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Part Five:

Angelic waited quietly as the cops came for the second time to try and get more out of her then her name. She had told them who they could contact for her, but after that she had said nothing. She knew the cops wanted to help, but if the Faryls were still a live then asking them to help would be a death sentence. Plus there was too much she didn’t know about what was going on, and one thing she had learned in her time as a slayer was that when a mystery popped up. The best way to figure things out was to keep as few new people from popping in as possible.

The officer finally just gave up and left her. Just before the officer left the room a huffing and puffing man with glasses came running into her room. God her watcher wasn’t that much older then her, and he was still such a …

“Angelic of thank god you’re okay.”

The officer turned and looked at her. “Do you know this man, miss?” the officer asked.

“Yes, but sometimes I really wish I didn’t.”

“If I weren’t so glad you’re alive I would be really hurt at that lack respect," Geoffrey her watcher said with a sigh.

“Yeah right, and one of these wham, pow, straight to the moon.”

“Isn’t the man supposed to say that line?”

“There’s a man here?” Angelic asked mischieviously.

“Ha, Ha, Ha.”

---

Sam hadn’t really relaxed until she was back at the base with Riley. Too much field time had made keenly aware of letting your guard down before it was really safe. The fact that the Vampires knew her was troubling, but the brown haired man that saved her was worse. He had clearly been a vampire and a powerful fighter. So why had he save her? All the best information they had suggested both vampires with souls had died, although there were conflicting reports about Spike’s death. One saying he died in Sunnydale, the other said he died in L.A. with Angel.

Sam wasn’t sure what to believe, but she did believe Spike was dead. Yet, the vampire she saw tonight had the same confident, almost cocky stance as he fought those vamps. Definitely master vampire, she thought. He could be very dangerous if he chose to be. So do we have an ally or an enemy? Either way it was definitely something they need to know about this vampire.

“Sam, thank god you’re alright.”

“Yeah, well you know me all running off alone into danger without backup. Really know how to pick’em, huh?”

“What can I say I like strong women.” Riley said with a farmboy smile.

“And here I thought it was the blonde hair.”

Stoping the flirting for a second, Riley turned to business for a second. “Did you get the information about the Alcon demon from the source?”

“Yeah, free and clear on that.” Sam answered.

“So why the extraction call?”

“Five minutes after the trade I was jumped by six vampires, and then saved by another.”

“What?”

“Yeah, but I have a question for you, how sure are you that Spike is dead?” Riley's answer was a look of confusion.


---

Angelic felt the stiffness in her body after being in the hospital for three days, and having nothing to do. So what does she do the moment she is out of the hospital? Go and sit at her computer for six hours working on what she half remembered of the man’s face who rescued her. She focused on his cheekbones and hair, but most importantly those haunting blue eyes. Her watcher kept telling her to rest that this could wait, but something inside her wouldn’t let.

It was as if the slayer part of her would not let this go. She’d never felt anything like this before except maybe in the presence of Buffy Summers. The sense of power personified and almost larger then life was something a lot of new slayers had felt when meeting the elder slayer. She had this feeling that something powerful had directed her to meet this man, and that meant she need to make sure she remembered his face. Looking over the face one last time something came to her, something she wasn’t sure she could possibly have remembered.

“Geoffrey!”

Her watcher was at her side in seconds. “Yes, Angelic? Did you finish?”

“Yes. Now it’s your turn.”

“My turn?”

“Now you find out who that is? And then we find out why I met him?”

“So you don’t think this was just random chance?”

“No. This…This was something more then chance.”

---

Willow shook her head, and concentrated on fixing the computer network she had set up for the Watcher’s Council. A complex world wide hardened computer network able to cross-reference ancient texts all in less then two years without help. Willow couldn’t even remember the last time she’d seen the sun. Giles really wasn’t paying her enough for this, but it was such a challenge that she really couldn’t turn it down.

Willow found it almost laughable that with all the watchers being trained, and all the new slayers she was still being called upon to explain technology like computers, printers, and the fax machine. That fax machine was invented back in the 1860’s just how hard is it too figure out? Willow sighed. So much of her frustration was wound up with her rapidly deteriorating relationship with Kennedy. They had been going out for two years, and were actually becoming farther apart.

Considering Willows dating experience was only three people, both of whom had left her abet for different reasons. Willow was not sure how to proceed. She really wished she could talk to Buffy about this, but the fun loving, friendly Buffy was gone. She rarely talked to anyone about anything that wasn’t related to her job or slaying. Her relationship with the Immortal had ended the same day she had returned from L.A. She hadn’t called him, and he didn’t call her.

Just then Willow heard a piece of equipment started to squeak. Not something else wrong. Turning her head to find the source of the problem, Willow started laughing as she saw the fax machine spit out a piece of paper. I really need to go home. Home means Kennedy and another argument. I’ll crash in Giles office. Getting up Willow went over to collect the fax. The fax was a beautifully done CGI image. A man with light brown hair, almost razor sharp cheekbones, and…ohhhh my goddesss!

Willow ripped the fax off the machine and ran to here computer. She scanned the image in, and then a few minutes later after altering the hair color and adding a few more details printed off a picture. The picture of man she was sure she would never see again. Could we be wrong twice? Could he still be alive?

---

Buffy watched the Sun rise. The five day this week she had gone without sleep, the two hundredth and sixtieth in the last year. Andrew’s confession of Spike being alive had begun a never ending chant in her head. ‘He didn’t believe me.’ She knew it concerned those who knew about it, but they said nothing. Of course if they did she would not listen. Sleep brought dreams, dreams of him, but they were not just him. The dreams were of his death. The one she had seen, and what her mind told her his second one had to have been like. How long had he battled in the alley? How long was he standing alone as Angel’s friends died around him? Did he ever ask how much will be enough? How much must I die before I will be forgiven?

She almost wished she had the strength to drink herself into a hole, but she couldn’t. So forced herself to remember everything because she knew nothing would make it go away. She remembered his confidence, his power, and unrelenting desire to kill her. She remembered his love and devotion both to Drusilla and then her. She remembered her abuse of him once he got the chip. She had beaten him down to the ground and all he had wanted to do was love her. Then finally he couldn’t take it anymore and he lost it and he tried to rape her. So he had gotten a soul for her. Then as she battled ‘the First’, he had believed in her when no one else would or could.

But through all of that she had done no penance for breaking him. Her desperate ‘I love you’ had fallen on a man who no longer believed she would ever love him. She might trust him; believe in him, but all as a fighter not as a man she could love. So to prove he would never hurt her, he would have to fight. He couldn’t stop or he wouldn’t be worthy to be her friend. Pulled back after saving the world he’d joined Angel’s final crusade. Dying for a woman and a world that didn’t know he existed. Still fighting, but now without hope. She hoped Angel and Spike were in heaven. She hoped they had been forgiven. Cause if they couldn’t be, then what about her?

---

Dawn watched Buffy as she stared out from her window. Buffy had on Spike’s duster, as if she ever took it off, Dawn thought. Standing there watching the city from the balcony with that coat on, Dawn knew what the other scoobies simply couldn’t see. That Buffy was broken. Her single saving grace as she had moved on from Sunnydale had been the belief that Spike did believe her when she said ‘I love you’. That he had to have lied to save her. That the world was wasn’t worth saving if she wasn’t in it. Now that was gone. Buffy was back to where she had been after Willow yanked her out of heaven, but this time there was no Spike to make her feel.

Her talk with Andrew, and her furious dash to L.A. had been an eye opener to the scoobies. They hadn’t realized just how much Buffy had cared for Spike until then. Still, Dawn didn’t think they were willing to believe Buffy had loved Spike. However, she knew Xander was concerned, but not enough at least that is what Dawn thought. The others had never understood Buffy since she came back. They always expected her to bouncy back from whatever happened. She knew that only Xander and she had figured out that it was Spike’s duster she was wearing.

Xander who after loosing Anya could see the deeply buried pain in Buffy’s eyes and understand. Xander who for once. Xander who knew that Buffy would never tell them why that trip to L.A. had hurt so much because how can you tell people that a man who had lived and died for his love for you had chosen death rather then facing her because he didn’t believe that she would ever love him. That even her confession of love in Sunnydale had been believed only as a comfort to a dying man?

Angel’s death had broken Buffy, but not even Angel’s death had killed her spirit this much. Angel had gone to hell knowing she loved him. Spike had died twice believing she would never love him. Still Buffy did not cry, or show any outward sign of her pain. She would not talk even with Dawn. Dawn knew why. Right now her pain was her own. Her last bit of Spike, and she didn’t want to let it go. Let him go. To finally lose the man who had been so important to her. The man who had taken all her abuse, and pain without asking for a single apology. All he had asked was for the truth, and she had denied him even that when he had denied her nothing.

So Dawn cried for both of them. For both Buffy’s and her own stupidity, for their foolishness, and for denying something that should have been so easy to give.





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