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Reprise Revised	By : Maren Category: Angel the Series > Het - Male/Female Views: 4248 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Angel: The Series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 8
- 9
- 10
Email: marenfic@yahoo.com

Spoiler Warning: Angel Season 5 up to You�re Welcome�I�ve diverged at YW.

Disclaimer: I don�t own any of these characters, and I won�t be profiting off
of them.

Pairing: B/A and
Wes/F

Feedback: This is my first fic, so I�d appreciate feedback. Thanks to everyone who has emailed or
reviewed so far.

Author Note: italics generally indicate thoughts, although
if it�s only one word it indicates emphasis

************************************************************************

It had been a week since Angelus had disappeared, and the
natives were getting restless. There had
been murmurings in the demon world that he was around, but he still wasn�t
showing up on the Wolfram & Hart tracking devices and they couldn�t get any
information on just where he might be living or what he was planning to
do. As of yet, he hadn�t made a move on
anyone. Buffy and Faith had stepped up
their nightly patrols, trying to draw Angelus out of the woodwork by using
themselves as bait. Both slayers had
reason to believe that he would welcome the opportunity to kill them. They were surprised and worried that he
hadn�t shown up yet.

It was still relatively early for them to be on patrol, but
both slayers had energy to burn. Buffy
felt a camaraderie with Faith that she hadn�t fully felt since right after the
dark-haired slayer had arrived in Sunnydale.
Now Buffy felt even more connected to Faith. When she had helped to take down the First,
Buffy had been assured of her return to the good fight. They had begun to slowly repair their
relationship and the last week had nearly cemented their bond again. Really, though, Buffy had to admit to herself
that it wasn�t even Faith�s help with the First that had allowed her to see her
sister slayer in a new, more accepting light.
It was Buffy�s own flirtation with darkness after her return from
Heaven, her understanding of what it felt like to feel alone and abandoned in a
world that expected you to save it day after day, year after year, that had let
her open her heart to Faith again. She
had a new understanding of what it meant to want to lose yourself in darkness,
and the daily struggle it was to pull yourself back from the brink. Buffy missed the innocence and relative simplicity
of her life that had let her hate Faith, but she was glad that they were
fighting together now.

They were walking toward an abandoned warehouse where a
source had said it had seen Angelus the night before when a terrified scream
ripped through the warm night air.

�Hear that, B? Sounds
like we might be in business,� Faith said over her shoulder as she broke into a
run towards the building.

�I might be more excited if this job actually paid,� Buffy
yelled back, sprinting at Faith�s heals.

They reached the large metal docking doors of the warehouse
together and Faith slowly and quietly rolled the loading door up. Buffy pulled a stake out of the back waist of
her jeans and ducked under the door to precede Faith into the warehouse. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to
the darkened interior. When they did,
the sight that met them was grotesque.
The massacred bodies of at least a dozen demons littered the floor, a
trail of oozing green blood and entrails leading back into the shadowed,
cavernous interior.

Buffy turned slightly when she heard Faith whisper behind
her, �Looks like we missed the main show.�
Buffy nodded and gestured for Faith to follow her deeper into the
darkness. The warriors moved through
the empty warehouse quietly, stepping around the dead demons and their
scattered guts. All of their senses were
attuned to the shadows. As they neared
the far wall, a barely discernable sound reached their ears. It was the rasping, painful last breaths of a
dying creature. In just a few more
steps, a blue-skinned demon came into view.
It was sitting against the wall, a trail of fluorescent green blood
streaked behind it indicating the trail it had taken in the fall.

Faith moved in with the speed and grace of a cat and pressed
her stake against the throat of the dying demon.

�Looks like things didn�t go your way here. Mind sharing what went down?� she asked.

The demon looked from Faith to Buffy and back before drawing
another painful, rattling breath.

�Something. . . . coming,� the demon gasped before
collapsing just a little more. �Demon wars
. . . we were trying to leave . . . stopped by our enemies.� The blue demon coughed and Faith was
splattered with a spray of the green blood that spewed from its mouth. �Called traitors to the Dark One. The Dark One. . . coming,� it choked out
before sighing its last breath.

Faith stood up and looked down at her blood-soaked
shirt. �Man, another one bites the
dust�and I don�t mean the dead guy here,� she groused. Shifting her eyes up until they met Buffy�s,
she said �So any bets on who the Dark One is?�

Buffy shrugged her shoulders in confusion, a hard look on
her face. She wasn�t sure whether to
hope that the Dark One referred to Angelus or not.

�We should probably go back, run it by Wes,� Faith
suggested, and Buffy nodded in response.
Buffy was slightly intrigued by Faith�s quickly expressed willingness to
involve Wesley in the action, although not as surprised as she had been when
she and Willow and offered to share
their quarters with the other slayer and she had declined. She said she was �comfy� where she was, and
when Buffy had stolen a glance at Wes to make sure he was comfortable sharing space with a woman who had tortured him
just a few years before, she saw him let out a deep breath as though he had
been holding it while waiting for Faith�s answer. In fact, she could have sworn he looked a
little relieved when Faith had turned them down.

Buffy shook her head a little, as though to clear her
thoughts, and followed Faith out of the warehouse. She made a mental note to have someone in
Angel�s crew send over a team of cleaners.
Her thoughts quickly turned anguished when his name flitted through her
mind. Angel�I�m so sorry.

The last few days had been some of the most trying days of
her life. When they had unwittingly unleashed
his demon when she was 17 it had been terrible.
Nothing in her life before or since could ever compare to the torture of
having to send Angel to hell, and then having to live with the aftermath of
what their pure, good love could do to the world if they allowed themselves to
feel it. As hard as she tried, Buffy
could never understand how something as light, as strong, as true as the love
that they felt for one another could have such dark, evil consequences. Then
again, I�ve kind of had to adopt �life�s a bitch� as my mantra�the only problem
is that I can�t seem to get the �and then you die� part to stick, Buffy thought.

The one positive thing that had come out of this current incarnation
of the mess that was her life was her renewed friendship with Willow. The barriers between them had melted away and
now they were concentrating on learning about one another again, on allowing
themselves to recognize and accept the changes that each woman had gone through
since high school. Their deep love for
one another formed a strong base and they were both a little surprised at
quickly they were rebuilding a friendship that was becoming stronger than it
had ever been.

Buffy was grateful for Willow�s
acceptance of her weaknesses and her refusal to allow Buffy to shut down her
emotions and go into brittle robo-slayer mode after what had happened. In fact, just last night her friend had
gotten her to admit that as much as she was devastated by having lost Angel�s
soul and bringing forth Angelus again, she was also more than a little angry
with Angel�angry that he had hidden the news from Spike from her like she
didn�t matter, angry that he had put himself at risk by joining the Wolfram
& Hart team, and even a little angry that he hadn�t had the self-control
that she lacked (even though she realized how unfair that was). In fact, Willow had been so good at drawing
out her anger at Angel that even the old, long-suppressed rage that she had
worked hard to push deep inside of herself tumbled out of her mouth.

�I hate that he
decides what is best and he doesn�t leave any room for compromise. I have been so mad for so long that he left
me after graduation and that wasn�t even the worst time. That time a part of me thought he was right,
that we couldn�t have a chance at a normal life together. Then I found out that I would never have normal, but he still kept
leaving. I needed him after mom died, I
needed him after I came back�but he didn�t care. I didn�t get a say�I�ve never gotten a say. I hate that I don�t feel like I�ve ever had
any choices in this relationship, that I have no control, and sometimes I hate
myself for not being able to be the one to walk away and take the control back. It just pisses me off!� Buffy had been
sitting on the bed when she started, but by the end of her tirade she was
pacing across floofloor, gesticulating wildly, and breathing a little
hard. After the last words had left her
mouth, great, racking sobs shook her tiny frame and she had buried her face in
her hands.

Willow had been
a little taken aback at Buffy�s outburst, but she quickly moved to comfort her
friend. To Buffy, the raging tears had felt
cleansing. Sharing some of her deepest
and most carefully guarded emotions had almost made her feel lighter, freer
even, than she
had in years. When Willow
had just hugged her and let her rage, Buffy allowed herself to share her
greatest fear with her dear friend. She
had pulled back from Willow�s embrace
and looked down at the floor, wrapping her arms across her chest as though to
protect her heart.

�Will, I don�t think he loves me�at least not the way that I
thought he did, the way that I love him.
Something about me is just unlovable,� she said quietly with a slight
hitch in her voice.

Willow�s eyes
had clouded and she shook her head before grabbing Buffy by the shoulders. �Buffy, no.
You�re amazing, unbelievable, but never unlovable,� she had
insisted. �Besides, I�m pretty sure we
wouldn�t be living in evil central if Angel didn�t love you enough for the big
happy to turn him into Angelus.� Buffy
wasn�t so sure, but she let Willow�s
words comfort her.

Faith�s voice broke into her trip down memory lane. �Umm, what�s the what? We�ve arrived at the mother-ship B.� Buffy looked up to see that she had nearly
walked past the entrance to Wolfram & Hart.
Faith was giving her a weird look.

�Sorry, I�ve been a little �out-to-lunch�, �gone-fishin�, �back-in-one-hour�
lately,� she responded, turning back towards the doors leading into their
temporary home.

The slayers pushed through the heavy swinging glass doors
and nodded at security before walking towards the bank of elevators that would
lead them to Wesley�s office. When they
were about halfway through the expansive lobby, the large modern chiming clock
hanging behind the security desk struck
- 8
- 9
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Reprise Revised