Wheee! look everyone, it's another chapter! :D thanks for all the reviews! i feel so luved. :]

um. i was just skimming through chapter nine a while ago. and does jasmine even bloom at nite? it does rite? see, i just kind of write all this nonsense and it hardly ever makes sense. tsk tsk tsk. for shame.

anyways. i dont think there's anything wrong here. hm.

but on a side note: I don't think the chapters will be coming faster than this, especially chapter 12 and beyond because 1) finals are two weeks from now. eeeh! and 2) I originally wrote this before ever signing onto ff.net and that's why the chapters have been faster than they would normally come out.

did that even make sense? even if it makes the kind of sense that doesnt, we're all good.

oh! one more thing. I think there's a line in here from Vanessa Carlton's "Paradise."

- - - - - - - - - -

Chapter 10

Buffy awoke with a gasp, her chest heaving for air like she had just been suffocated, sweat clung to her forehead and she tried to calm her breathing. She rose onto her elbows, turning to see Angel still lying next to her. Good, it was still dark. Her cheeks were stained with salty tears and she could feel the swollen feeling of her eyes. What - why was she crying?

Oh God, the dream. Her dream. She had died. She had seen Angel... seen his heart break in two. Buffy took a deep breath. She just saw herself die. She didn't know whether she was going to break into another sob or laugh at the ridiculous idea because Angel was here and he promised he wouldn't let her go. He'd never let her go.

But then of course Angel was now very mentally unstable and wasn't even in good enough shape to say a complete sentence.

And Buffy sobbed. She felt herself shake with tears. It shook her body as much as her soul and it physically hurt; she didn't know why. Like her body was thrown into a blender and it was now all broken. Angel, she mentally cried, but she knew he would never be able to hear her because he was know blind to the world, he now only knows the inside of his mind... the inside where there is only darkness.

She hadn't brought herself to think of a world without Angel, she couldn't let herself think of a world without Angel. She had already lived it once. The summer spent in the dankest, darkest parts of Los Angeles, the summer just after she sent Angel to hell. It was a world of lost souls and scary memories. It was a world of people without any beliefs or hopes. She had become a lost cause because, without Angel in her world, she wasn't Buffy Summers. Maybe she was still the Slayer, but she wasn't Buffy anymore. The Slayer didn't know how to love, didn't know how to feel or accept it, but Buffy did. And Angel loved Buffy, he even loved the Slayer.

Loved? Loves? Buffy wasn't sure.

((Forever. That's the whole point, I'll never leave.))

And then she felt his gentle hands wrap around her body and, for one blip of a second, it was like she was touching her Angel again. It was like he was holding her again, but reality steals her away and she realizes it's not Angel - it is, but it's not him, but the fact that he knows that she's hurting and he knows - or remembers - that he always held her, makes her heart warm. His arms are loose around her's and she holds him back, crying and crying into his shoulder. "Angel..."

He doesn't say anything. No soft cooing, Buffy couldn't even tell if he was breathing, but it didn't matter because now she knew Angel wasn't completely unfunctional. She could feel him hug her tighter as she clung to his shirt.

She didn't know how long they sat there together. It felt like just minutes, but had turned out to be almost around two hours because the sun was now softly peeking through her closed window. They both hadn't moved since, just crying and holding and feeling. At least Buffy was doing all three. She had broken down multiple times before and Angel still held her.

She wanted to sit there and weep all her troubles away - that would be the easiest way to get rid of everything around her, but she had to call LA. She had to tell everyone else what had happened the night before. She had so much to do. So much to take care of. Dawn. Angel. Glory. Everyone else in this goddamn world. But it was her job. Sacred duty or whatever. Weight of the world, right?

After prying Angel's hands off and letting him sit quietly on her bed, out of reach from the sun's grasp, she closed her door and walked into her bathroom, turning the shower handle so it gave off hot water. Nothing cold, she didn't want cold. Everything these days was cold and nothing felt warm.

Hot.

Soap and water. She felt too dirty and unclean. There was so much on her skin and she wanted to scratch it all off. She scrubbed and scrubbed, but it wouldn't come off. It wasn't coming off. "Get off, get off..." she cried, rubbing the suds along her arms and legs and stomach. There was another sob and she bit her tongue. No, no more crying. She cried too much already. Crying was done. No more. She would be strong, she would be victorious.

Then why did she feel like she was going to lose it?

As darkness quickly steals the light that shines within her eyes...

She sobbed again for what seemed to be the billionth time this morning and she held a hand up to her mouth, trying to make herself physically stop. She leaned herself against the steamy tiles and shut her eyes. No more tears. There would be no more tears. But the more she told herself that, the more she began to cry.

No, just stop it.

The water was starting to get cold and Buffy felt her skin start to shiver. She quickly turned the handles off, stopping it from getting tool chilly. When everything stopped, all she could hear was the small, constant sound of water dripping from the shower head, her hair, her body. Drip, drip, drip. It was never really silent.

Drip, drip, drip.

Slowly, she slid open the shower door and stepped onto the plush carpet. It was soft beneath her foot, so soft; but it quickly became damp and wet.

Another foot. She now stood completely out of the shower, her hair dripping down her back. So cold. She reached for a towel and slowly wrapped it across her body. It too was soft, but soon feeling like the rug beneath her feet - wet and cold. Coldcoldcold. So cold. She pivoted herself so she was facing her reflection. There were dark circles under her eyes and her skin was near pale. She knew she had lost a lot of wait since high school, maybe too much, but that was the least of her worries right now. She shivered again.

Then the door quickly swung open and Spike popped his head through the door. Buffy jumped a little and hugged the towel closer to her body. "Spike!" she yelped, angry at the blonde vampire for opening the door without so much as a knock. Wiping her teary eyes, she glared at him. "What the hell are you doing in here?!"

"Uh, yeah," he looked at her dripping form; he was actually hoping she had been naked instead. "Sorry about that, but your little Scooby friends are all downstairs giving me big scary eyeball looks like they're part of the bloody Mafia."

She scowled at him and walked toward the door, gripping the knob. "Tell them I'll be right there."

"Sure thing, Slayer - " but he didn't get to finish his sentence because Buffy threw the door shut in his face and he could hear the little click of the lock. "Bitch," he sneered.

"Shut up, Spike!"

- - - - - - - - - -

Buffy walked slowly down the staircase, Angel behind her, her shaky hand gripping the rail until her knuckles shown white. Her hair was tied up and out of her face. You have to look fresh, she told herself when she was getting ready. She wore brighter colors, white and blue. They were bright, weren't they? Because dark colors were inappropriate... right? Although Angel always wore black so...

She closed her eyes and shook of her head of all the words that cluttered her brain. She reopened them to see her friends, including Dawn, staring up at her - small, fake smiles plastering their faces like masks. Buffy put up her own facade and gave them a smile too. Dawn as probably the only one not smiling at all, besides Spike, of course. "Hey," she said, quietly. "How are you guys?"

"We're okay..." answered Willow, breathing a deep sigh. "We're fine. Are you okay?"

Willow watched Angel as he sat on the last step. If you didn't know who Angel was or how he usually acted around tense times, you wouldn't have thought anything about his behavior, but everyone gave Buffy a skeptical eye - everyone except Tara and Willow who knew what had happened.

"Yeah, I - I think I'm fine," she said quietly. Buffy looked around the room, they all seemed to be exhausted, especially the two wiccans who sat at the back of the room. And they all had the right to look exhausted. The past month hadn't been easy for either or them. They all had to scurry around, looking behind their shoulders for women with curly red hair, or watch for her ugly minions who lurked around Sunnydale, ready to bring her information. Then there was Buffy's mom. They whole gang, maybe except for Tara, had come to know and love Joyce. They were all worried about her health almost as much as Dawn and Buffy were.

And Buffy was forever grateful for their support. She didn't understand, or want to understand, how a Slayer fought without her friends - if she even had any. They made Buffy strong and kept her fighting. God, they kept her standing on her own to feet. She thought about it for a second, then did that make her weaker or did it make her stronger than the other Slayers?

Slayers were meant to be the epitome of the warriors for light and good and everything shiny. But Buffy didn't understand at how - someone used for righting the wrong - didn't have any of the essential things that made a person good. Friends, family, lovers? They were all taken away at a very early age. Like Kendra, for example, she had said her Watcher had taken her away from her own family at a very early age. She was never to have friends or even talk to boys. All she knew how to do was slay. It was a very black and white world for her; vampires, evil; humans, good. Buffy didn't know how all the Slayers before her managed. How do you fight the good fight when you had no one to catch you when you fall and help you build yourself back up? Then again, Buffy was a very different Slayer in all respects. She was just... odd.

Special.

"So, Buffy," Giles started, looking to Buffy in the manner he always had since she was just 15. Like he was going to ask her a question. "Willow said you had something to... tell us?"

Buffy nodded, stepping in front of her friends, her palms glued to the side of her legs. "Yeah," she nodded. "I do."

She looked around the room at all her friends' faces. Friends.

"Well?" Xander said from the couch. "The suspense is killing us all."

((Come on guys, the suspense is killing Angel.))

Buffy looked down as she whispered to the group quietly. "Angel, he got attacked by Glory last night," she felt her eyes water with more fucking tears and she bit the inside of her lip to stop them from falling. "And... she..." she looked up to the rest of them and watery trails were already falling down her face. "She got him."

"But, Buffy... Angel's standing right there," Xander motioned to Angel with his hand, slightly confused by all of this. "I mean, if your definition of getting him is the same as ours..."

"Xander," Willow whispered, giving him a small glance, telling him to just stop talking.

"You mean she got Angel's..." Giles trailed off, catching onto what she was saying. Buffy nodded slowly, shifting her gaze back down to the floor. Giles gave her a compassionate look and stood up to give her a hug. "Oh, Buffy..."

She wrapped her arms around Giles, crying into his sweater. He softly put a hand on her head and told her everything was going to be alright - although it was like telling a penguin he was really going to fly. He shot Angel a glance and did see the... lack of emotion in his eyes. Angel's eyes, as far as Giles could remember, had all this feeling in them. That was the line that drew Angel away from all other vampires. His eyes. The fact that he cared. But this... shell of the former vampire was too hallow, too hallow for even the regular vampire.

"Buff..." Xander tried, he was never really good at sympathizing with anything that had the mention of Angel in it. "We're really sorry..." Xander walked toward her and put a comforting hand on her arm. Anya just nodded in agreement. "Are you..."

Buffy pulled away from everyone and wiped her tears. "No, I can't start crying now," she said, a little angry that her eyes were so swollen all the time. She gave Angel a long stare.

"I need to call LA."

- - - - - - - - - - -

"You think we should call Sunnydale?"

Wesley looked up from the newspaper he was reading. Cordelia had been on edge every since Angel left for Sunnydale. She never said anything about the missing, well not missing, but not present vampire, but Wesley could tell that she worried. He knew Cordelia had become quite independent since Angel fired them, but he also knew she did sometimes depend on Angel for just being Angel. He was the first one to ever take notice of her since she came to LA, gave her a job. Gave her a friend. Wesley sighed softly, every since Angel left, she looked as if he had just fired them a second time.

"Well, considering how he's been gone for about... two days..." he gave her a skeptical look.

Cordelia shot him a glare. "Hey, you just be quiet, Mr. I-know-it-all. You weren't around when Buffy and Angel got groiny with each other and then he started to eat all your neighbors - it doesn't take this long for Angel to lose his soul!"

He raised an eyebrow at her. "So you're saying he's going to lose his soul?"

"Well, duh!" she gave him an incredulous look. "He's like WAY vulnerable now since, you know, the whole Darla thing and now he's running to Sunnydale to save his beloved Buffy - oh yeah, I'm surprised they haven't even called already."

"Cordelia," Wesley started, "both Angel and Buffy are very... controlled - "

RING! RING!

Cordelia gave him an I-told-you-so glare and picked up the Angel Investigations telephone. "Hello, Angel Investigations, we help the helpless."

"Cordelia?"

It was Buffy. What did I tell him, Cordelia thought.

"Angel lost his soul, didn't he?" she said as if she was asking how the weather was in Sunnydale.

Buffy, on the other line, furrowed her eyebrows. "What? No - Cordelia - "

"No, stop with being DenialBuffy, I understand. You two just couldn't keep your hands off each other, what with the groping - "

"We do not grope - "

"And, hey, it just happened," she cradled the phone on her shoulder, looking at her nails.

"Cordelia!" Buffy yelled. "We didn't..." she paused, not wanting to bring up sex and Angel in the same sentence around her friends. "We wouldn't, okay?"

"Oh," Cordelia said, thoughtfully. "So he isn't crazy with bloodlust?"

"No, Cordy. Angel isn't evil," Buffy sighed. "But something happened last night."

Cordelia's shoulders went rigid and she stopped fiddling with her nails, letting her weight balance on both of her feet. Wesley looked up, noticing Cordelia's tense stance. He folded his newspaper and started to wheel himself to where Cordelia was standing.

"What? What happened?" Cordy asked, scared about what the little blonde Slayer was going to say. "Buffy?"

"Cordelia," Buffy started, "Angel's... we got attacked last night - or at least he did."

"By what? He's not dead or anything, right?!" Cordelia said, giving Wesley a worried glance.

"No, he's... alright," she sighed. "Do you think you guys can come over tonight or something?"

"Buffy you have to tell me what's going on!" Cordelia commanded into the telephone receiver, her temper flaring.

"Cordelia," Buffy said, her temper short, also. "Just get you and your crew over here now."

Cordelia sighed, finally agreeing. "Yeah, sure, Buffy. We'll be right there," hanging up the phone slowly, Cordelia gave Wesley a grim look. "Angel's in trouble... again"

"What happened?" Wesley asked.

Cordelia shrugged. "Little bitch didn't say, but she told us to get over there ASAP," she sighed and picked up the phone, dialing Gunn's number. "I'll call Gunn."

"Good idea," Wesley said. "We'd better get ready and leave tonight."

Cordelia quirked an eyebrow while Gunn's cell rang, "You really like to state the obvious, don't you?"

- - - - - - - - - -

Buffy let the phone rest at her ear for quite a few seconds before hanging it back up on its cradle. The whole gang was now in the kitchen and each of their eyes glued to her back as she spoke to Cordelia. She turned back to them, her hands pushed into her back pockets. "They're coming down here in a while."

"You sure that's a good idea, Buffy?" Xander asked.

She nodded, although not really sure of it. "Yeah, we need all the fire power we can get. Wesley can help Giles with the book stuff and Cordelia can be... annoyingly supportive..."

Xander gave a small nod, worried about seeing his old ex, Cordelia Chase. She wasn't really with the sympathy when it came to him or anyone else for that matter, but she had gotten impaled because of him - so he guessed all was fair.

"Well then," Giles said. "I say we better try to find a... uh, cure... for Angel's condition."

"Aye aye, Captain," Buffy said lamely, "Where do we start?"

- - - - - - - - - -

It was three hours and about three million books later when Willow rubbed her temples and groaned as she took a break from grazing the spell books of anything that might help them break Glory's outcome of her attack. The work was tedious because there were a lot of books and very little people. She hadn't realized how much Giles' book collection had grown since high school, now that he had the Magic Box.

She groaned. "Is this all we have, Giles?" she asked. "They all say the same thing."

"I'm afraid this is all I have..." Giles said, closing his own book. "We could try the Council..."

"But, oh right, they fired you and Buffy's a renegade," Xander said, the comment a little more bitter than he wanted it to sound, but he was beyond caring at this point.

"No, no, this can't be it," Buffy said, frustrated. "Giles, I can't leave Angel like this."

"Yes, yes, I know," he said, cleaning his glasses. "I'll at least try and contact the Council, see if they have anything on Glory or anything that will help Angel."

Buffy nodded. "Thanks," she said to Giles with a weak smile, the former Watcher stepping out of the living room and into the kitchen to use the phone. Buffy then gave Angel a small glance. He was sitting in the corner of the room, his knees up and his palms resting flat on the ground. Buffy watched him mumbled softly to himself, sometimes twisting his head around and squeezing his eyes shut. She sighed.

Willow saw her best friends stare and frowned. She couldn't even begin to comprehend the complete despair Buffy was feeling - or maybe she could, a little, because just a day earlier she feared it would be Tara in serious trouble instead of Angel and Willow didn't know if her beloved partner had been lost in a sea of lost control.

At first she was afraid if her friend would be able to get through this... again. Willow remembered the year Buffy had sent Angel to hell. Buffy had been so heartbroken that she ran all the way to Los Angeles for the whole summer. Even when she had come back to all her friends, she was still shaken up over Angel's departure, haunted by the memories of her boyfriend- gone-bad. Then, last night when Glory did her damage, Willow was so afraid that Buffy would break because she had already lost Angel once.

"We'll find something, Buffy," Willow said quietly.

Buffy gave her best friend a small, but genuine, smile. She loved Willow so much. She loved when Willow's smile lit even the darkest places with luminous light. She loved how her friend's words could touch the deepest part of your heart and somehow make it feel again. And she loved at how strong the small redhead could become, sophomore year she was just a scared rabbit waiting for the others to pick on her or pressure her into doing their homework, but now she was a radiant Wicca who could kick demon ass and yet still retain her inward glow. "I hope so," she hugged her arms to herself. "Look at him, Wil; he's trapped in there... so helpless..."

Willow nodded. "We'll get him back."

Buffy shook her head a bit, taking herself away from her thoughts and giving the rest of the people in the room an apologetic glance. "Sorry..."

She began to look into another book when Giles came back into the room. By the expression on his face, the Council had either rejected him because he was no longer a part of their inferior league or because they thought Angel wasn't a cause worth fighting for. Either way, Buffy's hate for the Council flared and she wanted to again rip their eyes out and feed them to Spike. "So the Council was a no go?"

Giles gave her a sorrowful look. "Unfortunately, yes. They said it was going to be improbable that the Council could ever save a vampire, under any circumstances - even Angel's."

"Well who died and made them head Council?" Xander retorted.

"Xander, they are head Council," Giles said, correcting him for what seemed to be the billionth time.

"Oh," Xander said, sticking his nose back into a book.

Giles looked to Buffy who looked like her world was about to fall from beneath her feet. "Buffy, I'm terribly sorry - "

"No," she said, shaking her head, trying to put on a fake smile but couldn't bring herself to even look okay. "It wasn't your fault," her eyes brimming with tears. She felt like she had been saying that for a while now. Everyone thought it was their fault; God, she wouldn't be surprised if Anya claimed it was her fault. The person - thing - she only blamed was Glory and the hell goddess will pay for what she did.

Buffy's brow furrowed. The Council was had been their strongest hope even though it was a long shot, but now they had to settle for dusty, boring books that told of only simple spells and even simpler demons. There was nothing on Glory or from where she had come from. Nothing to help Angel get better. She sighed, "We'll just, you know, keep looking."

The doorbell rang and everyone's heads shot up. They were here. Anya, being the only person not even irrelevantly nervous about seeing the remaining AI team, got up and grumpily opened the door. She gave each of the three people on the doorstep an evil glare, "Hi! Do you have money or possibly a snotty little Watcher with you?"

"Uh, we're actually here to see..." Wesley began, a little taken back at the girl's question.

"No, sorry, can't help you!" Anya said quickly, then slamming the door in front of Wesley, Cordelia, and Gunn's face.

"An!" Xander yelled at his girlfriend.

She sighed, rolling her eyes and flung the door back open. "Sorry..." she mumbled, stepping aside so the three could get through; Cordelia pushing Wesley's wheelchair. They all gave her a weird glance as they crossed into the house.

Buffy walked over to the LA gang and gave them a small, lame-excuse-for-a- smile. The first thing she noticed was Wesley confined into a wheelchair, something she wasn't surprised by, but she was a little worried. Also, that Irish guy wasn't with them and even though she hadn't seem him the last time she went to LA, she thought he had the day off or something. Instead there was a young, handsome looking man with them. Stern for his age, but they could probably use him for the upcoming battle - if he was going to hang around for a while. "Hey," she greeted, "What happened to you?"

Wesley shook his head. "Oh, nothing to be worried about - "

"What did you do to him?" Cordelia interrupted him, jabbing a finger a perfectly manicured finger at her.

Wesley gave a defeated sigh. "Can't I finish any of my senten - "

"Cordy!" Xander said, coming up from behind Buffy and interrupting Wesley; Wesley just rolled his eyes. "A nice hello would be a tactful start."

Cordelia gave Xander a glare before turning her attention back to the Slayer who looked somewhat smaller than Cordelia had ever seen her. Frail, maybe. She sighed and gave Buffy a desperate look. "Buffy, just tell us, please..."

Buffy nodded, "Yeah... over here," she said, leading them into the living room and trying to brace herself for all their outbursts and questions. Cordelia followed half expecting Angel to be just injured, but wasn't ready for what she saw in the corner.

An empty shell of her friend that looked so lost Cordelia could cry. She let out a small gasp and rushed over to Angel, grabbing his shoulders and tried to make something out of all of this. "Angel?! Angel! Oh my God, Angel!"

Gunn himself almost shuddered to see the vampire in the corner so... dead, no pun intended. "Whoa... what the hell happened?"

Wesley, too, was shocked at what he saw, apparently, left of Angel. He gave Giles a questionable look, "What happened?"

"He got attacked by our local bad-y," Buffy whispered. "She..." she swallowed, it was so hard to say it, "... she, Glory, ate... took his mind."

Wesley looked at her, more puzzled than he was before. "Ate?"

"Sounds like one nasty piece of a demon to me," Gunn quipped, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Goddess, actually," Willow said and all three of their eyes grew wide. "Yeah, she's actually not from this dimension. She's trying to get back to where she came from, but she needs energy and she absorbs that energy through... taking peoples minds. It's really complicated; we aren't even sure where to start."

"He saved my life, if that helps..." Tara offered, looking to the new people with saddened eyes. "He - he was very brave..."

"I'm sure he was," Wesley said, sincerely. Although, still puzzled on the new demoness who had made her appearance in Sunnydale. He sighed; it was still hard to accept what was going around over here.

"Always is," Buffy said, watching Angel and hoping for a different alternative than the one she held in her hand.

- - - - - - - - - -

blah, blah, blah. so much emotion. rawr.