SquidgeWorld Archive

Prolog

"Hmm," Xander said, looking over the board with careful consideration. "Take that," he said as he finally made a move, sliding one black checker forward at an angle.

Buffy Summers looked over the board carefully. "You can't save that piece," Xander asserted boldly. Then he looked more carefully at the situation. "Can you?"

"Nope," Buffy answered evenly. She moved a piece forward within her ranks, on the other side of the board.

"Ha!" Xander crowed, jumping the red checker and removing it from the board.

Buffy looked at him for a moment, smiling enigmatically. Calmly she hopped a red checker over the offending piece, and another in Xander's formation. "Ha-ha!" Buffy called as she removed the jumped pieces. "King me!"

Xander scowled. Buffy smiled over at Willow, who was silently reading on the couch. Willow looked back at her, but no smile passed over her somber face. Yeah, Buffy thought to herself. No joy there. Willow was steamed at Xander and her, since they had asked Oz to go over to Cordelia's house and keep her occupied while Buffy and Xander spent some time together. She was going to have to find some way to make that up to Willow. Faint voices came from upstairs - Giles and Jenny, who were in the middle of an argument and obviously having the time of their afterlives.

Buffy turned her attention back to the checkers game. But before Xander had decided on his next move, the front doorbell of the Rosenberg house rang.

"I'll get it," Willow called out, getting up from the couch. As Willow made her way to the front hall, Buffy shot Xander a curious glance.

"Who the heck's ringing on doorbells in Limbo, I wonder?" she asked him rhetorically.

Willow continued out to the front door, and opened it cautiously. "Oh! Hi!" she said, surprise evident in her voice.

"Hi, Willow," someone else answered. "I was hoping that somehow you'd be here, even though, well," the voice dropped low, self-consciously. "You know."

Willow *did* know. So did Buffy - when Limbo had been created, it copied all the buildings and objects of Sunnydale, but only a few people were drawn in. The result was an almost empty town that looked like the perfect setting for a post-apocalypse movie.

"Yeah," Willow agreed. "How many places did you try, before coming here, Amy?"

"Amy?" Buffy whispered. Of course, the voice had *sounded* familiar. "Get Giles," she whispered firmly to Xander as she stood up, smoothing her dark jeans down as she did.

Xander nodded faintly and started to stand too, but Buffy was already moving toward the door with dispatch. Shoving Willow gently aside, Buffy reached out to grab the teenaged, California-blonde girl standing just outside the door by the throat. She pulled back, yanking her inside the vestibule and shoving her back against the open front door.

"Hi, Amy," Buffy said, with an ominously cheerful smile on her face and a tone of voice to match. "Let's review. First, you got shapeswitched and shanghaied out of your life by your witch mother. My friends and I, we helped reverse the spell, saving your life in the process. Sometime later, for whatever reasons, you decide to get in on the witchcraft yourself. You cast a spell that turned the whole town upside down, in fact." Amy's face tightened in fear, but Buffy shook her head slightly and smiled. "I'm not blaming you for that - that one was Xander's idea."

Now Buffy's eyes focused more intently on Amy's, forming a hostile glare. "But then you and those others went and kidnapped our friend, (and I'm using the term loosely,) did goodness-knows-what spells on her, and made her into a real problem for me and my other friends! I'm angry about that!" And, as if to emphasize her point, Buffy shoved her hand a little bit harder into Amy's throat.

"What do you want?" Buffy asked, steel in her voice. Now she released her grip enough to let Amy answer. But Amy's gaze flicked over, out the door. Buffy glanced that way herself, and noticed for the first time that four young people were standing in a ragged circle on the porch. Buffy's face fell.

"Uh, hi there," she muttered uncertainly. "I suppose you are..."

"Amy's horrible witch friends?" one of them said. She seemed to be the oldest of the group, a beautiful woman perhaps in her mid-twenties. Her hair was shoulder length, curly, red with just a trace of strawberry blonde in it. "That we are, though I hope not as horrible as advertised."

"You'll excuse me if I remain unconvinced of that," Buffy shot back.

"Hello?" Amy squeaked, still pinned against the door. "Some help here?" Buffy considered her for a second.

"Kines!" one of the other witches called out. He was a ruggedly handsome young man in his late teens, and seemed startlingly familiar to Buffy. Suddenly an invisible something knocked her back, and she released her grip on Amy's neck as the mysterious force slammed her into the vestibule wall. Groaning weakly, she slid down to the floor and passed out.

Act One

"Buffy?"

Buffy groaned and sat up. Her eyes slid into focus, revealing a concerned Xander kneeling next to her. "Are you okay?" he asked her.

"I'm fine," Buffy said, but the mood of the statement was ruined by another pained moan. "What hit me?"

"Um, well, it was kinda a big, uh, nothing." At Buffy's quizzical look, he added, "I dunno - you were just talking with Amy and all of a sudden you went over..."

"Oh, sheesh," Buffy muttered. "The witches!" With a fierce groan, she stood up and headed out onto the porch.

Willow, Giles, and Jenny were talking to the witches. "I'm terribly sorry," the redhead witch was saying. "We didn't realize that anything like this might happen to Cordelia. I'd be glad to give the girl a thorough examination and see if we could do anything to help stabilize her, or even try to remove the powers permanently."

Buffy snorted to herself at that, and everybody turned to look at her. "Excuse me," Buffy announced. "Missed the start of this conversation on account of I was lying unconscious in the vestibule because someone," she glared malevolently at the warlock responsible, "hit me in the face with a spell. What the limbo is going on here?"

The redhead extended a hand towards Buffy. "Vanessa Bateman, Miss Summers. I'm pleased to finally meet you. As I had been explaining to your friends, we are very sorry for any trouble our," she shot a hard glance at Amy and the guy who had zapped her, "meddling caused you. We interefered with you and yours because of a regrettable misunderstanding, and it seems that we only made everything worse when we tried to make it right."

Buffy was feeling a little off-balance at all this helpfullness, as if Vanessa had just used the conversational equivalent of an aikido move - offering no resistance where Buffy had expected plenty. Suddenly she recognized the warlock who had attacked her to free Amy. He was Darrell Flatt, star quarterback of the Sunnydale High football team and general big man on campus. I wonder how much of that was thanks to witchcraft, Buffy wondered.

"Okay, let's say for the moment that I believe that," Buffy said suspiciously. "What do you want?"

"Well," Vanessa began, "I would like, as a matter of principle, a chance to examine Cordelia Chase and see if we can find some better way to deal with the powers we gave her, either dispersing them or giving her more rational control over them. Beyond that," her pretty face took on an expression of concerned nervousness, "would an alliance be too much to ask for? This... dimension is a harsh and dangerous place, and I'm sure we both have much to offer each other in the way of security."

"I don't ally with people whose motives I don't understand."

"Perhaps we should see what suggestions you have to offer about Cordelia," Giles interposed, "and leave the rest under consideration for now."

"Certainly," Vanessa agreed.

"Buffy, can you and Xander hold the fort here?" Willow asked her.

Buffy shared a meaningful look with Xander. "Yeah, I think so."

* * * *

Buffy moaned quietly with pleasure as Xander's lips pressed against hers. She ran her hands around to his back, caressing him softly, as one of Xander's hands moved down from her dark, curly hair and moved teasingly over the front of her shirt.

Buffy broke off the kiss just enough to talk. "Xander..."

Xander drew back a little with a jump. "What? Is it... am I rushing things?" A guilty flush spread over his face.

"No, no," Buffy said, smiling at him. "It's just... we're getting into a bit MORE..." she giggled as Xander leaned back towards her and started kissing her neck, "than, uh, than I thought we were going to," she finished with difficulty. "Not that I don't like it, it's just... we don't know how much time we have, Xander!"

"Oh, come on," Xander answered between kisses. "They're gonna be busy doing tests and witch thingees on Cordy for a while yet."

"You sure?"

For answer, Xander only nibbled playfully on her chin, and after that she forgot about the time...

* * * *

"Okay, Cordelia," Vanessa murmurred, waving a scented stone a few centimeters beneath Cordelia's nose. "You can wake up now."

And after a few seconds, Cordy did, slowly opening her hazel eyes and shifting about in the richly padded chair.

"Thank you for your co-operation," Vanessa said to her.

"Co-operation? With what?" Cordelia babbled. "Who are you, anyways?" She peered critically at the stranger sitting before her.

"That's, well, that's a bit of a long story," Vanessa told the high-school girl. "Could you excuse us for a moment?"

"Um, okay," Cordelia said, still very confused. "Where's Xander? Down at Willow's house?"

"Yes," Giles answered her absently.

"Okay." Cordelia crossed over to the wardrobe, drew out a stylish black coat, and headed out the door. Willow noticed her just as she left, and a sudden panic spread into her mind. She was about to head out the door as well when Giles called to her. "Willow, could you come in here for a moment?"

Cordelia walked quickly over to the Rosenberg house, muttering as she went. "Why does such weird stuff keep happening to me? I'm lost in another world, waking up in front of strangers who know my name... Sheesh. Xander had better give me some decent, sincere concern today, after all I've been through." She walked up onto the porch, and opened the door with the spare key. "Xander?"

There was no immediate response. Cordelia headed up the stairs, down the hall to Xander's room. "You would not believe my day," she complained aloud, swinging the door open. Her jaw dropped.

Xander and Buffy were sprawled in a tangle over Xander's bed. Xander was frozen in the middle of kissing Buffy's neck, his left hand on her arm, the other caressing her left breast through her thin silk shirt and bra. Buffy's hands sprung back away from the buttons on Xander's shirt.

"Oh," Buffy muttered. "Oh, no. Oh, god. Cordelia, whatever you do, don't get... angry," she finished lamely.

But Cordelia's face was already set in a cast of absolute rage. As Buffy and Xander watched, an uneathly glow lit in her eyes, and that breeze blew from out of nowhere about her.

"Betrayal!" Cordelia spat. Her eyes narrowed to slits as she pointed one arm at each of Xander and Buffy and concentrated. A cloudy stream of intense red light billowed forth towards the two young lovers.

Act Two

Despite the embarassment of the situation, Buffy's reactions were as quick as ever. With an offhand gesture, she pushed Xander out of the way of Cordelia's attack to one way and leaned the other way herself, tumbling off the bed without much grace.

"Fie! Shame!!" Cordelia hissed out, orienting again on Buffy. With a wave of her hand, a bolt of sharp steel materialized, flying towards Buffy's chest. The Slayer quickly rolled out of the way, and the deadly weapon drove itself several feet into the floor before dissolving away into vapor again.

But Cordelia had ignored Xander. He grabbed at her hand. Cordelia turned her magic on him instantly, sending him flying into the window. Xander groaned as the glass splintered and fell away.

Cordelia made another attacking gesture, then shook her head. "No. Neither of you deserve to be dispatched so easily after how you betrayed me. I leave you instead, to suffer the torture of anticipation. Buffy Summers, Xander Harris - You will both meet your dooms at my hands within twenty-four hours. Know this - and know despair!"

While Buffy and Xander stood where they were, stunned, Cordelia floated into the air and out the open window, into the technicolored Limbo sky. "Remember!" Cordy called out as she left. "My vengeance will not be stayed!"

Buffy and Xander looked at each other blankly for a second. "War council?" Xander asked.

"War council," Buffy agreed, sighing.

* * * *

This war council was one of their biggest yet, since Giles and Willow had invited Amy's coven to share their opinions, and just about everyone from the Scooby gang camp was either participating or within earshot.

"It is the worst possible timing," Vanessa was saying. "No offense to you or Xander, Buffy - you couldn't have known that Cordelia would catch the two of you, when you were so close to being home free. But I have options that could have helped Cordelia - if she were in her passive, non-witchly mode."

"But you didn't try them before you let her head off to talk to Xander?" Buffy asked.

"No. I thought it would be better to discuss our next course of action with Mister Giles."

"And now, we can't just wait for her to calm down so we can treat her," Willow observed. "'Cause she's probably not *going* to calm down; not at least until she's killed at least one out of Buffy and Xander."

Buffy nodded soberly. "I'm not so easy to kill, but she could make mincemeat out of you if she tried, Xander." She turned around to face Vanessa again. "Is there anything you can do for me? Any kind of protection or weapon I can use against the witch?"

"That wouldn't kill Cordelia," Giles stipulated. At Buffy's unimpressed look, he said "I know that you don't like Cordelia, but she is essentially an innocent in all this. You can't kill her."

"If it's down to her or me, or 'her or Xander,' you bet I can!" Buffy replied hotly.

"I hope that it won't get to that point, Buffy," Vanessa said, "especially because I don't know of any easy way to kill a witch that powerful. What I *can* give you are these."

"What?"

"Firstly, this." Vanessa handed Buffy a stick of handsome white wood. "If you can touch this to Cordelia's skin, and utter the phrase 'peace of the innocent," Cordelia should revert to her passive state. We'll be able to handle things from there."

"Check," Buffy confirmed. "'Peace of the innocent.' Next?"

Next was a small bag of reddish powder. "Trick dust," Vanessa said. "If you can blow it in her face - get her to breathe it, her witchly powers, and presumably her witchly temper, will be lost for fifty years. By that time, we should be able to have another option ready. The third plan, the final defense, will take a little bit more work."

"What is it?" Xander asked.

"This." Vanessa opened a book, showing them a watercolor picture of a flying man, pointing towards a woman standing behind some kind of spike, several feet high, set into the ground. A strange radiance surrounded them all, man, woman, and spike.

"If a current of magic energy passes by or through a grounded iron spike, it short-circuits the spell. The resulting feedback often costs the spellcaster their magical gifts, and can have other unpredicatble effects upon them and anyone within a few feet of the spike. It is an extremely desperate measure, but seems promising for this cause."

"We should have an iron post like that out in the garage," Willow said. "Between Angel, Buffy, Oz, and Xander, we should be able to drive it far enough into the front yard to ground it."

"Sounds like a plan," Buffy said. "And then I wait for Cordelia to show up..."

* * * *

Giles looked in on Queen Kaliya. "How goes it?"

"Fairly well, Mister Giles," she replied. "I have identified two of the other vampire spirits and begun to create bodies for them. Absalom, right- hand vamp to the Annointed one after Master Nest died, and Dalton, researcher and scholar for William the bloody. I do believe that there remains only one more to be identified."

Giles grimaced. "I had meant whether you were getting your rest as I had advised, but I suppose I should know better."

Kaliya smiled cunningly. "Indeed you should. Perhaps you can help me though - I imagine you would know of most of the vampires to meet their doom in Sunnydale over the past few years. There is one of significance that I am missing."

"Hmm," Giles pondered. "There were 'The Three,' Tector Gorch, Jasper St. Clair..."

"Jasper?" Kaliya breathed. "That's it, but - Jasper... when did he come to Sunnydale?"

"Um," Giles considered. "It would have been April of this past year. He came to avenge Buffy's murder of his vampiric ancestors, and very nearly succeeded. How do you know him?"

"I was his mentor," Kaliya muttered. "I taught him everything I knew."

"I - I'm sorry, my lady," Giles said, realizing that Kaliya was truly grieved by this news. "Had I but known..."

"It was 1878," Kaliya said, not seeming to even hear him. "I had just established myself in Carnac, when I recieved a missive from Heinrich Nest, then a vampire overlord in Germany, requesting a meeting for a project to mutual advantage. We met in a small village in Wales, I alone, Nest with his trusted lieutenant Darla and bodyguard Luke. He presented a most interesting proposal about attempting to open a dimensional portal at the Standing stones. Dimensional magic was his obsession. However, we could come to no agreement about how to divide the fruits of this project, and Nest and his people left early.

"I decided to remain in that village for a time. There were no other vampires there, and the humans were almost criminally careless. I enjoyed vacation there for a few days, knowing that Carnac could proceed without me.

"But, the night I was to leave, I made a startling discovery. There was another vampire in that small town, though there hadn't been when we first arrived.

"I took this vamp to a private place and interrogated him. He did not remember all the details of his death, as many do not, but remembered a fight in a pub with a very brawny man - except that I knew that it was no man, but the vampire Luke. I could estimate the progress of events from that single clue - someone had stopped the brawl before Luke could kill the impudent native, so he had taken his revenge later on the lad's way home. Rather than drain his blood, Luke had arrogantly chosen a subtler doom - changing him and leaving him to whatever doom might come to him, alone and not even knowing what he had become.

"But I saw something deeper in this young man-vamp. He had been a student and athlete, and had great potential of both mind and body. I brought him back to Carnac, taught him all I knew of physical combat, magic, the mentalic arts (though he never reached great proficiency in either,) and strategy. In time he left my service to become a mercenary, but I still remember him well. I suppose my decision to mentor Michelle was in a way due to Jasper."

"I am so sorry, madame, to be the bearer of such bad news," Giles tried again.

"Sorry? Oh, for bringing the news that he is dead? Well, I thank you, but this is good tidings, for him too can I restore - and have the pleasure of his service once again!" Kaliya smiled brilliantly at Giles, and his stomach sank.

Act Three

"Hey, Buffy."

Buffy looked up, from her spot on the Rosenberg lawn right beside the newly inserted iron spike. "Hi Will, what's up?"

"Not much here, actually I was wondering how you're doing."

"Me? I's fine."

"Really?" Willow challenged her with a concerned smile, swinging down onto the dead grass opposite her friend.

"Hmm." Buffy considered. "Well, I suppose everything's not peachy-keen at that. I've got a psycho-witch who used to be an almost-friend wanting to kill me- that's okay. I've had bigger problems as the Slayer. I'm going Limbo-crazy, but who isn't. And..."

"Yes?" Willow prodded.

"I feel as if everything suddenly changed between Xander and me the moment Cordelia walked into that room, and that scares me. I mean, this morning I thought I was madly in love with Xander, and now..."

"And now?"

"And now, I feel like there's nothing I'd rather do that march into Angel's room and do something to make *him* notice me again!"

"Buffy!" Willow squealed, scandalized, and then recovered her composure. "You know you can't do that - I mean, you'd only have to pass by his window for Angel to notice you, but going down that road again, it's only likely to end one place."

"I know," Buffy said. "Angelus again. And I didn't say I was gonna do anything like that, just that that's how I *feel*. It's as if I was just fooling around with Xander, getting off on the secrecy, and now that we're perforce all the way out in the open, I can't pretend to still be interested in him. And that leaves me exactly where I started - loving Angel."

Buffy looked up at her friend, but Willow just sat in silent consideration for a few long moments. Finally, she said, "Well, let's look at this. You're still in love with Angel, right?" Buffy nodded. "But you know you have to stay away from him." Buffy nodded again. "Until this afternoon, you thought you were also falling in love with Xander, but now you're not so sure." Nod.

"Well," Willow continued, "I don't know what's in your mind, but I'd wonder if there aren't other reasons your feelings for Xander could be confused. You've just had a very embarassing moment having to do with him. He's suddenly free to be with you, which he hasn't really been since you first fell for him, and that's kinda scary. Also, you're in the middle of dealing with a tricky situation that your relationship with him got started. I think it wouldn't be a good idea to write him off before all that gets settled."

A smile spread across Buffy's face. "Of course! That makes a lot of sense, really. Thank you."

"Any time."

"Can I ask one other thing of you?"

"Sure, Buffy."

"Could you, I don't know, go and check on Angel sometime? I know it isn't a good idea for us to see each other, but he's spending too much time shut up in that room. I'm worried about him."

"Of course, Buffy," Willow answered, smiling.

"So, what have the two of you been chatting about?" Buffy looked up to see Oz, standing a few feet away from them.

"Oh, just talking about," Willow began, then caught Buffy's warning glance. "Um, uh, the Limbo blues."

"Oh, yeah," Oz nodded sympathetically, crouching down near them. "We've been through some weird stuff, but this place is something else, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Buffy agreed. "Did you ever think about what must be going on in the real world right about now? A few weeks have gone by, we're all missing, but life is going on."

"Yeah," Willow agreed morosely. "At this very moment, mom and dad might be sitting on that porch, waiting desperately for me to come home..." she broke off, holding back tears.

"Hey, come on Will," Oz said, reaching out to hug her.

"We're gonna get home," Buffy asserted calmly.

"Not..." Willow choked back a sob. "Not as long as Kaliya's in the mix."

"Then I'll deal with Kaliya," Buffy replied confidently. "Count on it."

* * * *

Across Limbo, Cordelia pranced erratically down an alleyway. "Fire and wind and earthly rage," she called out to no-one in particular. "Serpent's poison mixed with sage; Troubled sky and waters tend -" she waved a hand, and a bolt of lightning came down in the distance from the cloudless Limbo sky. "That will lead to Xander's end. Iron's touch and ice's bite, veils of black to mask her sight."

Cordelia rose again into the sky as she finished her rhyme. "Worms should crawl towards her tomb; This night will bring Buffy's doom!"

* * * *

Buffy knew who was coming from the footsteps on the sidewalk, before she even looked up. "Hi, Mom."

"Hi, honey," Joyce Summers said, blushing.

"Gee, I guess it's really 'come talk to Buffy down at the spike'" day, isn't it?" Buffy flashed a sarcastic grimace at her mother.

"Well, at least I know that you're not gonna find an excuse to run off somewhere."

Buffy frowned. "Mom..."

"You've been shutting me out," Joyce said flatly. "That's nothing new. From what Hank tells me, you've been giving him even less attention than you used to give me - freezing him out to hang with your watchers and friends. He doesn't have the nerve to say anything about it to you, because he feels responsible for the divorce and doesn't want to scare you off the way I did."

"But..."

But Joyce was still talking. "*That* I *do* have a problem with, Buffy. You don't have to talk to me, you don't have to live with me. But your father has changed his whole life for you, and I've shared my life with you for a lot of years. The least you could do is let *one* of us into your own life!" Joyce was projecting loudly, her voice seeming to carry endlessly across the deserted street. "We're your parents, Buffy! We are where you came from, and if you paid any attention to us, maybe we could teach you something about yourself!"

"Mom!" Buffy finally broke in. "You've got a point here, maybe a few points. But this is *SO* not the time! I mean, I'm sitting out here waiting for a deadly magical attack, and the longer and louder you're here, the more chance you stand of getting hurt too."

"Okay, okay, I'll go." Joyce headed back away. Suddenly she stopped, paused where she was for several moments, and turned back to Buffy. "You're so worried about us getting hurt if we get to close to the slaying," she told her daughter. "Can't you see how much it hurts us to get too far away from *you*, Buffy?"

Buffy's face fell as Joyce turned and walked away again.

"She's right, you know," Buffy turned and looked over her shoulder. Giles was standing there with a friendly and concerned look on his face.

"You gonna start in on me now?"

"Not if you don't want me to," Giles responded pleasantly. "Is there anything you *would* like to talk about?"

Buffy sighed. "I dunno." She considered a moment. "Life. Limbo. How much I wish this trail of evil and nerve-wracking adventure that's always crossing the Slayer's path would just go away. What a mess I've been making of my family and my life lately." She looked up at Giles and smiled faintly. "Sound like enough to start with?"

Act Four

Xander looked around, put the book he had been idly flipping through down on the Rosenberg's coffee table, and got up off of the sofa. Stepping carefully and quietly, he made his way to the front door.

"You should not be goin' out dere," Kendra pointed out, walking silently down the last few stairs and stepping silently onto the landing. "Dis is a job for de Slayer - for Buffy."

"I know that," Xander huffed. "I wasn't planning on fighting the witch all by myself." He paused, and silence reigned for a moment. "Just, you know, uh, going out there and talking to her."

"But if you're out there, by any mischance," a new voice supplied, "when Cordelia makes her move, you could be dead. In seconds." Xander looked over his shoulder to see Amy, smiling nervously over at him. "You gotta let this thing play out by itself."

"I can't stand this!" Xander exclaimed. "I've never been good at sitting on my rear and just waiting at the best of times, and to wait and do nothing while my ex-girlfriend tries to kill my maybe-girlfriend... Aahrgh!"

"I know eet is painful," Kendra assured him. "But you must have the courage to wait now."

Xander groaned. "Okay. Rrrr." He paused, considering. "How about a game of chinese checkers while we're stuck in here? I'll move your pieces for you, Kendra." He grinned at the two of them.

* * * *

Buffy surveyed the horizon morosely. "Come *on* already, Cordy?" she muttered, mostly to herself. "Make your move already, so I can get this over with and get some sleep. Or a good long nap in a coffin, depending." She chuckled mirthlessly at her own morbid joke.

"It might be a better idea for you to sleep now, Buffy," Vanessa pointed out. At this point, I'd say that Cordelia's not likely to make her attack until the twenty-four hours she gave you are almost up."

"There's still nine," Jenny Calendar added. The two of them were taking a 'turn' at keeping vigil with Buffy. "You could crash up there on the porch, and get woken up at the first sign of trouble."

Buffy looked around, considering the plan, then rejected it. "And be stuck more than thirty feet away from my final defense? No thanks."

"Right here, then," Vanessa suggested. "We could get a sleeping bag out here, and you could sleep under the - " she broke off, noticing the starlessness of Limbo's sky. "Under the stripes," she finished lamely.

Buffy chuckled. "Well, maybe. I could take a few naps, at least."

"Cool." Vanessa got up and headed into the house.

Buffy looked at Jenny. Jenny looked back at Buffy. "So, Miss Calendar," Buffy started uncertainly.

"Just Jenny. Or Janna, if you prefer." She pronounced her Romani name with a Y-sound: YAH-nah.

"Jenny, then. How's death treating you?"

"You mean, how am I getting along with Rupert?" Jenny interpreted. "It's going well. Interesting, as it's ever been between the two of us. But we're letting go of all the baggage, all that stuff that kept us apart before. The different worlds we come from, the demons in his past, the lies and secrets in mine." She broke off, but Buffy couldn't think of anything to say. Soon Jenny started again.

"We indulged ourselves with all that stuff before, figuring that we had all the time in the world, to come to an understanding or find someone else. I never realized how little time I had in my life until it was taken away. Now we're together in death, and I'm not going to take that for granted. There's still an awful lot of ways that we could lose each other. Every day counts."

"I know," Buffy said, thinking of Xander, and the threats Cordelia had made.

* * * *

Willow knocked timidly at the last door on the left side of the hall.

"Who is it?" a voice rang out. Angel's voice.

"It's Willow."

"What do you want?"

"May I come in, please?"

There was only silence for a few seconds. "Oh, all right."

Willow turned the doorknob and pushed through. "Um, hi."

"Hello, Willow. What can I do for you?"

Suddenly, without warning, a flood of images poured through Willow's mind - Angel's face in a darkened Sunnydale High corridor. His hand grabbing at her throat from behind. She yelped and bolted away - right into the open door. "Ouch," Willow muttered as her head throbbed in mild pain.

"Are you okay?" Angel said, starting to dodge forward to help her and then changing his mind in mid motion, keeping off at a distance. Willow noticed that he wasn't wearing anything above the waist.

"Oh, yeah, it's okay," Willow said. "It's just, for a split second, um, well, you reminded me..."

"Of him," Angel concluded. "It's not surprising."

Somehow, something in his voice made Willow feel a sinking pit in her stomach. "No, it is. I don't normally confuse the two of you, Angel; I don't blame you for what he did."

"Maybe you should." he muttered darkly, sitting down on the small desk chair in the corner of the room.

"What! What do you mean by that?" Willow said, outraged.

"This him/me distinction - it's very flattering that you want to exonerate me for his crimes, but I'm not sure it's justified. Angelus is my dark side. He only does all the things that I wanted to do, but never could because social conscience and morals held me back. He was created because of my carelessness, and after I'd been given a chance to control him, a second chance that few people get, he got loose again because I couldn't keep my pants on. I *deserve* to be blamed for everything he did."

Willow stared at him, passively, for a long time, her thoughts whirling. "Do you really believe all that? Do you really think that all that hatred, all that rage, was inside you before you became a vampire?"

"They had to be."

"No!" Willow's voice rang across the room. "That's not the only way it works, Angel. I've read the books Mister Tojo brought on vampire psychology. Just because Angelus took parts of your personality, that doesn't mean that everything that he was was a part of you too. There's a lot of cruelty, and predator-ness, that comes automatically with the demon. *And*, it could have learned a lot from Darla. You aren't responsible for that."

"And my responsibility for Angelus' creation? And letting the curse slip?"

Willow pondered that. "Yeah, you've got some there. You're human, in your soul, Angel, and you've made mistakes. But even though some mistakes have worse consequences than others, that doesn't mean that they can't be forgiven. We're not going to write you off for a few errors in judgement, and you shouldn't either."

"I..." Angel had started to get back up from the chair, but he broke off, groaned, and fell weakly back into the chair.

"Are you alright?" Willow said, running forward.

"Pretty much," Angel said.

"Was there pain?" Willow pressed, looking around at what she could see of Angel's midsection and running her hands over his skin. "Well?"

"Some. Soreness, back pain, tenderness."

"Hmm," Willow said, remembering her years of wanting to be a doctor, and she quickly examined Angel. Despite the fact that he wasn't even human, the symptoms he had described and the observations that she made pointed to one inescapable conclusion.

"Well, I have no idea in the world how to tell you this, so I suppose that I should say it straight out..."

"Say what?" Angel replied, baffled.

"Impossible as it may be on at least two counts, maybe more, it seems to me that you might be... uh... pregnant."

* * * *

"Buffy!" Hank Summers shook his daughter by the shoulder. "Something's coming."

"Yah," Buffy mumbled as she tried to rouse herself to full alertness. She looked at her wristwatch. "Why did you let me sleep so close to zero hour? Never mind, you don't have to answer that. Just get back." She struggled to her feet and picked up her weaponry as Hank left the immediate area.

The shape coming over the houses across the street was now definitely Cordelia. She scanned the area, then called out gleefully "Summers first!"

"You betcha," Buffy yelled back. "Show me what you got!"

Cordelia waved, and a bolt of lightning came down near where Buffy was, but she dodged it easily. Cordelia flew down, and landed not to far away from the spike. She raised her hand towards Buffy again and concentrated.

But Buffy had already launched a counterattack. The handful of powder Vanessa had given her was flying through the air towards Cordelia's face. A blink of Cordelia's eyes summoned up a stiff crosswise breeze, though, and the cloud of dust was carried swiftly away from both of them. Buffy dodged away from Cordelia's returning shot, a beam of scathing fire.

"You're gonna have to get closer than that to tag me," Buffy taunted. Cordelia was already moving into closer range, and as she prepared a new attack Buffy jumped forward, the whitestick leading. "Peace of the..." she gasped as it touched Cordelia's bare arm.

But then the shocking jolt of Cordelia's new attack coursed through Buffy's body, and the two girls recoiled away from each other. "Innocent," Buffy muttered, but the stick wasn't touching Cordelia anymore. The witch glanced darkly at the offending wand, and it snapped in half of its own accord.

"Enough games, Slayer," Cordelia called out in an unearthly voice. But Buffy was already dodging back towards the spike. "I shall look upon my enemy. I shall look upon her and the dark place will have her soul!"

This spell, Buffy remembered. It was the one that Catherine Madison had tried to cast on her, that she had reflected back using a mirror. She didn't have a mirror this time. If the spike would protect her, she had a chance - anything could happen if they relied upon the final defense. If it didn't work, she was done for.

The stream of living redness poured forth from Cordelia's face and body, striking the spike. It spread into a red glow, encompassing the spike and both girls. Cordelia groaned with sudden exertion as the energy focused on her, doing something not easily identifiable. Buffy moaned too, and the glow slowly began to fade away...