That Moment

They all stopped short at the unusual sight of Willow sitting in the lobby of the Hyperion. They knew that whatever brought Willow from Sunnydale to see them in person would not be a good thing; especially with what was going on there at that point. It was when she stood up, and he saw the bleak, tearful look on her face, that Angel instinctively knew what had happened. Buffy had fallen.

“What’s…” Cordelia started.

“It’s Buffy,” was all he said. Willow blanched and his instinct was confirmed.

“What happened? How is she? Is she going to be all right?” Cordy asked in her usual rapid-fire manner.

A snippet of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet flashed into his mind as he waited for Willow’s bad tidings. “Then she is well, and nothing can be ill.” * Like Romeo, Angel felt that nothing could be ill if Buffy were well (in his rare whimsical moments), and the look on Willow’s face made him think of poor Balthasar having to face Romeo and tell him the news of his love’s death.

Meanwhile Willow was shaking her head at Cordelia’s questions. “No, Cordelia, she’s not all right…” he voice trailed off as she bit back a sob.

Gunn cleared his throat. “Um, this looks like it’s somethin’ serious, so why don’t I get Fred settled in a room upstairs and get on out of your hair.”

Angel nodded, not taking his dark eyes off Willow. “That would be good, Gunn, thanks.”

Willow waited until they were gone before opening her mouth to speak again, but Angel cut her off. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

Wesley closed his eyes when Willow nodded.

“How?” the vampire asked his voice bleak.

Willow hesitated, looking around, and Angel knew she was unsure how much Wesley and Cordelia knew about Dawn being The Key. As far as their memories were concerned, Dawn had been there all along. And if that was the case, was it her place to inform them? Would it be betraying Buffy’s memory to tell them?

Wesley momentarily saved her from answering by asking, “Did Glory find The Key?”

The redhead nodded again. She was visibly steeling herself, and Angel knew she had come to a decision. “Dawn was… is… The Key,” she went on to explain how the monks had transformed The Key into something that the Slayer would protect, a little sister. Then she gave a little, humourless laugh. “In a sense they did their job a little too well. Buffy was so willing to defend Dawn that she refused to consider killing her if Glory managed to open the doorway between dimensions.”

“But Buffy managed to stop her, right?” Cordy asked. “I mean, it’s obvious that Glory wasn’t able to use Dawn; the doorways haven’t been opened. We’d be able to tell, right?”

But Angel knew there was more to it than that, even without looking at the pained expression on Willow’s face as she slowly shook her head. “Glory managed to get her hands on Dawn, and the ritual was started. Her blood was flowing. Once that started, the only way to stop it was to stop the flow of blood… by killing Dawn.”

“But you just said that Buffy wasn’t gonna do that,” Cordy looked confused.

“The monks made Dawn out of Buffy’s blood,” Willow went on brokenly. “She was made from Buffy, and Buffy figured that…”

“Her blood would be enough to close the doorways,” Angel finished for her in sudden realisation. “She sacrificed herself to save Dawn.” It was the sort of thing that Buffy would do.

“When’s the… her funeral?” Wesley asked.

“Um, we’re having a private burial for her,” Willow replied hesitantly. “It will be whenever you guys can make it to Sunnydale.” It was obvious that there was more to it than what Willow was saying, but right then and there, Angel didn’t care.

“We can leave tomorrow night,” he said. He would have liked to leave in the morning, but that was a bad idea for a vampire. Suddenly he needed to get away, to grieve on his own. He knew that the others would try to understand what he was going through; but he also knew that they couldn’t. How could they, when they had not been through the same type of loss? He excused himself, and went upstairs to his room, his dark room, where he could mourn in peace.