TITLE:  Vesparys (20/?)
AUTHOR:   Nynaeve

GILES' NEIGHBORHOOD
SUNNYDALE, CALIFORNIA
MARCH 24 - AFTER DARK

Anya and Xander led the way, walking along, holding hands, their
steps quick, lively.

"I'm feeling something,"  Xander announced.  "Now what is it?"

"Do we really need to know?"  Spike asked mockingly.  "I mean, it's
usually your girlfriend who...oh forget it, somehow I'm just
not in the mood."

"Are you feeling all right?"  Willow inquired, her natural
solicitousness producing worry in her.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine.  Not like any of you really care, anyway.
Only when it's 'Spike, we need you to help kick some demon
ass' or 'Spike, stand guard while I cast a spell' or-"

"Excuse me,"  Anya interrupted.  "I think Xander was saying 
something.  About himself."  She snuggled herself closer to
her boyfriend.

"Like I said-"  Spike started.

"Yes,"  Xander said, cutting off any further verbal repartee.
"I think 'jaunty' would be an apt word to describe my state of
mind."

"Jaunty?"  Willow asked with some doubt in her voice.

"Yes, indeed,"  Xander affirmed.  "We've done a good night's
work."  He paused.  "Well, you've done a good night's work,
Wil, but the rest of us, the ever trusty Scooby gang...and...
er...um...*other*...did, in some way, however minuscule,
participate."

"No, not minuscule,"  Wil protested.  "I ... um... well, yeah,
I needed,"  she grimaced over her own verb choice, as needing either
Spike or Anya (let alone both of them in one evening) was not
something that had been high on her life's to-do list.  She
hesitated slightly, shuddered almost imperceptibly, then
continued.  "Yeah, I needed all of you."

"I'm part of the Scooby gang?"  Anya said hopefully, with a 
transparent smile plastered across her face.

Everyone hesitated for a moment, before each added a comment.
"Sure.  Why not?"  Xander contributed.

"Who bloody cares?"  Spike asked derisively.

"No!  Oh, uh, OK, yes...ewwww,"  moaned Willow.

Anya didn't notice anyone other than Xander had spoken and she
fairly glowed as they continued their now leisurely pace back
to Giles' house.

After a while, Willow added,  "We did do good work.  Now it's up
to Buffy and Angel to make sure the agents get their items back."

"And they won't be skulking around, following us?"  Xander asked
for verification.

"Nope,"  Wil agreed.  Her face scrunched up and her usual, 
now-the-deed-is-done-how-did-I-do doubts assailed her.  "At
least I hope not."  She paused, then babbled on.  "I mean,
I *know* everything went well with the cross.  That was just
about perfect,"  she giggled.  "Pretty bad-ass actually."
They walked in silence again, everyone waiting for Willow to
take up the thread of her monologue.  "But the phone...well,"  her
eyebrows rose and her eyes widened.  "I *hope* so anyway, but-"

"The sparks weren't exactly the right color,"  Spike inserted,
finding the rambling deconstruction a bit irritating at last.

Willow shook her head.  "No....but,"  she grew excited, shook 
her hands up and down a bit, and skipped a step or two.  "I'm
thinking that could just have been because it was electronic,
you know.  It's not like they had cell phones in Ancient 
Sumeria-"

Spike contributed, "Yeah, makes ya kinda glad it weren't a
microwave oven you were all in for cursing, don't it?"

Willow ignored him. "-and so maybe that was it."  She paused
and her face grew dubious again.  Xander glanced back at her,
reflecting, as he had done countless times in his life, how
changeable Wil's face was, how poorly she dissembled any
emotion at all.  "But I think I did mess up one tiny little
syllable...oh,"  she groaned.  "But I fixed it.  Really, I
did.  I hope Giles won't be too disappointed."

"Wil, he's going to be thrilled,"  Xander assured her.  "And we
can ask him now,"  he added as they passed into Giles' courtyard
and strolled to the door.

Without knocking, Xander opened the door, holding it while Anya
entered, then Willow.  Spike shot him a condescending look.  Xander
sneered back at him and the two jostled for position in the doorway,
neither one able to advance or retreat.

Giles, Wesley, and Cordelia looked up as Willow and her helpers
returned.  All eyes fell on the struggle ensuing in the doorway.
Though the by-play between Xander and the vamp tended to grate
on Giles' nerves, he noted the grins dancing along the faces of
both Anya and Willow.  He saw how Cordelia put aside her on-going
animosity toward Xander and her distaste for Spike aside and
was actually laughing at them.  Even Wesley, who clearly found
Spike a mystery beyond comprehension and who had never gotten 
along with Xander, was smiling broadly.  Giles gave in and
laughed himself, glad for some comic relief in the midst of
the intense struggle they were in.

Both hating to be ridiculed almost more than they hated one another,
Xander and Spike, realizing they were the focus of the merriment
sliding around the room, glared at one another briefly, before
disentangling themselves and tumbling into the room.  No one
said a word.

Still smiling, Giles asked Willow, "How did it go?"

"Good.  It went good - oh, I mean, well.  Sorry."

Giles looked at her in puzzlement.  He often felt great kinship with
Willow.  Her intelligence was unassailable, but for years she
had seen it as her one asset and she was still finding out how very
much more there was to herself.  He had been like that in some
ways.  True, he had rebelled in a most dangerous fashion with little
guidance, his father feeling the statement 'It is your sworn duty
to be a Watcher' should be enough to end any argument.  Willow's
own rebellion might have had similar earmarks, as she had parents who seemed
to view her more as an endless source of scholastic paper topics to
be submitted to a dizzying array of professional journals and less
as a child to be loved and cherished.  It made Giles glad he could,
in his own way, guide her, anchor her, support her much as he
did for Buffy.  Much, he realized, as he did for all of them.
He smiled again, realizing afresh, how very much a parent he had
become to these - children no longer, he reminded himself... and 
how very happy it made him, indeed.  He understood Willow's need
for approval in all things, even as she honed the wicca skills 
that clearly would benefit them all.

"Well, then?"  he asked.

She nodded.  "Except...for...well, I'm not even sure, that is-"

"Willow,"  Giles cautioned.

"I made a mistake on one syllable the second time."

"Did you um...correct yourself?"

She nodded.  "Immediately."

"Which part was it?  Do you know?"

Again, she nodded.  "The part about 'whispers of the wind',"  she
confessed.

"Do you remember how you mispronounced it?"  Giles asked.

Together they went over the hopefully small error Willow had made,
Giles reassuring her he didn't believe it would pose a problem, that
he was very pleased with her castings.  "Anything else?  Anything
odd?"

"Hullo!"  Cordelia exclaimed.  "This is Sunnydale.  How do you tell
odd from ... not odd?"

Giles looked over at her.  "What?  Oh, yes.  I guess sometimes
living here does tend to skew one's perspective.  I meant, well,
you know what I meant.  Yes?"

Xander and Willow nodded.  "And yes, actually,"  Xander said.

"Yes?"  Wesley said, gaining interest in the conversation.

"Yeah,"  Willow agreed.  "A bush...well, it *used* to be a bush."

"A Florinite demon?"  Giles asked.

"What is it with you people and this Four - uh, Flori- thing?"
Xander demanded, the images Spike and Anya had conjured up
re-entering his mind.

"What's a - whatever demon?"  Cordy asked.

"You do *not* want to know,"  Willow assured her.  "And no,"  she
told Giles.  "There were pieces of ... bush all around, on
the ground.  Almost like it exploded.  And, of course, we
didn't find any ..."  her face paled and she covered her stomach
with her arms.

"Heads?"  Wesley supplied helpfully.

Willow only nodded sickly.

"What?  Heads?  OK...yeah, never mind except for ...ew!"  Cordy
exclaimed.

Giles had picked up a book from the stack on the floor next to the
couch and was flipping through it.

"Was it near where Angel left the cross?"  Wesley asked.

All four nodded.

"Well, then, we can ask Angel when he gets back, unless 
Giles thinks..."

Giles looked up from the book he was studying.  "No,"  he shook
his head.  "We'll ask Angel.  Until then, I would suggest
everyone get some rest.  We have another long day ahead of us
tomorrow."

"Does that mean you found something?"  Xander wanted to know.

"Sure does,"  Cordelia answered.  "Giles thinks he's found
a spell that might work."

"What will we need?"  Willow asked.

"Cordelia has already agreed to go to the magic shop tomorrow
morning,"  Wesley said.

"Oh, OK...does Cordelia...do you even know where the magic shop
is?"  Willow asked.

"Of course,"  Cordelia responded indignantly, making a mental note
to ask Giles later exactly where it was.

"Again, I think you all should go get some rest.  We can meet back 
here tomorrow and make our plans.  We need Buffy and Angel, of
course,"  Giles iterated.

Spike began to sidle out the door when Giles' voice pinned him
where he stood.  "Not leaving, are you, Spike?"

"Wot?  Well, I didn't think ... you did say-"

"Yes, I did,"  Giles agreed with the unspoken remainder of Spike's
whining complaint.  "But if you leave now, getting back here
tomorrow would be quite the ... challenge, now wouldn't it?"

"Not that we wouldn't mind seeing you attempt it,"  Xander
stated.  "But somehow, it's just not the same, toasting
marshmallows during the daytime."

Spike muttered, as usual, and threatened great damage to every one
of the so-called Scoobies once he got the chip out.  He looked
around him in time to see Giles, Willow, and Xander mouthing
his threats along with him.  Disgusted, he walked back to the couch
and threw himself along its length.  "But if I starve..."

"Oh, do shut up.  There's some blood in the fridge,"  Giles told him.
"Now, everyone else, go home."

They did so without being told twice.

*********************************************************************

SUNNYREST CEMETERY
SUNNYDALE, CALIFORNIA
MARCH 24 - AFTER DARK

"I'm sure it's here somewhere,"  Buffy assured Mulder, who was
looking decidedly antsy.  Mentally, she hoped Willow had worked
her mojo.  "You probably lost it when we had to chase that vamp."

"Is it safe to ...,"  he shrugged.

"Retrace our route?"

He nodded.

"Sure.  Vamps are usually pretty much the cowardly lion types.
He knows I'm out here, so he'll probably stay away."

"You mean they aren't aggressive?"

She lifted her shoulders and made a face.  "Some of them are,"
she agreed.  "Some of them totally are, believe me."  She
paused and Mulder sensed he had hit a nerve.  

"Sorry,"  he said.

She said nothing, staring glumly at the ground as they headed
back the way they'd come.  She had her hands behind her back,
clasped so tightly that anyone who looked would have noted
how white her knuckles had gone.  

Mulder watched her, concern transforming his features from the
gleefully amused little boy who was, at heart, enjoying this
marvelous adventure, to the man Scully would have recognized,
full of sympathy and gentleness.  Mulder's weakness was women,
Buffy could see it out of the corner of her eye, as she
watched his face.  Not as a womanizer, but as a man who sees
in women one girl, who hopes to redeem whatever failings he
may have shown towards that girl by bearing the burdens of
any woman in need.  Buffy smiled a tiny smile, wondering at the
perversity of the world.  She sincerely doubted Agent Scully
easily allowed her partner to shoulder her burdens.

Buffy stopped and looked up at the handsome man with her.
She wondered for what horrible transgression he held himself
accountable.  From the files Willow had hacked she knew about
his sister...this man had been a boy, twelve.  Surely, he didn't
blame himself?  Parents' divorce?  Buffy knew what it was like
to take the blame for that one.  She'd had at least one all-too
vivid nightmare about it.  Something with Agent Scully?  That
made sense; lovers, physical or not, eternally broke their own
hearts over the things they could not change, even if they were
willing.

"It's all right,"  she told him softly.  "It was ... a while ago."

"Sometimes it doesn't matter how long it was, the pain can hold
you pretty tightly."

Buffy sucked in a deep breath.  "Ohhhhh, yeahhh,"  she agreed.
"Tight enough to crush you."

"Does it have to do with Angel?"  Mulder asked.

Buffy chuckled grimly.  "Boy, does it ever."  They resumed their
walk, both scanning the path for any sign of Mulder's missing
phone.  Buffy watched him fiddle with the empty space at his
waistline.  That phone was for him what Mr. Pointy was to her,
an extension of self, almost a defining part of his personality.

After a while, Buffy asked, "What's the what with you?"

"The what with me?"  He was grinning at her.

"Yeah,"  Buffy said, with a slow, firm nod.  "You know, what is
it that ... you dream about at night and wish you didn't?"  She
grimaced.  "Oh, and never dream those sorts of things in Sunnydale;
nightmares have a bad habit of coming to life."  She shuddered.

She waited for him to smile.  Instead a pall swept over his face
and the sparkle in his eyes extinguished.  "Most of mine already
have."

"Your sister?"  she asked.

He stopped this time and stared at her.  "How do you know about my
sister?"

In an effort to lighten the suddenly leaden atmosphere, she joked,
"We have our methods here on the Hell Mouth."

He didn't look amused.

"We ...um...do you have anything to do with tracking down cyber
crime?"

Now he chuckled at her.  He shook his head.

"We hacked into your files.  Yours and Agent Scully's."

"*That's* what Willow was doing yesterday?"

Buffy nodded.

"I thought she was into wicca?"

"She is.  She's also really good with computers."

"Well rounded,"  Mulder teased.

"Yeah.  She didn't even use her own name...oooh, that I really
shouldn't tell you."

Mulder chuckled again.  "Whose name did she use?"

Buffy looked at him.  "Some ... never mind."

"Old boyfriend?"  Mulder prodded.

Buffy laughed.  "You're good,"  she said admiringly.  "It's kind of
a long ... it ended badly."

"Hell hath no fury and all that?"

Buffy shrugged.  "In this case, more like 'The 'net hath no fury...'"

They neared the area where Buffy had left Mulder's phone.  Willow
was supposed to leave it at the base of the third tree from the 
left of the crypt entrance.  Buffy kept mouthing that information
to herself as they got closer.

"What?"  Mulder said.

She looked at him, eyes wide and innocent.  "Hmmm?  Oh, just
um ... thinking about that guy,"  she finished hurriedly.

Mulder nodded, not entirely convinced.

Buffy caught sight of Mulder's phone before he could say
anything more.  "Aha!"  she exclaimed.  "There it is.  See, it
must have fallen out when we ran past here."

Mulder hurried over to his phone, his fingers almost physically
itching for its familiar weight.  He picked it up and checked
it over.  He was pretty tough on phones, but it looked like it
had survived its fall nicely.  As if to prove it had indeed
suffered no injuries from its rather ignominious experiences
(only one of which Mulder knew about), it rang.

END PART 20

Vesparys (21/?)

SUNNYREST CEMETERY
SUNNYDALE, CALIFORNIA
MARCH 24 - AFTER DARK

Buffy's expression of surprise mirrored Mulder's own as his phone
sounded its familiar clarion.  Glad for the return of his 
favorite electronic device, Mulder stared for a moment as it
trilled again.  Buffy was staring at him.  He looked down and
recalled the purpose of the phone.

"Mulder,"  he said.  He held a finger up, signaling to Buffy he
was going to go a few steps away.  She made a face, scrunched,
her teeth showing and she lifted her fingers into claws, uttering
a soft "grrrr", the typical Scooby gang visual designation for a
vampire.  He nodded, acknowledging her concern that he not stray
too far.  He moved toward the entrance of the crypt, his back
to Buffy.  She paced slowly, keeping him to her side, gazing 
around and listening for any unexpected noises.  Preternatural
Slayer senses also helped her eavesdrop on his conversation.

"Yes, Sir,"  Mulder said.  "No, Sir.  Agent Scully, Sir?"
Mulder paused.  "Yes, Sir, I know, my partner."  Mulder
grimaced, not enjoying, as usual, his anticipated raking over
the coals.  "Scully is ... pursuing a lead."

Buffy smiled to herself.  "And I thought Watchers were bad,"  she
muttered.

"Me?  I'm ... uh ... pursuing a lead."

Even in the distance that separated them, Buffy could hear an
explosion from the phone.  The man on the other end sounded
harsh, stern, and not at all happy.  Buffy repeated her earlier
comment, with a bigger grin.

"It's ...no, Sir, not really two separate leads; more like two
parts of the same lead.  Colonel MacNamara, Sir?"

"Uh-oh,"  Buffy murmured.

"Civilians?  No, Sir, I really don't know what MacNamara means.
No, Sir, I can say unreservedly, Agent Scully and I are not
investigating the same angle that MacNamara's ... men are."

Mulder listened again.  "Yes, Sir.  I understand.  Yes,
Sir.  Tomorrow, Sir.  We'll send you an update.  First thing,
yes."

"And I thought Giles was tough on me,"  Buffy teased as Mulder
made his way back to her.

Mulder glared at her, though his gaze held no malice.

"You wanna drop that thing again?"  she continued.

Mulder smiled at her.  "My ... our boss is more ... flexible
than a lot of the suits in the Bureau."

"But he's still got rules and regulations to follow?"

Mulder nodded.

"I know all about *those*,"  Buffy told him ruefully.

"That Council thing?"

"Yeah, I quit last year."

"They let you?"  Mulder was astonished.

"They're in England, Agent Mulder.  'Let' isn't the word you're
looking for.  I'm sure most of them probably burst an aneurysm
or two over it, but...well, bottom line is they're in England."

"England is only a plane ride away,"  Mulder reminded her.

She smiled.  "That and a good ass-kicking or three by yours
truly."

Mulder laughed at her.  "If they know what's good for them?"

She shrugged.  "They're a little slow sometimes, but after a
while they do catch on."  She smiled wickedly up at him, through
long lashes.

He shook his head at her moxy.  They were approaching the place
they'd sat earlier, exchanging 'war' stories.  Buffy checked her
watch.  If everything had gone according to plan, Willow, Xander,
Anya, and Spike were back at Giles and the coast would be clear.
If it hadn't, they might still be out, trying to perform the
incantation on Scully's cross.

"It's a bit early to call it a night,"  she told Mulder.  "We
can take a break here again, do another pass in about thirty
minutes, then head in."

Mulder agreed, sitting down and propping himself up against a
gravestone.  Buffy raised a doubtful eyebrow at him.  His
earlier squeamishness was obviously totally gone.  He grinned at
her.  "I figure, based on the dates, the occupant is either
long gone, long 'gone', or so slow at this rising thing that 
you can handle him pretty easily."

Buffy laughed at his joke, appreciating how he turned her own
earlier comment around on her.  She took a peek at the dates
of 1872 to 1954.

"Nope, I think we're pretty safe,"  she said and settled down against
the nearest headstone.

*********************************************************************

GILES RESIDENCE
SUNNYDALE, CALIFORNIA
MARCH 25 - 1:38 A.M.

Spike was sprawled out on Giles' couch, the TV blaring a late night
informercial advertising the benefits of an expensive, complicated
looking fitness contraption.  Everytime the host, a suspiciously
tanned young man with bulges and ripples in places neither Giles
nor Wesley knew bulges and ripples were possible, enthused over
the superiority of the product, Wesley ground his teeth and Giles
winced.  The young man had the sort of voice far more appropriate
to a rugby field than to an ad campaign.

"How do you suppose he gets his teeth that color?"  Wesley asked
through a haze of exhaustion.

Giles looked up in time to see the host spear the audience with 
another gleaming, toothy grin.  Giles grimaced.  "Don't know.
And I'm not certain I want to."

Giles' eyes dropped back down to the book spread out on the table 
before him.  Just after the teens had left, he had recalled a slim
volume of arcane prophecies that he had stored since the final
Sunnydale High graduation.  He had found it easily and begun
perusing it diligently.

Wesley, tired, impatient, feeling helpless, stood up and crossed to the
TV.

"I'm watchin' that, mate,"  Spike muttered.

"You're sleeping!"  Wesley protested.

"No, I'm not,"  Spike insisted in clipped tones.  "I'm thinking about
ord'rin' one of those."

"I don't think they sell the host, Spike,"  Giles admonished.
"Not that you could bite him anyway,"  the Watcher added with a
touch of malice.

Wes threw Spike a disgusted look, turning down the volume so that,
at least, the hosts perky, oddly nasal tones would no longer
penetrate quite so deeply into his own brain and that of Giles.

"Thank you,"  Giles said gratefully.  "I was beginning to support
the idea of giving him to Spike as a meal."

Silence reigned for some time.  Wesley paced, Giles' spellbook
in hand, reading and re-reading the spell Giles hoped to use
tomorrow night.  Wes wondered fretfully what they would be able
to use to contain the demons.  If they could not contain them
then, at best, they set the demons free to wander the world again.
At worst ... he sighed.

"Oh, good Lord!"  Giles exclaimed.

"Have you found something useful?"  Wesley asked.

Giles took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.  It was a familiar
gesture for him, giving him time to think, to visualize.  His eyes
were red-rimmed from lack of sleep and too much reading.  They were
dry and grated to the touch.  His head throbbed and seemed to
float in a cloud oversaturated with particles of unrelated
information.  He sighed.

"Not useful; quite possibly problematic, though."

"How so?"  Wesley asked

"In a prophecy by Namor, he speaks of the very 'maw of Hell' and
of the spawning there of the 'water-bred demons' in the eighth
century after Vinarava's reign in the demon realm."  Giles
paused while Wes did some quick mental math.  After a brief
silence, Wesley concurred with Giles that the prophecy would
seem to indicate the events they now faced.

"And on the earth they shall cause great consternation, defiling
men and women and children without regard until their time shall
come. To the very maw of Hell the water-bred demons shall
be drawn and shall there spawn, unleashing on the world another
thousand years of torment...," Giles quoted.

"Typical prophetical wording,"  Wesley commented.

Giles nodded absent-mindedly as he continued.  "The souled one
shall a vessel be.  His cries shall ring out.  He shall call on
the Powers and if they listen, shall the world be saved."

"Angel!"  Wesley exclaimed.  "Then he is the key."

"There's more,"  Giles added glumly.  "'But of the Moon Beast,
hiding in the visage of a companion, who shall say?  He shall have
no recourse with the Powers and through him can their work be
unmade."

"The Moon Beast?  I don't...,"  Wesley stopped, aghast as the 
import of Giles' words became clear to him.

From the couch Spike sat up and gazed over at the other two
Brits.  Though the vampire had no affection for any of the
humans with whom he was forced to associate, Willow was his
favorite and what Giles had quoted was not lost on him.

"Will you tell her?"  Spike asked.

"God, no,"  Giles answered.  "Not unless we have to.  We need
all of Willow's attention focused on these spells and ...
we simply can't risk it."

"Yeah, please.  The last time she had trouble 'focusing' on
her spells I ended up engaged to that dimwitted Sl-  uh,
Buffy."

Wesley started to speak when all of what Spike had said hit
him and he choked on the words in his throat.  His face went
bright red as he coughed repeatedly and struggled for breath.
At last he gasped out, "Engaged?  to *Buffy*?!?!?  I...
Giles?"

Giles shook his head.  "It's a long, *painful* story.  One we'd
all like to forget, I assure you."

"How...?"

Flatly, Spike explained,  "She did a spell to have her will done.
It went wrong.  Bad things happened.  Can we move on?"

"Yes, please,"  Giles agreed with his enemy.

"I...of course.  It's just...to think of-"  Wes stopped and
looked at Spike, then shook his head.

"Yes, we know,"  Giles told him.

"She tried this spell because of Oz?"

"In a way,"  Giles told him.  "We just can't take a chance with
the distraction."

"And *I* don't want to end up mouth to mouth with Buffy again,"
Spike reminded him.

"Yes, Spike, I think you've made that quite clear.  Thank you."
Giles looked back at the prophecy.  There could be no doubt
it spoke of the Vesparys demons, of Angel, and of a werewolf.
'The Moon Beast' had to be a reference to the animal transformation
wrought by the full moon on those infected.  It was something of
a leap, some might say, to assume the werewolf would be Oz, but
that bit about him hiding in the 'visage of a companion'.  That
would seem to indicate Oz.  Plus, Giles thought wryly to himself,
the Hell Mouth had a way of combining all the various ingredients
you hoped you'd never see together into one lump.

Wesley had picked up the volume of prophecy and was reading through
it himself.  On one hand, it sounded a bit hopeful.  If Angel could
use his connections to the Powers-that-Be...

"What do you suppose this Namor bloke meant by the 'Powers'?"  Spike
asked, concerned inasmuch as his own hide might be at risk.

"I'm not entirely certain,"  Giles confessed.

"I am,"  Wesley told them.  "Angel has dealt with them before, when-"
he stopped.  Cordelia had told him of Buffy's last visit to see
Angel, how she and the vampire had been attacked by a Mohra demon,
tracked it; how Angel killed it, but not before some of their
blood was mixed and Angel rendered a mortal man again.  She told
him how Angel had been freed from his obligation to the Powers.
She also explained how the Mohra had regenerated itself and in trying
to kill it again, Angel had nearly lost his new-gained life.
Realizing he and Buffy had a higher duty, he had asked the Oracles
to fold time, to give them back the day he and Buffy had spent together.
It had amazed Wesley as much as it had impressed Cordelia and
Doyle.  It had opened his eyes to how very much of the quality
people called 'humanity' resided in one not at all human.  Angel
only remembered those hours, keeping them so the results would not
be repeated in an endless cycle.  Buffy had been lost to him
then, remembering nothing of the brief euphoria they had shared.
Cordy had ended by telling him how Buffy had stalked out of
Angel's office, angry, bitter, and how Angel had let her go,
taking upon himself everything seen and not seen, felt and not
felt, said and spun back into the twin voids of time and the unsaid.
Wesley would have liked to tell Giles, but knew it was not his
choice and he had no intention of saying anything around Spike.
"Angel has dealt with them before.  After his friend, Doyle, died.
He spoke with their Oracles.  It is the Powers who send the visions,
who guide Angel."

Giles was nodding.  "So, it could be if he calls on them, they
might help him."

Wes shrugged doubtfully.  "They intervene rarely in the affairs of
the world, preferring only to guide, not direct, the actions
of those of us, here....below, I suppose you could say."

Giles pondered the words.  There were never easy solutions in
Sunnydale and hoping some magical force would simply step in and
save Angel and Oz, if it was indeed Oz, was wishful thinking.
Not to mention, wishes, wants, and dreams had a tendency to
turn out the reverse of what one expected.  The Hell Mouth
rather redefined the old chestnut 'Be careful what you wish for.'

"Giles?  Didn't Namor write in a form of Greek?"

"Yes, he did, actually.  The Neo-Attican formula devised for the
rendering of demon prophecy, if I remember correctly.  Complex, 
code-like version of Greek.  Er...Thompson on the Council was
an expert in it, I believe."

Wesley was nodding now.  He grinned tiredly at Giles.  "Would you
care to guess who my language master was when I joined the
Council?"

Giles returned the smile.  "The original prophecy is a few pages
back, I believe."

"Shall I give it a try?  See if I can discern anything different?"

"I'll get the coffee,"  Giles offered as they younger man seated
himself, found the original prophecy, and began his own translation
of the passage.

It took him nearly an hour to work his way through the code.
"I think I've got something," he announced, handing his version
to Giles.

"Others?  Not Powers?"  Giles asked.

"Yes, the word used is one whose root has a number of translations.
'Powers' is one translation, but I believe if you look at the time 
in which Namor was writing, apply the linguistic subtleties of his 
time to the word...well, I think 'others' is more valid."

"You're saying 'Powers' is more modern?"

Wesley nodded.

"So, we have 'He shall call on the others and if they ...
you have 'aid'...aid him..."  Giles's voice trailed off.
"That makes sense.  He shall call on the others - Willow,
Buffy, Cordelia, you, myself...all of us... and if we 'aid'
him-"

"If we can aid him, I should think,"  Wes interrupted.

Giles nodded again.  "Yes, if we can aid him the world shall be
saved, but the Moon Beast shall have no recourse.  The prophecy
assumed we wouldn't know who the werewolf was, would not try to
help him."

"Well, after all, prophecy is not an exact science,"  Wes added.

Both men looked almost hopeful for the first time in a long time.
Even Giles' finding of the casting out spells had not had such an
effect.  Spike got their attention by clearing his throat.

"You two do know, dontcha, that littul Red is bloody likely to
figger things out when she sees her great, shaggy loverboy
has joined us?"

********************************************************************

SUNNYREST CEMETERY
SUNNYDALE, CALIFORNIA
MARCH 25 - SOMETIME AFTER MIDNIGHT

"Tell me about your sister,"  Buffy said without preamble.  She
and Mulder had been sitting quietly for a few minutes.

"Tell me about being a Slayer in love with a vampire,"  Mulder
countered.

Buffy chuckled.  "I'll tell you my sob story if you tell me yours."

Mulder smiled over at her.  "You read my files.  You know what
happened."

"That's not what I mean - and you know it, Agent Mulder,"  Buffy
insisted.

"You can call me 'Mulder'."

"Fine, *Mulder*.  Tell me about Samantha."

Mulder told her the basics of that night on the Vineyard.  He left
out the things Scully had come to know over the years - his over-
weening sense of failure and inadequacy; his need to protect
fiercely anyone he let close enough to love him or whom he could
love.  He made mention, almost in passing, of his parents' divorce,
excluding telling Buffy how in some ways he still felt responsible.
He did not tell her how his life had been defined by the same two
words that so shaped hers:  if only.  His story sounded much like the
one he had first told Scully so many years ago.  It was the
version he'd told for years and it sounded hollow now.

"It wasn't your fault,"  Buffy told him.  "But I'm sure Agent
Scully has told you that many times."

He nodded and gave the blond a pained smile.  "Have you ever had a 
vampire, or anything, get away, only to find later it killed
again?"

Buffy nodded.

"Were you responsible?"

"No,"  she admitted.  "Point taken, Age - uh...Mulder."

"I help people no one else will listen to I guess, because no one
ever seemed to listen to me.  I help them to forget for a little
while that I couldn't help the one person who really mattered to
me."

"Does it work?"  Buffy challenged.

He shook his head.  "When I'm not still searching for her, I'm
stumbling over cases that remind me of her.  Or, worse, I'm
putting my partner in constant jeopardy, dragging her along on
this 'heroic' quest of mine."  His voice was hot and bitter.

"She didn't look too unwilling to me,"  Buffy told him.  "She
came ready to patrol tonight, didn't she?"

"That's..."

"Work?"  Buffy laughed.  "Mulder, this is *my* work.  It's Angel's
work.  It's even Giles', and Willow's, and Xander's, and, odd as
it seems to those of us who knew all too well, Cordelia's work.
But this is *not* your work, nor hers.  You wanted to be here
and she wanted to be with you."

He shook his head.  "She doesn't believe in this, any of it."

"She believes in you.  Anyone can see that.  She may not agree
with you, but she believes in your dedication.  Willow told
me once, when Angel was evil and was doing some pretty scary
stuff that one thing hadn't changed - I was all he thought
about.  You, this ...what did you call it?  quest? ... even when
she hates it, even when she doesn't believe in it, she believes
in you."

"How old are you again?"  Mulder demanded lightly.

Buffy smiled at him.  She was about to make a joke, something
along the lines of Slayer years being similar to dog years, when
the second vamp of the night ran by.

"Not again!"  she wailed with impatience.  "Come on!"

This vampire was slower and Buffy was not intent on confusing
'her' agent.  She soon caught up with him.

Mulder stood back and watched as she pummeled, kicked, head
butted, and wrestled the demon to the ground.

"What is it with you guys, tonight?  Can't you see we have
company?  Tsk, tsk...such bad manners means you have to go to
bed without supper,"  she told the bloodsucker pinned beneath
her left knee.  She raised Mr. Pointy high in the air, prepared
to dust the vamp without further ado.

"Wait,"  he begged.  "I have information.  Valuable information."

"Yeah?"  Buffy asked.  "Well, if it isn't about this Vesparys
demon that thinks it can just come in to my town and spawn without
so much as a -"

"It's about Angelus,"  the vamp interrupted.  "I mean, Angel."

Buffy's face contorted in confusion.  "What about Angel?"

"He's here in Sunnydale."

"I know that, you moron,"  Buffy told him.  "You'll have to do
better than that."

"The word down at Willy's is-"

"You heard this at Willy's?"  Buffy interrupted this time.
"Please."

"Wait!  He's with a woman, right?  About your size, only with
red hair?"

Mulder closed the distance he'd kept between himself
and Buffy and her quarry in the blink of an eye.  "He's talking
about Scully!"

"OK, so spill,"  Buffy threatened, brandishing Mr. Pointy more
fiercely.  "What about them?"

"Word has it a werewolf chased them into an old crypt...you know
the one on the north side of..." He saw by Buffy's face she was
no longer listening.

"And?"  Mulder demanded.

"And a werewolf chased them into an old crypt,"  the vampire
repeated.

"Yeah, we got that part.  What the nice man means is what happened
next?"

The vampire shrugged.  "Tommy said he got out of Fair Haven as
quickly as he could, said it was like running the hundred again."

Buffy looked down quizzically at the vampire.  She realized he had
been a football player and track star at Sunnydale High.  One
of Larry's obnoxious friends, she thought.  "Anything else?"

He looked at her, trying desperately to think of something that might
delay the point in time in which his still heart got an up close and
personal introduction to the business end of Mr. Pointy.

"I didn't think so,"  Buffy said and plunged the stake in.  The vamp
exploded into a pile of dust, emitting that odd shrieking noise
that is the death wail of the undead.

Mulder stared at her, stared at where the vamp had been, tried to
get his brain around what he'd seen, but his brain just kept
screaming Scully's name at him.

Buffy stood up.  "She's with Angel.  She's safe."

He nodded.

"We'll go see what we can do,"  she finally said.  They turned and
began running out of the cemetery.

END PART 21

Vesparys (22/?)

FAIR HAVEN CEMETERY
SUNNYDALE, CALIFORNIA
MARCH 24 - AFTER DARK

"Isn't this about where that ... thing attacked us?"  Scully asked,
hugging her arms around herself.  Her eyes scanned the headstones
and bushes warily.

Angel nodded.

"Is it ... will it come back here?"

"Probably not,"  Angel told her.  "I just want to see if anything
around here gives us a clue to its human identity."

"You said it was Willow's boyfriend."

He nodded again.  "I'm hoping I'm wrong."

Scully stood on the nicely manicured path down which they had 
earlier fled.  Her eyes were thoughtful as they watched Angel's 
movements. She wasn't certain how long they'd been trapped in 
the crypt. It had been an interesting experience, one she knew 
would stay  with her a long time.  She wondered if Angel would 
agree with the late Alfred Felig's assertion that one can indeed 
live too long.  She sighed, turning from where she stood to 
kneel down and examine some stones on the east side of the pathway.

Angel watched her from the corner of his eyes.  She was at an angle
to him and had moved off the path.  With preternatural grace
and that silent quickness that so unnerved mortals, he moved to
the gravestone near which Xander had left Scully's cross.  The
handkerchief he'd used previously was wrapped around his scorched
palm.  With one deft movement, he slipped her golden talisman
back into his pocket, the agent never having been aware it had
left.

Though he had not expected to find anything relating to the 
werewolf, he was rewarded with a surprising find.  A torn shirt,
the pop culture logo now shredded beyond recognition, at least
to Angel, had been discarded in the bushes.  He picked it up.
Certainty crawled along his spine.  Oz, as a normal twenty-something
male, was not a huge guy.  The strips of fabric Angel now held would,
in their united state, have fit someone of Oz's build.

Carrying the shirt, he headed back toward Scully.  She heard his
footsteps crunch on the crushed rock of the path.  She looked up
at him, seeing firstly the pained expression in his eyes.  Then,
she saw the shirt he was holding.

"You recognize it?"  she asked.  She had never met Oz, but found
herself, after everything Angel had told her, wishing fervently
it belonged to anyone else.  Some horny teenager with a weird sense
of the kinky.  A recently reawakened vampire.  Just not Willow's
boyfriend.

He shook his head.

"That's good...isn't it?"

He handed her the shirt.  "Describe the physical build of the
guy who wore this shirt?"

She studied it, holding it by what was left of its shoulders.
"Medium build, I'd say.   Not too tall, not heavy, or bulked
up.  Is...?"  She returned the shirt to him, where it dangled
from one of his hands.

"Oz is a pretty slight guy, really."

Scully laid a hand on Angel's arm.  "I'm sorry."

Angel looked over her head, staring at the bright, full moon.
After some time, he looked down at her and gave her a wan smile.
"I could still be wrong.  It doesn't make a lot of sense - the
demons wouldn't possess both me and Oz because..." his voice
trailed off and he made a face.

Scully nodded.  "Yeah,"  she agreed.  "I get it."

"Scuh-leeeeee!"  A voice called out just to the south of them.

Hastily, she withdrew her hand from Angel's arm.  "Mulder?"  she
called out.

"Scuh-"  he stopped as he rounded the corner and saw her standing
with Angel.  She was safe,  Perfectly safe, as Buffy had said, had
assured him.

Scully gave him an irritated look.  *Hours* later he was concerned
about her whereabouts?

"Mulder, I'm -"

"We heard you two were attacked by a werewolf,"  Mulder interrupted
her.  Having reached her at last, he hugged her tightly, grateful
she was all right.

"We were,"  she told him, "but Angel knew of this abandoned...what?"
 
"You were?"  he asked, disbelieving  ( a fact Scully would find
amusing later).

She pulled away from his embrace and nodded.  "Why?"

"*Scully*!"  he exclaimed.  "I said you were attacked by a 
werewolf and you *agreed*.  Werewolves don't exist, though.
I mean, wasn't it a wild dog?  a rogue wolf?  a really pissed
off ground squirrel?"

"Mulder, you've never seen a werewolf, have you?"  she teased.

Completely at a loss, Mulder looked from his partner to the 
vampire with whom she'd spent a big part of the evening.
Angel shrugged.

The vampire caught Buffy's eye and the two exchanged guarded 
looks that said "Mission accomplished" in a wordless communication
they had long shared.

"A werewolf attack?"  Buffy asked Angel.

"Yeah, I'll tell you about it on the way back to Giles'"

The four started walking toward the entrance of the cemetery.

"Buffy... um...what do you call what you did to that one?"  Mulder
asked.

With a smile, she looked back at him, walking next to Scully, his
hand resting protectively against the small of her back.
"Dusted,"  she said cheerfully.

Mulder, awestruck glee sparkling in his eyes, started over.
"Buffy dusted the second vampire we chased."

Angel looked at Buffy with concern.  "The second?"

"Yeah,"  she said, surprise evident in her tone.  "The first one
got away, but then this second one ... it was weird."

"Was that the one who told you we'd been chased into the crypt?"
Scully asked.

Buffy nodded.

"How'd he know?"  Angel asked.

"Said he heard it at Willy's.  Must have been big news in the
demon underground,"  Buffy commented.  "We really haven't had a lot
of werewolf activity since-"

She stared up at Angel, her mouth a silent "O" of unwanted
horror.  "No.  Un-huh,"  she insisted, though neither Angel
nor Scully had said anything.

Without a word, Angel handed her the shirt Scully had so recently
examined.  Buffy made a small noise, an achy noise that started
in her chest and caught in her throat.  Years of practice swallowing
sobs before they could be full born paid off for her in that
moment.

"Have you ever seen it before?"  Angel asked.

She nodded.  It was the twin to a shirt Willow had.  Something about
a dog walking service...or rabbit...or...Buffy was mentally reeling 
too much to remember for certain.  Not dogs, it was odd, some 
animal you wouldn't walk.  The drawings were kind of like those 
ones from that comic, "Life in Hell" or whatever it was.  She 
shook her head, trying to get her mind to focus on the thing it 
was avoiding.It didn't matter what was on the shirt.  What mattered 
was Oz and Willow had found them at the flea market last summer, 
had thought it would be cute to have matching apparel, especially 
inexpensive matching apparel.  They'd forgotten, of course, the 
fact that Willow, scheduled, organized, detail-oriented, did her 
laundry once a week and Oz, haphazard, spontaneous, ambiguous 
even, did his laundry when he ran out of clothing.

She pulled herself out of her pointless, mental ramble with a
painful swallow.  The lump in her throat could have been a
stake for all she knew.  "Oz ... had one."

Angel looked down at the ground.  Whatever he'd planned on 
telling her about the attack was moot now.  He would keep
the details to a minimum.

"You ... knew?"

He shook his head.  "Not until we were in the crypt.  Then, I got
thinking.  We came back here, looking for ..evidence."

Buffy sighed heavily.  "Just once I'd like the impossible task
facing us to have one less impossible factor,"  she said in
disgust.  Muttering, she added, "Mayor's gonna become the
world's biggest snake; Faith goes over to the Dark Side of the
Force; a freak eclipse means his vamp boys can attack the student
body...the Master kills me; I kill the Master; his followers
try to wake up his lazy bones...some big, ugly, unstoppable
demons want to get it on...etc. etc. etc.....and now it looks
like Oz chooses this particular moment to make his comeback."

Angel chuckled at her.  "Life on the Hell Mouth is hardly ever 
dull."

"You know, I remember one time, it was dull...for a few weeks
there it actually was dull."  She sighed again.  "Xander jinxed us.
Xander observed how vamp-free, demon-less our lives had been.  
This is *all* Xander's fault!"

Angel looked puzzled.  They all walked along in silence for a few
minutes.  Finally, the vampire asked, "When was that?"

Buffy looked up at him, her face still clouded by fear.
"When was what?"

"Sunnydale - dull,"  Angel stated for her.

"Oh,"  she said distractedly.  "Just before I found about my
mom and Ted."  She suppressed a shiver, recalling the memory
of the self-made robotic serial killer.

"Buffy, that was two years ago!"  Angel exclaimed.

"Yeah, so?"  she asked.  "Believe me, I have it in my diary -
Dear Diary, almost two whole weeks of dead un-dead activity."
She grimaced.  "We can't tell Willow.  I mean, she's dealing,
better than ever before and this...we can't tell Willow."

"I know,"  Angel agreed.

Late night silence surrounded them while they continued their walk
back to Giles'.  As they approached the agents' rented car,
Mulder explained he and Scully would go ahead and go back to 
their hotel.  "Unless you need us...?"

Buffy shook her head.  "We'll talk to Giles.  You have that
report you're going to have to send to your boss."  She smiled
sympathetically, thinking at least Giles had never gone so far,
when he was her Watcher, as to require essays.

"Do we do this again tomorrow?"  Mulder asked.

Buffy looked at Angel.  Angel took the lead, telling them he and
Buffy would talk with Giles, suggesting they call Giles in the
morning.

Both agents agreed.  Mulder opened the door for his partner.
Seeming to remember at the last minute, Angel extracted Scully's 
cross from his pocket.  He handed it back to her.  "Get a new
chain for that tomorrow.  You'll need it around here."

She nodded.  Mulder, having gotten in and started the car, drove
off as Angel stood up.

Angel and Buffy faced one another.  As if of one mind, they turned
to go in to talk to Giles and Wesley.



Giles looked up from his book as the door opened.  He grew
concerned, seeing how tired Buffy appeared tonight.  He narrowed
his eyes too at the look in her eyes.  The exhaustion mingled
with despair and remorse.  Wesley cleared his throat, reminding
Giles of the grim suspicion he had to tell Buffy.

"Yes...er,"  Giles muttered.  "Buffy,  I don't know quite how to
tell you this.  It ... well, there is an obscure prophecy that
would seem - possibly; you know how it goes with prophecies,
after all - anyway, as I was saying-"

"Oz is back,"  Buffy interrupted him.

"You know?"  Giles asked.

"Agent Scully and I were attacked by a werewolf.  It chased us
into the old crypt on the north side of Fair Haven,"  Angel
explained.

"Is Agent Scully all right?"  Wesley asked.

Angel nodded.

"Did Willow get her spells done?"  Buffy asked.

From the couch Spike said, "Yup, Red got her magick done all
proper-like."

For the first time Buffy and Angel noticed Spike's presence.
Both rolled their eyes.  Buffy walked over to one of Giles'
barstools and sat herself down on one.  Her shoulders
slumped.  

Angel had moved quietly to her side.  He didn't
touch her, couldn't bear the thought of her skin under his.
As close as he was, he could hear the beat of her heart and
the flow of her blood in her veins.  The burdens she bore
weighed heavily on shoulders nature hadn't designed to carry
such mass and he could feel her slipping into the ache 
of destiny, the meaning of being the Slayer.  In his flawless
memory he saw her at sixteen, at seventeen, at eighteen,
knowing things no girl should know, her young face centered 
around eyes as old as his own.  If it were only the world she 
had to save, Angel doubted it would hurt her this deeply.
Instead, as ever, it was personal.  Upon her actions rested
the lives of her friends.  In silence she would follow the
lead of her destiny, would die, kill, or feed a loving demon
for them.  The loneliness was an insurmountable void at
times.  He was the only one in her life who could ever truly
understand how she lived.  He had, in his strong, abiding
love for her, forfeited his place by her side, his right to
stroke away her pain as his fingers rippled through her hair,
his right to kiss away her fear as his lips sought hers
in an endless dance, his right to hold back the
demons and monsters that plagued her by wrapping her in
his arms.

Buffy looked at Angel, watched his eyes meet hers, almost
defiantly.  The love she doubted, that pierced her soul
through and through, shone from his eyes and for a moment
it stirred in her a vision of something that never happened,
the fantasy she'd dreamt countless days since learning he
was a vampire.  She shook her head, her face flickering with
confusion, her fingers tingling with the sensation of
Angel's skin against her fingertips, his heart beating 
steadily beneath them, his face smiling at her, full of love,
rapture, and most of all, life.

"Buffy?"  Giles asked.

She looked up.  "Sorry," she paused and looked at Angel
who still stared at her, the flare of love banked down
again in his eyes.  "I ...uh ... nothing."

"Are you certain it's Oz?  I mean, the prophecy we found tells 
of a 'Moon Beast', but that doesn't necessarily mean..."
he stopped.  Angel was holding up the tattered shirt.

"Doesn't Red have one just like that?"  observed Spike from his
sofa vantage point.

Glumly, Buffy nodded.  "She and Oz bought them to match."

"Wull, thass a bit tacky, if you ask me,"  Spike said.

"We didn't ask you, Spike,"  Angel menaced.

Spike shrugged, lifted an eyebrow, and sank back down into the
couch.

"You know, Buffy, that doesn't mean-"  Wesley started.

"I found it right near where the werewolf attacked us,"  Angel
told them.  "The transformation probably took place there."

Giles nodded in agreement.

"I think one of the demons is going to possess Oz,"  Angel added.

"So do we,"  Wesley told him.  "The prophecy Giles has found
would seem to bear that out."

"It explains Cordelia's first vision,"  Angel stated.

"You know, I'm still not clear on the whole vision thingy,"
Buffy said.  "I thought your friend, Doyle, got them."

"He did."  Angel's voice was tight, his lips drawn.

"So, how did Cordelia end up with this gig?"

Angel stared at the floor for a few moments.  The souls he had
taken haunted his dreams.  The souls he could not save
lurked around every corner.  Doyle's soul hounded his every
step, reminding him of his utter powerlessness in the face
of fate.  "We were trying to help some... people." He stopped.

Wesley finished softly, his voice reflecting the awe he felt.
"Doyle knowingly sacrificed himself so that Angel and the
others might live."

"The good fight,"  Angel said tersely, trying to banish the
memories of Doyle's earnest face from his mind.  He tried not
to hear those words of his on that ad Cordelia had made.
'Is that it?  Am I done then?' he had said, nervous,
eager, almost humble.

"I'm still not clear how..."

"Doyle had a ...crush on Cordelia,"  Angel explained.  "When
he'd made his decision, he kissed her goodbye."

"And this 'gift'?  It was transferred from your friend to
Cordelia?"  Giles asked.  "How interesting."

"Oh, quite.  I assure you,"  Wes added.  "It took Angel some
time, I think, to convince Cordelia to stop kissing any
passing stranger."

Buffy looked up.  The image Wes's words presented cheered her
slightly.  Everyone was silent for a few moments, lost in 
their own private 'might-have-beens'.

After a while, Buffy broke the silence.  "Giles, did you find
anything that might help us stop these things?"

"I believe I may have, yes,"  he informed her.

Giles explained the spell to Buffy and Angel, adding that Cordelia
would get the needed items at the magic shop while he, Willow,
and Wesley practiced the incantations before the next nightfall.
He told them his only concern was what to do with the demons if
they could indeed cast them out of the hosts.

"Many demons require special containers, specific to their species,
in which to be held captive.  Some are strong enough to break out
of any conventional box or anything we might use.  Wesley and I
are hoping we can find some clue in time."

"I'll see if I can arrange anything,"  she told them, then
yawned, covering her mouth.  She announced her intention of
leaving, getting some small amount of sleep before facing the
next day.  Angel walked out with her.

"Will you be OK?"  he asked.  "It's late and..."

"Angel, I'm the *Slayer*, remember?  It's better to ask if the
bad guys will be safe from me."

He smiled at her, nodding.

She reached the gate that led out of the courtyard.  Angel was
still a few steps behind her.  "Buffy,"  he called out, his
voice urgent.

She turned and he saw the fear on her face.  He knew without asking,
without having to hear her say it, that the fear was for him, that
in the few moments her back had been to him, every nightmare made
real by Faith's poisoned arrow was about to be revisited upon
her.  The scar on her neck tingled slightly.  Absent-mindedly,
she rubbed it.

Angel said nothing.  The power of speech seemed to have deserted him
after the two syllables of her name.  He crossed the distance
that remained between them.  She could not speak, could not demand
what he was doing, before his lips crushed hers in a kiss that
had her head spinning, her body aching with familiar desire, and
her memories sparkling like stars seen through fog.

Her arms came up around his neck, drawing his mouth down more
firmly to hers as she returned his passionate kiss with one of
her own.

END PART 22

Vesparys (23/?)

COURTYARD - GILES' RESIDENCE
SUNNYDALE, CALIFORNIA
EARLY MORNING, MARCH 24

Memories sucked Angel's human soul into a vortex laced with
the pleasure of loving Buffy and the agony of being absent
from her.  Clarity broke over him in uncontrolled waves, the
visions he always carried with him supplemented now by the taste
of her hot, human lips against his.  The smell of her shampoo,
perfume, fabric softener, even her make-up tumbled the images
wildly in his head.  Then she made a sound, small, aching, desperate,
as she tried to pull away.  He felt the demon within him rise
to the surface, contort his features and his own possessed blood
demanded he hold her all the more tightly, crushing her mouth
against his until she fought for the breath he hadn't needed in two and
a half centuries.

She pulled back, gasping, angry, yearning for another of his
punishing kisses.  The 'normal' girl in her, the one she
tried so hard to be, lifted a hand to his cheek, intending
to slap him with every bit of her Slayer strength.  Instead
she traced the never-to-be-forgotten contours of his vampire
face.

In his eyes she was sixteen again, seeing him this way for the
first time, witnessing his true nature.  She was the girl, who
months later, had told him she no longer even noticed the
transformation, revealing to him with those few gentle words
the truth that his real nature lay buried beneath the centuries
of violence and pain.  She had seen all he could be and he had
wanted to be what she envisioned.

He trembled slightly as her fingers glided along his forehead.
She stood on tiptoe to reach and the action pressed her body
against his.  He closed his eyes and his world narrowed to
her touch, the burning sensation of her mortal flesh on
his.  Her fingers pulled him back to the night, yet another filled
with fear and desperation, when she had given herself to him,
making him almost human again, it seemed, as he had made love to
her with an understanding the boy he'd been in Ireland could
never have had.  As his hands had stroked her body into a 
glow and his lips had teased from her heat she'd never felt,
he had begun to see his purpose in the world, to understand
and accept, maybe for the first time, why he'd been sired.
She had loved him in all her vulnerability, giving him the 
illusory sensation of a life interrupted suddenly regained.

Her fingers trailed over his mouth and he caught one in his
lips, kissing it lightly, wanting not to think of the price
they could pay if either of them ever gave in to the 
temptation raging between them now.  Stripped down to nothing,
both killers, cold and pure, they had fought; he to end the
world; she to save it.  The girl whose love had taken his
soul had given it back a little too late.

He'd watched her carry that guilt, as she carried every thing 
else in her life.  It wasn't an easy load and she'd stumbled,
often and sometimes badly.  Yet in the end, she always
put her feet on the path rightly, giving of herself until
so little was left you wondered how she existed at all.  He
realized as he looked into her eyes it had been nearly a
year since he'd kissed her at all, the long, luxurious
moments of last November living in his memory alone.

Her eyes blazed with a passion no other creature could ignite
within her.  He was the one love without whose existence
she would fade away.  No matter how she tried to 
move forward because she knew she had to, he would always pull
at her heart.  Deep inside, where all the secrets were locked,
she would never stop aching for him.  For no reason, she
tasted mint on her tongue.  Mint and the slightly salty tang
of post-coital skin.  Ice cream in bed.  Chocolate and
peanut butter.  Laughter and love and being the girl she'd
always dreamed of.

In a gateway, a temple of sorts beneath the post office in
Los Angeles, the Oracles felt the chill breath of destiny.

In  a scroll case, locked tightly in the vampire-proof vaults
of Wolfram and Hart, an ancient prophecy shimmered in the
darkness, waiting.

In Sunnydale, underneath a full moon, Buffy Summers' mind
played snippets of scenes about which she should know 
nothing.  And Angel could not banish the feeling of the 
last time, in this reality, his lips had touched her body.

His vampire side, the demon in his blood called out for hers.
He longed to sink his teeth into the soft flesh of her neck,
to drink until the unsatisfied tickle within him was gone,
to make her like him, to abandon all she had made of him.

She stared up at him, those eyes of hers deep with the heat
of lust.  She panted raggedly, in breaths that Angel could feel
even before they escaped her mouth.  He met the ferocity of
her gaze with a wild, dangerous passion of his own.

He knew he never should have followed her out here.  His 
conversation with Agent Scully was too close, had awakened
in him so many things that slept in the darkness of his heart,
things that should never see light.  Now Buffy stood next to him,
as eager as he was, her heart pounding in her ribcage,
sending her blood screaming through her body.  She was so close,
so vulnerable.  Though she may have been the Slayer, the demon
in him knew he could overpower her.  Knew too, in the end, her
vulnerability lay most deeply in the fact she would never really
fight him, would instead cling to the irrational hope things
would differ a second time around.

The full moon, bathing them in its bright, day-like glow,
seemed, for reasons no one could explain, to have its
own effect on them, though not as extreme as that it had
on those like Oz.  Angel tried to tell himself that moon was the
reason he wanted her beyond all rational thought, beyond
caring about anything that would inevitably follow a few moments
of passion.  Loving her one more time seemed worth it.

The human side of him, the soul restored to him by the Romani,
by Jenny Callendar's ancestors, whispered its plea, winding
its insistent mantra - no, you can't; she can't; no, not with
her - into the few thoughts he still possessed.  Through the
cacophony of his own blood and the symphonic beat of her
heart pumping the blood that sizzled inside her, sizzled for him,
through it all, the whisper continued.  The quiet voice, in
its gentle familiarity, prevailed.  Angel turned to go.

On an instinct buried in her heart's memory, she reached out,
brushed the top of his hand with hers.  Giles' courtyard
dissolved around them, leaving them standing in the void
of time-undone.  The whisper in Angel's head rose to a scream,
lashing him with the litany of consequences, the bare list of
names of his victims.  He swept it away, allowed the roar of
passion to deafen him, allowed his soul, for the first time
in so long, to call out for hers.

She was reaching for him, pressing her hand into the back of
his neck, pulling his lips to hers as he pinned her against the
wall.  Vines climbed the walls, flowered, and hid them in their
generous profusion.  He kissed her until she couldn't breathe,
bruising her lips, marking her arms where his hands gripped
her, holding on to her in a display of his immense power over her.
And a recognition of his powerlessness before her.  Slayers do
not easily bruise, but she would have the marks of his strong
hands on her for days.

His hands stroked her hair, as he had longed to do, had not
done since she had lain in his arms, just days before her
senior prom.  The reality they lived and the day he had
un-made mingled as he sunk easily into his reclaimed right
to kiss her, hold her, touch her.  Protect *her*, the Class
Protector of Sunnydale High, Class of 2000.  She who needed
protection only from herself.  She let him, gave her lips
heedlessly to the pleasure of his mouth on hers.

She had almost forgotten the feel of his hands on her, of his
lips tasting her.  Memories burst in her head, her whole life,
what seemed to be her whole life, centered on him, on her need
for him.  She moaned, softly, helplessly,  as he pressed her 
tiny frame against the stucco wall.

The moon slipped behind the clouds that scrolled lazily by,
surrounding the two with a comforting darkness.  Neither noticed.
The darkness was too familiar, too inviting to want to notice.

****************************************************************

SUNNYREST MOTOR LODGE
SUNNYDALE, CALIFORNIA
EARLY MORNING, MARCH 24

Scully had been silent during the drive back to the hotel.  Mulder
had told her, excitedly, about his night with Buffy.  She had nodded
from time to time or smiled distractedly at him.  They were in the
parking lot before he remembered Skinner's phone call.

"Skinner wants a report.  Tomorrow.  First thing."

She nodded, her eyes distant as she unhooked her seat belt.

She turned to open her door when Mulder laid his hand on her arm.
She looked down at his hand, seeming barely to recognize it.
"Scully?  Are you OK?"  he asked, his eyes creased in concern and
sudden distrust of Angel.

She blinked slowly, coming back to the moment.  She nodded.
"I'm fine, Mulder."

He continued to regard her steadily.  "Are you sure?  Did Angel do...?"

She smiled at him, a real smile at last.  Her voice was warm and
genuine.  "Really, I'm fine, Mulder.  Angel didn't - we talked."

"About werewolves?"  Mulder teased.

She laughed at him.  "Among other things."

Mulder was still surprised that his skeptical partner seemed
as accepting as she was.  He sat back and looked hard at her.
Her mind was far from him again.  He stroked the back of her
hand, garnering her attention once again, though he sensed
she gave him only a small portion of her thought processes.
"Now you think he's a vampire?"

She shook her head uncertainly.  "I ... there are things about
Angel I can't explain.  There are things about this whole town 
I can't even *begin* to explain."

They sat in silence for a few minutes.  Scully stared down at
her hands.  Mulder watched Scully watch her hands.  When she 
spoke again her voice was low.  He had to lean closer to hear her
properly.

"I've seen a lot, been through a lot, Mulder, but ... if even
half of what Angel told me tonight is true ... even if there's
nothing supernatural about *any* of it..." her voice trailed
off.

Mulder thought of Buffy, her composure, her confidence.  Scully
was right.  Even if the whole lot of them were delusional,
those delusions had somehow combined to make extraordinarily
strong people.  Of course, after watching Buffy slay that
second vampire, if she and her friends were delusional, then
so was he.

"I really did see her slay one, you know,"  he told Scully.

She looked at him, head tilted so that her gaze came up
at him, from underneath heavy eyelids and feathery lashes.
"And?"

He shrugged.  "It could have been a trick of moonlight."

"But it wasn't,"  she supplied.

He shook his head.

Without further conversation, Scully got out of the car.
Mulder got out of his side quickly and walked with her, his
hand resting in the small of her back, to her door.  From
her purse, she took out the key, grateful in a way for the
old-fashioned keys at their cheap, dingy little motel.  Mulder
loomed over her and she was acutely aware of him, aware of
his body heat and the sound of his breathing.  

Dana Scully hadn't ever been a shy child.  As a teenager she 
had gone through the inevitable awkward stage, but she had 
always been  reasonably sure of herself.  During her adult 
years, she had become used to the need, in her chosen line 
of work, to be forceful, to defy the expectations of the 
Old Boys' Club.  Though Mulder, in their early association, 
had been able to unbalance her occasionally with his wild 
theories and his challenging demeanor, she had not once felt 
shy of him.  In that moment, caught between the firmly shut 
door of her single hotel room and his palpable physical 
presence, she couldn't meet his gaze. Angel's words in the 
crypt played in a repeating loop inside her head, his voice 
stroking the words, imparting a soft, secret depth to them 
in his tone.  "He looks at you the way I look at Buffy.  And 
trust me, Agent Scully, after two hundred and forty
four years, I know true love when I see it."

Mulder watched her, befuddled, completely at a loss to understand
his partner's sudden awkwardness.  He felt, for a brief instant,
just as he did taking Sally McCardle home after their first and only
date, wondering desperately if he should kiss her, wanting to,
but not daring.  Somehow he doubted Scully would slap him, the way
Sally had had a reputation of doing to suitors who got too fresh.
This was worse.  He felt convinced if he so much as said the
wrong words, she would open the door that, at the moment being closed,
kept her so close to him and would flee into the sanctuary of
her solitary room, leaving him to the solemnity of his.

Scully moved after long, uncomfortable moments passed them by.  She
slid the key into the lock and turned it.  The latch clicked and
she opened the door, backing her way into the dark room.  As she 
faded into the blackness within, she looked up at Mulder and he
saw in her eyes the thing he thought he saw from time to time, but
of which he felt he could never be certain.  Desire, fierce and
protective, glowed in the light of her eyes and the curve of
her lips.

She touched his hand in parting and whispered a good night that
almost seemed an invitation rather than a farewell.  Immobilized
by surprise and the fear that bound him, he stood still, watching
her hand creep up the side of the door, slowly, as if she
waited for him to move.  Mentally berating himself for his
accustomed lack of follow-through, he stared as the door closed
softly, denying him his chance to chase his heart's desire.

He stood where he was, thinking again of his young companion of
this evening.  Nineteen years old.  Certain of what she wanted
in life; certain she would get it.  Certain the way nineteen year-
olds are.  Yet assured with a certainty beyond her years.  Steady
and calm with a wisdom born of so much adversity, but also of
a great deal of fortune.  Buffy Summers, alone, unique in her
calling as Mulder had made himself alone, unique, had made a choice
Fox Mulder had not.  She had chosen the warmth and support of
a loyal group of friends.  Friends kept, not on the fringes of
her life, but fully a part of all she did, all she was.  She had
loved Angel, had seen him become a monster, had brought him back
and killed him all at once, had been given a second chance with him,
and had let him go, in the end.  Though he had heard in her voice
the ever  freshness of those wounds, she had feared neither loving him,
not letting him go because she had not made him her only
ally.  He amended his words in his mind.  She had feared those
things, assuredly.  She had not let her fear master her.

With a sigh, he moved the few feet to his door and let himself in.
Exhaustion hit him like a Mack truck and he fell onto his bed,
bothering only to kick off his shoes before sleep found him.



In her room, Scully leaned against her door, wishing it open again,
wishing she could bring herself to look into Mulder's eyes, 
wondering if she would see what Angel saw.  His words had stunned
her only in the idea that someone else saw what floated
unspoken between herself and her partner.

She moved away only when she heard the sound of Mulder's door
opening and closing.  She listened for the sound of the TV
coming through the thin walls, but heard nothing.  It
was possible, for once, that Mulder had gone straight to
bed, too tired for even the insomnia to hold on to him.

Despite her own exhaustion, she knew sleep was still far from
her.  With her usual precision, she changed, hanging her black
slacks on a hanger, examining the hemline critically for
dust or grass stains left from their heedless flight from the
werewolf.  She sighed.  The hems were both dusty and still damp and
would probably look even muddier in the morning.  If this case went
on much longer she was going to have to find a good dry cleaner.

She slipped into her pajamas, washed her face, brushed her teeth, and
laid between the cool sheets on the too-soft mattress.  The pillow
was surprisingly plump for a place such as this.  She sighed,
feeling the small luxury it afforded her.  In the dark, she stared 
at the ceiling until her eyes adjusted and it became a thing of
odd plaster swirls and not a part of the fathomless ether of space.

She rolled over, wanting the pillow onto which she tossed her arm
to be Mulder's chest instead, giving in as she never used to do to 
the fantasy of him in her bed, holding her.  The ache inside of
her, the one produced by the many things she had witnessed, by the
people she had lost, by the future she would never hold, but
produced mostly by too many years spent sleeping alone and waking
up to the spectre of solitude, that ache turned itself over, making
her catch her breath.  Angel's words, their long conversation in the
crypt, invited the loneliness in to her heart, a place to which
it was so long used to coming it rarely knocked anymore, giving
no warning, only taking up its familiar position just outside
the periphery of her senses.

She wasn't sure if Angel was lonely because of his vampiric
condition or if somehow the loneliness hadn't led him to that
condition.  She knew only that in her life, loneliness was sucking
her dry, bleeding the soul out of her one precious drop at a time,
weakening her imperceptibly with each gentle, seductive pull
at the wound it had made in her spirit.  She knew she was perilously
close to the end, the point where she stopped even fighting and
gave in, believed the words she told her mother, her brother, the
few friends she had sort-of retained.  I'm happy in my life,
she always told them.  Soon, it would be true, but only because
the thing she had once prized as life would be gone, replaced
by a mechanical existence spent chasing Mulder while he chased
his aliens and the ghost of his sister, spent wanting to make
any sort of life with him but never having the strength to force
that final shift in the evolution that had brought them this far.

END PART 23

Vesparys (24/32)


SUNNYREST MOTOR LODGE
AGENT DANA SCULLY'S ROOM
SUNNYDALE, CALIFORNIA
EARLY MORNING, MARCH 24

Scully sighed and turned over again.  The walls in this place were
so thin she was deeply grateful there was no one in the room to the 
left side of her.  From Mulder's room, to the right,  she had heard
nothing.  She let that worry her slightly.  Worrying about
Mulder's physical condition was easier than thinking of the
numerous 'life lessons' Angel had imparted to her a few hours
before.  In the dark she smiled, the irony of her tossing
and turning was not lost on her.  She could imagine quite easily
what Angel would say to her right at that moment.

"You're not immortal, are you, Agent Scully?"  he might say with a
devious twinkle in his eyes.

She would shake her head.

"Then what are you waiting for?"

"The right time,"  she would reply, with the confidence of a resident
of Stepford, one who knows her lines perfectly.

He would snort mildly at her.

"I don't know what to say to him,"  she might tell Angel, pleading
with him to release her from the one task that frightened the hell
out of her with surprising ferocity.

He would stare at her, his expression unchanged, his eyes cool and
appraising.    

His eyes amazed her most of all, she reflected as she laid in her
bed.  She had seen the expression in them change only twice.
The times he had transformed, had shown the face of the demon that
resided within him, his eyes had glowed a dull, cruel yellow.
And when he had looked at Buffy.  A spark he kept well hidden
leapt from his face whenever his gaze found her.  His eyes 
softened, deepened, became vulnerable as they focused on the one
person, she had learned, he had ever truly allowed himself to need.

"True love, Angel?"  she had asked skeptically after he made his
romantic statement to her.  "Really?"

"You don't believe in true love, Scully?"  he had challenged her.

She had gazed at him, a slight smile resting on her lips.  After
what seemed like a long time, she had looked out into the crypt,
examining its stone walls, shivering slightly in thinking over
the purpose of this place.  She knew her voice had been soft,
lacking  its usual confidence, when she had spoken at last.
"Agent Mulder has a poster on the wall, in his office.  It
says, "I want to believe"."

"In what?"  Angel had asked.

She had shaken her head slowly.  "I'm not sure anymore.  The poster
has a picture of a UFO on it.  I think - " she had paused for quite
a while, trying to shepherd her jumbled thoughts into an orderly
procession.  "I used to think he had it because of his sister,
because he wanted to believe in aliens who had taken her away.  *If*
he believed, *if* they existed, then he could get her back, I
suppose."

"You don't think that now?"

She had shrugged.  "Agent Mulder has had much of what he once held
true proven to be false, or at the very least, highly doubtful."
She had paused again.  "I've lost a great deal myself.  Maybe we've
both reached a point where we just want to believe in something,
anything, just to have a pretty picture to cling to, even if it
isn't real."  She had looked back at him then.

Angel's eyes had narrowed.  He had smiled slightly at her and she had
noticed for the first time that his smile was quite crooked.
"You think true love is just some pretty picture to comfort
yourself with when everything else is gone?"

"I - in a way, yes,"  she had admitted.

"It isn't just that,"  he had told her flatly.  "Not unless that's
all you let it be."

"But you and Buffy ... you're not together.  I mean- " she had
stopped, aware Angel probably didn't know about the other young
man Buffy had been with when Scully and Mulder had first
encountered her.

He had shaken his head.  "No," he had admitted, his voice tight.
"We're not.  But it's not because we don't love each other,
Scully.  True love doesn't necessarily mean you can be with
the person."

She had smiled, a hint of triumph in the expression.  "In all the
fairy tales-"

He had interrupted her, his voice bitter and raw.  "In all the 
*original* versions of the  fairy tales, Agent, the lovers have
a tendency toward dying."  He had stopped, looked at her with
fire glowing in the depths of his dark, enchanting eyes.  
"You aren't the kind of woman who's ever believed in 'happily
ever after', anyway."

"Did you - believe in 'happily ever after'?  Before, I mean."

"Before I become a vampire?"

She had nodded.

He had shrugged, raising his eyebrows at her slightly.  "I didn't
believe in much of anything, except drinking, gaming, and 
wenching-"

"Wenching?"  she had interrupted with an astonished giggle.

He had smiled at her.  "Wenching.  It was what we called it."

Trying to stifle her giggles, she had said,  "I know that.
It's just ... I've never heard anyone actually *use* the term,
outside of a historical novel that is."

His smile had been gentle.

"Right,"  she had agreed, hiding her smile behind her hand,
understanding his unspoken point.  "So, you um...believed in
wenching?"

"Among other things,"  he had concurred, his smile matching the
one she had not been able to erase.

"But not true love?"

He had given her that small shake of his head again.  It was a slow,
subtle gesture that he seemed to imbue with a certain gravity
and depth.  

"Not until you met Buffy?"

"Not until Buffy let herself fall in love with me,"  he had amended.
"Someone so strong, so ...  independent, yet at the same time, so
loyal, stunned me.  I'd never known anyone like her, not in two
hundred and forty years.  That this girl, who fights her destiny
tooth and nail, who has learned to give into it only on her own
terms, that she found anything in me to love...  For the first time
in my existence, mortal or immortal, I felt like the sort of man
who could be loved the way the hero in the stories always is."

"Do you ever find it almost too much to deal with?"

He had snorted bitterly.  "Why do you think I left, Scully?

She had nodded.  

He had gazed at her, evaluating her it seemed.  "You've thought
about walking away?"

"I was assigned to the X File cases originally to prove all of
Mulder's theories wrong.  We should have been adversaries, but -
we've ended up ... anything but.  Still, my life was never
supposed to be this way; this was Mulder's choice, Mulder's
pursuit.  But-" she was quiet for a few moments.  "Mulder ... 
sometimes with him it's like he's lost so much that I feel like 
I'm all he has left.  As if all the good things in his life 
depend on me."

Angel had been silent, waiting for the words inside her to
tumble out, to whisper along the gray stone of the crypt.  He
had sat with the infinite patience of an immortal, appearing to
know her secrets would spill out until she had said what was in
her heart.  She had known her confidences would be just that.

She had taken a deep breath, then spoken much as Angel had, baldly,
without preamble.  "I almost died a few years ago.  Cancer."
She had looked at Angel, who had simply nodded at her.  She had
found herself relaxing into the telling of her life, the
litany of the chaos that consumed everything she had once
wanted.  "The cancer was not ... a chance of nature or genetics.
It was given to me by a group of men who wanted to use me
to destroy Mulder."

"Given to you?"  Angel had asked.

She had sighed and smiled tiredly.  "Sometimes my life story feels
like an epic novel, with so many players and chapters and 
conflicting, contradictory plotlines.  It's hard to know where to
start,"  she had given a light snort.  "... or end."  She had
stopped, looked down at her fingers.  

Angel's gaze had followed hers.  When she had looked back up at
him his expression was unfathomable to her.  He had seemed very
far away.  His eyes had met hers and he had tilted his head
slightly, indicating she should continue.

"I was abducted.  I've never learned exactly what happened to me
during the time I was gone, but after a few years I found a chip
in my neck.  Here,"  she had told him, bending her head to show him
the tiny scar.  

The level of trust she had displayed had not been lost on Angel.
Her hair had cascaded over her face, obscuring any vision she
might have had, leaving herself vulnerable to a demonic
predator.  His fingers, cold, lifeless, yet surprisingly
reassuring had traced the small line.

"You had it removed,"  he had observed.

"And that's what gave me my cancer."

He had teased her then,  "Gotta love that scientific technology."

She had smiled, a small, tight look tinged with bitterness.

"So you *almost* died?"

"Mulder ... um ... he found out the chip was the only cure.  He'd
been led to a second one which I had reimplanted."

"He saved you,"  Angel had said softly.

She had nodded.  "But he blames himself, thinking if it weren't for
him-"

"No abduction, no chip, no cancer..."  Angel had finished for her.

"Among other things."

Angel had raised his eyebrows.  "Other things?"

"I told you it was an epic,"  she had reminded him.

"You did,"  he had agreed.  "Sounds like you and Agent Mulder 
would fit right in here in Sunnydale."

She had rolled her eyes good-naturedly.  "Please, whatever you do,
*don't* suggest that to Mulder."

Angel had laughed with her at that request.  "Those other things?"
he had asked gently, with genuine interest in her strange life
story.

She had reminded herself to someone such as him her life must not
seem all that odd, after all.  "I've been shot, kidnapped, 
exposed to a virus of unknown origin, hunted invisible predators
called Mothmen, investigated urban legends, found evidence of
the weirdest life forms you - never mind, you might be able to
imagine some of these things."  She sighed, lifting up a hand
to tick off the items she'd mentioned on one lovely hand.
"We've been attacked by microscopic, lethal insects, investigated
a haunted house, on Christmas Eve, of course, seen a huge 
bug-man-creature that no one else could see - the list really
goes on."

"The travel opportunities have been good.  At least it looked that
way in your files,"  he had added with an uncharacteristic
twinkle in his brown eyes.

She had snorted again.  "I've been to the Arctic, twice,
Antarctica, Africa, Scandinavia, where we almost died of old age no
less, not to mention most major cities in the United States
and a lot more small towns than I knew existed.  Indian
Reservations, restricted military bases, and the local baseball
diamond haven't been out of the question either.  Between Mulder
and myself we've seen far beyond our fair share of Emergency
Rooms - and none of them have doctors who look like the ones on
T.V., not that I get to watch much of that, myself.  We've both
probably lost a couple of gallons of blood - oh, sorry!"

He had shrugged and looked at her questioningly.

"It's just - I mean..."

"Scully, I'm two hundred and forty-four, remember?  People can
say the "b" word around me."

She had smiled for an instant, then her expression dimmed.
"In addition to the bizarre things we've seen and investigated,
we've spent years tracking a group of me, possibly the ones
who took me, Mulder's sister, others.  We've come close
enough to make these men very uncomfortable at times.  So much
so that my sister was murdered a little over four years ago.  The
assassins mistook her for me."

"You blame yourself?"

"Wouldn't you?"  she had asked, not understanding the stricken
look he tried to hide from her.

His only response had been a terse nod.

"That was, I guess, when it stopped being a job so much and
became a mission, became the same quest Mulder is on."

"Quests are never quite as noble as they sound in books, are 
they?"

She had shaken her head slowly.  "They're painful, dirty,
violent, lonely things.  I sometimes wonder if the resolution,
*any* resolution, can give back even a fraction of what
has been lost to us forever."

He had stared down at the stones and Scully had felt suddenly
colder, as if the shadows liquefied and crept into her flesh
and bones.

"There are times ... the memories of what we've lost *are* the
resolutions we've searched for."

She had stood up then, stretched her legs, and walked around the
crypt.  The plaque against the far wall proved to be that of a
child, a little girl who had died when she was about four.
Angel had come to stand behind her.  Softly, she had said,
"How do you suppose - would a vampire...?"

He had shrugged, not wanting to tell her the vampiric view on
children, but an ugly image of a young mother he had once
tormented with the word "dessert" in connection to her son
had assailed him.

"Besides the cancer, the men who abducted me stole my ova.
They did it to hundreds, thousands, maybe more, women."

Angel had been silent, letting her speak at her own pace again.

"Two years ago I learned I had a child.  An experiment designed
by unholy men, brought to life in a manner no God ever intended.
She died shortly after I found her.  Until that period in my
life I thought the only thing I had left to lose was my
very life.  Where's the resolution in that, Angel?"  she had
asked bitterly.

He had thought, gazing down at her hair, which gleamed even in the
dim light of the tomb that was their momentary haven.  She had
reminded him fiercely of Buffy, kicking against the forces which
conspired to ensnare their lives, longing for a normal life, yet
understanding in some measure that a normal life would never be
theirs, that for everything the world could ever offer, they
both cared too much about others ever to stop being who destiny
made them.

His voice had been nearly a whisper as it cascaded over her, making 
her shiver again.  "If you could change it, go back so that it
never happened, you never found your daughter, would you?"

Without hesitation she had replied exactly as he had expected.
Her answer was an emphatic 'no'.

"Why?"

Scully had turned to him, her face pale and grave, not wanting,
on this night of werewolves, vampires, and abandoned crypts, to
add the knife edge of anguish.

He had repeated his question.

AT last she had answered.  "Because she was mine.  Even if I
couldn't raise her, I loved her.  In the end, I loved her
enough to let her go."

"Sometimes that's the resolution - loving enough to let go."

"You've let Buffy go?"  she had demanded, disbelieving.

He had shaken his head.  "I've let Buffy think I've let go.
I've let Buffy move on, but I never will.  It took all of
my first two hundred and forty years to believe in that elusive
reality called 'true love', Scully.  I can't stop now because
we can't be together.  I will always love her with everything I
am because she made me everything I never dreamed I could be.
*That's* my resolution."

END PART 24

Vesparys (25/?)


"You've let Buffy go?"  she had demanded, disbelieving.

He had shaken his head.  "I've let Buffy think I've let go.
I've let Buffy move on, but I never will.  It took all of
my first two hundred and forty years to believe in that elusive
reality called 'true love', Scully.  I can't stop now because
we can't be together.  I will always love her with everything I
am because she made me everything I never dreamed I could be.
*That's* my resolution."

Scully had stared up at him, her eyes hard, unflinching as she 
had searched his face for some sign of emotion.  She had found 
it in the set of his jaw, so tight that the muscles in his cheek
quivered slightly.  His dark eyes had seemed to have turned to 
stone in the stoic sculpture of his face.  Barely trusting her
own voice not to crack, to betray the pain he had somehow made
her face, she had spoken softly.  "In that much pain, how can
there be any resolution, Angel?"

She had been utterly unaware of the tear trickling down her face
until he had brushed it away with his thumb.  She might never know
exactly how uncharacteristic a gesture that had been for him,
but it spoke to the depth of empathy he felt for this woman.  Angel
was a creature who rarely touched, rarely held others.  For a century
and a score or two of years, his touch had meant death, of one kind or
another, to those he had touched.  For another century he had been
unable to bring himself to touch anyone, filled with overwhelming
guilt and shame about his demonic actions; the few people he had
tried to help, he felt he had harmed beyond reparation.  Then
Buffy had come into his life and his world, still a realm of
darkness, had lightened.  The sunshine of her smile, the warmth
of her open-hearted eyes, the humanity of her voice, her laughter,
even her pain, had been, to him, the siren song of the living.  When
he was with her, the bright lamp of day, so long forfeit to him, 
had seemed closer.  She had carried with her some of the sting of
the real sun, but also the gentle soothing of the twilight moments,
before the dark sky claimed him for its own.  Touching her had
been, for Angel, like holding the sun; kissing her like drinking
in its rays.  Like Icarus, he had flown perilously close to the
sun and had been catapulted back to the place from which he had
traveled so arduously.  Being already dead, his fall had not
taken his life, but it *had* taken much of what Buffy had given
him, left him trembling within for fear of another tumble.  Now,
he rarely touched anyone of his own accord, having physical
contact with a human only when the mortal initiated it.  

Yet, he had felt a pull at his all-too-human soul to wipe away
the grief that slid from the pretty agent's eyes.  "Are you
satisfied with your choices, Scully?"

She had gazed at him blankly.

"Do you believe you made the only choices you, yourself, could 
have made?"  he had rephrased, trying to clarify for her.

She had sighed and examined again the plaque pressed into the stone.
She had nodded silently.

He had waited, wondering if she could give voice to the lie her nod
had sanctioned.  

"Except?"  he had asked, in the face of her continued silence.

She had set her mouth in a thin line.   To anyone other than 
an immortal, it might have  seemed an eternity passed before 
she had replied.  "What do you see when *I* look at Agent Mulder?"

"The same thing I see when he looks at you - a love nothing
could ever break."

"What else?"  she had demanded softly.

"Fear.  You're both paralyzed by it."  His honesty had been 
tempered by concern.

She had nodded.

"We can't be together,"  she had stated.  "Not in the way
most people would be."

"Why not?"

She had traced the little girl's name and dates on the plaque.
"Those men, the ones I told you about, they would use any
relationship we might form against us."

Angel had considered this for a few moments, watching as her
fingers had continued to run idly over the stark facts of
that unknown, long-dead little girl's life.  "Why did they
abduct you?  Why not Agent  Mulder?"

She had made no reply.

"How did he get that second chip?  What was the price for that?"

She had remained silent.

"How did you end up in Antarctica?"

She had turned again and looked back up at him.

"What more could they use against you, Scully?  Do you think anyone
who sees the two of you together doesn't know?"

"We - it's better..."

He had cut her off, harshly.  "You two make excuses.  They couldn't 
hurt either of you any more than they already have, except to 
kill you.  And given all they've put you through, it seems they'd
rather have you alive."  He had held her gaze in his own steady,
unflinching, demanding one.  "It's easier for both of you to
stand still, to tell yourselves you're apart because of these
men, than to admit you're terrified.  You've learned nothing,
despite everything you've been through together."

"That's not true," she had protested.  

"What?  Your mind is more open now?  He isn't quite so insistent
about some of his bizarre theories, at least not around anyone
but you?  You haven't learned anything in the place where it counts
the most:  in your hearts.  You've both accepted you can't ever
be together because the fear mastered you a long time ago.

"What happens when you find his sister, or what happened to her?
When you find the men who took you, who killed your sister?
What excuses will you devise then?"  Angel had snorted in disgust.  
"You've walked through fire and both prided yourselves on not being 
burned alive."

"Shouldn't we be?" she had exploded at him.  

"Not if you haven't even been warmed by it,"  he had warned her.

"You have no idea what our lives are like,"  she had protested.

"Oh, yes, I do,"  he had told her steadily.  "I've lived your
lives, telling myself I needed nothing, wanted no one in my
existence.  I'd convinced myself I was fine all on my own,
that by staying apart from the world, I protected it.  I hid
from the world until the world itself seemed to find me.  It
wasn't easy - nothing in this life is - and Buffy and I ...
we nearly ruined everything and everyone around us.

"You asked how I can find resolution so much pain?  I know what
might have been, Scully!  It tears me into pieces every time
I think of all we lost, Buffy and I, but at least I *know*.
As long as you and Mulder stand, rooted where you are, all you'll
ever have is maybe."

She had remained angry with him, angry because he could read her
pretty well.  "How can you stand there and say these things to me
when you and Buffy are obviously afraid to be together?"

He had taken her hand and led her back to the steps.  "Let me
tell you a story,"  he had said.  She had sat down, her anger
fading slowly.  She had angled her body so that she could face
him and her back had rested against the edge of the stone
slab barricading the crypt.  He had sat, still, staring down
into clasped hands.  Scully had marveled silently at how utterly
unmoving he could seem.  She had to remind herself he had the
infinite patience of one who has seen centuries pass, marking not
a single moment of those years with the beat of a heart or the 
flutter of a breath.

He had continued to stare down at his clasped fingers.  Still
silent, he had reached into the pocket of his duster and pulled
out something small and silvery.  He kept it locked in one
fist as he had begun his story.

"The first time I saw Buffy, Agent Scully, she was fifteen, maybe
sixteen.  She was with her friends, laughing, smiling, gossiping.
All things any normal teenage girl would do.  She was a cheerleader,
one of the most popular girls at her school.  She thought
the biggest tragedy in her life was her father's refusal not to
buy her a new dress for a dance.  I saw her being called, saw her
meet her first Watcher -"

"Giles wasn't her first Watcher?"

"No, he - the other one was killed."  Angel had continued, "I sat in
the shadows and watched and listened as her whole life changed that day.
She didn't want to be the Slayer; no girl in her right mind would.
It's horrifying and lonely and usually disgustingly brief.  Like
a death sentence handed down with no hope of clemency, only the
likelihood of solitary confinement until the moment they kill
you.  Buffy is the first Slayer to have friends, as she does, to
have help.

"I watched him approach her, watched her reject what he said.
All she wanted was to go on being a normal girl, to live the life
she planned, not the life some far-off Powers had in store for
her.

"I watched her stake her first vampire.  She missed the heart the first
time."  He had grinned.  "Even then, without training, she had the
Slayer agility, reflexes, and strength though.  Her second attempt
found his heart and he turned to dust in front of her.  She wore
this *ridiculous* jacket - quilted, orange!  Buffy's always been
in style."  He smiled at the memories of some of her slaying attire.

"I followed her home.  She was late and her mother yelled at her.
I heard Buffy tell her mother her first lie as a Slayer.  I
saw her mother accept it because it was easier to accept it than
to ask any further questions.  After her mother had left her
room, Buffy went to her dressing table and looked in the mirror.
Looking for some change, some outward sign.  While she stared
in that mirror, her parents started arguing - about Buffy."

"Parents argue, Angel."

"Because they love their children.  I gave my own parents plenty
to argue over, but my mother ... she always defended me.  I knew
no matter what I did, my mother would take my part in it.
This was bitter, acrimonious, filled with recrimination.  They both
wanted Buffy, even then, to be different from who she was, but
neither wanted to take any responsibility for their role in who she
was.  For Buffy, trouble had started before she even became the
Slayer - boys, poor grades, the things parents don't want to 
happen.  There was no love in that argument, just frustration
and concern over how it all might appear to their friends."  He
had paused.  "Buffy's parents love her.  I've run up against her
mother enough times to know it.  For a while though, I don't
think they knew exactly *how* to do that."

"Buffy couldn't tell them?  About being the Slayer."

"A Slayer isn't supposed to tell anyone.  I think one reason 
the Council fired Giles was so many people knew Buffy's identity."

"Do her parents know now?"

"She finally told her mother; she had to.  It was good it came down
to that - it's done a lot for their relationship."  He had paused again.
"But that first night, she was lonely.  I watched her cry, the first
tears she ever shed as a Slayer.  Everything had changed for her
in a split second and no one noticed."

"You fell in love with her?"  Scully had asked softly.

Angel had looked up at her, for the first time since starting
his own story.  Scully had inhaled sharply.  His eyes had been
unveiled, completely open windows into the way this being
felt.  She had wondered if Buffy, for all her obvious maturity
was truly capable of comprehending the real meaning of his
love.  Scully had wondered if any mortal ever could because what
she saw was even more than what Angel had said of her feelings
for Mulder.  This was beyond unbreakable.  As long as he walked
the earth, Buffy would live in his heart, would haunt him.  His 
memory would never fade.  For him there would never be an escape,
nor did he seem to want one.

"In that same split second,"  he had answered her somewhat rhetorical
question.   "Buffy was alone; she was scared; and
her personality - she seemed a very unlikely Slayer."  He had grinned.
"But underneath all the layers she'd built up to protect herself,
under the image of a shallow, California blonde, she was who she
has always been - a loyal, loving, caring girl.  As her world 
changed, so did mine.

"I'd lived a long, long time, Agent Scully.  A score or so years as
a boy in Ireland, nearly a century and a half as one of the most
feared vampires in Europe, and then almost a further century as
an abomination to both man and demon - the vampire with a soul.
It wasn't until  saw Buffy that I understood living at all.  I
wanted to protect her, to hold her and keep her safe from any
harm this world might throw at her.  Everything she is
has made me what I am."

"You've had something to do with who she is,"  Scully had observed
softly.

Angel had stared at her for a few moments.  "We've shaped each
other.  At times it hasn't been ..."  his voice had trailed off
as he couldn't find the words he had wanted.  He had taken up
the thread of his narrative instead.  "It was an uneasy relationship
from the start; unlikely, unhealthy in some ways, a lot of ways.
We both tried to keep our distance."

"That sounds familiar,"  Scully had said with a bitter chuckle.

"I thought it might,"  Angel had replied with a gentle twinkle in
his otherwise somber eyes.  "But I couldn't stay away from her.
I wanted to protect her, to  - love her from a safe distance.
I ... we found out that wasn't possible.  You know," he had
shifted, pausing with a sardonic half smile curving his lips,
"when I was mortal, we didn't really 'date'.  I can't say I think
much of the custom now days.  It's a pain in the ass."

Scully had laughed.  "Are you saying you two 'went steady'?"

That had earned her a smile and a glance from underneath his
dark lashes.  "'Steady' is not a word I would ever apply to
Buffy and myself.  We went in fits, you might say.  Until her
seventeenth birthday.  I gave her this."  He had held up
the object he'd removed from his pocket.  He'd stared at it,
seeing, Scully had been certain, neither her face nor the walls
of their shelter, but events that had transpired years ago.
"It's a claddaugh ring."

"I know,"  Scully had nodded.  "It's a lovely gift."

"We were, as always, fighting a big bad evil, this time in the
from of an ancient demon known as The Judge who, when at full
strength, could burn any creature with humanity in it with nothing
more than his gaze."

"Charming,"  she had said sarcastically.

Angel had nodded.  "The Judge had been defeated once, in the 
Middle Ages.  His body had been dismembered and the pieces buried
around the globe.  Spike -"

"Spike?"

"Pre-chip Spike, when he could fight humans."

She had nodded.

"Anyway, Spike was working on reassembling The Judge.  We found out
when one of the pieces came into our possession.  It was decided
I would take the piece, travel somewhere remote, and rebury it.
I never made it.  Buffy and I were attacked at the docks, the
box containing the arm was stolen, and Buffy and I were nearly
killed."

He had stopped, taking a deep, unnecessary breath.

"Our mission a failure and our lives at stake, we fled back to
where I lived then.  We were both scraped up a bit, not to 
mention wet due to the unexpected swim we took."

"One thing...?"

He had nodded.  "Led to another."

"And?"

"We told you about the Gypsy curse that restored my soul?  The
Gypsies had left out one key element on their curse.  One moment
of true happiness and the demon within me took control once
again."

"You lost your soul?"

He had nodded slowly, still looking at the ring he'd given Buffy.
"I became, once again, the remorseless killer I'd been.  I tortured
Buffy, playing the games I'd always loved.  I stalked her, stalked
her family, her friends.  I made vampires of people she knew and
sent them to her as 'greetings'.  Hallmark has never thought
of anything so elaborate or personal as the wishes I passed on
to her.  I killed a -"

He had stopped, his voice strained.

"Her name was Jenny Callendar.  She was a computer teacher and 
a friend.  Of mine, as well, before.  She and Giles - I knew
taking her would wound Buffy as deeply as anything I could do
because Giles loved this woman.  Buffy felt responsible for
what happened."

"Because of what happened?"

He had shaken his head.  "Not totally.  She'd had chances to kill
me before that.  She couldn't.    And because of her, Giles and
Jenny never had a chance."

"Buffy?"

"Jenny was a descendant of the Gypsies who cursed me.  She'd been
sent to watch me, to make sure I suffered.  When Buffy found
out her role in all of it, she refused to have anything else
to do with Jenny.  Giles did, too."

"Buffy was angry?"

"For a very long time, at a lot of people.  Mostly at herself.
Mostly for things she couldn't control."

Scully had swallowed hard, uncertain she really wanted to know.
Still, she asked,  "Did you um...?"

"Sire Jenny?"  Angel had shaken his head 'no'.  "I found her at
school one night, working on, of all things, a version of the
curse that would restore my soul.  The original had been lost
to her people, but she was so desperate to make things right
with Buffy, Giles, and the rest, to atone for having kept her
heritage a secret, that she was trying to undo what had
been done.  But I didn't want my soul back.  So, I found her, 
chased her, cornered her, and then I snapped her neck."

Scully had gasped.

"I left her in Giles' bed,"  he had concluded baldly.

Scully had blanched obviously, going as pale as Angel's
normal coloring.  Not until she felt the stone behind bite
into her back had she realized she had recoiled from him.
She had swallowed convulsively a few times, trying to find
her voice.  

Angel had resumed the litany of his demonic sins before she
could speak.  "After that, Buffy was ready to kill me.  She
had finally realized there was nothing left of Angel
within me, that the demon Angelus had full possession of the
heart she had loved."

"But ... now?"

He had looked down at the ring in his hand.  When he had returned
his gaze to hers, his eyes were shuttered once more.  His mouth
had been set and his jaw worked back and forth steadily.  He had
sighed, another unnecessary gesture on his part.  Scully
had known he was stalling, but, as he had given her patience
earlier, she gave him the time he needed.

At last he had told her.  "A demon, ancient and powerful, who
had been 'bound' centuries before was brought, in his
sarcophagus, to Sunnydale.  With the help of Drusilla - long 
story,"  he had said, quieting the question forming on her
lips.  "I stole Acathla and planned to raise him.  Raising him
would have ended this world; anything mortal would have been
sucked into the vortex of hell and demons would have walked
this earth as they did before the race of men arose."

He had looked away from her, looking at the windows instead.
"I tortured Giles to learn the secrets of raising the demon.
I nearly killed him before Buffy arrived to stop me.  While Buffy
was on her own mission, Willow, who had found Jenny's spell, was
working to restore my soul."

"She did?"

He had nodded.  "But not before Angelus could begin the raising.
To save the world, Buffy had to -"  His fist had clenched over
the claddaugh ring he held.  "Only the blood of a righteous man
could stop Acathla from sucking the world into hell.  Once my
soul was restored, Buffy had no choice."

Her voice trembling, Scully had finished what she saw Angel
could not.  "She killed you."

"Yes,"  he had said simply.

The had both been silent for a while.

"You're right,"  the agent had conceded.  "You two have every 
reason to be apart."

"We - unknowingly - did something that very nearly ended the
world.  Not because of some shadowy group of men who may 
wield some temporal power.  Not because anyone cared who we
were or how we felt.  Because we are who we are.  I am a
vampire, cursed with a soul, a fragile, perishable soul.
She is the Slayer, destined to kill vampires, not to love
them.  Everything we are should keep us apart, but, in truth,
nothing can but actual distance because we are who we are and
we can never change that."

"You know, Angel, I'm not a - romantic woman, not in the book
sense-"

"You don't tend to moon over men?"  he had asked, the twinkle, subdued,
back in his tired eyes.

She had shaken her head.  "But you *are* right.  There are times
when the only thing that keeps with where I am is the thought
of 'someday'."  She had reached across the distance between them
and touched his hand.  "You don't even have that.  How ...?  I
can't imagine."

He had smiled at her, the same exhaustion reflected in his eyes,
flowed over her from his lips.  "I have memories.  Perfect ...
wonderful ... generous memories."

Her face had creased.  "But - you ... it cost you your humanity!"

"No, not that time."  He had looked at her, feeling the still
light touch of her hand on his.  "Can you keep a secret, Agent
Scully?"

She had snorted at him, nodding slightly.

So Angel had told her about Buffy's visit to Los Angeles the
previous November.  She had listened with rapt attention as he
had explained about the fight with the Mohra demon, how his
wound, open, bloody, had admitted some of the demon's regenerative
blood, rendering him mortal again.  He had told her of his encounter
with the Oracles, of his release from what they had called 'fealty'
to the forces of Light.  She had watched his face light up as he
spoke of seeing, for the first time in centuries, his reflection,
of tasting actual food, of finding Buffy, going to her as she
stood in the sun and sweeping her into his arms, kissing her as
the light beat down on them.

He had continued with the story of the Mohra's own regeneration and
his discovery that he could not fight it, that as a mortal man
he had nearly died, could have cost Buffy her own life.

"You gave back your mortality, you chance for happiness with
Buffy?"

He had assented.  "The Oracles agreed to fold time, to give us
back the day.  To ensure that we would not make the same mistakes,
only I remembered the day."

Scully, for what seemed like the thousandth time that evening, had
felt stunned.  "She -"

"Has no memory of that day.  No one does.  Cordelia and Wesley know
about it, but that's all.  And now you."

She had nodded.  "I'm sorry,"  she had told him.

"The hardest part, the part that wakes me up from my dreams, was
the end.  When I told her what I'd chosen, I held her, felt
her tears soak into my clothing, listened to her protests and
sobs.  She promised she'd never forget and I knew she would never
want to.  I also know it would be impossible, but part of me
hoped, as she sobbed into my chest, telling me 'I'll never forget,
Angel.  I'll never forget.'  My name, on her lips like that,
will bleed me from the inside until the day my existence ends."

Scully had removed her hand then, slowly, gently brushing it
as she did.  He had smiled softly at her.

Finally she asked, hesitantly, "Was your name always Angel?"

He shook his head.  "Liam.  It was a family name.  It died with me."

"Didn't you have ...siblings?"

"A sister,"  he had said shortly.

"As I said, Agent Mulder lost his sister.  It's been 25 years and
he still doesn't really know what happened to her."

"I have no doubts about my sister's fate.  Agent Mulder is lucky."

She had looked at his face until the meaning of his words hit her.
She had flinched as though physically slapped.  His eyes were sad, but
calm, his gaze steady.  Only the slight lines at the corner of his
tightly closed lips had betrayed the depth of his emotion.

"It wasn't ...I mean, not you.." she had stumbled.

He had shaken his head.  His voice had been bitter.  "No, it wasn't 
me.  It was the demon I willingly became."

END PART 25

Vesparys (26/?)


COURTYARD - GILES' RESIDENCE
SUNNYDALE, CALIFORNIA
EARLY MORNING, MARCH 24

Angel's kiss left Buffy dizzy.  Were it not for the wall behind
her and the pressure of Angel's body against hers, she would
have crumpled to the ground that seemed to rock beneath her
feet.  She moaned in despair as his lips left hers, clutched at
his hair, trying to pull him back to her.  Her frantic efforts
ceased when she felt his mouth skim over her cheek.

He ran his fingers through her long, golden hair, following
his caresses with swift kisses.  With every muscle, he could
feel her trembling against him, her desire, her wild abandon
matching his own.  Letting her hair fall back, he cupped her
face in his hands, easily spanning the space from her cheekbones
to her chin.  With a gentleness almost unimaginable in their
mutual frenzied state, his thumbs glided over the fragile
bones of her face.  He could feel the blood racing through her.
It was so close, so tenable, so tempting.
Heat enveloped him, reminding him in a sweet anguish of the 
humanity he had twice sacrificed.

Their lips met again and locked.  Buffy could not remember
the last time she had felt the heat Angel made her feel.
Though her body responded to Riley Finn's touch, there was
no room for him in her heart of hearts.  The spark he could 
ignite in her burned, but did not consume her the way 
Angel's touch did.  Her heart and her soul ached for the 
impossible, for the miracle she could not quite prevent
herself from imagining, from believing to be true.

He felt her lips part slightly beneath his as he drew his tongue
along her mouth.  She giggled softly and he smiled against
her.  Her arms slid down, back around his neck as she tugged him
closer.  His tongue slid between her lips, scraping lightly
against her teeth.  She nipped playfully at him.  He winced
in surprise, then drove himself against her, her little game
fanning the out-of-control flames of want within him.  He tore
his mouth from hers, felt her head loll back as she gasped
for the breath he had denied her.  He bent his head, bringing his
lips to her neck.  

The kisses he peppered along her flesh were light, until they 
brushed against the slightly raised flesh that marked where she
had offered herself for his salvation.  He felt the instinctive
panic rise within her, the core of her being, that which demanded
self-preservation as she tried to push him away.  She seemed 
drained of all strength as he grabbed her hands and pinned them
with his own to the wall.  He knew the moment she gave in to him,
felt the fear overwhelmed by a languor, a desire-induced stupor.
She tilted her head, inviting him to do whatever he would.

She was lost, had given herself to Angel willingly, caring nothing
for some remote future, wanting only to spend an eternity, no matter
how brief, in his crushing embrace.  She felt his lips come to
rest against the scar she would always carry.  She moaned
as his tongue traced the pale flesh  and gasped as his teeth
glided over her skin, pricking her neck with a gentle but
unmistakable pressure.

She was back in the mansion, her high school graduation and the
time of the Mayor's Ascension only hours away.  In her mind, Faith
lay in the coma she had chosen rather than submit to Buffy's
design, Buffy's desire that Faith be forced to sacrifice herself
for Angel's life, the rogue Slayer having been the one who came
so close to ending it.  She felt again the solid contact of her
own fist with Angel's anguished face, her punches provoking the 
demon within him, reminding him of the selfishness that resides
within every soul, the impulse to continue no matter what the 
cost.  As his lips threatened to bruise the scar, as the fangs
his human form hid scored her flesh ever so lightly, she nearly
begged for a return to that moment, the instant his vampiric
fangs had sunk into her flesh, had drawn the blood from her.
The blood that sustained her had cured him, had been the sole
remedy, had left them both with a need they steadfastly ignored, but
that could not be quenched.

Her neck burned as the memories flared within her.  That 'good,
low-down tickle' Faith had been so fond of mentioning was a
screaming urge, long denied, never-to-be fulfilled, inescapable
in its ferocity.  Angel released her hands and she fought 
a desire to tangle her fingers in his hair, to drive his mouth
into her neck, to tell him with everything but words to lose 
his soul, take hers, make them two of a kind.  His fingers
trailed down her jacketed arms and she shuddered.  Her breathing was
ragged as her lungs struggled to get the oxygen she needed.
She moaned as his hands caressed her shoulders, slid under
the lapels of her leather jacket, the one he'd placed on
her years ago and never reclaimed.    He pulled her to him as
he tugged her out of the garment.  In helping him she wriggled
against him and the stars burst inside his head again.

He ran his hands restlessly up and down her bare arms as his lips
continued their less-than-gentle exploration of her neck.  He could
feel her heat as their bodies pressed together, feel her well-
shaped, toned muscles with his fingers, with his legs as they pinned
hers.  She was the only true equal he had ever had and had
he known the path of her inchoate thoughts, he might have granted
her wish in spite of the voice that cried out futilely for him to
stop.  In more than two centuries, he had never wanted anyone the
way he wanted Buffy.  The distance from her dulled that desire only
by keeping them apart; the moment he was near her it consumed him
as it always had.

Buffy's mind spun in crazy, side-to-side ellipses of near-thoughts.
From the dreams they'd shared under the power of the First, to
the culmination of those dreams less than  a year ago, back to
the night they'd first made love, still further back to the
first time he kissed her and showed  his hidden nature.
She felt again the pain of seeing him with Faith, when they'd tricked
her into revealing her real loyalties.  Her heart touched upon and
recoiled from the memories of cradling him with one arm while
running the sword through him that would send him to a horrifying
demon dimension with the other.  It seemed every kiss, every touch,
every word of anger, jealousy, or love they'd ever shared ran
through her mind.  She felt the Southern California sun, still strong
in November, shining down on them as he kissed her, felt again the
rough solidity of his kitchen table as they laid across it on the
day her every fantasy had been granted.  

Angel's tongue glided across her neck, tasted the tiny wound he
had made in his frenzy to possess as much of her as possible.  Her
blood, its unique taste, called to him.  The last shred of his
sanity, the tattered remnant of his tested soul was about to
snap.  The demon within him was bare seconds from silencing the
man forever when he heard the whisper of her voice.

She spoke, her voice husky, thick with desire.  "Angel?"
She felt him respond, felt him fight for the control she struggled
for herself.  His lips closed over his teeth and he kissed her
neck softly.  She repeated his name.  His head rested against her and
his body slumped slightly.  She found his hands and curled her own
into them, entwining their fingers in loving companionship as her
breathing slowed.

He pulled back from her, barely able to look at her.  When he did,
his features were his own again, his eyes stricken with remorse
and shame.  "Buffy,"  he said plaintively.  "God, Buffy, I'm
sorry."

She shook her head.  "It's not ... don't be."

He stared at her.  "I -"  He disengaged one hand and gently
touched her neck.  She did not flinch even though he knew
the tiny wound had to sting.  "I was about to..."  He couldn't
finish, couldn't admit how close he'd been to taking her in
the most destructive way possible.

"I wanted you to,"  she stated, no surprise, no anger in her voice.
She reached up and took his hand again, stroking his fingers lightly,
reassuringly.  "All I could think of was being able to be with you,
forever.  I didn't care about anything else."

He kissed her forehead, resting his mouth against her, inhaling
the scent of her, everything now sharpened into a spicy blend
of exertion, desire, fading fear, and the shrubbery their bodies
had crushed.  "What ... happened?"

She looked up at him, her mouth set.  "Walk me home?  There's 
something I need to ask you."

He nodded, stepping away from her, freeing him from the powerful
cage of his body.  He bent down to pick up her jacket as she
straightened her top.  He held the jacket for her as she shrugged
back into it.  

"It's still too big for me,"  she said softly.

"Yeah," he agreed, "but it still looks better on you than me."

She smiled up at him.  "You just tell me that so I'll keep wearing it."

He shrugged at her.  "Anything wrong with that?"

She shook her head.

They walked in silence for a while, Buffy pointing out turns every
so often.  Angel had seen her on-campus dorm once and without the
distraction of her by his side probably could have made the trip
from Giles' just fine.  Once they were on-campus, Buffy stopped
at one of the many benches littering the paths of the sprawling
UC Sunnydale campus.  She sat down and he joined her.  Not certain
she would be willing, he slipped a tentative arm around her.  She
laid her head on his shoulder.  He smiled in the dark.

"You know,"  he said, kissing the top of her head,  "you promised
me once you'd always be my girl."

"And a few weeks later you told me I shouldn't want a life with you,
that I needed someone who could take me into the light."

His face contorted at her implication.  "Buffy, I - "

"Angel, you know no matter what happens, I'll never love anyone
the way I love you.  Ever."

The smile he gave her was sad, reflecting the futility of the
fantasy they left unspoken between them.  She ran a hand lightly
along his cheek bone, letting him kiss her fingers lightly as
they reached his lips.

"I guess it's a good thing we're both moving on with our lives,
huh?"  he pushed her.

"Angel, what happened in L.A.?"

"I thought we explained.  Cordelia saw an article about a 
murder-suicide.  Wesley and I noticed-"

She interrupted him.  "That's not what I mean and you know it.
Angel, something happened in November."

He looked at her.  "You came to tell me off for coming to Sunnydale
and not letting you know.  The Mohra demon attacked us.  I killed him.
We both agreed we needed to continue keeping our distance.  You
left."

She shook her head.  "Angel, I'm remembering things that never
happened.  Between you and me.  That's what happened tonight.
Outside of Giles'.  I remembered something."

He hoped his face concealed his feelings, a mixture of concern
and joy that not even the folding of time could completely erase
from her heart the time they'd spent together.  He said carefully,
"Buffy, you and I both know how real some dreams can seem..."

"I'm not dreaming this,"  she insisted.  

"You must be," he said.

Both were so intent on the other that neither noticed the two
foolhardy vamps who had crept up behind them and were now
slinking around the sides of the bench.  Out of the corner of her
eye, Buffy saw the one on her side and quickly turned her head 
to see the one approaching Angel.  His reflexes matched hers and
they both alerted each other at the same time, calling the other's
name with urgency and concern.  Buffy whipped Mr. Pointy from
her jacket pocket while Angel extended his left arm.

"Not now!"  Buffy exclaimed as the vampires made their move to
attack.  "We're *trying* to have an important conversation."
Her thrust was quick and true and the vampire was dust before
he could fully understand what she'd even said.  At the same time,
Angel triggered the mechanism that shot the spring loaded
stake from his jacket sleeve at a lethal velocity into his
attacker's heart.

They both glanced down at the piles of dust at their feet.

"New bench?"  Angel asked.

"New bench,"  Buffy agreed.

They walked along the path, closer to Stevenson Dorm, before
finding another bench to sit on.  Angel looked down.  "Hmm...this
one really is new."

Buffy looked at the bench appraisingly.  "Oh, yeah, it is."

He raised an eyebrow at her in question.

"Bad day.  Roommate issues,"  she explained.

He pursed his lips slightly.  "So, you slew a bench?"

She shrugged.  "I wasn't myself.  She was stealing my soul."

"Willow?"  Angel asked, aghast.

Buffy laughed.  "No.  Kathy.  My roommate before Willow.  She was 
a demon.  Didn't want to go back to her dimension, needed my
soul to stay here ... you know, nothing all that unusual around
here."

"And?"

"Hmm?  Oh - her father came to get her.  You know, I should have
known.  She had the *biggest* Celine Dion fetish."  Buffy
shivered and Angel laughed at her.  Despite Giles' best
efforts to get Buffy to hone her Slayer instincts, to solve
problems using logic and intellect, Buffy still tended to
make her decisions based on fashion sense (or lack of), music
taste, and occasionally, personal hygiene.

She put her head on his shoulder again.  "They're not dreams,
Angel.  They're memories."

"Buffy-"

"I've never dreamt about you being in the daylight.  Except when
you...when I thought I'd killed you."  She paused.  "This - some
of it - is in daylight.  You came to me, walked into the sunlight,
kissed me."

He was silent.

"The rest is at ... I don't know exactly.  I guess your place,
where you live now.  How would I dream that?  I've never
been there.  I only saw your offices."

Angel remained silent, unable to speak.  His heart, which didn't
beat but nonetheless could ache, could fill with joy, could 
agonize over decisions, seemed to flutter within him, phantom
pulses from the day that floated along the edges of his love's
memory.

"Angel, *please*,"  she pleaded.  "Something happened.  It
had to be when I came down to L.A."

He looked at her, leaned down and kissed her, gently, but
with a deep longing.

"You're not going to tell me, are you?"  she asked when he pulled
away from her.

He shook his head.  

She stared at him angrily, knowing he was trying to protect her
from something.  Part of her feared what it was he hid, part of
her, the deepest part of her heart where she remembered every
moment of that lost day, longed to hear his explanation.
At last, she sighed.  "Just tell me I'm not going crazy?"

Softly, regret laced through his voice, he told her, "You're not
going crazy."

This time she kissed him, working them both up into a good heat,
controlled this time, burning pleasantly, but not with the same
wild abandon as before.  She broke away from him for a moment,
laying her hand against his still chest.  She felt the tension
heighten within him.  "When this is over?"

He nodded against her head.  "I'll tell you."

"Will I like it?"

Angel nuzzled her ear and spoke in a voice so low, so deep it
vibrated through every cell in her body,  "It's a great bed time 
story."

She sighed.

Oblivious to the world around them, they sat and kissed for neither
knew how long, their lips meeting in the sweet dance of a love
that cannot be undone, only ignored at best.  The kisses he 
laid along her neck were soft and tender this time, kisses she
returned with the same tenderness.  Hands met, clasped, parted, 
leaving fingers to trail across arms, through hair, along each
other's back.  As temptation rose between them, they pulled apart.
Angel put his arms around her and held her tightly while her head
rested comfortably on his shoulder, her hands lying on
his far shoulder.  They sat in silence for a few moments, giving
and taking, renewing the possession they took of each other's
souls.

Without warning, Buffy giggled.

Angel smiled at her.  "What?"

She shook her head.

"Come on,"  he begged.

She looked up at him and smiled.  He planted a kiss on her nose,
fighting the deja vu that swept over him.  She would never know
just how similar this was to the hours they had spent in his bed.

"I was just wishing,"  she said.

He waited.  She didn't continue.  "For?"  he prompted.

"Willow,"  she stated.

He gave her a deeply confused, slightly alarmed look.

An evil grin spread over her face.  She continued,  "And an Orb
of Thessala."

It took him just a few seconds to get her meaning.  Once he did,
he laughed with her, silently agreeing it wasn't an altogether
bad idea.

END PART 26