The young nurse peered into Angel Pryce's room to observe the petite blonde girl who had camped out there for the past two days, only stepping outside a few times to place cell phone calls. A few others had come and gone from the room but the blonde girl stayed. She barely got up to eat. The nurse was amazed at her dedication. She entered the room, startling the girl.

"Hello, I'm Kathy." She went over and checked Angel's chart.

"Buffy," the blonde said, introducing herself.

"Nice to meet you. Angel here has remained stable; all his vitals are steady which is a good sign." She checked all the instruments that he was connected to. "Okay, I'll be back later to change his IV bag."

"Is that it?" Buffy asked. "There's nothing else you guys can do? I've been sitting here two days and that's practically all that has been done. Change his IV, keep him stable. Isn't there anything that can be done to get him to wake up?" Her tone wasn't angry, just worried. She felt so helpless just sitting at Angel's bed side.

"I'm sorry, but that is all the doctors can do at the moment. We can just keep him comfortable, monitor him, until his body is able to wake up. However, there is something that you can do." Buffy looked at her quizzically. "Many doctors and patients say that when someone is in a coma, they are still able to hear what is being said to them, that they can keep a connection in this world by having people talk to them. Anyway, I have to finish my rounds. I'll check in on you later." Buffy sat a moment, digesting what the nurse had told her. Then, she took Angel's hand in hers.

"Angel," she said tentatively, "I don't know if you can hear me, but I hope you can. You have to wake up, okay? Everyone's waiting for you to get better. I can't keep sitting here in this chair - I think I've permanently lost all feeling in my butt," she joked weakly. "Seriously, Angel, we need you here. I need you here. I know we've been apart, but I still need you. I need to know that you're out there, that you could just show up and be there for me like you did, that I could go to you if I needed to. I need to know that there's a chance that you're still out there loving me. Because I still love you Angel. Through Riley and Spike and dying and all of it, I never stopped." She was surprised by the tears that sprang up in her eyes. "You saved the world and became human, you should stick around and enjoy it, okay?"

A week had passed and Buffy was little by little giving up her vigil at Angel's side. She was needed at the Hyperion with all the new Slayers and spending all day at the hospital was not that productive. However, she still did spend as much time as she could there and she was there when Angel finally woke up. She was sitting in the uncomfortable plastic chair, half-heartedly flipping through a magazine when his eyes fluttered open. He tried to speak but coughed instead, drawing Buffy's attention to him.

"Oh my God, you're awake!" She quickly pressed the nurse call button on the side of his bed. "How do you feel?"

"I...I feel okay," his eyes flitted around the room. "But what happened? And who are you?" Before she could recover from the shock of his non-recognition of her and before she could answer, a nurse and a doctor came rushing in to take care of their newly awakened patient. Buffy went over to the pay phone and placed a call to the hotel and tell everyone that Angel was no longer unconscious and Wesley and Fred promised to rush right down to the hospital. They got there long before the doctors were finished examining Angel and waited in the hallway. Finally, a doctor came out to talk to them.

"Angel's physical health is up to par. However, he seems to be suffering from long-term amnesia. With this form of amnesia, he cannot remember any personal information from prior to his head trauma."

"Oh dear, what can you do to get his memory back?" Fred asked.

"I'm very sorry but there is not much we can do. What we hope is that his memories will come back to him with the influence of the familiar. What we find to be most helpful with patients suffering from amnesia is to surround them with people, places, and things that are very familiar to him and one of those things should start to trigger memories. However, it is very important that you don't feed him memories, that you don't tell him details about his past because we do not want him to create false recollections."

"Okay." The trio nodded solemnly, trying to take everything in.

"We'd like to keep Angel a few more days for observation. But would you like to see him?" Wesley, Fred, and Buffy conferred for a few minutes before they entered his hospital room to find him sitting up, drinking a glass of water.

"Hi."

"Hi, how are you?" Fred asked softly.

"I feel okay. A little confused. I, uh, feel really bad asking this because they said you were my friends, but what are your names?"

"Don't feel bad, Angel. You have amnesia; it's not your fault. I'm Fred, this is Wesley and Buffy."

"Hi."

"Listen, Angel, did the doctors explain to you your condition?" Wes asked.

"Yes."

"So you know that we are not supposed to jar your memory. Unfortunately, that means that it's going to rather difficult for us all to answer your questions about yourself and your life. However, we can tell you some basics. As you are already aware, your name is Angel O'Connor and you live here in Los Angeles." Wesley began feeding him the story they had quickly concocted quickly in the hallway. They had decided not to disturb him with any of the supernatural information of his life. "You've recently become the head of the L.A. branch of the law firm Wolfram and Hart. You also own a converted hotel in which we all reside along with a group of young girls that we have taken in. We run a shelter of sorts for girls who have found themselves in need of...guidance."

"Ok, thank you."

"Do you remember any of this?" Fred asked hopefully.

"No, I'm sorry. None of it is familiar."

Angel's words remained true over the next day as a parade of people he was supposed to know came in and out of his hospital room. He tried desperately to recognize them, to bring his memories of the people who were important in his life, of his life itself, out from their hiding place. But nothing triggered any remote spark within him.

Except for Buffy.

There was just something about her that stirred something deep inside him. He didn't know if it was recognition or attraction or what. She had come to visit a few times but always with someone else and hung to the back quietly and while he tried to focus on his other guests, he couldn't keep his eyes off her. He wanted, he needed to know what was between them, to find out what it was about her that pulled him to her. So when she showed up on his second morning awake all by herself, he was grateful to finally have a chance to talk to her.

"Hi," she said entering. "I realized you're just kind of hanging out here all day which must be boring. So I brought you some books - your favorites." She placed a few worn hard covers on the table near his bed. "You know, to give you something to do."

"Thanks." He scanned the books - James Joyce, John Keats, Edgar Allen Poe, William Wordsworth. Apparently he was a fan of classics and poetry.

"I also thought that maybe reading something familiar would help you remember some things," she admitted.

"Yeah, that's a definite possibility." His eyes moved from the books to her and she shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. "I know that you're not supposed to tell me about my life, but I need to ask you something Buffy."

"Okay."

"Are you my girlfriend?" She was taken off guard by his blunt question.

"I....um, I...we..." she stammered. Did she love him? Yes. Did she want more than anything to bend over and brush her lips against his? Yes. Was she always his girl? Yes. But was she his girlfriend? As much as she wished she was and as much as she wished it was ever that simple, the answer was no. "No, we're not together," she answered, looking down intently as if she had found something very interesting on the tip of her shoe.

"Oh." His sigh of disappointment caused her to look up.

"Why? Did you think you remembered something?"

"I don't know." He was nervous to tell her what he was feeling. If she wasn't his girlfriend, she very well could be the girlfriend of one of his friends, thus creating an awkward situation. But he knew that everything that was in his mind could possibly help him get his memory back, so he didn't want to push it aside. "I feel, kind of, drawn to you. And I wasn't sure if it was because there was something between us or...." he trailed off. "I just thought I might have been remembering the feeling, but I guess I was wrong. I probably just convinced myself in hopes of getting my memory back." His dissatisfaction was evident in his tone and Buffy found it hard to hold back the truth, wanting to give the slight sliver of hope it might give him.

"I was once. Your girlfriend, I mean. We went out for a couple years, but you broke....well, it's been over for awhile."

"Why?" The question erupted from him before he had a chance to think. From the way she made his insides flip-flop from just being in the room with him, he couldn't imagine a reason he would ever choose to be apart from her.

"It's complicated." She looked up and met his eyes. They were her Angel's brown eyes. Some of the shadows were gone, no doubt the ones caused by the memories of corpses and bloodbaths that were buried somewhere in the recesses of his brain, but they were the same eyes that haunted her dreams. And they were fixed on her now with the same intensity they had always held. "It's really complicated," she said softly, almost to herself, staring at her shoes again. "I have to go. I have more errands to run." She turned and quickly left the room.