Face to Face: Day 2 - Victory?
by MattK
The power departed as quickly as it had come, leaving both witches hollowed-out and exhausted. They slumped against each other and let their hands drop apart.

"I don’t ever wanna do that again," Willow moaned.

"That’s okay," Tara panted. "I don’t know if we could."

"Aaarrrh!"

Oz. They’d forgotten Oz. He was still in wolf-form, wild with fear of the fire, and he was coming right at them.

*

"Willow!"

"Red!"

Angel and Spike had heard Oz rising to his feet and pacing about wildly. They smelled his fear. They knew something was going to happen. Both made a limping, broken charge toward the witches and the werewolf.

*

Willow broke away and held up her hands. "Oz! Wait! No!"

*Magic! I have to hold him down, push him back—something!*

Nothing. She couldn’t move a pencil in the state she was in. Someone she loved was about to kill someone else she loved, and there was nothing she could do.

*

Buffy raced across the room, Faith close on her heels.

*This isn’t happening this isn’t going to happen I won’t let this happen have to run have to jump have to tackle*

*NOT GOING TO MAKE IT IN TIME!*

*

Oz leaped—

And Tara dropped to the ground.

Oz stopped short.

Tara rolled on her back and spread her arms like a puppy waiting for its belly to be scratched.

Oz dropped to his forepaws beside her and sniffed.

*

Angel came up short himself, and held out his hand to stop the other rescuers. "Wait!" He called.

*

Oz nudged Tara’s face with his nose. She looked up into his eyes, squirmed on the ground, and *whined*.

*

"What the hell is she *doing*?" Faith demanded frantically.

"She’s submitting," Angel said, awed.

"Of course," Wesley said, finally catching up with the Slayers. "Brilliant. Wolves don’t fight to the death. Not against their own."

*

Tara wriggled and whined again, and Oz began to nuzzle her and lick her face.

With a shuddering sigh of relief, Willow dropped to her knees beside her lover and her ex. She took one of Tara’s outstretched hands and began to stroke Oz’s shoulders with her free hand.

Oz yipped happily and began to rub against her. The mate! She was back! After so long!

Willow didn’t notice Oz’s fur was thinning until she felt bare skin under her stroking hand. "Oz?"

The happy smile had dropped from Oz’s face as soon as it had turned human. Instead, he was staring in horror at the blond girl beneath him.

"I’m all right," She said softly.

He nodded, then closed his eyes tightly and looked away from both witches.

"Clothes, please," he murmured.

"You saved me," Tara said. "If it hadn’t been for the fire, you never would have—"

"Listen to her," Willow pleaded. "If *she* says it’s okay—"

Oz stood up and turned away from them, completely unmindful of his audience. "Clothes, please," he repeated sharply.

"Don’t look at me," Spike muttered, although no one was until he spoke up and walked away. "I already loaned out me leather."

"Here," Angel said, pulling off his own trench coat. "There’s a hole in it, but it’s better than nothing."

Oz took the coat with a nod and a "Thanks." Without another word, he walked past the assembled Scoobies, ignoring several attempts to reach out to him, and stood by himself in the doorway. He was upset, but not fool enough to run out by himself into a night that still sheltered Angelus.

The emergency past, attention was turned to Angel, Riley, and Kate.

Riley was found to be mostly okay. He’d suffered a few defense wounds—shallow slashes and scratches on his forearms, for the most part—and a bruise here and there.

Angel insisted that he was okay, too. Or soon would be. Impalement was never fun, but it had happened before, and he’d had worse. At least the wound was clean—no venom or any nastiness like that. A good swallow of blood and a few hours, and he’d be good as new. As to what had made him scream so and sent him delirious if the tentacle itself didn’t have any dirty tricks…he’d explain later.

Kate was a different story

*

While the wounded were being seen to by those who knew how, others turned to things that were less urgent, but important nonetheless.

*

"What were you *thinking*?" Buffy yelled. "Were you *crazy*?"

Joyce and Xander looked at each other and shifted their feet uncomfortably. It was unusual for Xander to be on this side of this lecture, unprecedented for Joyce. They were finding that they didn’t like it very much.

"We were just trying to help," Joyce protested.

"And you succeeded!" Buffy shouted, sounding as if she was infuriated by this fact. "Spectacularly! You saved Angel’s life, and I can’t ever thank you enough for that!"

Xander and Joyce looked at each other again, this time in total, fogbound incomprehension.

Buffy got up in their faces, waving her arms in a fury of frustration, as if they were failing to comprehend that one and one did not equal seventy-eight. "But you took on *Angelus*! *Yourselves*! That’s what Champions are for! What would I do if I lost either one of you?"

That sounded good. But it was still going by so fast. Their faces were still blank masks of confusion, but hope started to grow in their hearts.

"You both make me so mad I could break I-beams!" She ranted. "But I love you more than anything else in the world! Did you think you needed to prove something to me? Do you think that I wanted to punish you?"

Both of them nodded mutely.

"Well I didn’t!" She snapped, nearly taking the tip of Xander’s nose off with the snap of her teeth. "All I wanted was a friggin’ apology! Is that so hard to say? ‘I’m sorry’? I would have forgiven you just as much!"

She paused, glaring at them and panting.

"Does…that mean…we’re forgiven?" Xander asked tentatively.

Buffy raised her eyes to Heaven. "Yes. Yes, damn it. It does. If…you just…*say* it."

It was at this point that anyone who had been watching in morbid, flaming-car-crash fascination, turned away. Anya had to be turned away forcibly by Giles.

The words almost came blurting out of Xander’s mouth, but he stopped them. He knew he was being given a chance that he didn’t really deserve, and he had to do it right. He took a deep breath, and took it slow. "Once upon a time, I said that I hadn’t been the best of friends where Angel was concerned. You, and Angel…and Belial…have pointed out to me that might have been a little bit of an understatement. Fact is, I treated you like crap. I have an armada of reasons why I did it, and not one of ‘em floats. Here you are, forgiving me two days after the fact, and I stayed angry at you for a whole year. I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but it must have been something great. Thanks. And I’m sorry."

"I’m sorry, too, honey," Joyce said. How long had she kept berating Buffy for running away? Right up until graduation day, hadn’t it been? Now that same girl was extending her own forgiveness not two days after discovering her betrayal. She didn’t know where Buffy got it—if either she or Hank had possessed it, their marriage just may have lasted. "Mr. Giles told me that in your…family, you can’t turn around without hurting each other, and your best intentions are the ones that get you in the most trouble. But not all of my intentions were so good. Some were, but others…like Xander said, some just don’t float. I…you deserved so much better than…you saved the world, and you never even got a thank you. I’m so sorry."

Buffy let out a deep, relieved sigh. "Finally," she said. "It’s been hard making it through these past few days without you two for support," she admitted. They stood in silence for another moment, then she spoke up again in a small, embarrassed voice: "Um…can I have a hug now?"

They were only too happy to oblige. But as the two of them squeezed her between them in a way that Buffy sadly remembered involving both of her parents, Joyce whispered in her ear.

"Buffy…I have something to tell you," She said.

"What?"

"We didn’t help Angel to impress you," She answered.

Buffy stared back at her quizzically. "Why’d you do it, then?"

"We helped Angel to help Angel," Xander explained.

The next moment, both of them were nearly crushed by a ferocious, joyfully teary-eyed Slayer hug.

*

Kate was the most seriously injured. Most of the Asclepian’s half-finished work, at least on her knee, had been undone by her escape attempt. Once the battle had ended, her consciousness had started to gray and become fuzzy around the edges.

Angel’s face loomed at her out of the fog that was filling her vision.

"Angel?"

"I’m here, Kate. You’re going to be okay."

"Who was he, Angel? He said he was you…said he was Angelus."

"He *was* Angelus. He—"

"Was pulled out of you by the devil?" She finished. "He said that too. But that’s crazy, that can’t happen."

The concrete she was lying on was beginning to feel distinctly comfortable. Angel’s face was far above her, and his voice seemed to be coming from miles away. "I’m sleepy," she announced.

Angel’s distant face became alarmed. "Sleepy? Just hang on, Kate. We’ll get you some help."

"Hang on? I’m not going anywhere. I’m just a little sleepy…"

With that, the gray filled her mind and she slept.

*

"She’s in shock," Angel announced. "We need to get her to a hospital." He slid his hands under her limp form, but Wesley caught his shoulder.

"You still have a hole through your torso that’s two fingers wide," Wesley reminded him. "Granted, that’s an improvement over the size of my palm, but you should still let someone else carry her."

*

Half an hour later, a young, bespectacled man with a British accent, and an even younger African-American man delivered Officer Kate Lockley to the emergency room. They vanished back into the night as quickly as they had come, leaving only a note explaining the patient’s identity and how they’d found her in an alley across the street from the Benton Arms fire.


This story archived at: The Slayer\'s Fanfic Archive
The Slayer\\\\\\\\'s FanFic Archive - http://www.slayerfanfic.com/viewstory.php?sid=10978