Title: A Time For Peace

Author: eclectic madness

E-mail: ayallara@yahoo.com

Chapter Three: Getting to Know You

"Fred?"

Fred looked up to see Angel at the door. She smiled and he gestured for her to come out into the hall. "It's late. I'll take over for now so you can get some sleep."

"Oh, you don't have to do that. I'm fine," she protested.

"Hey, creature of the night here. I'm supposed to stay awake. Its in the handbook."

Fred laughed. "If you insist…" She shrugged and turned to go.

"Fred!" She whirled back around and looked at him questioningly. "Just a minute." He stepped closer to her and kissed her forehead. "Happy New Year," he said quietly.

Fred stepped away, trying not to blush. "You know the tradition of the New Year celebratory kiss dates back from…" she stopped. "Sorry. Happy New Year Angel."

Angel watched her escape down the hall and shook his head. Maybe he shouldn't have done that. But ever since that old man had taken over his body and tried to seduce Fred she had been a little distant. He kind of missed having her in love with him. He frowned as he opened the door to Lana's room and went in. Isn't that a weird thing to admit to yourself, he thought? But it was true. It was nice to have someone in love with you that you have no feelings for and no obligation to reciprocate. All of the benefits (well, all of the benefits he was allowed… he would not think of Darla) and none of the pain. Completely unlike the ongoing saga of his love for Buffy or the confusion of his ever evolving feelings for Cordelia.

Lana was awake. He could hear her breathing raggedly; smell the damp saltiness of tears. Angel sat down in the chair and contemplated the curve of her back. There had to be something they could do to get her out of this depression. They had to figure out what they needed her for. But mostly they just had to keep her from killing herself.

"Lana?" Lana froze at the sound of the man's voice. "Lana, I know you're awake." She held her breath, hoping he would go away or shut up or something. After a few minutes of silence she heard him sigh. "Ok, you don't want to talk to me, I can understand that. So I'll talk for a little while ok? Ok. My name is Angel. I am here to help you. All of us are. I know how life can be so awful you just don't want to go on. I have felt that way before. It helps to tell someone. So if you feel like talking, you need a shoulder to cry on, you let me know. I'll be here all night so you won't have to be alone." He waited, but she didn't move. She was hardly breathing. If he didn't know better he might worry that she had succeeded in willing herself to death. At last he resigned himself to a long solitary night sitting next to her unnaturally still form.

Lana wondered vaguely why no one could ever come up with a better way of approaching her. "I know how it feels, it helps to talk," was going to get very old very fast. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered. She closed her eyes and let herself drift off into the warm oblivion of sleep…

…Sweet hot blood slid down her throat as she pulled the woman's body harder against her, reveling in the little cries the woman made and the froth of the woman's skirts rustling around her legs and she bit down, drinking deeper, feeling the woman's heart falter, heard the woman breath out that last wordless cry they always made and she shuddered in…

Lana woke with a gasp that wasn't quite a scream and scrambled back across the bed away from the man slumped in the chair. He woke with a jerk, looking at her haunted expression with shock and confusion. She came up against the wall and slid to the corner at the head of her bed, trying to regulate her breathing. "What are you?" she whispered, her voice full of the horror she felt. He stretched out a hand, trying to calm her and said, "It's all right. I'm Angel. I help the…" Lana cut him off, speaking more firmly this time, her hand slicing the air to punctuate her words. "What. Are you?"

Angel looked at Lana, crouched in the corner, bracing herself with her hands on the walls, looking like she wanted to melt through those walls just to escape him. He didn't understand. She was terrified! "We're… private investigators. We run a company called Angel Investigations…" he broke off as she shook her head violently.

"No," she said, her eyes flashing. "You. You are something… else. What. Are. You."

He looked at her, realizing she somehow sensed that he wasn't human but not wanting to scare her by telling her he was a –

"A Vampire," she breathed, one hand going unconsciously to her throat.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said earnestly. "I have a soul. I work for the Powers." She was watching him, her eyes unreadable, so he went on. "The good guys. I'm on a mission to help the helpless. To do what I can to..."

She heard it all, in her head, the words, the feelings, the longing for redemption, for peace. Satisfied for the moment that he was not the monster in her dream, she put up her barriers again. "…only trying to help you. I would never…"

Lana cut Angel off. "Alright, alright, enough already. I get it. Angel good," she said wryly. He blinked, nonplussed at her sudden acceptance of his explanation. She pointed from her head to his and back again, then shrugged.

"Oh," he said, and nodded. He watched her slide from her semi-crouched position against the wall to sit with her legs folded neatly under her. "A vampire," she said again, rubbing her throat.

Angel watched her hand clutching convulsively at her neck. "I'm not going to bite you, Lana," he said quietly.

She looked at him questioningly. He mimicked the motion of her hand with his. Her eyes shifted and she slid her hand from her throat and spread the fingers in front of her. "Oh, no, I wasn't thinking that, it was just…" She looked at him. He was the monster and he wasn't. She deliberately let her hand drop. The memory of blood was still on her tongue, metallic and warm. She didn't want to be here. Didn't want to know. Didn't want to care. She turned her head away from Angel.

He watched her, saw the momentary fire in her eyes fall to ashes and her face go dull again. She began to slide back down on the bed, to lay down the way she had been when he had first come in. It had been better when she was afraid/angry. He didn't think about it. He acted on impulse, grabbing her by the arms and pulling her back up to sit facing him.

"Stop it," she said harshly, twisting as she sought to escape his grip.

He shook her once. "Snap out of it, Lana," he said.

She looked at him incredulously. "Snap out of it? Snap out of it?!!!" she threw off his hands and pushed ineffectually at his shoulders. He didn't move. "You don't just snap out of something like this. I made a decision. You can't make me unmake it. It's done. I'm leaving if I have to starve myself in this drab little room you've got me locked up in!"

"The Powers sent me to save you, Lana. You aren't allowed to go."

"Screw the Powers!" she shouted in his face. "Whatever they are. You think I'd be leaving if they ever did anything to make me want to stay? I'll go whether they say I can or not!!"

"It's not time yet. You have a purpose. You were born to it."

"What do you know about it, huh? Why the hell do you care?"

"Because I do."

"Oh, what a stellar reason," she said sarcastically, "I'm moved. You got me, I give up."

"Lana," he said, clenching his jaw, "You need to be here with us. We know what its like…"

"To feel like me? Whatever. You cannot know what it is to be me."

"No, I can't. But I know what it's like to be stuck in a life you'd rather not have. To be cursed with something inhuman and different."

"You aren't seriously comparing my mind to your teeth are you? Because that is beyond ridiculous."

"Ridiculous or not, it's true. I have this existence so I can help people. You have your mind for the same reason. We may not like it, but it's who we are. We're cursed with abilities most people don't have so that we..." She looked up at him with a strange light in her eyes and he hesitated.

Lana wasn't hearing him, not really because the blood was in her mouth and the insatiable hunger filled her being even as she drank... She blinked and grimaced at the memory, ugh. Comparing that unholy hunger to her perception? How dared he?

"Lana?"

She punched him. Squarely on the jaw.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Cordelia looked up into the darkness above her bed. Time to go. The words kept running through her head. It wasn't like she hadn't had that very feeling before. In the most private part of her mind she recognized the urge to want to stop it all. Everything. I hate my whole life, she had thought. Her life… what was her life? Acting? She hadn't had a job since that stupid commercial. She didn't think she wanted another job like that. Or any other even. It's not like Hollywood scripts were filling up her mailbox. She had come to a realization over last summer. She was what she was. Whatever that was. Anyway. Work? That was probably it. Her work, the person she had become since running into Angel at that party three years ago. The first time he had saved her life. But there had to be more to her than this… Love? Hardly. She didn't even go out anymore. She missed Gru. But in some weird way he was like a fairy tale to her. The time she had spent with him, what little of it there was, had taken on a dreamlike quality in her memory. She hadn't had a real relationship since… Of course, if the visions got any worse she wouldn't have to worry about any of it anyway... She groaned and rolled out of bed, heading for the kitchen.

She needed ice cream.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lana's hand throbbed painfully. She looked down at it ruefully and Newton's law drifted through her mind… for every action…

"You hit me!"

Lana grinned, "So I did." She looked up at Angel's face and began to laugh. It was just too much. Her shoulders began to shake and she wrapped her arms around her waist as the laughter shook her slight frame. Too much… all of it. Tears began to run down her cheeks and she gasped for air. She was concerned, wished she knew what to do, what to say… how was she supposed to help when she couldn't even convince Lana she wasn't going to hurt her? Or that she honestly understood how Lana felt? Lana jumped up, escaping the arms around her and the mind inside of hers and ran to the other side of the room.

Angel stood up and walked slowly toward her. When Lana's laughter had turned to sobs he had held her, letting her cry and hoping he could comfort her. What was going on?

She held up a hand. "Don't touch me. Please," she said, her voice sounding raw.

"What's wrong? Are you ok?"

She laughed a little, harsh laugh. "Oh, I'm just dandy." She closed her eyes and composed her expression. She opened them to see Angel's concerned face. "It's fine. I just… when you touch me and I'm not expecting it your thoughts kind of…" she gestured vaguely.

"Anyway. Thanks for your concern," she said perfunctorily. "For some reason you think it is important that I live. While I can't honestly agree with that, I sort of understand why you did this."

He nodded, not sure how to respond.

"Now, then," she smiled briskly, "where are my tennis shoes?"

Angel's face clouded over. "You don't need your shoes."

"You, being a vampire, may not care that it's raining outside, but I, being mostly human, do."

"You're not going outside," he stated in a forbidding tone.

Lana rolled her eyes. "Haven't we been through this already? Time for me to be going. I kind of need my shoes for that."

"No you don't, because you're not going anywhere."

"Why is that again?" she asked in a tone of polite interest, as if she were asking him why he thought she should buy stock in shovels.

"Because the Powers…"

"Who are the Powers?"

"The Powers that Be..."

"You mean you are part of a larger company and the guys in the upstairs office with the big windows told you to stop me?"

He gritted his teeth. "No, the Powers of the universe."

"Like He-man and She-ra? Aren't you a little old for cartoons?"

"The Powers that created the universe."

"Just this one or all of them? Oh, or the multiverse? Because I read a book once that postulated…"

"It doesn't matter. The Powers." He looked at her and she raised her eyebrows but refrained from commenting. "They sent us to stop you…"

"How? I mean, did they pick you up and drop you outside my apartment or…"

"They sent Cordelia…"

"The tall one wearing the long red skirt?"

"Yes. They sent Cordy a vision…"

"Like an hallucination?"

"No, a vision from the Powers…"

"Like a memo… go stop this woman from killing herself, also, don't forget to pick up the laundry?"

"It's more like…"

"Was she born with visions?"

"No. She got them from Doyle…"

"Who's Doyle? And got them? Like getting the clap?"

He choked on that one and she tried not to laugh.

"Would you let me finish a sentence here?" He said, irritated.

Lana looked at him innocently. "I'm just trying to understand. Maybe you should be more clear."

"It would be clearer if you would be quiet for a minute."

"It would be clearer if you started from the beginning."

"Well, tonight we were just getting ready to go out when…"

"No. The Beginning."

Angel looked confused. She sighed. If she had to hear it, she wanted to hear it all. If it was true, if she really… but first she needed to hear it. "Your story," she said quietly.

Angel had a brief flash of a memory. Doyle's face as Angel said those very words…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Wesley walked into the hotel, carrying a stack of books. It was early, earlier than he had meant when he had said he would come in to relieve Angel. But sleep had not come easily to him the night before and he had ended up going over some of the books in his flat. He looked up towards the room where they were keeping Lana but decided to deposit the books in his office first. It would probably be best if he didn't bring his research with him when he sat with Lana and he wasn't finding anything anyway. He set the stack down on his desk and removed his coat, wondering how the night had gone with Lana and Angel. It was perhaps too much to hope that progress had been made… He sighed and left his office, rounding the front desk to make his way up the stairs and down the hall. He paused at the doorway, hearing the utterly unexpected sound of feminine laughter.

"… and then Cordy just looks at him and says 'I didn't think you ever had…'"

Wesley hurriedly pushed open the door. Angel was sitting in the chair facing Lana who was on the bed with her legs folded beneath her. They both looked up at Wesley. "Good morning Lana, Angel," he said.

Lana nodded politely in acknowledgement and Angel said, "Wes! What time is it?"

"Just past 6 o'clock. May I speak with you for a moment? If you will excuse us, Lana?" Lana nodded again and Angel followed Wesley into the hall. As he shut the door she heard Wesley say in a disapproving voice, "What was that all about?"

Lana leaned back against the wall and breathed deeply, relaxing the tense muscles of her neck. Gods she was tired, but no way was she planning on falling asleep with Angel in the room again. He had only just started telling her amusing anecdotes about his friends after he'd finished giving her the abridged version of his life, er, unlife story. Of course, she had cheated and lifted the entire latter half of the thing from his mind once she realized he was editing out or downplaying certain elements. Strangely, he had been perfectly frank about his existence prior to the gypsy's curse. He didn't go into explicit detail (and she had held her barriers tightly closed while he talked of it) but he had been grimly honest about what he had been. She looked thoughtfully at the door. Angel had been particularly evasive about his period of (she paused and searched for the right words) moral ambiguity (yes that sounded right) after he had fired his crew.

Wesley opened the door and came back into the room.

Lana watched him quietly and waited until he had settled himself in the chair before saying, "So you're Wesley, the research expert and leader of the group?"

Wesley looked faintly pleased and she dropped her barriers in time to catch his thought …really how he thinks of me? Lana hid a smile and put her barriers back up.

He nodded politely. "Wesley Wyndham-Price."

"Lana Hoy," she replied, nodding in return, then grinned slightly. "Well, now we've been properly introduced, can I ask you something?"

He looked amused then surprised. "Of course."

"Why is it that you are the one who runs this company called Angel Investigations?"

She watched him choose his words carefully. "Last year Angel reached a time of crisis in his existence and left the company. We, Cordelia Gunn and I, chose to continue serving the residents of Los Angeles as a team in his absence."

She nodded. "Why didn't you change the name?"

He smiled slightly. "We couldn't agree on what to change it to."

She laughed. "Ah. When did Angel come back?"

"When he had resolved his situation a few months later Angel returned, this time as employee rather than employer. I remained the leader."

"But why you? Why not Cordelia or Gunn?" she asked, curious.

"It seemed the thing to do," he murmured then looked at her as if remembering something. "Can't you tell? Why ask?"

Lana smiled briefly. "Um. I could tell. But I would rather you tell me."

"Really?"

"Really. I generally barricade my mind so that I can't hear the thoughts of those around me."

"Why?"

"It seems the thing to do," she murmured, mimicking his accent. He raised his brows. "What I mean is, do you really want me wandering around in your mind?"

"You barricade your mind for politeness' sake?" he said in disbelief.

"That and to retain some control on my sanity."

He looked at her measuringly. "You don't think I'm sane?" Lana asked in amusement. "Well, there could be some truth to that…"

"You seem fairly lucid to me."

"Too lucid to consider suicide?"

"You seem rather calm for someone who was brought here against her will after being prevented from carrying out what seemed to be an elaborately planned suicide attempt."

"Would you rather I hit you like I did Angel?"

"You hit Angel?" he said in shock.

"Um. I thought he deserved it at the time." She offered.

"I see I shall have to have a longer discussion with Angel later," Wes said, looking towards the door.

Lana grinned a bit. "I'd like to hear what he says.

He looked back at her. She could see the question coming and sighed. "I don't want to talk about it, but thanks anyway."

"I thought you said you weren't reading my mind."

"No, but I can read your expression well enough. You were about to ask if I wanted to talk about it, or some British variation of the question. Is there a standard British question for the suicidal acquaintance?"

"Erm, not really," he said. He gave her that look again and she sighed, resigning herself to a demonstration of the British version of concern. "Do you have anyone you need to call?"

"Oh," she said, surprised. "No. I don't have any close family or friends."

"What about your job? I assume you are employed?"

"Ah, yes, I was. I quit." He looked at her questioningly. She grinned wryly. "And no, the letter didn't read, 'sorry for the inconvenience, but I have to kill myself three weeks from Monday, so you'd better find a replacement right quick.'"

He laughed and she smiled, pleased that he appreciated her morbid humor. She got the feeling that he didn't laugh often. He seemed to be on the reserved side.

"And your apartment?"

"You saw it. Empty as a tomb," she looked at him, but he frowned his disapproval. Ah, no more morbid jokes, got it. "Um. I gave up my lease. New tenants are moving in Saturday."

"A car?"

She sighed. "I sold my car and my furniture, donated all of my clothes to Goodwill and liquidated all of my assets so it would be easier for Terri, the executor of my Will." She looked at him pointedly. "I wasn't supposed to be alive today, Wesley. Everything that had any vague sense of meaning has been stripped away, washed and sold or discarded. I have no life at this moment. My life is gone. No job, no possessions, no friends, no family, not even any pets. What life I had is over."

He looked at her, considering, and then nodded, as if coming to an internal decision. "Perhaps so," he said and her eyes widened. "The life you led is over, Lana. Perhaps that is not a bad thing."

"What?" she said, completely confused.

"It's New Years Day. I believe it is an appropriate time for you to set your past behind you and begin a new life. To utilize your talents as you were meant to do."

"I'm sorry, am I hearing this? New Year, New Beginning?"

"Yes," he said firmly "Your death on New Years Eve was to be a symbolic gesture correct?" she snorted but he continued. "So let that Lana die. Be the new Lana now."

"Just like that? Bye-bye old Lana. New Lana be born. Now." He nodded. "Never mind that I still have all the memories. Never mind the pain or anger or sorrow or any other of a hundred emotions and scars? Just, forget about it? Move on? If this is the British version of concern I'm surprised more of you aren't dead."

"Naturally you can't simply forget the past, but you can stop living in it," he said quietly. "You can live now, here in the present. You can go on living Lana."

"That was the point! I can't!" she cried passionately.

"Why?" He looked at her intently. "Tell me, Lana, why can't you go on living?"

"Because I…" she broke off and glared at him. "Oh, now that was sneaky. I don't want to talk about it." She looked at his head and wondered how hard it was. She didn't want to hurt her hand again punching another man, but it might be worth it.

"Well, if you don't wish to talk about your sorrows, what can you talk about?"

"Why do I have to be the one doing the talking here?" she said grumpily.

"Because we're the ones holding you captive," he said slyly.

She smothered a laugh. "I'm your hostage, then?"

"No, if you truly wish to go we won't stop you," he relented.

"That's not what Angel told me," she said dryly.

"It may still be Angel Investigations, but I'm the one in the big office," he said severely. "We won't keep you here against your will, not indefinitely. But I would ask you to stay until you are sure we have nothing to offer you."

She looked down at her hands. "I don't know, Wesley," she said quietly. "I don't know about New Lana. But I will stay for a little bit. Until I'm sure who I am." She looked up at him with shadowed eyes and he got the feeling that the words had some greater significance than that he had originally given them. She shook her head and smiled and the shadows were gone. "So what do you want to know?"

He decided not to press his luck. "Tell me about your job," he said, picking as innocuous a subject as possible.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Fred stepped out of the shower, toweled herself off and pulled on her robe. She combed out her hair and braided it, thinking about her life so far. Truth be told, she wasn't too upset about it. Pylea seemed less and less real each day, well, except for that time when it had all become blindingly real to her. When reality had crashed in on her and she hadn't known what to do. But that had been a few months ago and the shock of it had worn off. Overall she was pretty content with her life. She had a place and a purpose. She realized she was happy.

"Isn't that silly?" she asked the wall as she pulled her shirt over her head. "Sure I was happy as a child and high school was okay, but graduate school was always a little too intense." She slid on her shoes. "Obviously it wasn't fun in Pylea, but why should I be happier here than I ever have been before?" She shook her head wonderingly and walked out into the hall. "Things are more complex now. Everything was clearer when I was planning on being a physicist, but I get more out of life now, you know?" She asked the wall sconce. "Right, I should probably stop talking to myself." She nodded. "Bad habit"

Fred went down the stairs. Angel was sitting on the couch in the lobby drinking blood from a coffee mug and reading the morning paper. Funny how that had never bothered her. Him being a vampire, existing on pig's blood and not being strictly alive had never even factored into her feelings for him. When you had feelings, silly goose, she told herself. Which you don't now. Not anymore.

"Good morning Angel," she said when she reached the bottom of the stairs.

He looked up from his paper. "Fred! You're up early this morning."

"It's almost nine o'clock. Not that early," she said a tad defensively.

Gunn opened the front door and came in carrying a box. He set it down on the front desk. "Breakfast," he said by way of explanation.

"Morning Gunn," said Angel, going back to his paper.

Gunn looked at the newspaper with legs. "Hello to you too."

Fred went over to rummage through the box. "Oh, muffins! Did you get blueberry?"

"Of course I got blueberry. You ate two of them last time."

But Fred wasn't listening. "Bagels, doughnuts, juice, coffee," she looked at Gunn. "An egg McMuffin? Did I miss something? This is more food than my mama used to make for bridge night. Of course, when she made food for bridge night it wasn't breakfast food it was…" she broke off and Gunn grinned.

"How is she doing?" he asked, nodding his head in the general direction of Lana's room.

Fred shrugged. "Well, she was sleeping when Angel took over last night."

Angel put down his paper. "She's doing much better. I think she's going to be all right."

"Really," said Gunn in surprise.

"That's great!" said Fred enthusiastically. "So you were able to get her to talk about it?"

"Not exactly," said Angel, "But we did talk a lot last night."

"Oh," said Fred, looking doubtful.

"Huh," said Gunn.

"What?" asked Angel?

"You think English is ready for a break?" asked Gunn, ignoring Angel's plaintive question.

"You can check, if you want to," Angel said sounding sulky.

Gunn nodded and went up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

"So what did you talk about?" he heard Fred ask.

"I told her about all of us…" was all he heard of Angel's reply.

He stuck his head in the door. "Wes," he said, interrupting what looked like a friendly conversation.

Wesley looked up and nodded. "Lana, if you don't mind?"

She shook her head, looking slightly flushed. Wesley tilted his head questioningly but she made shooing motions with her hands and he shrugged and went out into the hall.

"You're here earlier than I expected," Wesley said after he shut the door.

Gunn shrugged. "Didn't sleep so good last night."

Wesley nodded sympathetically. "Neither did I."

"How's she doing?"

Wesley frowned. "I'm not sure. I would like to say better, but I don't know how much of what I'm seeing is her and how much is what she thinks I want to see."

"She's pretending to be someone she's not?"

"Not precisely. She is being polite, I think. Humoring us by still living," he laughed shortly. "Yes, well, in any case I don't think she will try to kill herself, but I would still rather she not be left alone."

"You want me to take over for a while?"

"If you don't mind. I may attempt to use Cordelia's computer to do some online research on clinical depression and suicidal ideation."

"You know you're risking your life using Cordy's computer without her permission?"

Wesley looked rueful. "Maybe I should call her…"

"Unless you got a death wish too," Gunn agreed, grinning.

Wesley grimaced and went down the hall. Gunn shook his head and went into Lana's room.

Lana looked up and blushed furiously. Why couldn't she control her blushing? She used to be able to. But the thing was she felt guilty. Stop it, she told herself, you've done worse you know. Don't even go there, replied another corner of her mind. I'm just saying, defended the first part. Uh huh, said the other skeptically, you just like the guilt. Ha! We're not feeling guilty anyway?

"Look, I…" "Hi, I'm…"

Damn. She was blushing again. And now he was waiting for her to talk. She drew in a deep breath and released it. "You must be Gunn," she said as calmly as possible.

"I heard Angel gave you the rundown on our crew."

She nodded. His question leaked through her barrier. I wonder how he described me? "Yup, he told me you were the muscle."

Gunn snorted. "Figures."

She grinned. "Um." He wasn't sitting down. He was looming, I wonder if he realizes he's looming? "Look, Gunn, I want to apologize."

"Apologize? For what?" He looked confused.

Am I that hard to understand? Am I speaking Spanish here? "For when I, when you came in and stopped me and I made you let go of me. I'm sorry for invading your mind like that. For controlling your mind. I just really… anyway I'm very sorry." She finished.

He looked at her thoughtfully. She talks with her hands a lot, he thought quietly. He noticed the tremor in her movements, the circles under her eyes. "How long has it been since you've eaten, Lana," he asked.

She blinked. "Eaten?" he nodded. "Um," she thought about it. "A few days I guess. I got rid of all the food and I wasn't hungry anyway." She shrugged. "Not that it matters."

He shook his head. "That's what I thought." He gave her a look. "And it does matter."

She made a helpless little gesture. "Ok, it matters."

"What do you like to eat for breakfast?"

"I'm not much of a breakfast gal," she said. He looked at her. "Ah, but I guess I could eat something. What have you got?"

He looked a little sheepish. "Pretty much everything."

She tilted her head and grinned. "Oh? Well, maybe a muffin and some orange juice?"

"Coffee?"

"I'm not much of a coffee drinker." She looked wistful. "But maybe do you have hot chocolate?"

"I'll see what I can do," he said and turned to go. She stood up to follow him. He looked back at her. "You don't have to come. I can get it for you."

"I'm a big girl, I can get my own food."

"Not of you faint from hunger on the stairs, you can't. And I don't feel like carrying you up the stairs again, 'specially if I'm also trying to carry hot chocolate and muffins."

"I won't faint," she said dryly.

"Yeah, well I don't want to take that chance, ok?"

She raised her brows. As he walked out the door she said, "You carried me? You really must be the muscle then."

He paused in the doorway but apparently decided to ignore her. She pulled her knees up to her chest and waited. She wondered what she was supposed to do now. What she had told Wesley was true. She didn't have a life as of the day before. She had nothing holding her in this world except this bizarre little group of people. It wasn't their fault that the Powers or whatever were wrong this time. She just had to figure out the best way to gracefully remove herself from this situation.

Gunn had left the door open a crack so he wouldn't have to turn the knob. He pushed it open carrying a plate with a glass balanced precariously on it next to three muffins and something wrapped in bright yellow paper in one hand and two paper coffee cups in the other. Lana jumped up to help, catching the cup just before gravity won the little battle it had been fighting for possession of said cup and took the plate as well. She looked around the room helplessly. "No table," she said. Gunn looked around too, annoyed. "It's ok, here," she said and hopped onto the bed, crossed her legs and smoothed out the blanket. She set down the plate and bowed slightly from the waist. "Our table."

"Ok," Gunn shrugged and pulled the chair next to where she was sitting. He handed her one of the coffee cups.

"Thank you," she said formally. She took a sip of the hot liquid inside and it burned her tongue. Ow. She set the cup carefully down and looked at the plate. "You do recognize that there are only two of us in here." She looked up at him. "Egg McMuffin?"

He laughed and she smiled. "I didn't know…"

"What I liked," she laughed. "Ok, so I see the blueberry and I'm guessing that is banana nut, but the other?"

"Bran."

She bit her lip and tried not to laugh. He shrugged. She took the blueberry and he smiled. "What?"

"You and Fred are going to get along just fine."

"Ah, so you're saying she has good taste?"

"Was that what I said?"

"I'll just let myself believe that's what you meant."

They ate in silence for a few minutes. Lana got halfway through her muffin and couldn't stomach another bite. She watched Gunn eat the McMuffin and start in on the banana nut muffin as she drank the orange juice.

"Why did you stop me?" she asked curiously.

He looked up. "The Powers sent us to you. To save you."

"I don't need saving, thanks," she said dryly.

"Looked that way to me."

"Hmm. But that's not what I meant." She took a sip of the now slightly less scalding hot chocolate. "You, why were you the one who actually stopped me?"

"I was the first one through the door, I guess."

She shook her head. "Wesley was first. You came in next just before Cordelia and Fred."

"Really?" he thought back over the last evening. "Huh. You're right. How'd you remember?"

"I'm suicidal, not brain dead… not yet anyway."

"That's not funny."

"I thought it was."

"Lana, if we're going to get along you have to promise to stop that."

"Stop making jokes?"

"Stop it with the suicide."

She threw up her hands in frustration, narrowly avoiding spilling her chocolate. She set the cup down on the floor, straightened and glared at Gunn. "First it was Angel with 'I know how it feels' and then Wesley with 'be the New Lana,' now you with 'just say no?' Don't you get that…"

"That you're determined to leave this life now, yesterday? Yeah, I do. But I think you know you can't do that."

"And I think that maybe the best way to deal with the men of your company is to smack them upside the head."

He looked at her for a moment, shrugged slightly and leaned forward. She leaned back and looked at him in disbelief. Then she laughed reluctantly. "It's no fun when you offer, you know."

He sat back in his chair and grinned. "I thought it might not be."

"Lucky for you," she muttered.

He leaned forward again and her hand twitched. He caught her wrist and looked intently at her. "You don't want to do this."

"I have to," came her tortured reply. "It's the only way I'll ever find peace."

"We don't get peace in life." Lana looked surprised but he went on before she could say anything. "All we got is living, making our way and maybe there are moments where you're peaceful, but you got to work for them. Truth is, you know that deep down. Last night you gave in and tried to escape. You convinced yourself it was right, it was time, end the year and let a new one start without you. But it wasn't right, it wasn't time and the New Year is here with you in it. You promise me you'll stay in it."

"You don't know what you're asking me to live with."

"No I don't. But I know you're strong. You can handle it."

"I can't. I'm not strong."

"Yeah, you are. You couldn't have survived this long if you weren't." He paused, searching for the right words. "Look. You already decided to stay before I came in here. You could've made Angel let you go. You could've walked out the front door and stepped off the curb in front of a passing car and it would've been over. But you didn't. You stayed. Just admit to yourself you're going to stay."

"Maybe… maybe you're right."

"Promise me, Lana. Promise me you won't kill yourself. Promise yourself you'll live a long, long life."

"I promise," she whispered. He nodded for her to go on. She closed her eyes for a moment then opened them and spoke a little louder. "I promise I won't kill myself."

He released her wrist and leaned back again in his chair. He smiled, looking relieved. Lana sagged and wrapped her arms around her waist. Suddenly she felt overwhelmingly exhausted. It was all she could do not to collapse on the bed.

"Are your eyes a different color?"

"Huh?" said Lana, wondering if they had started a new conversation when she hadn't been paying attention.

"I was just noticing… they look darker now.  Last night they were light brown, now they're nearly black."

"Uh, they've always been this color."

"Huh. I could've sworn…"

"Gunn?"

"Yeah?"

"Would you mind if I slept a little?"

"Oh. No, I guess you didn't get much sleep last night?"

"No, what little I had was all Angel and blood and…" she broke off, dismayed at what she had said.

"What? Angel and what?"

She waved a hand, as if to erase her words. "Ugh. Sorry. Never mind." He folded his arms and looked stubborn. She sighed. "Sometimes when I fall asleep my barrier, um, the wall I put around my mind to keep other people's thoughts out, doesn't stay up. Well," she grinned ruefully, "most times, actually. I dream other people's dreams. Or incorporate their thoughts into my dreams."

"Weird," said Gunn. He hadn't thought how other people's thought might affect her mind, only how she could use her mind to read or control.

"You have no idea. It can be pretty bizarre." She rubbed her eyes. "But last night Angel fell asleep and dreamt of the time when he was still Angelus. It was… disturbing, to say the least."

"I bet. But you'll be ok with me here? You want me to go?"

She shrugged. "Wouldn't matter. I mean, the closer you are the more I hear, but I hear fairly well within a block radius. If you're here, though, you kind of block out the other voices, like playing music to drown out the neighbors fighting, y'know?" He looked thoughtful. "Just, um, try not to relive any past battles, all right?"

"Hey, how 'bout I play Gameboy?" He pulled out the Gameboy from one of his pockets. "Not too much thought involved there," he said, grinning.

Lana nodded, smiling slightly. "That works. But do me a favor. Not Tetris." She thought of her former next-door neighbor's obsession with Tetris and cringed. For nearly a year she had been bombarded with Tetris and had begun to see the world around her as expressions of L shapes and squares. "Anything but Tetris."

"You got it."

Lana crawled beneath the blankets and fell asleep as if into a hole.