I don’t own anything except Gillian and the lame plot of this story. I am not associated with Mariah Carey or her song, My All. Everything else belongs to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, the little Grr Arrg dude, and all those other people. Oh, yeah. I own that dude in the dark cloak, who appears later on in the story. I’m not making money, so don’t sue.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: THIS IS A SEQUEL TO GILLIAN'S SECRET!! Sorry for the caps.This happens about two weeks after Gillian’s Secret, and Gillian's living in what was Angel's apartment. The third season never ever ever happened. As faras this fic is concerned, Angel is still in Hell. Although Joyce knows about Buffy'sslaying and stuff.
"Baby, can you feel meImagining I’m looking in your eyesI can see you clearlyVividly emblazoned in my mindBut you’re just so farLike a distant starI’m wishing on tonight."
-My All: Mariah Carey
Gillian, Buffy, Willow, Giles, Cordelia, and Xander were all in the library. Oz’s band had a gig that night.
"Are you ready?" Giles asked Gillian softly. The redhead was dressed simply: short jean shorts and a blue tank top with a butterfly in the corner. Her wild curls were pulled back in a simple ponytail.
Gillian nodded. "It’s now or never."
Willow was sitting Indian-style n the table, Cordelia, Giles, and Gillian were all standing by the table, Xander was "standing guard" on the balcony thing and Buffy was "standing guard" by the door.
Cordelia held a knife and looked a little apprehensive of her job in the ritual. Both Giles and Willow held an open book and Gillian stood fairly close to Cordelia.
"You want to aim for finding and convincing Angel before 12:30," Giles advised. "It will take twice as long or longer to get out than it did to get in."
Cordelia also held two watches on long cords. They were exactly synchronized and the time was 11:58 p.m. She handed one to Gillian, who slipped it around her neck.
Giles began to chant something in Latin.
Willow responded in a language no one present, even Giles, knew.
Cordelia, with a grossed-out look on her face, placed the blade of the knife on Gillian’s outstretched arm. As Willow and Giles recited the next lines, Cordelia cut through the skin, drawing a thin line of blood on the Slayer/vampire’s arm.
In the middle of the library, now far from where Gillian was standing, a portal opened. It shimmered and glowed.
Gillian edged towards it, looked around at everyone, then paused as Buffy. "I won’t come back without Angel," she promised before disappearing into the portal.
Gillian found herself falling, sinking into a dark abyss. She finally landed, roughly on a hard surface of rock. She grunted and struggled to pull herself up to her feet.
Once standing, Gillian glanced at her watch. 12:05. Then she looked around. As far as she could see, there was a flat stretch of rock.
"Great. Now what am I supposed to do?" she asked herself out loud.
Gillian continued to spin in slow circles, looking for a sign, a clue, anything that would help her find Angel. Then, far off in the distance, she saw something. A house maybe? With a shrug, Gillian took off running in the direction of the house. The faster she got this done, the better.
As she neared the house, Gillian took in its image. The wooden steps that led up to the front door, the flower beds in the front yard, the tall apple tree—it was the house she had lived in with her family back in 1924!
Amazed, Gillian watched as a smaller (is it possible?) version of herself walked out the front door, calling over her shoulder, "I won’t be too late!"
The young Gillian walked down the street, humming a tune that Gillian remembered was a song she had loved for the longest time. Gillian turned back to her old house and looked at it. Then she saw something that scared her. Spike was hiding in one of the bushes, watching young Gillian go with an evil smile on his face.
Gillian didn’t know why she followed Spike as he walked up the stairs. She sort of felt drawn to. She watched as he knocked on the door. Her twelve-year-old brother, Josh, opened the door. "Hello?" he asked Spike.
"Yes, are your parents at home?" Spike asked politely.
"Why do you want to see them?" Josh asked, and rather rudely at that.
Gillian suppressed a chuckle, though it was obvious neither could see her.
At that moment, Gillian’s mother, Mrs. Richardson, appeared behind her son. "Do excuse my son.
"Oh, that’s quite all right." Gillian didn’t know Spike could be this polite. "My name is William. I have a manner to discuss concerning your daughter, Gillian."
Mrs. Richardson was suddenly apprehensive. "Gillian? What about her?"
"Perhaps we should discuss this with your husband present."
Josh had stood watching this exchange with wide eyes.
"Yes, would you like to come in?"
"Yes, thank you," Spike said, entering the house. Gillian once again felt drawn to enter behind him.
When she got in, she saw that her older sister, Caroline was sitting on the sofa reading a fashion magazine and her father was sitting in his chair reading the paper.
"Now, what about Gillian?" Mrs. Richardson asked.
Spike smiled evilly and shifted to his game face. "Because of her fate, you must die."
Mrs. Richardson and Caroline screamed and backed against the wall. Josh stepped up to Spike. "I’m not afraid of you!"
Gillian watched all of this silently. She now knew what was going to happen, and she dreaded it. ‘The one who performs the ritual must face all their worst nightmares.’ But deep within her mind, beneath the fear and anger Gillian felt a sense of small pride for Josh, whom she had taught basic self-defense.
Mr. Richardson stood and stepped in front of Josh. "Joshua, get back!" he commanded.
Josh backed up maybe half a step. "What do you want?" Mr. Richardson asked Spike.
"Run!" Gillian shouted. "Get out of here while you still can!" She tried to move towards her family, but found herself rooted to the ground. "Please run! It’s your only chance!"
Spike sighed. "I think I already told you. I want the slayer and her family dead. Starting with you."
"The who?" Mr. Richardson asked before Spike hit him and sent him flying up against the wall.
"Stop it!" Josh shouted.
Gillian could see he was frightened but trying not to show it. She remembered telling him, "Never let your opponent see your fear. If they see a fear, they will know where to strike . . ." Now, she shouted, "Don’t be brave for me, Josh! Get out of here!"
Josh adopted a simple fighting stance, looking as if he would kill an army to keep his family safe. Spike laughed. "Oh, please! Don’t tell me little Slayer has been giving her brother tips!"
Gillian once again tried to lunge at Spike, but was still rooted to the ground. Spike struck out in a kick that sent Josh reeling against the wall next to his father. Gillian watched in horror as he killed her sister and her mother, slowly and painfully. As he moved towards Mr. Richardson, who was now sobbing, Josh began to crawl towards the fireplace. Gillian figured out his plan and prayed silently that Spike would not see him until it was too late, even though she already knew the outcome of this night.
As Spike tortured her father and sucked him dry, Gillian collapsed to the ground, the one thing she could do in this somewhat suspended state. "Run, Josh!" she shouted out to her brother, although she knew he would fight Spike to the death—her brother’s.
Spike, without turning around, spoke to Josh. "Well, now it’s for the two little firecrackers left in the family," he said. Then he turned to face Josh, who, as only Gillian knew, held the fire poker behind his back.
"Don’t hurt Gillian!" Josh shouted, avoiding the bodies of the rest of the family.
"I don’t get it," Spike said, slowly walking towards Josh. "Does the red hair make you two so damn stubborn? The rest of your family isn’t like that."
Spike lunged towards Josh, and he pulled the poker out from behind his back. It pierced Spike’s flesh, by the left eyebrow. Spike howled in pain as blood gushed out from the open wound on his face. He tackled Josh and the rest of the fight flew by in a horrible daze for Gillian. Josh managed to get some more hits on Spike, some drawing blood, but he’d never kill him without a wooden stake.
Spike grabbed the poker out of Josh’s hands and stuck it into her brother’s belly, causing blood to come spilling out onto the floor. There was so much blood by the time Spike crushed the bones in Josh’s chest, piercing the heart, that Gillian couldn’t tell whose was whose. As Josh lay gasping for air, his lungs filling up with blood, he spoke to Spike. "Don’t hurt Gillian," he managed to whisper.
Spike laughed. "You can’t very well stop me now, can you?" he asked.
"Don’t hurt Gill . . ." Josh trailed off and his eyes closed for one final time.
Spike sighed and stood up, wincing as he touched his left eyebrow. "All in a night’s work," he said, walking out the back door.
As Gillian lay curled on the ground, crying, she swore she saw the face of Angel, as he had been in 1924, staring through the window at her family.
When Gillian finally came to her senses, she looked around. Now she was in the middle of a cemetery. "Great. Now what?" she whispered quietly to herself. She slowly stalked through the cemetery, looking for any clue as to what was about to happen. She glanced at gravestones as she passed by them, noting the years. Most of the people buried here had died in the 21st century. Well, at least she wouldn’t be reliving an old experience.
The next to gravestones she saw made her heart skip a beat. The name on the first one said Gillian Leigh McDougal. "McDougal," Gillian repeated softly to herself, trying to figure out where she had heard the name before. Then it came to her. "Angel’s last name," she breathed in shock. Then she continued to read. "’Beloved wife and mother. March 3, 1982-September 21, 2005.’ Wife and mother? Weird."
She looked at the next gravestone. "Angelus Edward McDougal," she read out loud. "’Beloved father. August 24, 1978-September 30, 2022.’ Father. Why not husband?" Gillian compared their death dates. "Oh. I die seventeen years before him." Then, sarcastically, "That’s comforting—if it’s even true."
Gillian left the sadness the two graves had brought behind her and continued walking. Just when she remembered the watch and was about to see how much time she had left to find Angel, she was attacked from behind. Something pounced on her and she rolled with it, then sprang to her feet to face it.
It was a vampire. Normal enough. For her life, anyway. Gillian slid a stake into her hand from only she knows where and lunged at the vampire. He was weak and no problem to finish off in no time. Just as he turned to dust, however, she was attacked from the side by another vampire. She fought him off, and staked him, but they just kept coming. The instant she staked one, another took its place.
Soon they began coming in twos, threes. Gillian couldn’t hold them off anymore. She knew she had to run, but running was not something she enjoyed doing. She had always believed in facing what was in front of her. But this time, that was clearly not an option. Gillian’s pride lost to her common sense and she took off sprinting through the cemetery. She tripped over something—or what it nothing?--and looked in front of her as she tried to get up. She was face to face with the grave of Joshua Michael Richardson. Suppressing a scream, she climbed back to her feet and began to run again.
Gillian hurdled over the wall of the cemetery, landing hard on a surface of rock. She looked behind her and saw nothing. No cemetery wall, definitely no vampires trying to climb over it. That was one small miracle.
Gillian looked down and found that she was bleeding from small cuts that were already beginning to heal. She was about to sit and catch her breath for a minute, when she remembered her priorities. Angel! She quickly pulled the watch up so she could see it. 12:20. And she hadn’t even FOUND him yet, much less convinced him.
All Gillian’s body wanted to do was fall over and go to sleep for, oh, say, a day. But her heart, mind, and soul told her to get off her lazy butt and search for Angel. Majority rules, so Gillian climbed to her feet (not without a various array of groans) and looked around. Again, nothing. Not wanting to see another memory off in the distance, Gillian started walking in the direction she was already facing, not knowing where it would take her, or what it would lead her to. Just hoping, wishing, and praying, that it would lead her to Angel.
* * *
Buffy paced the library, wary of the glowing portal in its center. "What time is it?" she asked yet again.
Cordelia sighed. "I give up. You take the watch. I don’t want you asking me every five seconds!"
Buffy angrily grabbed the watch from Cordy’s hand. "12:20," Buffy stated.
"We know," Xander said.
"how do you know?" Buffy shot back.
"Cordelia told you it was 12:15 five minutes ago," Xander pointed out.
Buffy glared at him and Giles said, "You know, Buffy, maybe you should try and calm down a little bit. All this worrying won’t get you anywhere. An hour is about how long it will take Gillian to find Angel, convince him she’s real, and get the two of them out of there. You’re in for 40 minutes of a wait."
Buffy sighed and flopped into the chair, obviously agitated. "Well, maybe I should go in after her. I mean, she could—"
Giles cut Buffy off. "Buffy, it would take you more time to find either one of them, much less both, than we have left. I’m sure they’re okay. Just wait patiently."
Willow spoke up, "You know Gillian won’t come back without him. She’ll give her own life to get him out."
"Yeah, well, what if she can’t? What if the two of them are stuck in there forever?" Buffy asked.
"Well," Xander said. "The way I see it, it’s a plus and a minus for both of us. I hate Angel, you hate Gillian. There are our plusses. On the other hand, you love Angel, and I think Gillian is, hmm, how do you say it, hot. There are our minuses. So, all in all we’re even." He shrugged and gave a Xander-like laugh.
Buffy glared at him and Cordelia slapped his arm. "You think she’s hot?" she growled.
Xander chuckled nervously. "No more than you of course."
Buffy ignored her friends’ bantering and continued to stare into the portal that would bring her Angel back.
* * *
As Gillian jogged along the rock (she could not bring her body to run) she came upon a building. It was a mostly wooden structure, starting to fall apart. She approached it cautiously, wondering what sort of danger lay inside.
There was a fence surrounding the building, and from the looks it, it was somewhat of a prison. As Gillian stepped throughout the gates, she was attacked form all directions by a horde of vampires.
Gillian thought as she fought off the vampires. She had long since changed to her "game face" and wondered why they knew she wasn’t just another vampire like them.
Then it hit her: they must be guarding whatever was inside that building. She remembered how Giles had told her this was the one day out of the year someone from Earth could enter Hell without something like Acathla, of course, and all the demons in Hell knew it, too. The fact that these vampires attacked her like this made her wonder just WHAT was inside that building.
Seeing that she would no sooner fight off these than she would get back to find Giles singing along at the top of his lungs to a Sugar Ray CD, Gillian gathered her energy and used the power of her legs to do a flip over the line of vampires in front of her. Once she landed behind them, Gillian didn’t bother to turn around. She just sprinted as fast as she could to the entrance of the building.
The vampires chased after her, but when Gillian was in full speed, (her weariness had been temporarily forgotten) nobody or nothing could beat her. She sprinted up a flight of stairs, not quite knowing where she was going. When she got to the top of the stairs, she saw a thick wooden door. Not knowing or caring what was in the room beyond, Gillian ran into the room and slammed the heavy door behind her. She found a strong wooden bar and used it to bolt the door shut.
She listened as the vampires pounded on the other side of the door. They wouldn’t be breaking through any time soon.
"What do you want? Won’t you please just leave me alone?"
The voice had come from the back of the room Gillian was now in. it was a weak voice, laced with sorrow and despair and sounded on the verge of tears. It had been fifty-one years, but Gillian would know that voice anywhere. It was the same voice that had told her stories to help her sleep those nights when she had been plagued by memories of her past. The same voice that had whispered her name in ecstasy in the middle of the night. The same voice that had consoled her after all she loved was gone. And, most importantly, it was the same voice that had told her, with all the truth in the world, that he loved her. Angel.
Gillian slowly turned around, shifting her face back to human. "Angel," she whispered, her voice filled with pain and longing.
Angel was slumped in a corner looking just the way his voice had sounded, only worse. His clothes were bloody and torn, his hair rumpled and bloody, and he had cuts running down his face and his bare chest where his shirt had come open. Gillian could only assume he also had cuts on his arms and legs, which were covered by his clothing. Normally, these would have healed, but obviously the others had been depriving him of blood.
She hurried over to him and kneeled down beside him. "Oh, Angel," she whispered, caressing his face. "What have they done to you?"
Angel’s eyes flickered open. "Gillian?" he asked, hope and love filling his eyes. His eyes then clouded over again. "No," he whispered. "You’re not Gillian. My Gillian’s dead. Stop trying to torture me!"
‘MY Gillian.’ He had called her HIS Gillian. But she didn’t’ have time to reflect on that. Gillian watched Angel, wishing he would see that she WAS his Gillian. "Angel, no, I’m not dead. When Spike set that thing on fire, I broke the ropes and escaped. I’d thought he was going to kill you when he took you out of the room."
Angel looked at the redhead. "How do you—" he broke off suddenly. "You’re getting into my mind, trying to hurt me the most you can. It won’t work."
Gillian stared at her love as he closed his eyes again. She thought for sure he’d know it was really her. She had felt the tingling calmness the moment she had touched his face. She had no idea how to get him to believe her.
"When you touch, you feel a bond. When you kiss, you can sometimes see into each others’ mind. . ." Gillian’s own voice echoed through her head. He needed to be able to see into her mind to know she was really Gillian. Only soulmates had that connecting, and Gillian knew if she kissed him, she could convince him.
Gillian looked down at the watch. 12:32. He was supposed to be convinced by now. They had not time to lose.
Gillian took Angel’s head in her hands and pressed her lips against his passionately. Angel’s mind was weak from so many torments and he easily allowed their minds to merge.
The word was like the beat of a butterfly’s wings.
Once again, in this secret place of their minds, they weren’t kissing though in real life they were.
Angel thought at Gillian. She could hear the doubt in his voice.
Gillian called, mentally and physically reaching out for him. he replied, referring to the kiss.
she responded, gesturing around her.
Angel looked into her eyes. They were huge, loving and blue. So blue. Such an honest color. He searched her mind, as she freely allowed him to, seeing only Gillian’s memories, Gillian’s thoughts, and—Gillian’s love.
Angel’s voice was filled with the simple amazement of a small child.
< I thought I lost you. > < I thought I lost YOU. >
The soulmates looked at each other, then embraced in a sweet, loving kiss.
What they felt was a whole new level of connection. They were kissing both in reality and in their minds and they were drawn to some sort of paradise, where only the two of them existed . . .
* * *
Meanwhile, time was going on without them. Buffy had stayed seated in her chair as she was told for all of ten minutes. The she had resumed her pacing and periodic glances at the watch.
"It’s 12:32!" Buffy exclaimed. She had refrained from calling out the time every two minutes.
Giles appeared from his office. "Well, then, if things are going as planned, Gillian should have found Angel by now and they should be on their way back out."
Willow looked up from the computer and said, "Will it really take them a half an hour to get out?"
Giles sighed and leaned against the table near where Xander had his feet propped up, reading a magazine. "Well, it should take at least twenty to twenty-five minutes. Once they have the two of the combined, they will be able to fight better, but they will also have to face BOTH of their nightmares."
He glanced at Cordelia, who was doing her nails, at Xander who was still reading, and at Buffy who as still pacing. He heard her mumble, "12:40." It was going to be a long twenty minutes for all five of them . . .
* * *
Gillian and Angel still floated in their paradise, surrounded by each other.
Gillian thought.
< I love you, Angel. >
< I love you, Gillian. >
With that jarring thought, Gillian and Angel were roughly yanked back to the real world.
"Gillian, what is it?" Angel whispered, holding her close and brushing her hair out of her face. Somewhere along the line she had lost her scrunchee.
Gillian looked at the watch. "Angel, it’s 12:41! WE have to get out of here by 1:00 otherwise we’re stuck here forever!"
Angel’s eyes widened.
Gillian sprang to her feel. "Can you walk?"
She helped him up, but Angel stood easily by himself. "That soulmates connection must have had some sort of healing power," Angel said.
Gillian looked at the wooden door. The vampires would be breaking through soon . . .
"there are at least thirty vamps out there. WE can’t take them all," Gillian said.
Angel motioned to the window. "WE can get out there if we get those bars off."
"You five! The basement!" Gillian and angel heard a vampire on the other side of the door shout.
Angel paled. "C’mon, we have to hurry," he whispered to Gillian. The two attacked the bars, struggling to pull them off.
"What’s in the basement?" Gillian asked as she pulled one off.
"You’ll see," Angel replied solemnly.
When they finally got all the bars off of the windows, Angel said, "You first, Gillian."
"No. I promised everyone I wouldn’t be back without you. You go first."
Angel opened his mouth to argue, but decided they couldn’t waste any more time. He lifted himself to the window and slid out of the window, landing gently on a platform a few feet below the window. He was still a couple stories from the ground. In a few seconds, Gillian landed softly beside him.
"We’re gonna have to jump," Gillian said. "I know I can make it. Can you?"
Angel looked at her strangely. "What’s to make, Gillian? If I jump, I’m gonna land!"
"Yeah, but will you be okay? I mean, we’re gonna need to run."
Angel took a deep breath and looked down. "Yeah. I’ll be fine."
Gillian looked into Angel’s eyes. "Okay," she said. "On the count of three, we jump." She grabbed his hand.
But Gillian never even made it to one. Before she could even open her mouth, the building exploded in a shower of fire and wood. Two of the most harmful things for vampires.
Instead of the gentle landing they had planned, Angel and Gillian landed hard on the ground tangled up in each other. Angel climbed off of Gillian and reached down to help her to her feet. As she started to stand up, she saw that a long, sharp piece of wood from the building was heading straight for Angel’s heart.
"Angel!" she screamed. Gillian tackled Angel, knocking him out of the way of the "stake". Instead of piercing his heart fatally, it pierced Gillian’s right knee, going all the way through and coming out the other end. Gillian screamed in pain and Angel looked at her with a worried look.
"Pull it out!" she gasped.
Angel reached down to Gillian’s knee, took hold of one end of the piece of wood and pulled with all his might. He got most of the wood out, but it splintered and left some of it still in her knee. A vampire’s flesh would not—could not heal around wood.
"we have to get out of here!" Gillian exclaimed as more debris fell down around them.
Angel helped her to her feet, and she leaned on him as, in pain, they started away from the building.
Once they got far enough to be out of danger, Angel said, "Let me see that."
Gillian shook her head. "It’s fine," She said, even as she winced. "Besides, we don’t have enough time." She looked at the watch. "It’s already 12:46!"
"How do we get out?" Angel asked, though he was still worried about Gillian.
"We have to find the way I got in. Come on."
Angel and Gillian took off running, Gillian holding on to Angel with all her might. As they ran, the scenery around them changed. Without even noticing it, they were in an old-looking village.
"Oh, God," Gillian moaned.
"What?" Angel asked, confused at what was going on.
"I forgot. We have to face our worst nightmares. Whose is this?" she asked, looking around confusedly.
"Mine," Angel moaned. Gillian looked up at him, then followed his gaze to where a beautiful young girl with dark black hair was standing, staring up at the stars. Gillian recognized her from her sixteenth birthday, the first time she had entered Angel’s mind. She was the gypsy girl Angel had tortured.
Gillian watched as Angel watched in horror as a different version of himself walked up to the gypsy girl.
Angel tried to move, but found himself unable to, much as Gillian had been during her nightmare, earlier that night. As the gypsy girl cowered in fear, recognizing Angelus, Gillian tried and found that she could move. But Angelus and the gypsy girl couldn’t see or hear her.
"Angel, come on. I’m gonna try to help you move," Gillian said, limping to stand in front of him and taking hold of both of his hands in her own. She had her back turned to Angelus and the gypsy, but could hear her muffled screams and his evil laughter. She didn’t bother to turn. She had seen this encounter once, and once was enough for her.
Gillian pulled on Angel’s hands, but he stood, watching himself torture the girl with tears streaming down his face. "Angel, come on," she whispered quietly. But he wouldn’t pay attention to her. As she continued to try to snap him out of it, Angel fell to the ground, sobbing. It seemed like only moments to Gillian, but almost hours to Angel when the village around them faded to show the rock again.
Angel lay there, sobbing on the ground. Gillian felt tears of her own welling up in her eyes. She hated it when anyone else cried. She sank down next to him, careful of her still extremely painful knee. She placed her hands on his shoulders. "Angel, it’s okay," she whispered, softly kissing his tears away.
Neither knew how long they sat there like that, but when he looked up (what a surprise) at her and said, "Let’s get out of this hellhole," she looked at her watch. 12:53. "Oh, God, we gotta get out of here," she said as he helped her to stand. Little did they know that their problems were far from over . . .
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