Chapter 2

“I can’t stay long,” Willow told the gang in L.A. “I should get back and help Giles with the… arrangements.” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word funeral. “But I wanted to let you know the, uh… the service is Friday, if any of you want to go.”

“Yes, of course,” Cordelia said.

“I should like to go as well,” Wesley added.

“I can drive us up there,” Angel said. “I know I can’t go to the funeral, but –”

“Oh! You can!” Willow brightened a little as she was finally able to deliver good news. “We’re having it after sunset, you know, for the sunlight-challenged.”

Angel’s eyes softened with gratitude, but he shook his head. “You shouldn’t do that, just for me.”

Willow hesitated. “It’s not just for you.”

“How many vampires are you expecting to show at the Slayer’s funeral?”

Willow gave him an awkward half-smile. “Including you… two.” When Angel looked puzzled, she added, “Spike.”

*****

Angel sighed. They’d only just gotten back, and already they were leaving again. He felt sick inside, and he wondered if a part of him had died with Buffy. Was that too melodramatic? Maybe, but a hundred years of honing his brooding skills meant he was pretty good at internalizing suffering.

“Stop it,” Cordelia warned him, shaking him out of his thoughts.

Angel squinted at her. “Huh?”

“I know in that warped little head of yours, you’re coming up with ways this is your fault. It’s not.”

“I wasn’t,” Angel protested, but his tone was low and unconvincing.

“Angel.”

“I was just… thinking about her, that’s all.”

“Well, think in the car,” Cordy said. “Or we’re never going to make it before sunrise.” She ushered him towards the door where Wesley and Willow were waiting to leave.

“Gunn?” Angel looked to his friend, who was doing his best to comfort a wide-eyed and shell-shocked Fred. The poor girl hadn’t seen her home dimension in five years and this wasn’t exactly the best start.

“I’ll hold down the fort,” Gunn said.

“Thanks,” Angel replied. “And make sure Fred gets reacquainted with the world,” he added, throwing a slight smile her way. “Get her some tacos.”

“Will do,” said Gunn. “Listen, bro, I never met this girl of yours. But I know how much she means to you. I’m sorry, man.” He put a hand on Angel’s shoulder.

“Thanks.”

The drive to Sunnydale was mostly silent, with Angel staring straight ahead and gripping the steering wheel as if it might fly out of his hands at any moment. The others gazed out the windows, lost in their own thoughts.

Angel pulled over just before dawn, ceding the driver’s seat to Wesley and huddling under a blanket in the backseat next to Willow. Wesley sighed as he pulled back into traffic. He thought back over the past year, of the way Angel had reacted to Darla’s return and eventual turning, and he shuddered. Darla had been merely a companion, albeit for a hundred and fifty years. But Buffy – she was Angel’s one and only love. Wesley couldn’t even imagine what losing her would do to Angel.

*****

Willow eased open the door to Buffy’s house, followed by the others. “Guys? I’m back.”

It might have been awkward at any other time, a reunion such as this one. There was certainly enough bad blood and mistrust between certain Scoobies and the various members of Angel Investigations, but they greeted each other with solemn gestures that seemed to form a tacit agreement to put aside their misgivings in order to mourn the fallen Slayer.

Spike came down the stairs and raised his eyebrows at the new arrivals. He didn’t have the energy to face off with Angel at the moment. Ignoring them all for the time being, he looked to Tara.

“Dawn’s asleep,” he said. In the absence of anyone else, Tara had stepped into the motherly role, and that suited Spike just fine. Of all of them, she was the one he trusted most. “Poor bit was up all night, she was.”

“Poor Dawnie,” Willow said, forcing him to acknowledge the others.

“Spike.” Angel’s eyes narrowed and his grip tightened around the blanket he’d used for cover from the sun.

Spike was surprised to find that the pain of Buffy’s death dulled even his seething hatred of his grandsire. “Really not in the mood for fisticuffs,” he said, the tiredness evident in his voice, “so you can save the fighting and the righteous indignation for another day.”

Even having been warned, it was still a shock for Angel, seeing Spike, of all people, walking around Buffy’s house like he lived there, and caring for Buffy’s little sister. As soon as Spike stalked off into the kitchen, Angel turned to Giles. He had always been reasonable, with a healthy level of distrust for vampires, even Angel – perhaps particularly Angel, because of Buffy’s utter inability to be objective where her vampire lover was concerned.

“I don’t suppose you were expecting that.” Giles said.

“Willow mentioned it.” Angel shook his head. “I just don’t understand what he’s doing here.”

Giles glanced in the direction Spike had taken. “He may have developed… feelings for Buffy. And, however inappropriate they may be, he did help us in the end.”

“He’s developed feelings for – oh, that is so typical,” said Angel. Spike was like the most annoying little brother on the planet, always touching his stuff, always wanting what Angel had, always trying to one-up him. “That is so typical Spike.”

“It is?” Anya asked. “’Cause we all thought it was pretty strange.”

Angel rolled his eyes. “He’s never happier than when he’s taking something away from me.”

“You’re a bleeding moron.” Spike came back in the living room and looked at Angel. “I mean it, you are the most idiotic, self-absorbed –” He broke off and composed himself. “I love her, and it has nothing to do with you. It’s about her. It’s got bugger-all to do with you, Angelus.”

Angel’s nostrils flared at the name. “Is that so, William?”

“Who do you think you are, coming back here and saying what’s what? You weren’t here when she died. Only two people who went pitching off that tower, and neither one of ’em was you.” Spike grabbed Angel’s blanket right out of his hands and stormed out of the house, his anger bubbling up from under the surface. How dare he – how dare Angel suggest he didn’t really love Buffy? What did the pillock know about it anyway? He ran off and abandoned her, showed how much he loved Buffy.

Spike climbed down into the sewer and pulled the steaming blanket off. He looked at it for a moment, then remembered it belonged to Angel and threw it on a pile of garbage. A rat scuttled across his path and he kicked at it, sending it scurrying back into the shadows. It wasn’t fair. At least Angel’d had the chance to be with Buffy before she died. And the stupid git had let her go. Spike would’ve given both arms for the chance to have what Angel had had. But now he’d never get that chance.

*****

Back at the house, one by one the Scoobies recovered from their stunned silence and went back to whatever they’d been doing before the arrival of the Los Angeles contingent. Cordelia sat down in the living room, watching them move about with deliberate urgency. Keeping busy seemed to be the order of the day, as if that would make it easier for them to not think about Buffy.

In an effort to be hospitable, Willow offered her something to eat or drink, and Cordelia’s infallible eye for fashion noticed that she had caked on too much make-up in a futile attempt to hide the dark circles and red-rimmed eyes that let on she’d been crying all night instead of sleeping. It didn’t seem to cut down on the nervous energy, though, and she pattered around baking, cleaning, any task she could find.

Giles walked around like a robot, arranging for a headstone and casket with all the emotion one would put into making a grocery list. Cordy supposed it was very British of him to be detached. Maybe he’d been ready for it – after all, as a Watcher, he knew what being a Slayer would mean. A life that was short, painful, and violent, and a death to match. But anyone could see Giles had loved Buffy like a daughter. He was as prepared for losing Buffy as any parent was to lose their child, and he’d retreated into some emotional vacuum that allowed him to continue with the necessities the situation demanded.

Cordelia couldn’t really blame them for seeming out of sorts. She could barely process it herself, and she hadn’t seen Buffy in two years. In all the time they’d known each other, Buffy had been a constant – invincible, or so it had seemed. No matter what apocalypse came her way, she always managed, she always saved the day. It was almost impossible for Cordy to accept that she was really dead, that there was something out there that Buffy couldn’t defeat. It made the world a little bit scarier place.

She surprised herself by not begrudging Xander the comfort he sought from that woman who was obviously his girlfriend. She looked familiar, someone from high school, maybe. It didn’t matter anyway. The old Cordelia would have wracked her brain to remember some terrible faux pas that she could lord over the other woman, just to feel superior. But Cordelia had changed, and besides, this hardly seemed like the time for fits of petty jealousy.

She noticed the way Angel was still glaring after Spike and made a mental note to remind him of that thing about petty jealousy, too.