To See Once More the Light of the Stars

Part 1

#

“Close your eyes!” Tears were trailing down Buffy’s cheeks, knowing what was to come, what she had to do. Angel was back, he had returned to her. She could see it in his eyes, which were no longer empty. She could hear it in his voice, which was no longer cruel and taunting. He didn’t remember what had happened, he was confused, yet still his first concern had been her injuries, not a thought to himself.

And how she had to ... had to ...

Angel did like she told him, even as the portal grew wider behind him. Buffy could barely see it anymore because of the tears as she embraced Angel with desperation, kissing him like she never had before. She felt like she was being torn in two, a large part of her telling the world to go to hell for asking her to do this. How could she even consider ...?

But she had to. Because she couldn’t change who she was.

All too soon the kiss ended. She didn’t want it to. She wanted to remain here, with him, forever. But the portal grew larger, wind was picking up, and she knew that she had to act now. Before she lost what little determination remained.

“I love you!” She whispered to him.

And then, shutting off every part of her except that which was the Slayer, she reared back and ran the sword right through his chest.

Angel gasped and his eyes flew open, filled with pain and confusion. Buffy took a step back, feeling as if she’d just driven the sword into her own flesh. Angel’s eyes found her, looked upon her, asked a single question.

Why? Why did she do this to him?

The portal behind him began to glow and change, rippling as more magic was poured into it. Glowing tendrils reached out for Angel, embracing him like she had done but moments earlier. Angel looked down at the sword protruding from his chest, then back up at her.

“Buffy?” He asked. There was no hatred in his question. He looked at her and she knew that he didn’t hate her. Even here, even now, he was completely convinced that she had a reason for doing this, that she would never hurt him if she’d had another chance.

A sob broke from her throat. Somehow this made it even worse.

One of his hands reached out for her, even as the portal began to collapse in on itself. Buffy could see him grow more distant, the flames swallowing him, but he never took his eyes off her. His hand was still reaching for her.

The Slayer had done her duty, Buffy realized. She had condemned the man she loved to hell in order to save the world. She had done everything she had been asked to, no matter the pain, no matter the cost to herself, no matter that the world would never even know that she had saved it.

And now she didn’t give a fuck about the world anymore.

Without a moment’s hesitation Buffy reached out and grabbed Angel’s hand, holding it tight, even as he was dragged back into the portal. His eyes widened as he realized what was happening and she felt his fingers go slack, felt him try and let go of her.

Buffy held on.

#

Xander had gotten Giles out of the mansion and into the safety of the sunlight. The Watcher was in a bad way, but the paramedics were already informed and would hopefully be here soon. Which left Xander free to go back inside.

Just a few weeks ago he had made a promise to Angel. A promise that he would die. A promise that Xander would be there to watch. He didn’t intend to break that promise.

All the vampires seemed to be gone, no one to keep him out. There was no more sound of fighting to be heard, which could be a good thing. Or not. Clutching the stake Buffy had given him earlier Xander carefully made his way back into the large living area where Akathler’s statue stood.

He froze.

There was Angel, a sword right through his chest, a more beautiful sight he couldn’t imagine. But Angel stood right in front of a glowing vortex that came pouring out of Akathler’s mouth and that couldn’t be good. Especially since he was holding Buffy’s hand and dragged them both toward it.

“Buffy!” Xander yelled, running closer.

Buffy’s look made him stop.

Xander had time enough to realize three things. One was that Angel wasn’t the one dragging Buffy with him. In fact it seemed as if the vampire was doing his best to make her let go of him, while Buffy held on for dear life.

Second, the Angel that had tortured them all these last few months wouldn’t do that. That Angel would do his merry best to drag the Slayer down into hell with him.

Third, the look in Buffy’s eyes made one thing clear. She knew. She had figured out what Xander hadn’t told her, what he had kept from her because he wanted to see Angel dead, no matter what.

“Buffy!” He whispered, unable to move.

Akathler fell silent, the vortex vanished. Xander was alone in the mansion.

#

Three months later:

The mansion had stood empty for many weeks now. Akathler’s statue had been removed by specialists from the Watchers’ Council, making sure that it would never be a threat to anyone ever again.

They had also tried their best to pick up some kind of trace, anything to clue them in on what exactly had happened here and where their Slayer had vanished to. Xander had told Giles everything that had happened and he had, in turn, informed the Council. Leaving out the part that Buffy had apparently followed Angel into hell of her own free will.

It had all come to nothing, so now the place was abandoned. Willow had come here once, wanting to see the spot where her best friend had disappeared from. Giles had accompanied her and they had laid down some flowers, both for Buffy and for Angel. The real Angel, who had apparently returned. Only too late.

It was night outside when a stark light suddenly lit the interior of he mansion. It hailed from nowhere and everywhere at once, chasing all the shadows away. The floor shook as the fabric of time and space ripped apart, a glowing portal opening in mid-air.

Two figures stepped out from it, looking at their new surroundings. They were both dressed in skins and rags, along with some remains of very old street clothes. The man carried a large sword strapped to his back, an equally large battle axe held at the ready in his right hand.

The woman at his side looked around suspiciously, clutching a sword of her own. Her long blonde hair was tied back in an intricate braid, which trailed down nearly to her feet. The light around them faded as the portal closed, yet she had no trouble seeing in the dark, seeing the familiar surroundings.

“You think we made it?” She asked him.

Angel closed his eyes, inhaling the scent. Then his lips broke into a smile.

“We did it, my love. We are home.”

Buffy broke into a smile of her own, her fangs flashing in the moonlight as she did.

____________________________________________________________________

Part 2

#

Buffy slowly walked out into the garden of the mansion. She had been here just once before, but the place had burned itself into her memory beyond any hope of forgetting. The most terrible day of her entire life had taken place here and she had seen it in her dreams almost every night since then.

No, not dreams. Nightmares.

The garden looked little different from what she remembered. The plants had grown a bit, but not as much as she had expected. A small part of her mind wondered about that. Most of her attention was captured by the skies, though.

“Angel!” She whispered, looking up.

Walking out of the mansion he stood by her side and looked up as well. The dark firmament was filled with stars from horizon to horizon, not a cloud in sight. The half moon hung in the sky and smiled down on them.

“I never thought we’d see the stars again.” Buffy said, a tear rolling down her cheek. “I ... I almost forgot what they look like.”

“I never doubted we would make it.” Angel said, squeezing her hand.

For a long time they just stood there, hand in hand, looking at a sky neither of them had seen for a long, long time. Something else was new, too, Buffy realized. The silence. The air around them was not filled with screams. The only things she heard were the faint sounds of the forest, the barest noise of a car passing in the distance.

The air didn’t smell of brimstone and blood. It smelled of flowers and evergreen, another sensation she had almost forgotten. She inhaled deeply, filling herself with the beautiful scent of home.

Finally she shook herself loose from the beautiful sight, looking around again.

“It looks like someone kept this place in shape.” She told Angel. “Do you think ...”

She didn’t need to speak it out loud. All through their ordeal she had kept up hope that, even after all this time, she would be able to see her friends again, her mother. That hope had dimmed as time had passed, but she had never given up on it.

Now, though, when they were finally here, he could see her faltering.

“We should first find out how long we were gone.” He said, putting a calming hand on her shoulder. “And find some clothing to blend in a little better.”

She looked down at the things they were wearing and broke into a smile again.

“We do look like rejects from ... from ... you know, that movie with ... god, my memory is like a sieve. Cogan the Barbarian or something like that.”

“I’ve never been good with pop culture references, you know that.”

“No kidding.”

#

They found some leftover clothing in the bedroom Angel had used during the time he had lived here. Or rather the time Angelus had. Dust had gathered in the corners, but it was far from the dusty tomb they had expected after all this time. The black duster Angel slipped on was still good as new. He remembered buying it shortly after coming to Sunnydale the first time and it didn’t look much different.

Buffy slipped on one of his large shirts. All his pants were much too large for her, so she settled with tying off the shirt and hiding the rest of her more unusual clothing with another coat of his.

Neither of them took off their weapons.

Going out into the open was more difficult than either of them had imagined. They had both fallen into a habit, developed out of the bare need to survive. You didn’t go out into the open if you wanted to keep on living. You hid, you lurked, you never announced your presence if it could be avoided.

Only those rules didn’t apply anymore.

“It looks just like I remember.” Buffy said, looking around. The city hadn’t changed. She had spent a lot of time wondering what would happen back home, had tried to imagine how it would look once they managed to get back.

She had expected some change at the least. After all this time ...

“Buffy, look!” Angel had let go of her hand and walked toward a metal box standing on the sidewalk. She needed a long moment to remember what it was. A newspaper box. There were still newspapers. And if they had a newspaper ...

Angel broke open the box and took out a paper, looking at the date printed on the first page. A frown played over his features.

“Angel? What is it? How much time ...?”

He handed the paper to her, the frown still firmly in place. Buffy took it and stared at the date. And stared. And stared.

“This ... this isn’t possible.” She whispered, clutching the paper so hard that it began to tear at the edges.

“We were in another dimension, Buffy.” Angel told her, looking around. “Time doesn’t necessarily pass at the same speed here as it did there.”

“But ... but three months?” She looked up at him. “We were gone just three months? All this time ... everything we went through and ... and we are back just a few weeks after we left?”

He took the paper from her hands. “Aren’t you glad?” He asked. “It means they’re probably still here, Buffy. They’re all still here.”

“But ...,” she began, then looked down, “I know. I should be glad. But it makes everything we went through ... it makes it all look so ...”

“Pointless?”

Buffy looked up, seeing the familiar pain in Angel’s eyes. He still blamed himself. After all this time he still blamed himself for consigning the two of them to Hell. He just refused to accept that, if anyone was to blame, it was she. She had shoved a sword into his chest, she had damned him to Hell despite being totally without blame for everything that had happened.

They had had that argument a thousand times over. She didn’t intend to bring it up again.

“I just ... I think I resigned myself to the fact that ... I don’t know. I hoped to see them again but I expected them to be old by now. To have forgotten about me, maybe. I ... I had this fantasy about walking in on Willow while she playing with her grandchildren or something.”

She remembered her best friend’s name. There had been time when she hadn’t been sure of it, when her memories had eluded her. At times her entire life on Earth had seemed like nothing but a dream, an imaginary world she had made up to escape from the reality of Hell. But she still remembered. Willow. Her mother. Giles. Even Xander, who had betrayed her. A betrayal that still stung after all these years.

If he had just told her ... if she had known that ... she shook her head. It had been a long time ago. For her.

Not for them, though.

“Three months.” She whispered.

Angel wrapped his arms around her, drawing her into his body. For a moment they rested that way, trying to work their minds around the fact that almost no time had passed in this world. Everything they had gone through had passed by this world in a heartbeat.

“You want to go see them?” Angel asked after a long minute of silence.

Buffy nodded, slowly moving out of his arms. For so long the two of them had been an entire world all to themselves. Everything else was hostile; they could trust no one but each other and their very survival depended on that trust to be absolute. Looking up into his eyes, Buffy knew that it was. And that would never change.

“Your mother?” Angel inquired further.

“No!” She shook her head immediately. “I ... I don’t think I’m ready for that. She ... the last thing she did was to throw me out of the house. It’s like ... all I can remember is her face when she said that. How angry she looked. I can’t ...”

“It’s okay. Giles then?”

Giles. The man whom Angelus had tortured within an inch of his life just before they had gone to Hell. She knew how guilty he felt about that, how the memories of doing what he did to the man who was closer to being her father than anyone else tortured him. Even after all these years.

Suggesting that they go to him first had to be hard for him. But, as usual, he didn’t spend a single thought on his own peace of mind.

“Giles.” She nodded. “Let’s go see Giles.”

If anyone could help them make sense of this, it was Giles.

_____________________________________________________________________

Part 3

#

She had forgotten his address. It wasn’t all that surprising, considering how much time had passed, but it made her sad nonetheless. They had to look it up in the phone book and consulted one of the few citizens that were out on the streets this time of night on how to get there. It wasn’t all that far.

Seeing the apartment building her Watcher lived in brought back a lot of memories for Buffy. How Giles had made tea for her time and again, hoping that she’d pick up the taste one day and abandon that barbarous fondness for coffee. She remembered his smile, seen much too little, and how he would always clean his glasses. She also remembered the look of pain on his face the day Jenny had died.

It had been but three months for him.

She couldn’t remember the color of his eyes.

The apartment door loomed before them and Buffy found her courage rapidly faltering. How would he react? It had been so long since she had seen him and she wasn’t sure if she remembered enough of him to know what to say, what to do around him. Did he miss her? Was he furious because she had chosen to go to Hell with Angel instead of staying here to keep fulfilling her duty? Was he disappointed?

Staring at the door, Buffy was overcome with a memory. Another door, nothing like this one, yet standing before it gave her a feeling all too similar. Just like then she didn’t know whether going through that door was better or worse than not doing it.

#

Day 1

Buffy wasn’t sure at what point she had lost consciousness, but the first sensation that penetrated past the darkness surrounding her was the feeling of a cold hand held in her own. A hand she held on to as if her life depended on it. The memories came flooding back to her in an instant and her eyes snapped open.

There was no sky above her. Only a dark cave ceiling that seemed to be miles up. The air seemed suffused with some kind of crimson light and it stank. It stank like a lot of someones had died here. Several times over.

Further observations of her surroundings became unimportant when Angel groaned beside her.

“Angel!” She yelled, quickly turning over to look at him.

He was lying on his back, eyes closed, his body convulsing. The sword was still buried in his flesh. She had done that. She had run him through with that sword. To save the world, sure. Somehow that made no difference right here and now.

“Angel, can you hear me?” She leaned in close, her lips brushing his face as she swept sweat-soaked strands of hair out of his face. The sword wound was bleeding and the steel edge did further damage as Angel convulsed again.

“Angel, please!” She tried to hold him down, even as she examined the wound. Right through him and out the back. God, why had she done that to him? How could she have done this him?

Forcibly calming herself she resolved what to do next. The sword had to come out. Angel was a rapid healer, she knew that, she just had to make sure that he didn’t lose too much blood until the wounds could close. Quickly tearing off the remains of his shirt she ripped it into an improves bandage.

Now for the hard part.

“Angel, I’m gonna remove the sword, okay?” She told him, hoping that he could hear her. “It will hurt, I know, but it has to come out.”

He gave no sign that he heard, the pain on his face almost too much to bare. Gathering all that remained of her resolve she rose and, without waiting for her nerve to go, pulled the sword from his flesh.

Angel screamed, his pain echoing off the far-away cave wall. Blood sprouted from the wounds the sword had left, quickly growing into a puddle beneath him. Putting the sword aside (the Slayer inside her reminding her that she might need it yet, considering where she probably was) she quickly turned him on his side and pressed the shirt-turned bandage to the two wounds with all her strength.

“I’m here, Angel!” She whispered, trying to hold him still by pinning him down with her own body. “I’m here!”

Buffy had no idea how much time had passed when he finally grew calmer, the blood flow slowing to a trickle and finally stopping. He was drenched in cold sweat, not breathing, and looked like death warmed over, but the worst seemed to be over. Wrapping up the wounds as best as she could with the materials at hand, Buffy closed her eyes, not wanting to consider anything past this moment.

“B-Buffy?” Angel’s voice was weak, but it caused her to start. Looking up, she saw him staring at her with his dark brown eyes, confused and full of pain. “I ... what happened? I don’t ... where ...?”

“It’s okay, Angel!” She said, wrapping her arms around his aching body. “It’s okay. I’m here. We’re gonna be okay.”

For a moment he didn’t resist her embrace, but then she felt him stiffen. A sharp intake of unnecessary breath was followed by a heart-wrenching sob.

“Oh, God! I ... I did ...”

“Not you, Angel!” She reminded him, her own voice trembling. “It wasn’t you! Never you!”

She gathered him into her arms like a sick child as the tears began to trail down his cheeks, his entire body shaking with sobs. He remembered. He remembered everything Angelus had done these past few months, every single cruelty, every single taunt. She couldn’t even imagine how painful this had to be for him.

She could only be there for him. As long as it took.

“I’m so sorry.” He whispered, over and over. “I’m so sorry.”

Hours, maybe even days seemed to pass and Buffy didn’t care. She was with her Angel, that was the only important thing. A part of her knew that, wherever they had ended up, it was probably not a good place. Probably a place where they would end up dead or worse before too long, though she banished that kind of defeatist thinking from her mind as soon as it appeared.

None of it mattered, though. Not right now.

Finally, with no way to tell how much time had passed, Angel let go of her and looked into her eyes. The wound had almost healed, only an angry red scar remained. Just like the scratch on her arm, which was barely visible anymore.

The outer wounds had healed. She didn’t know about the rest.

“Why did you do it?” Angel asked. For a moment Buffy was frozen with fear. Would he blame her? Would he hate her for ...?

“Why did you go into the portal with me?”

She looked into his dark eyes and even here, even now, she saw nothing but love and fear for her safety.

“Because I love you.” She said, clutching his hand again, biting back the tears. “The world might have ... might have forced me to ... but I could never let you go alone. Wherever we are now, whatever we have to go through, we’ll do it together.”

She could see that he wanted to protest, wanted to tell her that he wasn’t worth it, especially after all the things that had happened these last few months. She silenced him with a kiss.

“We will!” She emphasized when the kiss ended.

It was too late to argue about it and Angel recognized that. Buffy rose back to her feet and he took her offered hand, allowing her to pull him back up as well. He winced, the wound a long way from being totally healed, but seeing the guilt flashing in her eyes made the pain insignificant.

They both had a lot of guilt to work through, it seemed.

“We will!” He just said, squeezing her hand in turn.

Seeing the barest hint of a smile on her face, Angel took the opportunity to finally study his surroundings for the first time. He knew where Akathler’s portal was supposed to lead. Just a few short hours ago he had wanted to send the entire world to this place. But maybe the books and prophecies had been wrong. Maybe they had ended up in another place, not ...

About half a mile ahead of them the towering walls of the cave they were in ended. In their place there was a door, at least a hundred meters tall, probably more. It looked old, incredibly old, and there was something written on it, each letter taller than he was.

“Lasciate ogne speranza, vol ch’intrate!“ Angel read the words.

“What ... what does that mean?” Buffy asked him, holding his hand tighter.

Angel just stared straight ahead at the door, which was opening slowly even as they watched.

“All hope abandon, ye who enter in!”

#

Taking a deep breath, Buffy knocked on Giles’ door.

____________________________________________________________________

Part 4

#

Rupert Giles looked at the clock on his wall, wondering where the hours had gone. Hadn’t he just got up for a new day, not really knowing why? Spent his day with mindless tasks of research and filing that served no purpose whatsoever? He hadn’t shaved, he realized, and couldn’t quite remember his last shower.

There on the table in front of him was that letter he had received from the Council a few days ago, telling him in no uncertain terms that they considered the matter of Buffy Summers closed. She was gone for good, they said, and as she had died once before there would not be a new Slayer following after her anyway. As Kendra’s death had resulted in the calling of another Slayer, a girl named Faith, they were satisfied with that state of affairs.

Giles had forced himself not to tear the letter to pieces.

The Council also wanted him to keep up his watch on the Hellmouth in Sunnydale. The new Slayer was not currently to be stationed here, but in case the mystical convergence acted up they wanted prior warning, so she could be sent to deal with it.

Not his Slayer. Not Buffy. She was gone.

He was only now beginning to accept that. Slowly. His flat was still littered with books and notes about Akathler, about the demonic dimensions, everything that could possibly offer a clue as to where Buffy had gone to, how they could get her back. His eyes were hurting from too much reading and too little sleep over these last three months.

All for naught.

He remembered the day Xander had told them what had happened in the mansion. Giles had just been released from the hospital; still recovering from the injuries inflicted on him by Angelus. He remembered being furious with Xander for what he had done, what he had kept from Buffy. If only he had told her that Willow would try the soul restoration again, if only Buffy had known, maybe she could have ...

If only. For Giles the English language held no sadder words.

He remembered thinking how typical it was of Buffy to do something so brave and foolish. She had been forced to sacrifice the man she loved for this uncaring world. Was it really so surprising that she had followed him?

Xander had said that Angel had been back in those last few seconds. The real Angel, the one who had aided them more times than he could count, who had saved all their lives several times over. Not the cruel madman who had tortured him for hours. Not the psychopath that had killed Jenny. Giles closed his eyes, trying for the hundredth time to separate these two people who happened to carry the same face. It was hard.

Putting aside the book he had unsuccessfully tried to read this past hour or so, he rose to stretch his tired bones. Thankfully the Hellmouth had remained quiet all summer. Giles did not want to call on the Slayer for help. It would not be his Slayer. Not Buffy.

There was a soft knock on his door.

Giles looked at the clock again. Someone knocking on your door in the middle of the night was never a good thing in Sunnydale. “Just a minute!” He called out, checking that the crossbow and stake he kept close to the door were within easy reach. It paid to be careful.

When he opened the door Giles forgot all about carefulness.

She stood a short distance away from the door, the light from the lamp not reaching her face. The black coat she had wrapped around herself merged with the shadows of night and her hair was tied back, the golden locks barely visible.

He recognized her instantly.

“Buffy?” He whispered, afraid that he had finally gone insane.

“Hi, Giles.” She said, taking a small step closer. The light still shied away from her face, but now he saw without a doubt that it was she. Her voice sounded a bit different. Harder, sadder, but that was hardly surprising, was it?

She was here. She was back.

Without thinking of any danger he stepped out of the door and closed her into his arms. British reserve failed him completely, all thoughts of the proper distance a Watcher should maintain towards his Slayer was forgotten. She was here, she was alive, and nothing else mattered.

“You’re alive.” He whispered, finally letting go of her and holding her at arm’s length. “When Xander told us ... I ...” He took off his glasses.

“I’m glad to see you, too, Giles.” Buffy said, her lips curving into a smile.

He nodded, taking a step back. He felt just a little embarrassed after this little display of emotions. Just a little.

“Sorry, I ... why don’t you ...” He was about to invite her inside when he saw the shadow standing a few steps behind her. A familiar silhouette, keeping well back from the light. His blood ran cold.

Buffy saw the look in his eyes.

“It’s Angel, Giles.” She told him. “Not Angelus.”

“Ah, I ... I see.”

Angel slowly walked forward into the light and Giles couldn’t help but take a step back. Angel’s hair was a much longer now, falling down to his shoulders. His face was carefully neutral, his dark eyes revealing nothing.

Giles remembered that same face smirking at him while he was tied to a chair, bleeding from a dozen and more wounds.

Resisting the urge to simply run inside and slam the door, Giles instead walked back into his flat, needing the safety of his home despite himself. He expected Buffy to follow him inside. He would make some tea to calm down his nerves, yes, and then they would talk. Everything would be all right again, yes it would. He just had to remain calm and ...

Buffy stopped in front of the door and looked at him.

“Buffy, what ...?” He began, then stopped.

The light from inside his flat illuminated her face for the first time. Showed him how much she had changed. What little baby fat she’d had left the last time he had seen her was gone, replaced by sharp-edged cheekbones. Her hair was also longer, he realized, tied back in an intricate braid that trailed down to her feet. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, and the lips thinner than he remembered.

Despite all those differences it was still her face. A human face.

Except for the eyes.

They were amber. Demon amber.

“I ... I’m afraid I can’t come in unless you ...” Her voice trailed off.

“No!” Giles whispered, shaking his head. This couldn’t be! Not Buffy! Not his Slayer! She couldn’t be ... it wasn’t possible.

She raised her hand and he could see the tips of her fingers flatten against an unseen barrier. His eyes flashed to Angel, who was looking at Buffy with a deep sadness in his eyes.

“What did you do to her?” Giles barely recognized his own voice. This couldn’t be him speaking, could it? Was that his voice? Did he really sound so raw and angry?

“What was necessary.” Angel didn’t meet his gaze.

“I would be dead otherwise.” Buffy added, putting a comforting hand on Angel’s shoulder. “And I’m not a vampire, Giles.”

He looked back and forth between the two of them, too shocked to say anything. Buffy was back, just when he had begun losing hope, and Angel, the real Angel, was with her. She was changed, no longer human, yet the Watcher inside him quickly added up the clues and confirmed her last statement.

She couldn’t be a vampire. He had hugged her and she had been warm. He had felt the heartbeat inside her chest. A vampire didn’t have amber eyes while the rest of his face remained human.

Something very strange was going on here, that much he knew.

Giles looked into the amber eyes of the girl that was like a daughter to him. He had stared dozens, hundreds of vampires in the eye and always been appalled by the emptiness inside them, no matter if they still looked human or not. Angelus had had such eyes as well.

Buffy did not. Neither did Angel.

Though it went against every instinct his years as a Watcher had given him, Giles knew, just knew, that Buffy was telling him the truth. She was still here. Still his Buffy.

Everything else didn’t much matter, did it?

“Come in!” He said, his voice deceptively strong and even. “Both of you.”

______________________________________________________________________

Part 5

#

“Tea?” Giles asked as they walked back into his living room.

“Yes, please.” Angel said.

“God, I don’t remember the last time I drank anything else than ...” Buffy’s voice trailed off. “Yes, tea, great!”

Giles raised an eyebrow, but proceeded into his kitchen, thankful for the few minutes he would need to boil the water and prepare the tea. The entire situation seemed completely unreal right now. Maybe he had fallen asleep over a book and was dreaming all this. It wouldn’t surprise him much, truth to be told.

When he returned from the kitchen, though, the dream hadn’t ended. Buffy and Angel were sitting on his couch, comfortably leaning against each other. Setting the tablet down on the table in front of them, he sat in his chair, never taking his eyes off them.

Buffy immediately pounced on the cookies he had placed beside the tea.

“God, I completely forgot how good these taste.” She mumbled through a mouth stuffed with at least a dozen of them. “I’m dead and in Heaven.”

Giles could see her elongated canines as she talked.

Angel poured himself a cup and sipped, an air of delight spreading on his face. Giles watched the two of them, noticing how close they sat, how comfortable they seemed with each other. It hadn’t been like that before, no matter how infatuated they might have been with each other. There had always been some small distance between them, composed equally of Buffy’s inexperience and Angel’s guilty reserve.

Considering what had happened just three months ago, he could not help but wonder how they had become so close and comfortable in so short a time. Come to think of it, how had they both managed to grow their hair that much in just three months?

“I imagine you have quite a few questions.” Angel said, setting down the cup.

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“I ... how much do you know of what happened in the mansion three months ago?”

Giles rubbed his tired eyes.

“Well, I know that Akathler was active for a short time. Xander said ...”, Giles saw Buffy’s face darken as he said the name, “... that Angel was being sucked into the portal and ... and that you were holding on to him. Then you were both gone and the portal closed.”

Looking at Angel, Giles added, “he also said that apparently Willow’s spell had worked. That ... that you were back to your true self.”

“Did he also mention what he neglected to mention to me?” Buffy growled under her breath, the inhuman sound sending a shiver down Giles’ spine.

“Well ...” He began.

“Never mind!” Buffy raised her hand. “I really don’t want to talk about Xander right now. I guess you want to know what happened after we went through that portal.”

She looked around the room, taking in the numerous books and notes strewn about.

“Do the books say much about Hell?” She asked.

“Well ... not really, no. Lots of theories and obscure prophecies, but ... no one has ever been to Hell. At least no one who returned to tell the tale.”

“Until today.” Buffy said, stuffing another cookie into her mouth.

#

Day 2:

Buffy and Angel took nearly a day to search around the giant cave they had ended up in, but found nothing but naked rock walls. By whatever way they had gotten here, it seemed they had but one way out.

The door. Ominous inscription and all.

It still stood invitingly open, so in the end they decided to go through and face whatever might be waiting for them on the other side. Buffy still had one of her stakes in reserve and Angel had picked up the sword Buffy had dropped, as she refused to lay another hand on it unless absolutely necessary.

Behind the door the giant cave narrowed into a tunnel that led steeply down, sharp-edged rocks slowing their progress and quickly shredding the thin-soled shoes Buffy was wearing. Angel’s sturdier boots held up more or less, but Buffy was soon walking around barefoot.

“I guess this is Hell,” Buffy attempted a joke as she painstakingly made her way over another outcrop of sharp edges, “not a single shopping mall in sight.”

Angel didn’t laugh. The stench of blood and suffering in the air around them was nearly overwhelming his senses, the demon inside him growling in hunger. His soul had returned but a day ago and Angelus refused to go to sleep so quickly. Now that the initial shock of everything had vanished he was painstakingly aware of the beautiful throat that was within arm’s reach.

He shook his head. He was not a demon. Not anymore.

Buffy winced as her foot was cut open by yet another sharp edge. Walking across these rocks was almost like threading through broken glass. The smell of her blood hit Angel like a steam train, but he shook it off.

“Let me!” He said, quickly walking closer and sweeping her up in his arms. Buffy stiffened.

“Not that I don’t like this,” she said, a confused expression on her face, “but ...”

She didn’t have to say it. Angel remembered everything that had happened these last few months and to expect anything but awkwardness between them right now was hoping for too much. They loved each other, yes, but a day ago they had done their best to kill each other and that did matter.

“Your feet are going to be flayed down to the bone by the time we get down there,” he nodded toward the faint light they could see a long distance down the tunnel, “so I think this is the better alternative, don’t you think?”

Buffy nodded, reluctantly, and they continued on their way. Buffy slowly began to relax in Angel’s arms, even as he tried to concentrate on the path he was taking, distracting himself from the feeling of holding her this close. The light below was slowly getting closer.

“I sort of expected Hell to be different than this.” Buffy said, trying to make conversation. “I mean, not that I’m complaining about the absence of demons and fire and brimstone, you know, but this ...”

“I fear this is just the beginning, Buffy.” Angel interrupted her. “I doubt caves and tunnels are all there is to this place.”

She heard his unspoken words clear as day. She shouldn’t have come with him. She should have stayed safe, let him burn for his sins, and go on with her life.

“Well, whatever else may come, we’ll go through it together.”

When the sharp-edged rocks ended, giving way to gray sand, Buffy was almost reluctant to slip out of Angel's arms. The tunnel walls slowly widened and eventually ended, spilling them out onto a seemingly endless gray desert. The sky above them was equally gray, just the slightest tinge of crimson in it, and stretched on above a world seemingly without any other colors in it. A sharp wind was howling over the land, its sound sending shivers down their backs.

Buffy turned around to look back the way they had come and gasped.

The mouth of the tunnel they had come down through was set in a rocky cliff that towered high above them, the top of it (if it had one) vanishing into the gray fog. It stretched on to the left and right of them as well, effectively cutting the world they had entered in half. It seemed to go on forever.

The face of the cliff wasn’t smooth. For a moment Buffy thought her eyes were playing tricks on her, runaway imagination turning odd rock formations into something else. Angel gasped as well, though.

There were people in the rock. Thousands of them, looking as if they were trapped beneath a thin layer of stone and trying to punch through it, hands stretching outward, faces contorted in frozen looks of agony and despair. The cliff was sprinkled with them as far as she could see, barely a bare spot anywhere.

All the faces seemed to be looking at her, pleading. And she realized that the howling wind she heard was not wind at all.

Screams. They were screaming.

“Oh my God!” Buffy heard a voice whisper. A scared little girl’s voice. It took her a moment to recognize it as her own. “Are these ...?”

“They are angels.” Angel said.

“What?” Buffy turned around, thankful for the excuse to turn away from the cliff.

“I ... the inscription on the door we went through, it was exactly the same as in Dante’s Divine Comedy.”

“A comedy? Who would do a comedy about ...?”

“It’s a book, Buffy. Dante Alighieri, a 15th century poet, wrote a book about a man and an angel that walked through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. They entered Hell through a gate with the same words on it as we saw on the door.”

“And ... and these?” She gestured behind her, not wanting to turn around again.

“According to Dante those angels that didn’t rebel against Heaven during Lucifer’s war, yet neither took up arms to fight against the renegades, were banished here, imprisoned forever just behind Hell’s gate.”

Buffy wrapped her arms around herself, shivering. The screams howled on, impossible to ignore, and she imagined that she could feel the cold creep up from the damp gray sand through the soles of her bare feet.

“So I guess this banishes every last doubt as to where we are, right?” She said softly. “I mean, I knew and expected ... but I kinda reserved some tiny hope that maybe Akathler sent us somewhere else. Somewhere ... not Hell.”

Angel slowly put his arms around her, every second expecting her to shrink away from him, to pull back and blame him for dragging her down here with him. As he blamed himself. Instead she leaned against him, enjoying his closeness even here, even now.

“Maybe this really is Hell.” Angel said slowly. “But Buffy, if Dante truly wrote the truth in his book, then there is a way out of here.”

It was a strange turn of events, he thought, him trying to give Buffy new hope. Hadn’t it always been the other way around, even before that night on her seventeenth birthday? Yet he could feel his words having an impact on her, could see the clouds of despair gathering around her lift slightly.

“You think there is a way out?” She asked him for confirmation.

“I do. I believe that Hell could never hold someone who is not meant to be here.”

He meant her, she realized. Not both of them, just her. She turned around to face him, carefully keeping his broad chest between herself and the cliff wall.

“Then we’ll find it.” She said, determination returning to her voice. “We’ll find a way out for the two of us.”

Taking his cold hand firmly into her own to silence every possible protest, the Slayer and her Angel started walking away from the cliff wall and deeper into Hell.

________________________________________________________________________

Part 6

#

Day 3:

The gray desert eventually ended in a gray beach, with gray water murmuring softly as small waves lazily flowed over the sand. They had left behind the screaming a while back, how many hours Buffy didn't know. She was dead tired, that much she did know, hungry, and thirsty.

Slayer metabolism would keep her on her feet for a week without sleep, though she'd not be very pretty at the end of it. Food and drink would be more of an issue than that, but it wasn't really her own thirst that worried her. She could go a few days without food, no problem, though water was rapidly becoming the first thing on her mind.

No, what really worried her was Angel. He had to be starved, too, especially after metabolizing a wound like the one she ... she had given him. And she was the only food source in sight.

The gray ocean in front of them seemed endless.

"So, what does Dante's travel guide to the Inferno say about this?"

"It's been a while since I read the Divine Comedy, but this should be the river Acheron. The dividing line between the living and the dead."

"Looks more like an ocean to me."

Buffy kneeled down by the water line, acutely aware of how very thirsty she was. She guessed that they had arrived here about thirty to forty hours ago and she didn't really remember when she'd had her last drink back on Earth.

The water did not look very healthy, but she didn't really have much of a choice. So the water might be poisonous. She guessed there was a much better chance of her healing powers successfully handling any poison she might drink than her surviving without water much longer.

"Here's to Hell." She quipped and sipped a handful of water.

Angel just watched her, mirroring her earlier thoughts. He could feel the demon inside him growl with hunger. He had drained a human but a few hours before the fight against Buffy. He didn't remember the young woman's face, for which he was almost thankful. Remembering what he did about the last three months, he was sure he had ample stuff for nightmares.

He was hungry now. Without conscious thought his eyes time and again moved to the pulse on Buffy's neck.

When the worst of her thirst was sated, Buffy turned around to look at Angel. She knew exactly what he was thinking and that he would try and kill himself before becoming a danger to her.

They had to find him something to eat before it came to that.

"What now?" She asked him, hoping for some distraction. "Do we have to swim?"

"I don't think that will be necessary." He pointed at something just visible in the distance.

There was a small pier there, made from gray wood, reaching far into the calm water. Buffy squinted her eyes, certain that she saw figures moving over there. Moving toward a small boat that was tied to the pier.

"Our next stop?" She asked Angel.

"The only way to cross the Acheron is to be brought across by Charon, the ferryman."

"Isn't he a guy from Greek mythology? I think we had something like this in history class once."

"Dante borrowed from a lot of mythologies."

They kept on the chatter as they made their way toward the distant pier, talking about different mythologies, their own believes as to the afterlife, and how Dante might have been sued for including a trademarked character in his book, if such a thing as trademarks had existed for characters from Greek mythology.

Anything to distract them from their bleak surroundings and Angel's growing hunger.

By the time they reached the pier they could see that there were indeed people moving about on it. People who were well and clearly dead.

"Are these ...?" Buffy began.

"The souls of the dead, I'd wager." He looked at the bowed figures moving past them, no more real than wraiths. They seemed completely unaware of anything except their own misery and the path toward the small boat, which swallowed the long line of souls without sinking further into the water.

There was a robed figure standing near the stem of the boat, a large pedal in hand. He looked up, revealing the face of a very old man, with eyes like glowing coals that immediately fixed on Buffy.

"Living soul." He addressed her. "You have no place here. Part from those who have seen death already."

"I have seen death." Buffy told him, remembering the day the Master drowned her.

"Oh, but you have not seen the Hell of those that will never look upon Heaven. This desert of gray is but the first and most harmless of Hell's many lands."

"We need to get to the other side, ferryman." Angel approached Charon. "I know that she does not belong in Hell, but there is no way out for her on this side."

Charon's weathered face gave a rather vague impression of a smile.

"And you are her companion, dead man? Not truly dead, yet not of the living. Your soul is not meant to be here, either."

Angel seemed shocked by his words. Buffy was not. She had always known that.

"Look, if there is any way out of here on this side, please tell us. Otherwise, please let us come with you to the other side."

Charon regarded them both for a long while, then nodded.

"Very well. It's been a long time since I have ferried the living. Thread carefully lest you sink my boat."

Buffy and Angel stepped into the boat of the ferryman, who pushed away from the pier and set out across the river Acheron.

#

Buffy yawned, giving Giles another unintentional look at her fangs. It sent a shiver down his spine, but he gave no outward sign of it. She was still Buffy, of that he was sure. Angel was absently stroking her shoulder where she leaned against him, a gesture he seemed completely unaware of.

Somehow that, more than anything else, convinced him that Angelus was gone.

"Maybe we should continue the story tomorrow?" Giles asked, seeing how tired Buffy was. He himself was pretty overwhelmed by the day's events as well.

"S'okay." She mumbled. "I'm not tired."

"Sure you aren't, beloved." Angel smiled at her. "We had a very easy day, after all."

"I thought sarcasm was my trademark." She complained good-naturedly. "You are brooding guy."

"You can have my guest bedroom." Giles offered. "That is, if you don't have another place to stay."

They just returned from Hell, he reminded himself. What other place could they possibly have?

"Are you sure?" Angel asked, a concerned look on his face. "We can ..."

"Of course I'm sure." He interrupted. "Besides, I do want to hear the rest of your story as soon as possible."

Especially the part of what exactly had happened to Buffy.

"Well, we don't exactly have another place to stay at and ..." Buffy's voice trailed off, her amber eyes turning to Giles. "Giles, I ... how is my mom?"

Giles closed his eyes, sighing. He had feared that this question would turn up sooner or later. He didn't know what exactly had gone down between mother and daughter just before Buffy and Angel had vanished, but a very scared and angry Joyce Summers turning up at his doorstep but a day later, demanding explanations, enabled him to give an educated guess.

"I told her everything." Giles said, cleaning his glasses. "She ... I'm afraid she didn't take it very well. To be exact she didn't believe a word of it."

"She saw me dust a vampire right in front of her eyes."

"Well, I ... I fear she managed to convince herself that it didn't happen that way. She ... Buffy, do you really ..."

"Tell me, Giles!" She demanded, not looking at all tired at the moment.

"Well, she ... she called the police. Apparently she told them some story about you hanging with some sort of gang and ... they looked for you. Not on murder charges anymore, by the way. Xander and Willow cleared that one up. I understand the common theory is that you ran away from home. I tried to explain to her that they wouldn't find you anywhere on Earth, but ... as I said, she didn't believe a word."

Giles didn't add that Joyce had even blamed him, to the point where the police had turned up at his doorstep with a search warrant. Luckily he had seen something like that coming and hidden most of the weapons and books beforehand.

"I fear she is in deep denial." He concluded.

"I never should have told her." Buffy said, looking at the floor.

"You didn't have a choice, beloved." Angel told her, embracing her from behind. "She already saw part of the truth. You had no way to know she would go so deeply into denial."

Buffy nodded, though she didn't look convinced.

"I should visit her." Buffy said. She didn't sound very happy with that prospect.

"After you sleep." Angel said, holding her tightly. "I think this is a topic better suited for the light of day rather than the dead of night."

"I guess."

Giles rose from the couch. "I'll get some sheets for the guest room. I ... I assume the two of you will be ..."

Buffy managed half a smile. "We sleep together, Giles, yes. And before you ask, there is no cause to worry. The happiness clause hasn't been an issue for a long, long time."

Relief spread through Giles. Seeing Buffy and Angel this close, remembering what had happened the last time ... it hadn't been easy not to say anything. He would press them for details tomorrow, though, they both looked like they needed a lot of sleep. For now it was enough to know that Angelus would never be back, whatever the reason.

He laid out the sheets and prepared the guest room, pausing just a moment as the realization finally hit him.

This was not a dream. Buffy was home. She was really back.

A single tear slid down his cheek.

_________________________________________________________________________

Part 7

#

It was strange, Buffy thought, and in more way than one. Sleeping in the arms of her Angel was not, of course. They had done that for a long time now. She doubted that she'd still be able to sleep if he wasn't there, if she couldn't rest her head on his still chest and warm it with her cheek. No, it was the surroundings that were strange.

Buffy remembered sleeping in a bed, a real bed, but only in the abstract sense. She had forgotten how good it felt. The soft mattress beneath her, clean sheets surrounding them, this had to be the closest thing to Heaven the Earth could offer.

Even more strange to sleep in Giles' apartment with Angel by her side. Oh, she had slept here once before after a particularly nasty patrol, when she'd been too tired to go home. It was one of the few really vivid memories she retained of her life here in Sunnydale. Giles had tucked her into his spare bed, for the first time giving her the feeling that he was truly her father now.

Now she was sleeping with her lover but one room away from daddy. It brought a small smile to her lips.

"You're thinking again." Angel admonished her softly, his hand stroking her hair where she rested her head on his chest.

"So much has happened today." She murmured, snuggling closer to him. "I ... I guess I still can't quite believe we're back, Angel. And that only three months have passed here."

"It's a lot to take in." Angel nodded, knowing that it was much worse for her than for him. He had been a drifter for years; the only person he had allowed himself to become attached to in any way was right here by his side. She, though, had had to face the fact that her friends and family would be, at best, very much changed by the time they finally got back. Only now they weren't. They were the same people they had left. And Buffy wasn't.

"I was expecting things to change." Buffy continued. "I expected that the wounds wouldn't be that fresh anymore. But they are. For them."

"And for you?" He asked.

Buffy sighed deeply. "It's different. I am still angry with Xander for not telling me about the curse. And my mother ... I don't know what to think there. But it's been so long, Angel. So much time. I ... I'm still angry, but not in the 'stark raving mad' way. Does that make any sense to you?"

"It does." He nodded. "You have a right to be angry, but time soothes the fury and disappointment. Even if only a bit."

Buffy found her eyes falling shut as tiredness overcame her, but her thoughts were still churning inside her without rest.

"Angel?" She murmured, half asleep.

"Yes?"

"What am I to do about my mom?"

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "We'll figure it out tomorrow, beloved. Sleep now!"

Resting in the arms of her Angel, Buffy fell asleep and dreamed of Hell.

#

Day 4:

Charon brought them to the other side of the river, which was as broad as any ocean on Earth. Buffy had slept for most of the trip, hoping to distract herself from her growing hunger and her worry about Angel that way. Angel had stayed awake to guard her sleep, not daring to lie down himself with his demon as starved as it was.

The far side of the Acheron was not a gray desert. It looked like a garden, actually, though Buffy was not inclined to compare it to the garden Eden. It was located in a large valley filled with mist, the far end of it vanishing into gray. No sun could be seen in the heavens,all the trees and plants seemed tired and old, their branches hanging down, their leaves dark and lifeless.

The sky above them had turned a crimson red and the smell of blood and suffering that suffused the air had grown much stronger.

It was driving Angel insane.

The ferryman never said another word to them, didn't answer any of their questions. He simply saw them off once they reached the beach and disappeared back into the gray mists that hung over the Acheron as well, no doubt going to collect more dead people from the other side. The wraiths that had accompanied them on the ferry disappeared in all directions without even once looking at them.

"Where are we now?" Buffy asked Angel.

"This should be the First Circle of Hell." He said, thankful for something to take his mind of the bloodlust. "It's the place for those who led good lives, but lived before the Coming."

She looked down into the valley, seeing people, many of them, move through the misty garden, sadness on their faces. Many of them were looking up, trying to look past the mist, past the crimson skies, looking for a glimpse of ... something. Heaven? The sun? She didn't know.

"You mean all these people had against them was that they were born before Christ?"

"That's what Dante wrote. I have a hard time believing, though, that ..."

Something moved in the underbrush ahead of them, something small and fast. Angel's predator senses immediately picked up the smell of living blood. Not human, but definitely alive. Whatever it was, it was not like the insubstantial wraiths they had seen on the other side of the Acheron.

This was real. Which meant it could be eaten.

Buffy and Angel moved almost as one, carefully circling around the place where they had seen the movement. Considering the place they were in, it was a safe bet that they wouldn't come upon any kind of harmless forest animal. Probably something that wanted to eat them every bit as much as they wanted to eat it.

"Ready?" Buffy whispered to Angel as they had the bush surrounded.

"Go!" They both jumped into the bush, unleashing a tremendous roar from the thing inside.

#

Buffy studied the creature as it slowly roasted over the fire they had built. The smell of cooking flesh was making her mouth water like crazy, but the sight of it...

"It looks like a dog." Buffy said, cocking her head to one side to look at it. "A dog with a really big mouth and lots and lots of teeth."

"A dog that nearly bit your arm off." Angel remarked, looking anywhere but at her.

Buffy's sleeve was torn where the creature had attacked her. Its mouth was big enough to bite off her arm and swallow it whole, only superhuman reflexes had saved her. As it was she had a bloody scratch all the way down her forearm.

She knew what it was doing to Angel.

Unfortunately for them the creature, while made of flesh, had very little in the way of blood. Angel had tasted just the tiniest bit before spitting it out again, his demon face warping with revulsion. At least its flesh seemed to be digestible. Buffy had tasted just a tiny slice, almost raw, and while it tasted rather bland, it did soothe her hunger a little.

As she waited for her meal to finish roasting she thought about Angel's meal. Or lack thereof.

"How long since you've had any blood?" She asked him, her face turning serious.

"A while." He said, trying to wave away her concern. "I'm all right."

"No, you're not. You had to heal a major wound and haul me down that tunnel, remember? You haven't slept so far and this ... this stench in the air can't be doing you any good."

She moved closer to him, putting her hand on his forearm.

"How long, Angel?"

He didn't look at her, but gave a resigned sigh. "Too long, I'm afraid."

"What will happen if you don't get blood soon?"

"I ... a vampire that gets starved becomes ... the imperative to feed becomes overwhelming. I ... you might be in danger, Buffy."

She nodded, having expected something like that.

"Then what say we defuse the danger right now."

Angel looked confused until she offered him her wrist.

"No!" He yelled, jumping to his feet. "Under no circumstances..."

"Angel, you have to!" She interrupted him, rising as well. "Take it now! I'm rested; I'm about to have a meal, gruesome as it might look. I can take it if you drink just a little. If we wait any longer we both know you will not have a choice in the matter."

Angel looked to the ground, ashamed. "If I ... if I should get this way, you have to..."

"No, I can't." She told him. "Not again! Not ever again!"

He looked up to see tears rolling down her cheeks. God, why did she have to suffer this way? Why had the world forced her to thrust a sword into his heart in order to save it? Why did she have to offer him...

"Please, Angel!" She begged, still holding out her wrist. "I can't lose you again."

Angel closed his eyes, clenching his fists. This was his greatest nightmare. Taking blood from Buffy, being forced to violate her for his demon's needs. He didn't doubt that her offering was sincere, she loved him and wanted him to live. Why was such a wonderful girl cursed to love something like him?

The real horror was, though, that she was right. If he didn't take her blood now, while he still had some measure of control, he would soon try and take it by force. It would either lead to her having to kill him or him killing her.

No choice at all.

Slowly, with tears on his face, Angel reached for the wrist of his beloved and, after pressing a soft kiss on it, sank his fangs into her skin.

#

Half an hour later Buffy and Angel went to sleep in each other's arms, both their hungers sated for now, the clean-picked bones of the dog-like demon creature neatly piled beneath the cooling ashes of the fire.

__________________________________________________________________________

Part 8

#

The sound was barely audible, coming from somewhere below, but it was more than enough to wake Buffy from one second to the next. It had become habit a long time ago. Whatever made a sound around her, odds were it was evil, dangerous, and looking to make a meal out of Angel and her. She was on her feet in an instant, looking around for danger.

It took her nearly a minute to recognize her surroundings. A bedroom. What was she doing in a bedroom? How come there was a bedroom here? The memory returned but slowly.

They were out. They were home.

In Giles' home, to be exact.

Looking back at the bed, she saw that Angel was still sleeping like the dead. Which he was, technically. She smiled. No doubt he had stayed awake long after she had dozed off, guarding her sleep as he always did. Even with all the changes she had gone through he still needed a lot less sleep than she did and in Hell it hadn't been all that wise for both of them to sleep at the same time.

That was over, though. They were out. Shaking her head, she still had some trouble believing that this wasn't just a dream.

There was the sound again, downstairs, someone moving around in Giles' living room. It wasn't Giles, she was sure of that. She could sense him in the neighboring bedroom, could hear his even breathing. He was still asleep. Who could ...?

"Giles?" She heard a voice call out, one that was familiar to her. Where did she know that voice from?

She peeked around the corner of the stairs, careful not to be seen herself. If it couldn't see you, there was a good chance it couldn't eat you.

The living room was filled with sunlight. Sunlight? When was the last time she had stood in the sunlight? God, that had to be ... she frowned, wondering if she would ever be able to do so again. That part of her changes had never come up so far. There was no sun in Hell.

Two people were standing in the living room. A boy with blonde, spiky hair, and a redheaded girl. The girl turned around, looking for someone or something, and Buffy saw her face.

"Willow?" She whispered. She remembered the name, knew that it belonged to her best friend. She remembered that face, too, though time had dimmed that memory. Before learning of the time difference she had expected to meet a grown woman, had spent days imagining what Willow would look like by now. But here she was, still the same girl she remembered.

"Giles, you're not gonna believe this." Willow still looked around for the Watcher, not having noticed Buffy upstairs. "We went to the mansion and there was, like, this huge scorch mark on the floor. Like something, I don't know, appeared there and ..."

Buffy stepped out from around the corner and Willow's mouth fell shut.

"Willow?" Buffy asked, needing outside confirmation. All of this was so unreal. This world, these people, she had buried them inside her mind a long time ago. But they were here, alive, unchanged.

"Oh God, Buffy!" Willow yelled and bolted up the stairs, catching Buffy in a bone-crushing hug. There was a tense moment, every instinct screaming at Buffy to free herself from this attacker, to run back to Angel and hide from the monsters. Then she relaxed. This wasn't Hell. Hell was behind them.

"Hi, Will!" She said, returning the hug. She was pretty certain that she had often called Willow 'Will'. "Miss me?"

"Buffy, I was beginning to ... you're back! My God, you're back!"

Buffy was beginning to fear for her air supply when Willow finally let go, taking a step back. Which inevitably led to her getting a good look at Buffy's eyes for the first time.

She gasped.

"My God!" Willow's eyes widened in horror and she took two steps back, shaking her head. "Buffy, no! No, it ... it can't ..."

Buffy closed her eyes, the treacherous demon eyes, serving the added purpose of not having to look at Willow's horrified face. Would it be this way with every single one of her family?

What would her mom say when she saw the new Buffy for the first time?

"What ... what happened?" She heard Willow asks. Opening her eyes once more she found that her (former?) best friend hadn't yet gone running for the daylight outside. She stood half the room away, clutching the hand of ... of ... Buffy couldn't remember the boy's name.

"I changed." Buffy simply said, not daring to move for fear of frightening Willow even more than she already had.

"Willow! Oz!" Giles came out of the bedroom. "I see you ... ah, already saw that Buffy is back."

Oz! Right, that had been the name. She dimly remembered Willow starting to go out with him just around the time that Angel had ... sometime around her seventeenth birthday.

"Is she?" Willow asked, still staring at her with wide eyes. "I mean, is she ... she?"

"I believe so, yes." Giles nodded. Buffy noticed that he was still wearing his pajamas, which didn't fit at all with the image of him she had carried with her all these years. She never thought of him in anything else but tweed. Odds were that Willow's yelling had woken him.

Speaking of waking ...

Angel was standing in the door of the guest bedroom, out of sight of the newcomers.

"I think I need to sit down." Willow sounded as if she would faint any second. "I really need to sit down."

Oz guided her to the nearest chair. There was confusion clearly visible on his face; something Buffy seemed to remember wasn't all that common. She exchanged a glance with Angel. Would it be better to hit them with another surprise right now or wait until later?

Giles took the choice from her.

"Maybe now is a good time for the two of you," he looked over at Angel, "to tell us what exactly happened to Buffy."

"The two of ...?" Willow began, then trailed off as Angel stepped out from the shadows.

"Wow!" Oz just said.

"A-Angel?" Willow stuttered, staring at him. "You ... you are Angel, right? I mean ..."

"Your spell worked, Willow." Angel assured her, managing half a smile. "Angelus is gone for good."

"Good! That's good, ... right?"

Buffy took advantage of Willow's short-lived distraction and knelt down in front of her, effectively trapping her in the chair she sat in. Not leaving her time to be scared of her, she grabbed her hand, pressing Willow's fingers over her wrist.

"It's good." Buffy told her. "Both Angel and me are the people we were. No matter the changes."

There was no mistaking the pulse Willow could feel pounding under her fingers. Nor could she ignore the warmth of Buffy's skin. Besides, she had never seen a Vampire before who could change only his eyes, leaving the rest of the face human.

"Buffy?" Now she was the one who needed confirmation. "It's really you?"

"It's me, Will." Buffy nodded, smiling now. "I'm back."

Willow launched out of the chair and hugged Buffy again, longer this time. Buffy heard her mumbling "You're back!" over and over again, causing tears of happiness to roll down her cheeks. Just having her close brought back so many memories she had all but forgotten. Willow had been her best friend, back in her old life, and she had a strong feeling she would be again.

But first they would have to tell them exactly what had happened.

#

Day 63:

They crossed the First Circle of Hell in a time they estimated to be about two months. There was no way to count the days, as there was no night here, just the eternal, misty twilight that had greeted them the moment they first set foot on this side of the Acheron. Buffy had started counting their sleep periods, hoping that their rather irregular stops for rest might just balance out in average.

They did find out that Dante had erred in the purpose of the First Circle. The wraiths they had seen on the ferry, at least those that had entered into the misty valley and not vanished to elsewhere, had grown more substantial once they reached their destination, becoming almost real again. Probably as real as dead men, truly dead men, could ever be.

None of them believed that they were dead, though. The First Circle housed those that refused to accept that they were dead. It was the limbo of restless spirits. They erred through the forest, looking for a place to get out, to get back to the lives they still thought they had. They never ventured to the valley's edge, though, never even got near. Instead they walked in circles, over and over again, searching for something they would never regain.

None of them could give Buffy and Angel any kind of advice or help as to their journey.

The food problem, while not exactly solved to anyone's satisfaction, became less of an issue. While the valley itself was free of any kind of demons or monsters, enough of the smaller and mostly harmless variant stalked around the edges of the forest. None of them tasted good, but Buffy could sustain herself on them. Angel sustained on her blood. He didn't want to, but they didn't find any alternatives.

Dead men didn't bleed.

The small demons weren't the only ones they saw, though. Through the mists they sometimes spotted giant shapes moving around the valley, their steps causing the earth to shake. They heard roars as if from terrible beasts, sounding in a distance impossible to gauge. They might have been just around the corner or miles away. Buffy and Angel did their best to stay out of their path.

The trip through the First Circle was mostly uneventful, their greatest obstacle being the sense of gloom and despair that descended upon them while walking through the misty forest day after endless day. Buffy couldn't imagine what it had to be like to spend eternity in this place. Maybe dead men couldn't go insane. She wasn't so sure about herself.

They tried to circle around the valley once, hoping to save time by cutting across the seemingly endless gray plains that spread all around it, but whatever direction they chose always led them back to where they had started.

The only way past the First Circle seemed to be through the valley itself.

One other thing happened, though. Something that didn't become apparent until they were nearing the end of the First Circle, the far side of the valley finally coming into sight. Buffy had felt a bit off for several days before that, but had written it off to her rather monotone diet and the gloomy surroundings.

The footstep of some distant beast caused the earth to shake and suddenly Buffy's stomach turned, causing her to throw up on the valley floor. Angel was by her side in an instant, his cold hand soothing on her back, the other holding back her hair as she heaved over and over again.

Blood. She was throwing up blood. And when Angel removed his hand from her hair several strands came out along with it.

"My God!" He whispered, looking at the pale face in front of him.

"What is happening to me?"

Her knees were trembling and she felt sick, her skin was clammy and covered with cold sweat.

"It must be something in those creatures you've been eating." Angel said, helping her sit down on a fallen tree trunk nearby. "Some kind of food poisoning."

She coughed, wiping the remains of puke from her face. "You think I should change my diet?" She asked him, her attempt at humor failing miserably.

It wasn't just the food, though. Buffy stopped eating the little monsters, instead tried to sustain herself on what little in the way of edible plants they found in the forest, yet it didn't help. She threw up several times more, even when her stomach was completely empty, spilling more and more of her blood.

Angel didn't dare drink from here anymore as she was growing weaker by the day. They reached the end of the valley and Buffy was unable to climb up the steep edge that led up whatever lay beyond the First Circle. Angel had to carry her, which wasn't the smartest idea, given his demon's growing hunger.

By that time they had both come to realize what was happening to Buffy. It came down to what Charon had told them. This was not a place for the living. Only the dead walked in Hell, the dead and the monsters. The dead didn't need to breathe the foul air. The dead didn't need to eat what little existed in the way of food.

Buffy had to, though. And Hell was slowly killing her.

_________________________________________________________________

Part 9

#

Day 75:

Buffy was steadily getting worse, not able to so much as stand on her own two feet any longer. Angel had restored his own strength somewhat by drinking from the small demon creatures, though they saw them more seldom now and each of them contained but the barest amount of blood. It did almost nothing for his vitality, besides tasting so foul that he had to fight himself with every sip, but it was just enough to keep him alive.

Barely.

They had left the misty valley of the First Circle behind and wandered across a gray plain for what Angel estimated to be several days. The only sense of direction they had was provided by the increasing stench and the sound of screams. Angel had improvised a water bottle for Buffy from several of the dead trees in the Valley and taken along some of the barely edible plants for consumption, but she barely ate any of it and threw up everything that he forced her to swallow.

She was dying and he could do nothing about it.

The Second Circle of Hell was surrounded by a giant, jagged rock wall. The only visible entrance was a doorway directly ahead, where they could see a small crowd of wraiths gathering, dead people about to enter into their part of damnation. As they got closer they could see someone guarding the entrance.

The demon looked like a cross between a man and a snake, more like the latter actually. At least ten feet tall as he stood on his coiled tail, there were arms growing from his sides, ending in almost human hands, and his face had the barest hint of human features. Everything else was serpent. A split tongue was visible with every word he spoke.

He didn't speak much, though. He mostly listened.

"That has to be Minos." Angel told Buffy, though she was barely able to stay awake now. Talking to her distracted him from the despair and his own weakened state. "He guards the Second Circle and everyone who comes here can not help but confess all their sins to him. He will accept the Wanton into his Circle and send the others on their way."

Buffy blinked at him, her brow stained with cold sweat, but there was no awareness in her eyes, no recognition. She was drifting in and out of consciousness constantly now. Angel was sure that only her supernatural stamina had kept her alive so long.

It wouldn't much longer.

As they got closer to the entrance of the Second Circle they could hear the gathered wraiths as they screamed at the snake demon, screaming of sins they had committed, of deeds they needed to be punished for. Some of them were on their knees, begging to be hurt, others simply glared at Minos, offended that he was taking so long with the others and didn't listen to their own, much more important confessions.

Minos looked up when Angel approached him.

"The Living and the Undead." He hissed. "I have heard you would be coming. Charon can be a chatty fellow if he so chooses." Something like a chuckle rose from Minos' throat.

Angel opened his mouth to ask the demon for assistance, though he was quite certain he would not get it. Instead words came streaming out of his mouth, words he didn't intend to say, but couldn't hold back, either.

He spoke of the people he had killed over the centuries, all the people who he saw every time he closed his eyes. Spoke of his family, whom he had disappointed so deeply as a human and then killed when he became a monster. He confessed in length the sin of loving the beautiful creature he now held in his arms, nearly lifeless, of dragging her down into the hell of his own existence, torturing her, taking her blood to lengthen his own miserable life.

He fell to his knees, crying, screaming that he couldn't help her. If only someone would help her he would gladly accept an eternity of punishment in whatever Circle of Hell would take him in.

Minos studied him as he screamed his sins, blinking now and then, his tongue shooting out as if to taste the dead man's misery. Nothing could be read on his face, though he did give the impression of polite interest through his stance.

When Angel's words finally became so many sobs, tears dropping down on Buffy's still face, Minos finally spoke.

"Next!" He said.

"What?" Angel looked up.

"You bore me, dead man." Minos looked at him. "You speak of sins, yes, but you did not commit them. Your demon did. Yes, you disappointed your family, wounded them deeply, but you have paid for that a hundred times over. And the living girl chose to come here with you of her own free will. There is nothing you have to pay for."

Angel was dumbfounded. Didn't the demon understand? Couldn't he see all that he had done? Especially his greatest sin.

"I can't help her." Angel yelled at Minos. Buffy was still in his arms, her breath so shallow it was barely there. "She came here because of me and now she is dying. Dying because I can't help her."

"But you can." Minos said. "Too blinded by your own misery to see, though."

Angel stared at the snake-creature, but Minos did not say any more. He turned to the next wraith, attentively listening to another rendition of sins committed. Angel was left on his knees, cradling Buffy against him, not understanding what he had been told.

He could help her? How? The only way to save her was to get her out of Hell and the end of their journey was nowhere in sight. They had barely reached the second of nine Circles, Buffy would probably not survive to see even the end of even that one. How could he help her when they were both imprisoned in a place where only the dead and the demons could ...

Angel froze. Only the dead and the demons could survive in Hell. Buffy was neither. Closing his eyes he realized what Minos had meant.

Only the dead and the demons.

The only way to prevent Buffy from becoming the former was to make her the latter. And damn her every bit as much as he himself was damned.

#

"You turned her into a vampire?" Willow asked, aghast at hearing the tale.

Buffy gave her a 'duh'-look. "Still having a pulse here, Willow, remember?" She held up her wrist.

Willow looked back and forth between Buffy and Angel. They sat together on the living room couch, away from the sunlight, leaning into one another. Angel had told most of the tale, his deep and melancholic voice drawing all three of his listeners deep into the story.

"What happened then? How did you save her?"

Giles had listened to the story attentively, the trained Watcher inside him recording every detail, putting together the pieces until they made a picture.

"You fed her your blood, didn't you?" Giles asked Angel.

The vampire but nodded.

"But ... but wouldn't that make her a vampire?" Willow asked, more confused than ever. "I mean, that's how you make a vampire, right? You feed them your blood and ..."

"In order to become a vampire," Giles interrupted her, easily falling into teaching mode, "you have to die first. The vampire drains its victim to the point of death and then makes it drink its blood."

"The soul leaves when the body dies," Angel continued, "leaving only the demon, who slips in through the blood and uses the dead flesh as its own."

"Only I never died." Buffy concluded.

Willow nodded hesitantly, beginning to understand.

"So he ... he enabled you to survive by ... by making you a ... a little demony?"

Angel looked at the floor. It had been so long ago, yet it still shamed him. Oh, he fully realized that Buffy would not be here if he had not done it. She would be dead, something he had a hard time blaming himself for preventing. Still ...

"There are only very few recorded cases of a vampire feeding its blood to a living human." Giles said, looking at his charge and her demon lover.

"It goes against the vampire's nature." Angel explained, not meeting his eyes. "Giving without taking. A vampire's blood is very potent. It ... it enhances a human's strength and stamina, it slows the aging process. Gives them a vampire's resilience against most illnesses and poisons."

"Sounds like all-around great stuff." Oz remarked, having listened in silence so far.

"It's not." Angel said.

Willow looked at Buffy's changed appearance. The amber eyes with the slit pupils. Whenever Buffy turned those on her it gave her the uncomfortable feeling of being looked at as a meal. By now she had also seen that Buffy had fangs. Vampire fangs.

"His blood did this to you?" Willow asked, hoping she didn't sound too accusing. Angel had saved Buffy's life, after all.

"Not immediately." Buffy said, squeezing Angel's hand in assurance. "It sort of developed over the course of our journey. Slowly, but steadily. I ... I never really saw what I looked like until I looked into a mirror last night. No mirrors in Hell."

The fact that she still had a reflection had been a tremendous relief to her, truth be told.

"I had only Angel to tell me what I look like and he tends to flatter." She smiled at him, which managed to produce half a smile on his own face.

Willow shook her head, trying to wrap her mind around everything she had heard. "So he ... he just gave you a sip of his blood and everything was peachy again?"

"It wasn't that easy, was it?" Giles asked, already knowing much of what Angel had yet to tell about the effects of vampire blood on a living human.

"I recovered in the course of a few days." Buffy said. "It took more than one sip of Angel's blood and ..."

Her voice trailed off, not really knowing how to broach the next subject. Giles saw her unease and decided to spare her the telling.

"Once a human has tasted the blood of a vampire," he said, never taking his eyes off Buffy, "she has to taste the blood over and over again. Otherwise its effects will fade. Only the blood of that same vampire will do."

"Oh!" Willow said, looking at Buffy as well. "You mean you ... you mean he ... they ..."

"He means I'm addicted, Willow." Buffy told her calmly. She'd had a long time to come to terms with it. "Without Angel's blood I will ... well, let's just say it wouldn't be very good for me."

She could almost feel the renewed shame and loathing Angel subjected himself to as she told the ugly details. How long had it taken her to convince him that she didn't blame him for anything, that he had saved her by doing this. Now all those old wounds were reopened, it seemed.

"Buffy, I ...," Giles began. Now it was his turn to be reluctant about broaching a subject. "The ... the changes you have undergone, they ... they took a long time, didn't they?"

She just nodded, knowing he had figured it out.

"Much longer than three months." Giles concluded.

"Yes." Angel confirmed. "Much longer."

"I don't understand." Willow looked at Giles. "What do you mean, longer? They were gone only three months, how could ...?"

"Three months for you, Will." Buffy told her. "Not for us. Time seems to flow different here than in Hell."

"How long?" Giles asked.

Buffy sighed, leaning back against Angel's chest, his arms automatically going around her. "It's hard to tell. We counted the times we slept at first, but as I continued to change I needed less and less sleep, so eventually we stopped counting."

She closed her eyes, remembering the day she had given up on that habit. It had gone a long way toward resignation, actually. Resigning themselves to the fact that they would need a very long time to get out of Hell, if they were to manage it at all.

"Our best estimate," Angel said, having spent some time last night trying to calculate the numbers, "is that we were in Hell for about thirty years."

Even Oz looked dumbstruck.

#

Day 76:

Buffy, feeling stronger than she had in a long time, small drops of Angel's blood still on her lips, took her weeping lover into her arms. He cried because of what he had done to her, what circumstances had forced him to do. She knew how much he would torture himself over this, how much he would blame himself.

He had saved her life and would hate himself for it.

The only thing she could do now was to show him that she didn't hate him. Could never hate him. And if she had to prove it to him over and over again, day after day, as long as they both lived, then that was what she would do.

_________________________________________________________________________

Part 10

#

"Thirty years." Willow whispered.

"Give or take a few years." Buffy said, trying to sound nonchalant about it. "It was hard to keep track of the time."

"You're well preserved." Oz added, slowly regaining his normal composure.

"Angel's blood slowed the aging process. We guess I'm aging about a year per decade. Maybe less."

Giles took off his glasses to clean them. "This is ... well, extraordinary."

"Thirty years." Willow repeated. "You mean you ... wow, you're going on fifty now, right? I mean ... wow."

Silence settled over the assembled friends as they all tried to wrap their minds around the things they had just heard. Giles had his eyes closed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Willow was clutching Oz' elbow, her expression somewhere between confusion, fainting, and deep sadness. Oz had regained his expressionless face, but his eyes shimmered.

Buffy and Angel watched their friends and waited.

"So I guess you won't go back to school?" Willow asked after a while.

The completely unexpected way Willow's thoughts turned took Buffy by surprise. "I ... I actually didn't even think about school for ... very long. I don't know."

"You'd need contact lenses." Willow jumped onto the thought. "Or ... or maybe shades. No, it would look really weird if you always wore shades. And you'd need to watch your smiling. No broad smiles or they'll see the teeth and..."

"Will, slow down!" Buffy said, amused by her friend's ramble, though Willow had just broached just one more topic she had yet to figure out. "Let's take it one step at a time, okay?"

"Oh, sure! Sorry." She looked down, then another thought grabbed her. "Does everyone know? I mean, I should call Xander. He..."

The words died in her throat as she saw Buffy's face darken upon hearing the name, demon eyes narrowing down to blazing slits. Of course, she mentally slapped herself. After what Xander had done...

"Buffy...?"

"Do you know what he did to me?" Buffy asked, staring at her. Her eyes were cold as ice, the amber blazing with deep resentment and long-held anger. "I bet he never told you, did he? What he said to me just before I went in to battle Angelus."

Willow looked down. "He did tell us, Buffy." She said softly. "He told us everything."

"We know he didn't tell you that Willow would attempt the curse again." Giles added.

Buffy stared at her friends. It had been so long since that betrayal but being here, among people for whom it happened just very recently, brought back all the anger she had almost forgotten.

"And what?" She asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "He said sorry, dumb mistake, and that's it?"

"It wasn't quite that easy." Giles said, sounding tired.

Willow shook her head. One half of her wanted to rise to Xander's defense, explain that he had just made a dumb choice, thinking he was doing what was best for Buffy. The other half reminded her of all the ugly words she herself had said to Xander after he had told them. How she had accused him of once again acting out of jealousy, nothing else. He had always wanted Angel gone and grasped the chance of seeing it done when it presented itself.

And had Xander even once tried to defend himself?

"After you were ... gone," Willow began, "Xander was never the same again. He blamed himself for what happened."

"Gee, I wonder why." Buffy mumbled, clearly not impressed.

"He did something incredibly stupid, Buffy," Willow tried again, "but ..."

"No but, Will!" Buffy interrupted her, rising from the couch to pace the length of the living room. "Xander kept this from me because of his petty jealousy and because of that ..."

She stopped to look at Angel, pain washing over her face. She had been forced to stab him, to send him to Hell. All because of that stupid boy.

"I don't know if knowing about your restoring the curse would have changed anything." Buffy said, forcing herself to calm down. "And I guess we'll never know, will we?"

Willow could think of nothing to say to that. Buffy dropped back down on the couch, leaning into Angel, and closed her eyes.

"I don't want to think about Xander right now!" She declared. "I ... there are more important things to do first. Like talking to my mom."

Willow traded a look with Giles, silently asking how much he had told her already. The Watcher sighed.

"I haven't talked with your mother since the day I tried to explain everything to her." Giles said. "Like I said last night, she didn't believe a word, I fear."

"Well," Buffy said with a shaky voice, "I guess seeing me might just be enough to convince her."

Angel look worried, hearing the pain in her voice.

"What do you think she will say?" Buffy looked up, a very fake smile on her face. "I mean, she threw me out of the house, told me never to come back. What do you think she'll say when I not only come back but also appear quite the monster?"

Tears began to run down her cheeks and her body started shaking. Sweat broke out on her brow.

"She'll slam the door in my face and run away screaming, I bet!" Buffy laughed hysterically, now shivering violently. "She'll be afraid her little girl wants to eat her."

Angel reacted quickly to her sudden outburst, drawing her tighter into his arms to hold her still. "You should get out!" He told the others.

"Out?" Willow was on her feet, shocked by Buffy's breakdown. "But what is wrong? What is...?"

"It's been some time since she had my blood." Angel simply stated, holding the shaking girl tight and looking at them over her head. "I have to..."

He didn't finish the sentence and he didn't have to. Giles simply nodded, not looking very happy, but quickly shooed the others out of the living room, leaving Buffy and Angel some privacy.

Once they were out of sight Angel quickly took off the shirt Giles had loaned him and bared his neck to Buffy, guiding her head closer to it.

"Drink, beloved!" He whispered to her, softly removing the strands of hair that were plastered to her sweat-soaked brow. "Drink!"

Buffy's fingers dug hard into his shoulders as she rose up his chest to sink her fangs into his throat. Angel barely felt the pain anymore, they had done this so very often now. Her warm body pressed against his, her lips fastened on his flesh as she drank at his neck. There was a low growling deep in her throat, those parts of the demon he had been forced to give her responding to the rush of blood.

His own hunger rose, it had been some time for him as well. He hesitated, a strange occurrence after all the many times he had drank from her in turn. It was all different now, though. They were no longer in Hell, no longer in their own, violent world where nothing existed except the two of them and the constant dangers. Her friends were here, her family, they were back in the real world.

Things would have to change, he realized in this most intimate of moments. They would have to change. He doubted they would be able to change back to the people they had been, either of them. They would have to find some new place here, some way to fit back into this world that the two of them had all but forgotten.

During their long, long journey they had never lost sight of their ultimate goal. Return to Earth. That overwhelming purpose had defined them, made them rise in the morning, made them fight off the despair. He knew that, foolish as it might have been, they had both believed that, once they were back, everything would be right again. Happily ever after.

Now, with his love drinking from his neck, his own face vamping out, his fangs sinking into her neck to sate his own hunger, he knew that their journey wasn't over. Not by half.

Miles to go before I sleep, Angel though as he drank. Miles to go.

_______________________________________________________________________

Part 11

#

The thought had come, as her thoughts tended to, at quite the odd moment. Angel's blood had taken effect rather quickly, sating her body's desperate need for it, quieting the severe withdrawal symptoms that had the bad habit of always appearing as sudden as they had done just now. She and Angel both knew how often she needed his blood, but recent events had messed up their sense of time in a major way.

Coming out of her mild shock, the first thought she had was this:

Oh God, I stink!

It hadn't really been much of a problem in Hell. While there were places in the Inferno where water existed in abundance (so much of it, actually, that it became just another form of torture) the idea of using it for any other purpose but survival had become rather foreign to her. She hadn't given it much of a thought since returning here, either.

Now the idea of taking a shower suddenly jumped to the front of her brain, dug its heels in, and wouldn't let go.

Angel just informed Giles and the others that they would take some time to recover from everything that had happened. When he mentioned the shower Giles actually looked quite relieved. Thinking of the mess they had probably made of his guest bed, just falling into it with the dirt and sooth of the Ninth Circle still on them, she couldn't help but smile.

A few minutes later the two of them stood under a shower of hot water and Buffy was convinced that this was Heaven.

Angel, true to form, didn't waste a thought on himself but immediately went to work on her. Which she didn't mind at all. He quickly lathered his big hands with some shampoo she probably wouldn't have come close to in her old life (if for no other reason than it being the brand her stuffy, old Watcher used) and began kneading it into her hair.

It took some time to undo the braid she had woven her long hair into, but once the dark blonde tresses were freed Angel immediately went to work on them. It would have been much more practical for Buffy to cut off her hair now and then during their journey, but somehow she had never been able to. It was the one vanity she had retained all the way through, taking care of her hair as best she could. Angel had become a master at braiding it into intricate forms and now he took equal pleasure in thoroughly cleaning it, though he used up most of the shampoo to do it.

Once he was finished with her hair, having rinsed out half of Hell's supply of ashes and sooth in the process, he lathered his hands once more and, starting at the neck and shoulders, began moving them all over her body. He gently massaged her flesh until the assorted layers of grime and dirt started peeling off. Working his way down, he gave special attention to all the spots he knew she liked to be touched in. The little hollow at the base of her throat, the valley between her breasts, the small of her back. Her legs nearly gave out when he moved between them. It was one of the few spots she had taken care to keep more or less clean, but you wouldn't have known it by the amount of time he dedicated to it.

She gave a disappointed sigh when he moved further down, his hands kneading into the flesh of her thighs. He patted her calve to make her raise first one foot, then the other, thoroughly massaging each until she thought she'd pass out from sheer relaxation.

When Angel was finished her skin was beginning to get rather wrinkly, but she wouldn't allow either of them to get out until she had taken care of him in turn. Especially after the things she had seen in his eyes the moment she had come out of her shock.

He blamed himself again. Back in Sunnydale for five minutes and he started blaming himself again. She shook her head. Not only had he been forced to tell her friends all about what he had 'done' to her (saving her life in the process, but he always seemed to forget that part), no, her untimely breakdown had forced him to all but give them a life demonstration.

Buffy had never blamed him for any of it and if she had to prove it to him all over again, well, that was what she would do. No matter the fact that she had hoped to have cured him of that during their travels. Both him and herself, actually, as she'd had quite a few issues of her own, being the one ultimately to blame for both of them being there.

Hell was behind them, this was a whole new ballgame. She just hoped they wouldn't have to start from scratch again.

She cleaned him every bit as methodically and thoroughly as he had done with her, basking in the purr that escaped him when she kneaded her fingers into his hair. By the time she was done they had used up what had to be a month's supply of Giles' shower products, but neither of them gave much thought to it. They were wrinkly but clean, really clean for the first time in about thirty years.

Somehow that made Buffy feel really good and managed to banish any dark thoughts she had, at least for the moment.

#

Giles didn't have a hairbrush, of course. The old Buffy would probably have made a quip of that, feigning surprise that someone with Giles' amount of hair did not find a sensible use for a hairbrush. As it was she was just thankful that Willow carried one with her.

Even more thankful, actually, that it had found its way into the hands of her Angel.

Wrapped in fluffy towels, curled into a soft chair in Giles' spare bedroom, Buffy leaned back as Angel spread her hair out behind her and began to work the brush through it. There were quite a few painful spots at first, making her wince now and then. She was just thankful that Hell had been free of flees and other parasites that took a liking to hair. It was one of the few plus points she could think of.

Before long Angel managed to work out all the knots and brushed her hair until it resembled fine silk. Feeling his ministrations caused Buffy to purr deep in her throat. Oh yes, the pains of keeping her hair all through their travels paid off in full now. For a moment she had been worried that they might lose the intimacy and closeness they had developed during their years of travel. Now she wasn't any longer.

As Angel worked on her hair she looked into the mirror in front of her. Besides the very strange picture of a hairbrush seemingly moving through her hair all by itself, she saw the scar on her neck.

At first Angel had taken his nourishment only from her wrist, the act of drinking at her throat too intimate after all they had been through. It had taken time, many hours of talking things out, until they both felt comfortable enough with each other to engage in that kind of closeness. From that point forward they had only grown closer. In all ways.

The scar would never vanish, she knew that, and she didn't want it to. Same for the scar on Angel's neck, where she had sunk her teeth in many times since that day she had first tasted his blood. For Buffy it meant that they belonged to each other, something that tied them every bit as close as the rings they still wore. With a smile she looked at her Claddagh, worn and aged by years of hardship, but still there. She still wasn't sure why she had taken it with her on the day she had gone out to kill Angelus. Nor could Angel tell exactly why the demon had never taken his ring off, either. Maybe they had both known in some way.

"Angel?" Her earlier thoughts were returning.

"Yes?"

"You won't start blaming yourself again, will you?"

He was quiet for a long minute, still moving the brush through her hair.

"Seeing you here," he finally said, "back among your friends ... I never really realized before how very much I have changed you."

"We have both changed a lot." She told him. "We had to. It wasn't your fault and neither was it mine." It had taken her a long time to believe that last statement. "We both made the best of the hand we were dealt and now we're back home, we're together, the rest is just details."

She turned to look at the man the mirror would not show her.

"I will need you, Angel. I ... I still don't know what to say to my mom, how to handle what happened with Xander, not to mention school and all the other things that will no doubt pile up before long. I'll need your strength."

He sighed, brushing his cheek against her hair as they softly embraced.

"You are my strength, beloved." He whispered. "And all I have to give is always yours, whenever you need it."

Buffy sighed in deep contentment. Whatever else happened, she would handle it. Somehow. As long as her Angel was with her.

#

Day 112:

The Second Circle of Hell was where the Wanton were punished, those that had done terrible things in the name of their own need and want. Conquerors that had begun terrible wars over matters of petty jealousy. Men and women who had killed those that would not have them. Dante had written that all those had allowed love to take them from their lives would end up here. Buffy had to believe he was wrong about that. Otherwise she would have to consider her place here as well, after all.

She wondered what she would have told Minos, what he would have said to her about her sins, had she been conscious at that time.

The land before them was mostly rocks and cliffs, looking as if some giant had gone through it with the intention of making it as messed up and jagged as possible. There was no way for them to travel in anything resembling a straight line and Buffy was once again lamenting her lack of shoes.

She and Angel didn't speak much the first few weeks after they entered the Circle. Not just because of the howling wind that blew ceaselessly across the land. A never-ending gale force that picked up the wraiths of the damned and threw them against the sharp-edged cliffs and rocks, shattering their bodies over and over again. They fell to the ground where their wounds knitted together just in time for them to be picked up by the wind once more. They screamed, always screamed, but the wind swallowed most of that. For which Buffy was eternally grateful.

The constant howling made talking to each other almost impossible, but Angel didn't seem inclined to speak even in the few more or less quiet spots they found to sleep in. He avoided looking at her, even when the need for blood became so strong that he had to feed on her, or when she had to feed on his blood in turn. The latter still freaked Buffy out a bit, especially since she sometimes thought she could feel the strange blood working inside her, changing her, but she was quickly getting used to it.

Angel wasn't, she knew. He blamed himself for doing this to her. Thanks to his blood she was back to full health, maybe better than she had ever been before. She could now eat the few small demons they could capture without fear of being poisoned, could breathe the foul air without destroying her lungs in the process. His blood had saved her, had given her enough strength to both continue the journey and sustain Angel with her blood in turn.

None of that eased his pain, though.

After ignoring all of her attempts to speak to him about it Buffy finally decided that enough was enough. They were camping out for the night (so to speak, as it never really grew light in the Second Circle) beneath a huge overhang that kept them safe from the winds and blocked out most of the screams as well.

"Stop hating yourself!" Buffy shot at Angel without warning.

He looked up, but only met her eyes for a few seconds, then looked down without another word. Buffy refused to be put off this time, though, and scooted closer to him until she had him effectively trapped between her body and the rocks. Lifting up his chin, she forced him to look into her eyes.

"I don't hate you!" She told him pointedly. "I could never hate you, Angel, even if you should ever give me a reason to do it."

He closed his eyes. "Buffy, I ..."

"You saved my life, Angel. That's all there is to it. Sure, I was too out of it for you to ask me if I wanted it this way, but the answer would have been yes, Angel. I would be dead now if you hadn't given me your blood and I really don't like to think about what might have happened to my soul then."

His eyes snapped open, surprised.

"What are you talking about? Buffy, how could you even consider ... if there is such a place as Heaven then you, of all people, ..."

"Really?" She interrupted him, tears shining in her eyes. "Angel, I know that you see me as some kind of idol of goodness, but let's face facts here, okay? I consciously sent the man I love to Hell, literally."

"To save the world." He muttered. "From me."

"From your demon, Angel! Remember what Minos said? You have nothing to pay for. Nothing! When will you get that through your thick skull?"

She put her hand against his cheek, tears now flowing freely down her cheeks. "I love you so much, Angel. I need you, not because of your blood, but because of you. I can't do this without you. I can't stand that you're drawing away from me over this."

He looked down again, tears on his own face.

"You shouldn't have to go through this." He whispered, his voice shaking. "Not because of me. You should be back home, with your friends and family, not ..."

"I chose to come here with you, you idiot!" She yelled at him. "My choice, not yours. God, will you stop that 'I am not worthy' crap already? That's not your choice, either. It's mine and I made it."

She collapsed against his broad chest, soaking the tattered remains of his silk shirt with her tears.

"When will you get it that I need us to be together, Angel? I'd rather spent eternity here in Hell with you than remain behind on Earth, knowing that I ... that I sent you ..."

Her voice broke, unable to continue. Why couldn't he understand? It wasn't his fault, none of it. She had been the one to break his curse, to unleash Angelus upon her friends and family. She had been the one unable to kill him, unable to keep him from killing Jenny and God knew how many innocents because he still carried the face of the man she loved. She had been the one to run him through with a sword and send him to Hell to save a world full of people that, all of them together, didn't mean half as much to her as he did.

Slowly, hesitantly, Angel's arms went around her, holding her as they both cried.

"If you ... if you don't hate me for what I did," he began, his voice shaking, "then please believe me, beloved, that I don't hate you, either. You were put into an impossible situation and did what had to be done, no matter how much it hurt you. I was never more proud of you."

She gave a shaky laugh, blind from tears. "You are proud of me because I stabbed you?"

There was so much self-loathing and pain in those few words. Angel drew her closer, wanting to protect her from everything that would harm her so much.

"I love you, Buffy. And ... and you're right. We'll see this through together. We will."

They kept talking for hours, pouring their hearts out to each other as the wind howled outside and smashed the bodies of sinners against the jagged rocks. The cold stone below them was drenched in their tears, but eventually those began to dry up.

Before they went to sleep that night Buffy moved close to him, craning her neck to the side and offering him her throat. With his eyes finally free of tears Angel accepted her offer.

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Part 12

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Buffy woke, not really sure when exactly she had fallen asleep. There was no cause to worry, though, that much she was sure of, as she felt the familiar presence of her Angel by her side. His cool arms were around her, his habit of breathing making the chest she used as a pillow rise and fall steadily.

She really didn't want to get up.

They had fallen asleep again after he finished brushing her hair, she remembered, the seduction of a clean bed after finding themselves clean for the first time in so long more than they could resist. Only now did she realize that they hadn't given much of a thought to Giles, Willow, and Oz. Thinking of anyone except each other had become foreign to them.

Her eyes found the clock on the wall. She needed a moment to make sense of the hands (no clocks in Hell, either), but soon found that she had slept only for a few hours. It was just past noon now, still the first day since their return.

Had they really gotten back just last night? It already seemed longer to her.

Angel was still sound asleep beside her. She smiled, loving the picture he made. His face clean of dirt, his long hair spreading out on the pillow like a halo around him, a content smile on his face, he looked so very beautiful. She debated waking him, but seeing as noon was not a good time for a vampire to be awake anyway, she decided to let him sleep. He had stayed awake often enough to guard over her sleep.

Carefully slipping out of his arms, she discovered to her delight that someone had brought some clean clothes for them. The skins and leathers they had worn in Hell, along with their weapons, were piled in a dirty heap on the floor and the very thought of putting them on again was making her queasy.

Blue jeans, a white shirt, and soft sandals suited her much better. Clean, all of them, smelling as if they were fresh from the washer. Frowning, she tried to remember if these might be her clothes, maybe some kind of stash she had left at Giles' place just in case a messy patrol might leave her with the need for a new wardrobe. She wasn't sure. It felt like something the old Buffy might have done, but she couldn't remember.

Shrugging, Buffy made her way downstairs.

#

Willow sat on the couch with her notebook computer in her lap, immersed in her work. Buffy was back. Buffy and Angel were back. The thought kept going round and round in her head. They were back, both of them, back from spending thirty years in Hell.

Part of Willow couldn't help but blame herself for that. If only she had gotten the curse right the first time, before the vampires attacked them. Or maybe ... she cringed at the thought, but if she hadn't tried the curse a second time, successfully, then it would have been Angelus, not Angel, who got sent to Hell. Buffy certainly wouldn't have gone along with him, would she?

She shook her head. The past was the past. Buffy was here, she was back, and she would need some help to fit back into this world, that much was certain.

Willow tried to approach it all from a rational standpoint. Okay, Buffy had been gone thirty years, but it had been only three months here on Earth and as she didn't really look any older that before that should not pose too much of a problem.

Next problem: The police were still looking for her. The murder charge had been put to rest, but thanks to Mrs. Summers they now thought that Buffy might have been kidnapped by some kind of biker gang or such. Hopefully that problem would be solved once Buffy spoke with her mom.

Next problem: Buffy's looks. She'd need contact lenses to hide her eyes, specially made ones. The fangs wouldn't be much of a problem as long as she remembered not to smile to broadly. Willow didn't know if there were other, less easily visible changes in her friend, but they'd have to cross that bridge when they came to it.

"What are you doing?"

Willow nearly fell from the couch as someone spoke beside her, the notebook tumbling from her lap. Only a lightning-fast hand saved it from a hard impact with the floor and Willow looked up to find Buffy smiling at her.

A little too broadly, Willow noted. The fangs showed.

"Sorry!" Buffy said sheepishly. "Didn't mean to startle you."

"No, it's okay!" Willow quickly assured her. She'd have to get used to her best friend's changed looks sooner or later. "I was just ... I thought you and Angel would sleep the entire day away, seeing as he ... and you ... are you? I mean, can you ...?"

She gestured toward the sunlight streaming in through Giles' window. Buffy gave it a look that seemed equally composed of longing and fear, as if some part of her was shying away from the light even as another wanted to step outside right now and take a sun bath.

"I don't actually know." Buffy confessed, wringing her hands. "There was no sun in Hell. And ... Angel said we couldn't be sure of how far the changes would go. I mean, I still have a reflection and all, but I can't seem to enter a house without invitation."

Willow nodded, Giles had told them about that.

"Want to give it a try?" The redhead asked her friend.

#

A minute later Willow held a large bucket of water at the ready, just in case, as Buffy was moving toward the sunlight. Stopping just at the edge, she slowly moved her hand forward until the sun touched her fingers.

It felt ... weird. She didn't burst into flames, which was a definite good thing, but neither did it feel like she remembered it. She knew she was deathly pale. If not for the vampire blood in her veins thirty years without sunlight alone might have been enough to do her in and she would probably get a major sunburn the first time she went out. Still, it felt weird.

"I don't see any smoke. Or flames." Willow added, the bucket still in hand.

Buffy closed her eyes, concentrating on the feeling. It was like something directly below her skin was screaming at her to get the Hell away from the sun, emphasizing its argument by making it feel as if bugs were crawling all over her, but that was it. No flames, no smoke, no sizzling.

She breathed a sigh of relief and, without a further thought, walked toward the door and out into the open.

It was a mistake.

Her skin might not have been more sensitive to the sun, but her eyes certainly were. The light assaulted them like a million small needles, all being driven in at once. She turned her eyes away with a groan, pressing her hands to her face.

"Buffy, are you all right?" Willow yelled, coming after her.

"I'm okay, it's just ... God, it's so bright. Too bright."

Willow didn't think it a particularly bright day. There was some overcast, actually, but she quickly guessed that Buffy's new eyes were much more suited for total darkness. Thinking quickly, Willow took the sunglasses she had gotten for Buffy out of her pocket. She had meant them to be a disguise, actually, something to hide her eyes with, but it looked like they could serve more than one purpose.

Buffy put on the shades and the world around her came back into focus.

"Thanks, Will, you're a godsend!"

She looked out across Giles' courtyard, bathed in daylight. God, how long had it been? There had been some areas in Hell which had been painfully bright, but it had always been wrong. A glare, the light of giant flames, of burning cities and sizzling flesh.

This was beautiful. At least as long as she had the shades on.

#

The revelation that she could still walk in daylight quickly led to a decision. She would see her mother. Now. Before she lost courage. A large part of her wanted to wait until nightfall, then Angel could be with her. She quenched that impulse, though. She loved Angel, loved him more than anything in the world, but this was her own personal demon, not his. Angel certainly didn't need whatever hurtful comments her mother might come up with.

It irked her that she needed Willow's help to find her way from Giles' apartment back to her house. She should have been able to remember the way. This was her home after all, wasn't it? Or it had been until her mother had told her not to come back. Ever.

Was she really ready for this?

Walking in the sunlight did nothing to improve her mood, the irritated feeling spreading over her entire body until she started moving in the shadows of the trees as much as possible. She doubted she would be able to stand it long enough to spend a day at the beach or such. The demon blood inside her did definitely not like the idea.

Her house she did remember. It was unchanged with the sunlight sparkling in the windows, the green grass in front of it looking freshly mown. The curtains were open and her mother's car stood in the driveway.

Her mother. She was home. One of the things that had changed were her senses. They were sharper now, as was evident by her newfound sensitivity to daylight, and she could clearly pick up the scent of someone in the house.

Two someones, actually. And while she was only marginally sure that one was her mother, their last meeting having been before her change, she was quite certain of the other one.

What was Giles doing at her mom's house?

Buffy walked closer, something inside of her sighing in relief when she stepped out of the sun again and into the shadow of the large tree she had always used to climb into her room. It felt like a million years ago, not just thirty.

When she approached the living room window she could hear two voices. Loud voices. Arguing.

"... not going to listen to your lies again!" Was that her mom? That voice so full of bitterness and rage?

"Mrs. Summers, please." That was Giles.

"You tell me all these ridiculous horror stories about my little girl. I don't want to hear them! I don't!"

"She is back, Joyce!" Giles interrupted her tirade with a surprisingly loud voice. "Buffy is back."

Silence fell over the living room. Buffy couldn't see her mother's face through the window, she had turned her back to it, but she saw her shivering.

"Don't do this to me!" Joyce said, her voice barely more than a whisper. "I can't take any more lies."

Buffy was torn. Her mother sounded so very hurt and bitter it tore her heart into pieces. No matter the angry words that had fallen between them, Buffy loved her mother dearly. It had been so long since she had seen her, but she still remembered her face, her smile.

Without allowing herself time to chicken out of this, Buffy walked toward the door and knocked. The voices inside ceased and she heard footsteps coming toward the entrance. The key turned in the lock.

Buffy almost gasped when she saw her mother for the first time in thirty years. Joyce Summers looked like she had aged a decade in the mere three months it had been for her. Her face was gaunt, her eyes had deep rings under them, her hair was a mess.

Joyce didn't suppress the gasp.

"Buffy?" She asked, staring at her with wide eyes.

"It's me, mom." She said, forcing a smile to her face. "Can I come in?"

THE END

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