Buffy swiveled in her chair, sighing. "Giles, I'm bored. Are you sure you couldn't hurry it up with the research there and I can get on with the slayage?"

Giles looked up from the ancient demon text he had been reading for the past two hours, a startled expression on his face. "Well gee, Buffy, I'm awfully sorry that the information we need to defeat this demon is not presenting itself so readily. It might do that, however, if I had some help."

"But Willow and Xander went out for ice cream. It would be rude to call them back just so they can do research."

Giles rolled his eyes and went back to reading, muttering something about how surprising it was the world hadn't totally ended yet.

After a few more moments, Buffy sighed again. "Giles—"

"Don't you have work to do, Buffy?" Giles asked, not taking his eyes off of his book.

"I do, but it's desk work, and desk work is too boring, especially right now when all I want is some good slaying distractions." The last part she had muttered to herself, not really expecting Giles to hear her.

But Giles wasn't a former Watcher for nothing, and his multitasking skills are phenomenal. He sat back in his chair. "Ah, is this about—"

Buffy snapped her head around, and looked right at him. "Don't say it. I don't want to talk about it."

"Buffy it's been—"

"I know how long it's been, and I know what you're going to say—that if Angel were still alive, he would have contacted me, us, by now. Of course, if he hadn't been such a goddamn idiot and asked for my help, he wouldn't be possibly dead and/or missing in the first place. I mean really, he's such a martyr. He's got so many complexes, even his complexes have complexes. If I ever find him again, I'm sending him to therapy."

Buffy paused in her ranting. Then, "Do you know anyone who would take a 250 year old vampire with a soul who carries a lot of guilt from brutally killing people the first 150 years of his undead life as a patient?"

Giles stared at her. "Been wanting to rant about all that for a long time, have you?"

Buffy deflated, falling back into her chair. "Yes. Thinking about it, I don't think any shrink could handle that kind of patient."

Washington DC: The Office of Doctor Lance Sweets

Doctor Lance Sweets stared at his patient. No, not his patient. His friend. At least he thinks so. The FBI agent sometimes had problems with threatening Sweets to either a) beat him up, or b) shoot him. Non-lethally, of course. But shooting him all the same. But still, his friend.

And right now, he was deeply concerned about his friend.

"I'm sorry. Could you repeat yourself?"

"You damn well heard me, Sweets."

"Yes, I heard you. So you're saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you think that you are a 250-year-old vampire who was cursed with his soul in the year 1898 by Gypsies so you could suffer for the crimes that you committed while not in possession of your soul?"

"No."

"But that's what you just said."

"No. I said that I used to be a 250-year-old vampire who was cursed with is soul in 1898 by Gypsies in order to suffer for crimes committed while soulless."

Sweets clicked his pen. "Uh huh."

"Obviously I'm not one now, Sweets. There is sunlight streaming through your window and hitting me. I am sitting in direct sunlight and not bursting into flames."

Sweets stared at the agent again. "You really believe this, don't you?"

"Yes."

Sweets waited, knowing that wasn't everything.

Then Special Agent Seeley Booth sighed, clearly frustrated and confused. He ran a hand through his hair and across his face. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his zippo lighter, flipping it open and closed. He sat back and sighed.

"At least, I think so."