(kill her.)

It's a good thing that driving is an automatic sort of activity, because there is so much going on inside of me, I couldn't possibly spend an ounce of energy thinking about gas-break-go-stop- red-green-finger- gas-break-don't-hit-the-guy-in-the-crosswalk.

(rip her head off with my bare hands. twist. yank. whoosh.)

I'm on fire. That's the only way I can think to describe it. I may not be stupid, but I've never been the best student, either. At least not where school is concerned. All that sitting and listening and concentrating on things that don't really matter when you know that the world is full of monsters, and that when the sun sets and the building is empty, the gates of Hell will open up and bring the shadows to life. Hard to concentrate on the Declaration of Independence or parabolas or vocabulary in the face of that, you know?

Anyway, my point is, I don't have the right words to describe what's going on inside of me. Maybe there aren't any.

It's full daylight when I finally tear myself from Angel's arms and walk out of Angel's hotel, onto Angel's streets, into Angel's city to hunt down and kill Angel's family.

Although... I guess they're sort of my family now, too, aren't they? I have their blood rushing through my veins the same as his and Spike's.

I don't know the vampire rules for this, but I damn well know the Slayer rules. You cross the line -- you mess with my family, and you're history. Pure and simple.

(kill her. i'm going to fucking kill her. if i could kill her twice, i would.)

I wonder what it will feel like to dust them, now that I'm a part of their Bloodline. Some part of me is really scared. What if, when they die, it hurts us? Especially Angel and Spike. I'm not so worried about myself. I don't have any loyalties to those vampire bitches, as far as I'm concerned, blood or no.

But then, I didn't live with them, hunt and screw and slaughter with them for a hundred years... so maybe I'm not in the best position to judge.

It doesn't matter. They're going to die for what they did to Angel. My Angel -- so innocent and good-hearted, no matter what he's done, or what he thinks of himself. Since I've known him, he's always tried his best to do the right thing, to be compassionate, to reach out and help...and she is going to *pay* for punishing him for that.

I'm completely different today than I was yesterday. I've shed my Buffy skin, and all that's left is this wild *animal*. Pure Slayer. A lot like last year, when we called the Primal... just instinct. Bloodlust. But now, even more than that. I'm a third being, because I'm them, too. I am the Mate of Eternity. The Lover of both God and Trickster. I am loyalty and passion, blood and fury, and all that's in me now is appetite. Not for the bodies of the two vampires I've left behind in our bed (though there is *definitely* that). Not for food, but craving for the hunt, just like Dracula said. Driven, single-minded desire... to look into that whore's eyes and smile as I watch her crumble into dust, again and finally. I even have a couple of really snappy farewell lines planned for her.

I am destruction walking, and everybody better stay the *fuck* out of my way, or they're going down, too.

I didn't want to see Angel before I left. I didn't want that soft moment of goodbye, when our souls opened up automatically to one another, and he took me in his strong arms, begging me not to go with a kiss that broke me down into Buffy again. I can't go there. Not right now... I can't think about the agony in his loving chocolate eyes or the frown on his soft lips... his big hands clinging to me, holding me in my human skin.

Right now, I don't want to be his beloved. I don't want to be the woman I see reflected in those eyes. If I survive this, there will be plenty of time for that, later. Time to relive the glory of sighs and tangled flesh, him crying my name as he sunk into my body and filled me so completely with his love and devotion, and all the things about myself that I can never see. The way he held me and murmured to me, and let me remember all the beauty I thought I'd forgotten. The way he made me hope again...

No. Later. Now, I am Final Death, and that's all. I need something else from Angel's Blood Gift... What lies beneath, under his pain, his passion, his devotion and the call of the soul.

I need the demon. I need the inherent power to incite terror. To wreak havoc. To destroy. Annihilate, and never fear or regret. It's an easy way to live, he once told me... no conscience... no remorse... and that's exactly who I need to be right now.

Soulless.

So I concentrate on the memory of fangs tearing flesh... the taste and scent of blood flowing. The feral music of snarls, howls, and roars. The silver of moonlight glinting off Spike and Angel's pale skin as they... I don't know... rutted, I guess? The cold of the grave sleeping in my arms.

I love them. They love me. I cherish them both down to my core, but... whatever our human feelings, they are still devastation incarnate. I let that knowledge fill me as I drive toward Silver Lake.

Driving a car just seems... wrong, somehow. Part of the other Buffy, who still lies sleeping, nestled between the large, cool, comforting forms of her mate and his Childe in the dark. Animals don't drive, do they? Predators walk. Stalk their prey on silent feet.

Los Angeles is a sprawling city, and it takes a while to get to Cordelia's apartment. As I knock on the door (I was only here a few days ago, and yet, everything feels so different), I hope that she won't want to talk. Won't invite me in or ask to come along or try to stop me, because these are things -- human things -- that I just don't have the time or energy for.

I'm still starving, and I realize now what that hunger means... it's sharp, today, where it was dull and vague last night. I didn't understand it, then... but drinking them taught me. To feed that hunger means to kill. To dispense the justice that is my Calling, and now my Duty as Mate, too. Darla started this. She put this pain in Angel 250 years ago, and he passed it on to Spike. This poison... this wasting disease. She tormented Angel without mercy, without regard for what they once shared or who he'd become, and today...

Today she'll regret it... for about two seconds before her ashes blow away in the breeze.

Cordy's warm greeting freezes the moment she opens the door. Her eyes go wide, bewildered by how I must look, and she takes a defensive step back.

I smell her fear, and it's all I can do not to smile. Reach out and grab her... gulp down the intoxicating, electrifying scent of it from her warm, tanned skin.

Hm. Guess maybe I can see some of the attraction in being a vampire after all, because Fight or Flight smells... Damn delicious. Like pancakes and sausage, actually. I'm almost drooling.

We stare at each other for a long time. A thousand questions flash in her rich brown eyes, but she doesn't voice a single one. Instead, she hands me a slip of paper. I look down at it, and try to remember how to read. An address.

"Angel called."

I blink at her. Human speech sounds funny. And his name... it puts a pinprick in my perfect rage, and all the Death starts leaking out.

Damn it.

"Oh yeah?" I respond, and feel myself begin to soften again. A flash of his eyes... pain, love and joy. His arms and his lips. Tears. His body against mine...

"He's worried about you." She nods toward the stake in my hand... I didn't even realize I had pulled it from the waistband of my jeans. "About this. He doesn't want you to go alone."

He doesn't want me to go at all. I know that, even if he didn't tell me. But I don't say it. I don't want to explain anything. I don't want to *chat*. I want to *kill*. Feel dust on my skin and know that I've finally done something meaningful for him. Repaid just one small fraction of everything that he's given me. All the history, the comfort, the love... the lessons and hope for the future I feel pounding in my veins.

So I just stare at her, and say nothing.

"You know, he's right," she goes on, "They'll kill you, and how do you think *that* will make him feel?"

My rage leaks faster. I clutch at it... fight to keep the Death in. I squint at her, in anger more than anything, and realize that I can *see* her frustration and worry, wavering around her like an aura.

Cool.

"I have to do this," I tell her. "It's my Duty." It sounds stupid and right all at once on my lips. My Duty. Mate. Slayer. Chosen One.

She snorts and rolls her eyes in that uniquely Cordy way that's made me want to slap her face off a couple million times since the day we met. Now being one of them.

"Oh, *please*. You can do your Duty just as easily with me and Gunn along."

Gunn steps up behind her, tall and dark and... damn cute, now that I take a second to think about it. Big, sweet brown eyes, and he smells like... anger and relief all at once. And arousal. His energy snakes from his aura and creeps protectively around Cordy.

Hm. I wonder if she knows about that.

"Fine," I finally manage, "You can come. But stay out of my way. Watch my back if you have to, but they are *mine*. Okay?"

Wow. I sound harsh even to me.

"Fine by me," Cordy replies, and reaches down, snatching up a crossbow she's left leaning against the foyer wall. She slings a strap packed with bolts over her shoulder, and stands there looking like Rambo Barbie or something. "But if it comes to it... Lindsey's *mine*."

I shrug. I don't know who Lindsey is, but I do know that I'm glad I'm not him.

"Let's hit it," Gunn says, twirling this monstrous axe that makes Angel's look like a little firewood-splitter.

I'm sort of impressed. For someone who insists he doesn't do well with people, Angel inspires an awful lot of loyalty in those around him.

* * *

It was a bad idea to drive. Especially to just be a passenger. All I can do is press my face against the glass of Gunn's pick-up as we crawl through Saturday morning traffic.

Sitting still, leaning, hypnotized by the cars and people and buildings sliding by leaves me way too much time to think...

And to listen to the sweet song of Angel's blood in my veins. The echo of my dream of his demon family, and the sickening cold-hungry sensation of being in Darla's skin. Thinking about what it all *means*.

I can't even wrap my mind around the idea of one hundred and fifty years together on top of the Blood Tie. I wonder -- can she feel them as clearly, as completely, as I can? Can she smell Angel's alternating worry and love as he waits, just looking at Spike? Can she feel Spike's confusion and continuing fruitless struggle against the fate we sealed in Angel's bed last night?

She must. Darla's been a part of this for so much longer than I have, and I can feel everyone of those things, like a surround-sound, three-dimensional psychic scratch and sniff in my head and heart.

Does she love him? Did she ever? Does she know that I'm coming for her? That my fingers itch to plunge Mr. Pointy into her breast and wipe her completely from Angel's memory?

You're damn right, I'm jealous. This rage... I'm not really certain how much of it is really righteous Slayer-anger, and how much is wanting her never to have existed at all.

I don't know. But thinking about it changes something about my anger, and I start to remember...

The concern in Angelus' soulless eyes... how he called me "love", and there was genuine tenderness in his touch.

How Angel sobbed as he told me what the Dead Lawyers did to her. All that he had sacrificed to help her... the Trials... And how he felt like he had accomplished something at last when he saw humanity reborn in her eyes. That he doesn't believe the essence of that could truly disappear with her soul. How he loved her, for that single moment.

I remember real pain in Angel's voice when he talked about killing her the first time... to save me. I remember he and Spike fighting about killing them. There's so much pain... an intensity I can barely understand, wrapped up in all of their relationships.

I never really believed that demons could love... but now?

All of a sudden, I don't feel like such a hunter anymore. I don't know what I feel, honestly. What I have to do isn't clear. What's right has become all fuzzy and gray, and the lines between good and evil that I thought I knew like the backs of my hands have just vanished...

Should I even be doing this? Do I have the right?

"Well, ladies... welcome to the lovely Regency Arms... Uptown suites for $1500/month and up," Gunn announces, pulling the truck over.

Too late, I guess. I look in the direction they're looking... up at a tower of glass and steel, and one of those fancy awnings, complete with doorman.

"Angel said Darla had to have a view," Cordy grumbles.

I just look at that mountain of ugly building, and think... My Destiny is in there somewhere, hiding from the sun. A crossroads of what I am, and what my lovers are, and what happens next. A decision to be made that will change us all forever.

We climb out of the truck and sneak around the back of the building, where there's a nice, convenient service entrance. Cordelia drops down into a crouch and credit cards the door like she was born to break and enter. Talk about irony. Queen C the criminal is even weirder than Queen C the foot soldier. But... I guess she's equally good at both, because in a moment, we 're in, and creeping up flight after flight of dull gray concrete fire escape stairs.

My mind is racing as fast as my heart, and by instinct, I guess, I reach out with my blood to touch Spike and Angel. They're both worried... frustrated. They're trying to comfort one another, I think... are they drinking? Fighting? I can't quite tell... but mostly, they're afraid, and trying to pretend that they're not. Trying to distract each other.

Gunn cuts the wire to the 14th floor door alarm, and now we're standing in a plush hallway with real plants and soft lighting. He nods to the last door on the right.

Time's up.

1405. Gold letters on creme colored wood. The moment of truth. I am the Slayer. I am the Alpha's Mate, and it's time for me to do my Duty... right now. Right here. What I was born to do.

I kick in the door, relishing the sound of hardwood splintering, the smell of adrenaline and shock like a drug in the climate controlled air. The three of us rush forward. Gunn puts a guy (who I guess must be Lindsey) up against the wall with the axe handle to his throat. Cordelia trains the crossbow on Drusilla, who sits quietly at the dining room table. The vampire immediately starts crying, raving that I smell like Spike tears. The watery glare she lays on me is nothing short of withering.

"Killer of good children!" she spits, "Pied Piper thief of hearts! Sssssss!" She makes a little snake with her two fingers crooked, poking in my direction.

Guess I'm not the only one who's jealous around here. I can feel the cuckoobird's hatred pounding against my skin.

But I don't see Darla.

"Where is she?" I bark at the Lawyer.

He just gives me a snarky smile. The evil jerk's got the prettiest blue eyes. I want to poke them out of his smirking head.

Fucking bastard. I'm tempted to tell Cordy to use that crossbow on him. From what I've heard, he deserves it. And by her distinctive Dior-Rage scent, I can tell she's thinking seriously about the very same thing.

One more Dead Lawyer more or less? Who cares?

"Looking for me, Buffy?"

When I spin to face her, it feels like slow motion...like I'm standing in pudding or something. Darla stands in the far doorway, all elegance and perfect fucking creamy white skin, sweet smile, and crystal clear blue eyes.

She smells like Angel. Or maybe... he smells like her. I grip my stake so hard, the handle draws blood. I don't think I've ever felt hatred like this before in my life. I think I might have just hissed.

She smells my blood, of course. Glances down and arches one perfectly plucked eyebrow at me.

"Well...haven't we been a busy little Slayer?" She takes a step into the room, stalking toward me, a two-legged feline in a floor-length gown of shimmering black silk. "Been playing big girl games with my Mate and his whelp, have you? Did he let you drink him? How very romantic... Guess that sort of makes you *kin*, now, doesn't it?" She says 'kin' like it's a nasty disease, and I'm the cause.

Three jealous vampire-lovers, all in one fancy apartment. Great.

Drusilla whines, then starts to cry again. "My Spike... she's drowned my Angel, and now my Spike too in her light!"

This is like being in a really bizarre movie -- some cross between "Being John Malcovic", "The Godfather", and maybe a pinch of "Lethal Weapon" and something by Wes Craven thrown in for creep value.

I just stand there and stare at my lover's Sire. I knew she was back... that the Dead Lawyers (and the not-so-dead one up against the wall behind me) had reconstituted her ashes like powdered milk, and made... this. I knew that she'd been with Angel... violated him... fucked with his body and mind and goddamn it, his *soul*. I knew all of this coming in here, but... actually seeing her... smelling her... feeling her even more acutely than when I dreamed I *was* her...

It's like somebody hit the "off" switch in my brain. I can't move. I can't speak. I feel the rage pounding in my blood, and that blood dripping down the palm of my hand, and wonder...

Am I about to die? Is this the Dance Spike told me about? Did I really come here to meet my end, because I'm tired of all the struggle? Is this where I've been heading since I was Called? Is my last act to take my revenge for the man that I love?

No. I came here to do what a Slayer has to do. What the Master's Chosen is sworn to do when the Law has been violated. That's all. Nothing more profound than dust.

But I still can't move a muscle.

Darla takes another step toward me.

"Buffy?" Cordy's warning voice comes from behind me.

"Sing sing with the bees!" Drusilla sobs, "When you fell in the well, you didn't know there was more than kittens down there, did you? Black snakes and tiny flames! Shhhhhh... Bad dogs and good girls make sour milk..."

Darla's smile is frigid. Her hatred stinks like moldy soil, and her jealousy and rage hover around the outline of her body like some weird green ghost.

I'm going to puke. I've got that same lurching shiver in my stomach that I had the night the Master killed me... that feeling that maybe I miscalculated... maybe there was some detail I missed, and now everyone is going to pay for it.

"Will you KILL HER ALREADY?" Cordy yelps.

"What's wrong with her?" Gunn asks.

"Guess little Miss One Girl in All the World wasn't quite as ready for this as she thought," the Not-So-Dead Lawyer quips.

I hear them, but it's as though they're in another building... or another time zone. There's nothing left in that moment but Darla and I as she slinks closer. Suddenly, I'm less afraid, and more... I don't know... fascinated, I guess. She really is beautiful... soft and fair like a china doll... it reminds me what beautiful packages evil can come in.

I'm not shaking anymore. Not sick to my stomach. All that animal rage I clutched tight to earlier is gone, too. I'm empty... waiting... I watch her come like a hunter waiting for his target to wander into his sites. Just a second more, Darla... just a few steps...

But something happnes as she moves toward me. The light in the room fades to a black that's deeper than night... my awareness shifts, my consciousness starts to sink, and I feel a hum of voices in my blood... and her whisper:

"He belongs to me..."

*****

A clammy Irish night... a hot, crowded pub... a nothingness inside me that my earlier hunt doesn't fill.

(bored. will all eternity be so dry?)

A fight breaks out nearby. Men in breeches and rough cotton shirts throwing punches... throwing flagons of ale... throwing one another. Other patrons roll their eyes and step away. I sip my tea and try not to yawn.

(a brawl...how very droll. god, I hate Ireland.)

A huge, strapping lad with a bloody lip and a wild grin catches my eye as he tosses his opponent over the tables like a sack of flour, then takes a long drink from his stein. Now *that* is the most interesting thing I think I've seen in this filthy, backward country. His energy is fierce, crackling around him like an aura of lightning... he's bored and dissatisfied with his life, as much as I. I can smell it on him. His battle here is as much for entertainment as for victory. I can't recall ever seeing a human look quite so... alive before.

(my...goodness. he certainly is fine.)

I catch the wench's attention as she passes.

"Who is *he*?"

(an angel...)

I've never given much thought about Making a Mate. Too much trouble, really, to have to consider another's well-being. And certainly, my Master wouldn't approve of any whelp I brought to the fold as my lover. I doubt the poor lad would last long in my Maker's clutches.

But this boy...

"He's magnificent."

And he is. Like savage poetry in motion. The way he moves... so large, and yet so graceful. Good-naturedly vicious -- the violence amuses him. He's angry... hungry... alone...

"Oh, yah. God's gift, that one..."

"Really. I've never known God to be so generous."

(i want him.)

Maybe it's time. This boy has a need boiling under his skin... a desperate desire to be--to become--and I can give it to him. A Mate to share the hunt... see the world... watch eternity pass by my side.

(never be alone again...)

I catch his gaze... his joyous, lecherous leer like a bolt of lightning to my unbeating heart.

And, I admit, to a place far lower than that.

I toss the serving girl an extra silver as I depart. She deserves some reward, to be certain, for what she's given me...

I beckon the boy come with my eyes. A simple flutter of lashes, like magick. Such simple creatures, human men.

(he'll come.)

And after tonight, he will be so much more...

His blood is sweet... rich. His dying gasp exultant. The enthusiasm with which he drinks from my breast nearly drives me to orgasm, standing there in that dingy alley.

My Mate... at last. How long I've waited for you. Have I ever, in 150 years, felt so alive? Like his passion infuses me with a new and never-dreamed of mana.

Time together passes like a rush of wind... desire, pain... blood and tears. Five years. Gods marching over the world. Hunters. Predators supreme. Nights of flesh and love and death, more fabulous than anything I could have dreamed.

Ten years. Twenty. My passionate boy... his fire... his lust for the hunt only grows.

Fifty years. A human lifetime, and still, it is only him whom I desire. A century. Our lives so entwined that it is difficult, even when we are separated, to tell where one of us ends and the other begins.

(you and I are one...)

The hundredth anniversary of his Making... still a fresh memory on my skin. He'd brought a German Countess with whom he'd been dallying for some days as a gift for me. The lust in her eyes is delicious... sparkling sapphire evidence that my Angelus is a maestro of the art of seduction... that she should be so taken by his carefully woven illusion of love... so eager to meet her doom. Her arousal smells sweet, like jasmine and spice.

And when my darling at last looks to me, I see... he is no longer a whelp. He is fully my Mate... a Master in his own right, now, and my pride in making it so swells my dead heart.

Only for him. He is Death, exquisite. Tall and majestic, splendid in his blooming puissance. A far more powerful manifestation of all I ever wished him to be than my wildest imaginings. More demon than I ever dreamed. The core of me... the very flesh of which I am made.

My eternity.

He lights candles... casts the room in a golden glow. Sits the woman down in a chair and comes toward me. Look at her... how obediently she sits, with her fine hands clutched daintily in her lap... the perfect little lamb. I can hardly keep my eyes from her, she is so delicious.

But he is moving toward me, his dark eyes ablaze with... ah, Gods, everything. My second... the other half of me. My heart's shadow.

The violence with which he tears my clothes from my body leaves me shivering, and he blankets me roughly with his smooth hands... his cool, devouring mouth.

Oh, how I've missed him these days past!

We fall to the floor and he drives into me... all that lonely time gone in a single, deep, claiming thrust. When he takes me, I am not the Dam... not the Maker... I am the Claimed. I am his female, his lover, an extension of his flesh, and nothing more. I wrap myself around him, lose myself in him, and it is mere moments before I reach my peak, screaming his name as it howls in my blood -- our shared essence.

Angelus pulls the girl from the chair, crushes her between us, and we work as one -- the hunting pair, to bring the kill to her own pleasure before we take her... lips and fingers and tongues... she whimpers and moans, cries out, and yes... the death he brings smells so sweet, laced with her passion.

He looks deep into my eyes -- I see infinity there... immortality that I created... Our gazes bind together as we sink our fangs into her soft throat, and drink. I can taste him in her... the magick he has been weaving to bring her here... my supreme hunter... my beloved... my darling boy. The girl screams in bliss as she dies... pain and ecstasy in the final moments of her pathetic existence. And he is the virtuoso of this beatific destruction.

My lover tosses the corpse away, mounts me and takes me again and again. He drinks me... promises me forever. I know it's a lie... that he will leave me like all fledglings leave, but for now I believe him. My precious Angelus... my beautiful Angel of Death, yes...

One hundred and ten years. Twenty. Forty. Then... in a moment, all our decades torn asunder... a Soul... a filthy abomination poisoning my boy. And that stupid whelp he calls his Most Favoured ate my last hope...

This... this pain. This emptiness... far worse than it ever would have been had I not made him... not shared this century with him. And these beasts... these weak, sniveling humans who are no more than meals to us, have brought him down. My beautiful monster...

I will show them no mercy.

And then... two years later, he returns, like a thousand nights crying and wishing made manifest and he tries... but my Angel is gone, and something else...something horrible... has taken his place. Suddenly, my eternity has vanished... what will become of me now, without him? The pain rends me from the inside. The horror of loss as he snatches our last hope from the table and flees me, into the night.

A hundred years alone. Other Mates taken, but none ever fills that space. A hundred lovers, and still, I am empty for him.

When we meet again, at the Mouth of Hell, he is as much human as not, and stinking of soul love and little girls with Sacred Destinies. She must die. Not because she is the Slayer, but because she has stolen my very *center*, and he...

The ultimate betrayal. Just a moment of searing agony... of shattering realization... but that pain no sharper, really, than the longing for him that has never been sated.

His name on my lips, and then nothing...

I wake from that utlimate void, and I feel... light and cold... Have I finally been cast into Hell? No, there are people and plans and a heartbeat. But him again... always him, everywhere. In everything. His strength and his beauty and his faith... his eyes wild with horror as I die yet again.

Angel...

And I rise once more, the first thing I see is his face. But he is... still yet another creature... eyes now empty and cold, lost, and he locks the door on my and my Sire's feast. I slaughter one after another, and still think of him, my beautiful, vicious Angel... just one more chance. On more chance to fill this void inside me...I would do anything.

* * *

Light crackles around the edges of my consciousness... the power of her pain.

No. NO!

The rage explodes from somewhere inside of me that I've never touched before. I'm surrounded by a red haze. Bloodlust? I remember with a start why I'm here, and he is *not* her possession! He is Angel -- he belongs to himself, to the world, to his dreams of forgiveness and absolution. To the people who love him.

(she loves him.)

My muscles hum with the fury. I hear wails and cries... screams and moans... Two centuries of laughter and tears. It all collapses into a fiery ball of nothing at my center... and explodes into everything. I hear myself screaming from a million miles away as I kick Darla clear across the room, and she crashes into the bookshelves against the wall.

(he once loved her.)

All time and space is now, and the air is choked with memories. Love and loss. Pain and death and emptiness... hope and passion and the hunt. The black place where her soul once lived, and a confused young Irishman fell into her eyes.

("Darla... come to me...")

("Yes, my Forever...")

("Tell me that ye are mine.")

("I am yours, Angelus... for all the nights of infinity.")

No.

("I wanted so badly for her to have the chance I was never given... The chance to do it all again...")

(some part of him loves her still.)

"He is MINE, little girl!" She spits, landing a fist like iron to my jaw, sending me reeling. "You may have his soul, but the rest of him will always be *MINE*!"

"NO!" It's not a word that comes from my mouth, but a roar, and I am not Buffy, not human, not even Slayer, but Death herself.

(she has to DIE.)

I don't know about the others... what they're doing or where they are, and I don't care. I remember the smell of dirt and sweat and alone. Primal vengeance. I feel Darla's cold flesh give under my fists. Feel her fall. Feel myself drop onto her chest, and make her bleed, raining fury and sorrow and Angel down on her.

She laughs at me through the blood on her lips. Laughs. But the sound is hollow, echoing in the magically charged air. The agony of it stops me dead.

I can hear her dead heart... her stolen blood... screaming his name. I can *feel* it. Her face laughs, but her center sobs, "You took my family."

Drusilla's wailing cuts the silence. Maybe she can hear it, too...

*You took my family!*

The air is still but that mourning cry. It breaks the magick, and time starts again.

Suddenly, I'm in my skin, kneeling on Darla's chest, her blood coating my fists and clothes. For a moment, I stare at it... her blood and mine mixed in the palm of my hand.

I look into her eyes and raise my stake.

(end this. kill her.)

Somewhere far way, I feel Angel catch his breath. Feel him tremble uncontrollably for a moment, then collect himself. Steel himself for the pain he knows is coming. Force himself to be still. To accept.

Darla glares up at me, waiting. Trembling.

Spike freezes where he stands.

Drusilla whines, a long keening cry. "mmmmmMMMMMMMMM!"

(i can't.)

I stare down at Darla and see him in her eyes. For a heartbeat, I don't see her at all, but Angel... his eyes closed, a sweet smile on his lips right before I drove my sword through his belly and sent him to Hell. The horror of sacrifice. The agony of watching him vanish. Punishing him for things he didn't do, or even know were done.

All that pain.

I never think to do it, but my arm falls. The stake clatters across the wood floor.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, GIRL???" Gunn shouts.

I get to my feet, shaking so hard from the visions and the adrenaline, I can barely stand.

She lies there, looking up at me, her doll's features twisted in confusion and pain. I watch our blood drip down her fine cheek, like crimson tears, splashing to the floor.

(Angel's blood.)

She's not laughing anymore.

"Well?" she hisses, "What are you waiting for? End it!" It's so much more wounded... terrified... lonely than angry, I almost feel compassion for this thing that made my love.

"I'm not going to kill you," I inform her. Some part of me... Slayer-me, I guess, starts flipping out. This is not something the Chosen One is supposed to do.

(WHAT? KILL HER, IDIOT!)

"WHAT?" Cordy yelps.

"Let them go," I tell her and Gunn, ignoring those inner voices.

Darla and I continue staring at one another, and I can feel that empty, endless, hollow place where her memories of him live.

I know that void so well.

("Because you and I are one...")

She is my sister. In blood and in love, and in the essential shadowed root of our power.

Darla struggles to sit up, her blue eyes wide. She leans back on her elbows as if she's waiting for me to ravish her. Those eyes are filled with fury... hatred... emptiness. I feel every one of her emotions as if they're my own. The core of her torn away. We're bound by that, as much as the Blood. He courses through our very essences... a storm that passes, but leaves the landscape changed forever. The lack of him is a fate far worse than death.

She feels it too.

"I'm not going to kill you," I tell her again.

Cordelia and Gunn gape at me, and Drusilla starts to sing...

"Rockabye and goodnight... angels watch over you, kitten."

Still, Darla and I remain with our eyes locked together.

Can you feel me, Darla? Can you feel what you've done to him? Do you care? Do you know that he is as far away from you know as he can ever be?

"If you so much as go *near* him again... you won't get another chance. I'll *know*," I vow, and the magick of it rings in the air, "Leave here, and don't come back. Do you understand?"

Power... I'm flooded with it once more. Where does all it come from? Me? Her? Him? She swallows hard. She feels it. She knows with every ounce of her being that I mean what I say. I'm not the little girl she faced in the Bronze that night five years ago. I am something different, now. Something not even she knows how to face. I wonder...am I in her too?

I don't know. After another moment listening to her thoughts, I turn and leave the apartment without looking back.

It's enough. I think, maybe...reminding her of eternity without Angel is all the punishment required. More isn't worth the pain it would cause both he and Spike.

Besides, isn't she just a pawn, really? It's not her that started this part of the game.

It's the lawyers. I don't know much about them, yet...

But I'm willing to learn.

~~~~~~~

Cordelia and Gunn say nothing as we drive back to her apartment. They say nothing as I get out of the truck. Finally, I stop, just outside the door, and look in at them both.

"He needs you," I tell them, "He might not really realize it yet, but he does. Please don't let him push you away."

Cordy slides over in the bench seat, dangling her legs out the door, and looks me in the eye.

"Why didn't you kill her? I don't get it."

I sigh. "I don't know if I do either." I'm fully back in Buffy-skin again, tired and drained, and all I want is to get back to the Hyperion, crawl into bed between Spike and Angel, and just sleep for a week. "I just couldn't."

She doesn't respond but for a snort.

"You know they'll kill again," Gun reminds me, "They're animals. *Evil* animals. It's what they do."

I know this. And the Slayer at the core of me is enraged that I'm ignoring it. But... I don't know, anymore, how much of me is really that hunter. How much of me is just a human woman -- the Fairy Princess--who wants her loved ones to be safe and happy. And how much is a vampire's Mate, now somehow ruled by laws that I don't even know, let alone understand.

"Maybe," I say, "But... we have other things to worry about than a couple of vampires, don't you think? Believe me... if she goes near Angel again... or Spike, for that matter, I *will* take care of her. If she shows up in Sunnydale, I'll kill her then, too. Let's just... focus on getting our lives back together, for now."

He doesn't need vengeance. He needs love. Support. Someone to smack him around when he lets his burdens get to be too much. Someone to hold him while he cries.

Cordy glances over her shoulder at Gunn, then back at me.

"Whatever," she grumbles, grabs her crossbow, and jumps out.

They don't understand. Of course they don't. I'm not sure I do fully, either, except that... something inside of me looked into the same blue eyes that Angel looked into every day for a century and a half...

And saw myself.

I turn away from them. There's no way I can explain...

"Thanks for the back-up, guys," I say as an afterthought as I walk toward Spike's car.

Cordy catches up with me and stops me with a hand on my shoulder. When I look, I see that her face has softened again... not for me, I'm sure... she and I have never exactly been friends...

But there's something that we have in common, now... something besides the shared nightmare of the Sunnydale High Class of '99. More than just years of demons and fear.

It's the same tie that's run through all the events of the past week... maybe longer. It may not be as deep as the Blood Bond, but it's at least as central to our hearts. The same thing that drove me into Spike's arms to begin with... the same thing that wouldn't let me kill Darla. Now it makes Cordy and I closer than we've ever been.

Loving Angel.

"Buffy, I..." she casts her eyes down at the sidewalk. Seeing her so vulnerable... so Un-Cordelia, is by far the weirdest thing I've seen yet. "Thank you for coming. For bringing him back. I knew you would... I mean... if anybody could. We've never been best friends or anything, but..." She looks up at me again, and this time, she gives me a stunning movie star smile. "He loves you. Whether I like it or not. So... thanks."

I smile back at her. "I'm glad you called me, Cordy. I love him too, you know. I don't think... either one of us really survives very well without the other."

She nods. "No kidding."

We hug while Gunn looks on. I feel a sort-of surge... relief, I guess. It could be one collective wave of it, from all of us... the friends, the lovers, the vampires that survived coming face to face with the Slayer...

I know I did the right thing. At least... my heart knows, even if my mind hasn't stopped screeching at me since we left the Regency Arms. My inner Giles is having a coronary.

I have to pick my battles, you know? And...I think...maybe Darla isn't mine to kill, anymore than she is Angel's. He's back, and that's all that matters.

I wave to Gunn as I get back into the DeSoto. "Nice to meet you, Charles. Take care of him, okay?"

He waves back. Nice smile. "You know it."

I start the car.

"Buffy!" Cordy calls.

I stick my head out the window to look at her again. "Yeah?"

"Don't be a stranger, okay?"

I just grin in response and pull away from the curb. The very curb, in the very car where we started this whole adventure. As I watch Cordy and Gunn fade away in the rearview, I see his arm wrap around her waist, and she leans back against his broad form, watching me drive off.

No... I don't think I'll be a stranger. Not anymore. I think I'll be back here again. Soon. When Glory is gone and my mom is well, and I feel okay leaving the Hellmouth in the hands of my friends...

I smile to myself, and turn on the radio. Doesn't matter what's on, really. I sing along anyway.

It's funny the way things go, isn't it? I know I'm going to leave here in a little while. Tonight, or maybe tomorrow... leave Angel behind, and probably Spike, too. I can't imagine he'll want to leave his Sire now that they've re-bonded. I'll leave behind these days of love and blood and pain... tears and smiles and nightmares and all those dusty old dreams just about come true... I'll go back to Sunnydale, alone, and tell Giles and the gang maybe a quarter of the whole story. I'll probably miss Riley... and Spike too, believe it or not... and sometimes I'll cry myself to sleep. I'll go to class and I'll Slay. I'll fight with Dawn and just pretend that I'm exactly the same as I was before I left, but...

I'm not. And I never will be again.

It's okay. Things are the way they should be, for now. All is right with the world. And how often does that happen in my life?

We'll all be together again, soon. And someday, I can't help but think... maybe forever.

It's not exactly "Sleeping Beauty" (unless you count the Anne Rice porno version)...

But, you know? It's more fairy tale than I ever thought I'd have. And it's enough, for me. Just to know...

Just to know it's here, when I need it. Or when it needs me.

*****