Dead End

by Gem4

All forces gather to greet the End of Days. But is everyone fighting for the reason they claim?

6. Chapter 6

A.N. There is a quotation in this part, indicated by // marks.  The quote is from "Seeing Red."  There is also a reference to William's human life and the situation in London immediately prior to his death.  The conclusion Angel draws is my invention, but the situation he bases it on is from "Fool for Love."

Dead End

Part 6

By Gem

Angel led Lorne into Buffy's kitchen, motioning the demon to remain silent until he had checked that the room was empty and the doors connecting the kitchen to the hallway and living room were closed. Once he was satisfied they would not be overheard, Angel leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Okay, Lorne, what's the big mystery about Faith's call?"  He made a show of looking out the window over the sink as he adopted a more sarcastic tone.  "Other than the fact that two, no three, people just let a telephone ring when the whole idea was..."

"That's just it," Lorne interrupted.  "It's not like I have visions of becoming another Sherlock Holmes..." he paused to chuckle, "I mean all that tweed would do only bad things for my complexion..."

"Lorne." 

Angel didn't say any more, but he didn't have to.  Confronted with a distinctly unamused stare from his very favorite vampire, the smile swiftly disappeared from the demon's face.

"But the really strange thing is that I never heard the phone ring tonight.  Not once."

Angel frowned.  "But Faith said she called.  She said she let it ring a couple of times."

"I know.  That I heard."  Lorne raised his hands and flipped them over, palms upward, as he shrugged.  "But whatever bells our girl was ringing, she didn't jingle mine."

"Maybe..." Angel thought fast, "maybe she got a wrong number."

"From speed dial?"  Lorne didn't bother to spell out his doubt; it permeated every syllable.

"She could have hit the wrong button."  He began to restlessly prowl the perimeter of the kitchen.  "Lorne, are you absolutely sure?  You couldn't have been in the bathroom at some point, or maybe nodded off or..."

"Or stepped outside to catch a puff?" Lorne offered.  "Not this demon.  I have far too much respect for my range."  He smoothed one hand over the back of his hair as he made a painful admission.  "Plus I'm really not tall enough to carry off the smoke and whiskey voice."

"I didn't mean... "

"Angel-face, I was here all night." 

The demon's voice became a patient thread tying up all the unendurable facts into one ugly bundle as he recounted the memories Cordelia had planted in his mind.

"Cordy and I watched an awards show and critiqued all the outfits.  Then we watched an old movie and she told me about every audition she ever went on or tried to get her agent to let her go on.  Every single one," he stressed.  "I admit it was enough to put an insomniac to sleep, but I resisted because she's my Cordy and I wouldn't hurt her feelings for the world.  So I was awake, painfully so, and I heard not ring one from that phone."  He shrugged.  "Ask Cordy; she'll tell you the same thing.  If Faith called..."

Angel stopped his pacing and looked hard at his friend.  "Not 'if,' Lorne."

"If," Lorne repeated, a little more loudly this time, "she called, she wasn't calling us."

"Damn!" Angel swore under his breath.  "If I hadn't let Willow use that phone to call 911 I could do a redial on it and see... well, see that she called here and Buffy's phone was just off the hook or broken or something."

"But you did, so you can't."  Lorne hesitated, knowing he was bringing up a sensitive subject.  "That means it comes down to trust."

"I trust you, Lorne.  I know you're not lying to me."  That thought had never even occurred to Angel; he had hoped Lorne would realize that without him having to say it.  "It's just that I can't believe Faith is lying either, not to me.  Not after all we've been through.  There has to be another answer."

Lorne reached up and patted him on the shoulder, turning the gesture from comforting to practical as he tried to rub out a small stain of Turok drool from Angel's shirt collar with his thumb. 

"So far all I see are questions.  But you're the detective in the family."

Angel twisted away from Lorne's hand and grimaced as another, more pressing matter came to mind.  "The problem is I have more questions than you know, and I can't leave here tonight until I get some straight answers."  He glanced at the closed kitchen door blocking his view of Buffy.  "No matter how hard they are to come by."

* * * * *

On the other side of the kitchen door, the living room was quiet in the wake of the SIT's en masse departure, a marked change from the chaos that usually reigned there.  Not trusting himself to stay silent any longer, Xander had also bowed out quickly after he'd offered his advice, leaving a shattered Buffy to the ministrations of a group of almost-strangers, and Spike.

"Bloody ungrateful gits!" the vampire swore.  His voice sounded unusually loud in the otherwise silent room.  "Not ashamed to hide behind your skirts in battle, are they?  But as soon as the fighting's over they turn on you like scorpions."

He aimed his voice at the stairs, hoping both the SITs on the second floor, and Angel, wherever the hell he was, would hear his impassioned defense of his goddess. 

"Spike," Wesley said, "I'm almost certain this isn't helping."  He glanced at Buffy, who sat, small and silent, on the sofa.  "I'm not sure if anything can at the moment."

"What's not helping is that bunch of useless understudies," Spike countered.  "They treat the place like a bleedin' hotel, never do a thing to earn their keep..."

"And when's the last time you helped with the cooking?" Andrew objected from his chair in the corner.  He prodded his chest with his index finger as he added, "You know, I'm being held here against my will... mostly... but at least I take out the garbage once in a while."

"I'm thinking he missed a piece," Gunn said under his breath to Fred.  The slightly nervous smile she offered him in return made him feel a little closer to her, but even so he regretted the comment when Spike turned to glare at him.  After more than 3 years of working with Angel, he still occasionally forgot the extreme sensitivity of vampire hearing.

"And all of you, showing up like you're the last hope of the universe when all you really are is a bunch of ruddy incompetents."  Spike's scornful glance swept over the A.I. team, lingering on Connor.  "Must run in the family."

Buffy's fragile control was nearing its limits.  Too many people and events had flooded her life in the last few days, each one grabbing for her attention and jealously hoarding it once obtained.  Now the most jealous of all was all she seemed to have left, at least if he had anything to say about it.  

"Leave them out of it, Spike," she commanded.  At least she tried to make it a command but her voice sounded strangely weak, even to her.  Pride forced Buffy to clear her throat and try again.  "Things started falling apart before they got here; they just... sped up the crash."

"I said I was sorry," Faith protested.  "What's it going to take?  Blood?"  She flung one arm out towards Buffy, turning her hand over to expose her veins.  "Didn't help last time, but maybe..."

"Faith," Wesley said quietly, "that was uncalled for."

The younger slayer's hand curled into a fist as she retracted her arm.  "Listen harder, Wes.  She's not just calling for it; she's yodeling."

"Poor little second-skimmings slayer," Spike mocked.  An idea occurred to him, a way to keep Angel focused on his own camp instead of Buffy, and possibly an out for him should Helmet Hair actually detect anything incriminating about Rona's death.  "Can't handle the competition, luv, now that you're not the only slayer in the yard?  Say, maybe you bumped off the chit just to keep ahead of the game."

"Hey," Gunn snapped, "you got no call to be talking like that to her."

Cordelia released a gusty sigh, trying to sound regretful although she was smiling on the inside.  "Actually, Gunn, he does.  It wouldn't exactly be the first time for Faith."

"Doubt she can even remember the first time," Spike opined cheerfully.  Really, this sowing the seeds of discontent thing was dead easy, not to mention fun.

"Now that is about enough," Wesley barked at Spike, but it was too late.  The damage had been done.

"So now you think I killed that girl too?"  Faith looked around the room quickly, not actually allowing any time for dissenting opinions to be heard.  "Can't you just feel the love in this room?  Guess I'll just have to find your killer for you."

She moved with characteristic slayer speed, and her proximity to the front door helped as well.  She was gone in a flash, before Wesley's warning to grab her was even halfway up his throat.

"Dammit!" Wesley swore as Angel and Lorne came back into the living room from the kitchen.

"What happened?" Angel asked, his dark eyes shifting rapidly from one guilty face to another.  Only Spike, and curiously Cordelia, displayed no signs of discomfort.

"Faith's gone," Wesley said flatly.  He hovered indecisively by the half-open door, torn between immediately running after Faith and gathering reinforcements for when he found her.  He was under no illusions as to who Faith really listened to these days.  "She feels we suspect her of killing the girl, and she wants to find the true guilty party."

Automatically Angel started for the door, calling over his shoulder, "And a room full of people just let her go?  In the state she's in?" 

"Oh no, we can't have Faith running around upset, now can we?"  Buffy's voice had unexpectedly regained its normal strength, with an additional dose of sarcasm coloring her tones.  "Why don't you just run after her, Angel?  I'm sure that's what she's waiting for."

Angel stopped dead in his tracks and bit back the sharp reply that sprang too easily to his lips.  There had been enough fighting for one night, and he still had one difficult discussion left to have with Buffy before he could call it a day.  But knowing this and practicing it were two different things, and he was still choking on the effort when Wesley added his own surprising commentary.

"I rather think she is, though not in the way Buffy means."  Wesley smiled apologetically at Angel, knowing how uncomfortable the vampire felt when someone mentioned Faith's apparent attachment to him.  "You do realize you're her motivation, don't you?  For redemption, I mean.  She wants to pay you back for the time and effort you've expended on her, and show you it's not all a waste."

"Fat lot of chance she's got there," Spike sniped.  "Girl was born a waste of effort."

Gunn gritted his teeth; that bleached out mosquito was really beginning to get on his nerves.  "Look, I'll go after her." 

Fred had already begun to feel a sort of kinship with Buffy, after fighting by her side for a few hours.  Now, however, she could truly understand the Slayer's frustration with the sudden metamorphosis of Faith into a wounded dove.

"No one asked you to, Charles."  Fred's voice was as stiff as her spine, and neither spoke well of Gunn's future if he followed Faith into the dark night.  "She's a slayer.  If she can't handle herself against the things that go bump in the night, who can?"

"Baby, it's not the bump that's the worry," Gunn explained.  "It's the 'slash, slash, slash' after they knock you down that'll kill you."

"Exactly," Cordelia chimed in.  "And someone really should stop Faith before she starts all that slashing."

Angel made a quick decision, based as much on the fire in Fred's eyes as in Buffy's.  Safety in numbers definitely came into play when the green-eyed monster was the demon being battled.

"We'll all go," he said, nodding at Gunn and Wesley.  "Lorne and Fred can go with Cordy back to the mansion.  I'd say Connor should be with us, but I'd like someone around them who can tell the First when he doesn't smell him."  Angel looked pointedly at Spike as he added, "Unfortunately only a few of us have senses that strong... even fewer than there should be."

Spike looked confused, and then Angel saw a flash of something akin to guilt flitted through his eyes.  Guilt... or perhaps only the certainty of exposure.

"Yeah, well that smell thing," the blond vampire blustered, "that isn't always the best thing to rely on.  I mean sure, in the good old days before pollution you could tell a lot from..."

"Don't you have an elsewhere to be?" Buffy broke in. 

Spike stopped speaking in sheer astonishment, and a burst of anger.  The latter was quickly assuaged, however, when he realized her words had not been directed at him.

Angel didn't look nearly as pleased, though.

* * * * *

Anger and hurt carried Angel as far as the sidewalk, but a stronger and far more deeply ingrained emotion stopped him before he went any further.  In the name of that emotion he grabbed Wesley by the sleeve and pulled him aside.

"You guys go on without me.  There's something that's come up... something Dawn told me... and I really need to ask Buffy about it."  Angel weighed his words before adding, "I need to know if what I'm thinking is true." 

"Are you sure this is the right time to confront Buffy?" Wesley murmured, eyeing his friend with concern.  "She's already in a fragile state; I don't know how much more she can stand tonight."

"That's why I have to try again, Wes."  Angel gazed off into the distance, trying to find the right words.  "She's got herself... cordoned off, almost... like she's a museum exhibit or something."  He made his hands into a megaphone and called softly through them, "See the World's Greatest Living Slayer.  Isn't it amazing?  She looks almost real." 

Angel's hands fell to his side as he made the effort to look Wesley in the eye.  "Except she is real, and she doesn't belong behind ropes or on a pedestal separated from everyone who used to make her life worthwhile.  She's hiding and I'm convinced this is part of why."  His voice was barely more than a strained whisper as he added, "I can't just see that and walk away."

"And what about Faith?  I'm sure we'll find her; she can't have gotten very far.  But there's a lot that needs to be said, and at the moment you're the only one she's hearing."

"I'll come looking for you as soon as I can," Angel promised.  "Maybe we'll get lucky and you won't need me to find her.  If so..." he shrugged helplessly, "just keep an eye on her for me till I get home."

Wesley wasn't at all sure this was the best plan; he'd meant it when he said Faith's redemption was currently resting on Angel's shoulders.  Whether the vampire admitted it or not, he'd made a major impact on the girl's life; even the limited amount of care and attention her incarceration permitted him to offer were more than she'd ever known before from anyone but the long dead Mayor.  It was a debt she was obviously eager to repay, even if she did not yet understand that doing 'the right thing' was only half the journey.  Only when she did the right thing simply because it was the right thing would Faith truly be redeemed.

For now, though, it apparently gave Angel hope that she was at least trying, and Wesley didn't want to disturb the fragile balance for either of them.  Or for Buffy, for that matter.  Too much rested on the elder slayer's slender shoulders to risk further upset.

"Of course."  Wesley shrugged and offered a half-hearted smile.  "I'm a Watcher, or I was.  It's what I was trained to do."

"There's a lot more to you than that now, Wes."

The words were spoken quickly, but Wesley could still tell they were more than a perfunctory response.  It was a good feeling to know that Angel saw him as a human being again, maybe even something resembling a friend.  But never would Wesley forget the fury in the vampire's eyes the night Angel tried to kill him, any more than he could erase the trust he had seen in those same eyes just hours earlier when Angel gave Connor to him for safekeeping.  The leap from friend to mortal enemy had been breathtakingly short, but the road back would be a long one, with many more miles to cover before either could rest.

"I can see being around Buffy again is already having an effect on you," Wesley said lightly, heeding the voice in his head that urged caution.  "You're getting sentimental."

Angel grinned, but he didn't try to deny it. 

He was still grinning as he turned around and started up the pathway to the house, but the smile fell away from his face when he confronted the reality of Buffy coming out onto the porch.

She didn't see him at first.  With his dark hair and trademark dark clothing, Angel blended into the night as though it had been created with him in mind, and for once he thought that might be a good thing.  He quietly shifted over to the side of the path and from there to the shelter of a tree, waiting until Buffy had settled down before he made his presence known.

The wait was slightly delayed by the annoying resurgence of Spike, who didn't seem to want to take "I just want to be alone for a while" for an answer.  Angel would have viewed this as more proof of his suspicions if he hadn't been planning on using the same amount of persistence himself.

After what seemed like forever, though in reality was just a few minutes, she was alone again, and likely to be so until Willow and Kennedy came home.  It was the perfect time to talk, or at least Angel thought so.  He had a feeling Buffy would not be so easy to convince.

* * * * *

Spike pounded his way down the basement steps, letting each heavy footfall serve as testimony to the depths of his depression.  The universe deserved to know just how much damage had been done to him this night.

Rona's death should have solved the problem; she was the troublemaker, she was dead... end of problem.  At least that was the way it was supposed to be, but instead things seemed to be getting worse.  Now even Buffy seemed to be turning against him, standing up to him to spare the feelings of Angel's brat.

There had to be a way to put things back to rights.

He could kill Amanda, of course.  He pondered the idea as he paced the length of the basement and back again, and he had to admit that at this particular moment it actually sounded like a lot of fun.  It was certainly no more than the little bint deserved for all the pain she'd caused Buffy.  But it hadn't worked when he tried it with Rona, and he couldn't just keep on knocking them off one by one until he hit the magic one whose death stopped the treachery.  He'd get caught that way.

No, there had to be a better answer.  There had to be catalyst and if he could just find it he... his eyes narrowed.  If he could find her, not it, and he suddenly knew where to find her. 

Faith; she was the answer.  Eliminate her and the 'rebellion' would fall apart and never get put back together.  Buffy didn't like her anyway, so she'd be doubly grateful to get that brown-haired devil out of her hair forever.  And it wasn't like he hadn't killed slayers before, so the mechanics of it weren't a problem.  Hell, he could have killed Buffy a thousand times before... he just hadn't wanted to in a long time.

So right, Faith, she was the problem.  Therefore no Faith should be the solution.

What could be simpler?

* * * * *

Buffy was surprised to see Angel approaching the porch, and angered by her surprise.  Usually she could sense him long before he came into view but tonight she was so preoccupied with her own thoughts her sixth sense couldn't get a word in edgewise.

"I thought you caught the nearest white stallion to ride off to Faith's rescue," she called, hoping her sarcasm would hold him at bay.

He shook his head in mock regret.  "Fell off at the gate.  No, make that jumped."

She ruthlessly quashed the flicker of pleasure his presence gave her.  He might as well have chosen Faith over her, for all the good it would do Buffy.  Or at least so she told herself.

"It's late and I'm tired.  I'm not up for another round of Cryptic Quips tonight." 

"And your point is?" he inquired politely as he hovered on the second step from the top.

"That I have a stake and I know how to use it?" she suggested brightly.  Abruptly the smile slipped from her face, betraying how truly worn-out she was.  "Seriously, Angel, I'm just... I'm not up for this tonight."

Only his abiding love for her could have forced Angel's reluctant feet up that last step.   He could see how tired Buffy was, he could hear it in her voice and he could feel it in the energy a slayer naturally radiates and a vampire naturally senses.  The last thing he wanted to do was add to her suffering, but he couldn't leave her not knowing.  He needed to know exactly what happened and she needed to know what might.

"Buffy, I really don't want to make things worse," he said slowly.  "But there's something I have to ask you... and something I have to tell you.  And then I'll go, I swear."

She sighed; she didn't even have the energy to fight anymore.  It was as though Amanda's words, and the unspoken agreement she could see in everyone's eyes, had sucked the life right out of her, leaving only a very weary shell. 

"How many words are we talking about with these 'somethings'?"

He decided to plunge right in; after all, she had said she was tired of games. 

"Has Spike ever... attacked you?"

She stiffened, instantly wondering if he had put things together just from what Xander had said earlier.  In case she was wrong, she decided to play it cool.

"Sure.  For a while there I had the feeling he thought that was why he was put on this earth."  She forced her tight shoulders into a shrug.  "I guess that's a common delusion among vamps."

Angel brushed away her flip answer.  "I don't mean that kind of attack.  I mean..."  He hesitated, because of all the things he'd imagined talking to Buffy about for the last 4 lonely years, this had to be the last one on the list.  "I mean sexually... sort of.  Has he ever tried to..."

"No."

The word was out before she could stop it, before she even had a chance to really think it through.  But now that it hung there between them she couldn't take it back, and she didn't think she wanted to.  Angel didn't need to know that part of her past; he'd taken himself out of her life by his choice, not hers, so any mistakes she'd made without him were none of his business. 

And what he didn't know couldn't hurt any of them.

"Buffy, are you sure he..."

She stood up so fast the chair crashed backwards into the side of the house.  "Do you think I wouldn't know?" she demanded.  "Do you really think poor naïve little Buffy is too dumb to understand the difference?"

"I never said you were dumb," he protested.  "Or thought it.  But you're the most forgiving person I know.  If you weren't you'd have staked me years ago."

"My bad," she choked out.

"And I know that sometimes you... women... people... can argue themselves into believing that because there was a," Angel gritted his teeth as he growled, "a relationship before, using force doesn't count.  Or maybe they sent the wrong signal, or didn't say 'no' enough, or..."

"Stop," she commanded, holding up her hand to ward him off both physically and emotionally.  "I don't want to hear... I... this subject is closed."  Her hand fell to her side, curling into a fist as she fought for control of her voice.  "I've answered your question, even if you had exactly zero right to ask it, and now I really think you should leave."

He hated believing she would lie to him, and he couldn't even be sure she was; it was just a feeling.  But it was too important of an issue to let go of, even if what he'd feared hadn't happened, because all that meant was it hadn't happened yet.  Before Angel had a chance to choose the right words, though, the front door swung wide and Xander and Robin stepped out, poised for action.

* * * * *

Connor had been plunged into one strange world after another in the past 12 months, and just when he thought he understood the rules his father changed them again.  He should have known by now there was no use in trying to figure things out, but the best he could manage was to keep the majority of his questions to himself.  All except one.  There was one he had to ask, and it took every discipline Holtz had ever drummed into him to keep his silence until he and Cordelia were safely back at the mansion, upstairs, and alone.

They weren't sharing a room; she'd said it would be too awkward with everyone else being so close by.  But she made no objection when he followed her into her bedroom and closed the door behind him.  Connor hoped that meant she wanted to be honest with him as badly as he needed her to be.

"This has been some evening," she sighed as she sank down onto the edge of the bed.  "I'd forgotten how much angst Buffy can pack into just a few short hours."

To Connor it had seemed his father's former girlfriend had been as much on the receiving end of the night's anguish as she had been dealing it out, but he bowed to Cordelia's greater knowledge of the situation.

"She did seem kind of... upset," he allowed as he sat down beside her.  "Which got my father upset, which got her upset, which got..."

"Yup," Cordelia interrupted, "that would be the same old unhappy-go-round."

"Actually everyone seemed pretty tense tonight, even Lorne."  He gently took her hand in his.  "Everyone except you."

She pulled her hand away just as easily as he'd taken possession of it.  "It's not good for the baby, you know.  All that negative energy."  She rubbed her hand over her abdomen.  "I probably shouldn't have even come, but I didn't want to be alone."

"I wouldn't have left you alone," he protested.  "Not unless you wanted to be."  He paused, gauging her mood and remaining reserves, and then decided this was the best opportunity to pose his question.  "Like this afternoon."

Cordelia's expression was carefully bewildered.  "This afternoon?  What are you talking about?"

"When I came here this afternoon to get the book on Heglor demons, you stayed behind at Buffy's to take a nap.  But when I got back... you were gone."

"No I wasn't."

He stared at her in shock as Holtz's voice began whispering in his ear of the perfidies of Woman.  Silently Connor willed her to come up with a reasonable explanation, or even an unreasonable one, just to shame his foster father into stillness.  Anything but the flat-out lie she had just uttered.

"I looked for you.  You weren't in the bedrooms and no one had seen you and..."

"You said you got lost," she interrupted.  "You told Angel you got lost on the way back to Buffy's and it took you ages to find the place again.  Are you telling me you lied to me?  To all of us?"

The accusation in her voice stung Connor, forcing him to backpedal to defend himself.

"I didn't want my father to know you had been wandering around town by yourself," he said uneasily.  "He would have worried."

"So you lied to me?"  Cordelia stood up abruptly, forgetting for a moment that she was supposed to be too awkward and ungainly to move quickly or without assistance.  "Connor, I don't like it when people lie to me.  You know that."

"I... I'm sorry," he stammered.  "I wanted to protect you, not to hurt you."

She leaned down, suddenly the picture of forgiveness as she clasped both his hands in hers.  "Just trust me, Connor; that's all the protection I need."

She was all the protection he needed.  Cordelia had been his only friend since he returned from Quortoth; she was mother, sister, confidante and lover all in one.   If he lost her, he would be all alone.  For Connor, there was no choice.

"I will," he promised.

* * * * *

"Buffy, are you okay?" 

Xander glanced curiously from Buffy's rigid form to Angel standing a few feet away.  Obviously they weren't interrupting a lover's reunion, but it didn't look like a fight either, at least not the kind Buffy and Angel would wage.

"We heard a crash," Robin added uneasily.  He was a little embarrassed to have walked in on an obviously personal moment, but it was too late to bow out without explanation. 

Buffy avoided Xander's gaze and addressed her response to Robin.  "I thought you went home already.  Or are you moving in too?"

He flushed, but the guilt her words inspired made him angry.  Knowing Buffy and her vampire would hear the guilt in his voice made him even angrier.  "I went up to see if Dawn was going to make it to school tomorrow..." he began stiffly.

"She will," Buffy said before Robin could finish speaking.  Her tone left no doubt of Dawn's compliance.

"And then I came down to find the living room deserted."  He jerked his head in Angel's direction.  "Your... friend... here said he'd give me a ride."

"Ride?" Angel said blankly.  "Oh, right." 

He turned and craned his neck to look out at the sky beyond the porch roof, though a moment later he wished he hadn't.  Thick, dark clouds had blotted out the moon, and the only light came from small fissures splitting the western sky. 

"I could say it's a nice night for a walk... but then you'd think I was out to get you."  Angel turned back to Robin with a sheepish grin on his face, "The thing is, I let Fred drive my car back to the mansion, and Wesley and Gunn have his car.  I was going to walk."

Buffy saw her chance to get rid of Angel quickly and without a fuss.  The down side was that it required a certain amount of trust in Robin, and given that he was here when she expressly told him not to be, he might not deserve it.  In the pro column, he obviously hadn't tried anything yet or Dawn would have blurted it out already.  She'd just have to gamble that his instinct for survival was stronger than his appetite for revenge.

After a gentle reminder, of course, that while his idea of revenge had so far proved pretty lame, her imagination was boundless.

"Take my car and drop Robin off on your way," she suggested, keeping her voice steady through sheer force of will.  "I'll come by and get it tomorrow."

Angel's smile disappeared as he began to worry his lower lip with his teeth.  He couldn't leave things like this with Buffy; there was still something that needed to be said.  And yet he had promised the man a ride, and it was about to storm.

"I could bring the car back tonight," he counter-offered, although he already knew what her answer would be.

"I'll get it tomorrow," she said firmly.  "You might not melt in the rain, but I'm thinking one lightning bolt in the wrong place could still make you dust in the wind."  With an achingly sweet smile plastered to her lips, she turned to Robin.  "A force of nature is pretty much the only thing that could kick his butt, or should ever... ever... try."

"Hurricane Buffy, for example," Xander pointed out.  "Now delivering to hell and points south."

For just one instant he felt like his old self, the Xander who could still make jokes about loss and grief because he'd never tasted the bitterness of it himself.  Then he saw the stiff set of Buffy's jaw, and the way she held herself preternaturally still, almost as though she was in pain.  Suddenly all he could think of was the look in Anya's eyes on what should have been their wedding day.

Why hadn't Buffy ever warned him how much being a grown-up sucked?

While Xander worked through his issues silently, Angel was forced to confront his in front of an audience.  "Okay, you can pick up the car tomorrow," he conceded with a sigh, "but I can't leave just yet." 

"Actually, yes you can," she said.  "Trust me, you can."

Buffy was pushing him away as hard as she could, but Angel wasn't ready to stop trying to reach her.  Not yet anyway.

"No. I said I had something to tell you, not just ask."

She knew that look; obviously the car had been his last concession of the night.  "Fine, tell," she said wearily, sinking into the chair next to the one she'd overturned.

"Are you sure you want..." he nodded his head at Xander and Robin, "an audience?"

Buffy weighed the idea carefully before she answered.  She didn't want Xander to see Angel as an ally in his 'save Buffy from Spike and from herself' campaign, and she certainly didn't want Robin to know any more about her sex life than he already did.  But there was a good chance Angel's old fashioned manners would keep him from being quite so painfully blunt if he believed he was embarrassing her in front of others.

"I don't have anything to hide," she said at last.  "At least no more than your usual guidance counselor by day/superhero by night."

Angel wasn't happy with the idea, but did his best to smile politely as he agreed.  "An audience it is."

"Oh boy, Story Hour," Xander said, feigning enthusiasm as he settled himself on the porch railing.  "At least with Angel in charge they'll be short ones."

Angel brought his hands together, fingertips pressing against each other in a triangle, and began to pace the short width of the porch. 

"The reason I asked you... that... isn't just because of anything I've heard since I've been here," he began.  "I've known Spike a long time, a lot longer than I like and I..."

Buffy held up her hand again, this time waving her fingers slightly to get Angel's attention.  "This isn't going to be another speech about my rotten taste in men, is it?  Because I've had a lot of those over the years and they're really starting to sound alike."  She bared her teeth in a sickly semblance of a smile.  "Especially the ones about you and Spike."

"Hey, I tried to add a little variety," Xander protested from his end of the porch railing.  "Is it my fault you specialize in the 'proud to be pulse-less' crowd?"

"This is about Spike," Angel answered, working hard to get the words past his clenched jaw.  He didn't bother to look at Xander when he spoke; all his attention was focused on getting through to Buffy.

"You've let him live under your roof, and I think you have this idea that because he has a soul it's okay.  I mean that he's not dangerous," he added hastily, seeing her stiffen in the chair at the word 'okay.'

"He wouldn't hurt me," she said softly, easing back into the chair.

"You don't know that, or him," Angel insisted.  "A soul wouldn't prevent him from trying to," he choked on the word, and then changed it in deference to their audience, "force himself on you.  It didn't stop him when he was alive and it wouldn't stop him now."

"What are you saying?" she interrupted, her voice low and tight.

"Yeah, what are you saying?" Xander chimed in.  He'd thought Dead Boy missed his cue earlier, but apparently he'd underestimated him.  Now if he could only get through to Buffy where Xander had so far failed.

"I'm saying it's time you faced reality." 

* * * * *

The First Evil had watched from the shadows as the alternate savior of the universe stormed from the Summers' house.  It followed her on her fruitless quest, back as close to the alley where Rona had died as police presence would permit.  And in her restless, angry movements It had seen a new opportunity being born.

Faith had never been a source of much concern for the First.  She was too weak and easily led astray; It actually figured sooner or later Faith would come looking for It, so why bother seeking her out?  Buffy had been the real threat: a slayer who not only refused to play the loner hand Destiny had dealt her, but kept as one of her closest allies a vampire figured in multiple apocalyptic prophecies.  It was enough to make the most daring of demons a little desperate.

Yet just when Buffy's star seemed to be fading, and the traits that had kept her alive and fighting for so much longer than any slayer had a right to expect were being abandoned or twisted out of shape, here was Faith.  Gathering allies, including Buffy's damnable vampire, working with others for a common good... it was disgusting.  It was unnatural.

It was another way into the heart of the machine.

"Faith!" the First called out softly as It materialized.  "Where's my girl going in such a hurry?"

* * * * *

Angel stopped pacing and came over to squat down next to Buffy's chair.  He wanted to take her hands in his, to offer some sort of comfort, but he was almost afraid to touch her.

"You've always thought that the soul and the demon don't intersect," he said softly.  "I think believing that made things a little easier when Angelus was here, and Giles probably encouraged the idea to help you do what was necessary.  But it's not true, Buffy, no matter how much you want it to be.  There is evil in all of us, soul or no soul."

"You think I don't know that?" she snapped.

He shook his head.  "I think you don't want to.  It's like..." he struggled for an appropriate analogy, "Buffy, it's like alcohol."

"Oh please," she groaned.  "So now your demon is really just the demon rum?"

"There's darkness in everyone," he insisted, forcing himself to ignore her mocking tone.  "Most people keep that piece of themselves locked up in a cage in a corner of their minds, with their souls as the gatekeepers.  Alcohol can open that door for some people... and for others it's a demon."  He leaned forward, looking intently into her hazel eyes.  "The demon is just an appetite for chaos and pain and death – it's not... focused.  It has no plan, no agenda, until it connects with a human host and sets that caged darkness free."

"Look, this is all very gothic and poetic.  Really, Anne Rice would be proud," she assured him as she stood up.  "But you're not telling me anything new here."

In his head Angel could hear Dawn begging him not to push Buffy about Spike; her voice was layered with Cordelia's, warning him about the very same thing.  He knew they meant well, and silently he apologized for being unable heed their wishes.  But at some point silence had ceased to be a peace offering; now it was a weapon poised to destroy someone he would protect above all others.  He had to believe he knew Buffy better than they did.

"I'm telling you that whatever evil was in Spike without a soul is still there," he said stridently.  "It was always there."

Instantly Buffy stood up and took two steps forward, reaching up to slap a hand over his mouth before anything more inflammatory came out.

"Don't talk so loud," she hissed, casting an anxious glance over her shoulder at the front door.

Angel gently removed her hand from his lips and held it for a moment between his own, until she reluctantly pulled it free.

"Buffy, I'm trying to tell you that I know how Spike is with women, how he's always been," he insisted in a quieter tone of voice.  "And it's not good.  He needs to be in control, and if he feels that control slipping... he could become violent.  No," he shook his head, "he will become violent.  It's not a part of the demon, Buffy; it's a part of him.  It's been there since long before he was turned, and it's not going to go away because you're nice to him."

Xander had promised himself that if Angel were able to get through to Buffy where he couldn't that he wouldn't be angry; he would be grateful.  And maybe if he thought the vampire's words were having any effect at all, he would be.  But the way things looked now, he wouldn't have to be noble and forgiving any time soon.

"I've been trying to tell her that for months.  In fact," he smacked his forehead lightly with the heel of his hand, "I'd swear I started telling her that years ago."  He looked hard at Angel.  "About you."

Angel nodded gravely, acknowledging Xander's efforts.  "I know, and you were right, in a way.  Everything Angelus has done he found the inspiration for in me."

"No."  Buffy stubbornly shook her head.  "You're not the same as him.  You've never seen you and then him; you can't.  But I can and I did and I know... you're not him."

Spike was forgotten as she tried yet again to break through the barrier of Angel's guilty conscience to the man hiding behind it. 

"Look, I'm not the issue here."  Angel shunted aside her objections with practiced ease; no one was going to wipe his conscience crystal clear, not even Buffy.  "Angelus specialized in families and I'm already doing such a great job destroying my own even he wouldn't feel the need to wreck yours right now.  But Spike's obsessions have always run to women," he continued, ignoring Buffy's stunned expression, "mostly how to make himself feel superior to them, and that means you're a big threat to him, Buffy.  Soul or no soul, he can't beat you and he knows it."

"This... this is crazy," she sputtered.  What did he mean about destroying families?  "You're not making any sense, and you're... well, you're poking around in things that aren't any of your business.  You should just," she waved imperiously at the street, "go home.  Go... somewhere.  Go anywhere that's not here."

Angel stared at her, watching the lightning flare across her face as he tried to find some sign of the girl he'd once known.  He'd been so sure he could get through to her, at least to the point of making Spike move out.  How could he leave her alone with Spike still in that house knowing, despite her protests, that the vampire had attacked her in some way?

"Buffy, you can't let him stay here."  Given the danger involved it should have sounded like a command, but the words came out as more of a strangled plea.  "Now that you know..."

"Know what?" she interrupted.  "That you think he was a creep before he died as much as after?"  She snorted derisively.  "Like you see yourself as Mr. Nothing to Gain from telling me this.  Oh wait, you probably do."

She hated the look of pain in his eyes, a look even the dark night couldn't hide from her.  She hated that look almost as much as she hated herself at the moment, but there was no other choice.  She was doing the right thing, for him and for everyone.  She had to believe that or every choice she'd made so far, every step she'd taken on this path had been for nothing.

"There's more to it than that," he said urgently.  "Before Dru turned him there were a couple unexplained disappearances near Spike's home in London."

"Gee, there were vamps in the area."  Buffy forced the sneer into her voice and onto her lips, though it felt like her face was going to crack.  "I wonder what could have happened to those people?"

"We didn't make people disappear, not even Dru."  He smiled grimly.  "No body means there's nothing for the family to weep over.  What fun is that for a vampire?"

Robin had a brief, unwilling flash of Spike, laughing as he stole the coat off a dead slayer while her 4-year-old son hid and watched.  If ever a vampire had looked like he was enjoying himself, it was Spike that night.

Suddenly the rest of Angel's explanation registered, along with some rather unsavory implications.

"Wait," he said abruptly, "are you saying you knew the vampire that turned Spike?  You were there?"

"I..."

Buffy's hand shot out to grip Angel's arm tightly, silently ordering... begging... him to be quiet while she came up with some half-truth or flat-out lie to allay Robin's suspicions. 

"Angel..." she began.

"...knows Drusilla," Xander jumped in smoothly.  "Sure he does.  We all do, though if you're lucky you'll never meet her." 

He paused for a fraction of a second, trying to work up a long enough spate of babble to give Buffy time to recover.  He didn't know why she turned so white at the principal's question, or what was up with the fingernails he could see digging into Angel's coat sleeve; no one had ever told him the unexpurgated version of Robin's life.  All Xander knew was that Buffy needed help and she needed it fast.  And whatever his past problems with Angel, he didn't want to throw the vampire to the wolves badly enough to throw Buffy in the pen too.

"She's kind of trippy... well, look at her taste in men."  Xander turned up his palms and shrugged, carefully avoiding Buffy's eyes as well as Angel's.  He didn't care so much about hurting Angel's feelings, but he really hoped Buffy understood that there were more important things than her ego at the moment, even if she hadn't told him what those things were. 

"Elvira meets Little Miss Muffett, that's Drusilla.  She, uh, had kind of a crush on me at one point... well, so did most of the girls in school that day... except for Buffy, of course because she was kind of wrapped up in being a rat although before that she..."

"Xander," Buffy broke in, trying to sound annoyed.  "I think we've trawled Memory Lake enough for right now.  It's starting to stink."

In truth she was deeply grateful for Xander's save, but letting that show right now would only undo the good he'd done.  Better to force her frozen fingers to release Angel's arm and try to resume something like a normal conversation.

But Angel, unfortunately, hadn't finished his recounting his X-file.

"We're not just talking generic people," he said, trying to pretend he had never been interrupted, or forced to accept Xander's protection.  "They were all girls.  Young girls, all of good families... families Spike knew.  And all those girls turned up a short time later after an 'unexpected visit with relatives.'  That was code, Buffy," he stressed, "code for things people couldn't talk about then without ruining a girl's reputation."

A cold chill slithered down Buffy's spine.  Spike had once told her she wasn't the first girl he'd attacked; it was as close as he could come to apologizing for not apologizing for what he'd done.  But she'd assumed he was talking about a time in his vampire existence, not his human life.

"You don't know it was him," she said, more in hope than certainty. 

"I don't have proof," he admitted, "but I do know.  I know Spike, and I know the vampire doesn't fall far from the tree."

"I knew it!" Xander said triumphantly.  "Angel's right... two words I never thought I'd live to hear myself say."  He cocked his head to the side, considering a fine point raised by too many years of friendship with one Willow Rosenberg.  "Or is it three words?  Since I was actually saying 'Angel is...' well, you know the rest.  No need to be a martyr and say it twice.  Anyway, you have to get rid of Bleach Boy now, Buff."

She didn't know what to do, where to turn.  Angel's words had thrown the past all out of focus, and for the first time in months she had no idea what the next right move would be.  She needed time, and space; she had to think.

"What I have to do," she said slowly, "is think.  Alone," she stressed.  "I'm not making any decisions or any choices until I have a chance to work this out for myself."

It wasn't remotely what Angel wanted to hear, but he recognized that stubborn set to her jaw even in the reflected glow of lightning.

"All right, I'll go," he conceded.  "I said I would after I told you what I needed to.  I still hope..."

"I know what you're hoping," she said quickly, glancing over her shoulder at the front door.  Her caution cost her a glimpse of Angel's face, however, as he responded to her words.

"I wish I believed that," he murmured. 

* * * * *

She had spun around at the sound of his voice, knowing what she would see, and knowing what it really was, and yet still unable to resist seeing the evidence of her eyes.

"No," Faith protested before she could stop herself.  "You're not going to play mind games with me looking like him."

Mayor Richard Wilkins smiled genially at her the way he had so many times in the old days, the way he looked the last time she saw him.  It gave Faith an almost physical pain to see him like that, after all the times she had imagined his body in charred chunks spread across the ruins of the library floor. 

"What has my Faithie so upset?" he asked, paternal affection coloring every syllable.  "Are those naughty friends of Buffy's calling you names again?  You know they're just jealous because you're the special one."

"You're not him," she said steadily, and tried to believe it.  He... It... looked so much like the Mayor; she had an overwhelming urge to reach out and touch him, just to reassure herself this was all an illusion.  "He's dead and in about a hundred pieces."

"Thousands," the mayor cheerfully corrected her.  "I was much bigger at the end... but you didn't get to see me then, did you?  You were already in a coma, thanks to that nasty Buffy girl and her boyfriend who refused to die."  He shook his head and tisk-tisked at the ill-mannered pair. 

"I am not doing this," Faith announced.  She raised her arms and slashed them in front of her face to wipe away the very sight of him, realizing as she did so that she had left Buffy's house without any weapons.  "I don't have to defend myself to you, and I'm sure as shit not going to defend him."

A frown dimmed pseudo-Mayor Jenkin's bright expression.  "Don't you care for me at all anymore, Faith?  Has she poisoned my best girl against me at last?"

Faith forced herself to turn away, even though it made her skin crawl to put her back to the First.  Despite the intervening years, and all she had learned from Angel about good and evil and the shaded spaces in between, she still couldn't shake the memory of the mayor's kindness to her.  She knew now that it was at least in part because he wanted something from her, but that knowledge couldn't erase history.  He had been the first one to ever truly take care of her; even her mother had required more attention than she had given out in return.  For all his faults... for all his genocidal megalomaniacal faults... he had been supportive and nurturing and giving, and she could never repay him for that.

"Faith!  Faith, where are you?"

She could hear the voices in the distance, calling her name.  Wesley was one; she'd know that accent anywhere.  The other wasn't immediately recognizable, though after a repetition or two she realized it was Gunn.  

"Hmm."  The mayor cocked his head to the side, or at least so Faith assumed.  She still wouldn't look at him, but she knew what the real mayor would have done, and this demon had the impersonation down to an art form.  "I don't hear Angel's voice, do you?"

She hadn't, but she didn't answer anyway.  He didn't need any more ammunition.

"Wouldn't you think he'd come after you too?" Mayor Wilkins continued in the same quiet, reasonable voice she remembered so well.  "He sent Wesley and Gunn, so he must want you back for some reason or another.  But wouldn't you think if he was really so very concerned about you that he'd come himself?"

"He doesn't have... he doesn't need to... I'm not talking to you," she finished stiffly.

"I guess he's busy," the mayor mused.  "I mean you left him at Buffy's house.  Why would he leave her just because you ran off?  So there's a mad killer on the loose, and you're out here all alone and emotionally vulnerable.  That hardly stacks up to a few minutes alone with Buffy, now does it?"

Wesley's voice was coming closer.  "Faith, answer me please!"

Unbidden, a picture formed in Faith's mind.  Angel and Buffy in Buffy's house.  They'd sent the rest of the troops off to find her... they'd sent every last person off to find her... and now, at last, they were alone the way they always wanted to be.  They didn't need her; neither of them ever had.  She was the extra slayer, the spare part in case the real slayer broke again.  They all felt that way, not just Buffy and Angel.    Giles, Wesley, Willow, Xander... the whole world saw her as the Vice President of Slaying. 

"You need to show them, Faith."  The mayor's voice had dropped to a near-whisper, the way it sounded in the back of her mind every time she got lonely or afraid.  "You need to remind them who the real slayer is.  Buffy died," he said, dismissing her existence with two short words.  "She died and then Kendra died and then it was your turn, except Little Miss I-Want-To-Be-A-Slayer-And-Have-A-Normal-Life-Too couldn't give up the crown.  Make her give it up now, Faithie.  Show her... show them all who the real slayer is."

"Faith!" Wesley exclaimed as he trotted into sight.  "There are police all around; you really shouldn't be out here."

"Yeah, and you shouldn't have been shouting her name like she was late for dinner, English.  Just how dumb are these Sunnydale cops supposed to be?" 

The Watcher ignored Gunn, focusing his attention on Faith.  "Why didn't you answer?"

Wesley, Faith realized, was talking to her and only her, as though he'd found her alone.  Without even turning around she knew the mayor had vanished.  But still she needed to see for herself that the space behind her was empty.

Because in her head a voice still whispered, and she no longer knew if it was the First's...or her own.

* * * * *

Xander watched Buffy's Explorer pull out if the driveway and head down the street before he turned back to his old friend.

"You lied to him, didn't you?"

"I had to," she said defensively.  "You opened your big mouth and got him suspicious - what else was I supposed to do?"

"Oh, well, you could have... gee, you could've been honest," he suggested.  "I thought part of the whole 'Angel and I are meant for each other' speech had to do with being able to tell him anything."

His sarcasm cut her like a knife, mostly because it was based in fact.  She wanted to believe she could tell Angel anything, and that she had always been able to.  She'd shared more of herself with him than anyone else - that much she could truthfully say. 

But even back when they were together and she was still fighting her slayer destiny at every turn, Buffy already knew that to trust anyone with all her deepest secrets would be endangering them with the same.  Even Angel was only immortal up to a point.  Literally.

"Not this," she hissed.  "You don't know what he would do!"

"I think I've got a pretty good idea," he countered.  "And frankly I'd like to help.  You know, offer him a cup of blood between rounds, or maybe just hand him the stake."

Ten minutes ago she could have kissed Xander for protecting Angel from Robin, but at this very moment Buffy wanted nothing more than to stomp her feet and scream to the night about how insensitive he was.  How could he have known her for so long, shared so much with her, and yet still understand so little about her?  And how he could think and say the things he did about her relationship with Spike, and still call her his friend? 

"This is none of your business, Xander.  This is my," she stabbed a finger at her chest as she emphasized, "my life.  Don't you have one of your own to mess up?"  She glanced pointedly around the otherwise empty porch.  "I don't see Anya anywhere around here; are you two finally settled on not settling down?"

With a guilty start, Xander remembered Anya and her mysterious, possibly demonic, plans for the evening.  When he got back to Buffy's earlier that night he'd found two messages she left on the pager he'd forgotten to wear, but they were contradictory and confusing, in a typical Anya fashion.  'Get over here, I need you' and 'I'm mad at you.  Don't call me till I call you.'  Where was he supposed to go from there?

The truth was, he was afraid to go anywhere.  Afraid of getting stuck in the middle again, caught between Anya's needs and Buffy's.  He loved both of them, in different ways, but even when they didn't ask him to choose between them he still felt torn.

Unfortunately the irony of the situation escaped him entirely.

"Anya has her own life too," he said defensively.  "She has more going on than demon-hunting, that's all."

Buffy raised an eyebrow.  "Sure, if you count demon-being."

"Who are you?" he asked in dismay.  "I've spent the bloodiest, if not the biggest, chunk of my life with you and now I feel like I'm looking at a stranger.  Or maybe the Buffy Bot come back from cyber-oblivion."

"Who am I?" she snapped.  "I'm the one whose house you're living in, the one whose food you eat every day.  Starting to ring any bells?"

She couldn't believe she'd said that; she couldn't believe she'd even thought it.  Crowded as the house was, it meant the world to her that her friends were standing beside her.  If nothing else, they usually also stood between she and Dawn, bridging the gap Joyce's death had created.

"I try to pay my way, Buff," he said quietly.  "You know I do.  And as for living in your spacious dining room... I'm there for the same reason Willow hasn't left yet.  Do you really think it's easy for her to live in the house where Tara died?  But she loves you, just like I do."  He leaned forward, as though closing the physical gap between them could narrow the emotional one as well.  "And she's just as scared for you as I am."

There were actually tears in Xander's eye.  Buffy could see them, but she almost couldn't believe them.  Xander was too strong to cry; he found his way out using jokes and laughter.  Only Buffy was weak enough to need to cry over things that couldn't be helped.

"Well stop!" she burst out.  "I mean... I don't mean move out kind of 'stop'... but I'm a big girl and I know what I'm doing.  With Angel... and with Spike.  I know them better than you do, Xander, way better.  And I know what I'm doing."

"So you know you're driving everyone away, even Willow?  Even Giles?"

"Giles is doing his duty," she said quietly.  She tried to keep the bitterness from her voice... after all these months of half-truths and hidden motivations it should have been easy... but some crept out around the edges of her tired voice.  "He's rounding up potential slayers like a sheep dog with an attendance sheet.  He doesn't need me to keep him away."

He didn't need an explanation either, a rebellious voice grumbled in her ear.  He shouldn't anyway, after all the times he was completely astonished by Joyce's capacity for denial.  But put the fib on the other foot and Giles was as clueless as Harmony in a physics class.

"He needs you to say you need him," Xander explained, interrupting her inner diatribe.  "He needs what we all need – just some kind of feeling that you think we're here for more than just decoration."

Things had gone too far, much further than she had intended.  Buffy knew this was Xander's way, hiding behind jokes and holding everything inside for as long as he could.  Then when he finally let it all loose, he pushed and pushed until she had to push back or die. 

But there was still time to take a step back, away from all this messy and dangerous emotionalism, before someone got hurt.

"But you're so very decorative, Xander," she purred. 

Buffy was smiling coquettishly at him, the way Xander would have literally killed to see her do just a few short years ago.  All the smile raised in him now, though, was a deep sadness at the effort it obviously took her to summon it.

"It's all the egg on my face," he said quietly.  Slowly, painfully, he straightened up.  "Yellow always brightens up a room."

"Xander..."

She reached out to him then, but it was too late.  He took a step sideways to avoid her hand and then skirted around her chair, remaining carefully out of reach. 

"I'm gonna go in now and try to spread my happiness around," he mumbled.  "That's why I'm here, right?  Xander the human joke machine, able to quip a demon to death at 50 paces.  You gotta go with your strengths."

* * * * *

Wesley strode into the Great Hall close on Faith's heels.  The Slayer had been uncharacteristically silent on the trip back to the mansion, but he had not been so foolish as to believe that indicated any peace of mind.  When she slid out of the car before he'd even brought it to a complete stop, he knew he had his work cut out for him.

"Faith, wait!" he called.  "I need to talk to you, and so does Angel."

She paused in her flight, one foot raised over the first riser of the staircase, but she didn't turn to look at him.   "Angel missed the bus, Wes."

"He had something he needed to do," the Watcher replied evasively.  "But he said he needed to speak with you when he gets here."

Faith turned, slowly and deliberately, until she was looking him straight in the eye.  "After he gets finished building Buffy back up, you mean."  She shook her head and forced a chuckle from her dry throat.  "Poor Angel.  Here he thinks his destiny is the destruction of evil and instead he's in charge of the reconstruction of ego."

"Are you referring to Buffy's or your own?" Wesley asked dryly.

"Hey, I've got no problem with him playing doctor with B, whatever boo-boo she thinks needs kissing now."  She crossed her arms over her chest, not realizing how vulnerable she suddenly appeared to Wesley.  "But I'm not waiting up for him to finish the physical."

"I wouldn't," Gunn advised as he walked in the door.  "Looks to me like the man is going to be putting in some serious overtime."

She seized the diversion with deep gratitude.  If they could shift the conversation over to Angel's love life, or better yet, Gunn's, she could ease herself out without sending up any warning flags.

"The glory of love, pal.  You wanna play, you gotta pay."

Gunn made a show of rifling through his pants pockets, ultimately pulling out his hands and holding them out towards Faith, empty palms facing up.

"No wonder I'm always broke."

"If you please, Faith." 

Wesley's sharp voice cut through their banter, reminding Gunn, if not Faith, that not everyone was lucky enough to have a loved one to fight with.  Gunn quickly excused himself and headed upstairs to find out how much trouble he was in with Fred.  Faith remained poised at the foot of the staircase, one hand on the banister.

"Jeeze, Wes, we were just talking," she complained.  She was not going down without a fight.  "Gunn told me Angelus killed your lady lawyer, and I'm really sorry about that, but..."

"This has nothing to do with Lilah," he answered sharply.  "And I would appreciate it if you didn't mention her again."  Wesley stopped to draw a shuddering breath; he was truly surprised at how angry Faith's casual mention of Lilah's death had upset him.  To cover his unexpected revelation, he added, "At the very least, don't say anything until Angel has regained his memory.  He still has no idea what Angelus did."

"Hey, I actually am sorry.  Honest.  I didn't realize you two were that close.  I mean nobody said..."

"I believe I just asked you to stop talking about her." 

His tone was arctic this time, leaving Faith in no doubt that she had overstepped bounds in her attempt to escape a lecture. 

"Oh... yeah.  Sorry." 

Faith subsided into a rare, embarrassed silence, a situation Wesley decided to use to his advantage.

"I think you and I have a few things to discuss while we wait for Angel."  He waved at the couches by the fireplace.  "Please, Faith.  Spare me a few minutes and I think I can make things a little easier for you."

"I thought Willow was the Abracadabra Kid," she scoffed, recovering some of her customary bravado. 

Inwardly Wesley sighed, but he carefully kept all expressions of impatience from his face and voice.  In some ways Faith had been easier to deal with during her psychotic episodes – at least then she'd known exactly what she was looking for out of life. 

"This has nothing to do with magic," he assured her.  "It has to do with a lifetime of studying slayer history."

"Oh, I've been off book for years now, Wes." 

But even as she protested, Faith was drifting towards the fireplace.  If Wesley had anything in his Watcher's songbook that might wipe away some of the old, bad feelings, she was going to go for it.

* * * * *

Willow didn't see Buffy standing on the porch as she and Kennedy approached; she was trying too hard to listen to her lover to have any attention to spare.  The younger girl had been chattering nervously almost non-stop since Willow had placed the 911 call, and Willow was beginning to wonder if there was a word in the English language Kennedy hadn't tried on for size.  It should have been irritating, but it wasn't.  Willow was willing to seize any distraction from her own thoughts that she could get.

"Hey," Buffy called softly when the couple started up the steps.

"Buffy," Willow responded in surprise.  "What are you doing out here?"

"Waiting up, Mom?" Kennedy teased.  She would have said more, but Willow's elbow in her ribs was a hint she couldn't miss.

Buffy shuffled her feet and ran a hand through her hair, groping for words that had once come so easily to her.  Xander's abrupt departure... departures... had made her desperate to salvage something from the night and from the mess that was her life.  Dangerous as it was, she needed to rescue some fraction of who she once was from the carnage and preserve it, in case she ever found her way out of the tunnel. But it was so hard, so very much harder than she remembered.

When had she lost the ability to just say she cared?

"I, uh, just wanted to see how things went.  With the police and all.  Did they... did they believe you?  About Rona, I mean."

Willow and Kennedy shared a questioning glance before Willow answered her.  "It was fine.  Okay, that is; it was okay.  They... they believed what we told them."

"Well some of it was true," Kennedy said.  She leaned up against the railing, ready to keep on talking all night if she had to, if it would help to keep the mental image of Rona laying lifelessly in a dark alley from her head.  "We said we were out for a walk... and we were.  We just didn't say we were trying to find demons to wail on while we were out there."

"I'm really sorry you guys had to go through that.  I wish..." Buffy struggled to put the wishes she could share into words, but the best she could come up with was, "I wish I hadn't let Faith near any of these girls.  It was a big mistake."

"Buffy, don't."  Willow quickly climbed the porch steps and approached her best friend, hoping that Buffy wouldn't pull away the way she had so many times in the past few years.  "It wasn't your fault.  I don't even think it was really Faith's fault, though you know I'd love to be able to say it was.  Boy would I love that.  I mean really."

She smiled teasingly at Buffy, trying to lighten her best friend's load with a reminder of the experiences they had survived together.  But neither the slayer nor the woman in Buffy was ready to accept comfort.

"It was her fault," Buffy insisted.  "Mine too.  She can't be trusted."  The slayer balled her right hand into a fist as she clung desperately to the porch railing with her left.  "I don't know why I let Angel convince me that she could."

Willow smiled ruefully.  If Buffy had inherited one thing from Joyce, it was her gift for ignoring the obvious.

"I know why."

"It's basically a 'duh'," Kennedy agreed.  "He does puppy eyes, cue the violins and watch Buffy turn into a puddle of slayer slush."

Willow turned to her girlfriend and dragged her up the last step onto the porch.  "Kennedy, why don't you go upstairs?" she suggested, in a tone that said this was not really a suggestion.  "It's really late."

Kennedy wanted to argue the point, or argue any point that would keep her from having a moment to herself to think.  But she'd known Willow long enough to pick up certain signs, and right now the witch was flashing a bright red neon one that said 'You're not helping.'

"Yeah, it is sort of late," the SIT said instead.  "And it's been a big... umm, it's been a really... it's night.  And it's late at night. So goodnight."

By unspoken agreement, Willow and Buffy didn't say another word until they heard Kennedy's footsteps on the stairs inside.  Then, as one, they moved to the steps and sat down.

"So it was really okay?" Buffy finally asked.  "I know how hard it can be, trying to tell what you know without actually telling what you know.  We want this guy... or this thing... caught, but we can't let anyone else get hurt doing it, so..."

"I get it, Buffy," Willow interrupted.  "We were careful, I swear.  We told them everything we could, which wasn't much, and then we played dumb."  She shrugged.  "Maybe I have an inner blonde or something, because they bought it."

"Hey!" the Slayer exclaimed, playfully punching her friend's arm.  "I have a very hard time playing dumb, I'll have you know."

Willow abruptly sobered.  "I do know," she said softly.

Buffy sensed the conversation was veering into her personal life and choices, as so many conversations with Willow and Xander tended to do.  This time, though, she intended to stop it before it even got started.

"I won't let Faith near the girls again, I swear.  No matter what Angel says, or how high he turns up the wattage on those baby browns I won't..."

"Buffy, just stop it!" Willow burst out.  "Stop talking about Faith like this is all about her, because it's not.  It's about Rona."

"Not you too," Buffy said in disbelief.  She thought that if there was one person she could trust to be on her side... at least one she hadn't already pushed away or insulted yet tonight... it was Willow.  "Listen, I didn't wait here to get another interpretation of the riot act."

"Then why did you wait up?" Willow challenged her.

"I was worried about you," Buffy said awkwardly.  "I thought... I thought maybe you'd want to talk.  And maybe, even as close as you and Kennedy have become, that she wasn't someone who could really understand yet, because she hasn't seen what we've seen."

It was the most honest and open thing Willow had heard Buffy say in a very long time, and it left her almost afraid to answer for fear of spoiling the moment. 

"That's really sweet," she said softly.  "Thank you."

Buffy reached out and impulsively grabbed Willow's hand.  She half expected her friend to withdraw, as Xander had earlier, but somehow she must have said or done the right thing this time because Willow stayed right beside her.

"I just want you to know I'm here," Buffy said.  "In case you need me to be."

Willow looked off into the distance.  "I kind of do," she admitted, almost under her breath.  "I've been trying to avoid something all night, and I can try to keep on avoiding it but sooner or later I'm going to have to go up to my room and she'll be there and I won't be able to avoid it anymore."  She sighed.  "I won't be able to avoid her anymore."

"Willow, what are you talking about?"  Buffy gripped her friend's hand tighter as she leaned forward to peer into Willow's face.  "Why would you want to avoid Kennedy?  You do mean Kennedy, don't you?"

Willow nodded, her face a study in quiet misery.  "That's exactly who I mean, and I'm just the most horrible person on earth because of it."

"You are not," Buffy said indignantly.

"Yes, I am.  I should be so happy that she's up there waiting for me.  That someone... anyone... is up there waiting for me.  I mean Rona died tonight and it could just as easily have been Kennedy and I should be so grateful that it wasn't.  I am," she added hastily, suddenly realizing her words had come out wrong.  "I don't want Kennedy to be dead any more than I wanted Rona to be dead.  I just..." she sighed, "I realized I just don't really want it any less either."

"Okay now the blonde must be getting the best of me," Buffy complained, "because color me confused."

"I want Kennedy to be alive," Willow explained slowly, feeling her way through the emotions.  "I want her to be alive and happy and healthy and... and just to be, I guess.  But it's not going to break me if she isn't.  If that had been her tonight instead of Rona, I would have cried.  And I would have hurt.  But I wouldn't have been empty... not like I was when Tara..."

"When Tara died," Buffy finished for her.  She realized in a flash what Willow was trying to say, because she'd felt it herself when Riley's chip had started to malfunction.  She'd been afraid of losing him, and she had hurt for all the things he would miss if he died so young, but she never thought she would die if he did.  Not the way she'd felt that lost lonely summer in LA after she sent Angel to hell.

"I care about Kennedy," Willow whispered.  "She's fun, and she's had all these experiences I've never had and seen all these things and places I might never get to see.  She makes me happy like I thought I wouldn't ever be again.  But she doesn't... complete me."  Her gaze dropped to the wooden step beneath her sneakered feet.  "I thought it didn't matter, when I let myself think it at all.  But tonight, thinking about all the stuff that could happen in the next few weeks, and thinking about all the stuff that's happened so far... I realized I don't want to settle."

In Buffy's experience, settling was almost worse than being alone.  Almost.  Still, while Kennedy wasn't anything like a female version of Parker Abrams, Buffy couldn't quite rate her at Riley levels either.  Willow might just be better off waiting for a second chance at "the real thing," even if she never did come along.

"You shouldn't have to settle.  Life's too short, right?"  Buffy resolutely closed her mind to the dark days when that idea had not seemed so bad.  "Especially when you hang with slayers."

"I don't know if I'll ever fall in love again like I was with Tara, but maybe I'm not supposed to.  Maybe it's supposed to be different."  Willow raised her head to look squarely at Buffy, even as she was looking squarely at herself for the first time in months.  "I'm just never going to find out if I don't take the chance."

"And Kennedy's not that chance?"

Willow thought about it for a long moment, in a way she hadn't allowed herself to do until now.

"No," she said finally.  "Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe I should give it more time to see, but..."

"It won't change," Buffy assured her, wishing she hadn't had the experiences to back up her statement.  "I think maybe love can grow when you're not looking, but when you look back you realize it was always there underneath, that little spark.  But you've had something happen tonight that should have lit up that little spark like a firecracker and..." she snapped her fingers, "nothing."

"Nada," Willow agreed sadly. 

Buffy impulsively leaned over and wrapped her arms around Willow, giving her friend the hug she so obviously needed.  Willow was surprised, but grateful.

"I'm sorry, Wills.  I really wanted things to work out for you this time." 

"I'll be okay," Willow mumbled into the Slayer's hair.  "I've still got school, and Xander and Dawnie... and you."

Buffy heard the slight hesitancy over her inclusion in that short list and she pulled back to look her best friend in the eye as she reassured her.  She hadn't reached out to Xander in time, and she couldn't let herself even try to reach Angel, but she wasn't going to let the chance slip away with Willow too.

"You do, you know.  Have me.  I may not always seem all there, but I'm still here, right here, when you need me."

Willow smiled quietly.  Despite the horror of the evening and the tearful confrontation that still lay ahead, she had her best friend back, in a way she hadn't felt since long before Buffy died.  They were connecting like they used to, and that made up for so much of the connections she had lost or imagined she ever had.

"Yeah, I guess you are.  Thanks."

"So you're going to tell her tonight?"

"I guess I should," Willow answered after a pause to consider the question.  "I mean it's probably wrong not to.  But maybe this isn't the time, not when we're staying in the same house and she can't afford to be distracted because even focused full-fledged slayers can die so who knows what will happen to a potential..."

"Will, breathe," Buffy instructed. 

Willow took a long gulp of air, and then another as she tried to push away the ghosts her words had summoned.  Kennedy wasn't Buffy, not even close, and this wasn't anything like history repeating itself.  But a few words from Anya voiced in the aftershock of Buffy's death, had given birth to a tiny disloyal voice Willow had never been able to completely silence. 

Buffy's mother was dead and her father might as well have been for all the interest he took in his daughters.  Angel was gone from her life, supposedly for her good, and Riley had left admittedly for his own.  Her college experience ended almost before it began and her career as a slayer gave her nothing to look forward to but dying, in the next battle if not in this one.  Was it really such a surprise that when Buffy decided to do 'anything' to protect Dawn from Glory, death wasn't the worst 'anything' she could think of?

Then the moon broke free of the clouds, giving her a glimpse of Buffy's worried hazel eyes, and Willow knew she could never explain her fears to Buffy.  Whatever her reasons had been for taking that final step off Glory's tower, the Slayer would never let herself share any more of them than she already had.  Moreover, she would be deeply hurt if she knew Willow had suspicions of her own. 

"Sorry," Willow apologized with a little laugh she'd dragged out to cover her fears.  "I've never really been the dumper before; it's kind of scary."

Buffy had a brief, ugly flash of memory, of slimy bubble bath gel greasing the soles of her feet and a choking haze of perfumed talcum powder and a ringing in her ears that couldn't drown out his voice.

//Let it go.  Let yourself love me.//

She shook off the instant replay with effort, and not a little fear.  She hadn't allowed that memory to surface in months, taking pride in the way she kept it locked in the smallest corner of her mind where it couldn't hurt or hinder her.  Now when she could least afford it, something, or rather someone had shaken it loose.

"Yeah," she replied hoarsely, "scary."

* * * * *

Angel tried to be quiet when he walked into the Great Hall, but the wind grabbed the door from his hands before he could stop it and slammed it against the wall.  He caught it on the backswing and gently closed it, muttering an apology over his shoulder.

"It's quite all right," Wesley called from in front of the fire.  "Cordelia might be asleep, but everyone else has been roaming the halls like Lady MacBeth in search of a hand towel."

Angel shot a quick guilty glance at the stairs leading to the second floor.  "Is Faith still up?  You did find her, right?"

"Of course.  We'd still be out looking if we hadn't."  Wesley looked him up and down, taking in Angel's uncharacteristically nervous gestures and the anxious tone in his voice.  "Speaking of, why aren't you out looking for us?"

The vampire shrugged, using the gesture as both an expression and a way to slide off his duster.  "I thought I'd try here first."

"Good heavens, have you been talking to Buffy all this time?  You must have gotten further with her than I expected."  Much further, really, since Wesley had expected Buffy to put either a door or a fist in Angel's face after the first five minutes.

"Not far enough," Angel muttered. 

He started to come further into the room and then hesitated, staring up at the staircase as he weighed the benefits of confronting Faith now when the memories were fresh against the advantage of allowing her to gain perspective overnight.  In the end time won out and he crossed the room to join Wesley by the fireplace. 

"Actually I spent part of the time giving Buffy's boss a ride home."  He grimaced at the memory of the brief but exceedingly chilly ride.  "And wasn't that a treat?  That guy really, really doesn't like me."

"Are you sure you're not just feeling a little... insecure, perhaps?" Wesley asked gently.  "After having to witness her behavior around Spike, it's possible that you're..."

"It's not that," Angel interrupted.  "I mean maybe it would be if I thought she was interested too, but...it's not that," he finished with an emphatic shake of his dark head.  "He doesn't like me.  Period, end of story.

"Then why on earth did you give him a lift?"  Another puzzle quickly shot through Wesley's brain.  "And how?"

Angel sat down on the couch with a sigh he tried to disguise as a yawn.  He didn't know why his car-related concession bothered him so much; it wasn't the latest in his list of failed negotiations, and it certainly wasn't the largest.  It was just the most pathetic.

"Buffy lent me her car.  She's coming by tomorrow morning... make that this morning... to pick it up."

Wesley immediately brightened; perhaps things were turning around in his favor after all.

"Is she?  That will make things much easier."

"Excuse me?"

"I need to talk to her," Wesley explained.  "I'm not doing terribly well at it these days, but maybe with enough practice I'll get it right.  Or," he sighed, "perhaps not."

"I hear you," Angel said fervently.  His own recent experiences as a counselor were making him long for the days when people just repressed and moved on.  "So how is Faith?  Did you manage to get through to her?"

"Somewhat."  Wesley shifted uncomfortably on the sofa.  "I did convince her that no one could seriously believe she killed that girl..."

"Rona," Angel prompted.  Every time someone called her 'that girl' it gave him a sick feeling, almost like a premonition, that someday Connor's broken lifeless body would be referred to just as casually.

"Rona, yes.  I reminded her that she was in the company of the two other girls the entire time they were looking for Rona, and Anya was also with them when Rona actually went missing."

"So then she's okay."  Angel relaxed for the first time in what seemed like days, although the emotion was to be short-lived.

"If you can envision a time when that description legitimately applies to Faith, you've a better imagination than I gave you credit for.  She still blames herself for the girl's death, and seriously resents the fact that she blames herself."

The vampire was up and on the move again, ranging back and forth in front of the fire as he tried to work out a solution.  There had to be a space for Faith somewhere between crippling guilt and criminal negligence.

"I want her to feel responsible for those girls," he explained.  "It's not fair that it all falls on Buffy.  But Faith doesn't do well with guilt; she never has."

Wesley laughed sharply, one hand rising to massage the collarbone that had never healed properly.

"I remember."

"What else did you say to her?"

The Watcher turned his head, carefully avoiding any connection with Angel's penetrating gaze.  "I... I'd rather not say," he replied cautiously.  "First I want to see if it has any more effect on Buffy than it did on Faith."

Angel stopped short in surprise.  "You're going to try the same speech on Buffy that you did on Faith?"

"It's not a speech," Wesley protested.  "It is an observation, based on years of careful study.  And I believe it applies equally to both of them, though for different reasons."

"Oh this I've got to hear." 

"After," Wesley promised.  "I'm hoping Buffy in particular will take it to heart.  For Faith I found it an offer of hope, but for Buffy..." He paused and then plunged ahead, "for Buffy it's more of a warning.  One I hope she will heed before it's too late."

"Now you have to tell me."  All traces of mockery had vanished from Angel's voice, leaving only the ragged undertones.

A moment too late, Wesley could see where his friend's mind had leaped and why.  "It's not that kind of warning," he quickly reassured Angel.  "I haven't read any prophecies or spoken to any emissaries from the other side.  It's just a warning about the path she has chosen and where it may lead."

Angel wasn't happy with Wesley's evasions, but he could tell he wasn't going to get anything more out of the Watcher without the application of brute force.  He had to place his faith in Wesley and the fragile trust being rebuilt between them, though his heart was screaming against it.

"Buffy doesn't like warnings," he said, wearily sinking back down onto the sofa.  "Of course she's not too wild about surprises either."

"Where, pray tell, is the middle ground?"

"Nowhere in Sunnydale," the vampire replied grimly.

* * * * *

Faith tossed and turned in her bed, and finally gave up sleep altogether to begin pacing the length of her room.  It was considerably larger, and much better furnished than her cell, but it still gave her the feeling of being trapped.

Angel was downstairs; she'd heard the door bang when he came in, and she knew none of the mansion's other occupants were still abroad.  She could go downstairs and face him, dealing with the fact that she had not only disappointed him with her failure, but then allowed it to become a source of contention between he and Buffy.  She could... but she really didn't want to.

Maybe there was something to all that junk Wesley had thrown at her after all.  It certainly wasn't any state secret that she wasn't used to being responsible for people; even when she became a slayer she'd known that there was someone else there if she screwed up.  So slayers weren't supposed to make good leaders - big deal.  She'd always figured she didn't have to be any kind of leader, good or bad.  That was B's job. 

Now, though, there were a bunch of girls... Ghosts of Slayers Yet to Be... who needed someone to show them the way, and even B wasn't up to the challenge anymore.  Except Angel thought they both were, and even if he thought he was more in the owing column when it came to Buffy, Faith was still way in his debt.  She owed him more than her best for all that he'd done for her, and she was going to pay him back if it killed her.  Or the SITs.  Or possibly him. 

Starting tomorrow.

That decided, Faith crawled back into bed and closed her eyes, sure she would be able to sleep now.  All she had to do was make the Mayor shut up.  Sad to say, she couldn't even blame the First this time, not really.  The Mayor was nowhere in sight, only in sound, chirping away in her head about all the wasted time Angel spent comforting Buffy when he could have been helping her find the killer and clear her name.  Buffy had friends and family around her dying to help and she could care less, Mayor Wilkins murmured, while Faith had only Angel and she didn't even really have him once Buffy walked into the room, or called on the phone, or was mentioned by someone in casual conversation.

Faith hated little voices in her head, and she hated it even more when she was pretty sure they were right.

* * * * *

The fire had burned low, and dawn was uncomfortably close when Angel and Wesley finished planning the next few nights of patrolling.  They would have to be even more careful now as they sought out demons who might lead them to the First, in order to avoid all contact with the police as they investigated Rona's murder.  And, of course, there was also the killer to be contended with, and the possibility that Rona had not been the only one targeted.  It all made for a long night, and it was with mutual relief that the men rose at last to head up for a well-earned rest.

"Good, then we're all set."  Wesley started towards the staircase, trying not to stumble in his weariness.  "In the morning, which is to say now, we'll..."

"Damn!"  Angel snapped his fingers.  "Sorry, Wes, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I just realized I never got the chance to ask Faith about the phone call.  I'll have to corner her tomorrow."

Wesley turned back to face Angel, forcing his face into an expression of polite curiosity although he wanted nothing more than to crawl into his nice quiet bed and not come out until the apocalypse after next. 

"What phone call?"

"The one she... never mind."  Angel ran his hand through his hair and blew an impatient sigh that somehow turned into a soft growl.  "What a mess this night has been.  That poor... Rona... and now Faith... and that principal." 

He growled on the last word, causing Wesley's lips to twitch in a ghost of a smile.

"He really got to you, didn't he?  What did he say?"

Angel reflected unhappily on Robin's childhood reminiscences, but he didn't feel up to sharing them, at least not yet.

"It wasn't what he said...," the vampire hedged.  "Well, yes it was, but he's entitled.  I mean he has no reason to like or trust me."  Honesty made him add, "Actually he's got even less reason than he knows."

There were few things Wesley enjoyed more than a good mystery, even in his current state of exhaustion.  "Now you have my attention.  Do tell."

Angel waved away his request impatiently.  "Later.  The point is: he's entitled."  He resumed his restless pacing, trying to turn his back literally and figuratively on the memories Robin had stirred up.  "But I still don't like him."

Wesley was definitely curious now, but he could tell he would learn no more from Angel on this score tonight.  With regret he abandoned the promising segue and headed straight for what he believed to be the root of Angel's problem.

"You very carefully avoided the subject earlier, but I take it Buffy didn't want to hear what you had to say."

Angel shot him a sharp look, which Wesley met with a blandly innocent smile that didn't fool the vampire for an instant.

"No," he admitted, "the only thing she wanted to hear from me was the word 'goodbye'."

"Is it anything I need to know?"

Angel wanted to share the burden with Wesley, but he couldn't.  It wasn't that he believed Buffy had been telling the truth and there was no problem; he just couldn't betray her secrets like that.  Particularly secrets she wouldn't even share with him.  The best he could manage was a half-truth to serve as warning.

"Nothing except that Spike is as dangerous with a soul as without."

The Watcher smiled tightly.  "Allow me to rephrase the question.  Is there anything I need to know that I don't already?"

"Hallelujah!"  Angel walked in a small circle, hands raised in homage to the power that gifted him with a friend who knew the truth.  "So you do see it?" 

"Of course."

Angel was gratified to see that Wesley actually appeared surprised by the question.  "Of course," he echoed the Watcher.  "Of course you do, and so do I.  I'm pretty sure Gunn sees..."

"Oh yes," Wesley broke in to assure him, thinking back on Gunn's earlier comment about garbage.

"I know Xander sees it," Angel continued in a voice that radiated certainty.  "And that principal.  And Lorne.  It must be a guy thing."  He stopped abruptly as an ugly thought occurred to him, a chance that there was one who might not see the truth because it painted Angel in a kinder light by comparison.  "Oh God, do you think Connor sees it?  Because Spike could really do a number on him if..."

"I will take care of it," Wesley said quickly.  "I won't let him poison Connor against you."

"More against me," Connor's father grimly corrected him.  "We have enough infighting going on already; we don't need to start working on the Greek tragedies again."

"No," Wesley agreed with deep regret.  "We have quite enough home-grown ones."

* * * * *

Buffy didn't fall asleep until almost dawn, too caught up in cataloguing the various battlefields her life had become.  But when sleep finally claimed her it was worth it; she had the green dream again. 

Buffy had only had the dream a few times, beginning after she'd been forcibly removed from Heaven, but being in the dream was almost like being back in Paradise.  The grass was an impossibly green shade of green, not one but two suns shone up in the sky... and Angel was with her.  A boyish, happy, sunlit Angel.

The dream never lasted long, at least not long enough.  They held each other and talked and kissed... and then it was always over and she was alone. 

This time, though, before reality claimed her she caught a glimpse of other people on the borders of her dreamscape.  It was a surprise, but not so much as when she realized that she had seen them before, both in the dreams and in her waking hours.  Wesley was a weird, and frankly disturbing, addition to her cast of dream characters, but at least she could understand why she knew what he looked like.  It was harder to explain the others, though; she was almost certain it was the shock that spun her from her lover's arms and sent her reeling into dizzying consciousness.

Why hadn't she remembered that Gunn and Fred had been in her dreams all along?  And how had she known exactly what they looked like long before they ever met?

* * * * *

The morning left Buffy little time to ponder her dream or its implications.  She had to hurry through her usual routine at double speed in order to allow time to run over to the mansion to retrieve her car.  Fortunately Willow didn't have classes until 11, and Andrew seemed to be channeling something other than Radio-Free Warren for the moment, so her kitchen duties could be easily reassigned.  Less simple to avoid were Xander's lingering distance, and the coolness of some of the SITs.  Some of them only spoke when spoken to, others tried too hard to be sociable and others didn't show for breakfast at all. 

Buffy tried not to take it to heart, but it hurt to feel the change in the air.  She told herself it was only temporary, that it just started last night so it couldn't run very deep or last very long.  But every time she saw Xander's glance slide away from her to stare at a raised spot on the wallpaper, she had the sinking sensation that emotions had been bubbling beneath everyone's surface for a very long time and only now was she seeing the blisters. 

She escaped the house with regrettable relief, although she was equally uneasy about what kind of reception she would receive at the mansion.

* * * * *

Normally Buffy would have tagged Cordy as the queen of late sleepers, but as it turned out her old rival was the only one up and about when she arrived.  Despite the fact that a groggy Cordy was a pleasanter Cordy, she still wasn't exactly who Buffy wanted to face at 7:30 in the morning, on a day when she hadn't had time to put on make-up.  It was, however, definitely better than facing Angel.

Or at least that's what Buffy told herself.

She told herself that all day long, as she dealt with her students' problems and found subtle ways to remind Robin of the penalties for inappropriate Angel-ward behavior.  She told herself that through a tense afternoon training session with the SITs and a mostly silent dinner, and she all but shouted it to herself when Angel & Co. showed up after dinner ready for patrol.

"Patrol?" she repeated.  Her voice rang with disbelief.  "Does that word mean something different in Lorne's dimension and you just came over to share that with us?  Because I know it can't mean you actually think I'm going to try the buddy system again."

"Before anyone goes anywhere," Wesley began firmly, "I really need to speak with you Buffy.  I think there's some things you should hear."

"Me too," she said brightly.  "Things like 'see ya' and 'we'll just be going now' and..."

"You can't expect to go out alone," Angel broke in.  "If you didn't need backup before you certainly do now.  It's just not practical to expect to be able to patrol for vampires and hunt down Bringers and avoid police patrols and, lest we forget, avoid a psycho killer."

"Actually I thought I explained the last part – I want to leave her at home."

Buffy knew it was a cheap shot, but she really couldn't work up much guilt over it.  And if it kept Angel angry and away from her, well, that's what she wanted, right?

A moment later she was forced to quash down the little voice in her head that reminded her that getting what she wanted usually resulted in large-scale fatalities.

* * * * *

She threw herself on the wrought iron bench, heaving a deep sigh as the night chill seeped from the metal into her bones.  Alone at last, and this time in body as much as spirit.  Surrounded by people almost every minute of the day, more than ever before in her life, Buffy was nevertheless almost always alone in her heart.  And like tonight, it was always by choice.  She couldn't afford to let anyone in.

"Buffy."

She stiffened at the sound of his soft voice coming from behind her.  He was someone she'd never been very good at keeping at arm's length, because he knew her too well to believe she wanted things that way.

"Okay," she snapped as she turned around on the bench, "now we're verging on the stalking thing again.  I told you once it was a turn-off."

Angel forced himself to remain calm and cool, regardless of the hostility in her voice.  They could talk here, really talk, alone and uninterrupted.  He wasn't about to blow that chance by losing control of his temper.

Or his pride.

"How was I supposed to know that was still on the 'eww' list?  You've obviously changed the rating system or Spike never would have made the cut."

Nothing made her madder than a self-assured vampire, but suddenly her anger seemed too much of an effort to sustain.  She couldn't give in, but maybe she could relax enough to make him see she wasn't in the mood to play the game tonight.

"You know," she said in tones of weary resignation, "I wasn't actually looking for company tonight."

"That's unfortunate," he countered, "because I am." 

She sneaked a sidelong glance at him as he gracefully folded his long form into the contours of the unyielding bench.  In some ways he was much the same man that she had fallen in love with so many years ago, but in other, almost indescribable ways he had changed.  He seemed more confident around people; more comfortable with himself as part of the whole, and this after all the confusion he must be feeling after Angelus' recent return. 

He just seemed more... human, somehow, and the fact that she found that attractive made her feel much better about her recent dance on the dark side of mating rituals.

Which in turn only made her feel that much more frightened about the future.

"So," he said after an uncomfortably long pause, "this is what you do on patrol these days."  He glanced around the dark and silent cemetery.  "It's, uh, much easier than I remember.  Especially on the wardrobe."

She made a face.  "I haven't started patrolling yet.  I was just... enjoying the quiet."

"In a Sunnydale cemetery?"  He raised one dark eyebrow in surprise.  "Things really have changed."

She saw her opportunity and ran with it, suppressing her instant flare of sharp regret.  When he left, he was going to tear a hole in her heart all over again and she knew it.  She also knew she didn't have a choice.

"Yeah, they have.  Which is why you don't belong here."

"Cemetery here or Sunnydale here?" he asked evenly, making no move to leave either.

"Yes.  Both."

"I think you need some new material."

"And I think you could do more good in LA," she said defensively.  "You have your own battles to fight there, and I have mine here and..."

"And sometimes the twain shall meet," he interrupted.  So much for the small talk; time to get down to business.  "Apocalypses don't just affect you, or just Sunnydale, Buffy."

Every instinct told her to keep her mouth shut.  The more she talked to him, the greater the chance that she'd let something slip.  Worse yet, each word would let him deeper into her mind, and her heart.

But some statements just couldn't go unchallenged.

"Hey," she broke in, "before you go all 'It-Takes-a-Village-to-Avert-an-Apocalypse,' do you mind telling me why I was supposed to 911 you, yet you let Angelus loose rather than ask your ex to lend some muscle?"

"The Beast took us by surprise," he admitted.  "Lorne had had some visions... things he pulled out of Cordy's memories from being a higher being..."

Buffy choked out, "A higher what?"

Angel sighed, but decided it would be better to rise above her laughter.  At least she was talking to him now, responding, interacting.  It was a sign of hope, albeit shaded with their traditional pain and conflicting desires. 

"She was called as a higher being for a few months, and then she came back to us."

"Just like that?"

"We're actually not sure how she came back," he said slowly.  "She didn't even know who she was at first, and then when Lorne gave her back her memory, she still didn't know why she was allowed to come back."

Buffy thought back on her encounters with Cordelia the past few days.  She remembered all the times Cordy seemed to be deliberately saying the wrong thing just to stir up trouble... something even the old Queen C seldom bothered with because it detracted attention from her own glorious self.  And then there were the strange silences and those little smiles when she thought no one was looking.  And of course there was the whole thing where she got involved with Angel's son after Fred said she used to be his chief diaper-changer... now that was a weird even a slayer found hard to ignore.  But knowing what she now did, Buffy tried to see Cordy's actions through the eyes of someone also yanked unceremoniously from one plane to another and ordered to adapt.  The resulting picture actually made her a little ill with its familiarity.

"Well that explains a little of the weirdness that is the new Cordy," she mused grimly.  It really grated on her nerves to have something in common with her old enemy.  "Not all, but a little."

"She's fine now."  Angel scoffed at the idea there was anything unusual about Cordelia, other than her possible demon spawn-to-be.  "But she was having visions when she first got her memory back... really ugly visions... and she couldn't piece them together.  Lorne tried, but then Wolfram & Hart stole the visions from him and..."

She waved her hand in a circle, indicating he should speed up.  Whatever empathy she had in her to offer these days she was no longer going to waste on Cordelia.  "Fascinating though this is, can we skip ahead to the part where you decided to throw your soul off a cliff rather than take five minutes to call me?"

"There weren't five minutes to spare.  By the time we knew where the danger was coming from, and how big it really was, the Beast had blotted out the sun and the vampires were roaming free.  We needed to do something immediately."  He cleared his throat, a little embarrassed to admit the whole truth.  "Besides, I kind of figured you'd see the reports on the news if it we didn't stop it right away."

She was overtaken by an immediate need to study the grass in minute detail.  "I did; I was just... busy."  Buffy looked up quickly when she realized her reply might have sounded a little too flip.  "I mean with the First and all.  A serious, work-related, world-in-peril sort of busy."

"And that brings us back to my point," he said gently.  "You've known for months that the First was roaming around, and you know I've already had experience with it.  What I don't know is why you didn't call sooner, at least to warn us."

"I didn't call at all," she snapped.  "That was Willow's decision."

"You've made that painfully clear."

His words were quiet and controlled, but she still knew him well enough to hear the ragged edges under that smooth façade.

"I'm not deliberately trying to hurt you," she said, careful to make her voice as calm and distant as she could manage.  "We have different lives... by your choice, in case you don't remember.  And I think Willow was wrong to pull you out of yours for this.  Like I keep telling you, I can handle it."  She stood up.  "Alone."

Angel stood up as well, his tall frame automatically bending and leaning towards her, to envelop her in the warm shelter of his presence.

"Why should you have to handle it alone?" he asked quietly.  "I'm here; I want to help.  Let me... please."

She fought against the old pull of her body to his, forcing herself to take a few steps to the side to get around him.  "I never asked for your help and I don't want it now.  Go back to LA."

"Buffy, wait." 

Angel reached out and caught her elbow as she slid past him, his only intent to slow her escape so they could talk.  For one blind instant, however, Buffy was only aware of restraint, not the degree of it.  She froze; her mind momentarily wiped blank by the kind of unreasoning terror she was supposed to protect others from.

"Buffy, what is it?"  Angel's voice came from far away, the sudden concern in his tone taking eons to travel the distance between them.  She made one inarticulate sound before she regained control of her voice, and then a combination of anger and humiliation sharpened her tone beyond her own recognition.

"Get your hand off me."

Angel immediately released her arm, raising both hands in the air, palms facing her.  "I'm sorry," he said quickly.  "I didn't mean to..." he mentally flailed around for the word to describe the fury in her voice combined with the frightening rigidity of her body.  "To upset you," he finally settled on.

He knew it; he'd known it from the minute Xander slipped the night before.  He hadn't wanted to believe it, neither that she who was so strong could be so compromised nor that she would lie to protect the one who had made her so.  But it was true; he could tell it from every achingly stiff line of her body.

"I asked you to leave.  I even said it nicely."  She bit off each word as though the next one would refuse creation if it had to exist as part of a whole.  "Then you grab me and try to force me to... like I was..."  she stopped, suddenly choking on the cool clean air.

"I'm sorry," he repeated helplessly to her rigid back.  "I just wanted another chance to talk with you.  I wanted a first one, really; you've been avoiding me since I got here."

"There's nothing to talk..."

"There is," he interrupted.  "You're shutting me out and you won't explain why, except for some garbage about ultimate evil trying to take over the world not being my business."  He stepped around in front of her, careful not to even brush against her as he moved.  "Maybe I can see why you didn't ask me to come, but now that I'm here it doesn't make any sense that you're trying to make me leave.  And I'm not going to until you can show me why this is a fight you have to face on your own."

She had averted her head when he moved around in front of her, but now she turned again to look at him.  She knew that set in his jaw, and the determination in those dark eyes.  Angel was every bit as stubborn as she, more so if he thought he was acting in her best interest.  Having him here was making things even worse than she'd imagined, but she finally had to face the painful truth that in order to get him out of her life she would first have to let him in a little.

"Were you followed?" she asked, surrendering to the inevitable.

Angel's brow wrinkled in confusion.  "Should I have been?"

"Just answer the question: were you followed?"

"No."

"Are you sure?" she pressed.  After all the sacrifices she'd made to pull this plan off, she wasn't going to let it blow up in her face over a bad guess.

"I think I would have noticed," he said confidently.

"That means you're not sure.  Did you tell anyone you were coming after me?  Did anyone see you leave the house?"

Angel was started to get very worried.  She sounded so intense, almost to the point of paranoia.  "I said I was going to get some blood.  I didn't want a lot of advice on whether or not I should chase after you again."

"Agai..." she started to repeat incredulously.  "Never mind," she stopped herself, shaking her head.  "That's something at least.  Meet me on the hill in," she checked her watch, "twenty minutes.  And this time, make sure you're not being followed."

Without another word, she was gone, moving swiftly across the damp grass as Angel stared after her in growing fear.

* * * * *

To Be Continued