Chapter 5: It Must Have Been Love

Angel was waiting on the street when Buffy emerged from the apartment building, her head spinning from Mirela's warnings.

"Buffy—" he began, but she didn't want to hear his explanations.

"Angel, if you don't want me to do this, then you have to tell someone else. Your friends."

"It won't help." He shook his head. "Gunn and Gwen work with me. I think they respect me. But...a lot happened in hell. And everybody else is dead. They're all dead...Doyle, Fred, Wesley, Cordelia." He didn't look away when he said Cordelia's name, and the raw look in his eyes made Buffy clench her fingernails into her palms.

"I know. I'm so sorry." She looked at the ground. "My offer in there must have made you uncomfortable. If you've...moved on."

"No. God, Buffy, that's not even close." He clasped her shoulders and she looked up into his eyes. They were full of pain. "It's not because I don't love you. I will love you even when there's nothing of me left. But I deserve this. My friend Fred — her soul was destroyed because of the deal we made with Wolfram and Hart. This punishment is what I have coming. It's not about what I did without a soul anymore. It's about what I did with one."

He was really going to give up.

He was really going to let this happen. The thought of losing him, not just in this world, but all worlds, all dimensions, forever, made her breathless and panicked. But it also made her sure. Absolutely sure.

"You told me you went to Wolfram and Hart to save your son, to save his life."

"I did." He let his hands fall to his sides.

"So you had a choice between something inconceivable and something terrible, and you chose the terrible. We've all had to make hard choices. I came close to sacrificing the entire world for Dawn. Do you think Fred would want your soul to be destroyed? Truly?"

He didn't answer.

"We've done this all before. I'm tired of trying to convince you to stay alive. Aren't you tired of trying to convince me that you deserve to die?"

"You still don't know everything about me. Things I did before we met. Things I did after."

"And so once again, you're making the decision. Choosing for both of us. Maybe that made sense when I was 18. I know I'm not exactly reaching for the Poligrip yet, but I've seen a lot more of the world since then. I've done things that I'm not proud of, and things I am. And no matter how much time passes, no matter what choices we've had to make, this thing between us? It never stops." She held his gaze for a long moment. "For me, it's always you."

He reached out and cupped her face, his thumb running along her cheek. "I tried to give up on you," he said softly. "When you left L.A., I thought...I tried to make myself stop hoping. And then Spike..."

"It couldn't work. He wasn't...Angel, what I've learned from running away is that...I don't want to. I want to do what I'm good at. I want to fight. Even if it's not about us, I'll fight just so my world still has you in it. But you have to fight, too."

"What if something happens to you? I couldn't live with myself."

"You won't have to," she said, and morbid truth of that seemed to get through his thick skull. "Either we both make it through or we don't. You have to let me try."

"OK," he said quietly, and the relief that swept through her made her knees weak. "Buffy, I..."

"I know," she said, burying her face in his chest as his arms closed around her. "I know."

†††

Buffy didn't want to pull away, afraid the moment she did, time would come rushing in to steal him from her. She clutched him tighter as he stroked her hair. Then his lips were on her temple and she found herself actually drawing back from him a little, but only so she could lift her face to his. Their eyes met and locked, and then she reached up to pull his mouth down to hers.

She could never quite remember this between kisses, the precise softness of his lips and the way he felt as right, as natural, pressed against her as a stake felt in her palm. It surprised her every time, how much better it was than what her memory could keep.

Her heart wanted to soar and to burst into a thousand tiny pieces at the same time. Which was sadly a pretty familiar sensation when it came to Angel. But she pushed all rational thought away, leaving her head echoing with only a chorus of his name as she kissed him with a fierce and desperate tenderness.

When she finally had to breathe, her forehead pressed against his, he said, "We need to—"

"I know," she said, kissing him again in short, quick bursts that popped like firecrackers in her chest. "We don't have much time."

"We need to figure out how to get to Borsa," he said distractedly, nuzzling his cheek against hers.

"Where?" she whispered, breathing heavily into his neck.

The question seemed to sober him. His hands stopped the roaming that had been melting her insides, and she took a deep gulp of the night air to steady herself.

"It's where the Kalderash camp was, when..."

"Oh." She bit her lip. "Mirela did say she was traveling back to where she was born. You heard?"

"I just know."

"So what's our best option for getting you there? Car with blanket? Train with blanket?"

"I suggest you travel with me." The voice broke through the darkness. Mirela's face was framed in her open window. Buffy wondered just how long she had been watching. "Meet me here in the last hour before dawn."

Buffy and Angel looked at each other. Before they could answer, Mirela added, "I would not speak of these trials to your friends. If anyone tries to interfere, it could be disastrous for your hopes."

†††

A few hours later, Buffy sat in a circle of salt on the floor in Mirela's sparsely furnished apartment, which was now lit only by flickering candles.

Angel's eyes were closed and he looked serene except for the muscle in his jaw that kept jumping.

Her own hands were trembling. They knew so little about Mirela and they were trusting her with so much. They had done what they could to verify her identity and her story in the time that they had, but there wasn't much to go on, especially without giving away too many details.

On the way back to the hotel, Buffy had called off the stakeout at the park. When Xander and Vi returned, she hugged them too hard and told them she and Angel had a lead on the michianius demon that would take them out of town for a few days. Buffy wished she could talk to Willow, but didn't know how to reach whatever astral plane she was currently on. Buffy didn't trust herself not to give something away to Giles, so she left a detailed letter concealed in her suitcase in case she didn't come back. And she interrupted Dawn during her dorm's Veronica Mars watch party to tell her she loved her. Given the number of life-or-death situations Buffy faced on an annual basis, Dawn was fairly used to these kinds of calls. She didn't seem fazed.

"I think he'll be on the first flight he can get," Angel said when they met up again later in his hotel room. She knew he was talking about Connor.

"You went a little too cryptic, huh?"

Angel's only response was to reach for her. They spent the last hour before they had to leave wrapped in each other's arms, quietly gathering strength.

And now they were about to travel Mirela-style to the place of her birth. Already the air was beginning to shift around them in response to Mirela's chanting. Buffy closed her eyes.

For a moment, she was spinning fast and smooth, just as if she were performing on her skates. Then she was going too fast. Pain shot through her, and she feared she might lose her center and crash into the mystical equivalent of hard, rough ice.

Just before she cried out, it stopped.

When she opened her eyes, the world looked like nothing she had seen before. The trees and grass and standard trappings of the countryside were all there in the pearly predawn light, but they seemed gossamer, almost transparent, as if her hand could pass right through them. The ground she was sitting on felt solid enough, but she wasn't sure what would happen if she tried to take a step.

"We have reached our destination," Mirela said, "yet we linger in the adumbral passage, just outside of the material world. From here, you will be able to travel anywhere as you attempt the trials." She looked at Angel. "You and I must remain here. We can only wait."

"Buffy, are you sure you want to do this? It's not too late to change your mind," Angel said.

"I think it is," she answered with a small smile. "I've been trying to change my mind about you for years now. Never works."

"I love you." His eyes were reverent.

"And I love you."

"Ah, the conditions have been met," Mirela said with amusement. She lifted her hands. "Te invoc, spirit al trecerii!" Buffy wished she could understand the incantation as it washed over her. In response to the words, a small purple flame began to grow in the center of their rough circle, like a campfire.

"This is the Trial of the Fire," Mirela explained as the purple blaze burned higher. "If you are worthy, the smoke will show you the first object you seek. The symbol of love that you must retrieve."

It took so long that Buffy thought it must not be working, or that somehow she wasn't worthy. But finally, the smoke began to curl, forming a ring. The ring became more detailed — heart, hands, crown. She knew without a doubt that it was the Claddagh ring that Angel had given her on her 17th birthday. The one she left in the mansion on Crawford Street and never saw again.

And now Crawford Street — and every other street in town — had been wiped off the map. Finding the ring would be impossible. They couldn't expect her to—

She was already swirling. "Wait!" she yelled but she couldn't even hear herself. She focused on holding her center, keeping herself together, and then she landed with a thump.

†††

There was just enough light to make out where she was — a cemetery. Or what used to be one. Broken tombstones and bare earth stuck up jaggedly all around. Mausoleums were in pieces and a stone angel with broken wings stared up from the ground at her side.

She got to her feet. Far, far above her, she could see a bit of pale sky.

Whatever magical whozits were behind this were great big jerks. Couldn't she just fight some big hairy demons or something?

How was she ever going to find a tiny silver ring in the crater of destruction that used to be Sunnydale?

A/N: Thank you to everyone who is reading! I really appreciate the reviews!