Willow was horrified by what she was witnessing. Buffy was unleashing a rage on a weakened man that she usually reserved for demons. She was watching as Angel’s ashen skin was quickly colored in the unnatural hues of purple, black, and yellow.

Willow waited for the wave of grief and anger that she knew Buffy was feeling to crest and break, but it didn’t. Her anger was only growing, and that was what was fueling the power behind her fist.

If she didn’t stop soon, Buffy would kill him, “Buffy stop!” Willow screeched, “Stop! He’s human, you can’t! You’ll kill him!” Willow tried to pull her away before she could do any further damage, rushing up to grasp her shoulders from behind, but Buffy stepped back to center herself, grabbed Willow’s wrist with both hands locked in an overhand grip and sent her sailing over her head and across the bar. Willow landed on her back, staring up at the stucco ceiling gasping for air.

Well, Willow thought, at least she’s not hurting him now.

Willow could hear the nearly animalistic, and primal rage surging through her friend, as she heard Buffy say, “I know. I don’t care. He deserves to die, Willow! He’s here, and Spike’s not. If Spike’s not here, it seems only right that Angel shouldn’t be either, don’t you think?”

She had formed it like a question, but it really wasn’t one. It was a justification.

Willow’s position on the floor of a ruined club suddenly brought the clarity of perspective. She remembered a night, years ago, which was similar to this. A night when she’d crossed a line, and Buffy had been the only thing standing between her and the last strand of her humanity. Willow knew that, if it hadn’t been for her friends, she would have died, and not just physically.

Karma really did have a way of kicking you in the ass.

Willow knew what she was feeling. She’d been there. She very nearly didn’t come back.

“I know,” Willow said, slowly getting up from the floor, her eyes riveted on Buffy’s all the while. She kept her voice as soft and non-threatening as she could, “I know how that feels, what you want to do,” Willow shook her head as the feelings she had after Tara’s death washed over her again, “But Buffy, you can’t do it,” she looked at the mass of bruises that Angel’s face had become, then looked at the sadness of her friend’s eyes, and felt her pain, “Buffy, you’re not a killer. You’re not like me.”

Something reached Buffy through the pain. Her gaze drifted to Angel’s crumpled body. Slowly, she took in the discolored and swollen face and realized what she had done. Knew what she could have done had she not been stopped.

Buffy saw her friend Willow standing in front of her, with Angel lying there, broken. Broken, because she’d broken him, and tossed him into the corner without a thought. There was no thinking. There was only hurt, and loss, and betrayal.

Buffy knew she was drowning. She saw Willow as her only chance to survive the hurt and emptiness. She had to grasp this chance, and hold on tight.

Buffy let the sobs take over, as she held on to her friend for her life, “Oh Willow,” Buffy sobbed, “Willow, what did I do? What do I do?”
*******************************

IN THE INTERREGNUM- HIGHER PLANE

Joyce watched her daughter walk away. She knew that this would be hard for her to watch. Being separated from him, even for this laudable reason, for her, it made this place anything but what it was. It was painful to watch her go through this, “Buffy,” Joyce said softly, seeing her stop and turn her head to hear her, her back to her. Seeing that she had Buffy’s attention, Joyce continued, “Is there anything you want me to tell her, when I see her? Anything…” she hated to dredge up pain for her, but this was the proverbial elephant in the room. How could they not talk about it, “that you want to tell…him?”

Buffy turned and walked slowly back to her mother, reaching around her neck, she unclasped the chain that suspended the ring at her throat. She held it in her palm, weighing it. It could say things to him, important things, even if she could not.

Looking into her mother’s patient and understanding eyes, she placed the ring in her hand and closed her fingers around it, “Yes,” she said, “Give her this. She may not know what it means, not with her head, but her heart will know. She’ll know what to say,” Buffy sighed, “I only hope he can still understand.”

Joyce gave a little nod, “He’ll understand, Sweetie. He’s always understood you.”
*********************************************

Buffy could feel herself falling into the warmth of his kisses. She could feel her skin slowly break out in gooseflesh at the slight touch of his trembling lips. His kisses were so feather-soft that she had to open her passion heavy eyes to be sure he even existed.

She looked down into his darkened, disbelieving eyes as he knelt on the floor of the cabin in front of her. Buffy could see his eyes in the flickering candlelight. They were brimming with tears. He looked so vulnerable, and she felt so unworthy.

She felt that she should be the one to kneel at his feet. She knew that she didn’t deserve the adoration that shone in his worshipful kisses and gaze.

“Spike,” her voice was trembling with her own tears, “Say something, please. I need you to talk to me.”

Spike’s eyes widened at the beautiful sound that had issued from her lips. He knew that had been his name, once, but that was so long ago.

He shook his head quickly, putting a hand up to silence her, “Please, Love. Don’t talk, please,” he whispered as he reverently placed his head on her chest, leaning his ear to her heart and placing his hands at the small of her back, holding her to him. He sighed with relief when he heard the beat he’d almost left to the winds of madness. It was just as he remembered it.

He let the sound take him away with it. Closing his eyes as her rhythms sounded through him, he murmured quickly, as if his own voice had been his only companion for far too long, “Oh God, I’ve missed this. There is nothing here, you know, nothing like this. There’s no sound,” his voice failed him, and he took a shuddering breath, “Nothing but me, and I am nothing. Please Love,” he repeated softly and beseechingly, “Don’t talk.”

She could see that this was important to him, that he needed her to do as he asked. She tried to comply, but there was so much she needed to know that she couldn’t, “I don’t understand.”

“Buffy,” he whispered, the years of isolation breaking his voice into an unfinished sob, “I don’t understand either. But, I know you don’t belong here. If this is a mistake…if you fell somehow, and they found out where you were, they could take you away,” he reached for her, his fingers gently tracing her lips, “I couldn’t take that,” his lashes met, shielding her from his sight. He did not want to lose her again, and he knew he would, if they found her, “If they took you from me,” his voice trailed off, “I…I think…”

Buffy’s heart broke watching a deep pain settle in his eyes, “Spike?” she could see tears flowing down his face. She found it difficult not to be mesmerized by the sheer magnitude of the agony she saw etched on him, “Fell from where?” she asked gently.

He looked away, trying to gather the strength to tell her his deepest fear. When he looked into her eyes again, Buffy saw a sad confidence in them. As if he knew that, once he confessed his heartfelt fear, it would come to pass, “I think I’d die, Buffy,” he finished the thought, too lost in his own mind to hear her. His tone told her that he expected her to be taken away at any moment, “I know, Buffy. I’d die. Really die. The seraphim wouldn’t be that cruel; to give you back to me only to take you away again. Would they?” his eyes were wide with fear, “They did it once,” he was sobbing against her, completely distraught, “They can’t do it again. Don’t let them do it again! Please?”

She hated to see him in this kind of pain, but something he’d said drew her attention. And, she couldn’t let it go, “Spike,” she asked again as she sank to her knees with him, her eyes level with his, “fell from where?”

“Heaven,” Spike breathed.

His soft, shining eyes left no doubt in Buffy’s heart. If she did not give him something, some kind of hope, he would die without it, without her, “Oh Spike,” she wept, kissing his tears away, “I’m no angel.”

His eyes were bright with conviction, “But, you are,” he insisted, “You’re my angel.”

Buffy’s throat tightened and her hands trembled as she fumbled with the chain her mother had given her, “Oh Spike,” she sobbed, “I don’t know how I got here, or how long I’ll stay,” with shaking hands she fastened the silver chain around his bent neck, “But, someone told me to give this to you, as a reminder.”

“Of what?” Spike whispered, his eyes wide with dread at the thought of losing her again.

“That we’re never going to be apart, not really, ever again,” she gave a small wet smile, “It’s my gift to you.”
**********************

NOVEMBER 4, 2005

At the time Buffy had argued against it. It didn’t seem right that Angel had any sort of comfort, even the cold type a hospital could give, when no one knew if Spike or her daughter had any warmth or comfort, why should he have any.

But Willow had convinced her to let him have this small mercy. She didn’t want to be the king of monster he had been, even if those around her would have understood. She wanted to be human for him. She wanted to be better than he was, for Spike.

Buffy made sure that the blinds covering the windows of the room were opened, flooding the room with light. When he woke up, she wanted Angel to know just what he’d been given, and who it was that had given it to him.

The warmth of the morning sun, shining through the glass, stirred Angel to consciousness. He moaned, instinctively screwing his eyes shut against the light.

Buffy stood with her back to the window, crossed her arms in front of her chest and waited.

Angel opened his eyes slowly. His vision was blurred; ill-defined shapes crowded him as his eyes searched for something familiar to latch on to.

He blinked and for the first time began to realize something was wrong here. Something was very wrong.

His eyes darted around to room; he was drawn to the shadow near the window. A shadow that took on a strangely comforting shape, “Spike?” Angel croaked.

“No,” Buffy bit out, stuffing down the wave of anger she felt at hearing Angel speak his name, “not Spike. But, you might wish it were when I get done with you.”

“Buffy?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, her face still obscured by the light flowing in the hospital window, “Buffy.”

Angel brought his hand to his face, gliding his fingers over his now tender flesh. He winced in pain and immediately stopped his tentative exploration of his injuries, “Buffy,” his eyes looked at her, grief-stricken, “what year is it?”

“Year?” Buffy asked.

Angel nodded.

“Two thousand and five. Why?”

Angel looked surprised by this. He closed his eyes as he relived his own private Hell, “Oh God,” he gasped, “Spike,” his eyes snapped open, and they held urgency in them. The urgency of life and death, “Where is the baby? Buffy, where’s Jonina?”

Buffy stepped up and stared into Angel’s frightened and pleading eyes. She wanted to kill him for daring to ask the question, for even speaking his name so casually, “That’s what I want to know, Angel,” her voice was tight with rage and a comforting menace, “You tell me. Where is she? Where are they, Angel?”

Twenty-five years. That is how long he’d been there. Yet here, almost no time had gone by at all. Angel wasn’t sure how long he’d been unconscious in this hospital room. Days? Hours? Months? Who knew how little time had past here or how many years had flown by in that place.

Either way, Angel knew, they were both dead.

Angel hung his head in shame, “Dead,” he whispered, “Buffy, they’re both dead.”
*******************************