AN: Many thanks again to all of you leaving reviews!


Part 4
Angel scowled at the door Faith had just escaped through. He knew exactly what she was doing, and apparently so did Lizzie. How many times had Faith told him he should talk to Lizzie, hear her excuses? Well, this must be Faith's way of speeding things up, leaving him here with the woman who had torn him to pieces. He'd get even with his partner for this.

What he needed to do was get out of here, quick. The longer he was around Lizzie, the worse off he'd be. But even as he thought that, he found himself turning to face her and asking the first question on his mind. "So what's with the name change...Buffy? What? Lizzie wasn't working for you anymore?"

The hostile words made Buffy flinch, though she knew she deserved them. She deserved every bit of rage Angel directed at her. She would deal with this, though. She would deal with him. It was one of the things she'd learned. She had to face her past, her mistakes, her screw-ups. Unless she faced her them, they would always be hanging over her and dragging her down. With that in mind, she took a deep, calming breath, and looked Angel straight in the face.

"Buffy is what I've always been called. My parents gave me the nickname when I was little. Elizabeth was my given name. And Lizzie...," she hesitated, trying to find the right way to explain what exactly Lizzie had been. "Lizzie was...was my creation."

"Just a character in your little play?" Angel mocked. "One where I was unknowingly co-star?"

"No, Angel! I never meant-"

"I bet you had a lot of fun lying to me! Was it all just a game?" he accused angrily. All the fury that had built up since he'd left Sunnydale was suddenly boiling over.

"Angel, please! Let me explain!" Buffy begged, all the while knowing it wasn't going to do any good if the look on Angel's face was anything to go by.

"Do you know what a fool I felt like?" he continued, blatantly ignoring her pleas, "when I stood there and found out you were seventeen years old? Seventeen! Not twenty like you'd said you were! You lied to me from the very first moment we met, and you certainly didn't give a damn about all the trouble I could have gotten into dating someone underage!"

"I'm sorry! Please, Angel-"

"Ya know what? Save it!" he all but screamed at her. "Everything that's ever come out of your mouth has been lies. I've got better things to do than listen to more of them."

Before she could stop him, say anything to try to make up for her lies, Angel had stalked out the door, slamming it with a loud smack behind him. A few unbidden tears trickled down her cheeks as she stared at the closed door. He hadn't even given her a chance to tell him why she'd done it all. She knew there was no hope that he'd ever forgive her, but she desperately wanted him to at least understand, to know that she hadn't done it as a ploy or an intentional way to play him.

She'd had her chance with Angel five years ago, and she'd blown it. He'd been the best thing to ever happen to her and she'd let her messed up life ruin it. But she couldn't let things go on as they were. There had to be a way to get him to listen to her. It didn't even really matter if he forgave her. All that mattered was that she tell him, that she make him understand that everything she'd done had had nothing at all to do with him, and everything to do with her.

Determination welled within Buffy. Yes, she would make him listen to her. She would tell him everything. Maybe then they'd have closure. Maybe then she would be able to forgive herself for hurting him. Because she knew she had. She'd seen the look in his eyes when he'd found out her real age all those years ago. There'd been utter disbelief. There'd been anger and rage. But above all those there'd been hurt.

There was only one thing she could do now. She grabbed her cell phone off the new coffee table and dialed.

"Faith," she said when the call was answered. "We'll get into why you left me here with Angel later. Right now, I need a favor."


Angel paced around his apartment, each and every one of his muscles still tense. He'd been back home for almost a half hour and he still hadn't been able to let go of the rage from his encounter with Lizzie. No, Buffy. He had to start thinking of her of as Buffy. After all, that was what she'd decided she should go by now.

He snorted out loud and paced to the window on the far side of the room. Buffy, Lizzie. Seventeen, Twenty. It was all the same to her. She wouldn't know the truth if it bit her in the ass. Every single thing he'd ever known – thought he'd known – about her had been based on lies, or been blatant lies. She hadn't even told him her real name for Christ's sake!

Worst of all, though, had been the lie about her age. He hadn't seen that coming. The night he'd met her, she'd said she was twenty, and he hadn't ever had a reason to doubt it. Thinking back, he probably should have. She'd always been a little immature, but he had just attributed that to her eccentric nature. He should have seen through it. She'd never been around during the day, and she often wouldn't stay the night at his apartment. How could she, he snorted, when she probably had a curfew and had to go home.

God! He'd been furious to find out she was only seventeen. Angel didn't know what made him angrier: the fact that she had lied to him, again, or that she'd put him in a position that could have completely destroyed him. If anyone had found out he'd been intimately involved with someone under eighteen...well, it wouldn't have been pretty. Jail would have been the likely outcome.

The memory of the day he'd found out was still vivid. How could it not be when it had been such a shock, and had changed everything? Angel still remembered the look on Lizzie's face when she'd realized she'd been caught in the lie...


Sitting in the squad room, Angel heard someone call his name and looked up to see his boss crossing the floor toward his desk. Must be something important, he thought, to drag the chief out of his office. He hoped he hadn't done anything wrong.

"Angel," Sunnydale's chief of police said again as he approached Angel.

"Yeah?" Angel asked, setting aside the paper work he'd been completing.

"I need you to go over to the high school and sort out a problem there," the chief told him, his annoyance at the situation clearly showing in his voice.

"Okay, sure," Angel agreed, gathering up his stuff. "What sort of problem?"

"A fight or something," the chief waved his hand dismissively. "See if you canmediate and keep the police officially out of it."

"Sure," Angel gave a nod, understanding. He didn't want to have to arrest some kids for what was likely a petty conflict. It usually only caused more trouble and sometimes put good kids in a worse situation. He hoped he'd be able to work it out.

Ten minutes later, he was pulling up in front of the high school in his squad car. As he got out, he saw the principle waiting for him on the front steps. He'd met the guy a few weeks earlier after there had been some vandalism at the high school.

"Mr. Flutie," Angel greeted him.

"Officer Callahan," Mr. Flutie returned and stuck out his hand. "Thank you so much for coming. I really hope we can get this amicably solved."

"You're welcome." Angel shook his hand and fell into step beside the principle. "What happened? I didn't get many details."

"A fight between two students. A cat-fight, if you catch my meaning," he explained knowingly.

"Ahh," Angel said with a sigh. Great. A fight between two pubescent females. Just what he wanted to deal with.

"Normally, this is something the school would deal with internally, but one of the parents got involved, and well...you know how that can be," Flutie continued as they reached the front doors.

"Yeah." Angel really did. Parents liked to make a big deal out of things when it came to their kids.

"From what I know so far, the mother has no grounds. If the story I was told is true, her daughter was the initiator, and the one who gave the black eye." Flutie shrugged and directed Angel down the hall to his left. "But the other student involved has been known to be a troublemaker, so it's making the situation worse."

Angel said nothing, just followed the principle down the hall. He wouldn't know anything until he'd been told exactly what hadhappened.

"I've pulled both students files," Flutie went on, stopping in front of the door to the main office. "I thought it would be helpful if you looked through those first."

"Okay, thanks." Angel took the two manila folders Flutie handed him.

"I've got the one girl and her mother in my office, and the other in the conference room just over there," he waved to the other side of the office. "You can take a minute to look over those if you want."

"Thanks."

Angel glanced down at the first file, and saw the name 'Harmony Kendall' on the tab. He flipped it open and skimmed through the contents. Below average student, only a few disciplinary reprimands. Her picture showed her to be the typical California blonde.

He closed the file and set it on the secretary'sdesk and opened the second one. The moment he did, his hands stilled and his breath whooshed out of him. It couldnt' be.

"Lizzie," he whispered.

"Excuse me?" Mr. Flutie asked, looking at Angel oddly.

"N-nothing," Angel stuttered, his eyes riveted to the file in front of him.

It was her. It was definitely Lizzie, though in this picture, there were no pink streaks in her hair. But he'd know her anywhere.

The implications of what he was seeing were just beginning to settle in Angel's mind. Lizzie – the twenty year old Lizzie he'd been dating and sleeping with - was in high school. His eyes flicked to her date of birth, and he nearly dropped the file as if it had burned him

Seventeen. She was seventeen. Fuck!

Over the shock, a boiling anger began to grow. He remembered the night he'd met her in the club and she had told him she was twenty. What a lie that was! And he'd been and idiot and believed it, believed her.

He snapped the folder closed and dropped it on top of the other one. "I'd like to speak to...Miss Summers first," Angel requested.

"Sure," Flutie agreed. "She's over there in the conference room."

"Thank you," he said tersely, and walked stiffly to the closed door.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed open the door and came face to face with Lizzie. The lying little bitch. The moment she realized it was him, he could see the shock, and the nervous guilt on her face. Yeah, she had a lot to feel guilty about.


Leaning his palms on the windowsill, Angel gazed out at the darkening sky, still lost in the memory. He'd managed to get the situation worked out that day. Lizzie hadn't really done anything except get in a verbal sparring match with a nemesis. The other girl, Harmony, he remembered, had become enraged and punched Lizzie. Then the girl's mother had wanted Lizzie arrested for assault when Lizzie hadn't really done anything.

Some quick thinking, and a lot of official cop talk had gotten the mother to back down. But nothing could have salvaged his relationship with Lizzie. The fact that she'd really been seventeen had played a big role. He was a cop after all. But more so, his trust was destroyed. It had started disintegrating after the party incident, but this lie was just too much. She'd flat-out mislead him, and put him in a really bad situation. Nothing could make that right.

That night after he'd found out the truth, he had stayed at a motel, knowing Lizzie would go to his apartment and wanting to do anything to avoid her. The next day, he'd managed to get a week of his vacation time, and he'd promptly put in for a transfer. There was no possible way he could stay in Sunnydale. The transfer had gone through quickly, and within two weeks, he had moved to Los Angeles. He'd never spoken to Lizzie again.

A loud knock on his door interrupted Angel's brooding. He stared angrily at the partition, hoping whoever it was would go away. No luck. The knock came again, and then again. So he stomped over to the door, cursing in a harsh whisper. He'd get rid of whoever was bugging him. Throwing open the the slab of wood, he groaned.

"Li-Buffy. Great. What the hell do you want now?" he spat at Lizzie – no, Buffy - who stood stiff as a board in the hallway.

"May I come in?" she asked politely, seemingly not thrown by his harsh attitude. She was here for a reason, and she wasn't leaving until she'd accomplished it.

"If I said no, would you go away?" he asked angrily.

"No." Buffy crossed her arms and stood her ground. They stared at each for a long moment before Buffy sighed and let her shoulders droop. "Angel, I know you don't want to talk to me, and I know you have every reason to hate me, but I need to talk to you. I need to tell you about everything. After you've heard it all, I'll leave you alone."

"Fine," he snapped at her, and turned away, not bothering to actually invite her in. He'd listen, then he'd tell her to get the hell out of his life.

Buffy followed him in and closed the door behind her. She was tempted to gaze around at Angel's apartment, see where he lived, but she wasn't here for that. She was here to explain what she'd done, and why she'd done it. That was the only reason she'd called Faith to get his address.

She didn't bother to set her purse down, or to sit in one of the chairs. Instead, she stiffened her shoulders once again, and faced Angel. "First, I want to tell you I'm sorry. For all of it. I lied to you, and did things I shouldn't have. You didn't deserve any of it."

"Well, gee, thanks. I guess that makes it all better!" he sniped sarcastically.

Ignoring the verbal dart, Buffy continued. "I know it probably doesn't make a difference, and it can't erase what I did, but there were reasons. Bad ones, maybe, but they did exist."

Angel raised an eyebrow and leaned back against the couch cushions, as if waiting for her to put on a show. She was tempted to just leave and say the hell with it. But she stood her ground. She needed to do this.

"Look, Angel, I know you don't care and don't want to hear all of this, but I need to say it. And for it to make sense, I need to start at the beginning, way before I met you. So will you please listen?" she asked as politely as possible. He simply gave a negligent nod.

Buffy took a deep breath, and began the story of her life. "I lived in Los Angeles until I was almost twelve, with my parents and my sister, Dawn. We were pretty normal, I guess. My Dad worked too much, and my parents fought like most, and my sister was the typical annoying, younger sister. Then, when I was eleven, my Dad went away on a business trip." She took another deep breath and closed her eyes, forcing the anger away.

"He'd been gone two days when...when a guy showed up at the door and served my Mom with divorce papers. It was," she paused as she tried to think of how best to put. "Well, it was shock. None of us expected it, least of all my Mom. She tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't return her calls. And then she found out he'd been having an affair with his secretary for years."

"Everything just fell apart. Mom was crying all the time, and didn't care about anything, and Dawn was crying and wanting to know where Daddy was." Buffy walked slowly to the same window Angel had been standing at earlier and gazed unseeingly out over LA. "It was hard. One minute, I'd had a family, and the next, it was gone. I started acting out. I don't know why, maybe it was to get attention, or maybe I was hoping it would bring my father back. But I got mixed up with the wrong people. Not gang stuff, just kids who were trouble. Mom barely noticed because of everything with the divorce."

Despite his resolve not to feel anything, Angel couldn't help but feel sorry for the young girl Lizzie had been and what she'd been put through. How could a father do such a thing? But still, it didn't excuse her behavior. So he remained silent.

"Then I got expelled from school," she said next.

"Expelled?" Angel repeated in shock.

"Yeah," she gave a sarcastic laugh. "Eleven years old and I got expelled from school. The group I'd gotten messed up with told me if I wanted to be really accepted, I had to do something they'd told me to do. So I did it."

"What did you do?" he asked, curious despite himself.

"I had to sneak into a school dance and put a smoke bomb in the girl's bathroom. It wasn't hard to do. Unfortunately, when the smoke alarms went off, people freaked. Four people were hurt. Minor injuries...a broken arm, a concussion. Things like that," she explained, clearly regretting the incident. "A teacher had seen me come out of the bathroom, and in the end I was expelled."

"Mom flipped out. She blamed me, blamed dad. Eventually, she moved me and Dawn to Sunnydale, thinking it would get me away from the crowd I was involved with," Buffy continued, leaning against the windowsill and gazing sadly at Angel. It wasn't easy for her to remember how bad things had been, and also knowing they'd only gotten worse later.

"But it didn't change anything," Angel assumed, still telling himself not to care about any of it.

"Not really," she confirmed. "Because...because two months later, my mom died."

"What?" Angel gasped, shocked yet again. Good grief, how much more could there be?

"Brain aneurysm," she answered clinically, though inside it still hurt. "Dawn and I got up for school one morning, and Mom didn't come down. I just figured she was running late, so we went to school. Dawn had drama club after school and Mom was supposed to pick her up, but she never came. She managed to get a hold of me, and I went to school and walked home with her. When...when we got home, Mom's car was there. And...and I went up to her room. She was there...dead."

"God!" Angel breathed out. He couldn't imagine finding one of his parents dead.

"I blamed myself," Buffy went on. "The doctor said her death was instantaneous, and that there was nothing that could have been done to save her. I understand that now, but back then I blamed myself. If I'd checked on her that morning then maybe..."

"You were what? Twelve, Li-Buffy? There wasn't anything you could do," Angel said, a strange softness in his voice that he hadn't meant to be there.

"I know, but it was hard not to think that way. I-" she was cut off when Angel's cell phone rang.

He shot an apologetic look at Buffy and pulled his phone off the clip on his belt. "Hello?...yeah...now?...okay, sure." He hung up the phone and reclipped it before looking at Buffy. "I've got to go, there's been a break in one of my cases."

"Oh, okay," she said, disappointed that he would have to leave. It had felt good to finally get all this off her chest, to finally explain to him why she'd acted so terribly. But it could wait. She could finish later.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, and surprisingly, he was. When she'd said she wanted to explain everything to him, he hadn't really known what to expect. Maybe some typical story about teenage rebellion angst, but not what he'd heard so far. And he found he wanted to know the rest. He needed to know. They needed closure on all that had happened between them. So he gazed back at Buffy. "We can finish this later, okay?"

"Okay," she agreed, relieved that this wasn't the end of it.

Angel walked her down to her car, saying nothing other than a cursory goodbye, and that he'd talk to her later. It wasn't much, but it was more than he'd given her before. Maybe they could salvage something. She missed Angel.


Hours later, Angel was sound asleep in his bed, exhausted after dealing with the development on a case. He'd only been in bed for a half hour, when the shrill ringing of his phone had his eyes snapping open. Groping around on the night stand, he finally managed to snag the handset to his cordless. Groggily, he pressed the On button and mumbled a hello.

"Angel?" he heard a familiar voice whisper tensely. He shot up in bed. Buffy!

"What's wrong?" He knew immediately something wasn't right. Her tone was enough to tell him that.

"There's-there's someone...outside in the hallway. I think they're trying to get in."


TBC!