The Hitch-hiker

(author's note: this short tale takes place shortly after Angel discovers that Buffy has been resurrected from her grave)

He never picked up hitchhikers. This was California, after all; when six of your fellow drivers had been registered under the official names of "The Lord Jesus Christ", that didn't leave you much hope for the sanity of pedestrians. As he shifted gears and his huge rig groaned and shuddered to accelerate around him, he idly wondered what sort of a motorist the Son of God would make, anyhow. Sunday driver? Nah...

The lightsmear of galaxies that was L.A. had long since faded in his taillights. He could look forward to five solid days on the road, with no more human contact than the usual complement of truckers so grizzled you could flatten them out and use them as sandpaper, and waitresses with faces like bubonic plague and menus in foodstains on their uniforms. He patted his wheel and grinned.

He never picked up hitchhikers. There was a black shape coming into view by the side of the freeway, he could see it now. Looked like an old classic...damn, what was the name? He curled his lip in thought as his eyes made out a figure by the side of the car, facing down the approaching traffic. He grunted. No thumb extended. Not that it would have made a difference to him.

He slowed down and pulled over. Before he knew it, the guy had opened the passenger side of his cab. He found himself looking into the most intense pair of eyes he'd ever seen. There shouldn't have been that much pain hidden in this young man's face. Also, going by his complexion at least, it looked as if he'd been locked in a cupboard since spermhood.

"Thanks," he was told. "My car's transmission packed in."

"No problem," he found himself replying. "I'm Harry. Where do you wanna go?"

"Another few miles up the freeway – I think there's a service station."

Harry gunned the engine and they began to move. "Planning to stop there myself," he said. "You're not leaving anyone to watch the car?"

"No-one to leave."

"It's a nice car," Harry said meaningfully.

"Thanks."

The words were short, clipped, on autopilot. Harry found himself more intrigued than resentful. He wondered why he wasn't overly freaked by this guy. It wasn't as if he didn't project an aura of danger – no-one who couldn't handle themselves like hell would have dared to pull off that outfit – it was as if the guy had a massive load on his mind. And Harry, like any trucker, was an inquisitive sort of bastard.

"What's your name, son?"

If the hitchhiker gritted his teeth at the word son, Harry didn't notice.

"Angel."

Well, that settled it. Obviously this guy was an immense fighter.

"If you're not worried about the car," he continued conversationally "you sure seem worried about something, if you don't mind my saying so, that is."

Angel cast a sidelong glance. "Ever thought of freelancing in the detective business?"

"Ouch," Harry chuckled. "Transmission's shot, but sarcasm working fine."

He was about to plough on merrily when Angel's mobile began ringing. Began was the appropriate word to use, too; it had barely had time to chirp indignantly before it nestled against the guy's ear. Harry tactfully shut up – it'd let him eavesdrop better.

"Hi," Angel breathed. Ah. The little woman. Recently acquired too, by the sounds of it, grinned the trucker, mercilessly cutting up two small Chevys and pausing to flash an obscene sign out of the window at an elderly couple in a Winnebago.

"I'm almost there. Car trouble. I know. Five minutes. Yes. Yes..." and there was a long, long pause which, Harry realised, by all rights should have contained the mandatory, the standard, breathless I love you, "...bye."

"Don't worry, we'll get there."

"I wasn't worried."

"Oh, you're worried all right, son."

"Oh really," there was an intake of air to his right. "You know, not to sound ungrateful for the lift and everything, but this is kind of personal."

Harry slapped the steering wheel in merriment at this. "Yeah, I got that. I'm a regular gumshoe, remember? This truckin I do is only to pad out the tax forms."

He wasn't sure if the grin he got from Angel was bona fide, but it'd do.

"Sure."

The rig rumbled and bounced and bullied its way down the highway, inexorably eating up the dirt to either side and the weather-cracked surface below. It'd be right about the witching hour by now, Harry figured, not exactly the social highpoint of the day. The service station would be an oasis of grime and oil – and that'd be just the café – ringed by roaring engines and ex- Navy SEAL mosquitoes. They looked as if they'd already gotten a Roman feast weekend out of his friend here.

"So you don't know what to say to her," he said casually. "Big deal."

Angel's reply took some seconds to come. "Excuse me?"

"Look, I may be no detective, but you're no 5-card hack either. You've been sitting there brooding since you climbed in. Now either something's bothering you or that's just how you are constantly, and that's hardly true, hmm?"

"You'd be surprised."

Harry sighed loudly. "Look – you're right! It's none of my business! I don't know you, I don't know her! I'm just some nosy truck guy who gave you a lift, right?"

"Following you so far."

"Oh c'mon kid! Don't you ever hear stories about guys, or girls, or whoever the hell, who get advice from total strangers and it ends up..." he threw up his hands in excitement, violating several traffic laws and killing a racoon, "...being totally life-changing? Don't you believe in fate?"

Angel reacted to that one. "It believes in me," he said softly.

Harry seemed too caught in his reverie to notice this off-kilter response. "What have ya got to lose, son? Take a little neutral advice! You don't want to end up standing looking at each other, and just fidgeting, and having these big soulful pauses, do ya?"

"Wouldn't want that..."

"Now you're talking, son!" Harry slapped his passenger heartily on the shoulder. He winced slightly, shook his hand for a moment until the stinging subsided, cast a momentary puzzled look at Angel and settled back. "Right...you love this girl – uh – just to check, I'm not judging, but – "

"Girl."

"Girl, right," Harry exhaled long and luxuriously, "you love her?"

"I loved her."

Harry waved a pointed finger in the air. "Ah ha!" he said triumphantly. "So you stopped loving her at some point! And why was that?"

Angel seemed to have difficulty with this. "I had to stop. Didn't have a choice."

"Terminal break-up?"

"Very."

"I see..." Harry paused a moment to judiciously devour a Twinkie he'd tucked behind his copious left ear. He offered his emergency Twinkie to Angel, who declined. "So this is your first time meeting up with her again. And you're going to have to face all of the baggage, all of the emotional fallout and angst from the last time – man, are you lucky I catch Dawson's on weekends – and you're nervous. Only natural, son. The question that's really bothering you is: do you want it all again...holy shit, what's wrong with your head?"

Angel brought his hands quickly to his forehead. He massaged his temple for a moment before returning to Harry. "What?" sounding annoyed and, oddly, relieved.

"Nothing – sheesh, I just didn't know someone could furrow their brow that much," Harry said, glancing across at Angel with new concern. "So do you?"

"I can't."

"Is she involved with someone else?"

"No."

"Are you?"

A heartbeat passed, so small even Harry didn't pass comment upon it. "No."

Harry pursed his lips. "So you two – you're going along here to, what? Renew an old friendship you always had before your relationship, yes?"

"Friends was never our style."

"Oooh," Harry grinned. "Soul mates, is it!"

Angel seemed to shake himself loose from his gloom for the first time. He regarded Harry with a bemused expression. "You romantic trucker."

"Don't spread it around, son. There'll be graffiti from here to Buffalo on every gas station john, trust me. Hey, I get all that soul mates stuff. Everyone hopes it's true, like reincarnation or life after death or the other fairy stories, you know the type."

"A little, yeah."

Harry clucked in exasperation; the turnoff to the service station was on the horizon. He deliberately gunned down the gears a little and adopted as fatherly a tone as he could to this lad. "Seems to me, kid, that this is just one of those deals where you have to suck it up, go out there and remind each other that just because you're both back on planet Earth as single people again doesn't mean you get to run toward each other on a sunlit beach. Life's not fair. This girl, hell I can see she means a lot to you, but maybe it's just not meant to be..." and he tugged Angel's shoulder and winked, "yet."

Harry pulled up the rig before the entrance to the service station. "I thought you were planning on...?" Angel began.

"I think I'll just drive on. Give you two some distance," Harry said. Craning his neck to see around a grassy kerb, he made out the head and shoulders of a young blonde girl. Despite the hour, she didn't seem to be shivering in the cold.

Angel, who had spotted her too, nodded to him. "Thanks for the ride," he said, and closed the cab door, "and for listening."

Harry watched him take a few steps as he keyed the ignition once more. "Angel?" he called over the engine, and the man turned, bless him. "Don't despair. You're not alone in this, believe me. And as for Buffy," and Harry smiled to see the realisation impact on the vampire's face, "time waits for no man, but eternity waits for you."

The words carried on the wind. Angel watched the rig until its taillights vanished in the velvet blackness, swallowed to the night. He walked to her.