Previously: Angelus went to Sunnydale and tried to kill Willow, but she imprisoned him in a cage in Buffy's living room. Buffy told him about the return of the First Evil and the SITs; Angelus informed Buffy of Connor's birth and Angel's feelings for Cordelia. Andrew developed a crush on Angelus. Buffy warned the SITs to stay away from Angelus, who wanted to kill them.

Balance 3/?

Throughout the remainder of the afternoon, people tramped in and out of the living room with no regard for Angelus' privacy. Naturally, no one thought to feed him in all that time. Bored, tired, and hungry, he took to studying the lock attached to the door at the front of his cage. It was a typical key lock, but for someone who was lacking the required key, that knowledge did not help much. He'd have a hard time prying it away from Buffy, who was barely willing to even look at him since Dawn's rude interruption. So then Angelus thought about how to take down the First Evil, should he feel inclined to do so. He also continued to eavesdrop on the others and learned all sorts of information he could use to taunt his adversaries.

Still, the time dragged by. When Buffy finally approached his cage and wordlessly shoved a small plastic bag through the bars, he was so ravenous he was even willing to tolerate foul pig's blood. Just this once. Only, as Angelus took his first swallow, he registered the fresh taste of human blood. He looked at Buffy, but she had already turned away. Slowly, he drained the remainder of the bag and considered the possible meanings of her generous gesture. If she was softening toward him, he stood a better chance at getting free.

Unfortunately, Angelus had no chance to test out his theory, since Buffy had not come alone. Literally everyone else followed her, dressed for patrol and armed with weapons. The chattering SITs took up most of the room, while the people who actually had names gathered closer to Angelus' cage. However, Buffy was clearly the center of attention.

She paced in front of the throng of Potentials, drawing all eyes. Only when silence had fallen, though, did she begin to speak. "Girls, listen up. This is very important. It's my duty to train you all to the best of my ability. When I die, one of you will be called as the next Slayer. I remember how helpless and confused I felt when I was chosen, and I don't want any of you Potentials to experience those unsettling emotions. I can help and guide you, be the sort of mentor you need in these trying times. We must band together to form an unstoppable force, because if there is even one missing link in the chain, the entire thing will fall apart on us. We need to go forward, unceasing, invincible, confident in our strength as a unit."

Angelus rolled his eyes. When the hell did Buffy become so damn preachy? Not to mention boring. Then he thought back over her words. "Excuse me. Question over here."

Buffy stopped and glanced toward his cage. "Yes, evil demon in the corner?"

"You're saying that if you die, one of these twits will become a Slayer?"

Buffy scowled. "Well, I didn't refer to my protegees as twits, but other than that you're right."

"Follow-up question, then. I always thought Faith was the carrier of the future Slayer line and you were basically a redundancy, but even overlooking that little detail, you died a couple years ago. You were dead for how long? Five months?"

Spike interjected, "One hundred and forty-seven days, not counting--"

Angelus interrupted. "Yeah, whatever." He calculated for a moment, confirming his suspicions, before he spoke again. "All right, Buffy, going by this line of reasoning, if a new Slayer was called that one time when the Master offed you and you stopped breathing for maybe two minutes, surely a new one should have been called when you were stone-cold dead in the ground for a whopping five months, so where the hell is she?"

Dead silence ensued. Buffy looked at Dawn. Dawn looked at Spike. Spike looked at Xander. Xander looked at Giles. Giles looked back at Buffy.

Then: "You're right, Angelus!" Buffy exclaimed. "We completely overlooked that fact! Giles, you're the Watcher. Get on the ball and start watching! We have a missing Slayer to find!"

The gang, looking sheepish and worried, scrambled to locate research material from every corner of the room. Angelus groaned and banged his head against the bars of his cage. Matching wits with the mental midgets of Sunnydale was severely taxing his patience. "What's happened to all of you?" he yelled. "Spike's become an ensouled loser, Willow is a walking bundle of unpredictable magic, Xander is a jilting dickwad, Giles is a deserting jerk, and Buffy alternates between mind-shattering insecurity and unbelievable pomposity. At least Anya never changes. And for once, I'm grateful Dawn's around. She remains comfortingly familiar in her irrelevancy."

Anya retrieved a book from behind the sofa and retorted, "What's it to you? You don't care what happens to us."

"That's where you're wrong." Angelus looked around the room. The attention was focused on him now, and he planned to take full advantage of the opportunity. "It's obvious that if I don't fix matters, you're all going to go down to defeat and I'll be dragged along with you. So I'm going to compromise my principles and help you out with your little problem. Namely, the return of the First."

All attempts at research stopped. Giles, Willow, Buffy, Spike, Anya, Dawn, and Xander moved closer to Angelus, with Andrew and the Potentials watching from behind them.

"Yeah?" Dawn challenged. "You think you have all the answers? So tell us, how do we destroy the First?"

"You don't."

Xander turned away. "Thank you, Angelus, for bringing hope into our lives."

"I'm nothing if not honest. But when I say you can't destroy the First, I don't mean you can't get rid of it."

"Well? How?" Willow pressed.

"Like I'm stupid enough to tell you and give away my one powerful bargaining chip in exchange for absolutely nothing. I want something in return, of course."

"I'm not sure we want to know the answer, but what would that be?" Giles asked.

"Oh, not much. Just Buffy."

"Oh, well, if that's all..." Xander began. "Wait--did you say Buffy? No fucking way. Not in a million years."

"Hold on," Buffy interrupted. "If it means we get rid of the First, it's worth it. We'll worry about other things afterwards. If we don't take down the First soon, none of us will even have a future to worry about."

"So you agree?" Angelus asked. "You'll come with me when all of this is over?"

She nodded. "Sure, if you know what you're talking about and it works. That's the deal." As some of the others began to protest, she raised her voice. "This bargain is between Angelus and me. Please stay out of it. Now, let's hear what he has to say."

Xander looked at Angelus with complete distrust. "Right. How do you expect to accomplish this thing that all of us working together for months haven't been able to make a dent in?"

"Well, the First can't be effectively fought through traditional means," Angelus explained, willing to talk since he'd gotten what he wanted. "You see, it's all about balance--the balance between good and evil. Haven't any of you ever heard about the consequences of performing extreme magic? Buffy's resurrection tipped the scales too far toward good, so the First came back as a counterweight. To get rid of the First, you have to dispose of some forces of good. I figure all of you SITs should do nicely. You certainly aren't serving any useful purpose now, so you wouldn't even be missed."

"You mean you want to kill us?" a brunette Potential said tentatively.

Angelus looked at her. "Are you volunteering to be the first victim?"

The girl backpedaled into the crowd without answering.

"He means kill you," Willow confirmed. "Only, Angelus, doesn't your return hurt things? Because Angel was good and you're evil, and that's a power shift right there."

"True, but when I was in Los Angeles I killed the Beast, which makes up for my presence. And my return is nowhere near as big a shift as the resurrection of a dead Slayer."

Kennedy lowered her voice and suggested to Willow, "We could let him take out the First and then stake him."

Naturally, Angelus heard the whispered comment. "Sorry, friend, but that plot won't work. If you staked me, the balance would be upset and you'd have the First right back again. I don't think any of you want that."

Kennedy turned back to Willow and hissed, "How do we know he's telling the truth?"

Angelus looked at Buffy, Giles, and Willow. "Is that a chance any of you want to take? Seeing that you've done so well in vanquishing the enemy without my help?"

"Wait," Anya objected. "I see a flaw in your plan. If you're right and killing the forces of good will get rid of the First, why is it trying to dispose of the Potentials?"

"Obvious answer, anyone with a brain would want those yammering idiots dead. But more to the point, there must be a key," Angelus speculated. "Not the Dawn sort of key, because one of those was more than enough, but some kind of failsafe. As long as that particular individual remains alive, the First can kill whoever it wants and still stick around. I just have to figure out who that person is."

"This is sounding more and more complicated the more you talk," Dawn pointed out.

"Yeah, why don't we just restore your soul and let Angel help us out instead of relying on his evil alter ego?" Xander wanted to know.

"You'd be shooting yourselves in the foot. Well, Spike rambling off to Africa and picking himself up a soul didn't help matters any. Now that I'm sans soul, though, things work out there. See, if you give me my soul back, to even things out you'd have to take Spike's away."

"No," Buffy proclaimed. "There's got to be another way. A way that doesn't involve the deaths or soul extractions of anyone good."

"Some general you are. You're not seriously thinking you can vanquish the oldest evil in existence without making at least a few sacrifices, are you?" Angelus allowed his gaze to slide toward Buffy. "But maybe only one death would be required. We could just kill you again..."

"No! She's our leader!" a random Potential yelped.

The others promptly agreed, and their shouts almost drowned out a pounding on the front door. However, Buffy heard it and waved for quiet. "Hey, we have a visitor. Let's hope it's good news for once." She peeked outside before pulling the door open. "Look, everyone!"

Angelus craned to see over the crowd. Whoever was there, if that person's arrival pleased Buffy, it probably meant bad news for him. He looked over Anya, around Giles, and finally at the newcomer.

It was Wesley. Definitely bad news, then. He stepped inside, bearing a cardboard box he sheltered with his body. "No touching. Let me just get this settled in a safe place first." He stopped dead and gazed around the cluttered house. "Oh. I suppose there is no admirably safe place in the midst of all this chaos. In that case..." He picked his way across the room and cleared a place on the mantel. "Don't even look at this box the wrong way. It contains very precious cargo."

"What?" the wide-eyed Potentials chorused.

Wesley drew himself up. "Angel's soul."

The ensuing silence was punctured by Angelus' heartfelt response of, "Oh, shit!"

TBC

Next time: Anya and Xander make a mistake; Angelus comes up with an escape plan, but needs help to succeed.