Spoilers: Really covers all of the Buffy series and the basics of the Angel series. Specific episodes include: Buffy Two-Part Season Finale, Season 1 ep. ”Becoming” Parts 1 & 2, Buffy Series Finale, Season 7 ep. “Chosen”, and Angel, Season 1 ep. “To Shanshu in L.A.”
Dedicated: To Candice (lilacdream7) for your support, friendship, and undying devotion to your one true obsession….James! ^_^
A/N:This story was started before the last few episodes of Angel, Season 5 aired so the whole battle against Wolfram & Hart battle is ignored and wouldn’t occur for awhile longer – basically it takes place a little over one year after Illyria has lost her time-jumping powers in “Timebomb”.
She was cold, so cold she couldn’t feel much of her body. Instinctively she pulled her knees up to her chest, her arms wrapping around her legs tightly. Her fingers were like icy blades against her naked shins. In the far recesses of her mind she felt herself wondering where she was, an unconscious desire to open her eyes.
“No,” she whispered weakly to the cold, squeezing her eyes closed even harder. She would not open them; she did not want to know where she was.
“Buffy,” a voice danced through her hair, a breath cutting a warm path across her frigid cheeks.
“No!” she hissed again, this time a bit louder, her hands balled in tiny fists. “I don’t want to!”
“Buffy,” the voice called again and she felt something deep within her stir. The desire to obey, to reach out to the voice and its inviting warmth grew stronger. She squeezed her fists so tightly she was sure her nails were drawing blood from her palms.
“Please stop,” she breathed, her voice shaking with the promise of tears.
“Buffy,” the voice was closer now, gentle yet commanding. She could not resist it and slowly she felt her eyelids lifting, her lashes parting. But there was nothing there; she lay naked floating in a black abyss, the darkness so tangible she was convinced she could reach out and wrap it around her like a blanket. Was this death? She didn’t remember it happening it like this last time, but maybe you were only allowed to die once and go to heaven. She had been there the last time, maybe now she could never go back. The thought made her shiver harder.
“Where are you?” she called out, her mouth and throat feeling thick, thick with the icy blackness. She closed her eyes tightly again, swallowed hard, and then opened them again.
The shattered, bloodied subterranean room stood once again before her. It was almost completely collapsed now, the obelisk crumbled about her feet. Moving slowly forward she picked her way among the debris. “Spike? Angel? Faith?” she called out, her voice echoing back to her. What had happened?
As she pushed herself over the top of a large ceiling stone, she found herself staring down at the charred remains of the Avatar. The woman was no longer wearing her cloak, her body curled up onto its right side. Only half of the woman’s face remained unburned, a few singed gray hairs sticking out from the rest of her brittle-blackened body. Knarled fingers grasped at the remaining shards of Death’s jars, the flesh and muscle scorched away, leaving only charred bone. Her one undamaged eye stared upward, the peacefulness of death glazed over the once lively green orb. The smell of burnt flesh was overpowering and Buffy found herself dropping heavily to her knees.
She swallowed hard, wiping at her mouth and eyes with the back of her hands, the acrid biting stench stinging her eyes. Reaching out with shaking fingertips, Buffy closed the woman’s eye. “Who was she?” she whispered to the figure she felt standing behind her.
“Maria Lozano,” the voice she had heard in the darkness replied.
“Why did you bring me here?” Buffy sighed, pushing herself to her feet. Turning she stared into Whistler’s dark eyes.
“To apologize,” he replied.
“Let me guess, you feel guilty that you and the other ‘all-powerful’ beings didn’t see the real magnitude of this one. You saw apocalypse and figured for once you’d get off your damn cloud or horse or whatever and give us ‘mortals’ some help, a little scrap from your self-righteous table. But instead you underestimated this one or didn’t really see the full scope, so your hints and riddles in the dark did nothing more than give us a false sense of control, that we could handle this one no problem. Hell, you even practically promised Angel his humanity! But you were wrong, we all were, and people died.” Again her gaze fell upon the dead woman before her.
“I suppose I deserve that,” Whistler nodded, removing his hat and running his hand through his short black hair. “This one certainly falls on my shoulders.”
“I don’t blame you,” she replied quietly, “This wasn’t your call. This was mine.”
He frowned at her. “But, didn’t you just hear your own words? You were one hundred percent right the first time.”
Her eyes met his, hard and cruel. “Yeah I did but in the end I led them in. I made the calls and I live with the deaths; they rest on my soul, not yours. You’re above that, and we both know it. So stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
His head leaned slightly to the left, an eyebrow cocked up ever so slightly in an all too familiar gesture. She felt her breath catching her throat. Spike. Again she turned from his gaze, her eyes turning down to her hands, hands still red with dried blood. Tentatively she touched the large streak of blood that covered her shirt and jeans. “I should have been more cautious,” she stated, more to herself then to Whistler. “All of it, Willow’s screams, my blood, Spike, I saw it all in my vision, though I just never understood how it all fit.”
“Spike was unexpected,” Whistler sighed, replacing his hat on his head. “What I said before, about you having some power between you legs.” She shot him a dangerous look. “Well ok so the comment wasn’t appropriate but the sentiment behind it was. You have something in you, kid, something so good and pure that you could bring someone like Spike back from the edge. Call it what you will, but that is something none of us up there have ever seen before. I swear between that and you unleashing all those slayers upon the world, you are one wild card that I can never guess.”
“Thanks, I guess,” Buffy smiled slightly, her eyes flittering back to Maria’s form. “Why did she do it?”
“Why do any of you mortals do what you do? Life led her to this.”
“You’re saying she just decided that things were so bad the world needed to be destroyed? Come on Whistler, that’s a bit too much bullshit even from you.”
“Hey it is what it is,” Whistler shrugged. “How do you know what she went through?”
“I suppose,” Buffy frowned. “Enlighten me.”
“Let’s just put it this way, imagine the most horrible things that a human being could do to another, that a mother, that grandmother could see and endure being done to her children, to herself,” Whistler held her gaze, his eyes hard and grim. She swallowed hard, cold fingers of fear moving up the back of her body. “Now multiply that by a hundred!” Buffy could feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end and she swallowed hard a few times. “As I said, life happened to Maria and it happened to her badly.”
Something glittered in the black ash at her feet. Reaching down Buffy lifted the object in her open palm. Standing back up, she found herself holding a small golden cross, its face pock-marked from the intense heat that had burned Maria’s body.
“Even faith can be turned to evil with enough suffering” Whistler’s voice answered Buffy’s unspoken thoughts.
“But you saw her,” Buffy frowned, still staring down at the cross, “she was someone’s grandmother, not some sorcerer. Whistler, I felt her power. It was borrowed. Someone had to have tipped her off to all of this.” She looked up at him again, her eyes filled with an urgency.
He reached out and took the cross from her. It was a simple crucifix. He turned it over in his hand with is thumb and forefinger. “Perhaps,” he replied softly. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Thank you,” she replied. She glanced back down at Maria but suddenly the woman’s form seemed oddly distant from her. Looking back up she was startled to find Whistler gone and the room around her growing darker and darker. “Whistler!” she screamed as she felt the icy blackness enveloping her again.
Her eyes snapped open as her mouth gaped wide in a silent scream, her voice escaping in a raspy whispered wail. The world swam before her eyes, violently harsh and sharp; fuzzy dark shapes drowning in a painfully bright white sea. She rolled her head to the side, slamming her eyes shut to the brilliant lights around her, but it was too late. She cried out again as her retinas burned away, sharp stabbing pains shooting through her head. In desperation she tried to move her legs and arms to get away, everything inside of her screaming for her to flee, to make the pain stop, but her body refused to move. She was trapped, frozen in place while her body was torn apart from within. Again she screamed, her voice louder, shriller, as she thrashed her head from side to side. A loud high-pitched wail began to sound, sending shockwaves of pain through her ears. Tears of agony began to run down her face. Where was she? Was this hell?
Suddenly she felt something warm and hard pressing down on her arms, the same arms she couldn’t move. The sensation was painful, pins and needles crawling up and down the length of her skin. She tried to twist away but still she couldn’t make her limbs move, so again she screamed.
“Buffy! Buffy, it’s ok! Buffy!” a voice boomed loudly from above. At first the voice just added to the pain echoing through her head, but there was something in it, something familiar and gentle. Slowly she stopped thrashing, focusing on the sound of the voice.
Other voices bounced around her head, but the sharp sound of the wailing had stopped and the pain was lessening. Tentatively she tried to open her eyes. Again the harsh whiteness stabbed back at her, but as she blinked it began to fade. Her retinas weren’t burning after all, and with each blink the world grew less harsh, the fuzzy shapes taking on more form, until finally she found herself staring up at the white, sterile ceiling of a hospital room.
“Buffy, can you hear me?”
Again the voice, the soft familiar voice…of Giles. She turned her head and smiled up at his face all crinkled up with concern.
“Hey,” he whispered down at her gently, reaching out a stroking her hair with hand, his soft, warm hand.
“Gi-iles,” she croaked, blinking in surprise at how weak and dry her voice was.
“Shh, take your time,” he replied, lifting a cup of water to her lips and helping her drink from it. “Your body’s been through a lot. It’s going to needs some time to wake up.”
She lifted an eyebrow at him in confusion, but quickly focused her attention on the cooling liquid in her mouth. She gulped down four cupfuls before leaning her head back against her pillow. Her eyelids suddenly felt very heavy. She glanced sidelong at Giles. There was so much she wanted to ask but she felt her body over-ruling her will, her mind beginning to slip over the edge into sleep.
“Get some rest now,” Giles smiled down at her, as if reading her thoughts like the newspaper he had folded in his lap. And with the slightest of nods she gave into the black velvet of sleep.
She awoke again several hours later, the long golden rays of the setting sun stretching across the white blankets of her bed. For a few moments she just looked around, taking in her surroundings, letting her memory recall exactly where she was.
“Evening,” a warm voice pulled her attention to her right. Turning she found Giles sitting exactly where she had left him. He smiled warmly down at her, but she couldn’t help but notice the bags pulling at the skin just beneath his eyes. A newspaper sat folded neatly in his lap, his glasses hooked through the breast pocket of his suit jacket; always the impeccably dressed intellectual.
“Hi,” she breathed back.
“How are you feeling?” he leaned towards her, the skin of his face painted golden in the setting sun.
“Been better,” she replied softly, still unsure of her own voice. “I feel so weak and I can’t seem to move my body much.” She frowned as she tried to move her legs but to no avail. Fear began to bubble up inside of her and she turned quickly back to Giles, “What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing to worry about, really,” his face softened, his eyes clear and honest. “Your body’s been through quite a bit and it’s going to take some time for you to get control of your extremities back.” His face was genuine, too genuine, and she could tell there was something he was leaving out.
“Giles, what happened to me?”
He sighed then, removing his glasses from his pocket and rubbing at them with a handkerchief; his nervous habit. Bingo, she was on to something. After several seconds of compulsive rubbing he folded the handkerchief and the glasses back up, returning them to pocket and turned back towards her. “Buffy, you’ve been in a coma for three months now.”
She stared back at him in disbelief. Three months! “How?” the word escaped her mouth before her mind could wrap itself around how foolish it sounded.
“I’m not completely sure what happened to you down in the chamber at the end there. We were overwhelmed above and then next thing any of us knew the ground was caving in beneath us. I tried to get down to you but the passage way had caved in. I stood outside with the others and watched the building disappear into a giant sinkhole, watched it bury you, Willow, Angel, Spike, Kennedy, and Faith. Then we spotted Illyria. She was carrying Kennedy in one arm and Faith in the other. With her help we were able to locate you. I swear you were dead. You had lost so much blood,” Giles’s voice faltered and for a moment his gazed dropped to the white bed sheets that covered her. He swallowed hard before continuing. “Of course we rushed the three of you to a hospital as fast as we could, while Wesley found out what he could from Illyria. Faith and Kennedy spent less than a week in the hospital but there was very little they could do for you. We just had to wait, but I knew you’d come back to us.” He reached out a squeezed her hand gently.
“And Willow?” she said the words slowly, softly, her heart pounding away in her chest. Even as Giles prepared to reply she could feel herself holding her breath, afraid of what his answer would be.
“She alive,” he replied with a grin. “Strangest thing though, she was found two weeks later by the local police department, naked and unconscious in a park not too far from Wolfram & Hart.”
“But she’s alright?” Buffy pressed, her voice still tinged with the slightest hint of fear. If anything happened to Willow she’d never forgive herself.
“Yes and no,” Giles admitted his breath coming out in a heavy sigh. “Physically and mentally she’s the old Willow, but she’s suffering from a moderate case of amnesia, can’t seem to remember anything after high school graduation.”
“Oh no,” Buffy heard herself whispered. Poor Will. Suddenly the full extent of Willow’s injuries hit her square between the eyes, “Tara! Please tell me she remembers Tara!”
Giles’s adverted gaze was all the answer Buffy needed. “Oh god,” she whispered again. “She remembers nothing, not Dawn, not her powers, not even Kennedy?” Buffy’s eyes, her whole being seemed to plead with Giles to tell her that her fears were misplaced but all he could do was shake his head.
“Wow,” she shook her head, leaning back against her pillow, her eyes staring up at the white tile of the ceiling above her. “How’d Kennedy take it?”
“Amazingly well,” Giles replied, leaning backwards in his own chair. “She's been extraordinary with Willow.”
“So she remembers being…gay right?”
Giles chuckled softly to himself. “If I remember her exact words when Xander told her about her and Oz was, ‘Yeah, I suppose it makes sense we didn’t work. Come to think of it, I have a strong feeling that guys weren’t really for me. Did I ever tell you I think I’m gay?’”
Buffy smiled. Willow. “Did they tell her about Tara?”
“Yes, when Dawn came to visit her and Xander sat down and showed Willow all kinds of pictures and they told her every story they could think of. It really was a great thing. Kennedy’s been telling her stories too, always about Willow’s angel, Tara.”
“Poor kid,” Buffy mused. “She always be living and loving Willow in the shadow of Tara.”
“Perhaps, but I think Willow’s heart is big enough to love more than one person in her lifetime.” He raised his eyebrows ever so slightly and she caught it just out of the corner of her eyes. She had been so preoccupied with Willow’s fate that she had nearly forgotten. No, no she hadn’t forgotten she had just been preventing reality from really sinking in.
“Any word on Angel and Spike?” she finally asked it, and turning to face him she didn’t try to hide the fear in her eyes.
“Angel’s fine. He was gone for a few days, got trapped in the rubble and finally took refuge in an abandoned building nearby during the night until his wounds healed. There haven’t been any signs of Angelus since Illyria knocked him out cold. I think Conquest’s hold on him was only temporary.”
“Thank god for that,” Buffy nodded slightly closing her eyes.
“He’s been in to see you every night since he came back. Feels terrible about what happened.”
Again she nodded, suddenly acutely aware of the bandages that were wound around her stomach. She knew he would be feeling guilty; probably beating himself up extra hard over the whole thing. She’d set him straight the first chance she got to talk with him.
“Spike on the other hand,” Giles started, but she interrupted him.
“He’s gone, for good this time,” she whispered, her voice low and full of emotion. “I can feel it.”
“Ah I see. A slayer-vampire thing,” Giles nodded to himself.
“No,” she replied, turning and looking him directly in the eye. “A woman thing, a woman and the man she loves thing.”
Again Giles looked away from her, embarrassment creeping over his face, but his hand still held hers and slowly ever so slowly she was able to make her fingers wrap around his palm drawing his attention back to her. Her eyes stared up at him with such intensity, such emotion that he could do nothing but stare down into their emerald depths.
“I know you never trusted him, Giles, and I know you thought I was a fool for getting involved with him, but he truly was a good man, just like Angel. And I loved him.”
Now it was her turn to break from his gaze, tears slowly rising up in her eyes but she blinked them away. No crying, not now, there would be plenty of time for tears later, when she was alone. To her surprise she felt Giles squeezing her hand back and she turned towards him once more.
“I can be a stubborn man, Buffy, especially when I think I’m right, but I’m not too much of an old fool to not admit when I was wrong. I underestimated Spike, refused to see in him anything that you saw and I was wrong. If what Illyria and Faith have told me is at least half true then he saved us all single handedly, and that’s the second time I owe my life to him. And for that I will always be grateful to him and to you for not giving into my stubbornness and standing by him.”
Buffy felt a lone tear slip down her cheek and realized she’d been holding her breath. She squeezed Giles’s hand back. She suddenly felt overcome with gratitude, her heart almost bursting with it. There she sat having a much needed heart-felt talk with Giles and it was all thanks to Spike. Willow was alive, they all were alive, and the world had been saved and it was all because of him, all because of his sacrifice. She felt tears welling up inside of her and she swallowed hard to keep them from slipping out.
They sat in silence for a few minutes more, just enjoying the company of one another. Finally Giles rose, “You probably could use some more rest. I’ll be back in the morning and bring the others with me. I’m sure you’ll want to see them.”
“Thanks,” Buffy smiled up at him as he leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. She watched him leave, before turning back to her spot on the ceiling.
The sun had finally settled down behind the horizon, the last fading embers painting the sky in a softening red glow. A red glow. Without warning her mind began to wander back to her last few moments of consciousness in the underground chamber. Again she saw Spike wave good-bye; again she heard Willow scream and the world come crashing down around her. And the red glow of his body aflame reflecting in her ring. The ring.
Gritting her teeth she began to focus all her energy on lifting her hands from beneath the covers. Slowly, painstakingly so, she felt life returning to her slumbering limbs. After about twenty minutes of concentrating she had her hands folded across the blanket on her chest. There it was, the silver diamond ring he had given her over three months ago, shimmering on the middle finger of her right hand. Tears began to slip silently down her face. They fell one at a time a first but as she continued to stare into the shimmering face of the ring, its form began to swim before her eyes as a torrent of tears began to fall. Silently she wept for him, her eyes never leaving the small token of his affection encircling the thin form of her finger. Without a second thought, she pulled it from her middle finger and slipped it onto the ring finger of her left hand; the finger reserved for marriage and true love. Squeezing her hands into fists she felt the cool metal of the ring pressing against her finger and felt the full weight of the emptiness in her heart. Tears streamed down her face until at last she fell into a dreamless sleep.
When she opened her eyes again it was several hours later. Her best guess was early morning, maybe 2 a.m.; at least it felt like it was around two, the silence thick with slumber. She had sensed his presence even before she had opened her eyes, and her lips curled into a slight smile as she knew was she’d see standing before her when she opened her eyes. Sure enough there he stood, his large square frame, leaning against the far wall across from her bed.
“You better have flowers or donuts or something waking me up this early in the morning,” she teased gently.
He moved towards her into the moonlight, his dark hair and eyes tinged with silver in the twilight. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” he replied is voice soft and low.
“Oh Angel, I’m just teasing,” she rolled her eyes. He could be so damn serious sometimes. Sometimes, no make that all the time. “You didn’t wake me up. After a 3 month coma I think my body wants to do anything but sleep.”
“How are you feeling?” He stood beside her bed, his body language embarrassed, unsure, like he was some gawky teenager getting up the courage to ask her out.
She resisted an urge to give him a hard time, and instead settled on an inviting smile. “I’m fine, really. Still can’t move my legs and arms real well, but the doctors say it will come with time.” She patted the bed beside her and finally after a few moments of hesitation he dropped down beside her. “So where are my flowers?” she teased again.
Her teasing worked and finally a smile broke out ever so slightly across his lips. “Was that a smile?” she gasped. “Are you ok? Would you like me to get you a doctor? Did it hurt?”
His smile widened and reaching over he took her hand patting it gently. “I’m glad you’re alright.”
“Hey me too,” she beamed. “And I don’t want you beating yourself up over it, alright?”
He opened his mouth to protest but she beat him to the punch, “Ok?”
He nodded.
“Good,” she snuggled in against her pillow again.
They sat in silence for a few minutes just enjoying each other’s company, before Angel turned back to her. “I’m sorry about Spike.”
She nodded, her eyes focused on the ceiling.
He sighed heavily, rising to his feet and moving towards her window, his eyes sweeping over the city, which lay sprawled before him; His city, the city of Angels… “I guess Whistler was wrong with his prediction about the Shanshu Prophecy.”
“I guess so,” she replied softly. “Angel, you know that doesn’t mean it still won’t happen?”
“I know,” he replied. “I’m just…”
“Disappointed?” she finished for him.
He dropped his head to his chest and nodded. Turning back to her, he leaned his back against the glass of the window. “I started thinking, dreaming again…about what could be.”
“I know,” she whispered softly.
He gazed at her intently now, his eyes staring through her body to her soul. “But those plans would have stayed dreams even if the prophecy had come true, wouldn’t they?”
And there it was. Angel had finally asked it point blank. If he had won his humanity back would she have chosen him? Would his humanity have made a difference, made her chose him over Spike?
“No,” she said finally, her voice strong but gentle, “I still wouldn’t have left him.”
“I think I knew that all along, but it was something I just had to hold on to,” he replied, turning back to the window.
“Angel, I’m sorry,” she called out to him. How she wished she could get out of the bed and go to him, hold him, make him understand.
“Me too, Buffy,” he glanced at her sidelong. “But I have to say, what you did for Spike, you helped to make him a true champion.”
“I wasn’t the only one who helped him,” she stared at his profile. He continued to stare out the window in silence. Somewhere down the hall an alarm went off.
“I think I should probably go,” he moved towards her again. “Before I go Whistler asked me to give this to you.” He held out a slip of paper. “He said you were right about the Avatar.”
“Whistler?” Buffy frowned up at Angel. She had been sure she had only been dreaming when she had last seen Whistler. Was it another vision? Or had he taken her subconscious somewhere else?
“Whatever it is Buffy, be careful,” he slipped the piece of paper into her open palm. Then impulsively he leaned forward and kissed her softly on the lips, before heading for the door. He paused for a minute in the doorway and turned back to her, “Just remember, I’m not getting any older.”
“I know,” she called back.
“If you change your mind, you know where to find me,” and with that he disappeared.
She stared after him for several seconds, her thoughts on old memories of their time together. Finally she turned her attention back to the slip of paper, and carefully unfolding it she read:
B –
Your instincts were dead on. The powers were indeed borrowed. There is not much I can tell you but just be extremely careful. Those behind the attack on your friend are very much still actively seeking you out. If you wish to know more go to Salem, MA and seek out the mystic known as Sylviara. She should be able to help you. Watch your back, and once again nice job kid.
- W
Buffy re-read the note two more times before folding it up and slipping it under her pillow. She would show it to Giles when she saw him in a few hours. Leaning back she let out a heavy sigh. If it wasn’t one thing it was another. They had just survived one apocalypse and already a new threat was looming before her. Just another hazard of the job she supposed. Yet this time she knew it would be different.
This time around she would have no sorceress. Willow might still possess her powers but if she had forgotten all she knew then it would be like starting all over again for her, and perhaps this time around unleashing her full potential was something she should not do. Though her amnesia had taken away her memories of Tara, Buffy had quickly realized it had also freed Willow of the memories of her addiction, of the pain of Tara’s death, and her murder of Warren. Willow had been given a clean slate and this time around Buffy knew she would do everything in her power to keep her friend from having to go through those torments again. If she eventually recovered her memories that was one thing, and she certainly wouldn’t lie to Willow about what she couldn’t remember, but if push came to shove, in her heart Buffy knew she’d keep Willow from the fight. She owed her friend that much.
But more than the loss of Willow’s powers was the loss of Spike. She knew her grieving was far from over, and though she could feel his absence in her heart the true reality of it had not fully set in yet. She felt numb, cold to the truth of it, and for the moment she took pleasure its objectivity. She knew the tears would come, the pain would come, they always did, but that would be then. She knew in the end she would be alright. His faith in her and his sacrifice back in Sunnydale had given her the opportunity to learn just how strong she really was, who she really was, and she was a survivor. She had come back for him and though they had only had a year together in her heart if felt like much more. The hardest part she knew would be the battles without him, without his strength and confidence and dry humor. Whistler’s note was a sneak peek at her future and it was one that she knew she would face without fear because of him; her champion.