He pulled them into another hotel, paid for the night, and watched Remy follow him to the room again, silent, almost invisible. Warren relegated himself to the bar, staying there until the early hours of the morning, kept to himself, drinking to avoid his traveling companion. He slunk to the paid room to find Remy sitting on the windowsill, his long legs dangling fifteen stories in the air above the hotel pool. Warren smelled cigarette smoke, sighed deep, and fell on the bed.

"Sorry." Remy's accent almost eliminated the r in the word.

"Better be. You're lucky the Virginia hillbilly cop squad didn't see what you did to their greenery."

Remy flicked his cigarette butt in the air, it exploded harmlessly above the pool, to no one's notice but them. He stayed in the windowsill, watching lights flicker on and off, Warren saw them in the reflection in the black depths of his eyes. Even the red at the center seemed dulled where before they had been bright with life. Nothing about the man leaning out the hotel window was bright with life.

"What's it like, Ange?"

"What?"

"De sky, bein' out 'dere."

"You wouldn't understand. It's the best thing I can think of."

"Better'an makin' love?"

"Yeah." Warren turned over in bed and pulled the comforter over his face, effectively ending Remy's inquisition. He didn't hear the other man close the window, or the shower hidden emotional display of the night before. For once, he actually thought about it, wondered if Remy was going to lose himself out the window, if he would have to explain the splattered mess of the thief to authorities, to the Professor. But morning seemed to bring with a sense of peace to Remy, he even chanced to Warren a smile over coffee in the car. Warren didn't smile back. He had finally reached the Louisiana border, that much closer to being rid of the boy. By evening, he was leaving the boy at the city limits with hardly a good bye. Remy took a tattered black backpack, his only luggage, and watched him drive off. In the rearview mirror, he saw Remy walking along the same road he drove. Remy had put up no complaints about leaving, despite the sticky heat, the simple fact that Angel obviously was going in the same direction.

He lost Remy as soon as they got into the city proper, and checked himself into an upscale hotel for the week. He had business meetings with the property owners of a port, things that made him stare out the window longing to fly, to give the company to people who cared more and go out and save the world like the others. Angel knew he couldn't do that, the X-Men needed his support from this end, he was almost useless in battle. But money, financial backing, that he could do. He found himself wondering where Remy was- where he had lost him, what trouble he was getting himself into, if he was going to have to end this little trip bailing the other man out of jail. He rested on the hotel bed, glad to be rid of Remy, rid of driving, at least for the week. He rolled over and grabbed the phone receiver, called the mansion in Westchester.

"Warren?"

"Hello professor. Just letting you know I got the thief here as well."

"How is he?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know? We didn't talk. Seemed fine, though."

"If you insist. Take care of yourself, Warren."

"Thanks. You too."

He hung up and fell asleep immediately, exhausted. He dreamed of energy, bright and dangerous and containing all these things, sorrow and desire and desperation and home. He didn't want to have those dreams. He tossed and turned and yanked the comforter around his shoulders and stared at the lights of the French Quarter, didn't wonder if Remy was out there. Or tried to convince himself not to. Rising laughter and the strains of jazz music trailed through his window, keeping him awake and still thinking. Wondering if Remy was out there among the drunken masses, stealing sex and money from college partiers indiscriminately, his slender fingers trailing along their young bodies, taking what he needed, nothing more. His smug, disgustingly arrogant smile as he knew he had them at his every beck and call, every whim met by adoring followers. In Warren's mind there was nothing left of the sad, tiny scared thing in the Virginia forest, barely grown out of childhood and hardly coping with so much loss. It was easier that way. He put his hands behind his head and watched the lights play across his ceiling, purple and green and gold, but none of it that distinct energy he associated with Remy.