Disclaimer and stuff in the first part.

The Night Remembers - Part 6
By Jill


The next days fell into a pattern. Buffy and Angel would spar shortly after
sundown, and then go out for patrol. It became a routine and they spent many
hours in each other's company. But other than this the vampire was distant.
Remote. They barely talked on patrol and if he talked, he kept it strictly
business. Something radiated from him that clearly warned her not invade his
private space.

Buffy was ready to scream after a week. Now that she knew that, there had
been something between her and Angel, she more than ever wanted to know what
the reason was for their parting. Because although he was keeping everything
to himself, and holding her at arm's length, she felt like she was falling
for him - again.

She had been confused, angry, and even afraid sometimes, but the moment he
stepped over her threshold everything had changed. He was filling her
thoughts and her dreams. Spike had been right, she was thinking about Angel
- almost all the time.

The bleached blond vampire on the other hand surprisingly kept his distance
after their little private talk in the dark. He even started to sleep
somewhere else again, hadn't been in the basement for almost a week. Had
Dawn said he probably found a crypt? Buffy wasn't sure she remembered it
correctly. All she could think about was Angel and when the week was over,
she admitted to herself that she was helplessly in love with him. His
distant act only added more attraction for her.

She really wanted to know what he felt. Did he love her? Or had he stopped
loving her when their ways had parted? Did he have a girlfriend in L.A.?
Wait, no. He was in Sunnydale for over a week now and nobody had mentioned a
girlfriend, but then it didn't really mean anything, the way he kept to
himself was no help in finding out what her heart so desperately needed to
know.

It all came back to one question. Why had they split up? Had she ended the
relationship? Somehow, she had problems believing that. Her feelings for him
were strong, she was sure of it. Granted, she couldn't remember things from
before her memory loss, still the way she felt for him now told her all she
needed to know.

Had he left her? And if he had, why?

Buffy was pacing her bedroom, feeling more caged by the second. She needed
to know, because this falling into black holes all the time was driving her
nuts. And nobody would talk to her, always she would get the same answer.
'Your memory needs to come back on its own.' Damn it, couldn't they
understand that she just *had to know.*

*

She'd already tried it before, but she decided to ask again, when Willow was
over in the afternoon. Glad that Giles had cancelled their daily session,
the Slayer called her friend and the redhead had gladly accepted, eager to
refresh their friendship and deepen it again.

"I think you should go back to college soon," Willow said after a while,
sipping from her coffee. "I mean, I know Giles still thinks you need to
concentrate on the slaying stuff, to catch up things you forgot, but," she
shrugged, "you need to get your normal life back."

"Normal life," Buffy snorted and crossed her arms in front of her chest, "Is
that something I'm supposed to have? 'Cause I have the feeling I'm the
Slayer and nothing else."

The witch sighed and smiled at her, "Giles is worried. And sometimes he just
gets... very much into this save-the-world routine. Don't get me wrong,
because I know it's important. After all I've been with you for years and
have seen you save the world more than once, but..." she bit her lower lip
for a moment, "sometimes he seems to lose perspective. I really like him,
love him actually, in a strictly non-romantic way of course," she added and
the two girls shared a look of understanding, and then laughed.

"No, but honestly. He sometimes gets carried away with all this prophecy
stuff, and it means something if I'm saying it. I'm a witch after all and
the black arts are my favorite subject." Now she grinned. "And after all...
the fact you... died... I suppose he thinks he didn't do his job properly."

Buffy looked at her friend for a moment. They had told her about her death,
not in detail of course, but they had related the plain facts to her, so she
would understand what happened. However, it meant nothing to her. So she
died. Big deal. She was alive now. The memories of her death were lost with
all the others, she couldn't remember dying and because of this wasn't
important. "I guess," she said finally, frowning, her thoughts already
wandering away from her watcher. "Willow?" she said hesitantly, "Angel and I
were together, right?"

"You... uh... well," the witch tried to evade, then sighed, "yeah, you
were," she admitted, realizing that Buffy already knew. "Who told you?"

"Angel did," Buffy replied and when she saw anger starting to enter her
friend's eyes, she added quickly, "but only after I had already guessed it.
I confronted him with it and he had to tell me. I asked if we were together
and he said yes. Nothing else."

Willow released a breath, and then took another sip of her coffee.

"What happened?" the slayer asked, not taking her eyes from the witch.

"Buffy, I really don't think-" Willow began, but was cut off when the blond
suddenly jumped up and glared at her.

"Damn it, Willow. I can't stand it. I'm ready to kill something or someone.
It's like talking to walls. Yeah, I know the shrink said, I need to regain
my memories on my own, but it's driving me nuts. Please Willow, I don't want
you to tell me all the details, but I need to know what happened. Why we
aren't together anymore?"

The witch was a little bit taken aback by her friend's outburst, but she
instantly saw the despair in Buffy's eyes, the helplessness, and the need to
understand, and she saw something else. "Oh God, Buffy," she whispered.
"You're in love with him."

The slayer's brow drew together in an instant frown, then she tilted her
head, "How'd you know?"

"So it's true?" Willow asked, already knowing the answer that was clearly
visible in Buffy's hazel orbs. "Oh no," she covered her mouth with one hand,
tears welling up in her eyes.

Clearly not understanding the redhead, Buffy threw her hands in the air,
"What's the matter with you? Why is this a problem? Yeah, I know he is a
vampire, but I already said to him, I'm a slayer but as far as I can see it,
we keep the same schedule."

"Buffy," Willow reached out a hand and took the one of the blonde, pulling
her to sit down beside her on the sofa, then looked straight into the other
girl's eyes. "There are things. Things happened between you and Angel... He
didn't do anything," she assured her friend quickly, "at least not anything
he could've prevented, but..." she took a deep breath, decided that Buffy
had at least to know the important facts.

"You already know that Angel is different, because he has a soul, right?"
She saw her friend nod and continued, "But that's not all. The soul was
given to him by gypsies. Not because they loved him, but as a punishment,
that he should suffer for the sins his demon inflicted on people."

"So he didn't have a soul all the time?" Buffy asked.

"No," the witch shook her head. "He was your average - or not so average -
vampire for almost hundred and fifty years. Then he was cursed with a soul."

"But that's good," the Slayer still couldn't understand her friend's earlier
reaction. "I mean he's good now. He hunts evil and demons. He helps people."
So why was it a problem she was in love with him when he was good?

"Yes," Willow gave her a smile. "It's good. And we are all grateful for it.
But the whole soul-thing came attached with a tiny little twist. He didn't
get his soul freely the gypsies built a clause into it. We call it the
happiness-clause."

Buffy crunched her brows, "Happiness Clause?"

"Uh-huh," the witch nodded. "Whenever Angel achieves true happiness he will
lose his soul and he'll be nothing but a demon, again. And believe me, you
don't want that," she added remembering the time when Angelus had roamed the
streets of Sunnydale.

"True happiness?" the blond was still lost. "Well then he just needs to
avoid that. I mean, what is true happiness anyway. Certainly nothing I
remember," she said, instantly smiling sheepishly. There wasn't a lot she
remembered at all.

"Yes, he needs to avoid it," Willow agreed, ignoring the slayer's last
words. "The problem is, he already once had one moment of true happiness and
the outcome wasn't very nice. As I said, you wouldn't like to meet his evil
alter ego."

"He lost his soul?" the frown on Buffy's forehead deepened. "But he has a
soul now."

"He does. We found the curse that gave him his soul in the first place
and... we... that is I, well, we cursed him again."

"Oh," was Buffy's only reply, but Willow could see the wheels turning in her
head. She knew what would be the next question and of course, she didn't
need to wait long for it. "What caused him to lose his soul?"

She didn't want to say it, Willow decided. God, she didn't want to be the
one to destroy Buffy's dreams. It had been painful the first time, now the
slayer had to go through it again. Not literally, but she would know,
understand, what had happened. Still, the witch didn't want to be the one to
tell her. So all she did was give her friend a pointed look. One of those,
the blond couldn't probably miss.

Buffy stared at the witch, saw the other woman's expression change, saw the
look in her eyes and suddenly everything was clear. "Oh God," she whispered,
standing up and walking over to the window, hugging herself closely, feeling
cold all of a sudden. "Oh my God," she whispered again.

"I'm sorry, Buffy," she heard Willow's gentle voice behind her. "I am so
sorry." She was about to get up to go to her friend, but the slayer's upheld
hand held her back.

"What you're saying," the blonde whispered brokenly, "is that we were
together, right? And that caused him to lose his soul?"

"Yes, Buffy. That's what happened. And although he had lots of other good
reasons, other reasons besides this, I think that was why he left you in the
end."

"So he left me," Buffy cleared her throat realizing her voice was cracking,
then turned back to Willow, not trying to hide the tears in her eyes. "We
didn't stop loving each other." It wasn't a question.

Still, Willow felt it necessary to comment. "When he left you? No. But two
years went by since then, Buffy. Time can change a lot of things."

"No," stubbornly she shook her head, "I love him. I have lost my memories,
but I love him now. And somehow... I dunno... I can see he loves me too. You
should've seen the look in his eyes... that night in the cemetery." And
suddenly she remembered what Spike had said, about that certain look in her
eyes, the one he'd seen before, "And I think it's no different from the way
I loved him before I lost my memory."

"You can't know that," Willow tried to reason.

"No. But still I feel it." She sat down again, suddenly deep in thoughts,
"Maybe," she said after a little silence, "it wasn't that bad I lost my
memory. I don't know how it was before, but I can see things quite clearly
now. You are a witch, right? Quite powerful, if Giles told me the truth."

"Uh... yes," the redhead replied hesitantly, not really knowing where she
was heading for.

"And you're my best friend. Still, you never tried to find a way to alter
his so called curse." There was no anger in her voice, Willow realized. It
was more a statement, but still she felt ashamed as soon as the words
settled in.

"No," she unhappily shook her head. "But as I said, there were many things
that made him leave. For one he wanted you to have a normal life. You are
human, Buffy. Yes, you are the slayer, but you're also human. He wanted you
to have the sun, wanted you to have a boyfriend, who could give you all you
wanted, deserved, to have. The happiness clause was only one part of it."

"But yet you said, it was the most important one. And it's understandable. I
mean, if I was him, I wouldn't want to risk my soul, I wouldn't want to have
a demon taking control over my body, doing unspeakable evil. Or would you?"

"No," Willow shook her head again. "But coming back to your previous
question. Even if I tried, I don't think I could alter his curse. It was
written in some ancient language none of us knew. A friend of ours, who's
dead, now, translated it for us. She was a gypsy herself. And when I
re-cursed Angel I started chanting in English, but then some spirit took
over and..." she shrugged. "I started... or rather the spirit, to speak in
some ancient Romani. That's the gypsy tribe, who cursed him in the first
place. I could never remember what I said, first and foremost because I
wasn't really the one who did the chanting."

"I see," Buffy replied after a moment of silence. Then she thought about
something else, "But you still have the translated version, don't you?"

"Oh yes," the witch said eagerly. "We kept it. Just in case."

"Well," the slayer took her hand, "would you look into it - for me. I know
it's probably nothing, but would you?"

"Buffy I don't want you to..."

The blond made a dismissive gesture, "I know. I know. Believe me, I
understand exactly what you're talking about. But please do it - for me?"

Willow watched her friend's face for a long moment. Buffy and Angel had gone
through a lot, and although the slayer couldn't remember anything, she
seemed to instinctively feel a deep bond to the ensouled vampire. She loved
him now. This was a new Buffy, without the memories of Angel, and yet she
loved him still. Willow knew that Giles would probably kill her if he knew,
but here and now she decided that Buffy was right. She had never tried to
find out if the curse could be altered and she realized she at least owed
Buffy a try.

"Alright," she said finally, squeezing the blonde's hand. "I'll look into
it."

... to be continued