As he awoke, he noted that other than the overwhelming feeling of dizziness and nausea and its accompanying headache, he was apparently somehow back in his suite at the odd hotel from which he'd fled the previous evening. Or was it this evening? He changed to open his eyes just a fraction more, squinting against the lengthening shadows that told him it was early evening one again, and yet even that small amount of light seemed to send sharp pulses of pain throughout his head.

"This should help," An unexpectedly accented voice gained his attention, and he squinted up at a fellow who was holding a cup of something out toward him.

He chanced to sit up slowly, and then reached out to take the proffered cup, giving it a short sniff to determine the nature of the fluid contained therein.

"Beef tea?" He asked, his gaze alighting once again on the fellow, receiving a gentle smile from him.

"Bovril," The fellow answered him. "It should help settle your stomach."

He sipped slowly at the tea, allowing the soothing warmth and familiarity settle into his heavy limbs, as he watched the fellow sit in a chair near the bedside before he poured himself a cup of tea as well, adding a bit of lemon and then relaxing back into his seat.

"I don't believe we've met?" He asked between sips of his Bovril.

"No, I don't suppose we have," The fellow answered, as he set his cup back on the small tray on the bedside table and extended his hand to him. "You'll pardon my familiarity? Wesley Wyndam-Pryce."

"William Pratt," He took the offered hand a gave it a firm shake. The fellow had a good grip, with an appropriate shake that was neither overzealous nor weak. Unless he missed his guess, this fellow had all the markings of descending from proper stock.

After exchanging pleasantries, they each settled back and contemplated their drink. The Bovril certainly did seem to be helping with his rather unpleasant constitution.

"I understand you've been adjusting quite well to American life despite your rather abrupt introduction?"

"I'd hardly call anything I've done so far 'adjusting'," I can't seem to help the self-conscious tone from coloring my answer.

"Hmm… I suppose that's one way to look at it," He responds.

"And how else should I look at it Mr. Wyndam-Pryce?" I am regrettably allowing my annoyance get the better of me.

"Excellent question," He says, taking more of his tea. "I'm not entirely certain how one should take being cast more than a century into the future in an instant, only to find out that during those one hundred plus years he's been a vampire, of which one has no recollection." He supposed the fellow had a point. "Though a feeling of unrequited love has been known to cause behavior quite consistent with that which you apparently exhibited last night, so there is that."

Suddenly, I find my Bovril is no longer as soothing as it was a moment ago, and I set it on the table.

"I'd like to be alone, if you don't mind," I ask him, without looking up.

"Of course," He says, standing as he set his own cup on the little tea service. "You'll probably want to catch a quick shower before meeting everyone downstairs."

"Everyone… downstairs?" I didn't mean to sound like a frightened schoolboy.

"Yes," He answers as he crosses the room to the door. "Well, everyone except Buffy."

"Oh?" I try to feign indifference. Unfortunately, it sounds far more like anger to my own ears.

"Yes, she left about two hours ago to return to Sunnydale," He answers with empiric casualness as if he'd simply been announcing the time. "We'll be meeting downstairs in thirty minutes, see you then," He says as he closes the door behind him.

Left?

He managed to pull himself out of the bed and, retrieving clean clothes from his trunk, he made his way to the small bathroom adjoining the suite, deciding that a shower would indeed greatly improve his current state.

As he turned the shower on and adjusted the water to not quite blistering hot, his thoughts tumbled over themselves in his mind and he stepped under the scalding spray. Why would she leave? Need I even ask? I'm a useless sod who's wearing the face of the demon she still loves. He wasn't a fool. He'd seen the look on her face more than once that night. He'd known she was seeing the monster she loved, rather than the man she was making love to. And yet, he'd been unable to stop himself. Unwilling to deny her the ministrations as she made him feel things he'd only ever dreamed of and many things he hadn't.

Even now, as he closed his eyes, images of her golden skin danced before him. Her body rising and falling above his, as her breasts gently swayed in delectable enticement. The memories had his manhood standing quite at attention, as he recalled the exquisite feel of her all around him. Memories of how her womanhood had gripped him tightly had him unconsciously replicating the same with one hand, as he braced himself against the wall with the other.

Is this what he'd been reduced to? Fetching mettle in the shower to remembered images of her cloven inlet swallowing his stiff sinew over and over until the agony of bliss overtook him? Not so long ago he'd have rather cut off his own arm than engage in such sinful pleasuring of himself. Yet, that wasn't exactly true, was it? That had been over a hundred years ago. Since then he could only imagine the carnal sins in which he'd partaken as a creature of the night. And he had quite a vivid imagination!

Once he'd completed the task of relieving the congestion plaguing his manhood, he quickly set about finishing his bathing and dressed efficiently, wondering what sort of meeting Mr. Wyndam-Pryce had called. And what was to become of him now? Since his painful and confusing birth into this new world, for he surely felt as inept and dependent as a newborn child, Miss Buffy, and her younger sister to some degree had been his lodestar. Only, whether she'd been guiding him safely home, or into the jaws of Charybdis, he couldn't at the moment say.

He found his way down to the lobby of the establishment, the occupants of which were once again gathered together, though curiously much less conversive that the last time he'd joined them there. He sensed a very uneasy tension in the room, as the occupants were attempting to carry on with the banalities of polite conversation.

"William!" Wyndam-Pryce spied him first. "Won't you join us?"

This was still a fairly new experience for him, so used to being in the polite periphery of his contemporaries. Miss Buffy and Miss Dawn had always made sure to include him with any discussions or plans among her group of colleagues, but it was still odd to be so… included.

"How're you feeling?" Miss Burkle, Fred as she insisted, asked with her rather charming accent and gentility. "You're were in pretty bad shape last night."

"Better, thank you," He answered, unable to hide his shyness at such forward behavior even after spending the last few months with equally forward people. "Better."

He noticed the young man hovering near Miss Burkle was staring at him, making him feel quite discomfited.

"Oh, of course, where are my manners?" She said, apparently noticing the young man's stares. "William, this is Connor, Angel's son. He's the one who rescued you from that nest last night. Connor, this is William, Angel's, um… Angel, what do you call those you made? Or is it sired? Do you have names for them? Or well, wait… You said Drusilla sired him, right? So what does that make you, like… his grandpa sire?"

Wyndam-Pryce seemed to be suddenly taken with a coughing fit, as did the African fellow, what was his name, Mr. Gunn? Yes, Gunn.

"Yeah, dad," The young man seemed to put a rather odd emphasis on the word. "What do you call a vampire sired by a vampire you sired?"

He got the distinct impression the young man was making sport of his father, though out of amusement or spite he wasn't certain.

"Except, he's not a vampire anymore are you?" The young man added, now looking at him with a curious expression. "So is he still related, or does that just go away?"

Mr. Angel… just Angel, he reminded himself, seemed to be almost as flummoxed as he felt at the moment.

"He's still family or he wouldn't be here," He answered his son, though he was staring straight at him at the moment. He supposed he was trying to make a point of ensuring he understood he was welcome.

"You're… declaration, for lack of a better word, flatters me, sir," He responded with practiced courtesy. "But you needn't feel any obligation towards me. I'm sure I can locate some means of…"

"William…" Mr. Angel's… Angel's... voice was quite menacing just then, sending an unconscious and disconcerting shiver rippling down his backbone just then.

Angel ran a hand across his face briefly and softened his tone as he spoke next, but it was the look on his face that nearly undid him. "You're not going anywhere right now. You need time to regroup and adjust."

He could feel his ire rising. The look of pity was something he could do without. He'd had enough pity in the last months to last a dozen lifetimes. Even her lovemaking had been apparently borne of pity. He may be a useless sod, but piteous was something else entirely, even if she'd given the lot of them the entirety of their sordid little story that she hadn't even been willing to share with him.

"William..." Angel's voice held a tone of warning to it, which did nothing to slake his building anger.

"Dude, what'd you say?" Gunn's crude slang followed on its heels

"I don't believe it's what he said..." Wyndam-Price's voice cut in.

"So, it's not just me he has that effect on." The young man's… Connor's… voice, held almost as much contempt he as he was feeling at the moment.

"Hey, William?" Fred's sweet voice called to him. Or was that more pity?

Suddenly he felt an urgent need to be away from them all just then. And without so much as the courtesy of dismissing himself, he turned sharply and strode out of the infuriating building and its confounding group once more, their voices carrying on behind him.

"Is all your family this moody?"

"We're not letting him go find another nest are we?'

"Fred's right, someone should…"

"He'll be back."

"How can you…"

"Because she'll be back."

"You sure 'bout that, man?"

"More than anything right now."

"But how…"

"She's in love with him."

The air did nothing to clear his head. He'd walked for what seemed like hours contemplating the utter mess he'd made of his life. He couldn't court Cecily. Couldn't even have a proper fit of pique over her rejection. No, he'd stormed through a group of vampires and gotten himself dead, right and proper. Killed his mother, and the thing she'd become. Throw his lot into a mad vampiress who'd apparently never truly loved him. Killed, raped and tortured for over a century. And to top it all off, he'd apparently fallen in love with the very creature tasked with destroying him, who used him shamelessly, so he'd tried to defile her by forcing himself upon her. And yet, somehow she'd fallen in love with the monster he'd become. And now, he couldn't even properly get himself turned back to the monster she desired. Maybe he was piteous.

"Hey, baby, you look lonely tonight. Care to keep me company?" A lady of the evening called after him. He paid her no mind.

"Hey!" Suddenly the woman was right in front of him. He glanced around rapidly, wondering if he'd been so lost in his head as to not notice she'd run after him. Had his sin in the bath already begun to drive him mad? "I said… Care to keep me company, baby?"

"N-No, thank you, miss. I'm fine."

"Oh, not yet sweety, but you're about to be," Her voice sounded both as smooth as honey and dangerous as… as the vampire that had turned him… "You, you're one of them?"

He began to back away as that realization dawned upon him. But then the woman suddenly gave a shocked cry and exploded into bits of dust. Leaving only the young man, Angel's son Connor, in front of him.

"City's crawling with 'em. Gotta be careful." The young man said as he turned to walk away.

"You, did you follow me?" His curiosity had him asking before he could think better of the question.

"Yeah… what of it?"

"Why?" He really couldn't fathom why the young man had taken such an interest in him. Unless… "I presume they put you up to this?"

"No!" The young man gave a rather undignified snort like some base farm animal. "Angel doesn't tell me what to do. Not unlike yourself apparently."

"Then why were you following me?"

"I don't know… didn't want to see you get yourself killed, I guess."

"But… why?" He sounded rather confounded even to his own ears.

"Maybe I just like that you make Angel as angry as he makes me."

"Oh." That was a rather odd sentiment.

"So why'd you do it?" Connor asked him as they fell into step together.

"Do what?"

"Try to get yourself turned last night," Connor clarified. "Was it really that great being a vampire?"

"Don't remember it, really," He answered after long minutes of silence, unsure why he was even talking in the first place. Which brought his companion to a sudden halt.

"Then, why?" Connor's look of dumbstruck confusion would be amusing were it not so close to his own feelings.

Still fresh memories of her there in the hallway, confessing to their misdeeds, individually and collectively, left ghostly impressions across his mind's eye. Her piteous cries of being a monster, while yearning for the monster he'd been, ringing in his ears. What a truly sad match they must have been.

"Same reason I've ever done anything foolish, I suppose," He answered, feeling suddenly overcome with a need to be honest with himself.

"Love? Family?" Connor asked him, curiously. "Are those really things to die for? Seems you're better off just taking care of yourself."

He returned Connor's curious look and noted at once, hard bravado dispatched, how young the boy looked. Far younger than himself by several years if he had to guess. And wounded. Deeply, wounded. Though he covered it quickly. And far better than he'd ever been able to do himself.

"Surely, you can't believe that? They're the only things worth caring for… or dying for."

"Really?" Connor looks incredulous, and it made him wonder what had made him so forsake his family at so young an age? "They're really worth becoming something evil and damned?"

His mind called forth a particular verse of Aquitaine,

"By her joy a sick man can recover,"
by her wrath one well can die,
a wise man turn to childishness,
a fine man see his beauty change,
the most courtly man become a churl,
and any churl become courtly."

"I, uh, I don't know what that means," Connor looked at him, seeming embarrassed at being caught ignorant of the verse.

"No? Perhaps a bit of deVentadorn, then?

"This love wounds my heart
with a sweet taste, so gently,
I die of grief a hundred times a day
and a hundred times revive with joy.
My pain seems beautiful,
this pain is worth more than any pleasure;
and since I find this bad so good,
how good will be the good when this suffering is done."

He watched as the boy seemed to turn the words about in his head, perhaps trying to diligently to make more of their meaning than he should endeavor.

"That… doesn't make sense." He looked at him even more confused. "And it sounds… strange. Why do you talk like that?"

"Surely you…" He was suddenly a bit dumbstruck himself. "You're not familiar with verse? Did Mr… that is, Angel… not provide for your education?"

"He, uh," Connor suddenly looked quite reticent. "He didn't raise… I was raised in a hell dimension by someone else."

Connor turned and started walking again, his discomfort evident, and he raced to catch up with him. A hell dimension? Had he been damned? Was he a creature of the night? Did creatures of the night beget children? He certainly didn't recall reading about that in any of his research these last several weeks.

"Are… are you also a creature of the night, like your father?" He asked with piqued curiosity.

Connor stopped and turned to look at him, his countenance clearly indicating the absurdity of that supposition.

"No, of course not," He felt rather silly just then.

"You really don't remember being a vampire?" Connor asked him.

"Regrettably, I don't. I know only what I've read of myself at this Spike creature."

"Not even being turned?" Connor's expression was one of increasing confounding.

"No…" Flashes of the dark, wicked vampiress danced in the periphery of his vision. "That, I do remember. Well, the dying part, anyway." He felt his cheeks coloring under the flush of brief desire the visions brought him.

"She must have been pretty," Connor flashed a knowing smile at him. "Was she really worth it?"

"Love is always worth it," He gave the young man a sad little smile.

"and since I find this bad so good,
how good will be the good when this suffering is done."

"Huh...I guess that, sort of, makes sense," Connor answered, brows knitted together as he contemplated the verse anew, having gained context.

Had she really been though? At the time, she'd certainly seemed to be. But with the wisdom of hindsight, had she really been? Another vision of beauty danced before his eyes. This one wreathed in gold, and shimmer light. Her countenance fierce and focused, riding above him, as if a Valkyrie into battle. A goddess, Venus perhaps, steadfastly looking on as she was carried across the cresting sea foam upon her shell.

But no. She was not these things. She was not a goddess, nor a Valkyrie, but a simple human woman. Well, perhaps a Valkyrie if such things were to exist. If creatures of the night exist, why not a Valkyrie?

But was she worth it? Yes. Oh, yes. Even if just to touch her exquisite beauty for but a moment. This bad was assuredly quite good. Then how good would be the good… if the suffering was ever done?

"Tisk, tisk, little boys should be in bed while beasties dance in the light of the moon!" A voice sing-songed behind him, immediately drawing him from his reverie and freezing him to the spot. "The sunlight has gone beyond the horizon and shant return till the morning next!"

"Oh, God…"

An ominous giggle tinkled like broken bells scattering across the ground, as the same wicked beauty danced into view, a single finger trailing over his shoulder and then along the line of his jaw as she stopped in front of him. "God has nothing to do with it, my dearest."

He saw Connor suddenly lung at the vampiress from behind, a stake aimed at her back. But before he could finish the job, the vampiress had rounded and caught his wrist in mid-arc in one hand and stabbed the fingers of her other into the center of his chest. "Ah, ah, ah… little brother should be more careful to avoid the kitty's claws when hunting!" She threw him backward, and he crumpled against the wall of the building behind him, five points of crimson blooming from over his heart.

"Now, my sweets, where were we?" She turned back to him, her enigmatic smile returning as if nothing had even been amiss.

"Please…"

"Yes, sweet William, cast away the sun and beg for princess to kiss away the wounds it makes," She said, leaning in as if to kiss him.

Instinct suddenly kicked in, and he quickly back stepped, pushing her roughly away from him and causing her to fall.

She laughed. The sound chilled him to the bone.

"Always a bit impatient, I am," She said as she rose to her feet. "It isn't time for my prince to join me, yet." She leonine grace made it seem as if she virtually floated toward him. "Soon, my love. Mummy shall make it all better, very soon," Her fingers threaded through his hair, as she once again circled around… and then she was gone.

He rushed over to Connor, who was grasping his chest at the circle of his blood now covered the front of his shirt and tried to assist him up.

"No! I'm fine… I'm fine." He seemed angry, though at what he wasn't entirely certain. "Come on. Let's get you back to the hotel."

He nodded, as Conner set off the way they'd come at a brisk pace for one who'd just been so grievously wounded.

"She seemed to know you." He glanced sideways at him, a measured look of suspicion upon his face. "Who is she?"

"If I'm not mistaken," And he was certain he wasn't. "That is the very same creature who turned me into a vampire one hundred twenty-two years ago."

Connor's eyes widened in alarm, and the young man grabbed his arm in a rather crushing grip, not unlike Miss Buffy's, and increased his pace with seemingly increased urgency. If the walk from the hotel had seemed like hours, the return journey seemed to practically fly. Even so, he could swear he felt as if the hounds of hell were nipping at their heels along the entire way.

"Dad!" Connor shouted, as they practically burst through the doors, the lad's urgency summoning every individual in the space of a breath.

"Connor? What is it? What happened to your…"

"I think we have a problem," Connor seemed annoyed at his father's perfectly reasonable line of questioning.

"Oh my!"

"Dude!

"Oh dear!"

A round of exclamations bubbled from the occupants, making him very nearly giddy, as he felt a warm tickle along his jaw where the vampiress had traced her finger. He reached up to scratch it, his fingers coming away coated with a warm stickiness… blood. The sight of it eliciting a rather mad sounding giggle from him.

"I'll get the first aid kit!"

"Who turned him?" He heard Connor ask as he continued staring at his own blood-soaked fingers.

"What do you mean…"

"His sire, Angel? A woman? Dark hair and eyes? Sounds like Wesley… sort of."

"Not hardly," He giggled, suddenly finding himself sitting on the ground, with sweet little Fred dabbing some sort of liniment along his jaw.

"Drusilla," The name filled the air like a poisonous vapor.

"Yes," He couldn't seem to stop the very unmanly laughter that kept flowing unbidden from him. "She's going to kill me."