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Title: Till Death Leaves Us Alone ("Bargaining" spoilers)
Author: Lady Callista Anyone who has permission for any of my other stories may have this too. Others, ask and I will most likely give permission.
Feedback: The next best thing to having Angel chained to my...um, never mind.
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Joss, the WB, UPN, Mutant Enemy, (the evil)FOX, and whoever else came up with them.
Rating: Same as the show
Spoilers: BtVS "The Gift"(minor) and MAJOR "Bargaining." If you haven't seen these episodes, you may not want to read this. I change it quite a bit from the actual Bargaining, but I don't want to be accused of spoiling it for anyone.
Premise: An answer to a question on BAFluff: What would have happened if Angel had been there when Buffy rose from the dead?
Till Death Leaves Us Alone
Part One: A Circle of Five
"What about Spike?" Tara asked reluctantly.
"I'm sure he would, but it wouldn't work. It takes the souls of the five closest people to her..." Willow trailed off, frustrated. "Souls!" They had found the spell necessary to raise Buffy from the dead, and had all but one of the items they needed for it. Only one problem remained.
"You're sure it wouldn't work with just the four of us?" Xander asked for the second time.
"No." Willow and Tara spoke together.
"The spell says five, and we don't wanna mess with this kind of spell." Willow continued.
"There's no way Giles would help us..." Anya moaned.
"There's no way he'd let us do this." Xander said, punctuating his words with a wave of his hands.
"Well, Dawn is probably the closest to her..." Tara trailed off reluctantly.
"No way!" Xander spoke up at once. "We can't do that to her...if it doesn't work..."
"Uh, guys?" Willow spoke softly, but the seriousness in her voice caused all of them to stop bickering and look at her. "This may be a really bad idea, but what about Angel?"
"No." Xander got up and started pacing. "No way!"
"Xander, he's closer to her than anyone, even Dawn."
"Angel?" Tara asked softly.
"Tall, dark, handsome vampire with a soul who is Buffy's forbidden love." Anya replied in a bored tone.
"Her soulmate?" Tara questioned.
"I thought so in the beginning, but then he left her, and he did have good reasons, but.."
"Willow!" Xander cut off her rambling. "He left her. Key word: Left. He doesn't care anymore, and..."
"That's not true. When I went to LA and told him, he just broke down." Willow said softly, speaking for the first time of what had happened when she told Angel. "I've never seen him cry before, but you should have seen him Xand, it was the saddest thing I've ever seen. He just sat there, crying. He couldn't talk, he couldn't move, he just..." Tears came to Willow's eyes again as she remembered that horrible night. She hated telling anyone of Angel like that but she had to make them, Xander especially, understand.
Tara put an arm around her girlfriend, leaning their heads together. "Won't it be like with Dawnie then? If we tell him, and then it doesn't work..."
"He's over 200 years old, I think he can handle it." Xander snapped, resigned to the idea of Angel helping but not particularly liking it.
"I'll call him." Willow decided.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
"Angel Investigations, we help the hopeless." Cordelia spoke perkily into the phone. "Willow, hey, how are you doing?"
Wesley stopped what he was doing and walked over towards the desk. "Problems?" He mouthed to the former cheerleader.
She shrugged her shoulders at him and directed her attention back to the phone. "That's good. But what do you need Angel for?"
Angel chose that very moment to walk into the room and hear the tail end of Cordelia's question. "Who is it?" He asked.
Cordelia handed him the phone, saying, "Willow."
"Willow?" Angel said urgently. "What's wrong?"
Cordelia and Wesley both watched as his eyes got wider and he sank into a chair.
"Willow, that's too dangerous, I mean, even if it works, it could..." Angel could barely form a sentence.
Wesley and Cordy leaned closer, trying to find out what was upsetting Angel.
Finally, Cordy huffed and reached over and hit the speakerphone button on the phone, allowing Willow's voice to flood into the room.
"...we can't keep doing this, Angel. Not without her. And we can't get her back without your help." Willow was pleading.
Cordy and Wesley looked at each other in confusion.
"I want her back as much as you do Willow, probably even more so, but..." Angel glared at Cordelia as he took the speakerphone off and resumed talking to Willow.
Angel's face took on a more and more concerned look, but what got to Cordelia was the hope that was starting to smolder in his eyes. The hope that had been missing for the past four months.
"Okay, Willow, I'll come." Angel spoke, then held up his hand to silence her as if she could see it over the phone. "Wait, Willow. Wait a second. I said I'd come. I want to see the spell before I say anything else. Okay. Yeah, I'll be there as soon as I can. Bye." Angel hung up the phone and headed for the stairs.
"Freeze." Cordelia snapped. "What spell?"
"They think they found a way to bring her back." Angel whispered without turning around.
"Bring...bring Buffy back?" Wesley turned pale.
"B word!" Cordelia hissed at him.
"I think it's a little too late to worry about that." Wesley whispered back.
"Why do they need you?" Cordelia approached Angel, who had started to move up the stairs.
"They need five of the people who were closest to her in life." Angel replied. "They don't think Giles would approve and they don't want Dawn to get her hopes up just in case. So I make five."
Both Cordelia and Wesley spoke at once, but Angel ignored them.
He headed up the stairs to pack a small bag, thinking all the while of shining blond hair and green eyes sparkling in the sun.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
"I said I'd look at it Willow, and I did." Angel said after had had read over the spell they wanted to use. "The others, they don't know what you have to do, do they?" He asked the red-head gently.
"You mean the fawn? No, they don't know. I couldn't tell them, they, they don't need to know, they'd just feel sorry for me." Willow stammered as she took the parchment back from Angel, looking over the spell again.
"And even you're not sure what this will do to you." Angel put a hand gently on her shoulder, causing her to look up at him.
"I know I can handle it." Willow's resolve face was firmly in place. "I have to."
"Willow," Angel started to speak, but she cut him off.
"We can't do this without her, Angel." Willow stood up and started to pace through the Magic Box. "I mean, the robot Buffy thing works for now, but pretty soon someone is going to realize that it's not the Slayer. And since Faith is Buffy's replacement, well, Kendra's but you know what I mean...anyway, Giles doesn't think there will be another Slayer called. And since Faith is in jail...well, a world without a Slayer..."
"Would be a picnic for the demons." Angel replied, realizing just why Willow and the others were so desperate. He hadn't thought about the fact that another Slayer would not be called, since Buffy had already been replaced once. "Look, Willow, you know I don't think this is the right thing to do. Buffy's at peace and I think we should leave her there. But, look, let me think about it, okay."
"Sure, just don't think too much. We've gotta do this within the next few days, or we lose the planetary alignment."
Angel didn't reply, just nodded his head and headed out the door.
As he left, Anya, Tara, and Xander all clamored past him into the shop. He barely acknowledged them, knowing they would go straight to Willow to ask if he had agreed or not.
He wanted to, he really did. He just knew it wasn't right.
And so he did the only thing he could think of to do; the thing he had wanted to do for the past four months but hadn't had the strength to do.
He went to talk to Buffy.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
'Buffy was the most wonderful human being in the world. Her soul was the purest the world has ever seen, and she had a greater capacity for love and forgiveness than anyone who has ever lived. Buffy was a beautiful and kind woman, who carried the weight of the world on her lovely shoulders. She saved the world more times than it could count, and in the end she gave her life that the world might continue to turn. Buffy was a beloved daughter, wonderful sister and friend, and soulmate of...'
Angel's thoughts quieted as he looked at her simple tomb. Not all the things it should say, not the most important things about her.
Just that she saved the world. A lot.
Nothing about how beautiful she was, or how loving and wise beyond her years, or...
Tears welled up in Angel's eyes, and he slowly knelt by the side of the headstone, placing an arrangement of white and red roses on the dewy ground.
"I'm sorry I wasn't here to protect you." Angel whispered at last.
The sounds of the night around him seemed to come to a standstill, it's creatures silent in respect of the overwhelming sorrow in his voice.
"I promised that I'd always be there, that you'd never have to fight alone. But you did and I'm sorry." A few tears made their way down his cheeks, and it occurred to him for the first time that he'd never cried over Buffy, not after the first night Willow told him. He'd been disbelieving, he'd been angry, he'd been broody, and then for a long time there had just been nothing. He'd thought he had no tears left to cry. But now he found he did, and they came streaming down his face.
"I'm sorry, ionuin." Angel whispered, reaching up to unclasp a chain that he wore. He pulled it off his neck, taking off of it the two matching rings that he had worn there for the past months. He set both of them on her grave, on the little base at the foot of her headstone, the hearts pointing down into the earth. "Maybe that's why I want you to come back so much. I know Willow and the others are wrong, I know you're done your part and deserve to be at rest. But then I remember our face, your laugh, your soul, and I don't know if I can go on living without knowing that you're alive. Even when we couldn't be together, just to know that you were alive and that maybe one day..."
Angel was silent for a moment, memories of the forgotten day rushing through him.
"But now that one day will never be. And it's because I wasn't here to protect you. So maybe it's selfish, no...I know it's selfish, but I want you back. I gave you up, not once, but twice, for the world. So that you could live your life in the sun without me holding you back or getting you killed. And now you won't be able to do that. I know that you deserve peace, but I think that more than that you deserve life. You were so full of it, and it was taken away way too soon."
Angel talked to her a little longer, realizing even as he spoke that he had made his choice.
He still didn't think it was necessarily right, but the idea of having Buffy back was just too tempting to resist, even for him. He had sacrificed so much so that she could live a normal life. He couldn't really give her the normal, but at least she could have the life.
"I love you, Buffy." Angel whispered as he stood up. "See you soon."
"Now, Peaches, you know she wouldn't like it if you stayed here till sunrise." An annoyingly familiar British drawl spoke up behind him.
Angel spun on his childe in shock, realizing his last comment had been luckily misinterpreted. Spike thought he meant that he'd be joining her soon, and Angel couldn't let him think any differently. "Go away, Spike." He snapped.
Spike didn't go away, instead stepping up beside his grand-sire. "I loved her too." He said, for once all hint of mockery gone from his voice and face. He laid a single red rose on the grave next to the bouquet Angel had brought.
"Spike..."
"Don't, peaches." Spike snapped, although still speaking quietly. "I know you can say it wasn't the same and all that crap, because she wasn't in love with me, or because we didn't have this connection like you two bloody well did, but I still loved her. And I know in some way that she did love me, or she wouldn't have put up with me for this long."
"Just leave me alone, Spike." Angel replied, although all the anger had drained from his voice.
"I'm not gonna leave you here to get well-done, Angel. Slayer told me to take care of the little-bint, and to look after her friends too. And that would include you."
Angel looked over at Spike, seeing for the first time just how much the younger vampire had changed in the past year. Since he had tortured the bloody hell out of his grandsire.
Angel slowly turned and started to walk away, allowing Spike to follow him and lead him to his car. "Why are you doing this, Spike?" Angel asked softly as the younger vampire turned to get in the driver's seat."
"Because I made a promise, to a lady." Spike echoed words he had voiced months ago. "And because I bloody well don't want a Slayer haunting me or coming back to kick my ass."
Angel grinned slightly. "She probably would, too."
Spike dropped Angel off at the Magic Box, where the elder vampire had left his convertible. After seeing Willow open the door and Angel walk inside, Spike drove away muttering about how Buffy was still ruining all his fun by not letting him watch the pouf turn to dust.
"Angel?" Willow asked as he walked through the door she held open for him.
Angel noticed that Anya, Tara, and Xander were all there, sitting around a table with what he assumed were all the ingredients to the resurrection spell. A book lay open in front of the table's empty seat, where Angel assumed Willow had been working on memorizing the incantations of the spell.
"I still don't think it's the right thing to do, but I'll help you. I'll do the spell." Angel said as he leaned over the table, picking up an urn with Egyptian hieroglyphics all over it. "The Urn of Osiris." Angel said, his voice slightly filled with awe. There was only one of these in the world, and the last he knew it had been somewhere in the Turkey.
"Anya bought it on Ebay." Xander said with a grin.
"Ebay?" Angel asked in confusion.
"Long story." Willow almost smiled. "Anyway, it's authentic."
"I know." Angel replied. "I can feel it's power." He set it carefully on the table.
"Well, then, moving right along." Xander said awkwardly. "You know the spell?"
"Yeah, Willow showed it to me before. I told her I thought if we did it at all it should be done in a magick circle, and she agreed it was a good idea. It'll make sure there's no interruptions."
"Magick circle?" Xander asked.
"It's a witch thing." Tara replied. "It's where you raise power in the form of a circle, but it's not just a circle, it's like a bubble...you know, like Glinda in The Wizard of Oz. It's a big bubble around the people that keeps their energy in and all distractions out."
"And then you can call in the four elements and the directions to guard the circle, and it's even safer. Plus it gives you more power." Anya added her own two cents worth of magickal expertise.
"So you're doing that too?" Xander asked Willow.
"I'm not, you four are."
"But I'm not magick. I don't know how to do a spell." Xander protested.
"You recite the words, you do a little imagining, it's not hard." Willow replied. "At least it's in English."
"So what do I have to do?" Xander asked.
"Well, each of the four of us calls one of the directions and elements into the circle." Angel directed. "Willow calls the circle, then you'll be the first one to call."
"And what am I calling?" Xander said in an almost joking tone. "1-800-..."
"Xander!" Willow smacked him on the arm. "You have to give these energies respect or they won't come. You're calling to the East and to the Air. I'll give you a certain saying to recite later."
"Okay." Xander seemed a little unsure of doing even that much of a spell.
"Then I'll be taking South and Fire, Anya will be Water and West, and then Tara, as the strongest of us four, will be North and Earth." Angel added.
"Sounds like a plan." Anya replied as she finished tying up a smudging stick with sweetgrass and myrrh.
"So, tonight?" Willow looked around the room, making eye contact with each of the four people present.
Four heads nodded in agreement.
"Okay then, I just need to go get one more spell ingredient and then we're set for tonight." Willow headed for the door.
"Why didn't you get it before?" Tara wondered.
"Because it has to be fresh." Willow sounded sad, locking eyes with Angel for a moment before she left the room.
"What's was that about?" Xander glared at Angel after his best friend left.
"Nothing." Angel whispered, watching Willow walk down the front walk. He was reminded once again of just how loyal Buffy's friends were to her and what they would do for their friends. Which was truly amazing, even considering what she had done for them. Because she never felt like she had a choice. They did.
And Angel loved all of them, even Xander, for choosing as they did.
TBC…