Buffy awoke slowly, conscious of the comforting sense of safety and warmth all around her. Sound came to her first, a faint rustling from close by. Smell and taste appeared next, with their usual morning flavors. Finally, she cracked open an eyelid, and found that she wasn't in her room. But she was surprisingly free of distress.

Memory returned, flooding her mind all at once. She was visiting Angel. Slowly, she rose into a sitting position, and scanned the apartment for his presence.

Buffy's eyes finally found him, settled at the foot of her bed. She was surprised to find that he was the source of the faint rustling sound she had heard. Angel was turning back and forth, eyes tightly shut, head flying every which way across his black pillow. His mouth was working, but no sound was coming out.

Concerned, Buffy quickly got out of bed and went to his side.

"Angel," she whispered. When he didn't respond, she said it again, louder.

"Angel. Angel!"

He merely thrashed back and forth. Now deeply worried, Buffy touched a hand to his shoulder, and recoiled in shock. The skin of his uncovered shoulder was warm to the touch - something vampires most definitely *were not* supposed to be, when the room temperature was relatively cool.

She tapped him on the cheek, calling his name again and again. His face was warm, too, she discovered, and he had sweat beading his brow. After minutes without change, Buffy stood and found a cup in the kitchen. She filled it with cool water, returned to his side as spilled it across his face.

Nothing. Just thrashing, and soundless words. Buffy could see his lips forming a word, over and over again - her name, Buffy's heart told her - but he was unable to say it.

She set the cup down on the bed and paced around the room, trying to remember where he kept his phone.

Once she found it, Buffy quickly punched in Giles' home number, and hoped he would know something she didn't.

"Rupert Giles," a less-than-wakeful voice muttered after four rings.

"It's Buffy," she said, anxiously.

"Buffy? Do you know what time it is?"

"No, actually I don't, Giles. I'm at Angel's. Something's wrong with him... I can't wake him up!"

Giles' muddled brain took a few moments to process the information. "He won't wake up?"

"He's utterly out cold - but not literally, and that's the scary thing!"

"Wh-what do you mean?"

Buffy knelt down next to Angel once more, brushing her fingertips across his forehead. "I mean, if he was human, I'd say he had a nasty case of the flu. With the fever included."

"Oh. My. That's not very... usual."

"And the Understatement of the Millenium Award goes to..." Buffy muttered to herself, just under the range of the phone. "Can you think of anything that would do this to him?"

There was a pause. "Not offhand, no. Though there does seem to be something familiar about it..." Buffy heard shuffling on the other end. Then, a faint, muttered, "Oh, Lord."

"What? What is it?" He didn't respond. "Giles!"

Finally, "I think you'd better come over, Buffy. Bring Angel, if you can."

"Giles, what's the sitch?" Buffy asked, staring worriedly down at Angel. Transporting him across town to Giles' apartment hadn't been as much of a problem as she had feared it might be; even though he couldn't respond to her, he was partially able to walk. Her vampiric boyfriend twisted and turned before her, making the old couch he lay upon creek and groan in protest. She put a hand on his chest, trying to calm him, but he didn't - or couldn't - acknowledge her touch.

Giles sighed, rearranging the pages of crumbling manuscript that lay sprawled across his desk. "He's being eaten."

Buffy looked up at him, brows furrowed. "Excuse me?"

"Angel is being consumed. Not physically, though the general result is the same."

Buffy paused. "My mind just did that click-y thing. This is that Guy-Tar at work, isn't it? Eating Angel's... essence?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so."

She stood from her kneeling position at Angel's side and began to pace, nervously playing with the hem of her shirt as she walked. "Why did he chose Angel? He's not human. Doesn't this guy need to feed off the non-undead?"

Giles consulted his papers. "The only thing I can think of that would have drawn the Gi'tar demon to Angel is his soul. Most vampires don't usually feel pain and remorse, yet Angel often feels both very strongly. His soul, his conscience, is very human, and that might have... misled the demon to believe that Angel was entirely so. Especially if he was suffering when the Gi'tar demon was telepathically scouring Sunnydale for a victim."

"And that would explain his temperature, and the sweating... this guy is treating him as a human, so Angel reacts like a human, and got a fever." Buffy paused, mid-pace, near Angel's head. She stared hard at her Watcher before speaking. "So, why isn't Angel dead yet? I thought we found out that these guys only take a few minutes to feed."

"I-I think it has something to do with Angel's vampiric status. If he were truly human, the demon would have long since completed his, uh, meal. But, because he already has begun to feed, the demon cannot stop feeding until he has consumed his victim." Giles paused, and searched her eyes. "Buffy, I think we can use this."

"'Use this'? Use Angel? For what, a Gi'tar demon bake sale?"

Giles shook his head, slowly. "I mean, we can use this to defeat the Gi'tar."

"But we already found out that if you kill one of them while they're feeding, you kill their victim, too." Desperation wavered on the edge of her voice.

"That's true. But remember Buffy - Angel is already dead. And the only time to kill a demon such as this is when they're consuming an essence. We could track this demon, through his link to Angel, and kill him while he feeds."

The Slayer looked down at her love. She brushed her fingers through his hair, and didn't speak for a while. Finally, in a soft voice, "What would happen to him?"

Giles shook his head, at a loss. "I... honestly don't know. But I don't think it can be any worse that what that Gi'tar is doing to him right now."

Buffy glanced up, caught his gaze, and held it. She nodded, slowly. "Let's do this. Call the others... I'm sure they always wanted to get up before dawn on the first day of Winter Break, anyway."

Her Watcher smiled, dimly, and walked into his bedroom to call Xander, Willow, Oz, and Cordy.

She held her gaze on her boyfriend's pale features, willing away the rest of the world. "Angel," Buffy whispered, "Please, fight this."

She hoped -- prayed -- that he could hear her.

Nearly twenty minutes later, there was a knock on Giles' heavy wooden door. Buffy rose stiffly from her watchful position at Angel's side and went over to answer it.

Willow, red hair mostly out of place, blinked at her blearily from the other side of the frame. Xander stood beside her, leaning a large amount of his weight on the railing. With a slight smirk, Buffy noted that his shirt was on backwards.

"We came," the hacker-witch murmured, sleepily.

"So I noticed," the Slayer responded, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. She stepped aside and let them in. "Are Oz and Cordy coming?" She asked the duo.

Giles answered for them from his desk, where he sat hunched over a book of spells. "They should be here in a few minutes."

Just as he finished the final word of his sentence, there was another knock at the door. Buffy opened it, and sure enough, Cordelia and Oz were on the doorstep.

"If the world's not ending, I'm going back to bed," the dark-haired Queen C grumbled to the room as she brushed past Buffy, coming to a stop next to her boyfriend. Oz merely nodded a greeting as he entered, looking as calm and unperturbed as usual, and found his way to Willow's side.

The Slayer quickly informed them of the situation, with occasional notation from Giles, who was still rapidly scanning his book. After she finished, the Slayerettes was silent for several moments.

"So, Buff, what's the plan?" Xander asked, speaking for the group as they stared at her, expectantly.

"Giles says we can find the demon, because of his link to Angel," Buffy responded. Willow spared one worried glance towards the vampire's prone form, watching, concerned, as he writhed on the creaking couch. "I say we find it, and we kill it."

"Sounds good to me," Cordy seconded.

"Short and simple," Oz agreed. "But we may not even have to kill it - just keep it busy, and outside, until sunrise."

Buffy nodded. "Good point, Oz. Plus, your plan has an added bonus of less headless-demon Ick."

Willow inclined her head towards the Watcher. "Have you found a tracking spell that will work?"

Giles nodded, and tapped a section of his current page. "Yes, I believe this will suffice for our purposes." He re-read the section. "I have everything we'll need here, except for the wormwood."

"Wills, you're on ingredient-gofer duty." Buffy turned, pointing the appropriate helper as she assigned tasks. "Giles, keep researching the Gi'tar demon. Cordy and Oz, help me prepare weapons. Xand, fetch donuts."

They each nodded and dispersed to their various locations. Willow and Xander left Giles' apartment together, knowing better to walk alone at night in Sunnydale.

Buffy knelt down once more by Angel's head. She looked at his beautiful, if unsettled, features for a long moment, willing strength into him.

"Please," she told his silent form, which had, for the moment, stopped twisting violently. She had no words for the feeling that caught in her heart when she thought of him. Something inside of her compelled her to speak, to tell him just some small measure of how she felt. "I-I love you... so much. I can't even..." her voice broke. She tried again, quietly, "I can't even tell you what it's like to be here -- to see you, like this."

Buffy ran her fingers across his face: down from his hairline, over his forehead, past the smooth column of his nose and his pointed cheekbones. Her fingers at last stilled on his mouth, which continued to form his soundless, pained words. He looked so innocent, frail... helpless. He was fighting his own battle, a battle of the mind.

But she would be dammed if she was just going to sit back and watch as this thing destroyed him.

Newly determined, she gave him one final, sweet kiss on the brow. Then Buffy stood and left his side, striding off to help Oz and Cordelia with the weapons.

Part Four

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