Changes and Choices

Disclaimer: I do not own "Buffy: the Vampire Slayer," "Angel," or "NCIS."

AN: Thanks to my amazing reviewers: AlphaWolf45, DLillith21, aveave, jcanderson33, sambam17, Wild320, Poopie, mardar, MaeganM.0816, Luciana Grimmaldi-Reid, SHuntress, hungrypiranha, and fieryhairedmaiden92.

A/N2: I will switch between calling our heroine "Buffy" and "Ellie," depending on whose indirect thoughts are mentioning her. Everyone, including the girl in question herself, refers to her as "Ellie." Everyone except for Angel: For him she will always be "Buffy."

Chapter 6

Discoveries

"Ellie!" screamed Tony, as one of the Sargniss swung its giant hand with its razor-sharp claws at Ellie's face. At the same moment, Angel appeared in the doorway and yelled, "Buffy," causing Ellie's true name to blend with her chosen name.

But Ellie didn't need Angel or Tony to warn her. She already saw the Sargniss attacking her and she dropped into a low crouch, causing the demon to miss her by mere inches. Unfortunately, Ellie had not fought demons in a long time and, although she had stayed in good shape, she found herself slightly out of sorts. Even more unfortunately, Angel, seeing that Ellie was going to become overpowered by these demons, wanted to rush to her side, but was caught in a fight of his own as two more Sargniss came into the room.

The room soon became full of the sounds of fighting, Ellie taking on three demons and Angel two. Angel vamped quickly and he flew into the fray, eliciting gasps from the NCIS team. Angel was holding his own fairly well, but Ellie was overwhelmed. It seemed that no matter how forcefully she hit, they hit back even harder. There seemed to be no end to the claws and fangs. She knew that she must, after only minutes of fighting, look dreadful. She could feel blood running down her back, and it was distracting her. She found herself even more distracted by Tony and his team. Tony kept screaming her name and she was finding it very difficult to focus, both because she was worried for him and because she could feel the life she had built for herself crumbling down around her. Glancing at Angel, she saw that he had finished off one of his demons but was still dealing with the other one. She, on the other hand, still had three demons. They kept fighting and she could feel herself losing the battle, energy, and hope.

Tony could see it too. He was blown away by Ellie's fighting skills. He had never known that she could fight at all, but, nevertheless, he could see that she was losing. She was a bloody mess and she had this glazed look in her eyes that he had never seen in her before. She was losing and she knew it. He just hoped she didn't give up hope. If she did, she would be the next woman he saw murdered at the center of that pentagram.

Angel killed his final demon and made his way over to his lost love. Once he got close, he could see immediately what the problem was. She had the right moves and she was still strong, but the fire that had made her such a successful Slayer was now gone. She seemed listless. "Buffy, you need to keep fighting," he yelled. He ducked into the fray, placing himself back-to-back with her, attempting to keep the three Sargniss at bay. "You need to remember who you are. You are not the girl who sits quietly by while some demons disembowel you. Where are the quips? Where's the anger? You have to fight, Buffy: body and soul."

"I can't," she cried, as she took an especially nasty hit to the chest. On a lesser woman, it would have broken her ribs.

"Yes you can," he promised. "Just get angry, like you used to. Use that fire you once told Kendra to use. Remember those things that keep you fighting. Remember your friends."

At that moment, images flooded Ellie's mind. She remembered Willow and Xander. She remembered Dawn. She even remembered Giles. And she suddenly felt an unbelievable anger fill her. She had spent years trying to forget about those people, those people who had betrayed her and turned their backs on her when she needed them most. She felt fire fill her veins.

Ellie redoubled her efforts, allowing her mind to block out Tony, his team, her personal problems, and even Angel. She took out the first of the Sargniss with a swift kick to his jaw that snapped his head back, breaking his neck. Then, using a punch-kick combo, Ellie knocked the second Sargniss back, right onto a jagged pipe. Turning her full attention to the final demon and completely blocking Angel out of the fight, Ellie became ferocious. Angel stepped back, seeing that Ellie was in the zone; he did, however, hand her a knife. Before he could even blink, she had the blade of the dagger embedded in the final demon's throat, its blood spraying across her face and body. Angel smiled briefly remembering another battle in which he had gone to save Buffy and had instead been able to stand back and watch the show: the preacher. Of course, Buffy had been quipping the entire time then. Not now. Now she had a grim determinedness that unnerved him slightly. It was like she had all the fight back, but none of the fire.

Ellie stepped back from the demon's body, breathing hard through her mouth, feeling the blood run off her—both hers and the demons'. She could hear her heart beating, and the rushing in her head drowned out all the other noises. All she could hear was her heart and her breath, which in her experience was a good thing; it meant she had survived the battle and beaten her foe. It took her nearly thirty seconds to realize that Angel was holding her arm and trying to get her attention. "Buffy," he said, his voice filled with concern at the glazed look in her eyes. "Buffy."

Shaking herself out of her reverie, Ellie looked up into Angel's eyes. "I killed them," she said flatly.

"Buffy, we need to rescue your co-workers now," said Angel, trying to snap Buffy out of it. And that worked.

"Oh, G-d," she sighed, surging toward her husband and his team. "Are you guys OK?" she asked them.

The team was simply flabbergasted. What could they say? Were they physically all right? Yes. Were they emotionally all right? Not even close. The tenets of normality that they had once held so closely and believed in so strongly had just been proven wrong. There were monsters in the world—monsters they could not fathom. And Ellie knew how to fight them. Ellie, Tony's sweet little wife, had just beaten those monsters in hand-to-hand combat.

Finally finding his voice, Gibbs said, "We're tied up."

"Geez, sorry," apologized Ellie, rushing forward to untie them. She avoided making eye contact with anyone as she did it. She couldn't bear to see the fear and reproach in their faces. Once that was done, she just stood back and let them collect themselves.

"What just happened?" rasped Tony.

Ellie found herself at a loss for words. How could she shatter everything her husband had held to be true: his view of the world, his perception of her. She found that she couldn't do it.

But Angel, gallant as ever, stepped forward for her. "Those were demons," he explained, feeling pity for these people who had essentially just discovered that the world was flat.

"Demons?" questioned Tim, not quite believing what he was hearing despite what he had just seen.

Angel took an unneeded breath and plowed ahead: "Before men had dominion over the Earth, demons did. Slowly though, the humans grew stronger and forced the demons into the shadows. Vestiges still remain from those days. Demons like these who are hell-bent to return the world to what it once was: a paradise for demons. The creatures that small children believe in but grownups convince themselves can't be real: They are."

"So, these things aren't human?" questioned Jimmy, still trying to grasp what he had just been told.

"No, they're demons," said Angel slowly, looking at Jimmy in confusion. He didn't think he could have been any clearer.

"And you fight these … demons?" questioned Ziva, jumping aboard the bandwagon much more quickly and efficiently than the others.

"Yes," answered Angel.

"Are you a demon?" asked Tony quietly.

Angel was about to answer when he saw that Tony was looking at Buffy. Ellie just continued to stare at the ground.

"What are you?" Tony asked more loudly this time. "The things you did weren't human. You were too strong, too fast. Are you the same 'demon' as those things you just killed? Huh?"

"Don't talk to her like that," interjected Angel, coming to his former lover's defense.

"Stay out of it," said Tony angrily. "Ellie, I asked you a question: What are you?"

"I'm human," she answered, a single tear running down her face.

"You expect me to believe that?"

"It's true," she said, shrugging dejectedly. "I'm just … enhanced."

"Why? How? With drugs?" asked Tony.

"No, with … with … I don't know," she said frustratedly. "I just am."

"I just don't know if I believe you anymore," said Tony. "You've been lying to me and keeping secrets from me lately. You haven't been honest all week, so why should I believe that you're being honest now?"

As another tear slid down her face, Angel stepped back into the ring. "She's human, all right? Trust me."

"Trust you?" snarled tony. "Trust you? I don't even know what you are, but I know you are not human. I saw what I saw during that fight. Your face, it changed. You're a monster, too."

"For more reasons than one," said Gibbs. "He's the one who I saw kissing Ellie."

"What?" said Tony and Ellie at the same time.

"You were following me," raged Ellie at Gibbs. "How dare you!"

"How dare he? How dare you!" said Tony. "It's bad enough that you're secretly an enhanced human-demon thingy, but you had to cheat on me, too. You cheated with some monster thing!"

"Cheated?" questioned Angel. Turning to Buffy, he asked disapprovingly, "Buffy, you're dating this guy?"

"Oh. Yeah. Like you didn't know we were together when you kissed her," said Tony sarcastically. "You seem to know a hell of a lot more about her than I do. And why do you keep calling her 'Buffy'? Her name's Ellie."

"No it's not," argued Angel. "Some boyfriend you are; you don't even know her real name."

"Angel," hissed Buffy warningly. This was not how she wanted all of this to come out. Admittedly, she hadn't wanted any of this to come out at all, but, if it had to, certainly not this way.

"What's your real name?" asked Tony.

"I'm Ellie," she pleaded.

"That's not what I asked," Tony persisted. "What's your real name?"

"It's Buffy."

"Buffy what?"

"It doesn't matter. It's not my name anymore. I'm Ellie now," she said, moving forward to take Tony's hands. Tony backed up, keeping his hands out of her reach. "I'm Ellie Dinozzo."

"Dinozzo?" questioned Angel. "I thought you made your last name 'Merrick.'"

"I did," said Ellie, not turning around to look at him. She knew this would not be easy for him and she didn't think she could bear to watch him break in the same way she had just seen Tony break.

"Then where did 'Dinozzo' come from?" asked Angel, already knowing the answer deep down in a place he didn't want to go.

Ellie didn't respond—a kindness to Angel. She knew that hearing her say it would only hurt him more. They had once been so in love that even the thought of kissing another guy had seemed foreign and wrong to her.

Unfortunately, Tony did not have the same compassion for Angel. "She got it when she married me."

"You're married?" asked Angel, sounding so hurt that it nearly broke Ellie's heart.

Tony jumped to respond. "Yeah, she mar—"

"I wasn't asking you," growled Angel, one step away from going into full vamp-face.

"Yes. I'm married," sighed Ellie.

"Wow, thanks for making it sound like a death knell, Ellie," said Tony.

Ignoring Tony, Ellie walked toward Angel; unlike Tony, Angel did not move away, but allowed Ellie to take his hands. "I fell in love, Angel. G-d knows I wasn't looking for it, but I found it. I love him and I couldn't ignore that."

"I know," said Angel, swallowing hard. "I guess I just always thought that one day we would get back together. I was just waiting for you to become cookies."

"I know. I really thought we'd get back together when I became cookies, too," said Ellie, much to the puzzlement of everyone else there. Then, in her usual manner of taking things too far, she continued: "It's like, I became cookies, but not the kind of cookies I thought I was going to be. I thought I would be chocolate chip cookies, but I turned into oatmeal cookies. It surprised me, too, Angel."

"Why didn't you tell me? Before?" asked Angel.

"I don't know. I really don't."

"You should have told me when I kissed you."

"I know. I'm sorry." Sighing and raking her fingers through her hair, Ellie continued: "Let's be honest, I should have told you when I got engaged. But I didn't. I guess I thought it would be too callous, too cruel. I didn't want to hurt you."

"I think this hurts more," said Angel.

"I know, I know. It's just … do you remember when I told you I was dating Riley? What you said to me?" Angel shook his head, not because he didn't remember but because he remembered all too well the harsh words he had said to her. Buffy kept going: "You told me that it was unfair of me to barge in and tell you all about my great new life. You reminded me that I could move on, but that you never could. I was wrong then and I didn't want to be wrong again."

"Look, I hate to interrupt this moment you two are having, but, actually, I don't care," interjected Tony at rope's end. "Ellie—or Buffy—whatever your name is—what is all of this? Has our entire life together been a lie? There are so many things you never told me and now you're practically hanging all over this guy—who you've never mentioned—and expect me to keep quiet. That isn't how this works. I'm your husband, not your prop."

"I know that, Tony," said Ellie, full-on crying now. "I love you."

"Yeah, but is that enough? Are we even really married? You didn't use your real name; is our marriage legal? What else have you been hiding from me? Do you have other demon lovers out there?"

"Vampire," clarified Angel.

"Oh, I'm sorry; do you have any other vampire lovers out there?"

"No," said Ellie, even though she knew that both she and Angel knew she was lying. She had never truly loved Spike, but she had slept with him and she had certainly felt a kind of tenderness for him.

"So tell me, Ellie, is love enough?" asked Tony, desperately needing to know the answer. He knew he loved Ellie with all of his heart, but he couldn't just ignore this betrayal. And he knew he loved Ellie, but did he love Buffy? Had she ever shown even a glimpse of her true self to him or had he been doomed to live with a mirage? "Is it?"

"No, I know it's not."

x TBC x

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