I want to say a few things before anyone starts to read. I wrote and posted all of this (with the exception of a final chapter that I am finally now posting) in 2006, when I was still a teenager. That was over 10 years ago now. In the interest of full disclosure, I am a little embarrassed about this story and when rereading it now in 2016, even I almost wonder what I was smoking, and this is with me knowing that I wasn't smoking anything at the time.

This obviously leads to the question of why I'm bothering to finish it, 10 years later. There are a few reasons. The main reason is that two separate people messaged me in the past month asking about the story. This was really surprising. While the story did have what I'd call a small cult following at the time I was publishing it, it's been years since anyone expressed any interest in it, though I do see that, consistently, a few people per month seem to read all or most of it, which is also astonishing to me and I think might be due to my other (finished, better (though still deeply flawed)) Bangle fic that I wrote around the same time.

When I got these messages I did go back and look at the story. Since it was my first long multichapter fic (or really story in general) that I ever wrote, I did somewhat remember it even after all this time. Like I already said, I was a little embarrassed. I like to think my writing has improved a lot since then, and there are a lot of things about the fic I'd definitely do differently now- both semantically, like in terms of grammar and how to use quotations properly, and in terms of the actual plot, and in terms of things like ratio of dialogue to story, and even in terms of how I'd have broken up the chapters.

With all that said it's clear that at least a small number of people have and continue to get enjoyment from something in the story. When I reread it, I realized that I was one chapter away from the ending. I also realized I still at least vaguely knew how it was intended to end and even actually had a partial draft of it. So I decided, after 10 years, that despite the fact that I'm not particularly proud of the fic, I'd go ahead and finish it.

I have gone back and made some formatting edits to the story (for instance I've discovered page breaks, and fixed that one chapter where inexplicably half of it was bolded) and some very very minor spelling/grammar edits, but I have made no substantive changes and the story as a whole is still littered with mistakes, problems, and things I'd do differently. It was also never betaed and still hasn't been betaed. You have been warned.

If with all that said you do decided to go ahead and try to read this, thank you for taking time with my fic, flawed though it may be. I did my best at the time. I do still get and read all reviews on this, and I truly appreciate all reviews, even bad ones, as they help me to improve my writing. If you do read, any review would be treasured.

If for some reason you really like the fic and are thinking of adding me to your author alerts, while I am still very fond of Buffy and Bangle, you should know that this isn't a fandom I currently think I'll return to writing for. It's possible but it's not likely.

Thank you for the support and for taking the time to read even this.

Prologue

England, 2004

"He's dead?" Buffy asked dully before Giles had even opened his mouth, confident that her former mentor would know who she was referring to.

The older man blinked, just once, and then nodded. "Yes."

She swallowed hard, but other than that gave no indication that she had heard him say anything out of the ordinary, turning away from his concerned gaze to look out the window at the sun. Giles looked at her back for a long moment, waiting for her to speak, but as minutes passed and she didn't he turned around in resignation, beginning to walk toward the door.

"Well, since the world isn't over," she said, just a touch of the sarcasm she'd wielded so lightly in high school creeping back into her voice, "can I at least assume he made the other guys look worse?"

"Y-yes," Rupert said slowly, before beginning to babble. "He- that is to say, there seems to have been a sacrifice of some kind… of himself, I mean. He-he had written a goodbye, he hadn't told the others- he hoped they would survive-"

"Typical," Buffy said dully, still not turning to face him. "What about Wesley?"

"Dead."

"Another sacrifice?" she inquired lightly, but he heard the pain behind the words.

"I'd- rather not discuss the details."

"Gotcha," she said sharply, still staring determinedly out the window. "Spike?" she inquired through clenched teeth, hating that she even cared, hating that she could not bring herself to just forget him.

Giles opened his mouth to give an explanation, and then thought better of it, saying simply, once again, "Dead."

"Dead," she echoed dully, clutching onto the windowsill like it was a lifeline and fighting not to let her knees buckle, fighting to stop the emotions threatening to make her scream and collapse.

"Buffy, you must realize that there was nothing-"

"No, considering Angel didn't even see fit to tell me that the apocalypse- or WHATEVER- was coming- AGAIN- I do realize there was nothing I could do," she said, voice cracking slightly as silent tears she was grateful he couldn't see slid down her face, willing herself to feel anger, anything but the pain. "Instead he screwed me over- AGAIN- and I had to spend the past 24 hours hoping against hope that he wasn't dead- even though I FELT that he was- until you got back from LA and could tell me for sure that you found his- what did you even find?" she asked, sharply. "His ashes?"

"This," Giles said simply, tossing a ring through the air, unsurprised as she reached an arm back and caught it without even trying, still staring out the window.

"Where did he keep it?" she asked, fingering the claddagh with fascination, amazed that he still had it when hers had been lost so long ago, despite her best efforts still able to recall the exact tenor of his voice when he had explained its meaning to her- and unable to stop that voice from echoing through her head, the tentative smile he'd given her when-

"He-" Giles coughed awkwardly. "That is to say- he was wearing it."

Buffy unconsciously bit down on her lip hard enough to draw blood, fighting with every ounce of self control she possessed to stop herself from asking which way it had been turned, realizing in her head that Giles would never know the answer and neither would she.

"Typical," she muttered again. "He thinks he can wear this on the night he dies but he can't be troubled to pick up the phone and say 'Hey, you know how you and all those other slayers you released into the world don't really have anything so do tonight? Well, why don't you-

"Buffy…" Giles cut her off gently, "I've never approved of his methods- no, well, I suppose that's a lie," Giles muttered, talking more to himself than her before shaking his head, seeming to snap out of it as he said with more conviction, "But surely you realize that every breath Angel took- or, ah, didn't take- was to protect you."

"Yeah," she whispered, clenching her fist at her side. "Too bad he never realized the right way to do that."

"Buffy-"

She took a deep breath, forced the silent tears to stop even though she couldn't stop her voice from cracking, ever so slightly. "Giles- could I have some time alone, maybe?"

"Certainly," he replied at once, coughing awkwardly. "Take- take all the time you need. But- you should know- his sacrifice was largely in vain. He's not managed to stop what was planned, only delay it. We will need to take action-"

Her lower lip trembled. "Big surprise. He tries to protect me and only made it worse," she muttered too softly for him to hear, rolling her eyes before turning to face him, head held high. "I understand," she said firmly. "I'll… try not to take too much time."

"I know you will."

New York City, 5 years later

"Oh God, please stop," Buffy muttered more to herself than to the screaming child in her arms, bouncing him up and down ineffectually as a buzzer went off from the front of the small apartment.

"Weird," she muttered, "I didn't think I put anything in the microwave," before she heard the noise again and realized it was the doorbell. She frowned, puzzled as to who would possibly be calling on her at this hour- or really at all- then tensed, setting the baby haphazardly down and sighing as she heard a tiny voice call "mommy?" from the cramped room to her right,

"Not now, Willow!" she snapped so harshly that the little girl started to cry and she shot her daughter an apologetic look she knew she wouldn't understand as she shut the door to the tiny bedroom and looked around for something she cold use as a stake, sighing as she had to sacrifice a picture frame and doing so as quickly as possible, trying not to think about it, wincing at the smiling faces in the picture. She knew he would have been upset to see her destroy the frame- it had been his mother's. She could almost hear him saying 'Now is that really necessary?' and laughingly encouraging her to break off the table leg instead-

But that would have been back when they could afford another table.

She shook her head to clear it, cursing her traitorous mind as she slowly inched toward the door, which was now being knocked on almost- timidly.

Guess maybe I'm not gonna need this after all, she thought warily as she cursed the fact that there was no peephole in the pathetic excuse for an apartment.

"Who is it?" she cried, frowning when she got no answer and deciding after a moment of thorough contemplation that it couldn't really hurt anything to open the door, since if it were a vampire it wasn't invited and if it were a demon-

She bit her lip. Yeah, maybe not the best idea to open the door-

And then the knock came again, accompanied by someone saying her name, very weakly.

Her frown deepened and she bent her knees slightly, assuming a defensive stance as she opened the door, saying "You know, unless someone died, it's a little late for house calls," before her mouth slammed shut and she dropped the stake she'd been holding with practiced ease, despite the fact that she'd been officially forbidden to wield one for over a year-

"How about resurrections," she heard him ask as though from very far away, and even through her haze she could tell that, though the words were spoken lightly, his tone was anything but.

"I don't-" she began, suddenly feeling dizzy, and taking a step backward out of some bizarre preservation instinct. "Who are you?"

He looked down, then right at her before beginning slowly, "I spent the whole time it took me to get here," he paused, then shook his head, "trying to think about what you might say or do. Lots of things occurred to me- that you might stake me with no questions asked, that you might scream or cry or slam the door in my face- but it never occurred to me that you might not know me."

She gulped, took a step forward, stopped. "I- you- it's just not possible that- I mean-" she gulped, trying to compose herself. "Angel?"