Lyle Gorch sat down heavily at the bar at Willy's and glowered expectantly at the oily little barman.

"Rough night?" asked Willy, trying to sound more sympathetic than nervous as he uncorked a bottle of whiskey and poured some of the amber liquid into a shot glass.

"Slayer killed my wife," he grunted, ignoring the shot glass and seizing the bottle instead, downing about a quarter of its contents in a matter of seconds.

"She the one who killed your brother in January?" Willy had a good memory for the woes of his patrons, which was both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it allowed him to relate better to his customers (and sometimes earn a pretty penny if what they let slip under the influence of alcohol and misplaced trust was valuable to someone else), but on the other, it meant that he knew a lot of stuff that could get him into trouble—and had already done so on several occasions that he tried not to look back on too often.

"Yep," said Lyle. "But this ain't over, you know. I'm just gonna wait until she drops her guard."

"Sure you can handle her?" asked Willy cautiously. His policy involved remaining neutral, appeasing everyone, making money, and not getting maimed. Asking a vampire—particularly one as old and rowdy as he knew this one to be—if he thought he was getting too big for his boots was moving into risky territory.

"This ain't my first rodeo, son," said Lyle, chugging down more of whiskey.

It took about thirty seconds before Lyle slipped unconscious off of his stool and landed with a thud on the floor. A few of the other patrons looked around at the disturbance, laughed unpleasantly at the vampire who appeared to be unable to hold his liquor, then resumed their conversations. Willy replaced the drugged whiskey under the counter and walked through the swinging door to the back room.

"Got your package," he said.

Weatherby put out his cigarette and walked through the haze of smoke towards the shorter man. "Well done, mate," he said in his low, gravelly voice. He pulled out a wad of twenty-dollar bills and passed it to Willy, then rolled his eyes when Willy immediately began counting the money.

A few minutes later, as he was binding Lyle's hands and feet and hauling him into the back of his van, Weatherby smirked smugly to himself. He would be looking at a large commission from the Council this year. Lyle Gorch made the third vampire he had caught for the tournament, after Erebus—and that bastard had taken out half of his team before going down—and Angelus. Yes, a very large commission indeed.

[o]

Buffy had not had a fun couple of weeks. What on Earth had possessed her to run for Homecoming Queen? She was not that vapid, superficial creature who had been crowned May Queen at Hemery, and she didn't want to become her again. She'd had so much practice in that role, however, that it was easy to slip back into during this temporary insanity, but advertising herself to people she barely knew and trying to buy their loyalty made her feel horribly fake. She wondered how it had ever seemed fulfilling to her before.

To cap it off, she had not only not won, but she and her campaign nemesis had spent the bulk of the dance being hunted by the contestants of a demonic game show that targeted Slayers. Buffy wasn't sure whether spending time with Cordelia or being hunted had been worse about it, but either way, even that hadn't been the end of her trouble.

She hadn't been doing a very good job of hiding how much her dreams were affecting her. In fact, it was hard for her to concentrate on anything else, which tended to disconnect her from reality. At least with Willow, Xander, Giles, and, to a certain extent, her mom, she could say what was really on her mind. With Scott, however, she had to act like everything was normal, and it was in that arena that she had failed extravagantly, which resulted in Scott dumping her the day before the dance.

Ultimately, by Saturday night, she had been left with a great deal of frustration that needed burning, which was where patrol came in. She didn't return home until well into the early hours of the morning, thoroughly exhausted after staking a few fledglings and tracking down and slaying the vamp who had probably been their sire. She didn't even bother changing into her pajamas, but instead collapsed fully clothed onto her bed, where she fell asleep almost instantly.

[o]

It was the same dream she'd had nearly every night since leaving her ring in the mansion. The one that, even with Giles's help—and now Willow's as well—, she had not been able to explain, and which had occupied her thoughts so much lately. It was always slightly different every time. Sometimes, Angel sat quivering and alone in the corner; sometimes, there would be a faceless figure who brought pathetically small bags of blood and made sure the chains were holding. Twice, she had seen Angel lunge violently towards this intruder, his eyes flashing golden and his fangs glinting in the dim light. Both times this happened—and sometimes even if he only sat docilely against the wall—, the man would hit Angel in the face or kick him in the stomach in response, then leave him curled up in pain on the ground. But no matter what happened, Buffy could only watch, unable to defend him or do anything at all to help him, and it made her want to weep in frustration.

This time, Angel was the only one in the room—well, the cell, Buffy had come to realize by about the third dream—, and was currently asleep. He'd been awake in all of the other dreams. She let her attention wander from his sleeping form to take in the entire cell. It was about as big as her bedroom, but the ceiling was lower and there was very little light, so it felt much smaller. The surface of the door was covered in dozens of crosses of varying sizes—probably the second defense, in case he broke free of the chains.

Buffy frowned. Crosses? Yes, they could be used to hurt Angel, but surely other demons wouldn't use them, and especially not in Hell. It didn't make sense. Maybe this was a subconscious guilt trip after all. She tried to open the door to see what lay beyond it, but she couldn't get it to budge, even though she could touch it. Ugh! What use was it to be solid in these dreams if she still couldn't affect the objects around her?

At a soft whimpering sound behind her, Buffy spun back around. Angel was still asleep, but his expression had contorted into one of terrible pain and fear. Her heart twisted with sympathy, and even though she knew she couldn't do anything, she couldn't stop herself from trying. She walked to him and sat down next to where he lay, reaching out to touch his face, wishing she could rest his head in her lap.

The moment Buffy's fingers touched Angel's skin, his troubled expression became serene. She froze. He'd never so much as noticed her presence before in these dreams. Did the fact that he was also asleep change the rules?

"Angel?" she asked tentatively.

[o]

The pain had been slowly ebbing. Mostly it was replaced by hunger now, but he was no stranger to that. He could remember years and years of dark, dirty alleys; of squealing, squirming vermin that only barely kept starvation at bay and left such a horrible aftertaste that it almost wasn't worth it.

He had tried to put off sleep for as long as possible, because he knew the fire and demons would be waiting to take him back, to punish him for going so long without being hurt by them. But he couldn't fight it forever, and eventually it claimed him.

As he had feared, sleep brought with it the memories of Hell that he had avoided as much as possible while he was awake. All five senses eagerly participated in the torturous nightmare. He could smell decay and death, taste the choking smoke that filled the air, hear the endless wails of the damned and the cackling laughter of demons, see the endless scorching red landscape, feel flames licking his skin. It was agony beyond description, but the fire only teased him. Burning, but never consuming. He tried desperately to wake up, but consciousness would not return.

Just when he had forgotten that it was only a dream and began to despair, believing that it was really happening to him again, a ray of warm light cut through his surroundings. The flames were extinguished, the tortured cries were silenced—everything melted away until only the light remained. His first instinct was to feel fear, but there was something familiar about this light. He trusted it. He knew it meant safety, comfort, and love. Knew that it meant joy—something he had forgotten about a long time ago. It knew who and what he was, but still offered those things freely. He quickly stopped trying to wake up, the tension leaving him as he basked in the light. He knew what this was—who this was—, and he didn't want to leave her presence to return to cold stone, chains, and hunger.

"Buffy," he whispered.

[o]

Tears were streaming down Buffy's cheeks. He had said her name—almost too quietly for her to hear, but he had said it. Did he really know she was here with him? God, this felt so real. How could it just be in her head? She didn't know how long she sat there watching him sleep. He looked so peaceful that she couldn't take her eyes off him.

A sound intruded in the background. Loud, obnoxious, repeating. What was it? Why couldn't it go away and leave them alone? Couldn't it tell that he needed her? Against her will, Buffy felt herself being pulled away from Angel and towards the sound, which grew louder and louder until she opened her eyes to see sunlight streaming into her bedroom. Irritably, she slammed her hand down on the alarm clock, which made an ominous cracking sound as the beeping was silenced. Why had she even turned it on? It was Sunday! With a groan of exasperation, she rolled over and tried to go back to sleep—back to Angel—, but she found neither.

[o]

"Lyle Gorch has been placed in holding cell number eight, sir," said Weatherby in the same sardonic tone he always used.

"Good work," said Travers. He had hoped the final vampire to be contained would be old like the others, and, thanks to Weatherby's determination and greed, he'd gotten his wish.

"I do what I can," Weatherby replied.

"Very well, then, now we can begin getting everything in order for the tournament."

Weatherby chuckled. "This won't be one to miss."

It has always annoyed me that Lyle got away in canon and was never seen again after "Homecoming". Only Drusilla, who is awesome beyond all reason, gets to pull something like that; not some cowardly vamp who only appeared in two episodes. So I'm fixing it now, with the help of Willy! I love writing Willy. Weatherby too, even though he's a git. And hey, look: Angel's making some progress! Yay!