Fic: Tea and Sympathy (B/A)

[maevebran]

Title: Tea and Sympathy
Author: Maeve Bran
Rating: FR15
Disclaimer: I don't own Angel or Buffy or anyone else; I'm just borrowing them and will return them to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy when I'm done.
Summary: Buffy has a heart-to-heart with Angel immediately after the collapse of the Hellmouth. AU.
Notes: SPOILERS for all of Buffy and Angel through season 4. Set in the same universe as the "From the Angel File" series. Much love to jedibuttercup, my tireless beta and co-writer.

---

Chapter One: Guilt

Buffy Summers was stunned. The events of the day were just starting to catch up with her. Saving the world and getting stabbed in the process, as bad as that was, was not the problem. The events that had her stunned were Spike sacrificing himself, and the fact that she'd had to take refuge here. With Angel. Seeing her ex again was always painful, but now it was doubly confusing. Buffy was unsure of her feelings about anything at this point, and Angel was being... nice.

The Angel Investigations team had gone home. Faith had stayed at the hospital with Robin and the injured Slayerettes. Giles and the others had found rooms in the Hyperion for themselves. And Buffy? Angel had loaned her the shower and some clothes; she was now up in his suite sitting on the bed, drinking the tea he had made her. Angel himself was pacing back and forth across the room, waiting for Buffy to speak.

After a few moments, a thought bubbled to the surface of her chaotic mind. "You sired Spike, right?" Buffy asked in a quiet voice.

Angel seemed startled at the line of questioning, but answered anyway. "Technically, Drusilla bit him. But she was... well..." He trailed off.

"Bug-shagging crazy?" Buffy suggested.

"Yeah. So I ended up teaching him everything." He seemed a little embarrased at the admission.

She sighed, going over Spike's last actions again in her mind. "That explains it."

"Explains what, exactly?" Angel asked, brow wrinkled in a puzzled frown.

"It explains that too-noble, have-to-save-the-world complex of his," Buffy replied, in a flat, ironic voice.

Angel stopped in his tracks and stared at her. "Huh?"

"You... Spike," Buffy said, gesturing vaguely between Angel and the direction of the former Hellmouth. She was feeling a little punchy by this point, aware that she wasn't making all that much sense, but all this had been building up for awhile now and she felt like she had to get it out. "Have to be the big damn heroes who save the world. Can't let anyone else do it." Her lower lip wobbled a little. "Damn him," she cursed.

Angel sat down cautiously in the chair opposite her, studying her closely. "You really did love him," he said flatly, a little disbelievingly.

"Love? I don't know." Buffy shook her head. "I don't know. Cared for? Yes. Liked-- sometimes. But before I could figure it all out, he had to go and die," she complained.

"Just like every other guy in my life," she added, working up a full head of steam. "Just as I figure out that I love you, you turn evil. Then you get restored, just in time for me to have to send you to Hell. When you came back, I had barely had time to figure out how I felt-- again-- and you left again! This time, for good."

Angel looked away and sighed, looking a little uncomfortable with her accusations but obviously unable to counter them.

"Then there was Parker and the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am, one night only special," she continued, bitterly. "And Riley! Everything seemed so perfect; I was in college, I was doing well in class, and I had this sweet, normal, loving boyfriend. I had a life apart from Slaying for once! Until I found him giving suck-jobs to vamp whores, and all of a sudden he was saying I didn't love him enough, and he was giving me until midnight to prove he was wrong!" Buffy laughed wryly. "Of course, I got there two minutes too late to stop him from leaving."

"I knew I didn't like that guy," Angel muttered.

Buffy half-smiled him, and took another sip of tea before taking up the litany again. "He came back a year later, led me all over town-- flirting with me even!-- and then suddenly introduced me to his wife! Of four months!" The incident in Spike's crypt was on the tip of her tongue, too, before she abruptly remembered-- she hadn't even mentioned that relationship at all yet. She winced a little at the thought.

"Ouch," Angel said, apparently taking the pause as an invitation to comment.

She sighed. "Yeah. And now for the crowning achievement of my love life. Spike."

"Spike?" Angel asked, raising his eyebrows.

Buffy frowned blearily at him. She had a vague memory of talking to him about Spike just-- was it only a day ago? Something about smelling him, and boyfriends, and cookies, she wasn't really clear on the exact details, but she knew she'd said something about Spike being in her heart.

"Spike?" Angel repeated, sounding a little incredulous. "The crowning achievement of your love life?"

She bit her lip, thinking about whether or not she ought to keep going-- but really, it was too late now to back out. And if she couldn't tell him this, it didn't bode well for the recipient of her cookies in the future. "You remember when I came back, when Willow, well, when I wasn't dead anymore, and I drove down and met you? You were trying to be so comforting, but I just couldn't-- I couldn't accept it. And I couldn't explain. But Spike-- somehow he saw through me, he knew I hadn't been in Hell. Of everyone, he was the only one to guess that I'd been in Heaven-- not one of my friends, but my mortal enemy." She looked down, twisting her fingers around the edges of her cup.

There was silence for a moment from Angel, and then an explosion of motion; Angel was up out of his chair. She could see him out of the corner of her eye, making as if to reach for her; but then his natural reserve took over and he walked away, taking up his restless pacing again. "Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, sounding very hurt.

Buffy swallowed and looked up again, following his progress with her eyes. "I didn't tell you because I was still sorting it all out for myself. Everything hurt, it was all so chaotic and confusing-- I could barely admit to myself what had happened, and I couldn't bear to hurt anyone else with the knowledge. Besides which, what could you have done?" She shrugged.

He stopped by the French doors that led out onto the balcony, staring out into the city, and sighed. "I would hope I could have been there for you," he said. "But... nevermind."

She could almost sense the hurt he was feeling, but she didn't know what she could say-- or even if it were possible-- to take it away. And really, he deserved the rest of the story; she'd started this whole thing to talk to him about Spike in the first place, and she hadn't even gotten to the worst of it yet. "So-- then that musical demon came to town, and suddenly there was singing, and dancing, and kissing, and confessing-- everything came out, and they all reacted about as badly as I thought they would, and Spike was still the only one there for me, who understood what I was feeling. And I just-- I just wanted him to take away the pain."

Angel looked back over his shoulder at that comment, and there was a surprising amount of sympathy in his eyes. "Darla," he said softly, nodding.

"What?" she blinked, jolted out of her story by the non sequitur.

"Nevermind," he said, shaking his head with a sad smile. "I'll-- I have some things to tell you, too. Let's just say I understand. So, you went to him?"

She nodded, glad he was taking this so much better than she had feared. "The first time, well, a building fell down around us," she said, blushing a little at the memory. "And even as I hated myself for it, I couldn't stop. The pain was so-- the only time it stopped was when he was blotting it out. It was months before I started feeling more than that for him, when I started realizing he deserved better than I was giving him. But then Riley found us, and I felt so ashamed; I knew I had to stop using Spike, but he was so hurt by it, he... well, he didn't react very well. I should have disinvited him after, but I just couldn't..."

Buffy shook her head, still baffled by her behavior that summer. "I don't know why I didn't. I mean, I did it for you, and I loved you with all my heart; I barely liked Spike, then, and after everything..." She trailed off.

"What did he do?" Angel said, growling a little. "Did he attack you? He did, didn't he. And still you let him in the house? Around Dawn?"

"I know, I know," she said, flinching a little at the anger in his tone, but also a little pleased, deep inside, that he was still so defensive of her after all this time. "It's not like he had a soul when it happened, and he'd never lifted a finger against Dawn. I just... I don't know why I still trusted him, but I did. And then he showed up three months later with a soul, and proved me right. Of course, he was so far out of his head he almost made Drusilla look sane..." Buffy laughed a little, trying to lighten the mood.

Angel snorted. "Quite the accomplishment."

"Yeah. Living in the school basement and everything, babbling nonsense for weeks. I followed him into a church at one point after he'd accidentally stabbed someone-- long story, but anyway-- I didn't understand what he was talking about until he said something about you."

"Me?"

She nodded, and quoted Spike's words. "'Angel. He should've warned me. He makes a good show of forgetting but it's here in me all the time. The spark.'"

"Spark." Angel rolled his eyes a little. "Still trying to be a poet."

Buffy frowned, a little annoyed that Angel was avoiding the point in favor of continuing a pissing contest with a guy who was already dead twice over. "Anyway," she said, raising her voice a little, "He loved me enough to seek out that soul for me. For me, Angel." She set her tea down on the night stand and stood, locking eyes with him to make her point clear. "He went to the end of the underworld and back, whatever that means-- but it couldn't have been easy. And he did it for me. Why? What have I done to deserve that?"

She hadn't really known what to make of it at the time-- she'd been so shocked, and so distracted-- but after the others had thrown her out of the house, when he came to her and comforted her without asking anything in return, just holding her safe through the night, she'd come to realize just how significant it really was. She couldn't belittle his feelings anymore, even what he had done and said when he was soulless, if it had led him to do something so impossible. And what was she, to inspire that kind of devotion?

Buffy's face crumpled a little at her train of thought, as it crashed down on her all over again that he was gone and not coming back. She sat back down on the bed, putting her face in her hands.

She felt the bed dip beside her, and Angel's arm went unexpectedly around her. "I, uh. I don't know what was going through his mind when he did it, but... you're a hell of a woman, Buffy," he said comfortingly.

Tears slipped out of her eyes and ran down her cheeks. "Spike said that to me," she said, remembering. "That I was a 'hell of a woman.' Right. I'm such a catch I couldn't even tell him I loved him while he was dying! I mean-- I said it, but he knew it was a lie. He was standing there, with the sunlight pouring through him, holding my hand-- and he just looked at me, and said 'No you don't, but thanks for saying it.' How could I be so... I mean, he got his soul for me!" she repeated herself, rambling a little, turning her face in towards his shirt. "I had no problems loving you, even after you were soulless; and not only did you not try to get your soul back for me, you actively went after Miss Calendar to stop her from doing anything about it."

Angel fliched. "You don't pull any punches, do you? I remember everything I did, thank you very much," he said bitterly. "I don't need any reminders."

"I didn't mean it like that," Buffy said wearily. "I'm accusing myself here, not you."

"You don't need to feel guilty over it, though, Buffy. Spike was always like that, even as William, the hopeless romantic with the grand gestures. You don't need to feel like it obligated you to do, or feel anything in return."

"Grand gesture?" Buffy protested, weakly. "Angel, his soul is a little more important than just a gesture."

"I know," Angel said placatingly. "I know it was a big deal. But he still did it to get you back, didn't he?"

"It doesn't matter," she answered him sadly, aware of the point he was trying to make but not really accepting it. "I still couldn't give him the one thing he wanted, the one thing he deserved. He'd given me so much, and I couln't return the favor." She sobbed.

Angel gathered her in his arms and held her as the tears kept coming. After the sobs finally eased up, she pulled away and reached for her tea again, draining the now-cold beverage. It gave her a few seconds to pull herself together again; it was the first time she'd ever vented the whole mess to anybody, and it left her feeling a little hollow and vulnerable. She appreciated that Angel had reacted by comforting her rather than throwing her out of the hotel, but she still felt the need for a little distance now.

"So," she said brightly, smiling wryly at him through the remains of her tears. "How's your unlife been treating you?"

---

Chapter Two: Dirty Laundry

"My unlife?" Angel chuckled ruefully. "That's a good one." He sighed. "Well, let's see. Did you hear about Connor?"

"Connor?" Buffy's brow wrinkled a little. "Who's Connor?"

"My son," Angel said casually, hoping to avoid the Darla issue.

"You have a son?!" Buffy exclaimed, sitting up straighter. "But you told me vampires couldn't have children!"

"Uh, well..."

"With who!?" she interrupted, before he could attempt to explain.

He winced. "With Darla," he said quietly, hoping she wouldn't get sidetracked too much on that issue; his son was the important issue here.

It was not to be. "With Darla?!" Buffy screamed. "When? I thought she was dead! I clearly remember you staking her six years ago."

"I did," Angel said. "Wolfram and Hart..."

"The law firm?!"

Was she going to question everything he said? He quashed a momentary burst of annoyance and continued with his explanation. "Yes. They brought her back as a human and had Drusilla re-Sire her... it's a long story." He waved the rest of that away, hoping again that she wouldn't pry. "This was about three years ago."

"And you're giving me grief about Spike?" Buffy accused, leaping right to the most ironic implications of the story.

Angel winced again, looking away. "I was in a bad place at the time. I'd fired Wes, Cordy and Gunn-- Darla was trying to seduce me into turning into Angelus again. I was depressed, she was there---"

"Did it work?" Buffy asked, in a very quiet voice. Then she narrowed her eyes and glared. "You are, after all, more or less a eununch," she said sharply.

That was a low blow. He growled a little, annoyed again at her display of jealousy. "I am not a eununch. Why does everyone keep saying that?" he snarled.

"Well, there is this little thing called a curse," she replied. "You remember. The one time you and I had sex, that was all it took for you to go Angelus on me."

"That had nothing to do with the sex," Angel objected. "It was because with you, it was a moment of perfect happiness. With Darla, it was perfect despair. I've been doing a lot of thinking about what the curse means in the last few months. The gypsies didn't curse me not to have sex, just not to be happy about it."

"Any other conclusions?" Buffy asked, looking a little mollified.

"A few," he replied. "For example, that knowing I could go all fists and fangs means I will probably never know that perfect happiness with anyone ever again." He wondered if she would pick up on the implications of that; he could still hear the tone of her voice as she made that ridiculous cookie speech.

She didn't reply immediately, but Angel knew she would eventually have something to say. He decided to head it off at the pass. "If we are going to be rehashing our sex lives, I'm going to need something a lot stronger than tea." He got up and went into the kitchen, where he pulled out a bottle of Bushmills Irish whiskey.

She eyed the bottle, then smiled wryly. "I could use a stiff drink, too."

Angel poured two drinks and handed one of them to Buffy. She stared down into the highball glass for a moment, then observed, "You know, this is something we never did."

"You were barely eighteen when I left," Angel shrugged. "What kind of pers-- I mean, what kind of boyfriend would I have been if I had encouraged underaged drinking?" And truthfully, he had never needed alcohol anyway to feel intoxicated around her.

"I didn't mean the drinking," she objected. "Although, I did get pretty drunk a couple of times before I turned 21. I meant, the honest heart-to-heart talking thing."

Angel tried to picture Buffy drunk, and couldn't imagine it. "Was that before or after you died the second time?" he asked, curiously.

"Both," she said. "Once, my freshman year in college, when I tried the beer at the bar Xander was working at and it made me turn into a cavewoman. It was pretty awful, except for the part where I got to beat up Parker. The other serious binge was after I came back and the bills started piling up and I couldn't hold down a job. I went to Spike's crypt and followed him to a bar; he was playing poker for kittens to get info on what was stalking me that week." She laughed, Angel wasn't sure at what.

"You went drinking with Spike?" he asked, bemused. "Then I'm surprised you remember any of it. I went pub crawling with him a time or two back in the day, and we got pretty plastered. The kind where the hangover lasts for days."

She frowned a little. "I didn't think you two were that good of buddies," she observed.

"You might be surprised," Angel muttered under his breath, "although 'buddies' isn't really the word for it." But he didn't want to dwell on that right now. Louder, he said, "Well, there were the times when Darla and Drusilla had those interminable dress fittings, and we had to do something to pass the time."

"That is not a thought I want to contemplate. You and Spike back in the bad old days." Buffy shuddered.

"Yeah, I don't really want to think about it most of the time either, but you do have to realize, Spike and I did have a history before we met again five years ago. Even after I got the soul back..."

She shook her head, and interrupted him, abruptly turning the conversation back to its original topic. "We were talking about the son you had with Darla, weren't we? Speaking of histories."

Angel finished off the shot in his glass, then poured another. "Okay. What do you want to know?" He began listing off answers, hoping to preempt most of her probable questions. "How it happened? No one knows other than that it was prophesied that a vampire would give birth. Have I slept with anyone else since you? Other than that time with Dru when I was Angelus, no." He furrowed his brow a little, remembering that they hadn't really talked about that time, either. "You did know about Dru, right?"

"Yes, I knew about Drusilla," she said, her tone a little brittle.

He picked up the explanation again, deciding to get it all off his chest as she had done before him. "I did kiss Cordelia once, though."

Buffy blinked. "Cordy? You and Cordy?"

"Yeah. It was this thing where we were possessed by old lovers, trying to solve the problem of a ballerina stuck in time. If she hadn't ascended and then come back evil, I might have asked her out, but we never got that far." He held up his hands, defensively, at her disbelieving expression. "I know what you're thinking, but she really has grown up from her 'Queen Bitch' days."

"I get that, but still. Cordelia? I mean, I know people change-- when we met, I didn't like you much--"

"You didn't?" Angel interrupted, a little hurt. "Why?"

"Well, you were always showing up with a cryptic warning and then disappearing again," she explained. "I pretty much associated you with bad news, after the first few times you did that. Not to mention, you were way too good looking not to have at least one major flaw, and I wasn't sure I wanted to find out what it was."

He sighed, picturing events from her sixteen-year-old perspective for a moment, and nodded. "I guess I get that. And you were right; I did have a major flaw. Still do, in fact." His eyes dropped to the cross necklace she was wearing, then away, and he poured them both another drink.

She snorted. "Yeah, you do. It was a good thing I had already started having feelings for you, or you would have been dust after that thing with Darla and my mom." She shook her head. "You know, it's really ironic that two out of the three most important relationships I've had have been with vampires. Some slayer I am, huh?" Buffy drained the shot he'd poured her, then reached for the bottle to pour herself another.

Angel noticed that, and started counting up just how many shots she'd had. He reached for the bottle, and put it behind him-- the last thing he needed was a drunk, maudlin Slayer on his hands. "We're back to that, are we?" he asked. "I'm cutting you off. I'm seen some unsettling things, but I don't think I'm prepared for drunk Buffy."

She laughed half-heartedly. "What, afraid I'll get even more depressing?"

"Something like that," he said, reaching out to tip her chin up. "You're a great slayer, Buffy. You've saved the world from what? Six apocalypses?" He frowned. "Or is it seven? And then you had the brilliant idea to make every Potential Slayer a Slayer, taking some of the weight off your shoulders. Who else would have had the kind of strength to share their power that way?"

She brushed off his attempt at encouragement. "Sure, I"m a great Slayer on the apocalyptic scale, but one on one with vamps? I'm terrible." Her voice rose in indignation. "I even had one sh-shrink me!" she stammered.

"Shrink you?" he blinked. "Oh, you mean psychoanalyze?"

"Yeah. One of the first people Spike turned when he was under the First's control was someone I went to high school with. He was a Psych major at Dartmouth, he came back to do an internship and ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was just-- I was there to stake him, but I ended up making peace with some of my issues, talking to him--" She stopped there abruptly, and wailed. "Oh God, I'm such a loser!"

Buffy jumped up from her seat, flying at Angel. He caught her, distressed at her mood, and held her as she pummeled his chest with her fists, sobbing about being a horrible Slayer.

"Shhh," he said, rubbing her back. "Shh, it'll be all right. You're a very good Slayer," he told her, soothingly. "Did I ever tell you, I was scared of you when I was Angelus?"

She sniffled and pulled back, looking up at him. "You were? It didn't seem like it."

He chuckled a little, ruefully, thinking that they seemed to be circling the Angelus issue in the conversation like water going down a drain-- but then, it was the place where all their issues with each other converged. "Oh, that. That was just a cover, to put you off guard. You had really thrown me for a loop that night."

"Really? I thought I 'had a lot to learn about men' and that it was just 'a good time'," she said, a little bitterly. "Wasn't that what you said to me?"

Angel winced. This was the first time she'd thrown those words back in his face, and they stung. "I did say some pretty nasty things that morning," he apologized. "I know 'sorry' won't fix it, and I know I can't take it back." Something else occured to him, and he downed another shot trying to drown the guilt. "I probably warped your ideas of sexuality..."

She started a little at that comment, looking at him with surprise and a hint of indignation. "You're not responsible for my warped anything," she objected. "I didn't have any experience, I was incredibly naïve. I've learned a few things since then, I know you just said that to hurt me, it wasn't true. I just..."

Angel laughed darkly. "I'm sure that's true," he said, thinking about the nature of that 'experience'. "Spike was probably quite an education-- but really, you have no idea. The things I could teach you, if you were still inclined to go for the S&M side of things..."

Buffy cut him off. "Yet more of the past I really don't want to hear." She reached around him, fumbling for the whiskey bottle, and snagged it before he could remember she wasn't supposed to have any more. She poured another shot, and threw it back. "If you really want to talk about it though-- Spike told me once he'd done things with me he couldn't even spell, and that at times it was everything he could do to keep up with me."

Angel was impressed by that, despite himself. "Oh, really?" he asked, trying not to picture the two blonds together. "Well, I guess I'm glad I don't have to feel guilty about that any more, then. I have enough guilt where you're concerned, even without that."

She snorted. "You're not the only one with guilt," she said. Then she got up to walk toward the doors where he'd stood to look over the city a few moments before, the highball glass still clutched in one hand.

---

Chapter Three: Sexual Healing

Buffy stared out over the city for a moment, deep in thought, then turned to look at Angel again. "One of the things I regret the most about our relationship is the way my Mom found out. She was so disappointed in me for sleeping with a boyfriend she didn't even know I was dating-- Did I ever thank you for telling her, by the way?" She couldn't help a little sarcasm from creeping into her tone.

Angel winced. "Not one of my prouder moments. There are a lot of things about that time I wish I could relive and do differently. I had plans for the morning after that didn't include going out and feeding for the first time in decades."

Despite the blurriness of the drink, and the depressing subject matter, Buffy was ridiculously pleased to hear that. "You had plans?" she asked.

He looked sheepish. "Well, not very definite ones, but I had thought about what would happen if we made love. I wanted it to be perfect and special for you. That was new for me. Even as Liam, I never really cared about how the woman felt. But you were different. I wish there was a way to rewrite history."

Angel paused, and Buffy walked back across the room, touched at what she was hearing. It had been years since it happened, but some corner of her heart still belonged to the madly-in-love seventeen year old girl she had been.

"Actually, there is..." Angel continued, pacing past her. "It's been done for us before, but I couldn't go back that far. I wish we could have reexperienced that night with a different outcome."

The misty mood lifted a little, and Buffy frowned at him. "What history got rewritten?" she demanded. What else had he been hiding from her?

He didn't look up as he explained. "You remember when you visited me after that first Thanksgiving you cooked, three years ago?"

"Yeah..." she said, slowly, thinking back. "I was in your office for all of five minutes. You killed some demon, and I left."

"That was the second run-through," Angel said, sighing. "The first time, it got away from us, and we chased it through the sewers. By the time I thought I'd killed it, some of its blood had mixed with mine."

Buffy raised her eyebrows. What did that have to do with anything? Some aspect of the demon thingy, like what had happened to her?

He continued before she found the words to ask. "It turned out to be a regenerating demon. A self-healer. The blood turned me human. Heart-beat and everything. I got to walk out in the sunlight with you for the first time, and then we went back to my apartment and spent the rest of the day talking or in bed." He smiled a little, to himself, and Buffy had a sudden surge of angry jealousy that he had those memories and she didn't.

"So what went wrong?" she asked, sharply. "Why'd it get rewritten?"

He finally looked back at her, pain in his eyes. "The demon wasn't dead. When it came back and we had to fight it again, I was more of a hindrance than a help. And I knew it would always be that way if I didn't do something. I couldn't keep putting you in that kind of danger, and besides, I came back from Hell for a reason. It wasn't to hinder the Slayer-- I have a role to play in averting an apocalypse someday, and how could I do that as a mere mortal? So I went to the Powers-That-Be, and they rewound time 24 hours. I prevented the blood from mingling, and that was that."

There were tears shimmering in the corners of his dark eyes, but Buffy refused to let that move her from her anger. "So let me get this straight. We had a night together when you were human-- probably one of the happiest things that ever happened to me-- and you erased it? When were you going to tell me?"

"I wasn't," he said, softly. "Part of the price was that I alone would remember."

The anguish in his voice finally got to her, and she stepped close, letting him put his arms around her. She pressed her ear against his still chest, and wondered what it must have been like. "I wish I could remember it," she said wistfully. "You with a heartbeat. Out in the sunlight. Happy without losing your soul." She sighed. "But I can't."

Maybe it was the drink talking, maybe it was the subject matter, but she couldn't stop what came out of her mouth next. "Maybe we could make new memories?"

He pulled back, looking into her eyes as though to make sure she really meant it. "I do still love you," he said, his voice thick with emotion.

"And I still love you," she whispered back.

Their lips met in a kiss, first light and testing, then deep and searching. The glasses dropped to the floor, soon followed by several items of clothing as they staggered back toward the bed. Soon, all thought was lost as they made up for lost time.

---

Some hours later, Buffy woke again, head slightly aching from the aftermath of drink but pillowed on a very attractive, naked chest. Other things were aching, too. She lay there for a minute as memories of her "conversation" with Angel filtered back into her conscious mind, then rolled away from him instinctively and began feeling around on the floor. Somewhere down there was the Scythe-- she'd dropped it on the floor by the bed when she first came into the room.

Angel woke a few minutes later, freezing instinctively as she lightly pressed the blade end of the Scythe against his neck.

"Angel?" she asked, cautiously.

"Buffy," he said warmly, gazing up into her eyes.

That was enough for her. She dropped the Scythe on the floor again and crawled back off the bed, searching for the nearest item of clothing. "What was that?" she asked, wondering what the Hell she'd been thinking.

"Our unresolved issues airing themselves out?" he replied, tentatively.

"I'll say." Buffy snorted. She pulled Angel's shirt on over her head, as it was the first thing to hand. It covered her down to her knees.

A glance at the clock confirmed that it was only 3:30 AM, not too late for a Slayer to be up, but definitely too early to be crawling out of bed. Angel followed her gaze, then sighed and began gathering the sheet around his waist. "So what do you want to do with the rest of the night?" he asked.

"Not a repeat of what we just did," she retorted. Not that it hadn't been... her thoughts skittered away from that... but she knew it wasn't exactly healthy for either of them to keep indulging. Nor was it fair to the memory of Spike.

"No, of course not," Angel said. He climbed out of bed, dragging the sheet strategically with him until he reached his pants, which had somehow flung themselves halfway across the room. After he tugged them on, he sat down in the room's one chair and dropped the sheet.

Buffy carefully sat down on the bed again, curling her feet up her. "So," she said, trying to find something to talk about. It occurred to her belatedly that they'd never quite finished talking about the Connor question, or even the Cordy issue. Hadn't he said something about her coming back evil?

"Tell me," she asked. "Why aren't Connor and Cordy here?" She hadn't seen the ex-cheerleader in the group that greeted them when they arrived at the hotel, and there hadn't been any babies in evidence, either.

Angel frowned. "Cordelia's in a coma. I had her moved to Wolfram and Hart's medical facilities-- if anyone can figure out how to cure her, they can. After she gave birth--"

"What?" Buffy blurted, shocked. "I thought you only kissed?"

He grimaced. "It was Connor's, actually. There was this Power-That-Was--"

"Connor's?" That was even more unbelievable. "I thought he was just a baby?"

"It's a long story," he said, looking away. "Short version-- he got kidnapped into a Hell dimension where time moves differently, and came back three weeks and seventeen years later. When Cordy returned without her memory, they got... close."

Despite her confusion and irritation, Buffy's heart went out to him. "That must have hurt," she said.

He sighed. "You have no idea. A little while later, Cordy turned up pregnant. Jasmine was born full grown-- I don't know if you remember seeing her on any of the talk shows a couple of weeks ago-- and everyone that saw her or heard her voice fell in love with her. It was this whole World Peace thing, except that she ate half a dozen people every day."

"I'm guessing you killed her, since we're not living in a Utopia now." She shook her head, wondering if this Power-That-Was had had any relationship to the First. Those could have been some scary turf wars to get caught in the middle of; they'd had things bad enough as it was.

"Connor did." He sighed. "The whole thing-- he wasn't quite sane by the end of it. I had to--" He shook his head. "Part of the deal with Wolfram and Hart is that he's with a happy family now. He doesn't remember me, and nobody but me remembers him. He'll be a college student in the fall."

"Like Dawn in reverse," Buffy said, sympathizing.

Angel nodded. "That's what gave me the idea," he said. "Willow filled me in on the whole key thing when she visited and told me about your death. So when I had the chance to do something-- Connor's whole life might be fake, but it's a good life, and he's happy, and he's theirs now. I'm not cut out to be a parent-- I don't regret doing what I did." He winced. "At least, as far as Connor goes."

"What do you regret?" she asked, aware that she was opening up a can of worms with that question. But they'd got so much else out in the open already, they might as well clear the air completely. What ever else they might be to each other after this, at least it would be built on a foundation of complete honesty and understanding.

"Angelus," he said, spitting the word out as though dropping a bomb. "He had a little... reappearance. Magic-induced this time, and kind of on purpose, and he did kind of save the world, but..." He shuddered.

Buffy's jaw dropped. "That's why you need Willow, wasn't it?" She'd wondered vaguely about that at the time, but she'd been caught up by more pressing issues. "But I thought Angelus didn't care if the world ended?"

"It was sort-of, well," He wrinkled his face up. "He doesn't care if he ends the world, but when the Beast blocked out the sun... well, he was sort of an old rival of Angelus'..."

"A pissing contest?" Buffy blurted. "Angelus saved the world so he could prove he was the Bigger Bad?"

"Yeah." Angel sighed. "He killed the Beast, which brought back the sun--"

"Kind of stupid of him," Buffy smiled ruefully.

"I think 'Ah, crap,' were his exact words," Angel smiled back. "Then Faith and Willow saved me."

"Not much has changed then," she teased.

"What do you mean?" he asked, caught off guard.

"You still need the Slayer and Willow to save you," she said.

Angel shook his head. "Not necessarily, unless the Slayer is you," he said gallantly.

---

Chapter Four: Always

Buffy arched her eyebrows at Angel. "Ah, but you admit you do need saving?" she inquired smugly.

"Only occasionally," Angel answered teasingly. He was glad to see a smirk on her face again after the heaviness earlier in the conversation, and couldn't resist flirting with her some more. "of course, you usually are around."

"Well, I'm only happy to return the favor," Buffy replied, light-heartedly. "You have been there to save me a time or two." She grew a little more serious at that. "Most recently from Caleb when you showed up two nights ago. I didn't thank you for that, did I?"

"No, you didn't," Angel chuckled a little. He couldn't help but remember how she'd 'thanked' Xander for bringing her back the first time. "Not properly."

Buffy smirked back, apparently remembering something similar. She stood up, put her arms around his neck, and said, her breath feathering over his lips, "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Angel couldn't resist that invitation; he bent his head and kissed her.

As usual when Buffy and Angel kissed, things grew hot and heavy pretty quickly. After a moment, Buffy pulled back a little and asked, "What are we doing?"

"I think it's pretty obvious," Angel answered, wondering what was going through her mind.

"Just checking," Buffy said, with a quick flash of a smile. "I wanted to do the mature thing and think it through before..."

Angel interrupted her with a kiss and said, "Thinking is over-rated." With that, he moved her back toward the bed, and they collapsed together among the sheets.

---

Hours later, when Buffy woke once more, Angel was gone. In his place was a note, lying on his pillow, and a drawing of Buffy contentedly asleep in the bed. She felt a brief pang of shock and dismay at the sight, then relief as she looked at the image; unlike the last time she'd found a portrait of herself, this one had been done out of love, not a dangerous obsession. She smiled at it for a moment, then picked up the note and read.

"Buffy,

Stay in bed. Willow will be up shortly with breakfast and clean clothes for you. Come down when you're ready, and we can talk about what to do next.

Always,
Angel."

Buffy smiled. This was what should have happened five years ago, and hadn't.

Her pleasant thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. "It's me, Willow," her friend announced.

"Come in," Buffy called, folding the note back up and placing it on the nightstand with the picture.

Willow entered with a cup of coffee in one hand, and in the other a pair of bags. One was from a donut shop; the other was a clothes bag from Wal-Mart. Buffy's forehead wrinkled a little at the prospect of wearing something actually bought at Wal-Mart, but she knew beggars couldn't be choosers.

Willow caught the look. "I know, not the most stylish place to buy clothes, but we had to get the basics for all of the girls, and it was cheap," Willow apologized.

"That's all right," Buffy reassured her, reaching for the bag. "Anything's better than having to put that back on," she said, pointing to the stained and battle-damaged top draped over the nearby chair.

Willow looked a little startled at the obvious disarrangement in the room, but didn't say anything. Grateful, Buffy took the chance to escape to the bathroom and take a quick shower. A few minutes later she emerged, wearing a pair of black cargo shorts and a white t-shirt.

"So, you and Angel...?" Willow asked carefully, raising her eyebrows.

Buffy sat down on the bed again, taking a sip from the coffee Willow had brought her and reaching for a donut. After a pause while she inhaled half the first donut, she nodded to her friend. "Yeah, Angel and I," she said.

"So?" Willow prompted, obviously about to burst out of her skin with curiosity.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "It was amazing, of course. I take it you've seen him this morning?"

"Yes, and no, he's not Angelus this time," Willow reassured her, then bit her lip, thinking. "Well, except that Wes told me Angel is the new President and CEO of the Los Angeles branch of Wolfram and Hart-- that seemed kinda fishy to me. He could have just gotten sneakier?"

Buffy sighed. "I knew I should have asked more about that. He mentioned a deal with them last night, but didn't go into any details."

"What kind of deal?" Willow prompted, still looking worried. "It has to be something pretty big, since Wes, Fred, Gunn and Lorne are all going to work there, too."

"Wow," Buffy said, surprised, then shook her head. "It was kind of personal, I don't think it really explains the rest of them joining in. I wonder what's going on," she mused thoughtfully.

Willow shrugged. "Anyway, it was Angel who bankrolled our little shopping spree this morning."

Buffy took another bite of her donut, not really wanting to pursue the conversation any further with Willow, and they sat quietly together as they finished their breakfast. When they were done, Buffy glanced over at the Scythe for a moment, then decided it would be kind of bad form to wander the hotel with it. Not to mention, it would show more trust to Angel if she left her weapon behind in his bedroom.

Angel was waiting in the lobby when she went downstairs. "Good morning, Buffy," he said, greeting her, then approached and gave her an uncharacteristic hug.

She let herself relax into it for a moment, indescribably happy at the gesture, then pulled back and said, "Good morning to you, too."

Angel smiled at her, then looked away as someone with green skin and red horns entered the lobby. She tensed a little, then relaxed as she realized nobody else seemed at all alarmed.

"Buffy, this is Lorne," Angel said, introducing them. "He's an anagogic demon, he reads people's destinies when they sing. Lorne, this is Buffy."

Lorne looked at her with undisguised curiosity. "Ah... Buffy. I've heard almost nothing about you," he said, glancing between her and Angel.

"Nice to meet you, Lorne," Buffy said politely, then looked at Angel, wondering what the demon was doing here. "So, have you had your destiny read?" she asked, guessing at the most probable reason.

"A couple of times," Angel answered, looking embarrassed about something. "Not today, though."

"So you do sing," Buffy said, surprised.

"Not very well," Lorne answered, chuckling as he gestured Buffy over to the comfortable round seat in the middle of the lobby. "He has an unfortunate taste for Barry Manilow."

"Oh really?" Buffy giggled a little, glancing at Angel again. That was something she'd never known about him before. No wonder he looked embarrassed.

Angel avoided her gaze, and Lorne chuckled again before continuing. "So, I assume you need guidance now on what to do after everything that's happened?"

Buffy nodded. "Yeah. Now that Sunnydale's Hellmouth is closed and everything we've ever owned has gone up in dust, what are we supposed to do?"

"Well, choose a song, honey bun, and then we'll see," Lorne answered.

Buffy had to think about that one for a minute, but the perfect song soon came to her. A little misty at the memory, she opened her mouth and began.

"I died, so many years ago
But you make me feel like it isn't so
And why you come to be with me, I think I finally know
You're scared, ashamed of what you feel
And you can't tell the ones you love, you know they couldn't deal
A whisper in a dead man's ear, it doesn't make it real..."

She let her voice trail away.

Lorne stared at her a moment, then sighed. "Wow, that was some song. Not originally yours, though, I take it."

Buffy nodded, glancing at Angel again. "You're right. Spike sang it to me, that night the musical demon came to town."

Angel snorted. "He always was a poet," he said bitterly.

Buffy wasn't in the mood to deal with all that jealous vampire crap at the moment. "It was either that or 'Angel of the Morning'," she snapped in return.

Angel winced, then deliberately turned to Lorne. "Okay. So, Lorne, what did you see?"

Lorne smiled apologetically to Angel, then directed the rest of his commentary to Buffy. "Among the waves of confusion about Angel-cakes here, and another whom I guess is this Spike, I saw you and someone named Giles in Vegas," he said.

"Vegas?" Buffy flinched, startled, strange and disturbing images flashing through her mind.

Lorne nodded, apparently oblivious to the conclusion she'd just drawn. "There isn't a Hellmouth there, but there is a lot of activity there your special skills would be useful for."

"Vegas?" Buffy repeated, baffled now. "But how would I pay the bills there? What would I do for a cover?"

Lorne shrugged, looking a little baffled himself. "I'm getting something about an office supply warehouse...?"

Buffy froze at that, and shared a panicked look with Angel, who also clearly recognized the reference.

"I guess I should be on the look-out for Drusilla, then," Angel said resignedly.

"Yeah," Buffy said, a little stunned. "I can't believe you remembered that nightmare."

"I remember everything about that week," Angel said, softly. "It was... rather eventful."

"Yeah, it was," she agreed, sadly.

"What do you mean about Drusilla?" Wes interrupted them, approaching from the direction of the office. He appeared to have caught the end of their exchange.

Buffy sighed and launched into the explanation. She didn't really want to share all the details of what had been going on, but they'd need to know to understand the reference. "A few days before my seventeenth birthday, I had a dream where Drusilla staked Angel in the Bronze right in front of me. Right before that, my Mom dropped a plate and said, 'Do you really think you're ready?' I didn't think it had been a Slayer dream at first, but then the day of my birthday that last part, with Mom, actually came true."

Angel picked up the thread of the conversation and continued it. "Buffy came to my apartment that morning, after the incident with the plate, to make sure the part with the staking hadn't come true, too. While she was there, I asked her what else she had dreamed that night."

Buffy threw a glance over her shoulder at Willow, who had come downstairs at some point in the last few minutes and was now listening also. "I answered, 'I dreamed Giles and I went to Vegas and opened an Office Supply warehouse,'" she said, finishing the explanation. Willow made a sympathetic face; she'd been the one whose support Buffy had leaned on in her initial freak-out over the dream all those years ago.

"I see," Wes said, thoughtfully. "I suppose it makes sense that Drusilla would show up again now, with Darla gone and Spike dead. That leaves you, Angel, and Drusilla as the last of the line of Aurelius. We should try to find out what happened to her, before she shows up unannounced."

Buffy snorted. "Dru, the evil head of Aurelius-- now there's a scary thought."

While everyone pondered that thought, the remainder of the Sunnydale crew finally came downstairs. Giles, Andrew, and Xander looked rather peculiar together, all in matching sweatsuits; Buffy surmised that they, too, had been casualties of Willow's shopping spree.

"Good morning, Buffy," her Watcher greeted her. "Have you given any thought to what you would like to do next?"

Buffy glanced wryly at Lorne, then nodded. "Yep," she said, confidently. "We're moving to Vegas and opening an office supply warehouse."

Giles blinked at that for a moment, then gave a little frown. "I see. It's all right if you don't know; I assume Angel will not mind if we stay here a few days longer...?" He glanced at the vampire as his statement trailed off, and Angel nodded.

"No-- I mean, yes of course you could stay," Angel answered. "But you won't need to; Buffy was telling the truth."

"I'm sorry, what did you say, again?" Giles blinked, looking back at Buffy.

"Vegas," she said, smirking a little at his discomfort. Ha, and how did he think she'd felt when she found out? "Office supply warehouse, deal with it."

"What she means to say is," Wes put in a little primly, "Our associate, Lorne, is able to read a person's destiny when they sing. Angel informed me that Buffy would be seeking his assistance this morning; if she says you are going to open an office supply warehouse, then I don't doubt that's what Lorne saw."

Buffy made yakking motions with her hand behind her back, and heard a stifled laugh from Willow.

"Dear Heavens," Giles said, still clearly startled. "Las Vegas." He fanned himself absently, as if already anticipating the heat.

"We might actually take you up on your offer of crash space for a few days, Angel," Buffy said, turning back to her sometime lover. "That is, if you can put up with us. Robin and the others will be in the hospital a little while longer, and I'd like us to all be able to go at once."

"I think I can stand it for a few days," Angel said, wryly. "It's not like I need all sixty-eight rooms in this place for myself. Some of them aren't fit for use, of course, but whatever you need is yours."

Buffy knew he meant more by that than just the offer of a roof over their heads, but she didn't want to address that in front of all the others. Last night, and this morning, had been a special time apart for them, a building block toward a more solid future relationship, whether just friends or more, but it was still a little too fragile for public view.

"Thank you," she said simply, with a small smile, then turned back to the others. They had a lot of planning to do.

(fin)

(x-posted to still_my_girl)