The Hyperion was fairly quiet as the three men cleaned their weapons. The nights had been busy, both with paid and unpaid work. Business was good, although it could be better in terms of paying clients. At least, that was Cordelia's constant complaint.
Gunn was joking about the way that demon had spurted goo from an, ahem, unexpected orifice, catching Wesley right in the face. Angel managed a stoic countenance although he could tell from Wesley's glare his attempts to keep from laughing had been duly noted. Cordelia was resting from her latest vision; the painkillers she was taking didn't seem to help much in dulling the pain.
He'd maintained secret communications with Giles since his abrupt departure from Sunnydale. Buffy had told Angel how separating from him had hurt her in the future. But he couldn't talk to her yet. A feeling almost akin to deep terror welled up in him whenever he considered it. But he could and did keep in touch with her Watcher to learn everything he could about her life, even if it was only secondhand. Yet his heart tore at him daily over the loss of his soulmate.
Soulmate. He'd never known that word when he was human. The closest his people came to such a concept was amnchara, a mystical balance between two people of disparate but complementing natures. He certainly hadn't considered such a thing when he became a vampire. He'd seen enough of over two centuries of mean human selfishness or lust that masqueraded as love to pooh-pooh the notion as the lie it was. If he'd ever seen the true article, his demon had mocked it or sought to destroy it.
Now he knew. Being with Buffy and knowing the horror of a future without her had shown him the wonder, delight and, yes, exquisite pain that such a gift could bring. He hadn't wanted to leave her. But with the murder of Dr. Williams, he knew he must and his soul felt the loss keenly.
Dawn had been a welcome addition to their crew in the short time she was here. She was a link to Buffy while managing to be completely different from her. She had won over Gunn simply by her youthful sweetness, a poignant reminder of his lost sister Alanna. She had teased Wesley without the dismissal or contempt of the Scooby gang. Surprisingly, Cordelia, the one member of his team he'd expected her to have the most friction with, had taken Dawn under her wing with a friendliness never shown to her older sister.
Dawn and the former beauty queen had bonded splendidly over clothes shopping, running up a hefty bill on his credit card. He had often heard Dawn giggling over Cordelia's acidic comments about her former friends in Sunnydale although the teenager had been quite heated in her defense of Xander. They had often discussed the physical attributes of the males around them when they thought he couldn't hear. The frankness of their compliments about his own form would have made him blush if he'd been capable.
Buffy had insisted that Dawn attend to her studies while in L.A. Giles had enlisted Willow's help in getting her homework assignments sent on to her and Wesley had proved quite adept in home schooling. He had even coaxed Dawn into learning French. She had rapidly become more fluent than Buffy, an achievement she meant to rub her sister's nose in when she got back to Sunnydale.
With Glory's death, he'd been tempted to send her back the moment he returned from the small town. But he kept her a little longer, just to be certain it was safe for her to go back. He kept in touch with Giles to learn if Glory's followers were still in the neighborhood. It was possible they would simply leave with the death of their god but that dispersal might take awhile.
Sure enough, reports had been made of the hellgod's minions, decrepit monklike figures with horrid skin conditions, wandering madly through the darkened streets of Sunnydale in search of their lost deity. Then they all vanished from Sunnydale as mysteriously as they had entered it.
But that had been days ago and there had been no sign of them since then. Certain the danger was past, he had sent Dawn back to Sunnydale with Wesley along with several bags of new clothes. She and Cordelia had parted with effusive farewells and promises to keep in touch. Before she left, Angel had stressed to Dawn that she couldn't let Buffy know that he'd been in L.A.
He shook off his musings to catch another round of ribbing from Gunn. "Man, getting that stuff out of your clothes is gonna be hell, Wes. Just what kind of cleaner works on demon shit, anyway?"
"As I believe I've already informed you, Gunn, that wasn't its anus. It was the equivalent of an ink ejector on an octopus. The demon apparently emits it when it's scared or anxious in order to blind its enemies. It has nothing to do with feces," the Englishman responded stiffly.
The former street tough sniggered. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. I still think if it looks like shit and smells like shit, it's shit."
"Would you two stop talking about demon goo for one minute? God, I know we're in the monster hunting racket but you'd think you could discuss something other than disgust-o demonic spewage for a change!" The ex-cheerleader glared at the two of them until they both had the grace to look abashed.
There was a moment's silence then Gunn piped up with, "Yo, Wes. You catch that Knicks game the other night?"
As the two men began an avid discussion of the game, Cordelia rolled her eyes and let her head drop back onto the couch. She held the moist towel over her forehead with one hand and grimaced at Angel. "I don't suppose you've got any more riveting topics for conversation, do you?"
The directness of the question caught him off guard. "Um, what do you want to talk about?"
"Well…what did you usually talk about with Buffy?"
Buffy? That was easy. Anything and everything about her life was of interest to him. Hearing her tell about her friends, her training with Giles, her struggles with various subjects in school (she really appreciated his unique perspective on history)…all had made for lively conversations. Often he wouldn't talk at all, merely sit and bask in her bubbling glow as she recounted the day's events. An unexpected observation made in her light, sweet voice often had the habit of catching him unawares and making him laugh.
Noting his faraway stare, she sighed. "Oops. Shouldn't have mentioned the B word. But you and her must have gone into other stuff besides the slaying. Come on; hit me, Angel."
"Maybe I'll hit him instead." The icy voice came from the door of the Hyperion and everybody froze. Angel slowly lifted his head to make the stormy gaze of one truly pissed-off Slayer.
Buffy's smile was like a glittering knife in her angry face. "Hello, honey. Miss me?"
After Buffy assured Gunn and Wes that there wasn't an emergency, Cordelia had hustled them both out of the hotel. She'd seen that look in Buffy's eyes too often and knew what it meant. "Trust me, guys. You don't want to get in the middle of this."
Buffy and Angel stood in the lobby staring at one another and the vampire felt as if the space were entirely too small to hold the both of them. [That's crazy. There are over 100-odd rooms. That's plenty of space to hide in.]
[I'm not going to hide from Buffy! She's…ticked, I can see that. But we can work through this.]
[Ticked? No, Cordelia Chase gets ticked. Buffy gets royally pissed and that's what I'm seeing here. If you're not gonna run, maybe you should try picking a weapon from the cabinet. C'mon! It's only a few feet away. We can make it!]
Ignoring his cowardly inner voice, he held up his hands. "Buffy, I can explain…"
She marched up to him until she was standing right in his face, her hazel eyes darkened almost to green with the intensity of her emotion. "Explain? Okay, Angel, explain. Explain to me how, after everything you said about never leaving me, you just leave me!"
"It was…there were circumstances."
"What circumstances?! I'm up against a hellgod and need every member of my team fighting with me and you just pull a disappearing act. I came racing over to your mansion to let you in on the good news and I find out that you're gone!"
"Good news? What good news?"
She evidently wanted to resume her rant about his terrible behavior but whatever news she had to impart was far more important. She walked over to the hotel lobby couch and plopped down where Cordelia had previously lain. "Giles told me there might be a spell to bind your soul."
"Bind my…what are you saying?"
"I thought I was being pretty clear. Giles told me that there might be a spell to bind your soul so you can't lose it again—ever. But he didn't want to tell you because he didn't actually have a spell, just the idea to find one. So I kept quiet and kept away from you because I didn't want to get your hopes up. I wasn't going to mention it to anybody but I got hurt one night after patrol…"
"You were hurt on patrol?" Giles hadn't mentioned any serious injury and Angel immediately ran his eyes over Buffy's lithe form as if he could see through the pale green dress she was wearing.
"Nothing serious and don't change the subject. I was getting patched up by Willow and wishing you were around and going on about what a bummer it was that we couldn't be close. One thing led to another and Willow tells me that the soul restoration spell she did for you didn't have the gypsy curse attached to it."
"No…curse?" Angel walked over to her cautiously. Buffy no longer seemed angry with him but that could change at any moment. He sat beside her but not too closely as he waited to hear what she had to say.
"Yeah. The original curse was to give you back your soul and make you suffer. The bit about losing it if you ever experienced total happiness was tacked on to make sure you'd always be Misery Angel. The gypsies were supposed to follow you and make sure you never got that moment of shining bliss. It was all part of their eternal-torture-of-Angel dealie. Only before Jenny could tip you off about that, we…" She flushed and stared down at her feet.
"I see." He remembered his period as Angelus in Sunnydale. The moments after his soul had been restored for the second time, he couldn't remember those months at first, and he had been so confused. It had only been during his stint in hell that the true ugliness of his alter ego's actions had been presented to him, over and over again, in vivid screaming Technicolor.
"But Jenny saw what you were like, what we had together and, when she created the curse that time, she…left that part out. She wanted you to be happy, Angel. She must have felt that you'd suffered enough."
If he'd had a human heartbeat, it would have been thundering in his chest. As it was he could only stare at her in shocked silence as he digested the news. No curse. There was no curse and they were both free. Free to see each other without fear of unleashing a dangerous predator on the world. Free to touch and kiss and…
The vivid fantasies about her that never truly went away crowded to the fore of his mind. Unconsciously he shifted closer to her only to reel back as she slapped his face. His head snapped to the side as she began shouting at him.
"So I go to the mansion all bouncy Buffy with the happy news and you're not there! By the looks of the dust, you hadn't been there in days and I didn't understand it. I thought something had happened to you. I thought you might have been dusted or caught by Glory. I asked around Sunnydale, I begged Giles and the others to search for you but nothing turned up. I was sick with worry! Then Dawn came home and started going on about her great time in L.A. I wondered why she was home when Glory was still a threat and she gave me some story about Wesley and Giles saying the stars weren't in alignment for Glory to return home so it was safe for her to come back. I actually bought it, but then I got a peek at her diary…"
Angel raised his eyebrows at that statement. "You read your sister's diary?"
Buffy pulled herself up short, embarrassed. "I wasn't trying to. But she's been borrowing my clothes—again—and I was looking for one of my sweaters when it fell out of the top shelf of the closet and fell open. I saw your name and all about her wonderful time in L.A. with my lover."
Her anger returning, she poked him in the chest with one finger. "Then I had to wait for the weekend because there was no way my mom was letting me run out on a school night just so I could hunt down my lying, skeezy boyfriend." She leaned against the couch back and glared at him. "Now it's your turn, Angel. Spill it. Why'd you leave Sunnydale and why did you tell my sister to lie to me about it?"
Angel ran his hands through his cropped hair and tried to think of what to say. He'd had time and opportunity to come up with this speech and now the moment was here and he could barely get the words out. It wasn't helping his concentration any to have Buffy so close. Her eyes sparkled in the light and her breasts were heaving with agitation. The graduated, clingy green dress did marvelous things to her figure. She may have been furious with him but it hadn't prevented her from dressing to her advantage.
She was just so beautiful when she was angry, although he knew he wouldn't win any points by telling her that now. In an effort to concentrate, he averted his dark eyes away hers and asked in a low voice, "Buffy, do you remember how you told me Glory was hiding in a human shell?"
"Yeah. That was the last thing we discussed and then you showed up at UC Sunnydale."
"I found the mortal."
"The mortal?" Her puzzlement was apparent and then the light dawned. "You mean the human skin Glory's been playing Jekyll and Hyde with? You found out who it is?"
"I caught up to him that night that woman April tossed me out the window."
"Robot," she corrected.
"What?"
"She wasn't a woman. She was a robot crafted by a techno-geek called Warren Meers. It was a whole 'No woman loves me, so I'll make a sex toy for myself' deal gone bad." She waved her hand in impatient dismissal. "Sad story. Over story. Get on with your story."
He wanted to pursue the matter of that robotic woman. He hadn't believed that such things were possible outside of science fiction. But his tale was more important. "Like I said, I found the mortal shell of Glory. It was a man called Dr. Ben Williams."
"Oh, I know him! He was handling my mother's case when she kept going in for those tests at the hospital… Wait, he's Glory's better half? Wow, I never would have guessed."
Oh no, it was worse than he'd feared. Buffy had actually known this man and the difficulty of this confession had just increased tenfold.
Her beloved's lapse into pained silence didn't go unnoticed. "Angel? What about Dr. Williams? What happened when you met him? H-he didn't try to brain suck you, did he?"
"He never got the chance, Buffy. I confronted him in the parking lot and something he said, the way he acted…I knew he was Glory. Before he could change—I killed him."
The silence stretched out interminably until the vampire couldn't stand it any longer. He risked a glance into Buffy's face to see her staring sightlessly at him. Her look was impassive and all at once he needed to hear the worst. Was she disgusted with him? Did she hate him? Would she get up now and walk out and never speak to him again? "Buffy? Please…say something," he whispered.
"You said this happened the same night I tangled with April."
"That's right."
"I came after patrol that night to talk to Giles and he told me about binding your soul. I wanted to run and let you know but he convinced me not to. In fact, he got pretty wiggy about my being anywhere around you. He knew about it, didn't he?"
"I came to him and told him that Glory was no longer a problem. But I didn't tell him what I'd done although I think he guessed. I didn't want him to tell you about it, Buffy. That was for me to do."
"So Giles has known all this time about what you did and where you were and he kept it from me?" The anger on her face was replaced by betrayed hurt and her bottom lip quivered.
Taking a chance on her reaction, he slid closer to her although he avoided touching her yet. "I'm sorry to have laid that cross on him, Buffy. I just couldn't bear to face you or anybody else. He was the only one I could trust not to tell you until I was ready."
"All this time, I was so worried about Glory. I was running myself ragged over her! He's my Watcher; he should have let me know. Then at least I could have had peace of mind about her."
"I know, love. Believe me. It was a terrible thing I did to him, putting him in the middle of the two of us. But I was a wreck. At the time, I saw my pain as being greater than any moral quandary I put Giles in. Please don't be angry with him. I'm the one who can't be forgiven."
For the first time the pained guilt and anguish in his voice seeped through her consciousness and she lifted her head to search his eyes. "Angel, you can't beat yourself up over this."
"Can't I?" he said harshly. "You can't say this is a case of my demon committing this act, Buffy. This wasn't Angelus' doing; 'twas mine. I didn't even look for another option! I killed a man with my soul intact." The last few words emerged in a vicious growl filled with self-loathing and his features shifted to his gameface before returning to their normal human planes.
"Angel, I know this wasn't what you wanted to do. But it had to be done, didn't it? I mean, there was no other way to stop Glory. The Council researched but they couldn't come up with anything. Willow didn't think there was a spell powerful enough to stop her. Giles couldn't learn about any weaknesses she might have like kryptonite or a weak heel like that Achilles guy. We weren't even sure if a Trollgod hammer would do the trick. What were your other choices?"
"I-I don't know."
She could tell he wasn't convinced. So she shifted gears slightly. "Why did you kill him then? I'm the Slayer; that was my job. Why not let me take care of it?"
"That's just what I didn't want, Buffy! You told me you'd died facing this creature. I couldn't take the chance that might happen. If anyone was to fall against this thing, I wanted it to be me. I'm already dead; it would have been no loss. But by killing Dr. Williams…this way, no one would have to fight and die. Especially not you."
"You killed him for me?"
He rested his head in his large hands. She was prepared to forgive him for putting her life before this man's own. But how could he tell her it wasn't that simple, that it wasn't the matter of a mere trade? He raised his head to stare at her and willed her to understand.
"Buffy, I'm an Irish Catholic. The church and I haven't exactly been friends for over two centuries. But when my soul came back and my conscience with it—let's just say a lot of retroactive church-fueled guilt came crashing down on me all at once. To us, the taking of a life is never a light thing."
"Even if it's done for the greater good?"
"You can't justify such things, Buffy. That's what leads to genocide. Just ask the Jews who were persecuted by Hitler."
He paused a moment to let that sink in. She bit her lip as if wrestling with her conscience Then she whispered, "Angel, I have to be confessy here. I-I tried to kill Faith."
"What? No, you just put her in a coma."
"I know. That's what the diaries told me was going to happen. But that only did because I became killer Buffy. I knew she was going to shoot you and I didn't tell you because I knew that one event would lead to another and she had to be Coma Girl so she could be a better person in the future. I kept that from you and risked your life…just so I could take hers."
He saw what she intended. "But you weren't trying to kill her this time around, were you, Buffy?"
"Not at first. But when we started fighting, I lost it, Angel. I didn't remember that she was going to be better in the future. I didn't see the decent Faith who'd try to make good in a few years. I saw the lying, boyfriend-stealing bitch who walked on the dark side, the one who chained me to a wall and threatened to slice me up with little knives. I got all caught up in the fight and when I stabbed her, it wasn't about the future. It was about payback."
"Then why didn't you kill her?"
"I looked at her and I thought about how you'd want to help her. About how you probably saw her as being like yourself. But I just let her fall off a tall building. Even knowing the future, that was still a big risk to take. She might have wound up in the morgue instead of the hospital."
"Buffy, it's not the same."
"No, it's not. You're a demon, Angel. You've said that to me often enough so killing humans, pretty much part of your nature. I'm supposed to protect humans not kill them because I'm the Slayer. What's my excuse?"
This was a valid point and obviously one to which she'd given a lot of thought. He struggled in his mind for a counter argument but none sprang to mind.
She clasped his hand. "You see, Angel? No black and white here. Only shades of gray and we're both kinda coated with it. Tell you what. You forgive me and I'll forgive you. Deal?"
At least she was making this easy on him. Forgiving himself was never an option but knowing that she did went far in easing the burden on his already tortured soul.
Sensing his surrender, she scooted closer and then sat in his lap. She pressed her lips over his softly. Caught by surprise, he didn't respond for a moment. Then he wrapped his arms about her diminutive body and drew her close.
He'd taught her a lot about kissing and Buffy was determined to put everything she knew to the test. She ran her tongue all across his lower lip in one rapid, teasing flick. She pulled away slightly and came back again. This time her tongue was more insistent, parting the lips and stroking along the tops of the teeth. When his tongue came out and began playing with hers, she shifted closer and began wriggling her bottom across his lap.
Angel could feel heat—from her desire, her thickening lust-filled scent, her warm body pressing against his. It surged through him and he growled softly in reaction. She let the sound buzz against her lips and then pulled back to eye him with a mischievous expression. She purred, "So what do you say? Shall we test Willow's theory about the curse?"
Gunn, Wesley and Cordelia tiptoed cautiously inside the Hyperion. There were no bodies lying around; that was a good sign. "So where they at?" the tall black man asked as he peered around the large space. In the drive to the movie—Cordelia had assured them Angel and Buffy would need every bit of the time to hash out their problems—the seer had gone into elaborate, unwanted detail about the ups and downs of their turbulent affair and the return of Angel's nasty alter ego. He'd had to bite back a snigger at the barely concealed jealousy as she carped about Angel's unhealthy attachment to Buffy in high school as if there weren't any other, more beautiful, women around.
They'd seen the movie and, mercifully, Cordelia had shut up during its entire run. Then, on the return trip, she had launched into all the details she'd apparently missed on the drive over to the movie theater. Now he was thoroughly bored with the subject; he just hoped he wouldn't have to sweep his boss into an ashtray.
"Cordelia, I'm sure your fears are unfounded. Miss Summers may have been upset but she's a mature adult and Angel is over 200 years old. They will settle this disagreement of theirs without resorting to fisticuffs."
"Ha! That just shows what you know, Wesley. Didn't you hear anything I said? Hurricane Buffy is in town and that can only mean trou—"
"AAAAAAANNNNGELLLL!" The loud feminine wail came from upstairs swiftly followed by a deep guttural roar.
"BUUUUFFFFYYY!" The Watcher paled, Cordelia turned red and gaped in outrage and Gunn snorted and then burst into laughter.
"Oh yeah. Sounds like they killing each other, all right. Quick, Wesley, you get the trank gun, I'll get my axe." He plopped on the couch, dissolving into laughter again as more ecstatic cries came from the room on the upper floor.
Cordelia stood in shock and then began spluttering, "What is the matter with her? Is she crazy? Has she forgotten what all this leads to? I can't believe she'd be so selfish!"
She was marching for the stairs when Wesley pulled her back. "Cordelia, do you really want to walk in on them if Buffy and Angel are otherwise engaged?"
She glared at him and yanked her arm out of his grip. Nevertheless, she halted her progress up the stairs. "Wesley, you know what this means. Angelus is about to make a return and, you better believe me, it's gonna take more than an axe and tranquilizers to stop him."
"Cordelia, I understand your fears. But I find it difficult to believe that Miss Summers would be so careless. After all, she's resisted Angel's—advances for the past four years. Why would she suddenly give in now, especially when she was obviously incensed with him earlier?"
"God, Wes, you don't know much about this sort of thing, do you? Arguing leads to fighting, fighting leads to passion and that leads to make-up sex. I'm surprised she didn't fall off the wagon before now." She shuddered at another round of delirious cries from upstairs.
"I think we should give both of them the benefit of the doubt."
"Fine. You go up there and talk to them then." Cordelia crossed her arms and lifted her chin in defiance.
"Me? Why do I have to go? You're the one who doesn't think Angel can be trusted."
"Well, you're the one who thinks that Buffy can. So why don't you just go up there and tell her what a big jerk she's being putting us all in danger like this?"
Gunn listened to the two of them bickering with only one ear. The other one was eagerly listening for more sounds coming from the closed bedroom. After awhile, they seemed to stop with no sign that they were beginning again. So he shrugged mentally and slouched up the stairs. Cordelia stopped arguing to snap at him, "Where do you think you're going?"
"I was thinking you two wanted to continue the Weezie and George Jefferson act a little longer. I'll go check on the them two now that things seem a little quieter." Without waiting for further permission, he sauntered upstairs and rapped on the hotel door.
There was a hurried rustling behind the door and then fevered whispering. From behind the locked door, a female voice sang out, "Who is it?"
"Yo, it's me, Gunn. Angel, you all right in there?"
There was a soft giggle and the rustle of clothing and this time Angel answered. His voice sounded unusually high and strained as he spoke. "Yeah, Gunn. I'm fine. Is there a problem?"
"Nah. It's just our resident seer has got her panties in a wad 'cause she thinks Angelus is about to make a visit. From what she tells me, he's a real badass and I want to know if I should be sharpening my trusty hubcap axe."
The next moment the door was pulled open and Buffy Summers stood before him. She was dressed in the same pale green dress she'd worn before but now she was distinctly braless under it and she had what he called "wild, funky sex hair." She thrust out one small hand towards him. "Hi. We weren't properly introduced before. You're Gunn, right?"
"That's right. And you're Buffy, the Slayer and Angel's girl. I gotta tell you, I didn't think a fighter would be so small."
"Yeah, they all say that," she replied with a genuine smile. She glanced back at something unseen just behind the door and he realized Angel hadn't appeared yet. "You're worried about Angelus. Don't be. His soul is safe. My friend left out the happiness clause when she stuck his soul back in again. He'll be just fine."
"Any chance I could see for myself?" He pushed forward only to find himself forced back by the deceptively small woman facing him.
"Uh no. He's kinda…tied up at the moment." There was a loud snort from behind the door and it was obvious the woman was holding back a giggle of her own.
"Look, we're taking every step to see Angelus doesn't get out, okay? Believe me, the situation's under control. See, I've got my trusty stake with me?" She fumbled in her purse and pulled out a stake, smooth and polished from constant handling.
"Well, if you think that's gonna be enough—"
"Gunn, leave us alone. Buffy and I have…things to discuss." The growly voice was definitely from Angel and Gunn saw a naughty sparkle appear deep in the woman's eyes.
"Okay. But if you're gonna keep doing this kind of discussing, you might want to think about getting this room soundproofed. We could hear you two all the way downstairs."
He was gratified to see the blonde Slayer blush all the way up to her eyebrows. "You heard us? Even Cordelia?"
"Especially Cordy. She nearly had a stroke." She was turning all shades of red and he could hear male laughter drifting out from behind her. She glared in the direction of the unseen vampire and then turned back to Gunn.
"Um, thanks. We'll…try to keep it down." She inched the door shut and then paused. "Did you say something earlier about a hubcap axe?"
"Yeah. Some kid made it for me in shop class. When you two finished with your conversation, I'll show it to you."
She grinned as she replied, "Okay. It sounds cool. All I ever got in shop was an ashtray from some guy with a crush on me in the fifth grade." Then she shut the door. He could hear more whispers and then what sounded like a low moan.
He shook his head as he went back down the stairs. "Oh yeah. Definitely gonna need soundproofing."
Finis