Notes: Literary license is a good thing. You can use it to make characters come back from the dead! Ain't it great?

"So," Connor said as he threw a peanut up into the air and caught it in his mouth as it came down. "Just because Angel said that he didn't do it, we believe him?" The group was enjoying a rare night off from patrolling, celebrating their friends' release from the hospital with a night at a bar.

Greg took a sip of his beer before answering. "No, but we do trust's Spike's judgment. If he thinks that Angel's telling the truth, then we leave Wolfram and Hart alone."

"And if he's wrong," Kate piped up from across the table as she sat with her cast-encased leg propped up in a chair. "We get to rip both him and Angel to pieces." She sent a sly look at the glaring man in question and laughed.

Greg turned his attention to her. "Kate, you've had dealings with Angel before. What's your opinion?"

The detective sighed and took a drink of her own beer before answering. "I researched who he was before the soul. He was vicious. He killed people for the sheer pleasure of it. But then, when he first came to LA, he brought a serial killer down and helped me catch a mob boss. He saved my life."

The group looked at her with interest, waiting for her to continue the story.

"When I was first suspended, way back before the weirdness that happened last year with Jasmine, I was in a bad place. I mean bad place. I took a whole bottle of pills and swallowed them. Angel found me in time to help me." She shifted a bit, trying to either squirm out of telling the last bit of the story or to find a more comfortable position for her leg. "Thing is, I had never invited him into my apartment. He shouldn't have been able to save me."

Spike raised an eyebrow at the tale, but decided to remain quiet. It was obvious that Kate had experienced some type of renewal of faith from the event and Spike did not want to disillusion her by suggesting that her door mat may have said "Come in."

"Rex?" Spike prodded Kal, the nickname referring to his previous experience as a king. His previous experience with Angel could provide another angle to study the problem from.

"Angel is a Champion," he stated simply, sipping at his glass of water. They had tried to get him to drink something stronger, but he had refused.

"Connor, what do the chat rooms you mentioned say about him?"

The teen shrugged. "Like I said before, it's basically sightings and rumors. Every once in awhile someone will pop up with a story of being rescued from something or other by him. I also met a guy who claimed that Angel and another guy actually came to him for information."

"So nothing much on that front," Greg concluded.

Connor nodded before throwing another peanut into the air.

"Seems pretty conclusive to me," Greg said. "We trust Angel."

"For now, at least," Spike cautioned. "Wanker has always looked out for number one. It's the vampire way of life, so to speak."

They drank to the agreement and settled down to enjoy the night.

An hour later Connor had persuaded a little brunette out onto the club's dance floor where the two of them were gyrating to the beat. Kal had gone to refresh his glass of water and had been waylaid by a woman he was too polite to blow off. Spike was visiting the bar while Greg and Kate remained at the table.

"Do you," Kate started out of the blue before cutting off.

"Do I what?"

"Do you ever get a bit jealous of them?" she asked, waving a hand around the club.

"Of all the people who live their life in ignorance? No, not at all."

Kate shook her head sadly. "No. Spike, Kal, Connor."

Greg looked confused as he asked why.

"They're…" she tried to explain. "They're born for this. They really make a difference out there."

"So do you," he stated confidently.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "Not like them. Not like you. You're all warriors. I'm just a dumb cop who didn't have the sense to run when she had the chance."

He regarded her as he drained the last of his bottle of beer. "Do you really believe that?" At her nod he sat forward in his chair. "Listen, Kate, to them, this is just what they do. They have the power to make the world different and they choose to try to make it better. Yeah, they're special. But you, Kate, you and me, we're extraordinary. We're not strong or fast, not like them. But we still try to improve the world. That takes more guts than any of them will ever know."

Feeling that he had been insightful enough, Greg grabbed his empty bottle and stood. "Want another?" he asked, before trotting to the bar to order another round of drinks.

"She better?" Spike asked, appearing beside him.

"You heard?"

"I suspected. It has to be hard on the two of you, especially after gettin' hurt like that. Figured you were the one to talk to her about it."

"I'll think she'll be OK," he stated, accepting the beers from the bartender. "She just had to be reminded that she does make a difference. Have you heard from Buffy?" he asked after a moment of silence.

"No," the former vampire said with a slightly dejected look. "Red finally e-mailed me back. She said that Buffy and the Nibblet were fine and asked for the phone number. Said that the slayer would call me when she figured out what to say."

Greg looked at his friend in sympathy before offering him Kate's beer. "You look like you need this." After relinquishing the beer, he indicated to the bartender that he needed another.

"Did she tell you about any of the other people you were worried about?"

"No, just Buffy and Dawn. The fact that she answered tells me that she's still alive. I can only guess about the rest."

Greg nodded in understanding. He knew how hard it could be to lose friends. He was about to offer sympathy when Spike suddenly stiffened beside him. "What's wrong?"

"The chit Copper's talking to," the man snarled, stalking towards the table.

Greg looked over at his female friend and her new companion and saw nothing to worry about, but trusting Spike's instincts, he quickly followed in the wake left by his passing.

"So," the strange woman was saying to Kate. "You sometimes feel like you're less than your friends?"

"Yeah. Sometimes I just wish I-" The rest of Kate's words were cut off by the hand a glaring Spike held over he mouth.

"Don't say another bloody word, pet," he growled as he continued to glare at her companion. Sensing trouble, Connor and Kal quickly joined them.

"William!" she cried happily. "I thought you were dead. How marvelous to see you -- and alive, too!"

"Halfrek," he greeted coolly. "Last I heard, you were a memory too, pet."

"Oh," she said with a little shrug and dismissive wave. "You know how it is. D'Hoffryn wanted Anyanka to suffer, so he made her think that I was dead. It was dreadfully boring being cooped up in Arashmahar while we waited for the assassins to deal with her. Imagine D'Hoffryn's annoyance when she ended up dying while saving a monkey. And not even that pathetic flesh-bag she almost married. He was so mad he actually had her summoned back to life."

"Really?" he asked with a grin that made the vengeance demon simper. He sidled closer to her, projected an aura of attraction. "And then he killed her himself, I suppose."

"What would be the fun in that? No, he's exacting his own justice, making her witness the death of the people she sacrificed herself for over and over. Justice is what he is the lord of it, after all." Smiling coyly, she leaned over and fingered the edge of Spike's duster. "Tell me, William, do you still write poetry? I would love to hear it."

Spike gave her his most charming smile as he leaned down as if to kiss her. Before she could react, he had one hand firmly wrapped around her throat and the other around the gem that was her power center.

"And here I thought my poetry, that I, was beneath you," he stated, sneering at her demonized face. "Interesting, that. It took me awhile, after that party that you cursed, to figure out who you were. Tell me, Miss Underwood, what kind of justice is there for a bitch that rips a man's heart out and cruelly laughs at him? Maybe makin' her the pathetic human that she was when she declared I was beneath her?" His hand tightened threateningly over her power center, causing her to cease her struggles. While she was much stronger than him, she could not risk the power center he held firmly in his grasp.

"I liked you better as a vampire," she snarled, trying to suppress the fear that coursed through her veins.

"You should," he said, bringing his face close to her. "Since you're the reason I was one for 120 years. Tell me, Cecily, did you not notice that poor, pathetic William disappeared after you so cruelly put him down? Of course not. You were just relieved that he wasn't spouting bloody awful poetry anymore."

He gave her a vicious shake and smiled at the stench of fear that rose around her. "You know, I still have a lot of frustration when it comes to you. Would you like to see how I earned my nickname? Mr. Ashton gave me the idea, actually. He said he'd rather have a railroad spike through his head than listen to any more of my poetry. Imagine his surprise when I found him a few days later and obliged him."

He leaned close to her and dropped his voice to barely above a whisper. "I looked for you after that night, to show you that I was no longer beneath you," he purred. "And now that I've found you again, I can show you." He gave a vicious grin as her smell changed from that of fear to that of arousal. He heard Connor make a disbelieving noise as the teen smelled the same thing and could only grin wider.

"I'll start by crushin' this little bauble," he told her calmly. "I don't have any railroad spikes, but I'm sure I can improvise. I was never the artist Angelus was, but I should be able to keep you alive for a few days, at least."

The scent of fear returned and Spike drew it in, pleased with the result of his threat.

"Here's what you are going to do, pet. You're going to grant me a wish for old time's sake and then you are going to bugger off. You'll tell your boss that if I see you or any of your co-workers around me or mine, I'll deal my own brand of vengeance. That's nothing you want to see. Do you understand me?"

She nodded frantically, extremely grateful that she could not die of suffocation and that he was letting her off as easily as he was. A simple wish to return him to his vampiric self, since she was sure that was what he would wish for, and she's be gone. Well, maybe she'd stick around to see if he had a smattering of interest in her when he was once again soulless.

"I wish," he said into her ear. "That Anya was alive, human, free from D'Hoffryn's ire, and standing beside me. And no tricks!"

Regardless of the hand clutching her necklace, Halfrek squirmed franticly. "No," she gasped. "You don't know what you ask. D'Hoffryn will kill me."

"Far as I'm concerned, you're already dead, remember? Do it. D'Hoffryn will understand when you explain to him that after I'm through with you I'll start summoning your sisters. One will grant my wish…eventually."

She nodded weakly and whispered the word that would end her life. "Done."

With a flash of light, Anya appeared on the ground beside Spike, naked and cowering. Her hair was ragged, hanging at various points half-way down her back and as short as to her shoulders. Her body was bruised all over and she shivered from cold and shock. Kal, ever the gentleman, quickly wrapped his own coat around her and lifted her into his arms. She struggled briefly before the fight went out of her and she lay silent and trembling.

Spike nodded in satisfaction before turning cold eyes back to the vengeance demon that had been the girl's friend. "Leave," he snarled before throwing her away from him.

So terrified that she forwent her usual dramatic arm waves, the demon disappeared in a flash of light, leaving a deathly silent bar behind.

Spike let loose a sigh of relief as she left and turned to face his curious friends. Greg and Connor stood side by side, protecting his back and the vulnerable Kate balanced on crutches. Kal stood holding Anya, who had graduated to small whimpering noises. They all looked at him with questioning eyes.

Taking the shivering woman from Kal, he shook his head, indicating that the questions could wait until they returned to the Warehouse.

After settling the mercifully asleep Anya in his own bed, Spike rejoined his friends downstairs, making sure to leave the door to his suite open so that he could hear any noises the young woman made.

"Care to tell me what that was about?" Greg questioned, his arms crossed firmly over his chest.

Spike ignored the question in favor of the bottle of bourbon he had stashed behind the cheesy chips. He retrieved five glasses and poured a measure into each before flopping into a chair and taking a gulp of his own burning liquid.

"That… That was about saving a good person from being tortured for an eternity." He quickly explained Anya's role as a vengeance demon and her subsequent humanizing, return to demon-hood, and voluntary reversal. He told him the little he knew about Anya's death and rebirth, finally adding that she was a good friend and that they could trust her.

"She's a demon," Kate pointed out, still a bit quick to judge those she did not know.

"Was a demon, Copper. She's as human as you are now. Speaks her mind and is a devil when it comes to money. She's fiercely loyal and will do anythin' for her friends."

He looked at each of his friends in turn, silently telling them that he was just as fiercely loyal to his friends and would do anything for them. Anything but send a broken Anya away.

She stood at the end of the platform and looked down at the swirling vortex below. Her sister stood trembling in her arms. She knew what she had to do. It was the thing she had done a thousand times. "No!" her sister screamed as she ran off the tower and dove into the portal…

She looked in shock at the blood on her lover's chest. So much blood. Where had it come from? "You're shirt…" she said, feeling herself fall. Her lover screamed, her eyes turning black…

Pain. That was all there was. She hung limply from the large cross, bound by thick chains. The being before her laughed as he hefted the ax he had used to separate her arms and legs from her torso. She had no idea why she was still alive, still awake. The last thing she saw was the ax swinging towards her neck…

She was driving down the interstate, singing to the radio. Today was her first day of her fall break and she couldn't wait to see her family. She missed her sister and friends too much to describe. She had no time to react when the eighteen wheeler slipped on the wet roads, plowing into her little car…

She stood over the graves of her friends. Her family. All buried in a private plot. Even Tara's remains had been retrieved from Sunnydale. A plot maintained by the Watchers Council and kept "vagrant" free by the slayers. She never expected to be the last to survive. She was the normal one, the human one. She had no extraordinary powers. Yet here she was, the only one left. Sad, she turned from the graves and walked out of the plot. She was only feet from her car when the demonic face appeared. Her hand was on the door handle when the vampire ripped into her throat…

Anya woke up screaming, the images of her dreams playing over and over in her mind. Dead. All dead. She had experienced every death, every possibility of death, several times. She had still not lost the ability to scream.

"Shh. It will be all right," a quite voice said from beside her.

Reacting instinctively, she whimpered and curled into a ball. Maybe if she was a smaller target then D'Hoffryn wouldn't hurt her as much. Maybe he would forget her.

"Spike has gone to acquire some clothing for you to wear. He said you would not appreciate wearing someone's cast offs."

She remained huddled, but twitched when she heard Spike's name. It was more torture that D'Hoffryn had come up with, some new game. Spike was dead. Her former boss had made her experience his fiery death often enough for her to know.

"I am Kal," the voice continued. "I am the Groosalugg of Pylea. In my home dimension I was an unbeatable warrior. They made me king."

She tried to curl into a tighter ball. D'Hoffryn enjoyed his games. He knew that Pylea had been one of her favorite dimensions to visit. It was one of the few places where she did not have to work. Pylean women were more than capable of wrecking vengeance without help. And the lifestyle had reminded her of the time before she had been raised to demon status.

"My full name is Kalverun of the Hardgerick Clan, Groosalugg and Champion, King of Pylea. Only, Pylea is a democracy now."

He had done his homework. D'Hoffryn knew that Pylea is where she had escaped to after the wedding that wasn't. She had discovered that the newly democratic kingdom had changed much in the few years since her last visit. No longer were there humans in chains, but ones that had formed a bureaucracy -- as if their involvement in the government isn't what led the humans to be banished in the first place.

"Please, do not be afraid."

She felt him touch her and reacted out of sheer instinct and terror. She grabbed the hand that rested on her shoulder and sank her teeth into it, feeling grim satisfaction when she tasted blood. Not waiting for the slap that was sure to follow her audacity, she scrambled from the bed and stumbled across the room to a corner. With her back protected, she curled her legs up and rested her hands over her head, waiting for the blows that would rain down.

By the bed, Kal cursed softly, an event that owed a lot to his British friend. Before meeting Spike, he had not known many Earth curses and those that were the worst insult on Pylea held little or no meaning on Earth.

He sucked on his wounded hand as he watched the terrified woman in the corner. If she could have seen him, his princess would have surely scolded him for putting his "dirty" mouth on an open wound. He never could adequately explain to her that his saliva had healing properties in it. Or maybe he had and she had still found it gross.

Once the bleeding stopped, he took his mouth off his hand and examined the purpling flesh. It would leave a scar, yet another mark that told of his battles. A battle scar was the mark of a true warrior, though he thought that this one would prove the more interesting if commented on.

He flashed back to his dame approaching a wounded karnosh when he was but a child. Karnoshes were fierce quadrupeds that lived on Pylea. They were very hard to tame and dangerous when wild. He and his mother, while walking to the market on an errand for his master, had found one by following the trail of its bright green blood from the path to the market.

They had both known the danger presented by a wounded beast, even before they saw that the creature was a karnosh. But their natural human curiosity had egged them on. It was a trait their master had actually indulged.

His dame had cautioned him to stay well behind her and slowly approached the beast. She paused between every cautious step, speaking in a soothing voice to the karnosh the entire time. After what seemed like a very great time, she was close enough to see that the creature had been wounded by a drakkon, a distant cousin to the drokken. It must have run a long way to escape the beast. Drakkon were not native to the area.

Pomegranate, his dame, had eventually managed to touch the beast, soothing it with both her words and hands. Between the two of them they had carried it back to their master's hut and his mother had worked her healing magic on it. Rathagack had been very upset with his dame for putting them both in danger, but in the end had given in to her whim to heal the creature.

His master had praised her whim only months later when he learned of the fierce loyalty and protectiveness of a karnosh. The young Kal had been playing near the running water with the karnosh while his dame beat their master's clothes against the rocks. A senih'd demon had attacked the playing boy and relatively small karnosh. It was the karnosh that had defended Kal and Pomegranate, driving the larger demon away. The karnosh became a valued creature after that, trailing Kal wherever he went until the point of his death, when Kal was but ten winters old.

Speaking in the same low voice his dame had first used on his childhood companion, Kal told the trembling Anya the story of the little demon's bravery and of their many adventures together. He was never quite sure if it was because he was caught up in trying to soothe her or if she was just the person he was destined to talk to, but soon he found himself telling her about Rathagack and Pomegranate.

"I know he was more than just my master, of course," he told her, keeping his voice even despite the sad memories he was being subjected to. "But we lived far from the other members of the Clan and I did not often see how the other cows were treated. To me he was always my master, nothing else. It was only after he died, which was before my voice dropped and the hair grew in my manly areas, that I learned how unusual his treatment of me was.

"He trained me in the early years of my life, you see. That was against the Covenant's Law, to train a cow in the warrior arts. When the rest of the Clan came to take us, after he had died, I quickly learned to keep my head down and my thoughts to myself. I ground my teeth against the slurs made to both me and my dame. It wasn't until one of the other members of the Clan, a distant cousin of Rathagack's, I think, tried to force my dame to do what she had willingly done with our master that I rebelled.

"A half-grown cow, even one with training, should have been no match for an adult member of the Clan. Perhaps it was my rage that fueled me. I defeated the cousin, and the one that came to defend his honor. That was when the elder of the Hardgerick Clan noticed me. She was a rare female, indeed, to not sever my head from my neck the instant I touched one of her offspring. Instead, she sent me to a local tournament and wagered that I would beat any comer. From there she and I traveled, looking for contests of skill. Soon I had caught the eye of the Covenant of Trombli. They declared me the prophesized Groosalugg and their champion.

"I went from being an outcast half-breed to the most powerful warrior on Pylea. As such, my dame was honored and revered. She was taken from the Hardgerick Clan and given a small farm of her own with servants and slaves. I visited her right before I made the journey to Earth. She told me to follow my heart, as she did when it came to Rathagack so many years ago."

He glanced over at Anya to see if she had calmed down at all and found that she was asleep. Using every skill ever learned as a warrior, he gently lifted her and placed her back on the bed, oddly grateful that Spike had thought to place a shirt over her nakedness. Surely it was wrong to even think about com-shucking with anyone but his princess.

Confused, he retreated to the chair beside the bed and wished that Spike would return.