Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Mr. Whedon. Thanks for sharing.
Still not beta’d, but trying to be extra careful with the details!

***********

 
Angel sat in a meeting the next day, ostensibly listening to Gunn discuss progress on key cases. But his mind kept turning Whistler’s words over and over, looking for new meanings. He said I need to make things right. How can I make this right? Bring her back? Yeah, that went well last time. But she was in heaven last time. Can that spell work twice? Had bad consequences as I recall. And Spike? What do I do about him? If I bring her back without him we’re back where we started. How do I make this right?
 
“… so should we do that Angel?” asked Gunn, looking down the table at Angel.
 
Angel jumped in his seat, coming out of his reverie. “I’m sorry, I spaced for a bit there. What did you ask?”
 
“Should we go ahead and close that demon’s case?”
 
“Yes, I think we’ve done all we can for him, especially if he insists on continually eating his rival’s offspring,” Angel replied. He hoped he was answering intelligently – he had only half paid attention for the majority of the meeting.
 
Gunn squinted at Angel a bit. “You OK, boss?”
 
“Yeah,” said Angel. “Just a bit distracted.”
 
“It’s all good,” reassured Gunn. Everyone gathered up their things and left. Wesley was one of the last to get up and paused when Angel said, “Do you have a minute, Wes?”
 
Wesley remained behind as the others filed out. Angel hadn’t been himself for a few weeks now. The whole situation with Buffy and Spike seemed to be a new, permanent weight on Angel’s mind. “What can I do for you, Angel?” he asked.
 
“What do you know about raising the dead?”
 
Wesley sat down and looked sternly at Angel. “I’m not sure what you are contemplating, but may I remind you that this sort of thing has been tried before? With mixed results?”
 
Angel understood perfectly well what Wes was getting at. Buffy eventually got back to normal, but had a hell of a time getting there. Darla – what a mess that was. To be brought back to be terminally ill, then add resiring and impossible pregnancies to the mix, and Angel could understand Wesley’s objections. “I had two visits recently that made me wonder if I am doing the right thing,” he finally responded.
 
“Explain?”
 
“Eve stopped by my office to tell me the Senior Partners were pleased to have Buffy and Spike out of the way,” Angel began.
 
“Angel, you can’t go mucking about with raising the dead just to assuage your own guilty conscience,” said Wesley. “Just because these events played into the plans of the Senior Partners… “
 
Angel interrupted, “It’s not just that, Wes.” Angel got up and paced as he spoke. “I also had a visit from Whistler.”
 
“Who?” asked Wesley.
 
“He’s a demon,” Angel explained. “He was the one who told me about Buffy in the first place. He… he told me that they were both trapped in hell.”
 
“And you believed him? Do you trust this guy?” Wesley was skeptical.
 
“All I know is that he has never lied to me before,” said Angel. “He said that Buffy deliberately chose hell rather than be separated from Spike. I don’t know what to think.”
 
“What do you want from me, Angel?” asked Wesley in a wary tone.
 
“Is there some way to find out where someone went in the afterlife?”
 
Wesley scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps one of the mediums could do something.”
 
“Here’s what I want,” said Angel. “I need you to find out if it is possible to know where they went. If they are in hell, I need to know how to bring them back.”
 
“But again, why?” asked Wesley. “If it was their fate to die at this point in time, I don’t know that we should be meddling with that.”
 
“Because I have a feeling that things will go badly if they are stuck in hell rather than being here fighting evil,” Angel stated. “That’s another thing I would like you to check out. That Cup of Perpetual Torment was a fake. But are there other, real prophesies where Buffy and Spike would fit in? If the Senior Partners are happy, there has to be something we don’t know.”
 
Wesley had a hard time arguing with that logic. But to go against the Senior Partners was asking for boatloads of trouble. “I don’t know, Angel,” he responded hesitantly.
 
“Look, could you just do some research?” Angel asked. “Just… just see what you can find out. I’m not making any definite plans, but I need to know if what Whistler says is true.”
 
Wesley nodded, resigned. “I’ll look into it, Angel.” He got up and left, leaving Angel alone in the room, thinking.
 
*******
 
Wesley rubbed his eyes. He had been wading through tome after tome of prophesies of all types. He squinted blearily at his desk clock. Midnight. Good lord. Working with Angel was sometimes like being perpetually at University, pulling all nighters and living on tea. Speaking of which. Wesley got up and wandered down the hall to the break room. The tea here wasn’t perfect, but he could get a reasonable approximation of Earl Grey for a pick-me-up. As he waited for the tea to brew, he thought about the research he had been attempting. Nothing obvious had popped out at him. He had just about exhausted all the possible prophesies relating to immortals, slayers, vampires, hell dimensions – he was just about out of ideas of where to search. Retrieving his tea he returned to his office, mulling over the problem.
 
He sat down and started looking through the list of possible sources again. A title he had missed caught his eye. Translated from some demonic tongue, it read The Book of the Fallen. He muttered the title to the spelled book on his desk and watched as the words appeared magically on the page. It was a collection of stories and prophesies related to Satan and the other fallen angels. The tale of Satan’s battle with the Archangel Michael and the banishment of Satan and his followers to hell was familiar, although it was interesting to see it told from the point of view of the fallen angels themselves. As Wesley continued reading, he came to a section that collected various prophesies relating to Satan rising again and ruling the Earth. Most of them seemed rather general, or incomprehensibly obscure.
 
Then he came to one which made him pause:
 
A being of light and a being of shadow, bound as one, will pass through Satan’s realm. Satan will rejoice at their presence, and declare a great victory. He will entomb them forever, lest they thwart his return.
 
Wesley stared at the words. Could this be what he was looking for? Were Buffy and Spike really destined to thwart Satan himself? And if so, did that mean that the world in a whole lot of trouble? He sat back in his chair for a minute, then reached for the phone to dial Angel’s number.
 
TBC