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agony

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It had been three and a half weeks; exactly twenty-five days since Anya, Lisenka, and the others had walked through the portal to appear at the trial they had been called to give testimony for. Twenty-five days of waiting, worrying, hoping, and frantically trying not to think about how Anya might not be coming back, how none of them might be coming back. Trying not to think about how they might never again hear her half muttered but lengthy dissertations on how stupid mortality, and by direct association mortals themselves, was or listen in disgusted silence as she mentioned various men and precisely what she had done to them in the name of vengeance.

After she'd been gone for two days, the letters had arrived; letters she had written and apparently mailed the day of the new moon. She had remembered to include everyone in her letter writing venture, not leaving out a single individual who had touched her contemporary human life, from Xander to Joyce, and even Spike, although she had ended up mailing his letter to Giles with a request that it manage to somehow get to him. Crypts, it appeared, didn't have mail slots or even addresses, something Anya thought was stupid and she had told Giles precisely that in the same paragraph in which she had asked him to make certain of the delivery.

Giles had even received a phone call from a highly irritated Cordelia demanding that he explain to her why Anya had mailed her a letter and not just e-mailed or called or done something else less formal and more normal. Once Giles had explained the circumstances surrounding the girl's departure, Cordelia had quickly ended the call, uncharacteristically walking out of the office in silence to read the missive in the peace of her apartment, leaving in her wake a mystified Wesley, Gunn, and Angel. Anya had forgotten no one.

Giles had been amused to discover that she wrote in the same manner in which she spoke. Although his own letter had indeed been broken down into paragraphs, he found his mind reeling in order to make sense out of the, more often than not, disjointed thoughts and phrases.

The letters had been filled with typical Anya ramblings and half-told stories. But within the strangely precise word choices and oddly phrased comments, she had managed to effectively describe each person's affect on her human life. On the whole, the letters were very much un-Anya like, but then again, the days preceding her departure had been a new experience for them all, with the exception of Cordelia, but the note she received made up for her lacking most of the experience.

After twenty-three days, Xander had long since memorized what she had written to him and kept the three neatly penned sheets of feminine stationery folded in his wallet and tucked beneath a picture of his missing girlfriend. Although he knew the words by heart and recited them at odd moments during his workday, he still unfolded the letter every night and reread what she had written to him, cursing the demon that had managed to continue tormenting her even after mortality had been thrust back on her, and praying for her safe return.

~~~~

"We've got to do something."

Buffy looked up from her workout to see Willow standing near the fighting dummy Xander had made for her to train with. Relaxing her stance and grabbing a bottle of water, she cut short the mind numbing exercise and approached her friend. "I know, Will, but we're doing everything we can. Giles is even talking about flying to England to see if can't get something out of the Council of Watchers. Unless we can figure a way to reopen the portal from this side…"

"No, that's not what I meant. I mean, yes, we do need to do something about that too, but I was thinking more of doing something right now about Xander. I've never seen him like this, Buffy, and I've known him forever. Or if you prefer it in Anya-eze: 'since we were squalling infants'." Willow leaned against the dummy briefly before remembering it wasn't stationary. Regaining her balance before she went sprawling across the mat, she smiled sheepishly at Buffy.

"He is pretty much a walking ad for Prozac," she admitted. "I don't know what to do though, ya' know. I mean, you can't tell him he's better off without her because she didn't dump him, you can't say that it'll all be okay and she'll be back because we don't know if she can come back or that she's even okay where she is. Hallmark needs to expand and create a line of sympathy cards for when your friend's girlfriend is locked in a demonic realm, I think there might be a market for that sort of thing."

"At least here in Sunnydale," Willow mused before lapsing back into the depression that had been nagging at her. "I just feel so helpless," she moaned. "I need to feel like I'm helping."

Buffy considered her friend for a minute. "Well then, how 'bout we drag him out to the Bronze tonight? I could use a night away from reality myself. You, me, Tara, and Xander. It'll be just like old times except with Tara and without Anya. I know, Tara can be our Anya substitute. Maybe you could quiz her on all the spells that do bad things to men. It could be almost like we had Anya back."

"I want to help Xander, Buffy, not give him my girlfriend. But, hey, we could invite Spike."

Buffy cut her eyes at Willow. "Why would we do that?"

"Because he's depressed too," Willow answered, scrunching her forehead in an attempt to relay her own questionable ideas of how the vampire was handling the situation. "I mean, think about it, he hasn't been around ever since Anya left, not even to prove to you that he's busy reforming his evil blood-sucking ways."

"Yeah, he has been pretty lacking lately, but I don't know that that's such a bad thing, Will."

"Oh, come on, Buffy. I mean, sure he's scary, and it's pretty weird with the whole 'slayer killer in love with the slayer' thing, but let's invite him too. He could liven things up." Willow paused after making that suggestion. Did she really want Spike around to liven things up? Maybe inviting him was a bad idea after all.

"That's what I want…" Willow's forced cheerfulness was too hard to ignore and Buffy finally smiled her agreement. "Okay, but I promise you, Will, if he tries to hit on me again, you're gonna have to answer to the slayer for insisting that we invite him to begin with."

~~~~

Anya, exhausted and not a little peeved, sat down against the rough wall of her optimistically named guest quarters. As disgusted as she was, she knew better than to complain, they could have quite simply chained her up to the courtroom's outer walls like they did most trial witnesses. She hadn't seen any of the others since they'd first arrived, she didn't even know how long ago that was but it felt like an eternity. The trial seemed to be dragging on interminably, she only hoped it would be over with before Xander was old enough to draw his retirement check.

Beyond the dank and musty walls of her chamber she could hear the muted sounds that served as a reminder of another life, a life spent terrorizing men, a life where she had clean clothes, or at least if she didn't, she hadn't cared…

When she got back to Sunnydale the first thing she was going to do was take a long hot shower, no, first she'd go find Xander, no, she smelled and her clothes were full of dirt and grime and probably little crawling things she couldn't see, a shower would definitely come first, maybe she could take a shower with Xander… That was perfect, she'd get to be clean and see Xander at the same time, perfect!

At the sound of the door's creaking hinges, she jerked up to stand unsteadily on her feet. She'd only had one visitor since her arrival; at that time D'Hoffryn had walked into the room and sneered at her, asking her how she liked her newfound mortality. She knew she had surprised him when she asked how long the trial would be and when she could expect to return home. He had received his answer in those questions and had swept out of the room, closing the door solidly behind him, and neglecting to provide her with any answers.

Weak from the lack of an appropriate diet, and tired from lack of sleep, Anya watched the door warily. She wasn't sure of the specifics of the court's rules, but she was pretty sure that her visitors weren't restricted in any way. Anyone who wanted to could come to see her and that generally wasn't a problem for witnesses who were chained to a wall in plain sight of most of the realm…

The face that appeared in the dim light was one she had hoped never to see again.

"Jharahalien."

"Anyanka, I'm flattered that you remember me after all this time. Don't tell me you thought you were rid of me just because you were mortal again." The much taller demon raised gray spine-covered hands toward the low slimy ceiling. "How anyone could give this up is quite beyond me, I must say." He lowered his hands and leered menacingly at her, his red and yellow eyes filled with dark promise. "But then again, you didn't precisely give it up voluntarily did you? That watcher, that mortal, destroyed your amulet and trapped you there in the process. Poor, poor Anyanka. I heard that you even appealed to D'Hoffryn to return your powers and allow you to become a vengeance demon again. Tisk, tisk, darling, begging doesn't suit you one bit, at least not begging to D'Hoffryn."

Anya failed to control the shudder of disgust that raced down her spine, jerking her head away to face the far wall. She was trapped in the room, unable to leave with Jharahalien standing between her and the door and unsure of where she would be able to go even if she could get past him. There were no safe zones in the realm for her any longer, as she had suspected before leaving Sunnydale, she was at the mercy of the realm and all of its inhabitants. She was too weak to stand up without swaying as it was, how was she supposed to fend of a demonic attack.

"Have you spent so much time among humans that my true appearance disturbs you, my dear?" The demon morphed into the human form Anya had first known him as, disturbing her all the more, advancing on her slowly and determinedly. "D'Hoffryn told me that you summoned him and requested, nay, demanded, your power back. That you complained about the children you were forced to associate with and the very fact that you were nothing more than a child yourself and were unable to even succeed as such. How I do wish I were there to hear you're piddling complaints… We've so much to catch up on, Anyanka."

{AN: Now that I've managed to get through the boring parts and even broached the sexual assault idea… is anyone even interested in reading the rest of this silly thing? Is anyone actually bothering to read it at all any more? In case you were wondering, it is almost complete, just another chapter or so. Just wondering…}