The Last Cut is the Deepest

Chapter Eight

Wesley and Fred arrived a few minutes later, and while they, Willow, Faith, Giles and Xander set up for the ritual with Spike looking on, Buffy went out on the veranda to talk to Angel.

She found him sitting on the far ledge outside the enclosure with his legs hanging over the side, dangling twelve stories above the busy street below. She leaned against the wall beside them.

"Do I need to remind you that you won't die if you jump?" she asked softly, trying to start off on a lighter note than they'd been using with each other lately.

He frowned at the skyline of the city a short distance away. "I can't talk to you right now."

His words hurt, of course, but she wasn't surprised to hear them… exactly. She had been so upset with Spike's return, and what it all meant, that she hadn't really given the kind of thought she probably should have to how deeply it was affecting Angel. She resisted the urge to reach up and stroke his back or his hair. The need to touch him was almost painful, but if he didn't want to talk, it wasn't very likely he wanted physical comfort, either.

"Okay, then I'll talk. I just wanted you to know that... I understand," she told him. "I don't approve, but I understand."

"I don't think you do," he replied flatly. "You couldn't possibly."

"No? Hm. Well... I'd say what happened with Faith a few years ago was a reasonable facsimile."

Angel shot her a look over his shoulder. "Faith was never my lover."

"How was I supposed to know that?" she whispered, the pain of that time just as sharp now as then. When Angel had scooped her heart out with a soupspoon by choosing Faith's rehabilitation over Buffy's pain. Of course, that wasn't really what he had been doing… it just felt that way to her. Much as he was feeling about Spike, she figured.

He shook his head in disgust. Were they really having this conversation *again*? Now? "Because I told you in no uncertain terms. And Faith never tried to rape me while professing to be in love with me, either. Now, please. Just leave me alone for a while."

Buffy sighed and leaned over the ledge. "You've been alone for almost four days. Don't you think it's time we talk about this?"

"'This' happened just a few hours ago, for me," he ground out, "You'll have to excuse me if it's just a little much, on top of everything else, to know that you feel the way you do about Spike after he tried to *force himself on you*."

"Faith tried to murder you..." she reminded him.

"And Spike's done that a hundred times over as well. If it wasn't for that chip in his head, he would have killed you a long time ago. Or worse. If you had any clue of the things he wanted to do to you..."

"I know that. Don't you think I know that? But he has a soul now. And if you'll remember, you weren't exactly the poster boy for kindness when you didn't have a soul, either."

"Angelus wasn't your lover! *I* was!" he snapped. "Maybe that line is thin, but it's there."

"It's there for Spike too, Angel."

He hauled himself off the wall and stalked away from her toward the pool. "I don't care. What he did..."

"Tried to do," she corrected him, but stayed where she was.

"Fine. What he *tried* to do to you is unforgivable. And I really can't believe you still defend him with such vehemence... you'd throw me over for him... after he violated your trust that way. You shared something sacred with him, Buffy, and he spit on it. That makes him the lowest form of garbage." He looked up at her finally, and the expression of loathing and distaste on his face made her cringe. "No. This... *atrocity* doesn't come anywhere *near* what we went through with Faith. And I've lost a great deal of respect for *you* that you would make excuses for him simply because he went out and got a soul to manipulate your emotions with. Are you really that that much of a fool? Are you that desperate to have a man - any man - in your bed? It makes me ill. I feel like I don't know you at all."

His cold words sliced straight through her heart, and her eyes filled with tears. "You... you don't mean that. You told me that the things I've done didn't matter."

He took a step closer, replying cruelly, "Well, I didn't have all the facts, did I? You seem to have left out some of the more pertinent parts. No wonder you never wanted to talk about him. You're ashamed. And rightfully so. Just... get away from me. I can't stand the sight of you right now."

She stood there trembling for a long moment, then turned and ran into the apartment, sobbing.

Angel clenched his fists and roared at the night sky, cursing the cosmos, the Senior Partners, the Powers - anyone and everyone who might have been involved in bringing Spike back to demolish their lives.

~

"We can do the truth spell first," Willow suggested to Spike once she'd finished her preparations. "It's pretty quick, and it won't take too much out of either of us. We'll need as much energy as we can conserve for the Litmus spell."

"Fine," the blond said, still holding a steak - of the T-bone variety - over his swollen left eye. "Let's just get it over with, eh? I've got groaning in pain and clutching my shattered ribcage to do."

Willow gave him a sympathetic look. "You're lucky it's not a whole lot worse. Maybe we should wait and do this when you're feeling better."

He shook his head. "The sooner everyone gets it through their thick skulls I didn't have anything to do with getting reconstituted like soup mix, the better."

"Uh... I don't mean to be a Willow-magick-pooper, but... this spell *is* only going to work on Spike, right?" Xander asked, casting a worried glance around the group from his place at the edge of the circle. "Cause there's a whole lot of truth that probably shouldn't get shared tonight."

"Yeah," Faith agreed, "And I'm remembering the last time you cast a `simple' spell, I ended up part of the Stone Menagerie. And I gotta tell ya, falling when the wires broke sucked."

"No, it should be fine," Willow assured them. "This incantation is very specific - only the truth we seek should come out."

"You keep saying `should', that's what worries me." Xander pointed out.

His best friend gave him a glare. "I can turn hundreds of girls into Vampire Slayers. I think I can handle a little truth spell." She glanced around. "Where are Buffy and Angel?"

"Sulking," Xander replied. "Buffy's in the bedroom. Deadboy's out on the porch howling at the moon."

"We need them here," Fred put in. "I've got the energy balanced evenly in the room - I think - but we're going to need all the power we can get."

"I'll fetch Angel," Wesley offered, and moved out to the veranda.

"I'd better check on B," Faith remarked, and headed down the hall toward the bedroom.

"Well, this oughtta be fun," Spike grumbled.

~

Angel was back to glowering at the city when Wesley approached him.

"Angel... we're ready to start the ritual."

The vampire nodded, but said nothing. His colleague came to stand beside him, noting the expression of abject misery on his pale features.

"Do you care to tell me what happened?" he asked, refusing to allow Angel to sink any further into his customary solitary funk. Whatever was happening between he and Buffy needed to be solved - and quickly. The signs reported in the Eternal Flame Prophecy indicated that time was short before the next catastrophic event they would have to face together.

And then there was the more personal matter of his closest friend's happiness...

Angel shook his head in response to the question, remaining silent.

"I realize that things are... uncomfortable right now. But we do need you to focus on the matter at hand," the Englishman reminded him gently.

"If I focus any more, I'll turn to dust," the vampire muttered.

"Did you and Buffy have a falling out?"

His companion snorted bitterly. "You could say that."

Wesley sighed - it was just as he feared. "What happened?"

Angel cast a weary glance over his shoulder toward the bustling living room behind him. "Spike happened."

"Yes. Well, that's all the more reason to perform this ritual, isn't it?" Wesley queried. "We can discover, at least, what sort of power resurrected him, and his involvement in the matter. That should ease at least some of the tension, no?"

"No," the other man replied flatly, "I don't think that will help at all. These problems started a lot more than five days ago, and a couple of spells won't even begin to repair the damage."

Wesley joined him in his vigil over the city, at a loss as to what to say next. What comfort could he offer in such a complicated situation?

"I said some things..." Angel confessed softly. "I hurt her."

"Emotions are running high, Angel. As Spike's condition illustrates. I don't mean to judge, and I understand that you're upset. But was it really necessary to beat him half to death?"

The vampire's expression darkened. "It really was."

His comrade nodded, knowing from Angel's demeanor that any argument to the contrary would be useless right now.

"I think the prophecies are about Spike," Angel added weakly.

The younger man stared at him - he had been pondering that exact possibility since the former vampire's return. At least some of the technical details fit - to his dismay. But...

"Which prophecies?" he inquired, not wanting to put forth his suspicions with the current situation as volatile as it was.

"All of them," Angel replied "Aberjian. The Eternal Flame Scroll - I think we've been operating under the faulty assumption that I was the vampire with a soul in those auguries. But Spike fits the bill... maybe better than I do."

Wesley had been considering the remote chance that Shanshu may have been bestowed on Spike - but he had never for a moment considered him one of the Great Warriors of the newer prophecy. "That's nonsense. Angel, Spike hardly fulfills all the requirements set forth for Shanshu. And almost none of those in the Eternal Flame Prophecy. It's simply a coincidence."

Angel looked his friend in the eye. "He wore the amulet meant for me. He helped Buffy save the world from the First. Now he's human. If I've learned anything in 250 years, it's that you can never take portents and omens at face value."

"Perhaps. But the prophecy about you and Buffy..."

"Could also just as easily be about Buffy and Spike. You see how she is with him - it's obvious - for some unfathomable reason -- she's in love with him."

Wesley startled at that declaration. "Obvious to whom? Certainly not me."

"Then you're blind," Angel snapped. "Look, it doesn't matter. We don't have time for this right now. I want to hear the truth from Spike's mouth."

The ex-Watcher stared after his friend for a moment, taken aback by the easy capitulation to the worst possibility Angel automatically assumed, before following him inside once more.

~

Buffy had finally managed to stop crying, and sat on the edge of the bed in the guestroom, staring blankly into space, when Faith came to fetch her.

The secondary Slayer took note of her friend's anguish, and debated whether to push it aside and demand she shake it off, or to try and soothe some of her pain.

The blonde solved the problem for her. "Angel hates me," she murmured, as though in shock. "He found out everything about Spike, and now he can't even stand to look at me anymore."

Faith felt her pain as acutely as if it were her own. But she also knew what Buffy was saying wasn't true. She had been inside of Angel... she'd seen and felt the depth of his feelings for B. There were bruises there, sure. Little resentments, jealousies, and unhealed wounds. But those only added layers to his love. Made it stronger. Richer. More human and real.

"No, he doesn't," she stated unequivocally. "No way in Hell."

"You didn't see him. You didn't hear the way he talked to me." She sniffled as her eyegan gan to tear up again. "I've never seen him like that. Even when we've fought... even when things were at their worst between us, he never..."

"B..." Faith interrupted gently, sitting beside her and sliding a comforting arm over her shoulders. "He's shook, sure. He's not thinking straight. You gotta give him a chance to think all this through. He'll get past it."

Buffy shook her head. "It won't matter. If he feels the way he said he does... that's something that can't ever be fixed. And now Spike is here... he'll never be able to let it go." She took a sharp breath and let it out with a choked sob, "I think it's over, Faith. We just barely started, and now I've lost him forever!"

The younger Slayer felt her own tough heart break for her two closest friends as Buffy collapsed in her arms, sobbing senselessly in her grief. Faith knew all too well what it felt like to have all your dreams ripped away, leaving you with nothing.

She only wished she'd been able to cry about it the way Buffy currently was.

~