Cordy let out a hoarse sob as another stabbing pain shot through here head

Breaking down the Walls

TITLE: "Breaking down the walls" Chapter 7 - 7/? - Rated R-13 - B/A Angst, series 6 predictions
AUTHOR: Charlie/Selwyn29
EMAIL: selwyn29@ntlworld.com
DISCLAIMER: They're not mine, they're Joss's, I'm just making them feel better. PAIRING: B/A, and loads more
TIMELINE: After end of series 5 Buffy, series 2 Angel
SPOILERS: Anything is possible... say all, up to B5/A2
SYNOPSIS: My take on series 6 and what should happen, please read Chapter One or none of this will make sense.
FEEDBACK: Come on, give me some help here, do you like it?
RATING: PG CONTENT

DEDICATION: To Trammie and Mark my Beta readers who I owe so much thanks to and Duck's who without her epics I would never had started this one. Also to the Babble Board posters, who have been an inspiration for some storylines.

Cordy let out a hoarse sob as another stabbing pain shot through her head.

Angel sat on the floor in front of the couch trying to calm her down.

"Cordy, please, I know it's bad. But can you tell us anything else?"

She concentrated for a second; the strain showing on her already tired face.

"It's here, it's in Sunnydale."

"What is?"

"This…this...thing. I don't know, I can't tell what it is; I can just feel it. Evil. It's like nothing we've ever faced before."

"What, like fluffy and harmless?" Spike jumped in with from the kitchen counter.

"Back off Spike." Angel yelled, and turned his attention back to Cordelia.

"Angel, you have to find it, you have to find it, promise me you will!" Cordelia said, her voice weak.

"We will." he said, and placed the cool towel on her forehead as she shut her eyes.

"Don't we need to call someone, a doctor, maybe?" Willow asked.

"It was a vision." Wesley explained. "Cordelia was chosen to receive them from The Powers That Be, to guide Angel."

"And that's how they choose to guide him, by putting her through pain?" Xander yelled, agitated.

"Unfortunately, yes, but she won't give them up."

"There must be something we can do for her?" Giles asked.

"Rest is all she needs at the moment. That wasn't the worst she's had." Angel said, walking back over to where Buffy stood with Dawn.

"I need to go out there." he explained to her.

"I'm coming with you." she replied.

"It might be best if a few of us go." Wesley pointed out, from the center of the room. "We have no idea what this thing could be, what we could be facing."

"Giles, can you start with the research? We'll call in when we find out anymore." Buffy asked him.

"Already started." he replied.

"I'm coming with you, Buffy." Dawn started.

"You're most certainly not, young lady." Giles said, in a voice so stern that everyone in the room straightened up that little bit more. "It's a school night and you have to be up in the morning and you've been allowed to stay up late enough already."

Dawn looked up at Buffy, pleading with her.

"Don't look at me like that. I go with what Giles says, he's in charge."

"You're all so unfair. I'm not a little kid anymore." Dawn said, and stormed off upstairs.

"Wow, Giles! A full blown sulk, that must register somewhere on the new parent Richter scale." Xander commented.

"At least I know she's in safe hands." Buffy said, laughing at her Watcher. "Right gang, lets get this patrol on the road. Willow, Tara, I think some magical help could be useful. Anya, you're the demon expert, I think you should come along. Xander?"

"I think I might sit this one out, Buff, hone up on my research skills a little."

Anya turned to her fiancée. "You're not coming?"

"I'm just not in the mood for all that fighting stuff tonight."

"I'll stay too then."

"No honey, you go, a night out with the girls, it'll be fun. I'll stay here and keep Giles and the books company."

Anya looked upset, but resigned herself to the fact that Xander wasn't going to go. Buffy and her group made their way to the door.

Angel turned around to his friends. Wesley and Gunn were already, practically, by his side. Angel turned to Fred.

"I think you'd be very useful here, if you wouldn't mind?" he asked the timid girl. "I think Giles might need some help with this and I need someone to keep an eye on Cordelia."

Fred nodded, and Angel, Wesley and Gunn made their way to the door to join Buffy and the rest. As he got to the door, Angel turned around to find Spike right behind him.

"Where do you think you're going?" he growled at the younger vampire.

"Where the Slayer goes, I go." Spike replied, grinning.

"You'd better make sure we're in different patrols or you might find yourself coming home in an urn."

"Promises, promises." Spike whispered to himself, as they all walked through the door.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The group walked out of Giles' building and started along the street to the quieter areas of town. Angel and Buffy walked ahead a little.

"So Cordelia is your guide then? Strange choice."

"She's a very good friend, Buffy, and a huge benefit to the team."

"She must be, to go through that for you."

"The visions aren't easy to deal with, she's had some bad times with them. Doyle used to deal with it a little better. He was a half demon I met when I first came to LA, he had the visions to begin with, and brought Cordelia and I together to form Angel Investigations. The visions didn't seem quite as detrimental on him, although I think that was more to do with the fact that he tried to 'cure' them by downing whiskey."

"I can see him doing that." Buffy laughed to herself. Angel looked at her curiously for a second.

"Sorry," she said, "Doyle was your friend, who died, wasn't he? I remember you telling me about that, the night of the funeral."

"Yes, he died to save a lot of people and before he went, he passed his visions on to Cordelia."

"You have an amazing group of friends, Angel." Buffy said, and briefly touched his arm in the darkness. He smiled down at her, but before anything else could be said, a shout came from the back of the group.

"Oy, we're not exactly looking inconspicuous, walking down the street like a bleeding mob. You might as well make us all hold hands and form a crocodile!"

"Spike does have a point." Wesley said, reluctantly. "We might cover more ground if we split up."

"He's right." Angel said to Buffy.

"I know, and much as it pains me to say it, I think we'd be best dividing it into Scoobies and your bunch. I can, however, offer you the loan of Anya, for demon spotting abilities, 'cause I'm thinking giving you Spike would be a very bad idea."

Angel softly smiled at her in the darkness.

"You take the south side and I'll head east." he said, "We'll meet up again at 3am to compare notes, at the entrance to the cemetery."

"Be careful." he added, "You don't know your limitations yet, since you've come back."

"I will be," she said, "and I'll let you check me over for damage when this is all finished."

By this time the rest of the group had caught up with them.

The large party soon split into the two, more familiar, smaller ones, with the addition of Anya to the LA group, and went their separate ways.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Scoobies found themselves looking over old territory close by the old high school. Nothing had yet been built on the site where the old one had burnt down on Graduation; it was now a haven for the homeless and soulless, nothing truly lived there.

Willow was walking by Buffy's side, as they patrolled the area, leaving Spike and Tara to silently bring up the rear.

"I'm glad you made the choice to come back." Willow said.

"Me too, Will, thank you for helping me and for believing in me all that time." Buffy turned to look at her friend.

"And I have to thank you for going to LA, and telling Angel." Tears pricked in Buffy's eyes at the thought of her friend having to tell her lover that she was gone.

"You don't have to thank me for anything. You've always helped me out, above and beyond the call of duty. And I wanted to tell Angel. I guess I knew that he was one of the few people who would really understand how I felt." Buffy took her friend's hand in hers and squeezed it affectionately, as they paused in the road for a moment.

"And I'm guessing, with all the chemistry that's sparking about at the moment, that you two didn't spend the past 24 hours catching up on office gossip." Willow gave a little smile.

"Is it that obvious?" Buffy asked, with a groan.

"I'm your best friend, I have special powers for these kind of things. And the fact that you two are all glowy and puppy eyes again gives it away a little as well."

"I didn't think I'd ever be this happy again. Especially not being dead." She gave a little laugh.

"I'm glad. I did like Riley, but I know you never felt the same way about him as you did about Angel."

"It's unbelievable, Will. Even though we've been apart for two years, the feelings were always there, they never went away. And now, finally, we can release them and be with one another again, and it's intense. It's just so amazing. I want to spend forever with him and he feels the same." Willow watched her friend's eyes sparkle as she spoke of her lover. She smiled a little to herself.

"Everyone deserves to find that one consuming passion for, at least, a little part of their lives." she said, and glanced back for a moment at Tara. Tara looked up at her from underneath her fringe.

"I need you to do something for me…well, for us."

"I'll try and do whatever I can. Would this happen to be something to do with a certain curse and trying to find a way to get around it?"

Buffy grabbed Willow in a hug. "I love you, you know that, Will? You're family to me."

"I love you too, Buffy." Willow said, returning the embrace.

They held one another for a moment and then let go. Buffy turned to see where they were and caught Spike's eye.

"What are you looking at?" she asked him.

"Nothing, just storing an image in my head to bring out on future lonely nights." he said, grinning at the slayer.

"You're a sick man, Spike." Buffy said, and carried on walking down past the school.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Angel, Gunn, Wesley and Anya found themselves walking out towards the site where Buffy had faced Glory for the final time.

Anya was shaking a little as they entered into the site.

"Cold?" Wesley asked her.

"No, I'm at a perfect temperature thank you. It's just this place, it makes me feel strange, I don't like it."

The three men looked at her for a moment, trying to work out whether she was actually sensing some evil here. Anya saw the three of them looking at her.

"I'm not mad. It's just…this is where we fought Glory and where Buffy died. See, over there?" Anya pointed to a patch of land at the base of the tower. "That's where she fell, when she plummeted out of the sky."

Gunn looked up in the air, towards the top of the tower.

"Off that thing?" he whispered, in awe.

"Quite." Wesley added.

Angel just stood there silently, his eyes never straying from the area Anya had pointed too. All he could see was the battered, twisted body of Buffy lying there. The sound of her bones breaking as she smashed to the floor. His mind played back nightmares he'd had, from months ago, where he had been here, and had rushed forward to catch her, but had been too late and she had smashed to the ground in front of him, or the worst ones, when he caught her, but he'd dropped her.

"Angel?" Wesley asked quietly.

He shook his head, trying to clear the morbid images from them, and looked up at his friend.

"I'm okay, Wesley."

"Best not to think about it. She's back now." the Englishman said, trying to pacify him.

Angel nodded and began to walk around the site. Now that he'd gotten over the initial shock of what had happened here, he began to sense something else. Something not quite human was here. He looked around and saw machinery left abandoned and partly dug trenches, but no sign that any work had been done in a while.

"Is this site being used for something?" he asked Anya.

"Xander's company was going to build on it, but they started work and found the ground unsuitable. I don't really remember, he told me a few nights ago, before we had sex, and I wasn't listening."

He crouched down near the ground and ran his fingers through the sand that covered the earth. Wesley bent down close by.

"Magic, something magic has been cast here." Wesley said.

"Oh yes, this is where Willow and the others cast the spell to bring Buffy back." Anya explained.

"There's something else." Angel said. He reached into his duster and produced a small vial, which he filled with some of the sand. "A darker magic."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Buffy, Willow, Spike and Tara had made their way down past the school and through a small bit of the town towards the Bronze. It was getting on to 2:45am, at this point, and the streets were deserted. Even the late night revellers, who had been in the club, had gone home by now. They walked quietly down the alleyway behind the building. Everything seemed peaceful and still. They were about to turn around and head to the cemetery to meet the others, when a slight movement caught Buffy's eye. She dropped slightly into a fighting stance and scanned the alleyway once more. A figure moved behind some bins up ahead. Before Buffy could move forward, Spike rushed passed her and dragged a body out from the garbage, kicking out at him. As he dragged the squirming figure back towards the group, Willow could make out a face that seemed familiar somehow.

"Damn human," Spike yelled, and dropped his catch, as a searing pain went through his head.

As the figure landed on the ground, the hood it was wearing fell back a little, revealing more of the face.

"Raven!" Willow exclaimed, as she recognised the young sorcerer.

Raven looked up at Willow above them, his eyes hollow and dark, his skin pinching into his bones, pale skin, now whiter than ever before.

"Willow." he whispered out, hoarsely.

"What happened?" she asked him.

"Willow, do you know him?" Buffy asked.

"This is Raven, he helped me with the spell we cast to bring you…the spell we cast."

Raven looked up at Buffy for a moment, a strange look on his face. Buffy found she couldn't hold the stare and turned away. When she turned back, Willow was talking to him once more.

"What happened?"

"It's Rowan." he replied.

"Rowan?" Willow asked.

"My girlfriend, she was with us that night."

"Oh yes, I remember." Willow replied.

"She's gone."

"Gone? She vanished?"

"Not exactly, she just started to change, you know, after that night at the building site. And then a week ago, she just vanished and I can't find her anywhere."

"Maybe she went back home? Or went to another town?" Tara asked, from the background.

"No, she'd run away from home to come here with me, she'd never go back there."

"Did you have an argument?" Willow asked, carefully.

"Nothing like that, she just changed, started to become obsessive about her magic, wanting to do more powerful magic. When I tried to stop her, she used to turn on me. Then one day, I woke up and she had gone, taking her magic books with her."

"Maybe she just needed a little space." Buffy offered, a little bored now.

"She kept saying something about pleasing him, pleasing the master, she had to please the master."

"We'll keep a look out for her, Raven, I promise." Willow said, trying to reassure the boy. "We'll come by your place later on this week and see what else we can find out."

The boy got up and ran off into the darkness then.

"Did I miss something, or did we suddenly become the bloody Samaritans?" Spike scoffed in the background. "We're supposed to be looking for some big bad evil, not doing friends and family reunions."

"We should help people." Tara said, trying to stick up for Willow.

"We'll try and do what we can." Buffy said to Willow. "But we need to move ourselves and get to the cemetery before the others start to worry."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Giles sat at one side of his desk, hunched over a pile of books with Fred sitting opposite him. They had been looking for information on Cordelia's vision all night, but they had very little to go on. Cordelia had tried, as hard as she could, to remember more details to give to them, but that had only succeeded in giving her more of a headache than she had previously.

Instead, they had begun to look into the mysteries concerning Buffy's return and new status as immortal. Giles wanted to make sure that both himself and his slayer were prepared for any 'differences' there might be. However, this was also a slow arduous process and so the morale in the room was beginning to drop.

Fred had been helping out as much as she could all night and she was finding that she enjoyed working with Giles. She liked this older man sitting in front of her. He had the same clipped accent as Wesley; so different from the way the others spoke. She enjoyed Wesley's company a lot, but this man, he made her feel so comfortable. He had told her how he used to be a librarian and it had made her feel some connection with the past. This was the kind of man she used to work with in the library in LA, someone who understood the true value of books and learning. And he seemed such a kind man, who obviously doted on the group of young adults he had around him, but wasn't overly emotional about it, in his British way. She had watched the youngest girl angrily running upstairs, earlier, after the argument. Then she had watched closely, as Giles had prepared a hot chocolate drink and a plate of biscuits and gone up the stairs and come down a moment or two later with a smile on his face. Obviously the young girl had forgiven him. Fred smiled to herself at the thought. She was trying very hard to help this man find the information he was looking for, but they didn't know what they were looking for. They were trying to work out Cordelia's vision, but they had drawn a blank earlier in the evening. Now they were looking into the resurrection of the Slayer, the one they called 'Buffy'. She gave a little sigh that made Giles look up briefly and catch her eye. He smiled at her, making her grin back at him and then they turned their eyes back to the books before them.

Xander woke up, sitting in the armchair with a book across his lap. The same book he'd had, in fact, for the majority of the night. He looked around quickly to see if anyone had noticed his small nap. Giles and Fred had their heads bent low over the desks, he assumed Dawn was still in bed. Cordelia had been lying on the couch with an ice pack on her head, but now, the couch was empty and she was nowhere to be seen. Xander eased himself up from the armchair and walked across the floor of the apartment. He noticed the front door slightly ajar, the cool breeze drifting in from outside. He pushed it open a little more and saw Cordelia sitting on the edge of the fountain, in the courtyard, her back to the door, staring up into the sky. As quietly as he could, he walked across and sat down next to her. She looked up at him, her dark eyes on the edge of tears.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"A little better, the headache's gone now."

"That was pretty scary for a while."

"I'm used to them now, they get a lot worse." she said, sadly.

"Wow, so Vision Girl. Doesn't that interfere with the acting career? You know, unless you always go for parts that need you to collapse in pain."

"No, it doesn't affect it." Cordelia said through her teeth.

"So are we going to see you in anything soon? The next blockbusting movie opposite Reef Sledger or whatever he's called."

"Heath Ledger. I don't think I'll be doing any movies anytime soon."

"Aw come on, Cordy, don't be so hard on yourself, that big break is there, just waiting for you."

Cordelia paused for a moment and then couldn't hold back any longer, all the resentment and bitterness from the past two years just built up inside her and bubbled over the edge.

"I'm never going to be in movies, or on TV, I'm never going to be an actress! I don't even go to auditions anymore. I work as Angel's receptionist and I have these visions, these agonising mind bending visions, which guide Angel in his work. I work mainly at night and I'm so damn exhausted, that I sleep most of the day, in an apartment where my only friend is the poltergeist, who died when his own mother bricked him up inside my wall. I don't go out, I don't date, I don't do anything, I'm not anything." she screamed and started to sob. "So go on, go tell everyone, the indisputable Queen of Sunnydale, Cordelia Chase, is another LA nobody, worse than that, she's a recluse, who spends her life sitting behind a desk in a dark dusty old hotel talking to dead people!"

Xander looked momentarily shocked, but then came to, edged closer to Cordelia and tentatively wrapped his arms around her. She sank into his shoulder and sobbed quietly while he gently stroked her hair, trying to calm her down. After a few moments she lifted up her head.

"Thank you." she whispered.

"I'm the last person in the world who is going to take pleasure from your situation, Cordy. Look at me; I'm still here, hanging with the gang, bumbling along. Willow's a mean Wicca now, Buffy's powers get stronger every day, Tara is coming on with the witchcraft, Anya has her ex-demon legacy and Giles, he holds it all together, even Spike helps out 'cause of his chip. Then there's me, I just go for doughnuts."

"Just like me." Cordelia said.

"We're important though, all the same. We help people, in our own ways. I keep the gang entertained, I get snacks and drinks, I keep everyone going on the long nights of researching, I try to help out every way I can. And look at you, look what you do. Without you, Angel wouldn't get his guidance from whomever he does; he wouldn't know what to do. It's obvious to see how fond they all are of you, and how important you are to them. So you don't act, you're not the star you wanted to be. Actresses are a dime a dozen in this world, they act out saving the world to entertain others. We're the ones helping the real heroes in this world, the ones actually doing something. So don't tell me you're nothing. You have a special job to do, that's worth a hundred movie roles."

"If Angel didn't have me, there'd be someone else for the visions. I didn't have them to begin with, his other assistant, Doyle, had them."

"So why have you got them now?"

"Doyle…Doyle killed himself to save a lot of people and before he died…he kissed me, and I didn't know it at the time, but his visions transferred themselves to me."

"He must have thought you were a pretty special person to transfer them to you, he could have picked anyone."

"He did like me…used to call me his 'Princess'." Cordelia explained, her eyes tearing again at the thought of Doyle.

"Cordelia, you are a special person. Just look at you, look at the person you've become, you've changed so much from the Sunnydale days. It's like every tiny bit of your personality that I fell in love with in high school, every little bit you tried so hard to hide, has suddenly come into its own. Never put yourself down. Angel and the rest of them are damn lucky to have you on their team."

Cordelia looked up at her ex-boyfriend, a smile on her face, truly grateful for what he said, but unable to resist.

"You're not trying to chat me up, are you?" she asked, jokingly.

"Hey, come on, 'engaged to be married man' here. I think the tragic love story of Xander and Cordelia should stay dead and buried."

"Amen to that." Cordelia said and hugged him once more.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Angel breathed a small sigh of relief as he saw the figure of Buffy walking towards where they stood at the entrance to the cemetery. It was getting on for 3:15am and he had begun to worry what had happened to her.

She walked up to him and saw the look in his eyes. She took his hand into hers for a moment and squeezed it.

"I'm OK." she whispered, just so he could hear.

The others came up behind them, so Buffy dropped his hand and began recounting the events of the evening, about running into Raven near the Bronze. Angel went over their trip to the building site and the feeling they had experienced of dark magic. Buffy's eyes never left his face as he spoke of walking into the site, she could see the pain behind them, and felt the tears behind her own eyes as she thought of all the events that had happened there. They both finished their reports and were all just deciding to head back to Giles' with the little information they had, when the wind picked up, swirling around their feet. The eight of them automatically moved closer together, the fighters amongst them dropping down into ready positions. But as soon as it had begun, it ended, and the night was peaceful again.

"I guess we'd better go back to Giles." Buffy started.

"He might be able to make sense of some of the things we found." Willow added.

"What, a hobo human and a little parcel of sand? What is he, Mystic Meg?" Spike scoffed. "The two greatest warriors on the planet at our disposal and we're going back with sweet F.A. Come on, Peaches, this is what redemption is all about? This is what you fight for? Jesus, the Hardy Boys could do a better job."

"You were there Spike, couldn't you have done more?" Angel asked.

"Yeah and miss out on ol' Buffy doing the Nancy Drew thing? See, I just don't get it. I thought you'd moved on, found yourself a life in old LA, but here you are, trying to get back into the knickers of the one girl who you dumped."

The others stood around the two vampires, too shocked to move. Buffy stood in the middle of them all, pleading silently for Angel to walk away and not to rise up to Spike's taunting.

"And the funny thing is, even if you did get back in with Buffy, you couldn't do it anyway. The dreaded curse. Oh you can look, but you can't touch, can't make her breathe in that short, heady way she does, can't make her shout out your name in pleasure. It's a damn sad story and one, I'll bet, can't be cured with Viagra."

Angel snarled at his offspring.

"Don't you *dare* ever speak about Buffy like that again." he growled.

"I'll speak about her, however the damn well I like." Spike said. "I'm the one who's been watching her back for the past two years, helping her out when her little gang couldn't. And you, you just roll back here, with your long dark coat and your, 'I'm so hard done by routine' and think you can take back your place in her life. Don't work like that, Peaches. She doesn't want you, she's got another vampire in her life, one that can satisfy all her needs."

Buffy stepped forward to say something, a look of pure anger on her face, but she was stopped in her path by Angel.

"This is my fight, Buffy." he said, and as he looked into her eyes, his face changed into full vampire mode. He spun round and hit Spike around the face, knocking the younger vampire to the ground.

"Oh, hit a nerve did I?" Spike spat back, as he stood back up again and threw a punch at Angel. Angel blocked the first move, but was too slow as Spike brought his hand up and caught him full on the jaw. The two then began to lay into one another, yells and shouts coming from each of them as they fought.

"You don't deserve her, you walked away from her."

"To give her a better life!"

"And you think you can give her that now? Face it mate, you had your chance."

"Stay away from her, Spike, she's mine, my mate. And nothing is going to come between us this time." Angel screamed this last part as the two men pummelled at each other on the ground.

"Yeah right, like you're in it for the long haul." Spike hissed back.

"I should have staked you a long time ago." the older vampire replied.

The fight was getting more and more heated as the wind picked up once more. Buffy stepped forward to separate the two, but as she did, Willow pushed in front of her, her eyes each a deep pool of darkness. She muttered some words under her breath and threw her arms out. Angel and Spike were propelled from the ground and each pinned against the cemetery wall. Both struggled like mad, but were unable to move, due to some invisible force. The wind dropped again, suddenly, and the two vampires dropped from their bonds on the walls. Willow's body went limp and she slumped towards the ground, to be caught by Tara. She opened her eyes and looked around her.

"Wow, what was that?" she asked.

"Are you OK?" Tara asked her, concerned.

"I think so, it's just like, I just felt like some great power went…went…"

"…went through us." Angel completed.

"Like I wasn't in control." Willow finished.

"You felt this too?" Buffy asked, as she walked over to where he was picking himself up.

"Something went into me and I had no control over what I was doing."

"So that grand display of testosterone wasn't willing?" she asked him.

"I am sorry for that. Well, a little. Sorry you had to see it."

"Don't tell the feminists, but there was a *tiny* part of me that kinda liked it," she said, smiling at him. "thank you, for defending me."

"Hey, come on. How about me?" Spike asked, from his position slumped on the floor. "I was taken over by some weird thing as well, I was out of control too."

Buffy walked over to where he was.

"Yes, but Angel defended me. You just attacked!" Buffy said, indignantly.

Before the argument could go any further, Wesley jumped in.

"Quick, look up on the rooftops."

He pointed over to the houses close by the cemetery. It took them a little while, but soon they could all make out the black shape, jumping from rooftop to rooftop. It didn't even seem a solid object, more shadow-like, as it pounced between the buildings.

"We'll trail it some more." Angel shouted across to Buffy. "You guys head back to Giles and give him all the details. Better take Anya with you too."

"Good plan, I've had far too much detail for one night and I don't even know this Xander guy." Gunn said.

Anya strolled over to where the others stood.

"You need me with you." Buffy said.

"We're only going to follow it, it's too close to sunrise for anything else. You need to go back to Giles and rest." he said, and the three of them took off down the street following the leaping creature.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Cordelia and Xander were still sitting on the edge of the fountain in the courtyard.

"We made a good team together, didn't we?" Xander said.

"Yeah, excellent team, oh yeah, until you were caught kissing Willow, and I got impaled on a very nasty spike and spent days in hospital."

"Of course, but then along came Wesley and swept you off your feet with his stuffy English ways." Xander quipped back. "How are you two getting on anyway, not mixing business with pleasure?"

"Oh come on, give me some taste, I was young and on the rebound then! Anyway, if it hadn't have been for me, you would have never met your future wife."

"That reminds me, I almost forgot to thank you for wishing us into an Alternative Reality Universe where the vampires ruled and we were all dead."

"Oh, you were so not dead, porno vamp!"

Xander sat back and looked at her closely.

"It's just like old times." he observed.

"Thanks for tonight." she replied, and she pulled him into a hug once more. At that point they heard voices coming up the stairs and quickly pulled apart again. They were sitting on the fountain, side by side, when Buffy and the rest of the Scoobies appeared in the courtyard.

"Hi guys." Buffy said, as she saw the two sitting at the top of the stairs.

"We were…" Cordelia began.

"…just waiting for you to come back." Xander finished, a little guiltily, when he saw his fiancée in the background.

"How are you feeling now?" Tara asked Cordelia.

"Better, thanks. But no more information."

"Well, we're here to give Giles all the information we've found so far."

"Are Angel and the guys OK?" Cordelia asked, noticing the bloodied state of Spike's face.

"They're fine, he's fine. They just went off to track something we saw, then they're going back to the mansion." Buffy answered.

"I might head back there then." Cordelia replied.

"Anya and I can walk you, it's on the way to our apartment." Xander jumped in.

"It's not, it's a good six blocks out of our way." Anya began to complain, but Xander nudged her and she stopped.

"We'd better go and tell Giles everything we know, before people start to head home." Willow suggested.

They all trooped inside the apartment to find Giles and Fred still looking through books.

"Did you find anything?" Giles asked. "And what happened to Spike?"

"Her bloody boyfriend, that's what happened to me, randomly attacking me in the street." Spike spluttered.

"Something strange passed through us, while we were out patrolling, about 3am. Wind picked up, the boys started fighting, Willow went all funny-eyed, cast some spell and they were split apart, then the wind passed through again and everyone was back to normal." Buffy relayed.

"Willow?" Giles asked.

"She's right. It felt like something was inside me, controlling me. The spell was like nothing I've ever cast before, but it felt really powerful."

"Did you happen to see what did this to you all?"

"We're not sure, we saw some creature jumping over the roofs of people's houses after everyone had come around, so Angel and the rest have carried on following it, to see what they can find."

"Excellent. Can you describe what you saw so far?"

"It looked like a shadow, to be honest, not quite there, it just pounced from one rooftop to the next, kind of flowing."

" I suspect we will know more when the others return. For now though, I think you should all go home and get some rest."

Willow, Tara, Anya, Xander, Cordelia and Fred all walked out towards the doorway, shouting their goodbyes, leaving just Buffy and Giles in the flat.

"Has Dawn forgiven you for yelling yet?" she asked him, a smile on her face.

"Yes, I think she has. I thought being a Watcher was difficult, but being a parent…"

"Just that little bit tougher."

Giles went and sat on the back of the sofa and took his glasses off, gently rubbing his eyelids.

"Buffy, tonight, once Fred and I had found what little we could about Cordelia's vision, we began to research your situation."

"And?"

"We haven't exhausted the topic yet, but we have found out a few facts for you."

"Go on…."

"When was the last time you ate?"

"I think it was earlier yesterday, I had an apple at lunchtime. But apart from that, I can't really remember."

"From what Fred and I have managed to find on the subject of resurrection, it is unlikely that you will have to eat, your body, apparently, no longer needs the nutrients, however, it does still require water, more so than before, to stop your skin from dehydrating."

"Thanks for that," Buffy said sarcastically, "maybe I need to moisturise more now."

"There isn't much written on this topic, but, it seems, you are fairly invulnerable to any kind of stabbing, cutting, shooting etc. Your skin should heal itself fairly quickly before any damage can occur."

"Hey this is like being a superhero!"

"These gifts come with a price Buffy, you are immortal now, very little can kill you, there are some things, but we are still trying to find out about those. However, for the moment, you are faced with the fact that you are going to be around for a very long time, longer than any of us. Are you prepared for that?"

"Giles, for once, I'm taking my slayer duties seriously and I'm going to rid the world of evil. It's not going to be easy, living like this, but I have all of you to support me, and I have Angel. Just try and find out whatever you can. I mean, do I need to breathe? Why doesn't my heartbeat?"

"I can answer one of those now. You don't have any need for breath, it's just an automatic response. However, I would advise that you try and carry on 'breathing' so to speak, in case any strangers get too close to you."

"Great, now I actually have to *think* about breathing!"

"As for your heartbeat, I assume, as you don't require oxygen or nutrients, that your heart no longer needs to beat, hence doesn't. The heart is the pacemaker of life, should it beat, it would have a lifespan, hence you wouldn't be immortal. We'll carry on looking into it."

"Thanks Giles, just one more thing. I'm kind of homeless, you think I could borrow your couch, just for a rest until the others check in?"

Giles smiled at his Slayer. "Of course you can."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It was almost sunrise when Angel came to Giles' apartment. He had let the others head back to the mansion and was going to follow shortly. He explained to Giles what they had seen jumping over the rooftops, but that they had been unable to get close to it. Angel sensed a great evil from it, very dark and had felt a dark pull when the wind had appeared and he had started fighting Spike. He also explained that the spell Willow had cast had very dark magic undertones to it, nothing like he had seen her cast before. He gave Giles the vial of sand from the building yard for further analysis. He walked over to where Buffy was now asleep on the sofa. He gently touched her face and bent down to kiss her and then headed towards the door.

"I'll be back at sunset tomorrow, I'll try and find out what I can from the underground before then. Tell Buffy I've gone back to the mansion, when she wakes up."

"Of course." Giles replied, and then almost as an afterthought continued, "She's been through a lot, Angel, things I can't even begin to get my head around. She needs stability and guidance in her life."

Angel looked at the man in front of him.

"I love her, Giles. And I am going to do everything I can to help her through all of this, and *nothing* is going to make me walk away from her again."

Angel turned and walked out of the door.

Giles turned and looked down at the sleeping form of the Slayer and smiled, then turned the light off and went to his bed.

END OF CHAPTER 7

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