Buffy was back in her dorm room which she hadn't spend so much time since Angel had his soul bound. She had a bad feeling that everything was too calm, she had killed the Gentlemen and fallen asleep listening to Angels voice, she had always loved his voice, deep but still soft.

There was knock on the door and sighing deeply, she went to open it. Riley was standing on the door, his hands on his pockets and he looked at her from under his brows. Buffy stepped aside and signed him to come in. After closing the door, she sat on her bed and Riley on Willow's.

There was a long awkward silence till Buffy broke it by saying: “One of us should say something before we graduate.”

Riley shifted nervously. “I asked around about a slayer and it's only a myth”, he finally said.

“So are vampires”, Buffy shot back, she couldn't believe that he was practically calling her a liar.

“That's not what I meant”, he tried desperately when he noticed that she wasn't happy with him.

“Then what did you mean?”

He jumped up from the bed ready to answer her when the startled squeaking from Amy the rat drew both of their attention. “What...” he started but didn't get to finish when the ground started shaking, things started falling down to the floor braking. Riley grabbed her and pulled her into a closet. They stood there till the shaking stopped. Buffy looked at the room with wide eyes, bad memories were flowing back to her mind. Riley looked ecstatic, being from Iowa he hadn't experienced an earthquake before. “Wow! That was intense”, he said in awe but Buffy looked at him like he had lost his mind. “I've never been in an earthquake before”, he explained but Buffy didn't change her expression.

“Well I have. And it isn't good”, she said before quickly leaving the room. Riley stared at the closer door in wonder, he had no idea what had just happened.

Buffy ran through the door and was immediately greeted by Angel. He pulled her into his arms and comfortingly stroked her back.

“It's okay”, he whispered to her ear and she pulled away to look at him.

“It was a...”, she started but was interrupted by Angel:

“I know. I felt it too.”

“I have a bad feeling about it”, she said and pressed her face back to the crook of his neck. He just pressed a kiss against her forehead but didn't say anything. He had the bad feeling too, last time there had been a earthquake, she had died and this was Hellmouth after all, there wasn't many coincidences.

“It's okay. We'll find out what it is”, he said and led her to the couch.

“Do you think I'm just paranoid?” she asked with a small voice looking him under her eyebrows.

“No, I don't.”

She smiled slightly and snuggled more closely into his embrace. “I should go see Giles”, she said after a long silence, clearly not wanting to move away from him.

“When I'm with you, I feel safe. Like every bad thing in the world disappears. I know the next end of the world could be today but with you I feel less of the weight on me”, she said with a soft voice and pulled her head up to look at him.

“I love you”, he whispered and leaned into a gentle kiss.

“I love you too”, she whispered back her voice full of emotion. After a while she started to get up.

“I better go see Giles.”

Angel got up also. “Yeah. You do that. I'll go ask around if there's anybody new in town or somebody's heard something.”

Buffy took a hold of his hand and turned his gaze to hers. “You'll be careful, okay.”

“I will. And you too.”

She smiled. “You know me”, she answered carefree and that made him frown.

“Yes I do and that's why I want you to be careful.”

“Yes, daddy”, she answered with a sarcastic voice and pressed a quick kiss to his lips before exiting the mansion.

It was dark again and Buffy returned to the mansion. Angel stood up from his seat in front of the fire and after lowering his book to the table he went to her in long strides.

“Hey. What did Giles say?” he asked and pulled her closer to him. She sighed deeply and pressed her head against his shoulder.

“That I'm paranoid. 'It's not the end of the world every time there is an earthquake in Southern California'”, she answered mimicking Giles' voice. She sighed once again as he lead her to the couch, pulling her to sit in his lap.

“And what ever is in motion, it's starting. Willow found a body with a symbol on it.”

Angel turned to look at her concerned. “Is she okay?”

“Yeah. Just shaken, it really scared her and Percy called her a geek.”

Angel looked at her not understanding what it was about and she answered rolling her eyes: “Just this jock from high school that she helped graduate.” His eyebrows furrowed into a frown and she slapped him chastising him.

“Stop the jealousy act. I barely even talked to him more than few words. I thought we got past that.”

“Sorry”, he whispered and started to shower kisses to her neck. She smiled, he was distracting her and doing a great job at it. Her eyes closed on their own accord and a breathy moan escaped her lips. Her fingers threaded into his hair but suddenly her eyes snapped open and her head got clear. He felt the change and pulled away, looking at her like he had done something wrong.

“The symbol. The one that Willow saw, I've seen it before. And I know where, come on, we better move”, she said enthusiastically and pulled him up from the couch with her, grabbing a crossbow and a axe on the way out while dragging him off the mansion. In no time they reached the cemetery, Angel still little confused of what was happening.

It didn't take long till they reached the one she was looking for, a looming mausoleum with a big symbol on it's side. “And I wonder where I've seen it before, maybe the place where I spend most of my waking hours”, she said and glared at the symbol like it was it's fault.

“I was about to tell you this but I got little sidetracked when you mentioned that Perry guy”, Angel started and Buffy corrected him smiling:

“Percy.” He was so cute when he tried not to be jealous but it was also annoying at the same time.

“Well, I was at this new demon bar and I found out that there are Va...” he started to tell her but he stopped when there was noise from the mausoleum. They glanced at each other before carefully moving to the door, finding a large dark green demon collecting small bones.

“The door was open”, she said casually and the demon turned to look at the intruders. Buffy aimed the crossbow and shot an arrow to the demons chest but it didn't slow it down. Growling it approached her, finding that the crossbow was no use to her anymore she threw it at the demon before starting the fight.

Angel was swinging his axe, trying to hit the demon without hitting Buffy but it turned out to difficult. Finally he threw the axe, impeding it to the wall and started a hand to hand combat against the demon. It was very strong and held out its own against two strong warriors.

Buffy threw a punch to its gut but it grabbed her by the back of her jacket and threw her across the mausoleum. She fell against a rock bench and the demon went after her ready to crush her but Angel grabbed the demon into a choke hold. The demon shook him off but Buffy had regained enough consciousness to kick it hard into stomach sending him stumbling back. She jumped to her feet and started pounding it with her fists making it move out of the mausoleum.

Angel grabbed a hold of the axe in the wall and forcefully pulled it out, outside there was more room to work with it without worry of hurting Buffy. He ran after the demon that was now holding her in a tight grip, squeezing the air out of her. She was trying to free herself by pounding her fists into it but it was no use till the demon threw her hard against a tombstone. She cried out in pain as the stone dug into her back and she fell to the ground.

Angel attacked the demon but he was dodged and thrown away with a strong punch to the face. He jumped up ready to run after the demon that was fleeing the sight. But then he saw Buffy on the ground and he was torn between going after the demon and helping Buffy but hearing her groan in pain made the decision for him. He ran to her kneeling next to her without slowing his pace.

“Buffy”, he whispered but she didn't have time to answer when there was closing footsteps and she flipped herself to her feet laying a hard punch to the target.

“Ouch”, Riley said and Buffy pulled away slightly embarrassed that she had just hit him.

“Riley? What are you doing here?” she asked surprised.

“Looking for you actually”, he answered and glanced at Angel with slight hostility in his eyes.

He took a small walkie talkie from his holster and said to it: “Base One, this is Lilac one.”

“Lilac?” she asked little amused as Angel said it at the same time but he was being sarcastic.

Riley sent a glare at his way and continued: “Confirm sighting of an unidentified sub-T. Mobilize patrol team for debriefing at oh-eight-hundred hours... Copy that.” He put it back into the holster and turned his attention back to Buffy ignoring Angel.

“Buffy, we need to talk. Privately”, he said and gave a hostile glance at Angel.

“I guess we do since the last talk was interrupted by the earthquake. But now is not the time. I need to be somewhere else, there are very important stuff going on so our talk has to wait.”

Riley's face fell a little and Angel smirked triumphantly. Without even looking at him, she gave him a small slap to the hand full well knowing what he was thinking. “We need to go now, Riley. I'll see you tomorrow”, she promised and hurriedly started to lead Angel away from the cemetery.

Buffy and Angel went to Giles' apartment and as predicted, Angel wasn't happy about Spikes presence. It turned out that Giles had found information about the same demon that Angel had been trying to tell Buffy about. Buffy and Angel went out to patrol for it as Willow and Xander went after the Word of Valios.

When they returned to the apartment, they found badly beaten Giles and he told that they had the last ingredient for the ritual that was about to end the world once again.

The gang was walking down the halls of the blown up high school. Pieces of the mayor was hanging all over the place and it appeared as it could fall down at any moment.

“Why did he have to come along?” Angel asked glancing at Spike.

“Cause Willow thinks he's suicidal and she can't live with it if he stakes himself with her knowing it might happen. She's too good hearted for her own good”, Buffy explained and stepped over a chunk of the mayor.

“I really don't get why they are trying to open the Hellmouth now, it's not even spring yet, all the greatest bad guys try to end the world at spring. They just don't have any respect for traditions.”

“Iyh! Part of the mayor, extra crispy”, Xander said and stepped over the piece looking at it in disgust.

“We should be close to the library now”, Willow piped up and as on cue, they started to hear the chanting.

“Remember the plan, you guys take the ritual stuff and run, they can't open the Hellmouth without the ingredients”, she reminded them and took one final comforting look from Angel. He gave her a small smile and squeezed her hand before they started moving.

Buffy and Angel attacked the demons, throwing fierce punches at them while the others stayed in the background. Buffy hit the demon hard and made it drop the blood to the ground. Angel grabbed another demon and kneed it hard. Once it had lost its concentration, he grabbed the pouch that held the child's bones and he threw it to Willow.

The demon Buffy was fighting hit her hard on the back making her fall to the ground and Angel growled in anger, his game face surfacing. He ran to her, striking the demon hard before helping her to her feet. “I'm okay”, she assured him and continued fighting.

At the same time Willow and Xander were playing catch with the pouch till one of the demons grabbed Xander. Buffy was thrown against the wall and she fell down to a pipe crashing down hard. At that moment Angel was seeing red, he grabbed the demon and started pounding its face repeatedly.

On the other side of the library Spike was being used as a punching bag and one of the demons that was hitting Xander, suddenly stopped and jumped into the whole in the ground. Xander looked after it in surprise and quipped: “Okay, I guess I won.” But the humor was short lived when the ground started to shake menacingly.

“The demons are the sacrifice!” he yelled at the realization. But Spike had just found out that he could hurt demons and he was finding the violence invigorating. He didn't even hear the others yelling at him to keep the demon from jumping into the hole. He lifted the demon over his head and threw it into the pit.

“You idiot!” Angel yelled at Spike once the ground started to shake after the second sacrifice.

“What?! I was just helping”, he shrugged innocently.

The demon left tried to make a run for the hole but was stopped by hard kick from Buffy. It fell to the ground but jumped back up, hitting her to the face and trying again. But this time it was stopped by furious Angel who grabbed it from behind and after a brief struggle, snapped its neck. He was breathing hard the air he didn't need, his game face still intact. Slowly the ridges smoothed down and his eye color returned back to dark chocolate as he looked at Buffy. She gave him a small smile and they met in the half way.

“You okay?” he asked and smoothed down her hair, he looked closely at her face, she was going to have bruise the next day.

“I'm fine. You?” He nodded and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips.

Slowly the kiss started changing into more passionate till Xander cleared his throat. They pulled apart, Buffy was slightly embarrassed that she had just forgotten they weren't alone and Angel just send a halfhearted glare at his way. “Okay, we better go before this place falls down”, she said changing the subject.

Buffy was snuggled into Angels strong embrace and tracing mindless patterns on his smooth chest. She let out a soft sigh and closed her eyes. He smoothed her hair back and placed a chaste kiss to her forehead.

“Yet another one prevented”, she mumbled against his chest without opening her eyes. “Can I just lay like this till next week?” she asked hopefully and he smiled.

“Sorry, love, but you've got classes tomorrow.”

She grumbled under her breathe. “It's a thankless job. Why couldn't I skip few classes for saving the world again. Spending some snuggle time with my boyfriend, is that too much to ask?”

“We'll... snuggle... after you're done with your classes, I doubt your professors would buy your excuse to skip.”

She sighed deeply. “Yeah, I know. And I'll have to talk to Riley sometime.” Angels brows furrowed, he didn't like that idea, he knew Riley had a thing for her but she just didn't see it, she never had seen the affect she had on boys, or vampires over 200 hundred years old.

“We'll work on that jealousy tomorrow too”, she said with a slight smile, she had felt him tense the moment she mentioned Riley's name.

“I am not jealous”, he tried desperately but it was for nothing cause she was already drifting to sleep with a small smile on her lips. A small smile rose to his lips and he pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, making her sigh in her sleep and snuggle closer to his body. He pulled the sheet over them and closed his eyes. He wasn't going to think about Riley Finn, he wasn't the one holding the tiny slayer in his arms, hearing her steady breathing at night and feeling her warm body against his.

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