They had waited for a hour or maybe days or only minutes. Time was almost a randomly applied concept on Olympus. After the first little time period, possibly only a few minutes, they had sat back on the couch Apollo had used while examining Spike and Alicia. It didn't take them long to be lying back on the couch with Angel's back to the wall and his chest pillowing Spike as comfortably as he could, both arms around his childe's middle feeling their daughter's every slight movement. Or imagining he could. It made very little difference to the dark haired vampire. It was miracle enough that he was going to be a father, miracle enough that his beloved Spike forgave him all his transgressions. What did it matter if he could really feel her move or simply imagined he could. She was there, alive, the damage to her hip was on the mend and she was theirs!
Not much was said during their wait. Lots of smiles and soft looks as Spike twisted round to make sure Angel was still ok with him being there like that. Their silence was golden.
And it lay in tatters when the door opened and their mystery guest entered to find them snuggled up close together like that. It didn't matter then that Spike had forgiven Angel, or at least was trying his utmost to forgive him. It didn't matter simply because their guest never asked about it, about them, about why they were nestled together like that.
He simply attacked.
As the door opened they had both looked up into the shocked face of one newly returned from the dead Xander Harris. Immediately the shock faded the anger erupted. The dark haired youth had dragged a startled Angel out from behind Spike, threw him against the nearest wall and rammed the stake he had carefully concealed directly into the older vampire's heart. All before one of them even managed to utter a greeting to the youth. A welcome that died in its birth from Spike's lips. Angel hadn't even managed to formulate a word of welcome.
Looking at the obscene object sticking out from his chest Angel sank to the floor, a very Angelus like vulgarity on his lips. Almost in time with the slow wagging of the stake as his body bumped down the rough stuccoed wall of Apollo's chamber of healing. An unlikely place to meet his death. That thought led onto another much less profound thought, one he gave voice to.
"Fuck, that hurts." He whispered.
"No!" Spike screamed, throwing Xander as far over the room as he could manage, he dropped to his knees and reached out for his not dusting yet sire. "Please, not now! Please, Gods, not now! We need you, I need you, Gods please!" He whispered his undirected prayer over and over again as he reached out to support Angel from falling over.
The dark haired vampire pulled ineffectually at the piece of wood jutting out of his chest, giggling softly in his shock. Smiling at the forgiveness he could hear in Spike's voice, and see in his beautiful eyes as they begged him not to die.
"It's stuck, Spike. I can't shift it!" his hands felt as if they were made from wet cardboard, they had less grip and strength than their Alicia currently would have. "Oh, Gods, I don't want to die again. Not now, not when you.. oh, fuck it, it hurts." He kept on tugging at it, making no headway what so ever.
"You can't die, we need you. We need you!" Spike was openly crying, unable to focus himself enough to try and help Angel get that hideous piece of wood out of his chest, out of his heart.
"What is going on in here?" The deep rumble that was far too powerful to be a mortal voice boomed out into the room. It was followed soon after by more and more voices all demanding to know what was going on.
"Shit! Don't remove that stake!" Apollo finally made his way through the crowd to get a first hand look at exactly what was going on. He glanced around and saw his half brother close at hand. "Ares, help lift him onto the couch. The rest of you go do something useful!" The senior God of Healing tried to pull the stake out too and it didn't budge. "Shit, it's stuck!"
"I know..." Angel giggled almost hysterically at the God trying to help him.
"Let me try?" Apollo's half brother tugged at the remarkably stubborn piece of wood, it didn't move for him either.
"I want you to know...." Angel muttered a little more quietly. "That it hurts like fuck in my back every time one of you tugs at it!"
Ares pushed an arm behind the vampire and ran his fingers down the dark haired man's spine. On finding the point of the stake jammed firmly between two vertebrae he grinned up at his older half brother.
"Stuck in his spine." He said simply and waited for his brother's nimble fingers to join his behind the vampire's back.
"Got it!" Apollo sent a happy grin his brother's way and looked at the front end of the stake. "Okay, it works this way, I'm going to have to push this thing out from behind as Ares here pulls from the front. Feel free to scream in unremitting torment and agony." He looked at his brother and a silent signal passed between them.
Angel could feel his spine moving and his heart ripping even further as the stake was dragged out of his body. The God of Healing had been right, it was unremitting torment and agony. And rather than scream and frighten his sweet Spike any further he smiled tiredly at him and fainted. He missed Spike's frantic calling of his name, the terror in his voice as he thought Angel was about to turn to dust. He missed too the Gods beside him closing the gapping hole in his heart and chest, resetting the bones in his spine and ribs into their correct alignment. Missed the horror of seeing tears running once more down Spike's face.
"Shush, child, he's simply fainted, but he's fine. None of our children can be killed up here. If your over zealous friend over there had waited a little longer, however, and staked him on the Earth then your Angel would be dust by now." Ever the warrior Ares managed to admonish one man while trying to comfort the other. "Give my brother a second or two and he'll no doubt have your precious up and about once more." He was remarkably cheerful in the face of Angel's potentially fatal injury.
All he did was remind Spike of Xander's presence and what he had just done to Angel. It was all the younger vampire could do to not strike out at the War God's cavalier attitude towards Angel's injuries. He watched closely as Apollo touched Angel's face and light flew from the God to the Vampire. He caught the heavy nudge the God of Healing gave his half brother before Ares eventually joined the older God and put his hand to Angel's face too.
As both Gods redressed the imbalance in Angel's life energies they couldn't help but share in his uppermost memories. All his and Spike's discussions about 'them' about 'Wolfram and Hart' and their direct and indirect interference in their lives. They felt Angel's grief as he thought he was going to die now after all, even after he and Spike had made their peace. He was grief stricken that he would miss the birth of their Alicia, that he wouldn't get to court his beloved Spike as he should be. As Spike had agreed to let himself be courted.
Angel's love for Spike washed over both Gods, leaving them both grinning like loons at each other. They wakened Spike's sleeping Angel with a soundly manful nudge and matching lascivious grins.
"Spike, he's awake again!" Apollo yelled over his shoulder to the younger vampire trying to get to Angel. "Chill, kido, give him a couple of minutes to recover." The God of Healing pushed his half brother out of Spike's way and didn't let go of him once they were both standing up.
Angel's love and passion flowed between them, amplified by their own Godly natures until the echoes of that passion were all either God could feel.
"See ya!" Ares muttered as he grabbed his half brother. "Don't break the mortal, ok?" He waved rather vaguely in Xander's direction and took Apollo out of there with him. Neither God paid anymore attention to the goings on in Apollo's chamber of healing. They were having far too much fun exorcising Angel's imposed emotions.
In Apollo's chamber Spike turned to look at the rather angry young mortal as he squatted on the floor. Bending, with a degree of difficulty he snatched up the discarded stake and approached Xander with a slow deadly grace.
"What the fuck did you think you were doing? Why shouldn't I do as much to you?" Spike's voice was soft and calm, denying the rage that shone in his eyes. The very quivering of his body as he tried to contain his rage was a dead give away however.
"Something Dawn wanted to do ever since she had to hide in the shadows and watch what that fucker did to you!" Xander stood up, straightening his legs as he pushed his back against the wall he had been squatting beside. As he stood up his rage boiled over. "All her memories are mine now. All her feelings, all her dreams and all her nightmares. And that sick fucker you were cosying up to all sweetness and light featured in a hell of a lot of her horrors!"
"Well, I don't see Dawn barging in here trying to stake Angel! Only you!"
Spike leaned in towards the young mortal and snarled at him, pricking his chest with the still bloody stake the Gods had removed from Angel's heart.
"That's because the only place she exists is in me!" Xander screamed right back at the pregnant vampire. "She didn't have any existence outside of being the key! So when we all went foomf on Hera's sword she was lost forever. She... she... they told me that she had to die because she didn't have a soul. That they finally knew for sure! Only beings with souls can be cured up here!" Xander watched the filthy stake begin to tremble as his words sunk into Spike's mind. "Spike?" He glanced into the younger vampire's face and saw a completely blank look, rather like any human in the throws of shock would look. "Oh fuck, Spike? You ok?"
Angel stepped immediately to his Spike's side and looked into his beloved's face. He lifted a gentle hand to touch the silently shed tears that began to flow down Spike's so very pale cheeks. Slowly, he removed the stake from those delicate, trembling hands, drawing it out of Xander's chest, and threw it over his shoulder. As it clacked hollowly behind them the sound seemed to trigger a small movement in Spike. The younger vampire turned to Angel and buried his face in his sire's recently repaired chest and bawled himself hoarse snuggled against the first being he had ever truly loved.
"Shhhh...." Angel held him tightly, snuggled into him as he offered inarticulate sounds of comfort. A rumbling purr echoed from deep within his chest.
"What's wrong?" Xander placed one hand flat against Spike's back and met Angel's eyes with neither apology nor remorse. He still thought and felt that Spike could do so much better for himself than Angel. And he knew too that when and if he ever voiced that opinion he spoke for Dawn too.
"Only creatures with souls can be cured here!" Angel snapped back at the defiant young man. "Don't you ever listen to anyone else's troubles? Didn't you piece it all together yet? Gods, no wonder everyone always treats you like the Zeppo! You really are that stupid and useless!" Angel finally decided that enough was enough and that the kid gloves were well and truly off when it came to dealing with Xander Harris. "He was healed here, after Angelus' assault, my assault, after he staked himself, he was transported to Olympus and healed here you moron! Not on Earth." Still no light of comprehension lit Xander's countenance, Angel heaved a sigh as if it came all the way from the lowest level of Tartarus itself. "If Spike was healed here then according to your own statement he must have a soul. He has just found out that he truly does have a soul, after believing for almost one hundred and thirty years that he was a soulless demon destined to languish forever amongst the torments of Hell, and you just blurt out that he is as capable of being saved as you or I! Why the fuck do you think he's upset? They're late with his dinner perhaps?"
"And this is a bad thing, why?" Xander was still confused. Surely Spike should be celebrating, or something? Not snuggled close to Angel crying his heart out!
"Ever since I turned him he has seen himself as little more than a... a Gargoyle, a demon cast in stone to frighten little children into saying their prayers. Now he finally has proof that he is not Gargoyle, that he is as worthy of redemption as any of us. His mother was so right, Gargoyles don't cry... OW!" Angel rubbed a slightly red cheek as Spike's hand shot out and slapped him.
"Now what?" Xander demanded, now highly confused. He could attest that Angel had done nothing this time, made no threatening gesture towards Spike what so ever.
"You bastard!" Spike squealed up at his beloved sire. "You've read my diary!"
"I did!" Angel confessed. "But only after I thought you were dead. And only that one over the time I turned you. It brought my sweet William back to life for me. Sorry. I will return them as soon as we get back to normal Earth."
"Damn right you will!" Spike snarled at Angel, then noticed the bright red hand mark on his recently staked sire's face. "I guess I over reacted.." He stretched up onto tip toe and gently kissed Angel's so recently abused cheek. "Forgive me?" He begged.
"Nothing to forgive." And Angel lightly touched his lips to Spike's cheek.
Returning the gentle kiss his beloved had gifted him.
"Barff!" Xander yelled making retching sound effects behind the pair of kissing vampires.
"Shut up Harris!" Angel glared at his erstwhile attacker. "You might have all of Dawn's memories, but you have none of her heart, none of her caring attitudes. It's truly a damn shame they couldn't have given her your soul and left you for dead. But never fear, you and I will deal with you staking me - later. Hear me, Harris, this is your first and last warning from me; if you so much as lay a finger on Spike, upset him in anyway ever again, you and I will dance again."
Xander looked at the dark haired vampire and saw clearly that it was neither Angel nor Angelus that spoke to him. This was some half way amalgam of both creatures, and they both loved Spike beyond reason.
"Right!" Xander muttered and turned his back on the courting vampires.
"So long as we both understand things!" Angel led his childe back to the couch and sat them both down, side by side and placed an arm around Spike's shoulders as he did so. "Now, how do we get off of here? We've got a date to organise." He laughed at the very slight flush on Spike's cheeks at his words and prepared to wait until Spike wanted to speak about his soul before he would raise the subject again.
"We can only get back when one of the Gods takes us. If they're not tripping over themselves to see the back of us it means they've got a big job for us to take over for them!" Spike spoke from hard earned experience.
"What sort of task?" Angel asked. He was aware of the mortal young man listening to their conversation but said nothing about it, or to him.
"A difficult one, knowing them." Spike smiled and moved slightly closer into Angel's side as they tried to sit closer together.
"Oh how well you know us, William!" A female voice filled with laughter drifted from the direction of the doorway making the occupants of the room turn to see who was entering. It was Hera.
"Hera?" Spike hurried over to her and hugged her close. No longer caring if anyone else knew he felt something for this Goddess. Felt a form of love for her that he had previously reserved solely for his own mother. More than he had ever felt towards Joyce Summers.
She eagerly returned the young vampire's hug, feeling for his surface thoughts and feelings. She let him take his time with their wonderful hug, he seemed to need it. It also afforded her time to assimilate all that had happened to Spike since they had last met. To share his fear and grief when Xander staked Angel before his very eyes. She had to agree whole heartedly with Angel on Xander's current worth. Alas, even Gods were constrained to act within the boundaries of their own laws.
"Now, standing here isn't getting anything done. We have to get back to the others and start putting everything back to rights. We have those awful demons trying to disguise themselves as lawyers to... to take down, I believe you might say? Another one of them to rescue and I'd better get you home before Oz decides to storm the gates and demand you back!" She turned to Angel and smiled at him, indicating him to come join her and Spike. "And as for you, young man, and don't argue I am Millennia older than you can imagine, you have a family to take care of." She pulled him to stand beside Spike.
"Willingly!" Angel grinned at her and took Spike back into his arms.
"Barf, again!" Xander's sarcastic tone totally spoiled the mood building between the reunited vampires. Much to Hera's annoyance.
"If you make that disgusting noise, or any disparaging remark, sound or face, ever again and I will personally introduce you to my older brother Hades. Do you get my drift?" Hera glared at the young mortal until she was sure he did understand her.
Xander looked back at her and ran the name Hades through his teen tv filter until he had an image that fit the title. That title being God of the Underworld - the guy in charge of all the dead folks. Emphasis on dead.
"I get you. Hades, dead, me." He turned away from the vampires and the Goddess, taking a few steps towards the window, distancing himself as much as he could from the activities directly behind him. "Knew watching Xena would prove useful one day."
Their arrival at Night and Day Investigations were witnessed by a half transformed werewolf pacing before to portal. As soon as the first foot stepped over from Olympus Oz was there, sniffing them each in turn. Leaving Spike till last.
"Everything ok?" He asked, looking at the humour dancing in his partner's eyes.
"Every bloody thing is beautiful!" Spike grinned at him and gave Oz the fastest hug the world had ever almost seen.
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