Buffy leaned against the school's brick wall for support. Her chest heaved, gasping for air as her face tilted up directly at the high, afternoon sun.
The sound of her own grating lungs was in her ears, and a myriad of dancing colors played behind her closed eyelids. Her mind reeled, forcing out any thought but one: Angel.
His name played over and over in her mind; the way she had whispered it with reverence the night he told her that he loved her, the way Giles had hissed it with contempt since Jenny died. The way she had screamed it with ecstasy the night they had...
"Buffy?" The Slayer jumped, whipping her eyes open. "God, Will! You scared me!" She snapped at the timid hacker.
"I'm sorry. I wanted to see how you were doing."
"Oh, I'm just peachy!" The Slayer retorted, peeking over at her best friend she decided it was a safe a place as any to dump her frustrations. "Why him, Will? Why should HE be so important?" To anyone but me, that is, "why should the world literally rise or fall depending on his being there?" Her voice was now as plaintive as a child's, her eyes wide as if seeking the simplest of answers.
Willow shook her head, there were no simple answers. "I don't know. We should have suspected something when we realized the demon Acathala depended on him to open the Hellmouth, but we really had no way of knowing." Chalk it up to a divine joke, the clever hacker thought bitterly. A man's work is never done, not even after he's tossed to hell by the woman who loves him.
Buffy sighed like the sound of her soul tearing apart, "I think about him in there, Will. I think about the centuries he spent in torment."
"It's been four months, Buffy," the pretty redhead reminded her gently. Blond hair flew, as she shook her head violently, "no. Time passes differently in there. A few days out here is like a person's life time in hell."
Willow gasped, her face becoming deathly pale, "then that would mean four months is like..." She left it hanging seeing her friend's eyes snap shut with remembered pain.
"I thought it would last forever," Buffy whispered through clenched teeth.
"What would?" Willow asked as gently as she could.
"Everything!" The Slayer began pacing restlessly. "Our love. His life." She stopped abruptly before the already dizzy hacker, "our hell."
Willow began to wring her hands nervously, her silky hair effectively hiding her face like a curtain. Oh god, the Slayer thought, there's more.
"Buffy, there's more." Willow said hesitantly, missing Buffy's almost amused expression as she rolled her eyes heavenward searching for the propagator of the huge joke being played on her. "Yeah, I kind of figured that." Willow stared at her with almost caricature question marks in her eyes. "Never mind. Go on."
Buffy's mind suddenly conjured up the image of a capsized boat. She shook her head to clear away the metaphor, "but the book," she finally managed to sputter. "Giles said it was so clear."
Willow nodded ruefully, "it was as far as to what we're supposed to do. It doesn't say anything as to how we're supposed to go about doing it." She winced at the remembered frustration Giles and she endured as that little revelation popped up. Talk about hell in hardcover.
"But there's always the net, and..."
Willow shook her head, "I've been searching the net for the past two months, ever since you came back and told us what happened. There was nothing about a person being brought back from hell." "But they're always being brought back in the movies," Buffy argued lamely. "That's got to be based on something."A smile flashed briefly on Willow's lips at her friend's warped reasoning, she did hit close to the truth, however. "It is. It's based on demons being brought back. He had a human soul when he was," she floundered for a moment, "sent." She finally said. "It's alright, you can say it. When I sent him to hell." She raised her hands quickly to ward off the hacker's denials, "I've dealt with it, Will. So what happens now?' "Now it's Giles's turn. He's just started his research so it should take awhile." She peered into the Slayer's green eyes sympathetically, "something will come up, Buffy, it always does."
"Yeah," she murmured sarcastically, "that's what I'm afraid of." Willow smiled as she pulled her friend into an embrace, only to be joined a moment later by another set of arms. "Xander!" She protested loudly, as his bear hug combined with the Slayer's threatened to choke the life out of her. "I saw group hug potential, and couldn't resist," he explained as he pulled the two girls into an even tighter embrace.
A quick peek over Xander's shoulder showed the gang was all there. Buffy wondered idly how long they had been standing there, but found, to her surprise, that she didn't mind even if they had heard the entire conversation. Secrets were a long lost thing among these people whom she considered to be her best friends. Even Cordelia. "Since we're all here," Buffy said as cheerfully as she could after gently disentangling Willow and herself from Xander's bear hug, "we might as well go Bronzing." She glanced up at the early evening skies, "I'd say we got about three hours before it opens." Giles frowned, but that was expected. "Bronzing? Buffy, I don't think..." "Oh, no mister." Buffy said as she wiggled a parental finger in front of the librarian's face. "No Bronzing for you. Not until you finish all your school work." The Watcher smiled at her weak attempt at humor, as always amazed by the resiliency of her soul. "I meant that I would need help. Willow and Oz to swim the net..."
"Surf." Oz corrected absently.
"You and Xander to help read the books," he went on, ignoring Oz's computer speak. "Cordelia to," he floundered, looking at the May Queen's expectant face, "to bring refreshments." Her expression darkened as she muttered something about librarians and their ungrateful ways. "What language are the books?" The Slayer asked patiently.
"Well some are in Gaelic, others in Greek, and..." He sighed with resignation, already aware this was a loosing battle.
Buffy smiled winsomely, "well there you go then. All languages neither I nor research boy can read. As for net-swimming, somehow after two months I doubt Will and Oz will be able to come up with anything new."
The librarian turned to slowly face the redheaded hacker, his complexion pallid. "You've been searching for two months?" He demanded.
To their overall surprise she lifted her chin defiantly, "call it a personal project," she said quietly, daring him to challenge her.
He blinked at her unexpected resolve, "and you found nothing?" He asked, deciding maturely to confront her on the issue on another, less sensitive day.She shook her head as Buffy went on blithely, "as for refreshments, there's always the doughnuts Xander and Cordy got from before." She paused to look at the pretty brunette, "you did leave him some strawberry jelly ones, didn't you?" "Nope," Cordelia said spitefully, "I finished them all up." With her little revenge all played out, she turned to leave in a huff.
Buffy shrugged as she looked at the forlorn librarian, "sorry Giles. Good luck on the research, though." The Bronze was packed to the brim that night, being the only decent place to hang in all of Sunnydale that was no great surprise. What was a surprise, however, was Oz's ability to get them in free of charge.They found themselves a nice semi-private booth for Cordelia's benefit, in case any of her friends decided to show up. "It's not that I'm embarrassed to be seen with you," she told Xander. "It's just that I don't want to be not embarrassed just right now." Buffy chuckled softly to herself. By the time Xander's mind would finish working that sentence out, Cordy would probably give him another impossibility to mull over.
Xander had gotten the last laugh, however. He had managed to drag Cordy out into the dance area, where she was bravely teaching him how to move in what she referred to as "normal human being dance". From Buffy's point of view she was having little to no success, as Xander's arms and legs waved about like something from a National Geographic mating ritual flick.Willow was chattering happily to a half-zonked Buffy and a very interested Oz about the latest pagan sites she had found on the net. The band, who was currently making the most noise at the Bronze (although in Buffy's opinion Cordelia's yelling at Xander came a very close second), abruptly stopped playing once they had finished their song. Oz excused himself and walked up to center stage. "What's he doing?" Willow wondered aloud.
Buffy rolled her eyes. The girl couldn't possibly be that naive, this was the exact same scene as in every sixties teen movie ever made. "I don't know, Will." She said, unwilling to ruin her friend's surprise. If Willow didn't watch the right kind of movies, that was her problem. Oz turned his back to the awaiting crowd, explaining to the band exactly what he wanted from them. They weren't the 'Dingoes', but they'd do.
"Willow," he said as he turned back to the crowd, his eyes straining to view his love, "this is for you," he said as he began to pluck at his guitar.
