Chapter 15

They went to the alleyway that Russ and Angel first met. Or in other words the alleyway that Connor was born, the alleyway that was very close to the mystical hot spot in Caritas and the alleyway that the Beast had emerged. Russ took Angel aside, excusing themselves from the two ladies for a moment.

"What's wrong Russ?"

"Before I do anything, I need to do this. It's one of the... Well, let's just say it's needed for what I'm gonna do next. Without it there's no deal." Russ said and then studied Angel before asking, "Okay?" Angel nodded, not quite sure what was coming up next.

"I'm just gonna get right into it then. You've been fighting for what? Years now? And you've always hidden behind the excuse that you did a lot of damage in your day. That you could never make up for what you'd done in another hundred years. Well I got a question for you Angel, how many times have you saved the world? Too many to count on one hand. Well saving the world kinda tips the balance in your favour. You've saved the world. That means that you saved every single person living on this great world of ours with it. One fell swoop is really the world for this. You've saved billions of people. Many times over! You never thought that you saving the world might mean something?"

"Well I mainly helped." Angel said, the concept that saving the world meant saving everyone who was living on it had never really occurred to him. And now he felt like his brooding material was being taken away from him by the half demon in front of him with a 'speech' face on.

"It doesn't matter. This is a sharing situation, everyone gets the praise!"

"Then if it means so much then why don't I have redemption?"

"Because this isn't about the Powers forgiving you. This is about you forgiving you. I know it sounds corny but it's true."

"But I can't. Every person I killed, I felt their lives pouring into me. I might have saved the world's population but it isn't as if I ever made that strong a connection with them."

"I know what you mean, so how about some help?" Russ asked and Angel nodded uncertainly, not knowing what he was agreeing to. Russ reached out with his hand and touched Angel's forehead lightly with two fingers. Angel's eyes closed automatically and they began moving around under the lids like someone REMming (heh, cool word). What Angel was seeing was little snippets of all those good things that people did because he saved them. Kinda like what Cordy had at the end of Season one except instead of pain it was happiness and good (okay, how corny is that).

When Angel opened his eyes you could tell he'd changed. Maybe it was the way he stood or something in his eyes but there was a definite change in him. He looked Russ and Russ knew that it had done the job. Mr Brood King was finally ready to hand over his crown. Maybe what he had shown him had made him a touch naïve about how much good there was in the world but, knowing Angel it hadn't. It had restored some of the naiveness that is required to have faith in the world and that all will be well in the end. Hey, we have to have some optimists in the world.

"Fred, Cordy," Russ called out to the two women, "Say hello to the new Angel. The one who's actually forgiven himself for all the bad stuff he did back in the Day."

"Oh my god, what did you do?" Cordy asked Russ, noticing straight away the change in Angel as did Fred. They approached him in wonder at the fact that he didn't have a broody expression on anymore. He looked quite plain without it. And weird.

"I made him a naïve optimist. Or put him on the path anyway." Russ grinned as he put an arm around Fred's waist. Cordy continued to inspect Angel as he stood there, calmness turning to uncertainty as she walked around him, scrutinizing him.

"Good job Russ. Really, can't tell the old Angel and the new one apart. So where are you hiding ours?"

"Ha ha." Angel laughed sarcastically and Cordy looked at him with fake surprise.

"It can talk too!" She exclaimed and squealed shortly after when Angel gathered her into his arms claiming that he would give her something to exclaim about. This left Fred and Russ just look on smiling and laughing like parents, or older people who were chuckling about the antics of younger ones. And in a way they were older. I mean, Fred and Cordy were about the same age. Russ however, was oh I'd say billions of years older than Angel but I'll be getting to that in a minute.

"Wow, I didn't think that making Angel forgive himself would make him so..." Russ searched for a word to describe Angel's behaviour but came up blank.

"Un-Angel-like?" Fred offered and Russ nodded and continued to look on at the two. Then he turned to Fred and just looked at her. She turned to look at him, not sure why she was suddenly getting all of the attention. The look on Russ' face was one of love and something else that Fred couldn't quite make out.

"What?" She asked, blushing slightly from the sudden attention, not able to look at Russ.

"Nothing it's just... You are so beautiful." Russ said, which caused Fred's blush to deepen.

"Thankyou." She said quietly and Russ smiled the same saintly smile that Doyle smiled at him before.

"You are so welcome." He said, emphasising every word. This didn't help Fred's blush to go away. He looked deep in her eyes and said, "I love you." It wasn't so much the words as the way he said it that blew Fred away.

"I love you too. I love you so much." Fred said and threw herself into Russ' arms. He gladly held her to him and breathed in the scent that was purely Fred. He closed his eyes and smiled subconsciously. This beautiful moment was interrupted by Cordy and Angel when Cordy cleared her throat. Russ and Fred separated and looked at the two who were waist to waist, arms wrapped around each other.

"Sorry to disturb the sickeningly sweet couple." Cordy said, grinning at the two who suddenly became self conscious.

"I'm sorry guys but I was just curious. Russ, with the whole forgiving myself thing, did that have a purpose or was it just one of those feel good exercises?" Angel asked, trying as hard as possible to seem like the innocent one.

"It did have a purpose, so sorry to keep you waiting Angel. Just trying to get a break to gather all my powers." Russ stood there for a few seconds, looking off into space with a look of mock concentration on his face and then he looked back at Angel, "Okay, got it. I'm all ready to go. Let's just hope you are."

Angel ignored the possible implications of the last sentence. He was going in without a clue of what was happening next but hey, that's how life is isn't it? Russ let go of Fred and gave her hand a quick squeeze and gave her one last longing look before walking towards Angel. Angel separated himself from Cordy but continued to hold her hand.

"Alright now Angel, just relax all the muscles in your body. No tensing cos that's gonna be hell for you later." Angel nodded and shook himself out, still holding Cordy's hand. Russ noticed this and sighed before intervening between the 'sickeningly sweet' couple as Cordy had put it before.

"Sorry Angel, this is a strictly solo event. Sorry Cor, but if you're hanging on... Well it scares me what might happen." Russ said, feeling much like the big mean guy who broke up the nice couple that everyone loved. But the two surrendered the touch after a second of looking at each other and without any protestations.

"Before I do anything Angel," Russ said when Angel had stepped in front of Russ, about an arm's length away, "I just want to say, job well done. You've done a lot of good in your time. Whistler would be proud if he was here to see you."

"Thanks Russ. How did you know-?" Angel started and Russ cut in.

"We used to be best mates." Russ explained and Angel did the whole 'ohhhh' thing. Then everything went down to business.

That was when things started getting interesting. Russ closed his eyes and concentrated. He started to chant something that Fred recognised from the bible (okay, not knowing if she would I just had to have someone, besides Angel, recognising that it came from the bible) and then he raised his right hand just above Angel's heart.

"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight o Lord, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heat be acceptable in Your sight o Lord, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight o Lord." And so on, you get the idea. This surprised Angel as he didn't think that the bible had anything to do with his soul and he didn't think that his soul was there either. Then the next thing shocked Angel. Green light began pouring out of Russ hand and went into Angel's chest.

Angel threw his head back as he felt something similar to an electric shock pour through his body. Cordy could see the green light washing over his body and beginning to emanate from it. Fred was caught watching Angel with the same fascination but then when her attention turned to Russ she was shocked. Russ had begun chanting the psalm through gritted teeth as if it was taking every atom in his body to keep the green light coming out of his hand and going into Angel's body.

Angel cried out and sank to his knees and Russ followed Angel with his hand and Fred could see the strain become more and more obvious. Russ was struggling to get out the psalm through gritted teeth and sunk to his knees so that he and Angel were level. Then it became too much for him to only force out the power with one hand and he raised both his hands and urged the last of the green light out of his body and into Angel's.

When the last of it had left Russ' and gone into Angel, Angel just looked at Russ with this puzzled expression and then collapsed sideways. Russ looked at the unconscious Angel and then fell to his side, but still hung onto his consciousness. Fred immediately dropped at his side and held him in her hands. He looked up at her, his eyes searching for her face, probably because he was so tired that everything was swimming in front of him.

"Fred." He said and grimaced.

"What-?" Fred was pretty much lacking in words and Russ began to explain everything as his vision was starting to fade and he felt his grip on reality slip.

"Fred. I need you to listen to what I'm going to say next. It's really important. I'm not a half demon who works for the Powers, I am one of the Powers. Up till a little while ago I didn't know this, Doyle 'reminded' me the last time I was out getting a 'call'(when they pinkie swore). What I did to Angel wasn't soul securing, it was giving him life. He's a living, breathing human being now and this is what the Powers have granted him. He's been released from his duty and is now invited to walk, talk and live like a normal human. It may be hard for him to accept at first but you've got to make him understand that he's done all he can do." Russ paused as he groaned, "I haven't got long left before I have to leave."

"Leave?" Fred asked, her eyes widening.

"I have to go back to the other two Powers. My job here is done."

"What? No. Russ you can't leave. What about the happy ending?"

"That belongs to Angel and Cordy now, you and I have a little more to go before we get ours." Russ said as he took a deep breath, trying to hold onto reality. Or this reality anyway.

"Why not now?" Fred asked, acting like a little girl but she didn't care. She didn't care that tears were springing into her eyes and that she felt like she couldn't breath. She only cared about here and now and... Russ.

"It's not our time. Please Fred," Russ' eyes started tearing up, "Don't make this any harder."

"But I love you." Fred insisted, tears threatening stronger than ever.

"And I love you too. More than you know. You're the one and only thing that I've loved since the beginning of time, when I was made." Russ said and Fred ignored the choice of words regarding how Russ 'came to be' and all she heard was that he loved her. He loved her and he was leaving. Forever. Or that was what Fred thought anyway.

"Why did you go through the trials for me if you aren't even going to stay?" Fred asked, she knew she was grasping at straws but she would say anything, anything, to get him to stay.

"Because you deserve life. You had yours stolen from you." Russ said and he reached up to touch her cheek and she leaned into his touch.

"But how am I meant to go on without you? Knowing what we had, what we could've had." Fred said, a tear slipping past her barrier. And after that, there was no turning back.

"You won't. You won't remember me after I leave, its part of my powers." Russ said, his own tears beginning to flow.

"No! I don't want to. I won't. I'll never forget you Russ. I'll never forget anything." Fred said, tears thickening her voice and coming more rapidly down her cheeks.

"You've already started." Russ said sadly with a tear streaked face as he began to fade gradually.

"I love you." He said before he disappeared completely and Fred's tears started flowing freely until she couldn't remember why she was crying. And she couldn't remember why she felt so empty, as if she'd just lost something that meant the world to her. But she felt she had to say four words, even though she had no idea why.

"I love you too."

THE END (Or is it? Yeah it is, except for the epilogue...)

(AN: Okay guys, there is going to be a sequel. Yay! It's called 'Job Well Done II: Happily Ever After'. More explanation in the epilogue.)