All Roads Lead to Sunnydale Part 5 By Gem



"Hey slugger." Ever the genial host, Riley smiled and waved hello from the bandstand. "Took you long enough to get here. Did you hit traffic?"

"I think she was otherwise engaged," Darla said archly. "I'm sure she and Angel had a great deal to catch up on."

Riley's smile suddenly vanished, leaving behind a scowl unlike any Buffy had ever seen on his normally pleasant and nondescript face.

"I don't see that there was anything for them to talk about at all. She needed help; end of story."

"Of course, dear." Suddenly Darla's voice was like silk, muted and soothing. She stretched up to rub her hand along Riley's shoulder blades, reveling in the confusion her maternal gesture produced in her audience.

"So do you like the decorations?" Riley was back in sunny Mr. Right mode again, eager to show off for his best girl. "I wasn't sure we were going to have time to put up all the lights and everything, because you didn't give me much time after I got back to school before you had that little temper tantrum in the graveyard. But since you took so long to get back," he glanced sharply at Angel, "it turned out okay after all."

"I think she's overwhelmed, precious." Darla's tone was ironic in the extreme, but the face she turned to Riley was as bland as his own schoolboy persona.

Angel couldn't bear to see the closed and shuttered look come over Buffy's face. She might not have loved Finn, or even liked him, but she had at least trusted him to a degree. She had let him in the inner circle of family and friends she treasured; allowed him to see her world for what it really was, and all the time he had been deceiving her.

"Are you sure it's really him?" he whispered, truly hoping the answer was no. Buffy had already suffered too many betrayals in her short life; she didn't need another one.

She smiled wistfully at him. "I think the question should be 'am I sure this is the real him?' Sadly, I think that one's a yes."

Buffy looked her ex up and down, searching for some sign that he was a robot, or drugged, or maybe just hypnotized. She saw nothing out of the ordinary, other than his choice of companions; Riley had the same easy boy- next-door-smile, and slightly too-tousled blond hair, and clumsily attempted charm as always.

She wasn't sure of the why or how, but she was positive on the who. It was definitely Riley, and he was there because he wanted to be.

Deep breath time, Buffy, she told herself sternly.

"You win. Color me surprised. And confused."

"Now I'm hurt. You never saw the family resemblance? I think it shows most around the eyes myself." Darla put a hand under Riley's chin and then Tara's, tilting their heads this way and that way. "Yes, definitely the eyes," she finally pronounced.

"You're saying these two are your children," Buffy said slowly, wanting to establish that fact before moving on to the next question. "Riley and Tara both? But vampires can't have children." She looked quickly at Angel, narrowing her eyes. "You told me vampires can't have children. Exactly how long before you met me did you stop seeing her?"

The underlying question was clear.

"You think they're mine?"

"Well I know they're not her children in the 'slurp, you're dead and welcome to the family' sense like you are. I would feel it if they were vamps. That leaves door number 2."

She was stalling for all she was worth, but the question was real. As to the answer, she could only hope.

"Buffy, I swear..." Angel was stunned, both by Darla's revelation and Buffy's suspicion. He forgot the vampires restraining him, and the crossbow at his back, as he tried to reach out to his beloved. The guards reacted, but not as he expected.

The gun pressed to Buffy's temple suddenly stiffened in her enemy's hand, presenting a silent but very effective restraint for Angel. He froze, darting a panicked glance at Darla.

"I think before we go any further with our little reunion, we need to make the rules clear." Darla nodded to one of the vampires waiting off to the side of the stairs. The vampire ran over to her with a large ceramic jar, which Darla cradled gently as she approached Buffy and Angel.

"I know how strong the fighting instinct is in both of you," she explained as she opened the jar and turned it on its side. Tiny black crystals began to pour out onto the wooden floor. "I also know the urge to protect each other is even stronger. So, if either of you moves, the other will die. Simple enough?"

She began to trace a large circle around them with the crystals, murmuring phrases in Latin as she poured. When she completed the crystalline circle she paused for a moment to admire her handiwork before she relinquished the jar to a nearby minion.

"There, all finished." Darla's smile was triumphant. "I decided to take the idea of a protective circle and have some fun with it. You see, anyone can enter this circle, but it will only release the evil. So, unless you've been a bad boy this year Angelus, you're pinned to the floor like a butterfly on velvet." She swept her arms out to the sides, inviting all to appreciate her creation. "Welcome to my version of Dante's first circle of hell."

"Not even close, Darla," Angel snarled. "Take it from a seasoned tourist."

"Poor baby," Darla cooed, stepping into the circle to stroke his cheek. "Was the big bad Slayer mean to you?" Her fingers suddenly became claws, scratching a bloody trail down Angel's cheek.

Buffy flinched, though Angel didn't. She was choking on her anger, but the smooth wood of the crossbow shone evilly in the corner of her eye, reminding her why she must stay rooted in place. To control her temper, she focused on the small details while the majority of her mind was feverishly assembling, and discarding plans of attack.

"I'm still waiting for an answer on the dating thing," she said impatiently.

"Vampires can't have children," Angel said through gritted teeth. "I don't understand any of this, but they can't be mine...or hers. It doesn't make sense." He suddenly realized he'd forgotten one salient point liable to come back and haunt him if they survived this mess. "And I stopped sleeping with her in 1898."

"We all have a past, Angelus. There is so much about me that you never bothered to ask." Darla's pout was a work of art, honed through centuries of practice. Once upon a time it would have brought Angelus to his knees.

Demon no longer in ascendance, Angel just looked faintly disgusted.

"Now you see with Buffy, I learned all about her before I even met her," Riley drawled. "I found out exactly who she was and what she wanted, so I knew just how to play the part."

Riley couldn't help beaming; this was all working out just swell. Buffy had fallen willingly into his arms the moment they met, and he had no reason to reproach himself for her brief and inexplicable backsliding Angel- wards. It was strictly a temporary situation, for more than one reason.

"Guess again, Stalker Boy. You should have tried wearing more black," Buffy scoffed, doing her best to wipe the smug look from his face. "Leather wouldn't have hurt either."

"You said you wanted stability, and normality, and security," Riley continued serenely, as though she had never spoken. She had these little spells of rebellion, but he knew she would recover soon. She always did. "The poster child for Girl Power wanted someone to take care of her, or at least you thought you did until I tried to do just that." He shrugged. "Is it my fault you can't decide what you really want and stick with it?"

Until now, of course, he reflected. He would make certain she had no more changes of heart after tonight.

Buffy closed her eyes and fractionally shook her head. She wasn't going to listen to him; she broke up with him, and now he was holding her captive. If there was one benefit to this situation, it was that she no longer had to pretend to hang on every word that fell from his supposedly corn-fed lips.

"How is any of this possible?" she asked abruptly, opening her hazel eyes wide to glare at her former, and formerly 'normal,' boyfriend. "I mean, Darla and kids she didn't eat; I still can't wrap my mind around that one."

Keep him talking, keep them talking, she told herself silently. Buy time and think.

"Oh come on, Buff," Riley said smoothly. "I know you know where babies come from, if you know what I mean."

She flushed, not daring to look at Angel. Knowing what she'd done with Riley, and having it thrown in his face were two very different things.

"I wasn't always a vampire, you know," Darla said impatiently. "I had a life, a husband, children, long before I met the Master. I'm disappointed in you, Angelus; haven't you taught this child anything about us?"

She could understand the shortsightedness of the Slayer; humans were always so limited in their thinking anyway, and Buffy Summers was more limited than most. But her Angelus had always been so bright; how crushing to realize his exposure to this dull-witted creature had tarnished that once fine mind.

Angel was doing his best to unravel the mystery, but he was fighting against an overwhelming feeling of unreality. He studied the pair standing under the loft, trying to focus on them as enemies rather than Buffy's supposed friends.

"Okay, I can believe this of Finn; I never trusted him anyway. But are you sure this is the same Tara you told me about?" Angel glanced at Buffy as he spoke under his breath. "She's not a doppelganger or something, right?"

"Not as far as I know," Buffy admitted in a low voice. "Then again, I walked in after the movie started."

She tried not to think of how Willow would feel when she learned the truth. In the wake of Oz's betrayal, her friend might take this second blow as a sign never to trust her heart again. Buffy was certainly experiencing some trust issues herself right about now.

"The Master was so forceful, and so wonderfully, inventively evil," Darla mused. She wandered back and forth across the hall, still lost in her memories. "It seems like just yesterday that I met him."

She tilted her head back as she strolled, gazing at the myriad of sparkling lights overhead. They were a pleasant reminder of all the starlit nights she hunted by the Master's side. By Angelus' side too, until he turned on her.

"You met the Master in 1601; the year Papa died at Kinsale," Tara offered, intruding on her mother's auld lang syne. "He was a hero," she continued, smiling proudly in remembrance. Her smile faltered when not returned by the captive audience, or her loving family.

"Thank you for the historical trivia, dear," Darla said as she snapped back to reality. The venom was thick in her voice. "I managed to get through 244 years without Angelus knowing my full age."

"You'll have to forgive the meow moment, but frankly I thought you were older than that," Buffy said, her voice as treacherously sweet as Darla at her best.

"You're only jealous that he willingly spent so many of those years with me." Darla smiled pityingly at her much younger rival. "He barely lasted three years with you before he ran for his unlife."

"Mom, is this really necessary?" Riley asked with a grimace. "You'll only encourage him by fighting over him." He scowled again at his rival, who seemed more amused than titillated by the sight of two women quarreling over him.

The Slayer couldn't help staring at Riley even as she sniped at his mother. By all rights he should have grown horns, or a tail, or some other outward manifestation of the Darla within. Instead, he appeared to be just the same old slightly gawky grad student she'd known, at least in the biblical sense, for the last year. Even for the hellmouth, this was plain weird.

"So if your mother died in 1601, that would make you how old?" she asked him with a wince.

"Four hundred and six, if you really want to know." Riley shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't think it would be a problem; you seem to like older guys."

Buffy took a deep breath and continued her quest for information. Know your enemy, Giles' voice reminded her; know him and his weaknesses.

Then kill him.

"Given my line of work I probably should have asked this one a while ago, and I just know I am so not going to like the answer, but...what are you? You can't be human."

Not a pleasant thought to confront, but definitely diary-worthy, she consoled herself.

"He is too," Darla replied indignantly before Riley could answer for himself. "A very, very, very old human, but still human. After the way you've repeatedly mauled him the past year I should think that much would be clear."

Riley's mother clearly was not pleased by her son's taste in women.

"You're the one I'm curious about, Darla," Angel said with great calm. "The last time I saw you, I was wiping you off my coat." He glanced at her appraisingly as she strolled past him again. "You're looking a little more together now."

"Don't you remember the box?" she asked with a sly smile. Slowly, seductively, she advanced on Angel. "The oh-so-mysterious box and all those poor little vampires Vocah sacrificed to raise the creature that lay within. Surely you haven't forgotten poor dear Lindsey? Didn't he once try to lend you a helping hand - until you cut it off?"

"You were the one they were raising," he breathed. "But how?"

This is all your fault, lad, his father's voice assured him. You couldn't stop the raising, and now your girl will die. Once again others will pay for your failure.

Darla shrugged off his question; she wasn't a detail person.

"You read the scroll; you tell me. All I care about is that my new friends at Wolfram and Hart raised me. Something my children had been less than capable of doing." She glared at Riley and Tara momentarily before refocusing her chilling smile on Angel. "Those lawyers had so many nasty little plans for you, my love. But in the end they let me do things my way." She began to lazily walk around the perimeter of the crystalline circle. "Our way."

"So I'm guessing there never even was a Belos demon in town," Buffy said slowly. "Just one long set-up, from the phony fight on. What about Spike? Was he a part of your fantabulous plan as well?"

As she talked, she shot quick glances all around the hall, trying to see any potential areas of weakness in either design or guard. Until one could be found, Darla needed to be kept occupied. Eventually she would let something slip.

And if Darla was talking, she couldn't be biting.

"As though I would trust him," Darla sneered. "All he knows is the kill; he has no appreciation for the hunt. Angelus trained him very badly."

"You don't like Spike?" Buffy asked with interest. "That's the first nice thing I've ever heard about him."

"Darla's always been a little upset because she said Dru wasn't ready for a childe, and I let her turn Spike anyway as a gift," Angel murmured, glancing sideways at Buffy.

"So what did you give Darla for her birthday that year?" she asked him wryly.

"Spike was just a convenient pawn, but there really was a Belos." Riley decided it was time he jumped into the conversation; he knew better than to get his mother started on the subject of Spike, or birthdays. "He's in Santa Rosita right now setting up a new business with the guy Angel has been tracking. Now that Angel is otherwise occupied they can meet with the lawyers and sign the contracts."

"They're both clients of Wolfram and Hart," Angel guessed, already knowing the answer before Riley nodded.

"Got it in one, Fang Boy."

A warning hiss from his mother wiped the grin off of Riley's face, reminding him vampire jokes were no longer politically correct. He hastily resumed his explanation.

"The Belos came to town and lent us his reputation to set things up, then we knew Buffy would come looking for you when I disappeared and get everyone else into place. We get you, a hopefully thriving new business is started and the lawyers get a cut of it all. Everybody wins."

"Well, not everyone." Darla was all but purring with delight. The sick look on Angel's face as he realized he had left his friends in danger, only to expose Buffy to more danger, was her dream come true.

Well, it was at least the beginning of her dream come true. After all, Buffy was still breathing.

* * * * *

"Yeah, well, now that we know Riley definitely does not need rescuing, we're gonna be going." Buffy spoke casually, but she didn't move a muscle. Repeated glances out of the corner of her eye had done nothing to ease her tension. The crossbow aimed at Angel's heart, and the hand that held it, showed no signs of wavering.

"Oh, I don't think so." Darla began to pace back and forth directly in front of the circle, carefully avoiding the vulnerable edge. "I've put far too much thought into this night, and we've scarcely begun."

"Yeah, this isn't one of those dopey plans Giles throws together on the drive to the hellmouth. I've been working on this for four years." Riley glanced at his sister as she began to back away from him. A tight grip on her arm put an end to her escape plan. "Correction, we've been working on this for four years. Ever since Angel killed our mother."

Darla smiled with chilling fondness at her only son. "Isn't he sweet? He did all this for me, or at least he thinks he did all this. The truth is, dear boy, there are many more forces at work here tonight than you can dream of." Her eyes were wide, and almost hypnotic in their intensity. "We were all drawn here to fulfill a greater purpose. Whatever reason we thought we had for coming to this town is just an illusion; this night is our reason. If only the Master were here to enjoy it with us." She came back to earth with a vengeance and scowled at Buffy, her game face coming briefly to the surface in her anger.

"Umm, sorry, but he's pretty much dust in the wind these days." Buffy glanced coolly at the walls. "Of course if you get rid of those boards you can probably lift some of him off the windows; I don't think this place has been cleaned in a while."

Darla swiftly entered the black circle and slapped Buffy's face. Angel instinctively lunged as Buffy's head snapped towards the pistol pressed to her cheek. His own guard's finger tightened on the trigger of the crossbow.

"Enough!" Darla shouted.

For an instant, everyone froze.

Darla stepped back to the inner edge of the circle and forced herself to calm down. This was not the time for unrestrained emotions. She would not let the Slayer provoke her into taking any actions before she was ready.

"You aren't getting out of this so painlessly, Angelus. But in the future I expect more respect for my orders." Darla glared at the vampire guards. "You were supposed to kill them the instant they moved, so by all rights I really should kill you now."

The vampire guards looked frightened; Buffy's guard took a big gulp of unnecessary air in preparation for begging.

Darla held up her hand when she saw the vampire open his mouth. "Fortunately for you, I still want to play. After all, I didn't come back from oblivion to let my fun be over before it begins."

"Too bad I didn't know where they kept the Dustbuster at the Bronze that night," Buffy snapped. "I bet they miss you in oblivion."

"Mother, maybe we should remove the guards," Tara suggested anxiously. "They waited this time, but next time...there might be an accident before you're ready."

She tried not to look directly at her mother as she spoke; she had learned through the centuries that direct confrontation only angered Darla. The occasional upwards glance through her hair, just the barest flicker of eye contact, worked best for productive, and survivable, communication.

"What I can't believe is that you're a part of this, Tara." Buffy voice softened as she stared directly at the girl she thought she knew. "Was everything with Willow just some sort of a set up? All part of the 'let's destroy Buffy plan?"

She so desperately wanted the answer to be no.

"Basically yes," Riley answered, just as Tara cried out, "No!"

Riley and Darla both glared at the weak link in their midst. For once in her long life, Tara ignored them.

"It started out part of a plan...but you don't understand. I didn't know you; I didn't know any of you." She looked frantically from Buffy to Angel. "I just knew you'd destroyed my mother. Everything I've done has been because of her. Until I met Willow, I mean. She's such a good person, and she really cares about me." Tara hung her head. "At least, she cares about the me she thinks she knows," she confessed softly.

"And Buffy dear, as much as I will enjoy putting an end to yet another Slayer, this plan was always about Angel. You're the door prize, but he's B-I-N-G-O, bingo."

"Well, doesn't that make me feel special," Angel grumbled. "All this trouble just for me. Gee Darla, you shouldn't have."

Darla began to stroll around the hall again, playing with the dangling strands of lights, running her hands over the flickering candles. She wanted to bask in the glow of success for just a little while longer.

"You were just the bait, Buffy," Tara volunteered from the depths of her misery. "I didn't want them to do it this way; he's the one they wanted, not you, but Riley said...and then Mother said...you were his weakness. If we wanted him, we had to get you." Her tear-bright eyes pleaded for forgiveness.

Buffy felt a chill deep in her soul. This was all her fault; Angel would die because of her.

"Tara has always been too soft-hearted," Darla confessed, as she fashioned a little noose out of the strand of lights in her hands. "She was the one who found the spell that made she and her brother immortal, so that they could be with me forever. Now would a child these days go to all that trouble? I don't think so."

"I can't quite see why the Hallmark moment myself," Buffy said, trying to recover her equilibrium. "You don't exactly strike me as the cookie-baking mom type. Actually, were cookies even invented when you, umm, bit the big one?"

Angel flashed a smile at her, and it was worth the vicious tightening of her captor's grasp on her arms to turn her head just slightly and smile back at him.

"She was a good mother once," Tara whispered. "I was very young, but I remember we were happy. Then Papa died on Christmas Eve, and Mother went..."

"A little insane," Riley finished for her. "It was only natural. After all, Buffy, from what I read in your diary, you became a little peculiar after you sent Angel to hell."

Right where Angel belonged, Riley added silently, and wasn't he long over due for a return trip?

"You read my diary?" Buffy growled at her ex. "Oh, when I get my hands on you, you'll wish you never even learned the alphabet."

No one, but no one, read her diary. Well, not read it and lived, as FrankenTed could testify. If he was still alive.

"I wouldn't be making any rash threats if I were you, slugger." Riley pointed to the circle of salt that kept her at his mercy. "Even if the guards leave," he nodded to the vampires restraining them, "you're still imprisoned by the circle."

"As long as it is unbroken," Angel said with a quick look at Buffy. The seeds of a plan were born, only to wither at Tara's response.

"It can't be broken from within," she warned them.

Riley silenced her with a sharp yank on her arm. She rubbed her arm with her other hand and tried to pull away from her brother's bruising grip, but he held fast.

"And don't think Angel's demon is going to cut any ice either." Riley's voice was suspiciously kind and gentle, considering the fierce hold he maintained on his sister. "Not that we were able to do a lot of field testing on this thing, but Mom can still do a pretty airtight spell. He's not going anywhere, unless he can figure out a way to get rid of that pesky soul of his, to become truly evil again."

"And give your mother an excuse to shoot Buffy?" Angel growled. "Not likely, pal."

"They took what was mine." Darla was still intent on having her moment. She'd waited too long for it to let it go so easily. "Jamie and the children were all I had. When he went to fight, I thought I was strong enough to protect him, but I couldn't control the magick yet." She clenched her fists in remembered rage. "Then after the battle, I tried to bring him back, but it was no use."

"You'd get better sympathy for me if you weren't trying to off my lover right now," Buffy sighed. Too late she realized her slip, but she decided not to correct herself. It was, after all, the truth.

Angel looked at her for just an instant, long enough for her to know he'd heard the meaning behind her words. He wanted to tell her he still felt the same way, but the increasingly purple hue of Riley's face, and the tightening of Darla's mouth indicated he'd best return the conversation to their lives and their pain. He grasped for the first non-Buffy thought that flitted through his mind.

"You never told me any of this," he said in amazement. "I remember my father telling me about the Battle of Kinsale. I just can't believe...I never even knew you were Irish."

"You never asked," Darla reminded him sharply. "But does it matter? My life, as humans consider it, ended when Jamie's did. When I tried to raise him they called me a witch."

"Umm, Mom..." Riley began tactfully, until Darla spun around and fixed him with her icy stare. He shrugged his shoulders and turned up his palms. "Just pointing out a technicality."

"They were going to burn me; all those hypocrites who called themselves my friends and neighbors." Her voice rang with disbelief. "They took my children away, and then they were going to take my life. But the Master rescued me from my cell. He told me he would make me immortal and give me the power to destroy my enemies and take back what was mine."

"Vampires aren't exactly known for treasuring family ties," Angel said skeptically. He nodded at Riley and Tara. "Why did you let them live?"

"I was going to kill them at first; you know how I love young fresh blood." She smiled sweetly at Angel, who winced at the sudden wave of memories flooding his mind. "But then I decided to wait until they were grown, and turn them. That way they would stay mine forever." She sighed heavily. "Unfortunately, by the time they were grown Tara had discovered a spell to make them immortal. Vampires can't turn immortals; you really can't do much of anything to them."

"Fire," Tara said suddenly. "All creatures, live and undead, mortal and immortal, are subject to the power of fire. It can destroy and purify." She looked pleadingly at Buffy, hoping the Slayer was not too angry to hear the intention behind her words.

"Yeah, yeah, and it makes pretty colors too," Riley said disparagingly. "The point is we became immortal to stay with our mother, because even as a vampire, she was still the only family we really had. And then you took her away," he said with a glare at Angel.

"Oh please, you were like 160 by that point," Buffy scoffed. "If you couldn't cut the apron strings by then...I guess they weren't exactly wrapped around your wrist, now were they?"

How deeply scary the thought that she might have eventually drifted into marriage with this multi-centennial mama's boy, and gotten Darla in the bargain. Say hello to the mother-in-law from hell.

"She hardly ever came to see us," Riley protested, flushing bright red with anger. "Only when she could sneak away. And it was always 'Angelus' this and 'Angelus' that when she did come. When he regained his soul, we thought finally...but she was obsessed with him until the day he killed her."

He paused for a moment, remembering his feelings on that day; the clean, pure rage that coursed through his body. At last he had a purpose, a reason for his eternal existence. He would find his mother's corruptor, and destroy him as she had been destroyed.

"That's when I found you, Buffy," he said steadily, "as part of the plan to get to Angel. Imagine how I felt when I realized you're even farther gone on him than she was. Do you have any idea what it's like to be measured up against someone for 240 years...and never win? You try it and see if you don't get a little testy."

"My heart bleeds," Buffy sneered.

"It will," Darla promised her sweetly.

"So we're here because your kids can't cut the cord?" Angel shook his head slightly, careful not to unnerve his guards. "And I thought I had family issues."

"Poor Angelus, are you still fighting with your father's ghost?" Darla shook her head at him. "I've heard a great deal about your adventures while I was...away. So much of it still goes back to him, doesn't it? How he shaped you with his scorn. Especially when it came to little Buffy."

"As I recall you were the one who wanted to have Sigmund Freud's blood on the rocks; what's with the family counseling?"

He wanted to bluff it out, but he could tell she wasn't fooled. All the mental and physical tortures he had delighted in inflicting during his reign as Angelus, he had learned at her knee. She knew where to find every version of a jugular.

"You needn't play games with me, my love. I know you, inside and out." She stepped into the circle again and stroked his bloody cheek, then smiled as she licked her fingers. "You gave her up just as your father would have expected, just as you were raised to believe was proper. Those laws were abolished a hundred years before you were born, but your father still believed them. He raised you to follow them."

She sounded so understanding, almost maternal. She had always taunted him that way, with calm and reason, driving him to the edge with the unrelenting pressure. And from what Buffy had said of Riley's character, he was apparently a chip off the old block.

"Did he ever explain the real reason he was leaving?" Darla asked as she turned to Buffy. A mask of false pity covered her smooth features. "No, I imagine not. And of course, since you're not one of us, you wouldn't know. According to the laws Angel was raised to believe, a man who can't make love to his wife, or give her children, is no man at all. He has no right to marry, legal or moral." She smiled mockingly at Angel. "Is that right, dear boy?"

Angel looked away, refusing to see the scorn he imagined in Buffy's eyes. He could almost hear his father's voice echoing Darla's words, as a warning. His father, however, had believed in them.

"The Brehon Laws?" Riley asked incredulously. "He left Buffy over those old things? Boy, there's one born every century."

Riley crossed his arms over his chest and threw back his head as he roared with laughter. Who would have thought old Angelus would give up his heart's desire to please a ghost, or out of some backwards sense of right and wrong? It was the funniest thing he'd heard in decades.

Darla beamed at her chortling son and hurried to join him by the bandstand. "Isn't it just precious?" she cooed, her own delicate giggle blending with Riley's deeper tones.

Tara bit her lip and resolutely held back the words of comfort that sprang to her lips. There was no time. Finally free of Riley's restraint, she slowly began to edge away from her brother.

Buffy looked steadily at Angel, willing him to face her. It was obvious from the shamed look she had glimpsed as he turned away that Darla had hit her mark. Suddenly his departure from Sunnydale made much more sense, in a crazy sort of way.

"You're kidding, right? So that was the reason behind the big farewell in the fog scene? You left thinking you weren't good enough because some dusty old law book told you so." She paused for a moment to steady her voice. "God, it was bad enough when I thought it was the Mayor who convinced you to go."

"It's not that simple, Buffy," he replied softly, turning to hold her prisoner with his eyes. "It's not something I consciously chose to follow, but everything I was raised to believe says I'm not enough for you. Even when I was a man, I wasn't, and now..."

"I don't care about who you were then," Buffy replied passionately. "I never cared about that part."

She wanted to grab him and shake some sense into him, but she didn't dare move. All she had were words, and she didn't know if they would be enough. She had always used words as a weapon, or a shield. Now she needed them to be a lifeline.

"It's the you that you are now that counts." she said urgently. "There's more to it than sex, you know. He can have sex," Buffy cried, jerking her head at Riley. "He has a pulse and he breathes too; so what? Don't you know you're worth ten thousand of him?"

Tara slipped silently along the walls and across the dance floor, until she stood on the edge of the circle, just behind Angel. She hung her head as though too ashamed to look at the captives, but from behind the curtain of her hair she studied the black crystals. Slowly she edged one foot closer and closer to the perimeter of the circle. Under her breath, she whispered in Latin, knowing Angel would understand her spell but his much younger guards would not.

"Oh, isn't that sweet; your little Slayer's standing up for you. Of course she's got some father issues of her own, doesn't she Riley?" Darla smiled up at her tall son, and then noticed she was missing one daughter. A quick glance at the floorshow revealed her truant offspring.

"Tara," her mother said sharply, "Come away from there." Darla waved her hand to motion Tara to stand beside her. "Come to Mother."

Tara gave a guilty little start of surprise. Hidden as she had been by Angel's coat, she was able to scuff the toe of her boot into the blackened salt next to his foot as she moved away. It wasn't much, just a slight flaw in the continuity; but hopefully it, and her whispered chant, could break the circle's power.

With a quiet smile, Tara took her place beside her family.



-To Be Continued-