Disclaimer: Angel belongs to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, not me.

Author's Note: Thanks to demonwithasoul for the review. Sorry about the delay…I've been somewhat distracted lately with the moving and the SCA and the husband and the stuff. So, here we go again. Oh, and if you haven't checked out my other Angel fic, "Dea Ex Machina", I suggest you do—things have just gotten very interesting over there.

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"Gunn, I already apologized for killing you. What do you want? A wake?" –Gwen, "Long Day's Journey"

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Gwen Raiden stepped out of the cab and looked up at the building looming over her. The Hyperion Hotel had been built to look Spanish-y with yellow painted walls and arches that came to a point at the top. "Classy-looking place, if a bit exposed," she muttered.

"What?" the cabbie called from inside the car. "It's twenty-three, fifty-nine." He held his hand out the window, palm up, waiting for his fare.

The thief looked down at him and raised an eyebrow. "Keep the meter running—I'm not staying long."

She didn't stay long enough to hear his response but sashayed up the steps. It was late, the flight had made her a little queasy, and she still didn't know why she was in L.A. again. Didn't know why she had felt this terrible urge all of a sudden to buy a ticket for the red-eye from Taipei to come back here. She hadn't set foot in this town since the Beast had blocked out the sun—hadn't seemed real healthy for anyone to stick around. Sure, Angel and his crew had gotten that situation fixed right up, but the City of Angels still made her want to twitch.

Gwen pushed open the gate and headed up to the front door. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the door's glass and paused to check her lipstick. Fire engine red, of course. Her taste in clothes and makeup hadn't changed much in a year. Her hair had, perhaps, a few more unnaturally bright red streaks mingling with the dark curls. She wasn't wearing leather pants for once—not the most comfortable things on a plane—but rather stretchy black jeans that hugged her ass tighter than leather possibly could. Over that was a red, long-sleeved, leather top decorated with a plethora of non-functioning zippers. Her gloves were black silk (silk made an excellent insulator) and disappeared up her sleeves. The lipstick looked fine.

She shoved open the door and let herself into the hotel. The air inside smelled musty, as if it had been abandoned for a while. The lights were off as well, and, for a moment, she considered going back outside. There didn't look to be anybody home. Figured. She's flown all the way from Taiwan to see Angel, and he wasn't here.

Reaching into the back pocket of her jeans, she removed a slim penlight and clicked it on. She swept the narrow beam of light ahead of her as she descended the carpet stairs to the lobby's marble floor. The low heel on her boots clicked as she started across the lobby in the direction of the desk.

She stopped suddenly when her tiny light flickered across a foot. The foot was attached to a leg clothed in khaki cargo pants that had definitely seen better days. They were torn, blood-covered, and…scorched? She moved the light up the body, over a gray hoodie that was in about as good a shape as the cargo pants. Finally, the light came to rest on the ebony skin of a young man she knew very well. His eyes were closed, and if he was breathing, she couldn't tell.

"Damn it, Denezel," she hissed as she dropped down to her knees and reached out two fingers to feel for the pulse in his throat. It was there—she could barely feel it through the fingers of her gloves, but it was there. She let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding.

The lights clicked on.

Gwen through up a hand to shield her eyes as she blinked furiously.

"I told you there was someone down here." The voice was loud, masculine, and sort of whiny—definitely Angel's. The spots cleared from her vision, revealing him standing about halfway down the curving stairs, shirtless. His hair was gel-free for the first time ever that she'd seen but still stuck up straight. Given his cat-that-swallowed-the-cream look, she'd have to say that it was bed head and not a styling choice.

"Well, who is it?" a female voice demanded from the top of the stairs, just out of sight.

"Gwen!" Angel called out to her, bounding down the rest of the stairs. He was barefoot, she had the chance to notice, before he hopped over Gunn's prone body and scooped her up in a spine-cracking hug.

"Hey, big boy, nice to see you too," she gasped. "You'd better be thankful I'm wearing long sleeves, otherwise you'd be…" She paused as she felt something through the leather of her top. They were squeezed so tight together that she could feel him breathing and his heart… "Since when do you have a heartbeat?"

He lowered her to the floor; a big, sloppy grin on his chiseled face. "I'm human!"

He reached for her again, but Gwen stepped back out of reach, tripping over something and going down hard on her ass. "Damn it!" she swore. She looked down at what she'd stumbled over and found that it was another unconscious man, this one blond, naked, and gifted with a yummy body. "You want to tell me what's going on here?"

Angel offered her a hand up. "Things…got a little complicated."

She let him help her up, giving a look back at the blond—yummy but not really her taste. Beside him, the English dude that had gotten between Gunn and his girl lay at the end of the row, just as out as the other two. "If you're not a freak anymore, then I'd say so."

"Careful touching her, Angel," the female voice said, this time from nearer by. "You may be human now, but she's still a freak."

Gwen glanced past the former vampire towards the stairs. Cordelia, the bottle blonde who'd been making Angel's heart go pitter-patter, was standing at the bottom landing, in nothing more than a man's plaid shirt that barely skimmed the tops of her knees. "Nice to see you again too." The tone of Gwen's voice made it clear that she was feeling anything but nice.

"Wait, wait, wait," Angel said, putting a hand on Gwen's shoulder and holding out the other in Cordelia's direction. "Cordy, this is Gwen."

Cordelia folded her arms over her breasts, which had grown since the last time they'd seen each other. Implants, maybe? Gwen had always figured big boobs would be a hindrance given her profession, but some people were just shallow enough.

"Gwen, this is Cordelia Chase," Angel continued his little introduction.

Gwen took that step back, this time avoiding the naked blond. "Angel, we've met before."

"Actually, you haven't. Cordy, you see, was possessed by a demon goddess for a while, which just so happened to be when we all had that little run-in with the Beast and the Ra-tet."

"I was still aware," the other woman protested. She stepped down off the final step and crossed the lobby to put her arm around Angel's waist. "I also saw the two of you and that little Axis incident."

He bent down and planted a kiss on the top of her head, which was now covered in long, curly, dark mahogany brown hair. Her natural color maybe. Surely not? "Just wanted to tell her so she wouldn't hold anything you said then against you."

Cordelia turned a withering glare on him.

"Nice move, Angel, way to enrage the lady post-coitus," Gwen said, giving him a lazy smile. "Six points for effort, one point for style." She unzipped one of the zippers on the back of her sleeve and peeled it back. Her glove stopped right before the elbow but had slid down at some point since coming into the hotel. She pulled it back up. "She's right you know—I still am a freak. If I wasn't wearing a shirt with long sleeves and gloves, you would be toast, and while I can jump start a heart, we both know from experience that girlfriends tend not to take kindly to me killing their men."

"I thought you stole a doohickey that stopped that." Poor Angel looked confused.

"I do, but it's just a prototype—I like to save it for special occasions." She flavored the word "special" with a sly, flirty smile, just to get under Cordelia's skin.

It worked. The now-brunette huffed. "So what are you doing here anyway, Gwen?"

"Actually," Gwen said, sliding her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, "I was hoping you could tell me."