Willow and Spike reached the coven in record time. Taking off their helmets they made their way to the entrance door.
"Wow. I'd forgotten how beautiful it was up here."
"Yeah, it is." Willow said looking around at the beautiful landscaped gardens and grassy lands. Turning back around, she knocked on the door and Sister Helen opened the door to see who it was.
"Mistress Willow, how lovely to see you again. I hope this isn't another one of your calls about Buffy and Giles with magic and stuff."
"Oh no Sister Helen. My friend and I are here to pick up a friend that we were told was here."
"Oh, you're talking about the champion in our wine cellar. Please, come in." She made way for the both of them to enter the coven and greeted Spike as he flashed her a smile. "Right this way." Sister Helen led them down to the wine cellar to retrieve Angel, the coven's champion as he was called nowadays.
"Angel!" Spike yelled as soon as he saw him. He was crouched in a corner, rocking himself back and forth. Spike shook his shoulders to snap him out of his trance.
"He's been doing that for a while. Something about a birthday and a girl named..."
"Cordelia?" Spike asked.
"Yes, that was it. " Sister Helen responded.
"Cordelia? Since when..." Willow asked.
"Long story, I'll explain later as always." Spike turned his attention back to Angel. "Come on Angel! Snap out of it." Spike punched Angel, snapping him out of his trance.
"Spike?" Angel looked up still dazed. He wiped the blood dripping from his bottom lip. "That hurt."
"Sorry, I'll try to be gentler next time." He grabbed onto Angel's arms and tried to help him up. "Let's get out of here."
"But Spike, the sun." Willow pointed to the ceiling referring to the sun and Angel got up.
"Willow? Is that really you?" Angel stumbled over to her, taking her in his arms, hugging her.
"Hi Angel." Willow squeezed his form and closed her eyes. "I take this as a happy-to-see-me-hug?"
"Yes." He said, still hanging on to the red headed girl. Spike came and patted him on the back.
"Come on Angel. Let's get you back to your son."
"Connor? He asked for me?"
"Yeah, he is your son Angel."
"But the only one he ever asked for was..." Angel started to tear up again at the mention of her name.
"We are not going to mention her name. Let's just go. Willow, you have that teleportation thing down, right?"
"Yeah, I'll take him back to the estate while you travel back normally."
"Thanks Willow. You don't know how much this means to me." He said to her, looking from her to Angel. "I'll be there as soon as I can." Willow nodded her head and recited a couple of words and poof, they were gone. Spike looked over at Sister Helen who was still standing in the doorway, watching the interaction between the three.
"Can you show me where his stuff is, if there is any?"
"Of course." Sister Helen retreated her steps and grabbed a couple of bags from the closet. "Be careful going back. The road is longer and danger lurks there."
"I will, don't worry."
"Also, you're a good friend with a good heart. The Lord hath shed his light on you."
Spike nodded his head and acknowledged the sister before heading out the door.

Two hours later, Spike parked his motorcycle outside the estate and grabbed for Angel's bag, hoping that Willow had gotten him there in one piece. Walking into the large study, he was thankful that he was there.
"Everything still in one piece?" He said, throwing the bag on the table and hopping up on the table to sit.
"Yeah. Xander wasn't really accustomed to having him here, but..."
"But he'll have to deal until we can get Illyria to get him back to Los Angeles. She's still trying to regain her powers again."
"Illyria? The ancient God-king?" Giles asked in interest.
"Yeah. Willow, you know her actually. Used to be Winifred Burkle."
"Fred? Fred is Illyria?"
"Yeah. We don't really like to dwell on that though. Don't really like to dwell on anything that has to do with Wolfram & Hart or alternate dimensions, and a certainly lady whose name starts with C." Spike said, pointing to Angel's head. "Buffy around?"
"Yeah, she's out in the gardens. She should be by the hyacinth, she likes those best." Giles pointed out to Spike.
"Thanks mate. I'll be right back, don't go anywhere." He told Angel, hopping off the table and making his way to the gardens. He went down the beautiful aisles, lined with roses, forget-me-nots, lilacs, lilies, and magnolias. He got to the hyacinths and spotted her quickly, her face lighting up in the setting sun as she whiffed a smell of the flower before her. "They smell good, don't they?"
Buffy looked up and over at him walking down the aisle towards her. "Uh, yeah, they do." She fiddled with her hands before deciding to put them behind her back as he came closer.
"I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"Let me finish, please. I'm sorry I didn't contact you after I came out of the necklace. I just didn't know how you would feel after you saw me burst into flames and thinking that I was dead. Which I still was, but that's besides the point."
"It's alright."
"No, it's not. I should've called you, came running to you, but there was this little drawback of the deal, seeing as I could walk through walls and couldn't leave Los Angeles."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I could literally walk through walls and whenever I tried to leave L.A., I was bounced right back to Angel's office."
"But you wanted to, right? I mean, leave L.A."
"Well, yea, all I could think about at night when and if I slept was you." Spike said, walking with her down the rest of the hyacinth aisle. Buffy looked over at him and cupped his face with her hand, like she did the night before everything went to Hell. Literally.
"Tell me about this prophecy." She pleaded.
"Oh yea, the Shanshu Prophecy thing. Simple really. I had Wesley explain it to me before he...well, you know. It was thought that it was meant for Angel, him being the only vampire with a soul when it was discovered, then I went to get my soul back for you and..."
"Spike, any idea when you're going to get to the point?" Buffy motioned.
"Oh, right, sorry. Well in the scrolls, it says that the vampire with a soul will shanshu, which means to live. The vampire with a soul, after a series of apocalypses and whose-ya-whats-it, will become human. Everyone thought it was for Angel, but after all the apocalypse and him signing his shanshu away, it came to me."
"Wow."
"Yea, I know." Spike said, looking at her as the moonlight came upon them.
"I hope you know that this is going to take some getting used to, but I hope you're going to stay around."
"I am, don't worry about that. I'm not leaving."
"Good." Buffy smiled and kissed him on the cheek.
"Now that's something I wasn't expecting."
"Come on, let's go back inside."
"So soon?" Spike asked as she grabbed his hand and dragged him back into the estate. They entered just as Illyria popped in and started waving her hand about, time frequencies going all bonkers. "Illyria! Stop!" Spike ran towards her.
"Why?"
"Because these are good people. We don't hurt good people."
"Humans are strange. How do I know they are not here to kill?" Illyria asked him, tilting her head towards the Scoobies.
"Because I said so." Spike caught her hand and held it to her side, meaning what he said. Illyria brushed him off, going up to Willow and searching her face.
"I...I mean, Fred, she knew you. She liked you. I can see the fragments still." Illyria said in her monotone voice, still looking over the red head's face.
"She's on drugs, right?" Xander asked, jokingly.
"Oh Xander, I wouldn't have done that." Spike said, shaking Angel out of another trance and watching Illyria walk towards Mr. Fix It.
"What are drugs?" She asked, slanting her head to the right.

Illyria had popped in and out, taking Angel back to Los Angeles with her, Xander and Willow had went back up to her room to talk or whatever they called it. It was some secret code that only Buffy, Willow and Xander understood. Giles was in his office training Dawn and Andrew on watcher things while Buffy and Spike sat in the kitchen in complete silence, wondering where to go from here.
"Buffy?" Tomas showed up at the worst possible time.
"Tomas? What are you doing here?" Buffy got up from the table and came up to him. He tried to kiss her as she backed away avoiding his lips.
"I came to get you for dinner. Did you forget?"
"Oh my gosh, dinner." She gasped. "I did forget. I'm sorry Tomas."
"That's okay. If we leave now, we can still make the reservation." He looked at his watch and back to her. Buffy looked back at Spike and then to Tomas, with her famous look: the one with the pouty lip.
"Tomas, I'm sorry, but I can't go." She went back to sit next to Spike. "In fact, I can't go out with you anymore. I'm sorry." Buffy said still looking at Spike as Tomas stormed out of the estate, not caring what the reasoning was or who caused it.
"Wait, you just blew off a date with hot and sexy Latino bloke to stay home and sit with me?" Spike looked hard at her. "Who are you?"
"What, you're the only one who can change?"
He smirked and lowered his head for a second and then directed his attention back to her once more.
"So where do we go from here?"
"How about a hello?"
"Alright. Hello again." He smiled at her, imagining the possibilities of where this could actually go. After all, possibilities are endless.