"With Some Scoobies on the Side Series"
By: Lynn
DISCLAIMERS: Duh guys! Nothing's mine!
DISTRIBUTION: You ask me, I ask you... you know the process.
SUMMARY:This is a re-write of most of the Angel episodes with the Scoobies in the mix. Whoohoo! This is gonna be fun!
SPOILERS: I guess the beginning of Ats.
A/N: Okay, so during the Ascension thing, Angel didn't tell Buffy he wasn't saying goodbye, and the whole "one last look by the fire trucks" thing didn't happen. And Faith didn't go all psycho. In my story, her association with the mayor was just a decoy.
Part 2
As Angel slowly regained consciousness, he found that his arms were chained up high from the ceiling of a dark, abandoned warehouse.
Across from him, he caught saw the man, or vampire, that had helped put him in this position. He pulled out an LP record and put on some classical music. He then opened up a trunk and pulled out some torture tools and carefully added them to the collection on the table in front of him.
At sight of the tools, Angel suddenly jerked awake. His mind immediately frantically thought of the whereabouts of Buffy and her safety. His eyes scanned the warehouse, and finally saw her unconscious self gagged and wrapped up in chains in a metal chair nearby.
From his spot on the edge of the table, Spike mistook his weak struggle in his chains as a fear of being tortured, instead of fear for his girl.
"Marcus is an expert," Spike informed him, "Some say artist, but I've never been comfortable with labels. He's a bloody king of torture, he is." He pushed off the table and made his way toward his victim with his arms crossed. "Humans, demons... politicians, makes no difference," he slowly started to circle Angel, "Some say he invented some of the classics, but he won't tell me which ones. Beneath the cool exterior, you'll find he is rather shy. Except with kids," he called out to Marcus, "You like kids, don't you Marcus?" He went back to speaking to Angel, "Well, likes to eat." He leaned in closer to him, "And other nasty things."
Angel thrashed in his chains, and Spike pulled back with a satisfied smirk on his face. He loved the fact that he could taunt his grandsire as much as he wanted and he could do nothing about it, because he was all helpless and chained up, less powerful than he.
The platinum blonde vampire stole a glance toward the slayer.
"Don't worry about your girl, mate. Marcus has this thing with not using loved ones as a torture device, unless it's absolutely necessary. Pity though, I had some ideas that would've made you talk and her scream."
Angel yanked on his chains once again, but found that they were really strong and unbreakable. "You touch her, you're dead," he warned, and Spike just snickered.
"Yeah, okay. What are you going to do about it? Flail about in your chains," he chuckled once again and let the torturer take over.
Marcus put on his wire-rim glasses as he walked over to Angel. He opened up Angel's maroon shirt and stared at his chest.
"His skin...," Marcus started.
"Annoying isn't it? Still attached."
"Over two hundred years of living and so little external damage... What about internal?"
Spike raised his brow. "Do you two need to be alone, or can we go on to the ouchy part?"
Marcus laid a hand over Angel's unbeating heart, and he flinched at his tough, "He's known love," he stated.
"Yeah, and with a slayer no less," he remarked with disgust, sparing a glance toward the knocked out blonde, "How is that for perversion?"
"And he has a soul."
Spike sighed in boredom. "Right, vampire with a soul. Cursey-cursed to walk the earth trying to do good. That's not going to be a problem is it?"
"On the contrary. Creatures with souls have something to lose."
"Souls, fingers, toes... Let's get chopping will you," Spike rushed him, "I want my damn ring."
"What do you want, Angel," Marcus asked his victim, ignoring Spike's order.
"Are you going to torture me, or just bore me to death," Angel mouthed off.
Marcus picked up a hot poker from a fire-barrel, and immediately stabbed it clear through Angel's lower right chest. Angel suppressed a scream, keeping strong so he wouldn't give in.
"Probably a little of both," Marcus quipped.
"Someone's having shish kabob," Spike commented with a smile.
Later on, Angel still hadn't given up, but in consequence, he had more hot pokers sticking through different parts of his body, making him look like a life size voodoo doll. He was panting with unneeded breath from the pain and suppressing the urge to scream.
While Spike paced impatiently, Marcus stood calmly in front of Angel as he played with some pliers.
"What do you want Angel," he again asked him.
"A house in the country, a pair of good running shoes that you can also wear out to dinner," angel retaliated, gasping.
"Why do you keep asking him that," Spike growled agitated, "And why do you keep playing that bleeding Brahms," he indicated toward the classical music playing from the record over and over again.
"Actually, it's Mozart, 'Symphony 41'. I find it very effective."
"Yeah? Personally I prefer his older, funnier symphonies myself," he started, but then yelled angrily, "Look I want my ring back," he smashed off a wooden handle of one of Marcus' tool and aimed his new stake at Angel's chest, "If I don't get it pretty soon, I'm going to stake me old grandsire right here and now!"
"Are you finished," Marcus questioned the raging Spike, "He knows you won't kill him until you get the ring. He knows you're lying."
Knowing he was right, Spike dropped the stake and turned to Marcus, "You get it for me."
While talking to Spike, he looked at a suffering Angel, "Soon he'll want to tell me everything he knows and then some. Even without resorting to the girl. And he knows I'm not lying."
Marcus went to the table to heat up more pokers, and Spike stayed by Angel.
"I believe he does," Spike said.
"You're an idiot, Spike," Angel gasped out.
"You think? Because I'm not the one chained to the ceiling with hot pokers in my side."
"You hired a vampire. What do you think he going to do with the ring when he finds it, huh? Hand it over to you?"
Spike pretended to look scared at the thought, "Oh good Lord, why didn't I think of...? Oh, wait half a mo', I did. I hired a guy who doesn't care about the ring, or anything else on God's green earth except taking blokes apart one piece at a time. It's called addiction, Angel. We all have it... I believe yours is named Slutty the Vampire Slayer." The music finally stopped and Spike paused to sigh in relief, "Thank you," he said to himself. He glanced over at Buffy, her head lolled to the side, and had a small gash on her forehead.
"Speaking of little Buff," Spike continued, "she is cute when she's all tied up, isn't she?"
"I think she's cuter when she's kicking your ass," he returned.
To Spike's dismay, Marcus started the LP over a gain, and the blonde vampire sighed in annoyance.
"I think I will get a bit of fresh air; leave you two kids to it." Marcus stuck a "fresh" hot poker through Angel's thigh, causing him to let out a short scream from not expecting the sharp, brutal pain. "Now that is music!"
Spike made his way to Angel's apartment through the sewer entrance.
"If I was a ring, where would I be," he wondered out loud.
He went to the kitchen and started to knock things off the counter and shelves. When all he accomplished was broken glasses and dishes, he paused and took a quick glance around.
"Well, this is fun... But it's going to get old real fast."
Using the elevator to the office, Spike found the search in the apartment fruitless. On the plus side, he managed to ransack his grandsire's impeccably clean place.
He slid open the elevator door, only to find Cordelia with a loaded crossbow and Willow with a wooden cross blocking his way.
"When you're done giving the place the Johnny Depp once-over, I hope you have cash to pay for all of this," Cordelia said.
Spike took a few steps closer to the girls, but still kept his distance. "Cordelia, Willow," he glanced between the two, "Love the hair."
"Wish we could say the same," Cordelia quipped.
When Spike tried to get a little closer, the guys came up on either side of the girls. Doyle and OZ held stakes, while Xander had one of Buffy's crossbows.
"That's close enough," Xander growled.
"What's with you good guys running in packs," Spike questioned, and then nodded towards Doyle, "Who's this one then?"
"More than meets the eye, Blondie," Doyle replied, not too nicely.
"Ooh," Spike teased, "the Mick's got spine! Maybe I'll snap it in two."
"Do you want me to use this," Xander said.
Spike gazed seriously at the slayer's loyal friend, "You'll be dead before that arrow leaves the bow." Spike's words effected Cordelia's brave front and she lowered her bow slightly. Xander, on the other hand, swallowed his fear, and didn't let up on his aim.
"Now where was I? Bloody tired of looking for that ring. I think you should take over now."
"Where's Buffy and Angel," Willow demanded.
"Angel, um... Tall brooding guy, caveman brow with a blonde headed bitch for a girlfriend?... They're having the living hell tortured out of them," he embellished a bit, not telling them that Angel was the only one getting tortured, but loving the horror on their faces. "And you know how stubborn those two could be. They might die before they give up the ring. Why don't you five find it real fast and give it to me? I'll let the power couple go."
Cordelia glared at him. "I don't trust you."
"To coin a popular Sunnydale phrase: 'duh!' But you have until sundown to save them. You'll find me behind Peterson's Fishery between Seward and Westminster. Don't be late." He walked off leaving the group to stare at each other with worry.
"You did terrible things when you were bad didn't you," Marcus monologue-d to Angel, his back toward him as he fiddled with some of the tools on the table he had yet to use on Angel, "And now you are trying so hard to do good. But Angel, there is nothing either bad or good, but thinking makes it so."
While he rambled on, Angel used his feet to reach for the stake Spike dropped earlier. Buffy, who had woken up when Marcus fired holes in the ceiling to let streams of sunlight in, smirked as well as she could with a dirty rag in her mouth, when her boyfriend got hold of the lethal, wooden weapon.
Marcus faced Angel again and walked toward him, "Now I can make the pain go away," he pulled out one of the pokers, causing Buffy to wince and turn her head away when Angel let out a scream of pain, "and as you know," he pulled out another poker, and a tear streamed out of Buffy's eye as Angel screamed again, "I can bring it back again. Marcus walked back to the table and leaned against it, "What do you want, Angel? I think I know, but I'd like to hear it from you. The truth. I'll know if you're lying." He stood back in front of him.
"I want... forgiveness," Angel said weakly.
"Yes. That's the truth, and you want to earn it. You're not the type that takes the easy way out. Which is why I like you so much. In the end, you won't feel guilt, or remorse, or anything but pure darkness. In the end, the ring, the past, none of it will mean anything anymore. You'll be free. I promise."
"And I promise," he pretended to give in further, but then finished with, "to kill you." He swung up his legs and drove the stake towards Marcus' chest with his feet, but was intercepted when Spike came out of nowhere and grabbed his legs.
"Now, now," Spike said, "staking the torturer is strictly prohibited."
He let go of Angel's legs, and Marcus lunged toward Angel, landing a brutal punch across his face. Spike pulled him back before he can hurt him any further without torture tools.
"Easy fella, still need that ring," then Spike said to Angel, "Now you're made him mad. Wouldn't want to be in your chains."
"Won't be long now," Marcus told him.
"Well, what's say I'll grab a pair of needle-nose pliers and give a hand," Spike heard a whimper come from Buffy and smiled at her, "Oh good, you're awake. Now you'll ge tto see some fireworks."
Buffy closed her eyes tightly, and her ear drums rattled with Angel's tortured screams.
"Drat," Cordelia exclaimed when she exited the bathroom, joining Doyle in the bedroom, while the others searched through other parts of Angel's apartment.
Doyle looked up briefly from the drawers he was going through, "What?"
"It's not in the freezer and it's not in the toilet tank. In the movies it's always in one of those places."
"It's not here," Willow claimed as she walked into the bedroom with Oz and Xander.
"Yeah, but we did find some juicy stuff," Xander commented excitedly and held up one Angel's provocative drawings of Buffy.
Willow rolled her eyes and grabbed the drawing away from him, blushing a bit from the very detailed drawing of her best friend.
"Xander...," she huffed.
"Xander," Cordelia said with a stern tone, "We don't have time for your perverted musings, so put it back where you found it, and help us find the ring."
"Yeah Xander," Doyle declared, "Put it back where you found it... Where did you find it exactly?"
"Oh. There's a whole drawer full of them in his desk!"
"Guys," Willow interjected, "The ring, we still have to find the ring."
"It's not here. We've looked everywhere," Xander stated after placing the now forgotten drawing on top of the bed.
"Well," Oz rang in. "Everywhere except..."
"The rat infested sewer tunnel he uses to get around in the daytime," Cordelia finished for him.
In no time, the five of them were in the dark sewer tunnels, each of them handling a flashlight.
"This is not a needle in a haystack, this is a needle in Kansas," Cordelia commented.
"Yeah, I know," Doyle said, "you're right. We just got to keep looking."
When Cordelia walked ahead a few feet with Willow and Xander, Doyle and Oz looked at each other and nodded, sharing a secret, silent conversation.
Oz watched as Doyle let his face change. Little blue spikes pooped out all over his face and his skin turned green. They simultaneously sniffed the air and Doyle went back to his human face when they wordlessly agreed on a spot.
They went to the side of the sewer, and found a loose brick at the bottom. Doyle kneeled down and lifted it up and finally found the Gem of Amarra.
"Here," Doyle exclaimed.
Cordelia, Willow, and Xander ran back to them.
"How did you do that," Cordelia asked, amazed that they actually found it.
Oz and Doyle shared secret looks before Doyle answered, "Oz sniffed it out."
Being modest, Oz returned with, "You gotta get lucky sometimes."
"I could hug you," Cordelia beamed, and Doyle willingly spread out his arms. "You're not that lucky. Now, come on we've gotta save Angel!" Cordelia ran ahead again, and the others immediately followed.
"Right," Xander said, "by giving Spike exactly what he wants so he can kill us."
"Right," she replied without registering Xander's statement, but then immediately thought about it, "No, we need a plan."
Silence draped over the group as they tried to quickly devise a plan.
Not long after, a light bulb suddenly flicked on in Willow's brilliant mind. Excitedly, she clapped her hands and her eyes lit up.
With all eyes on her, she finally let her words catch up to her mouth.
"A plan! I've got a plan," When her friends urged her on, all she did was smile at her wonderful boyfriend... who owned a van.
When they got to the alley behind the Fishery, Spike kept his promise and was right there waiting in the shadows, avoiding the bright sun.
"So, where is my ring," Spike asked immediately without looking at them.
"Not on us," Xander told him confidently. He, Cordelia, Doyle, and Willow stayed in the sunlight to protect themselves from the blonde vampire.
"But we know where it is," Willow said.
"And suddenly I'm so painfully bored," Spike replied, his tone matched his statement, "Time runs short, children," he finally looked at the four, not noticing that Oz was missing, "Give me that ring as if Angel and Buffy's lives depended on it."
"Listen you little Cockney," Cordelia spat, "take us to Angel and Buffy now."
"So, if they're still in one piece we tell you where you can find the ring," Doyle negotiated.
"They're still alive I think. In one piece was never part of the deal." Spike walked further into the shadows of the alley, and the gang suppressed their fear and bravely followed the vampire.
They walked into the warehouse in time to see Marcus drop a hog-tied and gagged Buffy at the feet of Angel who was slumped in his chains and still had a poker sticking from his side.
"Lucy, I'm home," Spike joked.
"Angel! Buffy," Willow and Cordelia exclaimed with relief and started to run towards their friends, but were blocked by Spike.
"Hey, hey! A deal's a deal."
"Cordelia," Angel gasped out, knowing if they tried to move closer without giving up the ring, Marcus would hurt Buffy.
"And our deal was for the ring. You've wasted quite enough of my time, so I'd really like it... NOW!"
"You want the ring, you dog, huh," Doyle pulled the ring from his pocket and made a little show that he had it the whole time, "Go fetch!" He tossed it passed Angel and buffy and it landed in a patch of dim sunlight.
"Okay, good. You've got the ring, we've got Buffy and Angel," Cordelia calmly said, "and now you're going to leave us alone, and we're going to leave."
The four started to slowly walk closer and Spike backed up right along with them. For good measure, Marcus held a poker he recently pulled out of Angel close to Buffy's neck. Instinctively, Angel tried to gather what little strength he had left to protect his girl, but it was to no avail.
"Come on," Spike chuckled a bit, "You don't really think that we're going to do that, do you?"
They stopped trying to move forward as Spike reached for the ring. They heard tires squeal from outside and knew Oz was right on time.
"Not really," Xander answered.
"No," Doyle added.
Oz's van suddenly crashed through the side of the warehouse, letting the sunlight pour in. It rammed through some barrels and came to a screeching halt behind Angel as Spike rolled out of the way.
Oz pulled out two crossbows and aimed them out of the driver's side window at Spike, while Xander and Doyle helped Angel and Willow and Cordelia helped Buffy get out of their chains and into the back of the van. No one seemed to notice that Marcus disappeared ever since Oz burst through the building.
With the crossbows still aimed, Oz nodded and said, "Spike."
Once they got the back door slid open, Oz kept one arm out of the van and put it into reverse. As soon as they closed the door, Oz backed out the same way he came in with tires screeching.
When they were gone, Spike jumped up and looked around frantically.
"Where's the ring?" He then realized that he got royally screwed over by Marcus. "Bloody Hell."
In Oz's van, Angel weakly laid his head on Buffy's lap as she worried over his wounds, the others looking over the two, equally worried.
"How is he doing," Oz asked over his shoulder as he drove.
"He'll live," Buffy said, stroking his sweat matted hair as her writhed in pain.
"Not without help," Cordelia claimed, "We need to get him to a hospital."
"I hear you," Oz replied, "But which one," They all tend to specialize in humans."
"He's right, too risky," Doyle agreed, "Willow, do you know any first aid?"
"Basic sixth grade," she answered, "but I can improvise. If we can get him some place dark, maybe I can..."
"Turn around," Angel demanded.
"Angel...," Buffy tried to protest.
"He's delirious. Ignore him," Cordelia said.
"Turn around," Angel insisted.
"So you can do what? It's daylight and you're ringless," Buffy angrily said to her boyfriend, "Unless you're changing the act to human torch, I don't think so. Let me go after him, he didn't damage me like you."
"She's right," Xander agreed with Buffy, "you're death on toast, man. You're in no shape to be fighting a torture demon."
Angel pulled out the poker in his side to prove his point.
"God," he yelled in pain, "Okay, he's got a thing for children. Oz, turn around. He couldn't have gone far."
With a confirming nod from Buffy, Oz spun the van around and drove to a place where they thought a lot of children would play with a lot of sunshine.
They ended up at the pier and found Marcus headed to a group of scouts surrounded around an ice-cream cart. Oz rammed the van into him and sent him flying into a few people getting fishing supplies.
Cordelia, Willow, and Xander ran out of the van to the group or frightened children.
"Run," Cordelia and Willow ordered the scouts.
"Move your little scout legs," Xander added. When they didn't budge, they ordered more firmly.
"Now! Go! Come on!" and the scouts finally scurried off with little screams.
Oz used one of the crossbows he had and shot Marcus in the chest. The newly invincible vampire was unfazed by the bolt and just ripped it out and tossed it aside.
"Damn it," Doyle curse, "I'll get him." He charged toward Marcus and swung a punch at him, but he easily ducked and hit Doyle in the face and kicked him away.
"Doyle," Cordelia gasped out of concern and ran toward him.
Buffy looked in the back of the van where Angel still resided.
"You sure about this," she gently asked him.
"Yeah," he replied.
"Okay, I love you."
"I love you." With that, Buffy quickly opened the side door and Angel launched himself out with a scream to clear the way. He caught fire as he ran to tackle Marcus. They crashed through the pier railing and into the water below, squelching out the flames.
Buffy and the others hurried to the railing and looked over the edge. They effectively formed an audience and had other people curiously looking over the edge, too. They probably thought it was some sort of stunt show.
"Where is he," Buffy frantically asked.
Angel and Marcus emerged in the shaded area under the pier. When they stood up from the shallow water, Marcus managed to kick Angel around for a few times, but the last time he tried to kick him, Angel got a boost of strength and blocked the blows Marcus sent his way. Angel hit him and threw him against a hard wooden beam.
"What were you planning to do? Kill me," Marcus questioned.
"Well, after all, I promised," Angel rumbled.
Marcus kicked Angel to the wet sand, but Angel blocked another kick. Using the foot he had a hold of, Angel yanked Marcus down and picked him back up, only to throw him into the water. His fall to the ground broke a beam behind him, leaving it to become jagged and pointy.
The torture demon got up with a feral hiss, and trapped Angel between another beam and himself.
"You never cracked me, Marcus," Angel struggled to get out of his hold. He finally was able to elbow him three times and shoved him away; he landed on the jagged beam, the broken wood pointed through his chest, but did nothing to him on account of the magical ring still on his finger. "You tried and you failed. Now that, that's gotta be torture."
When Marcus tried to hit Angel again, he grabbed his hand ripped off the ring. With a scream, the bald headed vamp turned into dust and sprinkled to the ground, mixing in the salt water and wet sand.
Slowly, Angel put the ring on his left middle finger, and hesitantly stepped out from under the pier, his hand held up over his eyes to help shield them from the blinding light. Eventually, he lowered his hand and blinked to get used to the natural lighting. Looking around him in wonder, he marveled at how everything seemed different in the daytime. He glanced down at the ring and wondered how one little piece of jewelry could hold such power.
He walked further along the beach and met the gang in the middle.
Buffy ran into his arms, uncaring that he was soaked to the bone.
"Are you okay," she gently asked him. It then finally sunk in that she was standing in the sunlight with her vampire lover; it was a great feeling.
"I'm fine," he assured her, also reveling in the feeling of being with Buffy outside in the daytime, and then he said to Oz, "Thanks for the help, man. You were key."
Oz nodded. "You're... incredibly pale."
"Look, you should lie down," Cordelia insisted, "We should take you home."
Angel and Buffy started to walk off with smiles on their faces, ignoring whatever Cordy had just said.
Willow stopped her from further ranting, "Just give them a minute."
The couple wandered further on the sandy shore. Buffy stared up at him as he looked around the beach. They suddenly stopped, and her turned to her, pulling her closer in his arms.
He ran a hand through her silky blonde hair that shined bright as gold with the sun beaming down on it.
"You're beautiful," he whispered to her and stared into her sparkly eyes that became a lighter shade of green and blue. He leaned in and placed a sweet kiss on her lips.
From their place on the beach, the gang was starting to get misty eyed from the scene until Oz commented, "He's very pale. Paler than most people."
On top of the building of Angel Investigations, Angel held Buffy's waist from behind as they enjoyed the sunset together. Doyle came to the roof just as the sun was about to go below the horizon.
"So, how long has it been between sunsets," Buffy asked Angel.
"Two hundred years, give or take."
"Well, you got to be feeling pretty damn good then, huh," Doyle questioned, "I mean, this ring- changes everything, don't it?"
There was a pause and Buffy grinned up at Angel over her shoulder when she saw that he was preoccupied with the setting sun. "Yeah, it's spectacular, I know. But I do promise that there will be another one exactly like it tomorrow."
"Not for me," Angel replied, causing Buffy to spin around with fire in her eyes.
"What?"
"What are you saying," Doyle questioned in shock, "That the city will be hit by a meteor before tomorrow night or..."
"No," Angel said bluntly.
"No," Buffy started to back away from him, "It's to horrible to say the other. I can't even bring myself to say the other."
Angel tried to keep his arms around her. "I'm not going to wear the ring," he said for her.
Buffy shoved him away, "You got a real addiction to the brooding part of life. Anyone ever tell you that?"
"Buffy..."
"Care to explain? I meant this ring is your redemption. It's what you've been waiting for!"
"No, it just looks like it." Angel was really starting to piss her off. Not only was he being his hard headed self, but he was being way to calm about it.
"Angel, man," Doyle came in, "Think about what you're saying!"
"I have, I've thought of it from every angle, and what I figure is I did a lot of damage in my day, more than you can imagine."
"So, what," Buffy yelled, briefly reminded of the time when Angel was about to let the sun take him on Christmas Eve, "you don't get the ring and we don't get to be happy because your period of self-flagellation isn't over yet?"
"Yeah man, think of all the daytime people you could help between nine and five," Doyle added.
"They have help," Angel stated, "The whole world is designed for them, so much that they have no idea what goes around them after dark. They don't see the weak ones lost in the night, or the things that prey on them, And if I join them, maybe I'd stop seeing, too."
Buffy turned away from him, not wanting to hear it and leaned on the ledge of the building, sadly looking over the edge.
"And who'd look out for all the insomniacs?" Doyle started to understand Angel's reasoning.
The stubborn ensouled vampire stepped closer behind Buffy and carefully laid a hand on her shoulder.
"I was brought back for a reason, Buffy, and as much as I would like to kid myself and be with you outside at all hours, I don't think it was for eighteen holes at Rancho."
Buffy let out a sight and watched as the sun set, the first and last one they would share.
"Whatever," she softly dismissed, "Just... do it."
Angel sadly gazed at her back for a few moments. He finally set the ring on the ledge and picked up a brick. Just when he was about to smash the ring, he heard Buffy whimper and sniffle. With his hand still poised to destroy the ring, he stole a glance at Buffy, and saw a tear fall from her face and drip onto the ledge.
He sighed and threw the brick to the side. He couldn't stand the thought of he being the root of her sadness, of her being sad at all. Besides, with he being able to go in the sunlight, he would be able to protect and keep an eye on her when he couldn't have before. He was so whipped.
Not hearing the hard impact of brick against metal and stone, Buffy looked up, and say the unharmed ring and a defeated Angel.
"Angel?"
He sighed, "Just don't let me become so involved in the sunlight that I forget who I really am and what I'm supposed to do."
Buffy beamed; instead of tears of sadness rolling down her cheeks, they were tears of joy. She threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly.
"I promise," she whispered. She loosened her grip to grab the ring, and gently slipped it back on his finger.
Angel was so ecstatic for putting the look on Buffy's face, that he was glad that his soul was anchored.
Doyle was happy that his friend didn't smash the ring, but being the third wheel made him kind of uncomfortable. "Oh, that Rachel girl with the crazy boyfriend called," he decided to interrupt. The couple was so enraptured with each other that they almost forget he was even there. "Said to say thanks, and that she found a little faith. Said you guys would know what that means."
Angel and Buffy smirked. "I don't know about you, but I had a nice day," Angel said, "You know, except for the bulk of it, where I was nearly tortured to death."
"Yeah, well, you stood up."
"Oh god. I was this close to telling him everything." The three started to head inside, "I mean one more hot poker and I was giving him the ring, his mom, your mom... everything," he then asked Buffy, "How is your mom?"
End
Next installment: "I Fall to Pieces"