Part 13

Glory was not happy. And when Glory was not happy, the world trembled in fear.

Or at least the world did if it knew what was good for it.

The trouble started, as usual, with the stupid Slayer. Glory's incompetent mouth-breathing minions had reported seeing several robed figures leaving the Slayer's house carrying a small wooden crate, escorted by a vampire with a bad dye-job. The party made its way to the Watcher's shop, where they were greeted at the door by the Slayer herself. Everyone went inside for a few minutes, and then the Slayer, the vampire, the Watcher and the monks piled into two cars and drove down to a warehouse near the docks.

It was at that point that Glory's annoying beeper had gone off, interrupting a much- needed full-body massage.

So here she was, scoping out a crummy old warehouse, kinks only half-worked out of her body and a run in her stockings.

The things a girl had to do to acquire dominion over the universe.

*****

The warehouse was dark when Glory and her followers entered. She looked around for the Slayer, or the monks, or, most importantly the box that held The Key.

Nothing. Only darkness and mildew smells and little scrabbling sounds that just had to be rats.

Suddenly a light flared in the center of the warehouse. It was the Slayer, holding what looked like an electric tiki-torch in one hand and a sword in the other.

"Oh please, spare me the drama," Glory snorted. "I'm here for my key. Hand it over and we can all be home in time to catch "Sex and the City."

Buffy smiled slowly, lightly tapping her torch on the concrete floor. The lights came up all over the warehouse, revealing the remainder of the Slayer's followers ranged behind her.

"I think you're going to be little pile of goddess bits long before showtime, Glory."

Buffy could feel the tension within her ease now that the moment was at hand. At last something she could lose herself in. When all else had forsaken her, there was always the battle to give her purpose.

"Normally I'd say if you picked up your toys and went home, we could forget all the bloody stuff." Buffy took a step towards Glory. "But I'm in a really bad mood today, and I need someone to pound on. And, unfortunately for you, I've decided dusting vampires just won't scratch the itch." She flung the torch into the corner and hefted her sword.

"Fine." Glory shrugged. "I haven't killed a Slayer in a while. Might as well keep my name out there; it's so hard to get your rep back once you lose it." She cocked her head and rested one hand on her hip. "But maybe you know more than I do about reputations? From the reading I've been doing about you, the whole vamp tramp thing, I'd say yes."

"I think that's our cue," Willow said nervously, shooting a glance at the eerily still Slayer.

After a frozen moment, spent picturing how many ways she could reduce Glory to a quivering heap of trashily-clad divinity in payment for her last comment, Buffy nodded her head to Willow.

It was time.

Willow and Tara began chanting, reading from the spell Anya wrote out for them. Giles motioned Spike and Xander to join him as they took up positions around Willow and Tara.

Buffy swung the sword experimentally, testing its weight in her hand. "You know, I'm really sorry you have to die with a run in your stocking," she glanced pointedly at Glory's exposed shin, "but I hope you don't mind if we just move things along here. I have better things to do."

Glory tossed her long blonde hair over her shoulder. "Give it your best, little girl. When this is over, and I have The Key, I'll make sure to write a nice note to your mother about how bravely you died. And I won't even tell her you were out past your bedtime."

Minions advanced on Slayerettes, Glory advanced on Buffy and the battle commenced. Buffy fought hard with the sword, taking wide cuts at Glory, but even in high-heels the goddess moved too quickly to catch more than the tip of the blade. Glory used no weapons, other than her hands, but they seemed to be more than sufficient. Buffy was flung repeatedly against the walls, or dashed to the floor like a discarded china plate. Several times the Slayerettes were forced to retreat, not from the force of Glory's battling minions, but to avoid a flying Slayer.

"Any time now Will," Buffy grunted, rising unsteadily to her feet after yet another up close and personal experience with the floor.

"Hold fast, Buffy," Giles called to her as he beat back another of Glory's pet demons. "I think she's weakening."

It didn't feel like it from Buffy's perspective. Each blow from the goddess' red lacquer-tipped hands radiated power, and inflicted pain. Perhaps Glory was growing weaker, but not so quickly as the Slayer.

Buffy felt sail through the air one more time, striking her head against the concrete wall before slowly sliding down to the floor in a boneless lump. For a moment she saw only darkness, and she welcomed it. She couldn't do this anymore.

Suddenly she felt a presence. There were no sounds, no sudden miraculous visions of light in front of her, just a shiver in her soul. A shiver that only one other presence could inspire.

"Angel?" she called out as she shook her weary head to clear her vision.

No Angel, only Glory coming at her with her own sword. Buffy threw herself to the side, narrowly escaping the blade. The Slayer scrambled to her feet, panting heavily, and circled round Glory. She needed a weapon, and she needed one fast. Out of the corner of her eye Buffy spied a length of pipe laying on the floor; an inelegant weapon, but handy. She ducked down to avoid another swing of the sword and grabbed the pipe as she rose.

The first blow from the pipe should not have done much damage, but unaccountably Glory stumbled. Then she stumbled again.

The goddess glanced wildly around the room for her followers, but they had abandoned the attack on the Scoobies and were all drifting towards the door.

"Stop!" she cried out. "You are my people, I am your goddess. I am Glorificus and you are mine to command."

The demons were obviously frightened by her tone, but it only made them move more quickly to the exit and safety.

Glory stamped her foot, almost losing her balance as the weakened leg touched ground. "I said stop! I can't be a goddess without worshippers; it just doesn't work that way!"

"That's kind of the point, Glory," Buffy said softly, casually swinging her pipe in the air. "They've been awakened and you're losing your power source. I won't give you The Key and you're not going to last long enough to find some other poor dumb souls to suck dry for their energy. You're through."

Buffy began wielding the pipe in earnest now. Glory tried to fight her off with the sword, but eventually her nerveless hands could no longer grasp the pommel. When it clattered to the floor, Buffy stopped to pick it up.

"You know, I'm not a real big fan of conventional weapons, but this has a nice feel to it," she commented, starting to slash the sword closer and closer to Glory. "And I think it will read much better in the mythology textbooks than you getting whacked by a lead pipe," the blade sang across Glory's right arm, "in the conservatory," and then it scored her left side, "by Miss Scarlett."

And on towards what passed for Glory's heart, no longer defended by her wounded arms. Slowly, slowly, Buffy reminded herself. All the suffering the goddess had caused, all that stolen time spent trying to defeat her instead of being with...it all deserved a lengthy payback.

"Buffy, I think the spell can take care of the rest," Giles called from behind her.

"No," she replied with an icy calm. "You never know what evil things can come back if you don't kill them right the first time. I'm not taking any chances."

She drove Glory back against a wall, the goddess stumbling as she retreated from the shining blade. Glory made one final abortive attempt to escape her fate, throwing herself forward and past Buffy. One last thrust of the sword, aimed at Glory's chest, pierced her side instead.

The goddess sprawled on the ground, her body finally drained of all semblance of life. Buffy watched her steadily, waiting for signs of regeneration or resurrection, but there were none. Glory was just an empty shell lying motionless on the floor...until she collapsed into a pile of dust.

A moment later a blast of wind shot up from under Glory's remains. The ashes were caught in a cyclone, swirling upward in a funnel cloud until the particles stretched from floor to ceiling. Then, as quickly as the wind rose, it died away and the ashes plummeted to earth in a column.

Leaving a marble statue of Glory on the warehouse floor.

*****

"I had no idea the collapse of her power base would create such an effect. It's really quite extraordinary," Giles murmured as he drew closer to the statue. "Don't you think so, Buffy?" He paused, and then looked around. "Buffy?"

She was at the far end of the warehouse, wandering from one side to the other with her head tilted to the side as though listening for something. Giles hurried over to her, thinking perhaps she was hearing the sound of approaching demons, or possibly police cars.

"Buffy, is there something wrong?"

He reached out to touch her shoulder, but she shrugged off his hand and slipped out of his reach. She knew Giles meant well, but he could not help her now. Only one person could, and only if he was really here.

"Angel?" she whispered.

"Buffy, what on earth...is Angel here?" Giles looked around the cavernous warehouse for the vampire in question, but all he saw were Buffy's friends, and Spike. "I didn't see him during the battle. Did he slip away again without saying goodbye?"

"Did who slip away again?" Xander asked as he joined Giles in Buffy-watching.

"Buffy said she saw Angel here, but I saw no sign of him myself. Did you?"

Xander shook his head, motioning the others to come join the discussion. "Nope, not so much as an over-gelled hair on his head. Anyone else see Rain on My Parade Man?"

There was a universal chorus of 'no,' and then all were silent as they watched Buffy scour the warehouse for Angel. Finally Willow could no longer stand by and watch.

"Buffy, he's not here," she called out. "No one else saw him; are you sure it was him?"

"You wouldn't have seen him," Buffy answered absently.

"Okay, Dead Boy is now the Invisible Man? Talk about your change of images."

Buffy whirled around to glare at Xander. "Don't you ever call him that again Xander."

Xander held up his hands in surrender. "Sorry, didn't mean to strike a nerve or anything, but I've been calling him that for a couple of years now. Old habits die hard, kind of like old vampires." He smiled at his own joke, until he saw the frozen look on Buffy's face. "Hey, Buff, what is it?"

She took one last, slow look around the warehouse.

"He's gone," she said softly as she sank to her knees. "I thought I could feel him...I did feel him and I thought maybe he'd come back to me in some way...but he's really gone."

"He's been gone for months, pet. Why the search mission now?" Spike strolled over closer to her, trying to project casual disinterest as he posed his question. Angel, he growled under his breath, always sodding Angel she went on about.

"He's dead," she answered bleakly.

She would not cry, she would not cry, she told herself fiercely. Later, alone, she could cry, but not now and not here.

"Buffy, when?" Willow whispered. "Is that why you went to LA?"

"Were you in...did you see him before it happened?" Giles wanted to take her in his arms immediately, but she seemed unbearably fragile, as though she might shatter at the slightest touch.

Buffy shook her head, too spent to answer him in words. She had felt Angel; she was certain he had been here. Now, though, there was only emptiness.

An instant later they were all surrounding her, reaching out hands to pull her up and draw her into the shelter of their loving arms. She accepted the hands up, and submitted to the embraces; she had no more fight left in her to drive them off.

"Let's go home, Buffy," Giles suggested, gently guiding her toward the door.

Home. The word gnawed at her, taunting her with images that could never take form or substance. Deep inside she wanted to weep for that lost reality, but all that emerged from her throat was a sharp laugh.

Home. Without Angel. Now there was a joke.

Part 14

"I still can't believe he's gone," Willow said softly. "It just seems so unreal. I mean I know he hasn't been here as in here for over a year, but he was always kind of still here, you know? And now he's not. Not ever." She clasped Tara's hand tightly in her own, overwhelmingly grateful for her blessings in the face of this new tragedy.

"I realize denial is a customary human reaction to loss, but I don't think you're being very useful, Willow. Shouldn't you be saying something comforting?" Anya snuggled in closer to Xander on the sofa, resting her head on his shoulder just because she could.

Xander was here. Xander was alive, and safe and here.

Buffy spun on her heel, turning herself away from the sight of her friends and their lovers. "It doesn't matter what you say or how nicely you say it. Words can't change the past, or change my mind about the future. I'm going back to LA. Tomorrow."

Giles watched warily. She had been completely silent on the ride back to her mother's house, despite the many questions leveled at her. Once they had set up camp on the sofas and chairs, however, she had begun her own personal marathon, circling the perimeter of the living room like a plane unable to land. With the pacing came a monotone recitation of the pervious day's events, leading up in painful detail to her return home to battle Glory.

"Buffy, we have been over this several times," he said patiently. "I realize how difficult it must be for you right now, but you know running away won't solve anything."

"And why would you want to leave anyway? This is the hellmouth; home sweet home." Xander didn't notice Buffy flinch at the last phrase, he was too busy expounding on the virtues of his hometown. "Vamp Vacationland; Demon Disney World. You can't leave; what would happen to the tourist trade?"

He could feel the disapproval in the room when he made his futile attempt at humor; even Anya seemed to sense it was inappropriate. Xander desperately wanted to say something helpful or meaningful, but the words would not come. He coped with laughter, because being serious meant admitting the crisis was real and he was helpless.

"All joking aside," Giles paused to glare at Xander, "your place is here. Not only are we all here to help you through your current...bereavement, but there is also the hellmouth to consider. Glory was only one of many threats, and however ably you handled her, there will be others." He was sympathetic to her pain, but he knew he had to be stern. As her friend, as well as her Watcher, he felt obliged to protect Buffy from her own rash impulses in her hour of grief.

"Giles is right, sweetie." Joyce sat down in the chair next to Buffy and patted her daughter's knee. "You're just not thinking clearly right now, with...all that's happened. You belong here."

Buffy abruptly veered from her course and crossed over to stare out the window at the dark street. "I belonged with Angel," she said bitterly, "but no one seemed to like that plan."

"Honey..."

Buffy wheeled around to face her mother, a part of her clamoring for battle, raging to inflict wounds rather than receive them. "I already tried it your way, Mom," she continued steadily over her mother's objection. "I let him go and I tried to be the perfect daughter instead, the perfect friend, the perfect girlfriend. Only being the perfect girlfriend got in the way of being the perfect friend, and being the perfect daughter got in the way of being the perfect girlfriend." She threw up her hands. "Big surprise; Buffy blows it again."

"Buffy, I know you've been through a lot the past few months, what with my illness and Riley leaving for his mission, but you can't just give up now, because of him." Joyce was able to hold back most of her disgust with the last word, but not all. "You've come so far from the girl who thought she
needed that man in her life. Don't let him win."

"He had a name, Mom."

God how it hurt to say 'had.' Every time she forced herself to use the past tense it was like someone threw a gallon of ice water on a never-to-be-healed wound. She froze, and then she ached and then she prayed for the inevitable numbness to creep over her.

"Everyone has a name, Buffy. I'm sure in two hundred and fifty years he had several. Did you ever know the real one?"

"I know of a few I'd like to call you right now," Buffy muttered under her breath. Taking firm hold of her emotions, she continued in a louder and distinctly colder voice. "I know exactly what you thought of Angel, Mom, and how you made him feel about himself. I know better than you think I do. But your opinions have nothing to do with the man he really...was." She caught her breath; she would not cry over Angel in front of her mother of all people.

"Buffy, please. Your mother is understandably upset by this evening's...activities with Glory, and concerned about the future." Giles glanced quickly at Dawn, who had remained huddled up at the end of the sofa since they had arrived. "We all are."

"Well so am I," Buffy replied coolly, "but part of that future belongs to me, and I want some say in it. No, I take that back; I want all the say in it for a change." She spoke very slowly and clearly, wanting to leave no room for misunderstanding. "I am going to LA. I can transfer schools; I have a job and a place to live waiting for me. There's no reason to stay."

"Well then hey, so long and thanks for the memories, Buff." Xander decided the time for joking was at last at an end. He joined Buffy at the window, laying his hand lightly on her arm and kneading it slightly. "Look, I know you're angry, and hurting, but we're here for you. We're always here for you, no matter what boy-toys pass through your life...and that so came out the wrong way."

Xander quickly removed his hand from her arm and backed up a few paces when he saw the fury flash across Buffy's face. Somehow though, the stony gaze that replaced it was worse. He searched desperately for the right words to show his support.

"I'm not trying to blow off what you felt for Angel, or how badly you must miss him. All I'm saying is that we can help you, if you let us. But Giles is right; running off to LA isn't going to help anything."

"It won't bring Angel back is what Xander is trying to say," Anya translated in an attempt to be helpful. She jumped when Willow slapped her arm. "What? That is what she's thinking, and what he thinks she's thinking. I've been around a long time, and even though the heartbreak I saw was usually the kind that could have been avoided with a little more honest communication, and a less extra-curricular fornication, I still know how people react to pain. They want to wish it away."

"I know I can't wish it away," Buffy said slowly. "But they need me there. He died trying to protect them, and me. The least I can do is make sure they stay safe."

Xander shook his head. "So the hell with the rest of the world; let's save Cordy? That's not like you, Buffy."

"Maybe not, but I don't think there's much about me worth keeping right now. So I'm going to shop around for a new look."

The 2001 model Slayer: better, faster, stronger...or at least, she could hope, less vulnerable to pain. The tighter the circle she drew around herself, the less there was to protect, and ultimately to lose.

Giles approached her slowly. "Buffy, may we speak privately? There are a few things we need to discuss if you are truly serious about this move."

She looked at him silently for several minutes. She knew he would throw every argument in the book at her, and all of it would be for her own good. She had no doubt that Giles only wanted what was best for her, and ultimately he would respect her decision, unlike her mother. He would, however, pull out every stop before he gave in, unfortunately also just like her mother.

He was not going to play fair.

"Giles, I can't do this now." She shook her head sadly. "I'm not leaving until tomorrow afternoon, so if you want to take another whack at guilt-tripping me you have all night to think up the ways. I'll see you in the morning."

He wanted to stop her, here and now. He wanted to reason with her, plead with her, or perhaps just comfort her until she saw the error of her ways. Instead Giles watched as the strongest Slayer the world had ever known dragged her weary body up the stairs one lonely step at a time.

*****

"Look Wes, I can't very well borrow my mom's car for this. So you can either drive here to get me or I'll take the bus and use the convertible next weekend to come back and get my stuff. My mind is made up; how about you?"

Buffy turned her head from the phone when she felt a presence in her bedroom. Seeing it was only Giles, she motioned for him to wait and continued her conversation with Wesley.

"So I'll see you in a few hours? Okay, I'll be waiting." She placed the phone on her nightstand and drew a deep breath. "Well, fight number one of the day is done, but I'm game for a new opponent." She looked up at Giles, a defiant gleam in her eye. "Give it your best shot, Watcher Man."

Giles glanced around the bedroom, noting the piles of clothes heaped untidily in the open duffel bags, the toiletries jumbled together in a cardboard box, and the neatly assembled weapons in Buffy's slayer trunk.

"So you're still determined to go." He didn't bother to pose it as a question; the answer was obvious.

Buffy's tension eased fractionally, but she was still suspicious. Giles rarely gave up, and never easily.

"Yeah, Wesley will be here in a few hours to get me." She resumed her packing, cramming her clothes into every available pocket of the duffel bags with little regard for the fabric's capacity to wrinkle. "And I suppose this is the last stand at the OK Corral? Time to persuade Buffy she's being selfish and careless and personally inviting the world to end because she's slacking off."

"I wouldn't say slacking off," Giles said mildly, perching on a clothes-free corner of the bed. "You are going to Los Angeles to continue the battle, aren't you? And to protect some friends as well. That would hardly be called selfish."

"Oh, a new tactic. Agree with the basket case to disarm her."

"Are you a 'basket case'?" The tone was still gentle and non-committal, but the gaze he leveled at her could have penetrated steel.

"I'm...tired," she admitted with a sigh. She walked past him to rearrange a few items in her trunk, conveniently placing her back to Giles as she crouched over the weapons. "But I know where I belong, and I know what I have to do when I get there. That's enough for now."

"And later? When the first grief has passed and you suddenly realize you've given up home and family and friends to chase after a ghost?"

She stood up slowly, still keeping her back to him. "Gloves off, huh? I knew you were being too calm and reasonable." She turned around quickly, striking first and repeatedly, before he had a chance for rebuttal. "I am not chasing ghosts; I am trying to find some reason to keep fighting. Because you see I keep fighting to protect everyone else's right to those things you mentioned. You know, the home, the family, the friends. Me, I don't worry too much about giving them up now, because what I don't give gets taken away anyway."

"Buffy, you can't push us away because you're afraid of losing us," he protested

"It's not about you, any of you," she insisted. Welcome back anger; where have you been? "This is about what I need, just this once. Not what anyone else thinks I need, not what anyone tried to give me whether I want it or not. What I need," she repeated emphatically.

"And that is?" Giles' tone was softer now; he could sense they were coming to the heart of the matter and he needed to tread softly from here out.

She didn't want to tell him. He would think it sounded fantastical or foolish, because to any rational person it would. But reason had little place in her world, especially now. She only hoped Giles could rise above his logical mind.

"Him." She threw up her hands. "I can't feel him anymore, Giles. I used to be able to feel him inside me, in this little part of my mind that I couldn't ignore no matter how hard I tried." She laughed sharply as she began to pitch cosmetics from her top dresser drawer into the nearest open box. "And I did try, Giles. You will never know how hard. But he was always there, the stubborn...he was always waiting for me, behind all the noise and the voices...and the sex...that I used to drown him out. And now he's gone and I feel so...empty." She slammed the dresser drawer shut and ran her hands threw her hair as she tried to focus on anything but the feeling she was describing.

"Running away won't help that emptiness, Buffy. If it is memories you are searching for, you'll be more likely to find them here than in Los Angeles, but I don't think that it would be particularly wise to immerse yourself in them, regardless." Giles stood up and slowly approached her. "And I'm afraid that feeling of...shared consciousness, I suppose you would call it, will not be obtainable wherever you are. He is gone, Buffy, however much you want that not to be true. Our deeds live beyond us, but not the mind that controlled them."

"But I felt him, last night." She dropped her hands to her side, holding her palms upward in entreaty. She had to make him understand. "Last night, when Glory threw me up against the wall that last time and I was too out of it to fight back for a minute, I felt him. That was what woke me up enough to see her coming at me with Excalibur."

"I've lived long enough on a hellmouth not to discount any possibility," Giles admitted, "but I hardly see what..."

"I felt him the other night, too," she continued over his objection. "I was in his room and I was sleeping and I know he was there with me. I even saw him." She paused for a moment. "Well, I'm not sure about the seeing part, because I could hardly keep my eyes open, but I know he was there."

"In your dreams, quite literally," Giles said gently.

"No! He was there; I know it. So I know I can find him again, some part of him at least, if I'm there at the hotel. He wants me to be there, taking care of everyone for him. I thought I couldn't do it, because of Glory, but she's history now. Literally."

"She may not be the only after Dawn," he reminded her.

"Keep your voice down," she snapped. She glared at him for a moment before she hurried over to close her door. "Do you think I haven't considered what would happen to her if I'm not here?" she continued as she leaned against the closed door. "I know she's my responsibility, Giles. I'm only leaving her here for a little while, and then I'll bring her to LA. No hellmouth equals at least twice the lifespan for your average person, so who knows what it can do for her."

"And what about her true purpose? We know Glory saw her as some sort of life-sized protein bar, but this tells us nothing of why she was really placed in your custody. What is she the Key to?"

"She is my sister," Buffy answered fiercely. "She was human when we got home last night, she was human when I went down to get some packing tape this morning, so as far as I'm concerned that's the way she's going to stay. Whatever she is the Key to is just going to have to stay locked."

Part 15

Giles shook his head at the group assembled by the foot of the stairs as he hurried down to join them. "It's no use, I'm afraid," he called to them softly. "She's determined to go, and short of chaining her to the bed I can see no way to stop her."

Spike raised his hand. "Well if it's chains you're lacking I can..." he glanced around, insulted by the disgusted looks he felt being leveled at him. "What? I was only trying to help," he sniffed.

"Maybe it's for the best that Buffy leaves right now," Tara suggested. "I know we want her to stay because we think we can help her; because we're her friends. But maybe right now she needs to be with Angel's friends."

She glanced from one guilty face to another.

"We are...I mean we were Angel's friends," Willow said defensively. "Weren't we?"

"Don't look at me." Spike shook his blond head vehemently. "I never liked the old boy, even when he didn't have a soul. We may have shared a few laughs over an open vein or two, but demons don't do that friendship thing, you know."

"Well ex-demons do," Anya said loftily, "but I barely knew the man. I only met him once or twice." She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head as she looked back on the encounters. "He was quite good-looking, but he seemed far too intellectual for my taste." She beamed at Xander to show her appreciation of his differences from Angel, but her boyfriend did not appear flattered by the comparison.

"There were some...personal issues that precluded friendship in my case." Giles looked away, realizing they would misunderstand the issues, but he had no intention of enlightening them.

He could forgive Angel for Angelus' actions against he and Jenny, though forgetting was never an option. It was what Angel had knowingly done to Buffy that Giles found so hard to forgive. Images of Buffy in Angel's bed, and later in a hospital bed, still haunted Giles. Angel, not Angelus, had stolen his cherished child's innocence, in more ways than one, and then almost taken her life as well.

For those sins forgiveness was a much higher mountain to climb.

Xander threw up his hands. "Hey, we all know how I felt about the King of Pain. I still say Riley was a much better guy for her."

"Oh that's constructive," Willow groaned. "Xander, he's not exactly an option right now, so I wouldn't bring that up to her if I were you."

"I've hardly heard any of you mention Angel in all the time I've known you," Tara reluctantly pointed out. "Maybe Buffy needs to be with people who are grieving, not just...surprised."

"I think it's more than surprise," Giles protested. "Still, you may be at least partially correct about the attraction Los Angeles now holds for her. As to the rest, well, I'm afraid she's searching for things she will never find."

"I can't pretend to grieve for Angel, but I would do anything to stop the pain she's in right now. My poor baby; she's had such a rough few months." Joyce glanced anxiously up the stairs. "Maybe I should go talk to her again."

"I wouldn't, Joyce. She has made up her mind and I think we need to respect her decision for now. I'm sure Wesley and Cordelia will keep us apprised of her condition, and make us aware if she needs more than they can give. Beyond that...I'm afraid she is legally an adult and we have no right to keep her here, however much we might wish to."

Joyce shook her head stubbornly. "No, I refuse to give up. But we need to really brainstorm before we say anything else to her. Why don't we all go have some hot chocolate in the kitchen and see what we can come up with."

As Giles and the Scoobies trooped into the Summers' kitchen after Joyce, Dawn quietly slipped upstairs.

*****

Dawn slowly pushed open her sister's bedroom door, silently observing her older sister in a rare moment of inactivity.

Her sister had been in a never-ending flurry of movement from the moment she got home the previous night. Long after Buffy retreated to her room Dawn could hear her sister pacing and moving things and exercising and making any other number of noises as she tried to keep herself awake. It almost seemed as if Buffy was afraid to sleep. Dawn had wanted to go to Buffy, to help in some way, but she was a little frightened of the cold perpetual motion machine her sister had suddenly become.

The machine had finally stopped.

Buffy was sitting cross-legged on the bed, in the middle of bags and boxes and piles of junk yet to be packed. The only thing that seemed to interest her, however, was the leather-bound book she was reading. She was gripping it tightly in one hand as she bit her lip and fought for control of her harsh breathing. With the other hand she laid claim to a small, carved wooden box in her lap, shielding, or perhaps clinging to it; Dawn couldn't be sure.

"Buffy," she called hesitantly, "can I come in?"

Buffy looked up, saw Dawn in the doorway and closed her eyes for just an instant. When she opened them, she gave a tiny nod as she put the book down on the bed beside her. "Yeah, come in."

Dawn took a few hesitant steps into the room and then stopped, nervously twisting a strand of her long brown hair in her hands as she faced the sister she suddenly felt she never knew.

"I just wanted to say...Tara reminded me that...that Angel could be really nice to me sometimes, and I...I'm really sorry he's dead." Fear moved swiftly across her features. "I mean that he's gone now. I shouldn't have said 'dead.' And I really shouldn't have said it again to apologize for saying it the first time, should I?"

Buffy smiled slowly, but there was an indefinable wall that shadowed her eyes and prevented the smile from touching them. "It's okay, Dawn; you can say it. I won't explode or anything."

It was with more than a little relief that Dawn came far enough into the room to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Good, I was afraid I was going to be the one to push you over the edge, which is pretty much where they all think you're headed, if not already there. I meant what I said about Angel, though. Sometimes he was really nice to me, though a lot of the time it was like I kind of didn't exist once you came in the room, because you were pretty much all he could see." She picked at a loose thread on the comforter as she continued, not quite daring to meet Buffy's eyes. "I guess that was why I liked it when you started dating Riley. He was nuts about you and everything, but it was, I don't know, normal nuts. Not 'you are the light of my dark existence' nuts."

Buffy reached out to stroke Dawn's long hair. "I'm glad you have some good memories of Angel, and it means a lot that you wanted to tell me you have them."

Even if the memories weren't real, and even if Angel never shared them, it still made Buffy feel better that the monks had painted him kindly in Dawn's subconscious.

The younger girl lifted her head to look deep into Buffy's hazel eyes, searching for an explanation to the sudden changes in her world. "Tara said you want to be with people who were Angel's friends, not just ones saying nice things about him to make you feel better."

"Can't put much over on that witch, now can you?" Buffy asked dryly. "The others...I love them dearly, but they...tolerated him at best. A big part of the reason he left was because he thought he couldn't fit into the life that they all had, the kind people made him think I wanted." Her lips tightened at the memory of her mother's bewildered eyes the previous night. Joyce truly had no idea the nightmare she created with her meddling.

"So if they liked him better, you would stay?"

"It's not that simple, Dawn. I'm tired of fighting the demon of the week and having nothing to show for it but the world not ending. I mean it's great the world doesn't end, but I'd kind of like to know for sure that at least one person is better off with it not ending." She saw the blank look on Dawn's face and sighed with frustration. "I'm not explaining this very well, but I'm tired of being Big Picture Girl. I want to help one person, or maybe a few people, and be able to see that I helped them. As it is now, I kill one demon and another one takes its place before the body's cold. I stop Glory from...well, her mission was kind of complicated, but I put an end to it. Now Giles is saying she might not be the only one. For every two steps forward it's three steps back."

"I'll miss you," Dawn said wistfully.

Buffy impulsively hugged her. "You know, you can come with me," she whispered in Dawn's ear.

Dawn pulled back. "You mean it?"

"Of course. Why would you want to stay in Sunnydale anyway?"

"Because it's home." Dawn shrugged; it was obvious to her.

Buffy read deeper levels of meaning into the simple phrase. Whatever the Key was supposed to be, the being that was Dawn was a child still, with a child's need for stability, and protection. To uproot her was unthinkable.

Almost as unthinkable as leaving her unprotected.

"Dawn, please come with me," she quickly begged. "I know it's scary to think of leaving home and Mom...but please come with me."

Dawn stood up slowly.

"I'll miss you," she repeated solemnly as she backed out the door. A moment later the door closed behind her, trapping Buffy in her bedroom with her memories, and her responsibilities.

Once again, the hellmouth had the last word.

"No, you won't miss me at all," she said sadly, reaching for the portable phone with one hand as she began to unpack her bags with the other.

*****

Buffy waited patiently on the sofa for her 'family' to finish snack time. There was no hurry anymore; she had nowhere to go and nothing to do for the rest of her life but look after Dawn and the hellmouth.

She could tell they were surprised to see her sitting there as they trooped in from the kitchen, but she left them no time to form questions. This was her show, from here on out.

"I've decided to stay in Sunnydale." Position declared, reasons unnecessary to explain, at least as far as she was concerned.

"Oh, honey, I'm so glad." Joyce hurried over to embrace her daughter, a gesture said daughter accepted with tolerable grace. "You belong here with all of us. We can take care of you, and you'll see, soon this will all be just a bad memory."

Buffy stood up and quickly slipped out of her mother's arms. She and Joyce had shared a moment, but obviously the moment had passed.

"I'm setting down a few ground rules, though, and I expect them to be followed." Buffy gazed sternly at her assembled friends and family as she paced the length of the living room. "No more patrol parties. This is my job, and I will do it, but I will do it alone." She saw the protests forming on more than one set of lips and held up her hands to stop the words before they were born.

"No arguments. I hunt alone. Anyone who violates my privacy will have to answer for it, and you know what I'm capable of when I'm mad." She turned to Spike. "As for you, one more unwanted assist and you will be wearing the latest thing in wooden stakes as a lapel pin...for about as long as it takes you to go poof."

"Now that's gratitude for you," he grumbled into his mug of cocoa.

"But we always patrol with you," Willow said unhappily. "Not when you were with...well, anyone you'd rather have been alone with, but when you were alone we were with you."

"That was then, this is future now. As in from here on out," Buffy answered firmly. "Now, Rule Number 2: what to do when Buffy says it's time to get out of Dodge. There is bad stuff coming, like apocalypse bad."

"Again?" Xander whined

"When I think it will be hitting town," Buffy continued after a sharp look in Xander's direction, "I want all of you out of here and on your way to LA. There's a hotel called the Hyperion; Cordy and Wes and another guy named Gunn will be there. They'll take care of you and you can take care of them."

"I won't leave you, Buffy. I am your Watcher as well as someone who cares about you. I will be by your side until the end." Giles couldn't even believe she had suggested it. As if he would let her face the greatest evil by herself.

"You will leave when the time comes, if I have to knock you out, stuff you in a box and send you parcel post. I need to know all of you are safe, and if I have to fall back I only want one place I need to defend."

"None of us will go, Buff. We're a team. We stick together and we'll go out fighting." Xander looked to Willow and Giles, seeing the same resolve on their faces. "Sorry, Buffy; you're overruled."

"This is not negotiable."

"No, this is stupid," Anya said abruptly. "You can all yell about it until you turn blue in the face, which, by the way, I have cast spells to make people do, and it's not an easy skin tone to pull off, let me tell you."

"Anya, sweetie," Xander tried to interrupt. Tried and failed.

"But this is all just theoretical now anyway," she continued briskly. "Why not wait until the demon or demons are coming over the ridge and then start arguing over who gets to shoot at the whites of their eyes?" Anya saw the glazed looks on the faces of those around her turn to disbelief and hastened to explain. "What, can't a girl watch a few John Wayne movies when she gets bored?"

Buffy sighed, surrendering her position for the moment. "Fine, we'll fight about it then. But the no hunting rule is not up for discussion now or ever. I am staying here to do a job, and I won't let anyone get in my way."

*****

They were still sitting in the living room discussing "what to do about Buffy" when the Slayer in question slipped out of the house to go on patrol. Hopefully her loved ones would be too busy being concerned about her to notice she was gone.

All the rest had been taken from her, but one small saving grace remained. It was to this that she had clung as she unpacked her bags and resigned herself to ending her days in Sunnydale. And it was for this that she insisted on solo patrols.

He was out there somewhere, waiting for her. And one way or another, on this plane or the next, she would find him.

Part 16

"No, Xander, absolutely not. I work solo." Buffy tossed another stake over her shoulder, not bothering to verify that it landed in the weapons bag. She hadn't missed one yet.

"Umm, Buffy, really appreciate the technique, but could you please yell 'four' or maybe 'incoming' before you throw another one of those things?" Xander abandoned the spot on the floor where he had flung himself to avoid the stake and resumed his seat on the bed.

"Not to be rude, but no one actually asked you to join me while I got ready for work."

"No, I came out of the goodness of my heart, and a sincere desire to get away from Anya for an evening. She's looking at bridal magazines again and starting to hum old Carpenter's songs. I think she's hinting at something."

Buffy stopped her preparations long enough to give Xander a long look. "Be grateful for what you have, Xander. Not everyone gets so lucky. Now, I am going out hunting," she held up her hand to keep him from interrupting her, "alone, and you should go home to your girlfriend, who would, for some strange reason, like to be more than your girlfriend."

"I'm just worried about you, Buff." He shrugged and smiled apologetically at her. "We all are. I know it's only been three months, but..."

"I'm fine," she quickly interrupted him. She grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulder. "Now get out of here. I have to study for finals after patrol, so I need to get moving."

"At least promise me you'll think about coming out with all of us Friday night," he begged as she shooed him out of her bedroom and towards the stairs.

"I'll think about it," she said grudgingly. "But only if you promise to stop trying to follow me on patrol. There are some things a girl has to do for herself."

*****

"Where are you?" she muttered under her breath as she twisted out of the grasp of an overly enthusiastic vampire. She spun around, preparing to scissor kick him into a nearby tree branch when her foot slipped on the damp grass. Another vamp barreled into her before she had a chance to regain her footing and forced her to the ground.

She lay on the ashes of several other previously dispatched vampires, pinned beneath the dead weight of the second-to-last survivor. She could see the smile creep across his gnarled face as she struggled to get the leverage to shove him off. The silvery glow of the spring moonlight gleamed on his fangs as he lowered his head to strike.

And then she felt it. The shiver in her soul, that certain prickling under her skin that told her he was somewhere near.

He came. He couldn't stay away any more than she could, and so he came to her once again to give her strength to continue the fight. And as always, she reveled in their combined energy.

She threw off the vampire who was pinning her and rolled in the opposite direction immediately, reaching out instinctively to grasp her stake as she passed it. She was on her feet an instant later, striking rapid deadly blows at anything within arms' reach. A few minutes later she stood alone in the cemetery, surrounded by small piles of ashes.

Alone. He had disappeared again, without so much as a whisper in her ear or a blade of grass disturbed to show that he had ever been there.

"You could have at least wished me luck on my finals!" she yelled defiantly to the empty air.

*****

Joyce twisted her hands nervously as she paced, praying she was doing the right thing. She had known for months that there was a problem, but everyone kept counseling patience. She had been patient, in her estimation very patient, all winter and spring. Having reached the depths of summer with no appreciable improvement in the situation, she felt it was now time for action.

"Rupert, I'm very worried about Buffy. I know you all keep telling me to give her time, but I think it's been long enough." She stopped her anxious trek across Giles' braided throw rug and sat down beside him on the sofa. "She should be getting on with her life by now, but all she seems to care about is getting on with her slaying."

Giles sighed. This wasn't the first time Joyce had come to him with this concern, and each time it became more difficult to calm her down. He could hardly blame her; it had been hard enough for him to watch Buffy the past six months. If he had been her real parent, instead of a come-lately surrogate, he could imagine the fear would be overwhelming.

Still, he had to try and be the voice of reason for Joyce. Given Buffy's fragile emotional state, her mother's concerns could only exacerbate the tension between them.

"Joyce," he began slowly, "I realize this is a difficult time for you. It must be very hard to sit by and not be able to make things better, the way you would have done when Buffy was a child. Still, she is not a child and she is not dealing with a skinned knee or a bad report card. She lost the man she loved, and whatever we may have thought of him, he was the most important person in her world. She's not going to snap right back."

"It's been six months, Rupert; that's half a year. I made allowances at first for the distance and the moodiness; I thought it was natural but eventually it would pass." Joyce leaned forward in her chair. "But it just goes on and on. She's finally started to go out with her friends again, but it's almost as though she feels she has to. And Rupert, she's taking courses this summer. My Buffy, whose favorite semester in school used to be summer vacation, is willingly sitting in a classroom in August. I've seen her grades and I know she's doing very well, but she never talks about it. She doesn't talk about anything unless I force the issue."

"You haven't been encouraging her to date again, have you?" he asked warily. It had taken him weeks to soothe the hurt feelings in the Summers household following Joyce's last attempt at matchmaking, and it had cost him precious time with the visiting Olivia.

"Well I've suggested it, but she just stares at me and then she changes the subject. I only want her to be happy, Rupert. She's my daughter and I want her to enjoy her life."

"Give her time, Joyce. You must be patient," Giles begged. He ran his hands through his hair, struggling for the right words to calm Joyce down without giving her false hope. "This is not a quick or simple process. As a Slayer she faces death every day, but that doesn't mean she accepts it for anyone else but herself. Eventually she will deal with this all...but I'm not sure she will ever be the same girl again, and I don't think you should expect her to be."

Joyce looked away for a moment, trying to compose her thoughts. He still wasn't seeing the root of the problem, and she wasn't sure she could find the words to break it down for him.

"Joyce, is there something else?" She was being far too quiet for Giles' peace of mind; these sessions were usually a noisy, drawn-out affair. Not that he minded the quick cessation of dramatics, but he found it suspicious.

She sighed heavily. Maybe he would be able to make sense of things; heaven knows she wasn't able to do it.

"It's the slaying," she said with difficulty. "She...looks forward to it. Too much so, I think. She can't wait to go out, and when she comes back she's covered in bruises and cuts but she's...glowing. And yet she's also terribly sad. It reminds me..." Joyce paused for an instant before plunging ahead, "it reminds me of when she was dating...him."

Even after all this time, Joyce still only spoke Angel's name under duress.

"I really think that..." Even as he was protesting the analogy, a terrible thought was blooming in Giles' mind. He had to find Buffy, and soon. Perhaps it was all just a misunderstanding, but he would not rest easy until he had reassured himself.

"Joyce, do you have any idea where Buffy was headed tonight?"

Her forehead wrinkled as Joyce racked her brain for any information. After the first few months of unexplained hostility, Buffy had slowly begun to share pieces of her life with her mother again. Details, however, had been on a need-to-know basis.

"I think...I think she said something about an Arles demon. Yes, she definitely said she needed a flame-thrower to fight an Arles demon. Does that tell you anything?"

Giles winced at the hopeful tone in Joyce's voice; he desperately hoped her confidence wasn't misplaced. If he was right in his suspicions, he had been rather seriously underestimating the depth of the problem.

"It's a start," he hedged. "There are only so many places where she would be likely to find an Arles demon where a flame-thrower could be used safely." Assuming, of course, she was still thinking rationally enough to consider safety.

Joyce squeezed his hand tightly. "Please help her Rupert. You might be the only who can get through to her. Sometimes I think you're the only one she listens to at all."

At least the only one who can be seen, Giles thought grimly as he smiled absently at Joyce

*****

The Arles demon had not been alone; that was the first surprise.

The second surprise was his ferocity, which her research had not prepared her for. According to Giles' books, the Arles were bloodthirsty crew, but somewhat lazy when it came to procuring the blood. They preferred to hurl their victims off of tall buildings or cliffs and let the laws of physics do the necessary rending assunder, rather than have to do all the tedious ripping limb-from-limb stuff themselves.

This Arles, however, must have been listening to motivational tapes in his spare time. He seemed to prefer the more hands-on approach to fighting, only using the rocky sea wall as a tenderizer.

Fortunately the vampires who accompanied the Arles were not so physically inclined. Once they realized Buffy was the Slayer, they were suitably cowed, and quickly dispatched. That left Buffy with only the Arles to fight, but he was enough.

She was beginning to think this would be the one; the battle she did not walk away from. Every night she wondered, and every night she put it off for just one more tomorrow. Tonight it seemed she might be out of tomorrows.

As she bounced off the cliff wall and landed on the sand, she could feel her head start to swim from the repeated blows. Suddenly there were two Arles standing over her, reaching out their enormous scaly arms to drag her to her feet and separate her from some limbs she was very attached to. Buffy closed her eyes and tried to focus her energy for one final assault.

This time, she was on her own.

The shiver came over her unexpectedly, followed instantly by the Arles demon hurtling backward. As soon as she was free, she heard a voice growling softly from the air above her.

"Not yet, dammit!"

Buffy caught her breath and opened her eyes, expecting to see him standing before her, but there was only darkness. She reached out for her weapons bag, hoping to find her flashlight, but instead her groping fingers found the flame-thrower she had lost track of after her first encounter with cliff wall. Its return was not a moment too soon. The Arles was up again and headed towards her, until she flipped on the flame-thrower and vaporized him.

There was a quick familiar flapping sound that broke the still night air, and then she could feel she was alone. Alone, that is, except for Giles, who was hurrying across the beach towards her.

He found her huddled on the sand, torn between hysterical laughter and sobs.

Buffy looked up at him, her eyes bright with tears. "They let him keep his coat," she gasped, almost choking on the nervous giggle that bubbled up in her throat.

*****

Giles was silent on the drive back to Revello Drive. It wasn't until he stopped the car in front of Buffy's house that he spoke to his former charge.

"You had no right to behave the way you did tonight. You risked your life, and the lives of any of those the demon might have pursued had your carelessness allowed him to escape." He tried to keep the fear from his voice, but he couldn't entirely control the trembling. It had been a very close call indeed.

"I got the job done," she answered flatly. What more did he expect of her?

"And what job was that, pray tell? Slaying or ghost busting?"

She looked away. "I don't know what you mean."

"You're trying to raise Angel's spirit by deliberately placing yourself in danger," he accused. "I can't believe it took me so long to figure it out; I can only guess that it was because it's so incredible that it didn't occur to me before tonight."

"I was doing my job," she insisted yet again. After a moment a grudging honesty forced her to admit more. "It's not my fault if Angel happens to show up there to watch.

"So you really raise him with this behavior?"

"Do you think he can watch me in danger and not at least be with me? I know it's crazy...but it's the only way I have to call him."

Buffy hated the desperation she could hear in her voice. She knew she sounded pathetic and clingy, but she couldn't make herself stop what she was doing. She knew he was out there, and that he missed her as badly as she missed him. They both needed this contact; she was sure of it.

"It's not fair, Buffy, to him or you. You need to let go, hard as that may be, so that you can really live the life he left to give you. And he deserves some peace, I would think. Surely you don't believe your nightly distress calls are making for a happy afterlife."

She had known he wouldn't understand. He had loved Jenny; she knew that he had. But Jenny had never become a part of his soul; she hadn't crawled so deep into his heart that removing her was tantamount to removing the organ itself.

Buffy opened up the car door and started to slide out. As her feet touched the pavement, she turned around in her seat. "I don't think I really believe in happy at all, Giles, in life or afterlife."

Part 17

Buffy walked slowly up the stairs to her room, not bothering to be quiet. Dawn was at a sleep-over, and her mother had told her repeatedly that she preferred Buffy to make noise when she came in, so Joyce would know she made it home alive.

The weary slayer pushed open her bedroom door, not bothering to turn on the light, and tossed her weapons bag on the floor in front of the dresser. Time to crawl into bed for a good four hours of tossing and turning, in preparation for the new day ahead.

"What the hell did you think you were doing out there?"

All the air fled from her lungs as her hands scrabbled at the wall in search of the switch. When the room flooded with light, she could see it was indeed Angel standing before her, large as life, predictably clad in his trademark coat, and looking...incredibly angry.

She could feel a strange pinging sensation in the back of her brain as a grey cloud filtered across her eyes. Her knees started to give way and she stumbled backward, reaching out for the wall to support her.

Instead, she could feel his arms around her, holding her close as he gently lowered her to the ground. Once he had her propped up against the wall he banged the door shut and squatted next to her, anxiously looking over her battered and slightly bloodied frame, looking anywhere but her eyes.

"This can't be real," she murmured, reaching up to touch his cheek. It felt almost real, solid and yet not quite so, the way that things feel solid in a dream just before the dreamer awakens.

Her voice seemed to drag his dark eyes upward to confront her own. He nodded slowly, reaching up to clasp her hand to his cheek. "It's real, more or less. It would have been even more real if you hadn't finally vaporized that Arles demon. What were you thinking of, going against it without back-up?"

She didn't answer; she couldn't. He would know the lie she gave Giles for what it was, and the truth suddenly seemed too pathetic.

"You were daring me, weren't you?" he continued softly. "Every time you patrol, the demons get a little bigger, or you tackle just a few more at one time, all so that I'll ride in like some stupid knight on a white horse to give you the strength to save the day." Abruptly he pulled away from her, standing up so he could walk over to the window. He forced himself to keep his back to her, even though his eyes hungered for the sight of her as much as his fingers craved the feel of her skin against his own.

"You've been doing it for months now, and I've fallen for it every time."

She scrambled to her feet, suddenly energized by her anger. "Well, hey, sorry to bother you. I had this feeling we had some unfinished business, and this seemed to be the only way I could get in touch with you. But don't worry; I won't be calling again."

"I wish...that I wish I could believe that." Angel gave up the fight and turned around to look at her. How could someone streaked in human and demon blood, trailing dried strands of seaweed and reeking of brine still be so beautiful? His mind reeled with the conundrum.

"Why are you here?" she whispered brokenly, holding to her safe distance across the room. Safe. As though there was such a thing between she and Angel.

"You have to stop doing this, Buffy. This kamikaze slaying is going to catch up with you before your time, and then everything you've been working for will be gone."

"What about everything I've been hoping for? That's already gone." She took a few steps forward, forsaking safety for the feel of him near her. "It died when you did, and I can't really seem to care about the rest."

"The rest is your life," he insisted. "Yours, and everyone else's that you love. You say you want to protect them, and then you go off and try to get yourself killed. How will you protect them then?"

"I'm holding my own," she growled. "And if someday I don't, another slayer will be called. She'll be the lucky winner of the hellmouth behind Door Number Three, and I can finally be with you all the time instead of this 'now you feel me, now you don't' thing we've been doing for the past six months."

"Don't you think I want that too? Don't you think I'm waiting for the day when we can be together forever?" He, too, stepped a few feet closer, meeting her in the middle of the room. "And don't you think it's hard on me too to just...float in like some stupid Patrick Swayze wannabe and hope that
it will be enough to get you through one more fight?"

"Then why?"

"Because this is the way it has to be for now. You still have work to do, and I'm not supposed to be around you at all. But I can't..." he closed his eyes, remembering the sight of her, bleeding and scarcely conscious, in the grips of the Arles. "I can't watch without stepping in, and I can't not watch."

She touched his cheek again and he opened his eyes to look down at her.

"At least when you drop in to play Sir Galahad I can feel you with me again," she whispered. "I'm sorry I've been scaring you but...God, I've missed you. I got so used to feeling a piece of you inside me and now it's gone." She tried to control the quiver in her voice, but it broke through at the end.

"Buffy, I'm still with you. I'm always with you." He reached up to cup her hand to his cheek. "In those last moments I was dreaming I was with you, and when I felt the stake...a part of me crawled so deep inside you that night that I don't think you can even tell it's me. I'm just another part of you now." With his free hand he reached out and gently touched her breast. "And I'm always going to be in there."

"I'm so tired, Angel," she confessed sadly. "I'm tired of the fighting, and the killing and the trying to pretend it makes a difference. Evil will always be there, and so will slayers. I'm good at what I do, but I'm expendable...to everyone but you."

"That's not true," he protested. "Your friends and your family love you. They need you. There will always be slayers, but the world will only get one Buffy Summers, and I'm not going to let you deprive the world of her too soon."

She wanted to weep with frustration. Why did his needs, and hers, always count as second best?

"I won't deny my friends love me; they're great and I love them too. But they all have someone in their lives now who is the most important person to them, and they have each other. As for my family...well, first we have my little sister, who isn't really my sister at all but actually is a great big ball of energy shrunk down to a 32AA in need of braces. I suppose if we have to we can count my absentee dad, and, of course, my mom; a proud drop-out of Meddler's Anonymous." She paused for a moment, unsure of how to continue. "I know what she said to you Angel; why you left Sunnydale. She was totally wrong, and she had no right even if she had been right, which she wasn't."

"Buffy, it's okay." He turned his head against the palm resting on his cheek, nuzzling it slightly. "There weren't any burning torches or angry villagers involved, and she didn't say anything I wasn't already thinking."

"I've been so angry with her, but I couldn't tell her why because that would just be one more reason for her not to like you, because you told me."

"You should tell her. Being angry just wastes time."

"Is that why I shouldn't be angry with you?" Her hand quickly dropped from his cheek to her side, curling into a fist on its way down. "For not telling me about the day you made not happen? Our day, that you let them take away so I could live long enough to fight some damn apocalypse, like I was just dying to do that again."

"I did what I thought was right. And if I had it to do again...I probably would do the same thing." He gave no further excuse; there was none he could offer.

"Even knowing how little time was left?" She trembled with the effort it took not to reach out and shake him. "If you knew you were going to be dead in a year anyway, a year we could have spent together, would you still have taken it all back?"

He nodded sadly, reaching out to trace a single lock of blonde hair that drifted across her cheek. "What if I hadn't, Buffy? It might have been you that was taken first. Knowing that I was going to die in a year anyway wouldn't have been as bad as watching you die and knowing I could have prevented it."

"It just makes me so mad!" She slapped the palm of her hand on his chest, and then left it there, fingers curling around a button on his shirt. "You make this big sewer speech about all the things you want to give me, but can't, and then when you can you won't because you still feel like it's not enough."

Buffy wanted to stay angry with him, but time was slipping away. She had been gifted with these few precious moments, and she was wasting them tearing at him. There were so many other things to be said; things that wouldn't bring any more pain to those dark eyes she so loved.

No more regrets about words unspoken, she promised herself. Leaning forward, Buffy rubbed her cheek against the hard familiar planes of his chest as she whispered, "Why wouldn't you ever believe me when I said you were enough, just you?"

He lowered his head to rest on hers, cheek pressed to her slightly salty hair. "Sweetheart, I'm sorry. I never wanted you to have to live with any of this. I just wanted you to be safe and happy."

"Were you? Happy, I mean, that last year?" she asked softly, turning her head so that she could prop her chin on his chest. "Cordelia said you were, before Darla came back."

"No." He raised his head from its resting place, smiling faintly at the disappointment on her upturned face. "I was happier. Happier than I thought I would be if I was separated from you. Happier than I felt I deserved sometimes. Happier than I would have been if I was alone and cut off from humanity. Didn't being with your friends or with Riley make you happier than being by yourself, at least some of the time?"

"Sometimes," she admitted grudgingly.

"It's a relative term; like holding two candles up to the night sky and deciding which one gives just a little more light." He reached down and slid his arms around her waist, holding her tightly against him. "But 'happy' is an absolute, and the only time I've known that in all my days...has been the time I spent with you."

She sighed, resting her head on his chest once more. Still no heartbeat, but perhaps even in heaven some things were a little on the impossible side. He was, after all, more dead than ever.

"So fine; you came, you scolded, you made with the sweet nothings. Where do we go from here?" She trembled inside, knowing what the answer must be.

"I go back, and you stay here. You fight...and I don't show up on my horse to sweep you away." He slipped his hand under her chin and tilted her head back so that she faced him. "I mean it, Buffy. I can't do it any more. Even if I thought I could stand it, I'm not allowed. I created quite a stir earlier when I actually took form to get the Arles off of you. If it hadn't been so important for me to talk you out of this craziness, there is no way I could be here now. But it ends here, tonight. Now."

"No! I feel like I just got you back and now you're going to vanish like some freaking...ghost?"

"Still answering to 'undead American,' thank you." When his teasing didn't provoke a reminiscent smile, he became serious again. "It could be a long time, Buffy; I honestly don't know. And in the meantime you need to make your own life. But I promise I will come back for you someday, and the next time you see me will be for keeps."

"Please don't do this. At least not yet," she begged. "We still have so much to talk about, and I have so much to yell at you for." She let out a little sound that was half laugh and half sob. "I've got pages and pages of ammunition in those journals and you've hardly let me have two seconds to call you on any of it."

"Later," he promised, silvery tears flickering on the edges of his dark lashes. He bent down and kissed her, concentrating fiercely on holding his corporeal form for just a few moments more. He needed to hold her once more, to feel enveloped in her warmth and her love. He needed her to know that his love was just as strong, and just as eternal.

At length she pulled away, cursing as always her need to breathe. She reached up and ran a finger along his jaw, marveling that even blindfolded, in a room with a thousand other men she would know the shape of it at a moment's touch.

"If I really, really have to let you go..."

Angel nodded. "You really, really do."

"Then I need to know something, before you leave." She looked solemnly into his eyes, knowing she would spot a lie or evasion in their dark depths instantaneously. "Everyone keeps telling me I have to let you 'rest in peace.' I know you never had much when you were here, and a lot of that was my fault. So I need to know." She smiled wistfully at him. "Are you at peace, or am I really screwing it up for you with all these late night calls?"

He wanted to reassure her, but he could not lie. The truth would not be so unbearable, now that she knew it would not always be the truth.

"I wouldn't exactly call it peace," he admitted. "The guilt isn't really gone, but it doesn't eat at me the way it used to. I guess you could say I've found some perspective after all this time. The only thing that really haunts me now...is you."

"Then I guess you're at peace-er," she offered with a faint smile.

He traced her lips with his finger, memorizing their curves and texture, as though he could ever forget. Why did he seem destined to spend so much of his time saying goodbye to this woman, and why did it never get any easier?

"Something like that," he agreed.

She drew a deep breath. "Then for now...I can let you go." She forced herself to step back, out of the shelter of his arms, out of reach of all that she held dear in the world. "I love you."

"I love you too. Always."

She kept her gaze fixed on him until the last, needing to hold close every moment of their time together. When at last he had vanished, and not even a shimmer disturbed the air, she closed her eyes and sank down on the floor, drawing her body into a tight protective ball.

She didn't know where she would go from here, or how she would face the future alone. For so long she had counted on a kindly twist of Fate, or perhaps a simple balancing of the scales of Justice to reunite them. Now that hope was ash just as surely as her lover was.

Lacking any other alternative, she could let go of the dream. Her heart, however, would never completely surrender the man. It was, after all, now his heart too.

Part 18

Buffy quietly let herself into the house, glancing around to check for any signs of life. The living room was already decorated for the party, but the only noises she could hear came from upstairs. With a tiny sigh she climbed the stairs, carefully bypassing her old bedroom en route to Dawn's room.

"Hey," Buffy called softly from the doorway, "are you almost ready to go? The ceremony is supposed to start in," she glanced down at her wrist, "less than a half an hour."

Dawn turned around from her mirror and grinned as she laid her hairbrush down on the nightstand and clicked off the radio. "I've been ready for ages. Mom is the one who can't decide what speed film to bring, or how many rolls."

Buffy groaned as she checked her watch once more. "I know she's all excited because 'her baby' is graduating high school, but if she doesn't get a move on we won't have anything to take pictures of."

"I think she's just trying to make up for all the stuff she didn't get to do when you graduated. I mean she tried when you finished college, but it wasn't the same."

"Sure wasn't. No explosives, no giant demon snakes, no arson charges filed." Buffy shrugged and tried not to look too hard at the other things that had been missing from her college graduation. Involuntarily her hand rose to cover the old scar on her throat.

Some wounds never heal; no matter how much time they are given.

Dawn toyed nervously with the discarded brush, searching for a tactful way to bring up a touchy subject. "Umm are you going to stay over tonight, after the party? I know Mom has your room all made up, just in case."

"You mean Mom hasn't unmade my room since the day I left," Buffy corrected her. She shivered slightly at the thought of staying in the mausoleum that her old room had become. "No, I think I'll just head back to the apartment. It's not like it's a long drive or anything. Why would she think I'd need to stay?"

"I think she just kind of hoped." Dawn offered a hesitant smile. "Sometimes it seems like you avoid her, or us, or maybe it's just the house. You left so suddenly, and you never said why, but ever since then you act like you have to be dragged in here. I think it hurts her feelings."

"I was in college, Dawn. I went back to the dorms." Buffy's temper was beginning to fray; this was an old debate and one she was tired of revisiting. "I only left them because Mom was sick, and then she got better."

"But you didn't even wait until they were open," Dawn protested. "I went to a sleep-over one night and when I came back the next morning you were tossing stuff in Giles' car and moving in with Xander and Anya until fall semester began. And then when you graduated, you never came back at all; you moved
right into an apartment."

"That's what people do. They move out, move on. Jeeze; everyone kept telling me to 'move on' back then, and when I did they got mad about that too." She instantly regretted her harsh tone; she knew Dawn was only trying to help.

"It seems more like you moved away."

Buffy was deluged by a wave of guilt when she heard the lost note in her sister's voice. She had stayed in Sunnydale to protect Dawn, and she had done that well, but surely there was more to being an older sister than just making sure the younger sibling didn't die a horrible death. In some ways it made being the Slayer look easy in comparison.

"Dawn, I'm sorry if you think I don't want to be around you, or Mom." Impulsively she hugged her younger sister. "I need space, though; maybe more than most people. And part of that space means not staying here, with a lot of old memories. I have enough of them in my head already."

It wasn't the complete truth, but it was a truth that Dawn could understand. Buffy could never hope to explain the appalling emptiness her old room held for her now. Some days she thought she would be buried under the weight of her memories, of all that had been, or could have been, and yet she clung to them as a way to keep the past, and Angel, alive.

It wasn't the memories that drove her from that room, this house, three years ago; it was the certainty that there would never be any more. And it was that knowledge that kept her from ever going back.

"I'm sorry I made you sad," Dawn murmured, digging her chin into Buffy's shoulder.

Buffy pulled back slightly and reached out to gently tug one long brown strand of Dawn's hair. "Nope," she said firmly, "my bad. This is your day and we should be celebrating, not getting all weepy." She forced a small smile, resolutely banishing the ghosts to their customary corner of her mind.

"It all seems so weird, you know." Dawn turned back to her mirror for a final make-up check. "You're gone, I'm going away. Everything is changing so fast."

Joyce bustled into the room, camera in hand, before Buffy could reply. "So, are you two finally ready?" she asked brightly. "We need to hustle or we'll be late."

"And some things will never change," Buffy added, nodding slightly at Joyce. Her smile was genuine this time as she and Dawn shared a giggle at their unwitting mother's expense.

*****

"That was the most beautiful ceremony, don't you think?" Joyce asked over her shoulder as she placed her key in the lock on the front door.

Xander shrugged and draped his arm around Anya's waist. "Considering what I have to compare it to, it's not really fair for me to say. It was definitely quieter than experience has led me to expect from a graduation."

Anya leaned gratefully into his side, worn out from a long day and the 30 extra pounds she was carrying courtesy of Xander Jr. "Someday our offspring will graduate from that school. I hope they can afford to put cushions on the wooden benches by then."

"They're called bleachers, hon, and they're not supposed to be padded."

"Well, trust me, it was the..." Joyce's voice trailed off as she looked down at the key turning freely in the lock. "Funny, I could have sworn I remembered to lock the door." She pushed the door open, but before she could enter Buffy brushed past her and stood in the open doorway.

"Mom, let me go in first." Buffy stepped cautiously into the foyer, and then stopped dead when she realized the identity of their housebreakers. "Cordy, Wes, what are you doing here?"

Cordelia rose wearily from the hall chair and tossed the magazine she had been reading onto the writing desk. "Well, I always like to go to Paris in the spring, but Gunn thought it was too touristy so we compromised on Sunnydale instead."

Wesley glanced apprehensively at Cordelia; she was under a greater strain than she would ever admit, and it was starting to show around the edges.

"Cordelia has had a vision. A very bad one, I'm afraid."

Gunn strolled out of the kitchen, a glass of water in his hand. "Yeah, she's been popping pain pills like M&Ms since she came out of it enough to stop screaming."

Buffy hurried over to Cordelia, gently pulling her into the living room and settling her on the couch. The rest of the Scoobies trailed in after them, followed by Wesley and Gunn.

"Are you okay, Cor?" Buffy hovered anxiously over Cordelia as the dark-haired woman swallowed three more pills along with water from the glass Gunn proffered.

Cordelia rubbed her hand across her forehead and offered a weak smile. "I've been better. This one was a real lu-lu. I haven't felt anything like it since Vocah did that allemande left in the street market and gave me the psychic cooties."

Buffy dimly sensed her friends and family settling in for story hour, but the majority of her attention was focused on Cordelia. However much she had tried to protect Angel's friends over the years, she was unable to shield Cordelia from the visions that plagued her even after Angel's death, and those visions always led the trio into trouble. She could only be grateful that this time they had called her for help before it got too bad.

"So what's the deal? Do we have demons commuting from LA, or are we expecting a sudden increase in the permanent population?" Xander rubbed his hands and tried not to look too eager. He had missed the camaraderie of patrols, if not the actual danger, and he sensed a good old-fashioned group hunt in the offing.

Cordelia glanced quickly at Wesley and Gunn, silently questioning who among them would be the spokesperson. After a brief struggle of wills, Wesley was elected.

The Englishman nervously cleared his throat. "I'm afraid it's rather more than a demonic infestation this time. It appears the hellmouth is not quite so closed as you believed, and it is about to become active once again." He paused for a moment, wishing he had any new but this to deliver. "You see it's finally begun, after all these years. The End of Days."

"The end of what?" Joyce asked. She was puzzled by the sudden chilly silence that enveloped the room, drawing even Dawn into its depths. Joyce alone was the outsider, again.

"Armageddon, Mom," Buffy answered quietly. She looked over at Wesley, hoping he would tell her that there was a chance it was a mistake. "Have there been signs, or are we just going on the word of Vision Girl?" She cocked a half-smile at Cordelia to show she wasn't trying to offend.

"Oh, there have been signs, B. What else would you call me being back in Sunnydale?" called a voice from the hallway.

Part 19

Faith strolled into the Summers living room, trying to project some of her trademark self-confidence with a swagger and a smirk. The effect was somewhat spoiled, however, by her eyes, which darted nervously from one hostile face to another.

"Still hanging with the same old crowd, I see." She nodded politely to each in turn as she strolled past. "All for one and one for all. Nice to see some things don't change."

"Who let her out?" Willow demanded indignantly. Her moment of bravado faded quickly under the heat of Faith's gaze. The witch shrank back against her seat cushion, as she mumbled, "No offense."

"None taken," Faith replied calmly. She completed her circuit of the living room and joined Wesley and Gunn in the archway.

"You'll have to forgive us Faith; this is kind of a surprise," Buffy said with the barest trace of anger in her tone. "I think I can guess why you're here, but 'how' would be a good place to pick up the story." She glanced sharply at Wesley. "Did you break her out? Or did she break herself out?"

"I beg your..."

Faith laid a hand on the sputtering Wesley's arm. "Down boy. I'll defend your honor." She raised an eyebrow at Buffy, a hint of the old Faith in her mocking smile. "Get real. Can you honestly picture Huey, Duey and Louise here staging the big prison break scene? Of course I'm kind of flattered you
think I could go over the wall myself, but it didn't turn out to be necessary. I'm here all nice and legal, with the apologies of the state of California no less."

"Now I know the world is coming to an end," Xander said in amazement.

"How? And when?" Buffy leaned back on the sofa and crossed her arms over her chest, preparing for a long, but hopefully truthful story.

"Three months ago," Faith answered swiftly. "As for how, well, Wes can explain it better than me."

"Three months? And no one told me?"

"Well some of us thought you might go a little postal about it; can't imagine how that idea ever crossed anyone's mind." Cordelia regretted her sarcastic tone a moment later when she realized the underlying fear supporting Buffy's anger. "Hey, we knew she was safe, but we also knew you'd worry. You do enough of that, so we figured we'd handle this one."

"You couldn't be sure it was safe," Buffy insisted. "You put yourselves in danger for no reason."

"No, it was for a very good reason, and you know what, or should I say 'who,' it was." Cordelia winced as the escalating tones brought a renewed throb of pain in her skull. She rubbed her temples fretfully, trying to force her overactive nerve endings to cease hostilities. "We figured he'd want us to watch out for her."

"It was still most irresponsible of you," Giles said sternly, gazing narrowly at Wesley. "I would have credited you with better sense."

"Oh, you mean like the last time she got off your radar and your dialing finger couldn't quite reach the phone to let us know? Or was that a way of directing a different finger at Angel?"

"Cordelia, please," Wesley begged. "These are old issues. Today, of all days, we need to focus on the future, and making sure such a thing exists."

"There was no malice intended," Giles protested. "Things happened so fast..."

"Look, what I did, I did and no one else," Faith said abruptly, "so enough with the blame count here. As far as me getting sprung, they didn't tell you because I asked them not to, and I made myself scarce when you came to visit." She glanced at each of her new partners, her gaze lingering on Gunn for a moment before she completed her thought. "This was really important to me. I wanted to make sure it, you know, took, before I let the world know."

"It came about rather unexpectedly, you see. It took us quite by surprise," Wesley apologetically. "During the course of yet another investigation of Wolfram and Hart's legal practices..."

Buffy groaned, earning her not only a sour look from Wesley, but also from Cordelia when storytelling was resumed at a higher decibel to discourage further interruption.

"...we accidentally came across some rather interesting, and damaging information." Wesley paused for a moment, but when he sensed he had made his point, he moderated his tone. "It seems they had several judges and assistant district attorneys on the payroll, including those assigned to Faith's trial. It was really quite scandalous. The idea that the law firm is not only willing to represent the dregs of society but would actually subvert the legal..."

"Focus, Wesley." Cordelia's sigh had the sound of practice.

He cleared his throat and began again, after subjecting his martyred partner to an icy glare. "When the facts about the corruption were made public, the verdicts in the cases involved were overturned, rather than put the state to the enormous financial burden of declaring mistrials and beginning again. The people sentenced in those cases were set free; Faith included."

"They were afraid she would sue; can you believe it?" Cordelia shook her head. "She offed a guy, confessed, and still got set free because the state was afraid she'd sue for wrongful imprisonment or something." She smiled half-heartedly at Faith. "No offense."

"And again, none taken." Faith smiled back at Cordelia with equal sincerity. "When I got out I looked up the gang here and decided to try a little honest work for a change." She looked down at her hands for a moment as all traces of levity vanished. "Someone convinced me once that strength isn't just a gift, it's a responsibility, and I should be flattered that I was trusted with it. I decided to try things his way for awhile." An expression of genuine surprise crossed her face. "So far, it's been working out okay."

"Give or take a little apocalypse," Cordelia snapped. "Hello! Can we get back to my bone-crushing migraine and the end of the world, among other things?"

"Hey, that's why I'm here." Faith leaned ever so slightly against Gunn, and no one but Buffy spotted his arm move behind her back to hold her there. "I didn't have anything better on my calendar, so I thought I'd swing by the old burg, say my hellos and help prevent apocalypse number...what one are we up to again?" She looked around the room for an answer.

"Oh, who counts anymore?" Xander impatiently waved away the question. "What I want to know is if all those stories I've seen on TV about women's prisons are true."

"Xander, shut up." Buffy's tone was pleasant, but with enough underlying steel to close Xander's mouth with an audible snap. "So who are the demons trying to open up Mount St. Hellmouth and how do we stop them?"

"That's the trouble." Wesley grimaced as he tried to think of a positive spin he could put on his news. "This isn't a situation like before where an outside source is trying to open it and harvest its power. We are talking about a true apocalypse; the demons from within are breaking free. The boundaries between dimensions are about to collapse." He waved his finger in the air, trying to rally the troops as he delivered his sole piece of good news. "But we knew this day was coming, and we have been researching for years in preparation. Cordelia's vision, jumbled as it was…"

"Oh, that's gratitude for you," the seer in question snapped.

"...provided sufficient detail, I was about to add," Wesley said in an injured tone. "As a result, I believe we have a spell to shore up the boundaries, and perhaps just enough time to use it." He paused. "Perhaps."

"So all we need to do a little spiritual spackling and then everybody stays in their own neighborhood?" Willow asked hopefully.

"Yes, well, it's a bit more complex than that. Apparently the spell produces some sort of energy, a tremendous amount if the writings of Belzarus the Elder are to be believed. But the energy must be generated from within."

"See, that's the fun part," Faith grinned with genuine pleasure. It was good to feel useful again, especially if it allowed for a little literal hell-raising. "That incantation Wes thinks will do the trick, it has to be taken orally." Seeing the blank look on Willow's face, among others, she elaborated. "We have to let the hellmouth open first, get down inside of it to sing the lullaby and then get out before the incantation actually shuts it down for a long winter's nap."

"If it actually closes it," Buffy pointed out with a sigh. "I can't believe this is happening today, of all days." She waved her hand at all the 'Congratulations Graduate' banners and balloons taped to the walls. "Figure the odds."

"Something about this town and graduations," Faith agreed. "Speaking of, Dawn, like the signs say: congrats. Guess all that time you spent studying while big sis was out slaying paid off." She smiled genially at the younger girl, knowing that Dawn knew her even if in Faith's reality they had never met before. "Sorry we missed the ceremony, but hey, at least we made it for the party."

"Thanks," Dawn replied uneasily. "It was nice you could come...I think."

Buffy shared a puzzled glance with her mother and Giles. Obviously, the LA branch of the Scoobies had briefed Faith on Dawn's true identity; they were the only other people to know the secret. Removed as they were from Dawn's day-to-day life, and never having received a memory remodeling the way the Sunnydale team had, there seemed little risk they would let something slip.

But now, strangely enough, it seemed Faith was also willing to be a part of the well-intentioned conspiracy of silence. Somehow this came as more of a surprise than the threat of Armageddon.

Joyce dealt with her confusion and fear in the manner that had served her so well as the mother of the Chosen One: denial. As far as she was concerned, and until official notice otherwise, today was nothing more than an ordinary tribal rite-of-passage day...with cake, as Anya would be quick to point out.

"Well, I'll start calling the guests to tell them not to come, but since this is the only high-school graduation Dawn is ever going to have, what do you say we make a dent in the cake and ice cream while you figure out how to save the world?"

Some were born to save the world, and some were born to make sure they did it on a full stomach.

"You know I'm always good for a..." Xander began, taking a step towards the overburdened coffee table, covered to the edges with a tempting variety of party foods.

"We have work to do," Giles abruptly interrupted him.

Buffy stood up quickly and clapped her hands together briskly. "Right. I have an arsenal to put together and an incantation to learn, and you all have packing to do. I want to see the last set of taillights on an LA-bound car by five o'clock."

*****

"No; absolutely not. I am not leaving." Giles was growing weary of uttering the same phrase over and over, but he was beginning to believe Buffy must have a hearing disorder. No matter how often he repeated himself, she was just not getting the message.

"None of us are going," Cordelia said indignantly. "If we wanted to sit this one out we would have called you with the stats. We're here to be a part of the fight."

"We all want to be a part of this, and you need us beside you." Giles took off his glasses and ran his hand through his hair, a sure sign of deep perturbation. "You have stayed in Sunnydale, against your own wishes, because a day like this might come. Now that it has, do you truly believe we would let you face it on your own?"

"This is crazy," Buffy said flatly. "If Faith wants to stay, that's okay. She's a slayer and this is part of the deal. Besides, she's had longer to learn the incantation, so she can bore the hellmouth into sleepy-time while I wail on the demons inside it with some nice sharp toys. But the rest of you are going back to LA. Now."

"Buffy, we don't have time for this. There are too many preparations to be made, and you can't handle them all by yourself." Wesley took a few steps closer to Buffy and dropped his voice. "I realize why you want us all to leave, particularly Gunn, Cordelia and myself. It hasn't escaped our attention the care you have shown us the past few years, or the reasons for it." He rested his hand on her shoulder and looked deeply into her troubled hazel eyes. "But he would know our place is here, beside you. As much as you want to protect us for his sake, we want to do the same for you. You must let us."

"But if you don't go back no one else will either," she snarled, pulling away from his placating gesture. "Is it too much to ask that my family and friends be safe?"

"Yes," Wesley answered in unison with Giles.

"Oh swell, stereophonic Watchers." Faith rose gracefully from her seat on the floor and stretched. "Look, I'm sure it will surprise the hell out of everyone to hear me say this, but they're right. Nowhere is safe unless we beat the hellmouth down again, and we don't have time to waste fighting over who gets to hold the stick. You and I can do the front lines and make with the night-night spell; they can sing backup and fetch weapons. Your mom and Dawn and Anya will stay here and make lemonade just in case we actually survive. I don't know about you, but saving the world tends to make this girl thirsty."

Buffy looked from one resolute face to another. Even Anya stood fast, though her knuckles were white as she gripped Xander's arm. Realizing she was beaten, Buffy shrugged her slim shoulders.

"Uncle."

Xander raised his fist in the air in triumph. "All right! Score one for the Scoobies!" he crowed. "We won, we..." his hand suddenly dropped to his side. "Wait a minute, what just happened here?

Part 20

She could hear the murmur of voices in the living room, and even the unexpected sound of laughter as she slowly climbed the stairs. Her friends were hard at work gathering weapons, learning new rituals and incantations and psyching themselves up to face what might be the last evil the world would ever know. Buffy should be helping them; it was her duty and she knew that. But she could not resist the siren song of a closed door, up the stairs and down the hall on the left.

There was no time for reminisces; there was almost no time left for the world at all. Yet that was precisely why she could not resist the lure of the past on this day.

She twisted the knob reluctantly and gently pushed open the door, checking over her shoulder for witnesses before she stepped across the threshold of her old bedroom. There were none. The coast was clear to confront her ghosts.

It was worse than she had feared. She felt deafened by the echoes of the past as she took in her surroundings and realized how little the room had changed from the day she moved in. It was supposed to look smaller; it was supposed to look smaller, or darker, or at least dustier than she remembered it. A fifteen-year-old girl had decorated this room about a hundred years ago; how could it stay frozen in time like this?

To her eyes it looked just the same, if a little neater than in days of old. She had conscientiously emptied the dresser and the closet, cleared off the top of the vanity and packed up all her books when she moved out. Her mother, however, had moved Buffy's childhood books onto the shelves, stored her castoff clothes in the open closet and left the bed made up as though her oldest daughter would be back any moment. Buffy knew she should be touched by Joyce's unspoken hopes, but instead she felt smothered.

There was no escape, now or ever, from her destiny. Daughter, sister, slayer; all were intertwined in this room, leaving little room for just plain Buffy.

Whoever that was.

She didn't hear the footsteps coming up behind her; it wasn't until she felt a chin come to rest on her shoulder that she was aware of another presence on the second floor.

"Looks almost the same to me. Didn't take much with you, did you B?" Faith pulled back when she felt Buffy stiffen at her touch. "Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt."

"Not a big."

There was a chill beneath Buffy's casual reply. Too much had happened between them for an easy resumption of their friendship.

Too much had happened for an easy journey to any part of Buffy's past.

She had to force herself to walk all the way into the room, but once she started moving she couldn't seem to stop. As she wandered from one piece of furniture to the next, perversely trying to conjure that sense of nostalgia she had so feared, it suddenly occurred to her what she was really seeking in this room: a reason to continue the fight.

She cared for the others' sake; for them the world must continue to spin on its axis and darkness could not rule over the light. But for herself, she could not find a reason to care. Present and future held no lure, so she sought strength in her past, in their past. Somewhere there must be a piece of herself worth preserving.

If it existed, however, she would not find it here. As she let the flow of memories wash over her, she realized she would not find the reasons she needed in this amber-coated monument to girlhood. Everything within these four walls she already carried inside of her...and it wasn't enough anymore.

Faith leaned in the doorway, unwilling to enter unless she was invited. She watched in silence as Buffy moved restlessly around the room; until at last she could no longer stand the solitude of her own thoughts.

"So were you actually looking for something up here, or just trying to get away from me?"

"I was looking for...something," Buffy absently agreed. She ran her hand over the top of the vanity, trying to remember it cluttered with make-up and jewelry, but for some reason an antique silver cross was the only item she could picture resting there. "Can't seem to find it though. What about you? Why did you come up here?"

"I was looking for you," Faith answered with devastating directness.

"You found me." Suddenly she feared what Faith might have sought her out to say. She was already forcing herself to relive about as much of her past as she could handle. She needed a diversion. "Hey, so what's the deal with you and Gunn? I noticed you seem kind of...close downstairs."

The blush that spread across Faith's cheekbones was something Buffy would have bet good money she would never live to see.

"You saw that, huh? He's, well, he's...special, but you know we're just...well, not exactly just...we're moving really, I mean really slowly." The glow faded from Faith's face, leaving behind an attractive air of maturity. "I was messed up for a long time, and he's not exactly the poster child for stable relationships, so we need to do this in baby steps."

Buffy could remember thinking the same thing after Angel came back from hell. They were going to be just friends, except they were more than that already. So they would take it slow instead, except that there was no time for slow, no allowance for the baby steps Faith took for granted. Even if their emotions had not urged them along further and faster, they were never given the luxury of time to 'take things slow.' That was something normal people got, apparently even Faith got it, but never she and Angel.

That's right, PTBs, Buffy thought bleakly, bitterness much.

"So what about you?" Faith decided an invitation was not going to be coming any time soon, but neither was an eviction notice. She took a few steps into the room and perched on the desk. "Any potential brothers-in-law I should be checking out? I do work for a detective agency now, you know."

Buffy smiled faintly. "Nope, no one to check out, though it's not for lack of Mom trying. I just don't want to waste my time with '-er' relationships."

"Say that again?"

"Sorry," Buffy shook her head, "private joke."

"Okay," Faith said uneasily, "umm, B, the reason I wanted to talk to you is…I realize it's a little late to be asking, but...are you okay? About Angel, I mean. I wanted to call you when Wesley told me, but I couldn't do it over the phone, and you know how I am about cards." She inwardly cursed herself for her final flip comment, but Buffy's apathy was bringing the old Faith to the fore in self-defense.

"So naturally you waited three and a half years, until the hellmouth yawns and the world is about to fall in. That's just great, Faith." Some things never changed.

"Hey, it wasn't exactly easy for me to do this, you know," Faith protested. Her temper flared, but she quickly regained control. No reverting to old, which is to say bad, habits. "He really went to the mat for me, and I appreciated it, but I know you never did. It made you mad that he could forgive me, and it made you even madder that it made you mad in the first place. I figured seeing me would just bring up a lot of old stuff, and I wasn't sure you'd want to be reminded, of me or of him."

And having seen what the separation had done to Angel, she hadn't been sure she could live with the guilt of seeing how her actions had affected Buffy as well.

"Do you think that I could actually forget? Do you think that there's a day that goes by that he's still not a part of for me?"

Buffy turned away to stare out the window. He was still out there somewhere; she knew it as well as she knew how to breathe. Just because she had stopped trying to draw him out didn't mean she thought he had left her.

"So that makes it sound like a 'no' to the okay question. I was hoping...but I kind of knew." Faith banged her foot disconsolately against the leg of the desk. "I guess that's why I couldn't do this over the phone."

"I've tried to put things back together," Buffy replied quietly, moving closer to the window. "I worked hard at school, even graduated early. I got a good job and a nice apartment, and I see my friends and my mother at least once a week. I'm trying."

"But it's not working," Faith finished for her.

Buffy rested her forehead against the cool glass. So little time left; why bother trying to hide anymore, from Faith or from herself?

"Not enough," she admitted wearily. "I just feel so...old. I'm going to be twenty-four on my next birthday, assuming I actually have a next birthday, and given my luck with them, not having one isn't the worst idea I've ever heard." Her mouth twisted, remembering one birthday in particular that captured all the beauty and horror that symbolized her life in 24 short hours. "But if I do have one, I feel like I should be up to the big eight-o or something. Not twenty-four; I passed that about week two as the slayer."

"Buffy, I know I haven't been on active duty as long as you, but you're still kind of preaching to the choir here. I know how the slayer gig can wear you down. You just have to hang in there," she threw a lazy punch into the air, "and keep fighting."

"It's been over eight years since I put on the big red cape and started saving the world, Faith; I'm tired. I'm tired of the fighting, and the loneliness and never really feeling like anything belongs to me, not even my life." She gave up searching for the face beyond the glass and focused inward, remembering the last time she had seen Angel, in this very room. "Angel was all that was that was ever really mine, and then I lost him. How am I supposed to move on from that and be okay?"

"I admit, I kind of thought you were working on it with that Riley guy," Faith said gently. "You two seemed awfully attached at the hip, among other places."

"That was a long time ago." Buffy opened her eyes, drawn back to the present by the decidedly unromantic topic of Riley Finn. "I thought he was a nice guy, and he'd help me forget. Turns out he wasn't so nice and he only gave me more things I didn't want to remember."

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that." Faith flushed as she scuffed her toe on the carpet. "I really am," she added uneasily when she saw the shock on Buffy's face. Her apology was beyond 'too little too late,' but it was the best she could offer.

"You almost killed Angel, after you tried to drop-kick his soul into oblivion, and you're sorry about Riley? Good to know your priorities are in order, Faith."

Buffy heard the crack in her voice as clearly as Faith; suddenly the ghosts were crowding in too close.

"That was business," Faith answered with all the calm she could muster. She knew that Buffy needed to purge the old bitterness once and for all, if she would only allow herself the outlet. "That doesn't make it right, and it doesn't mean I'm not sorry, but it does make it...different. Angel knew that, and we made our peace a long time ago."

"Peace? You mean he forgave you because he knew exactly what you meant, and then he felt guilty for weeks afterward because he knew exactly what you meant."

"The man knew a thing or two about where to aim a sucker punch," Faith admitted, "and he knew he was the bulls-eye for you. He didn't have a problem with it for himself, Buffy; he was just scared what it could do to you."

"I know," Buffy murmured. "He told me."

Or rather he had tried to tell her, time and again he had tried, but she had refused to believe his insecurities could run as deep as hers. It wasn't until she had read his journals; read about the life he had given up for her, that she truly understood. So much had been sacrificed that day because of Angel's belief that he was her greatest weakness instead of her greatest strength.

"But G.I. Jerk...that was more of a payback thing." Faith toyed nervously with the long chain around her neck. "I spent eight months inspecting the inside of my eyelids and drinking my dinner through a tube. You spent the same time reinventing yourself." She winced, not enjoying the visit to Faith Past. "Not exactly being Forgive and Forget Girl...I guess I wanted to rub your nose in what a mess you'd made of it."

"The messiest."

There was a brief awkward silence, until Buffy acknowledged that Faith's painful honesty deserved a return in kind.

"Actually, Faith, when I was talking about stuff I didn't want to remember, I wasn't even thinking of that. I mean it hurt, but more because he didn't know it wasn't me. If he knew me at all...but he didn't, and I didn't know him, or want to know him." The memories she was resurrecting snowballed, calling forth shadow upon unwelcome shadow of the past. "I just wanted...a diversion, I guess. Something to keep me distracted from the disaster that was me."

Faith slid off of the desk and cautiously crossed the room to join Buffy at the window.

"So that explains why he's not here today. I figured being the big bad commando and all, he'd want to be in on the fun."

"He left just a little while before Angel died." She'd finally learned how to utter the word 'died' without pausing, but it would always send out a flare of pain to raw nerve endings. "Eventually he came back, after he found out what happened. He actually thought that..." she stopped, shaking her head in amazement. "He thought that with Angel gone we might be able to 'make a go of it.' Like it was an either or sort of thing."

"Men." Faith paused for a moment to consider. "Well, not Gunn, at least I hope not...and not Angel, but still...men."

"After a couple of whacks upside the head I managed to convince him it was a bad idea, and then he left. For good."

"You didn't?" Faith grinned and swatted her on the shoulder. "You go, girl."

Buffy shook her head ruefully. "No, actually I didn't, but I really wanted to. If I hadn't pulled so many punches when we were dating...but he has no idea how strong I really am. It wouldn't have been fair."

"It would have been fun, though."

"That it would." Buffy grinned at Faith, glad to find some common ground at last. "I never thought I'd say this, but I'm actually sort of glad you're here."

"Me too. It felt like the right thing to do, looking up Wesley and Cordy after I got out, and I guess I'm kind of realizing doing the right thing isn't all bad."

Buffy's smile abruptly vanished. "Not if you make it out alive."

"Hey, we'll make it," Faith said, trying to coax another smile. "Who ever survived the two of us combined?" She waited for a response, but when there was none forthcoming she became uneasy. "You do want to make it out alive, don't you?"

Buffy sighed, running her hand through her hair as she tried to formulate a reply they could both believe. Her hesitation only worried Faith more.

"B, talk to me. I don't want any surprises when we drop down into that hellmouth. Are you planning on booking a return ticket, or is this just a one way gig?"

"If you're asking if it would be deliberate, the answer is no. I made a promise to someone that I'd stick it out as long as I'm supposed to. I can't break my word. But if you're asking would I mind...just don't ask, okay?" she pleaded with a tiny smile.

* * * * *

Part 21

The weapons were packed, the spell books appropriately book-marked and goodbyes alluded to, if not actually expressed. The last line of defense between the world and its untimely end was about to depart Revello Drive, hopefully not for the last time.

"Okay, last one to the hellmouth is a rotten egg." Buffy took a better grip on her leather duffel bag and smiled with all the false cheer she could muster at her mother and her sister. If she had learned anything in the last 8 years, it was the power of a positive attitude, and a ready supply of very sharp weapons.

"Buffy, wait. I want to come too." Dawn grabbed Buffy's coat sleeve as her sister reached out with her free hand to open the front door.

"Dawn, that's crazy. Stay here with Mom." Buffy impatiently tugged her sleeve free of the younger girl's grasp, but no sooner had she done so than Dawn grabbed her again, showing a surprising strength and tenacity.

Or maybe it was just fear.

"Buffy, I'm not kidding. I need to be there."

"Dawn, this is not a parlor magic show," Giles said sternly. "I realize you feel we are relegating you to the sidelines, but we have no other choice. It's risky enough to be taking Xander, Willow and Tara along, given how long it has been since any of them patrolled."

"And whose fault is that, huh?" Xander glanced sharply at Buffy. "I've been willing to do a little demon stomp now and again, but somebody hasn't let me play in a really long time."

"You're welcome," Buffy snapped. She put her bag down with a sigh and took Dawn by the shoulders. "Dawn, you can't come. End of story. Now stay here with Mom and try to keep Anya from saying anything that will force Mom to hurt her."

"Oh we're not planning anything violent," Anya said hastily. "We're going to engage in female bonding rituals. We'll bake cookies and your mother will tell me about her childbirth experiences to prepare me for my own."

"Gee, that...that sounds like fun. Much better than demon hunting." Tara smiled weakly as she struggled for an upside to the plans. "It will be very...well, very educational, right, Willow?"

Willow caught the ball and did her best to keep it moving. "Umm, yeah, educational. And fattening. Especially for Xander if Anya learns how to bake those little chocolate marshmallow cookies he likes."

Anya's face was grave as she nodded her agreement. "He can eat those by the dozen when Mrs. Summers bakes them. Today she will teach me," she stroked Xander's arm, "and then when you come home you'll eat too many and feel sick and I can take care of you."

She held her husband's eyes with her own, trying to project a confidence she was far from feeling. When he pulled her into his arms a moment later, the tightness of his embrace told her she hadn't fooled anyone.

Dawn ignored them all and concentrated on her objective. "Buffy, I'm supposed to be there, at the hellmouth. I feel it." The desperation was clear in her voice.

Joyce opened her mouth to protest, but Buffy waved at her to be silent. She wasn't sure about Dawn's 'feeling,' but her own was a very bad one. "What do you mean you're 'supposed' to be there?"

Dawn shook her head impatiently. "I can't explain it, but I feel like I belong there, like there's something only I can do." She pulled away from Buffy's grasp to confront Cordelia, who stood waiting in the archway to the living room. "In your visions, did you see me at all?"

Cordelia was unsure how to answer. Her visions happened rapidly, and recognition was a dicey proposition at best. Added to that was the fact that she had never actually seen Dawn until a few hours before, not that she could tell Dawn that, or even mention it in front of the clueless Scoobies...it all made for a tough question to answer.

"I saw a girl," Cordelia answered hesitantly. "I couldn't see a face, or really anything about her except that she was a she, and a young she at that."

"And what happened to this she?" Buffy asked sharply. "Was she killed because she convinced her brainless big sister to take her along to Armageddon as though it was just the movie? Because I'm betting she was, which is why Dawn is staying home."

Faith laid a gentle hand on Buffy's shoulder. "B, if anyone should know this, it's you and me. You can't fight destiny. If little sister is supposed to be there, she'll find a way. Wouldn't you rather know she's there, than have to keep looking over your shoulder for her?"

Buffy glared at her sister-in-arms and shook off her conciliatory gesture. As close to family as Faith had once been, this was none of her business. This concerned the Summers family only, real and monk-made.

"I just want to know what Dawn thinks she can contribute. She's never been on patrol with me, she hasn't had to fight off a demon breaking into the house since I moved out, and even then she didn't have to do much more than scream and someone else came to do the fighting." Buffy crossed her arms over her chest and tried to feel as remote as she sounded. "What exactly does she think qualifies her to take on the hellmouth?"

Dawn shook her head, her hand rising to brush away unbidden tears. "I don't know. I just know if you don't take me I'll have to follow you because you need me there. I've never felt anything like this, Buffy, honest. It's like it's pulling me, except that it's actually afraid of me but it knows that I..." she stammered her way into a frustrated silence. "I don't know how to explain it."

"What 'it' are you talking about, Dawn?" Giles asked gently. He could feel Joyce, standing behind him, sinking her nails into his arm, but he ignored her. She knew as well as he that Dawn was no ordinary 17-year-old.

"I don't know. Whatever it is, it's like a giant magnet and I'm the little metal pieces it wants to pick up. Or maybe I'm the magnet; I'm not sure."

"A magnet, yes."

Giles wanted to lash out at someone, at the powers that thwarted Buffy at her every turn at happiness. Having taken so much from her, they still were not content. Worse yet, they made him partner to their crimes by forcing him to see the pattern.

"A magnet," he said, the words dragged from him, "or perhaps something more key."

His meaning was not lost on the two elder Summers women, nor was it appreciated.

"This is crazy," Joyce snapped. "She is not going."

"Absolutely not," Buffy said in a moment of rare agreement. She met Giles' eyes defiantly, and was struck speechless by the pity she saw there.

"You can ride with me, Dawn," he said quietly.

* * * * *

"This place gets creepier every apocalypse," Xander murmured as they walked the halls of the late and unlamented Sunnydale High School. "This better be the last one because it's really starting to wig me out."

"Can we make it just the last one we have to stop?" Willow pleaded. "I kind of don't want to be around for the last last one." She gripped Tara's hand a little tighter, and tugged on Xander's sleeve to pull him against her other side.

Dawn was swiveling her head back and forth, trying to absorb as many details as possible during their quick trek down the ruined hallways. "Why don't I remember this place?" she asked of no one in particular.

"You never went here," Buffy answered tersely.

"Yeah, and we all know spectators were discouraged at our graduation," Xander pointed out. "But I would have thought you got dragged to that truly scary exhibition Snyder called a 'talent show' sophomore year. I remember your mom being there, Buff, but...you know I don't think I remember Dawn. That's weird." He shook his head, and then glanced over his shoulder at Dawn. "How did you luck out of that one, kid?"

"I don't know. I don't remember." Dawn's anxiety was clear from the rising tone of her voice. "I don't even remember seeing this place from the outside before. There's like this giant hole in my mind about this place."

"Me too, but that's why I shelled out the big bucks for the high-grade shock therapy," Xander joked. He dropped back a few paces to wrap a brotherly arm around Dawn's narrow shoulders. "Don't let it bug you, Dawn. This place isn't worth remembering."

Buffy glanced anxiously at Giles as Dawn subsided into uneasy silence. This memory gap represented an unusual flaw in the otherwise seamless weaving of Dawn into the Slayer's life. To Buffy, the lapse lent credence to Giles' theory that Dawn was intended to play a part in the hellmouth's final act.

It was not the answer she was hoping for.

"Yes, well, perhaps this isn't the best time for any of us to be wandering down Memory Lane," Giles interjected swiftly. The less Dawn or the others speculated about her missing memories, the better.

Willow gestured at the burnt-out lockers and heat-scarred linoleum. "Look around you, Giles. We are literally wandering down Memory Lane."

Xander winced as his foot slipped on something dark, slimy and formerly alive. "Or maybe it's just Memory Gardens. Is Mayor MacDeath ever going to finish decaying and become one with the planet?"

"I think that's just something that crawled in here and died," Willow said helpfully, shining her flashlight on his upraised shoe. "It's still sort of juicy. The Mayor was more like blackened Cajun demon poppers after the big boom. Extra crispy."

A moment later Willow stumbled, courtesy of a hand landing forcefully on her back. "Hey!" she cried, turning around to confront an angry Cordelia. "What's up with the hitting? No hitting allowed."

"Except demons," Xander qualified.

Cordelia ignored Xander and his comments in order to focus her wrath on Willow. "Could you be any ruder? I expect it from him, but not from Little Miss Mother May I."

"Excuse..."

"Okay, so the mayor was a genocidal lunatic with all the personal charm of Leona Helmsley PMSing." Cordelia casually dismissed the mayor's character flaws with a wave of her hand. "Faith, who happens to be walking all of three feet away from you, and coincidentally can hear things at that range, actually liked the old demon." She crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes as she stared down her startled former classmate. "Way to be sensitive, Willow."

Faith grinned in spite of herself and pressed her hand to her heart. "Cor, I'm touched. Honest."

"But...but we always do 'laugh-in-the-face-of-horrible-death' jokes," Willow protested. "I didn't mean to hurt Faith's feelings. I wasn't even thinking..."

"Obviously," Cordelia drawled, tossing her head.

"May we please cease this childish squabbling until after we have killed the nasty demons and saved the world?" Giles' tone was icy, a stark contrast to the fire in his eyes. "Quite honestly, when you behave like this I am hard pressed to believe that any of you have aged a day since the first time I met you."

"Sorry, Dad," Xander said with mock penitence. "I guess we're all a little amped about being on patrol again. It's like old times."

"Not quite," Giles said quietly, his anger giving way to anxiety as he glanced at Buffy.

Buffy, whose silences had grown to outnumber her conversations over the years, and who now preferred the solitude of her own thoughts to the companionship of friends. Buffy, whose passion had turned into a sense of responsibility and her joy to duty fulfilled.

Buffy, who had always spoken of this day as though it would be her greatest challenge...or, more chillingly, her last obstacle.

Giles was ashamed to admit he wasn't sure which he should fear more: what would happen if she lost, or what she would do if she won...and then must face the rest of her life.

"Giles is right; play time is over." The Slayer stopped dead in front of the dangling library doors, forcing the others behind her to halt as well. "Before we go in, I want to get the order straight. Faith and I are point, Giles, Wes and Gunn are the second wave, and Cordy and Xander are in charge of guarding the Spell Sisters, and my sister." She looked sharply at Dawn. "Do not move from Xander's side, do you hear? I don't care what 'feelings' you get; you stay with him."

"I'll take care of the chit," Spike grumbled as he casually edged into the hallway from the side corridor where he had been waiting.

"Spike," Buffy said flatly. "I didn't think you'd be here. How did you even find out?"

"The Watcher called to tell me not to make any long-range vacation plans. Figured since you were letting the rest of the gang play this time, little Spikey might get in one last round of PacDemon before the world ends."

"Whatever." Buffy carefully placed her weapons bag on the ground and began to dole out armaments, saving the largest battleaxe for herself. "Spike, you're with Xander on Dawn detail. Cordy, take good care of Willow and Tara. If you get in trouble... "

"Hey, I know my way around a hatchet after all these years," Cordelia interrupted her. "We'll be fine. You're the one with the rough part."

"I still wish you'd let me help with the actual fight." Faith tossed the scroll she was carrying from one hand to the other. "I'm used to being the bodyguard, not Whitney Houston."

"We've been over this," Buffy said impatiently. "You've had longer to get familiar with the incantation..."

"Two hours in the car on the way down," Faith protested.

"And I've had more training and battle experience than you, especially lately," Buffy continued, her voice firmly overriding the other slayer's objections.

"So I'm guessing Xander hasn't been watching those prison flicks at your house." Faith grimaced as she stared down at the scroll. "Okay, your town, your show, but I still don't like it."

"I can live with that. Now can we do this?" Without waiting for a reply, Buffy vanished into the library, Faith falling in line right behind her.

Willow squeezed Tara's hand as they followed the slayers through the doorway. "Let's just hope we can get the hellmouth to take a binding spell seriously this time."

"Why don't we just throw bananas in it?" Xander suggested. He held the door open for Dawn and Cordelia as he continued, "They're modest little fruits, but if you want binding they're the...okay, I'll be quiet now."

* * * * *

Nature had started to take over the remains of the old library in the years since the Mayor met his maker. The outer wall was crumbling, and an unusually damp summer had given life to the vines that crept over its upper limits. The rains had also left the remaining woodwork moldering in the darker corners, giving off a damp rotted smell that pervaded the room despite the air let in by the holes in the wall. The floor was littered with clods of broken plaster and pulpy books, ready and waiting to trip the unwary trespasser and hurtle them into the gaping hole in the center of the room.

That hole was the only source of light in the room, pulsing with an unearthly blue-white glow that flickered across the decaying ceiling. Buffy had expected to see a demon, or several demons, immediately upon entering, but the hellmouth was eerily silent and apparently abandoned.

"Hey, look, no monsters. Can we go now?" The relief in Xander's voice was palpable; however much he wanted to support Buffy, he was also deeply interested in having a future with his wife and yet-to-be born child.

"This...this isn't right," Buffy answered slowly. She shot a quick glance at Cordelia. "Was your vision this quiet, Cor?"

Cordelia eyed the dimly lit room speculatively. "Umm, no, there was a whole lot more screaming and bleeding going on. Of course the visions are more of a Christmas Yet to Be sort of thing, so maybe by just being here we're preventing the whole deal." She smiled gamely, but no one was fooled, not even Cordelia.

A sudden rumble grew from the mouth of hell.

"I'm thinking no." Buffy took a few steps towards the hole, gesturing for Faith to join her as she peered down into the abyss.

An instant later a forest of tentacles snaked up over the edge and twined around Faith, yanking her down into the hole before Willow could finish screaming.

"My turn," Buffy sighed. "Take care of Dawn."

Without another word she hefted the axe in her hand and jumped down after Faith, leaving her friends stunned into silence.

Silent, that is, until the tentacles came back for them.

* * * * *

Part 22

Buffy landed abruptly on the hard earth inside the mouth of hell, staggering slightly when she touched down. She remembered it being a much longer fall the last time, but it seemed the hellmouth was closer to the surface these days. Not exactly the best news she'd had all day, she reflected grimly in the instant before she saw Faith.

The dark-haired Slayer was lying on the ground like a discarded doll, limbs twisted beneath her unmoving body. The sickly white tentacles of the alpha hellbeast hovered over her, not touching, but not permitting aid either.

"Faith, are you still in there? Talk to me!"

For one fleeting moment Buffy, the demon, even the hellmouth itself seemed to freeze waiting for Faith's reply.

The answer, when it came, was only a groan. Still, it was sufficient to assure life, if not immediate good health, and for now that was enough for both sides to continue.

As Buffy raised her axe to start hacking her way through to her friend, the tentacles began to quiver. First they turned slowly towards Buffy, almost seeming to look at her, and then in a blur of motion they shot up to the top of the hole and outward.

Up and out toward the Scoobies and Dawn.

There was no more time for plans or battle tactics. It was a simple case of slash and smash, striking out at any part of the demon close enough to be reached and then stepping in closer to reach still more of it. Gradually Buffy sensed Faith beginning to stir off to her side. She moved slowly in front of her injured companion, trying to shield her from the demon's "sight" and advances long enough for Faith to join the fight.

"I'm on it, B," she heard Faith call at last, and a moment later a knife whistled through the air past her ear and planted itself in one of the tentacles. Buffy breathed the tiniest sigh of relief, and started planning again.

They needed to do the incantation; it was the only way to permanently defeat the beast, and the others creeping up from behind it. But it now looked like it would take both of them fighting full bore to contain the demons, and even that might not be enough.

Meanwhile, the demon was also striking out at those she loved on the floor above, and Buffy was powerless to stop it.

* * * * *

On the first floor of the room once known as the Sunnydale High library, another battle was being waged, with about as much success.

Giles, Gunn and Wesley were closest to the "body" of the largest beast, hacking away at any of the flailing white limbs that came near. If they couldn't kill the demon, their job was to try and beat a clear path to its source so that Buffy and Faith would have an escape route. Tara and Willow had abandoned their protection spells and joined Cordelia in the fight to keep the tentacles of the same great white beast from advancing beyond the library walls. Spike and Xander were trying to keep Dawn behind them as they waged their own battle with a smaller, yet equally deadly demon that had crept out of the hellmouth using the tentacled demon as a rope ladder.

From the ferocity and strength the demons displayed in relatively open terrain, every warrior for good knew that the Slayers did not stand much chance in the small and contained area below. They would need back up in the hole itself, but getting there was the problem. The slimy white demon took up most of the opening, and he didn't seem to want to move.

As the chaos raged around her, Dawn slowly slipped away from her protectors. There was a force guiding her, pulling her towards the mouth even as the tentacled demon reached out for her. She dimly heard Spike shout, and then Xander, but she ignored their entreaties. She followed the path created by rising walls of undulating tentacles, trusting the higher power she felt calling to her to provide her safe passage.

And then it would be her turn to guarantee the same to a no-less deserving soul in need of guidance.

* * * * *

Buffy staggered back a pace, breathing harshly through strained lungs as she fell against the wall. She could scarcely stand any more; the demons raged at them from all sides and she had to bear the brunt of their attacks, now that Faith was trying to invoke the closure spell. She alone must hold back the demons long enough for Faith to finish, or they would both die trying.

But it was so hard, and it hurt, worse than any physical pain she'd ever known. She no longer kept tally on what was broken or merely sprained; she was fairly sure all were breaks now. Her hands fought to hold the wooden handle of the axe, made slippery by her own blood, and her feet demanded purchase on a ground drenched in more of the same.

This, then, was the battle she had been saved for. This was the battle Angel, among others, had died to ensure she would be here to win. To honor the memories of all those who had fallen, she could do no less.

And yet she was so very tired.

Her ears had grown accustomed to the screaming, both from her friends above and the demons below. It all blended together now, just the familiar cacophony of a world being torn apart by the forces of darkness.

Darkness. The word drifted through her numbed and battle-scarred brain. What a wonderful, peaceful idea.

She was jolted from her lapse into near-unconsciousness by the sound of a name ripped from Faith's lips.

"Dawn! Get out!"

Dawn. Dawn was here, in the mouth of hell. In the one place Giles tried to tell Buffy that her sister belonged.

Buffy fought back the darkness that fogged her brain, and the weakness that dragged at her limbs. Dawn must be removed, immediately, before the hellmouth recognized its danger; or the world its salvation. Buffy had sacrificed one too many in the name of world salvation.

It ended here.

Faith abandoned the incantation and began to fight again, trying to protect Dawn from the myriad of demons. As the dark-haired Slayer battled, the younger girl calmly crossed behind her to retrieve the discarded scroll, smiling faintly at her sister as she passed.

A moment later, Dawn started reading the incantation and the mouth of hell began to turn in upon itself.

Buffy struggled to stand erect without the wall's support. Her shaking arms raised the battleaxe to defend her family, even if it meant letting the world stand on its own. A white tentacle reached out for Dawn and Buffy threw all her remaining strength into her swing, falling heavily at her sister's feet on the downward stroke.

She couldn't rise again. She tried to focus her energies, tried to draw on every ounce of willpower at her command, tried to use every technique Giles or Angel had ever taught her to find her inner reserves...but it was all gone.

In desperation, she called out to Angel, willing him to come to her, even though she knew he promised only to come at her last moment. She would gladly let this be the moment if he could just lend her a trace of the strength she had always found in his soul.

Dawn's voice rose over the sound of the humans screaming in the library above. It rose over Faith's outcry as she knelt over the fallen Buffy. It rose over the howl of the demons as one by one they started to wither and fall back into the hellmouth. It rose over the cry of the hellmouth itself, as it recognized its other half. Light to its dark, wellspring to its abyss, yin to its yang.

For it was the door to hell itself, and Dawn was The Key.

* * * * *

"But she's calling for me!"

"No."

"Just let me go to her for a minute. It won't change the outcome, I swear," Angel said desperately. "I can't just sit and watch this."

"Soon," the Being promised.

"She needs me," he insisted.

"She needs to say goodbye," was his answer, delivered in a tone that left no room for arguments.

* * * * *

"Buffy, can you hear me? Everything is okay now. But I think it's time to go."

She heard the voice dimly, as though it was fighting to get through layers of wool or heavy cotton batting to penetrate her eardrums. The screaming had stopped, she knew that; so why was it so hard to hear Dawn?

"Dawn," she mumbled, trying to force her eyes open. "You sound so strange. Are you okay?"

Buffy heard Faith sob as she spoke; Faith, who never cried from pain or fear.

"I'm fine, Buffy," Dawn quickly reassured her. A warm arm wrapped around Buffy's shoulders, pulling her in for a brief embrace. "Thanks to you. Everyone is all right, thanks to you."

"I'm fine, Buffy," Dawn quickly reassured her. A warm arm wrapped around Buffy's shoulders, pulling her in for a brief embrace. "Thanks to you. Everyone is all right, thanks to you."

"The others? Not hurt?" She struggled to get up to see for herself, but Dawn's arms held her captive.

"They will take care of each other. Your job is done, Buffy; you can rest now."

"Rest?" Buffy breathed the word with disbelief. Rest was not for slayers; it was for them to guard while others enjoyed it.

"Rest," Dawn repeated gently. "You've done what you were called to do, and now it's time to go home; both of us."

"No!" Faith's protest came swiftly; drawn from some ancient primal instinct that Dawn's concept of 'home' was no longer a tangible place. She reached down and pulled the weakened Buffy from Dawn's treacherous grasp. "She's not going anywhere. You do what you have to do, but she's not going with you."

Buffy struggled to open her eyes, succeeding in time to see Dawn shake her head.

"No, she's not going with me. She has her own journey to finish, now that she's led me to the end of mine."

"It's not fair," Buffy whispered. "You shouldn't have to end up down here all alone, holding the world together."

A brief inner battle was waged within the Slayer's heart. More than anything she wanted to take her promised reward and finally be as one with the man she loved; but family came with its own sacred duties, and there are many kinds of love.

"I'll stay with you, Dawnie." In her heart she would always be with Angel.

Dawn smiled sweetly at the childhood nickname; a smile more mature, and yet more remote than Buffy could ever remember seeing on her sister's face. It matched the faraway tone in her voice.

"No, Buffy. You've fulfilled your destiny, and you've been released. Now it's my turn; I can feel it." She raised her head and glanced around the crumbling earthen walls of the slowly shrinking hellmouth. "I've been waiting a long time for this. This is the missing half of me, the part I tried to deny but could never be whole without." She returned her attention to Buffy. "You wouldn't want to keep me away from that, would you? You, of all people?"

"I'll miss you." Buffy could hear herself choking on blood as she spoke, but she couldn't feel the pain anymore. The wool that had covered her ears was winding around her body now, wrapping her up safe and warm within its confines.

"No you won't," Dawn promised. "You'll be too happy finally being with Angel to even notice who's not there. And I'll be happy for you."

"B, you have to fight this. You still have people who need you." Faith shook her, little caring if she caused her injured friend pain in her desperation to be understood. "Your mom needs you, and Giles, and all the rest of the gang. And me, I need you. I'm just starting to figure out the angles on this being good deal, but I need the pro to walk me through it."

Buffy could hear Faith talking, but the words floated over her in a blur of meaningless sounds and pauses. She was focused on Dawn's promise, and clinging to it with every ounce of strength she had left.

"He'll be waiting for me?"

"He's been waiting for centuries, since the day he was born. Now it's time for you to bring him home." As Dawn spoke, her fingertips began to glow with a strange silvery light. It spread up her arms and then down the length of her torso, creeping outward to every extremity. "This is your turn, Buffy; yours and Angel's. I know it's not exactly what you hoped for, but eternity isn't such a bad deal either."

The silvery glow had completely overtaken Dawn now, blurring her human form and features until they were just a wavering memory of shape and substance. She rose to her feet, or what had been her feet, and slowly backed away from Buffy.

"Can't...can't believe I didn't see this." Buffy fought for the breath to release her final words. She owed Dawn an apology, and she was running out of time. "All this time I thought...had to protect you from the hellmouth...and it was your destiny."

"Sounds like the rest of the world about you and Angel," Dawn reminded her gently. "But now you're sending me on my way and I'm sending you on yours. What I want to know is: does that make me Glinda...or the ruby slippers?"

Buffy choked on the laughter that welled up within her, past the blood and the tears and the memories. "Always knew you read my diary."

She was sure there was an answering smile lurking beneath the flickering silver light, but the Slayer could no longer see well enough to penetrate the glow. She still heard Faith's voice calling to her, and then she heard the others shouting from the floor above. The only words that made any sense were Dawn's.

"Be happy, Buffy."

Dawn gradually dispersed into individual twinkles of light. As Buffy felt her body being raised to the library above, she could see the silvery sparks coalesce into a fine mist over the opening of the hellmouth, healing it and sealing it until nothing remained but a smooth earthen surface.

* * * * *

Buffy was laid flat on the library floor while friends dear as family hovered over her. She could dimly feel hands stroking her forehead while others gently probed her wounds. Voices tugged at her from every direction, all of them trying to tie her to the leaden, broken vessel they believed to be the real Buffy.

"Buffy, please hang on," Willow whispered in her ear. "Gunn is calling 911; you just have to hang in until the paramedics get here." The witch squeezed her hand, and a moment later Buffy could feel Tara covering both of their hands with her own, lending her spirit as well. "You can do that, right? You're strong."

"Nobody stronger," Xander added stoutly. "Will's right; you can't leave, Buff. You haven't had a chance to laugh at my kid's pointed head yet, and you just know you want to see Anya's face when she realizes what's actually in a dirty diaper." His warm tears splashed on her cheek, tracing a clear path through the hellmouth residue on her skin. "Too much happening to take off now."

She felt a hand at the back of her head, lifting her slightly to make room for a folded coat used as a makeshift pillow. "You can't leave us, Buffy. I know you like to do things your own way...but children are not supposed to die before their parents."

Giles spoke calmly, almost conversationally, but even through the fog in her brain Buffy could hear the underlying bewilderment in his voice; he had never truly this day would come. His hand repeatedly smoothed her forehead as he spoke, as though he was trying to hypnotize her into following his instructions. "You can't do this to me, Buffy. It's just not right."

"Stop with the soft sell, Giles; just say no." A hand seized Buffy's shoulder. "You listen to me, Buffy Summers. I know why you're doing this and I won't let you. You can't go chasing after him; a girl needs to play hard to get." Cordelia's voice broke on her last word, and any further pep talks were muffled by Wesley's shoulder and the soothing nonsense words he was murmuring into her hair.

Buffy could hear Gunn on the cell phone, his voice growing louder every frustrating second that it took to explain the situation. Spike was voluble in his mingled curses and prayers as he vented all his unwanted, and unrequited, emotions on the mound of earth that covered the hellmouth.

Faith had been silent since they were raised from the hellmouth; Buffy wasn't even sure if the other slayer was still in the room until she felt a strong hand gripping her chill fingers, and cool lips brushing across her sweaty brow. "Godspeed, B," her old friend said steadily. "When you see him...you plant a big wet one on him for me, okay?"

Buffy wanted to say goodbye, give them her love, tell them not to worry...but then she felt the shiver.

Except it was more than a shiver now. It was a warm tingling that spread over and through her, lighting up both body and soul from within. It was warmth and family; it was love and security and peace, all wrapped up in one tall, dark and now blessedly brood-free package waiting for her on the edges of this reality.

Angel had come for her at last, and now they could both go home.

* * * * *

Epilogue

Kansas

Angel slowly crossed the library; his eyes fixed on Buffy, the real Buffy. He spared a brief moment to pay respect to the broken shell that had once sheltered her, and then focused his attention on the true essence of his love as she appeared before him.

She looked so impossibly young and carefree to him; as young as the first time he had seen her. The shadows he had seen gradually overtake her hazel eyes, so many of them shadows he had put there himself, were gone now. She was almost glowing as she moved gracefully away from the cluster of loved ones surrounding her body. He drank in the sight, the sense of her, and felt the last vestige of his mortal pain slip away in the light of her presence.

"I've missed you so much," he whispered as he held out his arms to her.

Buffy stepped into his embrace, returning it with a passion that matched his own. They clung fiercely to each other as she burrowed her head into his chest, rubbing her cheek against his shirt to brush away her tears.

"Missed you more. God, I have been so lonely without you." Her voice wavered, sliding the scales from utter relief at finally being with him again, to bitter regret in remembrance of the long nights spent apart.

"No more," he promised her swiftly. "You won't be out of my sight long enough to miss me ever again."

"Have I ever been?" She tilted her head back and smiled at him. "I always kind of believed you were still out there, even if I couldn't feel you or see you."

"That's me, Stealthy Stalker Guy."

He ran his hand over her shining hair, marveling at the warmth and silken texture he could once again truly feel. Whatever form of energy they were now considered, her death had restored their reality and solidity to each other. He would have been blissfully content just to spend eternity in her presence, but it appeared there was more the Powers had to offer them.

"You look so surprised," she said, gently laughing at him as she blinked away the last of her tears. "Didn't you know I was coming?"

"Not when. Not so soon." Involuntarily his eyes drifted back to the Buffy that was; the one surrounded by grieving friends in the ruins of a burnt-out building.

"It seemed like forever to me." She too glanced back at the impromptu wake, but her attention was caught by her friends, not the mortal framework she had left behind. "I'm sorry for them, and for my poor mom, but not for me, Angel. I did what I was supposed to do, and I'm glad...but I'm also glad it's over."

Angel placed his fingertips beneath her ear and ran it down the curve of her cheek, gently turning her head back to face him while he made his confession.

"Buffy, I...I heard you when you called for me, but they wouldn't let me come. I wanted to be with you...but they said you needed to say goodbye on your own." He let his hand fall away from her face as he waited for her response; he could only hope she would believe how much it had hurt him to leave her alone at the end.

"As much as I hate to give the PTBs credit for being right about anything, I think they were this time," Buffy admitted. "I needed to make my peace with leaving my friends and my family behind, especially Dawn." She raised her hand to caress his cheek. "That wasn't something you could do for me, even if it hurt to do it by myself."

"I just wish...you should have had more time, Buffy." He closed his eyes to block out the images of all that she had been denied. He had forsaken the life they could have lived together to provide her with time that was then snatched away in an instant. "You missed out on so much."

She stubbornly shook her head. "No. The only things I missed were things I wanted to share with you; I don't care about the rest. All I see of my future is you; remember? So if I can spend the rest of time just sitting next to you," she reached down and clasped his hand in hers, bringing it up to press against her heart, "holding your hand, I will be a very happy Slayer-that-was."

When he opened his eyes he could see the truth shining from deep within her. Whatever regrets she might have had in life, they were gone now. All that remained was joy: both hers and his own reflecting back at him from her eyes.

"Just holding hands?" he teased, gently brushing the thumb of his captive hand back and forth across her breastbone.

"Well..." a faint blush stained her cheeks, "maybe a little more than that would be nice."

"Then you are going to be over the moon with all the things I have planned for you." He leaned down and brushed the tip of his nose against hers, grinning so widely he felt sure his mortal skin would have split.

She caught her breath at his smile and reached up to trace it with reverent fingers. "Could you do that a few billion more times, please," she asked softly. "Because I think that's how many it's going to take before I get tired of seeing that smile."

He caught her fingers in his hand and brushed them against his cheek, turning his head to kiss the tips. "You're going to have to put up with it a lot more than that, I'm afraid. Now that you're here, it's never going away."

"Speaking of here," Buffy glanced anxiously back over her shoulder at her old life, "can we not be? Here, that is. It's kind of creepy watching my own body...and I feel so bad for my friends because I can't help them with this." Her forehead wrinkled thoughtfully as she reached deeper within herself. "Actually, it's more like I want to feel so bad...but the best I can do is kind of bad, and that's really bad, isn't it?" She returned her eyes to Angel, suddenly puzzled.

"You're not supposed to feel real sadness here, or pain," he explained. "When we were apart I could feel them, because it was like the other half of me was missing. But usually it's almost...well, it's almost like feeling echoes of those emotions." He smiled wistfully at her. "I wish I could make them go away entirely for you, but the idea is that you can't really appreciate the good unless you at least remember the bad."

"Then we were almost appreciated to death." There was a slight edge to her tone as she continued. "Actually, I think we were, when you get right down to it."

"But not anymore," he reminded her, his fingers now tracing the pattern of her lips in turn. "It's all ancient history now, like something out of a book or a movie. The darkness can't hurt us anymore, not the real us."

He couldn't stop touching her; his soul, too long bereft, searched for reassurance in the line of her throat, the curve of her back. He couldn't believe she was in his arms at last.

"I wish I could keep it from hurting them," she said, her thoughts shifting to once more encompass those left behind. "As much as I bitched about the hours, and the lack of pay, and the lack of...well, I got used to being Defender of the Universe."

"I know. Believe me, I know how hard it is to step back and just let things happen." He shook his head. "But sooner or later, no matter how much you love them, you have to let people face up to the darkness themselves and find out what they're made of. These are good people, Buffy, and I know they're strong enough to fight it." Angel's hand slid down her back to join the other clasped around her waist, holding tightly to that which had been so long denied him. "You and I, on the other hand, have already faced our last battles."

"And I guess we've earned a little peace," she admitted, "especially those of us who've been doing the 'high-guilt, low self-esteem' diet plan for the past century or so."

He smiled ruefully as her gentle reproof hit home. "Someday we'll all be together again, but until then I think we need to trust them to take care of each other, so we can concentrate on each other. It's been too long..." he cocked his head to the side and paused to reflect. "No, make that 'never' since we could think only of each other. We need this time."

Buffy could see the echoes he had mentioned flitting through his dark eyes, and felt them travel though her soul as well. Grief, loneliness, despair, need, all had been endured on both sides before fate had brought them to this moment. But in this moment, and for all future moments, they were together; and in the end all that mattered...was the end.

"No arguments here, honey...other than about 'here' being here. So where can we go to start this all-by-ourselves time?"

Her quick smile was a combination of childlike mischievousness and adult desire that her lover found intoxicating, and utterly irresistible. He wanted to be Superman for her, to fulfill every expectation he had ever seen shine from her eyes. He wanted to give her the world, and then have the joy of watching her grace it with her presence.

But more than anything, he just wanted to be hers, and she his. All the old definitions of duty and self, the ones that had separated them for so long, had at last fallen away. All that was left was two lovers, on the edge of forever.

"Where do you want to go? Take your pick; we can go anywhere we can imagine." Angel gestured at illusory splendors. "Anywhere you've wanted to go, but thought you never could. Any world you can create in your mind. We can even find a nice black hole to hide in for the next few hundred years, just you and me and no distractions." He brushed a gentle kiss across her forehead, smiling when she shivered at his touch. "We can do whatever we want," he drawled softly in her ear.

Buffy turned her head to nuzzle his neck, reaching up to trace the hairs that grew down to his collar. "Whatever we want?" she murmured huskily. "That sounds pretty radical to me, lover, but I think I could get used to it."

He laughed softly; her fingers were tickling his neck almost as much as the teasing caress of her lips. "So what will it be? A café in Paris, a gondola in Venice, a beach in Tahiti..."

"Mmm, I don't care," she sighed as she moved her attentions to the hollow of his throat. "You've been doing this longer; you pick for the first hundred years or so. Then it will be my turn." With one final, lingering kiss, she tucked her head into his shoulder and waited for her first new world. Suddenly, his words came back to her in full and she anxiously looked up at him. "No black holes, though. You've been in the shadows too long."

"We both have."

With a sigh of contentment, she closed her eyes and laid her cheek upon his chest again, wrapping her arms firmly around him. She could let go of friends and family; she knew they would take care of each other, and she trusted Angel's word that she would see them again someday. She could let go of her responsibilities, and trust some larger plan to keep the world in motion without her help. She could, and would, let go of the darkness that had haunted them for so long.

But letting go of Angel was a 'never again' proposition.

For a moment everything was still, and then she felt a brief sensation of dizziness as the world fell away at her feet. Suddenly a warm breeze caressed her cheek, almost as tenderly as Angel's fingertips combing through her hair. Not quite sure what to expect, she lifted her head and opened her eyes to take a look around.

They were standing on a tiny beach ringed by a rocky coastline. The sand felt warm beneath her now bare feet and she could smell sea salt in the air. In the distance, the sun was slowly rising over the white-tipped waves.

"Angel, this is beautiful," she breathed. "Where are we?"

A moment later she lost all consciousness of her surroundings when she saw Angel in the half-light of dawn. The rosy glow was shining on his face for the first time she could remember seeing, and she was almost undone by the spectacle.

"Galway Bay," he answered with a modest pride. "This is where I grew up, or pretty close to it."

He too was drinking in the marvel of daylight creeping across beloved features, but he forced himself to focus, needing her to understand his choice.

"When I was a child, I used to sneak down to this cove at dawn and watch the sun coming up over the water. I'd think about all the far away places it had been before it came here, and I'd wonder about the people I would meet in those places someday, when I finally left home." Angel smiled down at her and caught a strand of blonde hair with the tips of his fingers as it blew across her cheek. "I never dared to imagine you, though."

She blushed slightly, basking in the light of his tender smile. "I guess I would have been hard to see anyway. I was facing the wrong ocean."

"Plus, there's that whole wrong century part," he acknowledged with a mock sigh. He tore his eyes away from her face long enough to glance around the quiet beach. "You know, I haven't been back to Ireland since the 1700s, and I don't even know if this place exists anymore, but I wanted to show it to you the way I remember it. The city itself didn't touch me, but this place...this is where I felt I belonged; it was home. I guess that's why I associated it with being with you."

"Home," she echoed. "No place like it, is there?" She stood on her toes, sliding her hand around the back of his neck to pull his head down for a kiss. "In fact, on the subject of you and home, I have kind of a funny story to..." their lips met.

"...tell you later," her inner voice continued, tapering off to a blissful sigh.

As hearts met hearts' desire, Angel felt an emotion so foreign he almost couldn't call it by name. In two and a half centuries he had experienced many things, but only once before had he known a moment of such pure and perfect...happiness. This was the place his soul had so long sought, never truly believing it attainable for one such as him. But finally the journey was at an end; the unworthy sinner was forgiven, and the unlikely hero rewarded.

Here, at long last, was paradise.

He wasn't aware of speaking the thought aloud, or perhaps he no longer needed to. However Buffy heard his musings, they seemed to be a source of quiet amusement for her. She broke their kiss for just an instant, only long enough to utter a phrase he found as puzzling as the laughter in her voice.

"Not paradise, Angel; but Kansas welcomes you."

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