Freedom came in all shapes and sizes. 

For Dawn it was no longer living in the shadow of her sister. Buffy was The Slayer (even more so now) and hence had always had this aura surrounding her, this presence that announced to everyone that she was something, she was someone. Someone important, someone to be reckoned with, someone in charge, someone to lead. 

Now that Buffy was off in LA, rescuing her former boyfriend or whatever it was she had convinced the rest of the gang needed to be done, Dawn was alone. Not alone, but more on her own. 

Dawn was now an integral part of the team, diminishing as that team was becoming. Her ideas were listened to and if not implemented, at least given due consideration. That could have also had something to do with the diminishing numbers fact, but Dawn didn’t care. 

Three more potential slayers had arrived within the past week to replace the six they had lost in the days before. The forces of darkness were indeed growing stronger and bolder and the gang was hard pressed to keep up with them.

As she poured herself a bowl of cereal, trying to keep as quiet as possible and not disturb the mass of people trying to sleep in the house, Dawn wondered what Buffy was doing. How she was faring in LA against Angelus, more precisely. 

These days away from each other, having Faith here in charge of things, and actually participating in slayer related activities rather than being regulated to the sidelines had given Dawn another perspective on her sister. 

Buffy was as much wrapped up in Angelus as she had ever been in Angel. 

It wasn’t an insight she wanted to share with anyone and Dawn also realized that it was none of her business. Despite the facts to the contrary, Buffy’s love life wasn’t anyone’s business but her own. And, okay, psychotic killer on the loose wasn’t exactly something Dawn wanted to see again, but Buffy was smarter than that, right? Right? 

Everyone else probably realized that Buffy was going after Angelus because of her feelings towards the demon and the soul as well…or maybe not, considering they all thought she was truly over the dark and brooding vampire. 

“Right,” Dawn snorted as she replaced the milk in the refrigerator, “Like that is ever going to happen. Sometimes they are so blind.” Settling down at the island, she looked over her math book, a last review of her test today, and ate her corn flakes when the scream echoed through the house. 

Dropping her spoon into the bowl and splattering milk all over her textbook, Dawn raced through to the living room, trying to discern where the noise was coming from. She saw Giles there, struggling to disentangle himself from his bedding and together they raced upstairs, leaving several potentials in a confused muddle. Anya met them at the top of the stairs with Willow who was already moving down the hallway. 

“It’s coming from Faith’s room!” The witch shouted as they raced to her door. It wasn’t locked and the four of them burst through the door, having no idea what to expect on the other side. It wasn’t like Faith to scream like a child in the midst of a nightmare, but that was exactly what greeted them. 

Giles quickly crossed the room and gathered the thrashing slayer into his arms. It was something he’d have done for Buffy and faced with a slayer in his charge in this situation, he didn’t hesitate. 

“Faith!” He called, trying to hold her flailing arms down to prevent injury to himself more than anything. “Faith,” he tried again, shaking the girl. “You need to wake up, Faith!” 

Her eyes snapped open and in the next instant the slayer launched away from Giles and into a far corner, glancing around like a caged animal. 

“Too many, there are too many, make them stop, make them stop, make them stop…” She continued to chant that as she rocked back and forth and for a moment everyone was at a loss as to what to do. 

Anya took a step forward then stopped when Faith growled at her. “Make who stop what?” 

“Them, there are too many they’re coming, they’re all coming and I can’t stop them all, there are too many.” Faith continued her rocking but her words were clearer now. Slowly she began to stop her movements, slumping against the wall. She continued to shake, but it was obvious to the four concerned people in the room that she was forcefully getting herself under control. 

There was a gasp from the doorway and Willow looked to see most of the potentials gathered there, trying to crowd in to see what was happening. “LEAVE. NOW.” She said, closing the door firmly in their frightened faces she didn’t bother to care about their feelings or concerns; when the slayer lost it, it was usually a bad thing, and with Faith moaning in a corner it was probably worse. 

“Faith?” Giles asked as he walked cautiously towards her. “Faith, can you tell us what you saw?” 

“Vampires, ugly suckers, too. Hundreds of them, thousands, too many, so many,” closing her eyes against the nightmare vision that was haunting her, Faith tried again. It was so hard to collect oneself when your second worst nightmare was about to come true. An unbeatable army of the demons you fought on a daily basis about to attack. 

“They weren’t normal vampires, Giles,” Faith said, looking into the concerned eyes of a man who had once tried to help her. “They were…ugly,” she repeated, frustrated, “Bald, permanently in vamp form, long teeth and claws that could gouge you at twenty paces.” 

Was this even making sense? Faith wondered as she cautiously unfolded herself from her crouching position. Stumbling once, she shot Dawn a grateful look when the girl caught her then Anya another grateful look as she yelled through to door at the obviously still listening potential’s for a glass of water. 

“They were…I don’t really know how to describe them, but there were a lot of them, and they were all after me…us.” Faith frowned as the door slowly opened and a hand snuck in with a glass of water; seemed the potentials were frightened of Willow’s temper as well. Taking a sip Faith looked to Giles who was frowning at her and looking like he really wanted to clean the glasses he had left downstairs in his rush to her room. 

“Turok-Han,” Giles said, a whisper horror and awe in his voice. “I thought there was only one of those. The first vampire, the one Buffy killed before you came here. There-there are m-more of them?” 

“I don’t know what it was, Giles, but there were hundreds of them. Lots of extras on the movie set of my dream.” Faith drained the glass of water and wished for something a little stronger. 

“I have a drawing of it downstairs; once you’ve steadied yourself we’ll take a look at it. But if what you’re saying is true, Faith,” Giles said and tried not to sound as desperate and hopeless as he suddenly believed the situation to be, “I think we’re going to need some more help. 

“We’re running out of time…”
~~~~~~~~~~
They were indeed, everyone was. 

The clock was ticking and the minutes diminishing faster than anyone could possibly understand. There were three fronts and they were all on a collision course with no clear end in sight and no clear winner from the intertwined fates. 

Buffy was being seduced by a demon who knew exactly which buttons to push, how hard and when. A master manipulator who used both truth and feelings to get his way. It was working. 

Faith had no idea just how bad her dream was. She was up against something she couldn’t defeat on her own but their reinforcements weren’t nearly enough to fight in what was sure to be an epic battle. 

The First Evil was losing patience and simply waiting for Its Blood Harvest to be completed. Once that was accomplished the only thing that could stop It was the literal end of the world. A supernova would have worked just fine, but since supernovas were in short supply…it was hoped that the harvest was stopped before that became necessary. 

Doyle hoped that Connor was ready for this; he was the key to it all. Not to put too fine a point on it or anything; poor kid. While it was true that The Slayer needed the Souled Vampire, they needed the Balance as well. Shame that part wasn’t included in the prophecy.
~~~~~~~~~~
Its army was magnificent 

More than that, it was glorious and wonderful and everything It had hoped for and wanted and now, oh yes; now It had it. Within hours things would be decided and It was determined that Its way would be the only way. 

Hundreds upon thousands of vampires lined the deep cavern, all Turok-Hans, and while not as precious to It as The First Vampyre, still a beautiful sight to behold. They were more than ready to fight and more than ready to die. Its banner was a battle cry heard round the world and taken up by more and more demons as the hours ticked by, ticked closer to Its precious harvest. 

For a creature who has seen the passage of eons, these last minutes were slow and plodding, a waste It never could understand. Time moved at a constant rate, and yet this end, the beginning of the beginning, the end of the old…wasn’t coming nearly fast enough. 

“My liege,” Its loyal subject, dubbed here as simply ‘The Beast’ knelt before It. “I have word on the slayers. The one is seducing Angelus,” he continued as It changed forms, becoming Buffy. “She and the vampire are in his penthouse. I am unable to discern what else is happening, all I know is that she is there voluntarily and doesn’t seem interested in stopping him.” 

“And the other?” It asked, turning into a creature Angelus had once killed; Jenny Calendar, walked in a circled around The Beast, “What of the other? The one here, in Sunnydale?” 

Not raising his eyes from the floor he answered, “She is weakening, her forces are diminishing and she still does not know what is about to occur.” 

“Excellent,” It said and morphed again into an ancient enemy from before the written word. “All will be as planned. See that Los Angeles is blocked off, I know Angelus had forces in place for that but I want no one to leave that city alive – in any way, shape, or form.”

“Aye, my liege,” he said and left to do Its bidding. It smiled, and looked once more to Its army. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to step up this stage of the plan at least, attack the Slayer and her pathetic gang of warriors now rather than later, weaken them before Its harvest. 

Yes, that was a much better plan. 

Drusilla watched from the sidelines, keeping her thoughts to herself. Granted, she had allied herself with the First and had fully planned on keeping to that alliance, but visions were powerful motivators.

And they were motivating her to take Spike and leave Sunnydale. This time forever.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Do we continue to patrol?” 

The question came from one of the potentials though it was what was on all of their minds. Faiths’ dream had indeed been about hoards of Turok-Han vamps and no one was taking the news lightly. One potential had run away and Faith spent precious hours tracking her down – the girl was still alive when they returned to the house, but after the lecture Giles and Anya had given her probably wished she wasn’t. 

“Yes,” Faith said and Giles nodded his agreement. “We have to. Just because there’s a huge nearly unbeatable army waiting to strike is no reason to give up the fight.” All eyes not already on her turned to her and Faith shrugged, “What I didn’t want to lie.” 

“The point is,” Willow continued, giving Faith one last look, “Is that the First wants us to think that Its unbeatable, weaken moral like that, weaken our forces. It’s not unbeatable, nothing is,” she continued though Willow didn’t really believe her own words, her tone suggested only victory for their group. “That It needs something and we can prevent It from getting that something.” 

Everyone believed her, everyone nodded, the potentials moving into the back yard to train some more while Andrew went to clean the bathroom. Only Faith, Willow, Giles, Anya, and Dawn remained. 

“The First Evil has been around since the first beings in the cosmos,” Anya said softly so no one else could hear. “The first time one hurt another, murder, rape, stealing, whatever, It was born. Or gained enough power to survive. We can’t defeat It; the most we can do is weaken It enough to stave off this harvest.”

”Anya is right,” Giles agreed, his voice heavy with the burden they all carried. “But I think we still need to patrol, still need to train the potentials, and we need to keep researching a way to stop this harvest.” No one added that they needed to find an alternate plan to Buffy and Angel.
~~~~~~~~~~
The question was: when did anything they do go as planned?

The answer to that was never. 

If they wanted a picnic, it didn’t rain, a demon interrupted. If they wanted to see a movie, a gang of vampires crashed the theater, necessitating yet another interruption. If they wanted to find alternate ways of stopping this harvest… 

Willow and Giles were researching. Giles had insisted that Willow try a simple spell to locate the place Faith was sure the Turok-Han were gathering and Willow agreed, so long as the former watcher was close by. All this strong magick was taking its toll on the redhead and she was getting nervous. Willow preformed the spell but found no answers and they left it for the night. 

That was when the super-vamps attacked. Less than a fifth of the army was used to crash the house, destroying it and causing neighbors to run screaming into the street when the fighting expanded into their yards; those neighbors who had never really gotten to know the strange Summers’ household, were suddenly vampire food. 

No one could worry about that now, though, there were too many other things to worry about. 

Willow sent a fireball crashing through the back of the house clearing the path and allowing Giles to herd Dawn and the potentials through the back yard and down the street, entrusting their care to Anya so that he might rejoin the fight. The slaughter. Faith was right in the middle and she was fighting better than Giles had seen her fight in a long while; smooth, controlled, a leashed aggression that was focused solely on the demons surrounding her.

Willow wasn’t so lucky. 

She had chased two of the potentials into the street when the girls had panicked and now erected a barrier between her, the two potential she was guarding, and the Turok-Hans. Her eyes and hair were black as night and Giles knew what was happening. 

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. He was too far away and seriously doubted his ability to live long enough to help Willow. 

So he began his own chants, calling on power long buried, hoping that something would give them enough time because the way they were going in a matter of seconds they were all going to be dead. While most of his concentration was focused on remembering long unused protection spell, Giles noted with some interest that most of the Turok’s were surrounding Willow rather than Faith. Odd… 

‘LEAVE, GILES!’ A voice resonated within his head, causing him to lose his concentration and look up. Faith was now encased within her own protective barrier and the vamps were doing their level best to break through the magicks and get to the slayer.

Eyes locked with Willow’s black ones and though she never wavered in her concentration, he clearly heard her, ‘I can’t hold them forever and Faith is the slayer, the line moves through her now, should she die and one of the potentials is called, you’re going to waste precious time training her to be anywhere near the level Faith is and we don’t know what’s happening with Buffy or when she’ll be back. I’m going to move Faith to the outer edge, grab her and run. I’ll hold them off for as long as possible.’ 

Shaking his head, Giles said aloud, “No, don’t even think of it, Willow,” and began to chant once more. But he had nowhere the power as Willow did and when he flew backwards, crashing through into what remained of the Summers’ front room, Giles knew the young witch had been the cause. 

A minute later Faith was pulling him from the wreckage and they were running down the street, not a single vampire in sight. 

The two potentials huddled behind Willow were dead, they knew that as well as Willow and the Turok-Hans did. The forcefield shimmered around the trio as the vampires attempted to break free, coveting one with so much power. It wouldn’t last much longer and everyone knew it. 

“I’m sorry,” Willow said as she faced the two girls. Genuine regret in her voice though her eyes were emotionless and coal black, and the potentials, for the first time since they learned of their fate, were truly afraid of the witch. “I’m sorry that you were chosen for this life, sorry that it sucks beyond the telling. But we’re all going to die and I have two more things to do before that death.” 

So saying, Willow reached magickal tendrils out and sucked the life force from the two before her. Instantly the barrier reinforced itself around only Willow, leaving the now dead potential slayers limp on the street and causing the Turok-Hans nearest the field to burst into flames. 

Then all fighting stopped and for a single moment silence reigned on the Revello Drive. In the distance the collapsing of a house wall could be heard, but everything on the street was focused on the witch…the one now floating six feet off the ground. 

“I call on the elements, earth, wind, fire, water,” she said and her voice carried over the few hundred or so vampires crowding the street. The good guys hadn’t managed to take out very many, five at most from what Willow could tell and those, aside from the ones who had combusted when her magickal barrier reshaped – weren’t killed so much as injured. “I call on the life of the earth, the fire from which it was created; I call it down upon me to wipe out this plague!” 

The sky split open and all eyes were helplessly drawn to it. The heavens began to weep then, as Willow continued her chanting, her skin wrinkling with every word and her voice getting deeper with every harsh breath. The heavens wept great balls of flame, fire fell down upon the street, onto houses, destroying whatever was left of the Summers’ residence and several of their surrounding neighbors. Creators formed in the center of the road from the force of impact. 

Just as suddenly as it began, it stopped and the heavens closed once more, their tears, for the moment, dried. 

Nothing lived within a quarter mile radius of Willow. Not even Willow. 

With her second-to-last breath she released the magickal barrier that had protected her from both the Turok-Han and the falling fire. With her final breath she sought Buffy. 

The slayer had to be warned, her friend needed to know and there was only one way to do so. 

“They’re coming!” Willow shouted, a cry, a whisper, focusing her mind to Buffy’s, hoping, knowing the slayer had heard her, saw the images Willow saw. 

And then she was dead, with no one to witness such a sacrifice and no one close enough to mourn.
~~~~~~~~~~
Buffy woke with a start, looking around as if she was about to be attacked. 

Willow’s voice – her terror and pain, her triumph and defeat – all echoed throughout Buffy’s mind, her body, her blood. The slayer power within her cried out for vengeance and Buffy, without knowing why, began to weep. 

Willow was dead. And with her last breath she had sent her dearest friend a warning. 

There was more than the one Turok-Han Buffy had defeated before leaving for LA. There were hundreds of thousands of them. And they were not at all pleased with the way things had been going. 

“Willow!” Buffy cried, rocking on the blanket she shared with Angelus, crying for her best friend, for yet another person she love that she could not save. “NO, WILLOW!” 

Angelus looked at her for a moment before wrapping his strong arms about her shoulders, pulling her to his chest as she continued to cry her sorrow and pain out. 

“What’s wrong, Buffy?” He asked at length when her tears began to subside. 

“Willow, it’s Willow…” her voice was soft, full of pain and Angelus thought there wasn’t a more pleasurable sound in the world – except her screaming his name as she climaxed. “She’s dead.” 

Ah, perfect. “Shhh, baby, shhh, it’s probably just a bad dream, just a dream.” Angelus said, still caressing her body, as she lay curled on his lap. Buffy raised her tear stained face to his and Angelus couldn’t help but lean down to taste the pain of her tears. Delicious. 

“It was all a bad dream, Buffy,” he said again, large hands smoothing her hair from her face. “Nothing more than a bad dream brought on by guilt your friends force you to feel for living your own life for once. Here you are, exactly where you wish to be, and you know they won’t approve. But, baby, they don’t have a say in this.” 

Buffy sighed, half believing him, half wondering why she was so willing to do so. But no, she had a sinking feeling, and she knew something had happened at home. “No, something happened, I know it.” 

“How do you know?” He asked, waiting. 

“I don’t, I don’t, but I have to get back, I have to get to Sunnydale…” she turned to leave, to gather her clothes and rush to her friends, her remaining friends, just to reassure herself that they were indeed alive and that all this was only some dream. 

Eyes hardening, jaw clenched, Angelus let her scrambled off his lap. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, lover,” he said, voice smooth as velvet. 

“What? But I have to; I need to know if they’re alive, I need to be there to protect them.” Buffy was confused, disoriented, forgetting for a moment that this wasn’t Angel, nor yet an Angelus who cared for her friends. 

“Ah, yes, your friends,” Angelus mocked, eyes glinting hard in the waning moonlight. Those same self-serving friends who refused to see how happy you were with Angel; those same friends who thought that in a few months you’d be over him. Over me. Who refused to see that you belonged to me and that I would never, will never, let you go. Those same friends who have used you time and again, who have fallen so far they can’t see the light anymore and yet condemn you for every perceived slight.” 

Angelus moved closer to Buffy who had stopped gathering her clothes and sat numbly on the soft wool blanket listening to him. “Are you sure, lover, that they really need help?” His hand brushed tendrils of her hair out of her face, lingering on the smooth cheek as he continued, “Are you sure it’s not just another ploy to get you out of my arms, out of my bed? Are you sure they just don’t think you shouldn’t be here, but instead should be there?” 

His mouth was so close to her ear, his body so close to hers. Buffy shivered with passion, with his nearness, with the sight, sound, scent of him, only him. “Are you sure you want to leave me, baby?” He asked, leaning back just enough to look into her half closed eyes. 

“I can’t promise what my reaction might be if I found out you had left me,” he said, the warning clear for Buffy to hear. Like he cared about Willow anyway, she was such a nuisance, always putting that pesky soul back where she thought it belonged. 

“I’m sorry your hurting baby; well no actually you’re so beautiful when you grieve, a priceless sight for only I to behold…but I wouldn’t want it to take you from me. It’s really hard for me to work up a tear for the witch when she keeps bringing that idiotic other half back.” 

He shifted her back onto his lap, letting her legs fall to the side of his hips, her core a teasing inch from his straining erection. Bending his legs at the knee, he trapped her to him, unwilling to let her go in the slightest way. 

“Nor,” he continued, his voice still as smooth as whisky, his hands still roaming her lush body, “Do I want to hear about you leaving me; I couldn’t even imagine what I might do if you left me.”

Threat, promise, danger, it was all there so clearly in his voice but that was only part of the reason Buffy stayed. The other part was that she wanted to. 

“But…” her protest was halfhearted at best, and Angelus silenced her by kissing her, a slow move that sapped whatever willpower she had to fight him, to leave him. 

“I can’t protect you if you leave me, baby. You think the First doesn’t want you?” His lips were moving along her jaw and cheek, settling close to her ear as he whispered, “Oh, It does, my love, It does. But you are mine and only mine; and I won’t ever let you go. I won’t share; not with your pathetic little friends,” he moved back now, eyes boring into hers to prove his point. “Not with Angel, and I’ll be damned if I let the First have you.” 

Buffy remained silent, loosely wrapped around his body, eyes locked with his deep brown ones, caught in his web of words as surely as she was in his arms. She was torn, torn between wanting what she always had wanted – Angel (Angelus) – and helping as she had always helped. Willow’s screams still echoed within her, combining with the slayers’ need to fight.

Angelus noticed her indecision but knew it wouldn’t last long. Not if he had anything to say about it at least. 

“If you leave, you again become the one to stop; deadlier than Faith certainly, stronger, faster, and the First would consider you the threat and throw everything It has at all of you, your friends included…just to stop the one leading the fight. You, Buffy. Running back now wouldn’t save Willow if Willow is indeed dead.” 

Keeping his face full of concern and his tone soft and lilting as Buffy’s face crumbled once more, Angelus asked, all solicitation and caring, “Would Willow want you to needlessly sacrifice yourself for something you couldn’t – no one could – change?” He saw her shake her head slightly, ‘no’, but was unsure if she was agreeing with him or refuting his words. “Besides, Buffy, not all your prophetic dreams come true, remember baby?” 

“No, no,” Buffy disagreed, shaking her head firmly this time as fresh tears threatened. “You don’t understand. I have to, I’m the only one who can, I became this so I could…I’m…” 

She trailed off as Angelus’ eyes narrowed. “You’re what?” He asked, his question leaving no room for arguments. 

Oops. Shrugging, the terror from her dream still fresh in her mind, Buffy whispered, trying to downplay what she had become. “I’m stronger, now.” 

Angelus pulled back enough to study her more fully as he considered the implications of what she was saying. Softly he said, “I asked you once what you did and you shrugged the question off and truthfully I wasn’t sure I cared as long as I had you under me, over me, wrapped around me.” 

His eyes flashed golden-red for a moment and his hands clasped tighter around Buffy shoulders. Demanding he asked, “What have you done to yourself, Buff?” She didn’t answer and Angelus felt his anger growing exponentially. 

“I can’t tell you,” he continued, his anger leaking through his words, “How…angry I would be if you’ve done something to damage yourself or something that takes you away from me prematurely. If that is the case,” he went on watching her carefully as he did so, but her expression gave nothing away, “Then your little friends better damn well hope the First gets to them before I do because there won’t be enough left of them for the First to find much less gut.” 

Eyes boring into hers, Angelus watched the terror for her friends, for Willow, the defiance…and the power. More power than before, yet the same. “You belong to me and only I decide when you cease to breathe. Understand, lover?” 

“What did you do, Angelus?” Buffy asked instead and watched as his eyes narrowed into golden slits as he continued to stare at her. 

Wondering how he hadn’t seen it before, how he could have possibly missed it, Angelus realized what Buffy had done to herself. She was still the same, her power felt the same at its core, there was just more of it now…a lot more. She was his match in every way. 

“That’s not possible.” He said softly, dangerous all the more for that softness, fingers digging into flesh hard enough to bruise even her. “You’re still human, Buffy!” He roared into the still night, “Your body can’t house that kind of power!” 

What had she done?! 

While a part of Angelus felt pride at her actions, there was a quickly growing part that was terrified at the chances she took, the chances that could take her away from him. And at the same time uncontrollable lust streaked through him and he looked at her as a man who wants to control and dominate his woman through any means left to him would. 

She gazed silently back at him as Angelus fully digested what she hadn’t actually said but he knew, somehow he knew anyway. Grabbing her head, clenching his fists in her soft hair, he continued to roar, “Damn you! That could have killed you! I should beat you until you can’t walk and then beat you some more! Your body wasn’t meant for that kind of power, Buffy! Wasn’t the witch’s lesson in power stealing enough for you?” 

Cupping his cheek, Buffy wondered for a moment how he had known of Willow and her near ending of the world, hell on earth tantrum from a few months ago, and said softly, “The line goes through Faith now. Besides, you knew I would come for you.” 

“For Angel,” Angelus said coldly, not releasing his death grip on her hair, hating her for what she had done to herself and hating himself for caring as much as he did. This emotional shit was for the soul. 

“And for you,” she countered, shaking her head when shock made him loosen his grip. He opened his mouth to reject her statement but she went on before he could. 

“No, no more evasions. You’re right; I’m as wrapped up in you as I am in Angel.” Buffy admitted as she traced his face, smoothing fingertips over the beloved features. “A part of me is yours and always will be; a part that Angel doesn’t want to see much less acknowledge. You were so in-tune with me we shared each other’s dreams; you knew I wouldn’t let you do this without taking steps to stop you.” 

Bringing her other hand up to cradle his handsome face in her hands, Buffy smiled. “You keep saying I’m yours, yours to fuck, yours to kill; well you are mine, Angelus. Mine to fuck, mine to stop or dust or whatever else I damn well feel like doing to you. I will never willingly let someone else take you from me.” 

Pulling him closer, Buffy rested her forehead against his. “Willow was my dearest friend,” is, she hoped, silently, is my dearest friend. 

“She gave you both back to me when I thought I had lost you forever. She was there when Angel left me, she held me and understood while I cried, and she tried to hold the pieces of my heart and soul together enough to go on when all I wanted was to die.” 

Buffy had never verbally acknowledged, not even to Willow after that one time, how broken she had been when Angel left her. And how much Willow had helped with the mending of her shattered heart. Wherever her friend was, Sunnydale or someplace infinitely better, Buffy hoped Willow knew how much that friendship meant to her. 

“Willow didn’t always understand,” Buffy readily admitted when Angelus looked liked he wanted to protest, and strongly at that, Willow’s friendship. “And she didn’t always agree with my choices nor was she perfect, but she was a part of what kept me going when you and Angel left Sunnydale.  I…” Buffy stopped, a silent tear tracking down her cheek, silvery in the moonlight.

The sun was going to rise soon, breaking this moment Buffy knew, but she needed Angelus to understand, needed him to so desperately. “You’ve never lied to me.” She pulled back to look into his eyes and asked what she dreaded the answer to. Her silent tears continued to steadily fall as she said, “Look at me, Angelus, look me in the eye and tell me. Tell me you think I’m wrong and that Willow is alive.” 

His eyes went red and a growl escaped his lips. Angelus was pissed; at Buffy for whatever she had done to herself and her selfless mentality of sacrificing herself for others who don’t appreciate her at all, at those friends that made her chose like this, and at himself because he knew that if he failed her now, she would see him no differently than soul boy. 

And Angelus would still loose her. 

Willow’s bad timing to die now. 

Damn her for warning Buffy! And damn the First for jumping the gun! Angelus was so close, so damn close, to having Buffy all to himself. But he was cagey and he knew enough about Buffy, and the way she viewed things, felt about things, especially things she felt were her fault, to not make the same mistakes Angel did. 

“I think the witch is dead,” he said flatly, eyes back to his deep brown, still looking Buffy in the eye as he did so. He wanted her to see the truth of his words as much as he wanted her to hear them. “Faith is an annoyance at best, a terrier nipping at the heels of something she doesn’t have a prayer of holding her own with much less stopping. Now Willow, from what I’ve heard and know, is a different story.” 

Smoothing Buffy’s hair once more, Angelus acknowledged, “She was formidable in her own right. I would have taken her out before Faith because she’s just that dangerous. The two of you together…” Angelus shrugged leaving the ‘what might have beens’ unsaid. They both knew them well enough. 

A sob escaped Buffy as she held him tighter as if to ward off the pain her best friend’s death held. “Thank you, Angelus, thank you for telling me the truth.” 

He grabbed her face tight with his hands; his eyes golden though his face had not shifted. Must be one of those perks, Buffy thought absently, of being remade in the image of the Turok-Han. Emotion shifted in his eyes and Buffy was hard-pressed to sort through them all, understand them all. 

“I will not loose you,” he growled, a promise, a threat, “To something that has been around since the beginning of time. You can’t beat this fucker, Buffy; you are just one person. An extraordinary one to be sure, but you can’t take them all babe. And it won’t be just the First you know that.” 

Buffy nodded, “Then come with me, help me.” A plea? Maybe, but she was torn, as always, between her lover and her duty. 

“No. Damn it, Buffy, you know I can’t do that. I’m a demon not some soul who thinks that, by doing good, I’ll earn some kind of ‘redemption’. 

Buffy leaned her forehead on his shoulder, arms tight around him as her silent tears covered his shoulders and chest. “I know, I know,” she whispered, “I’m sorry I shouldn’t have asked.” 

Somehow her silent grief touched him more than her earlier screaming and sobbing had. Why that was Angelus didn’t know but the anger he thought he should feel over that just wasn’t there. Damn it, damn her. Damn her for making him feel this way! 

And damn him, too. Damn all of them. 

There was no other choice, Angelus realized as he rocked her back and forth; holding her as she cried for her friend, for things that she wished she could change and things she had hoped to be able to change. He held her closely, whispering soothing words into her hair as his hands roamed down her back, her shoulders, her sides. 

They had run out of time. 

Buffy had to get back to Sunnydale; she had to end her idyllic interlude with her lover and return to her duty. And hope that she wasn’t too late to save the world…like she had been to save Willow. She was the only one who could stop this harvest and in order to do so she had to kill one lover for the other. Damn the world, just once she wanted it to be fair. 

It never was. 

As Angelus held his mate, her sobs quieting, her body ceasing its quaking, he, too, realized that this was it. The first chance she got Buffy was out the door; there was no more time and it was now or never. She wasn’t going to leave him, never. He had to turn her, and he had to do it soon. 

But first…

Angelus whispered, right before his mouth covers hers, “Ah, but you’re a magnificent bitch, my heart. In your sorrow and grief you are stunningly beautiful. But in your passion and love for me you are even more so. How I do love you.” 

He kissed away her tears, savoring the pain in each drop, slowly moving to her jaw, down her neck to the scar marking her his. Buffy sighed and Angelus smirked at the sound. He had her. 

And he was going to show her all the ways he did.
~~~~~~~~~~
It screamed. 

Loud and long and the Beast was amazed that more beings didn’t hear It. Oh; It was angry, all right. Angry that Its precious army was reduced, that Its beautiful vampires were destroyed. 

Angry that a meddling witch had enough power to do so. 

Too bad that bitch witch was now dead; It would have liked to have had her tortured for a while, just to relieve some aggression over the whole situation.
And the slayers, damn their rotten hides and their lines through eternity, still lived. 

Eyes hardening, It morphed into the now dead witch, and stalked out into the night. Its harvest was still on schedule but there were a few things It needed to take care of first.

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