Disclaimer: I don't own Angel, Alice, or all related characters; you know the drill.

Feedback: I'd appreciate it

AN: I present to you my take on the events of "Why We Fight" (The flashback portions of it, anyway, since for obvious reasons I can't feature Lawson's return to Angel's life in the present); hope you like it

Angels with Bloody Teeth

As Angel and Alice sat in their current apartment- it was relatively basic, but with housing concerns the way they were they preferred the simplicity of an apartment over the complications of something more private-, Angel sipping at a glass of blood while Alice just read her latest novel as music played in the background, they had to admit that they weren't that badly off by the standards of the time.

Their current residence wasn't as comfortable as it could be, but given that the war effort meant that space was a luxury few people could afford, neither of them had felt entirely right taking a larger flat that would have offered more in the way of creature comforts when Angel had tolerated worse conditions and Alice didn't need to actually sleep in the first place. As it was, the hotel staff didn't ask too many questions about why Angel wasn't enlisted- they generally exploited Angel's natural reluctance to talk with too many people to claim-without-saying that he had been injured in some way that rendered him unfit for long-term military duty-, and Alice's presence with him was also tolerated without too many questions being raised.

Even Alice had been surprised at how quickly events had degenerated into war after Hitler had put his plans into action- the choices that had led to these events had happened too quickly for her to clearly follow them in her visions, particularly since so many people had tried to appease him-, which had been one of the reasons she'd decided to start spending a few weeks away from Angel to better 'experiment' with her ability. They had speculated at times that Alice's inability to properly 'see' Angel's future might have affected her powers, but they had never been confident enough in Alice's ability to last on her own without succumbing to her instincts before now; the length of time since her last 'slip-up' had been more than enough for Angel to feel that she was ready to go out on her own. They still met up again to travel together for several months after their initial parting, recognising that the other was still family no matter how unorthodox they were, but they were becoming more comfortable in their ability to be independent of each other even if they preferred to be in the other's company.

However the world changed, barring some unforeseen accident, the two of them could have an eternity to look forward to, secure in the knowledge that they would always have at least one constant friend...

Thoughts of the future were cut short when the door to their hotel room was suddenly kicked down, a large hammer striking Alice in the side of the head before she could get out of the way as another two men knocked Angel over the table just as he was standing up from his chair. As Angel leapt to his feet, he briefly registered Alice scream in pain as another hammer-blow struck her leg, apparently causing serious damage to her left knee before another man walked in behind the first wave that Angel only now registered were pointing stakes at him and what looked worryingly like flamethrowers at Alice.

"All right, calm down! Calm down!" the man said, Angel quickly noting the star-shaped pins on the man's khaki shirt underneath his leather jacket as he turned to look at the male vampire. "Now, when I say "calm down," I'm talkin' to you, of course. These guys I want wound good and tight, case you don't feel like listenin'. Sit down, son. We need to talk."

A quick glance at their surroundings was all Angel needed to confirm that his options were limited whatever he tried to do to escape even without Alice- not that leaving his whimpering 'sister' in this condition was an option as far as he was concerned-, leaving him with no other perceivable choice but to sit down and listen to what this man had to say.

"You ever considered joinin' the war effort?" the man said as he sat down opposite Angel, one of his men turning off the radio that had been playing in the background.

"No," Angel replied with a brief shrug.

"Well, that's a shame," the man who was increasingly obviously a member of the military said, his tone not-quite-implying that he knew Angel's reasons for dodging the draft. "Times like these, we can use all the able-bodied men we can get."

"I'm not a man," Angel said, glancing at the stakes and weapons in the hands of the other men. "I guess you already knew that about us."

"Everybody's gotta do their part, that's all I'm sayin'," the man said. "Doenitz has been kickin' the holy hell out of us in the Atlantic. Allies are losin' up to 100 ships a month to his u-boats. Their damn submarines are faster, stronger, and more powerful than anything we've got in the water. Say what you will about the Krauts, them sons-of-bitches know how to build a boat. Up till now, we haven't had much luck figuring out what makes 'em tick, but two days ago our boys managed to capture what appears to be a T-class German-prototype submarine."

"That's... great news," Angel said, wondering both what this had to do with him and why Alice hadn't foreseen it happening...

Then again, now that he thought about it, Alice had admitted that she couldn't see things too clearly when dealing with people she'd never met, and this entire situation was completely unprecedented; it was possible that the fact that Alice had never imagined something like this could happen had prevented her from seeing it happen in the first place.

Of course, other possibilities were that these people had only decided to 'contact' them relatively recently- thus preventing Alice's power from essentially 'picking them up'; they'd spent so much time staying hidden that they hadn't really spent much time experimenting with using her power to predict possible dangers from people they didn't know-, or some kind of spell could have been involved, but Angel wouldn't focus on that right now; the fact was that the men were here, they'd taken Alice by surprise, and he'd just have to deal with it.

"Yes it is," the man replied grimly, looking down for a moment before he refocused his gaze on Angel and continued speaking. "Unfortunately, when they were bringin' it back here, something went wrong. Late last night, we received fragments of a distress call. Something was on that ship. Have you ever heard dying men screaming for their lives, Angel?"

"'Course he has," one of the other men said with a smirk, this man possessing a thin head that seemed at odds with his broader shoulders and long dark blue suit and coat, as though someone had stuck the wrong head on top of the body.

"He doesn't... do that... any more..." Alice growled, wincing at the pain in her all-but-shattered knee even as she supported herself on her hands while she glared at the speaker.

"What he does or doesn't do doesn't matter right now," the original speaker said. "What matters is that that sub's stuck in hostile territory, but we need it if we're gonna win this war. It's down too deep to send divers. Pressure, cold'd kill a man..."

"But... those aren't problems for you two, are they?" the man in black said, looking between the two vampires as he walked towards Angel. "You've been on our radar for a while, Angelus."

"Angel," Angel and Alice said firmly.

"Oh, right, you have a soul now and you're training her not to feed on humans," the man in black said, sounding slightly amused at the thought as he looked between Angel and Alice before he became more serious once again. "I represent a fairly new agency, the Demon Research Initiative- got some little vision-deflecting trinkets as well, which is how we managed to evade your girl's talent-, hence why I'm here; we think you might be the solution to our problem."

"And... if we say no?" Angel asked, testing the waters; if it was just him to consider, he might have tried for a more explicit defiance, but with Alice's current condition taken into account that wasn't really an option.

"We don't particularly care," the man in black replied. "The way we see it, right now your girl's leg's in no state to be doing much, it'll take her a while to get back to normal even if we let her feed, and in any case, we strap enough weight to you both, you will sink, regardless of your interests."

Angel didn't bother pointing out that, if they moved fast enough, he and Alice could kill both of these men and accelerate Alice's healing by a considerable amount; judging by how prepared they'd been so far, he had little doubt that they'd have men on all available exits to this building ready to catch the two of them if they tried to escape that way.

They might not be incapable of killing humans these days, but that didn't mean that they'd want to deal with that much blood on their hands, particularly when some of them might just be doing a job at the moment, and there were the innocent lives on the sub to consider...

"We need that sub," the first speaker said, exchanging a brief glance with the man in black before he continued, "and we need you to deal with... what's on it."

"We had our intelligence investigate the submarine's cargo manifest," the man in black said; the mere fact that he brought something like that up suggested that Angel wasn't going to like what he was about to hear.

"We think we know what attacked our boys," the first speaker said, opening his briefcase and taking out a red file that he subsequently handed to Angel.

Glancing over the papers before him, Angel groaned inwardly.

Vampires being used for Nazi research...

Honestly, like Hitler and his ilk didn't have enough arrogance issues trying to control the natural world; now they wanted to control the supernatural?

Still... as much as he hated their methods of enlistment... he couldn't deny that these guys had a point; he and Alice were uniquely suited to deal with that kind of situation (Even if he definitely disagreed with their decision to attack Alice like that; she, at least, might have been willing to hear them out if they'd just visited, given her more social nature even if was still careful to maintain enough of a distance to stop people realising that she wasn't human).

They'd spent so long hiding away from everything; maybe it was possible that they could actually use their abilities and their consciences to guide them in making some kind of positive impact on the rest of the world?

The circumstances of their 'enlistment' might not have been ideal, but the possibilities it presented were encouraging...


As he and Alice sunk rapidly to the bottom of the ocean a couple of days later- each now dressed in simple black shirts and trousers, even if Alice's now-healed legs in those tight trousers had drawn some attention from the men on the boat around them despite their knowledge of her true nature-, Angel took care to keep on breathing out; the pressure issue might not be an actual danger to their health given the strain he and Alice could endure, but that didn't mean that their lungs couldn't be damaged by a rapid shift in pressure as the air within them changed in volume...

Still, at least Alice seemed to be enjoying the experience; she might not be keen on the chains and weights attached to them, but she'd been so enthusiastic about the chance for a deep-sea-dive that she'd actually jumped off the boat shortly before they reached the drop-off point so that she could have a brief 'walk', leaving Angel to jump after her before any of the men watching them could do anything about it.

Regardless of the fact that he and Alice had been forcibly enlisted, Angel had to admit that most of the people they'd met on the boat hadn't been too bad; a few of the senior officials definitely hadn't liked having them around, but some of the younger soldiers had chatted with both of them relatively comfortably, with Alice even attracting some interesting attention from some of the younger ones...

Thoughts on their travels to reach this point were cut short as they reached the sea bed with a solid thump. Angel glanced around himself in frustration for a few moments- he could make out Alice fairly clearly thanks to her pale skin, but otherwise it was a bit difficult; his eyes were adapting to darkness, but the water made things more difficult- before he finally saw a large form in the distance that was almost certainly the submarine.

With their destination identified, Angel took Alice's hand and they began to walk towards the submarine, dragging the weights on their ankles behind them as they made slow progress towards their destination. Alice took a brief break as they walked to grab a couple of fish as an experimental snack, but the distaste she expressed after swallowing what blood she could get from them made it clear that fish were even less appetising to her than the animal blood she had been able to eat on land, and they quickly continued their progress towards the sub.

After reaching the large object, the two vampires felt their way along the side, occasionally hitting the hull to confirm that it had stayed secure without any punctures- Angel tended to do that part; Alice's strength meant that she ran the risk of damaging the sub if she hit it too far- until they found the torpedo tubes towards the front of the sub. Clambering up the basic ladder on the side of the sub to reach their destination, each of them crawling into one tube each and making their way to the end, past the basic hatch used to keep the sea out when the tubes weren't in use, water draining out of the narrow space as they each began to impatiently tap out a Morse code message on the small metal doors sealed at the end of the tubes.

After a few moments of waiting and banging impatiently, the two hatches were opened, allowing the two vampires to take in the sight of five young men gathered around the room, four dressed in blue jumpsuits- one man had what looked like dried blood on his, although the only sign of injury were some small cuts around his face- and a fourth man in a fawn shirt and trousers (There was also a man in a black suit and glasses at the back, but the red band on his army clearly marked him as a member of the SS, so he was most likely here just because they didn't have anyone to spare to keep an eye on the prisoner).

"Hi," Alice said, as she and Angel crawled out of the tubes, Alice taking the opportunity to try and shove some of the water out of her hair while Angel stared down the group of men now aiming pistols at them. "We're... here to help."

"You wanna tell me how anyone gets 400 feet down without so much as a dive suit?" a young man said, ignoring Alice's offer as though she hadn't even spoken; his attitude suggested that he was in a position of authority on the sub, even if his age also implied that he'd assumed that authority because nobody else was available to do so.

"Which one of you is Captain Franklin?" Angel asked, deciding to tackle the obvious issues first.

"Captain's dead," the young man who'd spoken earlier said.

"Who's in charge?" Angel asked, keeping his voice firm and in control; he just hoped that whoever it was had been senior enough before the accident to know the codes that he was about to use.

"Suppose that'd be me," the man said, confirming Angel's earlier assessment of him.

"Under naval op 4-0-7," Angel said- he still couldn't believe that he was doing this; he'd gone from staying out of this whole war to being granted access to military secrets in what felt like no real time at all-, "I'm supposed to issue you your order: Charlie Baker Oboe Victor."

"Verification," the man said, briefly lowering his gun before he raised it again, refusing to allow his momentary relief to dull his resolve before he had confirmation that the authorisation was accurate.

"Nautilus," Angel replied.

"Yes sir," the young man said after a moment's pause, holstering his gun as the others followed his cue. "All right."

"Great," Alice said, smiling warmly at the men as she indicated the weights still attached to her legs, as though the entire incident with the guns being aimed at them had never happened. "Could someone help us get these things off, please?"

Judging by the slightly stunned expression on the faces of the men as they looked at Alice, Angel wouldn't be surprised if they hadn't fully registered that she was a woman earlier- her short frame and hair didn't exactly scream femininity at a casual observer when she wasn't wearing a skirt-; he just hoped that nobody would try anything stupid just because she was probably the first woman they'd seen for a while (It was a cynical view, he knew, but he had to prepare for the worst in a situation like this; this was a pretty unprecedented turn of events, when you got down to it).