It was violent. It always was between those two. Their wills had clashed before, but never so dangerously as this. Never when their passions were roused so fervently, their control so dim.

Angel's hands were rough and damning as they claimed her body. His kisses were as silken as ever, but burning with fire, and enraged, as they slid over her. In return, Buffy gave as good as she got. Her nails dug viciously into his skin and he grunted in pained arousal; she ravaged his mouth, tasting every visible part of his body, testing. He tasted the same as Angel, although his response to her passion was rougher, angrier. He tore at her clothes, and Buffy's movements became more confident, more possessive. Her tasting of his skin became her marking her territory. Angelus may be a monster, but he was all she had left of Angel, and damned if she'd lose that. She needed him - and, Buffy thought with a langorous satisfaction as Angel lay her down upon his bed, he needed her too.

In many ways, it was a mockery of the first time they'd made love, but neither much cared. There were no tender touches as he removed her clothing and she his, no murmurred words of love in between their mad kisses - just passion and hunger and desperate, raging need for the other.

But their eyes never moved from each other. Their gazes were locked firmly together, as if that link were all that kept these two enemies sane as they made love.
Angelus surprised her. He had been brutally rough at first, ruining several good pieces of clothing, not to mention a few layers of skin, as he struggled to sate his hunger with her body, her taste. But Buffy had been as violent, so it didn't matter. Only when they were skin to skin, naked and vulnerable before each other, did the madness stop.

Buffy pulled back, gasping heavily, as she looked down at him. She was seated on the bed, Angel kneeled before her. His hands, warmed by her stolen blood, rested on her supple, bare thighs. Angelus broke his gaze away from hers with a dreadful groan.
"What are we doing?" he muttered in horrified confusion as he buried his head against her leg. The ferocious need that had brought them to this situation would not permit him to simply leave at this point. His body screamed its need to possess this woman, but his mind railed in disgust at the mere thought of touching her. He hated her, he wanted to kill her...
Buffy laced her fingers through his hair, stroking his cheek with her thumb lightly. She gave a slight sneer, almost a smirk, as he flinched away from the touch. "What we need to, lover."
Her voice lacked the mockery they both usually used to infuse that word with bitter pain. Perhaps thats what caused it. Angel looked up at her with his cold, black eyes, and Buffy trembled as she saw something in them - something almost human.
"Need..." he groaned, trying to deny it, to at least not condemn himself aloud. But the words rushed out. "I need to touch you, Buffy, to taste -"
Unable to continue speaking, Angel pushed her thighs apart to lower his head and fulfil that need, to sate himself on her taste. Buffy screamed with shock, with ecstacy, with a need equal to his.

Gods, she'd forgotten - memory was such a poor substitute - she'd forgotten how good this felt. Angel looked up, over the flat, taut plane of her stomach, the naked softness of her breasts - her head was thrown back in passionate abandon, and her neck was exposed. He could see the pulse beating frantically in her neck and Angel paused in his actions. He could do it, right now - kill her, taste her perfect blood one last time -

But then the taste already on his tongue overwhelmed him with this new hunger, a need different to the familiar blood-thirst. Angelus wrenched his head away, licking his lips, as Buffy lifted her head, panting frantically.
"Buffy, I lied," Angelus whispered as he climbed over her body, holding himself above her. She looked up at him with confusion. "You were perfect..."
Understanding shone in her eyes, as she recalled his first hurtful comments after his change, damning her ability as a lover. She licked her lips nervously, remembering that pain.
"So sexy -" Angelus almost purred, running his fingertips over her breasts. Her stomach clenched inwardly at the touch and the even more enticing words. Confirmation of her sensuality was important to her self-esteem - which had been badly damaged over the past few months - but took a distant second place to the arousal his black eyes inspired.
"I still hate you," Buffy whispered desperately, trying to counteract his soft words. She saw him flinch - flinch? - and there was real pain in his hellish eyes.
"Don't talk," he demanded, lowering his body to press against hers. She couldn't have, anyway. The sensation of the full, lean, silken length of his body pressed tightly against her own drove all sense from her mind, and the entire language area of her brain packed up and went on vacation.

All she knew was physical sensation. Every smell, every taste, every touch was gratification of the burning hunger she'd endured for the past weeks, and it was seared permanently in her mind. If she was still capable of coherant thought, Buffy would have supposed that, even though she knew Angelus would use this to torment and demean her, she still welcomed it. Needed it. She had never felt anything with such great sensitivity as the feeling of his hands spreading her thighs in anticipation. Buffy remembered the next move and trembled expectantly, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Angel did not breathe, nor did he sweat. But his eyes had never been so dark and huge, as he pushed himself inside her with more gentleness and care than she'd thought a demon could express. The Slayer gasped as she was filled, her body shaping itself around him. For a moment, he just held her close, immobile.

"Angelus?" she whispered, for it would kill her right now to call this man, this lover, by the name of the man she loved.
He lifted his head, looking at her. "I said," and with that growl, he pushed himself deeper inside her, evoking a ragged moan, "don't talk!"
He did it again, and again, and Buffy could only exist through the delicious punishment, the perfect torture.

Angelus pulled her to him with no gentleness at all. Once again their passion became a battle as the demon struggling with his soul raged against the lover bringing it back. He was one moment enraged with her, wanting to kill her, the next almost in love, wanting to watch every motion she made as they made love. So he hovered somewhere in between, cursing her with his mind, even as his body danced with hers in ageless union. Her blood inside him was on fire, burning him alive from the inside out. Her passion in his blood, making him do these things.

"Oh god, Angel -" came her gasp, and he moved within her again, finding pleasure in his power. No other woman had responded to him this way, had put everything she was into this sole act of passion - and, in this case, need. One touch and she trembled. The air felt alive as it caressed them, encouraging them to greater heights. Angelus whimpered, pulling her closer desperately. He needed her touching him everywhere. He pulled her head against his for a kiss that made time stand still, even as he continued moving inside her. They broke apart after eons, she gasping, he stunned into motionless.

"Buffy, I -" Angel had to say something, but he didn't know what. The turmoil in his mind matched the passionate tension in his body. She shushed him with a hard kiss, rocking against him.
"Please, Angelus -" she moaned, needing relief from this torture. She both wanted it and hated the swift-approaching climax, for it would signify the end to this interlude. And Buffy could not accept that yet.
"Not yet, please god, not yet," she whispered, burying her face in his neck. But the natural order would not be so easily denied. These two lovers, so long refused, could not withstand their hunger. Each look, each touch, each movement, sent them spiralling closer to absolution, to gratification of their need.

Angel was drowning in the Slayer... In her body, in her eyes, in her soul. He was fighting a losing battle and he knew it, as each passing moment brought him closer to ecstacy - and restoration. He was sent into further confusions by the physical sensations, the upwards spiral of passion to climax. Each passing moment found his tenderness towards this lover growning, and his internal confusion increasing. His mind was a wild mirror of sanity, lacking true clarify and more closely resembling the reflection of madness.

It was too much, too great a mixture of ecstatic sensation. The return of purity, the passion of love. Angel couldn't take it. Frenziedly, he thrust deep within Buffy, clutching her thin, supple body to him.
"Angel!" she moaned in response, a long, drawn-out scream. Her body shook in a violent extension of her earlier trembling. Inexorable forces took over the Slayer and Angel's passion responded in kind. He threw back his head, eyes flashing as he uttered a gutteral snarl to welcome his sanity back, to defy the madness which had overcome him.

Angel and Buffy rose together from the obscurity of their pain into the simple, pure pleasure of fulfilled passion. As Angel's violent trembling subsided, he clasped his Slayer close, listening to her frantic gasping as it slowed to a normal rate. She whimpered and buried her head against his neck, hiding her face in terror and shame. That frightened sound was his undoing, and Angel slid a hand gently along her sweat-silky waist, over her back and shoulder, hesitating before he pressed his trembling hand to the back of her head. His fingers tangled through her sun-kissed hair, and she moaned softly. Whether in denial or resurging hunger, he didn't know.

The vampire opened his mouth to speak her name - when Hell crashed down around his ears.

The demon, Angelus, threw back his head and howled in grotesque mimicry of his earlier scream of ecstacy. He struggled away from the Slayer, snarling defiance for the punishment of his unholy act. Why had he done this thing? the demon wondered, struggling blindly across the room. He didn't hear his lover's confused exclaimation. A black haze covered his sight as his shattered soul screamed its rage. Angelus shook his head, terrified, blind, helpless before the onslaught of fate. Angelus screamed again, and again, and again, raging against this restoration. Writhing sightlessly, he felt his own demise approaching and, arching his back, opened his mouth and screamed his passing to the uncaring heavens.

Buffy frantically struggled back from her desperately screaming lover. "Angelus?" she cried in alarm, pulling back in horror as he lifted his head, staring blindly at her. His eyes were totally black, truly like pits into hell, but even as she watched, a gold film slid over them, covering them. Buffy trembled as she watched; she should not have done this thing. It had brought no good last time, why hadn't she learnt?! Angelus keened a response to her silent accusations, stumbling away from the bed and crashing against the wall. He fell to his knees, sightlessly scratching at his eyes until blood fell from them, gasping with terror as some unimaginable destiny was pushed upon his tortured soul.

Then... suddenly, he was quiet. Still staring around as though blind, but he'd suddenly stopped writhing, stopped screaming. Buffy slid down off the bed, taking a wary half-step towards him. She remained alert, half-expecting an attack. But slowly, like snow melting, the golden mist faded from his eyes, and they returned to normal. But there was something different. A subtle change in his movements, his expressions, as Angel stared around him with new sight, with a new soul.

Perhaps she was too afraid to hope. Maybe, after all this time, after tonight, she was simply afraid that this hope unrealized would destroy her remaining sanity. But Buffy refused to even consider the possibility, even as she watched her lover's gaze struggle around the room, stopping instantly when it came to her.

Buffy trembled beneath his eyes. They lacked the cold, arrogant inhumanity of Angelus, and somewhere inside a shriek of desperate hope was ruthlessly suppressed. But then he smiled. It was her Angel's smile - soft, shy, tentative. Her lover. Not the demon -

Buffy's voice shook as she spoke one word - a word which carried an ecstacy infinitely stronger than the one which had shaken her body mere moments before.
"...Angel?"

That smile. That damned smile that had haunted her all these past months. Even in the midst of his own pain, he still smiled for her. Buffy took a step back, the trembling of her voice extending throughout her body. She came up against the bed and gasped, hands clenching at the sheets. Angel stumbled to his feet.

No! Not possible! Buffy's mind screamed. He was dead, she'd killed him! Turned him into that demon because she couldn't control herself. As she hadn't controlled herself tonight, betraying all the memories of those Angelus had killed.
"Buffy?" he asked, stepping closer. He looked down at himself, saw he was naked, saw she was too. "What's happening?" He was weak, and very confused, but still Buffy would not go to him. It was too much, and her soul threatened to shatter as his had, at the realization of this unhoped-for heaven. The Slayer didn't realize she was crying until the restored Angel hastily stepped forward, a desperate plea on his lips.
"Don't cry! Please, Buffy..." His fingers brushed away the tears and Buffy froze beneath the touch. A touch instinctively familiar to her.
Her Angel.
Not Angelus.
Angel.
"You came back - Angel -" she gasped against his lips, and he pulled back in confusion at her words. Angel couldn't remember his time as the demon. All he remembered was Buffy, making love to her all night long. It had been perfect... He remembered being truly happy, truly content, for the first time since his mortal days. And then... nothing. It felt like a long time had passed, though, while he remained asleep. Angel grasped at flittering memories, like forgotten dreams, at the edges of his perceptions, but they evaded him. With dawning alarm, Angel realized he'd felt like this once before. A very long time ago, in another land. This confused horror, the amnesia. When his soul had been restored.
The curse.

Images flashed suddenly before his eyes, as he careened back before the onslaught. Willow, Giles - Jenny Calender as his own hands snapped her delicate neck. Gasping, Angel wrenched himself away from his beloved and she blindly stumbled after him. The memories flooded in sharply now, he couldn't fight them.

Buffy... as he mocked her, fought her, tortured her as he had Druscilla. Angel cringed as he heard the words Angelus had spoken to her, before she realized he had changed. He looked up at her, his black eyes brilliant with tears. "Buffy - I'm sorry -"

It was all he could say and it wasn't enough. It would never be enough. Sickened, he fell to the floor and she was beside him in an instant. She reached out a hand to touch his arm, trying somehow in her disbelieving joy to reassure him, an impossible task. He pulled himself away.
"Don't touch me!" he yelled, damned if he'd further taint his lover with his corruption. An echo of those words spoken by Angelus, and the vampire moaned. Angelus had committed the atrocities, but it was Angel who would pay the penance.

"What have I done?" he whispered, staring up at her. He couldn't stand the horrified look in her eyes, and was almost grateful when she evaded his gaze.
"It doesn't matter," she murmurred softly, swallowing hard. "You're back, and he's gone."

For a moment, Angel almost felt himself be reassured, to accept her beloved's gentle forgiveness. But then - through the images of violence and blood and torture there came one sweet, perfect memory.
Buffy. Making love to Buffy.
A second time?
Astonished, Angel lifted his head, his eyes startling clear as they met hers. She had given herself to Angelus? Questions shone brighter than tears in his eyes and, with a whimper, the Slayer fell to her knees beside him.
"I needed you, Angel," she whispered ferociously, tears brilliant in her eyes. "You were gone so long," and the tears flowed swifter, as she cried with soul-shattering intensity. "I saw you in my dreams, and you loved me. And I saw you with my eyes, and you wanted to kill me. I couldn't... and then he touched me..." Struggling to breathe beneath the crushing ferocity of her hysteria, Buffy found sanity in Angel's guilt-stricken gaze. She couldn't quite fathom that it was all over - all the pain, all the torment, the horror of waking up from dreams and nightmares only to have the brutal reality crush her hopes and overwhelm her nightly terrors each morning. Buffy looked up at him. Angel. Not Angelus, he was gone, dead forever. Not only was her enemy dead, but she had her lover back. For which miracle she would thank the stars each night.
"Never leave me again," she pleaded desperately.

"Never," Angel whispered back with equal intensity, and sealed it with a kiss. He couldn't believe he had let that monster that was himself touch Buffy, but he knew he couldn't have stopped it. And, it had brought him back. He didn't fully remember what had happened yet, what he had done. There would be time enough for that horror later. For now, he was alive again, and he had his lover in his arms. Those arms closed around her, pulling her into the safety of his embrace.

Buffy had never imagined she'd be here again. Warm and safe, and loved, in Angel's arms. She lifted her face to his.

"I love you, Angel."

Words she had thought of everyday, remembered every night. Words she had not been able to say to Angelus. Words she had never thought to say again.

His black gaze ensnared her with tender passion, so different from Angelus' harsh, challenging mockery. His heart and his love were in those eyes. He ran his fingertips over her fragile cheek, cupping her tiny face. "I love you too."

Her naked skin slid against his as he kissed her, his lips caressing hers in a manner infinitely tender, infinitely loving. And her lips kissed his in return, and forgave him. Whatever had happened, it could wait. He was with Buffy, he was restored, and just then, nothing else mattered.

She pulled back, and stared into his eyes, needing this one last look to reassure her. That it was her Angel back, in her arms. That he would never leave her again. That they would be together forever. Angel's lips curved into a tender smile that said he understood, and he touched her skin lightly. He kissed her then, intending only that it should seal their reunion. But their emotions had run too high, too fast. Despite the fact that both had physically exhausted themselves mere moments before, their souls took over from sheer need, and dragged their bodies along.

And, as Angel lay his lover down upon the bed, caressing her face gently, his loving gaze locked upon hers - the heavens smiled down upon them.

In the form of one woman, unjustly killed by Angelus' torment, fate observed the completion of its work. The dead gypsy witch smiled gently at the final success of Angel's restoration, which she had begun work upon in life, and completed finally in death.
"Live well," Jenny Calender whispered, casting her benediction upon the two. Then her unseen presence faded, and the innocent lovers continued to celebrate their reunion, unaware of the gift their friend had given them.