***WARNING: disturbing content, see original warning attached to first part (no gory details but it could be upsetting nonethe

***WARNING: disturbing content, see original warning attached to first part (no gory details but it could be upsetting nonetheless)***

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hell

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Anya stood in front of the bathroom mirror in Xander's apartment. She smiled wanly at the thought: it hadn't been purely Xander's apartment for even a second since he'd signed to lease, there were more of her things in it that were at her own place, so many more that she often wondered why she continued to pay her rent each month rather than just moving the rest of her possessions in with Xander. She spent far more time away from her apartment than in it, it really was a waste of perfectly good money she could be saving for something quite interesting, investing and making it double, triple even if she were lucky and wise in her investments.

But with her future outlook was in such a confused and uncertain position, she supposed it didn't matter how much money she saved, or wasted for that matter, the chances of her returning after the trial were far too slim.

She knew that Giles had tried to find some way to exclude her from the trial, some demonic court loophole, and when he couldn't, had done everything he could to procure a means for her safe return, and although she had quite a bit of faith in the watcher's abilities, she was afraid this was beyond anything any of them could manage. No matter how many protection spells they cast or amulets they devised, no matter the number of books they researched or the people they spoke to, she would be completely at the mercy of the realm once she passed through the portal.

She smiled again at the memory of the dinner Xander had prepared for her not an hour before. He had pulled out all the stops, filling the apartment with fresh flowers and candles and destroying the kitchen completely while he cooked. His manic activities around the stove had confused her at first, Xander never cooked; at least he didn't cook three course meals. She almost asked what was wrong but he answered her before she could form the right words.

"I've just gotta do something, ya' know?"

She stared at him, not understanding in the least, but willing to let him explain in his own time.

"I mean Giles and Buffy have been crackin' the books and Will and Tara have been casting all sorts of spells and stuff… but me? All I can do is sit and wait and worry. I don't know what I'd do without you in my life, Ahn. And to tell ya' the truth, I don't want to have to find out either." He had leaned back against the counter and met her gaze, his eyes filled with the tears he refused to shed, the meal baking in the oven and filling the kitchen with savory scents temporarily forgotten.

Anya knew she should say something comforting, at least she thought that's what people did in such circumstances, but no comforting words were forthcoming. She was as much distressed by that fact as she was about the trial.

"I love you, Anya. I don't care what you did while you were a demon; I don't care what was done to you either. Except for this really nasty desire to rip out the entrails of anyone who would even try to hurt you and shove 'em down his fork-tongued throat. Nothing could ever change how I feel about you right now, in this instant, because nothing else matters. What I said to you before, about how you made me feel like a man? That doesn't just go away. I love you, Anya," he repeated.

"And I love you, Xander. You know that I do."

"I just wish…" Xander stopped himself from saying aloud what would only upset Anya again. As much as he wanted to know what had happened to her, he couldn't risk alienating her when he could quite possibly be losing her in just a few short hours.

Anya looked down at the floor. She'd been doing a lot of that lately, she thought she would probably be able to describe, in graphic detail, the floor coverings of most of Sunnydale by this point. Sighing softly, she knew what she needed to do, what Xander needed her to do.

"You wish I would tell you about Jharahalien," her voice was steady but hesitant.

"Yeah."

Anya hoisted herself up onto the counter next to where Xander stood and folded her hands neatly in her lap, relishing the airy, cool material of the silk dress she had purchased that afternoon. She had bought it because she had never felt anything so light and smooth until after she had accepted D'Hoffryn's offer. Silk was a big change from the homespun linen and wool she had woven and worn when she had first been human. She had bought the dress because she had desperately wanted to remember how much happier her life had become since those days so long ago. She was happier by far; she could never have imagined a world that accepted women as equals, or a man who could make her feel as wanted and needed and loved as Xander did.

"The first time I ever saw him I was in Ireland, only it wasn't called that then, but that's where I was. There was this girl who had been cheated on and I went to give her her wish. I was there a few days, trying to get her to open up and wish something on him when Jharahalien showed up. I didn't realize he was a demon until later when I saw him with D'Hoffryn. He was just this pushy guy who kept trying to make me copulate with him and I figured I would be away from him once and for all when Siobhan finally decided on what she wanted to have happen to her old boyfriend. She did decide finally, and she was rather creative too, but once I got back to the realm, there he was." Anya sighed and paused in her telling of the old story.

"It's true that I didn't know Lisenka was there then, I didn't see her until a long time later. Once you're a demon you don't really think about the people you left behind. I did a few more wishes and he would bother me when I was back in the realm, but it was nothing big, I figured he was one of those all-talk-no-action types, but then Jharahalien showed up in Bremen."

"I had been there a month trying to get this girl to talk, she was really hard to get to know, I don't even know how she ever managed to get married to begin with unless it was one of those arranged things, but one day while I was walking down this street trying to keep from tripping over the cobblestones, they were really poorly laid out and there were these big ruts and missing stones and…" Anya paused again, realizing she was getting off track in her story. "He stepped out right in front of me. I ran into him and ended up falling down into the mud. When I looked up to see what had happened, I couldn't believe he was back."

Xander watched her in amazement, not wanting to breathe lest it disturb her from what she was saying. He knew it couldn't be easy for her to relate and he reached out to place one hand over her folded ones. He was relieved to see her tilt her head slightly and offer him a tiny smile.

Taking a deep breath, she hurriedly described the events that followed, her words tripping over one another in her haste to be done with what she had started. She told him of the curious look in Jharahalien's eyes and how she hadn't understood it at the time. She told of how he had grabbed her from where she had fallen and pulled her into an inn and up into one of the rooms upstairs, how she had finally realized his intent and had tried to scream and fight back and chant the incantation that would return her to the relative safety of D'Hoffryn, all to no avail. How she had begged him to leave her alone, to not do what she knew he intended. How she had offered him things she knew she couldn't give, doing anything to try to appease his building lustful desires.

She told him that by the time he had left her alone in the room, cowering against the straw mattress and pulling the rough sheet across her naked body, she was so distressed, so utterly devastated, that she could barely regulate her breathing through her choking sobs. Never had she been so completely violated, not even when she was a child living on the very outskirts of civilization in the little, and often raided, village her parents had brought her into the world in.

She told how the barmaid had found her there, still crying, long hours later and how she had tried to offer her some comfort. How the woman had suggested she find a man to marry so that she might be protected the next time something similar happened. She also told of how she had gone straight to the woman she had been sent to help and had demanded to know what she wanted done to her husband. How she had left that same afternoon with the scent of burning flesh still in her nose.

"That wasn't the last time I saw Jharahalien, it wasn't even the only time he attacked me. He'd just show up sometimes when I was trying to help one woman or another and…" she trailed off. "I tried to tell D'Hoffryn what was going on but he and Jharahalien were too close, he wouldn't listen to my complaints."

"I found out a little while later that Lisenka was also a vengeance demon. It was strange to have someone I knew from when I was a human there in D'Hoffryn's realm with me. I didn't find out about her own problems with Jharahalien until much later."

"I'd avoid him when I could and try to ignore him when I couldn't. Any time I saw him I would just turn around and leave. Lisenka was with me once when I saw him and when she acted the same way, I understood why. I asked her anyway and she told me about the others too. That's when she decided to make an official complaint to the Council. D'Hoffryn wouldn't help so she said we needed to go over his head. I told her it still wouldn't do any good but she wanted to try anyway and said that it couldn't hurt…"

"I guess she was wrong." She stopped speaking, her shallow panicked breathing reverberating off the kitchen tiles.

Xander stood in shock, watching the tears trail down Anya's cheeks, dropping darkly on the pale blue of her dress. How she could ever think he would think any less of her for the story she had related, he didn't know. It only made him want to protect her more, to wrap his arms around her and promise to keep her safe from any more harm.

He had known, in theory, what Anya had, in a manner of speaking, lived through but hearing the specifics made it all that much more unbearable. Pushing aside his own raging emotions, he moved forward to wrap his arms around her waist, standing between her legs that dangled motionlessly from the counter's edge. She shuddered involuntarily in his embrace and he tightened his hold on her, burying his face in her hair as she pressed her face into his shoulder.

Helping her deal with the past and its horrors would have been difficult enough, but now that her very life was threatened as well, he didn't know how she could function at all, he knew he wasn't doing a very good job of it.

"Oh, Ahn," he breathed into her hair.

"Just hold me now. Okay? Just hold me."

"Not a problem, not planning on letting you go until I have to."

Staring at her reflection in the mirror, she smiled back on Xander's reaction. She ought to have known how he would feel, but she had felt so uneasy about the whole thing and was afraid he would react badly to her telling him about it, to the fact that she had kept it from him for so long. It was hard to know what parts of her past life she was supposed to tell and which she was expected to keep to herself.

Xander had sworn to protect her and although she knew he had no way of doing it, hearing the words still made her feel a little bit better. Dragging the brush through her hair one last time she turned away and walked out to meet Xander where he stood waiting for her by the bathroom door.

~~~~

They stood nervously near the spot Giles had determined the portal would open, eight very worried mortals trying to mentally prepare for a trip back into the demon realm they had all once known so well. A bit behind them stood Anya's makeshift group of friends, minus Spike who had mysteriously disappeared that afternoon. After being around him for three days, his absence was blatantly noticeable.

"Do we know exactly when…"

Giles turned toward Buffy and shook his head. "No, although one would assume it would be soon."

Buffy stared intently at Anya and the rest. "It makes it harder, the not knowing exactly when. Did you give her that protection amulet Willow and Tara whipped up this morning?"

"Yes, yes, I did. She is quite appreciative of everyone's concern. But…"

Buffy smiled sadly. "Yeah, I know. She doesn't know how to tell us. Honestly? It's probably more of a shock to her than this whole trial, the way we all banded together to try to help."

"Hey, demon girl!"

Anya, as well as everyone else who was gathered, spun around to see Spike loping up to them.

He passed through the small crowd and stopped at Anya's side. "Thought I was going to miss out on all the fun, did you? Not a chance, bobbit. I just had to pay a call on an old friend of mine." He reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a woven strip of something that resembled hemp and tiny glass beads. Reaching for Anya's wrist, he fastened it on securely. "He said that it should help you there… if all your other trinkets fail." Spike smirked and flicked his nails across the amulets Anya had been nearly cloaked in.

"Thank you?" unsure of Spike's intentions, Anya's voice wavered slightly.

"Yes, thanks would be appropriate, pet." He lightly tapped a single black lacquered nail against her temple and dropped his head to look into her eyes. "Just make sure this doesn't get scrambled and turned to mush and you should be alright. You can't just leave the boy moping about without coming back to 'im. I might just have to kill him then, bleedin' pain or not." He dipped his hand back into his pocket before turning to face Lisenka.

"Now, dearie, I know we've always had our differences, but it would be quite a boring world indeed without you in it." He tied a similar bracelet around the woman's tiny wrist. "Besides, who would I have to argue with about the finer points of vengeance once I do finally get this chip out o' my head?" Patting her hand awkwardly, he added, "be careful, all of you."

Handing Anya a fistful of bracelets, he added, "For the rest." Then he was gone, walking back the way he had come.

"So which demon did you off to get those?" Buffy asked when Spike started to stride past her, looking for somewhere to sit and observe.

"Just called in a few favors."

Buffy watched him move off apart from the group and looked up at Giles. "I'm never going to understand him, am I?"

"It would seem unlikely," the watcher admitted.

The air around them grew thick with energy, ceasing any conversation, and focusing all eyes on a faint swirling light just a few yards away. Xander stepped closer to Anya, reaching out to take her hand in his own.

"You're coming back, Ahn. Otherwise, D'Hoffryn's gonna have to deal with the scoobies tearin' through looking for you."

Anya lifted her face to his, leaning forward to crush his lips in a desperately needful kiss, before she pulled away and walked toward the growing whorl of colored light that marked the portal. She looked back over her shoulder for one last look, a tremulous smile on her lips, before she followed Lisenka into the brightening lights.

A fraction of a second later and the portal was gone, Anya's last spoken words dancing in the dying winds.

"I'll miss you…"

"Anya!" Xander's cry rung hollowly in the dark moonless night.