Chapter 6: Dark Side of the Moon

Buffy brushed off her favorite stretchy black pants as she turned in a small circle, trying to figure out what to do next. She pulled out her phone and checked it, just to be sure. No service. So no Wil to the rescue with a handy locator spell. Not that Buffy knew how to reach her. They talked only sporadically these days. They hadn't been part of each others' everyday lives since this place was towny instead of all wrecky. And, anyway, contacting Willow would surely violate the DIY vibe of the trials.

The debris overhead blocked most of Buffy's view, but it looked like she could climb up a bit higher and be reasonably safe. Then she would at least have a better sense of her surroundings.

The broken gravestones became her footholds as she cautiously climbed the steep slope. Little bits of rock and dirt shifted with every step. She hadn't expected this quest to be quite so quest-like. When she thought "trials," she thought more of fights to the death and, like, booby-trapped obstacle courses, not literal treasure hunts. They hadn't given her any mystical digging equipment or even a measly metal detector.

Though, given the amount of wrecked stuff down here, a metal detector wasn't likely to be much help. She could only hope that there would be some sort of trick to this. She'd pull on the right headstone and a hidden door would open, movie-style.

She planted both her palms on a long table-like gravestone and pulled herself onto the surface. From her higher perch, she could see the vast crater spread around her and the still-barely-light sky stretched far overhead.

Wow. Even if she found the ring, she didn't know how the hell she was ever getting out of this place.

The sight below wasn't encouraging, either. Much of Sunnydale had been completely swallowed by the Hellmouth, but there were still pieces of things she recognized, half-chewed into the earth.

Some homecoming this was.

She found it hard to even think of Sunnydale too much, let alone look directly into the ruins of her old life. Those last few years on the Hellmouth had been, well, hellier than average. She lost her mom. She lost herself. Then she lost everything — her house, her town, her Chosen One status. But that part was freeing, in its way. She could never get her mom back, and she could never get her old life back. But she felt like she had gotten herself back, at least a little bit. Working with the slayers, teaching them, trying to make sure they never felt as alone as she had — it helped. So did seeing Dawn making it on her own in college, finally getting out from Big Sis' shadow. (Though of course Buffy made sure the slayer in town was keeping an eye out. Old habits die hard.)

But while Buffy had rebuilt on top of the wreckage of her life, seeing this place still stabbed into the tender, empty places in her heart. The parts that remembered the bite of her shovel into the earth as she dug Chloe's grave in her backyard. The aching, hollow sound of the dirt raining on her mother's casket. The way her fingers desperately clawed the soil as she struggled out of her own grave. There was so much death in these swallowed acres.

Staring out into the vast space was starting to make her dizzy. Buffy turned and sat down, steadying herself before making her descent.

She had a ring to find.

Her plan was to stick to the path of least resistance and hope it led somewhere. To follow her own yellow brick road of Sunnydale debris. She picked her way around twisted metal, splintered wood, and a surprisingly intact Sun Cinema marquee.

The farther in she traveled, the more uneven the ground, so she found herself winding around mini-mountains of wreckage that cast long shadows in the valleys of dirt below.

After an hour or so of traveling this way, placing each step carefully, she was starting to second-guess herself. The landscape was too chaotic for her to have any clear destination. What if she was going in exactly the wrong direction? As she headed into another long stretch of black shadow, she shivered.

But it wasn't the chill. She felt an accompanying twist in her gut and froze.

She was absolutely sure someone — or something — was watching her.

†††

"Buffy?"

She heard Angel's voice in the familiar shape of her name and she felt her muscles unclench just a fraction. He was here, too. She wasn't alone in this desolate crater of ghosts. They could do this together.

But when he stepped closer, he looked...different. The same face and broad shoulders, but something hesitant in his eyes and the way he carried himself. He was Angel, but he wasn't the Angel she'd left in Romania. He looked younger somehow, slimmer. The way he looked when she first started doodling his name in her notebook during history class.

"You look different," he said, and she realized the confusion she felt was reflected on his face.

"Different how?" she asked, but she was starting to get the feeling she knew.

"Older," he confirmed. "Not 16, anyway."

"It's the cheeks that give it away," she said with a smile, patting her face self-consciously. "I had such a baby face."

"You have a perfect face," he said, and his quiet earnestness almost took her breath away. She missed this. She missed this him.

"Angel...when was the last time you saw me?"

"The real you?" At her slightly offended expression, he hastily added, "I mean, the younger you? Is this some kind of glamour? Did someone do this to you?"

"Something like that," she said.

He looked into her eyes, uncertain. "We were at the Bronze," he said. "We agreed that this couldn't ever..."

"Be anything. I remember," she said.

So that's who this was? Some kind of ghost of Angel's past? Maybe she was hallucinating. No, if she were hallucinating, he'd be carrying a magic metal detector. Or at the very least a shovel. God, could this soul quest get any more messed up?

She felt something like a scream burbling up in her stomach as she watched Angel watching her, the old smoldering intensity in his eyes. She had struggled so hard to understand him then, with all his mysterious ways, but now she could see that he had actually been less guarded. Almost innocent.

Watch that heart of yours, she wanted to tell him. I'll stab a sword right through it.

Agitated, she started walking again and he followed. "Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

Was it against the rules to tell Past Angel about the trials? Was this some kind of trick?

"I'm not really sure," she said. "I'm just...I'm looking for something."

"Can I help?"

"Are you supposed to be helping me?"

He didn't answer. Then she emerged into a patch of sunlight and he was gone.

†††

To hell with the cryptic, she decided after several long minutes of deliberation. She wasn't getting anywhere alone. She needed his help. She doubled back to the wreckage mountain where she first spotted him, hoping to find him there.

Which meant she was now in the Sunnydale crater hunting not just for an impossible-to-find circle of silver, but the Ghost of Boyfriends Past. Her life was the definition of wiggy.

But it didn't take long before he was there, matching his strides to hers.

"I know I said I'd keep my distance." He picked up the conversation as if they'd never left off. "I guess you're probably wondering why I haven't just left town."

She stopped and faced him. "What?" The question was very far from what she'd been wondering. Even back when she was 16, she never wondered why he didn't leave town. She didn't want him to leave town. What she wanted was more kisses, even though she wasn't supposed to.

But then she remembered that Sunnydale had embraced her first impression of it as a teenager and actually become a hole in the ground. "Wait, why are you here?"

"I haven't told you this," he said. "But I was sent here to help you."

"By Mirela?" she asked, and his brow creased.

"No. By this guy, or, well, demon. Whistler."

So he really didn't know anything about the trials. Maybe he was a product of her imagination.

"I wasn't sure why, Buffy. I didn't understand why me. But then this thing with Darla happened."

Oh, right, Darla. Buffy remembered the shocked sound of Darla's voice cutting through the darkness of the Bronze. Angel's stake in her back. Her ashes crumbling all over the floor.

"I think that's why I was chosen," he said. "Because of what I know about her. And the Master."

"Angel, the Master is gone. But I do need help with something else."

"This spell? I'll do whatever I can. But Buffy, I know the Master is still active. His minions have been hunting. I've seen them. You can't underestimate him."

So this was it? She'd found a potential source of help in her impossible quest, and all he could do was dole out advice that was almost a decade past its expiration date?

But something about what he said was tugging on her brain.

"You've seen them? Here?" she asked. "Angel, what does this place look like to you?"

"What do you mean?"

"When you look around you, what do you see?"

He breathed out an awkward almost-laugh. "Is this a trick question?" He looked into her eyes for a moment, then continued, more seriously. "I see cars, trees, houses. Nothing out of the ordinary."

Oh.

"Are you OK, Buffy? You need to tell me more about this spell."

Maybe a guy stuck in the past could be useful after all.

"Angel, do you think you could take me to Crawford Street? There's something there I need to find."