Quickened
by P.H. Wise
A Buffy crossover fanfic
Chapter 17: What Rough Beast
Disclaimer: I don’t own Buffy. I don’t own Angel. I don’t own Highlander. Please don’t sue me. I’m only a poor starving writer. I have no money.
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Rome was burning.
It began in the Vatican City: a torrent of terrible black energy erupting from the elder sign that had bound the Key. The power of Eater of Souls was unleashed, and everything it touched, died.
Worse than died.
Waves of destructive energy pulsed out from the Vatican City, vast tendrils forming and stretching across Rome, pulsing and writhing grotesquely, like bloated, corpulent veins. And all across Rome, hundreds of thousands of humans literally exploded in showers of gore, and a small mote of white light rose from each steaming pile of blood and guts, each of them absorbed by the energy-tendrils with an agonized scream.
More.
And more.
And more.
Hundreds of thousands were worse than dead.
More.
All of them absorbed into the corpulent mass that was the power of Eater of Souls unleashed.
Buildings disintegrated: entire city blocks, gone in the blink of an eye. In an instant, all of Rome was filled with black fire. In an instant, every man, woman and child, demon and otherwise, worse than died: ashes to ashes; dust to dust; soul to flame.
Only those people upon whom Willow had placed her protection were spared. Only the old Watcher’s Academy, upon which the protection spell had been centered, stood fast against the storm.
And in the rubble that was once the Vatican City, Buffy floated, screaming, as the Dark Quickening swept around her and through her, her body shaking like a leaf in a gale.
Her eyes were as black as pitch.
Distantly, she was aware of some portion of the Quickening being siphoned off through her link to Faith. And in that moment, even as the Eater of Souls sought to consume her, she became aware of the others. She could sense them all: every Immortal, everywhere. She could feel the fragments of Osiris within them, and also those fragments that had yet to find a human host, still waiting for their time to be born into the world.
She had one crystalline moment to marvel at the beauty of it all before the power reached its peak, carrying with it the consciousness of Eater of Souls.
And Buffy’s consciousness was swept away in the flood.
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Within the room where she yet lay recovering from her injuries, the power of the Quickening struck Faith with all the fury of a hurricane. Her eyes shot wide open as black lightning crackled madly around her form, utterly destroying both bed and room alike. Even as she began to scream, the world went black.
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Xander blinked. It took several long moments for the devastation to really register with him, but when it did, his jaw dropped open and he stared about in abject disbelief. One moment, he and the others had been fighting for their lives in the Vatican City. A gust of hot air had passed over him, and the next moment, they were standing alone amongst so much rubble. Their enemies were simply GONE.
As was pretty much everything else for as far as the eye could see in any direction.
“Did we lose?” he asked.
It was Kennedy who replied. “If we’d lost, wouldn’t we be dead?”
“Maybe we’re dead, then. We could all be ghosts-YEOW!” Xander’s statement became a yelp in mid sentence as Kennedy reached over and pinched him, hard.
“OK, maybe not ghosts, then.”
Xander shook his head. He had to pull it together here. He glanced towards Andrew, who had sunk to his knees on the rubble and was gazing about in wide-eyed horror.
“OK,” Xander said, “Is everyone present and accounted for? Anyone missing any body parts?”
Some sixteen fingers pointed at his eye-patch.
Xander’s good eye twitched slightly. “Besides that?”
Nobody said a word, but in spite of the gravity of the situation, more than a few of the Slayers grinned at that.
After treating what injuries there were, the group set out in search of Buffy and Dawn. With any luck, those two were still alive somewhere in this rubble.
With any luck.
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Faith awoke lying on the floor of a small wooden cabin. Small, but cozy: one room, with one bed, and two blankets lying on the floor next to it that didn’t look like they’d been used in some time. There was a stone fireplace against the far wall with a cooking pot suspended by a small pole over where the fire would ordinarily burn. Light streamed in through the windows, but it didn’t look like sunlight.
Faith grimaced as she sat up and quickly glanced about.
She was alone.
“OK. Recovering in bed, pain, and now here.” Faith paused a moment, rose to her feet, and then grumbled, “Damn, why am I the one who’s always stuck with these lame vision quests? First Angelus, now this...” She trailed off, shook her head wearily, and then headed for the door to the cabin.
*FLASH*
She stood and watched as two young girls – sisters – raced across an unspeakably beautiful glade, in a small, green valley amongst the snow-capped mountains, with the roar of waterfalls just barely audible in the distance. Joyce Summers sat nearby on a blanket lain out on the grass, with a middle-aged man sitting close beside her, and a picnic spread laid out on the blanket.
Joyce watched her daughters fondly for a few minutes before calling them over to eat lunch. And Faith watched as the family sat down and ate, and laughed, and had one perfect day. Joyce, Hank, Buffy, and Dawn.
*FLASH*
Faith blinked, and once again, she was inside the old cabin. “Ok,” she spoke to the empty air, “what the hell was that?”
The room said nothing.
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“Buffy!” Xander called, his voice echoing loudly across the ruins. Buffy didn’t answer. They had spread out across the ruins in search of her, but had thus far been unable to find the Immortal Slayer.
The silence was unnerving.
Although he had not been in Rome long, Xander had grown used to the constant hum of the city’s background noise. But now, the only noise was what he, Andrew, and the Slayers caused.
Every scrabbling up and down a pile of rubble was deafening.
Every cough, every word, every call was preternaturally loud.
Just as the silence began to grow positively oppressive, Xander reached the top of a small rise, and found himself standing on the edge of a large crater, several hundred meters across. The surface had been turned to glass, and in the center, Buffy stood alone, her eyes shut, and her clothing in such tatters that one would almost think that she’d lived through, say, an Apocalypse. That crazy axe-stake thing that she insisted on calling a scythe lay forgotten at her feet.
“BUFFY!” Xander called as he scrambled down the side of the crater towards the Slayer. “SHE’S HERE!”
Buffy opened her eyes and looked towards Xander.
Her eyes were completely black.
Black within black.
“Interesting,” she said, running her hands over her body for a few moments. “I’ve never been a woman before.”
Xander’s mouth went dry, and he felt that horrible sinking feeling that usually meant that the floor had just fallen out from under you.
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“They smell good, don’t they?” Buffy asked.
Faith turned around, only to find herself standing in the spare room in the Summers home. Only now it was all cleared out, and ready for... who? Faith shook her head. That didn’t matter now. “What?” she asked.
The sun shone through the curtain lace, and shadows washed the room. It was late afternoon in Sunnydale.
Buffy smiled. “Clean sheets. Like summer.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Buffy’s smile vanished. “Right. I forgot.”
There were two pinecones on the clean white sheets.
Faith frowned. “B, you ever get the feeling you’ve done this before?”
“There’s nothing new under the sun,” Buffy said, and it sounded like she was making a quotation.
Faith raised an eyebrow. “Where’d you pick that one up?”
“He told me.”
“He?”
Buffy nodded, gesturing vaguely off to the left. “He.”
Faith turned and looked.
A tall, horribly gaunt figure of a man stood in the corner, dressed all in black, watching the scene unfold with great interest.
Faith shivered. “Why’s he here?”
“This is going to be his room now.”
That seemed wrong, though she couldn’t quite put a finger on why. “You sure this is supposed to be his room?” Faith asked.
Buffy nodded. “He said so.”
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“Buffy?” Xander asked, his expression hopeful.
She ignored him, and instead looked down into the reflective surface of the crater floor. “Hmm,” she mused at her reflection.
Xander’s countenance fell. “Eater of Souls?” he asked in a hopeless voice.
At that, Eater of Souls turned and looked at him. “Yes, I remember that. What they call me. Not my name, but what they call me.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Who are you that presumes to speak to me?”
“Where’s Buffy?”
“Buffy is the name of this shell,” she mused. “Her memories are very interesting.” Eater of Souls grew angry, then. She held out her hand, and a sword forged of purest darkness appeared in her grasp as she moved towards Xander. “You think that because you knew her you can speak to me with such a tone?”
Kennedy came over the rise, then, with Rona at her side. She took in the situation in an instant, and then rushed down to retrieve the Scythe that yet lay forgotten in the center of the crater.
Clear-eyed and determined, Xander did not flinch from the creature’s approach. “Buffy,” he said, meeting her black-eyed gaze, “I know you’re in there somewhere...”
That certainly did not please Eater of Souls. She raised her sword and prepared to cut the young man down. “You seek to save what is rotten through,” she hissed.
The black sword descended.
Xander clenched his eyes shut.
A loud clang of metal on metal echoed across the crater. Xander opened his eyes, and quickly patted his arms and legs to make sure that nothing was missing.
Kennedy, wielding the Scythe, had parried the blow.
Her will was set – she would not yield. Through her Slayer abilities, she could plainly sense that Buffy had become Something Else, and she wasn’t about to let that Something Else hurt her girlfriend’s best friend. “Get away from him,” she said.
Eater of Souls’ eyes narrowed.
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Faith shook her head. She couldn’t seem to think clearly – it felt as though her head was wrapped in cloth. There was something about this room... something she should know. She certainly didn’t like the look of the Gaunt Man, whoever he was.
Her eyes widened slightly as she came to a sudden realization. “Isn’t this Dawn’s room?” she asked.
At those words, the room and everything in it shattered like glass. When the world returned, she stood with Buffy and Dawn atop a strange tower, with the portal crackling below, and the sun rising in the distance.
Before Faith could so much as get her bearings, Buffy ran and leaped from the tower, falling into the portal... and then through it. She hit the ground, quite dead.
Dawn screamed Buffy’s name soundlessly.
Buffy stepped out from behind the dark Slayer. “Dawn,” she said. “I remember.”
“I get that. Did we really need a show and tell?”
Buffy’s expression cleared, then, and for the first time, she really seemed to see the other Slayer. “Faith,” she said, “What are you doing here?”
Faith shrugged. “You tell me, B. It’s your head we’re in. I think.”
Buffy opened her mouth to reply, but in that moment, the Gaunt Man appeared on the tower, and Buffy’s eyes instantly lost focus, and she fell silent.
Faith turned towards the Gaunt Man.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” he informed her in a cold, deadly voice.
Faith laughed. “That’s my line.”
The Gaunt Man’s face twisted into an expression of incalculable hatred, and faster than the eye could perceive, he lunged at her, his hand at her throat.
Caught off guard, Faith fell. And the Gaunt Man fell with her: into the crackling portal.
The world was swallowed by fire.
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Kennedy faced off against Eater of Souls, the scythe set against the blade of darkness. Their eyes met, and their wills clashed silently in a moment that seemed to stretch out for all eternity.
And then Eater of Souls threw off Kennedy’s attack, pivoted, and brought the sword around to cleave her in twain. Kennedy leaped over the blow, kicking Eater of Souls in the face as she flipped backwards and out of range. Eater of Souls staggered for a bare second before recovering and sending sword in search of flesh.
The other Slayers gathered around the rim of the crater and watched as one of their own fought against the beast that had taken their leader’s body. Both fought as true masters, and the ring of metal on metal filled the air again and again in peculiar rhythms.
And Xander watched, his jaw slightly agape.
That was how Willow found him with her telepathic probe. *Xander, what’s happening?*
He told her.
There was silence on the other end of the link.
*Do you have any ideas?* she sent at last.
Xander thought about that for a moment. *... Does Giles still have that gourd?*
After a few moments, Willow sent her reply. *He does.*
Xander gave a mental nod. *OK, Will, here’s the plan...*
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Through fire and darkness, they fell.
Through death and pain, they fell.
And then they fell into glory.
The Gaunt Man released Faith and shrieked in agony as they landed in the midst of a vast green country. And then he was gone.
Wearily, the dark slayer rose to her feet.
What she saw then took her breath away.
Before her a vast green country stretched endlessly as far as she could see. The mists of dawn curled gently over the surface of the shining lake, and through the trees all around, and over the rolling hills. Nothing here was unfamiliar. The lake was a lake, and the hills were hills, and the trees were trees, and they were yet unlike their earthly cousins; more awful, more divine. In the far distance were great mountains, and it seemed to her that all the land led that way, towards the mountains, and towards the cities that she could dimly see perched upon their peaks in the predawn light.
But most of all, the whole place felt like she had gotten out. And really OUT. There was a delicious sense of freedom here, and such a sense of being outdoors that it made the whole of the solar system seem a cozy, indoor affair.
She knew that there was far more here than what she was seeing. Somewhere deep within, she could feel the coldness that had knotted itself around her heart begin to melt away. She felt as though she had come home – as though this was where she BELONGED, and had always belonged, and that all of the things that she had wanted so desperately in her life had only been wanted because of what they reflected of this place.
And then it was gone.
She saw a flash of Buffy’s eyes staring down at her, and two words were spoken: “GET OUT.”
She was falling, with the Gaunt Man’s hands around her throat. Out of death and darkness, out of pain and fire.
She landed on the grass of Yosemite, with the Summers family enjoying their picnic close at hand. Screaming in fury for the sense of terrible loss that she felt at having been removed from that far green country, Faith threw the Gaunt Man off of her and rose to her feet.
The Gaunt Man wavered unsteadily. That place had burned him to the core, and it showed. Yet still he stood and did battle with the dark slayer.
Yet still did he have more than enough power to match her blow for blow. Match her, and more.
Battle was joined.
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All it took was one misstep, and the battle was lost.
With a resounding clang, the scythe went flying out of Kennedy’s hands. Her eyes widened in shock as Eater of Souls ran her through with the dark blade.
Or rather, tried to.
Even as the black sword connected with Kennedy’s chest, there was a violent flare of protective magic, and both Slayer and monster were sent flying. Kennedy hit the crater wall and was instantly knocked unconscious. Eater of Souls, however, recovered more easily.
Rising to her feet, the thing wearing Buffy’s body grimaced distastefully. “Magic,” it sneered.
The other Slayers moved forward to meet Eater of Souls in battle, then, but Xander forestalled them with a raised hand.
He stepped forward. “Buffy, if you can hear me,” he said, “then FIGHT. We’ve stopped too many of these things to be beaten now.”
Eater of Souls sneered. “Do you have another crayon speech handy, Alexander Harris?” she asked, clearly gaining access to more and more of Buffy’s memories. “The one you seek is dead. Her soul was the fuel for the fire of my rebirth.”
Xander shook his head, smiling faintly. “I don’t have any more crayon speeches. But it does apply. I really do love you, Buffy.”
“Very touching, boy,” she said, “But it won’t save you.” Eater of Souls struck him down, then, smashing the flat of her sword into the side of his head.
Xander fell.
And in that moment, the spell being cast at Xander’s behest back at Slayer Central was completed, and Giles and Willow were suddenly there with him.
He rose to his feet, his eyes golden, and filled with new strength.
“Maybe not,” he said, and his voice rang with the overtones of Giles and Willow’s voices, “But we do have some surprises left.”
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Battle turned to desperation, and desperate battle soon turned to true despair, and Faith fell before the Gaunt Man. Her blood splattered on the green grass as he continued to rain down blows. She continued to struggle, but it was clear at this point that she had no hope of victory.
Even as he rained down blow after blow, Faith’s eyes met the eyes of the younger Buffy. “B...” she called weakly, “Help me...”
The Gaunt Man stepped back, allowing Faith a few moments reprieve. “There is no one who can help you here, girl. You’re all alone. There’s no one to save you. No one who cares.”
Young Buffy turned towards Faith and the Gaunt Man, but said nothing. Joyce tried to get her to eat the rest of her sandwich, but she ignored her mother. Two pinecones lay at her feet: the same two pinecones that had lain on the bed not long ago.
Faith spit in the Gaunt Man’s face, and the spit was full of blood.
“Now,” he said, producing from his coat a dagger covered with evil runes, “Die.” He brought it down, aiming it directly at Faith’s heart.
And young Buffy spoke. Shouted. Screamed. “NO!”
She scooped up the first of the pinecones and flung it at the Gaunt Man.
It exploded on impact, blasting him off of Faith and into the nearby creek.
He rose, spluttering, enraged beyond all reason. “YOU DARE!?” he bellowed.
Young Buffy looked down at the second pinecone thoughtfully, and then crushed it in her hand. A green fog swirled out of the crushed pinecone, surrounding her, and obscuring her from view.
When the fog dissipated, it left the Slayer in its wake.
“I dare,” she replied evenly.
And for a final time, the world crumbled.
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Eater of Souls closed her fist around the black sword, and it vanished. “I think you’ve troubled me for long enough,” she said, her eyes full of hatred. “I think it’s time that you all died. And as you suffer forever in the worst of the hells, you will know the extent of your folly in challenging a member of the Black Thorn.”
And the power of Eater of Souls was unleashed once more.
It flowed out from Buffy’s body in a torrent of purest darkness, seeking to consume all that stood before it.
Xander held up a hand and began to chant Latin, and the dark power stopped short of him; stopped short of the Slayers.
Eater of Souls’ anger grew in leaps and bounds. “You will NOT stop me,” she hissed.
In that moment, she put forth all of her power, and all of it aimed at the destruction of her enemies.
The protective magic of Xander, Willow and Giles began to crumble.
And In that moment, the Slayer awakened.
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Faith awoke in the shattered remains of her room and sat up. She surveyed the destruction for a few seconds, and then shook her head and spoke to the empty room. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing, B.”
Even as she spoke, the memory of That Place rose up within her. Buffy’s memory of That Place. Its loss was as a physical blow.
Faith shook her head, and wiped her eyes, and tried not to cry.
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As Faith vanished, Buffy approached the Gaunt Man fearlessly.
He watched her as one might watch a dangerous snake, uncertain of what she intended, but fearful nonetheless. “What exactly do you think YOU can do? This is my body now, and soon, it will be my mind as well.”
Buffy looked down at what she yet held in her hands. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe this.” And with that, she flung the shards of the crushed pinecone at the Gaunt Man.
He snorted contemptuously, batting the shards out of the air. Or rather, attempting to bat them out of the air.
The shards of wood tore right through his hand, through his chest, through his face, through flesh and through bone. He staggered, and screamed in agony. “WHAT MAGIC IS THIS!?”
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Eater of Souls staggered suddenly, her eyes widening in shock. A strange green light began to build around her body – Buffy’s body – and she sank to her knees.
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Buffy shook her head. “So you’re Eater of Souls? Gotta tell you, I’m not impressed. Big with the lightshow, big with the pain and destruction, but when it comes down to it, you’ve got nothing.”
Green light began to bleed out of his injuries as he struggled to regain his balance. Dawn’s light. “I have devoured far more powerful than you,” the Gaunt Man hissed. “This is MY body now, MY mind!”
Buffy replied, and as she did, she felt as though another were speaking through her, and her voice resonated in strange ways through the pollen-speckled air of Tuolumne Meadows. “Fool,” she said, “do not boast. Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind with all thy charms, although this corporal rind thou hast immanacl’d, while Heav’n sees good.” (1)
Even as she said it, Buffy marveled that she would ever say such a thing. Her wonderment was cut short, however, as the Gaunt Man’s wounds began to glow ever brighter, and his scream of agony once again filled the air.
He exploded in a terrific blast of green light.
Her ears ringing in the wake of the detonation, Buffy took a moment to fix her hair before looking around. “OK... now what?”
Dawn stood up from where she had been eating with Joyce and Hank Summers. And suddenly, she was no longer a four-year-old Dawn, but a fully-grown modern day Dawn.
“Buffy,” she said.
Buffy turned at the sound of her name. She stood in silence at first, looking at Dawn with a searching expression, not sure whether she should trust her eyes or not. At length, she spoke. “Dawnie?” she asked, her voice cracking with emotion.
Dawn smiled warmly. “It’s me.”
Her eyes guarded, Buffy looked closely at her sister, wary for any kind of trick, and yet... and yet just daring to hope...
Dawn rolled her eyes, clearly understanding what was going through Buffy’s head. “When I was four, and we were on vacation in Yosemite, I took your Jem lunchbox, and I threw it into the creek. After Mom spanked me for it, do you remember what I gave you to make up for it?”
“Two pine...” Buffy’s expression darkened. “Hey that was my favorite lunchbox!” Her anger passed quickly, however, and a beatific smile lit up her face soon after. She ran to Dawn and caught her in a bone-crunching hug.
“GAAAH! BUFFY! OXYGEN!” Dawn yelped, but she wasn’t upset. She returned the hug with everything she had.
“I saw you die, Dawnie...” Buffy whispered as she finally released the younger girl from her Slayer-enhanced embrace.
“I know.”
“How...?”
Dawn met Buffy’s gaze, and for a moment, Buffy saw what lay beyond her sister’s eyes. She saw the unimaginable, monstrous presence that lurked there. And she saw the humanity that had taken root within, and spread all throughout the fabric of Yog Sothoth’s being, and the goodness that was even now bringing about something that had once been beyond the realm of possibility: the redemption of an Old One. And all throughout, she saw Dawn.
“How...?” she asked again, staring, bewildered and wide-eyed.
Dawn inclined her head. “Buffy, that is not dead which can eternal lie, and within strange aeons, even death may die.”
Buffy nodded faintly, still shocked by what she had seen, and clearly not sure how to take this new bit of news.
They stood there for several moments, neither one saying a word. It was Dawn who broke the silence. “I have to go, Buffy,” she said. “I just had to make sure you would be all right before I went. But I have some things I have to figure out. Like, well, the life and times of me.” Dawn’s lips quirked into a faint smile, “Turns out I’m like a bazillion years old.”
That snapped the Slayer back to reality. “Will I see you again?” she asked, her voice filled with concern and love in equal measure.
Dawn’s faint smile grew into a full-blown grin. “Definitely.”
“Don’t stay away too long, ok?”
Dawn smiled. “I won’t. But right now, you’ve got something you still have to do. Your friends need you, Buffy. The other Slayers need you.” And then she stepped back and vanished in a swirl of green light, leaving Buffy alone in the empty bedroom.
Buffy stood in silence for a moment. And then she nodded, her face set with determination. She could feel the spell that Giles and Willow had cast calling to her, urging her to lend her aid. She knew what she had to do.
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In that moment, Buffy’s power joined once more with that of Willow, Giles, and Xander.
In that moment, the power of Eater of Souls crumbled before them, and it and all of those that it had absorbed were taken up into Buffy, and through her, into the others Slayers, and into the Slayer line.
The blackness in Buffy’s eyes lifted, and she fell bonelessly to the ground.
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Xander sank to his knees as the spell ended, and the Slayers rushed to his side, even as they each felt a rush of strength as the Eater of Souls met its end.
Back at Slayer Central, Faith felt it most strongly of all.
Xander looked towards Buffy’s fallen body. “Did we win?” he asked.
Vi shrugged. “I sure hope so.”
“Good enough,” he said, and then fainted.
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The other Slayers took Buffy, Xander, and Kennedy back to the former Watcher’s Academy and tended to them for the next few days. Willow and Giles were none the worse for wear after their experience, but Xander didn’t wake up for several hours. Kennedy recovered first, her Slayer healing lending to a very speedy recover.
Buffy, on the other hand...
When the first day passed and she didn’t awaken, the others began to worry. Another day passed, and still she lay unconscious on her bed. Another, and another, and soon a week had passed since the incident, and still she had not stirred.
The former renegade Watchers were sent on patrols throughout the city to locate other survivors, and to see what, if anything, could be salvaged from the ruins. Of those who had not been under Willow’s protective spell, there were only a few hundred survivors. Supplies enough were located to keep the Academy functional for at least another couple of weeks.
The military quarantine of the city was still in effect, and they did not need to worry about outside interference for at least the few more days that it would take the government to determine that it was safe to allow people to enter the area again.
But it was then, as the Academy’s generators had finally begun to run low on petrol, and just as they had begun to consider moving Buffy to a hospital in another city, that Angel arrived in the ruins of Rome.
He had tried to gain entry the day after the incident, and had been caught and detained by the authorities. After a quick escape, and taking several days to wait for their vigilance to slip, he finally successfully made it past the quarantine.
He walked alone through the starlit ruins, but his path was sure. Over craters and through shattered homes and broken streets he wended his way, drawn ever onwards by the knowledge that somewhere in this wreckage, he would find Her.
At last, he arrived at the gates of the only building still standing in what had once been Rome: the Watcher’s Academy.
Xander was on guard duty with one of the new Slayers. While the city certainly seemed empty, that was no reason to relax. Who knew what supernatural beasts might have been spawned by the deaths of so many. He was pacing back and forth, a lantern in hand (they didn’t have power enough to spare to charge batteries, but they had plenty of kerosene).
“Xander,” Angel said.
Xander stiffened immediately, turned, and directed a baleful glare at the ensouled vampire. “Deadboy,” he replied. “You missed the Apocalypse.”
“Where is she?”
Xander gave Angel a long, searching look before nodding to the Slayer at his side. She quickly opened the gate, and Angel stepped through.
“She’s inside,” Xander said, pointing to the dormitory that housed Buffy’s room.
Through the silent courtyards and through the training grounds he went, ever onwards towards where he knew She would be waiting.
He found her lying asleep in her bed, an IV drip connected to her arm. Willow was asleep in a chair in the corner, with Kennedy asleep in her lap. There was an empty chair at her bedside, and there he sat. “I came for you,” he whispered, his heart growing warm at the sight of her.
Willow stirred in the corner and opened her eyes. “mngel?” she asked, her voice thick with both sleep and confusion.
Buffy lay still and cold, her shallow breathing the only sign that she yet lived.
Gently, he knelt down and kissed her.
And she awoke.
A coincidence, perhaps: or perhaps a kiss of true love really does have a kind of magic. Angel woke her with a kiss. Her eyes shining, she kissed him back.
“Hi,” he said, and his voice full of love.
In that moment, before the memory of horror and death returned to her, Buffy smiled. “Hi.”
END EPISODE 17
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(1) You get a cookie if you can name the reference. Another cookie if you can figure out why Buffy said it (and no, ‘because you wrote it’ does not count).
