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Beta'd by Leon Stryfe. Banner by nmcil12, thank you I love it!

Angel bashing in this chapter. You were warned!

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Shortly after the council left, Spike was captured by Glory’s minions. I and Xander and I were immediately concerned, not with his welfare but whether the likelihood that he would tell Glory what she wanted to know. Buffy, and Dawn and Joyce were adamant in their defence of Spike. After viewing the aftermath of the torture that he endured to keep Dawn's secret, I can honestly say he has earned my trust. To that end I returned the Gem of Amara to him. A few days later, after Spike had recovered enough to move freely, he came to us with charmed necklaces.

While I was only slightly leery of wearing the charm, Xander outright refused to wear it. The story that Spike told us as he was handing out the charms was hard to fathom. No matter how many times he told us, it was hard to believe that Ben, an intern at the Sunnydale Hospital, and Glory, a goddess of a hell dimension, had any dealings with each other. Looking back, I believe my reticence to trust Spike on the issue of Ben being Glory was an effect of the glamour that kept us from realising the connection in the first place, rather than my own doubts about his motives. 

It wasn’t until a few of us ran across Ben and saw him change into Glory were we able to understand what Spike had been telling us for days. Ben was Glory’s human host. After convincing Xander to wear the amulet he still insisted it could all be a trick perpetrated by Spike. Xander and Spike will never be the best of friends, I’m afraid. But the two do show a grudging willingness to put most of their animosity behind them when the situation warrants it. I fear that Xander will never be able to see beyond his experiences with Angel/Angelus and is therefore reticent to give Spike an honest assessment. I can only hope that this changes, as it makes the rest of us slightly uncomfortable, and it is more Xander’s doing than Spike's.

It took some time to go through the information the council left us with. Glory needed Dawn to perform a ritual that would open the gateways between dimensions. Once we discovered what the ritual entailed and that Glory had a time frame to work with ideas came from everyone. Spike and, surprisingly, Joyce were of the opinion that killing Ben was the solution to the problem. I tried to argue that Ben was an innocent and therefore we couldn’t kill him. Spike countered with the information that Ben was fully aware of what Glory was doing. Ben had apparently made an appearance while Glory had Spike held captive. Ben had done nothing to help the situation, instead telling Spike that he couldn’t help him and that Spike should simply give Glory what she was looking for. He obviously knew that Glory was creating the brain damaged people in town but his only action was to call a demon that would kill them.

Joyce’s argument was that both Glory and Ben were trying to kill her children, Ben by his inaction and Glory by her actions. Joyce admitted that if it had been just a simple human threatening her children she would be of the opinion that the police should be called. Since this was supernatural in nature, however, human laws would be of no help. She couldn’t see a way to stop Glory without Ben suffering due to the fact that the pair shared the same body.

I will admit here and nowhere else that in theory I agree with both of them. Ben is not a complete innocent; he could have informed any of us when he found out we were protecting the key and instead he chose not to do so. He is responsible for the deaths of many of the damaged people, whose injured state was caused by Glory, when he brought the Quellor to Sunnydale. Joyce is also correct in her thinking that whatever we decide, Ben cannot be removed from Glory and therefore will suffer the same fate as she does. But the taking of a human life is a serious matter not to be entertained lightly. I feel we must exhaust all other options before we can even consider such a drastic step.

A compromise was reached; we performed a cloaking spell on the entire group and left a few days before Glory's ritual was to be performed. We headed to LA in the hopes that Glory and the Knights would be unable to find us. We were uncertain as to the extent that Ben might participate with Glory in furthering her ends so instead of checking into a hotel that he could possibly trace, we went to Angel’s hotel. Neither Buffy nor Spike were overly pleased with this option, but it was the best we could do at the time.

We learned, while in LA, from our research that if the time of the ritual passed without Glory obtaining the key she would soon after cease to be, unfortunately taking Ben with her. In my mind, it was the best outcome. Glory would be stopped and Ben, while partially innocent, would be taken care of by providence and not our hand.

A few days later Angel and his group returned from another dimension. To say that he was upset by seeing Buffy and Spike in a romantic embrace would be putting it mildly. He proceeded to attack Spike but the fight was short-lived with Spike emerging as the victor. Buffy then proceeded to take Angel to task for attacking Spike in the first place. Again the differences between the two vampires became glaringly obvious. Angel tried to manipulate Buffy by telling her that he loved her and that there existed a prophecy in which he would become human upon its fulfilment, so that he and Buffy could, at some unknown date in the future, be together. It was at that point that Cordelia, who had been working with Angel for some time now, mentioned that if Angel had really felt that way he would have gone to Buffy when he had been turned into a human the year before. This news was shocking to those of us from Sunnydale.

The entire story came out and apparently, shortly after the Thanksgiving when he had come to town Angel had gotten injured in a fight with a demon and their blood mixed. The result was that Angel was turned human. After a subsequent battle with the demon in which Angel was almost killed defeating him he had gone to the Oracles, who are the conduits for the Powers That Be. He asked that he be made back into a vampire and to be better able to carry on the good fight.

Buffy seemed unconcerned by this news. I believe she has finally gotten over her feelings for the souled vampire. I must admit that Spike is a much better choice. Buffy told Angel in no uncertain terms that she would not allow him to attack Spike again. Buffy told the Los Angeles group everything that was happening in Sunnydale and that we only needed to stay a few more days until the time of the ritual had passed. Angel seemed to be oddly interested in Ben/Glory, and three days later I had my answer as to why. I have my theories as to why he did it and not all are very flattering, but I am quite certain that Angel travelled to Sunnydale and killed Ben. 

In my less charitable moments I believe that Angel took the action he did hoping Spike would be blamed and thereby breaking Spike and Buffy apart, forcing her into possibly staking Spike and thus removing Spike from Buffy’s life. He made it quite clear that he thought that running away from the threat of Glory was unbecoming of Buffy as the slayer and that she was in some way shirking her duties. He blamed Spike for leading Buffy astray and in my opinion was looking for a way to smear Spike in Buffy’s eyes.

My other theory is that Angel hoped that Buffy would see it as him protecting her and this would somehow work in his favour. If either of these theories are correct it just proves how little he actually knows Buffy. She neither needs nor wants protection and Spike knows this where Angel does not. Spike has every confidence that Buffy could and would defeat Glory, but it was a deep concern for the collateral damage that would occur in a battle against her that was behind his vote to leave Sunnydale.