More Chapter 3 The day passed in agonizingly slow motion, driving Buffy nuts with every ticking minute. Finally the last bell to ring for the day did so and she was free. She marched purposefully to the library, meeting her friends along the way. They walked with a firm, silent gate that could easily start a gang war.Giles raised startled eyes as the five teens burst into his library together, "well what do you know," Spike muttered, "it's the bloody Power Rangers."
Buffy met him head on, "keep THAT away from us," she motioned towards a black clad Drusilla standing in the shadows.
Spike's eyes narrowed, but he held his tongue. "Right then, we'd better get a move on if we want to get anything done today. Chop, chop people." They stared at him, "would you people stop doing that?" He demanded, "the novelty of the staring thing wore off somewhere around yesterday."
Giles was first to shake himself, "right! Well, we won't perform the ritual in here. It'll have to be where hell opened last time and that will mean the mansion."
Spike nodded, and helped the librarian gather his tools. Cordelia stared at the two vampires in wonder, "do they hold beauty pageants when they do the double sucking thing?" She mused aloud.
Spike gave her a feral grin, showing a hint of fang, "would you sign up if we did, luv?"
She gasped, truly caught of guard, then gasped again in thinly veiled rage as Xander made a lame attempt at hero. "You stay away from my girlfriend," Xander demanded stepping between the two.
Spike laughed uproariously and with a sudden, wild motion lunged at the boy, pinning him to a bookshelf. "You know," he said pleasantly, his game face firmly stating that he was anything but, "hating you was probably the only thing Angel and his demon had in common, well that and obsessing over the Slayer," he amended. "Looking at you now, I really do see why." "Put him down." A cool voice from behind demanded. Spike turned, dropping the frightened boy unceremoniously on the floor. The Slayer stood with a stake firmly clutched in her hand. He rolled his eyes, this again. "Try that again, and I'll make sure you fit in an ash tray." She said coldly. He nodded, that was fair enough. She had promised to play nice so he should do the same. He shrugged and went on piling books for the librarian. "It's still light out so we'll go through the tunnels," Spike told them once they had finished gathering all their things.
Buffy stared up at the skies only to be met with the library ceiling. Dark tunnels with two vampires to lead them, could this possibly get any worse? Some slayer sense told her it probably would.
The eased into the tunnels, generously allowing Buffy to be the buffer between the two vampires and the humans. Wasn't that nice of them? She thought cynically as she eyed Drusilla. The crazed vampire was subdued and hadn't said a thing since they first met, but she still managed to give Buffy the creeps.
She eyed the vampire highway, as Angel used to call it, taking in her surroundings as best she could. Her Slayer senses told her that there were vampires not far away, but they seemed to steer clear of their group in general. She looked at Spike more appreciatively this time, well aware that it was his doing. The vamp's handier then a cross, that thought seemed to amuse her for some reason. Her amusement evaporated when they reached the mansion. Too much had happened here, the memories were still too fresh.Buffy eyed the statue of Acathala, noting the sword embedded in the solid rock, the sword that had pierced her lover's body to get there. "It must have been hard for you," a voice said, startling her out of her reverie.
She turned in surprise, "it's even harder right now, Spike." She told him, wondering why he cared. "Not knowing who will come out." On second thought she didn't care why he asked, it was good to drop a little frustration from her own shoulders and onto someone else's for a change. If it was Spike's, then all the better.
He frowned in confusion, "who will..." He repeated, then the horrible realization dawned on him. "Bloody hell, Slayer!" He spluttered startling their already tense group, "he was your Angel when you sent him to hell!" He looked at her appraisingly with newfound respect, "they say us vampire's are ruthless, but that's nothing compared to what someone without a personal demon can do." She glared at him with disgust and stalked away, leaving him to reevaluate his prejudices concerning the living.
"It's done," Giles called to her motioning at the great pentagram Willow and he had created out of black candles and chalk, and other things Buffy was quite sure she wanted no knowledge of. They all stepped inside carefully, Spike gently leading Drusilla. Buffy shook her head, love manifested itself in the strangest of places, who was she to judge?
The simple act of being led into the pentagram seemed to shake the insane vampire from her reverie. She stared at Buffy with Baleful eyes, "she's the one who took my Angel away," she whined to Spike in a little girl voice that grated on Buffy's nerves. "I want to kill her, Spike. Let Princess kill her."
"Hush, luv."
"Kill her with my nails, I will," she confided to Spike with a secret smile on her lips. "Just like I did the other one, the dark one."
Buffy tensed, she was talking about Kendra.
"Hush," he said lamely, hoping the Slayer wasn't the sensitive type.
"Shut her up, Spike!" Buffy grated. Apparently she was.
Giles waited patiently till Drusilla quieted down then turned to Buffy with a sword in his hand. "Buffy, in order for us to create the energies we need for this to work, we need you to recreate exactly what happened between you and Angel." She flushed, "how much of what happened between me and Angel?"
The Watcher coughed uncomfortably, "just the last two or three minutes, before he was..."
"Hell bound," Cordelia finished brightly.
"Yes, thank you. Those were exactly the words I was looking for," the Watcher muttered.
Buffy nodded, holding the sword, watching them take their positions within the pentagram. Willow, Giles and Drusilla chanted in a strangely melodic language as Spike, Xander, Cordelia and Oz waved burning incense around. We make a pretty good team, she thought to herself, well we would if it weren't for the vampire thing. She sneaked a peek at Drusilla, and the insane killer thing. She felt a bit silly holding her sword, so she brandished it nastily at the stone demon. Take that, you bad Acathala, you. This was going to be easier than she thought, just wave the sword around. Listen to the singing. Inhale some hopefully very legal herbs and roots and poof! Here comes Angel. They should have tried doing this months ago.
The shadowy figure that lunged at her would have killed her instantly if he hadn't been, well, shadowy. She nearly dropped her sword as she recognized the beautiful features, "Angel," she whispered. He lunged at her again, she raised her sword to meet his instinctively and her jaw dropped when they passed right through each other. Of course, she thought, this is just an illusion to get the old energies stirring. She took a deeper look at the face of the man she loved, her energies were definitely stirring.
She lunged and parried, every swipe of her sword making the specter more visible, more real, more Angel.
She gasped as she realized her sword was hitting something real, something that could very well kill her. She knocked the sword out of his hand, slashing it in the process, jumped and kicked with blinding force sending him sprawling before the stone statue. She raised her sword for that final stroke before he could move to attack her again, but something happened. He clutched at his gut, his eyes burning golden for an instant as he gasped with pain.She paused, staring at him with unsure eyes. "Buffy?" He asked, looking up at her with trust. "What's going on?" He rose to his feet on shaky legs, "where are we? I don't remember."
She relaxed her hold on her sword, somewhere in the back of her mind a voice screamed illusion, but her heart ignored it willing to believe the charade, "Angel?" She whispered, unwilling to have her hopes shattered once again.He touched her arm, eyeing a non-existent wound, "you're hurt." Her heart fell. This wasn't real.
He pulled her into an embrace, "Buffy, I feel like I haven't seen you in months." She closed her eyes hard, knowing what she'd see behind his back. "Everything is so muddled. I..."
The hellmouth began to slowly open through Acathala, as she pulled away from him, "what's happening?" His confusion and love for her evident in his eyes.
"Sshh," she whispered, "don't worry about it." Something in her mind snapped. No! She wailed silently, I can't go through this again. She kissed him once, tenderly, proving her love for him through that kiss, as the hellmouth grew steadily behind him. "I love you." She told him, wanting him to know that more than anything."
"I love you." "Close your eyes," she told him, awed by the way he complied without hesitation. She kissed him again, a whimper escaping her lips at what she had to do. Her fist tightened on her sword, and with a swift gesture she ran him through. His eyes snapped open with shock, his arm stretched out for her to hold him.
She watched as her love was engulfed in the shimmering energies, his expression filled with pain and confusion, "Buffy?"
Then it was over, he was gone and she was crying. The tears in her eyes blinded her as they reflected the light. Light? She raised her head quickly as the hellmouth opened again, this time the pulsating energies pushing something out.
