This story takes place after Buffy's twentieth birthday, but before Crush. Feedback can be sent to cobalite@yahoo.com. No flames please, they give my deleted messages folder indigestion. I own nothing. Please don't sue, all you'll get is my CD collection. Angel learns of his future self, gets his soul bound, and has a conversation with himself.
Even a lover
Makes a mistake sometimes
Like any other
Fall out and lose his mind
And I'm sorry for the things I did
For your teardrops over words I said
Can you forgive me
And open your heart once again, oh yeah
Black and Blue: It's True
By Cobalite Ice Angel looked at the unfamiliar faces in his wallet. "If it means helping Buffy, and answering who the hell these people are."
Giles motioned for him to sit down. "You met Riley, correct?"
"Yeah. He rushed out of here when I mentioned Buffy's dreams."
"They're not dreams. They're portents." Giles watched the shock wash over Angel, and he finally took a seat.
"You mean that at some time in the future, Buffy is actually going to have to kill me? Giles, that doesn't make any sense. She's also had dreams where I'm dying of some disease, about a little sister she doesn't have, and even one where I'm human."
"I have to admit, the part about you being human or her having a sister is news, but I can assure you the rest can, will, and have happened according to information I've been able to gather. I've met your future self, Angel. That's his duster, they must have been switched accidentally."
"You're kidding me."
"I assure you, I'm not joking. He and two others have come to stop an event we can only guess at that will lead to Buffy's death. Jenny Calendar and I have come to the most likely conclusion, and have begun work to prevent it, but it will take time."
"Two others? Do we know them?"
"One is Riley Finn, the man you met. The other is Spike."
Angel burst out laughing. "Spike and I working together, to prevent Buffy's death. That's about as ridiculous as...."
"As Spike writing her a love poem. People change."
"He's not a person."
"Regardless, for some reason the Powers find his presence necessary."
"What do you think they're trying to stop?"
"I can't tell you."
"Why?"
"Because I'm afraid you'll do something stupid."
"Like what?"
"Leave her."
"I would never leave her."
"You did, or rather will. Riley's presence here is testimony to that. I've been unable to determine exactly how hr plays into all this. He wasn't even in Sunnydale when she died, but..." Giles trailed off.
"But what?
"They had been in a relationship. Being in the military, he must have been transferred, which would explain why he'd been in South America. All he would tell me is they'd had trouble."
Angel's face didn't betray any emotion. "I always expected Buffy would want someone human. It's really no surprise."
"If it's any consolation, it didn't appear to be a happy relationship. While we were working, I could see the scars on his arms. He was either a junky, or frequented a vampire den."
Angel smirked. "You're right. That does make me feel better."
-----
Angel had a new hobby. Actually it was an old hobby, made easier by the fact that Buffy was now in his apartment every night. He watched her and some times, like tonight, he would draw her. In his coat, where he'd usually kept a pencil, he'd found a good quality charcoal. He'd have to thank his future self for the gift. It was obviously his, sharpened with a knife rather than a sharpener, a talent honed by a hundred years of practice. So he drew her, thinking she was the angel not him.
Her dreams disturbed him just as much as her. His presence only stopped the really horrid dreams, she was still having them, and these she wouldn't tell him about. All Angel had caught was fragments about peanut butter and ice cream. "Have you recovered from Valentine's Day yet?"
"If you ever mention it again, I'm going home right now. I'd rather have the nightmares than think about that!" Buffy had almost killed Xander, who was lucky the full moon hadn't been that week, or he'd be mulched.
"Don't you dare move. I'm almost done."
"Angel?" Buffy whispered. "What's your real name?"
"That one came out of left field." Angel muttered. "Why do you ask?"
"As much as I care about you, I realized I don't know that much about you." Buffy didn't move, she knew he was drawing. "I mean, Angelus wasn't your real name, it couldn't have been."
Her words cut him like a knife, knowing that sometime soon, they would no longer be together. "This coming from the girl named Buffy."
"My real name is Elizabeth. Your turn."
"Liam." Angel actually looked embarrassed.
Buffy giggled. "Must have been a couple of fun decade when you were running with Spike."
"Ha ha." He finished to sketch. "You can look now." It was a picture of her sleeping.
-----
"You're kidding me."
"No, I'm not." Jenny knew how strange her solution sounded, but it was the only thing she could think of.
"If I ever told Cordy what you just told me, she'd think I was going insane again. It's incredible to believe the binding for my soul can be bought at a hardware store." Angel stared at the now bound orb on the table.
"When do you and Cordelia become so close? Your otherself found pictures of her in your wallet." It had been bothering Giles for days.
"I saved her life, and she hung around. We didn't get close until after Doyle died." Realize how the Englishman might interpret that, he added, "We weren't romantically involved, it that's what you think. She reminds me of my little sister." He picked up the orb. "I never thought I'd say this, but duct tape really is going to hold the world together."
"It's blessed duct tape." Jenny was indignant. "Can you think of anything else that will hod for years, and can be wrapped around a sphere?"
-----
The waitress set down two cups of strong, black coffee, feeling like the luckiest woman in the world to have such gorgeous twin guys in her section.
"You gotta admit, this is strange." Angel was sitting across from himself. "Why did you want to meet me?"
He looked at his otherself as one would critique a painting. "Yeah, it's strange, but it hasn't been that long since I've looked in a mirror."
"You haven't had a reflection in two and a half centuries. What should I call you? This is going to get confusing."
"I guess you can call me by our real name. It doesn't bother me as much anymore." Liam looked out the window of the coffee shop they were in. "As for the reflection thing, lets just say I had an encounter with a demon that didn't really agree with me. I asked you here to tell you some things."
"Like what?"
"First of all, Buffy loves you. More than you will ever realize until she's gone. It's not that your forbidden, because she'd love you just as much as a normal man."
"How do you know that?" Angel remembered Buffy telling him she'd dreamt he was human, but wouldn't tell him anymore.
"Someday you'll find out." Liam paused, wondering exactly how to say this. "When Buffy graduates, she'll be accepted to UCLA. I want you to encourage her to go, and follow her to Los Angeles."
"You were a PI." He pulled the wallet from his pocket, and handed it to the other man. "With Cordelia Chase at your side."
"She's not so bad, as long as you notice her hair. I won't tell you how she ended up working for me, it will spoil the fun." Liam stared at the pictures. "These people are very special to me. My friends, not Buffy's. People that hung around not out of obligation, but because they liked me. They get under your skin."
"The Irishman, Doyle, why isn't he in the hotel pictures?"
"I can't tell you. It was very hard for me to understand why he did what he did, and you'll have to go through it yourself to really understand the people around you."
Angel wondered if Liam was talking about a betrayal of some kind. No, if that were the case, he would have been less cryptic. "What else?"
"Tell her you love her. Don't wait. She needs to know. Her love was what almost destroyed me, but it will save you." Liam didn't explain his last statement. "Tell her about China."
"No." Angel looked across the table. "You're insane. I am not going to ask her to carry that burden."
"She'll want to, eventually." Liam thought about a way to prove his point. "Has she asked you our real name yet?"
"Last night." Angel admitted. "But that doesn't mean she wants to know the details of our soared past."
"Yes, it does. There's so much I want to tell you, but there isn't going to be time."
"We have forever."
Liam laughed. "Not anymore. You'll see, soon. As for me, I won't be around much longer. Our lives end when they do in the other timeline. All three of us, in the next year."
"I guess I'd better enjoy seeing myself while I still can." Gallows humor from the master.