.
She'd never spoken the words aloud before. Not to anybody else, and not even to herself. She'd locked them deep, never to be acknowledged, until now.

Buffy had thought she'd feel more as she admitted the truth for the first time, maybe an overwhelming sense of guilt or anguish, or even the usual rage that had begun to build only moments earlier, but there was nothing. Just the cold, hard, flat I killed him ringing in the air. "He had a soul, and I killed him. If I could, I'd bring him back and do it all over again."

Spike didn't flinch. He didn't rush to tell her she'd been justified either. Gaze neutral, he waited for her to go on, the one person who had seen the best and the worst of her and loved her all the same.

So Buffy talked. For the first time since it had happened, she told the entire story, while Spike listened.

"It started the year after Sunnydale, not that I knew it then. Angel was CEO of some evil law firm - it was a plan to take them down from the inside, don't ask - and the gang and I were in Europe, rounding up the new Slayers and training them. He and I talked on occasion, but never for long. I was busy, and so was he.

"Sometimes we'd get to a new Slayer too late. Without any training or understanding of what had happened to them - well, you know the life of a Slayer. Short and brutal. We'd changed that, but some fell through the cracks. Sometimes, when we found them, it wasn't pretty. Lots of demons like a good virgin sacrifice; at least, that was what we'd thought we'd found. Those times were few and far between, in different parts of the world, and were dissimilar enough they didn't ping our spidey senses."

Buffy shifted in her seat, wrapping her arms around herself. It was cold down here, but she'd left Steve's jacket upstairs, unfortunately.

"It was a year or two after Sunnydale when Angel finally took out the evil law firm. I'm not sure what happened; we just saw the news reports featuring a burnt out shell of a skyscraper and a lot of dead lawyers, and he never wanted to talk about it when I asked. We didn't hear from him for months after and then he showed up on our doorstep one day, claiming the Powers had sent him. He got visions from them - something he'd inherited from Cordelia, and again, don't ask.

"Looking back now, we didn't talk, not really. It was never our thing. So I had no idea what was going on with him. We fought the good fight, and we…" Buffy blushed. "Found ways to work around the curse."

Spike didn't react. Which was sort of weird. Really weird. Not just the not reacting to what she'd admitted to doing with Angel, but the not talking or moving at all. In her memory, Spike was always moving, always talking. Buffy watched him awhile, wondering whether he was comatose. Or maybe sleeping with his eyes open. Maybe those side-effects Phil had been so worried about?

"I'm listening, pet," he said quietly. "Go on."

She smiled halfheartedly, and nodded. "Angel's visions were useful. Even with all the new Slayers, we had a hard time keeping up with the uptick in demonic activity. The good guys can never catch a break, right? Most times we'd go after his visions together, but there were plenty of times he'd go off on his own. And some of those times, he'd get there too late. We didn't question it. Why would we? We all had failures. Except when he failed, it usually involved all the Slayers in the area getting taken out, entire squads ritualistically slaughtered. It was happening all over, though, not just where Angel was. If he was in supposed to be in Vietnam, why would we connect him to a dozen ritually sacrificed Slayers in Peru?

"Worse, it took us months longer than it should have to realize Slayers were being targeted. That they weren't just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But… we finally put it together." She took a deep breath, filling her lungs completely, and held it as long as she could before exhaling in a long hiss of air. "To cut a long and painful year short, we were stymied at every turn. It's obvious why now, but of course we didn't know that then. We amped up security, created larger squads, kept Slayers hidden… nothing helped.

"Hundreds, maybe thousands of girls, Spike. Murdered over the space of a few years, and all because I thought it would be a good idea to empower them."

Spike stood then, moving swiftly to the barrier. He put his hand up against it, fingers splayed, and waited. Mimicking her earlier actions. When she joined him, resting her hand against his, he held her gaze. Quietly but fiercely, he said, "Evil is on the one who commits it, Buffy. It's on Angel. Understand? What you did was good and pure. He's the one who corrupted that."

The hot, tight lump in her gut burned its way up her chest and into her throat. Buffy swallowed, and swallowed again, but couldn't stop the tears. Swiping at her eyes, she rested her head against the grid. "I wish I could believe that."

"Would I tell you pretty lies, Slayer, just to spare your precious feelings?"

Buffy sniffled. "You always were a big jerk," she agreed, chest hitching.

Spike laughed softly, a low rumble deep in his chest. When she'd caught hold of the rhythm of her breath once more, he said, "Finish it out, love."

She nodded. "It came down to me and Faith, and a handful of girls. I -" She choked for a moment. "I sent them away with Angel. To a location unknown to anyone but me. We didn't even tell Giles."

Spike pressed closer with a wordless noise of sympathy.

"My big plan was to go off on my own and draw the attackers out. I figured they wanted me, you know, and I was going to hand myself right over. Sacrifice myself to save the others." Buffy laughed bitterly. "Same story as always. Buffy screws up, trusts the wrong person, and everybody else pays the price. I know Angel probably would have gotten to them eventually because the Powers - or whoever was sending him these visions - were leading him down this path from the beginning. But, god. I handed them right over to him, Spike.

"Giles figured it out first. We'd separated, with me playing bait, and he and the others following the trail of clues. Angel got sloppy at the end, or maybe over-confident, and he stopped hiding his tracks so carefully. When Giles realized the truth… he didn't call me right away. He knew I wouldn't believe him, so he took Xander and Dawn and Willow and Andrew, and a handful of other witches, and went after Angel on his own. I'll never know if it was to spare me the truth or because he thought I'd try to stop him.

"They stormed the underground cave, but Angel had been expecting them. Or maybe he'd always expected to be found. Willow's magic bounced right off of him because he was wearing this enchanted mask thingy. Not just a mask, but a full body suit that protected him from magic. It also kept any witnesses - not that there were ever many - from identifying him. Hence the Twilight moniker.

"When they realized Willow's firepower wasn't doing the trick, Xander and Dawn and Andrew tried to distract Angel long enough for the others to penetrate his magical armor, but none of them could fight him. None of them were strong enough.

"Angel killed Andrew without ever even looking at him. The three coven witches were next. Dawn - you remember her beautiful face? She has a scar, like this," Buffy said, tracing her finger from her eye to the bottom of her chin, following the curve of her face. "From the dagger Angel used to - to flay the other Slayers."

She'd lost control of her breathing once more, but there was no stopping now. Buffy didn't know if she could halt the outpouring of words even if she wanted to. "He shattered Xander's knee with crossbow bolt before knocking him unconscious. Xander's walked with a limp ever since. So it was down to Willow and Giles. And Faith. Faith was still alive at this point, but barely. She was - she was -"

Buffy choked, unable to describe Faith's condition.

"Almost there, Buffy. Almost there," Spike murmured.

She looked up to see tears streaming down his face, a matching set to her own.

With a shaky breath she said, "Willow knew they couldn't stop him, so she teleported out of there, nabbed me, and teleported back - you can imagine what went through my mind when she did the same thing to me today.

"She got me there just in time to witness Angel snap Giles' neck, like he was nothing. Just a crumpled heap of garbage at his feet. At first I didn't even see the others. All I saw was Giles, dead. And Angel. He had the mask and the armor, but I knew it was him the minute - I'd been sleeping next to him for months. I knew the shape of him, the way he moved. How could I not know it was him?

"Do you know what I did? Nothing. Nothing. I checked out. I didn't faint, but I didn't move a single muscle when Angel lunged at me either. He knocked me down - maybe knocked me out for a minute, I'm not sure - and then I was in chains, right next to Will. Both of us helpless to stop him as he - as he -

"Willow did faint. She couldn't take it. I wanted to, believe me I wanted to, but I owed it to Faith to stay with her.

"And I did. I watched her die. She bled out slowly, her eyes locked on mine the whole time. I don't think she blamed me, but I wanted her to. It would've been easier to see accusation in her eyes instead of that steady, unwavering gaze slowly dimming.

Buffy swallowed, her mouth like cotton. Her heart was pounding, and she was shivering uncontrollably, but there was a light at the other end now. Spike would know the truth when nobody else did, just as he'd always heard the secrets she couldn't bear to tell her loved ones.

Whisper in a dead man's ear.

But no, this was different. This was - not shifting the burden, but releasing it. Just a little.

"Willow wasn't conscious for what happened next. Nobody was, except for me. And Angel. It wasn't especially dramatic - there was a flare of light and a rush of wind. I remember thinking it smelled like gingersnaps. And I didn't know it at the time, but all over the world, demons started disappearing. It wasn't all at once - poof - no more demons. More like one by one they were melting, or fading, or dusting, or even just winking out.

"Angel pulled off the mask then. He started talking: I can explain, Buffy, that kind of thing. He told me about the visions, and how the Powers had told him it was necessary, and what the point of it all was. He gave me the Spock speech - how the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. 'Sure, I just murdered a couple thousand Slayers, but I saved billions.'

"Maybe he did save the world. Maybe it was the right thing and I just couldn't see it."

"That's bullshit," Spike said, his sudden harsh words startling her from her monotone recitation. "Would you have done it? Even if some fucking Powers told you it was the only way to save the entire planet? No, you'd have found another way. A better way."

Buffy lifted her eyes to his. "And yet I didn't. We tried everything, and we couldn't stop him."

Spike scoffed. "Failing to stop evil is not the same as committing it. Thought we'd already cleared that up, Summers." He shook his head. "Angel got to speechifying, no surprise there." His voice gentled. "What happened after that?"

Taking a shaky breath, she said, "He was so proud of himself. And he seemed certain I would be too." Buffy paused, still dumbfounded all these years later by the look of excited expectation on his face as he'd finished his tale. How he'd looked just like a kid awaiting praise. "He told me how he'd made the world a better place, a safer place. How I was free now. He'd unchained me while he was speaking, and I was in so much shock, I didn't really react. I just followed numbly as he led me past the flayed corpses of my fellow Slayers and the crumpled heaps of my friends and family.

"He stopped right next to Giles. I know it's a lot to take in, he said, but I did it for you. I love you." Teeth chattering, Buffy said, "And then he tried to kiss me. With Giles' lifeless eyes staring up at me, and Faith's still warm body only feet away, Angel tried to kiss me.

"I didn't even think about it. I pulled the stake out of my waistband, and I killed him."

.