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Angels and Demons by TalesofSpike
 
Chapter 3.01
 
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Note: Thanks to my beta t_geyer for her unending patience, perseverance and support.

SECTION 3 - MY LAST BREATH

Hold on to me love
You know I can't stay long
All I wanted to say was
I love you and I'm not afraid


(Evanescence - Album - Fallen)




Chapter 3.01
Monday, May 27th, 2002


More than a day had passed since Skip had been imprisoned. The demon was unsurprised that the barrier around him seemed to be weakening. The innermost part of the double barrier, which had barely allowed him standing room, was long gone, but as Wes had conceded it was basically a parlour trick and not much more. The outer wall of his cell had proved rather more durable, but even so it was finally weakening. The demon turned his back to his guard, and lay down as if to sleep. Instead he bit down on his tongue until he could taste the green viscous liquid, which in his case passed for blood. Using his body as a screen, he took the blood and a finger and began to daub mystical symbols on the wall of his magical prison.








Tara climbed out of the passenger side of the open-topped sports car after picking up Rupert from her lap and re-depositing him on the sidewalk.

"Thanks," she told Bee as she passed over the end of the cat's leash.

"No biggie," the smaller woman demurred. "I kinda want to see if it all worked out, anyway, but it's not as if I really wanted to be around the watcher horde any longer than I have to be. It's bad enough that Wes has rejoined the fold... but, if I really believed that, you wouldn't see me for dust."

"Have you heard anything?"

Bee shook her head. "Not so far... but the shop's still there, so that's a good sign."








Xander shook his head, hoping it would allow him to make sense of what had just gone down. He only had the vaguest idea what had been happening towards the end of the ritual. Willow had been lit up like a lighthouse lantern, so bright that, even though he had tried, he had been unable to watch. He did know that when the light show had so abruptly stopped, there had been some sort of massive detonation, blowing everyone in the room off their feet. He called out for Anya first of all, relieved beyond measure when he saw her push herself up off the ground and make her way over to him.

At first he thought they were the only ones moving and then he saw Quentin Travers making his way over to the nearest of the watchers, pulling back an eyelid and then checking the man's pulse. Angel had somehow circumvented the scattered bodies - but then he had experience with that - to make his way over to Cordelia. His efforts to take the apparently unconscious, but still incorporeal woman into his arms would have been hilarious, if not for the slumped form beside her.

"Willow..." Xander didn't know what to think as he looked at the blackened flesh and suddenly he was sickened by the smell in the air that up until that point had been propagating a desire for a BLT. He held Anya's hand in a death grip as he picked his way through the gradually stirring piles of bodies. Unbelievably, when he was still a few feet away he saw the barest flicker of a charred eyelid and the blackening seemed to fade very slowly away. Starting at her roots, colour and lustre returned to her hair, not the brilliant auburn she sometimes sported, but the darker, slightly reddish brown it had been before Buffy came to town. He delicately picked a spot where there was enough space for him to kneel down next to her and finally relinquished Anya's hand so that he could take her in his arms.

She coughed and tried to smile, but even though Xander could see the years that had been added by the curse slowly but inexorably falling away, she couldn't seem to raise herself up at all to help him. More and more people were beginning to move and he searched the room, trying to pick out any of the other Scoobies, but as more people got to their feet and began their own dazed searches for loved ones, they were nowhere to be seen and he began to panic.

"Buffy?" he called. "Buff."

A familiar cool English voice answered him. "She hasn't come around, yet."

"Wes? But she's-."

"She's still unconscious, as are Spike and Dawn, but the girls' pulses are strong and Spike isn't dust so I don't think there's any need for further alarm just yet." The watcher's voice was firm, making it plain that the subject was not up for further discussion at present.

"Willow's hurt... She's hurt real bad."

He couldn't make out Willow's response to the remark and he had to ask her to repeat it, his ear close to her mouth.

"Not hurt. Dying."

"No, Will! It doesn't work like that." A frustrated tear crept from the corner of one eye. He'd been wishing so hard that something would happen so that he could have the old Will back, but the price was just too high. It wasn't meant to happen like that. "Ahn, honey, find Giles... He'll fix it. He'll..."

His train of thought was interrupted by a quiet knock on the shop's back door. "Oh, Christ," he muttered under his breath. "Not now. Whoever that is we don't want any..."

"I'm here, Xander." The older watcher's voice stilled the carpenter's panic for a second as Anya moved to get the door. "Though I have to tell you that there's little or nothing I can do that you haven't already done, except call an ambulance."

All around them, people were back on their feet. Only five figures still lay on the ground.








Anya's face told Tara all that she needed to know even before the former demon stepped aside to reveal the devastation inside. "Willow?" the Wiccan asked, her voice coming out as a hesitant whisper.

Anya nodded toward the centre of the room, where Xander rocked gently back and forth with the woman's head in his lap. Tara pushed her way through the watchers and Wiccans who were milling around and then through those whose morbid curiosity or watcherly instincts made them surround the scene.

"Willow?" Her voice was like a soft caress as she sank to the floor next to Xander.

"Tara, baby? You came..." The words were obviously a strain and the witch began coughing.

"Don't talk, sweetie. I came. It'll be alright. Just hang in there until we can get some help."

"Have to talk... Dawnie and Spike?"

The blonde looked to Xander for information.

"Wes says they're okay. Still unconscious but okay."








Giles' authoritative voice cut through the room as he returned from the main shop. "There is an ambulance on its way. Would those of you not requiring medical attention and/or immediately connected with those who are injured kindly stop lollygagging and vacate the premises by the rear exit so that the medics can get in when they get here?" The watcher made shooing gestures as he moved back toward Willow. "That includes you and your note takers, Quentin. I'm sure that, between us, Wesley and I can come up with a report after the fact."

"That could be what I'm worried about." For an instant the older man hesitated, but he was too well acquainted with the violent impulses that hid beneath Giles' civilised veneer and soon he ushered the last of his contingent toward the door.

Giles spotted Bee as she made her way to the exit with the other Rupert in tow, and, inclining his head to one side, he beckoned her back. It was true that the woman was not one of their intimate circle, but she seemed more at home with magical theory than most of the Council, even if she had no talent for its implementation.

Returning his voice to a more conversational level, he hailed the other remaining watcher. "Wesley, perhaps you could give me a hand to carry Spike down to the cellar before the paramedics arrive. I'm sure he wouldn't appreciate a Y incision in the middle of his chest, and, while the coroners are probably used to an occasional victim getting up and walking away, I think it might be more pleasant all around if we avoid the problem.

Angel, I suggest unless you want some awkward explaining to do, that you move those packing crates in the corner until they mask Cordelia's aura. Bee, if you could give him a hand for now?" He gave his best approximation of a pleading glance. "Once everything is in place for the paramedics' arrival we can discuss what exactly happened here and whether it worked."








"They're okay?" Willow asked.

"It looks that way, in time. Honey, do you know why they're not coming round?"

"I took their power... without the handover. It was winning and I thought 'Dawn's made of energy'. Then, Spike got in the way."

Xander shook his head. "He would. Look if Spike interfered and he's suffering for it, then good. You've got better things to worry about than that freak. Does anybody know why Buffy's out of it, though?"

Tara waited until Xander glanced her way and gently shook her head and raised a finger to her lips. "It's okay, sweetie," she told the errant witch. "They'll forgive you. They'll be okay and they'll forgive you. Just stay with us... The ambulance will be here in a minute."

"No difference," Willow whispered. "There's always a price."

"No, sweetie, you have to hang in with us. Just a bit longer and they'll be here."

"It's okay. I chose this. That thing... It wouldn't just have taken over Cordelia... It would have been bad... Glory-bad... I'm okay with it."

"Willow..." The blonde reached out to stroke the woman's pale, but youthful face. "I knew you chose to pay the price as soon as I saw the curse had reversed. You had to have made a huge sacrifice, but that doesn't mean you have to die. They're on their way. They'll take care of you. Maybe it'll take you a few months but you'll get better."

Willow's eyes met hers, serene and sure. "Sooner or later, I'd give in to temptation. I couldn't have done this without the energy of the key or the orbs. What I took from Spike and Dawn... It made me feel dirty. Made me see what I'd been doing, what I was becoming. You know it. I know it. This way..." She paused as she was overcome by another coughing fit. "This way, I won't let you down again."

Tara wished she could find a way to argue with her, a way to make her stay but she couldn't lie. Willow had never been strong-willed. She had a habit of choosing the easiest path. Slow tears trickled down the blonde's cheeks as the EMTs pushed their way through the doors at the rear of the shop.








"Are you Miss Rosenberg's family?" The doctor looked over the dishevelled group that seemed almost lost in the large ER waiting room.

Giles stepped forward, still somehow forced into playing the adult, just as when Buffy's mother had died. "Tara is her partner. We haven't been able to contact her parents, yet. Xander, Anya and I are friends." The watcher told the white lie which he hoped would allow the doctor to tell them what was happening. Even if Tara and Willow had still been living together the doctors wouldn't have been under any obligation to tell her anything. Without a marriage certificate they still weren't family in any legal sense, but Giles was hoping that this particular doctor wasn't going to split hairs or ask for proof.

The doctor turned to the red-eyed girl. "I'm sorry. As you already know, Miss Rosenberg stopped breathing in the ambulance. Despite our best attempts, we've been unable to revive her. I'm afraid she's passed away."
 
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