Disclaimer: Angel and his respective adversaries belong to Joss Whedon and Co., and all of 'Charmed' belongs to Constance M. Burge; I'm just using them for the moment

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Sent to the Witch

Any hopes Angel had entertained about the Underworld deciding to calm down after losing a significant number of demons to a single attack swiftly proved to be wrong. Barely a week after the Battle of P3 (As Angel was already thinking of his latest confrontation with Drusilla and Spike), there was a demon hunting various witches once again, and the Charmed Ones were forced to devote most of their time to tracking down what was behind it.

Fortunately, Phoebe's current lack of work meant that she was constantly available on a regular basis to search for information about the demon. However, since Paige had to work, and Piper needed to be available in case they found something that had to be acted on at once (Her powers were the most useful in a fight, after all), that meant that Angel was forced to help out in the running of P3 to give Piper more time to search for the Book of Shadows. He didn't mind too much about the role he'd been allocated, though; after all, he freely admitted that magic-using demons weren't his forte. He was trying to keep in touch with a few of his old contacts, hopefully figure out if he could find anything that way, but so far none of them had anything to give him.

Therefore, when Angel sat down during one of his rare breaks as P3's latest bartender- not the most glamorous job he'd ever had in his life, but he was glad at the chance to help the Halliwells in a manner that didn't relate to fighting demons, and he was actually remarkably good at it- he was pleasantly surprised to see Paige walking over to join him. Even if she had a dejected expression about her at the moment, her beautiful face somehow helped make him feel significantly better.

"Hey," she said, as she pulled up a chair and sat down beside him at the table. "How's things?"

"At the bar, or among my… less savoury associates?" Angel asked. Ever since his true identity had been revealed to the sisters, he'd become their regular contact among the less mystic demons of the world for information. In the event of a serious demon-related problem, he and Cole typically covered a two-pronged investigation; Cole tackled the Underworld, checking up with some of his old protégés, while Angel browsed the demon bars in the area to try and find information.

"Well, I'd like to say I wanted to know about the bar, but based on what I can see, you're coping with it pretty well, so I don't think it's a problem," Paige said, glancing around at their surroundings before looking back at Angel. "How do you keep up with all these people? I've been helping out for months after work and I still can't cope with all the orders we get sometimes…"

Angel shrugged. "I spent a lot of time in bars when I was alive," he said dismissively. "I learned to anticipate what my associates would want; it made it easier for me to get back to… business."

Paige was about to ask what that meant, but something in Angel's expression told her he wasn't going to answer, so she shrugged it off. If nothing else, he'd assured her that all of 'his' real crimes- such as murder and rape- had only taken place after he became a vampire, so she doubted Angel could have done anything too serious back when he was human.

"Getting back to your first question, I wouldn't mind knowing if you found anything helpful from your… associates," she said, looking curiously at Angel. "Any luck identifying our latest witch-killer?"

"No," Angel replied, shaking his head slightly, frustration barely visible in his eyes; only Paige, who knew him so well, would even have known it was there. "Nothing; those who knew about the demon only even heard about him from information about his victims; I've got nothing about who's actually behind this…"

Paige sighed in frustration. "Same here, really," she said, as she looked over at her boyfriend, before smiling slightly. "In other news, however, I'm trying to figure out ways to help Piper get over her fears about having a baby."

Angel blinked in surprise; that had been unexpected…

"Get over her fears?" he asked, looking at Paige in surprise. "Why do you say that? The last time I checked, I thought she was the one who was trying to convince Leo."

"Well, she's been a bit on-edge ever since that whole incident with the Source abducting her and trying to convince her she was just nuts," Paige explained, looking over at Angel as she spoke. "I mean, I'm pretty sure she wants to have a kid with Leo, but at the same time she's… y'know, a bit worried about whether our lives will let us care for it…"

Sighing, she looked back at Angel with a raised eyebrow. "Still, I can't say I blame her; I mean, I get her argument, even if I don't quite agree with it. I've been thinking about getting her one of those false baby-doll things- you know, something to show her she can cope with it- but, well, we've got so much real stuff going on in our lives at the moment that I just don't see the point in bringing a 'fake kid' into our lives just to make a point about how she'd cope as a parent."

"I wouldn't know," Angel said simply. Noting Paige's confused expression, he nearly felt like kicking himself for mentioning something like that at a time like this, but gritted his teeth (Metaphorically, at least; he'd never been able to actually do that without feeling like he'd damaged a molar) and resolved to keep going regardless.

If nothing else, she deserved to know the full details about what a relationship with him on a long-term basis would involve.

"I mean," he said, already wondering if he should have mentioned this before Paige agreed to a relationship with him, "it… wouldn't exactly make a difference to me whether I thought I'd be a good parent or not. I don't... Well, you know… I… I can't…"

Paige blinked in surprise at that. On reflection, she supposed it only made sense- after all, Angel was technically dead- but still…

"Oh," she said, simply, before shrugging in an offhand attempt at being casual. "Well, no biggie; I mean, I always figured there were things that vampires couldn't do. You know, like sunbathing, working at the Red Cross, helping out in a church, having… little vampires…"

The conversation trailed off there for a moment, both Paige and Angel more than slightly uncomfortable at what to say next, before Paige's phone rang and broke the awkward silence that had settled over the table.

"Yeah?" Paige asked, pulling the phone out of her pocket and accepting the call.

"Paige, it's Phoebe," the voice said at the other end of the line. "Sorry to bother you, but there's been another murder; Leo just told us about it. Piper and I called Darryl about it and we're heading off to meet him at the crime scene; any chance you could come along and join us? Cole would have come, but there's a good chance they'll be people who recognise Cole from when he was a district attorney."

"Oh; sure thing," Paige said, as she glanced over enquiringly at Angel, turning her attention back to the phone when he nodded. A part of her wanted to make some kind of joke about Cole being a demon and a lawyer, but she shook it off; she knew Angel understood why she disliked Cole, but he still disliked having her feelings about the former Triad assassin rubbed in his face. "Angel's here, actually; OK if he comes too?"

"Uh… sure," Phoebe said. Paige noted, with some annoyance, that her sister still seemed slightly reluctant to accept her vampire boyfriend; she just could not understand why Phoebe had such a problem with Angel and yet could be perfectly accepting of Cole.

OK, they were both demons with souls, but, the way Paige saw it, Angel had only acquired his soul after he'd been the bad guy; he wasn't the same person who'd committed the crimes that had earned him the name 'the Scourge of Europe'. Cole, on the other hand, had committed murder after murder for nearly a century, and he'd had a soul for all that time…

"We'll be there," Paige said simply, as she terminated the call and glanced over at Angel. "That was Phoebe; Darryl called her and Piper about another murder, and they want me to come along with them. Care to help out?"

For a moment it looked as though Angel would decline, as he looked at the bar around him with an almost wistful expression, like a man unwilling to leave a duty he had been given, but eventually he nodded and looked back at her.

"Let's go," he said, as he slipped off the stool. "I'll just let my replacement know he'll need to be on a bit earlier than he'd expected, and I'll be right with you."

As Darryl stood in front of the alley where the latest body had been found, glancing at his watch as he hoped that the Halliwells would show up before the forensics teams. He'd managed to delay them for a time- claimed that he'd wanted to take a look at the crime scene before anyone else got at it, making it clear that he'd stay away from anywhere that might provide evidence as to who did it, but he still wished they'd arrive.

"Hey, Darryl," a voice said from behind him. Glancing back, Darryl was relieved to see Piper, Phoebe and Paige standing behind him, but the smile was replaced by a look of confusion as he registered the man standing beside Paige, dressed all in black and with a pale face that suggested he hadn't seen the sun for a while. Still, he seemed to be standing fairly close to Paige, so Darryl assumed he was trustworthy; after all, in all fairness to Paige, she was the least open-minded sister when it came to dealing with demons, so she would hardly be that close to someone whose intentions were in doubt.

Making up his mind, Darryl nodded politely at the sisters, and then walked over to the man and held out his hand.

"Darryl Morris," he said, by way of introduction.

"Angel," the man replied, as he took Darryl's hand and shook it. A part of Darryl wondered why Angel's hand was so cold, but dismissed it as nothing; the man might just be that way. "I'm Paige's boyfriend."

Darryl blinked briefly in surprise at that- none of the sisters had mentioned that Paige had started dating someone- but, given the limited time available to them, he was forced to put his curiosity aside and turn back to the matter at hand.

"OK, I can't give you much time, so be quick," he said, indicating the alley behind him, where the forensics team were already taking photographs of the crime scene. "What we've got is pretty basic; man called 911 from the payphone over there, and reported he'd found a body."

Angel nodded briefly as he studied the payphone, before his eyes fell on the scorch marks on the opposite wall.

"Looks like he took out somebody else," he said, indicating the scorch marks as he glanced over at Phoebe and Piper; Paige was still standing beside him. "If he's stuck with the anathema for his witch victims so far, he wouldn't use energy balls on them."

"So… what? Somebody just wandered in at the wrong time?" Piper asked, looking at Angel.

"Looks like," Paige said, shrugging casually as she studied the burns. "Too bad Cole isn't here; he might be able to tell us what it is-"

"Was anything noteworthy found on the victim?" Angel interjected before Paige could finish her sentence. A part of him was fairly sure Paige was about to start making further reference to Cole's past, and while he respected his friend's desire for redemption, he still didn't like hearing Cole's past as Belthazor discussed.

It was just… too close to home for him, really. Cole was trying to make for it, he knew, but discussing Cole's past crimes as Belthazor reminded Angel all too keenly of his behaviour in the early days after he'd been given back his soul, when he'd still tried to stay with Darla regardless of his newfound conscience…

"Just this," Darryl said, pulling a necklace out of his pocket and passing it to Paige, who glanced briefly at it and nodded.

"It's the triple crescent; it's an ancient Wiccan symbol, kind of a cousin to the triquetra," she explained as she looked briefly at the necklace before passing it back to Darryl.

"The mark of a coven?" Piper suggested.

"Maybe…" Phoebe said, as she reached out to take the necklace from Darryl, only for her entire body to suddenly tense up and her eyes close- in other words, Angel recognised, all the signs of her receiving a new vision about an innocent in danger.

"Phoebe?" Darryl said, looking at his friend anxiously as Phoebe's eyes opened once more.

"Demon," she said, looking back at her sisters. "He's attacking some woman by the steps in some park; I think it was, like, in an old amphitheatre or something."

"Did you get what it looked like?" Angel asked, looking over from where he'd been examining the scorch marks.

"Uh… Belthazor-like," Phoebe said. Noting the uncertain expression on Paige's face, she added, "Kind of like him. Not exactly, just… similar."

"Well, if this woman was the member of a coven, we should probably start by finding if there's anyone still left from the coven," Piper said, glancing over at Darryl. "Do we know any of her friends?"

"Over there," Darryl said, indicating a woman who was talking to a man in a business suit. "He's an ADA; been trying to find out if the victim had any enemies we should know about."

"Ah," Piper said, nodding as she looked at the woman before glancing back at her sisters. "Think she's another member of the coven?"

"Only one way to find out," Phoebe said, shrugging casually as she walked over to talk to the girl; she noticed the man give the woman a card and then walk away, but the man's low voice meant that she didn't manage to hear what he was saying to her.

"Hi," she said, smiling brightly at the young woman, as she turned to look curiously at the new arrival. "I like your necklace; really suits you".

"Thanks…" the woman said, looking in confusion at Phoebe, as though she felt she should recognise the young woman. "Look… I'm sorry if I sound rude, but do I know you?"

"Not exactly, but you might know of me," Phoebe explained, smiling reassuringly at the young woman, before leaning over to whisper in her ear. "My sisters and I? We're the Charmed Ones."

The woman's eyes widened as Phoebe pulled back to look at her, a small smile on her face.

"Sorry to shock you like that, but we've got a problem that we're trying to crack," Phoebe explained as she looked at the woman, who couldn't have been more shocked if Phoebe had been Julia Roberts or Jennifer Anniston at that moment. "You and… Carrie were in the same coven, right?"

"Y… Yes," the woman said, nodding in a daze.

"And your mark is the triple crescent?" Phoebe asked, indicating the necklace. The woman nodded, slightly shaken as she stared at the other witch, apparently unable to believe that she was talking to one of the most powerful witches who'd ever been. "Look, we're sorry to be blunt, but we think you might be danger and I have to know; do you know of an old amphitheatre in a park of some kind?"

"Yes…" the woman said, nodding thoughtfully as she looked at Phoebe. "There's one in Stanley Arboreta; I walk past it every day on the way to work."

"Right," Phoebe said, nodding resolutely as she looked at the woman before her. "With that in mind, it'll probably be in the morning when what I saw happens…"

"What the hell is going on here?" a voice said from off to one side. Spinning around, Phoebe found herself looking at the man who'd been addressing the woman earlier, a more-than-slightly annoyed expression on his face.

"This is a murder investigation!" he yelled, as he glared angrily over at Piper, Paige and Angel, who were looking anxiously over at Phoebe as though to make sure she'd found out what they needed to know. "Who are these people?"

Out of the man's field of vision, the woman nodded slightly, and the others relaxed; they'd found out what they needed to know.

"I'll get rid of them," Darryl put in, walking over to glare critically at the four witches and the vampire; only an apologetic gleam in his eyes showed that he was sorry about what he had to do right now. "Come on, ladies, move along. First time I ask nicely…"

"Don't worry; we're going," Angel said, glaring slightly at Darryl as he spoke before turning around and walking away.

"I don't know," the vampire continued, just loud enough for the other man to hear him, as the five of them began to walk away, "you try and make a difference in this city, and all the thanks you get as a result is the bloody cops saying you're getting in the way of their precious investigation…"

Some hours later, the sun shining brightly over the city of San Francisco, only an hour or so away from noon, Angel found himself sitting in his new apartment, casually studying his surroundings. Following the sisters' discovery of his true nature, coupled with him taking the job at P3, he'd managed to pull together the money to get a slightly better apartment; for one thing, this one was actually for rent, rather than just being considered unsafe for typical human habitation.

The only item of furniture he retained from the previous apartment was the portable fridge that he used for keeping his blood bags cool; the bed was new and more comfortable, and, with some help from Leo and Piper, he'd acquired a couple of leather chairs. Angel had also managed to set up a kitchen fitted with a few basics in case any of the sisters came by- it was mostly just snacks and sandwiches, but he mainly kept them to attract less questions if any of the other residents should pay him a visit for some reason.

With the sisters currently otherwise occupied with tracking the demon that was after their innocent, and Leo and Cole off doing whatever a whitelighter and a former demon assassin on the run did in their free time, Angel had closed the curtains of his apartment to block out the sunshine, and was occupying himself with something that had long been of interest to him; sketching.

Specifically, sketching Paige, although he included the rest of the Halliwell family in the pictures as well.

He was never entirely sure when he'd acquired an interest in it, to be honest. He'd been fairly talented back when he'd been alive, but given his generally lax attitude towards life back then, he hadn't cared enough to pursue it particularly far. The closest he'd ever come to actually doing something about it was when he did a picture for his sister, and he could barely even recall what had become of it in the end.

Then, of course, he'd lost his soul and become Angelus, and the drawings had become a particular favourite torment of his; once he'd made his victims aware of his presence- commonly vampire hunters or witches- he'd enjoyed sneaking into their houses at night to draw some pictures of them sleeping. Angelus had regarded it as the perfect psychological torture; they'd know he'd been there and hadn't killed them, leaving them to conclude that he almost didn't really regard them as a serious threat.

After regaining his soul, he, naturally, had never been in the mood for giving the drawing thing another chance; he'd had too many issues to deal with to worry about relaxing and doing something he actually liked doing. If nothing else, there had been that part of his mind screaming at him that he didn't deserve to be content, that he didn't deserve to be relaxed, that he should do nothing but blame himself for all the terrible things he'd done because he'd been too weak to say no to a beautiful woman…

But now… it was different.

He didn't have to hide away and punish himself any more; he was actually trying to make an impact on the world

He had been accepted into a group of people who knew what he was- who he was- and regarded him as a friend and ally regardless of his past crimes.

True, Phoebe and Leo were still a bit uncertain about him, but the way he saw it, he should be grateful any of them were willing to be friendly to him after what he'd done in the past…

And, with things finally going well in his undead life, Angel felt as though he could let himself enjoy some of the more simple pleasures, such as drawing.

"Busy?" a voice said from behind him. Startled, Angel leapt up from the seat he'd been reclining in, only to see Cole standing behind his chair, a small smile on his face as he looked at the vampire.

"What are you doing here?" Angel asked, trying to keep his tone civil; as surprised as he was to see Cole here, it wasn't exactly an unwelcome visit from his new friend.

Cole shrugged. "No point going on the run from the underworld twenty-four/seven; I figured that it couldn't hurt to take a little break to check in on a friend," he said casually, as he picked up one of Angel's sketches and studied it appreciatively. It was a simple pencil sketch of Paige, detailing her the way she'd been when Angel had first seen her all those months ago, standing outside the social work office, her hair flying back slightly as she turned to talk to her friend…

"Nice," he said, looking back at Angel with an approving smile. "You've been holding back on us; I didn't even know you had an artistic side like this."

"Aside from the varied methods of murder, you mean?" Angel retorted bluntly, as he took the sketch away from Cole and began to gather up the other drawings; unintentionally or not, Cole had made a point that struck a little too close to him for his taste.

"Hey, I didn't mean it like that!" Cole said, looking apologetically at Angel as the vampire turned away from him. "You know I didn't mean anything by it… we all just tend to think of you more as… well, you… I guess…"

For a moment, Angel felt like staying silent, but, eventually, he just sighed and turned back to look at Cole.

"I… I know that," he said, as he looked back at Cole, an expression of equal regret on his face. "I know that you didn't mean to make some kind of reference to Angelus, Cole… and I know you all see me as a friend. It's just…"

He paused for a moment, as though trying to find the right words, and then sighed. "Well, it's hard, I guess."

Cole nodded sympathetically as he placed a hand on Angel's shoulder.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," he said, as he looked at his friend for a moment, lost in thought, before he began to speak again. "You know, I sometimes envy you; at least you don't have to deal with the knowledge that you did all that stuff…"

"Envy me?" Angel said, looking up at Cole sharply. He wasn't going to contradict Cole's main point, of course- on a conscious level, he knew that he wasn't Angelus, even if it still felt the like line between them was thinner than he would have liked it- but he still couldn't believe that Cole found anything for him to be envious about. "Cole, I've got a hundred and fifty years worth of memories of committing all kinds of murders; you've only got… eighty years or so, if you take the training into account… and all of your victims at least had some idea of how to fight back. Me…"

He sighed sadly as he stared at his right hand for a moment, flexing the fingers as though he was remembering the feel of breaking a neck with that hand. "I only ever targeted the innocent…"

"But it wasn't you," Cole retorted, shaking Angel's shoulder slightly as he glared at the vampire. "You need to remember that; you are not Angelus."

Angel was about to reply to that, when Paige suddenly orbed into the middle of the apartment; Angel quickly stuck the hand holding his sketches behind his back as he and Cole turned to look in her direction.

"Did something go wrong?" Angel asked, noting Paige's anxious expression as she looked at the two former killers.

"You could say that," Paige said, shooting a curious glance at the edge of the papers in Angel's hand but evidently deciding not to ask any more questions about them. "We stopped our demon killing the innocent, but we've got a new factor; some witch called Emma's after this guy because he killed her fiancé."

"And having another witch after this guy is a problem because…?" Cole asked, waving one hand in a prompting manner.

"For one thing, she isn't a witch; she's basing her attack plan on a bunch of stuff her fiancé left her," Paige explained, looking critically at Cole before looking back at Angel. "Anyway, Piper figured it'd probably be a good idea to have you guys stay at the Manor with us; if this guy attacks, we could use all the back-up we could get."

"Fair enough," Cole said, nodding in agreement; Angel took advantage of the momentary distraction to slip the sketches down the back of his chair before Paige turned her attention back to him.

"So, shall we go?" Angel said, looking inquiringly at Paige.

Paige nodded, and, reaching out, took Angel's hand, closed her eyes, and orbed back to the Manor, Cole shimmering after them a few seconds later.