The moment Glory entered, Xander grabbed Joyce, Anya, and Dawn, pulling them behind the table and out of the way.

Gunn may not have understood the threat, but he followed his instinct and pulled Cordy with him to join the others.

Anya darted to the nearest bookcase, grabbing the book she knew was there. With an experienced hand, she flipped the book open to the page she wanted and handed the book to the already alert Wesley.

With the battle refined skills that he had admittedly learned under the tutelage of Angel and their team, Wesley placed a protective barrier around the most vulnerable members of the group.

Buffy stood sentinel against the threat, growling at Angel to keep out of the way.

Used to giving orders rather than taking them, Angel pushed past Buffy roughly, not noticing her dazed condition after she smashed into the wall head first with the strength of his unexpected handling and launched himself at the threatening female.

Glory rolled her eyes in distain as she brushed off the highly telegraphed charge by the brunette vampire with a disinterested wave of her arm.

Angel landed heavily, denting the brick wall, breaking his arm and several of his ribs. The power of the collision also had him blacking out on contact.

In an act of desperation, Willow grabbed Tara's hand and together they managed to momentarily slow the Hell God's forward momentum.

"We can't hold her," Willow shouted.

Aingeru stepped forward quickly and embraced the struggling female.

A light filled the area, temporarily blinding everyone within its sphere. It pulsed and throbbed as if within the light an unseen battle progressed.

As the light slowly dissipated, vision returned and the bodies of Spike and Ben could be seen sprawled on the floor.

Before anyone could move, Ben opened his eyes. "Pure good and pure evil cancel each other out," he whispered with the voice of Aingeru before collapsing in a dead faint.

The room seemed frozen as the witnesses realised what had happened.

The angel had sacrificed itself to vanquish Glory.

As one the Sunnydale group unconsciously followed the same train of thought. This being, this pure angel that had selflessly joined them knowing its journey would be short and its purpose sacrificial had found enough purity in a soulless demon to be able to use him as a temporary home. It had found Spike worthy. Did they dare do anything less?

Tara rushed to Spike's side and was quickly followed by the rest of his ‘family'.

Buffy shook her head, trying to clear the ringing in her ears and stumbled over to Spike's unconscious form. Pushing bodies out of her way, she desperately tried to clear the buzzing in her head and reach her goal.

She ran her hands over him, expertly searching for injuries. She frantically searched the understanding eyes of those around him. Why was he still out of it? Didn't he know that she needed him awake? She whimpered softly in frustration but didn't question her need. The Slayer was in complete control and she was frantic in her behaviour. She sent a snarl in Angel's general direction, blaming him for...well she wasn't exactly sure, but she felt comfortable blaming him anyway. She ignored her mother's gently soothing rub of her arms. He wasn't conscious! She would be soothed when he was!

Ben stirred.

As he opened his eyes, Ben registered the change. She was gone. For the first time in his memory, the feeling of Glory's presence didn't overwhelm him. There was no trace of her demanding, clawing, possession pulling at him at all. He felt whole. He couldn't stop himself from babbling. The freedom was dizzying. He thanked whomever was responsible over and over again. With the abandon of a joyous child, he leapt to his feet, shaking any hand he could clasp and praised heaven for his deliverance from evil. He didn't take in any faces or register any individual, he couldn't; there was no room for focus. He didn't even notice that he was being ignored in favour of the individual that still lay unmoving on the floor. With a jubilant shout, he ran from the shop. He finally had a life he could call his own.

Buffy ignored everything around her to gently lift Spike's head and rested it in her lap. She focused on his face, silently begging him to open his beautiful blue eyes. As she waited, she stroked his hair.

Angel groaned in pain as he slowly came to his senses. Cordelia was the first to reach him, Gunn just a step behind. As he gained control over his pain he noticed that his injuries had only attracted the attention of his own crew. Everyone else seemed to be focused on his pain in the ass grandchilde. "Hello! Broken arm and ribs here!" he snarled, his pain exacerbating his belligerence.

If she'd been asked, Buffy couldn't have explained her distress. It wasn't like there had ever been anything more than banter and snarking and a hell of a lot of hatred between them, but her own change of heart, her willingness to see the good he was capable of, and her earlier musings about the possibility of something more between them had opened her up in a way she had never even considered before now as being possible. She was confused by her reactions but she didn't question them. For some reason, her slayer side ached for some sort of sign that Spike was alright. And her Buffy side was seriously okay with that.

She was so focused on the individual whose head she cradled, that everyone else seemed to fade into the distance.

"Buffy!' Angel shouted for the fifth time, persistently attempting to gain her attention.

"Huh?" Buffy finally looked over to the furious brunette; her eyes were slightly glazed and her attention fleeting.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, exasperated. "It's just Spike, Buffy. I'm actually hurt over here."

Buffy just looked at him blankly, before returning her gaze to the blond in her lap. Softly, she stroked his cheek, silently begging him to wake.

"Buffy?" Angel's voice was filled with accusation. He was deeply hurt that she hadn't rushed instantly to his side on his admission of injury.

Once Angel made up his mind about something he could stick to it with the tenaciousness of a wolverine. In his mind, Buffy and he shared a forever love. There may be distance or disagreements, but the nature of their love would never change. He just couldn't comprehend the possibility that her love for him may have altered. It wasn't in his make up. So her continued failure to show him the attention that he craved pained him as surely as an arrow to the heart.

When he looked at Spike all he saw was what he always had; a plaything for Drusilla, an irritating and annoying babysitter that, no matter how he attempted to garner attention, would always remain fundamentally unimportant. He was an Angelus wannabe, a pitiful shadow of the real thing.

The longer Buffy remained at Spike's side rather than at Angel's - where he felt she belonged- the angrier at Spike the brunette became.

"Buffy! He's only doing this for attention. He's probably just faking that there's anything wrong. I'm the one that actually got hurt trying to protect you," Angel yelled in frustration. "I'm the Champion; he's just an unsouled demon! Why can't you understand that? You just can't trust him?"

"You're wrong," Buffy ground out harshly through clenched teeth. "He's more than earned my trust. More importantly, he's earned my family's trust."

With cold fury emanating from her eyes she turned to look directly at the brunette vampire. "That's more than you ever achieved."

Angel's eyes widened slightly in shock, his expression changed to one of wounded accusation. Buffy never spoke to him like this.

For the first time Buffy wasn't even remotely moved by Angel's patented puppy dog eyes. She had little control over her life as it was. She had seriously had enough of high handed men telling her how to run her life, telling her what choices to make and who she could and couldn't get involved with. Her father, the Council, Angel, Riley, Xander, and even Giles to some extent; they were all the same. She was so over it. From now on, Buffy had every intention of running her own life and anyone who didn't like it could just kiss her...whatever!

Buffy snarled in irritation at the hang dog expression of the vampire that she'd once loved with all of her being. She wasn't going to let him manipulate her into changing her priorities. He'd left and been replaced with Riley. Granted, she'd stubbornly stuck to a type, and that choice had ensured the eventual demise of the relationship, but she'd grown up and in the process away from the need for a big strong protector-type boyfriend. She wanted an equal, and even though she wasn't in a relationship with Spike, he still treated her more like an equal than Riley or Angel ever had.

She glanced down at Spike with a touch of wonder. Why had it taken her so long to see his potential? Her head snapped back up when Angel called her name again loudly. She hissed at him in hushed tones to keep his voice down. Then she decided to it was time to make her stance.

"Unlike you, Spike can do good without the soul, Angel. And to be perfectly honest, I trust him more without his soul than I do you with one. You didn't get those injuries for any reason other than you are still suffering from the delusion that I need you to protect me. I don't. I'm the Slayer and this is my town. Yours is L.A. You'll heal, but you should do it at home. I don't need you, Angel. I haven't for a very long time. You got yourself hurt because of your ego and for no other reason. You weren't the hero here. Aingeru was. And the only reason that the rest of us survived is because of Spike. If he hadn't made the choice he did, when he did...if he hadn't been the man he is, we might all be dead. We owe him big time and I won't let you cheapen what he's done for us anymore...Rodger." She spoke the name with deliberation.

As she returned her gaze to the real hero of the evening, she found herself suddenly drowning in pools of blue.