"Immortal Beloved..." CXXXV...
PG-13
Disclaimer: If ya are fan-fic writers, where's your disclaimers? Disclaimers? We ain't got no disclaimers...I don' need to show you no stinkin'...No, Joss, no...I make no claims, put that thing down!
It's all yours and ME's...
Spoilers for Angel to the bitter end...Flee at once!...
Summary: Though the standard IB format, one of (135) versions of events following the end of Angel S5 episodes from "Girl in Question" through to "Not Fade Away" and beyond... (Not a continuous story, though some are multipart...)
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"Are you sure?…" Angel eyes William…
"Pretty sure…" sigh…
"Really…?" looks over to group of assorted demons, vamps, occasional well-heeled corporate human types…All clustered rather respectfully about a slight blonde female of human aspect, in rather dashing red and black ball gown…Hair elegantly piled, with tiara…
That look a somewhat more difficult thing to do that one might imagine… Both of our heroes currently swinging upside-down, bound and hanging from cables…Though only about twenty feet up…
"Angel…Don't be a putz…" another sigh… "She might be annoyed with us, want us out of her life, but even she wouldn't have us in this position…"
Hmmph…Angel shakes head…
And they claim he got to know her better than me…
"Boys…You comfortable?…" Grinning image of Buffy Summers in gown staring up at them…
"Only thirty minutes till dawn you know…I hope the…Suspension…Ain't killing ya…"
Hee…Chuckle…
"Watch…" Will hisses…Giving final rub to loosened shoe on right foot… Which dropped toward the ground…But, to Will's startled surprise…
"Ow!…" the figure howled, jumping back…
Right…Angel, smug look to his swinging…and twisting, slowly in the wind, partner…You know her so well, don't you?…
"It can't be…" Will blinked… "She must have found a way to go solid…"
"Jerk!…" she picked up and threw the shoe, missing him…
First or no, she throws like Buffy…Angel thought…
"Lower them!…" she cried, waving to the hulking demons demoning the pulley system to which their cables were attached…
The boys were lowered slowly until their heads were just above hers…
"Nice touch, girl…" Will, pleasantly… "How'd you manage corporeal?… Lindsay make a deal with you or something?…"
"That's some way to treat your girl, Walthrop…After she's done so much for you…" grin…
"She's gonna give the speech now…" Angel noted…
"Ah right, the Speech…Remember when I was Evil?…I never wasted time with the Speech…Or, the Plan…" Will, nostalgically… "Just grabbed what I needed and came in, fangs out…"
"Are you interested in why I'm going to kill my lovers or not?…" she fumed…
"Girl…Why are you playing this broken record?…" Will did his best to shake head… "We've met, remember?…Or did our destroying you and your army leave you with amnesia?…"
Lovers…She did say…Lovers…Angel noted to himself, pleased…
Not that I need another girlfriend right now…
"You just saw proof I'm the real Buffy…"
"Please…"
"Fine…" she came to him, waved to the demon crew…
He was lowered by a foot…And gasped suddenly as she grabbed and kissed him…
Mmmppphhhff…
She let go…Arch look…
"Was that a trick?…Or real tongue…?"
I did not need to hear that, Angel thought…
"Lovely…Come on…Buffy would join the Partners and overactingly want us dead…Why?…"
"Ah…" grin… "Now I got your curiosity…"
"That was sarcasm, girl…"
"Oh…" slightly crestfallen look…
"Still as we've nothing to do till sunrise…And you obviously are desperate to tell us all…" Will paused…
"That's making a girl feel wanted…"
"You're not a girl…And you're not Buffy Summers…But…" vague hand motion… "Give us the Speech, if you must…"
"I am Buffy Summers…" she frowned… "Of course…I'm the First, too…" she resumed her grin… "And all thanks to my dear Willy-boy…"
"I think she's telling the truth, Spike…" Angel frowned…
"Shut up, you pointy-haired idiot…" she glared…
"Though you are quite correct…"
"Crap…" Will sneered… "You vs. the Greatest Slayer of Them All?…Who whipped your lil' ass thoroughly last time?…"
"I did it for you, Will…" she glared… "And some thanks I get…Betraying everyone and thing I hold dear…Letting the First crawl right back into the world through me…"
"Which of course was always my real plan…" grin… "Though I was willing to give Caleb and the Uber-vamps their shot…"
"Uh-huh…"
"You don't believe me?…Geesh…Angel?…You believe me, right?…I sense it's kinda tearing your guts out…That I'd do something so incredibly…"
"Stupid?…" Will, politely…
"…I was gonna say self-sacrificing…" she frowned… "But fine, 'stupid', if you like…"
"You?…For him?…"Angel stared…
"Bw…Ha, ha, ha…" both Unmen burst into laughter…Rapid swinging and twisting…
"Jesus, guys…" she stared at the two rather dizzy vampires… "Even I can get that this was an incredible act of Love…"
"Buffy coming to LA with a hundred Slayers would be an incredible act of love, girl…" Will smiled… "She don't do possession…"
"She's been possessed…Angel, tell him how I got possessed by a ghost that time…What?…" she looked over to where a demon was waving an arm at her…
"Great…We only got ten minutes now…" she sighed…Damn…
"Better move it along, girl…" Will, helpfully…
Oh, fine…She waved over a demon from the pulley team…"Eh, have the guys bring them into that big warehouse over there…" she pointed…
Eh…Seven feet of something like fossilized pus…Nodded and complied…
"Must be quite a Speech…" Angel noted as the two, still hanging, were towed along toward and then into the large warehouse…
The LA block around them utterly devastated, burning …
"Ok…" the First/Buffy?…nodded…Smile to the boys now swinging rather widely, thanks to the dragging…
"Hey, stop them would you, I'm getting dizzy watching them?….Thanks…So… Now we got a little more time…"
"We should finish them now!…" one of the Senior Partners…One of the humanish, corporate types in suit…Insisted…
"I'm running this show!…" Buffy/The First?…glared… "And I'll say when we destroy my boyfriends!…Hey…" she grinned… "The ultimate female fantasy, eh guys?…"
"Right…So why don't you cut us down and let your ex-s…"
"Ex-?…Will?…Are you dumping me, now?…" she frowned… "Without even hearing the story of what I/she did for you?…"
"Buffy is with the Immortal and has moved on, girl…And I'm good with that…But kudos for a good try…"
"That miserable Andrew!…" she cried… "I shoulda killed him in Rome before I slipped out of England…Damn him and his little jokes!…Well, don't worry Will…I'll have a Slayer disembowel him before the next sunrise over there…"
They trust me kinda blindly, she explained… "Most of them…So what I say goes, even if it might sound a little Evil…Stupid, but along with my slightly diminished but still pretty fair persuasive powers…You know, Will…And that's of course how we'll rule the world through the Slayers…"
"So I'll just tell one of them Andy's returned to Evil, gut and stuff him'…No problem, Will…"
"Uh-huh…"
"I got Giles and the whole remaining Council under Slayer lock-and- key, awaiting trial and execution on my return…" she noted… "You can magine…I told the girls he didn't say a word about you to me, letting you and Angel die when we couldn't get to LA in time to save you … Wanted to control us forever like they always did…That sort of thing…"
"Sure…Fine plan…"
"Angel?…" she turned to face his face, hanging about two feet above her… "You believe me?…"
"She has been possessed, Will…And it sounds like a Partners' scheme…"
"Yeah?…Lemme get this straight?…You got Buffy to just hand over …"
"For you…" she insisted, eagerly…
"For me…Right…And she fell for it, let you in, and you're now about to do global mayhem in her boots…And this was the real plan all along… Not Uber-vamp uber alles…?"
"The Ubies vs. the US military…In daylight?…Come on, Will…Give me credit for half-a-disembodied brain?…A few smart bombs on wherever we were hiding by day and it's over… "
Point there…Angel noted…
"Hans Christian Anderson couldn't have written a more tragic one, girl… I'm weepin'…Now can we cut the crap and you do whatever you plan to do with us?…You know by now, the Council's gotta have figured out Angel's plan or at least noticed your handiwork in LA…And Buffy and several thousand Slayers must be on the way…"
"Some guys…" she glared… "You don't believe I cared enough?…You think I took up with His Pompousity?…That was Andrew's plan to divert attention…That was an actress-Slayer you saw with him…You know, the one who did those Scooby Doo movies…"
She did look like Buf…And she'd be hard up enough, Angel nodded… And Wells kept that secret from us in Rome?…Andrew Wells?…" Will chuckled…
"Giles told him to…You know how he worships Giles…Besides he thought it was hilarious after the way you left me hangin'…"
Literally, I mean…She noted…"They found me on the end of a rope one day…Too Slayer to choke and not enough knowledge of how to do the neck break so I didn't quite manage it…But while I was in the coma…"
Bwwha…Ha, ha, ha, ha…Angel and Will…
Her face fell…What?…
"Buffy tried to kill herself…Over me?…" Will sputtered as he continued laughing…
"Lady…I take it back…"Angel, chuckling… "I don't believe it…"
"You assholes!!…" she shrieked… "William, do you know what I went through after you died?…Again…And when I found out about Cicely…"
This is gonna end badly…I feel it…The Senior Partner who'd spoken up before, hissed to his comrades…
Can't we just blow the building and apologize to her redisembodied lf later?…When she's out of Summers and her fully uncaring self again?…
"Fate Joe…" Mao, his comrade noted… "Fate…"
"Cicely?…" Will stared…
"Well, that's got your tongue…" she noted, crossly… "Yeah, Cicely…"
"Cicely?…" Angel repeated… "Was that the girl you were always going on about but never would go out with Dru to kill?…"
"Yeah…Cicely?…" Will frowned… "Are you trying to say Buffy was jealous of Cicely?…And cut a deal with you 'cause she didn't want me going after her in Heaven or something?…"
"What?…Heaven, No…" she shook her head…
"She went to the archives in London…To look up your last name for a headstone…"
"Nice…Have to thank her…"
"And the idiot Watcher there let her see the files on Cicely Addams Walthrop…Vampire Slayer…"
"What?…"
"Walthrop?…" Angel blinked… "Say, wasn't that your…?"
"William Soames Walthrop…Beautiful name…" she beamed…
"Why would she keep the name?…And what do you mean, vampire-Slayer?…"
"You were married to her?…" Angel stared… "And all that time I thought Dru was being irrational…I mean over her usual…"
"Vampire-Slayer…As in…How could I make such a terribly selfish decision as to love and marry a poor man who'll be vamp-fodder no matter how much I try to protect him…?"
"Really?…"
"You seeing the point at last?…I sent you away to save you…But my Watcher and the Council had other plans…"
"You?…"
"Me…"
"I'm confused…" Angel sighed…
"Like we're surprised?…" she sneered… "Too much blood rushing to that little brain…Guys, put them on the floor…I want 'em both up for this…"
I'm heading home for Hell now…Good luck, boys…Joseph sighed to his mates…Mao and Adolf eyeing each other…
"Maybe we better…" Mao suggested…
"I won't go back from LA…" Adolf insisted… "We must hold every inch of Earth…"
"It didn't work on the Eastern front, Dolf…It won't work here…"
Will and Angel, still trussed up, on the floor now…
"Either of you need some blood…Water…?" she asked…
"A little Marcus would be nice right now…" Angel suggested…
"Funny…" she frowned…Chairs…She waved to her demon crew who brought chairs over…
Thanks…Will told the demon hoisting him into a chair…
"You welcome…" the fur-clad female smiled demurely…Backing off at severe glare from her mistress…
"So where were we?…Oh, yeah…" the First/Buffy? resumed… "So I went to Giles, raging…Cursing…Holding him up by the throat with one hand…Boy, was I pissed…But you remember how he tried to kill you with soul, Will? …Now I knew the real reason he'd done that…And that he'd known about you all along…And that the Council had suspected I'd be back for you… And them…And that Buffy Summers seemed to fit the bill for a Cicely reincarnate very nicely…If not brunettely…"
"Wait…"Angel frowned… "So that means…"
"I was looking for a soulful…If not necessarily souled vamp…When we met…" she nodded… "And that the only thing really between you and me, ex-beau, is that you created the thing that killed my husband…"
Very disturbing turn of events for Buffy…As you can imagine…She noted to the boys…
"Caused the death of her husband…The condemnation of her husband…Dated the thing that helped to kill him…Let the Council hoodwink her again… Failed to help him when he was right in front of her, suffering, for years…Even when he got enough of himself back to love her…Even when he got his soul back without her help…And to top it all off…"
"You can see how this could lead to a major shift in thinking on her part…" she noted…
"She'd never sell out…Not even…"
"Oh, God, Will…You know me well enough to know I thought I could handle me…She/I offered a chance to save you if I agreed to let her have some access…I took the deal and she/I told me where you'd been all this time and the danger you were in…Thanks to our wanna-be Christ figure here…" glare to Angel…
"Unfortunately…Once you let me in…I've a way of taking root…I played the waiting game and didn't push…And over time her anger and sense of betrayal…And Giles' efforts to prevent me from helping you…Pushed me into the driver's seat…" she beamed…
"So I owe it all to my hubbie…"
"Great…" Will frowned… "Brilliant, Cicely…Another fine plan…I think I want a divorce…"
"What?…" her face fell…
He grabbed her, ropes loosened round him, falling off…
"Hey…" she and Angel startled…
"I met Houdini once…Got him a genuine séance with his mother in exchange for a few tips…" he noted…
"So dearest…I guess this means you can die now…" he told her…Rope about her throat…
My minions'll kill you!…" she cried…
"Ok, ma'am!…" Eh nodded…Waving to archers…
"Hold it!!!…" she screamed…
Fine…Eh frowned…
Ever since she went solid she's been so changeable…
"How much longer….?" Will hissed…
"Fifteen, I think…Xander's bringing them in from the south of the city…" she whispered back… "God, did you know all the time?…"
"Pretty much after you didn't kill us right away…You know you're playing with fire, girl…It is the First…"
"Thanks…" whisper… "Nice to get a little respect after the way…"
"I can hold her till the exorcism…" Buffy nodded…
"At least let me kill my partners…" she whispered… "They persuaded me on this one…"
"And Buffy promised I could stay for the wedding…"
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