TITLE: Destiny's Child
AUTHOR: sugarwater
E-MAIL: DISCLAIMER: I own nothing, all bow down to the mighty Joss
TIMELINE: Begins mid Season 2
SPOILERS: Probably just about everything
SYNOPSIS: B/A! The Powers That Be have a surprise in store for Buffy and Angel. Btvs re-write – Angel doesn't leave. Whole lot of Fluff and little bit of Angst.
DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere, if you want it, take it, just let me know!
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Very very long epic type story, Chapter 3 takes place in the episode "Becoming Part 1"
FEEDBACK: Craved, oh please, please, please, REVIEW! Constructive crit very welcome
RATING: T
Jenny had now been lying in a coma for two months without any signs of recovery. The situation was bleak but Giles had remained ever hopeful, refusing to accept that she may never wake up. Demonic activity had luckily been pretty slow lately with the exception of a couple of ghosts and the swim team turning into fish monsters. Buffy had spent most of her time waiting for her big showdown with Angel and mentally preparing herself for it. The break from slaying had also gave her extra time to study for finals and go through the old watcher diaries. She had been trying to find any mention of slayers having children in the past. Although unsure if she would find anything, she needed answers and this seemed like the best place to start looking for them.
"Tell Angel, I'm gonna kill him….no wait…I'm gonna kill you. Die! Die! Die! Arghh….mother?"

Buffy, Willow, Oz and Cordelia sat around the table in the cafeteria avidly watching the fish stick puppet show Xander was performing for them.

"Is that it?" Cordelia asked, bemused by what she had just seen.

"That's it" Xander nodded. "Scene!" He said looking at Buffy.

"That's exactly how it happened" Buffy admitted.

"Well, I thought it was riveting. And I'm a little unclear about some of the themes." Oz stated, leaning slightly forward.

"The theme is Angel's too much of a coward to take me on face-to-face." The slayer told him.

Xander continued to play with his fish sticks "And the other theme was 'Buy American', but it, uh, got kind of buried."

Willow smiled at her friends' joke and turned to Buffy "Do you think you're ready to fight Angel?" she queried, clearly concerned for the slayer's state of mind.

"I wish people would stop asking me that. Yes, I'm ready. I'm also willing and able. Just the one test I might actually pass." she told the red head despondently.

Willow instantly put on her teacher's hat and was in motivation mode "Don't say that! You're gonna pass everything. I will get you through this semester if I have to sweat blood." she said determinedly.

"Do you think you're likely to? 'Cause I'd like to be elsewhere." Xander retorted, slightly grossed out by the visual image.

"It was only metaphor blood." Willow responded.

"I think you'd sweat cute blood." Oz said in his usual tone. Willow gave her boyfriend a smile. "Sixth period, after my computer class, we'll rock on chemistry."

"Ready to rock" Buffy said keenly.

Willow eyed the bottle of water in her friend's hand. "Well you should probably eat something, you don't want to study on an empty stomach. Besides you've only had water all day."

"Oh I'm fine, I just um, I had a really large breakfast" the slayer lied as she casually rubbed a hand over her stomach. A tiny bump was forming which had so far gone un-noticed. The 'right time' that she had been waiting on to tell everyone about the baby had so far not arrived and time was running out. She knew she would have to let them all know very soon.

"So do you wanna come by my house tonight and study, too?" Willow asked Buffy.

"Maybe. I-I do have to patrol." Buffy admitted.

"Again? Do you really expect Angel to turn up tonight?" Willow confusedly asked.

Buffy looked up with a forlorn look "No, I don't expect him to. But that's usually when he does."

Buffy yawned widely and slumped down further in her seat beside the stacks as she held open one of the watchers' diaries. She had been working her way back through the years and had just stumbled across mention of a slayer in New York who had been killed by a vampire, leaving her four year old son motherless. Buffy sat upright and quickly scanned the entry for further information.

"Buffy?" Willow called as she entered the library.

"I'm up here" Buffy finally called as she placed her bookmark into the page and quickly tossed the diary into her bag before Willow had seen her.

"Are you ready to study?" The red head asked chirpily.

"Yup, I'm all ready to absorb copious amounts of useful knowledge" Buffy replied smiling.

"That's what I like to hear" Willow beamed. "My textbooks are all in the computer classroom, you wanna study there?"

"Sure" she said while following Willow down the stairs.

Giles shuffled slowly into the library with his jacket slung over his shoulder. Looking up, he met the two girls on their way out.

"Hey Giles" Buffy said. "How was Miss Calendar today?"

Giles smiled. "Good, good. I spoke to her for a while. The doctor said it could help, if she hears a familiar voice. It's only a matter of time before she wakes up now" he said with a contrived sense of hope.

Buffy and Willow averted his gaze, not wanting him to notice the doubt and pity written on their faces.

"Of course. I'm sure she'll wake up soon" Willow finally spoke up. "Well, we better go study." She said nervously as they each passed on either side of him and exited the library.

Buffy slammed her pencil down on the desk and frowned. "Waah! This doesn't make any sense." She pouted huffily.

"Well, sure it does." Willow said encouragingly as she took the paper from Buffy "See...Oh, no, this doesn't make any sense."

Buffy shrugged "It's senseless".

"It is, but at least you know that, so you're learning." Willow replied trying to look on the 'glass is half full' side of things.

"Yay me. Well, it doesn't matter anyway. I mean, when in the real world am I ever gonna need chemistry or history or math or the English language…?" she said rather unconvincingly.

Willow shot Buffy an annoyed glance "Okay. I see your problem."

"I'm a moron?" Buffy asked.

"Will you stop that? You're not stupid! You've just had a lot on your mind. You can learn this real easily, but if you're just gonna give up, then don't waste my time." She said showing her annoyance.

Buffy looked impressed and slightly scared. "Wow. You really are a good teacher."

Willow smiled. "Okay. Look at this. A covalent bond, which means these two atoms are linked by this..."

She was cut off as Buffy's pencil rolled off the desk. "Ohh! Hold that thought." The slayer moaned as she reached down and retrieved her pencil.

"Okay. I'm Learn Girl." She said looking back at the book.

Willow continued on with the tutorial "Okay. So, see here..."

"Deja vu." Buffy interrupted with a look of confusion.

"Really?" Willow asked, intrigued.

"Yeah. I have this perfect memory of the pencil and..." she rolled the pencil off the desk once more and reached down to retrieve it. As she looked down between the desk and the cabinet she noticed the yellow floppy disk lying there.

"Oh, hey. You dropped this." Buffy said handing the disk to her friend.

"It's not mine." Willow said curiously. "It might be something of Ms. Calendar's." she resolved as she inserted it into the computer and waited as it loaded.

Buffy looked over to the computer and suddenly felt guilty about going through Jenny's files. "Should we be doing this? Looking at her personal files?"

Willow simply smiled at Buffy "I've gone through most of them already."

The slayer looked confused, "Does that make it ok or does it just make you really snoopy?"

Willow sighed "I had to, to teach her class."

The program on the disk started up, and the curse scrolled into the right-hand window.
"Relax, Will. I was making with the funny." Buffy retorted.

As she stared at the screen she began to read what had appeared before her. "Does that say 'restoration'?" she asked, moving in closer.

"It's one of her spells, I think." Willow replied. "Ms. Calendar wasn't a practicing witch, but she did dabble..."

"Willow..." Buffy interrupted as she realized what she was looking at.

Willow looked back at the screen and began reading more. She quickly realized what they had found. "Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy".

"What are you saying?" Giles asked in disbelief as he walked towards Buffy and Willow.

"The curse." Buffy said, handing him a sheet of paper "This is it".

"Looks like Ms. Calendar was trying to replicate the original curse to restore Angel's soul again." Willow said almost smiling.

Giles stared at the printout. "She said it couldn't be done". He replied in amazement.

"Well, she tried anyway. And it looks like it might have worked." Buffy said with an edge of hope in her voice.

Xander was sitting at the table scowling and eventually decided to speak up. "So he tried to kill her... before she could tell anyone about it. What a prince, huh?"

"This is good, right? I mean, we can curse him again." Cordelia reasoned.

Giles looked in her direction as he thought about the notion "Um, well, this, um... certainly points the way, but... the ritual itself requires a greater knowledge of the black arts than I, I, I can claim." He said, trying not to get their hopes up.

Willow stepped forward to face him "Well, I've been going through her files and, and researching the black arts, for fun, or educational fun, and I may be able to work
this." She said confidently.

Giles smiled at Willow and placed a hand on her arm "W-Willow... channeling... such potent magicks through yourself, it could open a door that you may not be able to
close." He explained.

"I don't want you putting yourself in any danger, Will." Buffy said solemnly.

"And I don't want danger. Big 'no' to danger, but I may be the best person to do this." The red head argued.

Xander was seething and couldn't believe what he was hearing. He finally stood up from the table and spoke up. "Hi! For those of you who have just tuned in, everyone here is a crazy person. So this spell might restore Angel's humanity? Well, here's an interesting angle. Who cares?" He said harshly.

"I care" Buffy quietly responded.

Xander wasn't surprised at all "Is that right".

"Let's not lose our perspective here, Xander." Giles interjected.

Xander stood his ground and continued. "I'm Perspective Guy. Angel's a killer."

Willow looked at her friend in disbelief "Xander..."

"It's not that simple." Buffy quietly spoke up again.

"What? All is forgiven? I can't believe you people!" Xander spat, disgusted at what they were suggesting.

Cordelia stood up from behind Xander and tried to remain level headed "Xander has a point." She calmly stated.

He turned around, infuriated at what he thought his girlfriend had said "You know, just for once, I wish you'd support me, and I realize right now that you were, and I'm embarrassed, so I'm gonna get back to the point, which is that Angel needs to die".

Giles was getting slightly annoyed at Xander's outburst and tried to reason with him "Well curing Angel seems to be what Jenny wants to do."

"Yeah? Well, Jenny might as well be dead." He shouted back insensitively.

Giles was raging and walked towards Xander furiously "Don't you EVER speak of her in that tone again!"

"Can't you hear what I'm saying?" Xander shouted interrupting the watcher. The two continued to shout at each other aggressively until Buffy rushed in to break up their heated argument.

"Stop it! Stop it!" she shouted, exasperated.

For a moment there was silence and everyone glared at each other. Buffy walked towards Willow barely keeping it together. Giles marched off to the side.

Willow turned to her best friend "What do you wanna do?" she asked quietly.

"I-I don't know. What happened to Angel wasn't his fault." Buffy said in a barely audible tone.

"Yeah, but what happened to Ms. Calendar is." Xander once again thoughtlessly retorted.

Buffy and Willow stared at him in shock.

"You can paint this any way you want. But the way I see it is that you wanna forget all about what happened to Ms. Calendar and all the people Angel killed so you can get your boyfriend back." Xander said disgustedly.

Buffy had had enough and finally walked out of the library, refusing to listen to any more of it.

When Angelus heard about the large box shaped rock that had recently been dug up outside of Sunnydale, he knew almost immediately that it had to be the tomb of Acathla the demon. Legend told of how Acathla had tried to suck the world into hell but had been stopped by a brave knight hundreds of years ago. If Angelus succeeded in awakening Acathla, it would mean the end of Sunnydale and the end of the world…something he liked the sound of.

He wasted no time in stealing the obelisk and returning it to the mansion where he planned on performing the ritual to awaken the demon.

Buffy took the watcher's diary out of her book bag and sat down on her bed. Flipping it open to the page she had bookmarked earlier, she continued to read about the slayer from New York. Her son was four when she was killed and her watcher had raised him and trained him in basic combat. Apparently he had no special powers or slayer strength, he was just a regular kid. So it wasn't impossible for Buffy as the slayer to have a baby, but what about the father being a vampire? Would that have some affect on the child? Would it even be completely human? Her worrying thoughts were interrupted when the phone rang.

"Hello?" she answered.

"Hey Buffy it's me, are you coming over to study tonight?" Willow said.

"Well, I'll do a couple of sweeps, and then I'll stop by" She replied.

"How are you feeling now? I can't believe Xander was acting like such a dickhead earlier" Willow uncharacteristically said.

"Yeah, Xander was pretty much being a... Willow! Where did you learn that word? My God. You kiss your mother with that mouth?" she incredulously gasped while getting off the bed and packing her bag with stakes.

"Sorry, but he was. It should be up to you whether we curse Angel again, and Giles is fine with it. So what do you wanna do?" Willow asked.

"I don't know. I don't know what I wanna do." Buffy replied sadly. As she said this she opened the top drawer in her desk to retrieve a few more stakes. Her eyes suddenly rested upon the claddagh ring at the bottom of the drawer. The ring that Angel had gave her for her birthday. Buffy picked it up and held it in her hand simply staring at the heart and the hands while remembering the night Angel had gave it to her.

"Well have a think about it cos if you want to do it I can totally work it. I just need a few days to set everything up" Willow reassured her friend.

Buffy continued to stare at the ring and was lost in her thoughts "I'll, I'll see you in a little while, okay?" she said distantly.

"Ok, later. Bye" Willow said and hung up the phone.

Buffy turned off her phone and laid it down turning her attention back to the claddagh ring. The one thing she wanted most in the world was to have Angel back. She desperately wanted to get lost in his arms again, for him to hug and kiss her and make her feel whole again. Make her feel safe. She had given up hope of that ever happening again but now there was a chance. If Willow could really curse him he would be Angel again, the Angel she loved, the Angel who loved her and who had gave her the claddagh ring. The Angel who was the father of her baby. She had made up her mind. She wanted Angel back. She was going to ask Willow to curse him again.

Angelus and Drusilla walked across the marble floor of the mansion towards Spike. The blonde vampire was sitting in his wheelchair staring at the large obelisk before him. "It's a big rock. I can't wait to tell my friends. They don't have a rock this big." Spike sarcastically stated.

"Spike, boy, you never did learn your history." Angelus mocked.

Spike continued to glared at the rock "Let's have a lesson, then."

Angelus walked towards the obelisk "Acathla the demon came forth to swallow the world. He was killed by a virtuous knight who pierced the demon's heart before he could draw a breath to perform the act. Acathla turned to stone, as demons sometimes do, and was buried where neither man nor demon would want to look."

Angelus paused and looked to Spike, slowly walking in his direction "Unless of course they're putting up low-rent housing. Boys..." Angel motioned for his lackeys to open the box.

The two vampires reached up with crowbars and opened the tomb. Dust filled the air as the lid crashed to the floor. When it had receded, a tall, ugly, stone demon with a sword protruding form the right side of his chest could be seen.

Drusilla began to sway back and forth "He fills my head. I can't hear anything else."

Spike was less than impressed. "Let me guess. Someone pulls out the sword..."

"Someone worthy..." Angelus added.

"Mm. The demon wakes up, and wackiness ensues." Spike continued.

"He will swallow the world." Drusilla said.

Angelus began to smirk "And every creature living on this planet will go to Hell." He walked towards Acathla and turned to face Spike and Dru with an evil smile "My friends... we're about to make history... end."

On her way to Willows house Buffy had unexpectedly came across Kendra. The second slayer had been sent to Sunnydale by her watcher to advise Buffy of a dark power that was about to rise and end the world. The two girls made their way to the library to speak with Giles.

When they heard that Acathla had been stolen it became clear that they had to act fast. They decided that the best plan of action was for Willow to attempt to curse Angel. That way, if Buffy couldn't stop Angel in time they still had another chance.

Angel grabbed onto the sword sticking out of Acathla with his bloody hand and pulled it tightly. It didn't seem to be moving and Angelus couldn't figure out why. As he continued to pull it a sudden bright red flame burst from the sword and threw Angelus back onto the floor.

Spike was delighted and taunted his rival in a sing song voice "Someone wasn't worthy."

Angelus was furious and leapt to his feet "Damn it!"

"This is so... disappointing!" Drusilla moaned manically.

"There must be something I missed. The incantations, the blood... I don't know!" he shouted as he paced the floor in front of the demon.

"What are we going to do?" Drusilla whined.

Angelus gritted his teeth, seething with rage. "What we always do in a time of trouble: turn to an old friend."

Hope suddenly returned to Drusilla's eyes.

"We'll have our Armageddon. I swear!" he growled viciously, picking up a vase and hurling it towards the far wall smashing it into hundreds of tiny pieces.

He had an idea, one he knew would easily work. Buffy could never resist the offer of a fight.

Buffy hurriedly walked through the cemetery looking for Angel. The warning had been clear. If she didn't go to meet him tonight more people would die. It was finally time to bring the fight to him. If she could hold him back long enough then Willow would have enough time to do the spell. The vampire Angel had sent to give her the message had made Buffy realise how serious he was and she couldn't risk anyone else being killed. Kendra had even given Buffy her stake, Mr. Pointy for good luck.

Angelus spotted Buffy coming towards him and walked out from behind a small mausoleum.

"Hello, lover. I wasn't sure you'd come." He spoke up, smiling.

Buffy looked in the direction of the voice and remained cool "After your immolation-o-gram? Come on, I had to show. Shouldn't you be out destroying the world right now, pulling the sword out of Al Franken or whatever his name is?"

Angelus smiled "There's time enough. I wanted to say goodbye first. You are the one thing in this dimension I will miss." He teased.

Buffy looked bored "This is a beautiful moment we're having. Can we please fight?"

Angelus looked hurt "I didn't come here to fight."

"No?" she said raising her eyebrows.

"Gosh, I was hoping we could get back together. What do you think? Do we have a shot?" he asked feigning sincerity.

Buffy looked at him with a tinge of sadness in her eyes.

Angelus gave up the charade "Alright. We'll fight."

Willow sat cross legged on the table as she read out the curse with Giles.

"Let him know the pain of humanity, gods. Reach your wizened hands to me. Give me the sword..." she continued.

The curse was interrupted as a vampire came out from the stacks and attacked Xander on the balcony. Suddenly, behind Kendra two more vampires threw open the main doors and walked in. With the ritual abandoned, Willow and Cordy began to run for their life.

"Get out! Go!" Giles shouted motioning towards the stacks.

Angelus was beginning to get the upper hand with Buffy, blocking every swing she took. "Jeez, is it me, or is your heart not in this? Maybe I'll just go home and destroy the world"

Buffy whipped out Mr Pointy and held it menacingly towards him "Well, I think Mr. Pointy will have something to say about that. Come on. Let's finish this. You and me." She said forcefully.

Angelus began to laugh "Y-you never learn, do you? This wasn't about you. This was never about you." He couldn't help himself and began to laugh harder.

Realisation spread across Buffy's face as the reality of the situation began to sink in. This was a trap for the others. Without pause she turned on her heels and began to run as fast as she could back to the library.

Angelus watched her go and smiled "And you fall for it every single time!" he called in her direction as she disappeared round the corner.

Buffy ran down the corridor praying that she wasn't too late. Throwing open the library door she scanned the destruction before her. Her eyes fell to the ground as she was met with the sight of Kendra lying on the floor dead. Rushing to her side she sat with her fellow slayer and held her hand. None of this would have happened if Buffy hadn't gone to fight Angel.

Before she had a chance to gather her thoughts she heard someone behind her.

"Freeze!" shouted the cop who was pointing a gun in her direction.

Buffy spun her head around to stare at the man.
Things had just got a lot worse…