Title:          Purgatorio
Author:         LoserTakesAll
E-mail:         amyb1@att.net
Summary:        Angel in the afterlife
Rating:         R
Spoilers:       Angel, NFA
Warnings:       Language, violence
Notes:          Inspired by the poem "Aubade" by Philip
                Larkin and, of course, by Dante
Disclaimer:     One Joss to rule them all.

"...the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true."
-Philip Larkin, "Aubade"


PART V

"His being was a well a thousand miles deep; he rose from the lower
regions with a sense of infinite sadness and repose, but with no
memory of any dream save the faceless voice that had whispered: 'The
soul is the weariest part of the body.'"

-- Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky

I helped Spike to his feet and we stumbled toward the great iron
doors together. We didn't get very far before Angelus appeared,
Drusilla at his side, and Buffy and the two other slayers backing him
up in a colorful trio.

"Leaving so soon?" Angelus smirked, looking at Spike.

"Had enough, Angelus," he replied, not looking at the looming vamp.
"Going now, back to finish what I started, with your better
half."

"Spoike," Drusilla purred, "don't leave me, darling boy--"

Spike cut her off, whirled around and kept walking. I kept my eyes on
the door and managed to lay a hand on its surface before I felt a
claw-like grip on my shoulder. Angelus didn't give us much
face-to-face time before he threw me away from the door, and I
clanged into what seemed to be a stone birdbath, but was clearly full
of holy water. It burned, and I rolled around, casting about for a
weapon of some sort to give Angelus a little of what he had coming.
Nothing to bag the holy water, nothing to grab; Spike and I were
relatively defenseless. Angelus had him now by the throat and was
lifting him up until his feet dangled in the air. Dru was purring and
rubbing against him like a cat.

I picked up a wooden pew and smashed it into the stone floor. Wooden
weapons - always the best choice for nasty, uncooperative vamps. I
rammed the sharpest piece I could find straight into Drusilla and she
hissed and turned into a black, wraith-like form, which slithered
away into the shadows. I used a large piece to crack Angelus over the
head, and this really made him mad. He turned on me and we grappled,
forearm to forearm, head to head.

"Spike, get out of here, now!" I yelled at him. He didn't move. He
was never one to follow orders, but I repeated the request, this time
not so nicely. Spike was near the doors, but not moving to open them.
Buffy and her dead slayers were standing apart from him, holding
another girl between them.

"Spike. Open the doors, now!"

"I'm not leaving without her!" Spike said, wildly.

"Spike, I told you, that's not really Buffy! You don't want to take
this demon spawn with you, trust me."

"Not her - her!" And so saying, he charged into the slayers, striking
Buffy first, kicking and punching his way through them. The Chinese
slayer delivered some serious high kicks to his head and he reeled
back, but the girl that the slayer-ghouls had been holding between
them ducked out from under and ran to the door. Spike ran after her
and they both stood at the door like statues.

"What are you playing at, Spike," I said under my breath.

"Spike's got a little sister, here," Angelus said in his lilting,
mocking way. "He wants to be a hero like his big brother, Angel.
Don't be jealous, Angel dear, you'll always be Spike's true love and
the two of you can live happily ever after," he grinned widely,
almost benevolently. "Once you've wasted all your time here."

"Don't know what you're talking about Mr. Evil, but this is over, and
we're getting out of here."

Angelus giggled and put his head even closer to mine so that our
foreheads were almost touching. "The time is near, Angel. You've
given up your one chance to go back, and your one chance to find your
place in Purgatory. Tick tock, my friend. Your time is almost
up."

"Angel, we can't get out... you need to open these doors! We
aren't... we can't leave on our own," Spike was shouting.

"Let go..." I was grimacing and pulling from Angelus' grip. He
grinned and held on tighter. "Let go!" I pulled my head back as far
away from him as I could and then rammed it forward quickly. That's
the trick. Stunned, his grip loosened and I plowed a fist as hard as
I could into his mad face. Turning, I met the Buffy ghoul and gave
her some of the same. She looked at me with those puppy dog eyes, but
the panic over the realization that my time was slipping away made me
lash out with all the force I had left.

Getting stuck here in cathedral-Hell with Spike and his own
personally-tailored torture was not my idea of eternity.

Buffy went flying back into the ghoul-slayers, and as Angelus
approached, I could hear Spike call out. He'd tossed me the sharp
spear that had gone through Drusilla and as it flew into my hand I
let its momentum help drive it through Angelus. Not quite his heart,
but was going to have one painful hole in his guts.

Flinging open the doors, we met Gunn, but not quite the Gunn I was
expecting. He looked pale and slightly translucent. He was gasping
for breath. Spike was holding on fiercely to the young girl he'd
dragged out with him. "What is this, the Underground Railroad?" I
said. "Gunn, what's happening?"

"I'm headed back to Purgatory. I'm not gonna make it," Gunn said.
"I've been out of place for too long." The old guy didn't look too
great either, he was turning a bit green around the gills.

"Okay. We've got to make a dash for it. Has anyone seen an obelisk?"

"Obelisk?" asked Spike.

"It's a thing. Just look for one."

"Phallic, if you ask me," Spike said under his breath.

"I didn't."

"There's one down through there," Gunn said, his milky white hand
raised and pointing down to the left, to a dark cave-like corridor
between some bushes at the bottom of the cathedral steps. "There's a
lot of unpleasantness going on in there, you should be prepared."

"I am as prepared as I'm ever going to be, given what I've just laid
eyes on," I said. "Let's get moving. Who's your friend?" I said to
Spike. We didn't have time for her to suddenly turn into a liability.
I moved to descend the stone stairs, following Gunn down to its base
and the dark hole beyond.

"Anna," Spike told me. "Her whole family was butchered in the
Holocaust. I came upon her round about '52 with Dru as she was
killing herself, and figured I'd drink her blood so's not to let it
go to waste." She peered up at me through a tangle of dark hair,
looking all the world like a walking corpse.

"Not your finest moment." I said.

"I know I don't have the right, Angel," Spike said, and looked almost
tenderly at the girl, who stood shivering in a white shift on the
steps, letting Spike pull her hand somewhat ineffectually. "But I
feel responsible. And she didn't torture me here." The girl didn't
reply, just moved her shift down, a gesture which revealed a myriad
of criss-crossed white scars along her breasts and down her arms. Two
puncture wounds appeared above a rough knife cut along her neck. She
had not healed well, at all.

"Angel. I do believe we are in a world of hurry," Spike said. "If I'm
not mistaken, we are breaking some serious cardinal rules of
Hell."

"She's got to keep up," I said stiffly, nodding at her.

Spike pulled harder on her hand, gripping her elbow and moving her
along.

At the bottom of the stone steps we passed one by one into the dark
corridor and began to move as fast as the darkness would allow.
Something was lining the walls but I could not see clearly what it
was. A series of low moans echoed down the length of the passage and
there was a powerful stench of mud and decay that was
overwhelming.

I moved to the front of the group, and indicated that Gunn and the
old man should follow as close behind me as they could, with Spike
and Anna bringing up the rear. Spike now pushed Anna in front of him;
her expression remained unchanged. An eerie light, similar to the
phosphorescence in the forest with Cordy began to glow from the
walls. I was moving ahead so fast I was tripping over things in my
way. I could see a small white light at the end of the tunnel - it
looked like sky, and further in the distance, a black pillar.

The moans grew louder, and as I hazarded a look at the walls I
stopped in my tracks. Bodies, people, were twisted and hung against
the walls, mangled, mashed together, covered in a silvery substance
like mud. Their eyes were open and staring at me.

"Keep moving!" shouted Spike from the back.

"I told you it wasn't going to be pretty," Gunn muttered.

I took a few more steps, then realized that I was traveling over yet
more bodies, sunk in the mud beneath my feet. Over my head, more
bodies were mosaicked into the tunnel's surface, some with their arms
or hair dangling down like tree roots. A hand brushed my shoulder and
someone whispered my name. I looked up, stumbling over another head
beneath my feet. "Eve," I said, staring up into the silvered face of
the former liaison to the Senior Partners. Her face was stretched in
a rictus of agony and she repeated my name.

"Keep moving!" Spike was growing agitated in the back. "There are...
people here, we know... Angel, we have to keep going!"

I found I was still in shock - not to mention pain - after that
encounter with Angelus and co. and I was ill-prepared to see yet more
faces from my recent past. A sudden thought occurred. Should I save
them? What would happen if I reached up and pulled Eve down? More to
the point... since it was Lindsey McDonald's head I'd just about
fallen over, should I reach down and pull him up, too? Did he really
deserve what I'd given him?

"Move, Angel," Spike was pleading now. "We can't help these people.
Whatever you did to them, or they did to themselves, is done." Gunn
was echoing the same, his voice sounding faint.

But now my mind was racing along a new tangent. Where's Doyle? Could
I save him, bring him back? Drogan? I could atone for killing Drogan,
and could restore him as guardian of the Old Ones! I reached up and
touched the tips of Eve's fingers, and I could feel Lindsey's hands
grabbing my legs.

Suddenly Spike was at my side. "Mate, it's time to move."

"Angel, you're responsible for their deaths..." Gunn said. "You can't
possibly think that the Powers are going to let you redeem everyone
you've killed in order to redeem yourself? You're going to lose me,
here, look, I'm fadin'..." Gunn's voice was urgent. "Let 'em be,
please!"

"Angel," Lindsey was gasping at my feet. Oh hell.

"Sorry, Linds, I wanted you dead and you're dead for a reason. You
gotta stay," I said to him, not unkindly. "Eve's here to keep you
company," I added, "and you'll get to where you're going. Everyone is
on their own path now."

I started moving again, and this time Spike was up front too, in case
I ran across anyone else. "Believe me, Angel," he said, "there's a
good witch I'd certainly like to look up while we're here and maybe
pull her through the eye of the needle along with us," Spike said.
"But she's where she needs to be, and I imagine it's a lot better
than where we're going."

We exited the corridor and saw the last of the twisted silver bodies
- I swear I caught a glimpse of Lilah at the last second - the
beautiful and the damned -- then there in front of us was the
familiar looking obelisk. This one, however, had a swirling bright
disturbance in the center of its base.

"Wormhole," I gasped. We stumbled out and moved toward it. I could
see something in the bluish light, and as I looked closer, I realized
I was staring at the alleyway behind Wolfram and Hart, drenched in
rain. The sky above the obelisk was dark, and getting darker. The
light glowed brighter, and I could suddenly hear Cordy in my head.
"It'll be a rough landing, and you've got to hurry."

"Go, go!" I shouted to Gunn, and he didn't hesitate, but stepped up
to the swirling light, and it almost immediately shot through him and
dragged him in. As the old man inched forward, I could see Gunn in
the alleyway, whipping rain out of his face and gasping with pain
from his injury. Spike pushed Anna through after the old man and
turned to me, a look of determination on his face.

"Do this together?" he asked.

In my moment of hesitation, I risked a look back over my shoulder.
Sure enough, I saw Darla standing there, wreathed in flowers and
vines, and otherwise naked. She held out her hand.

"Aren't you tired, darling? Come away from the darkness and rest."

I was like Lot's wife in the Bible, who, as she was fleeing Sodom and
Gomorrah, hazarded a look over her shoulder despite God's warnings
not to, and she turned into a pillar of salt. She had to have a last
look. She just couldn't go on, doing what she was told. She was
really going to miss the sin and the evil. I was going to miss
something, too. The chance to save people from eternal damnation; to
offer them a chance for redemption. Something I didn't have the power
or the right to do. It was humbling. And here was Connor's mother, in
Hell, and I wanted to reach out and grab her, and pull her through. I
reached. But Spike grabbed me by my arms and pulled me away from her
touch.

"Not her!" Spike shouted. "Look at me, Angel."

"Hell is on earth, Angel," Darla said, her voice like silk. "Now,
you're out of it."

"You're on thin ice, Angel," Cordy's voice warned in my head.

*The soul is the weariest part of the body.*

I turned and followed Spike into the blue.

*****

There we were, again.

Standing in the alley as all hell broke loose. Ilyria appeared and
related Wesley's death. I felt shock and sadness. The darkness was
closing in and there was a roar of noise. It was raining hard. I
squinted at an old man and a young girl who were leaning on each
other as they ran down the alley, soaked to the skin and skittering
out of the way of what was coming with palpable fear and confusion. I
thought I heard voices in my head.

*Life for love... it isn't such a bad exchange in my book.*

*I never thought that the universe could have so many possibilities.*

*Ahoy, matey.*

*Do this together?*

*I'll trust you Angel. Not to forget me.*

"I wanna slay the dragon," I said. And I did.

EPILOGUE:

"And following its path, we took no care
To rest, but climbed: he first, then I - so far,
Through a round aperture I saw appear

Some of the beautiful things that Heaven bears
Where we came forth and once more saw the stars."

-- The Inferno of Dante Canto XXXIV (trans. Robert Pinsky)

### The End ###