Chapter 1

Angel stood on top of the edge of the building and looked down the length of it. He felt the up draft catch his coat and make it billow up. He closed his eyes and surrendered to just the feelings that were surrounding him. The feeling of wind against his skin making his body temperature drop a few notches, feeling his hair stand on end as it did on occasion when his body temp dropped to just above or below zero, feeling the air move up through his hair and...

The piercing scream that cut through the air like a knife through hot butter. Angel's eyes were open and he pinpointed it as being just a block or so away. He stepped off of the edge of the building and began running towards the edge of the building before leaping onto the next one along and repeating the actions for the next one along and so on.

When he reached the side of the building where the woman was being attacked he dropped down off of it and landed on one knee and a bent leg. He stood up quickly the vampire who had the woman pressed up against the wall and was about to bite into her.

"Back away." Angel said in a steady voice and the vampire turned his head to look at Angel with a deeply pissed off expression on his face. He clearly didn't recognise the vampire with a soul. He then gritted his teeth before turning around completely to face Angel.

The vamp had a red t shirt on with a checkered shirt over it. He was wearing dark jeans and sneakers. He looked like he was a high school kid or a kid just out of high school and starting college. He had longish brown hair and brown eyes. His vamp face had the clear ridges all along his eyebrows and cheek bones. His teeth were almost unnaturally long and he bared them more than your average vampire. Angel looked at him and pitied the person who it used to be. He looked young and as if he actually had somewhere he was going to go in life. He looked a bit like Xander, only younger and slightly smarter looking.

"Leave it alone man. Just keep walking." The vamp said and bared his teeth more to emphasise the whole 'I'm a scary creature of the night' thing. Then Angel looked like he was going to keep walking just before he punched the unaware vamp in the jaw. Hard.

"Not something I do." Angel punched the vamp again and the vamp tried to respond with a punch but Angel blocked it. Angel threw another which was actually blocked by the vamp who got Angel in the stomach. Angel was slightly winded but then recovered quickly and punched the vamp several more times. He released the spring loaded stake hidden up his sleeve and said, "Man." Angel buried the wooden stake in the vampire's chest and the vamp looked at him with disbelief on his face before collapsing into dust.

The woman walked up to him cautiously with disbelief and happiness plastered all over her face.

"Thankyou, thankyou so much."

"No problem. Just... Try staying inside at night. Streets are dangerous at this time of the night." Angel grimaced inwardly at her puzzled expression. He always got those when he sat it was dangerous out at night. Mostly because they knew that already and didn't enjoy being patronised. The puzzled expression from the woman was probably because he sounded like one of those safety people that went to schools and talked about not getting into cars with strangers and stranger danger and everything.

Angel decided that leaving now while he still had some 'hero' image left was a good idea. He took off down the street leaving the woman very confused and with mixed feelings about Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome. And let's not forget the Just Saved Her Life part. Plus the whole Mysterious and Tortured Soul deal wouldn't hurt either.

Angel opened the door to his apartment (okay it was actually a bachelor's studio. What? He wasn't exactly rolling in it after the Wolfram and Hart thing ended). He walked the short length over to the thin mattress that was actually on the other side of the room (it's a small studio) and sat down heavily. He took off his shoes, then his shirt, and then he unbuckled the spring loaded stake from his arm and placed all of the paraphernalia aside on the floor.

He sighed (well not for actual breath or anything but just sighed for the sake of sighing) and looked up at the ceiling that had lights dancing on it from the main street below in which a stray car passed every now and then. A few shouts of a drunken group of friends just coming out of a pub a few buildings over floated up and crept through the closed window. Angel adjusted himself slightly on the extremely thin and pillowless mattress.

He stared at the lights that would come and go every so often on the ceiling for a second longer before getting up and pulling the blinds down with a snap. He had to or when he would wake up he would find himself roasted extra crispy. He stood there staring into space (or in other words brooding) for a minute or so before going back to the mattress and lying down. He closed his eyes and saw what he always saw. Flashbacks to the big fight.

He resisted opening his eyes and watched the scenes play out. After a while he felt something sticky in his hands. He finally opened his eyes and brought his hands to his eyes to see that his fingernails had cut into the palms of his hands and he now had four little cuts in each hand and he'd cut in so deep it could be classified as deep and not little. A lot of blood had seeped out of the deep cuts and he stared at it for a few minutes letting the image seep into his mind before getting up and walking over to the fridge that stood practically alone in the studio.

The only things he had in the studio were the mattress, the fridge and the weapons cabinet. After all, he didn't need anything else. There was a single thing on the wall and that was a target with many holes in it around the middle from the knives that Angel threw at it when he felt he needed practice.

It was as if he was paying for the year in Wolfram and Hart surrounded by so much glamour and his life was so easy. So now he lived in this inexpensive, sparse apartment with no comforts except for a thin mattress and the weapons. He kept his old car though. His convertible. The one that he'd driven to L.A. in. The one he'd used for so long until Wolfram and Hart had shown up with the many different cars and the old convertible had been left in the corner for so long. It felt good to be driving in it again.

It felt like he was back to where he was when he first came to L.A. Alone. Completely alone.

He reached for a box on top of the short fridge. Inside were many trank gun cartridges and he grabbed one of them. He looked at the wall, determined not to look at it while he did it. He jabbed it into his arm and felt the tranquiliser entering his system. He stumbled backwards towards the bed but he never made it. He just collapsed a few feet away and didn't wake until late the next night.