Chapter 47

Hanging up the phone, Angel sighed heavily before putting his head in his hands. Will was going to burn down the building as a declaration of his undying love. Angel thought it ironic that only he and Dawn would know the reason behind the martyrdom. He had tried to reason with his former ex-vampire compatriot, but the effort had been wasted. Will was in no mood to hear reason from anyone.

He had been moved to a temporary office and Angel had sent down clothes for him to change into. The last he had heard, though, Will had refused to move from his water logged hidey hole. Angel had ordered crews in to clean up even if it meant they had to tranquilize the vice president.

Lifting his head, Angel looked at the phone once more. He had called Buffy over ten times and she hadn't answered the phone once. He was cursing his caller I.D. He briefly considered leaving for home but thought better of it. Buffy would probably throw a table at his head again. Deciding he was better off allowing her time to cool down, he tried to concentrate on the paperwork in front of him. It was impossible to do.

Standing, he left his office to start stalking the halls. His wondering feet and unfocused mind led him to Gunn's office. Knocking on the door, Angel heard shuffling and whispers before Gunn finally gave permission to enter a few seconds later. As Angel opened the door, he saw Faith sitting in front of Gunn's desk; he could smell pheromones in the air.

"Hey. Is this a bad time?"

"No, we were just talking about the school and all that good stuff. Have a seat, man." Gunn motioned to the chair beside Faiths' as he sat on the edge on the desk.

"How are the plans for remodeling going? I haven't had a chance to look at the files today."

Faith smiled and tried to focus on Angel. Her lunch with Gunn had gone so well, she had decided to have coffee with him afterwards. Coffee had turned into flirting and flirting would have turned into a dinner invitation if Angel hadn't have interrupted.

Shifting in her chair to face Angel more, she said, "They're coming along. The guys just finished knocking out a bunch of walls. I think we'll be on schedule."

"That's good. How's your stay going?"

"It's been good. A little weird at times, but good. I picked up a real estate magazine or booklet or whatever it is, I'm going to start looking for places soon. I can't live out of a hotel forever, I guess. I'm…figuring things out."

Nodding, Angel was getting the distinct impression he should leave. "Well, I guess I should get back to work. I'll send some documents to you that need your signature a little later, Faith." Standing, he exited as they were saying the perfunctory goodbyes.

Shaking his head as he continued down the hallway, he hoped for both their sakes that they kept their relationship quiet. Angel was sure Gunn wasn't aware of Faith's very recent and short lived affair with Will and knew the proud lawyer wouldn't be happy about being the second of the Wolfram and Hart employees to have romantic involvement with Faith.

He crept down the hallways so silently that anyone who thought he was human would have to rethink that assessment. It had been a long time, he reflected, since he had toured his company and watched the inner workings. Turning down random hallways, he watched as people scurried about with file folders and stacks of papers. He watched employees in the archives sitting patiently perusing old cases. He had forgotten how many people worked in his company, how many people were needed to keep it going. In a way, he was comforted by the fact that he wasn't the only one there; he wasn't the only one working for himself.

On his way back to his own office, he stopped on the floor that now held Will's temporary office. Opening the door a little, he saw the man sitting at his desk in borrowed clothes absently staring at a case in front of him. Entering the room entirely, Angel sat in the straight backed chair in front of the desk. He looked around the room, not entirely sure of the decorating skills of the person who had previously inhabited it. Angel regretted sometimes that he hadn't filled every position that had previously existed after he had taken over. Many of the offices that were once inhabited by low level executives stood empty, which meant that many of Angel's people had taken on extra responsibilities.

"You look bad."

"I feel like death." There was a long pause as they both sat in the office, staring at the walls in front of them. "I wish sometimes, that I had never gotten the soul. I would have been…well I would have been trying to kill you all these years. But I wouldn't hurt so badly. I wouldn't want what I want so badly."

Nodding, Angel sighed. "It doesn't hurt when you have no conscious. But it doesn't feel as good either. The lows are ten times lower but the highs…"

"Aren't as high. I remember what it used to feel like…to hunt and kill and torture. After days of stalking a prey, to finally take them. I remember that feeling. The freedom of it. I feel…chained, Angel. I feel like I killed the demon, but I still have a part of me that wants to feel that freedom again."

Angel was surprised. He hadn't thought Will remembered his days of being a vampire in such a pragmatic manner. As Angel considered what Will had said, though, he had to agree that the freedom of doing whatever he wanted whenever he wanted was something he could miss if he allowed himself to do so. Having a conscious meant being compelled to do certain things that he found painful. Selflessness was hard, Angel reflected, selfishness was much easier. A lack of responsibilities, a lack of general caring about anything was invigorating, it was freeing.

Angel sighed once again before he spoke, "It's like being tied to a huge boulder that you can't move. You can see other people and they don't have boulders, or they have really small boulders they can carry around, but you're trapped just where you are. I feel like…like I'm drowning in commitments. I could miss it if I thought about it. I could miss the freedom. But I wouldn't trade this for that, you know? I could never trade."

"Me neither. But…this is so hard. Feeling like this is so hard."

"She'll come around," Angel said quietly, "give her time."

"I feel like I'm running out of that. I'm going to die, Angel. I'm going to get gray and wrinkly and disgusting, and I'm going to die. I want to live before that happens."

"We've got about fifty years left, I guess. If we aren't killed by demons or hostile takeovers, that is."

"Fifty years…that isn't a long time. We've been alive for over two hundred. I mean…I can't imagine it ending."

"I can't imagine it not ending. Aren't you tired? I'm tired. I think I'm going to like dying. I mean, not coming back, not watching everyone else around me die. I think I'm going to like just being a person for once. What's more human than death? It's like the ultimate initiation into the race."

"I don't like the way you think."

"Me neither most of the time."

They sat for a time in silence until Angel rose and nodded a goodbye to Will. Leaving the office, he walked slowly back to his own. Once there, he packed his briefcase silently and left once again after writing a note to his secretary to send certain papers to Faith. It was time he confronted Buffy. He could no longer to afford to waste time waiting for his problems to fix themselves.

The drive was silent; he was too busy planning speeches in his head to listen to the radio. Once he was parked in the drive, he sat for a few minutes trying to get his courage up. As he was about to get out of the car, though, he saw Connor coming out of the house. Bracing himself for a knock-out, drag-down fight, he waited for his son to get in the car.

Connor sat in the passenger seat, his hands on his knees. When he spoke, it was with a controlled and even voice. "You're a jerk. I don't like you. You think you know best for everyone and you don't. You don't even know what's best for you. But…you're my father. My biological one, anyway, and I have a half sibling on the way. I have a…step-mom, I guess, that I like. Sometimes, I like hanging out with you. You've been more helpful than you had to be throughout all this. So…I just wanted to tell you that.

I talked to Buffy, she's not as crazy now. I told her some stuff. Angel, I'm loosing my memories and I don't think there's anything I can do about it. Soon, all I'll know is you. So, I don't want to screw it up. I don't want to be mad at you over stuff that I suppose doesn't really matter all that much. You were a big jerk to go off like that and not take me. But, I get why you did it. You were wrong but you had decent motivation. So, anyway, I'm not mad and I want to try and be normal with you. You know, like not killing each other normal. So, I guess I'll talk to you later."

Without another word, Connor got out of the car, leaving Angel slack jawed and staring at the passenger seat. Too overwhelmed to really process all of what Connor had said, he slowly exited the car and started into his house, hoping perhaps that whatever epiphany Connor had experienced was contagious and Buffy had become affected as well. If not, though, he would settle just for a lack of flying tables.