Chapter 25
Buffy sat in the conference room next to Angel, her mind wandering back to the fight she had just come from with Spike. They had gone looking for trouble that night and had most definitely found some. They had walked into a demon bar that was notorious for the local demon mafias hanging out there and the two had dusted the four large vamp bouncers at the doors. Buffy smiled. The looks on the demon's faces in the bar were that of shock and outrage. It was almost comical on some of their malformed heads.
Afterwards, Buffy had told Spike about the letter and the announcement she was planning to make concerning the letter, she just didn't know when it would come out. She fiddled with the folded up envelope in her jean jacket's pocket and yawned. Angel apparently noticed, so he said, "Eve's vanished. Let's end on a high note." Everyone got up and started to talk to each other, but Buffy still sat there, fiddling with the envelope. Angel touched her shoulder. "Baby, the meeting's over."
"Huh? Oh." She stood, still touching the envelope.
"You ok?"
"Yeah. I'm great."
"You're eye isn't as swollen as it was an hour ago."
"I barely noticed because I had so much fun."
"With Spike."
She touched his cheek gently. "Hey, don't get jealous. We're just friends. No more than that." Then she put her hands on her hips and glared up at him. "So, you can stop sending the two undercover operatives out to watch us. They're not very good."
Angel shrugged. "I can't help it. If you need help, they're always there as backup."
Buffy saw the others leaving the office and she had a sense of urgency to stop them. "Hey guys!" They all stopped and turned. "I have something I need to say."
"Is everything ok?" Gunn asked.
"It's fine. Better than fine, even."
"What's going on?" Wesley asked.
"I'm leaving Wolfram and Hart."
"What?" Angel asked.
"Why?" Fred asked.
"I'm going back to college. I got accepted to UCLA today. And the best part is I didn't go through Wolfram and Hart's connections to get in. In fact, that's why no one here knew. I made sure it was all done through the regular mail service. I even walked to the little blue mailbox on the street corner about twelve miles away. I had the return address as Spike's address and he gave this to me today." Buffy pulled out the UCLA envelope. "The spring semester starts in a few weeks and I'll be there."
"You're going back to college?" Dawn asked.
"Yeah. I've been wanting to, but I never had the chance. Until now. Are you guys mad? I don't want to do this without your approval because that would mean more time away from you guys and a whole lot more work for whoever takes the weapons department."
They were silent for a moment. Angel looked away from Buffy, letting the others decide if they were ok with Buffy's decision. They could talk later at the penthouse while the others had to deal with the issue right now. After a minute, Wesley spoke up, "What do you plan to study?"
Buffy smiled. "I don't know. I was thinking something in the mythology slash history department. Further my knowledge and expertise in those fields and further myself as a Slayer."
"Are you sure about this?" Fred asked.
"Completely, 500 percent positive."
"Do you really have to quit?" Gunn asked. "I mean, what about the Senior Partners?"
"They can go screw themselves. They don't own me, Gunn. Besides, you've already got a great C.E.O. You don't really need two. And Wesley can handle the weapons department."
"I don't have to quit, do I?" Dawn asked.
"Not if you don't want to." Buffy sighed. "I'm doing this because I really need to get in touch with the old me. Cordelia.... She said that she barely recognized me anymore. That I'd lost the old me. And she was right. Now that she's...." Buffy sighed, not wanting to go there. "I have to find a way to get in touch with the old me."
"There's more to it, isn't there?" Fred asked.
"Yeah. I lost the trust of the only man who was truly a father to me and the trust of my best friends. I haven't talked to any of them in the past two months. My sister Slayers don't trust me. None of you can understand how deeply that hurts me."
There was a long pause and then Lorne smiled and clapped his hands. "I say go for it! This is making you happy. Your aura's been singing lately and it's not because you're birthday is in two days."
"Yes." Wesley said. "You should go back to college."
"I'm proud of you that you've decided to go back to college." Fred said. "I think your friends will be proud too."
"Thank you." Buffy said. "Gunn?"
He looked at her. "Are you sure?"
"Do I have to make the speech again?"
He smiled slightly. "If you don't like it, you can always come back."
"Thank you."
***
Angel sat down on the couch and looked at the bedroom door. Buffy was getting ready to go patrolling again. Spike had called and said that he'd heard of a slight come back beginning somewhere in the city that would be aimed at them for killing most of LA's mafia demon leaders. His wife was completely excited where as he was completely annoyed. He wanted her here with him helping him make the big decisions and not out getting in fights that were way more fun than sitting behind a desk while he wished he could be there for the show fighting at her side.
Buffy bounced out checking her wrist stake launchers. "Perfect."
"Are you really gonna go?" Angel asked.
"Can't let innocent people die because Spike and I pissed off some demons."
"I meant to college."
"Why? Do you not want me to go?"
"It's not that I don't want you to.... It's just that I won't get to see you as much."
"I'll be home at night."
"I might be in bed."
"And I'll curl up next to you and be in bed with you. Plus, this might force you to take some time off so we can be together."
Angel raised his eyebrows. "Time off is a foreign concept at this juncture."
"Well, if it's a juncture, then take the turn that will allow you to allow yourself time off. Maybe you'll get to see how good cookie me tastes."
He laughed. "That cookie analogy is going to haunt us."
She shrugged. "I'm one with words. Now I gotta go." Buffy bent over him and kissed him lightly. "I'll try not to be too late." She turned and got in the elevator. At the last second, she decided to grab the Celtic sword on the wall in the office for backup. Just as she strapped the thing to her back, a voice behind her said, "You must be the wife."
Buffy turned to see a handsome older man standing there. She smiled slightly. "Friend of Angel's?"
"We go way back."
"Apparently." She sighed. "You're a vampire."
"How did you guess?"
"I'm a Slayer."
"So I've heard."
"Come to seek revenge for something he did?" He looked at her strangely. "It's always that. Guess you also know you won't get past me."
"Says you." The vampire pulled out a gun and shot before she could even blink.
Buffy felt the dart prick her neck. She pulled it out. "What the...."
"I need both of us alive for this to work."
The tranquilizer started to take affect and she fell to the ground, darkness overcoming her.
***
Angel sat in the penthouse all alone looking at some papers. Dawn was with Fred in the lab doing her job as Fred's assistant. Angel's mind kept wandering to thoughts of Spike fighting at Buffy's side. That was supposed to be his place, but he wasn't there. He was still with Wolfram and Hart. A part of him regretted the decision to stay, but the other part knew that this was his path now. He just couldn't loose sight of the true mission. Buffy had found her path once again.
She hadn't been happy here from the moment she stepped foot in the place. Angel knew she was just trying to act optimistic for the team, but his deep connection to her told him that she wasn't happy. To him, she was a caged tiger at Wolfram and Hart and was starting to be tamed by the routine life they had built up, but Cordelia had said something that had gotten under Buffy's skin for the better. Now she was a free spirit who chose to fight the good fight on her own terms. She would always prefer fighting with weapons, hand-to-hand, and more comfortable clothes, not by personalized pens, contracts, and business suits. Hell, even Angel found that life dull.
Just as he decided to get up and go help Buffy and Spike, a familiar voice said, "Hi ya, Chief." Angel looked up to find Lawson, one of his old mistakes come back to haunt him. "Aw, come on. Don't tell me you don't recognize me. Spend time in the tube, should know your crew like the back of your hand."
"Lawson." Angel said.
"You see there?" Lawson put his hand over his heart. "I'm touched. Aren't you gonna ask me how I got in here?"
"Nah." Angel sat back and crossed his arms. "You'd be amazed how many people break into this building on a regular basis."
"But I had a whole bit planned, about how I was always good with technology and you of all people should know that."
"Yeah. Sorry. This place might as well be a bus station."
"Seems like you're doing pretty well for yourself. It's a far cry from all those years you spent in the gutters, eating rats."
"You've been following my life. I'm touched."
"I just check in every decade or so. Imagine my surprise when I found out that Mr. Vermin-eater himself was suddenly fighting evil with a Slayer and running Wolfram & Hart. Mind explaining that one to me? Those 2 don't exactly go hand in hand."
"It's complicated." Angel tried to play down the worry he felt for Buffy.
"Find that's true about most things these days. I don't mean to sound like an old man, but.... We used to live in simpler times, didn't we? Never thought I'd miss being on that sub. Things made a kind of sense. 'Keep your head down.... Watch each other's backs, and stay alert.'" Lawson went on about the time on the sub in 1943, but Angel barely paid attention. He was worried that Lawson knew about Buffy. "Safe and sound. Guess now's not the time to argue semantics, is it? Did you care about any of it.... The ship? The mission? The men? Or were you just in it to save your own ass?"
"What do you want, Lawson?"
"Same thing I've always wanted: to understand."
"Understand.... what exactly?"
"Why we do what we do, how you manage to always...." Angel kicked the coffee table toward Lawson's legs, knocking him to the ground and smashing the table. Angel grabbed a splintered leg and reared back with it, ready to strike it into Lawson's chest. Lawson, whose back was pinned to the floor, reached up and grabbed Angel's wrist, stopping Angel from staking him. "You sure you want to do that, chief?"
"Fairly certain I said I'd kill you if I ever saw you again."
"Oh, I never doubted you. But you gotta ask yourself.... would I really come in here unarmed, knowing that, without an ace in the hole? Wouldn't make much sense, would it?"
Angel backed off. "What did you do?"
"Follow me, chief." Lawson took Angel down to his office of Wolfram and Hart. "Now, I don't need you to understand.... every detail." Gunn, Fred, Dawn, and Wesley were standing in swiveling office chairs bound and gagged. "But I do need you to trust that I'm gonna get us all through this, safe and sound." Angel started to go to his gang, but Lawson held up his hand, stopping Angel. Easy now. That's double-ought wire wrapped around your crew's necks. Take a fella's head clean off with just a little tug. Best not go roughhousing. Something might get knocked over." Lawson walked to Angel's desk and pulled Buffy out from behind it. She was unconscious, but unharmed. "She's pretty. No wonder you married her."
Angel's panic level went up and out of the building. "Whatever you want from me.... this isn't the way to get it."
"Already getting it. The worry in your eyes, fear of what might happen next, which is right on the mark, 'cause I got a funny feeling there's gonna be some blood spilled tonight." Lawson pulled a gun and put it to Buffy's head as he sat her in another chair. "For old times' sake."
"Leave them out of this."
"Especially this one right?" Lawson pushed the gun into Buffy's head, causing her to slump over the arm of the chair.
"What did you do to her?"
"Elephant tranquilizer. I hear that Slayer's are strong.... She didn't seem strong."
"You probably didn't give her the chance to show you."
"You're right about that." Lawson moved away to Buffy and Angel almost blew out a sigh of relief. "Did they at least torture you? Please tell me they did."
"Never gave them a chance. Jumped ship.... off the coast of Maine. Went underground till the war was over."
"Like any other coward."
"Wars are won and lost by men."
"You mean.... like me? No, wait, that doesn't apply anymore, does it?"
"I never wanted to do this to you."
"Oh, put your hanky away. I know how important the technology they pulled from the sub was to helping us stop the Germans. Sounded like a fair shake. One person damned to make the world safe for future generations." Lawson looked over at Fred, Gunn, Wesley, Dawn, and Buffy. "Except these guys."
"Killing them's not going to change the past."
"But it'll hurt you. Maybe that's enough."
"Never is."
"Then maybe I found my mission again after all these years."
"Being an evil son of a bitch not keeping you busy?"
"We all need a reason to live, even if we're already dead. Mom, apple pie, the stars and stripes.... That was good enough for me till I met you. Then I had this whole creature-of-the-night thing going for me, the joy of destruction and death, and I embraced it. I did all the terrible things a monster does: murdered women and children, tortured fathers and husbands just to hear 'em scream.... and through it all.... I felt nothing. 60 years of blood drying in my throat like ashes. So what do you think? Is it me, chief? Or does everyone you sired feel this way?"
"You're the only one I ever did this to.... after I got a soul."
"Do I have one, too?"
"I don't think it works that way, son."
"Didn't think so." Lawson punched Angel repeatedly, knocking him back into Angel's desk. Angel kicked Lawson across the room. When Lawson tried to get on his feet, he teetered near the hostages but managed not to bump them while looking at Angel and smiling. Lawson and Angel threw punches at each other again, and Angel threw Lawson to the ground. "You gave me just enough, didn't you? Enough of your soul to keep me trapped between who I was and who I should be. I'm nothin'.... because of you." Lawson charged at Angel again, but Angel stopped his punches, throwing Lawson instead through the glass wall.
Lawson landed in the lobby amid fragments of shattered glass. He got to his feet as Angel sauntered toward him. Lawson looked around and grabbed a shaft of splintered window-frame, forming a makeshift stake. "You really want it to end like this?" Angel asked.
"Sounds like a plan." Lawson reared back with the stake, but Angel grabbed his wrist before Lawson made contact with his chest. Angel forcefully turned the stake in Lawson's hand to point to Lawson's chest. "Come on, chief. Give me a mission." Angel reared back with his other hand, pounding the stake into Lawson's chest, turning him to dust instantly. Angel stared at what used to be Lawson for a moment and then went to untie Buffy, Dawn, and the others.
***
When Buffy woke up the next morning, Angel wasn't there. He hadn't slept that night and had gone to work early. She went downstairs to his office and found him staring out the window. "Hey." She said.
"Hi." He looked over at her. "You ok?"
"I'm all rested up for the next month or so. You wanna tell me what happened last night?" He told her everything that had happened in 1943 and what Lawson had done the night before. "The beginning of the Initiative." She said thoughtfully, changing the subject. "I guess our paths crossed before we even met, huh?"
"You're my soulmate." Angel said simply.
"Are you ok?"
"I've been better."
Buffy leaned into his side and turned so he could hold her better. She kissed his temple. "You did what you had to do to save those men. There was no wrong in it."
Spike walked into the room. "Really ought to do something about security. They'll let anybody in here, won't they?" He walked up to Angel's other side and looked out at the skyline as well. "Fred gave me the Cliff Notes. So sailor boy finally came back for a yo-ho-ho, did he?"
"Finally came back." Angel said.
"Took him long enough. Y'know revenge is best served cold and all, but his must've been frozen solid."
"I don't think that's what he was after."
"No? Then what was he looking for?"
Angel pulled Buffy tighter to him and laid his head on her chest. "A reason."
Spike smiled. "You should've let him borrow Buffy. She gives vampires like us reasons to fight."
Angel chuckled. "No. She's my reason. She and Dawn are my family and that's the only reason I need." Buffy smiled and wrapped her arms around Angel's neck loosely.
Buffy sat in the conference room next to Angel, her mind wandering back to the fight she had just come from with Spike. They had gone looking for trouble that night and had most definitely found some. They had walked into a demon bar that was notorious for the local demon mafias hanging out there and the two had dusted the four large vamp bouncers at the doors. Buffy smiled. The looks on the demon's faces in the bar were that of shock and outrage. It was almost comical on some of their malformed heads.
Afterwards, Buffy had told Spike about the letter and the announcement she was planning to make concerning the letter, she just didn't know when it would come out. She fiddled with the folded up envelope in her jean jacket's pocket and yawned. Angel apparently noticed, so he said, "Eve's vanished. Let's end on a high note." Everyone got up and started to talk to each other, but Buffy still sat there, fiddling with the envelope. Angel touched her shoulder. "Baby, the meeting's over."
"Huh? Oh." She stood, still touching the envelope.
"You ok?"
"Yeah. I'm great."
"You're eye isn't as swollen as it was an hour ago."
"I barely noticed because I had so much fun."
"With Spike."
She touched his cheek gently. "Hey, don't get jealous. We're just friends. No more than that." Then she put her hands on her hips and glared up at him. "So, you can stop sending the two undercover operatives out to watch us. They're not very good."
Angel shrugged. "I can't help it. If you need help, they're always there as backup."
Buffy saw the others leaving the office and she had a sense of urgency to stop them. "Hey guys!" They all stopped and turned. "I have something I need to say."
"Is everything ok?" Gunn asked.
"It's fine. Better than fine, even."
"What's going on?" Wesley asked.
"I'm leaving Wolfram and Hart."
"What?" Angel asked.
"Why?" Fred asked.
"I'm going back to college. I got accepted to UCLA today. And the best part is I didn't go through Wolfram and Hart's connections to get in. In fact, that's why no one here knew. I made sure it was all done through the regular mail service. I even walked to the little blue mailbox on the street corner about twelve miles away. I had the return address as Spike's address and he gave this to me today." Buffy pulled out the UCLA envelope. "The spring semester starts in a few weeks and I'll be there."
"You're going back to college?" Dawn asked.
"Yeah. I've been wanting to, but I never had the chance. Until now. Are you guys mad? I don't want to do this without your approval because that would mean more time away from you guys and a whole lot more work for whoever takes the weapons department."
They were silent for a moment. Angel looked away from Buffy, letting the others decide if they were ok with Buffy's decision. They could talk later at the penthouse while the others had to deal with the issue right now. After a minute, Wesley spoke up, "What do you plan to study?"
Buffy smiled. "I don't know. I was thinking something in the mythology slash history department. Further my knowledge and expertise in those fields and further myself as a Slayer."
"Are you sure about this?" Fred asked.
"Completely, 500 percent positive."
"Do you really have to quit?" Gunn asked. "I mean, what about the Senior Partners?"
"They can go screw themselves. They don't own me, Gunn. Besides, you've already got a great C.E.O. You don't really need two. And Wesley can handle the weapons department."
"I don't have to quit, do I?" Dawn asked.
"Not if you don't want to." Buffy sighed. "I'm doing this because I really need to get in touch with the old me. Cordelia.... She said that she barely recognized me anymore. That I'd lost the old me. And she was right. Now that she's...." Buffy sighed, not wanting to go there. "I have to find a way to get in touch with the old me."
"There's more to it, isn't there?" Fred asked.
"Yeah. I lost the trust of the only man who was truly a father to me and the trust of my best friends. I haven't talked to any of them in the past two months. My sister Slayers don't trust me. None of you can understand how deeply that hurts me."
There was a long pause and then Lorne smiled and clapped his hands. "I say go for it! This is making you happy. Your aura's been singing lately and it's not because you're birthday is in two days."
"Yes." Wesley said. "You should go back to college."
"I'm proud of you that you've decided to go back to college." Fred said. "I think your friends will be proud too."
"Thank you." Buffy said. "Gunn?"
He looked at her. "Are you sure?"
"Do I have to make the speech again?"
He smiled slightly. "If you don't like it, you can always come back."
"Thank you."
***
Angel sat down on the couch and looked at the bedroom door. Buffy was getting ready to go patrolling again. Spike had called and said that he'd heard of a slight come back beginning somewhere in the city that would be aimed at them for killing most of LA's mafia demon leaders. His wife was completely excited where as he was completely annoyed. He wanted her here with him helping him make the big decisions and not out getting in fights that were way more fun than sitting behind a desk while he wished he could be there for the show fighting at her side.
Buffy bounced out checking her wrist stake launchers. "Perfect."
"Are you really gonna go?" Angel asked.
"Can't let innocent people die because Spike and I pissed off some demons."
"I meant to college."
"Why? Do you not want me to go?"
"It's not that I don't want you to.... It's just that I won't get to see you as much."
"I'll be home at night."
"I might be in bed."
"And I'll curl up next to you and be in bed with you. Plus, this might force you to take some time off so we can be together."
Angel raised his eyebrows. "Time off is a foreign concept at this juncture."
"Well, if it's a juncture, then take the turn that will allow you to allow yourself time off. Maybe you'll get to see how good cookie me tastes."
He laughed. "That cookie analogy is going to haunt us."
She shrugged. "I'm one with words. Now I gotta go." Buffy bent over him and kissed him lightly. "I'll try not to be too late." She turned and got in the elevator. At the last second, she decided to grab the Celtic sword on the wall in the office for backup. Just as she strapped the thing to her back, a voice behind her said, "You must be the wife."
Buffy turned to see a handsome older man standing there. She smiled slightly. "Friend of Angel's?"
"We go way back."
"Apparently." She sighed. "You're a vampire."
"How did you guess?"
"I'm a Slayer."
"So I've heard."
"Come to seek revenge for something he did?" He looked at her strangely. "It's always that. Guess you also know you won't get past me."
"Says you." The vampire pulled out a gun and shot before she could even blink.
Buffy felt the dart prick her neck. She pulled it out. "What the...."
"I need both of us alive for this to work."
The tranquilizer started to take affect and she fell to the ground, darkness overcoming her.
***
Angel sat in the penthouse all alone looking at some papers. Dawn was with Fred in the lab doing her job as Fred's assistant. Angel's mind kept wandering to thoughts of Spike fighting at Buffy's side. That was supposed to be his place, but he wasn't there. He was still with Wolfram and Hart. A part of him regretted the decision to stay, but the other part knew that this was his path now. He just couldn't loose sight of the true mission. Buffy had found her path once again.
She hadn't been happy here from the moment she stepped foot in the place. Angel knew she was just trying to act optimistic for the team, but his deep connection to her told him that she wasn't happy. To him, she was a caged tiger at Wolfram and Hart and was starting to be tamed by the routine life they had built up, but Cordelia had said something that had gotten under Buffy's skin for the better. Now she was a free spirit who chose to fight the good fight on her own terms. She would always prefer fighting with weapons, hand-to-hand, and more comfortable clothes, not by personalized pens, contracts, and business suits. Hell, even Angel found that life dull.
Just as he decided to get up and go help Buffy and Spike, a familiar voice said, "Hi ya, Chief." Angel looked up to find Lawson, one of his old mistakes come back to haunt him. "Aw, come on. Don't tell me you don't recognize me. Spend time in the tube, should know your crew like the back of your hand."
"Lawson." Angel said.
"You see there?" Lawson put his hand over his heart. "I'm touched. Aren't you gonna ask me how I got in here?"
"Nah." Angel sat back and crossed his arms. "You'd be amazed how many people break into this building on a regular basis."
"But I had a whole bit planned, about how I was always good with technology and you of all people should know that."
"Yeah. Sorry. This place might as well be a bus station."
"Seems like you're doing pretty well for yourself. It's a far cry from all those years you spent in the gutters, eating rats."
"You've been following my life. I'm touched."
"I just check in every decade or so. Imagine my surprise when I found out that Mr. Vermin-eater himself was suddenly fighting evil with a Slayer and running Wolfram & Hart. Mind explaining that one to me? Those 2 don't exactly go hand in hand."
"It's complicated." Angel tried to play down the worry he felt for Buffy.
"Find that's true about most things these days. I don't mean to sound like an old man, but.... We used to live in simpler times, didn't we? Never thought I'd miss being on that sub. Things made a kind of sense. 'Keep your head down.... Watch each other's backs, and stay alert.'" Lawson went on about the time on the sub in 1943, but Angel barely paid attention. He was worried that Lawson knew about Buffy. "Safe and sound. Guess now's not the time to argue semantics, is it? Did you care about any of it.... The ship? The mission? The men? Or were you just in it to save your own ass?"
"What do you want, Lawson?"
"Same thing I've always wanted: to understand."
"Understand.... what exactly?"
"Why we do what we do, how you manage to always...." Angel kicked the coffee table toward Lawson's legs, knocking him to the ground and smashing the table. Angel grabbed a splintered leg and reared back with it, ready to strike it into Lawson's chest. Lawson, whose back was pinned to the floor, reached up and grabbed Angel's wrist, stopping Angel from staking him. "You sure you want to do that, chief?"
"Fairly certain I said I'd kill you if I ever saw you again."
"Oh, I never doubted you. But you gotta ask yourself.... would I really come in here unarmed, knowing that, without an ace in the hole? Wouldn't make much sense, would it?"
Angel backed off. "What did you do?"
"Follow me, chief." Lawson took Angel down to his office of Wolfram and Hart. "Now, I don't need you to understand.... every detail." Gunn, Fred, Dawn, and Wesley were standing in swiveling office chairs bound and gagged. "But I do need you to trust that I'm gonna get us all through this, safe and sound." Angel started to go to his gang, but Lawson held up his hand, stopping Angel. Easy now. That's double-ought wire wrapped around your crew's necks. Take a fella's head clean off with just a little tug. Best not go roughhousing. Something might get knocked over." Lawson walked to Angel's desk and pulled Buffy out from behind it. She was unconscious, but unharmed. "She's pretty. No wonder you married her."
Angel's panic level went up and out of the building. "Whatever you want from me.... this isn't the way to get it."
"Already getting it. The worry in your eyes, fear of what might happen next, which is right on the mark, 'cause I got a funny feeling there's gonna be some blood spilled tonight." Lawson pulled a gun and put it to Buffy's head as he sat her in another chair. "For old times' sake."
"Leave them out of this."
"Especially this one right?" Lawson pushed the gun into Buffy's head, causing her to slump over the arm of the chair.
"What did you do to her?"
"Elephant tranquilizer. I hear that Slayer's are strong.... She didn't seem strong."
"You probably didn't give her the chance to show you."
"You're right about that." Lawson moved away to Buffy and Angel almost blew out a sigh of relief. "Did they at least torture you? Please tell me they did."
"Never gave them a chance. Jumped ship.... off the coast of Maine. Went underground till the war was over."
"Like any other coward."
"Wars are won and lost by men."
"You mean.... like me? No, wait, that doesn't apply anymore, does it?"
"I never wanted to do this to you."
"Oh, put your hanky away. I know how important the technology they pulled from the sub was to helping us stop the Germans. Sounded like a fair shake. One person damned to make the world safe for future generations." Lawson looked over at Fred, Gunn, Wesley, Dawn, and Buffy. "Except these guys."
"Killing them's not going to change the past."
"But it'll hurt you. Maybe that's enough."
"Never is."
"Then maybe I found my mission again after all these years."
"Being an evil son of a bitch not keeping you busy?"
"We all need a reason to live, even if we're already dead. Mom, apple pie, the stars and stripes.... That was good enough for me till I met you. Then I had this whole creature-of-the-night thing going for me, the joy of destruction and death, and I embraced it. I did all the terrible things a monster does: murdered women and children, tortured fathers and husbands just to hear 'em scream.... and through it all.... I felt nothing. 60 years of blood drying in my throat like ashes. So what do you think? Is it me, chief? Or does everyone you sired feel this way?"
"You're the only one I ever did this to.... after I got a soul."
"Do I have one, too?"
"I don't think it works that way, son."
"Didn't think so." Lawson punched Angel repeatedly, knocking him back into Angel's desk. Angel kicked Lawson across the room. When Lawson tried to get on his feet, he teetered near the hostages but managed not to bump them while looking at Angel and smiling. Lawson and Angel threw punches at each other again, and Angel threw Lawson to the ground. "You gave me just enough, didn't you? Enough of your soul to keep me trapped between who I was and who I should be. I'm nothin'.... because of you." Lawson charged at Angel again, but Angel stopped his punches, throwing Lawson instead through the glass wall.
Lawson landed in the lobby amid fragments of shattered glass. He got to his feet as Angel sauntered toward him. Lawson looked around and grabbed a shaft of splintered window-frame, forming a makeshift stake. "You really want it to end like this?" Angel asked.
"Sounds like a plan." Lawson reared back with the stake, but Angel grabbed his wrist before Lawson made contact with his chest. Angel forcefully turned the stake in Lawson's hand to point to Lawson's chest. "Come on, chief. Give me a mission." Angel reared back with his other hand, pounding the stake into Lawson's chest, turning him to dust instantly. Angel stared at what used to be Lawson for a moment and then went to untie Buffy, Dawn, and the others.
***
When Buffy woke up the next morning, Angel wasn't there. He hadn't slept that night and had gone to work early. She went downstairs to his office and found him staring out the window. "Hey." She said.
"Hi." He looked over at her. "You ok?"
"I'm all rested up for the next month or so. You wanna tell me what happened last night?" He told her everything that had happened in 1943 and what Lawson had done the night before. "The beginning of the Initiative." She said thoughtfully, changing the subject. "I guess our paths crossed before we even met, huh?"
"You're my soulmate." Angel said simply.
"Are you ok?"
"I've been better."
Buffy leaned into his side and turned so he could hold her better. She kissed his temple. "You did what you had to do to save those men. There was no wrong in it."
Spike walked into the room. "Really ought to do something about security. They'll let anybody in here, won't they?" He walked up to Angel's other side and looked out at the skyline as well. "Fred gave me the Cliff Notes. So sailor boy finally came back for a yo-ho-ho, did he?"
"Finally came back." Angel said.
"Took him long enough. Y'know revenge is best served cold and all, but his must've been frozen solid."
"I don't think that's what he was after."
"No? Then what was he looking for?"
Angel pulled Buffy tighter to him and laid his head on her chest. "A reason."
Spike smiled. "You should've let him borrow Buffy. She gives vampires like us reasons to fight."
Angel chuckled. "No. She's my reason. She and Dawn are my family and that's the only reason I need." Buffy smiled and wrapped her arms around Angel's neck loosely.