As Willow pulled Xander's body to hers, she forced his head to one side, exposing his neck. Slowly she bent over him. As she did so Willow whispered into his ear, "Play dead!"

Xander didn't comprehend Willow's words at that moment, and as soon as he felt her fangs pierce his throat he stiffened and struggled instinctively. But when he didn't feel her sucking his blood, he hoped beyond hope he understood what her whispered words meant.

< Play dead? Well, here goes nothing. > Making his body go passive,

Xander began to slump over and then collapsed at Willow's feet.

Soon he heard Willow say loudly, "I'll take his body up. I have a slayer to trap."

Xander felt himself being picked up, but kept himself very limp and boneless. It was easy to do because he almost ready to pass out with

relief anyway as he realized that Willow was carrying him out of there.

They went through a maze of tunnels. After what seemed like a very long time, Xander guessed that they were safe but he daren't open his

eyes to check and Willow wasn't taking any chances. She had not only

gotten them out of the tunnels but far from the exit into the dawning

sunlight before she finally put him down.

"Xander?"

Xander opened his eyes cautiously and found himself looking up into Willow's face. Her eyes were looking worriedly down on him. She didn't say anything else, but she didn't have to. The mask she had worn for the Anointed One's benefit had fallen away and Xander recognized the same soul he had always known...

His best friend.

His heart welled up with unadulterated joy and he immediately clutched her to him. "God Willow, it's really you. I've missed you so much!"

"Oh me too, Xander. You don't know how much!" Willow hugged him back fiercely. "Are you alright though? I didn't hurt you did I? You had me worried. You play dead really convincingly." She pulled away fretting over him.

"ME! Convincing?!?!" He rubbed his neck absently. "Look whose talking. I really thought that you had-had, well, become one of the bad guys."

"I'm so sorry about that Xander. I just didn't know how else to get us both out of there alive. I just played along letting him think I had my demon back," she trailed off hesitantly.

Willow had taken an enormous chance, but seeing Xander in such danger,

she had had to take it. In the moment of indecision before she agreed to the Binding the words of the prophesy that Brother Lugo had read to her what seemed so long ago echoed in her mind < 'Vanquish the demon lest thy soul succumb and be destroyed by the evil of thy sire.' >

She was sure that it was this very situation was what the prophesy had been warning her about. With desperate faith that the Binding Ritual wouldn't work, she had decided to go ahead with it. And she had been right. It hadn't worked.

With no demon to awake, she had been in complete control the whole time. That had only been one part of it though. She had had to fool Colin as well. And she'd done it by taking her rage and hate for him and directing those feelings toward maintaining an act. Yet Willow felt self-conscious about having played her role to the hilt. It didn't sit comfortably with her that she had been able to take on the persona of her demon so effortlessly. Its presence within her for so many months had left more of a mark than she might have wished.

"You did what you had to do," Xander reassured her tenderly. Overwhelmed by truly having her with him again, he pulled Willow once more into a hug. "You have no idea how much I've needed to see you again. Ever since you left I've kicked myself for not telling you how I feel about you. After you left sometimes the only thing that kept me going was your letter and knowing that you loved me despite the fact that I took you for granted." Xander pulled back a little and laid his forehead against hers while still holding onto her. "It nearly killed me to think that you might not know how much I care about you and how much I need your friendship, how much I'll always need it. I do love you, Wills. You know that right?"

"I know Xander." Willow's eyes were damp as she answered him. "I do. "

They both sat there for a moment basking in the loving renewal of their friendship. The events of the last year had left an indelible mark on both of them. There were changes they had not yet had time to explore in each other, but they knew their friendship had not faded.

Instead it endured all, and tested, it was stronger and deeper than ever.

Xander, horrified at a sudden thought, asked her, "We had heard from Angel that you had left Rome about a month ago, you-you haven't been here with the Anointed One that whole time have you?"

Willow flinched, a hollow ache pervading her body at the very mention of Angel.

"No," she replied in a small voice. "I was taken last night. They found me in Ireland just after Angel did." Willow had to swallow hard before being able to get out the next part. "They killed Angel."

Xander heard the heartbreak in her voice. "I'm so sorry Wills."

"Yes," she whispered in a husky voice. "Me too."

"I wanted you back, but I only wish it had been under better circumstances."

Pushing the pain back into a compartment within her heart to be dealt with at a later time, Willow turned to the crisis at hand. "You know I was lying about Buffy. If she's already heard you've been taken, she'll be going on a rampage. Giles won't be able to keep her from coming. We have to warn them about Colin's trap."

"They'd be at the library. I just hope they haven't left yet," Xander prayed fervently.

Buffy, Angel and Giles silently made their way down through the tunnels. Angel's experience guided them unerringly. Suddenly, Angel held up his hand signaling them to halt as they came up to where the tunnel diverged into two directions.

Angel pointed to one of the tunnels, "This is the way to the main cavern. I found Willow there when the Anointed One first took her. She was practically unguarded. I don't think the Anointed One will make the same mistake. He might have her and Xander secreted away in one of the side chambers, which are this way." He pointed in the other direction.

"Fine, we'll split up," Buffy decided. "You take the other chambers since you know the tunnels better than we do. Giles and I will go to the main cavern."

Angel nodded and headed off, leaving Buffy and Giles to continue on.

By the time they reached their destination, the only sounds were of their own footsteps and breathing. It was eerily quiet. Buffy motioned Giles to wait. Peaking around from the entrance, she saw that the main cavern was empty. Torches flickered all around and lit the large cave area with a menacing light.

Buffy shivered. The last time she had been down here. She had died. The only reason she was even here now was that she had been found by Angel and resurrected by Xander. Involuntarily the fear rose like bile in her throat. She took a deep breath, praying < Please let Xander and Willow be alright! >

Buffy and Giles made their way tentatively down to the floor of the cavern. They surveyed the area closely. But it was obvious neither Willow nor Xander were being held here.

Buffy, knowing there would be a trap had been acutely aware of everything around her. And now alarm bells were going off in her brain. < We haven't seen any vamps. There should have been some guards, something so far. > "I don't like this Giles," she said aloud.

"No, nor do I." Giles agreed.

"Oh, but I do!" a voice rang out.

Colin stepped out of the shadows from a secret entrance and mocked them, "It looks like the party has come to us after all." Behind him emerged dozens of vampires.

Backing off slowly, Buffy and Giles found that more vampires appeared closing off their exit and surrounding them. They had been prepared for this, but knowing it was a trap and dealing with it were two separate things.

They both fought valiantly against the odds. Even without a slayer's skills, Giles managed to kill a couple of vampires. And Buffy, kicking and punching in seemingly all directions, destroyed the first wave of vamps that came at her. Yet there was no way they could fight the sheer number of vampires that were present. Giles was soon overpowered.

Seeing that they didn't have a chance, Buffy tried to get off one last shot with her cross-bow. She aimed directly at the Anointed One.

If this was going to be a suicide mission then she wanted to at least take out their leader. But the other vampires reacted immediately in defense of him, knocking the bow out of her hands. They swiftly converged on her, and having subdued her, they brought both Buffy and a battered Giles before the Anointed One.

"Don't try anything stupid Slayer." Colin warned as he carefully watched Buffy approach him.

"Stupid? Listening to anything *you* say, now that would be stupid," Buffy spat out.

"I'm merely warning you that if you killed me, in that instant you'd also be killing your friend Willow for she and I are now linked. And you wouldn't want anything to happen to her would you?"

Appalled understanding swept through Giles. "The Binding ritual, you've performed it already?"

"Ah so you've figured it out. Impressive. I heard you were intelligent. For a Watcher. And in case your blond hair isn't out of a bottle," Colin insulted Buffy, "let me explain. If I should inconceivably ever die, Willow is but a step behind me on the path to hell. She is mine. Body and soul."

*~*~*~*~*

When Willow and Xander arrived at the library there was no trace of Buffy or Giles. Xander made phone calls to both of their homes in the desperate hope that they were other than where Xander and Willow both feared they were. Neither were home.

Xander cried aloud in frustrated anxiety. "We must have missed them. Buffy and Giles might have taken another route down to the caverns. We have to go after them." He was already turning for the library exit.

"Wait. I have to find something." Willow had quickly read through the

translation of the prophesy that Giles had written out. Then she began looking for something else. Something very specific. She was rummaging through piles of books, hastily discarding them to the side when they weren't what she was looking for.

"Willow we don't have time to do research! They could be walking into the trap right now!" Xander said urgently.

"We'll never catch up to them in time. Colin probably even has them already. But he won't hurt them or do anything until I get there. He wants to sacrifice Buffy, not kill her. He still thinks I'm on his side, remember? We need to take advantage of that and figure out how we'll rescue them, because we won't be able to take out all his followers. But if I..." Willow's voice trailed off as she snatched up a text that lay in the pile of books Giles had not yet gone through. She scanned the text finding the passage she hoped for.

"Here it is!" she said excitedly. Reading it carefully, Willow began to frown.

"What is it?" Xander asked.

She didn't answer him right away. Willow read for a few more seconds and then finally put the book down. She tried to keep her expression a deliberate blank as she merely told him, "It's what I need to stop the Anointed One once and for all."

Not liking the look on her face, he demanded, "Willow what are you going to do?"

She hesitated, "I'll tell you when we get there."

He looked as if he wanted to say something further, but instead Xander nodded.

Relieved that he didn't press her, Willow led him back to the entrance of the passageways which they had so recently escaped. But once there, she stopped him. This was as far as she was letting him go.

"So what's the plan?" Xander turned to ask her.

Steeling herself, Willow said, "Please forgive me." And with that she drew back her fist and cold-cocked him.

Willow dragged him a bit aways from the entrance. Guilt was etched onto her face. Although it was the safest spot she could think of, she hated to leave him here like this. Yet she couldn't allow him to come with her, because what she had to do, he could have no part.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to Xander's inert form, taking one last look at his face before squaring her shoulders and going down the passageways that would lead her to her destiny.

The moment Colin had announced his plans for the eclipse, some inner

part of Willow recognized that the events surrounding the eclipse were a part of her fate. There was no thought in her now to avoid it, for if she tried to fight it, her friends would most likely die. The man she loved was dead, and if her friends died too, what good would her eternal life be when there would be no one she loved left to share it with?

It was time to meet destiny. Alone.

As she boldly entered the main cavern, Willow constructed a carefully blank façade that would hopefully serve her purposes. Quickly she assessed the situation which was worse than she had thought. There were enough vampires assembled to wipe out the entire town of Sunnydale. And on the far side of the cavern, Buffy and Giles were being held captive. At least they were alive.

Seeing her sauntering in, the Anointed One rebuked her sharply, "You're here FINALLY!"

Buffy and Giles' attention turned toward her at his words, both of them visibly blanched.

"Willow? My god....!" Buffy croaked out.

Colin cut her off, "Whatever! I don't have time for reunions, explanations or good-byes. You'll just have to die without all that. "

Willow turned to her friends. "Buffy, Giles," she greeted them in an off-hand manner that showed none of her inner longings to throw her arms around them and sweep them away from all this. Willow threw a look at Colin that told him he should let her handle this her way. "Tell everyone to step back from the circle. Far back," she ordered.

Colin nodded and made it so. The vampires all gathered into the corners of the cavern, far from the center which had an outlined circle that marked the edges of the Hellmouth. Colin too withdrew, placing Giles near his side, exactly where Buffy could see him to act as a kind of warning or deterrent. So only Willow, Buffy, the two vampires holding Buffy remained in the center and as Willow took ahold of Buffy herself, she dismissed even those two.

Buffy began to try and break free when Willow pulled her over to the inner part of the circle, but Willow held onto Buffy with enough strength to subdue her but not hurt her.

Willow whispered fiercely, "Please don't fight this Buffy."

"You're kidding me right?" Buffy replied bitterly, still squirming slightly within the iron like band of Willow's grasp.

"I can't explain right now. There's no time. Xander's alright. I got him out of here and I'll get you and Giles out too. I promise." Willow spoke close to Buffy's ear, her words were conveyed with a fierce sincerity that gave Buffy pause.

"Willow, I don't understand," Buffy begged for some sort of an explanation. She so much wanted to believe Willow.

Solemn and intense, Willow stared straight into Buffy's eyes and said quietly, "Look at me. I am ME and if you ever loved me or called me friend, trust me now. Help me end this."

What Buffy saw in the depths of Willow's eyes shook her. Her feelings warred with her rational voice that said that this was all a trick. But she couldn't dismiss the genuine throb in Willow's voice nor the frank sincerity in her whole demeanor. If this was truly Willow, Buffy wouldn't have hesitated to do anything that she asked of her.

< But how am I supposed to know for sure this is Willow? > Buffy asked herself, her mind whirl with doubts. Then it struck Buffy that only Willow's gentle soul would be so concerned that she believe her. Willow didn't have to ask. At that moment she had the power to do as she pleased. A demon would have taken what it wanted without a second thought. < This has to really be Willow. > Maybe it didn't make much sense, maybe she was seeing and believing what she wanted but a sudden calm pervaded Buffy's spirit as trust welled inside her. In a single word she related that trust to Willow.

"How?"

"I need some of your blood."

Buffy closed her eyes and silently offered her neck.

Intense.

It was the only word that Willow could use to describe the feeling as she drank blood from a human being for the first time in her life. A feeling of a tremendous high ran through Willow as the intoxicating power of Buffy's blood surged through her. Another vampire would never have been able to pull away from the addicting flow of Buffy's blood, but Willow didn't have a demon to push her over the edge into mindless feeding. She stopped when she had taken all she safely could.

Automatically checking to assured herself that Buffy was alright, Willow laid her friend's unconscious body at the edge of the encircled Hellmouth.

Then Willow began the Rite of the Eclipse.

Willow chanted a short phrase over and over, sprinkling around the edge of the ceremonial circle of the Hellmouth a mixture of wine, burdock, and blood that had been prepared for her. When she finished, she stood in the center of the circle, at the heart of the Hellmouth. Her arms raised, she called out:

While Willow spoke, the very air seemed to change. It sang with the incredible forces she was invoking. A swirling wind whipped Willow's long auburn hair about her face, and she looked more supernatural spirit than substantive being. By the time she finished she was practically shouting and her last words echoed and reverberated like a clap of thunder.

The earth rumbled in reply.

The whole cavern quaked violently. The earth and rock above the Hellmouth fissured, breaking apart to create an opening to the naked sky. Willow looked straight up and saw the sun and moon in the last moments before the apex. A few more seconds and the moon slipped into position directly in front of the sun.

In full eclipse, the sun's light was not entirely diminished. The moon haloed by the corona of the sun gave off light of a grayish quality. Not quite pure, not quite corrupted, it was yet strong enough to destroy a vampire.

A normal one anyway.

And the light filtered down through the chasm, hitting exactly the outline of the Hellmouth over which Willow stood. Her upturned face was bathed in the ghostly light and with her eyes closed and her lips slightly parted she seemed to be caught up in a mystical ecstasy.

In safety far away from the light that streamed down, Colin's eyes suddenly widened in disbelief as Willow's body seemed to take the light within herself. She was glowing and the brightness seemed to build then explode as Willow herself started to radiate the light, pouring out of every pore of her body and filling the cavern.

*~*~*~*~*

Angel was getting more and more frustrated, not to mention more and more afraid. He had been looking in all the possible places that Colin could have secreted Willow. He hadn't seen anyone. No guards, no patrols. It was all too easy to make his way around the tunnels. It didn't bode well because meant the main forces of the Anointed One must all be where Buffy and Giles were.

Angel was already doubling back on his way toward the main cavern when suddenly the earth began to quake around him. Dust flew everywhere as the tunnels groaned with the weight of maintaining their cohesion. Then just as suddenly it stopped.

< What was that?!? > Angel thought wildly as he started to run even faster. He was a few meters away from the main cavern when he spied Xander making his way to the same spot.

Above ground, Xander had come to for the second time that day with a splitting head-ache and with a groggy awareness that he had been ditched with a vengeance. But determined he had dragged himself down through the caverns to arrived just as Angel did.

"Angel!" Xander exclaimed. "Willow told me you were dead. What's going on?"=

"Willow! Is she with you?" Angel demanded shortly.

"No. She-she knocked me out and came down here I think to rescue Buffy and Giles. She was planning something. I don't know what but=85.."

Another smaller tremor rocked the tunnels around them, cutting short Xander's explanation. The two men looked at each other and immediately headed for the entrance.

Angel was about the step through the passageway into the cavern when a blast of light made him instinctively slam himself against a shielding wall of stone. Xander, not so hampered by the this, stood at the entrance and viewed the scene below with shocked awe.

*~*~*~*~*

Again the earth shuddered, but Willow was unaware of anything around her. Her being was focused on the light which filled her and drifted along within every cell, her body becoming nothing more than a conduit for the light. Once the light built inside her at a critical mass, she released it. Consciously, she directed it toward the Hellmouth. Attuned with the light, Willow could feel it slamming against the Hellmouth with all the might of her desire to destroy it. And like a living thing the Hellmouth groaned at the assault until it finally fell before the primeval force of the light which sealed the Hellmouth for all time.

Simultaneously, however, the light from Willow also flowed out across the open cavern, discharging in every direction. And the vampires within the cavern cried out as one in fear and then in pain as the light blazed through them, turning them into cinders. Like dominoes they fell against the touch of the spreading light.

Amidst all this, Colin, the Anointed One, registered astonishment, anger, and then=85fear on his child-like face. Then he cried out once, more in frustration of having been thwarted than from pain, before he too joined the other vampires in their total destruction.

The moment the Anointed One fell, Willow began to falter and the light started to fade.

Unharmed and standing now surrounded only by ashes, Giles went unimpeded to where Willow and Buffy were. He bent down to check on Buffy who was regaining consciousness. She was weak with the loss of blood but otherwise unhurt. Meanwhile, Xander made his way down from the entrance toward them.

But it was Angel, freed from danger of the light, who raced down across the cavern with inhuman speed just in time to embrace Willow in his arms as she staggered out of the light encircled Hellmouth.

"Willow!?!" Angel said urgently.

She gazed up at him, her eyes going wide with recognition. She tried to speak, but it was then that her body gave out completely. She sunk slowly down to the ground. Angel, holding onto her body was pulled down with her. They settled on the floor with Angel cradling her like a small child, her head and back supported by his arms, her body across his lap.

"An--Angel?"

Had his ear been even a couple of inches further away, Angel doubted he would have been able to make out what she said.

"I thought=85you=85were dead." Her struggling words came out in short= bursts.

"No, I'm here. Right here, Willow," he murmured holding her even closer.

"Is . . .is everyone. . . alright . . .?"

"Don't worry. Everyone's fine. Just fine." With the backs of his fingers brushing lightly over the curve of her cheek, Angel tried to sooth her.

"Good=85I - uhh!" Willow stopped suddenly, her voice dying in a low awful rattle at the back of her throat. She felt her very essence being rent from her. Although she didn't need to breathe, her chest heaved as if she were trying to draw breath, draw the life back into her body.

Desperate, Angel could only watch her. With a terrible certainty Angel understood what was happening. She was dying. Right here in his arms. And there was nothing he could do about it.

< NoNoNoNoNoNoNoNo! > Angel's mind was filled with incoherent pleadings with God or Fate to not take Willow away from him.

"Wills!?" Xander said hovering frantically behind Angel.

Angel hadn't even noticed that Buffy, Xander, Giles had gathered right next to him. He tore his tortured gaze from Willow's face to glance at Buffy and Giles, who were equally aware of what was happening to Willow and their faces showed their impotent sorrow. Only Xander didn't know what was occurring and why.

For a moment Willow subdued the almost seizure-like spasms and the tension eased from her body. Yet inexorably Angel felt her slipping away and he was powerless to do anything about it. He shut his eyes tightly. He wanted to succumb to the weakness. The panic. The fury churning inside him. But right now he had to be strong for Willow's sake. So instead Angel focused on all the things he should say to her, things he should have said to her before this, things that he had waited to tell her until the 'right' time. He had to tell her now before it was too late.

Angel opened his mouth, but whatever words he had ready were lost as Willow stopped him.

Trembling, she stretched her fingers towards his face, able only to reach his lips, her strength extending just that far. Lightly she caressed him with the tips of her fingers. With this gesture it was as if she were trying to tell him that the words he had been about to utter were superfluous and entirely unnecessary; that she understood all that had been unspoken between them. A single tear, for all the things that might have been, made its way down the side of her face as she looked up at him steadily. But all the while she smiled, just the corners of her mouth turning up and in her expressive eyes shone all the passionate honesty of her love for him.

The love that she had tried to keep secret was no longer hidden. It was there for him to see unabashedly. In these last moments Willow abandoned her pride, her fear of rejection to give him this gift.

Then her hand dropped from his lips, the last of her strength consumed. Willow fought for a moment longer, to hold on to life, to not leave him. But the pull on her soul became too great.

She looked over at Xander, Buffy and Giles and finally back at Angel, whispering, "I love you."

Then Willow was gone.

Angel gathered Willow's lifeless body close to him. Wrapping one arm around her body, his other arm cradled her neck and tucked her head beneath his chin. Angel was beyond tears, beyond any expression of grief. He just sat there with his body curled around hers and his face buried in her hair.

"She can't be dead! She's not," Xander stated in a flat tone, not accepting that what his eyes told him was true.

Since Willow was a vampire, she didn't breath, she had no pulse and her skin was without the warmth of a human body. So the absence of those things weren't what told them all that she was dead. It was her eyes. Her eyes, still open, were without the animating quality of Willow-ness. They were blank, glassy, vacant.

They were dead.

Unable to bear it, Angel took one last look at her blue-green eyes and then swept his hand over them, closing them forever. He laid her gently on the ground and stood then, staring down at her silently.

Behind him, the rest of the group stood in absolute silence as the impossibility of all this was still filtering through them.

Buffy had had only moments to focus on dispelling the dizzy fog from her body after she gained consciousness before all her attention was transferred to a fading, dying Willow. She wished she was still unconscious. That all this was a bad dream. But no. The obvious reality was that Buffy had failed her friend for the final time. < Dear god, it should have been me, > she thought. Instead of rescuing Willow, it turned out that Willow had rescued them all, sacrificing her life to do it.

Seeking comfort and refuge from the battering of her own thoughts, Buffy instinctively leaned against Xander.

Despite everything some stubborn part of him clung to hope, turning to Giles Xander argued, "She's a vampire and she hasn't turned to dust. There has to be something we can still do!"

"She was unlike any other vampire we've ever known," Giles replied mournfully. "Those differences may include a different kind of-of death for her."

"I don't believe it. I won't!" Xander rasped but his words echoed with a hollow air of despair. Yet he refused to cry, as if in the belief that should he shed tears it would make this nightmare all the more real.

"Xander" Buffy pleaded through her tears.

"No! SHE CAN'T BE DEAD!" Xander kneeled down and desperately shook Willow's body. "Willow! Wake up! Willow, please"

Even as Giles turned away unable to watch the outpouring of Xander's anguished denial and Angel, seemingly locked in his own inner world of pain, merely watched impassively; Buffy couldn't stand silently by a moment longer waiting for Xander to crumble.

Choking on her own tears she grabbed him from behind. Xander struggled for a moment before submitting to Buffy's embrace. Turning around in her arms, he buried his face against her neck.

His sobs came then, ragged and terrible.

Giles sat on his sofa, his hand was rubbing the bridge of his nose which was what he always did when stressed. But this time it was more than just stress, it was misery and utter dejection. The Hellmouth was closed forever, no evil would ever rise from it again. But it came with too heavy a price.

He felt hands rest on his shoulders and a soft cheek brush up against his own. He took one of those hands and brought it to his lips. Jenny Calendar made her way around the sofa and sat on his lap.

Jenny had not known Willow as well as the rest of the group, but Willow's keen mind and bright spirit had touched her life. So if it was difficult for her to accept her death, than it must be doubly so for Rupert. Jenny wanted so much to take away his pain. She brushed her lips against his forehead and then his temple and down his jaw. She kissed him lightly on the lips just before he broke out into a muffled cry. His dam of grief flooded open. Giles had had to keep it together for Buffy and Xander's sakes. He had deliberately bottled his emotions but now Jenny's gentle, unassuming display of affection and support finally broke through his defenses.

But Giles didn't have long to indulge his grief, for almost at once his door bell began to ring insistently. Composing himself while Jenny answered the door, he stood up to find a stranger being ushered in.

It was Brother Lugo.

Introductions were barely made before the agitated monk burst out, "Willow. I read the signs and know what's happened. We must save her. "

"I'm afraid it's too late. Willow is...she's already dead." Giles shoulders slumped and he sat down again as if weighted down by the added responsibility of having to inform yet another person of what had occurred.

Shocked, Brother Lugo exchanged a glance with Jenny who nodded miserably. "Then, then you've severed the bond?" the monk asked urgently. Seeing the incomprehension, he stated, "You don't know."

As inconceivable as it seemed, renewed anxiety wound its way into Giles' stomach.

"We must rescue her before the sun sets on this day. We must sever the bond and save her," Brother Lugo repeated himself feverishly.

"Save her? She's DEAD!" Giles said bluntly, hating himself even as he spoke the harsh words. But Willow *was* dead, there was nothing more any of them could do for her.

"No. Not her life. Her soul. Don't you understand? Her soul is bound to the Anointed One's." The monk stared at Giles. "Willow is in hell!"

Angel stood. Still. Motionless. Staring at Willow as he had done for the last hour. Mechanically, Angel had carried her body away from the Hellmouth, out of that accursed place. He took her to his apartment, laying out her body in a bitter imitation of a wake. Yet his mind could not wrap itself around the reality that Willow was dead. He was trapped in riddles of endless wondering on how he might have changed things, a gossamer thread of sanity, seeking, venturing for any alternatives to this horrible reality.

His eyes opaque with pain, Angel couldn't begin to say how having Willow in his life had gentled his world. The wreckage of his life -- the dreams that had gone awry, the ones that never had a chance of coming to fruition -- Willow could have made right. For all those lost paths weren't the ones that had led him to her.

But now she was gone.

Forevers seem to have been laid aside by a fate that rent and clawed at his soul. What did he have to look forward to now? He had lived for over two hundred years, most of them as a monster and he had continued on after regaining his soul with the thought to redeem himself. But grief like a blade pierced him and Angel wouldn't just allow the pain to fester and kill him with uncaring apathy. His pitiless existence was long past the time to be ended. It wasn't long now. He only waited for nightfall. Then he would bury Willow's body, and come morning, Angel would allow the sun's rays to turn him to ashes over her grave.

His hand drifted to her face and at first, he only brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. Then, his fingertips smoothed along the soft skin of her cheek. Over and over, he repeated the caress.

Obliquely Angel heard the door to his apartment being pounded on. He didn't move. He didn't care.

In the end Buffy had to bust down the door.

Right behind her was Xander, Giles, Brother Lugo and Ms. Calendar. Buffy and Xander had not been told anything yet but the news that there was a situation related to Willow had sent them all charging immediately over to Angel's place. Then Brother Lugo once again related exactly why he had come to Sunnydale.

His words were electric.

Stricken even more than any of them could have imagined before, none had considered this possibility. That she died had been terrible enough. That Willow, who knowingly had sacrificed herself for them, who embodied all the good in their lives, might at this moment be in hell was beyond unthinkable.

"I found all this out by reading of a similar instance." Brother Lugo told them all. "As you know, when I helped Willow destroy her demon, the information we used had been provided by a priest, the confidant of a young girl who had been made a vampire in circumstances similar to that of Willow's. Studying and researching led me to more information on her fate. This girl destroyed her vampiric demon and in the end she became intent on destroying her sire Rapano too. Finding no other way to carry out her plans, she fooled Rapano into undergoing the Ritual of Binding with her. She knew it would have no effect on her and that during the time of their bond she could kill herself and thus kill Rapano as well. She put a stake through her heart. It was quite effective, both she and Rapano perished."

Brother Lugo's audience was held in rapt attention. The correlations to and the differences in Willow's situation were quickly formed in their minds.

"One thing that is quite clear was that before she decided on her course, she went to her priest for absolution and made him promise to free her soul from the bond with Rapano, and release her soul from hell. This was all very interesting, but when I read the latest prophesy, the very one that Mr. Giles discovered, and when I came to understand it and the import of its effect on Willow, I hurried here to Sunnydale as soon as I could. I have here with me that same releasing spell for Willow. Ms. Calendar has said that she will help me prepare everything that we need. It isn't too difficult to break the bond, but it needs to be done before sundown. If we wait longer than that the next time we can try is next year on this day and even then it won't have as good of a chance of succeeding as it will today. So we have no time to waste."

Xander burst in excitedly, "Once Willow's cut loose from the Anointed One, she'll be able to come back to her body, right?"

"The bond should be broken, releasing Willow's soul, but I have no idea how to guide her soul back to her body or if it's even possible. "

"Isn't there something we can try?" Buffy asked.

Giles shook his head and Brother Lugo looked equally at a loss.

Xander turned to Angel abruptly. "What about your blood and all the vampire stuff?"

"Have Angel become a second kind of sire, you mean?" Brother Lugo said thoughtfully. There was silence for a moment as he examined the suggestion seriously. "It might work."

"But there's also the chance that it'll only resurrect the demon in her body," Giles interjected. "Her soul might then be trapped elsewhere after we release it from hell."

"I can't do that," Angel said slowly.

They were running out of options and Xander couldn't believe that Angel was unwilling to even make an effort. "If you cared for Willow at all you'd try," he yelled.

"I LOVE her!" Angel lashed back. "But I wouldn't do that to her. Put a demon back in her body? She'd rather be dead! And if the worst happened, I-I couldn't even give her peace. I could never.... release her."

"She doesn't have time for this. I'll take responsibility. I'll-I'll do whatever needs to be done. No matter what the consequences." Xander's red rimmed eyes showed an unwavering resolve in that vow. "So long as she gets a chance!"

Buffy held Xander's hand and added her voice to his. "Try Angel? We HAVE to try something."

Angel's uncertainty was outweighed by their insistence. He glanced at Giles who tacitly made his decision in favor of this desperate plan. It seemed ultimately that Xander had enough hope and belief for them all.

It was dark.

So very, very dark.

It was the total absence of light.

The total absence of hope.

The total absence of anything that kept one sane.

In the deepest depths of Hell, Willow didn't even try to contemplate what this existence was like. To describe Hell as an endlessly desolate landscape was to do injustice to the perfect inky blackness and emptiness throughout. There were no infernal spheres of sin, no devises of torment, no pits of burning damnation. There was nothing. Nothing except the beings that were banished here.

But that was torture enough. For there was nothing worse that could be done to the denizens of Hell than what they did to each other. Demons, vampires and hosts of other unspeakable entities, as well as a few human souls who, despite canonical indoctrination, were an exception here since there were only people who truly had earned the label 'monster' - these all wandered blindly about the void, wreaking havoc upon one another as was their inescapable nature to do so.

Willow was oddity in Hell. She kept very still, avoiding any and all who might have preyed on her. She didn't know how long she'd been here. Time was of little consequence and meditation of an eternity here would lead to utter insanity. Instead she withdrew inside herself, centering her being in the one place in Hell that held even a spark of real humanity.

Suddenly, Willow felt herself jerk upward. Freed from whatever numinous tether which held her, she felt the sensation of her soul floating up, up like a balloon released from its mooring. Alarmed at first, then filled with a shimmering hope, Hell slowly melted away from Willow as darkness does with the rising of the morning sun.

Strangely, Willow then found herself hovering over her body. Curiously she looked down at the scene below her. All of her friends were with her, each willing her to return to them. Somehow, perhaps in a divine inspiration, Willow understood that she was being given a choice. It wasn't an easy one. She could come back to her body or she could continue on, to follow the indescribable beauty of the call strumming through her being -beckoning her with the promise of ineffable peace.

Willow gazed one last time at the dear faces of her friends, lingering on Angel's before determining her course. Then her soul's ephemeral form vanished.

The minutes ticked by with agonizing speed. None of them knew if the results would be immediate, but it seemed that the longer it took for something to happen, the less likely that Willow would come back to them.

Brother Lugo sighed deeply. The spell had worked, of that he was sure. Getting Willow back alive had been the long shot. At least her soul was at rest. Nevertheless, he wished he could alleviate the pain of this disappointment, this final blow to all their hopes. He didn't know Willow's friends very well, but he could tell that they were brave, good people devastated by her death.

And Angel - whose face looked as if it were carved from stone - how tragic this was for him. Brother Lugo shook his head as he sadly pondered the vampire with a soul. This had been a solitary man. A man who did not smile easily, who was not prone to laughter, who expected no happiness in his life. Yet he had begun to do all those things during the time he had been with Willow, and Brother Lugo had been witness to this slow transformation. Although the monk admitted he was not well versed in matters of the heart, it had been manifestly transparent that Willow and Angel loved one another. Brother Lugo mourned especially for Angel's terrible loss.

Another minute passed by and still there was nothing. The silence was nearly unbearable.

Angel's eyes fell from Willow's face to gaze unseeing at the ground. He could no longer look at her and cope in front of everyone. He had only done his part in this plan for Xander and Buffy's sake. Angel hadn't retained any real hope that this would work, it had died for him along with Willow. Nevertheless, he felt broken and shattered inside.

Yet as he looked up once more, Angel froze.

Wild hope and equally wild fear, that what he saw wasn't real, rushed through him with painful intensity --

-- Willow's eyes moved again, then fluttered open.