Part Five

Moments later Buffy had managed to shove Angel out of bed and make herself look presentable. Half-way running up the stairs to greet Giles and Wes, Connor began to cry, Buffy spun on the stairs 'Angel, I'll sort out a bottle for you.' Angel nodded and picking up Connor began to rock him back and forth and whisper in his ear.

So when Giles and Wes were finally ushered down into the basement they were greeted with the somewhat strange picture of Angel sitting at the end of the tousled bed and a very tired looking Buffy being taught how to feed Connor by Angel. Eventually Wes broke the scene 'we finished translating the prophecy from last night, Angel.'

'What did it say?' He asked, not looking up from Buffy and Connor.

'Well it was rather pompous and long winded.' Giles continued, Buffy raised one eyebrow at him but he ignored it. 'But basically it said that the demon, it's called a Gatterdämon, basically it's a good demon with the ability to open the gate to another world. The ceremony will give a vampire his humanity. We'll not *a* vampire just you, the whole ceremony's designed for you and your Sanshu.'

'That's probably why you found Angels' jacket at the Bronze, the demon is telekinetic -' Giles added to Buffy

'So it was using me to get Angel here.' Buffy finished for him and turned back to Angel.

'The prophecy said that you'd find the demon when it was time for you to get you're reward. So this is it, it's you're turn at humanity.'

Wesley took off his glasses and polished them with his shirt, 'Angel we'll set it up for you in the magic shop come down at sunset and we'll set the demon up to perform the ceremony. We've been talking to him, he er, speaks German, and he told us all about the ritual it's rather fascinating, oh yes Buffy, you and Dawn need to be there, and Connor.'

'Why do they have to be there.' Angel asked speaking for the first time, suspicion heavy in his voice.

'The ritual simply calls for the people who you are closest to, to be there. Nothing's going to hurt them.'

'Good.' Angel said simply.

Wes and Giles stood there for a few more minutes before deciding that Buffy and Angel probably just needed to talk this over between them, and tactfully left.

Buffy stood from her position curled on the sofa with Connor cradled in her lap and slowly brought him over to Angel she laid him in Angel's open arms. She then sat on the bed behind him her legs wrapped around his waist and arms around his chest, her head resting against his back she closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. With each breathe she felt the muscles in Angel's back relaxed a little more until he was leaning back into her surrendering the control of the situation to her. 'I love you.' She whispered into his back so quietly that he only heard because of his vamp hearing.

'I love you too… But…'

'But what?'

'Will you still love me when I can't fight any more? When I can't fight for you, or save people from the darkness…'

'You don't need to be able to fight, you just need to love me, besides I'm sure if you worked out a bit you'd be fine anyway, Xander always survives and he doesn't have anything near the skill and chemistry you have in a fight.'

'But before, when I was human, I couldn't fight at all. I got hurt so easily…'

'You've just got to get used to fighting as a human instead of as a vampire that's all. I could still fight when they took my powers. I just had to fight differently.'

Buffy felt another ripple of tension leave Angel's back. She smiled and Angel felt her happiness. Smiling lightly himself he stood up and put Connor down in the travel crib and turned round to watch Buffy. She was sitting at the end of the bed now, her hair tousled and her eyelids drooping slightly from lack of sleep but that wasn't what he really noticed, he noticed that love and depth shining straight from her eyes, truly the windows to her soul. Slowly Angel traced his way to the bed and knelt down in front of Buffy he tucked a stray strand of her hair behind her ear and unable to resist he gently trailed the tips of his fingers across her cheek and towards her lips. His fingers paused slightly at her lips and she kissed his fingers in response.

'Angel,' she whispered. 'When this is over you won't leave me will you?' Worry showed in her face, and Angel hated that he had ever given her cause to think he might.

'Never.' He replied and the worry immediately vanished from her face, to be replaced again by the smile that had saved him from despair so many times and yet had so rarely been seen. 'Buffy, do you want your ring back?'

'Yes.' A frown crossed her face, 'but I left it in the mansion, after you were taken. I wanted to move on. Bit of a lost cause but…' She trailed off watching Angel as he got up and walked over to where Connor's things were, he sorted through them and eventually pulled off a small silver inlaid wood box. He took it back to the bed and resumed his position kneeling in front of Buffy his hands clasped around hers.

'I found it. When I came through it was the first thing I saw, I was an animal when I came through but I still recognised I had to keep it safe, so I hid it under the floor boards and forgot about it, until I saw you again.' Buffy laughed slightly

'And I knocked you out.'

'Well, I survived. But when I first gave it to you I didn't exactly tell you everything about it. The Claddagh ring was and well… it was basically a marriage ring. There wasn't a suitable time to tell you about it really, and then I got turned and then after that… I couldn't bear to think about it. I didn't want you bound to someone like me, so I never told you. But Buffy, I want to marry you and after this, when I'm human and I can give you everything I want to be able to call you my wife. But… we're never going to be able to, because quite frankly I've been dead for two hundred years. This is the closest we're going to get… if you want it.'

'Angel I would give almost anything to be with you, it doesn't matter that we don't have a piece of paper to say we love each other. Besides maybe we can find a way around that, so I guess… Lucky us. We get everything, for once we've got the upper hand.' She smiled wryly, 'I just wanted to know what the fantastic thing we did was, so I can keep on doing it and the Powers That Be will keep on being nice to us.'

'They'd better keep on being good.' Angel threatened lightly and Buffy started laughing at his attempt to look mad whilst being so totally happy. Happy… Uh oh.

'Angel stop being happy- quick you killed people, think of the bad stuff, think of the bad stuff.'

Angel laughed at her. 'Don't worry soul in check, but glad I don't have to survive another night like last night. You wriggle a lot in your sleep you know.' This set Buffy off in fits of laughter again and Angel joined her laughing, he loved to see her happy, especially now, now that it was him that was making her happy.

When Angel, Buffy and Connor arrived at the Magick Box just after sunset everyone else was all ready there, that is, the entire of the Scooby Gang and the Angel Investigations team. It was shocking to Angel even now to see that these people all cared. After a few moments of conversation, in which people mostly just wished Angel good luck, the gatterdämon called him over to explain the ceremony to him. It seemed simple enough, there was a triangle painted on the floor Buffy, Dawn and Connor had to sit at each point of the triangle. The gatterdämon would open the gateway to another world where vampires didn't exist and the gateway would be pulled inside Angel where it would kill and push out the demon inside him. It sounded weird… but sort of plausible so Angel agreed to the ceremony and took his place. Buffy bundled Connor up in his corner and then took her place as Dawn took hers.

Once silence filled the room the gatterdämon began, he burned some herbs and chanted a bit pouring ingredients into the pestle and mortar with the ash of the herbs, the mixture hissed viscously for a moment before settling down. As soon as it had the demon began painting himself with the mixture particularly over the stone covering his third eye. As he did this he chanted whilst staring at a talisman on the end of a leather strip which he rotated around the bowl first in one direction and then in the other, again and again. For a while Angel watched with sheer fascination, but just as he began to wonder whether it was going to work a small blue spiral of light appeared in front of him it grew slightly as he watched.

A resounding crash filled the room and Angel whipped his head around to see five vampires come barrelling through the back door to the magick box and then look totally shock at the number of people on the other side. This shock didn't last long though as they soon noticed Buffy and growled at her 'Slayer...' the hiss resounded through his throat. Angel watched Buffy freeze. Not wanting to move in case it affected the spell and aware that she had a sacred duty. Torn she stayed where she was. Thankfully their friends set about battling the vampires on their own and within a minute there were only two left dodging blows by the side of the triangle. An arrow shot from the crowd of people attacking them and caught one of the vampires in the arm, the vampire stumbled back grabbing the vampire beside him to try and keep his balance they both fell back into the centre of the triangle.

For a moment nothing happened, everyone watched in absolute silence as the swirling portal flickered and wavered before exploding in a burst of brilliant life and dragging Angel, Connor, Buffy, Dawn and the two vampires into it's midst.