Q & A 8

Buffy searched the house moving from room to room trying to find Angel. There was no trace of him anywhere in her home. He wouldn't have just left…She thought as she continued her search. She paused watching a memory unfold across her mind's eye. What played first was a scene immediately after they had battled the mayor and burned down the high school. Smoke or fog she wasn't sure thickened the air and between two fire engines she found Angel watching her. Without so much as a word or a facial expression of any kind he turned away from her and left. She batted away the painful memory. Maybe he would have…Her mind flitted. She turned the knob to the door in the kitchen and pulled it open. A dark figure was huddled on the front steps of the porch. She could hear soft distressed sighs coming from the black heap. Buffy sank side him. Angel turned his face up. The anguish was apparent on his pale timeless features. He was in pain. Buffy felt herself sink in empathy. She remembered the times she felt the way he did now when she had feared for his life. He felt the way she did the many times she knew he was in pain but there wasn't anything she could do to stop it. "I want to help her. But she doesn't want me near her. So instead I hurt her." He looked away. Buffy grabbed his hand.

"Look at me." Reluctantly he turned back toward her. "You didn't do this to her. This isn't your fault." She squeezed his hand. "The vamps that took her did this. They used a gem that is called cat's eye." Angel listen intently. Buffy felt his hand stiffen in hers. His brown eyes met hers.

"What did you call it?" Angel asked.

"Cat's eye." Angel shook his head.

"No, that has to be wrong. Connor and Wesley destroyed it." Angel spoke he remembered Wesley dividing them into teams. He and Connor went after the gem. Wesley had said that it was destroyed. Unless it wasn't. Angel's tears ceased and were replaced by white hot fury. He had taken Connor away and stolen his entire childhood and now he was the reason his wife didn't want him with her. Angel stood pulling his hand from Buffy's. "I have to go." He gave her no time to ask any questions he was gone.

Buffy starred into the darkness dumbfounded. Her mouth hung open in unfinished speech. She clamped it shut and climbed to her feet. Her brows scrunched up as she squinted trying to look into the darkness. He wasn't there he was just gone. She felt that much. She shrugged, he was angry she felt bad for whoever was on the receiving end of it.

Los Angeles

He wiped the well-worn cloth over his glasses cleaning them for what was probably the twelfth time. The wooden oak desk that he sat on was making his lower back hurt but he supposed that was the least of his worries. He slipped on his glasses and looked to where the steel safe door was open in the wall above one of the many expansive book shelves in his lavish office in the law firm. He looked once more into the safe hoping that what he wasn't seeing in there that should have been there would suddenly manifest. It never did. He could feel Gunn breathing down his neck. The hot air made the hair on his neck stand on end. "What do you mean it's gone? You destroyed it. It went poof. It's gone. If somethings gone it can't be stolen." Gunn was fuming. If Wesley chose to he could see a light red coloring Gunn's otherwise very smooth mocha colored skin. Wesley looked up from where he sat. Gunn stopped from where in the middle of the room hauling his pacing. His dark chocolate gaze met Wesley's. "It can be stolen if the gem you said was destroyed wasn't actually destroyed." Gunn said inching closer. "Naw, Wesley wouldn't lie about something like that now would he." Gunn was entering into Wesley's personal bubble. Wesley shot to his feet taking a step backward. "You didn't destroy it did you?" Gunn was only a few inches from his face now.

"I hope for your sake that what Gunn says isn't true." They both turned to see Angel filling in the doorway. They both could tell that he was fuming, he always looked bigger when he was angry.

"Angel, I…" Before Wesley could finish his sentence Angel shoved Gunn to the side gripped Wesley by the throat and pinned him against the back wall.

"You what? Do you never learn Wesley? When you act alone nothing good happens! You took my son and now my wife doesn't want me near her." Angel pulled his arm and released it into Wesley's gut. Angel let go and doubled over. "They used that gem on her and now she feels everything around her. She feels everything. Everything I've done. She feels it. And she doesn't want me near her. Fix it now!" Angel let his fist fly catching Wesley in the jaw dropping him to his knees. Wesley drew in a painful breath before he spoke.

"You have to find the gem and destroy it. It's the only way to release its hold on her." He climbed to his feet his gaze on Angel never wavering. "Angel, let me…" Angel shoved his against the wall. Wesley's head bounced off the dry wall and he felt pain sear the back of his head and down to his shoulder blades.

"You've done enough." He turned and spun his long black leather coat billowing out around him as he parted the office.

"Angel!" Wesley called after him. Angel didn't even flinch as if his name had never been called. He pulled himself off the wall and stood wobbling on his feet he looked at Gunn who also had turned his back and prepared to leave. "Gunn." No response. "Gunn listen to me!" Wesley shouted. Gunn hesitated for a second but kept walking. Wesley continued to yell after him. "If they don't find the gem and destroy it soon. Everything that Quinn is feeling will kill her!"

SunnyDale

Quinn laid in bed feeling a soreness in her hip from laying on it all night. She felt weak she wanted to cry she felt weak and she had done absolutely nothing she hadn't even walked to the bathroom. Trying to keep control of the ocean of emotion inside her was draining her strength. She inhaled a breath and smiled calmed at the scent of cigarette smoke and spice smell. She looked up to see Spike's head resting in one of his hands his eyes closed. He had stayed with her all night. She could feel a thrum of worry emanating from him, but all else was quiet. She studied him for a second. Taking in his solid pale contoured cheeks and his platinum blonde hair, she let herself loosen the grasp she had on the gate holding back the flood. All she could feel from him was what she already knew. He was worried about her and he loved her. It wasn't the standing stranded in the middle of a forest fire kind of love that he felt for Buffy. But it was the same soft touch she felt now that she did when he spoke to her. She continued staring at him why wasn't she feeling torrents of emotion from him like she was from everyone else? Like she had from Angel? Oh, no! Angel. Dread washed over her as she remembered how she had felt when he was near and how she had thrown him out how hurt he had looked when he left. She knew what Spike had done in his passed but she couldn't feel anything from him over it. No guilt, no remorse, no joy, no sadness, and no horror over what he had done. "What have I told you about starring love?" Quinn looked up to see his eyes were still closed. Quinn smiled slightly.

"That it's polite and I should continue to do it." She answered. Spike opened his eyes and a smile curled over his thin red lips.

"I see your sarcasm is intact." She smiled tiredly and sat up in the bed resting against the backboard. Spike looked up at her. "What is it? What's wrong?" He asked his tone conveyed his worry. Quinn shook her head.

"No I'm fine, nothing's wrong. I was just trying to feel you." She folded her hands together quiet for a moment. "I can't feel anything solid from you." She sighed trying to figure out just exactly where she was trying to go. Spike waited. "It's just I felt all of the things, awful awful things Angel carries with him puts himself through every day for the things he's done. I know you weren't London's golden boy, but I don't feel any of that from you." She continued. Spike pursed his lips.

"I do a better job hiding it." He said simply. A second later he chuckled. "Ironic isn't it? Emotions and feelings used to pour off me like a lovely tapped vein. And now it doesn't." Quinn watched him for a moment.

"Uh huh…" She got to her feet swaying within the span of a single heartbeat he had an arm wrapped around her waist steadying her. She held her palms up. "I'm cool. I'm good." He released but didn't back away. "I need to use the bathroom." She said. Spike walked over to the door and tugged it open leading the way into the hallway.

"I'll be just outside if you need me." Quinn smiled and closed the door behind her. She drug herself to the mirror pressing her palms against the cool marble counter. She saw herself in the mirror and cringed. She could see her forehead glistening with sweat. Her face was paler than it should be and her hands felt cool and clammy. She twisted the knob running the cold water. She pooled some in her hands and splashed her face. The cold was welcomed. She pulled her toothbrush from one of the drawers and put it to her teeth circling it around. She could feel the tooth paste burn where it touched her lips. With the water running she spit watching as the water washed it down the drain. She looked into the mirror her eyes crinkling in the pain she could feel coming. The toothbrush dropped to the tiled floor with deafening sound. Quinn collapsed to the tile next to her fallen dental hygiene instrument. She could feel them all of them. Not just inside the house but outside. She felt the kids on the sidewalks walking home from school. She could feel fires of love in whom she knew to be boys. She felt spikes of pain as when someone feel to the pavement from a skateboard scrapping their knees and hands. She felt the peaked happiness of the girl who was just asked out by the boy she's had a crush on for the past five years. With all the foreign feelings invading and overloading her system she was vaguely aware of the pounding she heard. She could decipher its origin and then she heard the door splinter.

"Quinn!" He rushed in kneeling beside her. She did nothing to acknowledge him. All she could do was stare blankly at the ceiling above. She felt his fingers did into her back as he gripped her shoulders shaking her shouting her name trying to get her to respond. "Quinn! Someone help!" He shouted. She heard quickened footsteps and more voices. Everything it was crushing her. It all felt like she was feet below the ocean descending deeper into the depths. The pressure becoming heavier and heavier until finally she couldn't see anything at all.

"I can't do anything for her Spike." Willow spoke sympathetically. Spike looked at her cutting her a dangerous glare. What might have frightened her at one point no longer roused much fear. "The only way to help her now is to find the gem and destroy it." Her words were forceful.

"It's crushing her. Her time is running out." Spike cast a weary glance back into Buffy's bedroom seeing his only child laying on the bed in acoma. He turned back to Willow. "Willow." He said pleadingly his eyes brimming with tears. She looked at him with a softened expression.

"I know. She'll be fine, she's strong." She assured him. She walked him down to the front room on the main floor. Gathered there were Buffy and Xander. Buffy looked up.

"How is she?"

"Not good." Spike shook his head. Willow looked at all of them taking a seat on the couch with Buffy.

"Angel called he said he's on his way back here he said we have to find the gem and destroy it. That's the only way to help Quinn. From the way she looks we don't have a lot of time. We have to hurry." Buffy turned her gaze down thinking.

"The last place we know it was was down in the sewer where we found her. We should start by going back and looking for it there."

"Do you really think it'll be there?" Spike questioned. Buffy looked at him and shrugged.

"I don't know. But right now it's the only lead we've got. We should start there. Spike take Willow and go back and check it out. Xander will stay here and meet with Angel when he comes back." Buffy got to her feet and walked to the door. Xander spoke up.

"What are you going to do?" He asked. Buffy paused and looked back over her shoulder.

"Go hunting." She walked out the door.