To say there was some dissension in the house was like saying the Roman Empire was a remote forgotten village on the side of a mountain. 

The arguments and recriminations had started almost immediately. Buffy, they all accused her, had been keeping secrets about Angel/Angelus again. Hadn’t she learned from the last time? She should know better. She should have told them. They needed to know something like this. 

The fact that it was, essentially, her life was ignored. As were her arguments that it wasn’t any of their business, Angelus obviously wasn’t after them considering he hadn’t left LA. And why should she have told them something like that when this was their so obvious reaction? 

It hadn’t stopped the quarrel, only exasperated it. 

Giles had stewed, more or less, and drank glass after glass of scotch. “You should know better,” he had said, “Angelus is dangerous and you, better than anyone, are aware of that Buffy,” 

It had hurt, oh how it had hurt to hear the only man she had ever truly considered her father say that to her. After what she had been through, knowing what she felt for Angel and how she had felt during those months Angelus had terrorized her, knowing she was the cause of his return. Giles had looked her straight in the eye, his own holding such a mixture of pain and disappointment at her actions. 

Dawn had taken to complaining again. On and on about how Buffy didn’t trust her and how she, Dawn, wasn’t a kid anymore and could handle things related to slaying and such. Dawn totally ignored Buffy’s words of denial, of how the slayer hadn’t really known, and had simply screamed in that high-pitched voice she used when things didn’t go her way. And then stormed into her room, slamming the door as if that accomplished anything, blasting her music in an effort to drown out Buffy’s words. 

She had tried, Buffy acknowledged to herself, to explain to her sister, but the younger Summers’ wasn’t listening. What was she suppose to say to a closed door? Granted with minimal effort she could have kicked it in, but then it’d only need to be fixed. And Dawn’s whining would simply have something new to add to her linty of complaints. 

Willow hadn’t been any better. 

Buffy had thought – hoped – that her friend would remember what she had been through all those years ago and try to at least understand the pain this new situation brought. She had been wrong. 

“How could you not have told me?” Willow had asked wide-eyed with the ‘I’m so innocent and hurt’ look the pre-magick Willow had always held. “I’m your best friend, Buffy; I thought we were getting back to that stage in our friendship where we could tell each other anything!” 

“I’m sorry, Will,” Buffy had said, trying her best to placate her friend but be true to her feelings as well. It was a tenuous line that she wasn’t entirely sure she had managed; it wasn’t any easier now than it had been in the past. “But I wasn’t entirely sure of it myself. All I knew was that something was off. I didn’t really know…” 

“Still, Buffy,” Willow had said, interrupting the slayer’s attempts to explain feelings she hadn’t fully understood herself. “I wish you had said something. I think we all deserve to know anything that has to do with Angelus.” 

Furious at that assumption, at Giles agreement, at Dawn’s complaining that Buffy didn’t tell her anything and that she had put them all in danger by keeping secrets, the slayer had stormed out of the house. Any an all evil that was remotely on her radar that evening had met with a painful and very gruesome death at the end of either stake or sword; the slayer was pissed and on a rampage. 

Near sunrise when she had finally trudged home, exhausted both physically and emotionally, Buffy hadn’t been all that surprised to find Faith waiting for her on the front step. 

“Shouldn’t you be resting or something?” Buffy asked not caring one way or the other what the other slayer’s answer was.

“You know slayers, B, super healing and all. Heard about the big brouhaha earlier.” 

Shrugging, Buffy sat next to her sister slayer. “Yeah, same old, same old, I suppose.” 

Faith said nothing, simply watched the sunrise blanket the land with its cleansing light. She didn’t tell Buffy how she had laid into everyone after Buffy’s abrupt departure, nor their reactions to Faith, of all people, sticking up for the blonde. She didn't tell Buffy how she had accused Giles of holding onto his prejudices and hatred for Angel when it was Angelus who had killed the gypsy woman and how he blamed Buffy, unintentionally or not, for his lover’s death. 

Didn’t remind Willow that she had killed a man in cold blood and tried to destroy the world when her own lover had died. And how Buffy had had to choose between the death of her friend and the fate of the world; how similar it was to choosing between Angel and the world. Willow had turned away, ashamed and grabbed Giles’ glass of scotch. 

Dawn had pouted for a while before admitting that maybe she had overreacted. Just a little mind you, but she shouldn’t have taken her fear of Angelus out on Buffy when Buffy had been the only one to ever defeat him. And that maybe it was, as Faith suggested, time to grow up. 

Nor did Faith admit to Buffy that she was scared, terrified of Angelus. 

It was true they had never fought before the other day. She had only ever fought Angel and the souled version kicked her ass. But prison had given her time to think, among a few other things. And Faith realized several things about Buffy; the hard choices the other slayer had been forced to make, the knowledge that by loving Angel it put the world in serious jeopardy. And the fact that her closest friends and family had never and most likely would never approve of that relationship. 

“They’re working on a spell to make you equal in strength to a first vampire,” Faith said instead. “Something about the First Slayer and combining your spirits?” 

Buffy had looked at the brunette in surprise. “The last time we tried that she hunted us in our sleep, trying to kill us because we had violated her somehow.” 

Faith laughed but looked intrigued. “I think Willow said something about an offering this time. A test of valor, maybe?” 

Nodding, Buffy said, “Probably for the best, I don’t think I’d have the strength to fight both Angelus as super-vamp whatever, and her.” 

Faith turned from her contemplation of the reds and purples that brightened the clouds and regarded Buffy for a moment. Deciding against whatever it was she was going to say, she instead asked, “Why you’d call on the First Slayer anyway? What big bad did you have to fight that you needed her? And how did you ever think of it?” 

Grateful for the change in subject, Buffy began to tell her the story of Frankenstein’s Adam. And tried not to think about what awaited her.
~~~~~~~~~~
Giles looked again at Willow, two days after the big fight over Angelus and Buffy’s knowledge of his return. 

“Are you sure?” It wasn’t the first time he had asked the question. 

And just like every other of the dozen or so times he had asked that question, Willow nodded, “Yes. This will work.” 

“Okay then,” he said, nodding his very reluctant agreement, his eyes screaming his weariness and displeasure at this, their only plan. 

It was time to tell Buffy. Neither were sure how she was going to react, things had been falling around her for days now. Faith turning up with this news about Angel hadn’t seemed like such a shock to her, but it certainly hadn’t helped, either. 

She was leaving for LA in the morning; this was the last and only chance they had to perform the spell. Giles just hoped that the First Slayer would understand. That was the part he liked the least about this plan; and there were a lot of things he hated about this plan. 

If Angel had been remade by the First Vampire then Buffy needed to possess all the strength of the First Slayer. 

Did that make them the First Vampire and Slayer respectively? Giles didn’t know nor, he suspected, did he want the answer to that. 

But they also had this Blood Harvest to deal with. They couldn’t stop it without the souled vampire, whatever that lovely little tidbit of obscure information meant, which meant they couldn’t stop it without Angel. 

The idea of Spike in a prophecy was just too laughable, even if they could find him. 

It was a very large circle with catches left and right. Need Angel to stop the big evil Blood Harvest, need to stop the big evil Angelus to get to Angel to stop Blood Harvest. But can’t take too much time because they’re all dependant on each other and how did it happen, anyway. 

How did it happen? 

Giles looked up as Faith walked down the stairs, looking tired and worn and not at all like the cocky girl who had last made an appearance in Sunnydale. 

“How did it happen, Faith?” He asked, cursing himself for not asking before. “How did Angel lose his soul? The gypsy Restoration Spell made it so that one moment of true happiness does it. Was that it? Or was it some other way?” 

Faith looked at the man who had once tried to help her. And wished he hadn’t asked that. “Want to go for a walk?” It was sudden, abrupt, but she needed to get out of this house and didn’t want anyone to hear her story; not yet at least. The story that only Wesley had told her; no one else seemed to want to fill her in on things. 

Giles looked at her funny, but agreed. It was a trifle stifling in there, not enough space and too many people. Not to mention the constant pain they felt whenever one remembered their fallen friend, Xander. It was bad enough with the First Evil and with the Turok-Han but this was just too much. 

Dawn had reverted, briefly, to her bratty self, though a small talk with first Faith and then Buffy had apparently done some good on that. Giles wasn’t sure what was said but in the end the girl had stopped being a harpy and started to again help them.

The potential slayers were finally learning to train together, finally learning what happened when they allowed their fear to take them over. Xander’s death, and the death of some of the other potentials, had at least had that one positive effect. The rather useless ‘The fate of the world rests upon your shoulders’ line had a more immediate meaning these days to the young girls. 

Buffy was another matter entirely. After she had cried in his arms over Angel, Giles had seen a remarkable shift in her. And it hadn’t been a good one. She had withdrawn into herself, something she had done only twice before: The first time she faced Angelus and when she was faced with sacrificing her sister. 

Giles was deathly afraid that she wouldn’t be able to handle this. His mind refused to think further, but his subconscious knew. Knew that this might well be the last straw for his slayer that this was the last thing she could handle and she would, he hadn’t a doubt on that. But if she had to kill Angel again…Giles wasn’t sure she’d survive it. 

They walked for a block or two before he turned to his former charge and repeated his question. “How did Angel lose his soul, Faith?” 

“I don’t know the whole story; if anyone there did they weren’t sharing. But from what I can gather, from what Wesley said, it had something to do with hatred. His words, Angelus I mean, his words were,” Faith closed her eyes, trying to get the wording correct. “Love and hate go hand in hand, two sides of the same coin. Oh, and a sweet little dream of a certain blonde I’ll be reclaiming very soon.” 

They continued to walk, the sun shining brightly over them, a warm breeze despite the winter month. It was all deceptively calm, all deceptively quiet and serene, all of it was deceptive. The silence that accompanied the slayer and her former watcher wasn’t harsh or uncomfortable, but a soothing silence that allowed them each their own thoughts. 

“Hatred, you say?” Giles wondered what that meant. “How could hatred free the soul if the curse was for pure happiness?” 

“Don’t know, Giles, all I know is what Wes told me. He seemed unsure as well, a little confused.” Faith paused, stopped her walking as a thought struck her. Running the few steps Giles had proceeded, she added. “But Cordelia seemed to know something. I don’t know what, but she was acting awfully weird over it. Kept saying to Angel’s kid that it wasn’t their fault.” 

“Angel’s WHAT?” Giles felt his mouth hang open but couldn’t control any action that would shut it. 

Faith laughed, “Yeah, well, my reaction there, too. The point is that there was more to the situation than I think Wesley knew.” 

They continued to walk in silence, Giles trying to remove the thought of Angel and a son, a son for the love of God, from his mind and focus on the matter at hand. Love and hate, love and hate, hate, love, love, hate. And a dream about a blonde, which was undoubtedly Buffy. Angel loved Buffy, even after all this time Giles would stake – no pun intended – just about anything on that one. 

So he dreamt about Buffy and that caused him to lose his soul? Slightly implausible, okay, but possible Giles supposed, anything was. Then what about the hatred part, surely that had nothing to do with her, Giles refused to believe that. Hatred, hatred, two sides of the same coin, hatred…what was he missing? 

He made Faith repeat, again and again, everything that had happened since Wesley and Gunn had sprung her from jail. The sun continued its sweep across the sky, inching closer and closer to its final destination and still they weren’t any closer to an answer. 

The First Evil, the First Vampire, and the Beast: where did he play a part in this? Was he a new threat, or simply a minion of some larger power? This Wolfram and Hart Faith talked about? Possibly, but they seemed more the type to use subterfuge than out and out demons roaming the streets and killing everyone to accomplish their goals. 

How did it all fit together? Was he missing key pieces? And if so, where were the gaping holes? This puzzle was too massive for him to see, there were too many players, too many things going on… 

Too many things going on. 

Or were there?

Well, how blind was he? Of course, that was it. 

“Angel lost control of his demon, this hatred you spoke of obviously empowered the demon enough that, when the soul experienced that moment of happiness, when Angel dreamt of Buffy, it, the demon, gained control. Angel might very well be still inside Angelus, but weakened, unable to regain control over the body.”
They were back home now, sitting on the porch steps as Giles ran all this through his head, speaking aloud to Faith in the strangest sounding board experience he had ever had. 

“So if Angel is still there, and cannot regain control over the demon, then that means Angelus will always be in control. If the soul is too weak now, then it can never hold the demon again. Of course, it could be what happened last time, Angel’s soul is in the ether and Angelus is in complete control. I-I don’t really know.”

Neither had heard Buffy until she spoke. “He’s still there.” She smiled slightly as they turned, startled. “Angel, the soul, is still inside Angelus. But you’re right, Giles, he’s weak. He can’t retake his body, can’t resume control over the demon. He’s too weak, Giles, he’s too weak.”

Faith, having followed Giles’ train of thought and Buffy’s certainties, asked; “So if he can’t control the demon then how will re-cursing him work?” 

Giles shook his head, “It can’t, i-it it won’t. The curse relies on the soul being in the ether and stronger than the demon. With the soul weakened and still in Angelus, it will be pointless, even without the so-called happiness clause.” 

Willow had joined the conversation, having been drawn to it by the opened front door. “Can we banish the demon from the body? Leave Angel as a vampire with a soul, rather than a vampire with a curse giving him a soul?” 

But Giles was shaking his head. “No, that won’t work. The demon can’t just be cast out, it needs someplace to go. With no other body to occupy, it will simply go back to the one it had for several hundred years.” 

“Mine,” Buffy said with conviction, not a hint of anything else in her voice, her posture, “Put him in me.” 

There was absolute silence as everyone turned to stare at her, varying degrees of horror in their eyes. When the explosion came, as she knew it would, she simply remained quiet, letting them express their abhorrence for the plan, the various obstacles and pitfalls that lay in the way. 

“I won’t do that to him again,” she said quietly but it effectively shut everyone up. “I won’t have him remember what he did to his friends, what horrors he committed that he had no control over. I won’t, Giles, and now I don’t have to.” 

The silence was deafening in the darkening day but Buffy forged ahead. Apparently no one wanted a repeat of that fight a few days ago and she was just as happy with that as they were. Of course, Buffy had no idea if this could be done, but she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to try. 

“We’re already going to use that spell you and Willow wrote to tap into the power of the First Slayer and all those that came before me, right? Well, use that, let me have that power; with it I’ll be strong enough to control the demon. If he’s in me then Angel will be free.” 

“Buffy, no, you can’t do that.” Willow looked horrified at the thought. “And what if he uses that power, the power of the slayers, to take over you completely? Not to mention that with him in you, you’ll have all his thoughts, you’ll know every single thing he did, and you’ll be forced to live with it for the rest of your life!” 

“It doesn’t matter, Willow, I’m the slayer, and it’s my job. And I know what he’s done.” She added almost as an after thought before getting back to the matter at hand. “Can you do it?” 

“I-I don’t know, I’ve never tried, never even thought it was possible, I mean…” The witch looked at Giles helplessly. What was she supposed to say? 

“Buffy, do you realize what you’re suggesting? For the rest of your life you’ll carry Angelus inside of you, know his every thought, know what he’s done, and what he wants to do. He’ll be a constant whisper inside of you, always taunting, always there. You won’t be able to escape him. Will you be strong enough to so this? To resist his wants and desires?” 

Giles could have no idea, Buffy thought, about the double meaning of his last sentence. And she certainly didn’t intend to enlighten him on the subject. She was about to reply when Anya joined them. The former demon didn’t add to the conversation, but she apparently wanted to be a part of it. 

“I know,” Buffy said when it became apparent Anya wasn’t going to reprimand her on anything. And the eyes she raised to her friends held that knowledge, and something more. They couldn’t understand what she was doing but she did; she’d save Angel and, no matter what happened or didn’t between them afterwards, she’d always have a part of him with her. “I know what I’m doing, Giles, I know what this would mean.” 

She walked over to the railing and leaned forward into the night, her back to the group. “Every single thing Angelus ever did he did to me. Every horror, every mean thought, every action, everything. I know what he did, I experienced it all. But Angel doesn’t deserve it, he doesn’t deserve to have the demon back inside of him, have the knowledge of what he did as Angelus haunt him as Angel.” 

Buffy turned to face them and wondered, abstractly, at how her group had changed over the years. “If he’s in me then the Restoration Spell won’t matter. Angelus will be gone from Angel’s body and the soul will have full control; no amount of happiness will force that soul out of him because there’s nothing else to take control. A vampire was never meant to house a soul, Giles, you know that. I honestly think that permanently binding Angel’s soul was never an option. It simply couldn’t be done, not with the demon still present.” 

And then a thought occurred to her; okay so this plan might have one serious side effect. It was something she never wanted to happen, a small variant on her worst nightmare. 

“If Angelus is in me, there with my soul, and I experience that one moment of happiness, then…will my soul leave me and allow Angelus full reign?” 

“I doubt that a moment of happiness will cause you to lose your soul; you already have a soul and the demon is the interloper, not the soul. But that isn’t the point.” Giles walked to her, grasping her small shoulders tightly to convey his urgency. “The point is that you will have Angelus in your body, residing with you until you die, Buffy, do you understand that?” 

Breathing a sigh of relief at his answer, Buffy brought her hands up to his wrists, grasping him tightly. Not to remove the touch, but in a gesture meant to tell him how much his concern meant to her. Turning to Willow she eyed her friend. It was strong magicks that would allow this to succeed and Buffy didn’t want to put the witch through something she couldn’t handle. 

“Can you do it, Will? Are you comfortable with doing it?” 

Looking like she wanted to bolt, Willow sat next to Faith and Anya, who had remained silent through the exchange. “I can do it, I think. It’s just a matter of transference. But Buffy…Giles is right; you’ll always have Angelus, the demon within you.”

Buffy nodded. “What do you need? And how soon can you begin?” 

Willow sighed, looked at Giles and the two went into the house to revise their original plan. Anya looked at Buffy but the blonde slayer couldn’t interpret anything particular in the look. It worried her that Anya had been unusually silent during the exchange, but Buffy couldn’t spare anymore thought to it. She had enough on her mind. 

Faith stayed outside with Buffy, both watching the setting sun in silence. Finally Buffy turned to her sister slayer and sat next to her. 

“You’ve been unusually quiet, Faith, nothing to say?”

“I think it’s crazy, I think there are probably more drawbacks to this than you realize and that Angel probably won’t like you doing this, but it’s an option.” 

Surprised, Buffy looked at her. “Wow, coming from you I’d think that was almost a go-ahead on this plan. Angel isn’t exactly in a position to have any say in this and will just have to deal; this decision isn’t up to him, it’s up to me.” There was no room for argument in her voice and Faith made none. Then, “So what makes you say that?” 

“Agreeing with you?” Faith shrugged. “Prison changes a person, B, makes them into something that they don’t want to be. It’s meant to reform, meant to change the one that went in into some productive member of society. But it scars you, Buffy; it leaves its mark deep on your soul. Angel used to visit me once a week and we’d talk. Sometimes about nothing in particular, sometimes about how I felt; the men I killed, my betrayal of you and my calling. Sometimes he’d talk about himself.” 

Faith shifted, suddenly uncomfortable, but went on. “He’d tell me about when he first received his soul, about how he went back to Darla because she was what he knew and he wanted something familiar. He couldn’t kill innocents, though, only murderers, rapists; when Darla realized that she kicked him out, again. That’s when he knew he wasn’t Angelus but he wasn’t his human self, either. He said time had changed him and that he was something else, someone new.” 

Risking a glance at Buffy Faith found she had the other slayer’s full attention. “He wasn’t good or bad, but a shade of gray that he wasn’t aware existed until he found himself there. You, meeting you, apparently changed that. Made him want to be good. He never went into details about it, never said much about you at all. I think it was painful for him; he loved you so much, I finally figured that out.” 

“He changed for me?” She said it in a small voice, but the love and eternal hope she still nourished carried through clearly. He had told her a little of his past, and Buffy knew about Whistler and Angel’s seeing her at Hemry when she was called. But this…Buffy smiled and knew she was doing the right thing. 

“He wanted to help you; couldn’t do that and remain ambivalent at the same time, could he? What all this is about, B,” Faith said, wrapping up her moment of uncharacteristic insight, and standing to go inside now that night had fully blanketed the land, “Is that I think this is the right move.” 

Buffy watched her go into the house and close the door. The sky was that blue black of pre-night, that time when the creatures of the night first stirred. But right now it was a time for Buffy to remember. 

“I will find a way, my love, I swear it.”

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