"You're thinking of leaving, aren't you?" said Buffy. She and Angel had already visited two cemeteries without incident, and now they were on their way to check the Crawford Street mansion for the dozenth time in the last week.
"If there's no way to fix the curse, then what choice do we have?"
"So, what, you help me make this town a place worth living in again, and then you don't actually get to live in it? How can you be okay with that?"
He put a hand on her arm to stop her walking so that he could look into her face. "I'm not okay with it," he said. "You know I'm not."
"Then why do you keep acting like you're ready to give up? We could still find a solution."
"Maybe." He did not sound optimistic. "In the meantime, I feel like a ticking time bomb."
"Well, unless ticking time bomb is a happy feeling, I don't really see the problem." She was finding it increasingly difficult not to vent her frustrations at him. Why wasn't he fighting for them? "Where would you even go?"
"Long term, I don't know. Short term, I think I want to do something about the reason Tara's stutter gets worse whenever the subject of her home comes up."
Buffy scowled. She'd noticed that about Tara too. But that was beside the point. "You being all heroic isn't going to make me feel better about this. All we have to do is be more careful."
"Careful that being with you doesn't make me too happy?" He touched her face, giving her a sad smile. "How exactly do we do that?"
The unfairness of the situation made Buffy want to scream. He was the best person she knew, and knowing that she was what made him happiest despite all her flaws and baggage should have been wonderful, except that him being happy apparently wasn't allowed . But instead of screaming, she grinned mischievously and started walking again. "Oh, I've got lots of ideas for that. I could start nagging you more, ogling other guys in front of you, showering less often…."
Angel laughed. It started out clear and full, but quickly turned bittersweet. Aaand she'd just unintentionally demonstrated their problem. Damn. She grasped for other solutions. "Okay, so maybe that wouldn't work, but we've been together for months, Council-induced intermission aside, and you've kept your soul through all of that. If we just avoid doing stuff we haven't already done, you should be safe."
"I don't want you to have to miss out on anything because of me."
"I can't miss what I've never had." Buffy almost wished she hadn't said it. She could feel herself blushing bright red. But she wouldn't take it back. As badly as she wanted him to make love to her and as difficult as it would be to never be able to make love to him, she would rather have whatever she could get with Angel than to so much as kiss anyone else.
They stopped walking again, and he gave her a long, searching look. "And you'd be happy then?"
"As happy as we're allowed to be. Angel, I don't care about the things you can't give me. It's not like you're withholding them out of spite. I felt dead inside before we met. You brought me back to life."
He leaned his forehead against hers. She closed her eyes and slid her hands up around his neck. "I love you," he said. "No matter what happens, that will never change."
She kissed him, and he kissed her back with a desperation he'd never shown before, like they were running out of time. She broke away first. "Come on," she said, a little unsteady. "We're almost to the mansion."
†
Before Giles could reveal the answer to the mystery to any of them, someone came bursting through the library doors, making all of them jump. It was Larry, in full football gear and uniform, utter terror on his face.
"Larry, what—"
"Giles, you gotta help me! That freaky goth kid, Michael, is after me. I'm pretty sure he just killed two of my teammates with a curse, and I think I'm next!"
"Girls, Miss Calendar, get behind the counter," said Giles, eyes on the library's double doors. "Larry, in my office." They all obeyed at once, and Giles walked around the counter too.
The doors swung open again not a second later, and a young man all in black, including makeup and jewelry, stalked inside. His eyes snapped to Giles. They were utterly devoid of mercy. "I know he's in here. Maybe if he shows himself, I won't have to hurt you for helping him."
"Mr. Czajak, the library is closed, and I'm the only one here," said Giles. "Whomever you're looking for, I'm sure you can find him on Monday during school hours."
"Wrong answer," said Michael. He raised a hand toward him menacingly, but before he could wield any dark magic against him, Larry emerged from the office, now free of the helmet and shoulder guards.
"Hey, man, whatever your problem is with me and the team, leave Giles out of it."
Crouching beside Giles, Tara peeked around the side of the counter, then abruptly drew back. Giles couldn't ask her what that was about without alerting Michael to her presence. Michael, meanwhile, grinned and aimed his outstretched hand at Larry instead. Larry's hands flew to his throat and he made a choking noise.
"What are you doing?" Giles shouted. "Are you mad?"
"This is payback," said Michael, ignoring Giles. "For all the years you and your friends beat me up, tripped me in the hallway, stole my stuff, and forced me to do your homework. It was quick for them, but I think I'm gonna make it slow for you."
Something tugged on Giles's pant leg, and he looked down. Tara was staring up at him, looking horrified. "He-he's empty," she whispered. "Still human, but hi-his soul is gone."
"Are you certain?"
She nodded vigorously, eyes wide.
Without another word, Giles seized the loaded pistol he kept beneath the counter (along with a crossbow, a sword, and a few other emergency weapons), took aim, and shot the young warlock directly between the eyes. Amy and Jenny both screamed, while Tara covered her head in her arms. Michael fell to the floor, dead, and Larry drew a shuddering breath, released from the choking spell.
†
The many guards who had made close recon impossible since they rescued Tara were now conspicuously absent. Buffy had a very bad feeling about this.
"There's barely any movement in there," said Angel, eyes narrowed. "And there's this weird beeping noise."
They moved in cautiously, but that turned out to be unnecessary. Inside the mansion, they found only one vampire, a gawky, dark-haired kid with a long face, and the beeping noise turned out to be coming from the Game Boy Color he was playing. Buffy and Angel approached him, eyebrows raised. The first time he glanced up from the screen was when they were ten feet away. His eyes widened, and he looked back at the screen, shrank in on himself, and tapped the buttons more furiously than before, as if they would leave him alone if he looked preoccupied enough with his game.
"Where's Darla, Jesse?" said Angel.
"The Bronze," he said. "At least, that's where she's going."
"And why aren't you there?" said Buffy, snatching the Game Boy out of his hands.
He snarled, his features shifting. "She wanted to make sure you knew that she was planning to take it back as a tribute to the Master, okay? She has a special surprise for you."
"What kind of surprise?" said Angel.
"How should I know? Lady barely talks to me, even though the Master sired me just like her. It's always the same story. Willow and Xander were his favorites, and I was just the guy who ran errands. Now they're all dead, and I run errands for Darla."
Buffy rolled her eyes. "You realize that the more you can tell us, the longer you'll stay alive, right?"
"Fine, I'll tell you everything I know," he said, then snatched back the Game Boy and booked it out of the room.
Buffy couldn't remember a vampire encounter ever being that annoying before, but she didn't give chase. Jesse was far too small potatoes to be wasting her time on with Darla about to launch an attack on the Bronze. Judging from Angel's expression, he felt the same way. "We better get to the library to tell the others and gear up."
"Oz is already at the Bronze," Buffy realized, worried. "The reopening starts in half an hour."
"I'll head straight there and scope things out," said Angel.
Buffy nodded, and they went their separate ways. Buffy ran full speed all the way from the mansion to the school. Slayer strength, speed, and endurance notwithstanding, a car would've made this so much easier.
She kept running when she burst through the school's doors. On hearing the unmistakable sound of a gunshot coming from the direction of the library, she ran even faster. She skidded through the swinging doors in time to hear Jenny's shriek of, "God, Rupert, did you just shoot a student?"
The scene before her made her temporarily forget why she'd just spent the last quarter of an hour running. The goth kid in her English and Algebra II classes was lying sprawled on the floor in front of her, a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. Larry stood a few paces beyond him, massaging his throat and gasping for air. Giles was setting down the literal smoking gun while Tara, Jenny, and a girl Buffy was pretty sure was called Amy stood behind the counter beside him, all looking very shell-shocked.
"Yeah," Larry gasped. "Thanks for the save, but damn. Hey, Buffy."
"What the hell did I miss?" said Buffy faintly. "You killed this kid, Giles?"
"He was worse than dead already." Giles walked back around the counter and retrieved a book from the study table.
"What are you talking about?" said Jenny, easily the most upset of anyone in the room.
"Darla used Mrs. Madison and Mr. Czajak here to summon a Naqraw," said Giles, holding up the book and pointing at an illustration. "A soul-eater."
Buffy went cold with dread. "No."
"The summoning ritual takes a full week to complete and requires two casters," Giles went on. "Miss Maclay was likely meant to be one of them before you rescued her. Perhaps Darla wanted a witch with the natural ability to sense souls so that she could be sure the Naqraw did its job, but she settled for a substitute when Tara slipped through her fingers."
"So that's how I ended up back in my body?" said Amy. "Mom did this ritual, and then this thing sucked out her soul?"
"Indeed," said Giles. "Darla would've needed to feed two souls to the Naqraw straight away in order to bind it to her command, and there Michael and Catherine were, an easy meal for it. Once Catherine's soul left Amy's body, there was nothing stopping Amy's soul from returning to where it belonged. Catherine's body must have deteriorated from being paired with the wrong soul for so long, so it simply died when Amy vacated it."
"And now Darla's going to try to feed Angel's soul to the demon," said Tara.
"She and all of her minions weren't at the mansion when Angel and I got there," said Buffy, panic rising in her chest. As much as it sucked, she'd liked things much better when she was the only threat to Angel's soul. "Just one guy who told us she was going to take back the town, starting with the Bronze. Angel went there alone to scope it out. He'll be a sitting duck. We've got to stop her!"
The Game Boy Color was released in the US in November of 1998, which couldn't be more perfect timing for this. Game Boy Vamp, while already my favorite minion vamp ever, wasn't originally going to be Jesse, but then it occurred to me that there was no reason he *shouldn't* be Jesse. So yeah. That was fun. :D
