Chapter Twenty

"I told you that I'm an avatar of the Powers."

"Uh huh. You're supposed to be telling me stuff that I don't know right now."

Fake Angel nodded. "I'm getting there. But first you have to understand what it means, for me to be here, and you to be here with me. They—"

"The Powers."

"—yeah. They chose me to take the form of one of their Champions. And because they were training you, they wanted the form to be one that would have influence on you as well."

"Hence, Angel skin."

He nodded.

"But, whether you want to believe it or not, I'm more Angel than you're—"

"Oh, trust me. I can tell," Buffy said over him. "You can be seriously Angel-y."

His sheepish smile made Buffy roll her eyes.

"You understand, then? That I'm basically an… imprint of Angel. The Powers tried to adapt his essence into a form, and that form ended up being me."

Buffy wrinkled her nose at the explanation. "What does this… essence of Angel thing mean for him?"

"Nothing. Angel—the real Angel—isn't affected."

"So you're not claiming to be Angel anymore. That's nice, at least."

"I'm still—I mean…" he looked flustered again and Buffy sighed, shaking her head and taking pity on him.

"I get it."

"Really?"

Still shaking her head, she could only half raise a hand in surrender. "Yeah, I get it."

"So you'll…" he trailed off and shook his head. "I don't understand any of this."

"The emotional crap? No one understands the emotional crap. Least of all the emotional crap between me and Angel. You're not alone, trust me."

Fake Angel smiled at her, holding out his arm to point toward the Sunnydale scene, where past-Buffy had apparently lived out an entire day during their conversation—or maybe he'd shifted the time forward a bit—and was walking up to the mansion. Going to say goodbye to Angel. Buffy felt her heart ache at the memory of it.

"Go on," he said. "And Buffy? Don't be seen. Goes without saying, I think."

Buffy nodded, took two steps forward, and was swallowed by her own past.

-8-

Buffy could hear her past self just opening the garden doors and entering the mansion when she appeared in the middle of the foyer. Glad, at least, that she wasn't in full view of that entrance—because wouldn't that be fun to explain—she immediately started looking around for a place to hide.

She could imagine what she might say to seventeen-year-old-her if she was seen. Something along the lines of 'Don't worry; it's your life that's crazy. Not you.' Right.

She wished, though, that she could remember this day a bit better. Even though it was probably asking a bit much for her to remember the exact route she'd taken in and out of the mansion. Maybe she should have watched the scene from the Time Chamber a bit more before taking off.

It probably didn't matter, ultimately. She'd put the ring down and left. Not much more to it than that.

Past-Buffy had just come into view as Buffy slipped behind one of the heavy floor length black-out curtains, squishing herself between it and the wall and hoping it didn't bulge out too much around her. Peering around the curtain to see what the younger her was doing was out of the question, so Buffy just stood there, barely breathing in case she was heard.

It was hard to stand this still. Every second dragged on and on, until Buffy finally couldn't take not being able to see anything and shifted her head so she was staring to the side. It didn't help, but soft footsteps starting coming toward her then anyway, and Buffy was glad she hadn't pulled the curtain to the side or something equally stupid in her effort to figure out what was going on.

The footsteps crossed in front of where Buffy was hiding and she heard a soft sniff and a choked, pained sigh. Her eye itched and she wiped at it, distinctly wishing she could jump out and give herself a hug. Her own heart was aching with just a shadow of how painful she remembered this being. She couldn't imagine it being that fresh again.

At least the Powers hadn't decided to send this Buffy—past-Buffy—into hell to save Angel. She didn't think she would have survived, at least emotionally, if they had.

The great front door thudded closed as her past self left and Buffy pushed aside the curtain, stepping out from behind it and tugging it back into place. With a glance up to make sure that all of the windows were covered, she moved toward the fireplace, looking down at the ring that had been so carefully placed on the carpet.

Glancing around to make sure that her past-self hadn't decided to come back for some reason, Buffy bent down and picked up the ring. Turning it around in her fingers, she smiled a bit and slid it on. Only when she looked at it a moment later did she realise she'd put it on with the heart facing her.

Laughing a bit at the ridiculousness of it all, she took the ring off again. Her ring. She never had found it again after she'd left it here. Not that it had ultimately mattered, since she and Angel probably shouldn't have even tried the second act of their relationship. The rings would've just been holdover from a more innocent period, and that wouldn't have been good for either of them.

"So, how are you tied with what I just did?" she asked it, half expecting it to respond with how wacky things had been.

This whole thing probably wasn't as abstract or random as she thought it was. Angel had given the ring to her. He had a ring. The rings went together—his and hers. A set.

The rings were a set.

That had to be the connection. The rings, once the amulet had worked its magics on them, created the same sort of portal that the amulet could carve, except more specific because the ring here created some sort of… anchor, or something, maybe.

That had to be it. And if it wasn't it, then she was probably going to be sorely disappointed and pissed off. Buffy couldn't think of what else it could be though. It had to be the rings. They were crucial to all of this, and had been since the very beginning and she just hadn't been able to see it.

Taking the amulet off and holding it out for what she hoped would be the very last time—she'd be happy with never, ever having to do anything to do with magic again—Buffy held it out on her hand, placing her ring on top of it just like she'd done before, with Angel's. Picturing Angel in her head, and more importantly, picturing Angel wearing his ring and lying in hell, she urged the amulet to do its thing.

After a long moment, it did. The same glowing as before started up in the amulet, the blue dancing beneath the surface, brighter than she remembered it being and forcing her to close her eyes and turn away from it. The blinding light lasted longer than she remembered it lasting before, and the amulet started growing hot enough in her hand that she was tempted to drop it.

Again, it was done as suddenly as it had started, but Buffy swayed, catching her balance with one foot thrown out to the side when she opened her eyes again. The ring glowed, looking like its own spotlight, shedding a shadow onto the face of the amulet, lighted it from above. The light didn't shine onto the amulet, just onto the ring, and Buffy picked it up and peered at it. The spotlight effect remained on the ring. It definitely looked magical, in a way that Angel's ring hadn't when she'd done the same thing.

Letting the hand with the amulet in it fall to her side, Buffy continued to hold the ring up, trying to figure out what she was supposed to be doing with it now. There wasn't anything going on, not really, though the metal band was warm beneath her fingers, the same way the amulet had been warm before.

Frowning, Buffy crouched and placed the ring back down the same way she'd found it, heart pointing toward the floor. The weird glint on it didn't go away. In fact, it grew brighter as she watched, the ring beginning to jump and bounce as though the floor beneath it were rumbling. Buffy stepped back, not feeling any sort of vibration herself, but heading toward the doorway in case this actually was an earthquake.

She kept the ring in her sight, stopping halfway to the door. The vibrations hadn't spread beyond whatever was affecting the ring, so whatever was going on with it had something to do with the magics left in it. Okay. What did that mean?

Just then, the ring emitted a flare of light and a cracking sound came from somewhere and sent Buffy dropping to the floor before her mind could catch up with her instincts. Something whizzed by over her head and she turned a bit to try and follow it, unable to make out whatever it had been. Another crack sounded, this one shaking the building, and then the sound of something large falling onto the floor.

Buffy was back on her feet in an instant, crossing the room as quickly as she could without outright running, to where Angel lay. He looked confused, eyes darting around like he was trying to take in everything at once, and mysteriously soaked in a way he hadn't been when she'd seen him, in what had to be mere moments before now.

"Angel," she said, dropping down to her knees beside him. Angel looked at her, his eyes going wide and he pushed backward, away from her and toward the hearth. His legs kicked out oddly in the movement, flailing a bit and with his ankles bending like he was trying to get traction on the floor to get up but failing.

"Calm down," she whispered. "Angel—" Buffy reached out toward him, but the sudden movement only served to shock him enough that he jumped to his feet. Still trying to move backward, his heel caught the ledge of the fireplace hearth and he tripped, arms wind-milling in an attempt to keep his balance. One of his hands caught the mantle, whacking against it and drawing his attention around.

Head swivelling back and forth, Angel looked between the fireplace and Buffy. She'd stood back up to hold her hands extending, palms facing out, trying to calm him down without making any more sudden movements.

"Hey, it's okay," she said, keeping her voice as soft as she could. Angel's deer-caught-in-the-headlights look didn't change, but he didn't move, either. "That's good. See? Nothing here to hurt you."

She took a step back toward one of the couches, still keeping her hands up. Angel seemed calm enough—if frightened, confused and still completely in shock from being dragged out of hell—that she thought she might be able to maybe at least get him to sit down for a minute. Or lie down and sleep, though the latter was probably asking a bit too much.

Another step backward, and she watched Angel's shoulders fall as she moved out of immediate range. It had taken her a moment to really notice, but he was shaking a bit, and a growl had started back up in his throat. Back to being food. It was better than catatonia, she supposed.

"If you just want to… lie down here or something," she pointed to the couch. "I'll run out as fast as I can and get you something to eat. Just, stay here, Angel, okay?"

Too many words. He'd gone back to looking at her with that same confused, almost worried expression. Maybe she should—oh, hell, what was she supposed to do? Getting him out of hell had apparently been the easy part.

"Angel."

Still looking at her, standing stock-still except for a bit of a quiver in his limbs. Not running away anymore, but certainly unwilling to move any closer to her. That was okay.

"Hey, Angel? I'm just going to—"

Angel's head jerked to one side, looking toward the garden like something else had caught his attention, and breaking off Buffy's train of thought about as efficiently as he could have. A raucous shout came from that direction and Angel snarled a moment before he took off, running toward the door.

For the remainder of December, I'm going to be posting chapters twice a week—Wednesdays and Saturdays. Posting will go back to being every Wednesday at the beginning of January.

Happy Holidays!