Part two

Buffy replaced the phone to its cradle and just stared at it, biting her lip. The whole group watched her expectantly; during the course of the call Buffy had answered stiffly, one or two word answers, she'd written something down on a sheet of paper and assured the caller she'd 'be there'.

They didn't wait long, Buffy looked up and straight at her watcher.

"I'm going to LA"

The room erupted into pandemonium, people speaking at once mostly with fierce objections. Buffy just raised her hand to quiet them.

"I'm going, we can either all go together and do this as a team or you can stay behind. I don't care. I have to go."

The group gawked at her speechless. Not since they had thrown her out of her own home before the battle with the first, had she been so vehement when addressing the group. It was Faith who found her voice first. Apart from Buffy she had been the only other voice in the 'Angel wouldn't switch sides with a soul' camp.

"Who was that?"

Breaking eye contact with Giles for the first time, Buffy looked over to her sister slayer.

"Some-one called Charles Gunn."

Faith nodded and smiled. "So I take it the big bear was the topic of conversation?"

Buffy raised an eyebrow at the nickname, "Big bear? Never mind, yes it was about Angel." Thinking for a moment she asked. "You know this guy?"

"Who Gunn? Sure. He was in Angel's crew when they sprung me. Last I heard he wasn't up there with the Angelus love. Blasted him with a flamethrower in fact. He's a good guy."

Buffy nodded, that was good enough for her.

"Buffy I must protest at this. It could quite well be a trap. If as faith says, this Gunn person was part of Angel's team, there is a good chance he was turned."

Buffy frowned, but I was Faith who spoke up.

"Gunn? Get turned? Never gonna happen, he's been fighting vamps too long for that. And anyway Angelus wouldn't turn him. Him and Angel weren't the best of friends as far as I could tell, he's too much an alfa for Angelus to want around." Then she shrugged "besides he's not English."

At every ones confused looks she laughed. "Come on! I can't be the only one who's noticed all of Angelus' childer are English?"

Shaking his head Giles returned to the topic it hand. "What exactly did he say?"

Buffy sighed, every moment they spent debating this the longer it would be before she reached LA. "He said he was a friend of Angel's, that he knew we hadn't spoken properly in years but he needed my help. I got the impression there was more to this than he was gonna say on the phone but he didn't sound like someone who had Angelus banging on his door."

"This still..."

Buffy cut him off "look I already said I'm going, so either you're in or you're not. If Angel has gone evil then we'll deal with it, if not, then we help however Angel needs us to, we owe him that much for the amulet."

"Hey I was always gonna come, I owe Angel and Angelus owes me a rematch." Faith said moving to stand beside Buffy, shortly followed by her boyfriend Robin.

The two slayers faced the rest of the Scoobies defiantly waiting for their response.

"You coming or not?"

The flight from Heathrow to LA X was brutal. The whole way all Buffy could think about was seeing Angel again and what sort of trouble he could be in that not only had he asked for help, but he'd done it through a friend. Had they grown so far apart that he felt he couldn't ask her directly? Then again when Giles had gathered the group, had she called him? All this time they were looking for information about him turning evil but had any of them even thought to call him? If they had, they hadn't mentioned it to her.

After landing they went straight to their hotel for the night. As they travelled through the city Buffy searched for any sign that it had born witness to all out demonic warfare; but like its inhabitants and those of any city with a demonic problem even the scenery was in denial.

After a brief phone call to Gunn, to confirm their meeting time and place, Buffy said goodnight to her friends. She'd been amazed that in the end all but Xander had come. Giles, Willow, Faith, Robin and Andrew. Buffy shook her head as she lay down on her comfortable hotel bed. They had yet to find a way to get rid of the annoying sci-fi geek. For this mission Giles had said it was vital that he came, he was the one who had had the most recent contact with the LA group after all.

And how pathetic was that? That Andrew knew more about what was going on in her soul mate's life than she did? And Angel was her soul mate, before her death and subsequent resurrection nothing could have convinced her otherwise. She'd lost her faith for while but then he'd come, charging into town like a knight out of a fairytale, to stand beside her in her toughest battle. That's when she'd remembered, all of those feelings had washed over her like a tidal wave and she'd believed. But she'd sent him away, a part of her wanted to slap herself for the look that had passed over his face when she'd done it, but as Spike had burned before her eyes she knew she'd done the right thing. Now she had been called to aid him, something she knew in her heart she should have done a long time ago, even before Giles had reunited the group. But she'd stayed when she would have gone, she'd listened to what the others were saying and despite her protests at the time, as she lay in a bed in the same city as her Angel she realised she wasn't as convinced of his innocence as she would have liked.

Like a disease, the doubts crept through her consciousness, poisoning her resolve and lacing her heart with fear. What would she do if he had turned, could she kill him again? Had she grown that cold? And what if he had turned with his soul intact? Would she try and save him? Show the same belief in redemption that he had shown Faith? Was she that strong? Or would she give in to what her watcher wanted and just kill him? She'd gone to bat for Spike, but she'd needed him to fight the First, would she have the same conviction faced with the love of her life, gone bad?

As sleep took her she prayed that whatever she was about to understake she would have the strength to carry it through to its conclusion and whatever that conclusion, she could live with her part in it.

Gunn shifted nervously in his wheel chair as he waited for the Woman he hoped could aid his ailing friend. He long ago stopped wondering when he'd started to consider Angel his friend, not just a colleague, a comrade in arms. Maybe it was during that blurry patch in his memory, those memories of last couple of years at the Hyperion that slipped through his grasp whenever he wanted to catch them. He put it down to the enhancements that he'd had at 'that place'. But whenever the change in attitude had occurred it had hit him full force when they had thought Angel had gone bad. He remembered thinking that this was the time he could finally make up for what he'd done all those years ago in Lorne's Club. Angel had told him afterwards that he would prove he could be trusted if he had to kill him and he did. So when it looked like 'that place' had finally corrupted his friend he would do what his friend would have wanted. He would kill him.

In the end he hadn't needed to, but before the final battle Angel thanked him. Thanked him for being willing to take him down should the need arise. But now his friend didn't need taking down, he needed picking up and this was something he just couldn't do, not alone, if at all. It wasn't for lack of trying, but he was more used to people with too much fight, not someone who had no fight left. So he called the only person he could think of, the woman who Angel had mourned with such ferocity and depth that they had feared he'd take a walk in the sun after her death. A woman who's resurrection marked a drastic change in his friend, but that's when the memories got fuzzy so he wasn't sure what that change was. He just knew that if anyone could help, she could and putting all that aside, there was the fact there was no one else left.

The diner Gunn was sat in was in his old neighbourhood, about two blocks from the apartment Angel was living in. He'd come here for milkshakes as a kid, back before vampires and fighting, he couldn't help but snort at the irony of finding himself back here after all this time. Just a year ago he was living in a plush apartment, working in 'that place', the highflying legal eagle. Now he was back in the part of LA never mentioned in tourist guides, sipping at a milkshake that tasted just like he remembered, waiting for a ghost from Angel's past.

He was shaken from his musing by a familiar voice.

"Ok, you had legs the last time we met."

"Faith, you good?"

"Five by five but I can see that's not exactly true for you huh?"

Gunn laughed and flicked his eyes to the group that had entered with her. There was tall middle aged man that reminded him of Wesley when they first met, a tall black man that had the look of a fighter, a redhead he remembered from the ordeal with Angelus as Willow, the crazy idiotic guy who couldn't pronounce the word vampire, who's name he couldn't remember and a petit blonde. He studied the blonde for a second, it was her, he'd seen her picture in Angel's desk once or twice back at the Hyperion. Sure she looked older but it as definitely her, and Cordelia was right, she did look an awful lot like Darla.

"Yeah I been better," he smiled then nodded over at Buffy. "You Buffy."

"You Gunn?" She shot back.

"That's me, take a seat and just so you know, If I'd known you'd bring an army I would have suggested a bigger setting."

After they were all seated Faith got in the first word. "What the hell happened to your legs??"

"Long story, but I asked Buffy here for a reason and let me stress BUFFY. So I need some introductions before start spouting my boys personal business. I know Faith, Willow and the nerd. But the rest y'all... better start talking."

"Whoa easy Charley." Faith raised her hands defensively then indicated the others in turn. "This is Robin he's a vamp hunter and that's Giles, Buffy's watcher and head of the new council."

Gunn stared at the watcher with undisguised animosity in his eyes. "You're Giles? The one who refused to help when Fred was taken over by Ilyria? So you wouldn't help then why you here now?"

At the confused looks from the Scoobies and the death glare from Gunn Giles' jaw tightened. "I was not about to put council resources towards helping Wolfram and Hart. A position I still hold, by the way."

"Yeah well it weren't Wolfram and Hart that was askin for your help, it was a friend trying to save one of his own, now I'll be the first to admit I didn't help when it came to Ilyria. It was my fault she was here to begin with, but you had the power to help save some one's life and you refused."

"Angel and I will never be friends." Giles countered stiffly, "and as CEO, what he does the company does."

"Never be friends huh? Yeah I heard something about that, you know you and Wes had something in common in the end, Angelus got a nibble on both your girls, but what Angelus did had nothing to do with Fred."

"OK, OK time out." Willow interrupted. "We came here coz you said Angel needs our help."

"Not your help. He needs her's." He said pointing to Buffy who had kept quiet throughout the whole exchange. Her mind was a wash with conflicting thoughts. Angel had asked Giles for help and Giles had refused? Wesley's girlfriend had died at Angelus' hand? When? When Angel had had his soul removed on purpose if what Willow had said was true or later? Did this mean he had lost his soul and Angelus was now wondering free again?

"I can assure you Mr Gunn, that by calling on the senior Slayer for help you have called all of us." Giles sniped, at the time he had believed he had acted in the best interests of those involved when he had refused Angel the council's aid, now in the face of the confused and angry looks from Willow, Faith and Buffy he wasn't sure if he had acted reasonably.

"Yeah well I didn't call for no senior slayer, I asked for Buffy Summers, Angel's big love."

"What?" Buffy's head snapped up and she stared at Gunn.

"You heard me, Now I know things between you two aren't all flowers and candy, but at least here me out, if then you don't give a damn then fine, I've done what I could." Gunn said with a shrug whilst inside he was praying to any deity that would listen that she wouldn't turn around and go home.

"What's wrong with him?" Swallowing harshly she found Gunn's eyes needing to see the truth in whatever response he gave to her next question. "Is he evil?"

"No, if he was evil I wouldn't be talking to you. I'd be dead... no way I could fight him like this. No your boy ain't evil," Now it was Gunn's turn to hesitate, while Buffy had sagged with relief at hearing Angel hadn't turned, she had retained eye contact and Gunn needed that. He wanted to see exactly what her response would be. "He's dying"

tbc