Night came quickly, and Buffy was soaking wet as she found her way into another hotel. She'd once again picked up some fast food to eat, and as soon as she got into her room she lay down on the bed in exhaustion. Her day had been spent walking, as she'd decided not to take a bus to her next location. She found that walking kept her from thinking, and the steady pattern of movement kept her mind from wandering.
Again she had to fight with herself not to call someone, anyone, and talk, just for a little while. The silence, the pure isolation, was beginning to get to her. There was no one to talk to, no one here to comfort her, no one she could even share her feelings with. It was what she wanted, what she still wanted, yet at the same time it was driving her insane. It was almost as if she was waiting to be found, and the thought bothered her more than she wanted to admit. Did she want to be found? She thought about it for awhile, debating internally with herself. She didn't want to cause anyone anymore pain; she didn't want to put her friends through what they'd gone through because of her love for Angel. And she didn't want to have to face her mother either. Yet at the same time, she did want to be found.
Buffy sighed and closed her eyes, letting her emotions wash over her. Emotions were weaknesses. She knew that now. Yet she had no idea how to shut them off. It just hurt too much. Opening her eyes, she turned on the television and did her best to lose herself in the fictional lives of others.
*****
Joyce Summers walked into the library, looking even worse than she had the day before as she strode towards the Slayerettes, who were seated at the table. "Any word on Buffy yet?" she demanded.
Giles nodded. "We've found her," he confirmed. "She's checked into a hotel about two hundred miles out of Sunnydale. Now we're trying to decide where to go from here."
"Get her home!" Joyce shouted angrily.
Giles sighed and looked up at the worried mother. "If we call her she'll know we're on to her. She may just take off again, and then we'll never find her."
"Let me talk to her," Joyce suggested.
Giles shook his head firmly, as concerned for Buffy as her mother was. "No," he said flatly. "What we say to her has to convince her to come back on her own. We can't very well just force her."
"Why not?" Joyce shrieked.
"Because then she'll just take off again," Cordelia informed her flatly with the slightest roll of her eyes.
"Well we can't just sit here thinking about what to do forever," Joyce retorted. "Besides, shouldn't that ritual thing you were researching convince her?"
"If she believes us," Xander tossed in.
"The only way we can know is to try," Willow told them.
*****
Buffy had been staring at the television for two hours, this time paying one hundred percent attention to it in the hopes of forgetting her own troubles, when the telephone by her bedside rang. She glanced towards it in surprise, then picked up the receiver. "You have a phone call," the voice on the other end told her. "Would you like me to patch it through?"
Buffy took a deep breath and thought about that question seriously for a long moment. "Yeah," she said reluctantly as she waited for the connection to go through. Then she simply waited.
"Buffy?" Willow's voice was questioning and hopeful at the same time.
"Willow," Buffy breathed, closing her eyes for a long moment and swallowing. Then she took a deep breath and raised her defenses. "What do you want?"
"I need to talk to you," Willow told her friend quietly. "It's about . . . it's about Angel," she added.
Buffy sat up, her spine snapping straight as her eyes widened. "What about him?" she asked, her voice flat and cold at the same time.
"Buff . . . " Willow trailed off and exhaled nervously. "We know what happened," she continued. "And . . . we . . . we've found a way to fix it."
Buffy raised her eyebrows at the telephone and stood abruptly. "What do you mean a way to fix it?" she asked.
"There . . . there's a way to get him out," Willow explained softly. "But only you can do it. Only you. No one else. If you come back . . . we can save him."
Buffy's eyes filled with tears and she sat back down on the bed, sniffing and wiping at her eyes in frustration. "No," she said firmly. "Will, I can't come back. Ever. Too much has happened . . . I - I can't."
"Buffy, you don't understand," Willow replied. "You can set things right. Don't you want to?"
Buffy looked around the hotel room for a tissue as she leaned back against the bed, her eyes shut tightly in an attempt to stop the tears. "Of course I want to," she whispered brokenly. "But I can't go back there . . . it's too late."
"Why?" Willow questioned. "Why is it too late? Okay, so yeah you were expelled and all, that's not good, but . . . Buffy, we need you here."
"No. No, I'm the last thing any of you need," Buffy replied softly. "I shouldn't even be talking to you . . . "
"Buffy!" Willow interrupted angrily. "Buffy, stop it! It is NOT too late. There's still time to change things, you just have to come back. Besides, must I remind you the Hellmouth is here? What are you going to do from two hundred miles away?"
Buffy shook her head and stood once again to pace back and forth. "Willow, you don't understand . . . "
"No, I do understand," Willow interrupted once again. "I understand that you're scared. But running away isn't the way to deal with this. Now if you want to save Angel, come back. If not, don't. It's your choice." And with those words Willow hung up the phone.
*****
"You think she's going to come?" Xander asked Willow as the hacker hung up the telephone angrily.
Willow sighed and looked up at him. "I don't know, Xander," she replied reluctantly. "I think she might. But I could be wrong. She . . . she doesn't sound like herself. She sounds . . . strange, somehow." Willow shook her head, unable to find the appropriate way to express what she meant to her friend.
"How're you feeling?" Oz asked suddenly as he looked at her.
Willow looked at him and smiled gently. "Tired," she replied honestly. "But I can't sleep . . . not until Buffy's home."
"We have to be prepared to face the fact that she might not come back," Giles spoke up. "It's entirely possible."
"Then we'll make her come back," Joyce said firmly. "There's no way I'm letting my little girl be out there all by herself. She needs to come home."
Giles sighed slightly. "We can't force her," he said patiently. "We don't have the right. It has to be her decision."
"I'm saying it doesn't," Joyce replied. "She's seventeen years old! She doesn't have the right to make such decisions! She's still a child!"
"She's a child who has saved the world," Giles reminded her. "She is certainly competent to make decisions about her own life, considering how many decisions she's made that have affected countless lives."
Joyce shook her head and sat down on one of the library chairs, massaging her temples with her hands and looking exhausted. "Right. She's the Slayer," Joyce said in a defeated tone of voice.
"Yes, she is," Giles replied seriously.
"But she's still my little girl," Joyce continued, ignoring Giles' comment. "And as long as I have anything to say about it she's going to come home and stay home, whether she likes it or not."
"You don't have anything to say about it," Giles told her gently. "If Buffy decides not to return . . . she won't."
Joyce looked up at him and sighed heavily. "Why . . . " She shook her head. "Why is it her? Why couldn't it be someone . . . anyone else? Why did she have to be the one? Why does she have to go through this? Just . . . why?"
"I wish I knew," Giles answered.
*****
She'd been staring at the telephone for hours. Maybe days. Maybe months. She wasn't entirely sure. The conversation she and Willow had had, more like the argument she and Willow had had, was all she could think about. A way to save Angel . . . a way to set things right . . . she hadn't thought it possible. Not for one moment had she thought there was any way to reverse what she'd done . . . and now Willow was telling her there was. It didn't feel real. It felt like it had to be a dream, a fantasy, or just a hallucination. How could there be a way?
Buffy wiped at her eyes, which had started tearing again, and trembled with the intensity of the emotions that were bombarding her. Could there really be a way? A way to fix what had happened? A way to get him back? She clutched the pillow tightly in her arms and whimpered. Despite her vow to never return to Sunnydale, she was tempted. If there truly was a way . . . did she really have any other choice?
She continued to think about what she should do. Returning to Sunnydale meant that she'd have to face everyone, her mother, her friends . . . and if there really was a way, she would also have to face Angel. She sighed heavily and bit back on a sob at the thought. What in the world would she say to him? 'Sorry I threw you into Hell, want to hang out tomorrow?' Somehow she didn't think that was the best approach. She hadn't for one second even considered the possibility that there might be some way to save him . . . and now out of nowhere there was.
Buffy stood from her seat on the bed and looked around the hotel room sullenly as she thought. Maybe she could just return, save Angel, and leave again. That might be the best and only course of action. She couldn't face him, and she didn't want to face anyone else. Her actions had caused so much pain to everyone she cared about . . . and if she had killed Angel before hand none of this would have happened. Giles, Willow, Xander, Cordelia and Angel himself would have been saved so much pain, so much agony if she had only done her duty. Jenny and Kendra would still be alive. What right did she really have to lean on the strength of her friends after all she had put them through?
Her mind was made up by that. She would return to Sunnydale, she would do whatever was necessary to save Angel, and then she would leave again. With those thoughts in mind she got into the bed and closed her eyes, preparing herself for the inevitable dreams that would follow.
*****
Buffy once again stared out the window of the Greyhound as it passed by houses and convenience stores on it's way to Sunnydale, the last stop. She leaned back in her seat and tried to relax, while at the same time once again trying not to think about events she knew could cause hysterics. It was best to just bottle up those emotions, she knew that, but it didn't make it any easier.
The bus pulled over to the side to let people out and Buffy watched as they left, wondering if their problems, the problems of so called normal people, came at all close to exceeding her own. Somehow she didn't think so.
She still had several more hours of bus stops to go through before she arrived back in Sunnydale, and she couldn't help but re-think her decision. Would she really be able to leave again, once Angel was back, once she'd seen her friends and her mother? She sighed as she tried to tell herself she'd be able to without any problems whatsoever. She tried to tell herself it would be a piece of cake, that she still didn't want anything to do with Sunnydale or her friends any longer, but at the same time she knew she was lying to herself. She wasn't sure she would be able to leave again, and she wasn't at all sure she wouldn't have gone back on her own given time enough alone.
Her thoughts drifted away from her and she welcomed the nothingness that she felt washing over her. After three days of nightmares, she was exhausted and as her eyes closed she didn't fight it in the least. If she could get even an hours worth of sleep and not remember Angel's death, she knew she'd be able to face her friends' words of comfort.
*****
The Slayerettes and Joyce Summers were seated around the table in the library when the double doors swung open and Buffy stepped inside. For a moment no one moved, just stared at her. Her clothes were wrinkled, her eyes were bloodshot and there were dark circles underneath them. None of her usual life and vibrancy were present, and she looked for all the world as if she herself had been in Hell.
It was Joyce Summers who first moved, launching from her seat and running to her daughter before throwing her arms around her. "Oh, thank God," Joyce said, tightly hugging her. "Buffy, I'm so sorry . . . I didn't mean what I said . . . "
Buffy pushed her mother away roughly and crossed her arms over her chest protectively. "I'm here to get Angel back," she said flatly. "And then I'm leaving."
Giles swallowed and stood. "Buffy . . . " he started.
She stared back at him unflinchingly. "No," she said firmly. "I'll get him out, and then I'm gone. I can't stay here any more. Okay?"
Giles sighed heavily and nodded. "Alright."
"No, it's not alright," Joyce Summers said angrily. "Buffy, you can't leave! You're my daughter, and as long as you live. . . " she trailed off and cleared her throat, realizing that particular approach was inaccurate. "You're a minor," she said, changing tactics. "You don't have the right to make such decisions."
Buffy turned her gaze from Giles to her mother, absolutely no emotion in her face. "Try and stop me," she challenged. Joyce opened her mouth to reply, then shut it, startled by her daughter's attitude and unable to think of a single thing to say. Buffy walked away from her and towards the table. "How soon until we can do this?" she asked them flatly, ignoring her mother.
Willow looked up at her from her wheelchair and swallowed, hard. "Buffy . . . " she started reluctantly, then sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. "We have to wait until the full moon," she answered. "It's a little complicated though."
"Then explain it to me," Buffy said, pulling out a chair and sitting down.
Willow glanced at the others in the hopes of some support, but received none. She cleared her throat. "The ritual will open a portal into Hell," she explained. "And . . . then you'll have to go in. When you find Angel, you bring him out, and we'll close the portal again. You're the only one who can do it, since you're the one who sent him there."
"Whole new meaning to the phrase 'go to Hell'," Buffy quipped under her breath. Then she gave the others a forced half smile and nodded. "Fine. How long until the next full moon?"
"Two days," Giles supplied.
"Should have told me that before I left," Buffy muttered. "Fine. I'll stay at his place until it's time."
"Buffy . . . " Joyce repeated, looking at her daughter in surprise.
Buffy glared at her from the corner of her eyes. "I'm not going home," she told her mother flatly.
"But . . .Buffy, it's . . . . "
"You want me to go home?" Buffy asked, standing angrily and knocking the chair down with the force of her abrupt movement. "You want me to go back there? You call the police and have them drag me there." With that she strode out of the library, the double doors slamming behind her with the force of her exit.
Giles cleared his throat worriedly. "That went . . . well," he stammered.
Joyce looked at him in askance "Well?" she repeated, turning her gaze back to the doors Buffy had just left from. "I've . . . I've never seen her like that . . . "
"What do you expect after what she's been through?" Xander spoke for the first time from his position at the table next to Cordelia. "I mean, she's died, her boyfriend lost his soul, and got it back in time for her to send him to Hell . . . did you expect her to be her normal perky self?" He shook his head in amusement.
Joyce glared at him, then at the others, before turning and leaving as well. Giles sighed and rubbed his eyes tiredly. "I suggest we all go home and get some sleep," he said quietly. "We're going to have a long few days ahead of us."
"No kidding," Xander muttered.
Oz, who'd been relatively quiet, shook his head. "Shouldn't she be a little against going into Hell?" he wondered.
Willow shook her head and smiled slightly. "She'd do anything for him," she said quietly. Then she perked up slightly. "Maybe he'll be able to convince her to stay."
"Somehow I wouldn't bet on it," Xander replied.
******
Being in Angel's apartment was somehow comforting. Buffy sighed and sat down on the bed where this nightmare had all begun, closing her eyes and lying down. It was strange, but somehow just being there, where Angel's essence always seemed present, was enough to calm her emotions and soothe her tattered heart.
Looking back, she realized she'd been a little harsh with her mother. Yet she couldn't bring herself to feel guilty about it, either. Now that her mother knew the truth, she felt as though she could finally express her anger. For so long her mother had remained in the dark, and she hadn't even wanted to know the truth, had never once even wondered about the strange occurences that so often surrounded her daughter.
Buffy stared at the ceiling for a long time, her arms crossed behind her head as she relaxed and wondered what the full moon would bring.
*****
Go on to Part 4