All Roads Lead to Sunnydale

Part 7

By Gem



Angel narrowly avoided a swinging timber as he slipped through the burning doorway of the old dancehall. He glanced back over his shoulder once more, straining to see if Buffy was behind him, but the smoke and flames obscured his view. Everything in him was screaming to go back inside and drag her out, but he forced himself to do his duty, as he knew she was doing. Tara had been left in his charge, and he must get her to safety first.

As soon as his boots touched the worn pavement beyond the doorstep, he took off at a run, scarcely noticing the unconscious burden in his arms. Time, he was running out of time.

Angel carried Tara through the heavily wooded area of the park surrounding the burning hall. He didn't stop running until he had reached a clearing well beyond the trees, but as soon as he thought they were at a safe distance, he gently laid her on the ground.

"Tara, wake up." He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, then risked a light slap on her cheek. He had to go back for Buffy, soon, but he didn't want to abandon the unconscious Tara in a dimly lit park. "I don't want to leave you here, but...Tara, you have to wake up."

It was no use; she wouldn't wake up. He couldn't wait any longer. He began to pull his heavy leather coat off to cover her when her eyelashes flickered. A moment later she was staring up at him, dazed but conscious.

"Tara, I have to go," he said urgently, rising to his feet and backing away. "I'll be back with Buffy and Riley in just a minute," he promised her as he turned and ran back to the dancehall.

He couldn't believe his eyes when he stumbled through the trees and onto the pathway leading to the hall. The old wooden building was completely engulfed in flames. The doorway he had passed through just a few minutes earlier was now a sheet of wavering yellow and orange with the barest trace of an entry between the walls. Chunks of burning wood were falling to the ground as the walls started to crumble, and as the boards over the windows became ash, one by one the windows were exploding outward, spraying the surrounding earth with broken glass.

"Buffy!" he shouted as he plunged into the inferno.

* * * * *

Buffy could hear the fire roaring even over the clamor in her head, but when she opened her eyes, she didn't understand what she saw. Dim memories battered at her skull, fighting for supremacy over the noise and confusion that surrounded her. She struggled against the strangely thick air, trying to fill her greedy lungs, and suddenly it all came flooding back.

Darla. The set-up. The fire.

Riley.

"That's my girl, breathe deep," he was crooning in her ear. "A few more like that and we'll be together forever."

Somehow he had pulled her under the beam that held him to the floor. She could feel the heat on the wood as the flames crawled up from the end of the board. She tried to shake the fog from her head, tried to force her leaden limbs to move, but Riley lay as dead weight over her. She was pinned to the floor by both he and the beam, as the flames crept steadily closer. She had to get out from under both of them, but what would normally be simplicity itself was made impossible by the scarcity of oxygen reaching her brain.

"Get off," she croaked, swallowing a cough. "Get off!" She renewed her struggle for freedom, trying to clear her mind and center herself as Angel had taught her. If she could regain control of her mind, her body would obey.

It had to.

"We're going to die together, Buffy. Tara was right; the fire will destroy us both, and then we'll be together forever. Just you and me, no Angel."

His voice was so reassuring, so persuasive and relaxing. He was trying to draw her away from everything that mattered with the calming, cloying honey of his voice.

"Not on the likely!" she spit out, finally getting her arms into position under her body. She concentrated all her energy on her arms, forcing them to thrust her up and knocking Riley off her back.

Unfortunately she also managed to dislodge the last remaining beam restraining Riley. Even as she staggered to her feet, he was up and pulling her backwards into the bowels of the conflagration.

"We're not leaving, Buffy," he warned her. "I lost my mother to him; I will not lose you. You belong to me. Always."

Always. That was not a word Riley got to use, not if Buffy had anything to say about it.

Suddenly she could hear Angel's voice over the tumult of the fire. He was hunting for her, screaming her name. She had never been so relieved to hear his voice in her life, and never quite so terrified. One flame leaping in the wrong direction and the only thing that truly mattered in her life would be gone.

She had to get to him before he came too far in.

Fear for Angel gave Buffy the strength that fear for herself had not provided. She began to kick and punch the smoke-enshrouded image that was Riley, not caring so much about defeating him as escaping. At first he easily dodged her attacks, grabbing her when she tried to retreat and leave him to his fate. As Angel's voice grew closer, though, anger and over- confidence made Riley careless. He lost hold of Buffy and she managed to get halfway across the burning hall before he tackled her.

"The steroids helped, but I'm still pretty strong without them, Buffy," he crowed in her ear as he sprawled on top of her. "And even without air, I can't die. You can't win."

"That's what they always say," she grunted, "just before I win.

She scrabbled to position her weary body to force him off yet again. Angel was still along the outer wall, invisible in the smoke and flames, but audible. He was getting deeper into the heart of the fire, and closer to his own destruction. Buffy decided to treat her weakness as an advantage and used the force of her next gut-wrenching gasp for air to knock Riley off balance. Momentarily free of his weight, she crawled a few precious inches across the blazing floorboards before he grabbed her by the leg.

"Angel, get out!" she shrieked, giving in to her fear for just a moment. She knew it was the wrong thing to do almost instantaneously, as Angel's voice changed direction, following the beacon of hers.

"Buffy!" he cried out, unable to locate her with his eyes, but trailing the sound of her voice and his heart's instinct. "I'm coming, just hold on!"

"I wanted this to be about us, Buffy," Riley said in a voice so low she could barely hear it over the confusion of sounds. "But if you insist...I'll just have to finish what I started with both of you."

"That's it," she snarled, choking back yet another bruising cough. "Game over."

She put all her Slayer strength into her free leg, kicking backwards towards the sound of Riley's voice. A harsh gasp, and her two free legs, told her she had connected with his throat. She flipped over on her back and arched, springing to her feet in one fluid movement.

Riley came at her head on, and she was prepared to send him into oblivion to join his mother, when Angel came into view.

* * * * *

Angel had searched fruitlessly for Buffy with his eyes, and even his usual sixth sense for her presence was scrambled by sheer sensory overload. The noise, the heat, the flames reaching out for him, all disoriented him until he was afraid the building would fall down around them all before he found her.

Then, above all the chaos, came the sound of her voice.

He changed direction immediately, abandoning the safer path along the wall to dash into the center of the room, where he found Buffy.

And Riley.

Riley was charging at her full bore, apparently trying to thrust her against the wall where the fire had originally broken out. That whole side of the building was a mass of falling timbers, and the roof was groaning from its own inadequately supported weight.

Buffy was focused on Riley, but the instant Angel came into view, her attention shifted. It was only for a fraction of a second, but it gave Riley the momentary advantage of surprise.

For the space of a heartbeat, Angel thought it was over.

Riley connected with Buffy in a trajectory destined to hurl them both in the depths of the fire. Then, before the vampire's mind could assemble the information his eyes were receiving, it truly was over.

At least it was for Riley.

Angel had always appreciated the grace and power behind Buffy's fighting skills, but never more so than now. She had pivoted just slightly as Riley struck her, and used his higher center of gravity against him as she tossed him over her shoulder...and into the flames.

His scream was over almost before it began; despite his mother's assurances, his body was not quite human anymore, and he turned to dust almost as quickly as Darla.

Angel wasted no time mourning the recently deceased immortal; in two steps he reached Buffy and grabbed her by the hand.

"We have to get out of here!" he yelled over the bedlam.

She stared at him in wide-eyed shock. The last four days had been a continual assault on everything she believed, culminating in unspeakable betrayal. She needed just a moment to absorb, to rearrange and regroup, but even this she was denied. For one brief instant, she shut down and hid deep inside herself, where no one else could find her.

No one except Angel, as his arms wrapped around her and solidly reconnected her to reality. He abruptly slid one arm down to position it under her knees, preparing to carry her to safety. She pushed his arm away and grabbed his hand instead.

"Too slow!" she screamed as she dragged him towards the nearest lonely patch of untouched floor.

They moved swiftly, and not very cautiously, in their desperate race for the door. The roof over the rear of the hall, above the former bandstand, was caving in; they could hear the crash of the slate tiles as they hit the rapidly disintegrating floor of the bandstand. It created a domino effect, as more and more of the roof slid down into the gaping hole left by the absence of first tiles.

The door, when they reached it, was engulfed in flames, but there was no other way. Hand in hand, they plunged through, just as the remainder of the roof gave way.

* * * * *

Tara stumbled through the woods, following the sounds and smells of the fire. She staggered into the clearing as Buffy and Angel flew through what once served as a doorway for the former dancehall. The roof of the building collapsed in their wake, and the force of the slate hitting the floor hurled them away from the ruins and toward the trees.

They seemed to turn inward, towards each other, in their brief flight, enfolding each other in a protective embrace. They hit the ground with considerable force, still intertwined, rolling over and over again towards the tree line.

Tara rushed over to help, but by the time she reached them the vampire and the Slayer were both already sitting up and beating down the smoldering embers on each other's clothing.

"Are you hurt?" Angel asked anxiously, when the last of the glowing sparks had been smothered. He tenderly brushed the tangled strands of hair away from Buffy's smudged face to touch the bruise on her forehead. "Where did this come from?"

She coughed deeply as she reached out to touch the soot-covered scratches on his face. Fortunately, his vampiric healing abilities had already kicked in, and the wounds were beginning to close over.

"I'm fine, don't worry about it," she croaked, her palm tenderly cupping his dirty cheek. "You?"

"A lot better than I was five minutes ago," he confessed. He pulled her more firmly against him, and sighed as her head came to rest on his chest. "That was too close, baby," he murmured as he closed his eyes in wordless gratitude.

"Are you two all right?"

Buffy reluctantly raised her head from its achingly familiar resting place to behold Tara anxiously hovering over them. A multitude of emotions cascaded over the Slayer as she gazed upon the witch she thought she knew.

Tara had lied to them, used Willow to get to Buffy and Buffy to get to Angel, and all so she could ultimately kill Angel.

On the other hand, Tara also helped save their lives, and in so doing consigned her own family to spend an eternity as air pollution.

"We're surviving," she replied at last. Another cough followed. "How are you?"

Tara looked away, towards the burning wreck of the dancehall. She knew without asking that Riley was dead now too, along with their mother. For the first time in centuries she was without her family, and from now on she always would be.

"I'm alone," she said wistfully.

Angel scrambled to his feet, pulling Buffy up with him. He wasn't ready to let go of his beloved yet, but he could see Tara was in trouble and his heart went out to her.

"I'm sorry, Tara," he said sincerely. "If there had been any other way...it was them or us."

"I know." She sighed, still staring deep into the fire. "I think my mother was right about one thing; this was all meant to happen. We were supposed to meet this way. In the end, everything unfolded as it was destined."

"I believe in destiny as much as the next girl with superpowers and prophetic dreams, but I think some of this could probably have been avoided." The corner of Buffy's mouth quirked up in a sad smile. "I am sorry, though, for you if not for them."

"You did what you had to. I understand."

Tara's voice sounded very far away, and Angel couldn't help wondering where in the mists of time her mind had drifted. Four hundred years of memories were now hers alone to carry.

He, more than anyone, knew the burden of such solitary memories.

"Alone is a choice, Tara," he said softly. "Willow is waiting for you, if you have the courage to tell her who you really are."

"And have her hate me?" Tara tore her eyes away from the wreckage of her past to stare at the man who so foolishly told her she had a future. "If I tell her the real reason I came to Sunnydale...she'll hate me. And she'll hate herself for exposing you both to danger. She'll never trust herself again."

"That's her choice." Angel's tone was gently, but firm. "You have to allow her that, and have a little faith. She's an amazing person; I think if you trust her, she'll come through for you."

Without thinking, his arm slipped around the most amazing person he knew. Despite all the heartache his past had caused her, tonight and so many other nights, Buffy still smiled up at him as she leaned into his embrace. There was nothing more amazing in the world to him than that.

"Why should she believe in me?" Tara cried. "I only used her to hurt other people."

"So you didn't really love her at all?" Buffy asked quietly.

"No! I mean yes!" Tara's eyes filled with tears as she looked from Buffy to Angel. "It was supposed to be just part of the plan, but she was so special...there's something about her I can't...I do love her, but she'll never feel the same way about me again, not after tonight."

"You have to trust her, Tara," Angel repeated. "Go to her now, before anyone else figures things out, and tell her the whole truth. Start at the beginning, from when your mother died."

Even after all he had seen and heard, it still felt strange to say "your mother" and know he was talking about Darla.

"Tell her how alone you felt, and how much you wanted to be a family again," Buffy urged. "She'll understand that."

"That was all I really wanted." Tara smiled pensively as she recalled the long struggle for her dream. "Mother and Riley are, were, the only part of my life that lasted, and I just wanted to be with them. I made such a mistake, though, when I made us immortal. We thought it would be wonderful, but it was so horrible."

Her eyes were caught once again by the hall that had become her family's funeral pyre, but she forced herself to look away. They were finally at peace, and she must be grateful for that much. Only she needed to continue the struggle now.

"You must be a much more powerful witch than you let on to do that kind of spell."

There was a trace of chagrin mixed in with Buffy's admiration. Somehow she felt that a slayer should be able to sense powers as strong as Tara's obviously were, and yet she'd never had a clue. She thought Willow was the source of their combined magick.

"I was, but that spell was my last until I met Willow. I knew, as soon as I cast it, that it was wrong." Tara sighed deeply. "My mother really was a good person once, when she was a person, but the mother I was trying so hard to stay with was already dead."

"It's hard to let go when you can still see the face, but not the soul," Buffy commiserated softly, thinking of Angelus. "You keep looking in the eyes...but there's nothing there."

Angel's hand instinctively tightened on her upper arm, letting her know he too was remembering those long-ago days.

As if he could ever forget.

"She still came to see us at night after she...I was scared at first, but Riley said she wouldn't hurt us. Whenever she came, she talked about eternity, and how we would spend it together when we were old enough." Tara's face might have been set in stone. "I knew what she meant. She wanted to turn us, but I was so afraid of dying. So I cast the spell, and suddenly dying wasn't an option. But she still came to see us anyway. Until she met you, Angel."

"She never told me," he said with an apologetic smile. "I honestly don't know what would have happened if she did. It's not like we're talking a normal relationship of 'honey, now that we're dating, I want you to meet my children.' You're older than I am."

"I know," Tara admitted, "but it was hard after so long of being just the three of us. Suddenly it was just Riley and I. She hardly ever came to Kilcolgan after she met you," she finished softly.

"Kilcolgan?" Angel asked with a groan. He looked down at Buffy. "You never told me Riley's family came from Kilcolgan."

Buffy shrugged her slim shoulders, completely at sea now. "Hey, you're the one who knew a woman for a couple of hundred years and never asked her last name. I just met Riley last year."

He smacked himself on the forehead with his free hand. "I should have figured it out the minute Darla mentioned Kinsale. Not to mention little things like immortality. Nice going, Angel. Always thinking on your feet, or at least with them."

Buffy waggled her fingers in front of his face. "Umm, Earth to Carmen San Diego. Still not seeing the geographical duh factor here."

"The legends really took off in the nineteenth century, but even as a boy I heard stories about the Finns of Kilcolgan," Angel explained. He couldn't help staring at the embodiment of those half-forgotten fairy tales. "I never believed the stories myself, but...some people said they were fairies, others said demons. Everyone agreed on one thing, though; they never died. Not ever."

"Well, chalk up one more of life's great unsolved mysteries as solved." Buffy was somewhat beyond caring about Riley's home life by this point.

"It was only ten miles from my home in Galway," Angel continued, "but my father never allowed me to go there because something terrible might happen to me. If he could only see me now." He looked up at the sky overhead. "You're having a good laugh about this one, aren't you, old man?"

"We should have stayed away from the village," Tara admitted. "Every few decades we would leave, but we always ended up going back. It was home, and we knew Mother could always find us there."

Not exactly a selling point in Buffy's book, but she refrained from comment.

"So you never married, either of you?" she asked instead. "No kids in all these centuries? I mean, when you're immortal the prospect of a thirty- year-mortgage on a house in the 'burbs can't be all that scary."

"We did marry, both of us, several times. And Riley had children, with some of his wives."

Buffy gulped at the plurals involved.

"But it was more for companionship than love," Tara continued, oblivious to the Slayer's reaction. "I refused to put the burden of living forever on anyone else, and how can you really love someone if you know they're eventually going to leave you?"

"You hope," Buffy and Angel replied simultaneously.

There was an awkward pause as the echoes of their joint answer faded away into the night air. Buffy suddenly realized she was clinging to Angel as though...as though she still had the right to cling to him. She forced herself to step back a pace and dropped her arm from around his waist.

Angel was as confused as Buffy, but he couldn't help the stinging regret when she slipped out of his grasp yet again. He wanted to hold her fast against him, but now was not their time. It was never their time. He regretfully returned his attention to Tara.

"What about Willow? Would you rather walk away than enjoy the time you have?" he asked gently.

"Even if she can forgive the lies, I can't ask her to live like this," Tara wailed. "I know what it's like; so do you. For a few years everything is fine; then the other person begins to age, and they resent you because you don't, and people start asking questions, or worse yet, making up stories. It's too hard."

"Together you might be able to reverse the spell, but even if you can't, I don't think you're giving her a fair chance," Angel said earnestly. "You're assuming everything for her, making decisions for her out of your own fear of rejection. Lay it all out before her and let Willow make the choice."

Buffy blinked her eyes several times. Incredibly, every time she opened them, it was still Angel standing next to her. Angel, who was now advocating mates making their own decisions and not giving up on love out of fear.

"Excuse me," she began, only to be overridden by Angel's increasingly urgent tones.

"You have to fight for what you want, Tara, and you have to allow Willow her fight too."

Don't make the same mistakes I have, he wanted to add. So very many mistakes, and yet his love still breathed and smiled and fought with the strength of ten, so how could he regret what he had done?

Very, very easily.

"But all the things I've done," Tara whispered as the tears slid down her face. "She'll never forgive me, and she shouldn't. I never believed what we were doing was right; I just wanted to please Mother and Riley. I wanted us to be a family, and I was willing to sacrifice others to make it happen."

Angel reached out and took one of her hands in his. "There's more mercy out there than you can imagine, Tara. As long as you truly regret what you've done, there's nothing so bad it can't be forgiven by the people who love you."

"I can't believe you!" Buffy shouted, finally reaching her breaking point.

Angel dropped Tara's hand like a hot potato as he and Tara both turned to stare at Buffy. Under all the soot, her face looked eerily pale in the moonlight. Tara may have thought she was ill, but Angel knew only anger or fear could drain the blood from his beloved's countenance so swiftly...and there was nothing more out here to fear.

"Buffy, what..."

"No 'what' from you," she commanded him. "Just listen for a change. I bet you give that forgiveness speech to every person you help, every lost soul that made a bad call. But do you even hear the words anymore? Why does everyone get a shot at the brass ring of redemption but you?

"Buffy..."

"And what's all this newfound wisdom about letting people choose their own destinies? I don't seem to remember that being an option on my dance card. Why does Willow get to choose her future and I get dumped in a sewer?"

Her hands fell to her hips as she readied her battle stance. It was either that or wrap her fingers around his throat, and he still had some explaining to do.

"Tara made a mistake, one mistake, a very long time ago," Angel said quickly. He was determined to finish his sentence this time. "She's been paying for it ever since, and I think she deserves some happiness after all this time. Willow is the only one who can convince her of that, though." He paused for a beat, but Buffy had obviously decided to let him finish his explanation before she demolished it. "And if you remember, I wanted to wait until we got out of the sewer to talk but you insisted."

"So I don't get a say in my own life because you don't deserve it? Oh, that makes a kind of sense that's not." She crossed her arms over her chest defensively, determined not to let him in this time, no matter what soft words he used to get around her.

"Buffy, I killed people, I tortured people, and I enjoyed it. That's not the same thing as what Tara did. " Soft words and pretty speeches were not at Angel's command right now. He looked at Buffy helplessly as he continued. "I have so much to atone for before I can even hope to..."

"I didn't say it was the same thing," she interrupted. "But if you really believe forgiveness is out there, and it's supposed to come from the people who love you the most, why won't you believe I forgive you?"

"I do," he replied humbly. "I don't know why, but I know you do."

"No, you don't," she insisted. "If you did, you wouldn't have left."

"There's more to it than that, Buffy." His voice was quiet, but determined. "I wanted more for you than I could offer. You deserve better."

"Don't even start with that 'normal life' song and dance," she warned him. "You didn't want me to have a normal life, you wanted me to have Marcia Brady's life, complete with a tall blond boyfriend on my arm and pom-poms in my hands."

"That was what you wanted," he reminded her gently. "You wanted it from the day I met you, from the first time I saw you. You had that all once and you wanted it back and you deserve it. But I can't be the one to give it to you."

"First of all, it's not your job to give me a life. I'm supposed to make one up as I go along. Coming in at number 2, I was fifteen years old when we first met. You think I haven't grown up any since then? Hint, hint, you're not the only one who can change."

"It wasn't just then, Buffy. Even last year, you told me all you ever dreamed of was to be a normal girl falling asleep in the arms of her normal boy..." his voice trailed off as he remembered, too late, when she had made that remark. He had carried the wound of that comment for so long alone, and in one heedless moment it was freed, to wreak unimaginable havoc.

She was staring at him in total confusion. His pale face glowed in the treacherous moonlight, showing her every line of pain their time together had drawn on it. She had no memory of making the comment he mentioned; yet it seemed to be tearing him apart.

"What are you talking about? I barely spoke to you last year, and when I did it was about...but I never felt that way about him, and I wouldn't lie like that to you."

He was silent, frantically trying to come up with an explanation that wouldn't actually reveal anything, yet wouldn't be a lie either. While he wrestled with that impossibility, Buffy filtered his silence through her own guilt.

"I know you have no reason to believe that, after what I said to you at the police station, but I honestly don't remember..."

He couldn't stand her shamefaced acceptance of something that was not her fault. He reached out and caught her hand in his, holding it up to his heart.

"Buffy, please stop. You never said that about Riley. You said it about me."

He paused, but she seemed unable to form questions yet; she still needed more backstory. With a sigh, he took a step closer and rested his other hand on her waist.

"When you came after Thanksgiving, and we fought the Morah demon, something more happened than you remember. The demon's blood got on me, and it brought me back to life." His hand slid from her waist up to the back of her neck, resting in the warm cradle created when she tilted her head up to look at him. "For one day, one perfect day, I was human again, and we were together, and normal." He emphasized the last word, hoping she would realize where his quote had come from. "Then I..."

"Gave it back," she finished for him in a dead tone. "I've had dreams, but I thought that's all they were. Dreams turned nightmares, but they were real. It was real." She stared at her hand resting over his heart, and remembered the feel of it beating against her own in her dreams. "And you gave it up."

"For you," he said with a nod.

"Without asking me," she corrected him stridently as she pushed him away. He stumbled back a step as she scowled at him. "The same way you decided to break up with me and leave town. It never changes. You are so sure you're not good enough for me, as a vampire or human, that you'll leave rather than risk me figuring it out too."

"I'm supposed to help you," he said steadily. "I'm not supposed to be a burden or a danger to you. But either way, human or vamp, I can't win."

"Well neither can I," she snapped. "I can't be a normal human because I'm a slayer, and I don't want to be a normal slayer. A normal slayer doesn't have friends or a job or live past the age of 25. And a normal slayer certainly doesn't fall in love with someone who drives her absolutely bonkers on a regular basis," she held up her hand to forestall the apology she saw coming, "and I'm not talking about Angelus' little tricks here either. You are the best thing that ever happened to me, but I can't beat that fact into your thick skull no matter how hard I try."

"I'm sorry, Buffy. I'm sorry I didn't...I'm sorry for everything." He threw up his hands at the impossibility of listing his many transgressions. "I'm sorry for things you won't remember to yell at me for until you're back home tonight brushing your teeth. What is the point of all this, Buffy? We're just opening up old wounds that are best left alone." His tone begged her to end this misery for both of them.

"The point is I need to know something here."

She stepped closer to him again, until she was pressed against his chest. As he bent his head down to listen to her, their lips were almost close enough to touch. Almost, but not quite.

"Are you ever going to let yourself off the hook for what the demon did?" she asked quietly. "You help people every single day, you risk your life for them, but you still don't think you're as good as the creep hustling porn on the corner because you don't have a pulse."

"What I did..."

"Was mostly centuries ago, and it wasn't even you," she finished for him. "I agree we should give Tara a second chance, because she's really trying to make up for what she did. What she did," Buffy repeated, "and did knowing what she was doing. Just once, though, I'd like to see you give yourself that same chance."

He didn't answer her; he didn't know what to say. He had done so many terrible things, and even when, and if, the Powers released him, he still wasn't sure he'd forgive himself.

"I give up, okay?" Now it was her turn to step back and throw up her hands in defeat. "Go ahead and stew in your own guilt if that's what gives you a happy these days. When you decide to be a grown-up and face our problems together, you'll know how to find me." She turned around and stalked into the woods.

"Make sure Tara gets back to Willow," she called back to him, without turning around. "You're the Sir Galahad wannabee. Go be."

Angel watched her helplessly, torn between following her and taking care of Tara. Duty and love warred in his heart, and he was captive to them both.

"You can go after her," Tara said quietly. "I'll be okay."

To be honest, she was surprised the lovers still remembered she was there at all; she really didn't want to further complicate their lives at this point.

Angel's quick ears caught the distant sound of approaching sirens. "No, I better get you home first, then I'll go after Buffy. She needs time to calm down, and so do I."

He strained to see Buffy's blonde hair in the distance, but she was already out of sight. He sighed, thinking of the battle yet to come. He was getting too old for this.

"She sounded really mad. I don't think I'd wait if I were you."

Despite his anxiety, he had to chuckle. And he thought he was getting too old for romantic games? Look who he was talking to.

With that thought securely fixed in his mind, he placed a gentle, but firm, hand under Tara's elbow and guided her to the path back to the college campus.

"She said 'when,' not 'if,' so she she's not ready to stake me yet. And she's right; I'll always know how to find her."

-To Be Continued-