Buffy awoke with a start, her body shooting straight up in bed before she realized that it was just a dream. Soft sunlight shone through the split in the drapes, illuminating little flecks of dust in its path. It was early morning. She was alone, in her room at Giles' estate in England, but the dream had taken her to a place in her past and now she felt out of sorts and afraid.

She ran a hand through her honey blonde hair, wiping the back of her other hand across her eyes. It was only then that she realized she had been crying. Loudly.

As if on cue, a soft knock at the door sounded just before the knob clicked and a familiar face peaked in. "Everything okay Buffy?"

Buffy took in a gulp of air, Willow's mere presence helping to calm her and she motioned for her friend to come in. Willow closed the door behind her and walked over to the queen bed, sitting on the end of it just like she used to do when they were high school classmates back in Sunnydale. The Hellmouth may have swallowed the town where their friendship was forged, but nothing could change their bond.

"What is it?"

Buffy took another steadying breath, a few stubborn tears still skittering down her cheeks. "Bad dream. Will, it was so real."

The look of concern on Willow's face mixed with a sudden alertness. Part of the slayer calling included prophetic dreams and Willow knew never to dismiss anything that happened in Buffy's subconscious.

"Big bad?"

Buffy shook her head, her heart aching at the vivid memories that still sat in her mind. "It was Angel."

Confusion knit Willow's brows together. "Something is going to happen to Angel? Or, is Angel going to do something bad?" The confusion on Will's face melted into a look of foreboding. "I don't have to fly all the way back to LA to re-ensoul him again, do I?"

Buffy chuckled a bit through her tears, shaking her head again. "No, nothing like that. The dream wasn't about anything that was happening now, or in the future. It was in the past, except it never really happened."

"Well, then it was just a dream-dream and not a big-bad-world-swallowing-evil-dream. No big." Willow smiled brightly through the sleepiness that Buffy could see in her eyes. She was constantly reminded how lucky she was to have a friend like Willow, a friend who would sit up talking to her after a bad dream, even if it meant sacrificing another hour of precious sleep.

Buffy ran a hand through her hair again and fought the urge to break down into sobs. "I don't know Will. What happened in the dream seemed like it was all made up in my head, but the feeling of the dream…it felt the way dreams feel when I'm supposed to pay attention to them. I've had a lot of practice at dissecting my dreams, there was something to this one."

Will crawled into the middle of the bed and sat cross-legged in front of her friend. All sleepiness was gone from her large, blue eyes as she looked intently at Buffy, an expression of resolve on her kind features. "Okay, maybe it would help if you told me everything you remember while its still fresh. Then, maybe, we can figure out what you're supposed to pay attention to."

Buffy nodded her head. The memories of the dream were still a painful burn in her heart, but she knew the only way to figure out what to do with it was to get it out.

"I dreamt that we were back in freshman year at UC Sunnydale and I went to visit my Dad after Thanksgiving. You remember, the super perfect Thanksgiving that ended with a Shumash massacre?"

Willow nodded her head. "I remember. Fighting, syphilis, mashed potatoes and a hearty helping of secret Angel lurking."

Buffy shuddered. "Well, I never told anyone, but I went to see Angel while I was in LA visiting my Dad. I wanted to confront him about sneaking around, about not telling me that he had been there."

Willow's eyes went wide but she didn't respond, allowing Buffy to continue. "He acted aloof at the time and I left, feeling like things with us were officially over forever. He hadn't acted like he really cared all that much. We were interrupted by a demon crashing through his office window, which he killed instantly and I left. But, in my dream, it got away and we decided to track it together."

"Do you think that maybe this demon has something to do with Angel in the present?" Willow interrupted.

Buffy shook her head. "No. In the dream, Angel and I tracked the demon through the sewers before I headed up to the surface to see if it went into the daylight. The next thing I know, Angel is walking toward me in the light."

Willow's eyes grew larger as she searched Buffy's face. She was clearly hanging on every word.

"He walked right up to me and kissed me. He'd killed it in the sewers and his blood had mixed with the demon's, which had the power to make him human. We went back to his place and sat forever, not knowing what to say. I was so afraid to say the wrong thing. I'd dreamed of a way for him to be human so many times. It was so complicated and I was about to leave after we agreed to take things slow, but then all of a sudden we were on his kitchen table."

Buffy looked at Will with a small blush, which made Willow smile. "Don't stop now, you're just getting to the smoochy parts."

Buffy rolled her eyes good-naturedly and went on, choosing to edit a bit for her own modesty's sake. "We spent the whole day together, eating ice cream in his bed, making love, talking. I could hear his heart beating in his chest, feel warmth in his skin when I touched it. It was so vivid in the dream, I can still feel it."

The memories that still clung to her from the dream were threatening to break her heart into a million pieces and she finished the story in a rush to try and keep her still fragile emotions in check. "The next morning he was gone. The demon had regenerated itself and he got his ass kicked trying to fight it because he'd lost his vampire strength. I caught up with him and killed it myself, which wigged him out. Taking this as a sign that he couldn't help me fight the battles of good and evil as a human, he had some creepy brother and sister with blue body paint change him back to a vampire by making it so the day before had never happened."

Despite her best efforts, tears spilled slowly over her bottom lashes and down her cheeks as she got to the end of the dream. "He told me what he'd done with only minutes to spare before the spell took effect and I wouldn't remember what had happened. We cried in each other's arms, knowing that we were losing each other again. Then, suddenly, were were back to the day before again and I was standing in his office while we coldly decided to keep with the plan of staying away from each other, my memory erased of our day together. Angel was left to remember it alone, so we wouldn't make the same mistake again. He killed the monster when it crashed into his office immediately so it couldn't make him human. Then I left, just like my original memory of that day."

Willow shook her head slowly and reached out to take Buffy's hand in her own. "Do you think it really happened? There can't be any other explanation for it, I mean, that is a pretty vivid dream Buffy. Maybe you are remembering it now after all this time."

Buffy shrugged, wiping her tears away with her free hand. "It would be just like Angel to decide what is best for me, for us, without talking to me about it first. But why would I remember it now, that is if it's actually a memory and not just a dream-dream."

Willow's eyes were alive with the ideas bouncing around furiously in her brilliant mind. "There are lots of reasons why you could be remembering it now. Maybe, the brother and sister you were talking about were witches and they did a spell. The spell's strength might only be effective for a little while before it started to break down and fade, like, a glamour. Or , maybe one of them died, which would also make the spell fade depending on the types of magics used, or…"

Willow's voice drifted off and Buffy didn't like the look that had suddenly come into her eyes. It was the look that she gave Buffy whenever she knew something that she didn't want to repeat, when she didn't want to be the bearer of bad news. It was a tortured expression and it was making Buffy's stomach clench with dread. "Or what? Will, you have to spit it out."

The tortured expression never left her face. "Or, maybe, the subject who originally requested the spell is…"

Buffy dropped her eyes to the hand that still rested in Willow's comforting one. "Dead?"

She lifted her gaze back up and looked at Willow's face, knowing that she'd hit the mark and feeling like she wanted to throw up. "Maybe Angel is dead?"

"The spell is most likely bound by him somehow. You said that he still remembered everything that had happened. Well, if something happened to him, the spell could be broken as his consciousness left this plane of existence."

Buffy's chest constricted and a choked sob broke free as she continued to stare down at Willow's hand intertwined with her own. "Oh God Will, this can't be happening! After everything that I've been through, after all the time that I've sacrificed fighting for what was right I always thought that there would come a day when it was our turn, when there would be a time for Angel and I. This just can't be happening, it can't."

Willow's heart broke at the devastation in her friend's voice. She was no stranger to losing the love of her life, even if she had learned to find happiness again. Angel had always been Buffy's big love, her soul mate. They had to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible.

"Hey, there's no reason to jump to conclusions. It's most likely that, if it even was a spell, that it just ran its course for some reason. I'll call Wesley. I'll make something up about a book that we need or something and then I'll just ask how everyone is."

Willow unfolded herself from the bed and walked out of the room, reappearing a few moments later with her cell phone in her hand. She began dialing the number as she gently re-closed the door and then waited patiently as it started to ring, smiling reassuringly at Buffy as she reclaimed her seat at the end of the bed.

The line rang several times and Willow winced inwardly as she realized that it was after one o'clock in the morning in California. She was about to hang up when the line finally clicked on, but no one voiced a greeting. Willow's eyebrows lowered in a confused scowl. "Hello?"

"Who calls?" The deep woman's voice on the other end of the line replied in a monotone. Willow's eyebrows dropped down another notch.

"This is Willow. Willow Rosenburg? I'm calling for Wesley Windham Price, I must have the wrong number."

"Wesley is dead."

The sound of the other end of the line disconnecting seemed like a boom in Willow's ear as her heart began to slam in her chest. Buffy could tell instantly that something was terribly wrong and was on her feet before she knew it.

"Willow, what's wrong? Who was that?"

Willow looked up into Buffy's eyes, her own beginning to grow glassy with the tears that would surely be coming once her confusion and fear gave way to them.

"We have to go to LA. Something is terribly wrong."