And I don't think Angel has/had an Adena, with the possible exception of the Gypsy Girl.(or maybe Doyle?)..

I think Human!Darla might qualify.

Oh, right, he so wanted to save her, damn it, but she wasn't having any. See also, Emma Zoole, who also finds death a big turn-on. And no, I'm not writing that.

Oh, right, he so wanted to save her, damn it, but she wasn't having any.

I think she was coming around though, right before Drusilla vamped her.

Yeah, it could've happened.

I am completely with Perkins on this one - human Darla was very much Angel's Adena. Watching Dru re-destroy her is something I can easily equate in my head to Tim and Frank getting so. damned. close to breaking the Araber, and then losing him, and watching him walk out.

Well, I wish I hadn't known it was going to happen that way, but, you know I'm always late... the funky thing about "Three Men and Adena" is that I've seen it ten times and I can still get that feeling back...that sense that maybe they'll get it, this time. Stupid, huh?

Fuck. I hadn't realised you hadn't seen it yet.

Sorry, bebe. But if you've seen the movie, you know he never cracked the Adena thing. After all, that's the whole point of a Holy Grail: once you attain it, it's just a latte mug.

I think she was coming around though, right before Drusilla vamped her.

OTOH, wasn't she still dying from advanced VD?

Yep. But I think it was the "unable to help save her soul" that makes the comparison to Adena Watson, here, rather than saving her life.

A little bit of .. something, un-beta'ed and lacking a proper ending, inspired by some comments made by Matt tBF in the Spoilers thread a couple weeks ago:

Bargaining, Again
Setting: Late S7, around “First Date.”
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Willow meets up with Xander. Things are different.

Willow drew her jacket closer around her as she left the Bronze. It had been years since she had been there alone, but she had a biology paper due and the bar was quieter than Buffy’s house.

She forgot the wind when she noticed a young man, tall and dark-haired, embracing a woman on the corner. Two things came into her mind at once: the man was Xander, and the embrace looked more like a bite than a kiss.

She was too shocked to run. “Xander?” she cried. He clasped the girl to his chest and turned around.

“Hi. Willow. Guess this isn’t the best place for privacy.”

She furrowed her brow. “Oh. Well, then, I’ll leave you and your friend alone…”

“No. Stay. I, I need someone to talk to. I haven’t been feeling like myself lately, and it’s just all so hard…” She saw his face. It was white, sparkling with sweat under the streetlight. His eyes burned. “I’m so ashamed of myself, I haven’t even wanted to go home.” And, dimly, Willow realized it had been almost three days since she saw Xander – an unimaginable amount of time, but it had just passed by so fast.

“You were feeding off that girl, weren’t you?” He nodded. Willow plunged ahead, sure she was in familiar territory.

“You’re like Riley, only you want to be the biter, instead of the bite-ee. You know, you could talk to me, I know something about addictions…” As she trailed off, she wondered why Xander’s companion was so pale and silent.

“Oh, spare me. It would be nice for you to believe it’s that.” Xander’s face changed, and the girl slumped away from him and collapsed onto the alley.

“But you aren’t that lucky, Will.”

Her mind raced. Xander is somewhere in there, she thought. I just have to reach him. “You- you don’t have to be like this, Xander. I can do a spell, we can resoul you. You’d be like Angel. Or Spike.”

Xander rolled his eyes, back to his human mask. “Like I want to be like those Uncle Toms, all housebroken and self-pitying. This is the best thing that ever happened to me. And as for doing a spell to give me my soul back….” He drew an amulet, a piece of green stone, out of his t-shirt. “I found this baby in one of the boxes of stuff Anya took from the Magic Box for when she opens her own store. Makes vampires spell-proof. And if you somehow find a loophole and resoul me, well, we all know how Angel lost his soul again.”

He looks her up and down, slowly. “I’m thinking your new girlfriend might be a good time. Think she’s ever had a man? I’ve never slept with a virgin.”

“Kennedy is a Slayer,” Willow spat.

The thing with Xander’s face waved a hand in the air. “Slayer-wannabe. She has the training, but she hasn’t gone pro. But it doesn’t really matter – she’s no Tara, and I thought losing her might not hurt so much. More a hangnail than a gaping wound, ya know? Might be a little too easy on you guys. So I thought about using Dawn. Me and Dawnie, we go waaay back. And I thought she’d give it up for big funny Xander.”

He smiled, ghastly.

“But then I realized Dawnie would give it up for me now, so why wait?” He gestured towards a corner of the Bronze. “Come on out, Dawn.”

A Dawn-shaped thing slithered around the corner. She’d dyed her hair black, and was wearing a lavender corset top and black leather miniskirt.

She draped herself over Xander. “Oh. Hi, Willow.” She nibbled Xander’s ear. “You want me to eat her?”

“Ah, you teenagers are always hungry.” He wrapped his arm around dawn’s waist in a way that was more than brotherly. “But I think we can have fun with Red here more ways than eating her.”

“Okay.” Dawn stared at Willow for a second with hard blue eyes, then spoke again. “Can I go back to the Bronze? I found some new toys for us…”

Xander nodded, and Dawn went on her way. Willow stood, rooted to the spot.

“Now, I’m gonna offer you a deal. The way I see it, Buffy wouldn’t deal so well with losing her sister and one of her oldest friends right now. So, we won’t tell her. We’ll go back to the house, avoid daylight and crosses, stick around and see how this thing with the First works out. It’s like Spike said a couple years back – destroying the world and all the people in it sucks for us, too. ”

“What’s in it for you?”

He grinned. “It’s the perfect cover. No one expects the Slayer’s little pets to go bad. Though, of course, that didn’t stop you…”

Willow swallowed. “And if I don’t go along? If I tell Buffy to stake the both of you?”

“Then, we kill you all. Tonight. And we save you for last, so you can watch your friends die. Except Buffy – we might just make her a vampire.” He smiled. “Any more questions?”

Willow lead the vampires home, planning to put the best protection spell she could find on everyone in the house the next day. She saw no other choice.