BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER

'Wherever You May Be'

Written by Moonlight Snitch

Spoilers for Becoming Part I (Flashbacks)

Prologue

Angel stumbled slightly, his filthy hands held close to his chest as he stepped closer to a trashcan and began to go through it, looking for anything that he might be able to eat. He couldn't remember the last time he ate and the hunger was beginning to get harder to control, but he fought it off, not letting it escape. He couldn't afford too.

A man brushed past him and continued down the street, totally ignoring him. Angel was fine with that. It was better that he was ignored, better that he was forgotten. After everything he had did, after what he had become. He became the very thing he swore to himself that he'd never be.

Having found nothing, Angel made his way further into the alley with slow, labored steps. A boy ran past him with a package and disappeared further down the alley. Angel, tried and weak, staggered into a concrete post at the side of the alley and stopped. He coughed heavily and rolled around to lean with his back against the post. The light from a near by lamppost illuminated him for a moment and displayed how filthy and unkempt he was. His face was paler then usually and he had huge bags under his eyes, a sure sign that he was tired.

He breathed for a moment, not having too but doing so by habit, so that he could blend in better with the humans around him. He opened his eyes wider after a moment, having smelt something. He searched the alley with his eyes and spotted a rat scampering across to the other side. He took a couple of unsteady steps, brushing the hair from his face and began to stalk the rat. It reached the other side and disappeared into a pile of trashcans and bags. Angel dived after it, scattering the cans and bags noisily, but he lost track of the rat.

He cursed under his breath as he rolled over to sit against the wall and failed his arms angrily over the missing rat. There was a man in the alley with him now and that man stepped closer.

"God, are you disgusting."

Angel calmed himself down and looked around the alley, trying to figure out whom this man was talking too. It couldn't be him. No one had bothered to talk to him for the past twenty years.

"This is really an unforgettable smell. This is the stench of death you're giving off here. And the look says, uh…crazy homeless guy. It's not good."

Now Angel new this guy was talking to him, but he couldn't understand why. So he just turned away from the man angrily and said, "Get away from me."

"What are you gonna do, bite me?" The man gasped and jumped back from Angel. "Horrors! A vampire!"

Angel looked up at the guy in surprise. He looked like just your average Joe, however Angel could smell that there was something different about him.

"Ah, but you wouldn't bite me on account of your pour tortured soul. It's so sad, a vampire with a soul. It's so poignant."

Angel flinched slightly at the mention of his tortured soul. Tortured was right, but not in exactly the way most people thought. Sure it tore Angel up inside over the deaths and chaos he had caused when he hadn't had a soul, but his soul had been tortured long before he had even been turned. Long before.

"Who are you?" Angel asked, slightly confused as to how these guy seemed to know so much about him.

"Let's take a walk."

Angel didn't understand why he was going anywhere with this guy. He knew that he couldn't trust him. He couldn't trust anyone. Not even himself.

The walked for a few paces along the sidewalk and then turned into a street to cross to the hotdog stand on the other side. Angel didn't pay any attention to the traffic and almost got run over, but the man grabbed his arm in time to stop him. The man didn't seem to take much notice in the fact that he just saved Angel from a few possible broken ribs.

"What are you eating?" he asked as they continued to cross the road. "Like, a rat once a month?"

Angel strayed again and almost walked into another car. The man grabbed him again and pulled him back in time.

"Hey!" The man yelled at the car, which honked angrily at them, but they continued across. "Look, you're skin and bones here! Butcher shops are throwing away more blood in a day than you could stand. Good blood."

They reached the far side and the man stopped Angel, making him face him. "You lived in the world a little bit, you'd know that."

Angel was beginning to get pissed off. What did this man know of his life? Nothing. Angel knew very well that the world was better off if he stayed out of it.

"I wanna know who you are." Angel said.

The man smiled slightly. "And I wanna know who you are."

"You already do." Or seem too, Angel thought.

"Not yet. But I'm looking to find out. 'Cause you could go either way here."

Angel twisted his face in confusion. "I don't understand you."

The guy chuckled slightly. "Nobody understands me. That's my curse."

He stepped up to the street vendor and pulled out some cash. "Dog me. Mustard."

He watched the vendor get out the hotdog and squirted on some mustard.

"My name's Whistler," he said, looking back at Angel.

"Here you go," the vendor said, handing Whistler his dog.

"Thanks," Whistler replied, handing over a bill before turning back to Angel. "Anyways, lately it is." He took a bite out of the hotdog and mumbled in appreciation.

Angel looked down at the ground, trying not to show how jealous he was of the food. "You're not a vampire."

"A demon," Whistler replied. "Technically. I mean, I'm not a bad guy. Not all demons are dedicated to the destruction of all life."

Angel knew that, but he still didn't understand Whistler's point.

He looked back up at him. "What do you mean, I can go either way?"

Whistler swallowed a bit of the hotdog. "I mean that you can become an even more useless rodent than you already are, or you can become someone. A person. Someone to be counted."

"I just wanna be left alone," Angel said, starting to turn away. He didn't need this.

"Well, yeah, you've been left alone for, what, ninety years already," Whistler called out.

Angel turned back to face him, trying not to let the pain show on his face. Alone. That's all he'd ever be. He'd been alone even when he had been Angelus and he had had Darla and Dru. He'd been alone every since she… no, he wouldn't think about that now.

"And what a package you are," Whistler continued. "The Stink Guy!"

"What do you want from me?"

"I want you to see something."

He gave Angel an intense look and Angel just looked back at him. What did this guy want from him?

"We'd have to leave now. You see, and then you tell me what you want to do."

Angel paused for a moment, weighing his options. Could anything be worst then everything already was? No, he didn't think so.

He sighed. "Where is it?"

Angel carefully rolled down the window on the old, rusted Chevy Impala that he was driving in, trying to stay out of the sunlight. Students were streaming out of Hemery High School, but none paid much attention to the rusty car with spray-painted black windows, and for that Angel was grateful.

He wasn't fully sure what he was doing there. Whistler had just told him to stay here and watch for a girl that would be approached by a Watcher. Didn't take him long to realize that he was looking for the new Slayer, but he didn't understand why he was. What was it that Whistler wanted him too see?

He let his eyes scan the crowd, using the senses that he had to tell him which one was the Slayer. A voice from the crowd broke through his thoughts though, and he wiped he gaze around, looking for the person who had spoken. He knew that voice, but it couldn't be. She was dead.

But there she was. Clear as day, coming down the stairs with a group of her friends.

"Abby," Angel whispered, a tear rolling down his cheek and his dead heart constricted painfully in his chest. It couldn't be her.

"So I'm like, 'Dad, do you want me to go to the dance in an outfit I've already worn? Why do you hate me?'"

Her voice was as he remembered it being, and she looked almost exactly the same as when he had last seen her, except the pain and sadness was gone from her sparkly hazel-green eyes. He accent was different, but he didn't care. It was her and that's all he cared about.

"Is Tyler taking you?" One of her girl friends asked.

"Where were you when I got over Tyler? He's of the past." Angel watched her closely, trying to understand how she could be here, wondering if Whistler knew what exactly he had sent Angel to see.

"Tyler would have to crawl on his hands and knees to get me to go to the dance with him. Which, actually, he's supposed to do after practice, so I'm gonna wait."

Angel smiled softly. She hadn't really changed.

"Okay. See ya later," Another one of the girls said, as they all began to leave his girl.

"Bye," yet another said, and the girl who look like his Abaigeal, waved at all her friends, telling each to call her.

Once they were all gone, she climbed back up a few of the steps of the school and sat down, looking around and sucking on some sort of candy that Angel didn't know the name of. She took off her jacket and waited for this Tyler person, placing the jacket across her legs and then idly looking around again.

A man in a brown trench coat approached her and it was then that Angel realized it was her that would be the Slayer. The irony, Angel thought to himself.

"Buffy Summers?" The man asked, and Angel sighed now knowing her name. He knew that there was no way it could have been Abaigeal, but he knew in his heart it was still her. It had to be.

Buffy looked up at the guy. "Yeah," she said smiling. "Hi," then she just looked confused. "What?"

"I need to speak with you," he said and Buffy looked worried.

"You're no from Bullock's, are you? 'Cause I-I meant to pay for that lipstick."

"There isn't much time," the Watcher said and Angel understood what he meant. Potential Slayers were trained from almost birth, leading very isolated and harsh lives. But it seemed that they hadn't been able to find Buffy until now.

"You must come with me," he continued. "Your destiny awaits."

Buffy looked even more confused and shook her head. "I don't have a destiny," she said, but the Watcher just nodded. "I'm destiny-free, really."

The Watcher looked even more serious then before. "Yes, you have. You are the Chosen One. You alone can stop them."

Buffy frowned. "Who?"

"The vampires."

Angel watched from behind some gravestones as Buffy landed flat on her back.

"Oof!" She mumbled. The vampire was propped over her now, growling menacingly. She was frightened, he could smell it, and she looked around frantically, not knowing what to do. Her Watcher, Merrick he had said his name was, just stood off to the side watching and Angel felt like strangling him. Buffy didn't know how to fight; he should be helping her.

Buffy spotted her stake, but couldn't reach it, so she put her hands underneath the vampire and pushed him off. He flew off her and landed hard on his back.

Angel chuckled slightly. She didn't know her own strength.

"Oh, God…" Buffy mumbled as she rolled onto her hands and knees, scrambling on all fours to retrieve her stake.

"Oh, God… Oh… Oh, God… Unh!" She grabbed the stake and quickly got to her feet. She looked at it, unsure of what to do next.

Get it in the heart, Angel thought, silently urging her on.

The vampire got up and lunged at her. Reflexively she grabbed him, sidestepped him and sent him flipping over to the ground again, dazed. She looked at the vampire, amazed by what she just did. She glanced at Merrick, down at her stake and then made her move to dispatch the vampire. She quickly got to her knees, raised the stake above her head and plunged it into him, but she got him in the gut instead of the chest.

"Oh! Not the heart!" She muttered.

Angel watched, concerned for her. She wasn't ready for this and he knew it.

Buffy plunged the stake into the vampire again and this time it hit the mark. An instant later the vampire exploded into ashes. Buffy was caught by surprise and she screamed and jumped back, landing on her butt. She just stared at the ashes on the grass in wide-eyes shock. Behind her, Merrick stepped forward.

"You see? You see your power."

Buffy didn't look like she was sure what she just saw. Angel continued to watch her.

He watched from some trees outside Buffy's home and looked on through the window. Buffy walked into the bathroom, her mother following her.

"Why didn't you call?" Her mom asked.

Buffy turned to face her mother and Angel could she how upset she was, it was in her eyes. He had always been able to tell what Abaigeal had been feeling. He guessed with Buffy it was no different.

"I'm sorry. I-I didn't know it was so late. Tyler and I were talking."

Her mother exhaled deeply. "That boy is irresponsible."

Buffy shook her head. "No, mom. It's not his fault." She shrugged her jacket off her shoulders.

"You know we worry, that's all," her mother said. They looked at each other for a moment and then her mother shrugged. "Dinner's in ten minutes."

She then left and Buffy closed the door behind her. She turned on the water to wash off the dirt from crawling around in the cemetery. Angel could hear her parent talking in the hall and watched Buffy wince as the talking escalated into an argument.

"Did she say where she was?" Angel assumed it was her father.

"She was with Tyler."

"I don't want her seeing him anymore, period!"

Angel watched as tears began to stream down Buffy's cheeks and he wished that he could be in there with her right now, holding her and wiping her tears away.

"You're overreacting, dear."

Buffy looked at herself in the mirror sadly, trying to stop the tears.

"Don't you do that! Don't talk to me like I'm a kid!" Even Angel winced.

"I don't! Just forget it!"

Angel continued to watch and listen, disliking the situation more and more.

"Just because you can't discipline her, I have to be the ogre!"

Buffy kept staring into the mirror.

"I am not having this conversation again! Alright?" Her mother answered.

Buffy looked down, wiping the tears from her cheeks.

Angel arrived in the sewer junction that Whistler told him to meet him at. Whistler, of course, was already there, waiting for him.

"She's gonna have it tough, that Slayer. She's just a kid. The world's full of big, bad things."

"I wanna help her," Angel said and Whistler looked up at him. "I want… I wanna become someone." I want to be Liam again, he thought.

Whistler chuckled. "God, jeez, look at you. She must be prettier than the last Slayer."

Angel looked away, trying to keep the hurt at bay. Whistler didn't know. He wasn't all that surprised. No one knew about Abaigeal.

"This isn't gonna be easy," Whistler said, "The more you live in this world, the more you see how apart from it you really are."

Angel closed his eyes tightly. He hadn't been apart of the world since Abaigeal died.

"And this is dangerous work, " Whistler continued sternly. "Right now, you couldn't go three rounds with a fruit fly!"

It's not going to work, Angel thought, opening his eyes to look at Whistler. "I wanna learn from you," he said with resolve. You're not going to make me give this up.

Whistler sighed and nodded. "Alright."

"But I don't wanna dress like you," Angel replied as he started to leave.

Whistler followed him. "Again, you're annoying me. You're lucky we need you on our side."

I'm not doing this for you, Angel thought as they walked. I'm doing this for Abby, and I'm doing it for Buffy.

AN: That's just the beginning people. I've got a lot of ideas for this fic and I'm giving you guys the decision. I can go straight to Sunnydale, or I can stay in LA. If I got to Sunnydale, I can have the story of Abby come out in a few places. In Halloween, Surprise/Innocence, or in Amends. It's your guy's choice. I'm also thinking of writing them all and either doing them all as separate stories or as one big story that keeps switching back and forth between story, which is what I'm leaning towards now. Again, whatever you guys want to see, let me know in a review and please do review. I need to know if this story is worth continuing! Thanks for reading and remember to review!