In Rotation

Author: Skylar

Disclaimer: Joss and company own everything
Summary: Xander's actions come with a price; rewrite of season 6's last few eps.
AN: Eighth story in my Remedy series.
Spoilers: General spoilers for S4, plus the other stories of this series- you'd really have to read them to understand this.
AN: < > indicates a person's thoughts
Rating: I'd say PG-13 to R.
Distribution: Want it- take it. Just let me know where it’s going.
Feedback: As always, greatly appreciated.

***

Part 1

"She's in the back."

From his spot beside a bleeding Buffy, Angel finally pulls himself to his feet as he sees Fred and Cordelia leading the paramedics into the back yard.

"She was shot?" the taller of the two men asks.

"Yeah, in the chest."

"Accidental?" his partner questions. With his own sobs threatening to escape, Angel forces himself to mumble back a response. "No, no, it was a...he was trying to kill her."

Her eyes open, still fixed on the slightly overcast sky above, Buffy blindly reaches out a hand as she feels the paramedics kneel on either side of her and go to work. The wounded slayer can feel the first of her mother's tears trickle onto her skin as she smoothes a hand over her forehead. "You'll be okay, sweetie," Joyce sniffs. "Just hold on- you're going to be fine." Upon hearing the gunshots ricocheting in her backyard, the horror she found when she'd raced outside slammed into her, bringing her to her knees alongside her daughter. It was all she could do to fight down the sickness when she saw all the blood covering her only child.

Still upstairs inside the Summer's home, Willow cradles Tara's lifeless body in her lap. "Oh god, oh no, please, please, come on..." The deep, pitiful rasping sobs tore from her throat, tears streaming down her face as she desperately shakes Tara, her hands shakily fumbling for her face. "Come on, Tara! Please, come on, baby..."

Without warning, the walls become illuminated in a dark blue swirl, the color almost as black as Willow's tear-streaked eyes as she lifts her head from her lover's form, screaming to the heavens above. "By Osiris, I command you, bring her back!"

"Pulse is 100 and weak. Lung sounds are wet."

"What does that mean?" Joyce frantically shouts to the young man working on her daughter.

"Is she going to..."

"Sir-" Angel finds himself unable to voice his deepest fear as he's held back at arm's length by the second paramedic, "you need to stand back, okay? If you want us to help her out, we need some space." For a brief second, the ex-vampire finally takes notice of the blood smeared across his hands as he holds his head, still in disbelief.

"Hear me! Keeper of darkness!"

The dark, looming clouds finally gather, creating an overhead vortex in the semblance of a grimacing face. "Witch!" it's voice bellows, breaking a path through the lightning flashing around it. "How dare you invoke Osiris in this task!"

"Please, please, bring her back," the redhead begs, still trying to cling to what shreds of hope she thought possible in undoing what had been done. But the demon was ardant in his refusal. "You may not violate the laws of natural passing."

"How?" Willow demands. "How is this natural?!"

"It is a human death, by human means."

"But I-"

"She is taken by natural order," the spirit explains with a growing sense of resignation. "It is done!"

"No, there has to be a way."

"It is done!"

The scream that Willow releases is accompanied by a radiating column of energy column, completely decimating the demon glowering at her from above as it disappears in a final flash of lightning. Lost and bewildered in the darkness creeping its way through her, the wiccan abandons her lover's body, turning her attention elsewhere.

"Sir?" one of the paramedic's strained voices finally reaches Angel as he looks over his shoulder to see what was going on. "We have to move her." With Buffy's hand firmly clutching his own, the only sure sign he had that she was going to be alright, he finds his voice tight in desperate appeal as he speaks up. "I'm going with her."

"That's fine, sir. You and her mother can ride along with us, but we have to get her to the hospital now."

Gathering their gear, they easliy lift Buffy's small frame onto a gurney, beginning the passage around to the front of the house. "Sunnydale Memorial, do you copy? We have a caucasian female, 21, GSW to the chest."

"Come on, Buffy," Joyce whispers, following alongside.

"We're going to get you to the hospital. Just hold on, Buffy...please love, just hold on," Angel pleads, stepping aside with Joyce as the paramedics prepare to lift Buffy into the back of the ambulance. The flashing red and blue lights alternately bounced off of the surrounding houses, while the murmur of the rest of the friends' hushed voices filled the open space.

Through her own blurred vision, Cordelia spots Willow emerging from the house, her eyes immediately darting to the blood stains splattered across her blouse. "Willow- god, are you okay?"

"How did this happen?" Her movements cease for a moment as she passes a glance to where Joyce and Angel were getting into the back of the ambulance with her best friend.

"Xan- Xander," she breathes out. "He had a gun."

A flash of anger briefly washes over Willow's features before her face returns to its previous blank stare. "Xander..."

"Buffy and Angel were out back, and…"

"It went down too fast," Doyle explains, seeing the brunette leaning against him suddenly at a loss for words for the first time since he'd met her. He could feel her quivering all over, just as he was. He looks over to where the doors to the ambulance were being closed and stands despondently, watching it drive away, siren wailing like a lost soul.

"They couldn't stop him," Lindsay adds, his seemingly casual observance unable to hide the fear in his own voice.

Willow had already heard enough and marches halfway over the sidewalk before Graham takes it upon himself to approach her strange and disturbing reaction. "Willow- hey!" he calls to her, stopping at the edge of the walk. His yell falls on deaf ears as the redhead increases her pace, leaving the young man to stare after her, confused and shaken. "Willow!"

"Graham!" Gunn's voice finally reaches him. "We're heading to the hospital. Are you coming with us or not?" Hesistant for only a moment, he runs over to where the others were already nervously waiting in Cordy's car and climbs in the back. With a grimace of pained compassion on his face, he gazes at the stray bullet holes piercing the home's siding, his eyes eventually drifting upward spotting the shattered window of Joyce's bedroom as the car pulls away down Revello Drive.

"We have to call Giles," Cordy says bleakly, her throat so tight that she could hardly get the words out. "Let him know what's happened."

"Don't worry about that," Doyle whispers. "I'll call him when we get there, okay?" he says gently, trying to reassure her, but Cordelia knew he was just making meaningless noises to keep her quiet. The pressure of his warm hand on her shoulder was the only thing that kept her from totally dissolving, as she gave way to an overwhelming sorrow. What had things finally come to? One minute everything was okay, and the next...nothing would ever be okay again.

******

Part 2

The hallways of Corielle Labs were dim and quiet, though far from empty. The walls outlining the upper-level offices were humming as Xander stepped off of the elevator to the fourth floor. As he casually strolls down the corridor, he glances every so often to the row of offices surrounding him on either side. He could only assume Lilah's new research recruits were gearing up for whatever assignment she'd handed down to them from Wolfram & Hart- double shifts for everybody and nobody taking leave.

The thin sunlight of the late dawn did nothing to dissipate the faint chill that the young man feels as he walks warily to his destination, but he makes no complaint. Brushing it off as fleeting adrenaline from the morning's events, he pushes past the frosted glass doors, making his way into the familiar office.

"You're late," his partner's careless voice grabs his attention from his spot on the couch. At present moment, Riley was just kicking back and enjoying himself before he had to check in with Lilah for his latest assignment. However, the latest bit of news he'd just received did even more to put a smile on his face. "What's the matter- couldn't figure out which way to point the gun?"

Xander watches incuriously as Finn reaches into a nearby bowl of candy, taking a small piece, tossing it jauntily into the air. For a moment it spins hypnotically, then disappeares into his mouth as he gulps it down with a manful swallow of hard liquor.

"Why don't you pour me a glass too," Xander finally smiles, staring piercingly at him as he lounges attentively across the room from him, taking a seat behind the desk. "After all, we've got a reason to celebrate."

"Sure!" Riley chuckles, handing over a glass.

"You know, it's funny," Taking a sip, wincing slightly from the taste, Xander stretches out his legs atop the desk as he continues, ",we've tried all the dark arts...witchcraft, demonology. You name it, we tried it against Angel. But you know what finally worked?"

"What's that?" he leans over, his face cool and impassive, playing along with what he knew to be his partner's false sense of security.

"Gun," Xander lets out a short laugh. "Guess Willow was right all those years- don't underestimate science. Good old-fashioned metal meets propulsion. Too bad *you* could never master that theory, huh?" He was smirking by the time he'd finished- he never could resist getting a dig in whenever he could; the trouble was, he usually had to pay for it later.

"Ain't that something?" Finn lazily mocks, looking too damned smug himself Xander concludes as he tenses, having a feeling that pay-back time was coming now instead of later. "Man, this is gonna be good," his partner softly chuckles to himself, his grin stretching even further.

"Oh- the best. And poor Buffy will be so upset over losing Angel, this town is ours."

"Correction," Their shared laughter finally coming to a halt, Xander turns questioningly to a now glaring Riley. "This town may be *ours* as in Lilah and me, but *you*,you're screwed. Metal meets propulsion, yeah. But you still better be a good shot! Too bad *you* could never master that, huh?"

"This isn't the evil laugh of victory, is it?" Xander finally realizes.

"More like the evil laugh of 'you're a dead man', Harris."

"Okay, uh..." nervously grinning by now, he tries getting in a few more words over his partner's laughter, "what, what's the joke, Ri?"

"It was just on the news. Girl was shot."

"Girl?"

"In her backyard. She's in the hospital-"

"Buffy?! She- oh god," Tossed aside the chair as he leaps to his feet in one fluid motion, Xander dashes out of the office, Riley's howls of laughter still chasing him as he races down the hall.

******

Willow stands inside the doorway of the Magic Box, staring intently at an unsuspecting Anya counting her money behind the counter. As she hears the popping sound of the lamps and light fixtures exploding around her, she looks up to see the redhead marching past them, headed straight for her. "Willow." She unconsciously reaches for her healing burns alongside her arm, the memories of the wiccan's abilities still fresh in her mind.

"Where do you keep the black arts books?"

"Willow, look, I just saw the news," she explains, stepping from behind the counter, "something terrible has happened, I know. But you don't have to do-"

"I need power," Willow demands, her eyes trailing up to the upper loft of bookshelves above.

"N- not with those books," she blusters, trying to keep her tone strong and convincing. "I can't let you. Willow-"

Without warning, Anya finds herself being sealed to the floor as Willow stretches out an arm, a jolt of purple energy radiating out, effectively freezing the ex-demon in place. Her face contorts into a sly grin as she advances towards the stairway, gesturing with her head. Her sought after books on the loft shelves begin their descent, flying down onto the table, landing in a collective heap. The last book lands opened to a middle page, immediately earning a stare of alarm from a helpless Anya.

Willow lifts her hands and places them over the open pages, her fingers sinking into the book as if melding with it as the words start to move off of the pages, curling and scrolling along her skin, up under her sleeves. Anya can only stare on in disbelief as the black print begins to sear up through her chest, moving up her shoulders.

The dark energy finally reaches her face, finding residence in Willow's eyes turning the usually peaceful orbs a menacing pitch black. The last of the words move to the top of her head, the blackness seeping through every strand of her hair. Having her fill, Willow raises her hands from the book, its pages completely blank. "That's better."

******

"Hello?"

Oz had meant to get to the Summer's home earlier, he really did. But practice had taken longer than usual, considering he'd spent the first hour or so convincing the rest of the Dingos that he was in fact alive. But all confusion aside, he'd caught up with all two of the songs Devon had started work on since he'd been 'gone', and they were all set for their gig tomorrow night at the Bronze. "Guys? Anyone up yet?"

A few steps down the hall confirmed that at least Joyce was awake, as he took notice of the plates of pancakes resting on the dining room table. Hungry himself, he snatches a strip of bacon from one of the half-eaten plates as he turns in search of the others.

He reaches the top of the stairs, turning in the direction of Joyce's room, where he knew his girlfriend had been staying on a fairly regular basis. "Hello?" He gently pushes the slightly ajar door completely open, taking a few steps into the room before stopping in shock when he catches sight of the blood-drenched patch of carpet. Still staring along the floor, he spots something slightly protruding from beyond the edge of the bed.

For a second he stands frozen until the sight of Tara's lifeless body finally hammers him. His face twists in shock and horror as his legs give way, sending him spiralling backwards with a resonating slam to the floor.

******

Running a hand through his hair, Riley finishes the last of his drink, idly giving thought to where his former partner had wound up running off to. If he was smart, Xander would've booked the first plane to Mexico; Buffy being shot meant Angel *wasn't* shot, which meant the former vampire would be very much able of coming after Harris- not to mention the whole going-to-prison-for-attempted-murder thing Xander would surely have to face. But Riley knew his teamate too well, and could just picture his lame ass storming through Sunnydale Memorial in search of his poor little slayer.

Halfway through his musings, he notices the phone ringing ontop of the desk. Taking his time in getting up from his comfortable spot, the smile still plastered across his face, he flips on the speakerphone before sprawling back onto the leather couch. "Finn here."

"Oh," Lilah's voice takes on a life of its own, Riley practically feeling her surprised smile from across the line. "you're still alive?"

Riley tenses for a moment, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "Come again?"

"At the very least I thought you would've been out of the country by now."

"Whoa, whoa- wait a minute. What the hell are you talking about, Lilah? I'm not the one who shot the slayer."

"According to my sources, the slayer's the least of your problems," Lilah warns, all the while enjoying the bit of information she'd just received from one of her firm's latest clients in Sunnydale. "If I were you, I'd be worried about the witch."

"Witch? Which witch?"

"Rosenburg," Lilah scoffs with a dark, mad joy at this new evidence of Riley's complete ignorance surrounding the whole situation.

"Willow? What's she have to do with anything?"

"Oh, you must not have heard."

"Heard what?"

"She's gonna blow that town apart," she chuckles, languorously relaxing back in her own chair at Wolfram & Hart's offices in LA, "starting with you and Harris."

"Me?" Riley panics, now beginning to pace wildly about the office. "Wh- what did I do to her? Xander's the one who shot Buffy!"

"And Tara- he shot her too," she casually informs him, "but I digress. You've got your own stake in everything that's happened, Finn. You've got debts Willow's looking to collect. In fact, I bet she can sense your essence as we speak," she whispers with quiet curiosity. "It's only a matter of time before she finds you." "But…I," In utter fear, Riley stares at the phone, a gasp lodged in his throat. "I've gotta get out of here."

"Well that would be my suggestion. But, uh, don't bother coming back to LA," She callously lets out a pitying chuckle, though it fell on an empty room as Riley stumbled his way down the hall. "Not that you'd even make it halfway here..."

******

Part 3

"Standing by."

His face pressed against the glass window, the hard surface on the verge of shattering under the intensity of his forehead, Angel knew a moment of fear that cut like a knife of ice through his stomach. As he moves slightly to the side, he can see the lights and the figures moving around inside the emergency room that should have never been graced by his beloved's presence.

"We've got to stop that bleeding."

"Where?"

"Over by the left ventricle."

"BP is down to 80/palp."

The statements of procedure were slightly jarred by the steady beaping of machines from within. From the moment he'd arrived with her at Sunnydale Memorial, he'd stood as near as those damn doctors would allow him to their area of work- the wreck of what had once been a vibrant, lovely, young bride-to-be. He'd watched the doctors come, marshalling all the forces of twentieth-century medicine before them, shaking their heads wearily, defeated by the havoc wreaked by the most primitive of weapons- the human hand.

"Angel?"

Maintaining his focus ahead, Angel lifts his head at the sound of Joyce's own trembling voice as she approaches him from behind. "Anything yet?"

"No, they're uh, th- they're still trying to stop all the bleeding" Seeing him still in a horrorified state, she leads him over to a seat near the others, settling down alongside him. After a few eternal moments pass, the mother grabs hold of his hand, pulling him to his feet when she sees the doctor emerge from the emergency room doors.

"Ms. Summers?"

"Yes- my daughter…is she alright? Wh- what's going on?"

"I'm afraid Buffy's lost a tremendous amount of blood. We're still trying to stabilize her condition. From what we can tell, the bullet seems to be lodged between-"

"What do you mean *seems to be*?" Angel squints at him in disgust. "Y- you're not sure? Just what are you doing to save her?!"

"And you are?"

"Someone obviously more concerned about Buffy than you!"

"Angel, please," Joyce places a hand across his chest, trying to calm as well as restrain him.

"So you're Angel," the doctor manages a faint smile. Seeing the young man nod in a bit of confusion, he explains. "The nurses just thought Miss Summers was very religious, so far the only verbal response we've been able to get from her is 'Angel'."

The thought of his name on her lips stilled the very breath in his lungs as Angel inched closer to the window. He could feel her pain, with every painful breath she took, with every labored beat of her heart. But he could only look on as they hovered uselessly, all of them, doctors, nurses, and himself- most useless of all. The pain, the suffering, the mute appeal in every line of her body, crying out for something, anything, just to make it stop hurting.

"We're going to do everything we can," the doctor promises, offering Joyce a consoling pat on the shoulder before brushing past Angel to return to his patient.

"They haven't taken the bullet out yet?" Giles leans over to them when they return to their seats, his glasses quite visibly shaking in his right hand. How did he let this sneak past him? Slink along right in front of him? He'd known Xander, he'd loved Xander as he would a son. And to have this- a young girl he'd watched grow with pride, doted on as if she were his own, fall victim to a young man who'd been reduced to nothing more than a puppet under orders- it left his very being wrecked with disillusion at the state of man.

Straightening up, he looks pensively over to the young man he'd perhaps come to respect the most. The former vampire had begun idly turning what the watcher knew to be an Irish wedding band identical to Buffy's own on his finger, the action seeming to capture all of Angel's attention, as if to distract him from the chaos unfurling around him.

"Here ya go, Delia. Two creams, right?"

"Huh?" the brunette's face remains impassive as she glances up at the cup of coffee Doyle was offering her. "Oh, yeah. Thanks, Doyle."

"Any news?"

"Nothing new." Graham sighs in return.

"She's still in there," Fred adds, unconsciously gripping Gunn's arm a little tighter as she feels him tense.

"Man, what kind of doctors do they have running this place? Why haven't they been able to do anything yet?"

"She's fine, okay?" Lindsay announces, as if his own unsure proclamation had the power to rectify the situation. "She's gonna be fine. They're probably finishing up with her right now."

******

"I'm afraid Buffy's lost a tremendous amount of blood…"

He knew that to even think of coming here now would be a one-way ticket to the morgue if he was seen, but after hearing the desperation in the doctor's voice, Xander couldn't bring himself to leave the hospital. He'd been waiting tensely, straining to hear any news on her condition, drumming his fingers impatiently along the wall. He wasn't really sure what good this was going to do, but he had to find out.

"…we're still trying to stabilize her condition…"

But what good was any of it? What could he hope to change? God...he had failed the only person he'd been trying to protect all along. Why had he even bothered to try when nothing he'd done so far had changed matters for the better? Angel was still alive, and Buffy was… "…the bullet seems to be lodged…"

So why was he still compelled to strike out at Angel? It was almost as if this terrible compulsion for vengeance had taken over his mind, leaving no room for anything else, except this quiet time praying for Buffy's recovery. < None of this makes any sense, why did she push Angel out of the way? Why did she have to get in front of him? > "God, Buff…" he sighs quietly, his voice tight with emotion, as he turns his face away from the emergency room and leans wearily against the far-off pillar.

< What if she dies? And I was the one who… > Shutting out the horror accompanying the thought, his mind raw with suffering, he bleakly recites what little bit of prayer he knew aloud, his voice rough with regret.

Preparing himself for what he knew he'd have to face, his dark eyes bright with unshed tears, his whole body trembles in spite of the tight grip his crossed arms maintain as he begins his slow pace down the hall.

*****

As she lowers the styrofoam cup from her lips, Cordelia's weary eyes quickly snap into sharp focus at the sight of the hulking form slowly coming out of the shadows down the corridor. "Doyle," she gives him a light shove across the back, her eyes fixed on the figure closing in on them, "…go hold onto Angel."

"Umm, I don't really wanna bother him and Joyce. I think they're both finally calming down a bit."

"Go hold onto Angel," she orders more forcefully, finally drawing his attention to the hall. Doyle's expression freezes as a wave of dread washes over him at the sight. Quickly getting up from his seat, he pulls Graham along with him over to his boss. "Angel, man."

"Doyle?" he stands to his feet, another layer of worry building within upon hearing his friend's panicked tone. "Wh- what's wrong?" His answer comes instantly as his gaze stretches over the half-demon's shoulder, not entirely surprised by what he saw. "Xander…"

******

Part 4

It took Doyle and Graham all of two seconds to get a firm hold on Angel....

"You bastard!! You did this to her!!"

....and all of one millisecond for Angel to break away.

Being too quick for the others to maintain their grasp around him, Angel lunges for Xander in a rush of sudden ferocity, his hands immediately seeking his neck. The next thing he knew, Xander was being yanked up off of his feet to meet Angel's furious gaze at eye level. With the grip of two solid hands around his neck showing no signs of loosening, he makes a desperate gasp for air. "Ang....Angel....I...."

Xander never got to finish his sentence. Angel breaks his two-handed hold just long enough to land a fierce punch to his jaw, pausing briefly to stare at him with blazing eyes. With lightning speed, he drives him into the nearest wall, his fingers digging into his throat even more, draining the breath from him before lifting him further up against the unyielding mass. Xander's frame was trembling, helplessly writhing in Angel's grip as it started to tighten, black lines beginning to spew across his vision.

"What is going on here?!" one of the nurses behind the front desk calls over, while another reaches over for the phone to call security.

"Please- don't!" Cordelia yells to them.

"We're taking care of this," Fred adds, though completely unconvinced by her own statement.

"Angel, come on!" Doyle's arms wrap around his waist from the left, Graham taking a similar position on the right, with Gunn taking up the rear.

"Get off of me!!" Angel yells, trying to make his tone more commanding than pleading. From alongside the hall he can vaguely hear Joyce and Giles calling out to him, their voices hoarse and breathless as they begged him to stop.

"He's not worth it, man!" Gunn mumbles against Angel's back, planting his feet as squarely as he could on the tiled floor, trying to stay on his feet as he gave his boss another fierce jerk.

"The hell he's not!!" he snarls in return, briefly glancing over his shoulder to stare back at Gunn with an expression of such savagery that the young streetfighter slightly recoiled in stark terror.

"Gunn- come on!" Doyle looks over to him, already having a hard enough time keeping his own grip. Shaking off his momentary hesitations, Gunn circles Angel from behind once again, his added strength taking effect as the three finally pry him off, leaving Xander to slide down to the floor in a dazed heap.

Their collective effort sent the three of them spiraling to the floor as well, Angel stumbling backwards on top of them. Wasting no time, not even bothering to bring himself back onto his feet, he scrambles over to where Xander still lay. With one hand again reaching for his neck, Angel climbs ontop of his prone form, raising his free arm in the air, landing a fist against his face in a series of sharp blows.

"Ang- argh!!....I- umph!!" Xander manages to get out a few more faint screeches as he feels his consciousness start to drift away with each stinging blow.

Clamoring to their feet, Gunn and Graham try stopping things again but their movements come to a halt as they hear Doyle collapse back down to the floor, his mind wracked in the middle of a painful vision.

"Now what's going on?" one of the nurses checks, leaning over the counter to take a look at the slightly shaking young man. "Is he alright?"

"Slight seizure. Nothing to worry about. I would get a room ready for *him* though," Cordelia throws a glance back to where Xander's bloodied face was in the midst of being struck by another one of Angel's punches. Seeing the baffled look across all their faces, the brunette races past the nurses over to Doyle's side to help him through his latest vision.

"It's Willow....she's....not well...."

"Doyle, what do you mean?" Cordy brushes a hand over his back, trying to get him to focus.

"She's in pain....god, I can feel it....I feel....."

"What, Doyle- what do you feel?"

"....death....somebody's stone cold...."

Now joined by a still awe-struck Lindsay, Graham and Gunn finally reach Angel, slowing in their attempts as they hear Xander fight for air, blustering some sort of apology through his growing fear. "I'm sor- arrgh!!....I'm sorry-"

With that- the sheer audacity that this fool had to even mutter so much as a hint of an apology- Angel slams Xander's head against the cold, hard floor a second time.

"Sorry?!"

And a third....

"You're sorry?!"

And a fourth....

"You don't get to be sorry!! You haven't even begun to be sorry!!"

Eventually he lost count.

"Come on, Angel- I'm losing count!" Lindsay begs. With Gunn and Graham holding him around the waist, the young lawyer was sure that, combined with his pull on Angel's legs, they'd be able to get him to release his hold. But for all their efforts, they were just barely able to lift him a few inches off of Xander. Finding himself being supported in midair, parallel to the floor below him, Angel clings to Xander's belt, in effect dragging him along as he himself was being dragged by his friends.

"That's it!" the head nurse cries, her fingers already dialing numbers. "I'm getting security, now!"

"Cool it, would ya Nurse Ratchet?!" Graham snaps back. "We've got this!"

Mustering all of their strength, the three give him a sharp jerk, at last lifting him completely off of a more than grateful Xander. Gathering what little was left of his senses, Xander scrambles backwards on the palms of his hands, finally pushing himself to his feet, only to stumble back down to the floor in his flustered and terrified state of mind. It was only seeing that the others finally had a forceful restrain on Angel that allowed him to return to his feet once more.

As he takes a few deep gulps of much-needed air, he looks over to see Angel raging against his friends' hold on him, struggling desperately to free himself once again. "You're a deadman, Harris!! You hear me?!"

Somehow he was able to see clearly enough through the blood flooding his vision to stumble his way back down the hall, Angel's shouts bouncing inside the corridor. "You're dead, Xander!! You're dead!!" Though still struggling, Angel quickly turns his attention to the half-demon gazing at him with a wide-eyed expression, still trying to recover from his own torment. "What are you standing there for?! Grab him! Don't let him get out of here!!" With Giles finally stepping forward into the action, the seer and watcher take off down the hall in a rush to catch the young man who, by all too true accounts, was in fact charged with attempted murder.

Xander abandoned all pretense of bravery and quickened in his pace, finding what he hoped to be a good enough cover behind a parked Saturn once he reached the safety of outside. He desperately tried to cover his ears, to block out Doyle and Giles' yells, to block out the horrible, helpless rage and pain in Angel's own haunting cries. But try as he might, he couldn't.

Finally sure that Doyle and Giles were far enough away in their search, he darts out from his cover, running as quickly as he could to the one place he had left to go. Even the trees looked menacing as he raced past them, intimidated by every sound that came. Frequently glancing back, Xander was growing tired but he knew that if he slowed down, someone would catch up with him- the police, the others, or god forbid, Angel. He ran as fast as he could through the park until he finally reached the road junction, breathing a raspy sigh of relief as he reads the huge sign above his destination- The Magic Box.

******

"We've got more bleeding."

"BP is...."

The painful voices of uncertainty haunted the six friends who remained in the hall.

"Are you all done with your stage show for the evening?" the head nurse checks with the friends as she stands before them. Having already spoken with Giles and Joyce about the circumstances surrounding the evening's unpleasant events, she really couldn't offer much more of a harsh reprimation to any of them. With a nod from the poor young girl's mother, she casts a slightly timid glance to the young man who'd only minutes ago so boldly brought about the uproar in the emergency ward.

"So you two are engaged, huh?" the new intern Amy smiles up at him, plunging the sedative's needle into his skin as gently as possible.

"Yeah...." Angel replies bleakly, his voice tired, and rough with regret.

"Lucky girl," she smiles softly, almost yearningly.

"Amy, stop flirting with your patient," the elder nurse gently teases her, gesturing for the young girl to return to her paperwork at the front desk before taking a seat beside Angel. Her face softens as she looks over his grief-stricken features; she almost couldn't bear to look at such a beautiful face being etched with such terrible pain. His intensely set jaw gave his frown a pugnacious look, but as he lifts his head, turning to face her, a faint smile whose sweetness belied the truculence of that jaw, instantly warms her heart. "I- I'm sorry about my little....one-man wrecking crew back there-"

"It's alright-" she lifts a hand to his apology, mentally noting the pathetic desperation that lurked under his soft voice. "We're all just glad you're okay. That sedative we gave you should help you to relax."

"There aren't enough drugs in the world," he sighs, running a slightly trembling hand through his hair, his eyes darting to where Buffy was still being treated. "Not while she's in there...." There was something about the bitterness and disappointment in his voice that cut into her, prompting her to offer any reassurance she could give, but she never got the chance.

The thin glare spilling out from the emergency room quickly dissolves as the surrounding lights and machines begin flickering and whirring in a mad clatter. "Now what's going on?!" the nurse jumps to her feet at the disturbance, rushing for the emergency room, Angel right behind her. "It's like the evening that wouldn't die around here tonight!"

"Angel-" Joyce makes a frantic grab for his arm as he hurries past her.

"Wait out here," he begs. "Please, Joyce...."

Once he turns the corner, a cold shudder overcomes him, bringing him to a stop at the sound of footsteps approaching from behind. From out the corner of his eye he spots Buffy's second visitor of the night. "Willow? What are y-" he tries reaching her, somewhat taken aback by her appearance, but upon seeing her resolute face, he can only follow her into the secluded room.

"Leave," the wiccan commands of the attending staff. More chaos accompanied her order as another surge of energy bolts through the electrical system, the lights and machines erratically flashing.

"Willow," Angel tries again, still taking in her new and disturbing persona. Ignoring him, her pitch black eyes locked on the doctor and his nurses, she gives her final order. "Now."

"Will, what are you doing?" an admittedly frightened Angel turns to her, maneuvering around the fleeing medical staff to join her by Buffy's bedside. "She's going to die!"

"No she isn't," she calmly informs him. The angry electronic whine of the heart monitor continues steadily as Willow focuses on her best friend's wound, the piercing sounds finally coming to a stop as the bullet suddenly rises from Buffy's chest, hovering for a moment in midair. "It's so small," she muses aloud, reaching for the lethal chunk of metal. To Angel's surprise, no signs of pain flash across her face as it disappears into the flesh of her hand.

As her eyes slowly lift open, Buffy's world begins to swim back into focus. Cautiously trying to sit up, she's met halfway by Angel's arms, clutching her to him. "Oh my god....are you okay?"

"Angel," she wimpers against his chest, confused beyond words. "How did I get here?" Feeling his response come in tightening his hold, planting a firm kiss against her temple, she looks over his shoulder to where Willow was impassively smiling at her. "Willow?"

"Buffy....hey...."

"What's wrong?" the slayer's voice begins to build in panic upon seeing her dark transformation.

"I'll explain. But we've gotta go."

Sharing a baffled look, the lovers stand side by side, allowing Willow to wordlessly begin leading them towards the swinging doors. "Why?" Buffy finally asks nervously, not fully sure of what was going on, but knowing that whatever it was was about to bring on more heartache. Staring straight ahead down the hall she knew Xander had just made his pointless escape down, Willow's response augments from the unrelenting feeling of emptiness that had consumed her with Tara's murder.

"It's time to get Xander."

******

Part 5

"They took my car."

"And the three of them just left? Without saying anything??"

Receiving a confused glare from Joyce that he was sure matched his own, Giles sighs in defeat as climbs the steps, leading the others into the Summers' home.

"They *took* my car."

"Thank god Buffy's alright," Fred lets out a relieved sigh before Giles can continue.

"And Willow….y- you say she was different? Different how?"

"She was…." Joyce, having been the only one besides the terrified hospital staff to catch a glimpse of the wiccan's transformation struggles for a moment, searching for the most appropriate description. "…intimidating," she finally settles on. "Frightening."

"Willow?" Cordelia scoffs. "The most frightening thing I've ever seen her do is wear pink with plaid. Well, until today. I mean, how could they just take my car like that? They just took it!"

"Would you give it a rest about your damn car!" Gunn finally snaps, calming himself a bit before turning to address Joyce. "Was Tara with her?" he checks, reminding himself, as well as the others, of the young girl's complete absence since the night before.

"No," the panicked mother replies, unlocking the front door to let everyone in. "She's probably still here. Tara?"

His eyes straying to the foot of the stairway, Graham takes notice of a familiar item resting casually along the wall. "Oz must be here," he announces, the others turning to where he was approaching the stairs. "Well, his guitar's here, at least. Oz?" he yells up. "Tara?"

"Maybe they went to the hospital to find us," Lindsay guesses aloud as he follows Graham, Joyce slowly trailing behind him as the others went in search of their friends downstairs. Seeing the bedroom door open, she briskly walks in, musing to herself that only a few short hours ago, Willow and Tara had been getting ready for breakfast. "Tara? Honey, are you…"

The rooms on the second floor resonated with Joyce's anguished cry, drawing Lindsay and Graham back down the hall. "Joyce? What's wr-"

"Oh god…."

Stopping dead in his tracks, so abruptly that Lindsay collides into him from behind with his own horrified gasp, Graham raises a hand to his mouth to hold back the sickness that had instantly crept into his stomach at the sight of Tara prone form, lying in an ever-widening pool of blood. "Giles!!"

A wave of dread hits the englishman as he hustles up the stairs, sharply turning the corner to make his way down the hall. The image that greets him as he enters the room sends him into shocked disbelief. "No…." he gasps hoarsely, dazed and stricken by the sight of one of his worst nightmares come true.

"I didn't…want to leave her alone…"

Somehow Lindsay manages to tear his eyes away from all the blood to find Oz, huddled in the corner across from the bed. The streaks of his tears glimmer with the shafts of sunlight pouring in through the clearly shot window. "Oz? Come on, Oz," the young lawyer kneels down beside him, a comforting hand reaching for his shoulder as he tries getting him to his feet. "We need to get out of here, okay?"

At the outbreak of sobbing coming from behind, Lindsay throws a glance over his shoulder to see Joyce wailing helplessly in Giles' arms, a shuddering Graham not fairing much better. "Oz, come on man. We need to go downstairs." Finally shaken out of his trance, his face going slack with despair, the young musician slowly lifts his head with a strangled sob. "I don't understand…."

Joining Oz fully on the floor in a half-embrace, Lindsay looks on him with a gentle sympathy. "I don't understand either."

*****

From Angel's perspective behind the wheel, reluctantly speeding down the busy roads of the city, things weren't looking very promising. He could see the terrible risks they were taking- the near misses, the scrambling pedestrians, the dodging cars. Slightly unnerved behind his impassive face by their intense speed, he was more shaken by the panic he could sense growing in Buffy from her seat beside him.

"Will, where are we going?" the slayer cranes her head to look back at a placid Willow, staring straight ahead from her spot in the backseat of Cordy's car.

"Faster." Her one quiet, ominous response was like ice running down Angel's spine as he gives her a pleading glance in the rearview mirror.

"I'm going as fast as I-"

But Willow wasn't buying any of it. "Faster," comes her determined command, her voice so low it could barely be heard over the roar of the engine as the car takes on a life of its own under the wiccan's power.

"Willow, would you cut that out? If you wanted to drive...."

"We need to stop," Buffy tries to maintain some control over their situation. "I don't like this."

"We're close. I can feel him."

"And we'll catch him," her best friend assures her. "Will, I swear we'll catch Xander-"

"Not Xander," she cuts her off abruptly. "Not yet. I want Riley first." she informs them without emotion, her face impassive as she gestures her head, directing the car towards the front of Corielle Labs. Seeing her own efforts weren't working, the slayer turns to Angel for help, surprised to find his face almost as deadset as Willow's.

"We'll catch him too," Buffy quavers, her voice tight with dread at both her friend's and boyfriend's rash behavior. "And they'll both go to jail. Look, I'm finding the whole getting shot very motivating, but you're using magic."

"If I wasn't, you'd be dead," the wiccan reasons, receiving a flash of uneasiness from Angel as he and Buffy hurried out of the car, struggling to keep up with her as she enters the massive building.

"Maybe I would be. But this isn't right. This isn't how we want it," she looks over to Angel, searching his eyes for some sort of support, but is left standing in shock as he simply walks past her, following a fuming Willow out of the elevator, down one of the corridors on the fourth floor. "Why Riley first?" he finally asks, his eyes washing over with the suffering he'd just been made to endure over the past few hours. "Why not just grab Xander?"

"Angel?!" Buffy makes a mad grab of his arm, spinning him around to face her. The look he gives her is as unfamiliar as his behavior- harsh, relentless, but almost apologetic as he slowly pulls away from her, wordlessly following Willow as she rounds the corner. "Look- the *both* of you…." the slayer's tone turns insistent as she quickens her pace behind them, "….we can't do things this way."

"Sometimes you don't have a choice," an even more insistent Willow protests, finally reaching her destination. The secluded lab doors boom through the vast emptiness as she wrenches them open and strides grimly down the central corridor, warily searching the shadows around her, Buffy's continuing pleas falling on deaf ears.

"Will, you do have a choice! This isn't good for you. And can I just ask, what's with the make-over of the damned? I mean, the hair!"

Suddenly Willow stops, alerted by a tiny sound to her right coming from behind what she knew to be Lilah's private office. She stiffens as a burning rage overwhelms her, the dark energy emerging from her eyes once again as she stretches out both arms, purple jolts blasting through the metal doors.

Taking her time in inspecting the vicinity, the wiccan was beyond furious surprise at finding no signs of Riley's presence besides a few empty liquor bottles resting casually alongside the still-buzzing computer on the otherwise empty desk. "He's not here." Stepping out from where they'd taken cover at her blast, Buffy and Angel tentatively approach from behind. "I- I could feel his essence," Willow continues pondering aloud, her brief moment of confusion quickly giving way to her returning anger. "He couldn't have left too long ago. We'll find him."

"And then what?" Buffy can't supress her shudder as she and Angel turn to follow her.

"And then we kill him," Willow promises forbiddingly, her voice harsh and unrecognizable. "Then I find and kill Xander." Finally, completely out of patience, the slayer surges toward her, turning her around sharply as they reach the outside. "Okay- you need to calm down."

"Calm down?!"

"Look, you're angry. I- I am too. There's no excuse for what Xander did, but that-"

"He shot Tara." Willow's expression froze, identical to the stunned faces of her friends, as she stares into her own bleak nightmare of cradling the young girl's lifeless body helpless to do anything for her.

"No…" Angel gasps, torn between dismay and approval at Willow's consequential actions. His face softens in compassion when he sees the pain sear the darkened face before him. "How?"

"When he shot Buffy, he hit her too. Up in the bedroom…." she trails off, lifting her wide, mad eyes to stare at the bewildered slayer. "Guess the last shot was the charm."

"She's dead?" Angel asks, darting a quick glance at her, like he was ashamed to ask, but driven to it by a confusion as deep as Willow's own.

"She's dead. Now he's dead. The both of them…they have to pay for everything they've done."

"Oh my god…." Buffy finally regains her speech, her small frame visibly shaking at the news of Tara's death. "Tara…"

"Will, how come you didn't say anything?" Angel pleads, trying to get a grip on his own emotions as he takes a step towards her.

"I'm busy," she brushes his concern off, heading for the car without another word. With a convulsive effort, Buffy breaks herself from the grief and confusion that had consumed her, forcing herself to focus her complete attention on the matter at hand. “Willow!" Somehow knowing that she would not get a response, she and Angel race after her, their yells wiped out by the sound of the engine starting up again. "Willow- please…just stop."

Blinded by the memory and by the fury that burned black behind her eyes, Willow halts for a moment, her cold stare fixed on her best friend as she went on, still trying to draw her into some kind of response, or maybe just to cover her own nervousness. "We love you. A- and Tara. But we don't kill humans. It's not the way."

"How can you say that?!" her supressed sorrow woke up for an instant in her desperate cry, surprising her as much as them. "Tara is dead!"

"I know....I know. And I....can't understand....anything. Not what happened....a-and not what you must be going through-"

"I can…." Angel sharply interjects, earning a dejected stare from his beloved. For a fleeting instant, Buffy takes an eye off of Willow to search his face, but there was nothing there except desolation, and her whole body shook with the effort to contain her sorrow. For a brief instant, she felt terribly guilty for having shoved him out of Xander's line of fire, overcome with a twisted sense of shame at being the one to cause him so much pain.

"Angel, please…." she whispers as she grabs hold of him to approach Willow once more, not really knowing of anything that could comfort either of them. "Willow, if you do this, you let Xander destroy you too. There's no coming back if you do this."

"I'm not coming back." Her steps were shuffling as she pulls away a second time, as if she didn't trust her feet to find their way safely across the ground, and her head was down, not daring to look more than a few feet ahead in time or space. She was trying not to think; trying not to feel. But all she knew was that nothing in her life had ever hurt as much as this- and Riley and Xander were going to know what this felt like.

"Will, please!" she hears Buffy approaching her again, taken by surprise when she feels herself being pulled back into the slayer's grip from behind. "Please, Willow. We'll get through this together."

"We won't! Not your way!"

"Please, just-"

"No!" the determined wiccan sneers, sharply pulling away from her. "No more talking! It's done!"

She turns away again, this time gesturing behind her as she increases in her pace. Buffy and Angel find themselves being sent sprawling to the ground by another bolt of purple energy radiating from Willow's arm as she makes her stealth escape, leaving her friends in wounded disbelief at what they were now being forced to deal with.

******

"The things I have to deal with!"

Inside the Magic Box, bloody, battered, and nearly unrecognizable, Xander sits, fidgeting underneath Anya's hands as she finishes up bandaging his head. Cutting off the excess gauze, she slowly makes her way around the counter, still reeling from the effects of Willow's spell, to retrieve an ice bag to help with some of the swelling of Xander's broken nose.

"If I wanted ice, I would've asked for ice!" he snarls, wanting to lash out at somebody, anybody. Angrily he tosses the ice over his shoulder, raising a hand to his tender face. "I can't believe he broke it!"

"I'm surprised that's all he broke…." Anya lets out a low murmur, though Xander picked up on it. Deciding to let it pass for the moment, he finally turns his concern to her condition. "You feeling any better?"

With a sour glance, she carefully pulls up a stool alongisde him. "It's wearing off. Willow was here earlier. She put the whammy on me and went straight to the dark arts books. Sucked them dry."

"Look, Anya…." he sighs, leaning as far over to her as his aching ribs would allow, "something terrible happened."

"I know- Tara."

"Tara?" Frightened and curious at the same time, he squints in confusion, his voice teetering. "Wh- what about Tara?"

"She's dead."

"Sh- she….what….?"

"Lindsay just called here a little while ago. They found her dead upstairs in the house…." she falters to a halt, her face crumbling with compassion when Xander freezes, his eyes going wide as the words hit him like blows. Trembling in a daze, barely able to hear what Anya was saying, he slumps back against the counter, trying to shut out the horrors of the last few hours- the pain, the blood, and the price that Buffy, and now Tara, had paid for it. "B- Buffy?? Is she- is she-"

"She's fine," Anya curtly assures him, her voice dripping with contempt at his seemingly one-track mind. "Willow saved her in the hospital. The last anyone saw of her was when she left with Buffy and Angel…." her mouth instantly lifts into a smirk at her next piece of information "….to come after you."

"Oh god…."

Before he could fully respond to Anya's unnerving words, being already severely shaken from his encounter with Angel at the hospital, a faint rustling from down the hall catches Xander's attention, his eyes darting around the shop, checking to see if they were indeed alone. "Anya, I….I didn't mean it. I swear. I never meant to….to shoot…." he pauses in his babbling, hardly aware of what he was saying. He tried to get a grip on himself, tried to understand what he had done; what was happening to him and likely going to happen to him if he was found by the police, or Willow, or-

"Angel….it's his fault. H- he pulled Buffy in front of him," beyond his fear, he was still hopelessly trying to justify himself, somehow realizing with every word that it was having no effect at all on his guilt. "He was the one I wanted! Anya, I didn't do this- it was him. It was Angel. It was Angel…." he says it over and over, as if somehow the repetition could make it true.

"Just keep telling yourself that," Anya mumbles, painfully aware of the havoc that he'd begun. "Willow's out for blood big time, Xander. And if she doesn’t find you first, Angel's gonna be the one holding the door open for her."

"I- is there something you can do to help me? A- a locator spell?"

"I don't need a spell to find Willow. I can…." she hesitates, unsure of whether to reveal her own transformation to him. "I can feel her."

"You can….?"

"Feel her," she reiterates reluctantly. "Her thirst for vengeance, it's overwhelming."

"Is that like, left over from your vengeance demon days?" he draws the only logical conclusion he can make. "You just sense her?"

"No….not left over…."

The cold, controlled anger lurking beneath Anya's eyes told Xander the missing details of her secret as he lets the knowledge of the return of her powers sink in. "Oh…."

"Yeah."

"When?"

Turning to face him completely, a grimace of disgust plastered across her face, she answers him furiously. "When do you think?! After what you let Willow do to me?!" she makes an outstretch of her arm for emphasis, Xander visibly flinching at the sight of her numerous burns. "I would've told you earlier but, uh…." she looks around scornfully at the sight of her disheveled shop, "….I was a little tied up."

"So what- you were just gonna finish me off yourself?!"

"Well first I was going to break up with you," she corrects him. "Then I was going to finish you off myself. But since Willow's taken the liberty-"

"This is great!" he makes a sudden and painful jump to his feet, pacing and gesturing as best he could with the aching in every step. "So now everyone's leaving me! Everyone's after me! What is this?!"

With a sudden determination, completely outraged by his utter lack of comprehension, Anya marches over to him, vehemently shoving him back into his seat, tempted to do the others a favor and take out their collective wrath on him that instant. " *This* is what *you've* done, Xander!"

"Well I haven't seen *you* trying to solve any of the problems around here!"

"That's because there are no problems except the ones you've created! You can't handle the fact that Angel and Buffy belong together, so you try to 'solve' the problem by trying to kill him every chance you get?!"

"Oh, okay- let's talk about you for a second!" he snaps ungraciously. "You don't appreciate a damn thing I do for you, including saving you from Willow-"

"Yeah, right," she scoffs, "Giles and Graham were the ones to get me out of there-"

"Whatever! But just because you can't deal with things, you go and get your vengeance on again to solve things?! Very mature."

"No, Xander…." With a final leer, she brushes past him to grab the bag of ice he'd tossed aside for her own throbbing head. "The mature solution is for you to spend your whole life telling stupid, pointless jokes, so that no one will notice that you're just a scared, insecure little boy!"

Stunned into silence, Xander straightens up as if to speak again, a frown of dissatisfaction twisting his face as the ever-increasing guilt rips through him more savagely than Anya's anger.

******

Part 6

By the time Buffy and Angel had returned, the coroners were already wheeling Tara's body down the stairs. Frantically trying to avoid the sight, making the excuse of wanting to change her clothes, Buffy rushes past them up the stairway, hoping to find something of her's left over in her mother's closet.

"If you could just sign this."

With the others gathered together in the living room, comforting and consoling each other as best they can, Angel takes on the task of all the paperwork associated with standard procedure. "Sure..."

"Call this number tomorrow," one of the sullen workers hands him another paper. "We'll have more information for you."

"Okay, thanks. Th- thank you."

"I'm sorry for your loss."

Lethargically nodding at the offer of sympathy, Angel shuts the door behind them with a weary hand, turning to join the others. "So that's it."

"Are the police gone too?" Fred whispers.

"Coming back tomorrow with more of their pretty yellow tape," Graham tries to cover his concern with a joke, but looks on with a painful grimace at his friends, sitting slumped in the seats around him, unmoving and unspeaking.

Lifting his head from where he'd buried it earlier in his hands, Giles finally breaks their collective silence. "We need to find Willow."

"Xander and Riley are deadmen if she finds them," Doyle adds.

"Good."

At the bitter sound of his usually pleasant voice, Joyce throws a pleading glance to Angel. "Angel, don't say that."

"Why not? I'd do it myself-"

"And you almost *did* at the hospital," Gunn speaks up, twisting his arm in the process. "My shoulder's still killing me."

"Look- none of you can understand this, okay? None of you! I know how Willow feels because I felt the same way having Buffy bleeding to death in my arms. And when Xander showed up...when I had him right there in my hands...if I still could've, I would have drained him and not cared."

"You don't really feel that way," Joyce takes her reasoning approach once again, hoping to reach him, but finds him staring back at her more intensely than before.

"Yes I do- and you should too, Joyce! He killed Tara! He almost killed your daughter!"

"But he didn't," Giles tries his hand at calming him, only to see Angel turning towards the stairs, scaling them two at a time. As the watcher realizes that their efforts were completely futile, he musters what mental and emotional strength he had left to say a silent prayer that his former slayer would have better luck in reaching him.

******

With awkward hands, Buffy claws her way out of her blood-soaked, and essentially ruined shirt as if it angered her; as if all the sorrow and grief she'd experienced had seeped into the very fabric she wore and scalded her with a relentless blaze. Letting out a heavy sigh, she leans over the sink, trying to rid herself of as much smeared blood as possible. Finally satisfied, she lifts her head, letting out a startled gasp at the reflection that now accompanied her own.

"Still haven't gotten used to that yet," she gives Angel a small smile in the mirror, spinning around to face him as he slowly makes his way into the bathroom.

"Yeah...me neither..." His hand shaking as he reaches for her, he gently presses his palm to her heart, wanting true reassurance of her well-being. "You're okay," he whispers, more of a question than statement.

"Yeah." Bringing up her own hand to lace with his over the steady beat, she takes notice of the red stain still smeared over the diamond of her new ring. She lets out a small laugh as she sees his eyes take in the sight as well. "I'll see if mom can clean it for me. It's funny...we haven't even told her or the gang yet..."

Granting her a weak smile, Angel takes a step past her to clean himself up, catching only a glimpse of his hardened face in the glass before him. As he mercilessly attacks his hands with soap and water, he hears his beloved's voice over his shoulder. "We have to find Willow before she...does anything..." Already anticipating the reaction she would surely get with her next proclamation, the slayer sharply averts her eyes to the tiled floor. "...but I don't want you coming with us..."

The water still dripping from his face as he spins around to face her, Angel can't help the aggravated tone that his voice takes. "What? Y- you can't be serious. Buffy-"

"Angel, don't," she shifts her tone to match his, trying to maintain her resolve as she confronts him. "I saw you when we were with Willow. I saw right into you...what you want to do..."

"Not you too," he challenges, trying to slip by her but finding his attempts useless as she grabs him firmly with both arms. "You know, Willow's got the right idea- we're never going to solve anything doing this your way!"

"Angel, listen to me! Do you think this is easy for me? I know what Xander's done, okay? I know what he's put us through...but that doesn't give us the right to kill him. We have rules, a- and laws for dealing with him."

"Yeah," he mutters disdainfully, still struggling against her grasp, "we know how well those rules work."

"Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. We can't control the universe. If we were supposed to...then the magic wouldn't be changing Willow the way it is. And...we'd be able to bring Tara back. Angel..." she lifts a hand to the side of his face, hurt flashing over her eyes when she sees him flinch away. "There are limits to what we can do. There should be. Willow doesn't want to believe that. And now she's messing with forces that want to hurt her...hurt all of us."

"No- Willow's the smart one. At least she's actually doing something that's gonna end all of this."

"Angel-"

"I've had blood on my hands all day, Buffy!" His outburst takes her by surprise, causing her to loosen her hold on his arms. "I've had *your* blood on my hands all day..."

"I know..." Her arms drop to her side as she releases him, turning to leave. "And now it has to stop. Xander's going to get what he deserves, I promise. But I will *not* let you or Willow destroy yourselves."

"So what- you're just gonna let Xander destroy everything else he touches?!"

"What else am I supposed to do?!" Angel stiffens when he hears the desperation in her voice, echoing out down the hall, loud enough that he was expecting one of the others to come running upstairs to see just what was going on. "Do you wanna know the other reason that I jumped in front of you when Xander started shooting?" Her knees already starting to buckle, her voice a trembling whisper, the slayer finally lifts her eyes to face him with a dismal _expression. "Because if Xander would've killed you...I would've already killed him myself."

Turning away and reaching blindly for the support of the doorframe, Buffy's eyes begin to blur with sudden tears as continues her remorseful confession. "When it comes to you...I couldn't have been that strong to not let Xander destroy me too. But I'll be damned if I'm gonna let him do this to you or Will."

Grabbing hold of her arm before she can leave, he spins her around to face him again. "Don't you get it?! Xander is a murderer! He killed another human being! H- he killed Tara!" he shakes her suddenly, seeing the same unshed tears that were in his eyes beginning to well up in her own. "He almost..." His head lowers and for the first time since seeing her fighting for her life in the emergency room, he allows his tears to flow. "He almost killed you..."

Finally at the end of any strength that he'd managed to hold onto throughout the morning, Angel gives in, spinning down to collapse to his knees in agony. His arms instantly circle Buffy's waist as he sobs against her, clutching onto her in despair. "I can't lose you...I can't..." he murmurs over and over again, squeezing his eyes shut against his burning tears.

Letting loose the tears she'd built up, Buffy kneels to gather him to her, two strong arms wrapped around him, her strong heart pounding against his own in their embrace. Her warm hand reaches up to cradle his head to her shoulder, his tears spilling onto her neck. "I'm sorry, Buffy. I didn't mean...I'm sorry..."

Buffy's face lowers into his hair as her arms close tighter around him. The two are shrouded in silence until the slayer finally speaks again, trying to lighten matters as she pushes him gently away so that she could search his face. "I don't wanna have our wedding with you behind bars, Angel."

Slowly, with a faint chuckle, Angel pulls her up with him to their feet, his hand still firmly locked with her own as they make their way back downstairs. "So where do we go? Willow could be anywhere."

"I don't know. Maybe the Magic Box for some kind of locating spell-"

"I'm coming with you," Oz announces, already grabbing his jacket and heading for the door ahead of them.

"Oz-"

"If Willow's out there, I'm coming with you," he repeats with such grim finality that they knew it was hopeless to plead with him to stay behind at the house.

"We're coming too," Doyle gestures for Gunn, Graham, and Lindsay to gather whatever they thought useful to bring along with them.

"Well what about us?" Cordy stands, admittedly fearful at having him leave her behind. "What are we supposed to do?"

"Giles," Buffy turns to her former watcher, "you guys start on research. Whatever you can find on dark magic- its weaknesses, how to drain it, anything you can get to stop Willow."

******

"What the hell am I supposed to do?!"

Xander's phone call with Lilah wasn't doing much to alleviate his headache, or sense of security. "I've got one freak who wants to flash-fry me into oblivion, and another who'd be content to just toss my ass around town till I drop dead!"

"Still not seeing how any of this is my problem," his former employer smirks over the line.

"What?! You're the one who got me into all this-"

"Ooooo- I don't think so, Harris. You get all the credit for this one. You wanted to play the game, now you're gonna have to deal. And like I told Finn, don't even bother coming back to LA-"

"Riley..." he realizes, finally remembering his teammate. "Wh- where is he? Willow's after him too. We've gotta-"

"He already took off," Lilah informs him, her amusement increasing with the poor boy's startled gasp.

"That little weasel! That- that...Judas!! How could he just leave me here?!"

"Because you've just become more trouble than you're worth, Harris."

From her spot sweeping up across the shop, Anya leans against the nearby pillar, unable to resist a loud scoff at seeing a frustrated Xander toss his cell phone to the floor, the small object breaking into three pieces. "You're gonna pick that up, aren't ya?"

"Would you shut up?!" he snaps, hurting too much and too distressed to play any more games. Just as he stands to approach her, he reaches back a hand to steady himself as he sees a familiar group of customers coming into the shop. "Ohhh...this ain't gonna be good for me..."

After shoving his way past the others, Oz is the first to make a dive for him. The next thing he knew, Xander was on his back, a raging Oz fully ontop of him, fist swooping down, striking his jaw with a succession of hard blows. Oz's free hand finds a heavy crowbar, carelessly discarded by Anya when she'd unloaded last night's new shipment, and he swings it heavily across an immobilized Xander, again and again, in rib-crushing, seering blows. Seeing their cue, Doyle, Gunn, and Graham hurry over, thrilled that they're able to lift the young man off of Xander with relative ease.

No sooner had they handed Oz over to Lindsay to calm him down then the three turn at the sound of Xander's desperate cry, dreading what they knew they were going to find.

"Okay- new rule," Graham announces as he watches Angel rush past him, Xander's face meeting fist once again as the ex-vampire catches him with a fierce right punch, slamming him up against the wall. "Anyone who's gonna jump someone else has to give us at least a three-minute warning to prepare."

"Angel- come on, man!" Gunn yells over his boss' shoulder, trying to get a solid grip to make the first of what he was sure to be many attempts of prying him off. "Not again..."

"Just so you know," Doyle chimes in from his position around Angel's waist, "you and the missus are gonna be paying for my physical therapy after all of this."

"Angel, if you're gonna toss him around, could you do it outside?" Anya makes her own plea with him. "I just finished cleaning up in here."

"Guys-" Buffy calls over, putting all of her faith in her lover, knowing deep down that his actions were no longer a senseless rage but held a compelling purpose. "Let him go."

As he feels the three relinquish their hold of him, Angel relaxes his own grip as well, Xander slumping a bit as he's held loosely against the wall. "Do you wanna know the one thing I regret most in my life?" the former vampire asks, raising his eyebrows quizzically, his voice a mix of anger and mockery. "Besides all the innocent lives I took, all the pain I caused-"

"And feeding from Buffy- don't forget the whole feeding from her to make you human deal," he challenges him scornfully, earning himself a harsh slap across the face before Angel's forearm comes to rest across his throat, pressing him further into the wall.

"The one thing I regret most in my life is ever letting you anywhere near Buffy." After one final burning gaze, Angel tosses Xander almost casually off to the side, not even diverting his focus to watch where the young man lands, toppling over the newly stacked pile of books.

"Great..." Anya sighs, wearily crossing the shop. "And I just restacked those too."

******

Part 7

It was almost sunset; almost night, and the slayer didn't like the edginess she was feeling, as well as sensing in the others. If only they had something they could concentrate on, instead of gathering aimlessly, looking for...who? Who first?

"Hey watch it with that!"

True, they'd found Xander...

"I bruise like a grape!"

...in all his whining glory. But he hadn't been the first of their priorities. They knew Riley was going to be the first; if they could just find him, they could find-

"Willow just got her power boost and took off?"

"Didn't even say goodbye," Anya answers the petite blonde, her sight divided between where her ex-boyfriend was still being tied up and where Buffy was pacing over to sit atop the counter, returning to her musings.

And Willow...the Scoob who'd always played the role of ordinary, who was anything but ordinary now; who had more questions than answers; who was filled with more sadness than anger, and whose anger was enough to scour the earth.

"Is that too tight?"

Lifting his head to face Doyle's questioning glare, Xander gives him a light shrug, "...no...", resulting in the half-demon lashing him to the chair even tighter with coil after coil of the tough rope.

"Better?" he checks with their captive, tilting his head to the side a bit, his smile a playful quirk.

"Perfect..." the young man grimaces, now finding it impossible to even strain against the unyielding cord.

"Good. Now don't go anywhere."

"Hey Doyle, wait! Doyle!" Turning back around at the desperate yell, he slowly bends down at Xander's head nod for him to lean in close. "C- could you maybe move me back a little? Ya know...a little further away from..." his eyes trail over to where Angel was leaning on the counter next to Buffy, his gaze still fixed on Xander as Lindsay hands him his cell phone to call Giles.

Straightening back up, Doyle can't help the smirk that breaks out across his face at the sight of Xander's eyes growing wider with each idle movement that Angel makes. "He keeps staring at me..." Xander feels the need to justify his anxiety as he feels himself being rolled backwards in his seat, Doyle's soft chuckle mocking him from behind.

"If I were you," he gives him a hard pat across the back as he brushes by him once more, "I'd be thankful that's all he's doing."

With Gunn following behind, Doyle makes his way over to where Angel was pacing wildly in front of the counter, finally letting out a frustrated sigh as he shoves Lindsay's cell back to him. "Just great..."

"Couldn't get Giles?" Gunn assumes.

"Couldn't get anyone- there's no answer at the house."

"You don't think..." Buffy hesitates before continuing, not really wanting to voice the terrible thought that had just entered into her mind.

"Maybe they headed to Giles' apartment for research," Lindsay tries assuring her.

"I'm sure they're fine," Oz adds, though he was sure she could sense the doubt and apprehension in his words.

Stretching out a hand towards the feisty reempowered vengeance demon, the young lawyer turns their attentions toward the matter at hand. "Anya was saying she knows where Willow is."

"A spell?" Buffy checks, pushing her worries aside to focus on their task. As her eyes linger on Anya, the ominous look she receives in turn makes short work of her confusion. "Oh..."

"So Willow's all wrathy," Graham speaks up, leaving his spot watching Xander to join them at the counter. "Why don't you just go to her? I mean, isn't that your whole gig?"

"Normally, I'd have to..." her tone turns defensive as she stands from her stool, "...but she doesn't want me."

"She wants to do it herself." At Angel's observance, Anya gives him a simple nod, unsure of how else she could respond. "Yeah."

"Look Anya," determined and resolute, Buffy hops down from the counter to approach her, "we don't have much time. Which side of this are you on?"

Seeing her hesitation, Angel wearily runs a hand through his hair, letting out a sigh over Buffy's shoulder. The loud slam that follows catches them all off guard as Cordelia and Fred come rushing through the front door, a few books supported under their arms.

"Thank god," Buffy breathes out upon seeing them, a wave of relief washing over her. "Wait- where are Giles and mom?"

"The airport," Cordy answers once she catches her breath, happily accepting the hand that Doyle offers her, pulling her into an embrace.

"They're headed to Devon," Fred adds, resting a hand against Gunn to steady herself. "Something about consulting with some wiccan coven."

"And he took mom with him?"

"He thought it would be better to keep her out of harm's way," Cordy explains, beginning to rub a hand across her forehead as she scans the room. "He said they should be back by tomorrow night- just try to contain Willow for as long as...possible..." Hearing her voice falter to a halt, her attention drawn away as her eyes fall on Xander's incapacitated frame, Doyle makes a mad grab of her arm, just in time to keep her from advancing on her directed target any further. "Hold it..."

"You no good-"

"Delia..."

"...worthless-"

"Delia-"

"...little scumsucker!"

"Cordelia!!" His third plea finally succeeds as Doyle pulls her back into a firm hold, his hand gripping hers, in effect unclenching the fist she'd already had prepared to send flying across her ex-boyfriend's face. "Before you go gettin' all homicidal, he's already had three beatin's today- don't think a fourth would do much more good knocking some sense into him.

"Ohhh...you are *so* lucky I don't wanna get any blood on this skirt, Xander!" she shouts back over to him, reluctantly allowing herself to be pulled back to where the others, including a still-undecided Anya, were gathered. "Couldn't you have kept a better leash on him?!"

"Enough-" the slayer steps between them, raising a hand in the air as she turns to face Anya. "Last chance- if you know where Willow is, you can help us. Now which side of this are you on, Anya?"

After a few seconds, the friends' collective impatient glare unnerved her, finally drawing out whatever remnants of humanity she had left in her. "I'll help. But I'm doing this to help Willow...and for Tara..." she adds as an afterthought, throwing Xander a quick glance before grabbing her jacket, headed for the door.

******

For the few moments he allowed his thoughts to stray, Riley was admonishing himself for not heeding Lilah's suggestion of picking up some change of address forms and hightailing it out of the country. At present moment, he found himself being led on a roundabout path through the dark, his movements based on pure instinct, trying to reach some sort of sanctuary on the other side of the vast woods. As thunder rolls heavily overhead, promising ever more rain, his ears pick up on a rustling in the near-distance, the sound of branches being snapped back almost melodic in its steady continuance.

"Damn..." his voice betrays him without comprehending what was causing the sound or what it meant. Dumbly he turns his head towards the source of the noise that fills the air around him, deciding to advance on it. His pace increasing with every step, his only thought is that staying in one place made him an easy target for whatever or whoever else was accompanying him in his hurried departure from Sunnydale.

Thankful to finally reach a grove large enough for him to take cover, he lets his weight fall against a nearby tree, his sole weapon of choice dangling loosely in his hand by his side. The grumble of thunder from the breaking storm fills his ears, and the roar of the heavily falling rain drowns all other sounds, but doesn't obstruct his vision- from around the beaten path, his eyes can make out a shadow closing in on him. Craning his head just barely enough to see past the tree's trunk, he spins around, freezing in disbelief at Willow's lithe figure, dressed all in black, slowly making her approach.

Her steps calm and focused, Willow was making her way through the rain-dark woods with grim effortlessness. The heavy, driving rain soaks the very air around her, but the wiccan merely blinks patiently into the shadowed night, her pitch black eyes seeking out her target. Finally coming to a small clearing, her eyes lower to the ground, a knowing smile breaking out across her face with the awareness that she was getting close. "Run all night, Riley," she sneers, her eyes lowering to the ground. "I'll still find-"

Even if she had looked up, she never would have seen the silent shadow watching for her, never would have heard the stealthy approach behind her. With the long-handled axe embedded in her back, Willow doubles over, landing face first with a heavy thud, much to Riley's delight. Satisfied with his work, a boastful smile etched across his face, he manages to take one small step closer before being frozen with fear once more.

He stands in shock, letting out a gasp as Willow effortlessly rises to her feet, a grin of wolfish pleasure escaping her lips as she reaches a hand around, removing the protruding, ineffective weapon. "Axe not gonna cut it." With a quick jerk, she tosses it to the ground before taking off after a fleeing Riley.

Once more running for his life, he blunders blindly through the trees and the darkness until finally remembering something he'd carried with him in his pack. Snaking his hand around, he yanks out a small metal box- one of the last things he'd been given by his mentor before her untimely incarceration. Skidding to a stop down along the hill, he pulls out a pin, producing two small wings along the box's side. With a hopeful glance, he watches as it flutters away wildly, coming to rest in front of his pursuer.

A curious Willow looks at it in surprise, flinching only slightly as it suddenly explodes, a flash of radiance surrounding her in a shimmering ball of energy like solidified air and fire, holding her motionless. Bemused for a moment by Riley's pathetic attempts, she steps forward, the ball shattering into large pieces like glass.

Panic sends Riley whirling around, trying once again to escape, only to come face to face with the relentless wiccan. "Cute..." his voice rises as a nervous wimper. "That's a cute trick." As he backs away, his counterpart's silence as she slowly advances only further disturbs him. "What the hell do you want with *me*?! I didn't do a damn thing! Xan- Xander...he did it- he did it all!"

"You helped..." are her only words of response as she edges closer to him. "You helped him every step of the way."

"I tried to stop him! You know Xander- he wouldn't listen if you paid him!" Seeing her stiffen for a moment, his voice lowers to a tremble. "It was an accident, you know."

"Oh- you mean instead of killing Angel and my best friend, Xander killed my girlfriend," she reminds him, the blackness beginning to glaze her eyes.

"It- it wasn't personal, that's all..."

"Well, this is..." The hue of dark energy finally devours Willow's eyes as she lets out her command. "Irretite!"

Riley hobbles desperately back from her, finally falling back against a tangled frame of trees. His breath rasped in his throat, hardly feeling the vicious sting of thorns and the tug of foliage that whip out and wrap around him, tugging viciously at his limbs, maliciously spiking at his face. Effectively holding up his limp body spread-eagled before her like a grotesque parody of the crucifixion, Willow casually strolls up to him. "Cute trick, huh?"

"You're really asking for it, you know that?"

" *I'm* asking for it?" she smiles with quiet curiosity, pausing to let out a soft, incredulous chuckle at his idle threat.

"Someone will find me. I'm gonna walk away from this. And when I do, you're gonna beg to go join your little girlfriend." With terror radiating from his eyes, Riley watches as she takes a single step back as he still hopelessly tries to justify himself, realizing with every word that it was having no effect at all on his captor. "What do you want from me?! Xander...you want Xander, right?! I- I can help you find him, I swear!"

Willow quickly raises her right arm, from which a small glowing dagger suddenly appears. Lifting his head fully, staring up to meet her eyes, Riley blanches with fright. "What do you want?! What?!" Panic blurs his mind, nightmare images flashing before him, and still the young girl before him keeps silent. "Damn it- speak to me!" he begs. "Speak! What do you want?!"

With deadly ease and a blurring flash of her hand, Willow lets the dagger fly, the crunch of steel into flesh accompanying her words. "I want you to bleed..."

*****

Still unsure of where they were headed, Buffy grabs Anya by the arm, pulling her to a stop along the beaten path. "What's happening? What do you feel?"

"She's stronger now," the restored demon whispers back. "Close." A cold draft sweeps past them through the woods, carrying the scent of the falling rain, and lightning etches the cracks in the framework of trees around them, followed a few seconds later by the ominous rumble of thunder, almost beckoning in its roar.

"What about Riley?" Oz turns to her as they resume their pace.

"He's with her."

"Has she-"

"He's still alive," Anya reassures a wary Angel. "She's not done with him yet."

*****

"Willow..."

Riley's mouth was suddenly dry. It was hard to see anything but the round black orbs piercingly staring at him.

"You two get off on your little war games. Playing dress-up...running around like a bunch of toy soldiers. That's why you both had a mad-on for the slayer. She was your's and Xander's big O, wasn't she, Riley?"

"Help! Let me go! Somebody- help!!"

Desperately, he strains against the vines, scraping his wrists raw. But all his efforts were useless- he couldn't get free, and he couldn't make any more noise than the frightened, trapped mouse he knew he was. She was going to kill him, but he'd seen also the promise of something even worse planned for him, and he was afraid that dying was going to be the easiest thing the wiccan would force upon him.

The dagger's initial impact hits him like a battering ram. "Oh god- stop it! Please!!" His face writhes with shock as it digs further into his flesh, each stab inward more excruciating than the last. A thin drool of saliva dripping off his lower lip is the first sign that he'd been affected by the deep rupturing of shrinking, quivering flesh.

"You know...knives aren't like bullets, Riley. But then, a highly trained soldier like yourself should know all this," Willow smiles to him, her tone calm and secure. "A bullet just leaves a neat, little hole. But a knife...that can do some damage."

*****

"Seeing as how I'm probably gonna be, uh...*stuck* here awhile, would one of you please tell me why the hell I have to be tied up?!"

Throwing him a glance from her seat alongside Gunn, Lindsay, and Graham, Fred takes it upon herself to inform him. "In case you haven't noticed, we haven't been in the 'trusting Xander' mood for awhile now."

"This way we can keep an eye on you," Gunn adds.

"And besides," Lindsay feels inclined to join in, "you've got a better chance of stayin' alive this way. Unless of course you'd like to take your chances against Willow yourself? Ya know, maybe you could get Lilah to give you a hand," the young lawyer smirks, fully aware of his former associate's track record when it came down to the wire. "I'm sure she was all choked up when you told 'er about your unfortunate predicament here."

Diverting his gaze back from where they were gathered over a table of books, Xander lets out a heavy, disgusted sigh.

"What the hell are you so upset about?" Doyle gives him a light shove with the heel of his boot as he goes to stretch out his legs atop the nearby table. "I'm the one who's gotta sit across from a murderer," he gruffs harshly, his voice hammering at Xander with a painful fierceness. "Remind me again why *I* have to be the one sittin' so close to him, Delia?"

As she stands from her own seat beside him, a smile crosses her features for the first time since morning. Leaning over, she runs her fingers over his head, giving his hair a playful toussle. "Cause you're so good at it."

Xander's face takes on a spiteful appearance as he watches the brunette give the half-demon a quick kiss on the cheek before bouncing over to help the others with their research. The young man's face flashes with a twinge of jealousy as he looks back to Doyle. "Do you love her?"

"I really don't think that's any of your concern," he replies, giving his seat a small spin with another jerk of his foot. Not one to be so easily quelled, Xander tries again. "So do you?"

"Xander...when it comes to matters of love...I don't feel like wastin' energy discussing something with you that you can't possibly comprehend."

*****

With a contemptuous gesture, Willow's arm raises and the knife slowly slips out of Riley's chest, hovering before him at the wiccan's will. Already slippery with his scarlet blood, the blade carves back into him, this time ripping into his stomach.

"Oh god!" Riley's voice begins to strain, his heart hammering in his chest. The dagger slams into him fully in an explosive mist of blood, the force of it driving him backwards, while a flash of white-hot agony lances through him.

"With a knife..." she softly continues, a twist of her hand twisting the steel across his abdomen "...it'll obliterate your internal organs. Your lungs will collapse. Feels like drowning."

"Please, no!" He twists his pain-racked body and struggles in sheer, hopeless desperation to escape from the vines. The dagger twists out from his stomach, only to whirl around him, its glimmering blade plunging deep into his back, right over his spine. Pain explodes across Riley's back, thrusting him forward in helpless agony.

"When it finally hits your spine, it'll blow your central nervous system."

Wailing in mindless panic, Riley jerks against his bonds, soaking the vines around his wrists with even more of his own blood. "Oh, please stop, god! Please-"

"I'm talking!"

Willow's hand descends once more, the knife following suit as it exits his body a third time. As it floats a few inches in front of his face, his lips are suddenly sewn shut with large stitches of thread, reducing him to groans and whimpers. "A bullet would've made things faster than this, of course," she notes, a simple nod of her head producing the bullet she'd taken out of Buffy earlier. "But I'm saving that for Xander...he's going to be the one who really suffers...who really gets to know what she went through."

Just as quickly as it appeared, the tiny piece of metal is absorbed back into her hand. "Something, isn't it? One tiny piece of metal destroys everything. Xander's shot ripped her insides out...took her light away. From me. From the world. Now the one person who should be here is gone...and wastes like you and Xander get to live." Wounded by her own memories and ensuing rage, she snaps out her arm, sending the dagger to its work over Riley's face. "Can you feel it, Riley?"

Through a haze of pain, Riley sees the wiccan's face grinning lasciviously at him as the cold steel rips across his skin, again and again, its gleaming surface tearing into his cheeks and forehead. He rolls his neck, trying desperately to fend off the deadly attack, but he had nothing except his own tender flesh for a shield and for too long he'd lingered in shock, mind and body refusing to encompass the damage done to them. The vicious blade continues slashing until his split face runs with blood in searing agony. For the longest moment, he could hear no other sound except his own heart pounding against his ribs, and his own breath sobbing around the cruel restraint over his mouth.

As thunder sounds again, a little closer, and rain begins hissing down onto the stones outlining the clearing, Anya's yell can be heard from not too far off to their left. "Over there..." The clear aim of her purpose returning with the sound of her friends quickly approaching, Willow makes another wave of her hand, removing the stitches from Riley's whimpering mouth. "I said, can you feel it?"

"Please! God! I did wrong, I see that now. I need- I need jail! Let them send me to jail with Walsh, okay? That's what I need..." he pleads frantically, still blustering in spite of all that had happened. "But you, you don't want this, Willow. You're- you're not a bad person. Not like Xander. Not like me."

"Willow!"

Craning her head toward her best friend's yell, the wiccan smirks to herself as she sees the others only a few feet away.

"Will!" Oz's shout accompanies the slayer's. "You have to stop! You have to listen to us- please!" As the four finally reach them, they find themselves inwardly wincing at Riley's appearance. On his rain-dewed and trembling flesh could be seen the various gashes of Willow's work. Wisps of steam rose from his shivering skin, an uncomprehending expression hovering in his eyes. And his face...with his skin slashed to ribbons, the ugly lacerations bulging, his face was swollen into unrecognizability.

Giving them a final glance, she turns her attentions back to Riley, oblivious to her friends' desperate yells over the young man's continuing appeals. "Oh, and when you get caught, you'll lose them too. Your friends..." he pants, praying that one of them would make a prompt effort to stop her. "You don't want that. I know you're in pain, but-"

As her hand flies up to his mouth, locking her burning gaze with his terrified one, her lips turn upward in a wicked grin. "Bored now."

All falls silent as the bolt of dark magic rips through Riley's entire body, leaving him writhing repulsively, then howling in anguish with a horrible bestial cry, the rain running in streams over his bared, skinless, lacerated frame.

"Oh my god." With his mouth hanging open, Angel's hand reaches out to a nearby tree to steady himself at the horrendous sight of the young man's exposed flesh. For her part, Buffy wasn't fairing much better, but managed to pull her thoughts into a sentence. "What did you do?"

Willow was relaxed into a bewildered, reproachful softness as she continues staring at the entangled, lifeless body. "Willow- what did you do?" At the sound of Buffy's quivering voice, the wiccan's eyes were suddenly dazzled by a brilliant flare which seared across the darkened woods and landed in a burst of flames against Riley's limp form, the grotesque sight of his body burning away to nothing in an instant.

"One down."

Her composed declaration, laced with ominous promise, are her final words to the four as smoke begins to curl up around Willow's body, red radiance flashing in her eyes once again. Lightning flashes as her whole body dissipates into smoke, vanishing with an echo of thunder into the air, leaving the others shakily standing, their minds too overloaded with too many numbing images all at once to comprehend the horror they had just witnessed.

*****

Part 8

"I think I'm gonna be sick..."

"Again?"

Oz staggers to a stop by a tree, clinging desperately to it as he fights off another wave of nausea. He'd been okay until they'd left the small clearing and started again in their search for Willow. Then it had hit him- everything that had happened since that morning. He'd thrown up along the path three times already, and by now he was certain there was nothing left in his stomach.

"Oz, we don't have time," Buffy sighs, turning back around to face him.

"I know, it's just...what happened back there..." he pants, still propping himself up along the trunk, "...the sounds of it. The smell..."

Still reeling from everything herself, the slayer has little in the way of comfort to offer him. "I know." It was confusing and depressing to harbor the knowledge of what her best friend had already done and still intended to do; Xander undoubtedly deserved everything coming to him, but Buffy couldn't help thinking that it was a waste of effort. Willow was no killer, in spite of her night's work, and the slayer could sense the creeping poison of this vengeance that was eating away at her best friend's very soul- the single thing driving her. All the violence, the suffering, the death and pain...they could kill as surely as a bullet to the heart. No matter what the outcome, Buffy feared the Willow they loved would wind up getting killed; she just prayed it wouldn't ultimately mean her death.

"Willow did that." Oz's three simple words sends the others shuddering inwardly at what they'd just witnessed, finally prompting Buffy back into steady form. "That's why we have to keep moving." With a warm gesture, she smoothes a hand over his shoulder, urging him to press on. "You heard what she said- 'one down' ."

"So we're talking about 'one to go', right?" Anya muses. "As in Xander."

"He's sitting back at the shop without a clue Willow's coming," says Angel, angrily pushing back the snares of branches swatting at him as they make their way back along their trail.

"You don't think she's actually gonna kill him too? I- I mean...it's Xander...Willow wouldn't..." Oz hesitates, hoping to somehow make his assumption more convincing. "...she couldn't."

"Willow's got an addictive personality, and she just tasted blood." Letting out a heavy sigh, Buffy slows a bit in her pace, contemplating their next move. "She could be there already."

"No." Anya's sharp disagreement brings them all to a halt. "She couldn't. A witch at her level- she can only go airborne." Seeing their round of stares, the demon feels inclined to explain. "It's a thing. More flashy, impresses the locals, but it does take longer."

"Longer than what?" Oz raises an eye at her.

"Teleporting." With an inhumanly quick movement, she decides to demonstrate, stunning the others as she disappeares in a cloud of swirling energy.

"Right..." the young man shrugs, his mouth hanging open a moment before the three press on once more. "...vengeance demon. Well, at least she'll get there first."

"I'm counting the ways that could go wrong," the slayer grimaces, her lack of trust in Anya wrestling with her overall concern for her well-being.

"Anya can handle herself," Angel speaks up, thankful that his line of sight can finally see the edge of the woods fast approaching.

"Against Willow? Tonight? Don't be too sure."

"But she should be coming down at some point, shouldn't she?" a hopeful Oz tries reasoning. "I mean, back there she was out of her head, running on grief and magic. Eventually she's gonna have to reload, right?"

"Doesn't matter," Buffy winces slightly. "Willow just killed someone."

"Killing people changes you," Angel adds, his voice laced with remorse. "Believe me, I know."

"This is still Willow we're dealing with, right?" Oz sounds more depressed than worried at the thoughts tearing away at his resolve as he looks to Buffy for any kind of assurance.

"I hope so. Whatever she's going through, we have to stop her. And maybe we can actually do that if we can get to your...van..."

Half-hidden by bushes, with smoke coming out of its hood, Oz's van had surely seen better days. With the windshield now adorned by a large hole, the spider-web mosaic of crazed broken glass seemed to be almost laughing at the three in mockery as they stare on in defeat. "Willow," Angel finally frowns, the painful realization that their ordeal was just beginning digging further and further into his mind.

"I guess she wants to finish the job without us tagging along." Turning to Angel, finding his eyes filled with the same resounding determination as her own, she throws a sidelong glance back to Oz. "Meet us at the store."

"Sure. But how are you two gonna..." Forgetting all their fatigue, the warriors take off with a speed and grace that would have astonished Oz if he hadn't already been used to seeing the display of their powers. "Okay, then, I'll just...catch up," he calls after them, his tone beginning to border on frustration. "She's only my girlfriend, you know! No big deal, just..."

Letting his dejected glare linger on the smoldering remnants of his van, he slams his fist down on the already battered hood angrily, wincing back in pain when the stinging sets in. "...glad I can help."

*****

"So then she tells me, ' you've just become more trouble than you're worth'. How do you like that? I mean, *she's* the one who sent the two of us back here on her little 'assignment', which, by the way, I still haven't gotten paid for, and she says *I'm* the one causing all of this trouble? Gimme a break! I guess you've had your fair share of Lilah-moments back in LA. You know what she's like, right man? Right??"

Wearily pulling himself up from his chair, Doyle can only roll his eyes as he makes his way over to where the others were gathered, leaving their captive to himself. "I swear...if I have to listen to any more of his bitchin', I'm gonna kill him myself."

"Well if you wait a little while longer," comes a voice, "I'm sure Willow will be more than happy to oblige."

A glowing luminosity lights a small circle in the center of the Magic Box, from which Anya suddenly emerges. As the swirl of magic disappears, revealing her entire frame, she races over to the counter.

"Where are the others?" Graham is the first to approach her.

"On their way. Listen to me- untie him," she throws a glance to where Xander was struggling against his ropes, his feet kicking wildly in front of him as he tries wheeling himself over to where they were all standing. "He's not gonna be much help if he's all prisoner-like. Willow's on her way here."

"Umm, Anya..." Cordy scoffs, "...you're gonna have to break this down for us a little." With an annoyed and impatient glare, the demon tries summing things up as best she can. "The most powerful Wicca in the western hemisphere has already gotten her first round of payback, with interest. She's ready for round two, and you want me to break things down for you??"

"She found Riley?" Fred guesses.

"Riley?" Xander squeaks out in between his squirming. "Wh- what about Riley? What happened?"

"She killed him," Anya volunteers smugly, unable to resist the temptation to get another dig in on him. "Ripped him apart and bloodied up the forest doing it. Now she's coming here and you're next."

"Oh my god..." Lindsay finally breathes out, clearly taken aback and sickened by the news. "Riley..."

"Oh my god…" Xander shares his former colleague's initial sentiments, "...*me*! Well don't just stand there!" he yells to Doyle. "Untie me! I've gotta get the hell out of here!!" Seeing that none of them were in any hurry to grant his pleas, he turns to Anya. "Teleport me out of here, please! Take me with you!"

"I can't..." she snaps back at him, not particularly upset that she can't offer him much more help. "It doesn't work that way."

"Look-" Doyle takes it upon himself to temporarily take charge, "we're not doing anything until the others get here, understood?"

"We don't have much time," Anya sighs, marching over to where her ex was still struggling against his bindings. "She's already got a head start. It's only a matter of time before-" The slam from the store's door stuns the friends' with its echo as Buffy and Angel come racing in, only slightly out of breath. "What's happened? I- is she here?" the slayer manages to get a few words out in between huffs.

"Not yet." Taking a few steps back away from Xander, Anya follows the others back over to the counter. "Where's Oz?"

"On his way," Angel replies. "Willow trashed his van. We rushed ahead, but he'll be here. Thanks, Anya- for getting here so fast. It's a big help."

"Once again, Xander and his loser friends still in need of the big help."

"Oh whatever!" said captive yells, now having to steer his chair even further in their direction to follow. "So, can you still sense Willow? Knowing her location'd be a real big comfort right about now."

"No, I can't. Which means whatever she's feeling, it's gone way beyond simple vengeance."

"Did I mention me needing the comfort?" Xander gulps, now beyond frantic to be rid of his restraints.

"Whatever we've got, better grab it fast," Buffy says, pacing over to where the books Willow had drained were still piled on the table. "This is one of the first places she's gonna think to look for us."

"Then what are we doing here?" Graham jerks out of his chair. "We may all pull rank on Willow's 'to-kill' list, but why do we have to make it any easier for her?"

"Graham- sit down," the slayer tries assuring him. "Nobody's getting killed. We need to find some sort of magics that'll stop Willow. Or at least slow her down."

"But she drained the place," Gunn reminds them, looking on as they begin rooting through the emptied books themselves. "She took everything."

"Not everything," Anya passes them a weak smile from behind the cash register. She reaches under the counter to pull out a fairly large wooden chest, retrieving a worn book from inside. "Book of protection spells. Anti-magic- our last resort."

"Think you can work this stuff?" Angel asks hopefully. As he watches her give the text a quick once over, his wishful thinking begins to dwindle.

"Ahh...okay. Well, the good news is, text is intact. Bad news is, I can't read a word of it. It's like in, ancient Sumerian or something."

"Let me have a look," Fred calls over, adjusting her glasses as she takes hold of the book. "It's been a little while, but I oughta remember some of this."

Craning his neck to get as close a look as his position would allow him, Xander's meek voice breaks them from their examination of the ancient symbols. "C- can I take a look?" His request is met with two sets of angry eyes and the accompanying 'shut up' from Buffy and Angel. Starting to relax back into his seat, he pauses before addressing the slayer once more. "I just thought, you know, as long as you're protecting me, the least I could do is-"

"I'm not protecting you, Xander," she's quick to assure him. "None of us are. We're doing this for Willow. The only reason it happens to be your lucky day is because if Willow kills you, she crosses a line,and I lose my best friend." Taking an aggressive lurch towards him, she leans down eye-level, getting right in his face. "And I hate losing."

"Well...I- I could help, ya know..." The young man has the decency to show a flash of guilt and remorse as he sputters into his reasoning. "I've dabbled in the magics in the Initiative. I worked that Polaris Stone pretty well."

"I think Willow's in a league of her own about now, dabble-boy," Graham shoots down his former teammate's logic, still somewhat surprised that Harris was even making an offer to help them.

"But still, running that hot for that long, it's just a matter of time before she has to re-charge, no matter how juiced up she is."

"Thank you," Buffy flashes him a pacifying grin. "Now you remember that thing we talked about?"

"About me shutting up?" Her casual shove, sending him a good few feet back across the room is enough of an answer for him. "Right..."

Leaving the others to try and decipher the text, Angel grabs hold of Buffy, gently pulling her off to the side. "Buffy, let's say this works, and we're able to stop Willow for a minute. What then?"

"I talk to her."

"And say what?" he asks, not entirely convinced, even by the slayer's seeming solidity in her purpose. Sensing his rising doubt and lingering apprehension, her nose wrinkles in thought as Buffy runs her hand through her hair, letting out a pensive sigh. "Angel...whatever she's gonna do, he's her next objective," she nods towards Xander. "He's the line she cannot cross. If she were to kill Xander..." She trails off with a sinking feeling, her stomach giving a jump as a flash of dread runs through her at the very thought of what killing her former best-friend would truly do to Willow.

Taking his hand, she leads them back over to join the others, coming to rest alongside Lindsay. "If she's running low on magic then she's probably somewhere right now trying to get it all back."

"But where else besides here would she be able to get a quick boost? I mean, it's not like there's a lot of-"

"Wait..." the young lawyer places a hand on Angel's shoulder, drawing his attention. "I know a place she could go. One of Lilah's favorite clients in Sunnydale- guy named Rack."

"Demon?"

"Not quite," Lindsay turns to face the small blonde. "But he's like black magic personified. He'd be her best source." Without hesitation he makes a dash towards the door.

"Where are you going?" Gunn calls after him.

"Linds, we don't even know if she knows about this Rack guy," Angel adds.

"I'll be fine," he yells back over his shoulder, reaching a hand out for the door. "I won't be long."

Within five minutes of steady running, Lindsay had traveled a few good blocks across Sunnydale. Upon turning a sharp corner, his head comes into blunt contact with another. “Umpph!” Raising a hand to his head, he glances over to see who he'd had run into. “We always seem to be butting heads,” he faintly smiles at Oz, recalling the rocky start the two had gotten off to upon the Bronze's owner first throwing the musician out of his newly acquired club. “You alright?” he asks, helping the young man to his feet.

“Yeah- where are the others? What are you doing out here?”

"Everyone's fine- they're back at the shop." Grabbing his arm, he spins Oz around back in his intended direction. "Come on."

"Where're we headed?"

"To help Willow..." The rain still pouring down over the darkened city, cold and hard, the two rush down the street, trying to glide in between the pounding, stinging drops in their hurry.

From his out of the way spot alongside the nearby warehouse, a solitary figure looks on in amusement at the sight. Sure- he'd liked Lindsay. Even played guitar with him once or twice back in LA at the familiar offices of Wolfram & Hart; and his particular species of demon wasn't usually the music-lovin' type. He had to admit it- human or demon, you really couldn't help but like Lindsay. "Fortunate for me," he muses aloud, reaching into his pocket with his right hand, his left carrying a small, leatherbound book, "I happen to like money even better."

"Yeah- put me through to Ms. Morgan," the creature grins into the phone, eager to share his news. "Lilah...you were right. McDonald's headed to Rack's as we speak."

"Well you just made my night, Sorel," she smiles wickedly from her seat. "There may just be hope for you yet. Who knows- when you get back to LA, our team might be able to represent your unfortunate case afterall," she lies, already plotting the easiest way of disposing of the latest, and up until now, most worthless demon to walk into their offices once he finishes up her latest request for a favor. "You have the book?"

"Of course," he gives a quick check, reassuring himself of the fact as he tightens his arm around the text's binding.

"Just make sure Lindsay takes it back with him to Anya's little shop."

"And then what?"

"Then...we let Willow work her magic."

*****

TBC...

Next Chapter...

Back to Skylar's Fluff Courses
Back to Lit Department