Introduction
Season: First | Second | Third | Fourth | Fifth | Sixth | Seventh
Other Bodies | Episodes | Dramatis Personae
Ramblings | Links | Fanfic

Innocence

Prologue

The Judge kneels on the floor, meditating, while Spike wheels around in his chair impatiently. He doesn’t think that they should be hanging around here since Buffy and Angel got away. Dru isn’t worried. Her Angel is too smart to go up against the Judge again. Spike wants to know what the Judge is doing.

“I am preparing,” says the Judge.

“Yeah,” says Spike. “It’s interesting to me that ‘preparing’ looks a great bit like sitting on your ass. When do we destroy the world already?”

“My strength grows,” says the Judge, “And with every life I take it will increase further.”

“So let’s take some!” says Spike. “I’m bored.”

Drusilla moans in pain, and collapses to the floor. Spike quickly rolls over to her to see what’s wrong.

“Angel!” moans Drusilla.

Buffy wakes up in Angel’s bed, naked and alone.

Angel collapses to the ground in the alley in pain. A hooker sheltering from the rain in a nearby doorway and smoking a cigarette sees him, and comes out.

“You okay? You want me to call 911?”

Angel suddenly gets to his feet, with his back to her. “No, The pain is gone.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” Angel spins around and sinks his teeth into her neck. He rips her throat right out. Angel drops her dead body on the ground, and blows smoke from his mouth. “I feel just fine.”

Act I

Buffy arrives home, and tries sneaking in the back door. Her mother hears her as she’s heading up the stairs. Buffy turns around and pretends to be coming down as Joyce comes out of the living room, but Joyce knows that Buffy spent the night out. Buffy forgot that she’d told her mother that she was spending the night at Willow’s.

Joyce asks if Buffy wants any breakfast, but Buffy says she just wants to take a shower.

Joyce tells Buffy that if she hurries she will drive her to school. She notices that something seems to be bothering Buffy. “Is something wrong?”

“No, what would be wrong?” asks Buffy.

“I don’t know. You just look…” Joyce shakes her head and goes into the dining room.

Xander arrives back the library with the news that nothing happened at the bus depot. Everyone has similar news.

“No vampires transporting boxes?” asks Giles.

“No, but a four hundred pound wino offered to wash my hair.” Xander looks around and notices that Buffy is missing. No one has heard from her or Angel. Xander is worried, he proposes that they go to the factory themselves to find her.

“And do what?” asks Cordelia, “Besides be afraid and die!”

“Well, nobody’s asking you to go, Cordelia,” says Xander. “If the vampires need grooming tips we’ll give you a call.”

Giles thinks Cordelia has a point. If something happened to Buffy and Angel, they wouldn’t fair any better.

Xander and Willow don’t care. They are going to save Buffy.

Willow and Xander are saved from their bravery by Buffy’s arrival.

Jenny asks where Angel is. Buffy was hoping that they would know. She gives them the news the Judge is active, and tells them that she and Angel got separated in the sewers while escaping. She’s worried about him.

“Buffy, the Judge,” says Giles. “We must stop him. What can you tell us?”

“Not much,” says Buffy, “I kicked him. It was just like a sudden fever. If he’d got his hands on me…”

“In time, he won’t need to,” says Giles. “The stronger he gets he’ll be able to reduce us to charcoal with a look.”

“Also, not the prettiest man in town,” says Buffy.

Giles is going to have to do more researching to see if he can learn any weak spots the Judge may have. In the meantime they all have to get to classes. Jenny promises to see if she can learn anything on the internet and Xander promises to return right after classes.

“Yeah, you might find something useful if it’s in an I Can Read book,” says Cordelia.

Willow catches up with Buffy by the stairway. She asks if Buffy thinks Angel may have gone after the Judge by himself.

Buffy doesn’t think that’s what’s happened. She just wishes that Angel would contact her. They need to talk. Willow and Buffy head up the stairs.

Miss Calendar watches them go.

Drusilla lies on the table recovering from her vision. Spike asks if she’s feeling better.

“I’m naming all the stars,” says Dru.

“You can’t see the stars, love. That’s the ceiling,” says Spike. “Also, it’s day.”

“I can see them,” says Dru. “But I’ve named them all the same name, and there’s terrible confusion.”

Spike wants to know what Dru saw in her vision. Did she see what happened to Angel?

Angel steps into the room. “Well, he moves to New York and tries to fulfill that Broadway dream. It’s tough sleighing, but one day he’s working in the chorus when the big star twists her ankle.”

“You don’t give up do you?” asks Spike.

“As long as there’s injustice in the world,” says Angel, “As long as scum like you is walking—well, rolling—the streets. I’ll be around. Look over your shoulder. I’ll be there.”

“Yeah,” says Spike. “Angel, um…look over your shoulder.”

Angel turns around and sees the Judge standing behind him. The Judge reaches out his hand and places it on Angel’s chest.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” asks Spike.

“Well, you know, it kind of itches a little,” says Angel.

Spike is annoyed. “Don’t just stand there. Burn him,” he tells the Judge.

“Gee,” says Angel, “Maybe he’s broken.”

Spike looks at Drusilla. “What the hell is going on?”

Dru starts to smile.

“This one cannot be burned,” says the Judge. “He is clean.”

“Clean?” asks Spike. “You mean, he’s…”

“There’s no humanity in him.” The Judge turns and walks away.

Angel smiles. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“Angel…” says Drusilla.

Angel smiles at her. “Yeah, baby. I’m back.”

Act II

Spike isn’t fully convinced that Angelus is back. “No more of this ‘I’ve got a soul’ crap?”

“What can I say?” Angel strikes a match, and lights up a cigarette. “I was going through a phase.”

Spike thinks that this is great.

Drusilla is ecstatic. Her family is back together again. “Everything in my head is singing! We’re family again. We’ll feed.” She growls at Angel. “And we’ll play.” She leans over Spike.

“I’ve got to tell you, it made me sick to my stomach seeing you being the Slayer’s lap dog,” says Spike.

Angel grabs Spike by the shirt, and growls at him. Then he kisses him on the forehead and laughs.

“How did this happen?” asks Drusilla.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” says Angel.

Spike doesn’t care how it happened. “What matters is now he’s back! Now it’s four against one, which are the kind of odds I like to play.”

”Psst, we’re going to destroy the world!” Dru whispers to Angel. “Want to come?”

Angel isn’t interested in destroying the world at the moment. There is a certain Slayer that he is much more interested in. Spike thinks that will work out fine, since she’s in the world.

Angel twiddles with his cigarette. “Give me tonight.”

“What do you mean?” asks Spike.

“Lay low for a night,” says Angel. “I guarantee you by the time you go public she won’t be anything resembling a threat.”

“You’ve really got a yen to hurt this girl, haven’t you?” asks Spike.

Angel flicks the cigarette away. “She made me feel like a human being. That’s not the kind of thing you just forgive.”

Buffy hasn’t joined her friends in the library after school. She phones Willow to tell her that she’s been out looking for Angel. She can’t find him anywhere. She’s even beat up Willy the Snitch a couple of times looking for information. She tells Willow that she’s going to stop at home before coming back to the school.

Xander slams shut the book he’s been reading. It has nothing useful in it. He goes back into the stacks to look for another. He finds Cordy there. She isn’t having any more luck. Every reference they find on the Judge says pretty much the same thing. No weapon forged can kill him, it took an army to bring him down. Nothing of any use.

“Sorry I snapped at you before,” says Xander.

“Well, I’m reeling from that new experience.”

“I was crazed,” says Xander. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“I know,” says Cordelia. “You were too busy rushing off to die for your beloved Buffy. You’d never die for me.”

“I might die from you. Does that give me any points?”

“No!” says Cordy.

“Come on, can’t we just kiss and make up?” asks Xander.

“I don’t want to make up!” says Cordy, and Xander starts to go. Cordy grabs his arm. “But I’m okay with the other part.” She pulls him back and they start to kiss.

Xander comes up for some air, and catches sight of Willow watching them out of the corner of his eye. She looks completely devastated.

“Willow, uh…” says Xander, but she turns and runs away. Xander chases after her. “We were just… Willow! Willow!”

Cordelia sighs, and leans back against the book shelf.

Xander catches up with Willow in the hallway outside the library. “Willow, come on!”

Willow turns to confront him. “I knew it! I knew it! Well, not ‘knew it’ in the sense of having the slightest idea, but I knew there was something I didn’t know. You two were fighting way too much. It’s not natural!”

“I know it’s weird,” says Xander.

“Weird?” asks Willow. “It’s against all laws of God and Man! It’s… Cordelia! Remember? The, the We Hate Cordelia Club, of which you are the treasurer.”

“Look, I was going to tell you.”

“Gee, what stopped you? Could it be shame?”

“All right, let’s overreact, shall we? Willow, we were just kissing. It doesn’t mean that much.”

“No. It just means that you’d rather be with someone you hate than be with me.” Willow turns and runs away. Xander slowly walks back toward the library.

Buffy walks up the steps onto her front porch. She pauses outside the door. She doesn’t go in. She turns away.

Buffy goes to Angel’s apartment. To her surprise Angel is there, getting dressed. She rushes to him for a kiss and a hug. She wants to know where he has been, why he just took off.

Angel seems to be surprised by Buffy’s concern. He’s been around, no big deal. “Like I really wanted to stick around after that.”

Buffy is confused. She doesn’t understand what he’s saying.

“You got a lot to learn about men, kiddo,” says Angel. “Although I guess you proved that last night.” Buffy gets even more confused. “Let’s not make an issue out of it, okay?” says Angel. “In fact, let’s not talk about it at all.”

Buffy doesn’t understand. “Was it me? Was I not…good?”

Angel laughs at Buffy. “You were great. Really. I thought you were a pro.”

“How can you say this to me?”

“Lighten up,” says Angel. “It was a good time. It doesn’t mean like we have to make a big deal.”

“It is a big deal!”

“It’s what? Bells ringing, fireworks, a dulcet choir of pretty little birdies?” Angel laughs again. “Come on, Buffy. It’s not like I’ve never been there before.” He reaches his hand out toward her face.

Buffy steps back. “Don’t touch me!”

Angel starts toward the door. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

“Angel!” says Buffy. “I love you.”

“Love you, too. I’ll call you.” Angel leaves Buffy crying in his apartment.

“You know what it is, this thing vengeance?” Enyos asks Jenny in his hotel room. “To the modern man vengeance is a verb, an idea. Payback. One thing for another. Like commerce. Not with us. Vengeance is a living thing. It passes through generations. It commands. It kills!”

“You told me to watch Angel,” says Jenny. “You told me to keep him from the Slayer. I tried. But there are other factors. There are terrible things happening here that we cannot control. Angel could be of help to us. He may be the only chance we have to stop the Judge.”

“It is too late for that,” says Enyos.

“Why?”

“The curse,” says Enyos. “Angel is meant to suffer, not to live as human. One moment of true happiness, of contentment. One moment where the soul that we restored no longer plagues his thoughts, and that soul is taken from him.”

“Then, if somehow…if it’s happened…then Angelus is back.”

Enyos had hoped to stop it, but now he realizes now that it was meant to be, and now Buffy is going to have to kill Angel.

“Unless he kills her first!” says Jenny. “Uncle, this is insanity! People are going to die!”

“Yes,” says Enyos. “It is not justice we serve. It is vengeance.”

Jenny picks up her purse. “You’re a fool. We’re all fools,” she says as she leaves.

Willow returns to the school. She meets with Xander coming out of the washroom. He’s glad she’s back. They need her help.

“Let’s get this straight,” says Willow. “I don’t understand it, I don’t want to understand it, you have gross emotional problems, and things are not okay between us. But what’s happening right now is more important than that.” She asks for an update on what they have learned.

Xander reports that things haven’t changed.

“Let me guess,” says Willow. “‘No weapon forged.’”

“‘It took an army.’” says Xander.

“Yeah, where’s an army when you need one?” asks Willow.

“Whoa!” says Xander. “Whoa! I think I’m having a thought. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s a thought. Now I’m having a plan!” The lights go out. “Now I’m having a wiggins! Let’s get to the library.”

Angel appears in the hallway, his face hidden by shadows. Willow and Xander are glad to see him, and Willow asks if he’s spoken with Buffy.

Angel tells Willow that he’s seen her, and tells Xander to go get the others. He has something he wants to show them.

Xander runs off toward the library.

Angel beckons for Willow to come to him, he wants to show her something amazing. She starts to walk toward him.

Xander stops and turns around. He realizes that something isn’t right.

Jenny appears in the hallway behind Willow. “Willow get away from him!”

Willow turns around and sees Jenny’s holding a cross. “What are you talking about?”

Angel rushes forward and grabs Willow by the throat.

Xander arrives back, and sees Angel in full vampire face holding Willow. “Don’t do that!”

“Oh, I think I do that,” says Angel.

“Angel?” gasps Willow.

“He’s not Angel anymore,” says Jenny. “Are you?”

“Wrong. I am Angel.” He tightens his grip on Willow’s throat. “At last! I got a message for Buffy.”

“Why don’t you give it to me yourself?” asks Buffy from behind him.

Angel spins around to face her without letting go of Willow. “It’s not really the kind of message you tell. It sort of involves finding the bodies of all your friends.”

“This can’t be you,” says Buffy. “There must be some part of you inside that still remembers who you are.”

Xander takes the cross from Jenny and quietly starts to sneak up behind Angel.

“Dream on schoolgirl,” says Angel “Your boyfriend is dead. You’re all going to join him.”

“Leave Willow alone, and deal with me,” says Buffy.

Angel pinches Willow’s cheek. “But she’s so cute and helpless. Really a turn on.”

Xander reaches around and shoves the cross into Angel’s face. Angel recoils away from it and throws Willow at Xander.

Angel grabs Buffy. “Things are about to get very interesting.” He kisses her and shoves her away against the wall. Buffy slumps to the floor as he leaves.

Buffy sits on the floor watching the doors Angel left through, not moving.

“Buffy, you okay?” asks Xander, but she doesn’t move. “Buffy?”

Act III

The group reconvenes in the library. Giles and Cordy get the news that Angel has turned. Giles wasn’t prepared for this. None of them were.

“What are we going to do?” asks Cordelia.

“I’m leaning towards blind panic myself,” says Giles. Jenny doesn’t think that is a good attitude to show in front of the kids, but Giles doesn’t have any better ideas.

Willow asks Buffy if she’s okay.

Buffy’s still in shock. “I should’ve known. When I saw him at the house, he was different. The things he said.”

“What things?” asks Giles.

“It’s private.”

“But you didn’t know he had turned bad?” asks Jenny.

“How did you?” asks Willow.

“What?” asks Jenny.

“You knew. You told me to get away from him.”

“I saw his face,” says Jenny.

Giles wants to know how it happened. Something must have caused this.

Buffy asks what he means.

“Something set it off,” says Giles. “Some event must’ve triggered his transformation. If anyone would know, Buffy, it should be you.”

Buffy says she doesn’t know, and Giles tries asking for more information about what happened the night before. Buffy can’t talk about it.

“Buffy,” says Giles, “I’m sorry, but we can’t afford to…”

Buffy isn’t listening. She has started to run out of the library.

“Buffy!”

“Giles, shut up,” says Willow. She knows what happened.

Cordelia assesses the situation, counting off the points on her fingers. “This is great. There is an unkillable demon in town. Angel has joined his team. The Slayer is a basket case. I’d say we’ve hit bottom.”

“I have a plan,” announces Xander.

“Oh no. Here’s a lower place,” says Cordelia.

Xander doesn’t know what to do about Angel, but he has an idea for how to take out the Judge. Willow wants to know what to do. Xander tells her that he needs Cordelia for this one. They also need some transportation. Cordy starts to volunteer her car, but Xander stops her. He needs something bigger.

“No problem, I’ll get Oz,” says Willow. “He has a van.”

Xander and Willow exchange a look, but he makes no comment, he just nods.

Cordy asks what her part in Xander’s plan is, but he refuses to explain now because then she won’t do it. He tells her to go change into something trashy…er and they will all meet at Willow’s in half an hour.

Giles wonders what to do about Buffy. Jenny thinks they should just let her be for now, and Willow agrees.

“I can imagine what she’s going through,” says Giles.

“No,” says Willow. “I don’t think you can.”

Angel sits on a conveyor in the factory, leaning against a crate, and gleefully fills in Spike and Dru on his evening’s activities.

Spike is not amused that Buffy is still alive. “Now, I know you haven’t been in the game for a while, mate, but we still do kill people. Sort of our raison d’etre, you know.”

Drusilla is holding Miss Edith. “You don’t want to kill her, do you?” She pokes her doll in the eyes. “You want to hurt her. Just like you hurt me.”

Angel smiles at her. “Nobody knows me like you do, Dru.”

Spike still isn’t amused. He is worried that Buffy will get in their way.

“Spike, my boy, You really don’t get it, do you?” Angel pushes the crate away, and hops down off the conveyor. “You tried to kill her, but you couldn’t. Look at you. You’re a wreck! She’s stronger than any Slayer you’ve ever faced. Force won’t get it done. You’ve got to work from the inside. To kill this girl…you have to love her.”

Buffy returns to her bedroom. She sees the cross necklace which Angel gave to her the first time they met dangling from a stand on her dresser. She takes it in her hand and looks at it for a moment before letting go of it again. She takes off the ring which Angel gave her the night before, and clutches it in her hand. She starts to cry. She lies down on her bed, still crying and holding the ring in her hand.

Buffy dreams about making love with Angel. He tells her that he loves her, and then transforms into a vampire.

The dream shifts to a funeral in daylight. Angel is there too, standing in the sunlight. “You have to know what to see,” he tells her.

Buffy looks around. All the mourners there are strangers to her, except for one: Jenny Calendar.

Buffy wakes up. It’s morning.

Buffy strides into the school and heads straight for Jenny’s computer class. Giles is there talking with her before the class starts.

Buffy marches into the class, and right up to Jenny. She grabs her by her throat and pushes her down onto her desk. “What do you know?”

Giles tries to pull Buffy off Jenny. One of the kids at the back of the class asks if he should go get the principal, but Giles tells him he will deal with this and dismisses the class.

Buffy lets go of Jenny and steps away from her. “Did you do it? Did you change him? Did you know this was going to happen?”

Giles tells Buffy to calm down. “You can’t go around accusing everybody—”

“I didn’t know, exactly,” says Jenny, cutting off Giles’ objections. “I was told. Oh, god. I was sent here to watch you. They told me to keep you and Angel apart. They never told me what would happen.” Giles is stunned by her confession. “Angel was supposed to pay for what he did to my people.”

“And me?” asks Buffy. “What was I supposed to be paying for?”

Jenny tells Buffy that she didn’t know about what could happen until it was too late. She tells her about the curse, and how it could be broken by a moment of true happiness.

“Then it was me,” says Buffy.

“I think so,” says Jenny.

Giles is confused. “How do you know you are responsible for—?”

Buffy and Jenny just look at him.

“Oh!”

Buffy tells Jenny to curse Angel again, but Jenny doesn’t know how. Those magics are long lost even to her people.

“Then take me to someone who can,” says Buffy.

Enyos hears his hotel room door open behind him. “I knew she would bring you,” he says without turning around. “I suppose you want answers.”

“Not really,” says Angel.

Enyos spins around.

Oz’s van pulls up outside a military base. Xander and Cordy get out while Oz and Willow wait in the van. Xander tells them to watch a nearby window. He’ll pass the package out to them through it.

Xander cuts a hole in the fence and he and Cordelia squeeze through it. Cordelia still doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do.

“You’re supposed to be a girl,” says Xander. “Think you can handle it?”

Cordy gives him a whack on the arm. They approach the door to one of the armoury sheds.

“Halt!” orders a sentry with an M-16, which he’s holding one handed, pointed at the sky. “Identify yourself right the hell now!”

Xander puts up his hands, but doesn’t turn around. “Uh…Private Harris with the…33rd.”

“33rd are on maneuvers,” says the guard.

Xander winces, and says he’s on leave. He slowly turns around.

“You always spend your leave snooping around the armoury, pal?” asks the guard, “And who’s she?”

“Hi,” says Cordy, who also has her hands up. “I’m not a soldier. Right?” she asks Xander.

Xander cautiously takes a step toward the guard, keeping his hands up. “Look, I just want to give her the tour.” He drops his hands. “You know what I’m saying.”

“The tour?” asks the guard.

“You know the ladies,” says Xander. “They like to see the big guns. Gets them all hot and bothered. Can you cut me some slack, give me a blind eye?”

“Why should I?” asks the guard.

“Well, if you do, I won’t tell Colonel Newsome that your boots ain’t regulation, your post wasn’t covered…” Xander grabs the guard’s rifle and takes it away from him, then he hands it back properly. “…and you hold your gun like a sissy girl!”

“You got twenty minutes, Nimrod,” says the guard.

“I just need five.” Xander starts toward the door, then he turns back. “Uh, forget I said that last part.”

Xander and Cordy enter the armoury, and Xander starts looking for what they came for. Cordelia is a little confused. She wonders where Xander’s military knowledge came from.

“Remember Halloween, I got turned into a soldier?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I still remember all of it. I know procedure, ordnance, access codes, everything. I know the whole layout for this base, and I’m pretty sure I can put together an M-16 in 57 seconds.”

Cordelia is impressed, but she’s wondering about something else. “So, does looking at guns really make girls want to have sex? That’s scary.”

“Yeah, I guess,” says Xander.

“Well, does looking at guns make you want to have sex?”

“I’m seventeen,” says Xander. “Looking at linoleum makes me want to have sex.”

Willow and Oz wait in the van. “Do you guys steal weapons from the army a lot?” he asks.

“We don’t have cable, so we have to make our own fun.” Willow suddenly changes the subject. “Do you want to make out with me?”

“What?” Oz is completely taken aback by the sudden shift in the conversation.

“Forget it. I’m sorry.” Willow pauses for a second. “Well, do you?”

“Sometimes when I’m sitting in class—you know, not thinking about class, ’cause that would never happen—I think about kissing you,” says Oz. “And it’s like everything stops. It’s like freeze frame. Willow kissage.” Willow smiles at that. “Oh, I’m not going to kiss you.”

“What? But, ‘freeze frame!’”

“To the casual observer, it would appear that you’re trying to make your friend Xander jealous or even the score, or something, and that’s on the empty side. See, in my fantasy when I’m kissing you, you’re kissing me. It’s okay. I can wait.” Oz looks up at the wall and sees the window open. “We’re up.” He gets out of the van. Willow sits and smiles.

Buffy, Giles and Jenny arrive at Enyos’ hotel room. They find his body there. Giles looks like he wants to throw up. “Was it good for you too?” is scrawled in blood on the wall.

“He’s doing this deliberately, Buffy,” says Giles. “He’s trying to make it harder for you.”

“He’s only making it easier,” says Buffy. “I know what I have to do.”

“What?”

“Kill him,” says Buffy.

Act IV

The Judge announces that he’s ready. Spike thinks it’s about time.

Dru sits in Spike’s lap to give him a goodbye kiss before they go. Spike is being left behind, and he is not happy about that.

Angel leans over the back of Spike’s chair. “Too bad you can’t come with.” He pats Spike on the shoulder. “I’ll be thinking of you.”

“I won’t be in this chair forever,” warns Spike as Angel takes Drusilla’s hand and they follow the Judge. “What happens if your girlfriend shows up?”

“I’m going to give her a kiss,” says Angel. He walks past the Judge. “Don’t you look spiffy!”

“Spiffy?” asks the Judge.

Xander and Oz drop a crate onto Giles’ desk. It’s about four feet long, eight inches high and twelve wide.

“Happy birthday Buffy,” says Xander. “I hope you like the colour.”

Giles pries the crate open with a crowbar, and Buffy looks inside. “This is good.”

Jenny comes into the office, and asks if there is something she can do.

Buffy doesn’t look around “Get out.”

“I just want to help,” says Jenny.

Giles turns away from Jenny. “She said ‘Get out.’” Buffy looks at him. She knows how this is hurting him.

Xander asks Buffy if she wants him to show her how to use her present. She does.

They arrive at the factory and find it deserted. Spike is hiding. Buffy wonders where they might have gone. They’ll be looking for a crowd. Willow suggests the Bronze, but it’s closed tonight.

“There’s not a lot of choices in Sunnydale,” says Cordelia. “It’s not like people are going to line up to get massacred.”

“Uh, guys?” says Oz. “If I were going to line up, I know where I’d go.”

It is a busy night at the Sunnydale Mall. The Judge, along with Angel and Dru and a bunch more vampires come in an entrance at the top of some stairs. The Judge holds out his hand toward a nearby shopper, and he is consumed in flames.

Angel orders his henchvamps to spread out, and guard the exits. He and Drusilla stay with the Judge.

Buffy and her friends come in another entrance. Xander and Giles are carrying the crate. Willow has Buffy’s regular weapons bag. Oz and Cordy bring up the rear.

“Everybody keep back,” orders Buffy. “Damage control only. Take out any lesser vamps if you can. I’ll handle the Smurf.”

The Judge takes a couple of steps down the stairs onto a landing with Angel and Drusilla flanking him, and extends his hands. Fire leaps from them to person to person, crisscrossing the floor as people stand transfixed in his power.

“Oh goodie!” says Dru.

The Judge is rocked back by an arrow which suddenly appears in his chest, and the energy flowing from his hands stops. The people in the mall stagger, and seem dazed.

The Judge pulls the arrow from his chest. “Who dares?” he demands, and looks across the floor.

Buffy is standing on top of a snack stand, holding her crossbow. “I think I got his attention.”

“You’re a fool,” says the Judge. “No weapon forged can stop me.”

Buffy hands the crossbow down to Willow. “That was then.” She takes the anti-tank rocket launcher from Xander, and raises it to her shoulder. “This is now.”

Buffy flips the switches arming the launcher, and takes aim. Angel and Dru glance at each other and then both of them dive off the landing.

“What’s that do?” asks the Judge.

Buffy squeezes the trigger.

The rocket hits the Judge squarely in the chest and blows him into a zillion pieces which rain down around Angel and Dru.

Drusilla whines as she gets up off the floor, and stamps her feet before she runs away.

Buffy hands the empty launcher tube back to Xander. “Best present ever.”

“Knew you’d like it,” says Xander.

Buffy isn’t sure if the Judge is dead though. She tells her friends to gather up the pieces, but to keep them separate. She still has Angel to deal with.

“Pieces?” asks Cordelia. “We get the pieces? Our job sucks!”

Smoke from the explosion, and bits of burning Judge set off the fire sprinklers in the mall as Buffy follows Angel into the movie theater lobby. She loses sight of him.

The sprinklers soak Buffy as she searches for Angel. She hears something behind her, and spins around in time to get knocked down by a punch from Angel.

“You know what the worst part was?” he asks. “Pretending that I loved you. If I’d known how easily you’d give it up, I wouldn’t have even bothered.”

Buffy gets back to her feet. “That doesn’t work anymore. You’re not Angel.”

“You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you? It doesn’t matter. The important thing is you made me the man I am today!”

Buffy kicks Angel in the head. He punches back and then grabs her and throws her away. Buffy manages to stay on her feet, but Angel kicks her in the head and knocks her down.

Buffy’s friends collect pieces of Judge.

“Uh, arm!” Oz points to a still intact arm lying on the floor. He isn’t going near it.

Buffy and Angel fight in the theater lobby. Angel seems to have the upper hand. He punches Buffy and knocks her to the floor. She is slow getting back to her feet.

“Not quitting on me already, are you?” asks Angel. “Come on, Buffy. You know you want it.”

Buffy gets mad. She renews her attack on Angel, catching him with a kick to the head, followed by a rapid series of punches. Angel swings a punch at her, but she grabs his arm and then uses it to push his head through the glass front of the snack concession counter. She pulls his head up through the top of the counter and gives him another kick, knocking him into the potted plants across the lobby.

Angel picks himself up off the floor and sees Buffy in front of him holding a stake at the ready. She slowly lowers it to her side.

“You can’t do it,” says Angel. “You can’t kill me.”

Buffy kicks Angel in the crotch, and he falls to the floor in pain. She turns her back on him and walks away. “Give me time.”

Epilogue

Giles drives Buffy home. He stops in front of her house. They sit silently in his car for a moment.

Giles looks at Buffy. “It’s not over. I suppose you know that. He’ll come after you, particularly. His profile, uh, well, he… he’s likely to strike out at the things that made him the most human.”

“You must be so disappointed in me,” says Buffy.

“No,” says Giles. “No, I’m not.”

“But this is all my fault.”

“I don’t believe it is. Do you want me to wag my finger at you and tell you that you acted rashly? You did, and I can. I know that you loved him. And he has proven more than once that he loved you. You couldn’t have known what would happen.

“The coming months are going to be hard—I suspect on all of us—but if it’s guilt you’re looking for, Buffy, I’m not your man.” Giles shakes his head. “All you will get from me is my support. And my respect.”

Buffy watches an old black and white movie on TV. Her mother enters carrying a plate with a couple of cupcakes on it. One of them has a candle in it. She sits beside her daughter on the couch, and apologises for not having a real cake. She asks how Buffy’s birthday went.

“I got older,” says Buffy.

Joyce looks at her daughter. “You look the same to me.” She lights the candle on the cupcake and wishes Buffy a happy birthday. “I don’t have to sing do I?”

“No.”

“Go on,” says Joyce. “Make a wish.”

Buffy looks at the candle. “I’ll just let it burn.”

Joyce reaches out and gently strokes Buffy’s hair. Buffy leans her head against her mother’s shoulder as she watches her birthday cupcake candle burn itself out.

Death Toll