~*Six*~

"The snow is more lonely than cold,

If you know what I mean…

Everyone's got an agenda, don't stop,

Keep that chin up, you'll be all right…"

--Savage Garden

            "Things are not going well…" Her voice was harsh as her beady golden-green eyes glared at the man standing before her.

            "Patience, my sweet." His voice calming and soothing, almost hypnotically so, "Our Elevation is soon upon us."

            She whirled, a mix of anger and obedience rising in her eyes, "There has been a disturbance. It seems that we have encountered more trouble here than we'd anticipated. And we still have not yet found the One!"

            The man stepped forward, stroking her glistening, black hair aside with one cool finger. Icy blue eyes contrasted from even icier pale skin. His gaze penetrated her anger and seemed to calm her. His colorless lips turned slowly to a small smirk, "We still have time. Nothing will stop us this time, dearest. I promise you. The One is here… I can feel it. The Prophecy will be fulfilled, love. The One whose life we shall take is within our grasp… Elevation shall be achieved. And this… disturbance… 'tis but a minor obstacle. We shall overcome it quickly."

            She smiled wickedly, her previous displeasure seemingly washed away by his demeanor, "I've sent Fiore to take care of the interference… he vowed his life that he will not fail me."

            He smiled, running his finger along her jawline to come to a rest at the corner of her mouth, "Now, now, Celeste…" He smirked, "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. The Klak has dwindled over the years, we cannot afford to lose any more of our kind."

            She pouted, and then purred into his ear, "I didn't say I'd kill him if he failed… but a little torture now and then can't hurt a soul."

            He laughed, his voice cutting like a sharp knife through the air. Ferociously, he bent over her and captured her lips with his own. "You seem a little impatient, my dear Mistress Celesta…"

            Her eyes gleamed golden as a smirk crossed her features, "Then entertain me…"

*          *          *

            Consciousness seemed to evade her for a moment. Buffy groaned inwardly as she realized that she was waking up. It had been the first time since she'd come back that she had actually slept soundly. She felt oddly rested, yet also comfortably fatigued. She reveled in a moment of pure silence as she breathed in slowly. The events of the previous night were slowly beginning to trickle into her mind. A part of her dreaded getting up, she didn't want to have to confront the conversation she knew she would have to have. Carefully, she opened her eyes. They were swollen and puffy from her fit and she found it difficult to open them all the way. With her free arm, she rubbed them awake. She blinked a few times, trying to focus her eyes on what was before her. She found herself face to face with a blank wall. Another moment of silence passed as she tried to reassemble all the events that had happened the night before. Sadness. Pain. Crying. Comfort. Angel.

            With the last thought, she whirled around quickly on the bed, her arm reaching instinctively for his familiar touch. Her hand fell lamely onto the empty mattress next to her.

            "Angel?" She sat up quickly in the bed, forcing her eyes open.

            Silence.

            "Angel?!" A tone of panic had slipped into her voice.

            "I'm right here…" His voice was warm and close behind her.

            She whirled around quickly, her eyes frantically searching for his figure. Before she could even focus, she felt his weight next to her on the bed.

            "Angel… I thought that…"

            "I'm right here… I promised, remember?" He said reassuringly, taking her into his arms. Gently, he stroked her hair.

            She let out a small sigh of relief, resting her head on his collarbone. She let his presence sink into her and let it take over her senses for a moment.

            "Are you going to be all right?" His voice sounded concerned.

            Slowly, she drew back away from him, leaving the comfort of his body. She sat back on her legs until there was a good foot between them. Almost reflexively, his arms dropped from her shoulders and fell to his sides. She nodded, meeting his gaze. "Yeah… I'll be OK." She said, forcing a small smile, "Thanks… for staying with me last night."

            He nodded, allowing warmth to spread over his expression. "I'm always here for you, Buffy… in one way or another."

            She laughed shakily, at a loss for anything else to do. She looked down at her hands, tucking her hair behind her ear before continuing. "I guess it's the 'one way or another' part we've always had the problems with…"

            The statement was left hanging in the air. She didn't dare look up. She didn't want to see his reaction to her words. Normally, she would be ready for anything life could throw her way… but not today. She didn't want to see his expression harden… she didn't want to see him take all of his feelings and shove them into a box, never to be revealed again.

            "Buffy…"

            "Don't." She cut him off. Her eyes darted to his face, "Let's not… Let's not get into what's happened, or what's happening or what's gonna happen…Let's not get into us." She sighed, rubbing her temples tiredly, "Let's just pretend it's not there. Can we do that, Angel? Just leave the problems back in California…"

            He looked at her, his gaze intense. Finally, he nodded, "All right."

            There was a moment of silence during which time she tried to comprehend that he had actually agreed with her. She looked at him, one eyebrow raised, "All right."

            Again another moment of silence.

            Finally, he got up off the bed. He turned to look at her, his hair tousled and his eyes taking on a friendly gleam, "So… what did you want for breakfast?" He held up the room service menu for her to examine.

            She smiled, relieved that the tension had been broken. She walked over to him, taking the menu from him. "I sorta feel like pancakes…"

            "Well then, pancakes it is." He said, picking up the phone and holding it out towards her.

            "But you have to order them…" She insisted, handing the menu back to him.

            He raised an eyebrow, giving her a quizzical look.

            "It was mom's old rule," She said, allowing herself a nostalgic grin, "If I don't order them, I don't get the calories."

*          *          *

            He watched her with a mixture of amusement and wonder. Somehow, she had just managed to devour half a stack of pancakes in a record time of two minutes. A small smile spread over his lips.

            She looked up for a moment, her eyes catching his expression. "What?" She asked, becoming slightly self-conscious.

            He chuckled, "Nothing. Just admiring your ability to consume pancakes."

            She rolled her eyes, eating another forkful.

            The silence that ensued was broken when Angel's coat began to ring. He looked up, rising from his seat on the bed and fishing his cell phone out of his pocket.

            "Go ahead." He said into it, returning his gaze to Buffy as he waited for someone on the other side to answer him.

            "Angel!" Cordelias's voice sounded slightly annoyed, "What happened last night? I called you, and then before I could say anything, you just hung up!"

            "Sorry, Cordy… it was sorta a bad time." He replied, settling himself comfortably on the bed again. He considered for a moment to tell Cordelia about Buffy, but then decided against it. "What's up?"

            "Well," She replied rather excitedly, "Wesley dug up this old book on demons last night and found a little tidbit about the Lanthos."

            "What've you got?" He asked, suddenly interested in the conversation.

            "Well… listen to this and tell me if it makes sense. 'The Klak will assemble and the Guardian will rise, Fire joins Water, which Nature defies. Stars from the Heavens will bring the Frost, and a Life twice mislaid must then be thrice lost. By this, Elevation shall be achieved…'" There, she paused. "And that's it…. That's all we have."

            "What does any of this have to do with the Lanthos demon?" He asked.

            "The Lanthos demon is the Guardian guy that they talked about in the prophecy." Cordelia responded, "Wesley says that sometimes clans or covens have a guardian demon that works for them. You know… sorta like a bouncer, to do all the dirty muscle work."

            "Well, it's a start… What happened to the rest of the prophecy?" He asked.

            At the mention of prophecy, Buffy looked up from her meal. She raised an eyebrow at him, silently asking him her question. He nodded to her, holding up his hand to motion for her to wait.

            "We don't know." Cordelia was saying, "That's all that was in the book. Wesley says that the rest of the prophecy is probably written in some other dusty, old, dirty book. He says that back in the day, they split up the prophecies in bits and pieces so less people would know about them."

            "All right, Cordy. Thanks. Please keep looking. I'll try to figure out what else I can get here."

" 'K. Talk to you later then! Hope you're having fun in Chicago!"

"Bye." He sighed, turning his phone off.

            "What's going on?" Buffy walked over to him and stood before him, "I heard the word prophecy."

            He nodded, "Yeah… Wesley found a few lines in one of his books. I'm not quite sure what all of it means yet, but it talked about the demon I'm looking for."

            She sat down next to him on the bed, her legs crossed. "What did it say?"

            He squinted his eyes, straining to remember, "Something about the Klak will assemble and the Guardian will rise… the Guardian is the one I'm after."

            "And the Klak is what I'm after." She said very quietly. "According to Giles, the Journeyers like to call themselves the Klak, it means family or something in their code."

            He sighed, leaning his back up against the headboard. "So it's not so much of a coincidence after all that we ended up in the same place."

            "Nope. Apparently not." She looked at him thoughtfully, tilting her head to one side.

            "What?" He asked, glancing at her from the corner of his eye.

            She smiled, shaking her head. "Nothing." She shrugged. "Just thinking…what was the prophecy?"

            He cocked his head, dragging Cordelia's words back from his memory. He retrieved a pen and some hotel stationary from the nightstand and began to write down as much as he could remember. He could feel Buffy's eyes on him as she watched him scribble out the words. She remained silent, as if she were afraid to break his concentration. She leaned towards him, craning her neck to get a better view of the pad. He found that distracting enough. Just feeling the heat coming off of her body so close to his own, he had to use every fiber of his two hundred and forty-six years of control to not touch her. Still, he forced his mind back onto his current task.

            "A Life twice mislaid must then be thrice lost…" She read the words as he wrote them. She looked up at him, her eyes wide.

            "What?" He asked, detecting fear in her posture.

            "A Life twice mislaid… that's me… it's talking about me." She said quietly, "I've died twice. My life has been mislaid twice…"

            He shook his head, trying to calm her down, "No. We can't be sure about that." Though his voice was calm, his mind was doing turns. He couldn't bear the thought of Buffy having to go up against this demon alone. He had just found her; he didn't want to lose her again.

            "But it makes sense… don't you see?" She asked, pointing at the paper, "the Prophecy talks about the Klak. It is when the Klak rises that all of this happens." She directed her finger towards herself, "And I was sent here to stop the Klak. The Council sent me here, they must know about this…"

            "The Council sent you here?" He asked, bewildered. "I thought you quit the Council…"

            She nodded, "So did I." She sighed, shifting her position on the bed so that she was sitting next to him, her back against the headboard. "But all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the Council went and contacted Giles. They wanted me here in Chicago… there has to be a reason for it."

            "You're the Slayer," He countered, "That's reason enough."

            "No!" She exclaimed, "Don't you see?" She read the sentence again, "A Life twice mislaid must then be thrice lost… I'm one of the ingredients to this prophecy. I have to lose my life again, I have to die…"

            "No." He said firmly, his eyes capturing hers with his fierce gaze, "You're not going to die, Buffy. I'm not going to let you. I was sent here for a reason too. Otherwise, Cordelia wouldn't have had the vision. This is not your battle to fight. At least, it's not yours to fight alone."

            She opened her mouth, as if to protest. But she was caught by his intense eyes. He had made a decision, and she wasn't going to change it. He had been sent here for a reason, and it certainly wasn't to see the love of his life die while he stood there being helpless. "We're in this together." He finally said.

            She swallowed slowly. She blinked and broke the eye contact. She looked away, her eyes finding some interesting pattern in the sheets. "Angel… the prophecy says…"

            "The prophecy didn't say that you were going to die, Buffy." He replied, "So let's just assume that the Life twice mislaid is talking about you… that still doesn't mean you're going to die. That only happens if the Elevation is to be completed… if we stop this Elevation, it'll never happen." He had moved closer to her now, so that he face was nearly touching hers. He wanted nothing more than to be able to protect her, to stop whatever might threaten her. "We're going to stop this… all right?"

            She nodded slowly, "All right…" She finally said. She didn't try to move away from him. Her eyes shifted back so that she was looking at him again. In them, he saw her determination. She was a warrior, and she certainly wasn't going to go down without a fight. That's my Buffy… Inwardly, he smiled.

            A comfortable silence had settled in, and for a few moments, they just stared at each other, their noses only inches apart. Neither made a move to be closer or to draw back. They seemed just content to stay where they were.

            "So…" Angel finally said. His voice sounded so loud to him after the long silence, "We should probably figure out what this Elevation thing is…"

            "Yeah…" She agreed quietly, her eyes never leaving his. "We should…" She shifted slightly.

He blinked, suddenly realizing that he was unbelievably close to her. He swallowed very slowly and drew back, moving away from her. "Yeah…" He said shakily, trying to wipe the memory of her touch from his mind, "So… where should we start?"

She paused before replying, wrapping her arms around herself almost protectively. She shrugged, "I'll call Giles. Maybe he can find out some more about this whole thing… he might even be able to find the rest of the prophecy in one of his books."

"Good idea." He agreed quickly, getting up from the bed. "We're going to stop this, Buffy."

Her voice was quiet as she replied, "I hope you're right."

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