Authors Note: To smileydommie1: LOL, calm down and breath. You're freaking out on me. Everything will be okay. I'm not so evil as to have her go back... or am I? grins evilly

Also, I'm sorry if things are coming few and far between. Right now I'm in Washinton visiting my brother. The only reason why I had time to write this was because he and his girlfriend are currently at work at the moment. I'll be getting back up around the 6th or the 7th, so I would expect another update until then.

Chapter Sixteen
Promises

"Repeat that again for me."

"Buffy…"

"Because it just sounded like you said that you were here to take me back."

"It had to happen sooner or later Buf?"

"Willow," I said warningly. "You know me; you know I would never go for something like that. So please tell me that you told them to shove it." Willow looked down at the ground. "My God, Willow! What the hell were you thinking?"

"Buffy..."

"No don't you dare Buffy me. I'm not going back there Willow. There's no way in hell I'm leaving here."

"You have to Buffy, you don't have a choice." She said sadly. "Usually when the Powers want something, they get it."

"If they didn't want me here so much then why the hell did they send me here in the first place!"

"Because Angel was in trouble. He was walking the line between Angelus and death. No in between. So they sent you down here on the pretense of making him better, snapping him out of it, and then having you come back up when it was done with. They didn't count on you two become a couple again Buffy. That wasn't supposed to happen. With all the guilt of the curse and the things he has done they just thought that a simple goodbye for you guys would be easy."

"Since when are things between me and Angel easy?" Willow just looked down at the ground, her of all people knowing that my heart felt like shattering right about now. "I'm not going back Will. Not now, not ever."

Willow sat down and sighed. "Buffy, when you took this mission you said that you would, no matter what, come back here when you were done because you knew as well as anyone else that you couldn't be on Earth without causing trouble. The mission's over Buffy. You have Angel back to his normal self and now you have to come home."

"This is my home! Just because I have Angel back to the way the Powers That Be want him, doesn't mean my mission is over! What about all the people that are being killed every damn day by Leon? What about everyone living in darkness? How the hell do you and the Powers expect me to go back to a place that is supposed to be the embodiment of eternal bliss while people down here are dying every minute."

I was seething with anger, not at Willow, she was just the messenger of this whole charade. She had the decency to look sorry about all this, to have that understanding look in her eyes. But she also had a mission. A mission to bring me back, and that was something she had to commit too no matter how pissed off, or how much yelling and screaming I was doing.

"There are time periods were stuff like this happens. It's the universes way of balancing good and evil, keeping the two in order."

"So you're telling me that the universe has decided to let human kind suffer for a couple hundred years in order to restore a balance?"

"In a sense? Yeah."

"Bull shit. Willow, go back up there and tell them that I don't care about balance here, people are dying, they have no way to defend themselves over this sort of thing. It's not a fair fight. And if they're so worried about balance then they should be helping us out. I mean, this world has been in turmoil for around three hundred years, I think enough balance has been restored. If anything evil seems to be majorly tipping the scales at the moment."

Willow crossed her arms. "What? You don't think I haven't made this argument? You don't think you haven't made this argument? Buffy, the Powers have heard all this a thousand times from you, me, and so many others, but all they keep telling us is that it's not in the stars. Before you ask, no I don't know what that means, all I know is that if you don't come back up with me, you might never come back up."

I starred at her not quite believing what she had just said. "Are you telling me that they're going to revoke my right to heaven?" She didn't' say anything, instead just looked me in the eye with and angry glint over the Powers. "That's rich. Very noble of them. God! What are we, like kindergarteners? I'll take you're crayons away if you don't play with me?"

"I don't know the full extent behind their reasoning Buffy. I just know that they seemed pretty animate about making you come back."

I looked a Willow for a minute and shrugged with a slight shake of my head. "It's not happening." Without waiting for a reply from either her or the people listening in up above, I stormed out of the room and into my own.

Sitting down with my head in my hands I tried to calm down. How the hell could they expect me to go back? I was the Slayer. My job was to protect people, and now they were taking me away from the job they had assigned me to in the first place. No matter what Willow had said, I highly doubt that when I took this mission that I agreed to come back up once Angel was no longer suicidal. I wasn't that careless. They were watching us upstairs. I had to have known what was going down in this world. I had to have seen the suffering, the pain and the loss. There was no way I had said to whoever the Powers are that once I made Angel all better I was going to leave Earth and turn my back on the people that need the most help. I had to have known before I went down here that I wasn't coming back up. At least not willingly. By the tone and expressions on Willows face, she had known this fact too. She had known that nothing that the Powers said or did was going to make me change my mind. But she kept up the effort, kept up the pretence of her wanting me to come back home with her, all the while knowing she was fighting nothing more then a losing battle. For the life of me though I couldn't understand why the Powers wanted me back in the first place.

Supposedly they were always watching us. Seeing us at our best and our worst. So if they were looking down, watching the people that they're supposed to love above anything else, why aren't they stopping it? They see the people in the street getting raped, they see men and woman falling to the ground in a pool of their own blood every damn night. How can they sit there and watch all that going down and not even lift a finger to make it better? How can someone see kids being struck down when their life has only barley begun? The Powers might have the strength to sit back and watch that but I didn't. And until the sun came back up again, until laughter filled the street, chalk drawing of hopscotch painting the sidewalks, I wouldn't even consider going back to heaven. This wasn't so much about me and Angel as it was about the world suffering something that shouldn't have even begun in the first place.

"Buffy?" A knock sounded from the slightly jarred doorway as Angel peaked his head through. "You okay? I heard yelling."

I sighed and gave him a slightly inviting look as he came and sat down on the bed next to me. "That spell that we did, the one that was supposed to be from Giles, Willow wasn't the result from it. The Powers sent her, not Giles."

Angel nodded. "I kind of already figured that."

"Do you think the spell even worked, do you think it even did something?"

"Spike's finding out for us right now. He has a contact that can practically see the traces of magic when a spell is done. She'll be here as soon as possible." I nodded my head slowly, making sure I had acknowledged him even though my mind stayed firm of the subject of me maybe not even being here when she came. "Are you sure you're okay?" He asked as my silence overtook the place.

"I have to tell you something." I said as I turned my body towards him. "But you're not going to like it. So promise me you're not going to freak out and get all dark avenger on me."

Angel looked at me, his brow becoming more serious. "What happened?" His voice was dangerous, enough to make me wince because I knew that the moment I told him, all he'd want to do was go out and rage and kill everything in sight, searching for a way to contact the Powers in order to get the point across that I was not going back to them any time soon.

"Promise me Angel."

"Buffy..." He said warningly. I cut him off though before he could continue.

"Angel, promise me. I'm not saying a damn thing until you promise to keep calm about this whole thing."

He nodded his head slightly, not even trusting himself to open his mouth. But when he saw me cross my arms and raise an eye brow at his dead silence he could only sigh and say, "I promise."

I took a deep breath preparing myself for the rage that was to come. "The Powers sent Willow here. She gave me a little back story on how and why I got here in the first place. Apparently the Powers had sent me down to kind of keep you from turning into Angelus or dieing all together. My mission was to come here and turn you around, set you back onto your path so you could start the fight once again. We're not really sure why I don't remember any of my time in heaven though, so it kind of took me longer then they expected to complete this." Now for the part I was dreading. "I guess I've kind of… well completed my mission. Willow was sent here to take me back." I said the last bit so quickly I wasn't even sure if he had heard a word that I had said.

Angel's jaw went rigid. "What?"

His voice was dangerously low, sounding for the entire world like he was about to attack.

"It was an agreement I made with them. Before I got sent down here. I agreed to come back as soon as you got better. They thought that this would be extremely easy for me. They didn't really count on us being a couple again because of our... past events together. But now that we are, and I don't even remember agreeing to any of this in the first place, they had to send Willow down here to bring me back up. It's almost like I sighed a contract or something."

He was quiet, sitting there staring at the opposite side of the room, glaring at the chipping paint on the wall. "And what did you tell them?"

"I told them yes." I said sarcastically. I wasn't really in the mood to get stupid questions like that one. "God Angel, what the hell do you think I would say?"

"So you said no?"

"Of course I said no. I practically told Willow to relay the message of 'go screw yourself' back to them. Somehow though I wouldn't be surprised if they're listening right now, already hearing what you and I think of them and this whole situation."

Angel got up and started pacing the room. "You do realize you and I really don't' have a choice in this right?"

"Excuse me but I think I do kind of have a choice in this whole thing. It's my life."

"Buffy, we're talking about higher powers here. They have the ability to make and end us. Do you really think that if they want you back they're going to give you the choice of staying down here with me? You're going back up there whether you agree to it or not."

I got up and threw my hands up into the air. "Thanks for the support here Angel!" He and I were two of the strongest people on this Earth. There was no way that the Powers were taking me back up there without a fight.

"I'm being realistic here Buffy! Since when has what we wanted ever came true? They do stuff like this to us all the time. They've screwed with my life since I got my soul back, and yeah, I probably deserve it more then anyone else in this world, but you? You they've screwed with since you were fifteen years old! Since when has anything you wanted on a personal level ever come true? Huh? Come on Buffy, tell me when the last time you had done something that was was for yourself, and no one else, and it's come out good! Because I sure as hell can't think of a single thing in that scenario! They've been fucking with our lives for years now Buffy. They don't want us to be happy because I represent everything they're against. You staying with me, caring for me, it's against the god damned rules! We were starting to be happy again Buffy. It was only a matter of time before they decided to take that away from us again." He laughed bitterly. "After all, aren't we at our finest when the two of us are in pain? Seems to me more things get done while we're suffering then when we're happy."

"So lets take control of our lives this time around Angel! Let's fight back!"

"Buffy, they control the whole damn universe! We can't fight them! They know we can't fight them and they're using that to their advantage! We're nothing more then pawns to them!" His words brought back the memory of the Oracles telling me the exact same thing. That we were pawns in this world and nothing more. We were just vessels, carrying out their biddings one by one. "I would like nothing more then to try and stop this. Believe me if I could I would go and slit their throats just so they could feel an ounce of the pain that we deal with. But it doesn't work that way. We fight them, all we'll be is selfish."

"Selfish? How the hell is me wanting to stay down here to help restore what we lost a long time ago selfish?"

"Because Buffy, all of our energy would be spent trying to fight back towards the Powers. Trying to win a battle that we lost a long time ago. We can't... or at least I can't, fight the Powers in good conscience when I know that kids no more then three years old are dying every damn day by the very things we're supposed to be defeating."

"So what? Wouldn't us ignoring our callings piss them off? Wouldn't us ignoring the people that need saving show them that I have to stay here? That we're not going to play their stupid game unless they agree that I can be down here to help? Angel, think about it. We show them that we'll let innocents die until they give into us..."

"Are you listening to yourself? Buffy, that's not what we're meant to do." Angel just looked at me sadly, and through his eyes I could see that the only thing he wanted was to do what I said. But right now he was being the more sensible one, the practical one. "We're not turning our back on them Buffy. Because if we do, we become no better then them." He sat back down on the bed rubbing his hands over his tired face. "This isn't about us. This is about the people out there that wake up every morning wondering if today's the day they'll die. I don't want you to go. I don't even know how I'll act when you do. But I'm not going to ignore the people that need our help just so I can have the woman I love back in my life."

I looked at him. I hated the fact that he was right. I hated the fact that I was going to have to give in and go back up there. Once I left this place I would be powerless to help. I would just being watching from up above as all the pain and suffering spread through the world. But to fight back the Powers, would be nothing more then a losing battle, the time and energy spent trying to figure out a way for me to stay down here would be better spent killing Leon. I had lived my life already and this was a second chance. It was something that most didn't get after they died. My heart just wanted to be selfish though and say screw the Powers and the rest of the world. But I could bring myself to do it. I couldn't push the words past my lips because my brain wasn't allowing them too. Once again I questioned the many reasons as to why the hell I was the one chosen all those years ago for this job. I couldn't grasp what they saw in me when I was fifteen. The decisions I had made over my life had all been ones of heartbreak and endless pain. Sending Angel to hell, jumping off the tower to save my baby sister, facing the Master when I knew that I could very well die that night. It all seemed so cruel and unfair. But the thought of some scared little girl outside at the moment caught in the down pour of rain made me realize that I couldn't be selfish. Somewhere out there a child sat huddled in some dirty alley corner as one of the many vampires that plagued the street came forth, sinking his white fangs into the soft baby neck. To prevent that from happening I would have to leave. I wouldn't wait for the powers to drag me back up kicking and screaming because I knew that all it would do was prolong the suffering out there. Angel and I would be focused on each other more then anything else, causing us to get sloppy. Every single second that we had left together would be spent thinking upon things that we knew could never happened. The longer I stayed the harder it was going to be. So I had to make the mature decision and go to Willow, telling her to take me away. Take me away from a life and a man that I love with all my heart. I just hoped that this was the last time I would have to sacrifice my life to save the world because I didn't know how much longer I was going to be able to handle this whole thing.

"I love you." Angel said, knowing that I had come to my decision, breaking both of our hearts with every second that was passing by, knowing it was one more moment gone from our final minutes together.

"I love you too." Slowly his hand came into view and wrapped into mine as it had done so many years ago at my mothers funeral. He tried to give the comfort that I needed at the moment. But he too was going through pain that most can't even imagine. We would be saying goodbye to each other. No hope in seeing one another in the afterlife like so many said right as their lovers breathed their last sweet breath across their lips. Angel would live forever, as long as Leon did that is. And then when and if he finally did die, the question of his afterlife would be a difficult one. He was technically a demon and for all I knew, demons didn't go to heaven, even with the status of their soul. "I don't want to do this." I whispered brokenly."

"Come on." He said, swallowing a lump in his throat, trying to stay strong and keep the tears clear from his eyes. "We better go tell Willow."

I could only nod. Slowly we got up from the bed, his hand staying securely wrapped around my own. We walked brokenly towards the room where Willow sat, her head in her hands, dreading what she would have to eventually do. Looking up as we entered the room she gave us a sad apologetic smile. "You ready?' Her voice was soft and filling with comfort, but it still didn't ease any of the pain of what I was about to do.

Angel squeezed my hand tighter. "Take care of her Willow." Willow nodded slowly, taking a deep intake of breathe and then began to chant.

The tears fell at that point. There was no going back. I was leaving him to face this all alone. I was leaving him for paradise, a place he couldn't follow. Without warning he pulled me into his embrace and kissed me. All his warmth and fear was poured into that kiss as he held onto me. Maybe he thought that if he held on tight enough I would leave him. "God..." He whispered, his voice laced with the tears he was trying so hard to hold back. "I hate this so much." A single tear finally fell loose as sobs began to rack my body.

"I don't want to go Angel. Please, I don't want to go." He just held onto me tighter, squeezing his eyes shut, willing the outside world to go away.

"I love you so much Buffy. Never forget that." He whispered into my neck, no longer caring about the tears that ran down his cheeks or the tremors of grief that started running through his own system.

Pulling back, the sound of Willows words droning on in the background, I gently brushed a tear away from his wet cheeks and kissed him will all the passion I could find. Somewhere in the distance I could hear the spell coming to an end as the last couple words became louder, Willow shouting towards the heavens. It was now or never.

Holding back the sobs, making sure that my voice came through clear, that there was no doubt in his mind about what I meant I looked at him sadly. "I never forgot." And in a blinding flash my whole world faded, his shocked expression on his tearful form being the last thing I saw.