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PART 10

If Angel's heart had been beating it would've stopped when Emma appeared next to him a moment later. "Do you have to do that?" he asked annoyed at being scared by her appearance.

"Look whose talking stealth-guy" Emma replied. She looked at the house that they were standing near and shook her head, "That's the house of the big evil?"

"Yeah" Angel answered, "Evil has bad taste in houses." He relaxed slightly, Emma was here and when they went in to face whatever lay ahead, trap or not they'd do it together. "So ready to go inside?" he asked her.

Emma looked up at her lover, "As ready as I'm ever gonna be." She turned towards the house and grabbed Angel's hand and together they headed towards that open window and their destinies.

 

Angel climbed in first and then helped Emma through, they then looked around and found that they were in a small room with only one way into the rest of the house. Angel looked at Emma, who nodded signally that she was ready to move farther forward into the house. Angel grabbed her hand, more to keep her close than for any sort of comfort and headed to the door where he laid his head.

When he didn't hear anything he used his free hand to turn the knob and open the door, stepping through it and bringing Emma with him. They quickly surveyed the hallway and found that it too was devoid of all life and they stood for a moment unsure of where to go. Suddenly they were assaulted by the feeling of unease again and knew where they were to go… down to the basement.

Emma turned to Angel and whispered, "Why do evil things hang out in basements? Can't they live in some fancy penthouse or something?"

"Basements are dark, damp and underground… evil likes that" Angel replied moving them towards the basement and the final battle.

A few moments later they reached the basement door and a feeling of dread washed over her, Emma looked up at Angel and said, "Be careful okay?"

"You too, my love" he answered kissing her quickly. Then he turned the knob and they descended into the darkness below.

 

Back at the manor everyone was going stir crazy, they wanted to be out there with Emma and Angel and not trapped in the house worrying. To make matters worse Leo and Jenny had been called away to the powers and that made everyone else jumpy, like something really terrible was going to happen.

Piper stood up, "I can't take this. My baby is out there and I'm a freaking charmed one and am of no help whatsoever… why can't I do something." Phoebe, Prue, Willow and Tara felt the same way.

Willow suddenly came up with an idea, "Couldn't we do some sort of protection spell for them… kinda give them the edge over the baddies."

"Yeah, if you give me a second I can write one" Phoebe joined in. She knew that this would provide a distraction; even if it didn't work it would give everyone something else to focus on for a few minutes.

A few minutes later they were completing the spell Phoebe had whipped up, hoping that it would work. They were sitting around staring at the remnants when Leo and Jenny returned, looking glum.

"What is it?" Piper demanded, "What did they say?"

Leo took a deep breath, "Only one of them will return."

Piper looked her husband in the eyes and saw something that she didn't want to believe. "Emma? You think its Emma who won't come back," she asked.

"Why else would they call both Jenny and I there. If it were Angel, they wouldn't have needed me," Leo said trying to control his emotions, he didn't want to breakdown in front of everyone.

Piper didn't care about that she threw herself into Leo's arms and cried. Leo held onto his wife and hoped that they were wrong and that they both came waltzing back through that door and that no one would have to suffer, but he knew that wasn't going to happen. He knew that for some of them… maybe all of them were going to have tragedy visit.

Emma and Angel descended the staircase into the dark basement. Angel used his vampire vision to look around and was just about to tell Emma there was nothing there when a loud rumbling noise started and the building began to shake. Angel grabbed Emma and held her close until the rumbling and shaking stopped and a light appeared.

They both turned towards it and Emma gave a startled gasp at the sight. There was a hidden room, one that had a red light coming out of it making the basement look as though it had been bathed in blood. Also coming from the room was the sound of laughter, the kind that comes from getting exactly what you want so that it's all you can do to express your joy. A feeling of danger and disaster flowed over Emma and Angel as they stepped forward towards the laughter.

As she stepped into the once hidden chamber she didn't see much of anything, shapes seemed to be indistinguishable under the blood red lighting. She strained to see what lay ahead more out of necessity for not tripping over something gross before she died in battle, than for the big nasty evil itself. Emma gripped Angel's hand tighter as she tried to control her fear… she didn't want to deal with it once more, last time it had almost taken Angel from her and this time she feared it would succeed… if not turning him evil then in killing him. They reached the back of the room and found nothing there, but when they turned around they saw something waiting for them… something that shocked them both.

 

Piper finally let go of Leo and sat down, unable to stand. "Did the spell work?" she asked the others, praying that it had.

"I don't know" Phoebe and Willow chorused.

An uncomfortable silence overtook the room and everyone kept looking at each other not knowing what to say to help the situation.

Anya took it upon herself to comfort the room, "Well at least whichever one of them dies… they'll go out happy." Everyone's eyes focused on the ex-vengeance demon that went on un-noticing, "You know since they had sex…"

Xander clamped his hand over his wife's mouth and said, "Sorry… she can't help herself."

Leo looked at Anya and shook his head, wishing that he could laugh at the absurdity of the situation and not be worried that his daughter… his little girl… his and Piper's only child would perish in this battle. He knew all the others in the room felt bad over this turn of events, but only the family and maybe… Angel would and could understand what they'd be going through if anything did happen to her. He felt a reassuring hand on his shoulder and turned to see Cole standing there, throughout the years they had banded together and he was telling Leo that he was not alone in this… Emma belonged to them all.

 

Emma finally regained her speech, leaning in close to Angel she said, "Why does the first evil look like the freakin' Master?" She tried to make light of the situation, but it was freaking her out. She'd always had issues over the Master and the first evil was trying to use it to its advantage.

Angel remembered how Buffy had been distraught over the whole thing with the master and inside he seethed with anger. Last time it had tried to use his guilt over Jenny to drive him over the edge and back to the arms of evil and now it was trying to remove Emma from the equation by dredging up and painful thing from Buffy's past. "Just remember he can't hurt you if you don't let him" he told her.

Emma nodded, she knew that he was right, she just had to get past her emotional turmoil and that was not an easy thing to do. She tried to push the pain aside and forget it was there, when she remembered something one of her aunts had told her once… 'Pain makes us stronger. If we didn't have to deal with pain, we wouldn't be who we are and we wouldn't be able to fight the good fight', Emma decided to test the theory. "Back off buzzard breath, you don't scare me," she yelled at the master's image.

All she heard in reply was laughter.

 

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