She lay in the double bed of the room one of the bar bitches had [reluctantly, dismissively] shown her to. Compared to the almost ramshackle bar underneath, the room was kinda nice. Comfy. Very clean, high thread count in the sheets. Polished wooden floors. An en suite through the door on the right. Thank you, bathroom overlords.

The monks had done an amazing job with conditioning Buffy into believing that Dawn was her sister. She loved Dawn, had been willing to sacrifice the world for Dawn. Had sacrificed her life for Dawn. But the monks had failed in one respect. Buffy still had an only child's attitude to sharing a bathroom. She resented seeing someone else's towels and discarded clothes and deodorant and conditioner and stuff in her private tiled space. And this was her baby sister, the one she'd been willing to work in fast food for. She'd been worried about it before she'd arrived at this place- a shared bathroom seemed a real likely feature of a spare room above a bar. Stranger's stuff, the water they'd used to wash themselves cooling on the tiles when she stepped onto them, and their hair in the drains and sink... it was gross like macking with a Chaos Demon was gross. Angel had assured her about the en suite, and she should have just trusted him, but still.. you never knew for certain with these things until you were there, right?

Anyway, bed comfy. She rolled on her stomach in order to see out the window. And oh man, the view. Hundreds of greens, yellow sand, primary coloured beach umbrellas, too blue sea. Jungle! How cool was that! And almost endless. The only border she could see was- and this was the kicker, really- the beach, on the right side. Probably what attracted the backpackers, since she was pretty sure they weren't here for their ex- boyfriends demon related deaths. Ok, that was bad. You don't make jokes about people's funerals. Unless you do, Buffy considered, and that was part of the whole finding beauty in death thing because it's all just part of the circle of life stuff that Oprah and the cast of the Lion King seemed to advocate.... Buffy needed sleep. Now. Except... phone within easy reaching distance. Damn it. No excuses. Damn it.

First call was to Dawn. She'd made noises about coming to the funeral, as had Xander and Willow, but their real-life rubber bands had kept them all firmly held in Sunnydale. So she called Dawn. Buffy made the standard enquiries, threats about mass social gatherings and putting the garbage out, and Dawn asked about Riley's funeral and how Sam was, and whether Buffy had bought her a present. She didn't wait for Dawn's final enquiry. "I haven't seen him. He's avoiding me."

"You haven't been looking for either, Buffy.".

The second phone call was less necessary, more pleasurable. To the Hyperion. He answered the phone himself, thank goodness. Avoiding the yucky awkwardness with Cordy or Conner. "I miss you."

Sigh. "I miss you too. I wish I could have been with you today. Held you through it."

"That's ok. There's all those sunlight and Conner and keeping California monster-lite issues to consider. And, um Angel? The few times you met Riley it was all big with the mutual hate and the fisticuffs. And it would have felt..."

"What?"

"Like I was throwing our whole relationship in his face, turning up with you at his funeral. Like confirmation. Yep Riley, you were right. You really were just the in- betweener guy."

Pause. "How's his wife?"

"Destroyed. Distraught. Pretending she's not."

"Oh.". She'd known talking things over with Angel would help. She'd just forgotten how talking things over with Angel involved so few words.

"How does the bar look?"

"Good, I guess. Full. Full of backpackers, actually. What's up with that?" She could practically see his non-concerned shrug. "Dunno. I pretty much let..I pretty much let the bar run itself. So how's the en suite?". Oh yeah. That was a subtle change of subject.

"I haven't seen him. I don't think I will." Her other in-betweener.

"Good. That's how things were organised. Nice to see he can finally follow instructions." A bit of bitterness, a bit of Angelus in that last comment.

How things were organised. Quickly motivated by a five in the freakin' morning phone call from Riley's aunt, a woman Buffy had never met. He was to be buried in the jungle he'd died in, rather than Iowa. The jungle near the beach near the bar that Angel had inherited after killing a Quilux [turned out that some demon races had very strange ways of dividing up the deceased's estate ]. Turned out the world really was a small place, especially the we-know-about-demons/vampires/et al-and-fight-them-on-a- regular-basis world.

Angel happily absorbed the bar's profits, but had only been there once himself. He'd installed a manager in his place. It was convenient, really, the way things had turned out. Not two weeks after killing the Quilux, only four weeks after being dragged out from the bottom of the ocean, a family member had arrived at Angel's hotel. New hair, new soul. Angel couldn't decide which was more disconcerting. He needed, not help, something less than help. Or maybe it was more than help. They were confusing times, it was hard to tell. He needed..anything. Something to distract him, something to do, somewhere to go [he wasn't going back there!], something to kill. He couldnÕt stay with Angel- their demons hated each other, and there was every chance their souls would, too. And Angel knew what he had done to her, to Buffy, in the time directly preceding the soul. And Angel and Buffy were soul mates [did you forget, boy?] so Angel was predisposed to locking him in a room, with no blood, only the nightmares and the guilt that are due after one hundred and something years of mass murder. He could shrivel slowly, never reaching the comfort of dust. But fatherhood had made Angel more pragmatic. He had a bar in a faraway demon infested area that needed running, and a spare, unwanted, hated body which had great experience with both demon killing and alcohol. Angel had seen Cheers and Casablanca. He knew running a bar was its own special kind of purgatory. The familial corpse was relentless and goal orientated. And he couldn't hurt anyone because of a government chip. He shouldn't hurt anyone because of the soul. Let him run the bar. Take two burdens and throw them at each other. Yeah, Angel should have killed him. But, should he kill him as punishment, or to end the punishment? Let him run the bar. If he screwed up, someone could always just stake the bastard.

Buffy knew all this because Angel had told her. It was this whole new thing Buffy and Angel had started doing. Staying in contact. To remind her of what it meant to be sixteen and sick with love. To remind her of what it felt like to feel so much. It was another part of her recovery from the grave. Before she'd died, it had hurt too much, so she'd avoided seeing Angel. Now feeling anything was something to cherish, so she met the pain and regret she associated with Angel. Because pre-death and resurrection Buffy Summers had been all about that pain and regret.

When Angel had told her about his freshly souled visitor, and his solution, she'd been overcome. They were big surprises. Especially the hair part. Relief. One less loose evil canon. But the big thing? That was hope. "So his soul wasn't a curse." "Nope. He asked for it,fought for it,and got it. Three things he's very good at." "So it's permanent." "Yeah, I guess." "So he could be happy and still have it." "Buffy, I don't think he's going to be happy anytime soon. He's all droopy...oh." Angel could be slow sometimes.

So the sire followed his childe's footsteps, and fought for his soul. And he won it. So Buffy could have what she deserved.

So Angel and Buffy were together, with no fear of gypsy's curses and the hard won knowledge that an absence of him did not mean a normal, happy life for her. And the feelings that reminded Buffy that she was alive weren't the pain and regret anymore. She wanted to call it contentment, but it seemed risky. She just smiled a lot instead. Things still weren't perfect. Between them they had a son, a sister, a hell mouth, a hotel and friends and colleagues who were all screwed up in their own special way. But there were those constant, giggly phone calls, almost weekly treks across Southern California to giggle in person. She and Dawn went to LA for Thanksgiving. Angel, Conner and various Hyperion inhabitants came to Sunnydale for Christmas. She could go to him,she could help him, she could look forward to seeing him. They had these vague aims of one day trying to live in the same zip code. There was once a sentence started with, "Well, when we get married...". But not soon. That was ok. After having no Angel for so long, Buffy was going to appreciate the amount of Angel she was getting. She wasn't going to push for a drawer this time.

Buffy woke up. A surprise, since she hadn't realised she was asleep. It must have happened after hanging up with Angel. She threw a worried glance at the telephone, but it was okay. The receiver was replaced, which meant she hadn't fallen asleep while on the phone to Angel. Now, of course. she remembered the good byes and the I-love-yous and the stretching out on the bed...

No more view of the jungle/beach combo from her window. Just the blackness. Nine pm. Wow. She'd slept for hours.

Okay. So now, Buffy was all rested up, all energetic. And stuck in a [okay, nice] room, atop a bar stocked with bitchy staff and bizarre backpackers surrounded by jungle. With no TV. With no little sister to lecture. Without even a hell mouth, damn it. Although...slayer senses are go.. there was something going on around here. Doh. Riley had been here for a reason. The Quilux demon owned the bar here for a reason. Buffy smiled, "Time to slay some reasons". Then Buffy slumped with the relief that no one else was around to hear that terrible quip. She abandoned the funeral outfit. For a long while, hopefully. Crammed stakes into her pocket. Had a moment of glum self reflection based on the realisation that she was the sort of person who traveled with stakes. Down the stairs. Made sure her detractors from earlier saw how awesomely her jeans fit, how "there's no way you could buy something as cool as me in the jungles of Central America" her top was. Out the door. Into the jungle.

**********

The jungle had some really freaky shit. Trouble was, she couldn't tell what was your demonic freaky shit and what was your normal everyday Discovery Channel freaky shit. Like, that almost dinosaur thing. First instinct was to kill it. But was that instinct from more the "reptiles are gross and icky" Buffy or "must protect and/or save the world" Slayer? What if she destroyed an ecosystem or something? And it was so dark and moist. Moisture that felt clingy and dirty on her skin. And the trees and the vines and the other green leafy stuff was everywhere. In her face, disrupting her line of sight, scratching her arms. She hadn't thought the jungle would be so claustrophobic. And oh my gosh, the dinosaur thingy just moved... Ok Buffy. Think Crocodile Hunter. The Crocodile Hunter wouldn't be scared of the big lizard. So neither would the Slayer. Trying to give any credit to that particular thought process distracted Buffy. The Fronma demon was too close, by the time its presence registered. Buffy groaned. Hadn't she already killed this thing tonight? Oh man. It was probably the mate. Out to revenge its loved one's death, destroy the slayer in actions of righteous retribution, yada yada yada. Heartbroken demons were the worst. She always kind of expected them to pause mid-beating and break into elegiac song. This one looked like a Bryan Adams fan. Maybe Mariah. It should have been an easy fight, but it had managed to sneak up on her, and she had a feeling that the jungle was the Fronma's natural habitat [outside hell, at least] and every time Buffy moved she'd get caught up or scratched by or in some way impeded by a tree. Plus, the demon had the whole highly effective revenge motivation thing going on. Basically, it meant that by the time the Fronma's neck snapped Buffy was bruised and scratched everywhere, and her left shoulder wasn't sitting quite right in the socket. She so wasn't ready for the Arom to jump onto her back.

And then it wasn't on her back anymore. It was being held by its throat up against a big gnarly tree trunk, and Spike was bashing it into a painful, kind of squishy death. Buffy leant against another trunk, maneuvering her shoulder against its old wood until it slipped into the proper position. A few minutes after the actual moment of death, the Arom's body was allowed to slide down the trunk onto the canopy floor.