by
Margot Le Faye

    The book of theories was slow going. Except for the last few entries, it was all handwritten and arcane in parts. Giles happily immersed himself in it while Buffy went about her usual routine of running her martial arts dojo by day, studying up on demons and other occult threats in the evening, and patrolling at night.

It was no sort of life for a vibrant young woman, Giles thought. Or, at least a young woman who used to be vibrant and very well could be again. The fancy that had occurred to him returned to his mind, and was much embroidered upon in odd moments of idleness. Not that Rupert Giles would ever have done anything about it. Sober. But, as it happened, on what would have been Jenny Calendar's fortieth birthday that year, he wasn't sober, but dead drunk. While consulting one of his research volumes, he had come across a photo of himself with Jenny at a celebratory dinner. Giles looked at the date neatly written across the back of the photo, a date exactly ten years earlier, to the day, and it hadn't seemed too unreasonable to raise a glass of wine to an old love. Except that the glass had become a bottle and then two, and the toast had become a binge and then Rupert Giles got behind the wheel of his car and headed toward LA, another bottle of wine on hand to ensure that he didn't sober up so much that he neglected to do his duty by his Slayer.

Meanwhile, something long dormant beneath Sunnydale stirred uneasily, and roused itself to monitor the situation.

When Angel got off the elevator to his apartment at 2:00 a.m. that morning, having solved one more case and saved one more soul, he found Rupert Giles sitting on his couch, holding a crossbow aimed at his heart. The former Watcher's aim was remarkably steady considering that Giles was remarkably drunk.

"To what do I owe the honor?" Angel inquired coolly, stepping out of the elevator and leaning casually against the wall.

"Jenny's Birthday," Giles spat out. Angel had the grace to flinch, his gaze dropping from Giles'.

"I'm sorry," Angel said tiredly.

"I'm sure you are," Giles agreed. "Is there a reason why I should care?"

"No," Angel admitted. His gaze came back to Giles'. "Any particular reason why you decided to take your vengeance now?"

"Not vengeance. Justice. When you came back from Hell, the only reason I didn't kill you where you stood was because that would have killed Buffy. But you've managed to do that quite nicely, yourself."

"Buffy's dead?" Angel said, shocked. Somehow, despite everything, he thought that he would know when she was no longer in the world. That he would be free….

"Buffy has been dead since you flung your self-righteous little speech in her face while she lay wounded and bleeding in hospital five years ago, you pillock."

"Oh, that," Angel said, as something --not relief, he told himself, so much as a reassurance that nothing had changed-- swept over him. He pushed away from the wall, slowly, so as not to alarm Giles. He had no illusions about Ripper's ability to drive that bolt through his heart.

"Yes, that," Giles said angrily, as Angel took the chair opposite him. Giles moved the crossbow unerringly to keep pace with the vampire. "After everything you put her through, I don't know where you got the nerve."

"She gave me all the nerve I needed when she dumped her rage and distrust and spitefulness out on me two years before, Giles" Angel shot back. "If you've come here to ask me to forgive her, you might as well just pull the trigger on that thing now, because what she did to me was unforgivable."

Oddly, Giles laughed, and put up the crossbow. "Oh, that's rich. That's bloody rich. She's done something for which you can't forgive her! She, what, hurt your pride? Vented some of her anger for your desertion? Behaved unreasonably while in the throes of real worry, stress, and the heartache you had left her to?"

"Whatever you think, Giles, I haven't done anything to her she didn't richly deserve," Angel said. "You talked about wanting justice. Is it so surprising that I might feel entitled to some?"

Giles laughed again. "…in the course of justice none of us should see salvation," he quoted. "Oh, yes, let's do talk about justice, Angel, old son. If there were any justice, I would be able to shoot this bolt through you and dance in the cloud of dust left behind. I would be able to do it and drive home to sleep the sleep of the innocent, having avenged both Jenny's death and Buffy's heartache. And do you know the only reason I don't?"

"Because even you can't justify murder in cold blood?" Angel said dryly.

"Oh, my boy, you are naïve," Giles said bitterly. "I wouldn't mind having your blood on my hands, the colder the better. No, the thing that keeps me from pulling the trigger is this: despite how badly you've hurt her, Buffy would care if I killed you, care enough that it might kill the little spirit that's left in her, and, if you're interested at all, destroy the chance the world now has for a true battle against evil, for a true reckoning of accounts."

"What are you talking about?"

"Prophecies and possibilities. But why would that matter to you?" Giles shook his head. "You don't care about those, so I'll make one more effort. You owe me that much at least, to listen to me."

Angel had to admit that he did. But that's all you owe him, an inner voice whispered. He's bound to take her part in this, he can't be objective. And he can't really understand your pain. Which was very true, Angel reflected. Still, the least he could do was hear Giles out. "Go on," he said stiffly.

"I don't know how much you know about what happened. But all those years ago…the day after we found that you had changed, Buffy realized what Jenny was. I felt…betrayed. We parted ways then. She had explained why she had done what she had done, spying on you, and I knew I couldn't really blame her for what had happened. But I was stubborn, telling myself that if she had loved me and trusted me the way I loved and trusted her, that she would have told me what was going on from the first. Part of me knew that she owed her own people her first loyalty and that she hadn't learned the worst until it was too late. And part of me realized she was doing everything in her power to make things right, although I didn't realize the full extent of that until months later, when you tried to release Acathla."

Angel shifted uneasily in his chair as ugly memories, memories he had tried to put behind him, to atone for, resurfaced. Rupert Giles nodded, realizing his discomfort.

"The thing is, I felt I was in the right, and that she had wronged me, so her reasons didn't really matter to me. And it took me too damned long to realize that I was being a complete ass…to forgive her. I had finally realized that I was a fool, that she could no more avoid her responsibilities to her tribe than I could to my Slayer. We were going to have dinner that night, and I had planned to make it up to her, to tell her I forgave her her subterfuge, and to ask her to forgive me for my lack of understanding. But a vicious, sadistic, murdering brute had other plans. And for the past ten years, I have had to live with the fact that I made a mistake I can never rectify. Jenny and I wasted the last few weeks of her life because I was too stubborn to offer forgiveness."

"I'm sorry," Angel said once more.

"Sorry for me, or for yourself?" Giles said. "Sorry enough not to repeat my mistake?" Grim silence answered him. "I should have realized this was a fool's errand," Giles said, tiredly, getting to his feet and picking up his crossbow, now aimed harmlessly at the floor. "Well, Angel. You win. Stay here in your dank basement with your detective agency on the fringes of the underworld. I know you're doing some good, here. Have at it. Never mind that you could be doing more."

"Giles," Angel growled warningly as the former Watcher headed toward the elevator.

"Don't forgive her," Giles tossed back over his shoulder as he walked away. "Cling to your anger, your need for 'justice.'" He fumbled the door open and stepped inside. "After all," he said acidly just before starting the mechanism that would take him up to the offices and away from Angel, "it isn't as if you have ever done anything that required forgiveness."

Giles made the trip home without incident. In the morning, sobriety restored, he wondered if he had made an appallingly bad situation even worse. He said nothing to Buffy about his visit, not wanting to raise her hopes that Angel would have a change of heart. Angel didn't. Giles swallowed his disappointment and contented himself with delving even deeper into the WC theories, as a few more months passed uneventfully by.

The thing beneath Sunnydale realized It would have to be just a bit more vigilant. Fortunately, It had handled matters with the required subtlety, waiting until circumstances had dictated this as a logical outcome, if one that would never have occurred without Its delicate interference. No one had questioned the initial rift. Now, they all accepted it, and weren't apt to be surprised that it continued. It just needed to make sure that state of affairs continued.

This time, the phone call came from Cordy.

"He won't thank you for this, "Buffy said coolly. "He's made it clear that he doesn't want my help."

"Okay, I'll ignore the fact that he should help you because you’re the Slayer," Cordy began just as coolly, "and you should help him because you owe him that much at least, because the pair of you are so jack-ass stubborn there's no point in bringing up logic." Buffy opened her mouth to tell Cordy off, but Queen C was in rare form and steamrollered right over her indignant protests. "Look at it this way: you aren't helping him, you are helping me, because I asked you to keep my boss from dying and leaving me unemployed without a bit of severance pay or a retirement pension to fall back on." In fact, well aware that any assignment could be his last, Angel had set up what he euphemistically referred to as 'emergency accounts' for both Wesley and Cordy years before. He was damned good at investments, and Cordy could already live very nicely on her account for several years while looking for other work, if she had to. But there was no reason to tell Buffy any of that. Cordy bit her lip, as the silence on the other end of the line grew longer. "Buffy, please," she whispered softly, at last.

Buffy took a deep breath. Cordy was right: the least she owed Angel was to save his life if she had the opportunity. That he had failed to do so when her own life had been on the line, and whether he returned the favor or not in the future, was immaterial. It wasn't like they were keeping score.

And maybe, a tiny part of her thought, if she could just make clear to him how very sorry she was for how badly she had hurt him…. She didn't expect forgiveness. But maybe if she said the words out loud, if she knew he knew, then whatever he did or said or thought about it, she herself could find some sort of peace.

"All right, Cordy" Buffy said finally. "When and where?"

When was that night. Where was an estate outside LA, where a trio of centuries-old sorcerers needed to sacrifice a vampire in order to retain their own immortality. Angel had been suggested to them by one of the few surviving associates of Wolfram & Hart.

Buffy contacted Willow and Tara for the appropriate counter-spells and Giles gave her a few mystic weapons that were supposed to be particularly useful against sorcerers. She handed most of the weapons over to Cordy and Wesley, who refused to be left behind. Cordy had long ago decided that some martial arts training was vital to a vampire Warrior-for-Good's Gal Friday, and now had black belts in two or three different disciplines. Buffy was impressed.

But she quickly saw why Wesley and Cordy hadn't felt up to the task of rescuing Angel on their own. They had used one of the counter-spells to get through the glamour warding the estate. They were at the edge of a heavily wooded area behind the estate. The sorcerers had set up an altar in the privacy of the woods, in a clearing carefully designed to mimic the shape of a pentagram.

The sorcerers weren't alone. They had hired bodyguards. About twenty of them. Mainly undead with a sprinkling of particularly burly demons thrown in for good measure. Buffy's demonology studies had paid off. She recognized every single breed, and whispered terse instructions to Cordy and Wesley about each types vulnerabilities; the eyes on this one, the horns on that. Four Fyarl, the sort of stupid, bulky, fighting demon Giles had once turned into, were pinning a struggling Angel to the altar while the sorcerers chanted. No wonder Angel hadn't been able to break free on his own.

Her eyes could not help but linger on him. They had stripped him down to his pants, since their ceremony involved doing unspeakable things to his heart before they dusted him. And, again because of the ritual, he wasn't drugged into cooperation. Angel was struggling and angry, although he hadn't let his demon free, yet. Buffy wondered what he was waiting for. She also wondered, with an ache, if she would ever stop missing him, longing for him, even knowing that he no longer loved her, hated her in fact. She shook away the thoughts. If she didn't act, it would all be moot because Angel would be dust.

Buffy evaluated the scene before her, with the sorcerers by the altar, guarded by a demon on each side of their group, the Fyarl holding Angel down, and most of the vamps standing in small knots in each arm of the pentagram. This could actually be good. The vamps were sort of bottled up in the woods, and couldn't really attack en masse. Fyarl were too stupid to think for themselves. And they were very fond of crushing things. If Buffy and her allies could distract the sorcerers, the Fyarl would forget all about Angel and join in the fight, which could also be good.

In a few quiet words she outlined the plan. Then, under cover of the trees, she aimed the first quarrel of her two-quarrel crossbow at the demon nearest the sorcerers and took him out of the picture. The second took out the guard on the other side before the remaining demons could react to the first kill.

The odds were down to a mere eighteen to three, plus sorcerers. Eighteen to four if they could get Angel into things. They'd all faced worse. Buffy hurled one of Giles mystic weapons, a silver spear, as she shouted one of Tara's incantations, and the first sorcerer died screaming, as his true age caught up to him.

After that, the party began in earnest.

Wesley and Cordy melted away, using the woods for cover as they headed toward the altar from opposite ends.

Buffy came out of the woods into the open, so that most of the vamps would see her as the target. She had a second cross bow loaded and took out two more at a distance before the first one even reached her.

That left her with a mere dozen vampires and demons while Wesley and Cordy helped Angel deal with the Fyarl and the sorcerers. And in the woods, they couldn't all get to her at once. She shouted out another counter-spell to keep the sorcerers out of her way as she fell effortlessly and unthinkingly into combat. She could do this, had been doing it nearly every night of her life for over ten years. Back kick to one vampire while staking another. Recover balance and stake a third. Duck under the fourth one's attack while the first got to its feet. Roundhouse kick, taking out both. Jump over the quarterstaff a fifth brings into play. Grab it away from him and stake him with it, pulling it free to stake number one behind her. The fourth one grabs her from behind. She pulls him up and over her shoulder, tossing him into numbers six, seven and eight who want to play, too.

So do vamps nine through twelve, who make their way around their fallen friends to form a loose circle around the slayer. Buffy uses the quarterstaff to keep them at a distance.

Things heat up.

The sorcerers pulled out all the stops, and the ground shook as an earthquake rocked the region. Buffy shouted her last counter-spell, and the trembling of the earth stopped and the battle resumed.

Buffy lost count and lost track. Dimly, she was aware of shouts to her left, as Cordy and Wesley battled sorcerers and demons. A familiar growling roar told her that Angel was probably in the game now, too. She battled on. By the time the demon with the mace struck her from behind, driving her to her knees, all but four of her opponents were out of the picture.

Four were enough. She got to her feet but couldn't quite manage to get the mace away from the demon, and twisting his horn, his one vulnerable spot, was completely out of the question. Another blow had her flat on her back, blood flowing from two scalp wounds…the rich, sweet blood of a Slayer, sending the three remaining vampires into a feeding frenzy. They ended up fighting each other to get to her, so only one actually managed it, only one held her down, sinking fangs into her while the demon with the mace, noting that his employers were now dead and the Fyarl were getting the worse end of matters, cut his losses and slipped away.

Angel could smell her blood on the air and rage hit him like a fist to the gut. No one had a right to kill her but him! With a roar, he threw off the two Fyarl trying to hold him, grabbed the ritual knife that was to have cut out his heart, and slashed both their throats. Wesley's sword accounted for a third, and Angel left him to help Cordy while he ran to the other end of the clearing so quickly the human eye could not follow and all Wesley saw before he turned to aid Cordy was a blur of darkness streaking across the ground.

The weight pinning Buffy down was lifted. She opened heavy lidded eyes to see Angel literally rip the head off the vampire that had been feeding from her, watching as it exploded into a shower of dust. Returning the favor, or did some tiny part of him still care? She was too tired to think about it, and let her eyes close, sinking into a pleasant darkness.

Angel had seen the blood staining the vampire's lips --her blood-- and his rage of the previous moment reached heights he could never have imagined. He dropped the knife unthinkingly, grabbed the vampire's head and simply twisted. Exultantly, he held the head aloft until it exploded into dust. A moment later he blinked, shocked. How the hell had he done that? Why the hell had he done that? It wasn't like he still cared about the tiny girl lying so still and silent on the forest floor at his feet.

Reluctantly, Angel knelt at her side. Her heartbeat was still regular, and her color was good. The vampire hadn't gotten enough blood to endanger her. The blows to her head probably had more to do with her unconsciousness than blood loss.

Wesley and Cordelia limped up behind him.

"She gonna be okay?" Cordy asked.

"She'll live," Angel told her.

"We should get her to hospital," Wesley said. "If she has a concussion…."

Angel agreed, stooping to pick up the fallen girl.

She was lighter than he remembered, in keeping with how thin she had grown. And even though he hated her, even though he despised the necessity of coming to her aid now, he had to work to ignore how warm and soft she felt in his arms….

The hospital was full of earthquake victims. No deaths had been reported yet, but there were serious injuries. Buffy had regained consciousness, and the ER staff decided they didn't need to waste a bed on her.

"Doesn't seem to be a concussion," the doctor said. "Her pupils are the same size, and her visual orientation is good. But you'll have to watch her for the next twenty-four hours. Next time, get her under a doorway before the furniture falls, okay?" He gave Angel a sheet of instructions and released Buffy.

"Where's Cordy?" Buffy asked. "I can stay--"

"No room," Angel cut her off tersely. "Wesley's place was damaged in the quake."

"Then a hotel--"

"Someone has to keep an eye on you," he bit out. His reluctance was almost palpable.

"I'll be fine," she said coldly.

"Don’t be stupid," he said scathingly. Buffy swallowed. So much for even a tiny part of him still caring.

"All right," she capitulated, then added, as a remnant of pride came to her aid. "And you're welcome." She walked toward his car, leaving him staring at her back in renewed fury.

The drive to Angel's home and offices was silent. Angel kept his eyes on the road, Buffy her attention fixed outside her window. LA. Her hometown. It seemed so alien to her now, new developments having sprung up in so many of the outlying areas they drove through. Well, it had been ten years since she could call LA home.

But it was easier to think about how much she missed LA than it was to think about how much she missed Angel when he was sitting inches away from her, and she was enveloped in the sound and smell and feel of him.

And he hated her so much she could feel his anger like a tangible force in the car between them.

It was even harder sleeping in his bed, alone, while he took the couch she could see from the bedroom. Harder still to cry without making a sound. Would her nightmare return tonight? Or would a new one, a worse one, find her? Not really caring, exhausted physically and emotionally, Buffy drifted off to sleep.

He couldn't sleep. Anger that Cordy and Wesley had gone against his express wishes on the matter surged through his system. They were going to catch hell when he saw them again. He would rather have died on the sorcerer's altar than survived in Buffy's debt. Well, maybe his rescuing her from the vamp evened the score…except that she wouldn’t have needed rescuing if she hadn't come to help him.

Swearing softly, Angel tossed off his covers and padded silently over to his bed. He was supposed to check on her, not let her sleep too long. He glanced at his watch. It wasn't really time yet, so he simply looked down at her.

She was crying in her sleep, silently, tears falling down her bruised cheeks. Somehow, her pain appeased the worst of his rage. He walked away and let her sleep until it was time to check on her.

Over the course of the night, Angel woke her several times, asked her some questions, and certain that all was as it should be, let her return to sleep. He himself didn't fall asleep until dawn.

FEMFIC      PART 2        PART 4        FEEDBACK