped by our memories and experiences," the Buffy double told her, "but they are not what we are. What was done to you can hardly be forgiven, Angela. If it is of some consolation to you, the Gypsies that cursed you to this existence are not to be found at the end of that corridor."

With a final swallow Angela rose back to her feet. She did not know what to say, what to think. For the past century she had not known who she was, had tried to reconcile the memories of the person she had been - or thought she had been - with the individual she had become. Her sense of identity had been almost nonexistent by the time Whistler found her. The past two years had seen her become someone, someone who was not Liam, not Angelus.

Only now she knew that she had never been these people in the first place.

"What ... what does that mean for me," she asked the being in front of her. An angel? Something more than that? Maybe it had all the answers.

"You are Angela," Buffy told her. "Someone who fought to protect the people she loves. Someone who gave her life for the world. Believe someone who has a lot of experience in evaluating people, Angela. You are a much better person than any of those whose memories you carry ever were."

Angela nodded, simply absorbing the words for now. Things were happening too fast, too many revelations all at once. She needed time to think about this. Needed time to figure out who she was.

"If you go through that corridor," Buffy said, pointing at the marble stairs, "the questions will become meaningless. You will find peace. Liam and Angelus will no longer haunt you."

She cocked her head to the other side.

"You will only have to answer your own questions if you choose to return. I don't want to lie to you, it won't be easy. Maybe it will be even harder for you than it will be for Buffy, I don't know. I can't tell the future."

Buffy. The blonde Slayer was the only friend Angela had ever had. The only person she had ever loved. She had not known what to call herself, how to think about herself, before she had met that girl who had returned meaning to her life.

A girl who would be alone, drowning in her grief. Unless she went back.

"I see you have decided," the Buffy double said, knowing her thoughts. "Are you sure that is what you want?"

"No," Angela simply said. "It is what I have to do, though."

She longed for peace, that was true. A large part of her wanted nothing more than to climb those marble steps and leave all the questions behind. If she did that, though, the questions would never be answered. Nor would she ever find true peace, knowing that Buffy needed her.

"Send me back!"

The Buffy double smiled. "Thank you!"

A bright flash of light lit the mansion where Akathler had stood, illuminating the spot where the world had almost come to an end. When the light dimmed there was a body lying on the floor, a body that caged a demon and harbored a soul that had a lot of unanswered questions.

Angela awoke, sucking in breath she did not need, and wandered out into the night.

THE END