A/N: THANK YOU for the great reviews! I wanted to get this chapter up quickly so I could get some more feedback and then hopefully start working on my version of "Conviction". I'm really, really proud of this chapter...please read, enjoy and review!

Ain't No Rest for The Wicked

You know there ain't no rest for the wicked,

Money don't grow on trees.

We got bills to pay, we got mouths to feed

Ain't nothing in this world for free.

Oh no we can't slow down, we can't hold back

Though you know we wish we could.

You know there ain't no rest for the wicked,

Until we close our eyes for good.

-Cage the Elephant

The next morning, Angel was up early and had called Wesley telling him everything that had happened last night and told him to get to the hotel as soon as he could. The two men were looking over the piles of paperwork that Wolfram and Hart had provided them with about their new jobs, looking for some way they could set Buffy up with a training facility for the slayers.

"I'm sure that we can do it, Angel. We just need to get in contact with someone who can start the process," Wesley said.

Angel sighed. "Well the only person I can think of is-"

"Lilah," Wesley finished simply for him.

Before they could continue their discussion, a small figure trudged down the stairs, yawning loudly.

"Buffy, good to see you," Wes said to her.

"Coffee…coffee," she said, her words muffled by another yawn.

"Of course, right through there," Wes said, pointing her to the direction of the small coffee pot in the area behind the reception counter.

Buffy came back to where they were standing a moment later with a steaming mug in her hands. "Thanks Wes, good to see you too," she said with a smile. "You look…much less annoying than when you were in Sunnydale," Buffy said looking him up and down.

Angel tried to hide a smirk at Buffy's comment as she stood on the other side of him that wasn't occupied by Wesley as the former watcher said, "Thank you, I do try."

Buffy leaned over the counter and took a sip of her coffee. She glanced up at Angel and said, "Morning," with a smile. Angel took his eyes off the paper he was reading and looked at her.

"Morning. How'd you sleep?"

"Mmm, great. You?"

"Pretty good," he said smiling at her. Wesley cleared his throat and brought the two back to their current situation.

"Angel and I were just discussing how we could get a place for you and the slayers to live and train," Wesley told her.

Before Buffy could say anything, Angel interrupted her by saying, "The White Room!"

"Ah, the White Room," Wesley said, as if it made perfect sense.

"The White Room?" Buffy asked.

"The White Room," Buffy stated as she stood in the vast expanse of nothingness with Wesley and Angel on either side of her. "Wonder how it got its name…" she muttered to herself as she looked up into the infinite expanse of white.

The three started to slowly look around the room as Wesley said, "Be ready to expect anything, the last conduit was a young girl. I have no idea what this one will be…"

Buffy and Angel turned to look at Wes as he trailed off and stared at something in front of him. Angel joined Wesley in staring at the woman in front of them in shock.

"You just don't go away, do you?" Angel said, his voice containing an odd combination of amusement and exasperation as he stared at the figure in front of them.

"This is the last time you'll see me, I swear," the tall brunette said to them.

"Um, hi. Little lost here, who are you?" Buffy asked curiously.

"Lilah Morgan, former employee of Wolfram and Hart, among other things…" she added, looking Wesley up and down. "And you of course are Buffy Summers. The slayer."

Before Buffy could say anything, Wes interrupted her. "I don't understand, are you the new conduit?"

Lilah gave a little laugh at that and said, "Me? No. The conduit is simply borrowing my shape and mind."

"So are you Lilah or not?" Angel asked, getting a little impatient.

"More or less," she replied with a smirk. "But enough about me, you want to ask the senior partners something. So ask away."

Buffy furrowed her eyebrows together and continued to stare warily at the woman. Angel looked to Wes, hinting that he should start the conversation.

"We want Wolfram and Hart to fund the construction of a compound, somewhere in Los Angeles, where Ms. Summers and her…associates, can live, work, and train the many slayers that have now been created."

"Ah, yes, that was your idea wasn't it?" Lilah said to Buffy, talking to her like she was a young child who had just done something wrong.

"Look lady, I don't know who you think you are, and you sure as hell don't know me-" Buffy tried to retort, but Lilah interrupted her.

"Your parents divorced when you were a freshman in high school. You think your father cheated on your mother, but you've been known to blame their split on yourself. He did cheat, by the way. Your first watcher was killed in LA and you quit being the slayer after that. You quit what, three times?" Buffy stared in shock at Lilah as she continued to ramble off facts about her life. "Your sister isn't really your sister, even though you sacrificed yourself in her place to save the world. You ran away from home after killing your boyfriend, who annoyingly just came back," Lilah said, sending a glare in Angel's direction. "You had…relations with campus stud Parker Abrams during your freshman year of college. And you gutted your sister slayer in a pathetic attempt to save your honey, who was just going to leave you anyway."

Angel looked down after hearing Lilah's last sentence as Buffy continued to just stare at Lilah, not knowing what to say.

"The Senior Partners liked your creativity with the whole slayer idea back in Sunnydale. They're impressed," Lilah said.

Buffy leaned over to Angel and whispered to him, "Is that good or bad?"

"I don't know yet," he whispered back, still keeping his eyes trained on Lilah.

"Let's talk contracts, shall we?" Lilah said, gesturing to the space behind the trio. They turned around to find a long conference table with four plush chairs waiting for them. Wes, Angel, and Buffy glanced at each other warily before walking over and sitting down in the chairs. Buffy could now see that there were some pieces of paper with writing on them in front of her chair. "So, you want Wolfram and Hart to build you training and living compound for you and your slayers, correct?"

"Yeah," Buffy replied, looking over the contract in front of her, unsure what to make of it yet.

"Well, the only way to do that is to sign a contract with us," Lilah said.

Wesley, Angel, and Buffy all looked up at Lilah when she said this, a little confusion on their faces.

Lilah raised an eyebrow at them and said, "Oh come on, you didn't think you would be getting this for free did you?"

"Well since we own the company now, yeah," Angel said, a little bit of his annoyance starting to come through in his voice.

"Correction; you own the Los Angeles branch of Wolfram and Hart. This is a multi-dimensional company we're talking about here. You know what that means right?" Off their looks Lilah said, "Right, of course. You can't possibly think you control what's going on at all of the branches in every single dimension. Wolfram and Hart is everywhere. Only the Senior Partners can handle that much power." Lilah took a deep breath before continuing. "So, we make a contract. You give us something, and we give you something," she said, looking at Buffy.

Buffy snorted and said, "What do you want from me? My firstborn? 'Cause given my track record, that's pretty unlikely-"

"We want you," Lilah said, interrupting her.

They were all silent for a beat before Buffy said in a tiny voice, "Me? What- I don't understand."

"It's simple. We provide you with a state of the art training compound complete with classrooms, living quarters, weapons, all the amenities a couple dozen slayers would ever need and in return, anytime the Senior Partners feel like they could use the help of one of the most powerful slayers in, well…ever, you'll give them a hand," Lilah told her.

Buffy sat in silence, mulling this over in her head.

Angel spoke first. "Lilah, Buffy's not the kind of person that likes to be told what to do, I really don't think she-"

"Angel, wait," Buffy said, still starting Lilah in the eye.

Angel looked back and forth between Lilah and Buffy, not believing he was hearing this. Buffy was strong willed, like a force of nature or something. She would hate to be on such a short leash like this. "Buffy, you can't be serious…" he said, looking at her.

"How else am I going to take care of all these slayers? It's because of me that they've been thrust into this horrible world of fighting that we live in every single day," Buffy said to him.

"Buffy, you're going to be Wolfram and Hart's hit man!" Angel said, his voice starting to rise.

"I have to think of the bigger picture here Angel!" Buffy said, her voice almost at a yell. "It's not all about me," she said, lowering her voice a little.

Slayer and vampire stared at each other for a beat before Buffy said to Lilah, "I'll do it."

Angel sighed and leaned back in the chair as Buffy picked up the pen on the table and signed the document. Angel sat up as soon as he smelt the liquid coming from the ornate pen.

"Blood?" he exclaimed to Lilah. He knew it was Buffy's; he'd know the smell of her blood anywhere. "How in the hell did you get her blood?"

Lilah smiled sickeningly at him before saying, "Don't ask questions you don't want the answer to." And then she said to Buffy, "You'll be hearing from us soon."

There was a flash of blinding light and Wesley, Angel, and Buffy found themselves back in the lobby of the Hyperion. They all stared at Buffy, the realization of what just happened starting to sink in.

A/N: I really hope you guys like this one. In my opinion season 5 of Angel was much, much darker than any of the other seasons and I always wondered what it would be like for Buffy to be in the same position as Angel (making a deal with someone you really don't like and is against everything you ever stood for to benefit others). As a result I imagine their relationship in future chapters is going to be different than what they had before; more mature, more adult, which always means pretty heavy angst...but that's what we B/A'ers love, right? Now, to see what we can do about that curse...

As always...more reviews = more motivation = more chapters.

-sailor's delight