Chapter 6

"Buffy?" Willow called softly from the door of the training room. She had watched for a few moments as her friend strolled aimlessly around the room before she had spoken. She waited till the petite blonde lifted her head and then asked her question. "Are you ok?"

Buffy shrugged slightly, confusion marring her features. "Not sure, Wills," she replied. "I mean, I've been sorta going through it all in my head, you know, the way we've treated Spike? And I gotta say, I'm all with the understanding of what Anya was saying. God! Mom must be so ashamed of me."

Willow moved closer, her own guilt playing across her features. Spike had been just as much a victim as the other's with her 'Will Be Done' spell, and yet she hadn't even apologized to him. She'd shoved a cookie in his mouth and that was it.

"I haven't given him any credit for anything he's done. Like that time Ethan Rayne gave Giles the demon makeover; Spike could have so killed him, but he didn't. He not only helped him, he took the chance of being recaptured by the Initiative to do it. I'm a bad person," she decided dejectedly. With a grimace of self disgust, she flopped down on the couch.

Willow rushed over to join her. "You are not. None of us did the right things, Buffy, and while I think Hell might freeze over before Giles and Xander admit that, I don't think playing the blame game is the most productive thing we could do."

"That's just it, Willow. I can't stop blaming myself." Buffy glanced at her friend imploringly. "I've enjoyed being a bitch to him; enjoyed taunting him and making fun of him and then threatening him and punching him for no good reason. He'd piss me off, I'd hit. I wouldn't do that to anyone else. It's like there's this whole mindset; it's only Spike, so it's okay. And it's not. Not okay, I mean. It's not okay to take it out on Spike just 'cause I'm in a pissy mood. I treat him like a portable punching bag and take out my every frustration with my calling, my love life, and the demons that get away on Spike. I feel bad, Will, and I really really deserve to, 'cause, hey! I'm guilty."

"Okay, I get that. We both feel guilty. So maybe we need to apologise. We can't change what we did, but we can move past it, Buffy. And really, can you imagine the look of shock on his face when we do?" Willow grinned as she tried to bring some levity to the conversation.

Buffy snorted with amusement at the thought. Her face quickly clouded again as another thought came to her. "Got any quick fix-it solutions for easing the guiltage factor I carry over the whole Angel-losing-his-curse thing?"

Willow shrugged nonchalantly. "Sure. But are you actually gonna listen, or are you gonna go all denial girl?"

Buffy narrowed her eyes as she contemplated her smirking friend. She had a feeling that she was so not going to like what the redhead had to say. She scrunched up her nose in distaste, but indicated that Willow should continue.

"Well first, you need to break it down, Buffy. What exactly is it you feel guilty for? Is it that he lost his soul? Or is it what he did after he lost his soul?"

"Both, but it's more than that. It's also sending Angel to Hell for five hundred years, and not the bastard that deserved it," Buffy snarled out the last few words, her hatred of her love's alter-ego almost tangible.

"Buffy, do you know what a curse is?" Willow asked carefully.

"Huh?" Buffy asked, shocked. She was sure that she had misheard the question.

"Do you know what a curse is," Willow repeated carefully, before turning to acknowledge Anya, who was hovering by the door looking uncertain, and beckoning her closer. The witch had a feeling that Anya would definitely come in handy in this little tête-à-tête.

"Well, yeah, a curse is what Angel has." Buffy stared at her friend in confusion.

Turning to Anya, Willow rephrased the question. "Anya, what is a curse?"

"An act of vengeance. It's what I specialised in for over eleven hundred years," the ex-demon responded flatly.

"Not getting the significance, Will." Buffy looked between both girls, feeling totally lost.

"Forget about Angel, Buffy. This about Angelus. Angelus was cursed," Willow began. "In an act of vengeance, a tribe of gypsy's cursed him. Regardless of whether he deserved it or not, the act of cursing him was wrong. They made a judgement, found him guilty, and punished him. It was an inhumane act that  was even more cruel than what Angelus did to Drusilla before he turned her."

Before Buffy could interrupt, Willow answered her unasked question. "Why? Because this curse was placed by a group of people who had souls, Angelus didn't. Those Gypsies knew exactly what they were doing, Buffy, they knew exactly how tortuous a soul would be to a vampire and they did it anyway. That soul warped Angelus. And then I compounded the action by re-souling him. I re-cursed an already unstable vampire, but what you don't seem to be aware of is what exactly I cursed him with. You think it was his soul, but Buffy, I followed the gypsy curse exactly. Angelus wasn't cursed with Liam's soul. He was cursed with his victim's."

Willow nodded at Buffy's wide-eyed expression of shock. "That's right, what you think is the soul of your soul mate is that of a young gypsy girl. And Buffy?" The witch waited for her friend to look at her. "Angel knows this, because I told him before he left Sunnydale. He told me not to say anything to you because he would. I'm thinking he wasn't forthcoming with the information."

'He never said a word," Buffy whispered. Her heart felt like it was breaking all over again.

"Okay, well, we'll deal with that in a bit." Willow waved her hands as if clearing a path. She wanted to give her friend time enough to process the new information, so dealing with some of the other issues seemed the smartest thing to do.

"As for the curse...I re-cursed him, Buffy. I'm the one that should feel guilty. You broke a curse, that's a good thing. The vampire you saved may not have been a good guy, but that's not the point. You broke a vengeance curse. Go you!" Willow grinned.

"But, Will, without the curse, Angel doesn't exist," Buffy said sadly.

"Isn't that the point?" Anya asked guilelessly. When Willow looked at her, silently urging her to continue, the ex-vengeance demon expanded her point. "Angel is made up of Angelus, the demon and his human half, Liam, and the soul of the Gypsy girl. The soul doesn't belong to Angelus, so the creation of the persona that is Angel is a false creation and against the natural order of things. The curse punishes both the demon and the soul. The demon goes insane with guilt and the soul is forced to feel guilt it doesn't own. It works like mine used to. Punish both the victim that calls for vengeance and the one who the vengeance is called upon. I'm surprised D'Hoffrin didn't offer the gypsies jobs."

"And you didn't create Angelus, Buffy. You can't blame yourself for his actions. Angel went to Hell, but the Powers brought him back from Hell when they thought he'd paid for his crimes. Angel, not Angelus. Angel. The soul can't be as innocent as Angel makes out if the Powers That Be thought it deserved to be punished for five hundred years," Willow reasoned. "Buffy, it's okay to feel guilty for things that are actually your fault; you can do something about that. But you have to stop blaming yourself for the things you aren't responsible for."

Buffy took a few moments to think about all that she'd heard.

Lifting her head she met the eyes of the other two girls. "You're right. And the first thing I have to do is apologize to Spike."