Disclaimer: All non-original BtVS and AtS characters within are the sole property of their creators and copyright holders. No infringement is intended and no money is being made from these works.

Author's Notes:

-There are spoilers in here if you don't know the basis of the Season 8 comic books from issues #1 to #20, and many general spoilers from Angel: After the Fall series. I didn't even know there were comic books that picked up after the finales of BTVS and Angel until a little while ago. Not everything in here is from the comics though; I just took them as my inspiration, and I frequently fudged the stuff that is from the comics (like timing canon: Season 8 and ATF are not supposed to be happening at the same time like I am portraying them to be). If you haven't read them, you won't spot what I made up and what Joss is doing with our fav characters now.

-I will be switching back and forth between three main characters. Each chapter will have only one point of view, and I'll let you know who it is off the bat to make things easier. Anything in italics is the unspoken inner monologue of the character.

-Ok, wow, when I started this story my head was full of quippy-ness and jokes, with a *tiny* pinch of drama. What the f*ck happened? It all got really dark, really fast when my Sig-O had to leave for a two-month long business trip out of the country. Sorry about that. I had no idea I was such a drama queen until I was half-way done with this piece.

**Angel POV** - Pulling

Bodies. Bodies and ruble, everywhere. It was all made so much easier to see to my now human eyes because here in hell, the full moon and the blazing sun were both up in the sky all the time. The streets, the buildings, the aqueducts, the sewers, hell there was even bits and pieces of bodies in my clothes. I stopped caring about that a month ago, I think; it's hard to keep time in a hell dimension with nothing different between night and day. I had no where I could look upon this city where I did not see the destruction, destruction that in essence I had caused, but I still looked. Had to keep my eyes open for any lucky survivors, maybe we could be the tipping factor in getting them to the safe house that Conner was running with Gwen and Nina back at the Hyperion. It could mean all the difference in keeping them alive.

"Hey Peaches, we gonna stand on the roof all night or are we gonna do something? I'm bored and I'm out of ciggs …" whined Spike.

Spike. Bane of my existence. Actually, more like the annoyance of my existence. Of course spending time in Hell would include him this time.

"Shut it, you want to attract every source of danger to us at once? Sounds echo pretty well in the streets now that there isn't any traffic."

To prove my point, we suddenly heard some loud roaring coming from a few blocks away. That and some human yelling.

"And we're off …" I heard Spike say behind me as I leapt over the roof's ledge and down the fire escape to the street. Even though I had a head start on him Spike easily passed me now that I was human, my Shanshu turning out not a reward but a punishment from the Senior Partners to keep me weak here in this hell dimension they sent LA to. He looked back at me with a smirk and kept running; loving the fact that now he could best me in every way.

We ran in the direction of the sounds of a fight for several blocks before we finally saw our target. A small group of women, four I determined, fighting off six rather imposing Ickath demons. They were actually doing alright despite their being outnumbered but then one woman in the group, a very heavily pregnant woman, yelled and pointed one way to her companions before taking off in the opposite direction. The other three women raced down the street the way they were told while the demons spilt up evenly to pursue them as we advanced.

That was probably not the smartest move on their part.

"Spike, we have to spilt up and help them.

"Right then, you go help Mama Bear over there and I'll go help those kids," he yelled as we split up and advanced on our quarry.

'Mama Bear' was a good nickname for this woman, considering how well she was keeping the demons at bay. Actually she wasn't just defending herself well; she was attacking them and taking them out with a surprising skill considering her circumstances. She had to be about eight months pregnant from the looks of her huge stomach.

How exactly is she exerting herself like this without going into labor?

I was running as quickly as I could over the scattered debris and various bodies, both human and other-worldly, but as I got about 50 feet away I could tell that I would be too late. Her back was turned towards me and I would have to rush past her to help, but I knew I wouldn't make it. She was going to kill every demon before I could get a punch in. They were dropping like flies … one … two … and finally number three was taken out, all with this oddly familiar weapon.

I know I've seen that thing before … it kinda stands out being very ax-like on one end and pointy on the other. Great dual-purpose tool for dealing with the world of evil. I'll bet it slices and dices like a dream …

I froze. It hit me that I knew exactly where I had seen this great piece of battle gear in action before. Before L.A. got transported to this hell dimension, before I took on the Senior Partners, even before Spike came crashing back into my life in the form of the world's most annoying ghost. When I had taken that amulet that trapped him to Buffy to help destroy the Sunnydale Hellmouth, she had used that exact weapon to split some evil priest guy in two.

There's no way. I would have known if she was in Los Angeles, and I know she wasn't here before the city was cast into Hell. Right? Besides this woman, while tiny and blond like her, is grossly pregnant and my informants would have picked up on a pregnancy before this … but she fights like a slayer. Not just a slayer, she fights like THE Slayer. My girl. There are lots of slayers around the world now; this one is probably just one of the many. Somehow this slayer has Buffy's weapon, but that can't be …

Without realizing it, I had stopped running but I was still walking quickly towards this person. Now that all of the demons had been taken out there was no need to run anymore, but my body screamed at me to keep going. I tried to halt, to get a grip on myself, but my feet refused to listen to my brain and were instead obeying a pulling feeling coming from the center of my being.

Oh yeah, it's her. Nice to see that even when I'm human, we still have that ethereal connection. Or could this just be a placebo effect? I suspect it's her so I'm having the same reaction as if it were her …

The breeze shifted, and even with my human senses I caught her scent. Sunshine, vanilla, and the ocean in the perfect combination that I used to breathe in like a drug. It is her; no question. She is here, she is fighting with a skill I haven't seen her possess before, and she is apparently heavily pregnant while doing it.

Pregnant. Oh god. Pregnant. Buffy, MY Buffy, pregnant. Who's the bastard … that G.I. Joe wannabe? No, he was gone years ago. Pregnant. I know it can't be the Immortal's; he can't have kids anymore than I can … well, anymore than Spike can. Someone else maybe, someone new I didn't hear about before I tried to take down the Circle? Pregnant and stuck in a hell dimension. How did she get here?

I was staring holes in her back as she breathed in and out, calming herself after the attack, when finally she straightened. Something changed in her, and I know she felt pulled towards me like she always used to as well. I finally got my feet to stop when I was about fifteen feet away, my brain too busy trying to process the whole 'with child' issue to let my body continue onward. I tried to speak, but found no energy to catch her attention. I should have known by now, that I really never needed to announce myself to her.

"Angel," she said my name softly without even turning around to make sure it was me.

"What are you doing here Buffy?"

That's just great, show her how confrontational you can be and get her defensive right off the bat, excellent job.

"Hello to you too. I'm great, thanks for asking, and you? I guess going to one or two hell dimensions during your life … or un-life … really takes the polite out of a fella," she said sarcastically as she slowly turned around and raised her eyes to mine.

"Sorry, I'm just surprised. I didn't hear you were in town," I glowered at her. I was having a real hard time looking at her eyes, her beautiful amber-green eyes that always told me without words just how vulnerable I made her when I was around.

"Well, when I heard the words 'L.A.' and 'apocalypse' I just had to find a way in. There might be some designer stores I can loot, or you might possibly be in need of some help," she stated glibly, obviously trying to get me to lighten up. It wasn't going to happen.

Me? She thought I would need some help, enough to risk the life of her unborn child?

"'Find a way in?'" I asked.

"Yeah, the second our L.A. contacts disappeared we got our teams of seers, physics, and witches working on what happened. We thought someone was trying to wipe out the slayer line again starting in L.A., but then we found out that all of L.A. county just vanished. We decided to get in, gather up our people who were here, and see what we could do about getting everything back to normal. Been here about two weeks now and we still haven't found all of the slayers that were here. Haven't made any leeway in finding out how this happened or how to get things back to normal either."

"Don't worry about it; L.A. was never all that normal anyways," I said with a smirk in an attempt to make her more comfortable. She was babbling a bit, and I knew it wasn't because she was ill-at-ease standing amid the destruction of the city of her childhood. It was being around me that got her like this.

"Wow, a joke, this really must be the end of the world," she laughed. It was good to see her laugh; for an instant she looked like the teenager I had fallen in love with before the weight of the world fell on her.

"That aside, what are YOU doing here Buffy? It looks like right now isn't the best time for you to be … traveling," I said as I gestured towards her stomach. My tone was probably angrier than I wanted it to come across.

Can anyone blame me? The shock of seeing her like this without any warning, heavy with someone else's child now that I am finally human, is making my now-beating heart shatter. It's also quite the slap in the face that she is willing to take such a gamble on her health and safety by coming here, when I had given up so much for her to be able to have this chance.

A puzzled look washed over her features before she looked down at herself. He eyes shot back up to mine bullet-fast and her mouth pulled in on itself to make a little 'oh'.

"Um, Angel, this isn't what it looks like …," she trailed off, suddenly distracted by something behind me.

I looked over my shoulder to see Spike leading the three other young women, who were all holding up crosses at him, towards us. My jaw clenched as I realized that this bombshell was about to explode all over the situation.

"Hey granddad, you mind telling these bints that I'm on their side? Never mind that I helped save them from those demons, they still want some confirmation. I'm guessin' they're slayers from what I saw back there, and they're just as stubborn as …"

"Spike?" Buffy cut him off in the quietest voice I had ever heard come from her.

"… Buffy?"

Tick, tick, tick … BOOM. Detonation successful.