Comfort on the Edge of Reason

by Lesera128

Chicago. Halloween 1923. The witch Temperance Brennan encounters Angel for the first time since he'd been ensouled. Bones/Angel crossover. Very, very AU. Sequel to "Toe to Toe," "Barging In" and "Making Him Beg." Complete.

2. Part II: Backing Away from the Edge

Comfort on the Edge of Reason

By: Lesera128 & dharmamonkey

Rated: M

Disclaimer: Here we posit our normal rigmarole. No, we don't own anything from Bones or Angel... or anything else. Yes, we're wreaking what havoc we can with these characters that we don't own to create an awesome story. But, since it's only for the purposes of creative enjoyment and amusing distraction, we think we're okay. Are there any other questions? No? ::blinks:: Good. Then, moving on―

Summary: Chicago. Halloween 1923. The witch Temperance Brennan encounters Angel for the first time since he'd been ensouled. Bones/Angel crossover. Very, very AU. Sequel to "Toe to Toe," "Barging In" and "Making Him Beg."

A/N: Herein is Part 2, our afternoon offering on our so-called Day of Comfort. We hope you enjoyed this morning's AM repast. Without further adieu, when last we left Angel and Brennan, they had just enjoyed a bath, done a bit of soul searching, and had ended up accidentally kissing or something strange like that...

UNF ALERT: Loyal dharmasera readers shall be happy to know, the Unf Alert is specifically for this part of the scenario. If you are not of a consenting, legal age to read this stuff, please don't. Or, if you do, please (and we really mean this) don't tell us you're reading it. Thanks. For the rest of you, enjoy.~

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Part II: Backing Away from the Edge

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Brennan allowed herself to melt into his kiss for a very enjoyable moment before she pulled away from him.

"Mmmm," she breathed into his mouth. "Enough of that for now, or I'll end up with my delicate skin chafing by your excessive facial hair, hmmm?"

"You know," he said with a grin. "Though I'll confess that it's been a while—a very long while, actually—since I've sat in a barber's chair and gotten a proper shave, you'll have to admit that for me to let you take a straight razor to my face and neck is a tremendous expression of trust on my end." He flashed his eyebrows. "Just sayin'."

"If I wanted to cut your throat, don't you think I would've done it several times over by now?" she rolled her eyes at him. "I'm sure you recall my silver dagger?" She stared at him with a completely straight face.

"I was kidding, Brennan," he said, his brow furrowing a little as he wondered briefly the extent to which she was kidding. After a few moment, he shook his head as he sighed, "It was a joke. Sheesh—I thought I was the one with no sense of humor."

A sigh cracked her visage as she shook her head playfully. "Mmmmm, we're going to have to do something about your inability to handle my teasing well, I think, because this time I actually was playing with you." Raising her index finger, she used it to tap his shoulder as she clucked, "I'm surprised at you, Angel. Sixty plus years, and it's still a skill you've yet to refine."

"I think you should cut me some slack, woman," he said with a laugh. "I've spent the last twenty-odd years living in barns, gutters, abandoned homes and under bridges. You've been—wait, what have you been doing?" Angel asked as he realized exactly how much time had actually passed since he'd seen her in Cairo. Frowning slightly, his tone became more serious as he said, "I'm sorry, I haven't be able to keep up on my correspondence the way I used to."

"You never wrote anyway," she reminded him with a raised eyebrow, hoping that if she maintained a light tone, it might encourage him to do the same.

"Meh," he grumbled. "That's true. I was always too much of a lazy layabout to take a pen to paper. But now, they have typewriters, and if I had one of those, I might..." He stopped as Brennan continued to stare at him. His resolve crumbling, he said, "Well...probably not, right?"

"No," she laughed at him. "Definitely not. It's as you've always been, as you are, and probably will always be. And, I adore that about you." He grinned, his eyes twinkling at the compliment. She stopped and smiled. She reached out and lifted a lock of his long and now moderately damp hair in her hand as she said, "But, now, I think it's as good a time as any to see how well I can still cut hair, hmmm?

He looked at her for a minute and then asked, "I don't suppose we'll be doing that here?" He pouted his lips a little at the thought of getting out of the tub and no longer feeling her body wrapped so snugly around his. "'Cause this is kind of nice, you know. Sitting here like this, with you, here."

Chuckling again, she shook her head. "I mean, I think I can probably give you a decent shave here—though of course, I'll have to get out of the tub to do that—but to cut your hair and not make too much of a mess, well...no, we'll do one here and then one outside the tub, hmmm?"

Shifting her legs, which had started to fall asleep as they'd talked and soaked, she squirmed a bit to get enough room to maneuver to stand up. She felt tell tale pink pricks in her numb feet as she stood on wobbly legs. Once she was upright, she carefully got out of the tub and could feel Angel's eyes on her naked wet backside as she moved.

Angel watched her with wide eyes as she stepped out of the tub, the bathwater dripping off of her as she shook out her legs and arms to get feeling back in them. He blinked as he saw the flesh of her bottom shake, tiny droplets of water falling to the floor as they dribbled off the long, gentle curve on the underside of her ass. He felt himself harden further as she turned slightly and bent over slightly as she looked for where she'd put the towels. He saw her full breasts sway gently, her nipples erect as he imagined she'd felt a chill. He felt torn between sitting where he was and climbing out of the tub to feel those wet curves with his own hands. Angel imagined pressing her up against the edge of her bathroom vanity and taking her right there, hard and fast. He closed his eyes and rolled his shoulders as he shook off the raw tingle that surged from the base of his spine at the sight and smell and sound of her.

Laughing again, she said, "I can feel you, you know?"

"I haven't moved a muscle," he immediately replied, a suspicious defensiveness in his voice as he knew he'd been busted. "I swear," he said, glancing down and seeing that he was fully aroused, as hard as he'd been in years. He cleared his throat as he felt his balls begin to ache with want.

Turning around as she grabbed for one of the towels, she carefully shook out the thick and absorbent material and began to pat herself dry even as she felt him watching her every move. Arching an eyebrow as she looked over at him, she said, "I think the eyes have muscle ligature that count to discredit that statement since you've been watching every move I made since I got out of the tub...to say nothing of the other parts of your rather impressive male anatomy."

Angel's eyes darkened, and he shot her a crooked grin at hearing her reference to his cock, then winced slightly as he felt himself harden even more at the compliment. He brought his hand around between his legs and adjusted himself, then let his hand fall away again as he felt maddeningly torn between relieving the pressure in his aching balls and saving himself so he could make the most of his turn with her when the time came to join her in her bed for the first time in nearly twenty-five years.

She stopped and then reassured him, "It's okay. You can look all you want." Her lips twitched as she stared at his expectant gaze and then added cheekily, "So long as the looking connects with some type of doing a little later, hmmm?" Tossing the towel onto the floor, she grabbed her robe and hastily shrugged back into it. Her eyes then focused on her bathroom counter, and as she scanned it, she frowned when she realized that what she wanted wasn't there.

Walking towards the tub, she called over her shoulder as she walked out the door, "I need to grab something from my vanity in the other room...and gather a few other...supplies. Why don't you finish your drink and stay right there. I'll be right back." She paused only long enough to wink at him before she vanished outside the door.

Angel watched her retreating form as she disappeared from view, then reached down to pick up his half-drunk glass of conjured blood. He raised the glass to his lips and noted how the bathroom light sparkled and fractured against the facets of the lead crystal tumbler. Taking a long sip of the blood, he puzzled at how drastically his life had changed in the short span of a couple of hours.

Three hours ago, I was wondering how long it would take to for my frostbitten fingers to heal assuming the cold front passed through tomorrow, he thought. Then I heard her, and smelled her, and I was sure that she would turn away from me the moment she saw my face. He glanced around the bathroom, then took another sip, draining the last of the blood in the glass before setting it back down on the tile floor. But she didn't turn away. She took me in. Angel shook his head, then cupped his hands together and splashed the lukewarm water on his face, rubbing his palms against his scruffy jaws before raking his hands through his hair. She wants me still, he told himself. I don't understand why, but she does. I want her, too. Differently than he did—the man I was before—because now I feel...what is it? Some kind of affinity, I guess—an affection for her. Angelus—hell, he just wanted her, to fuck her, to be amused by her wit and to play with her. I haven't felt this way in...I don't know how long. Maybe never? He scratched his chin and shrugged, splashing another handful of water on his chest as he watched, waiting for her to appear again. I don't know what exactly this is, or why it's happening, but I do know that I don't want it to stop. So...whatever she wants from me. It's hers, I think. I just—

Angel was shaken from his thoughts by the sound of clanking coming from her kitchen. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hand and sighed, trying to turn the spigot that controlled the gush of thoughts that had been flooding his mind since he'd first laid eyes on her just an hour before.

Come on, he told himself. You've spent the last twenty-odd years in your own head, alone with your thoughts. Finally, you're back in the company of a proper woman. He nodded to himself. The one woman you've spent the last twenty-odd years thinking about. Don't mess this up. Don't overthink it. Just take it as it comes. Whatever this is, and however long it lasts—enjoy it for what you can, for what it is. He cracked his knuckles, leaned back in the tub, and waited patiently for her to return.

A few moments later, Brennan returned carrying a two-handled serving tray. On top of it sat a pewter bowl full of steaming menthol-scented water. Next to it, a small jar of shaving cream, a wooden-handled boar-bristle shaving brush, a straight razor, a tiny brown bottle with a cork stopper, and a pile of hand towels sat ready and waiting to be used. Angel watched with curiosity as Brennan moved towards the tub and carefully balanced the tray on its edge.

Cocking an eyebrow at her, he asked, "Do I even want to know where this stuff came from?" He watched in wide-eyed curiosity as she walked back to the bathroom counter, retrieved another towel, and rolled it up.

Handing it to him, she said, "Nope." Taking another minute, Brennan sat down, resuming her earlier position on the edge of the tub, once she'd believe the tray to be steady enough for her uses. "Probably not." She paused before she gave him a slight chuckle, "You can relax. I purchased most of this stuff from the shops I frequent on North Michigan Avenue. Chicago's finest shopping district in the Loop, you know?" She didn't wait for a response before she commented, "Now, I think the easiest thing to do is for you to lie back and maybe if you use that towel as a makeshift pillow, it might help you to relax, alright?"

She reached down and took one of the fluffy white hand towels from the stack. Gripping it in her hand, she quickly thrust it into the bowl of steaming water and let it soak, to Angel it seemed, for a very long time. At last, when she apparently seemed satisfied with the amount of time that she'd let the towel saturate, she squeezed out some of the excess green-tinted water and then gestured for him to lay back.

"Come on," she tempted him, her voice silky as she tried to coax him into doing her bidding. "Trust me. You'll enjoy it more if you relax. I promise."

"Huh," he grunted quietly as he cocked an eyebrow at her. "Why do I feel like I've heard that from you before?"

"Because," she nodded confidently. "You probably have...and you've always enjoyed it in the end, whether you wanted to admit it or not. So, shush now and stop fighting me, hmmm?"

His smirk faded, and he shot her a mildly annoyed look, his brow knitting hard over his eyes as he suddenly remembered how simultaneously arousing and irritating he used to find her bossy manner to be. After a moment, he slowly scooted over so that his back was braced against the curve of the tub. Angel took a minute to adjust the towel and then stared at her expectantly. For her part, Brennan waited only a few seconds before she took the hot towel and adjusted it on his face. He winced for a minute as the warmth of the towel penetrated his pores, the minty smell enveloping his nostrils to the point he had to make a face since the strong scent tickled his nose even more than her lavender-scented bath salts had done so earlier. Brennan chuckled as she watched his response, but said nothing. After a little while, she moved to take the rapidly-cooling towel off his face. Tossing the used towel on the floor, she turned back to the tray and reached for the dark brown bottle of shaving oil. She uncorked the stopper and covered the opening with her forefingers, turning it over and allowing a few drops of the oil to dribble onto her fingers. She set the bottle aside and then massaged the oil into his warm, mint-scented scruff.

He moaned quietly at feeling her fingertips press gently into his skin. She swiped the last half-droplet of oil in the shallow indentation under his lower lip, then grabbed the wooden handle of the boar-bristle brush firmly in her hand. Taking it, she dipped it in the bowl of warm shaving cream and slowly began to lather Angel's face. He closed his eyes as he felt the curious sensation of the bristles against his skin and eventually an audible sigh of pleasure escaped from his lips. Brennan smiled as she took in sight of her handiwork, making certain she'd covered his entire face with shaving cream.

Setting the brush back on the tray, she reached for the straight razor and hesitated only a minute as she waited for him to open his eyes. Once he did so in response to her pause in moving, she said quietly, "I've got a fairly steady hand, but it would help if you were as still as you can be...and don't make any...well, sudden movements are a good thing to avoid."

"Okay," he agreed. For some reason, he then felt the need to add, "You do know that I trust you, Bren, don't you?"

Nodding, once, she leaned forward as she opened the razor with an audible flick and used her fingers to pull his skin taut. She made her first pass with the razor in front of his left ear, making short, precise strokes and moving in a firm and consistent pattern until his sideburns were smooth and clean. Tilting her head, she focused her eyes on the architecture of his face—the angle of his high cheekbone, the way it cut high over the dark line that formed the edge of his beard, the curvature of his upper lip, the round of his chin, the pebbly texture of his acne-scarred jaw as it gave way to his neck's corded sinews, and the way his Adam's apple bulged in the middle of his neck—all the while holding the razor at shallow angle as she cleared away his dark brown stubble from his cheek, lip, jaw, chin and neck, stroke by careful stroke, as he lay there in complete silence, still as glass. A grin twisted her lips as she considered how, at least in this instance, his vampire nature made him an easier subject for a straight-razor shave, since he didn't actually breathe unless he was speaking. At last having finished the left side of his face, she wiped away the excess foam with her index finger and took a moment to admire her work.

"How does that feel?" she asked him as he opened his eyes and raised his hand to his cheek.

"Wow," he sighed. "That's nice." He chuckled as Brennan batted his hand away and brought the razor up again and turned his face with a gentle nudge of her index finger. "It feels...good."

"Yes," she said. "It does." They held each other's intense stares for a minute and then Brennan smiled a genuine smile at him. "I missed you, Angel," she said quietly as she drew the blade in front of his ear, scraping away his rough, ragged sideburn. "It's been a long time." She stilled her blade to allow him to reply.

"Yes," he said. "Almost twenty-five years." He opened his eyes and looked at her, his gaze meeting hers as their eyes locked for several seconds. "It was...well..." He hesitated, shifting his jaw from one side to the other and rolling his lips between his teeth as he struggled to give words to all of the roiling emotions he felt in that moment. "I thought about you all the time," he said. "The whole time—all those years, I thought of you, Bren. I just...I couldn't. With you, as I was, I just couldn't." He swallowed hard, finally tearing his gaze from hers as his he faltered in finding the words to express himself. "I'm sorry..."

"You know," she began, her voice softening as she spoke. "I spent the years wondering what had become of you. We had, I know, made no definitive commitment as to when we would see each other next. But, I'd be lying if I said I hadn't hoped..." She brought the razor to the edge of his cheekbone and made long, steady strokes as he struggled to remain still as she spoke. "I spent a number of years working in Egypt as I told you I'd planned to the last time we saw one another in London. The time passed so quickly in some ways. There were so many fascinating finds, so many incredible discoveries. However, year after year, as I continued my work in Egypt and commuted back and forth between Luxor and Cairo, I kept hoping you would come to me...that I might see you. You were never long or far out of my thoughts."

Angel felt his stomach flip at hearing her words. I'm not the only one, he thought. It wasn't just me. She thought of me, too. The faint ache he'd been feeling in his gut faded as a growing warmth spread through his chest. She missed me. All those years, when I thought she had long forgotten about me, but she hadn't. She thought of me. I don't know how or why...but she actually missed me. He blinked and swallowed again, but said nothing as she continued to speak.

"Then," she continued, "before I knew it, so much time had passed, and, by the time of the Great War, when the Turks came and invaded Egypt from the Sinai in January 1915, which campaign put an end to any archaeological pursuits in Egypt for a number of years, I'd started to think that perhaps I'd seen the last of you. I lost track of, well, our mutual acquaintance who might be able to answer any of my questions about you. The postal service between northern Africa and the Orient wasn't the best during peace, let alone in times of world war. I didn't know if something had happened to you...that perhaps you'd been staked or...maybe had grown tired of our...interaction, somehow."

"No," he said, his voice soft as he began to speak but growing firmer and louder as he continued. "That wasn't it, Bren—not at all. It wasn't that I didn't think about you or want for your company. Please, no—believe me, it wasn't that at all. It wasn't you. It was...it was because of me, Bren." He paused, his brown eyes seeming in that moment as warm as Brennan had ever seen them before, sparkling back at her as a rich, creamy chocolate color. "It wasn't that I didn't want to see you, Bren. I really did. I thought of you all the time. It's just that...I-I...well, you said you lost track of time yourself. Well, for different reasons, it was much the same for me. I just...I needed time. There was so much for me to face, so many memories and so many feelings. I needed time to make sense out of it all, and to try to figure out a way to cope with things, but I never quite...well, I haven't quite gotten to the coping part yet." He stopped, exhaled slowly, and then said, "But it was never you, Bren."

"Why didn't you come to me?" she asked, her voice low as she looked at him expectantly. "In Egypt?"

Angel tried not to tense his jaw as she continued to shave his skin. She stilled her blade once more, allowing him at last to answer, "I told you the truth. I didn't want you to have to see me, as I am now, and have to go through the effort of telling me to go away. I-I..." He hesitated for only the briefest of a moment before he continued. "I never made it to Egypt," Angel told her with a certain sadness. "I-I...after I got my soul back, I traveled a lot. I made it as far as Baghdad before I decided to go east and not south, but—" He looked over at her.

"Don't," she said softly, suddenly cutting him off. Her hand fell away from his jaw, holding the open, cream-smeared razor in her lap as she as she blinked at him. "Please don't."

"What?" he breathed.

"You're lying," she said flatly. "I'm not certain how or why I know...but at some point, Angel? At some point, I know you were in Egypt. And...and you were close enough to me that I could sense you. It wasn't anything...overt. Actually, it was quite faint. If I'd never given it a second thought before tonight, I probably would've brushed it off as just a figment of my imagination. But, I can...now. Tonight. Right now? I know you...I know you're not being completely honest. Are you, mmm?" She stared at him and then said, "At some point...you did come to Egypt, didn't you?"

He looked at her with shame hanging on his face and then finally nodded, "Yes."

"And, you saw me?" she pressed.

"Yes," he answered again in a raspy voice. "But, I'd spare you—"

"Don't," she pleaded with him again. "Please don't...don't try to protect me. Just be honest with me. Tell me...you walked away?" she asked, straining to understand him. "You left me...without saying a word? Why?"

"I-I...well, it's..." Angel hesitated, turning his head and averting his eyes as he blinked, remembering how he'd seen her sitting on the terrace that evening, and how every sinew in his body had wanted to reach out and touch her, but he'd held back, and after a minute or two, slinked back into the dark alley from which he'd come. "I was in a bad way," he explained. "I looked like hell...like I did tonight...but it was even worse, really. I was drowning, Bren. It'd been just a few months, and I was being inundated by the memories of all the things that I'd done before, the lives I'd taken, the families I'd destroyed, the women I'd..." His voice trailed off before he summoned up the strength to continue. "I just couldn't bear it, the guilt. It weighed on me so heavily, and I felt like I was suffocating. I..." He shook his head and shrugged. "I left Cairo without seeing you for the same reason I ran from you tonight. I didn't want you to see me this way. I didn't think you'd want me...the way I am. I saw you there, one night, after dusk, taking your tea on the terrace, but...I lost my nerve. I watched you for a while, and then I left. I couldn't stay there. I had to leave. I couldn't be that close to you and not have you. I couldn't face having you reject me like I was so certain you would have had you seen me."

"But, I wouldn't have done that," she told him, her voice soft yet insistent. "I wouldn't have rejected you."

"I know," he said, his voice edging slightly lower as he tried to reassure her. "I know that now."

"Do you?" she questioned him. "Do you really?"

"Yes," he confirmed, his eyes wide as he gave her a smile. "But, at the time, I didn't. I didn't have any faith...any ability to think that if the worst of something could happen to me that it wouldn't. So that time I saw you, I stayed for a while watching you. But then I went and never came back. I never went back to Egypt after that."

Brennan stared at him for a long moment, rolling the handle of the razor in her hand as she fought against the wave of emotions cresting inside of her. She pursed her lips, then asked quietly, "When was this?"

"I don't know," he said grimly. "Not long after I left Romania. A few months maybe. During the spring...when I knew you'd still be there."

"So, you did come to me?" she asked, a bit of hope creeping into her voice. "Really? You really did come to me then, as we'd agreed?"

He slowly nodded. "Yes," he whispered, his voice nearly inaudible.

For some reason, his response made Brennan's heavy heart feel suddenly much lighter. The sting of rejection that she'd harbored in her heart as she'd thought of Angelus over the years finally started to lessen a bit.

Nodding at him, she said, "I wish...I-I...I wish you would've trusted me enough to make your presence known. I mean, I understand why you didn't. After everything that had just happened...I realize...that is, I know it was a lot to confront. But, I would've helped you. I would've helped you then, as I hope you're going to let me do now."

"A part of me wishes that, too," he told her. Angel leaned his head back and sighed as he thought of the two women he'd shared most of his centuries-long life with and how very different they were. Each devastatingly beautiful and yet lethal in her own way, he'd known mind-shattering pleasure in both of their beds. But one of them had let him go, again and again, knowing that he might come back or that he might not, and wondering all the time even as she let him go. On the other hand, the other had left him behind, again and again, knowing each time that he might not survive the danger to which she'd abandoned him and not really caring about how he'd fared if it inconvenienced her. He lowered his gaze again and looked at her with eyes hazy with regret. "Especially," he said sadly. "Because...well..." He sighed again. "Bren, if I'd gone to you, I wonder if I might not have made one of the biggest mistakes of my life."

"What did you do?" she asked, her voice quiet as she looked at him with expectation.

"I left Egypt and went to China...to find...well, to find the crew," he said. "At the time, I was so desperate, I-I...I didn't know what else to do. I was just so tired of being alone and dirty and hungry and weak. So after a while, Bren, I finally gave in, and I went...you know...I went to find them. And I did. Eventually, I did find them, and it was a terrible mistake. I shouldn't have gone. But, I did, and it turned out...very badly."

Brennan searched his face for more of an explanation, but when she saw the pain in his eyes at the vague mention of China, she knew not to press further. Instead, she said, "You know, I think...because I sensed you there, in Cairo? I think that was one of the reasons why I kept going back there. Even after the war, I still spent several field seasons in the Valley of the Kings and at Giza. I was even there last year when Howard Carter's expedition found the tomb of a pharaoh named Tutankhamun from the Eighteenth Dynasty. It's...well, they're fairly certain it's the first completely intact royal tomb ever to have ever been discovered."

Somewhat distracted by her abrupt change in topic and the brightness in her voice, Angel couldn't help but to confess, "I saw some of the stories in the newspapers. It...it seems to have been an incredible find. Were you really there?"

"Yes," she told him. I mean, I didn't work on his team or anything. I was assisting on another dig site not too far away, across the river from Luxor at a place called Deir el-Medina. It's a fascinating site, the only village site that's ever been discovered. Bernard Bruyère is the director of the expedition there, and he believes the village to have been the place where workmen and artisans who labored on the tombs in the Valley of the Kings lived. Carter's discovery, of course...and rightly so, from a certain perspective, has dominated the coverage so it's been a few months since I've heard much about recent finds as I left in July. Not much work was being done since that's off-peak season in Egypt, but I got a couple of letters from friends saying the work has been made a bit more difficult in the wake of Carter's difficulties with the Egyptian authorities."

"You miss it?" Angel asked, sensing the excitement and disappointment waxing and waning interchangeably in her voice as she spoke of her work. He found himself unable to suppress a smile at seeing how she, too, had changed in the years they had been separated. She'd found a purpose, something to throw herself into that was outside of and greater than herself. And he could see how it filled her with a joy he'd never seen in her before. "Don't you?"

"A bit," she nodded with a faint smile. "I had to leave just as things were getting quite interesting regarding some finds that Bruyère believes might be textual finds." She shrugged, then added, "But, I've spent much more time in Chicago these past few years, and with the start of the academic year, I felt it prudent to return."

"You know," he began. "Now that I'm listening to you, and your well-read way of speaking seems to have evolved into something...well, I can't quite put my finger on it." He quirked his eyebrow and cocked his head to the side. "But, why are you in Chicago of all places?"

"While I love my work in Egypt," Brennan answered, "there are so many exciting places that are being excavated right now. I mean, right now? Well, it's a bit of an archaeological renaissance in a way. As I said, I've spent a fair bit of time in the dig sites up and down the Nile before I traveled to visit expeditions crossing the Arabian Peninsula, Turkey, Greece, and back to Egypt again. I settled here in Chicago about...well, when I had to leave Egypt when the war came. Europe seemed such a depressing place to be during the Great War, so I decided to come to America. Everything was new and there was this hopeful energy here, the expectation and promise of what's to come, you know? The future needn't be so dystopian here. I like that about America. It tends not to take itself as seriously as Europe does. So, I've stayed ever since, and I guess that was what...eight years ago? I spent a bit of time in New York and Boston, but I ended up here in Chicago about four years ago. The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago promises to be one of the leading institutions for anthropological and archaeological studies that go beyond mere antiquities—"

Angel smiled as he heard a new thread of excitement again color her voice.

"What?" she asked, cutting herself off in mid-sentence as she noticed the subtle shift in his facial response. "What is it?"

"It's just that...well, outside of bed, I don't think I've ever seen you this excited about something before, Bren," he said, admiration clear in his voice. "It's...well, it's good. I'm glad...I'm happy that you seem to have found something that makes you so happy. It's great."

"I'm well suited to it," she said. "Although, recently, I've begun to have a bit more of an interest in the anthropological side of things than the archaeology. While the material culture is certainly fascinating, it's the bones—mummies and skeletons and such that are sometimes recovered at the sites—those are really the things that I'm drawn to for some reason. They're just so alluring, I can't explain it. I suppose that's why I keep spending so much time in Egypt, since the human remains preserve so well there. But, now, I've had a desire to maybe try my hand at traveling to Central America to visit a few Mesoamerican sites. There are a few articles I've read in antiquity journals that predict Mexico and Peru will be the next place where archeological expeditions become quite prolific...but, as interesting as this is to me, I'm sure you don't want to hear me drone on and on about it." She shrugged with an sheepish smile. "Sorry," she said. "Sometimes, I get on a roll about talking about my work, and I get a bit carried away."

"It's okay," he smiled at her. "I think I like it when you get carried away. It's...well, even though I've never seen this side to you before tonight, I think I like it. In fact, I'm certain I do. I like it very much."

She nodded once and then fell silent, lifting his chin with her finger as she reached for the shaving brush and bowl with the other hand. Brennan applied a generous dollop of cream, using the brush to even it out and work it in before she pulled the skin of his neck taught and began to work the razor again. She pursed her lips together firmly and narrowed her eyes with focus, and the only sound between them for a couple of minutes was the soft, fwip, fwip sound of the straight razor scraping along the skin of Angel's neck. After a few more minutes, she finished, and used the now-cooled, mint-scented towel to wipe away the last whisps of shaving cream from his face and neck.

"Mmmm, yes—that's much better," she said with a smile as Angel blinked open his eyes and palmed his now smooth jaw. "Do you feel better?"

"Mmmmm," he murmured. "Immensely so." He lolled his head to one side and watched as Brennan stood up again and removed the tray of shaving materials to the counter, then retrieved a clean towel, and held it against her chest as she waited for him to emerge from the bath.

"Do you plan to stay there all night, Angel?" she asked with a crooked grin. "Because, if you do, before you make that decision, I'd first like to suggest that I'm of the opinion that there's far more fun to be had outside of that tub than inside of it."

"Huh," he grunted, placing his hands on the edge of the tub and heaving himself up as the lukewarm water rolled off of his naked body in noisy sheets. He stood there in front of her, naked, dripping and wet, for several long moments as her eyes skated up and down the length of his body. "Towel?" he said with an awkward grin as he watched her hungry eyes devouring him. He felt a twitching, tugging sensation deep in his gut as he felt her gaze and saw her pale blue eyes flicker as he stood before her. "Or would you rather just watch me stand here, naked and wet? Which desire I can accommodate if that's your want..."

"Here," she said, stepping forward to hand him the requested item with a half-grin.

Angel accepted the folded towel, but immediately let it fall to the floor as he reached for her and and pulled her tightly against him. He cocked his head to one side as his lips hovered next to hers, and he felt her warm breath on his freshly-shaven upper lip, which still tingled from the touch of the razor and the minted water. She leaned close, pulling away slightly before moving in and pressing her lips to his. A soft moan rounded in his throat, and his lips quivered against hers for a few seconds before she let her tongue slide across the cleft between his lips, encouraging him to open his mouth to her kiss. His lips parted and her tongue slipped into his mouth, and within moments, their mouths grasped at one another, a shared murmur hummed between them as their tongues twirled and glanced off one another in the warm, moist space between them. Twenty-five years worth of want crackled between them in the couple of minutes they kissed, their hips grinding together in a clear sign that, regardless of the passage of time, the distance and the dramatic change in the circumstances between them, their bodies knew none of it. From that perspective, mercifully, everything was still exactly the same. Eventually, Brennan pulled away from Angel's fervent kiss, lingering long enough to suck gently on his lower lip before taking a step back and breaking away from his grasp.

"No," she said firmly. "There's one more thing we need to do before we can get to that." She smirked as he pouted his bee-stung lips and reached for her again, but she pushed his hand away with a soft laugh. "Did you forget that we still need to tend to that hair of yours? Temperance Brennan's Arcane Magicks and Barber Shop, remember? Full service and all?"

"Yeah," he rasped, his voice cracking at his unslaked want of her growing with each second that passed. "But are you sure we can't skip to the full service and come back for the haircut later?"

Brennan glanced down and saw the reason for Angel's husky tone of voice and sudden impatience. "Easy there, sweetness," she said with a teasing edge to her warm voice. "We have all night, and however many days thereafter to attend to all of our long-awaited desires." She felt a tingling in her fingertips at the sight of his hard-on, which seemed all the more arousing given that he was still, more or less, dripping wet, the water clinging to the fine brown curls that covered his legs and, obviously, the thicker brown curls between them. "But it's time to take care of those woefully outdated locks of yours, which have seen better days, and leave it behind with old Queen Victoria. We're going to bring that coiffure of yours into the twentieth century, I think." Seeing his face turn to a frown, she flashed an eyebrow. "Then, we can get back to the full-service portion of the offerings." He shot her a pleading look, and this time, she knew she wasn't playing fair as she asked, "Please? For me?"

Angel's eyebrows flew up and his forehead crinkled as he considered his options. After a brief moment, he shrugged and bent over to pick up his towel. Quickly drying off his chest and arms, he wrapped it around his waist, wincing slightly as the fabric brushed against his erection. Brennan smirked at noting his discomfort and disappeared into her bedroom, leaving him standing awkwardly in front of her mirror, gazing into it with a sigh. It'd been 170 years, more or less, since he'd seen his own face. His visage cast no reflection, whether in a fine mirror, a window, or a puddle of rainwater, and for a man who in his mortal days used to enjoy looking at his image, it had always left him feeling slightly unmoored. Angel wondered what he actually looked like now, after twenty-odd years of feeding, not on the human blood that had sustained him and been the source of his endless youth and strength since Darla had sired him in 1753, but on the blood of animals, most of them small mammals, gutter-dwelling castoffs of human cities—the vampire equivalent of very poor table scraps.

Angel was still standing there, staring at his non-existent reflection in the mirror, when Brennan walked back in with an old, threadbare bedsheet folded over her arm and a comb and pair of scissors in her other hand. His forehead creased in an expression of worry as he watched her set the comb and scissors down on the counter, nudge him out of the way, and place the half-folded bedsheet on the tile floor in front of the counter before walking back into the bedroom. She picked up her backless wrought-iron vanity chair and brought it into the bathroom, set it on top of the sheet, and gestured for him to sit down. He looked up at her with a wide-eyed, pouty-lipped puppy dog expression as he took his seat.

"Relax, Angel," she said, standing in front of him and leaning back against the counter as she threaded her fingers through his damp, shoulder-length hair. "I'm not going to hurt you. But, this hairstyle of yours has been out of fashion since at least the Napoleonic Wars, hmm? You have such handsome features, and it's a pity to hide them with with this..." She ran her fingers through his hair again and smiled. "Now, you trusted me enough to draw a lethally sharp blade over your jugular veins. Surely you trust me enough to cut your hair." She quirked an eyebrow as she began to untangle his hair with a boxwood comb. "It's not like you're going to venture out during the daylight hours to visit a proper barber shop," she added. "Or, I daresay, you would've done that long before now, hmmm?"

"My hair's just fine," he grumbled in mild complaint, more than a little annoyed at being told how to wear his hair and being even more annoyed because he knew she was right. "I was gonna do something about it, you know, but I, uhh—"

Brennan rolled her eyes as she reached for the scissors and, pulling a hank of his dark brown hair straight, swiftly cut it away. "I'm not shaving your whole head," she said with a soft chuckle. "You act as if I'm going to give you a tonsure. Don't worry. I won't." She pulled another strand taut and drew the scissors along the edge of the comb as the dark, wet hair fell onto the sheet that covered the floor. "Besides, since you can't see yourself in the mirror anyway, you'll just have to take my word for it, won't you? I promise, sweetness, that you'll look even more handsome than you already do when I'm done with you. I'm not claiming to be an expert barber, but I do know a little about fashion, okay? I won't lead you astray. So, as you did before, trust me, hmmm?"

Angel thumbed the smooth skin of his freshly-shaved chin and sighed in a final reluctant acceptance of her terms. "Okay," he agreed. "Just...don't make me look like an idiot, okay? I'm trusting you..." His voice trailed off into an unintelligible grumble.

"Good," she said with a firm nod as she continued to comb out his long hair.

She then lifted the scissors and began to cut, shortening his hair, hank by hank, until most of its length was gone. Then she proceeded to cut it even closer, cutting it to barely a quarter inch over his ears and around the back, but leaving more length on the top, knowing that he would be frustrated if he couldn't run his fingers through his hair as she'd observed was a nervous habit of his. Besides, more selfishly, she wanted to leave a bit of length on top so she would have something to thread her fingers through when she kissed him. The thought of having him near her again—finally, after so many years not knowing what had become of him, or whether he'd finally met his fate at the end of a wooden stake—filled her with a feeling of warmth and optimism that, frankly, she hadn't felt in a very, very long time. She worked quickly, unable to suppress a grin as each snip seemed to reveal more and more of the sharp-hewn, rugged manliness of his features. It reminded her of pruning an overgrown rosebush—by cutting away the weaker and less sightly bits, the whole of the plant would be made stronger and allowed eventually to grow and thrive. At last, Brennan drew the comb through his hair, trying to pick up any stray bits she might have missed. Angel raised his eyes and met hers as she set the comb and scissors on counter with a loud clank. He slid the vanity chair back as he stood up, bringing his hands to rest on her hips as he leaned in close to her, his warm brown eyes darkening as his pupils pulsed in interest as he drank in the sight and smell of her.

"Better?" he asked with a smile, brushing his lips across hers before pulling away.

"Yes," she replied, her voice low and husky. "Very much so. Particularly, because you deserved a new look, I think. You're not the man you used to be, it's true. But, you're better now than who you used to be. Different, yes, but better, too. And, you deserve to look like the you you are now, if you know what I mean. Not the you you used to be."

Angel narrowed his eyes and blinked, silent for a moment as he considered her words, then nodded. "Do you like the me I am now?" he asked with a nervous swallow.

Brennan paused for a moment and then and then reached out to clasp one of his hands. Intertwining her slender fingers through his bony ones, she brought their joined hands to her cheek and then tilted her head until she could reach his hand with her lips. Pressing a light kiss to the part of his hand that was visible, she then rubbed her cheek against his hand in a light caress.

When she was done, she lowered their still interlaced fingers and said in a soft voice, "I've liked the man you were, I very much like the man you are, and I think I shall always like any man you will become in the future. Who you were doesn't matter so much as who and what you are to me when you're with me, Angel. I know it may be a very selfish and self-centered take on things, but it's how I've always felt...or, forced myself to feel about you, I suppose. All that matters is the here and now—the time that we can enjoy and spend in one another's company. What came before or what might come later...none of that matters for us. So, to answer your question, then, yes, I like the you you are right now...very much so."

He paused to consider her words and then said in a gravelly voice, "You're both a very confusing and very beguiling creature, lass."

"Mmmm," she said as she squeezed his hand as she pressed her body up against his. "Does that mean I've confused you too much to beguile you to follow me back into my bedroom?"

He answered her with a simple grin that let her know he'd follow her anywhere in that moment.

Brennan tugged his hand and led him into her bedroom, then turned to face him as they stood by the side of her four-poster cherry bed. The room was warm and inviting. The fire that she'd conjured in the wide fireplace on the wall opposite from where the large king-sized bed crackled quite cheerily. The various taper and pillar candles that she'd lit cast a golden hue over the entire room, and the faint smell of the vanilla-scented candles perfumed the air. The dark blue velvet duvet comforter was turned back to reveal cream-colored flannel sheets while small piles of plump white feather pillows sat stacked on either side of the bed. The picture was completed when Brennan gave a sharp flick of her wrist, a small ball of blue electricity flew to the opposite side of the room, and a heavy Roman shade was pulled over the window to shut out the howling winds, the building snow drifts, and the bitter cold that was so dangerous and could've have been dangerous to them both if it hadn't been for more than a slight bit of luck—or fate, depending on which one of them you'd asked—that had put them both in the same place at the same time so their paths could cross once more.

Angel blinked at the now covered window and was about to open his mouth to say something when Brennan reached over and curled her fingers beneath his chin so that she could gently guide his gaze back to meet hers.

"Eyes here, Angel," she said with a slight teasing in her voice. "Lest you want me to use a bit of my magic to have to get your attention again."

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, he frowned and said, "You're not tying me up again."

"Then pay attention to me," she said, as she let her hands fall to his hips. She tugged at the towel that was wrapped loosely around his waist. "Pay attention to me so that I can pay attention to you, hmmm?" She let the damp towel fall to the ground with a muffled thud. Bringing his hands to her hips, she said in a rough voice, "Undress me."

"Gladly," he whispered as he felt her hands fall away, and he moved one hand off of one of her hips.

He reached for the large loop that she'd tied the belt of her robe into and slowly pulled the tie loose. He felt the silkiness of the black satin belt slide over his fingers, and when he pulled it free, he licked his lips as he saw the first glimpse of her creamy skin revealed before him. The robe hung loosely on her body, both concealing and revealing him to her in all her impressive female beauty. He heard her draw a sharp breath as his eyes skated over the ribbon of skin that was visible, the paleness of her body visible in a line from the top of her breastbone, down the curve that ran between the swell of her breasts, across the taut line of her stomach, and ending just above the apex of her mons, covered as it was in neatly trimmed auburn curls.

He couldn't help himself as his other hand moved from her hip and dipped inside the robe. He used his fingertips to reach for the short curls that had been trimmed into a different style than he'd been used to seeing when he glanced at the hair that crowned her wet folds. As he twirled his fingertips in the silky but coarse hair, he heard her suck in another deep breath.

Angel chuckled slightly as he said, "You've changed this since the last time we bedded."

"Yes," she said in a tight voice, constrained as it was with a rapidly increasing arousal that she felt at the mere flicker of his eyes and the soft touch of his fingertips. "I have...just a bit," she gasped. "It's considered more American. More modern, too. And, I like it. So, you see, sweetness, you're not the only one who's changed since last we saw each other...in more ways than one"

He gave her a lopsided grin as he said, "I think I like it."

"Mmmm," she moaned as he moved the palm of his hand to cup her hot sex. "Oh, God—Angel..."

"And I think I like the fact that you haven't changed this part even more," he told her as he moved his thumb towards the bottom of her already wet slit.

He dipped his thumb in between her folds, and moved upwards in a motion that began to part her from bottom to top. She hissed lightly when the pad of his calloused thumb reached the top of her labia, having dragged drops of her body's moisture with him as he moved. She arched her hips forward a bit when he moved his thumb to her already swollen clit and began to rub it in furious, if consistent, circles along its outer circumference. As he moved, he was glad he'd gathered what moisture he could as it made his touch even more slippery and maddening in what he knew was a pleasurable way for her. He hadn't been touching her for very long when he felt her body shudder as she moaned his name in a loud and breathy gasp. She collapsed against his body, and a goofy smile broke across his face as he realized how quickly she'd responded and come under his knowing touch.

"Good," she breathed in his ear. "So very good."

"That didn't take much," he observed wryly. "You went quick."

"Yes," she murmured. "I did. But, you've always done that to me. I don't know why you expected now to be any different."

"The more things change, the more they stay the same, hmmm?" he asked her with a smile as he let his hands fall away from her warm folds, despite the fact that she made a vague whimper of protestation at the loss of contact. He tried to soften her loss by leaning forward and pressing his lips to hers in a soft kiss. The kiss started out gentle, his chapped lips coasting softly over her delicately soft ones. He wanted to draw things out and give her time to build steadily towards a significant climax again, and so tried to begin to bank the embers of her desire with his kiss. However, in that moment, Brennan wanted none of his patience. She was greedy for the taste of him once more, and so she tried to accelerate the speed with which his lips pressed against hers. Her tongue was the first to bridge the gap between them as it darted out from the wet, warm confines of her mouth. She lightly pressed her mouth against his, letting her tongue attempt to pry his wet lips apart as a first step in laying siege to his defenses. After a moment of token protest, he welcomely granted her the access she so craved. The two bodies pressed even more tightly against one another as Brennan felt his tongue twirl around hers, she pushing her breath into his mouth as an involuntary reaction when she gasped in response to feeling him press his swollen erection against the softness of her thigh. He nudged her legs apart before he guided them across the few steps that separated them from the bed. He stopped them only long enough to pull away from the kiss so that he could raise his hands and push the loose robe from her shoulders. It fell to the ground in a silky whoosh as the fabric pooled at her feet. Angel gave her another grin before he pressed into her once again, using his hand to steady her descent as she fell onto the bed, and he quickly covered his body with hers.

Brennan had always considered herself rather adroit when it came to how far she could push her body in this way or twist it in that direction. One of the things she prided herself on was knowing her limits and always working to surpass them to make herself stronger. As the twentieth century had dawned, she'd spent a fair amount of her time divided between the library and lecture halls of Northwestern University and active field work in places as widely traveled as from Egypt to central Mexico to the Emirate of Afghanistan. The time she divided between honing her mental skills and maintaining her body's fit tone and lithe flexibility had resulted in her becoming what she believed to be a fairly well-balanced individual. However, in that moment as Angel pressed his body onto hers, Brennan was quite pleased that she was strong enough not only to keep up with his movements, but to match him each time and time again as he continued to lead their dance in a way that demonstrated that he'd seemingly found enough confidence to take finally take the lead with her.

As she scooted towards the middle of the bed, Angel quickly pressed forward on his hands and knees, not letting her get more than a few inches away from him before he caught up to her again.

"Where do you think you're going?" he chuckled as he grabbed her hip with his fingertips and squeezed.

Brennan gave him a lopsided grin and then said with a chuckle, "Not very far."

"Damn straight," he grunted before he nudged her legs apart with his knee, scooted closer to her, and then leaned down to grasp her mouth with his in a greedy kiss. He closed his eyes as he lost himself in the warm, sweet taste of her mouth, a low hum sounding from deep in his chest as he pressed his hips against hers in a gesture that belied his self-control. "God, I've missed you," he whispered as he pulled his mouth from hers. He gazed into her heavy-lidded blue eyes and returned her lazy grin as he admired the way the skin of her shoulders and chest had suddenly flushed a delicious pink.

"Have you now?" she asked breathlessly as he thrust his aroused flesh against her thigh.

Angel narrowed his eyes and smirked, dipping his head down as he began to lay a series of soft, slightly sucking kisses along her collarbone. "Yes," he whispered. "I thought about you...all the time...over the years..." Brennan arched her back and sighed as his lips moved lower and began to deposit wetter kisses as he migrated to the space between her breasts. His words came haltingly, interrupted by his seemingly irresistible urge to cover every bit of her ivory skin with his mouth. "Even...if I tried not to...I still..." He brushed his dry lips across the round swell under one of her breasts and his tongue darted out to flick along the edge of her nipple. "I still thought about you all the time...you were the only good thing I could look back on..." He twirled his tongue around the hard point of her nipple and smiled at the way she moaned in response. "Sometimes...when the memories would come...I'd force myself to think of you, and..." He took a breath and turned his head, closing his lips around her other nipple and sucking it firmly for a few seconds before releasing it. "I'd think about the way you felt...the way you tasted...the way you'd sounded..." He drew another long, hard suck, his lips forming a smile around her flesh as she groaned at the sensations.

Brennan sighed as she felt his lips finally release her nipple, hissing a little at the sudden loss of contact but relaxing again into his touch as his lips continued to work their way down to her belly. "Inside me," she grunted as Angel's hands slid down her side, over her round hip and along the outside of her thighs. "Please," she begged through gritted teeth. "You have all the time in the world to work me over however you want, sweetness, but now? I need you inside of me, Angel. Now. Please." She brought her eyes to meet his and her mouth gaped open slightly as she noted the gleam in his dark brown eyes. "Right damn now."

Angel lowered his head and kissed her belly, then raised his gaze as he read the bright flash in her blue eyes. "I..."

"Now," she sighed, reaching down and closing her fingers around his wrists, tugging on his arms as she tried to pull his attention back to what she wanted so desperately.

Angel arched an eyebrow, then shook his head very slightly as he dismissed a silent flicker of doubt and moved back over her, leaning into his hands as he took a couple of moments to savor the way she looked, her skin deeply flushed with want, and her breasts, their taut nipples glistening with his saliva, swaying slightly as her chest heaved with ragged breaths.

"Yes," he said quietly as he positioned himself exactly where he'd always wanted to be—between her thighs—and reaching between his legs, he gave himself a couple of stiff tugs before he leaned in and held himself at her entrance. His keen nostrils filled with the musky smell of her desire and, after swiping his swollen tip along the length of her slippery folds a couple of times, he knew she was more than ready for him. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but in that moment no words of any gravity came to him, so he drew his hips back, leaned forward and pressed into her, throwing his head back, his eyes clenched shut as he felt her open up for him like a flower.

"Oh, Angel," she moaned as he pushed his way into her, inch by tortuous inch, until he was seated all the way to the hilt inside of her. Brennan reached her hands around and palmed his ass, which despite his somewhat gaunt appearance, was still muscular and grabbable. Pressing her fingertips into his flesh, she thrust her hip up into his to encourage him to move.

After a few moments, the heavy fog that had clouded Angel's mind in the wake of being inside of her again after a quarter century finally seemed to clear, and as he felt her warm, silky folds enveloped around him, he furrowed his brow low over his eyes, tucked his chin against his chest and began to move. He drew his hips back, wincing slightly as he pulled out of her, then thrust forward with a soft grunt and entered her again, driving into her harder than he had the first time as he buried himself balls-deep into her. He withdrew again, and rocked into her again as a low growl sounded deep in his chest. He kneaded his lips between his teeth as he moved, slowly at first, each stroke coming harder and faster on the heels of the one before as he began to surge into her, sending himself as deep into her as he could, helped in no small part by the way she met each of his strokes with one of her own.

"Ohhhh," he moaned. "Fuck, you feel good—ohhh!"

With each stroke, Angel felt the tingle at the base of his spine grow stronger and more insistent, and while it had been a long time since he'd been with her, he remembered well the way his release would creep up on him. He rocked his hips back and forth, his cool skin feeling almost hot with the heat that rolled off of her as he watched her closed eyes flutter open, and he knew by the subtle, fleeting flash of bright azure in her eyes that she was close.

"Ohhhh, Angel," she sighed, letting go of his ass and bringing her hands up to cup his jaw between her palms as she pulled him in for a kiss.

Their mouths crashed together and her tongue slid into his mouth, arcing across his tongue in a long, wet swipe as she sought to fill the inside of his mouth with her the way he had filled her completely with each hard, rolling stroke. She felt herself tighten around him as the coil of arousal that had been building in the pit of her belly tensed and she began to free-fall, no longer able to discern the feeling of the bed beneath her as all of her senses seemed to collapse into the singular sensation of him driving into her. The air around her suddenly seemed charged with particles of energy, and she felt the hair on her arms and the back of her neck stand on end when the edges of her vision flashed a bright blue.

"Ohhhh," she moaned as she pushed him away gently and broke their kiss. "Ohhh... ohhhhh... ohhhhh...nnngthh!" Her back arched off the mattress as she clenched around him and shattered, a long breathy sigh passing between her lips as she fluttered around his hard flesh as he continued to drive into her, slowing his own movements only for a moment as he watched her eyes flicker and her face slacken as her release took her.

The faint blue glow that had begun to surround them in the last moments before her orgasm pulsed bright as she broke, and Angel felt the energy of her release prick at his skin as her warm, wet folds tightened and then gently quivered around him. He managed to hold himself together for a few more strokes before the crackle of blue electricity arced between them again and heralded the moment that he, too, fractured. He felt himself spilling into her as he jerked into her one last time, sending himself as deeply into her as he could and holding himself there as his hot come pulsed into her.

"Ohhh, lass," he sighed, calling her in the moment of his release by the endearment he reserved only for her. "Ohhhh..."

Angel leaned his head back and closed his eyes as the last lazy pulse of his orgasm faded and he felt a feeling of warm heaviness fall over him. He held himself over her, gazing admiringly at the soft smile that broke across her flushed face as she watched him descend from the peak of his release. He glanced down at where they were joined and grinned in quiet satisfaction, then winced slightly as his softening flesh slipped out of her. He rolled off of her and onto his back, folding his hands behind his head as he wondered at how it seemed everything had changed for him in the matter of just a few hours.

After a moment, Brennan felt a slight pang of regret when he rolled off of her. She quickly shifted onto her side so that she was facing him across the expanse of her large four-poster bed as her breathing returned to normal.

Hesitantly, she reached out and let her fingertips lightly touch his shoulder. "What is it?" she asked, her voice taking on an unusually tender hint as she spoke.

Looking over at her for a minute, Angel shook his head gently. "It's strange," he said quietly. "Wonderful, but strange, after all this time, to just feel...I don't know, Brennan, it's—well, I don't know how to explain it. I don't think I've ever felt the way I feel right now, and I'm not quite certain what to make of it."

She was quiet for another moment and then said with a soft sigh, "That's what fucking with a soul does to you. You feel...everything. All at once...for both good and bad. It's...well...Angel, I'm sure you experienced this before, it's just been so long that you've probably forgotten."

"Well," he said, a smile coming to him as he thought about the servant girl he'd gone after in his father's house, right before he was thrown out, just weeks before he met Darla. The trail of the memory soured his smile. "No—I mean, yes, I suppose, maybe."

"Maybe?" Brennan asked with a curious arch of her dark eyebrow.

"It's just that I can't help feeling as if it's more than that somehow," he told her.

Brennan considered his words for a minute. "You've spent a lot of the time out in the cold, sweetness," she said. "You've been alone, hungry, sad, and starved in more ways than one, I think—not just for blood, although I think that's a part of it. You've been starved for attention and affection and warmth." She stopped for a moment before she added, "Going from living a life of want...where you get what you want and know you're wanted in return, it's no small thing, Angel. Believe me, I know."

He was quiet for a minute, and then he reached out, sliding an arm underneath her body before he pulled her towards him. He pulled her close, shifting a bit so that he was partially lying on his side, letting his arms wrap lightly around her back. Cradling her in his arms, he whispered, "I don't like to see you sad."

She smiled at his simple statement and then reached out and placed a light kiss on his lips. "I'm not sad," she said. "Honestly. I feel many things right now, but sadness isn't one of them."

He stared deeply into her eyes and then asked, "What are you feeling, lass?"

"I'm feeling..." her voice trailed off and then she cracked a smile as she said, "Wanted. Very, very wanted."

"Aye?" he asked.

"Mmmm hmmmm," she murmured. "I do. And, it feels very, very good."

"I'm glad," he said. "I'm very glad that you feel that way because so do I. And, you're right. It feels very good to want and to be wanted."

He shifted slightly so that she could mold her body against the curve of his torso in a way that she'd come to show a marked preference for over the years.

They were quiet for a moment, enjoying the peace and warmth that came with being able to enjoy one another's company. As Brennan pressed herself against his cool, smooth skin, she sighed again, a small breathy whisper that almost seemed like a purr.

After another moment, she said, "Angel?"

"Mmmm?"

"I think I'm glad I found you this night," she told him. "Very glad."

"Me, too," he said. He paused and then said, "You know, I don't think...well, it's hard to explain, since you've never been without a soul, but..."

Angel felt Brennan tense at his words. He was slightly taken aback when he heard her say, "You might be surprised."

He shook his head, his eyebrows knitting low over his dark brown eyes as he struggled to make sense of her words. "Huh?" he murmured, caught more than a bit off-guard by her remark. Angel reached his arm across and stroked his finger over the smooth skin of her upper arm. He thought about her comment, puzzling at what she might possibly have meant, since she was fully human—at least, of a type, so far as he knew—and always had been, and therefore could not possibly any notion of what it was like to live soullessly as he had. "What?"

Brennan was quiet for a few seconds and then Angel felt her body relax as she said, "It's nothing."

"You sure?"

"Yes," she said, snuggling against him. "Go on. You were saying?"

"It's just that...well, I just don't think I've ever actually felt this happy, you know? Even before, before I was turned...you know, when I had a soul before...I don't think it was ever anywhere close to feeling this...how I feel when I'm with you. I was with women, messed around, got drunk, played around, had a lot of fun. But it never felt this way. I was never...well...this...not negative." He shrugged and blushed. "That probably sounds stupid."

She considered his words as a slight tingling made the hair on the back of her neck stand straight up on end.

She closed her eyes for a minute, and it was almost as if she felt a tugging at the edges of her mind when she reached out and felt her consciousness wash over Angel's essence. As she did so, her throat went dry as she suddenly realized that when she touched upon the taint left on him by the Kalderash Gypsies, there was an explanation as to why she'd felt so strange since she'd encountered him in the alley. While it was difficult to describe the feel and experience of encountering the Gypsy magicks that had cursed him with a soul, she finally realized that she could also feel a small bit of her own powers that had already sought out some of the more caustic edges of the curse and begun work in trying to soften them. It was almost as if her powers were working to keep something at bay, to keep something powerfully negative from happening. And, as the strands of her powers intermingled with the Gypsy magic, she somehow knew that if what had just transpired between the two of them had happened with any other person but her, without her powers something drastic would've transpired. As she grappled with the implications of her thoughts, she felt a knot tighten in the pit of her stomach since she knew it could mean only one thing.

Oh, God, she whispered, as she tried to make sense of what her subconscious had apparently done with her having realized it to this point. What...what have I done?

The small, almost imperceptible knot of her own powers intermingling with the magicks that clung to him, she knew, could only happen if one thing had started to happen.

Oh, God—that's it, she suddenly realized. That's...he's it. He's the one. He's...that's—it's the only explanation. There's only one reason why this would happen. Like this. Here. Now. With him. I mean, it can't be coincidence, right? There are no such things. After twenty-five years, what are the odds that we'd just find our ways back to one another, unless there was a reason, a purpose to it all? How else could I find him on tonight of all nights? I don't know how this could be, but ...I think, yes, I think it is. It makes sense. It—he—us. It makes sense.

She paused as she shifted slightly and raised her fingers to caress a random spot on his chest.

But, wait, she thought. He's already been through so much. I can't...we can't. That is, not unless he agrees. It can't happen...I have to find someway to stop it until he knows. He has to know and realize exactly what he's getting into here. He has to make the choice himself. Free choice, free will. I won't have him take on this burden himself unless he chooses it. I can't make that decision for him. I won't. I won't hurt him like that. It's got to be him. But, oh, God...how do I even begin to tell him?

Lost in her thoughts, Brennan was quiet for an unusual amount of time.

Angel swallowed once, feeling a bit nervous at her prolonged silence and the way her once-supple form had tensed as she lay curled against him with her cheek resting on the damp skin of his chest. He turned his head, pressed a soft kiss against her forehead, then said quietly, "It's okay. I know it was silly."

Suddenly realizing how lost in her own thoughts she'd been, Brennan lifted her head from where she'd been resting it on his chest. She quickly replayed in her mind what Angel had just said and then slowly shook her head.

"It's not silly," she said, her voice quiet and more introspective than it had been just a few moments earlier. "It's just that—well, can I ask you a question?"

"Sure," he said as he pressed another light kiss to her forehead. "You can ask me anything you want."

Pressing her body against him once in a half-embrace, Brennan then rolled away from him so that she could face him better.

He arched an eyebrow as he watched her move and then said, "Uh oh."

"What?" she blinked at him, confusion clear on her face.

"It's just that it must be something serious if you're assuming the position," he said. He felt a bit lightheaded as he surveyed her face, suddenly overcome by a wave of doubt. Does she regret it? he wondered. What we've just done? Taking me in this night. Please, no. He pressed his lips together and sighed. I don't want her to regret anything. I want her to want me the way I want her—to feel for me the way I feel about her right now. He cocked his head to the side and watched her. If not regret, then what is it that has her so pale-faced and tense? What is it that suddenly has her so rattled? .

Brennan propped her head on top of her hand and then said, "It's not so bad. At least, I don't think it is."

"Okay," he nodded, some relief coming onto his concerned face. Thank God. "Then go ahead. Ask me anything."

She stared at his concerned brown eyes for a moment and then took a breath. She blinked a few times before she asked, "Why have you never, in all the times we've bedded, ever asked me about the blue light?" She chewed her lip for a minute before she added, "I know that you've noticed it. It's...well, I know it's not the sort of thing that one can miss...especially since it always happens—"

"Whenever we have sex," Angel said quietly, completing her sentence for her. He twisted his jaw as he considered what to say and then nodded slowly. "Yeah, I'd be lying if I said I hadn't noticed it."

"But, you've never brought it up," Brennan nodded at him.

"No," he conceded. "I didn't."

"Why not?" Brennan asked.

Angel rubbed his clean-shaven jaw with his thumb and nibbled the inside of his lip for a moment. "Well," he began. "At first, when everything was so new and...well, it was just so intense the first few months after the night at Covent Garden. You remember? I was driving myself crazy trying to keep Darla satisfied while trying to come up with some excuse to disappear for a bit—long enough so that I could get clean enough to not have to worry about you tossing my sorry ass over the balcony like you did that one time." He stopped for a minute, a wry smile tugging at his lips as he let the now humorous memory replay in his head even though, at the time, he remembered feeling anything but amusement. He looked at Brennan and said with a raised eyebrow, "Remember?"

"I remember," Brennan replied with a reflective nod. "I was so angry at you—not just because you were arrogant enough to think you could get one over on me, but that you had to audacity to think you could just stroll from some East End whore's bed to mine when your prick was still dripping from when you'd just swived some slut with it, and you expected me not only to tolerate it, but to be happy that you'd made time for me." She stopped, smiling at him in a slightly acerbic way, as she added, "Oh course, there was also the fact that I was pissed I had to kick you out of my bed, and we wouldn't be fucking any time soon once I'd done it." Brennan laughed a bit as she added, "I didn't particularly like that aspect of it, since it meant I wouldn't be getting off at your expense that night. But, of course, it wasn't like I had much of a choice in the matter. You needed to be taught a lesson. And, I knew that if I didn't do it that first time, you'd walk all over me from that point forward. So, I knew I needed to make a statement, and all in all, in the long-term, I think it was an effective lesson, hmmm?"

"Yes," he grumbled, reminded in that moment of how angry he'd been that she'd thought he needed to be put in his place and, perhaps even more aggravating, that she was the one to do it. He shook away the fleeting feeling of impassioned annoyance. "It was a lesson—one that I learned all too well," Angel said with a vague grin. He thought back to that night, how he'd shaken off the lingering soreness he'd felt after falling one and a half stories to the street below. "I was so pissed that night," he admitted. "And after you threw me out, I was pissed, and so fired up with an energy that I didn't know what to do with, that I went on a bit of an impromptu pub crawl in Whitechapel. I drank, but the drinking never took the edge off, being as I am, so I went a-fightin'. I picked fights with these guys in the pubs, just 'cause I had to do something with all that pent-up energy, and not being able to burn it off between the sheets with you as I'd planned, I..." He bit back a laugh and said, "Well, it's a wonder I didn't get tossed in the clink that night. But, in any case, I never made that mistake again, did I?"

"No," she said. "That you didn't. You made other ones, like shooting off that big mouth of yours, but I like to think that we got to a point that you were a bit more careful around me than you were with others."

"Oh, that I was, lass," he nodded with a faint grin. "Because I never knew when I was gonna black out and wake up with a thumpin' headache and naked while you dangled me from your ceiling like it was some kind of freakish rendition of Mistress Brennan's Lewd Puppet Hour." He frowned a bit as he added, "You know, that's one of the main reasons I never liked bringing up the whole magic bit with you because it always seemed whenever you used yours hocus pocus bag of tricks on me, I always ended up naked, tied up, and eventually begging you to let me fuck you."

"Now, wait a minute," Brennan chuckled a bit in feigned indignation. "You act like I was tying you up all the time like some grand Queen of the Tower's Torture Chamber. I wasn't that bad. I just had to do it every so often to make certain you didn't get any strange notions in your head about us and forget who I was, because we both know, if you did, you probably would've lost what little respect you had for me." She then gave him a bit of a lewd smile as she added, "Besides, it's not like I didn't eventually turn you loose, and then make certain you were amply rewarded for any time you spent restrained, hmmm?"

"True," Angel chuckled. "You always did reward me, it's true. You know that you're the only one who's ever gotten away with doing that to me." He paused, then said with a crooked grin, "And that was in part because I loved fucking you as much as I did, you know."

Brennan narrowed her eyes and smirked.

Seeing her smirk, Angel was reminded of how many nights he'd spent in her bed over the years. He mentally thumbed through his memories of the nights with her like a deck of cards, until he finally came to the last time he'd been in her arms, in 1898. From that point, he couldn't help himself as his mind quickly made the jump from the rather pleasant memory of the last time they'd bedded to what had come just a few days later. He felt a darkness wash over him as his mind was flooded with the memory of his last rampage in Romania, and the magic curse he met once it was over. His expression then got a bit more serious as he nodded to himself, jettisoning the traumatic memory and holding his silence for a few more moments before he continued.

"You know, Bren—like I was saying, you know...about your powers? Well, it just got to a point—even if I never would've told you this then—but I was just a tad bit nervous as to what might happen if the 'm' word came up. That made me bite my tongue and just, well, ignore it." He paused and then added, "Plus, on the rare occasions I thought of it, I was always fairly certain you'd tell me it was some witch's secret or something. You always seemed happy to tell me what your magic could do—especially what it could do to me if you were of half a mind to give me a demonstration—but, you never really mentioned how it worked. Since I didn't really like the whole magic thing that you had going on anyway, I didn't want to pry, I guess—so, you're right. I just kept my mouth shut."

"Were you...were you ever curious?" Brennan asked, her voice definitely not its normally confident tone as she asked him. When he gave her a strange look, she quickly amended, "I mean, just from a purely hypothetical point of view."

"About the light?" Angel asked. He thought about it for a minute and then nodded, "Well, yeah. Sure. I guess. I mean, it's...I've never experienced anything like that in my entire life...and I think we both know that's kinda saying something."

"Yes," Brennan nodded slowly. "It is."

"So...what does that mean?" Angel asked. "I mean, from a purely hypothetical point of view, since I know we're not talking about anything real." He paused as he tilted his head and added, "That is...we aren't, are we?"

Brennan's tongue darted out of her mouth and swiped across her bottom lip in an uncharacteristically nervous gesture. She quickly swallowed once as she responded, Well...what would you say if I said we were? Would...would that bother you?"

Angel was quiet for a minute and then he countered, "Should it bother me?" He held her gaze for a long minute.

Brennan then, in another unusual move, broke eye contact first before she answered his question. "I don't know, Angel," she sighed. "It's...it's very confusing to me. It's probably why I never felt comfortable about sharing such things with you...you know, as you used to be, back then? There was always a bit of dangerousness in your unpredictability. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that was one of the things I found most attractive about you from the very first time I ever saw you. But, from a perspective of giving you information that you could use to manipulate me if you wanted...well, I-I...I didn't trust you farther than I could throw you. Literally, as it were."

"I know that," he nodded at her. "It's okay, Bren. I wouldn't have trusted me back then either. So I understand completely why you always did keep me on a tight leash that way back then since you never told me more than you wanted to. In any case, at some point, early on, I stopped asking." He paused, offering her a faint smile, then continued. "Besides, at some level, to be honest, I didn't really care. That ol' me—he was more or less just about getting under your skirts." Despite the seriousness of the current turn of their conversation, he couldn't help himself as he gave her a wink and added, "Of course, the new me doesn't mind that last bit, if you know what I mean." He waggled his eyebrows at her to emphasize his point. "As a matter of fact, I rather like it."

"Well, that's hardly surprising," Brennan laughed in spite of herself. "You always did."

Thankful that he'd been able to dispel some of her own anxiety, she leaned in and kissed him again. She couldn't help it, really. Her head began to swim as he tried to deepen the kiss. On the edge of losing what little ability she'd managed to piece together in the afterglow of their tryst, Brennan knew she wasn't going to last long. It was only when she felt the swarthy velvet of his tongue twist in her mouth that she knew she needed to act before they crossed a point of no return, i.e., before she lost the ability to remember the very important point they needed to discuss. After a minute, she reluctantly pulled away from him.

"Mmmm," she sighed in happy contentment. "That was good—"

"I think so, too," he said, eagerly leaning towards her, following after her even as she tried to put a bit of distance between them. "Very good. But I think we can do better, Bren. In fact, I know we can."

He reached towards her and started to nuzzle into her neck with a low hum. She tilted her head so that it was pressed against the softness of his newly cut hair, a small purr in the back of her throat the only thing that pulled her back into the land of rationality once more.

"Angel," she whispered, her voice wistful and reluctant as she reveled in his touch.

"What?" he murmured against her soft skin.

"Wait," she told him. "For just a minute—"

"Why?" he asked, even as he leaned closer to her and made it clear he had no intention of doing what she'd asked of him.

"Because," she moaned, arched her back as he moved his lips down her neck, across her shoulder, and towards her upthrust breast. "I need to tell you something, but I can't do it if I can't think, and I can't think straight with you doing that thing you're doing to my tit with your tongue—ohhhhh...."

He grinned as he released the hold he had on her nipple. "Then don't think."

"But, I—"

"Come on, Bren," he whispered. "I need you."

"You just had me," she moaned, amazed at the feelings of want he was able to evoke in her despite the fact that she'd already shattered twice in the past hour

"Doesn't matter," he said through a half-lick/half-kiss of the bottom swell of her left breast. "It's not enough. It's never enough."

"Oooohhhh," she groaned. "You are so not being fair..."

"So sorry," he muttered as he lifted his head towards hers and flashed her another cheeky grin. "But, I think I've caught my second wind, and I don't want to take the chance and see it go to waste."

Arching an eyebrow at him, she quickly grabbed his shoulder and used what leverage she could to pull him towards the middle of the bed. After a minute or two of scuffling, the pair burst out into a fit of laughter when Brennan landed on top of him.

"Now," she gasped, for breath. "Why is it that I always have your best attention when I've got you pinned underneath me?"

"Hmmmm," he murmured. "I'm gonna hazard a guess that it's because I'm a man. Even though I'm a vampire, I'm still a man. You have my most undivided attention when you're on top of me, and I'm staring up at your wonderful bosom." His eyes locked on her pert nipples. He then, without lifting his gaze to meet hers, asked, "Wait, what were we talking about?" He laughed as she squeezed her knees into his sides and finally drew his stare to meet hers. Raising his head again, he tried to seek out her mouth with his. But, knowing how important it was to discuss the thought that had just occurred to her, Brennan used every ounce of willpower she had to turn her head away from his kiss.

"No," she whispered. "That is, not...not until we've...I need to tell you something, Angel."

"But—" he pleaded. "I want you, Bren. I have to have you. And I thought that you...that is...we could—" His voice trailed off as he made a face and then added, his voice nearly a whine, "But I let you cut my hair. And you said after we were finished that we could—"

"We can," she nodded at him.

He smiled a toothy grin at her as he lifted his shoulders up off the bed a bit to reach for her mouth with his before he said, "Great."

"No," she repeated, this time her voice a bit more firm. He again gave her a slightly hurt look. "That is, not yet. I need ten minutes—" He quirked an eyebrow at her, and she nodded. "After that, once we've talked, if you still want to see what we can do with that second wind of yours, I promise, I'm all yours."

Realizing he was caught, Angel pulled away from her with a sigh. "Okay," he muttered. "I don't...like...it. But I guess I don't really have...much of a choice. So, okay. You've got your ten minutes. Now, what do you need to tell me?"

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~tbc~

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A/N2- So, of course, since this is a dharmasera piece, you didn't think it was going to end without at least one evil cliffhanger, did you? Again, there's good news and there's bad news...and again, it's the same. Part III will resolve the question as to just what type of confession Brennan needs to make for Angel...and it will be posting tonight as we wrap up our conclusion to the Day of Comfort. Until then, if you're of a mind, we'd love to hear of what you thought of both Parts I & II...and we've been told writing a review or two does help to pass the time. Many thanks in advance!