"Wait a sec. Time out." Xander put his hands up in the shape of a 'T.' "You want to feed yourself to Angel. Buffy, are you out of your mind!? Last time we almost needed the jaws of life to get you out of his grip."

"No. I just don't want to see him die, Xander," she retorted crossly.

"Buff, the guy's a human pitbull," he tried to convince her. But she wouldn't listen.

"In this case I'd have to agree with him, Buffy," the watcher concurred. "Offering yourself to Angel would be very dangerous and he's already fed on you before. This time would be a lot worse."

Buffy shook her head. "Guys, I don't think Angel would be too keen on the idea either, but this is the only chance we have to help him. He's not going to get any better if we just sit here and do nothing. I want to try this."

"I think we should let her try," Willow said, finally joining the conversation. "Buffy's been with him throughout all of this, and this is the only thing she could think of to help him so I say we give it a chance."

"Thank you, Willow." Buffy looked at the others, awaiting their reply.

Giles sighed. "If I tell you not to, you'll do it anyway so we might as well give it a shot."

"Hey, I'm still against this," Xander told his friends, crossing his arms over his chest. Buffy looked at him sadly, and he immediately began to feel guilty. "Just be careful, okay?"

She nodded. "Of course. I just want to talk to him for a minute, okay?"

The group watched as she traversed the room and sat down by Angel's bedside...

His eyelids slowly fluttered open and he looked at her through partly closed eyes. "Buffy?" His voice came out as barely a whisper.

"Hi." She smiled at him to try and assure him nothing was wrong. "I want to talk to you for a second. Do you think you could sit up?"

He nodded and she pushed the pillow against the wall, helping him up. She was right. He wasn't getting any better. This was their last chance.

"Angel, Giles is here. He brought Willow and Xander, too. They want to help you. Giles says you should eat something."

He began to shake his head and swallowed before speaking. "I don't want to," he croaked. "No more blood."

Buffy tried her best to hold back the tears that started welling up in her eyes. "Angel, you have to eat something. You haven't had anything in almost forty-eight hours and you need to keep your strength up so you can get better. Please?"

His dark brown eyes looked into hers and she could swear she saw tears in them. 'But vampire's don't cry...'

"I got rid of all the blood," he swallowed, "a few days ago."

"So you haven't eaten anything in over three days?" she asked frantically.

This plan needed to work. He didn't have much time left.

He shook his head. "I don't want to."

Buffy carefully smoothed his hair back away from his forehead and sighed. "Angel, we couldn't get any more for you so you're going to have to feed off me."

"No." He began to shake his head fervently but she stopped him and lifted his chin so they were looking straight into one another's eyes.

"Just a little, Angel. Please?" She was begging him. "I need you to get better. Okay?"

He blinked, the tears now flowing freely from his chocolate brown eyes, and nodded slowly. He understood there wasn't any other way.

Buffy nodded to the rest of the group, who were watching them intently. They came over to surround the bed.

"We're going to do it."