Buffy's head hurt. Really, really hurt. She didn't want to open her eyes, because her headache was bad enough already and she heard that light made them worse. She couldn't remember what had happened and why she was.wherever she was. Buffy suddenly felt a hand tightly holding hers. It was cold, at least for a hand. Then a voice broke through the fog in her head.

"I can't believe this happened."

Angel. It could only be him.

He continued to talk, but she only half listened. Buffy was trying to decide whether or not to let him know she was awake. She made the decision not to. She just wanted to listen to his voice for a while.

"When you came to LA?" She started listening to Angel again, but found that she had missed half of his sentence.

He laughed grimly. "Of course you don't." His voice softened again. "That's why you have to know. If not now, then when?" He sucked in his breath. Buffy had no idea what he was saying. Then he started talking again.

"Ok, so, that day when we were in my office and that demon came through the window and I knew how to kill it? That wasn't good luck. That day had already happened already. The first time around, we didn't kill it right away. It got out, and we chased it down into the sewers. You went aboveground to try and track it, but since it was day, I had to stay down in the tunnels. Turns out, it was down with me all along. So we fought, and I killed it. But not before some of his blood got mixed with mine. The Mohra demon's blood has regenerative properties, at least according to Doyle. It turned me human, Buffy."

Now she was certain he had lost it.

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Angel had been human, and she didn't remember! It was impossible. Maybe it was that concussion she was almost certain she had. But Buffy couldn't help listening to the rest of his tale.

"I went to the Oracles, and they told me that I was no longer a warrior and that I had been released. And then, well, you were there. And so was I. In the sunlight. Then I kissed you. And after that we went back to my apartment and everything was right, the way things are supposed to be. Something you said summed up most of that night-you said you 'felt like a normal girl, falling asleep in the arms of her normal boyfriend.' That's when I realized, we could make this work. That's also when all hell broke loose. The Morha was regenerating itself, not just me. So when you were sleeping Doyle and I went to fight it. Almost killed us too, but Cordy told you where we were. You showed up and destroyed it."

He paused. "From then on, I knew it could never be. You'd always be saving my ass, and I wouldn't be able to stand putting you in constant danger. So I told the Oracles to turn back the day, as if it never happened. Everyone would forget-everyone except me. It worked. And now it doesn't matter because you're never going to wake up anyway."

What he didn't know was that Buffy had been listening to his confession the whole time. She couldn't control the tears that fell down her face, as she understood what they had had, even if it was only for a day.

When Angel saw that she was crying, he jumped out of his chair. Then, knowing that she was awake, he sat back down and starting stroking her hair.

"You bastard."

Her voice came out dry and scratchy, but he could hear the pain in her words.

"You kept this from me? How could you?" She tried to open her eyes, but the light in the hospital room was too harsh.

"We'll talk about this later. You need a doctor." Angel ran out of the room looking for one.

~The Summer's House~

Willow walked back into the living room where everyone was assembled. The phone had rung and she went into the kitchen to answer it.

"That was Angel. She's awake."

Willow turned to Phoebe. "It's not your fault."

"Right. I was the one who suggested we split up. That pretty much makes it my fault."

Xander spoke up for the older witch. "Yeah, but you didn't know what was gonna happen. You thought you all could handle yourselves. Which is an pretty good deduction."

"Don't beat yourself up about it. B's awake now, so everything's cool again." Everyone echoed Faith's statement. Not including Dawn, who had disappeared to her room before Angel had called with the good news.

"What should we do now?" Piper asked. She was getting anxious with all the sitting around. They only had 6 hours to save Leo, and nobody had been able to come up with any ideas.

"It's obvious. We need to kill the bad guy and save the day."

"Yes, Anya, very good. But how do we do that exactly?" Piper snapped.

Amanda chose that moment to orb into the hallway outside of the Summer's living room. Cole saw her first and went out to talk to her. When he got closer, he noticed tears were steadily falling down her face.

"What happened?"

She shook her head. "He died. Leo died. Again."

Cole looked stricken. "What are we going to tell Piper?"

"Tell Piper what?" The witch in question had maneuvered behind Cole and caught the last part of their conversation. When she saw the look on Amanda's face, Piper feared the worst.

"Is he getting worse?"

"Piper, we lost him." The Whitelighter's tears continued to fall in a steady stream, which were now joined by Piper's.

"No. No. No!" Piper ran out of the house, leaving everyone else behind. Prue moved to follow her, but Amanda held her back.

"Let her go." Then she realized that they didn't know what had happened. She moved into the living room and told the crowd her grim news.

Faith summed up the situation the way she usually did. "Shit. We are so screwed."