Part Three

It took all of three hours for the Bat Pack to decipher The Conduit's message to mean that Angel needed to have Lorne read his soul. It took another hour to convince Lorne to puncture his eardrums at that godforsaken hour of the morning. He whined, pleaded, threatened, and cajoled, but finally the Pylean gave in and suffered through the agony of hearing 'Mandy' sung by a tearful vampire.

When Angel finished singing Lorne shrugged and said, "You were right, we were wrong. Your soul is a permanent fixture in your body."

Angel turned to the others triumphantly about to demand retractions when he remembered Buffy. Or rather, he remembered that her funeral was the day after. He visibly shrank into himself now that the focus he'd had the past couple of days vanished. He shivered slightly thinking of how this was a gift he had wanted to share with Buffy. It was a gift he had wanted for her, and it meant nothing without her. Now that he knew what the dreams had been saying he had no focus to ignore the pain welling up inside.

The others noticed his abrupt change of demeanour and started to talk. "Angel? What's wrong?"

"Hey, y'all okay?"

"Honey, I think they'll let ya get away with a little gloating-"

"Angel, you have to let yourself grieve for her." That was Cordelia. He looked at her and saw a similar sadness in her eyes to his own. Lorne and Gunn had never met her, and Wesley had never known her. Cordelia however, knew Buffy, and while the two had never been friends in the classic sense they had shared a mutual understanding. Seeing that someone there could come anywhere close to comprehending his grief, Angel let Cordelia pull him against her and sobbed into her hair, letting her soothe him.

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

Marianne's recovery from her injuries had been nothing short of miraculous. The fact that cuts and abrasions had healed on the way from the ambulance to the operating table had been odd enough. The overnight healing of hairline fractures had been bizarre. The four days it took for her to recover from massive blood loss, concussion, and all sorts of puncture wounds had Marianne beating off the medical profession with a stick.

She decided, after the latest doctor had all but accused her of killing her boyfriend and staging the accident so that she could fake stopping her heart and dying just for the attention, that she was going to hightail it back to Sunnydale. She figured that at the worst she'd be away from the hospital (visions of her cousin that had died in one -- She didn't have a cousin that had died dammit!) and the poking doctors. At best she could get her dreams to go away.

So Marianne called the airport, packed as many bags as possible, and flew off to California to visit her cousin Alexander. She took a cab from the bus station in Sunnydale, and didn't question how she knew the address and apartment number he lived at.

It happened while standing at the front door and plucking the extra emergency key. Bought in case any one of the Scooby gang needed to get into his and Anya's apartment, the key was hidden in a hideous floral arrangement the ex-demon had bought because it reminded her of a pet Agghal plant she had owned in the tenth century. It had been a gift from D'Hoffryn and Xander had indulged her twisted taste.

Marianne looked at the flowers and chuckled at the memory of seeing the flowers and wondering who would want something that ugly their door. "Buffy," Anya had said when questioned, "Are you saying I can't be allowed to save the memories from when I could still put boils on a man's penis just by looking at it? The penis, not the flowers. Besides it was very cheap and individualises our door, while saving Xander money so that he can buy me many things."

*Buffy?* Marianne thought briefly, then remembered that her mother had named her that for the singer Buffy something. Only, her name was M ... M ... something. Something Anne. That was it! Buffy Anne. She was Buffy Anne Harris. Xander's cousin.

Something wasn't right there, but she couldn't quite figure out what.

She shrugged off the nagging feeling that Anya being an ex-demon ought to conflict with her often stated lack of belief in the supernatural, and left her bags by the couch to go to the magic shop. She would ask Anya where Xander was. Maybe he could help her make sense of this feeling of displacement.

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

The Bat Pack was in Angel's car. Wesley was driving because he was the only person Angel trusted would not ram his beloved classic convertible into a "Keep Left" sign. Either that or drive it straight off a bridge.

Of course, he wasn't particularly concerned at the moment with such mundane concerns as the destruction of his classic '67 Plymouth. Angel was curled in the back seat, hidden underneath a tarp. His head was in Cordy's lap as tears slid from his eyes.

Angel's upbringing hadn't instilled many of his father's values. One of the few it had was to never demonstrate any so-called 'womanly' emotions. That had stayed through the centuries. Liam had never shown his father how much the man's rejection had hurt. Now, after the initial breakdown at Caritas, he had hidden behind a mask of grim stoicism, letting no one know from his outward mask the pain that tore him up inside. Dimly, he could hear Wesley telling Gunn the bare bones of the tragic romance that had often been the only memory that kept Angel from crawling into a bottle of whiskey.

Buffy's face and form danced across the back of his eyelids as he lay in the back seat next to Cordelia. It was all he could do to remain still so that they would assume he was asleep and not weeping into the leather seat.

*I have to be strong,* he thought, *I have to keep from showing anything to them that looks weak. I can't look weak. Dear Lord, Father you were right. I'm a disappointment. I'm not a man. I'm a failure. I wasn't there to save her. I wasn't there when she needed me. I promised I wouldn't leave.* Iron self-control kept him from repeating his thoughts aloud and asking for comfort. He couldn't. Only in front of her had he ever felt safe enough to let the barriers down. Only in front of Buffy could he cry and still be a man. She was his strength, his faith, and his redemption. But more than that, she was the other half of his soul.

He had always thought he would know when she died. He had felt it the first time when she lay in that pool, and he couldn't feel her. She had been gone. To this day he wondered how it was he hadn't lost his soul when she came back. And yet, he hadn't known this time until Willow told him. He supposed it was because their love had become so tainted their bond had been all but destroyed. Still, as they came closer to Sunnydale Angel fancied he could feel her presence drawing near. He finally surrendered to sleep as his senses insisted they were moving toward her. Buffy's aura surrounded him, and he slept.

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

Buffy Anne Harris, (was that right?) walked into the magic shop to find the sight of her cousin Xander, Anya, Willow, Dawn, Giles, Tara, and Spike arguing over whether the music at her funeral should be the Rock favoured by Spike, the classical advocated by Giles and Tara, the church music suggested by Xander and supported by Anya because Xander had suggested it, or the Backstreet Boys CD that Buffy refused to admit was hers, even though the most maudlin ballads perfectly described her relationship with Angel.

Xander turned and stared at her for a moment then said, "Marianne? What are you doing here?"

"Why are you calling me Marianne?" she asked, "I mean, it's not my name."

Willow rolled her eyes at Xander and the two smirked slightly. Willow said, "So you're embracing your heritage again Maria?"

Buffy stared at both of them. "Since when is my name Maria? Or Marianne, for that matter?" she asked baffled. "Willow, you know me. Buffy Summers? Your best friend?"

Dawn dropped the glass she was holding. The sound of it shattering was the only one for several seconds.

Xander's eyes widened as he recalled something. "Wait a minute. You heard us talking just now, didn't you?" Buffy blinked at the young man for a moment, frowned slightly, and opened her mouth to reply. She was about to ask what that had to do with anything when Xander continued, "You were just in that accident four days ago too. The one where your boyfriend was killed. I remember you always were more unpopular than me at school too!" He turned to the others, a look of pity on his face, saying, "Marianne was always really lonely. I think she heard about Buffy as she came in and she ... I don't know how to put it, sort of went bonkers and decided she was gonna be Buffy."

Xander had lowered his voice on the last part of his theorising, but Buffy heard anyway. She stared in disbelief at her friend for a moment before turning to the rest of the gang expecting to see someone believe her. However, on hearing the hypothesis the others instantly went from hostile and disbelieving to pitying and understanding. Not a one was willing to believe that this tall, dark skinned, dark haired young woman was the same person as short, blonde, Buffy.

Even as she protested, and muttered curses in both Spanish and English, the others pushed her into a chair and made plans to take 'Marianne' with them to the memorial service so they could keep an eye on her.

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

The memorial was to take place after sunset on behalf of the two vampires. It was just the Scooby Gang and Bat Pack. The large official one where literally hundreds of people had shown up to express condolences and say farewell to a town hero had happened already. This was for the family they had built with blood, sweat and tears. A phrase all too appropriate for this unusual group of people.

Angel, Cordy, Gunn and Wes were waiting in the graveyard for the others. The Scoobies were late due to Buffy's protestations of who she really was. Protests that lacked weight because her memories were still mixed with Marianne's. She would remember one set of things and not another. She also was living in focussed denial of the existence of the supernatural.

Angel was trying not to lean too hard on Cordy and Gunn, to seem strong for the others, when he felt her. She was there, and it was all Angel could do not to break down. *She must be here to say goodbye,* he thought, and pulled himself together so she would see he was able to protect her friends if need be. His assumption that Buffy's spirit had returned to earth for a final farewell meant he was caught totally off guard when the tall Hispanic woman arrived, bracketed by Buffy's friends.

As she rounded the mausoleum, Buffy's memories came into focus with an almost audible snap. The half-remembered scenes aligning themselves when her gaze landed on Angel. Their eyes met, and electricity only the two could feel crackled between them.

"Buffy."

"Angel"

They spoke in unison, the familiar greeting being like a confirmation of the other's presence. Then Angel strode across the intervening space and pulled Buffy against him so he could kiss her. His slayer was alive.

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

The two groups of sidekicks were staring openmouthed at the sight of Angel kissing a woman who was not Buffy. Finally, Cordelia got her voice back and demanded, "What the hell is going on here?!"

"Damned good question," added Giles.

Angel and Buffy gradually pulled apart, but instead of responding the baffled demands of their friends, they gazed deeply into each other's eyes as Buffy answered Angel's unspoken question.

"I couldn't remember everything until now. I wasn't supposed to jump, you see. It turns out the Powers are sick bastards who expect a girl to kill her sister," Buffy's mouth quirked slightly at the corner, and she chuckled ruefully before she continued, "The First Slayer wasn't supposed to tell me that I could jump in Dawn's place, because I'm supposed to be a leader in some huge armageddon thing. So, when Marianne died at the same moment as I did they just dropped my soul and slayerness into her body."

Wesley and Giles spoke simultaneously, "Good Lord."

Willow's eyes narrowed in her direction, "If you're really Buffy, then how come you know Spanish?"

"I got all of Marianne's memories as well as my own. She grew up speaking Spanish, so it's there like a ... a first and a half language." Buffy raised her hands in mild chagrin and sighed.

Xander just shrugged and said, "I think they both cracked up." He would have continued, but at that moment the vampires of Sunnydale, having decided that with the Slayer dead they could finish off her friends and take over the Hellmouth, came rushing at them from all directions.

With the combined forces of the Bat Pack and Scoobies short work was made of the demons. But not before Buffy had the opportunity to have a relaxing fistfight with a vampire, which was, after all, what she was built for. "Ummm ... Never mind," said Xander when she and Angel raised eyebrows in his direction.

Angel tugged Buffy close again and kissed the top of her head. "Promise you won't go away again." he said.

"Only if you promise not to go either," she said through happy tears. She knew his answer anyway.

He looked into her eyes, and smiled, "Forever. That's the whole point."

Fin