December 4th, 1996. Harris Residence, Sunnydale. Midnight.

"Xander?"

He ignored the voice.

"Xander, please. We need to talk."

"I got nothing to say to you."

Angel appeared outside the window, his head bowed. "No, but I have a lot to say to you. I...I'm sorry for not telling you. I was afraid."

Xander whipped around, angry. "Yeah? Afraid of what? From what I can tell, you got nothing to fear from the boogeyman, seeing as you're it."

"Xander, please. I was afraid you'd hate me. I...I made a mistake. You're all I have, don't you realize that?"

"Yeah? Until you get hungry, you mean." Okay, the bitterness wasn't his thing. He was way too good at it.

"I would never hurt you." Angel still wasn't looking directly at him. "I...look, I'm not...I'm not like them."

Xander stared him right in the face, but not moving closer. "Looks like them to me."

Angel winced. "I...okay. I was born Liam O'Connor in Galway, Ireland. In the 18th century. I was turned a few days after my twenty-fifth birthday by one of the worst vampires to walk the Earth until then, and I quickly took that dubious honor for myself. Until about a hundred years ago."

Xander snorted. "What, you joined AA?"

"No. I killed the wrong girl. I was an arrogant monster, and figured nobody could touch me. I was wrong. Her family, they...they cursed me. Gave me back my soul."

Xander stared at him, eyes narrowed. "How do I know you're telling me the truth here?"

"You don't. And I understand if you don't want to see me again after tonight. It's just, you need to know. I managed to convince them to leave you and your friends alone, for now. Kill enough of them and even they can see reason. But you can't trust a vampire. They'll either find a loophole or just break the truce when it fits them."

"Oh yeah? But I can trust you, is that it?"

"No. Especially not me." He sat down on the thick, low-slung pine branch that went past the window. "The curse is...it's not perfect. Every curse needs an out, a breaking condition. If the gypsies who cursed me were smart, they would have set the condition to one that would always torture the demon in me, like only to break if I got dusted. Instead they set it to break if I ever stopped suffering. A moment of true happiness."

"...like?"

"Well, roughly sixteen years ago I found brief happiness with a woman I had once loved. That same night I turned her into a vampire and went on a rampage through the country, hunting down the people who cursed me. I did...terrible things. They managed to curse me again, but the damage was done. And now I know that I can't ever be truly happy, or the monster I was comes right back out again."

"Oh. So, uh, if-"

"There's always a risk. I've put in some safety precautions, just in case, and they're holding for now. But if I ever suddenly start acting all cocksure and mean, that's him. Not me. And if that happens, you need to kill me."

Xander fell back onto his bed, stunned. "K-kill..?"

"Yeah. I'm serious, Xander. Angelus is one of the worst monsters to walk the Earth in the past three centuries. They called me the Scourge of Europe. Me and my sidekicks."

"You had sidekicks?"

"Yeah. Darla, my sire. She usually kept to the background, she was the long term planner, generally. Drusilla was...my greatest shame. I turned her myself, after driving her insane. She's a powerful psychic, can see the future, or futures, I'm not sure how that works. She can also hypnotize people, just like my grandsire. And last, Spike, Drusilla sired him. He was the most brutal of us, he lived for fighting and torture."

"Oh." This was too much. Too weird. "So, uh, why are you-"

"I...you're important. To me. You're a descendant of my family, one of the last. If anything happens to you..."

"Right." Somehow, he didn't quite believe the reason. "So...what now?"

"Now? Either we part ways here, and you live your life in the daytime. I'll try to keep them off your back as long as possible. Or I continue training you to fight, and maybe some day you can hold your own long enough to get away the next time."

Trust. It was a two-way street, wasn't it? Angel trusted him not to use this knowledge against him. Xander had to trust Angel not to eat him. "...okay. We train. But, uh, we keep to mornings, okay? And not tomorrow, I'm already up late as it is."

Angel nodded. "Sure. And...for whatever it's worth, I'm sorry."

"Yeah."

.

.

Sunnydale High. March 10th, 1997.

So there he was, showing off on his new longboard. He rarely skated these days, but dance lessons and Aikido classes helped in getting the balance right, and he was pretty good at it, he had to admit.

Not that anyone cared. Jesse said skateboards were passé, Willow thought he would break something every time he used it. But it beat riding a bike to school. Besides, he was pretty sure he could outrun a vamp on one.

So weird, knowing that the monsters under the bed were really real. Even months later, it freaked him out.

Jesse was nagging him about Spring Fling. It was obvious that Jesse was gonna ask Cordelia, and get shot down. Again. As for Xander...he didn't know who to ask. He didn't want to ask Willow, because hey, best friend, even if...even if he was kind of starting to see her differently lately. But he didn't really know any girls. And girls didn't like him. Jesse was nuts, claiming girls checked Xander out regularly. Not that he ever saw, and he couldn't just walk up to, like, Amy Madison at random and ask her out. Though Amy was cute now that she had lost weight.

...man, that was shallow thinking.

Besides, Amy was acting weird lately. She'd never been the sporty type before, but now all she talked about was cheerleading. Not to mention that Spring Fling was still months away.

And whoop, onto the sidewalk. He dodged the walking kids, even a guy riding his bike. It was easy if you could dodge one of Angel's punches. Though now he wondered how much the guy held back.

Rollin, rollin, rollin' on the sidewalk.

"Excuse me, comin' through, watch it, pardon me, hey Billy, nice hat. Whoa, Julie the truly beautiful, check you out!" He grinned at Julia Wu. She was kinda cute. Hey, if there were any girls out there for him, they could show up now. Or now. How about now? Now. Or now. Maybe...now. Now?

Eh.

A glimpse of blonde hair.

He turned his head automatically to look.

Short. Cute. Nose was a little pointy, but in a cute way. Long, blonde hair, green eyes.

Whoa.

New gir-

There was a clang, a sharp pain in his forehead, and then everything spun around.

He lay on the ground, blinking the stars out of his eyes. "Ow."

.

.

End Genesis

Continued in Pneuma