“Willow, stay behind me,” Oz said as his werewolfishness sensed the fear and blood. He realized that it may have just been residual from months ago when Buffy and Angel battled it out, but the fear smelled especially fresh.
Fresh to the point where it may not have even happened yet.
Oz felt the ground start to tremble and looked over at Willow, who seemed concerned but didn’t seem to notice the shaking beneath her feet. “An earthquake will happen in a couple minutes. Let’s take cover in the mansion; I’m getting something strange from it.”
Willow took hold of Oz’s hand and followed him up the slope. She stood in the doorway and waited as Oz inhaled deeply.
Something here was new. Someone whose smell he recognized had been here only seconds before. There were also emotions he couldn’t recognize, which usually chalked up to vampire or demon.
“Do you see that, Will?” he asked the redhead as he pointed to the exact spot where Acathla used to be. “There’s something shiny there. It wasn’t there a couple of weeks ago.”
Willow craned her neck and shook her head. “I don’t…” she frowned as all light given by the moon faded around them. Suddenly it all seemed to be channeled on the spot where Oz was pointing. Willow hung onto Oz’s arm, though she couldn’t see him, and watched in horrified fascination as the ground shook beneath her feet. A yell ripped through the air as a man appeared out of thin air and lay trembling on the ground. Willow stifled her own cry but loosened up on Oz’s arm as the earthquake tapered and the light returned to normal.
“Oh, my God,” Willow whispered, and went to hurry over to the huddled figure on the floor. Oz grabbed her wrist and held her back.
“Willow, don’t.”
“Oz, we have to help him.”
“I’m sensing some freaky stuff from him. Let’s find Buffy. She’ll want to know first.”
“But… shouldn’t we at least put a blanket over him or something?”
“He isn’t sane. He doesn’t know where he is and he likely won’t know who we are. He may kill you, Willow. He just spent six months in hell. Also, we don’t know if you restored his soul in time or not. Now, he knows we’re here. The atmosphere in the room just changed. He just doesn’t have the strength to come near us yet, which could be a very good thing. Let’s just go and get Buffy.”
Reluctantly, glancing at Angel one more time, she let Oz drag her away from the mansion.
***
“Buffy!” Xander called as he spotted the Slayer walking down the street toward him with her head down. She looked up and seemed to wipe tears away from her eyes. “Look, Buff,” he said as they approached each other. “We obviously have some issues to work out, but if you’re upset, you know you can still tell me anything, right?”
Buffy half-smiled at Xander. “It’s… I’m fine. It’s just weird being back. Any luck?”
Xander shook his head sadly. “None. Looked all over graveyards. She’s not anywhere.” Xander cleared his throat and looked away. “I was just… just retracing Willow and Oz’s steps to see if maybe they missed something.”
Buffy brought herself back to reality and pretended that she just heard what Xander said. “Oh. Okay.” Then she looked around. “You’re alone. Where’s Giles?”
“We stopped by your house and your mom asked to speak with him. I think she wants his account of what happened in L. A., which I wouldn’t mind hearing at some point either, by the way.”
Buffy looked up at Xander and suddenly he found himself being hugged tightly but not overwhelmingly by a Vampire Slayer. “I’m sorry, Xander,” she said a second later as more tears spilled down her face. “I’ve missed you.”
Xander smiled sadly and caught one of her tears on his finger. “It’s great to have you back, Buff.”
Buffy smiled at Xander. “Well, I’m going to save Giles from my mother and wait around for word from Willow and Oz. I want you to check in every hour on the hour so I know you haven’t been eaten by the evil Spike or something, okay? Otherwise I’m coming to save you.”
Xander nodded. “Okay. Thanks, Buffy.” He put a hand on her shoulder as he passed and headed in the direction from which Buffy came.
The Slayer watched him go, and then turned and walked toward her house. For the second time in five minutes, she was startled out of her thoughts when Willow called her while running down a side-street with Oz. “Buffy!”
“Hey, guys. What’s up? Did you find her?”
“Not a her so much as a him,” Willow said, catching her breath.
“You found Spike?”
“No, Buffy,” Willow said seriously, standing up straight. “We found Angel.”
Buffy blinked. “What?”
“Actually, he found us. During the earthquake, Angel appeared out of thin air,” Oz interjected.
Buffy’s expression turned from disbelief to confusion. “What earthquake?”
Willow frowned. “The earthquake that happened about five minutes ago. You know, the one that shook the ground and all that.”
“Will, I didn’t feel any earthquake.”
“If I was Giles, I think I’d be saying ‘aha’ right about now,” Oz muttered.
“Why?” asked Willow. Buffy was still looking at the pair of them skeptically as though they were absolutely bonkers.
“The quake was exclusive to the mansion. I wondered why I could feel it coming better when we were standing in the establishment.”
“You were in the mansion?” Buffy asked, trying to sound casual.
“Yeah. Oz noticed something shiny on the ground. Then there was an earthquake, the light went all funny where the shiny thing was, and then there was Angel lying naked on the ground. I wanted to go and help him, Buffy, but Oz decided that it probably wasn’t such a good idea. …Buffy?”
The Slayer was staring wide-eyed into space. She looked terrified, Willow decided. She watched Buffy in interest as Oz waved a hand in front of her face to no prevail. “Buffy!” Willow said, scared, and grabbed Buffy’s arm.
The Slayer jolted and blinked repeatedly. “What? Huh?”
“Thank God! I thought you’d totally zoned out.”
“Oh.” Buffy shook her head violently. “Oh, sorry. I have to go there now.”
“We’ll come with you,” Willow offered.
“No! Uh, I mean, no. Go… go to my house, grab Giles, and then find Xander. Keep looking for Cordelia. I’ll go deal with An…” Buffy stumbled over the sentence. She swallowed and tried again. “I’ll go deal with Angel.” The Slayer turned and headed toward Restfield Cemetery.
“Buffy, wait!” Willow yelled after her. Buffy turned around violently and stared angrily at Willow for interrupting her intensive walking process. Willow jogged up to Buffy. “Buffy… I know this is hard to think about, but did the spell work? Does Angel have a soul?”
Buffy looked down at her feet. “Yeah, Will. It worked. But after all these months in hell, I don’t know if he’d still have a soul. They may have driven all the good right out of him.” Without looking back at Willow, Buffy turned and ran. Willow watched her go until Oz gently pulled Willow away and they walked in the direction of Buffy’s house.
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