"If you try Rick's, they might be able to get it," Angel advised Cordelia, veering off into the room where Wesley sat poring over a collection of books.
"Fine," she said, grabbing her coat and heading out.
Angel moved swiftly over to Wesley and sat down, pulling one of the books over to himself as the phone began to ring.
"Cordy, get that?" he called absently, then turned to Wesley, asking "anything new?"
"I've got a possibility of a Vehori demon," Wesley said doubtfully, passing over one of the pictures, "but -"
"Angel, it's Giles," Cordy said, peering in through the door. "He wants to talk to you." She looked mildly worried.
Angel paused, wondering why the Watcher was calling him. He abandoned the research and walked to the phone, grabbing it up.
"Hello?" he said.
"Angel, hello," was the reply down the phone line, "how are you?"
Angel rolled his eyes and indicated to the hovering Cordelia to go on her errand.
"We're all fine, and you?" he said with barely disguised impatience.
"Problems," Giles said ruefully.
"Why else would you be calling?" Angel said brusquely. There was a silence from the other end and Angel heaved an unnecessary sigh, "Sorry. We're kind of ... having a bad week."
"Quite," Giles said with the faintest note of disapproval, but he quickly moved on to other matters.
"Buffy has of late been experiencing some rather unusual dreams," he paused, waiting to see if Angel would make any comment. He didn't, and Giles continued, "she has been reliving the lives of former Slayers, one in particular, a seventeenth century English girl named Sarah who ..."
"Giles," Angel interrupted, making even less of an attempt to hide his impatience, "get to the point."
"Buffy appears to be the reincarnation of this Sarah," Giles said simply.
"Okay," Angel said slowly. "Too pointy."
"I found a prophecy stating that Sarah would be killed twice, by the same demon," Giles recounted, "and it almost certainly refers to Buffy as the second victim."
Angel closed his eyes, gripping the phone tightly enough to break it as a wave of pure terror passed through him. He fought it down, forcibly relaxing his hands and shoulders.
"What do," he said inaudibly. He cleared his throat and said, still quietly, but calmly, "What do you want me to do?"
"Buffy is determined to beat the prophecy," Giles told him. A bittersweet smile spread across Angel's face, "Of course she is," he muttered to himself.
"To that end, she requested that I hypnotise her to find out how the demon kills, but unfortunately she ... Sarah was knocked unconscious first and we were unable to learn anything pertinent."
"So you want us to look for the MO of the demon," Angel said, reaching for pen and paper.
"No," Giles said.
"Then what?" Angel asked, confused.
Giles hesitated, then said reluctantly, "A number of combined events have left Buffy with the belief that ... ah, you are the reincarnation of a man who was with her, with Sarah, at the time."
"Who?" Angel asked faintly.
"His name was David," Giles said. "He was her lover."
* * * * *
"God knows what you've witnessed," Willow said, her eyes shining with academic fervour, "this is so ..."
"Cool?" Buffy offered with a wan smile.
"You don't think it's cool?" Willow said hopefully.
Buffy sighed, "I guess in a way it's cool. But you know that quote, 'life's not just one damn thing after another, it's one damn thing over and over'?"
"No," Willow stated, "but feel free to go on."
"Well, it's like it means life isn't just one damn thing over and over. All lives are. Everything is. At least for me." She looked up at Willow's puzzled expression and groaned, "I'm not explaining this well."
"No, I think I see what you mean," Willow said. "You feel done over?"
"Yes," Buffy said in relief. "Like they said, you have to do this job and it's really kind of sucky, but then you can stop. And now I'm finding out I can't stop."
"Not necessarily," Willow said.
"What do you mean?" Buffy said, moving restlessly on Giles' couch. It was almost sunset; lately, she often felt uneasy at that time.
"Sarah is only one life," Willow said, shrugging, "you've probably had stacks of lives, and you can't have been Slayers in them all. And because you've been a Slayer at least twice, they might have given you some of the ... choice people the rest of the time."
"Like royalty? Rich people who get waited on hand and foot by a stream of athletic young men wearing nothing but loincloths and big grins?" Buffy said, getting into it.
"Yeah!" Willow agreed, "oh, and," her eyes grew big, "d'you think you've been a guy?!"
Buffy thought about it.
"No," she said.
"No," Willow agreed.
"How come only Buffy gets past lives, anyway?" Xander griped playfully.
"Maybe it's like a celestial deal," Willow said, "two lives for the price of one Slayerhood."
"Guys?" Buffy said, "we don't know if I've even had other lives apart from Sarah and this one. Or even if *you've* had others."
"Maybe Giles could do a group hypnosis," Willow said, thinking aloud.
"I don't think so!" he called from his bedroom.
"Maybe I could learn to do hypnosis," she carried on without missing a beat.
"Possible," he said, coming down the stairs, "but trying to go straight from being a novice to past-life regression would be unwise."
She made a face at him and settled back into the sofa cushions.
Buffy jumped up and followed Giles as he moved into the kitchen.
"Could you regress me again?" she said, trying to pitch her voice quietly.
"Why?" he said, looking at her probingly.
"I want to know about other lives I've had," she said.
"You want to know about Sarah's life," he said softly.
She looked down.
"Sarah's life with David," he finished.
"Is that so bad?" she asked him.
"No, Buffy, it's not bad at all," he said, smiling at her fondly, "but I feel that at this time it wouldn't be sensible. We need to concentrate on how the Desuin will affect *your* life." He hesitated, then added gently, "Sarah and David are long dead."
"Not as long as Angel and I are alive," she told him.
* * * * *
"I really don't think that this is a good idea," Cordelia said, hovering anxiously over Angel, who was lying prone on his bed.
"Giles seems quite eager for this information," Wesley pointed out, pulling up a chair and taking a long gulp of the water on the bedside table.
"He needs it," Angel said definitively. "I'm not letting some prophecy happen to Buffy knowing I might have been able to stop it."
"Always comes back to Buffy," Cordelia muttered.
She immediately felt bad when Angel fixed her with a reproachful gaze. She offered him a tiny, apologetic smile, and was glad to see his answering half-smirk.
"Just try ... not to explode his head or anything," she cautioned Wesley, turning to leave the room.
"You're not staying?" Angel called after her, and she recognised the laugh in his voice. Unfamiliar as it was.
"I've already seen you chained, evil and in a towel," she yelled back, "I want to preserve some of the mystery here!"
Wesley took another sip and regarded Angel. "Evil in a towel?"
"Well, not at the same time," he said.
"Fine, fine," Wesley said, then paused, "are you ready?"
"Hit me," Angel said, closing his eyes and shifting slightly, making the mattress squeak.
Wesley prepared to begin the hypnosis technique Giles had reminded him of during their phone conversation earlier. Wesley was under the impression that the other Watcher had revealed more to him than he had to Angel, detailing the prophecy and questions Wesley would need to ask; yet Angel had grasped the import of the information Giles believed was locked in his head, and had agreed instantly to the hypnosis.
Wesley took a deep breath and leant over his boss.
"Imagine yourself floating," he instructed in a low voice, "relaxed; with nothing that must be done, nowhere you must go."
He watched with concern as Angel forcibly relaxed his tense muscles.
* * * * *
"Maybe there's some other way we could find out about your potential past lives without hypnosis," Willow mused, casually flicking through a book on meditation. Giles had needed to get back to the shop, so they were once again holed up in the back room.
"Yeah," Xander said, "we'll go through every Watcher's diary ever, and you can tell us if anything seems familiar."
Willow shot him a disapproving glance. "I was thinking of a spell of some sort, actually."
"Spells?" Buffy said doubtfully, "Will, I appreciate the thought, but I, uh ..."
"Wouldn't trust anything she came up with under your spellcraft?" Xander volunteered helpfully.
Now both Buffy and Willow sent him matching glares.
"She wouldn't be coming up with anything," Willow muttered. "I was thinking of something that would just show us how many lives she's had. It should just be a matter of sensing her Power signature and then identifying it back through time."
"Yeah, sure," Xander said. "It'd probably be quicker if you did learn hypnosis."
"Sounds uncomfortably like time travel," Giles commented, passing through with an empty mug.
"No, no time travel required," Willow said, "I don't think."
"You might want to be a little more sure before you go poking around in Buffy's head," Xander recommended.
"No poking required!" Willow said, exasperated.
"Shame!" Anya yelled through from the shop floor.
"Still backing your choice of girlfriend, there," Buffy said dryly.
"Hey," Tara said shyly, hovering in the doorway.
"Not you!" Buffy said hastily.
"Me," Xander explained.
"Not that he's anyone's girlfriend," Buffy said, "about *his* girlfriend."
"Who we are backing," Willow finished affectionately, taking Tara's hand and drawing her into their corner.
"What's going on?" Tara asked, sitting down next to Willow and sliding her glance over the book she had open.
"Past lives," Buffy said by way of explanation.
"Buffy's past lives," Willow expanded.
"And what fun they were," Xander murmured.
"I mentioned her dreams," Willow reminded her girlfriend.
"Yeah," Tara said, "I remember."
"So, the question of the day is, are there any spells that will tell us how many she's had?" Willow said.
Tara frowned in thought. "Have you tried hypnosis?"
Buffy and Xander let out twin groans.
"What?" she said.
"Tried it. She only remembered one life, and Giles said it might be dangerous right now to get deeply into it," Willow filled in quietly.
"That demon?" Tara said.
"Yeah."
"So, spells," Xander chipped in cheerfully, "and you two are the spellsters around here ..."
"I don't know about recalling specific lives," Tara said slowly, "but I guess we could try to bring up her lifeline ..."
"Oh, I know this," Xander said proudly. "You're going to read her palm."
"No," Tara said with an sweet, apologetic smile, "it's like ... in Ancient Greece, they believed in the Fates, three goddesses who spun the thread of life, measured it, and cut it? Every person has a lifeline, or a fateline, like that, in the ethereal realm. I think it would show all the lives of that person. There are spells to make it visible. I've never done one," she looked at Willow, "but it shouldn't be too difficult."
"Can't harm," Willow said, shrugging, "do you have a spell for it?"
"I think so."
"So you're just going to need supplies," Xander said.
The other three looked at him and then deliberately over to the doorway.
"What?" he said, then got it. "Magic shop. Right."
Willow and Tara got up together.
Xander looked at a very quiet Buffy. "Well, we can ..."
"Snacks?" she said.
"A girl after my own heart!" he beamed.
* * * * *
Wesley flipped through the notes he had taken on the phone to Giles, then switched to the books he had which dealt with hypnosis.
A very un-hypnotised Angel sat and watched him get more and more frustrated.
"Guess that lets me off having to pretend I'm a chicken," he said, trying to defuse some of the tension.
Wesley took his glasses off, reaching into his pocket for a cloth.
"I'm very sorry about this, Angel."
"It's fine," the vampire told him.
"There must be professionals in the city," Wesley conceded, "perhaps you should try one of them."
"Yeah," Angel said drolly, "two hours under hypnosis and two days explaining about the demon I remember being killed by."
Wesley looked down at the clean lenses he was rubbing.
"Hey, look, it's not your fault," Angel said.
"I did tell you I wasn't the best at this," Wesley muttered sadly.
"No, I mean it," Angel said, "maybe... maybe there's a reason you couldn't hypnotise me."
"Oh, it's not you, it's me," Wesley said tiredly.
"Or it's me," Angel said quietly, "more specifically, it's the demon."
"You think it's an instinctive reaction?" Wesley said, interested despite himself.
"Preventing the demon any kind of opportunity to take over," Angel said.
Wesley entertained the idea for a moment.
"No," he said eventually, "if that were the case, your body would surely prevent you from even sleeping. Or any activity where your subconscious is allowed to take over."
Angel considered it for a moment, thinking about what Wesley had said.
"Do you know about the time I spent in hell?" he said after a moment, his voice toneless.
"After your, ah, return to Angelus, I believe?" Wesley said delicately.
"Yeah," Angel said, "I don't remember much about the time I was there. But I know I've had a hell of a lot of nightmares about it."
"And it's not unheard of for someone repressing a trauma to resist hypnosis," Wesley said, following the thought on.
"Right," Angel said.
They sat in silence for a few moments.
"I suppose I'll call Mr. Giles, then," Wesley said tactfully, leaving Angel alone to contemplate the repercussions of his inability to help.
* * * * *
"Fine," she said, grabbing her coat and heading out.
Angel moved swiftly over to Wesley and sat down, pulling one of the books over to himself as the phone began to ring.
"Cordy, get that?" he called absently, then turned to Wesley, asking "anything new?"
"I've got a possibility of a Vehori demon," Wesley said doubtfully, passing over one of the pictures, "but -"
"Angel, it's Giles," Cordy said, peering in through the door. "He wants to talk to you." She looked mildly worried.
Angel paused, wondering why the Watcher was calling him. He abandoned the research and walked to the phone, grabbing it up.
"Hello?" he said.
"Angel, hello," was the reply down the phone line, "how are you?"
Angel rolled his eyes and indicated to the hovering Cordelia to go on her errand.
"We're all fine, and you?" he said with barely disguised impatience.
"Problems," Giles said ruefully.
"Why else would you be calling?" Angel said brusquely. There was a silence from the other end and Angel heaved an unnecessary sigh, "Sorry. We're kind of ... having a bad week."
"Quite," Giles said with the faintest note of disapproval, but he quickly moved on to other matters.
"Buffy has of late been experiencing some rather unusual dreams," he paused, waiting to see if Angel would make any comment. He didn't, and Giles continued, "she has been reliving the lives of former Slayers, one in particular, a seventeenth century English girl named Sarah who ..."
"Giles," Angel interrupted, making even less of an attempt to hide his impatience, "get to the point."
"Buffy appears to be the reincarnation of this Sarah," Giles said simply.
"Okay," Angel said slowly. "Too pointy."
"I found a prophecy stating that Sarah would be killed twice, by the same demon," Giles recounted, "and it almost certainly refers to Buffy as the second victim."
Angel closed his eyes, gripping the phone tightly enough to break it as a wave of pure terror passed through him. He fought it down, forcibly relaxing his hands and shoulders.
"What do," he said inaudibly. He cleared his throat and said, still quietly, but calmly, "What do you want me to do?"
"Buffy is determined to beat the prophecy," Giles told him. A bittersweet smile spread across Angel's face, "Of course she is," he muttered to himself.
"To that end, she requested that I hypnotise her to find out how the demon kills, but unfortunately she ... Sarah was knocked unconscious first and we were unable to learn anything pertinent."
"So you want us to look for the MO of the demon," Angel said, reaching for pen and paper.
"No," Giles said.
"Then what?" Angel asked, confused.
Giles hesitated, then said reluctantly, "A number of combined events have left Buffy with the belief that ... ah, you are the reincarnation of a man who was with her, with Sarah, at the time."
"Who?" Angel asked faintly.
"His name was David," Giles said. "He was her lover."
* * * * *
"God knows what you've witnessed," Willow said, her eyes shining with academic fervour, "this is so ..."
"Cool?" Buffy offered with a wan smile.
"You don't think it's cool?" Willow said hopefully.
Buffy sighed, "I guess in a way it's cool. But you know that quote, 'life's not just one damn thing after another, it's one damn thing over and over'?"
"No," Willow stated, "but feel free to go on."
"Well, it's like it means life isn't just one damn thing over and over. All lives are. Everything is. At least for me." She looked up at Willow's puzzled expression and groaned, "I'm not explaining this well."
"No, I think I see what you mean," Willow said. "You feel done over?"
"Yes," Buffy said in relief. "Like they said, you have to do this job and it's really kind of sucky, but then you can stop. And now I'm finding out I can't stop."
"Not necessarily," Willow said.
"What do you mean?" Buffy said, moving restlessly on Giles' couch. It was almost sunset; lately, she often felt uneasy at that time.
"Sarah is only one life," Willow said, shrugging, "you've probably had stacks of lives, and you can't have been Slayers in them all. And because you've been a Slayer at least twice, they might have given you some of the ... choice people the rest of the time."
"Like royalty? Rich people who get waited on hand and foot by a stream of athletic young men wearing nothing but loincloths and big grins?" Buffy said, getting into it.
"Yeah!" Willow agreed, "oh, and," her eyes grew big, "d'you think you've been a guy?!"
Buffy thought about it.
"No," she said.
"No," Willow agreed.
"How come only Buffy gets past lives, anyway?" Xander griped playfully.
"Maybe it's like a celestial deal," Willow said, "two lives for the price of one Slayerhood."
"Guys?" Buffy said, "we don't know if I've even had other lives apart from Sarah and this one. Or even if *you've* had others."
"Maybe Giles could do a group hypnosis," Willow said, thinking aloud.
"I don't think so!" he called from his bedroom.
"Maybe I could learn to do hypnosis," she carried on without missing a beat.
"Possible," he said, coming down the stairs, "but trying to go straight from being a novice to past-life regression would be unwise."
She made a face at him and settled back into the sofa cushions.
Buffy jumped up and followed Giles as he moved into the kitchen.
"Could you regress me again?" she said, trying to pitch her voice quietly.
"Why?" he said, looking at her probingly.
"I want to know about other lives I've had," she said.
"You want to know about Sarah's life," he said softly.
She looked down.
"Sarah's life with David," he finished.
"Is that so bad?" she asked him.
"No, Buffy, it's not bad at all," he said, smiling at her fondly, "but I feel that at this time it wouldn't be sensible. We need to concentrate on how the Desuin will affect *your* life." He hesitated, then added gently, "Sarah and David are long dead."
"Not as long as Angel and I are alive," she told him.
* * * * *
"I really don't think that this is a good idea," Cordelia said, hovering anxiously over Angel, who was lying prone on his bed.
"Giles seems quite eager for this information," Wesley pointed out, pulling up a chair and taking a long gulp of the water on the bedside table.
"He needs it," Angel said definitively. "I'm not letting some prophecy happen to Buffy knowing I might have been able to stop it."
"Always comes back to Buffy," Cordelia muttered.
She immediately felt bad when Angel fixed her with a reproachful gaze. She offered him a tiny, apologetic smile, and was glad to see his answering half-smirk.
"Just try ... not to explode his head or anything," she cautioned Wesley, turning to leave the room.
"You're not staying?" Angel called after her, and she recognised the laugh in his voice. Unfamiliar as it was.
"I've already seen you chained, evil and in a towel," she yelled back, "I want to preserve some of the mystery here!"
Wesley took another sip and regarded Angel. "Evil in a towel?"
"Well, not at the same time," he said.
"Fine, fine," Wesley said, then paused, "are you ready?"
"Hit me," Angel said, closing his eyes and shifting slightly, making the mattress squeak.
Wesley prepared to begin the hypnosis technique Giles had reminded him of during their phone conversation earlier. Wesley was under the impression that the other Watcher had revealed more to him than he had to Angel, detailing the prophecy and questions Wesley would need to ask; yet Angel had grasped the import of the information Giles believed was locked in his head, and had agreed instantly to the hypnosis.
Wesley took a deep breath and leant over his boss.
"Imagine yourself floating," he instructed in a low voice, "relaxed; with nothing that must be done, nowhere you must go."
He watched with concern as Angel forcibly relaxed his tense muscles.
* * * * *
"Maybe there's some other way we could find out about your potential past lives without hypnosis," Willow mused, casually flicking through a book on meditation. Giles had needed to get back to the shop, so they were once again holed up in the back room.
"Yeah," Xander said, "we'll go through every Watcher's diary ever, and you can tell us if anything seems familiar."
Willow shot him a disapproving glance. "I was thinking of a spell of some sort, actually."
"Spells?" Buffy said doubtfully, "Will, I appreciate the thought, but I, uh ..."
"Wouldn't trust anything she came up with under your spellcraft?" Xander volunteered helpfully.
Now both Buffy and Willow sent him matching glares.
"She wouldn't be coming up with anything," Willow muttered. "I was thinking of something that would just show us how many lives she's had. It should just be a matter of sensing her Power signature and then identifying it back through time."
"Yeah, sure," Xander said. "It'd probably be quicker if you did learn hypnosis."
"Sounds uncomfortably like time travel," Giles commented, passing through with an empty mug.
"No, no time travel required," Willow said, "I don't think."
"You might want to be a little more sure before you go poking around in Buffy's head," Xander recommended.
"No poking required!" Willow said, exasperated.
"Shame!" Anya yelled through from the shop floor.
"Still backing your choice of girlfriend, there," Buffy said dryly.
"Hey," Tara said shyly, hovering in the doorway.
"Not you!" Buffy said hastily.
"Me," Xander explained.
"Not that he's anyone's girlfriend," Buffy said, "about *his* girlfriend."
"Who we are backing," Willow finished affectionately, taking Tara's hand and drawing her into their corner.
"What's going on?" Tara asked, sitting down next to Willow and sliding her glance over the book she had open.
"Past lives," Buffy said by way of explanation.
"Buffy's past lives," Willow expanded.
"And what fun they were," Xander murmured.
"I mentioned her dreams," Willow reminded her girlfriend.
"Yeah," Tara said, "I remember."
"So, the question of the day is, are there any spells that will tell us how many she's had?" Willow said.
Tara frowned in thought. "Have you tried hypnosis?"
Buffy and Xander let out twin groans.
"What?" she said.
"Tried it. She only remembered one life, and Giles said it might be dangerous right now to get deeply into it," Willow filled in quietly.
"That demon?" Tara said.
"Yeah."
"So, spells," Xander chipped in cheerfully, "and you two are the spellsters around here ..."
"I don't know about recalling specific lives," Tara said slowly, "but I guess we could try to bring up her lifeline ..."
"Oh, I know this," Xander said proudly. "You're going to read her palm."
"No," Tara said with an sweet, apologetic smile, "it's like ... in Ancient Greece, they believed in the Fates, three goddesses who spun the thread of life, measured it, and cut it? Every person has a lifeline, or a fateline, like that, in the ethereal realm. I think it would show all the lives of that person. There are spells to make it visible. I've never done one," she looked at Willow, "but it shouldn't be too difficult."
"Can't harm," Willow said, shrugging, "do you have a spell for it?"
"I think so."
"So you're just going to need supplies," Xander said.
The other three looked at him and then deliberately over to the doorway.
"What?" he said, then got it. "Magic shop. Right."
Willow and Tara got up together.
Xander looked at a very quiet Buffy. "Well, we can ..."
"Snacks?" she said.
"A girl after my own heart!" he beamed.
* * * * *
Wesley flipped through the notes he had taken on the phone to Giles, then switched to the books he had which dealt with hypnosis.
A very un-hypnotised Angel sat and watched him get more and more frustrated.
"Guess that lets me off having to pretend I'm a chicken," he said, trying to defuse some of the tension.
Wesley took his glasses off, reaching into his pocket for a cloth.
"I'm very sorry about this, Angel."
"It's fine," the vampire told him.
"There must be professionals in the city," Wesley conceded, "perhaps you should try one of them."
"Yeah," Angel said drolly, "two hours under hypnosis and two days explaining about the demon I remember being killed by."
Wesley looked down at the clean lenses he was rubbing.
"Hey, look, it's not your fault," Angel said.
"I did tell you I wasn't the best at this," Wesley muttered sadly.
"No, I mean it," Angel said, "maybe... maybe there's a reason you couldn't hypnotise me."
"Oh, it's not you, it's me," Wesley said tiredly.
"Or it's me," Angel said quietly, "more specifically, it's the demon."
"You think it's an instinctive reaction?" Wesley said, interested despite himself.
"Preventing the demon any kind of opportunity to take over," Angel said.
Wesley entertained the idea for a moment.
"No," he said eventually, "if that were the case, your body would surely prevent you from even sleeping. Or any activity where your subconscious is allowed to take over."
Angel considered it for a moment, thinking about what Wesley had said.
"Do you know about the time I spent in hell?" he said after a moment, his voice toneless.
"After your, ah, return to Angelus, I believe?" Wesley said delicately.
"Yeah," Angel said, "I don't remember much about the time I was there. But I know I've had a hell of a lot of nightmares about it."
"And it's not unheard of for someone repressing a trauma to resist hypnosis," Wesley said, following the thought on.
"Right," Angel said.
They sat in silence for a few moments.
"I suppose I'll call Mr. Giles, then," Wesley said tactfully, leaving Angel alone to contemplate the repercussions of his inability to help.
* * * * *