Chapter 15

Standing in the middle of his living room, gazing at the three half-asleep faces of Willow, Spike, and Xander, Angel couldn't help but feel a bit guilty. It was, after all, nearly three in the morning. He hadn't considered the time when he had called them. The only thing that had been on his mind was doing something about this entire mess. He couldn't stand to see Buffy being hurt by it all. And it was time for something to be done about it.

Buffy deserved to be free of all these accusations and the shame. She hadn't done anything wrong. He was as sure of that as anything in his life. She was an innocent who had been caught up in a tragic mess that was not in the least her fault. Angel only hoped that he would be able to help her. In order to do that, he had to get the ball rolling, and he had a good idea how to do that.

"No offense, man," Xander said, then yawned loudly. "But are you going to just stand there or are you going to tell us why exactly we're here in the dead of night."

Angel paced across the room and then back to where he'd been standing. "It's about Buffy."

"Buffy?" Willow stated sharply, her body poising to leap in case her friend needed help. "What's wrong? Is she okay?"

"She's...been better," he settled on saying. "She's upstairs asleep."

"Upstairs?" Spike questioned, one eyebrow raised.

"It's not like that," Angel quickly defended himself, though his heart gave a hard thump. He wouldn't exactly mind if it was like that. "She had a...well, a fight, I guess, with Giles and came here. She fell asleep so I put her in the guest room."

"She fought with Giles?" Willow repeated, a little perplexed. From what Giles had said, they barely spoke. But more... "Why would she come here?"

Fidgeting minutely, Angel wondered what he should say to them. They didn't know about his meetings with Buffy. Maybe he shouldn't tell them about those. In the end, he decided the truth was the best. There'd been too many lies already.

"Buffy has been coming to visit me once in a while," he finally said. "I saw her on the beach one night and we talked. Since then, she's come by once in a while, and we just...talk."

Spike saw the faint blush creep up Angel's face and wondered if 'talking' was all that had gone on. He contemplated questioning Angel about it, but opted not to. Angel seemed like a good guy, and if he was helping Buffy in any way then he would keep his mouth shut. For now.

"She talked to you?" Willow asked, hurt radiating from her voice. Buffy hadn't said a word to her that day they had gone to the house.

"Yeah," Angel answered, then realized why Willow seemed offended. "She talked to me because until recently, she'd thought you...all or you...had abandoned her. All she knew was that none of her friends talked to her or came to see her anymore."

"All she knew?" Spike leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he stared intensely at Angel. "What do you mean that's all she knew?"

Angel sighed, rubbed his forehead. "It seems that Giles didn't tell her anything. She didn't know what the people believed about the murders, about her, or what Giles had caused people to think."

Willow gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. Xander sank back on the couch, muttering under his breath while Spike jumped up to pace around the room. Angel understood what they were feeling. He'd felt the same way.

"Man, that's just...that sucks," Xander mumbled.

"Thank you for stating the obvious," Spike snapped at him.

"Don't you two start," Willow ordered, glaring at both of them. Both acquiesced guiltily. Turning back to Angel, Willow asked, "She didn't know about any of what's been going on?"

"No," he replied, taking a seat on one of the remaining chairs in the living room. "She knew about Mrs. Giles and Owen and Dawn, but not that it had been deemed a murder/suicide."

"And she found out tonight," Spike assumed.

"Yeah," Angel confirmed with a sigh. "She was here for a little while, and I guess when she went home, she and Giles got into an argument. I don't know all the details, but apparently Buffy wanted to know why Giles kept her locked up in the house all the time."

"So Giles told her? Just like that?" Willow continued for Angel. At Angel's nod, she shook her head, her anger clear. "God, poor Buffy."

"No wonder she was upset," Xander mumbled, hurting for his friend and wishing there was something, anything, that he could do for her.

"What did she say to you afterwards?" Spike wanted to know.

"Nothing," Angel replied. "I was getting ready to go to bed and I thought I heard something outside so I went to check. She was sitting on the back porch crying. I have no idea how long she'd been there," he told them, then explained how she'd said nothing to him, only continued to cry and how he'd then taken her upstairs after she'd fallen asleep.

"Giles should have told her everything before," Willow stated firmly.

"How?" Spike questioned her. At Willow's glare, he shrugged and said, "I'm not saying he was right to keep quiet, but what was he supposed to say to her? You killed your family so I made them think you'd killed yourself as well and then kept you holed up in your house?"

"I guess he thought saying nothing was the lesser of the two evils," Xander interjected, his voice tired and slow.

"It doesn't really matter," Angel interrupted the discussion. "Now she knows, and obviously she's upset about it."

"Which is why you called us," Spike filled in, assuming that was the reason.

"Sort of," Angel corrected, pausing before he laid out his full reason.

"I want to prove Buffy is innocent."

Silence followed. None of the three friends had expected his affirmation. And to say that they were shocked would have been an understatement. Spike stared at Angel curiously, wondering what was in it for Angel. Willow and Xander merely frowned, wondering how in the world they would be able to do something like prove Buffy's innocence.

"I don't mean to be rude, Angel, but have you been drinking?" Spike asked, only half-joking.

"No," Angel denied. "I'm completely serious."

"But how?" Xander blurted out. "We're not cops or anything, and the real cops did an investigation and blamed Buffy."

"By real cops, I assume you mean the ones here in Sunnydale?" Angel questioned and continued without waiting for an answer. "The ones whose chief is the father of Buffy's rapist and who have already proved to be swayed by power and probably money?"

"Good point," Xander conceded.

"I'm guessing you have something in mind?" Spike asked Angel.

"Sort of," he answered and picked up the folder he'd set down on the coffee table before everyone had arrived. He set it on his lap, but didn't yet open it. "I've got a connection in law enforcement, someone outside Sunnydale. I think I could convince him to take a look at the case."

Willow thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. "You can't do that, Angel," she disagreed vehemently. "If you told them she was alive they would arrest her regardless. And what if she is still found guilty? We can't let her go to jail."

Picking up the folder again, Angel tapped on his leg. "I don't plan on him finding out she's alive. At least not until he has seen the evidence and he tells me what he thinks."

"What? You're just going to ask him to take a look at some random case?" Spike questioned doubtfully.

"I haven't figured out yet how I'll bring it up to him," Angel responded, still trying to work that one out in his head. "But I can almost guarantee that once he reads everything, he'll agree that something isn't right."

"Not that I'm disagreeing with you," Xander spoke up. "But what makes you think that?"

"Because the facts don't add up at all," Angel said simply.

"What are you talking about?" Willow wondered, her brow furrowing in confusion.

Opening the folder, Angel gazed down at his notes. He was silent for a moment, then explained. "When you and Spike first told me everything, I had a hard time believing Buffy could have killed her family. And then after meeting her and talking to her the few times she has visited, it seemed even more impossible. But I read over everything available, and now I'm positive. The few facts that I came across make it almost obvious that she couldn't have done it."

Angel waited for someone to say something, but his audience was silent. He looked up to see them all staring at him intently, waiting for him to go on. Willow was the only one who showed any outward sign of emotion with her hands clenching and unclenching in her lap. Spike appeared to be thinking mutely while Xander gazed at Angel with a frown on his face.

Since they were waiting for his explanation, he obliged. "Okay, first off, there's Buffy herself. You three probably knew her the best then, and none of you thought she'd done it, right?" he asked for confirmation. All three nodded in one form or another.

"I never thought she did it, but...," Xander trailed off, not sure if he should finish saying what was on his mind.

"Yeah," Angel nodded in agreement. "At the time, she wasn't quite-" He searched for the right word, and winced at the only one he could come up with. "Stable. But taking into account her emotional problems, that still didn't make her likely to be violent."

He looked straight at Willow and Spike whose attention he had fully. "You told me about that incident when you guys went out once, the one where she supposedly attacked some guys without provocation."

"But they were Cameron's friends, and Buffy had said they were the ones attacking her," Willow interjected.

"Exactly," Angel agreed completely. "So that can't really be counted. Other than that, was Buffy ever violent?"

"No!" Spike denied hotly and glared at Angel. "And it's bloody stupid of you to even ask.

"Sorry." Angel held up his hands in supplication. "I'm just trying to lay all the facts out first."

"Sorry," grumbled Spike, knowing he'd jumped the gun a bit.

Angel nodded his acceptance of the apology and shifted back to the original topic. "So it's safe to say Buffy had her problems, understandable ones at that, but she wasn't violent. That says a lot. It makes it much harder to believe that one night she just up and stabbed her family while watching movies and eating ice cream."

"There's no previous behavior to lead to it," Willow concluded and then added some of her own thoughts. "Especially towards her family. They meant the world to her. She would never have hurt them."

"Yeah," Xander seconded.

Spike settled back on the couch, pulling Willow closer to him and eyed Angel steadily. "What else have you got, mate? I can tell you're not done yet."

Taking out one of his pages of notes, Angel set it on his lap, tapped his fingers on the sheet. "There's not a lot of details about the murders in the newspaper articles I could find, but enough that two things stood out to me."

"All three bodies were found in the same room of the house," he began reciting the first of his theories. "The family room where they had been watching TV. Does anything strike you as strange about that?"

All three thought about his question. Xander scratched his chin, Willow narrowed eyes and Spike tapped his hand on his knee. But none appeared to come up with anything. Angel gave them another few seconds before giving his reasoning.

"They weren't all killed at the same exact moment, for obvious logistical reasons. So how did Buffy, a fairly petite, single person, manage to kill the three of them without at least one of them getting away?" he posed for his listeners.

Willow gaped at him while Spike muttered "Bloody hell," under his breath, then said more loudly, "You're damn right."

"There's no way she could have killed all three of them like that. They would have all just had to stand there and let her," Xander said in one of his rare insightful outbursts.

"And that makes no sense," Angel replied in agreement. "You'd have to think that at least one of them would have been able to get out of the room. But none of them did. They were all found where they'd originally been, as if, like Xander said, they'd just stood there and let Buffy attack them, doing absolutely nothing at all to defend themselves."

"I don't understand," Willow said quietly, her face pensive. The others looked at her oddly. "Oh, not that. I get what you're saying. But shouldn't the police have realized this? Why didn't they take that into account?"

"And that," Angel responded, "Is the sixty-four thousand dollar question." Angel could see the wheels turning in Spike's head, but he held him off from saying anything yet. "Let me throw this out there, too."

He took another sheet of paper out of the folder, one he'd written more notes on. "Dawn and Owen were killed with fatal wounds, the throat and heart. They both died fairly quickly. That's not the case with Joyce."

"Her wrists were slit," Willow cut in, and a light began to dawn in her eyes about where Angel was heading.

"Which is not necessary a fatal injury," Angel continued on. "It can be, but it's not incapacitating. So how did she manage to die from that? There's no mention of any other injuries, like being knocked out, that would have hindered her or aided her death. So logically, she should have been able to do something, like call for an ambulance, to save herself. She didn't though. She just supposedly laid there on the ground and let herself bleed to death"

"I never thought about that before," whispered Willow softly, hating herself for never coming to the conclusions Angel had. If she had, maybe she could have helped Buffy.

"I read a lot of crime novels," Angel said by way of explanation of how he'd picked out the conflicting details. "It's possible there's a way to justify how Joyce died of her wounds without getting away, but there's no way to tell without more information on the crime scene. And that," he turned to Willow and posed, "is how I'm hoping you can help."

"Me?" Willow squeaked.

"Yeah. You're good with computers right?" he asked her.

"Well, yeah. Sort of," she answered shyly.

Angel nodded, tucked his notes back into the folder. "I was hoping you could try breaking into the police department's computer files and retrieve anything related to Buffy. The more information I have to take to my friend, the better chance we have of clearing Buffy."

Before Willow could respond, a noise caught the group's attention. Each and every pair of eyes whipped toward the doorway. Standing half in the shadows was Buffy. Angel could see enough of her face to be able to detect the tears streaking down her cheek. He mentally cursed himself for not being more careful knowing she was in the house. Before he could stand and go to her, she stepped into the room.

TBC