Summary: Set about a year after Not Fade Away. Angel's not happy, neither is Buffy. But she comes to town and needs his help and he just needs her. Not a great summary, but let me know if I should finish it up.

Disclaimers: Mutant Enemy and Joss Whedon own it all.

Feedback: Appreciated


Angel leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and running his hands over his face. He'd been staring at Buffy's sleeping form for the past three hours and he hadn't moved more than an inch.

She stirred, trying to open her eyelids. Where was she? Okay, focus, she thought. Finally her eyes opened. She turned her head to see Angel looking at her.

"Angel?" Her voice cracked and she coughed.

Angel came to her with a glass of water. "Here, drink." He held the glass to her mouth and she swallowed the entire contents in seconds.

She looked at him again. "Angel." Her voice softened and she smiled. "I dreamt about you."

Confusion swept over her. "What's happened? I feel so weak. Angel?" She felt his distance and couldn't understand it.

His back was turned to her when he spoke. "Did you love him?"

"What?" Man, this was just becoming more and more confusing. Alternate reality? Was this her Angel?

"Did you love him?" He repeated, his voice a little harder.

Buffy shook her head in an attempt to clear her thoughts and raised herself up onto her elbows. "Who Angel? Love who?"

"Riley, did you love him?" He turned to look into her eyes.

"Angel, what's this about? What's wrong?" She felt so strange, weak. He strode across the room and pulled her up by her shoulders.

"Did you love him, Buffy? Damnit, just answer the fucking question!"

The steel underlying the quiet tone of his voice chilled Buffy. This wasn't Angelus, but it wasn't quite her Angel either. She looked into his eyes and licked her lips, knowing she had to answer the question. "I…I tried to love him. I wanted to love him. He was good and kind and so normal." She paused, "So boring. I tried Angel, but I couldn't."

His grip tightened ever so slightly and he pulled her just a centimeter closer. "Why?" He felt her tremble and reveled in her fear.

She nervously licked her lips again. "Because he wasn't you." He could barely make out her voice.

He rubbed his lips over his mark and she shivered. With his mouth near her ear, he whispered. "And Spike?" He felt her intake of breath. Angel pulled back to look at her once more.

"The truth Buffy. Did you love Spike?" His grip on her tightened and she winced.

With tears welling in her eyes, she spoke in a whisper. "I used him, I abused him. I let him comfort me, sooth me, love me. And then I gave him nothing in return but pain. Even after he got his soul, I couldn't love him. I cared about him; I grew to respect and appreciate him. But I never loved him. And then I lied to him and he knew it."

Very softly with his mouth still at her ear, Angel asked, "How did you lie to him?"

"I told him I loved him." She sounded so small. "He knew it was a lie, but he thanked me anyway and then he died. Is that what you want to hear? What a terrible person I am? How far I fell from grace in so many ways?"

Buffy slumped in his arms. She was so tired; all she wanted to do was sleep. But she was afraid to let her guard down. "Is it you?"

Angel laughed a humorless laugh. "Yeah, it's me. Maybe not the Angel you knew five years ago, but still the souled version."

"I'm not exactly the same girl you knew five years ago." Buffy laid back and really looked around the room. It was all so familiar. "I dreamt of this room, this bed, that mirror." She felt herself blush and looked away from Angel.

Angel arched a brow and gave her a knowing smile. "I know."

"What does it mean?"

"What do you think it means?"

She looked away, unable to meet his eyes. "I think it was just a dream." She said, tiredly. "So, what now? You have your answers, are you going to let me go?"

"You don't appear to be in any shape to go anywhere at the moment."

"Did you drug me or is this some sort of spell?"

Angel sighed. "I'd never put a spell on you Buffy. Just some of drugs similar to the ones the Watchers Council used on your 18th birthday."

She supposed she should be royally pist and maybe when the drugs wore off she would be, but right now she wanted answers. "Why Angel?" Her voice filled with confusion.

Angel was surprised by her reaction. "You have mellowed babe. Doesn't sound like the Buffy I know."

"Well, hello. Drugged here. My fiesty's sleeping. So before it wakes up and I beat the crap out of you, care to tell me what this crazy is all about?"


"Okay. Drugging me and kidnapping me, interrogating me about past boyfriends;this is the romantic prelude for you to convince me that I should spend the rest of my life with you? Buffy had to fight the urge to burst out laughing, had to be the drugs. Of course this was tempered by the other urge to ram his teeth down his throat. And then there was that look in his eyes. That hopeful-this-crazy-idea-might-work look. That chocolaty-goodness-I-love-you look. And that other look, that one thatgave away the fact that he was a predator, the one that made her heart beat faster.Oh my god, was she suffering from Stockholm syndrome already?

"So you want me to stay with you for a couple of weeks? Why didn't you just ask? You didn't have to go all Alias on me."

Angel gave her an incredulous look. "Right. After what happened last night. Don't think you'd have agreed to a vacation at Casa de Angel. Do you?" He ran his hand through his hair. "Besides, I needed you to know how serious I am about this."

"Serious, yeah. I get that. Kinda crazy, I get that too." She stopped for a moment and looked into his eyes. "Should I be scared Angel?"

"You never have to be afraid of me Buffy. You know that." He hesitated for a moment. "Will you stay?"

She furrowed her brow. "If I say no?"

"Are you going to say no?" Angel held his non-existent breath.

Buffy thought for a moment. Angel, she loved him. A couple of weeks with him, they had never had a chance to do that before. Between slaying, her age and then that blasted curse, they hadn't even really spent the night together. She could pretend they would always be together, she always did that anyway. And lately that fantasy had been a constant in her thoughts. Was she totally out of her mind? The man, no scratch that, the demon had just drugged and kidnapped her and she was seriously considering this. She no longer understood a single thing about herself. She wanted what she wanted and it would appear that common sense had nothing to do with it. And right now all she wanted was Angel.

Angel could see all the emotions running through Buffy's face, he could feel them. She wanted this, but she knew she shouldn't. He prayedher passion would win out overher head.

"Okay Angel. I'll stay. But it's just a vacation. No drugs, no locked doors, no sex." She waited for a reaction. None? Okay. "And I still want to go up to Sunnydale, well the crater. And Disneyland, I want to go to Disneyland."

"This all seems too easy. Are you going to stake me once you get your strength back?" He eyed her suspiciously. He had hoped for this, but never imagined it would be so simple. Okay, maybe not simple, he still drugged and kidnapped her.

"I'm just so tired of fighting Angel. I want to be with you, even if it's for a little while. No matter what, I do love you." She said it with a bit of resignation in her voice and a little smile.

Angel smiled back at her and for the first time in a very long time, it reached his eyes. "A summer vacation it is then."

Raising herself out of bed on wobbly legs, she went to pull the curtain aside to look out the window. "And Angel, a room with windows please."