Chapter 3: Reacquaintances

Angel stepped into the busy hotel lobby just as the sun dipped below the horizon. Buffy steeled herself for an uncomfortable evening, but when she met his gaze, his eyes were so warm that she immediately felt better. She didn't know what she had been expecting — bitterness, annoyance, frustration? But it wasn't there. He stepped into the glowing circle under a lamp, and as the sun faded from the windows, it was like the lights dimmed everywhere else.

She couldn't quite find her voice. She headed for the door and he followed. For once, she was grateful for his quiet ways. She was sure she wasn't the only one feeling tentative and tender. She didn't regret calling him out for being overbearing — she was pretty sure they would clash over that again, in fact — but being around him still threw her, even after all this time.

"Where's our first stop?" she asked after they had walked into the street.

"There's an abandoned building a few blocks from here that made the list."

She looked at his profile in the streetlight. "You seem to know your way around."

"I've been here before."

Of course he had. Somehow that had escaped her completely. Romania was where Angel had been cursed with his soul. She didn't know exactly where, or exactly when, though she knew it had been about a century before they first met. Talk about your unpleasant memories.

She had them, too. She remembered the look in his eyes as he came back to her, after months of soulless terror. The one that had stopped her sword from landing a killing blow — not that it helped him much in the long run. She had to run that sword through him just a few minutes later. And that moment had broken something inside of her that she pulled back together with sheer force of will but that never actually healed.

She stayed lost in her thoughts as they investigated the abandoned building. If any magic had actually been done here lately, there was no evidence of it. Nothing inside but a few growling stray dogs who seemed to call it home. Angel pulled out his list and aimed them toward their next destination — one of the old communist apartment buildings near the city center.

Buffy was so quiet that eventually even Mr. Broody Introvert was driven to break the silence between them.

"Buffy...I'm sorry if this is weird for you," he said. "You were the last person I expected to see here."

"Well, that's what you get for not reading the fine print on your visions," she answered lightly.

"All I meant was that I was surprised to see you. But it was a welcome surprise."

"I was surprised to see you, too," she said, but that wasn't exactly true, was it? Those dreams...Part of her had been expecting him to turn up for weeks now. "I didn't realize you were back to chasing down visions."

"I'm not happy about it," he said, bitterness coloring the edges of his words. "I thought I was done with all that, done with destiny. I mean, I am. Done with it."

"OK. Color me confused," she said.

"What I mean is... I thought, after what happened in L.A., that they would pretty much leave me alone. But Gwen turned up one day with a splitting headache and a vision for me. No explanation of why they chose her. But the Powers That Be are still calling the shots."

"And you can't exactly decline the call."

"No," he agreed. "The rub is that I want to help. I can't turn my back on all these people in pain."

"I get it," Buffy said. And she did. Even when she stopped being the Chosen One and added a whole army of bestest new sisters around the world, she hadn't been able to stop being a slayer. She indulged herself for a while, but it wasn't long before she returned full time to her calling.

Angel had been part of that decision. She got a tattered letter in the mail one day, covered in stamps and obviously misdirected a few times before reaching her. Her heart jumped into her throat as she read his words of farewell, and before nightfall, she was on a plane to the city that was the closest thing she had left to home.

Post-hell L.A. wasn't the easiest place to visit. But at least she was able to make it clear that she hadn't been working against them, that Andrew was full of shit, that her dalliance with the Immortal had added up to a grand total of three dates, at which they'd mostly talked shop when they weren't dancing. In return, she found out why Angel had been working for an evil law firm. That he had a son. With Darla. That no one had ever told her about. (Well, Angel said she used to know but there was some wonky memory thing. Whatever.) Oh, and Spike was totally alive. Or re-undead. And no one had bothered to tell her that, either.

She tried to stay and deal, but it was all just too much, and she fled back to Europe on a flimsy excuse. She threw herself back into work, finding that she actually had very strong ideas about how to help the new slayers, directing training and research and resources where they were needed. Spike followed her, eventually, both to apologize and to see what was left between them, but whatever torch she carried for him had been burned out by guilt and grief and time. She would always be grateful to him, always love him, but not in the way he wanted. It wasn't enough to build a life on.

And Angel seemed to be building a better life without her. By now, she had gotten used to the formerly impossible idea that Angel was a father. He had let other people, other women, into his heart. Just because you were the only person a guy had loved in 243 years didn't mean it would stay that way. And it was good, really. She wanted him to love, and be loved. Maybe he was in love with Gwen. After all, they were tied together now. She was carrying his visions.

"So even though you feel like a puppet," she prodded, "you don't wanna cut your strings."

"I'm not a puppet," Angel said a little too forcefully. She cocked an eyebrow at him. He sighed. "I'm not doing this for a reward. I'm not doing it because I expect the good guys to ultimately triumph over evil. I've learned my lesson for keeps, Buffy. I'm doing what I can every day to help, and that's all."

"Sounds like you're in a better place than me," she said, with a twinkle to her tone. "I'm still holding out for the rewards. I'd like to win the lottery, live on the beach, and refuse to drink anything that doesn't come with a little umbrella."

He laughed. "I didn't mean to get so intense."

"No, this is good. I like knowing what's on your mind."

"Fair enough. What's on yours?"

"This place," she said, gesturing to the hulking building ahead. "This is the address, right? Any idea whose door we're supposed to be knocking on?"

"My sources weren't that specific," Angel said ruefully, running a hand through his hair. Buffy sucked in a deep breath. There were possibly billions of apartments inside.

"Can you...like, smell magic?"

"That's not as ridiculous as it sounds," he admitted. "But not when I don't know what I'm—"

He was rudely interrupted by the big yellow claw of a michianius demon grabbing him by the coat and tossing him into the doorway, which crashed inward.

Buffy immediately jumped and knocked into the demon with all her strength. She was surprised but pleased when it actually went down. With a series of quick maneuvers, she managed to get its head in her grasp. She was just about to deliver a fatal twist when Angel yelled, "No!"

She jumped back from the demon with a yelp. Instead of getting back up, it rolled itself into a ball, just like it had done in the park before it split in two.

"What was that all about?" she asked Angel. "One wasn't enough? You want to double the fun?"

"Buffy, look," he said. The yellow ball had begun to roll, making its way through the broken door. "I think we're supposed to follow it."

"We're following an overgrown demonic tennis ball back to some evil sorcerer's lair? This is the plan?" But she crunched with Angel over the glass and into the dimly lit hallway anyway.

Luckily the little ball didn't have to worry about the stairs. It maneuvered down the rabbit warren of a hallway to the left and parked itself in front of one of the first-floor apartments. It didn't show any signs of splitting. Now it was more like the yellow block of cheese on a mousetrap, luring them in and ready to snap their little mouse necks.

"I really don't like this," Buffy said. But Angel wasn't listening. His expression was intent, almost sinister, and in the sallow light of the hallway, he looked as much like a vampire as he did in game face. "Angel?"

He was already making his way toward the door.

No choice but to follow him. He seemed unwilling, or unable, to stop himself from heading right into the mousetrap. So much for this just being recon. Buffy's brain was telling her to stop him — restrain him physically if necessary — and call for backup, but her gut said there wasn't time for that.

Something was about to happen.

Before Angel could even reach it, the door opened, and haunting music spilled out into the hall. Without thinking, Buffy sprinted ahead to overtake Angel. She didn't know what was inside, but she wasn't going to let Angel go in first in his current state.

She skidded to a stop in front of the open door. There was a woman standing just inside. Black hair, petite, dark clothes. She was holding a wine glass, not a weapon. Nothing looked scary about her at all, but Buffy's stomach still turned to ice.

She was looking into the face of Jenny Calendar.