Author's Note: Originally written as the answer to a challenge on B/S central before it went down. Challenge will be posted at the end of the story.

I started this story a very long time ago. After several computer crashes I thought it was lost until recently when I happened upon a lone floppy disc.

I did have a beta for this long ago and far away but when I lost the story for the second time I pretty much gave up.

Suggestions or comments are welcome and any offers from the beta fairy will gladly be excepted... as long as you are of age.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

"Oh God, Angel" she cursed softly "how the hell could I forget?"

Moving quickly she knelt by his semi conscious form.

Ok... so he looked a little singed around the edges, but unlike Spike, he didn't seem to be seriously damaged.
She sighed with relief, even as Angel opened his eyes.

She saw his look of disorientation change to one of puzzlement and then to the one she was the most familiar with, love.

"Buffy? What are you doing here?" he gasped out, struggling to pull himself up off the ground.

As he stood, wincing with pain. Buffy took in the numerous wounds he had sustained in the battle. Even as she assessed the seriousness of the newly revealed cuts and gouges, she couldn't help the bitter thought; that he'd gotten of lightly compared to Spike.

"Hey there Angel... just take it easy" she advised, slipping effortlessly into concerned mode; even as a thousand questions backed up in her throat, waiting for answers she was pretty sure she didn't want to know.

"Buffy how... why... what are you doing here? OH God" his eyes widened with sudden memory.

"Buffy the dragon... there's a dragon" he managed to blurt, his anxiousness doubling him over in pain from the sudden strain to his wounds.

"It's Ok Angel" taking his bowed weight on her shoulders. "It's ok... Illyria and I killed it... It's dead... shhh" she soothed, as his worried gaze locked with hers.

For just a moment, Buffy stared into the eyes of the man she had once vowed would be her one true love... forever.

She let herself remember all that they had meant to each other, and the pain she'd felt the day he'd walked away from her.

She remembered how safe she always felt in his arms, and how loved she'd known she was just by looking into his soulful eyes.

She remembered the pain she'd lived through when she sent him to hell. And the agony when he came back, knowing that they could never be to each other what they wanted to be.

All the thoughts and memories of her time with him ran through her head like the replaying of an old movie, and just like an old movie she wasn't surprised to find that all that was now left of their tragic love... were nostalgia and a certain sense of sad finality.

Her eyes were sad as she looked away from him. Knowing, that at last it was time to put childish things away. That the love she'd had for him was that of a young girl's first, not the woman's love she felt for Spike.

She looked around the alley at the carnage that lay before them, and she remembered the last sight she'd had of Spike as he lay in agony on the bed in his grandsire's hotel.

When her eyes found Angel's again the sadness was gone, replaced by a hardness that Angel had never seen before.

"Buffy who told you I was in trouble?" he asked. "How did you know to come?"

His eyes were full of wary confusion as he looked into the face of the woman who had once told him that she would always be his girl.

The face was hard, with eyes that looked at him as if she didn't know him anymore.

"Buffy what's going on? You said Illyria... that you and Illyria killed the dragon? Where is she? Where's Gunn and Sp... the others?"

He searched the shadows of the alley, his mind going over the last few minutes of the battle. The memory of his grandchilde charging the dragon as it knocked him aside with one blow of its powerful tail vividly imprinted on his brain.

As he'd hit the wall his last sight had been of Spike in gameface roaring with rage as he lunged to meet the dragon's charge... then nothing but blackness.

Unnoticed by either of them it had started to rain again, and finally Angel's searching eyes found the figure of the very dead dragon, and the even stranger sight of Illyria tearing at something within it's corpse.

Even as his mind made sense of what she was doing, the former God straightened. With a cry of pure animal triumph, she wrenched the still bleeding heart from the dragon's body.

He turned his gaze back to Buffy, shocked to see a similar expression of dark satisfaction on the face of blonde slayer.

"Buffy what is going on here?" he asked again in confusion.

She turned, her face grim, hazel eyes meeting brown. "I'm cleaning up your mess Angel" she rasped harshly, pain flowing across her features briefly, before she turned her face from him.

Her shoulders slumped for a moment then once again she turned to look at him, pure slayer resolve in her eyes and stance.

"I don't have time to get into this with you Angel... Spike doesn't have time" she ground out with barely contained venom. "But you and I will talk about this... and Angel, you better have a good explanation for why you kept the fact that Spike was back from me."

Her gaze softened for a moment as she tried to rein in her anger at his latest betrayal, her eyes welling up with tears as she remembered that she had very nearly been too late.

"Your friend Gunn is over there" she said gesturing further down the alley. "I'm sorry," she said, her eyes sliding away from his. "He didn't make it. And before you ask," she said a little more gently "I don't know about the others, I haven't been here that long myself."

Angel felt his dead heart clutch in pain as he walked slowly in the direction that Buffy had pointed. It wasn't until he actually squatted down next to what was left of Gunn that the reality of the situation hit him.

Everyone he loved was gone... Cordelia, Fred, Wes and now Gunn, they were all gone and it was all his fault.

No... not all gone. The bitter thought surfaced. Both Illyria and Spike had survived.

"Fuck" he cursed softly as he looked down at the man he had led to battle and death. "Fuck ... I'm so sorry Charlie.... I'm so God damn sorry."

Buffy watched Angel as he stood in the pouring rain staring down at the body of his friend.

She had never seen anyone look so lost in her life. But once where she would have rushed to give comfort, been eager to soothe his pain, now she could find only pity that he had fallen so far.

Angel went down on one knee, and just for a moment, she wondered if maybe this would break him. But even as the thought flitted through her mind she watched as he reached out gently to close the eyes of his dead friend.

And then suddenly it was as if time resumed its natural course and everything around her became more rushed and urgent than the moment before.

She shook her head trying to clear her mind, thinking to herself, even as she once again searched for something to contain the heart. That it was funny... even though she didn't love him any more Angel still managed to draw her focus until he was the only thing in it.

Wrinkling up her nose, she turned to the matter at hand.

Jumping lightly she perched on the edge of her chosen dumpster and prayed that she'd find something close to the surface because... Ok fighting a dragon for the man I love is one thing she mused wryly, but dumpster diving? Well ewww... gotta draw the line somewhere.

She sighed with relief as she spotted just what she needed, and even more importantly it wasn't covered in dumpster gunk.

"Hey Illyria, give us a hand will you" she yelled back over her shoulder, as she tried to shift the unwieldy bundle of what she was pretty sure was an old tarpaulin.

Breathing through her nose, she tried to pull the stained and ragged bundle towards her, finding in this instance at least, that slayer strength was useless.

Once again, she leaned precariously over the dumpster's edge. She'd managed to work it towards the side when suddenly two arms reached in beside her and helped her pull the resisting bundle up and over.

Turning, she took in the battered sight of Angel as he stooped to help her spread the plastic sheet out on the ground.

"Thank you" she offered quietly as she studied the discarded bounty for signs of rips or holes that might make it useless.

"It's the least I can do" came the muttered reply.

Buffy glanced at him sharply but it seemed he was being sincere, the broodier than usual look on his face was all the proof she needed.

She had seen Illyria out of the corner of her eye and she stood back now as the once God stepped out of the shadows; the large, still dripping heart held firmly in both hands.

"Move back Angel" she instructed, as the God King bent to lay her burden down.


"Okay Buffy, but would you mind telling me why you guys need this thing?" he asked, gesturing at the bloody mass of flesh that Illyria was covering with the edges of the tarp.

Turning to meet his eyes squarely she tried to find the words to tell him of Spike's injuries and the spell, but she couldn't seem to make her mouth form the sentences.

The pain of his loss at the Hellmouth suddenly overwhelmed her again, and she had to bite her lip to prevent herself from either crying or slugging Angel really hard.

Luckily, Illyria chose that moment to let them know she had finished.

Registering her impatience with a sharp glance at both warriors, she quickly explained what Buffy had been unable.

"We do not have time for your questions vampire, but I suspect it will waste less if your pointless queries are answered. The heart is for my pet, it is needed for a spell to heal the damage inflicted upon him by the worm." She eyed him coldly as she noted the quick glance he threw at the slayer.

"It seems vampire, that when you were unable to defeat the beast, my pet drew its fire from you. He is at this moment near his final death."

She turned to Buffy, her expression still holding more than a trace of the contempt she felt for the dark haired vampire.

"We will go now Slayer" " she announced "this one is of no more use to me or mine."

With that said, she gathered the gruesome bundle to her chest and strode off into the dark shadows of the alley.

Buffy rolled her eyes at the stunned look on Angel's face, before turning and following the former God.