Shellshock

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[Author's Note: This takes place in the 'most probable' reality rather than the one mentioned in the Prologue and starts right after the battle behind the Hyperion. Here, Illyria left her shell to kill all the demons that were behind the Hyperion and whatever might be left of her will not cross paths with our two vampires again. Wolfram and Hart is diminished, but functional.]

⸹

Los Angeles

May 2004

"In the lobby." Angel grunted, feeling his grasp on Gunn begin to go again. His hands were slippery with blood. He wasn't sure how much was his own.

"Right," Spike said shortly, adjusting his own grip on Gunn's shirt. He shot a look over the wounded man's drooping head at Angel. They made their halting way down the corridor into the dark lobby of the Hyperion, aiming for the circular sofa.

Angel let his sword clatter onto the tile and took Gunn's weight so he could lower him onto the cushions. "How you doing?" He looked into Charles' face, afraid there would be no answer.

"Peachy," Gunn replied in a whisper. He didn't open his eyes.

"Get the lights," Angel told Spike, not looking away from Gunn. He realized he'd taken the injured man's hand in his. Gunn's fingers didn't feel any warmer than his own.

"Yeah. Don't think our location is a state secret," Spike replied, glancing about for the switches. He walked over and turned èon the lights, palming the switches up four at a time. "Not judging from the size of the welcoming committee out back." Spike fished in his pockets, found a smoke. "A dragon, mate. I've never been close to anything near to like. Saw one from a distance the night B – the Slayer… Never close up, though." He didn't mention his suspicion that it was exactly the same dragon.

Angel looked up in time to watch Spike take the first long draw on his cigarette. The blond hair was dark with blood, and more was on his hands. Again, Angel couldn't tell how much of the blood belonged to Spike. He guessed he probably didn't look any better himself. He didn't mention that he was pretty sure the dragon was the failsafe that had been released from the Wolfram and Hart building to come after him.

Since he didn't want to look at his grandchild, Angel took advantage of the better light to examine Gunn. The human looked bad, but the sluss-sluss of blood and the beat of his heart was steady, if faint.

"Illyria," Spike said, taking another drag and shaking his head. "She saved us. She… incandesced."

Angel's eyebrows drew together at the word. "I would have said… exploded, in sort of a controlled way. That wasn't supposed… it shouldn't have been possible. My ears are still ringing."

"Yeah, well, she blew that dragon right where you needed it to be."

Angel glanced over at the discarded sword. He'd wiped it clean at some point out of habit. Despite everything, a smile passed across his face. "I saw you take out five demons with one move, Spike. I had to top that."

A puzzled expression crossed Spike's face, and he shot Angel another sharp look. "Um, okay. We're great warriors, the lot of us. Illyria, though… she took out a legion. Don't know I'd want to see what she could've done at full power." He lit another cigarette from the stub of the first. It was the first time Angel had ever seen him chain-smoke. "What now?"

"We've got to see to Gunn." He let go of Charles' hand and stood up, wincing from a wound on his thigh. "There's a doctor who's done some work for me in the past. His number should be in here." As Angel walked past the counter into the back office, he called over his shoulder. "Stay with him."

Spike took a last hit from his first cigarette, then flicked it onto the floor. He stepped on it carefully, grinding the butt into the marble with his boot, and started on the second smoke. Then he squared his shoulders and went to stand by Gunn, who was unconscious now. The makeshift bandages they'd wrapped around his torso were already stained with blood, clearly his own. Spike didn't like the smell of it. Odd, that. Death hadn't bothered him for decades. Then there had been Joyce, the news about Tara and Anya and the little girls, the potential slayers. Fred. Wesley, too, now, and probably Illyria. The Slayer didn't count. Neither did he. Grimacing at the pain from a couple of cracked ribs that had yet to knit, he hunkered down next to Gunn. "How's it going, then?"

No response. Charlie was alive; he knew that, of course, but not much more than alive. Sighing, he stood back up, looking toward Angel's old office. He could hear exasperation creeping into the other man's voice. Apparently, the conversation wasn't going well.

"Excuse me," said a voice behind him, accompanied by a belated knock on the door.

Spike swiveled around, his muscles tensing for another attack. No demonic horde, though. Just a young woman, alone and looking flustered as she stood inside the door. "Can I help you?" he asked, his voice harsh despite the neutral words.

"Um, Angel Investigations?" she asked, holding out a business card.

Spike strode to the door and took it from her hand, blocking her way into the lobby. He glanced down at the card. It was one of Angel's old cards, creased and worn around the edges. He fixed her with a cold stare. "Yeah?" His nose had been broken until a minute or so ago, and he didn't trust that her scent was human.

"You, um, help the helpless?" she asked, giving him a nervous smile. Darting a look at his matted hair, she took a step backward. He saw her nose wrinkle, smell no problem for her. God knew what various fluids were splattered on him.

"Not at – whatever-the-hell o'clock it is in the bloody morning," he replied, thrusting the card back at her. "Come back tomorrow."

She didn't take it. "Well, every time I've been in L.A. over the past few months, I've stopped by. This is the first time I've seen any lights on, so I thought I'd take a chance and drop in."

"Look, this isn't a good time." He lifted his cigarette to his mouth with his other hand and inhaled deeply. "Why don't you – "

"Dammit!" A portable phone flew out of the office behind them, closely followed by a glowering Angel. "He won't help. He said we're too dangerous." He kicked a chair into the wall. "What the hell good is the Hippocratic oath, anyway?" He ran a hand through his hair and struggled for a moment to regain his composure. "I can't think of anyone else, not that Wolfram and Hart won't have in their–" He stopped short, looking at the woman in the doorway.

Spike turned toward him. "Lady here has your business card." He held it up. "Angel Investigations. I guess she's helpless." Spike turned and gave the woman a tight smile, then flicked his cigarette butt past her, out into the night.

Her gaze jumped between the two of them, taking in the injuries and bloodstains. "Look," she said slowly, "I did come here for help, but y'all…" She gestured toward them, at a loss for words. "Can I help you with anything?"

Spike snorted. "Not likely." He snatched her hand from her side and pressed the card into her palm. "Now, toddle on off, all right?" He put his hand on her shoulder and began to propel her out the door.

She ducked beneath his hand, giving him an annoyed look, and slid around him. "You're Mr. Angel?"

"Yeah," Angel replied warily. She was alone, wasn't much taller than Buffy, but size had nothing to do with deadliness in his world. He took in her red hair and the oversized flannel shirt she wore, her open face. He didn't trust her.

"I've heard good things about you, and the reason that I came here…" She hesitated, then plunged on. "I have a problem, but it isn't life-and-death. If I can help…" She gestured behind her. "I've got my rig out front; at the very least I could drop you at the emergency room. I mean, y'all look like you've been put through the wringer."

Behind her, Spike advanced silently. Angel caught his eye and shook his head just once. "The thing is, we can't really go to a hospital. Thanks for your offer, though. You've… just caught us at a bad time." He forced himself not to look at Gunn, who lay out of her line of vision. "If you want to help, just go." When she didn't move, he added, "Leave your number with… my colleague. I'll call you."

The woman made a frustrated noise in her throat. "Okay, I'll go, but I'm going to give you an address, not mine, for a guy I know, a medic who was in the service with my husband. He runs a clinic of sorts near the airport now. Jim isn't a doctor, but he patches up truckers who don't want to go through their HMO, if you know what I mean. Bar fights and stuff, STDs." She rummaged through her large purse, unaware of Spike right behind her, and pulled out a scrap of paper and a pen. She finished writing the address and held it out to Angel, pushing back a strand of red hair that had escaped her ponytail. "It's at the back of a veterinary hospital, I don't remember the name. Jim's good. He saved Henry's life a time or two."

"Thanks," Angel said awkwardly, taking it to glance at the address. Then he looked back up at her, holding her gaze for a moment, wishing he had options to weigh. He took a breath, as if a human ready to dive into deep water. "Look, I don't know you. I don't trust you. But I don't have any choices. I do need help. If your offer of a ride is still good, yeah, we'll take it." He ignored Spike's vehement head-shaking.

The woman was surprised at this about-face, but recovered quickly. "Of course it's still good. You want me to drop y'all at the clinic, right?"

Angel nodded. Over her head, he met Spike's exasperated gaze. "You wanna… escort her? I'll get things here ready to go."

The young woman turned around and found herself staring right at his chest. She jumped a little, and Spike gave her a predatory smile, then went to hold the door open for her. When they were outside, Spike looked carefully into the shadows. She turned left, and he followed her, still checking for lurking attackers. Why their enemies would choose stealth now, he didn't know, but nothing had made sense for weeks. Then he saw the tractor-trailer parked along the sidewalk, and some of the things she said clicked.

"You really meant a rig," he said.

"Yes," she agreed in an overly-patient tone.

"Thought you had an SUV or something," Spike said grudgingly. It was a HST Transport truck, a common enough sight in America. He pointed his chin at it. "So, what's inside?"

"Nothing." She got out her keys. "Tractor broke down in Knoxville, and I'm just ferrying it here to Los Angeles now that it's fixed. One-shot deal. I, uh, take a few of these jobs just to stay on the roster."

He nodded and watched her go around to the driver's side door. Once she had climbed into the cab, he vanished to the passenger side and stepped onto the running board. The door was unlocked. Listening closely and taking a last look around, he got in. She looked very small perched behind the big steering wheel, but seemed at ease. She started the diesel engine and rolled the truck down the street so it was as close to the Hyperion's front doors as possible. Angel was already there, holding Gunn's limp body in his arms. Spike watched her eyebrows go up. "Our mate here got the worst of our little bar fight tonight," he said flatly and opened the door.

He leapt down and swept to Angel's side. "I think we should take the weapons cabinet," he said quietly, "because I really want to see what, or who… or what is in that trailer."

Angel glanced down at Gunn with more than a little desperation, then nodded. "Yeah, you're right. Go get it." He strode over to the truck and climbed up, ignoring the driver in case she had any questions. Once Gunn was settled into the seat, he jerked his head toward the trailer. "You got room in there for a cabinet?"

She was looking at Gunn with a grave expression. "You got time to worry about a cabinet?"

"Yes or no?"

She looked up at the harsh lines of his face, then held up her palms, fingers splayed. "Okay."

If she noticed that Spike had single-handedly wrestled the massive cabinet out the door, she didn't say anything. The only thing in the trailer was a heavy, old-fashioned cot, sheets and a blanket tucked between the thin mattress and the iron frame. Back in the cab, Angel looked at Spike and shrugged. Maybe they were catching a break. Spike shrugged in reply and bent his head to check behind them in the side mirror.

Traffic was light, even for four o'clock in the morning, and their driver was good at her job, anticipating light changes and exits so that they rolled smoothly along with a minimum of downshifting. She opened her mouth once to say something, but seemed to think better of it.

"Seven minutes," she said with some satisfaction, breaking the silence as they took the airport exit. "Better than I thought." It was only a couple of minutes later that she dropped into a lower gear, the big engine blatting, and turned onto a side street. Angel could hear barking before he saw the fluorescent sign stuttering "Clinic" over a loading dock at the back of a building. A man was sitting outside on an upturned milk crate, smoking a cigarette. When he saw the truck, he stubbed it out and headed toward them.

Exchanging what felt like their hundredth glance of the night, Spike gave Angel a sardonic grin and opened the door. He was out before the big rig stopped moving, fists clenched.

"Hey, we've got an injured man here," he called, advancing toward the smoker, a black man who looked to be in his seventies.

The old man nodded in acknowledgement. "How bad?" As Spike drew closer, he could see that the man's right sleeve was neatly folded and pinned at the elbow. As assassins went, old and one-armed was fairly exotic. Maybe this was on the up-and-up.

The dark-skinned man looked past him. "Sally?" he asked in surprise, then broke into a smile. It faded as he turned his attention to the body that Angel was bearing toward him. "What happened?"

Their driver, apparently named Sally, gave the old man a quick hug. "Jim, good to see you. I'm glad you're here tonight." She moved back, letting Angel step forward, and Jim gestured toward the building.

"Stab wounds," Angel answered, never breaking stride. "He's lost a lot of blood."

Jim nodded, then trotted ahead. He threw open the back door, and the sound of barking grew louder. "Heck! We got incoming! Set us up for blood transfusion!"

It was cleaner and much more professional than Angel expected. He wondered just how many truckers needed illicit medical help while in Los Angeles. Gunn was on a steel table with an IV drip in his arm in short order, and a muscular Hispanic kid was shooing him from the surgery as Jim scrubbed up. The door had a round window, and Angel skulked outside, staring in at Gunn's motionless body. He felt almost weak with relief that he had been able to do something, anything for his friend. Too many had died already.

Then he froze with the realization that something very odd had just happened. Where Jim had been one-armed before, he was now scrubbing up two arms, one of which looked distinctly reptilian. "Huh," said Angel. He was getting an idea of how Sally had come by his old business card.

"Look, um," Sally said tentatively, then trailed off.

Spike looked over at her. He had taken a moment to wash up in the employee locker room, and had been pacing the waiting room for fifteen minutes now. "Yeah?" He knew he still sounded rude, but didn't have any politeness left in him this night.

"I'm scheduled to deliver this rig tonight. HST dispatch is just five minutes away. I've got a storage unit here by the airport. I could put your… wardrobe in with my stuff, drop off the truck, and be back in an hour. You guys be all right here until then?"

He gave her a speculative look. "Why don't I go with you." It wasn't a request. "We'll just tell Angel, shall we?" She didn't look especially happy at the prospect of his company, but as he didn't trust her as far as he could throw her truck, he didn't care.

Spike turned his back on her and walked down the hallway to where Angel was still watching Gunn's operation. "Angel, our truck-drivin' deux ex machina wants to go turn in her eighteen wheels," he said. "I'll tag along, if you don't think you'll need me here to help you brood or anything."

Angel didn't bother to reply. "Take a look at Dr. Jim," he said, nodding toward the window.

"Two arms now, is it?" he said. At this point, it felt odd to be surprised by anything. He watched the surgery for a minute. "Think there's any hope?"

"Yeah, Spike. I do." Angel's voice was very soft. "How about that?"

"Ready?"

Both men jumped a bit. Sally had moved up behind them in admirable silence. Spike thought she looked rather pleased with herself. He gave her a blatantly sexual once-over, just out of spite. She wasn't bad-looking, might even be pretty if she tried. Sally was a redhead, with green eyes and regular features, no makeup, small-boned but a little heavy, although it was hard to tell much about the figure hidden beneath the flannel shirt that hung almost to her knees. Spike met her unamused eyes and gave her an insulting grin. "Yeah, I'm ready."

Sally studied him expressionlessly until his grin faded. She turned to Angel, who was oblivious to their exchange. "We'll be back soon, an hour, hour and a half."

"Okay." Angel was watching Dr. Jim's progress with Gunn again.

"We'll stop by the storage unit first," Sally said, rummaging in her purse again as she walked away. She came up with two sets of keys and tossed him one. "Can you drive a stick?"

Spike glanced at the keys and saw a Ford logo. He gave her another leering grin, just to needle her, and drawled, "A stick? Sure, baby." He held the back door open for her.

This time he got a sharp look as reward before she swept out ahead of him. "So, your name is Spike?" She didn't look back at him.

He chuckled. "I could practically hear the quotation marks around 'Spike.'"

"Sorry," Sally said. He heard her add in an undertone, "Spike." It made him grin again; here was a much-needed source of entertainment.

The storage company really was just a couple of minutes away. He got her to open the trailer doors first so that he could ease the massive weapons cabinet down onto the concrete while her attention was focused on unlocking the storage unit. Sally raised the garage door, and Spike saw a full-bed, extended cab Ford pickup inside.

"Like big trucks, do you?" he asked in amusement.

Sally stood still for a second. "What does that mean, exactly?" she asked as she turned to face him, using the very patient tone once again.

"Nothing." He tilted his head. "What could I possibly mean by that? Now, that has to come out," he said, pointing at the black pickup and pressing the unlock button on the keychain remote, "before we can move that in." He gestured back toward the cabinet and gave her another cheeky grin. Anything was better than thinking about the cost of this night.

"And what do you drive?" Sally asked in what he decided to think of as her schoolmarm voice.

"Ah, yes, of course. The quintessential L.A. question," he mocked, opening the door to the pickup. "Recently, a Viper, a motorbike, and a DeSoto. Oh, and I crashed a Citroen."

Sally blinked. "In the face of such variety, words fail me. You're quite the vehicular slut."

Spike whipped around to stare at her. "You know, I don't think words fail you at all."

It was her turn to grin, and the tension between them eased somewhat. She waved at the pickup. "Go on. Time's a-wastin'."

By the time he had maneuvered the pickup around the tractor-trailer, she had the cot and a gym bag of her belongings out of the truck. He made a show of letting her help move the heavy cabinet inside the storage unit. To his surprise, she lifted the cot into the truck bed instead of putting it in storage and then climbed in herself. He heard the clink of chains as she moved over the cot, then she hopped out to lock the garage door. Spike glanced over his shoulder into the bed as he got back into the pickup. The four legs of the upside-down cot stuck up awkwardly, and the overhead streetlights illuminated the chains Sally had been rattling. The chains might be securing the cot, but he clearly saw a manacle attached to the last link. Sally came up to his door, and he powered down the window, giving her a speculative look.

"Just follow me; it's mostly right turns and not too far from here." She narrowed her eyes when he didn't reply. "What now?"

"Nothing," he said quickly. "I'm just waiting on you." She stared at him for a second longer, then shrugged and walked back to the truck. Spike raised an eyebrow as he watched the top of her head appear inside the cab. Sally: drives big trucks, knows demon doctors, owns manacles. Right. Perfectly normal. He followed her out of the storage site onto the roads, where traffic was beginning to pick up, and into an industrial park.

While it didn't take long for her to finish her business with the trucking company, it was already after five-thirty. Nothing she'd said to the night guard or the dispatcher had sounded suspicious, and Spike's main concern was the coming dawn. He cast an anxious glance at the sky as they walked out of the brightly lit offices, Sally folding some paperwork and making it disappear into her voluminous purse. When they pulled into the lot behind the veterinary hospital at ten until six, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Angel was watching for them from the loading dock, not drinking from the Styrofoam cup of coffee he held in his hand. He had apparently cleaned up in the locker room, too. The dogs had quieted down.

"How's Gunn?" Spike asked, tossing the keys back to Sally.

"Out of surgery and asleep." Angel shrugged. "It's just the waiting now."

Sally dropped the keys into her purse and trudged up the short stairway. She put her hand on Angel's sleeve and gave him a small smile. "I've known Jim a long time. He may not have a medical degree hanging on the wall, but he knows his stuff. Your friend is in good hands." She gestured toward the door. "I'm gonna go see him – Jim, I mean."

Angel waited until the door closed behind her, then raised a questioning eyebrow at Spike, who shrugged and jumped up next to him.

"She's a strange bird, mate. I mean, she's been dead useful tonight, but she looks what? Twenty, twenty-five? And she's known old Jim the regenerating doctor for a long time because he was in the service with her husband? There's less than two hundred miles on the pickup there, this year's model and kept in storage. Plus, she had chains and manacles to go with that cot she had in the back of her rig."

Angel raised a brow again at that information. "I'd be surprised if she's human. But, you know, that's almost a comfort. We helped – Angel Investigations, I mean, helped a lot of the harmless demons back in the day."

"What kind do you think she is, then?"

The dark-haired man lifted a shoulder. "I don't know. One of the species that can pass as human. Doesn't narrow it down all that much. Or maybe she's just a human with demons in the family." He shifted restlessly. "This is obviously not just a black market clinic for truckers. It's a demon hospital, pretty well equipped. I've skulked around hospitals and battlefields enough to know this Jim guy has experience with humans, too." Weary, he closed his eyes for a moment. "If I didn't know better, I'd say this was a lucky break."

"Well, not learning any better out here, are we?" Spike opened the door and held it for Angel. They went silently inside.

"…really bad job of sticking your friend in there. Or good job, depending on your perspective. They missed the liver and the intestines, both of which would have been bad news." It was Jim's voice, coming from the waiting room.

"He's not my friend, but you think he'll recover?" This was Sally's voice, anxious. "That was a lot of blood."

"If I can keep down the infection, yes, I feel pretty good about it." Spike could physically feel Angel relax, and he turned to share a rare genuine smile with the other man. "How'd you get mixed up in it, Sally, if you don't know him?"

"Right place at the wrong time, or somethin' like that," she replied. Her accent was more distinctly Southern now. "They'd been through the wringer, and I knew you could help them out. Like Henry always said, you're the best." There was a pause in the conversation, and the sound of a chair being dragged a foot or so along the linoleum.

"If you're here alone, then I'm guessing Henry...?"

"Yes. This past January. I tried calling, Jim, but your telephone was disconnected. I was in L.A. last month, and I stopped by, but I missed you. I couldn't just… leave a message."

Jim didn't say anything for a long moment, and his voice sounded thick when he spoke again. "Yeah, I dropped my land line." He cleared his throat. "The Alzheimer's?"

Sally gave a shaky laugh. "No, it was his lifelong addiction to country fried steaks." They heard her blow her nose, and Spike was sure that she had found a tissue in her large purse. "He died early one morning. He was so cold, like I always must have..." After a moment, she went on. "The coroner listed massive heart attack as the cause of death. It was quick and a blessing, but that doesn't make it any easier."

"No, it's never easy." Jim sighed. "I'm ready to hibernate, Sally, almost twitchy with it, but I knew it wasn't time yet. I guess this is what I was waiting for. Henry… aw, hell. He saved my life twice in Germany, you know." There was another long pause. "I think that makes me the last man standing from our unit now. Well, I guess I always knew I would be."

"You did have kind of an advantage, Jim."

"I remember this one time outside of Berlin…."

Angel gave Spike a short nod. There wasn't anything else to be learned by eavesdropping. Spike let go of the door, and it slammed shut behind them. The voices went silent.

⸹

Two windows were set high in the far wall of the waiting room. Spike had shut the blinds earlier, and now he watched with half-closed eyes as a small patch of sunshine crept toward Angel's foot. Angel was asleep in one of the plastic chairs, and he had his own legs stretched out, ready to give his grandsire a good, hard kick at the opportune moment. He glanced at the clock, which now read 9:35. Eight to ten minutes, he judged, still deciding between the ankle and the side of the knee. The room was warm, and it had been a very long night. He had to amuse himself somehow to stay awake, to keep the memories away.

That was the worst part of having the soul, the memories. It was too much like brooding. He never been one to look in the rearview mirror, but his soul loved nothing more than pulling out the old photo albums and wallowing in a good reminisce. With everything so unsettled, his soul wanted to make him recall when he was six, when being the youngest vampire in the family was growing wearisome, and Spike believed that nothing could ever change.

That was before a mere human, not even a Slayer, slashed through the combined strength of three vampires in less than two minutes. He remembered the sword that nearly decapitated Angelus, the sight of Dru's bleeding eyes. He replayed falling to his knees. He saw a kestrel take wing, a beautiful, hopeful sight….

Spike gave his head a slight shake to banish the memories, his demon face sandwiched for a second between the dreamily worshipful and the sour expressions. Shut up, soul. Not going there. Change was almost never a good thing, whether one was six or one-hundred-and-twenty-six. At least some time had passed, a good thing. The sunbeam had crept much closer.

Sally was sitting across from them, drifting, her head nodding. Just as he had decided to kick Angel's ankle, she drew in a quick breath and stood up. Spike closed his eyes to bare slits and watched her stretch. She walked over to the window and tugged at the blinds, getting rid of the little patch of sunlight. She came back to her seat and collected her gym bag, then went out of the room. He heard the door to the locker room swing shut. Twenty minutes later, Spike was about to get up and move around to stay awake when he heard Sally coming back.

She had apparently showered. Her damp red hair was pinned up on her head and the flannel shirt was gone. She dropped her bag on the chair she had been sitting in, her back to him. She wore snug jeans and a tank top, and Spike was mildly amused to see that he had been wrong about her heavy figure. Top-heavy, maybe, but everything else was nicely proportioned. Sally absently eased a wide bra strap underneath the tank top, and Spike smiled. He hadn't seen a woman wear practical foundation garments in a long time. Tara might have, but he'd never been on underwear-awareness terms with her, more's the pity.

He feigned sleep as Sally turned around. She glanced at Angel, then at him. He heard her sigh, and she turned back to rummage in the bag. She pulled out another, equally concealing flannel shirt, pulled it on and buttoned it, then took out a brush and slicked her hair into a ponytail. She stowed everything back into the gym bag and tossed it under the chair.

"Excuse me." The muscled kid who had helped Jim earlier was at the waiting room door. He had a nametag that read "Hector" pinned crookedly on his shirt. Spike stood up, barely before Angel. "Your friend, he's awake. You can go see him now."

Charles looked better only in that his eyes were open and blood splatters no longer dotted his skin, but he had a weak smile for his friends, crinkling the bandage on his right cheek.

Angel crouched beside the bed. "How you doing? Are you in any pain?"

Gunn shook his head carefully. "Nuh-uh. It's there, but sorta… distant. Must be something good in the IV."

"There's antibiotics in the drip, too, and if you're infection-free, your, uh, doctor says you can leave tomorrow."

Gunn didn't so much laugh as gasp. "Where we gonna go?"

Angel gave a grim smile. "Good question." Eve had asked the same thing.

"Everything was kind of confused, there at the end. Fred? I mean, Ill– The dragon." Charles trailed off.

"Gone," Angel said shortly.

"Glowed," Gunn breathed. His eyelids fluttered.

"Incandesced," Spike offered from the doorway. "Good to see you with us, mate."

The human half-smiled, but his eyes stayed closed. "Not a ghost, anyway."

Spike's lips curved. "No, don't want to do that."

"Fred… Wes… Lorne gone, too, left." Charles knitted his brow. "Was there a truck, a tractor-trailer? Seems like…"

Angel covered Gunn's hand. "Yeah, there was a truck. You didn't imagine it."

"They gave you five units of blood," Spike noted. "Looked right tasty, too. Don't want to waste the good stuff, Charlie."

"… sleep for a while," Gunn murmured.

"You do that," Angel agreed. "You've earned it." He stood up and watched the unlined face for a moment, glad to see him peaceful.

"He'll be in and out for the next few hours, as the anesthetic wears off." Jim brushed past Spike and came into the room to stand on the opposite side of the bed from Angel. He tucked the earpieces of his stethoscope into his ears and listened to Gunn's lungs for a moment. He tugged the stethoscope down and looped it around his neck. "Sounds good. He's fit, young, healthy. If you can keep him out of," Jim raised an eyebrow, "bar fights, he ought to be just fine."

Angel nodded, then pointedly looked at Jim's right sleeve, once again pinned up at the elbow. "Well, I feel like he's in good hands."

Jim met his gaze mildly. "Go on back to the waiting room. If he wakes up in the next few minutes, it'll probably be to vomit. The anesthesia, you know. Otherwise, he should sleep for at least a couple of hours. Rest is the best thing for him now."

Angel fell in beside Spike for the short walk down the hallway. Spike gave him a sidelong look and spoke in a very low voice. "Gunn had a good question. Where do we go from," he stopped himself, frowning. "Where can we go, I mean."

"I've been thinking." Angel shrugged. "There's no one who isn't here that I dislike enough to visit."

Spike gave him an annoyed look. "Cute." He gestured toward the locker room. "Be in the men's. I'll give you a shout if I find a vat of hair gel."

Too tired to smile, Angel watched the door close between them, then went back to the waiting room. He yawned. The energy from Hamilton's blood had faded. Sally was in the waiting area, cupping her face in her hands, leaning forward in a chair. She looked up at him as he came in and stifled a yawn of her own.

"How's your friend?"

"Better than he would be if you hadn't come by last night." Angel sat down next to her and met her eyes. "Thank you. I think you saved his life."

"Nah." Sally shrugged and looked down at her hands.

"You came to me for help." He leaned forward, too, and clasped his hands together, resting his elbows on his knees. "I don't have many resources right now, but maybe there's something I can do. What help do you need?"

She looked over at him. "Like I said, it isn't urgent. It's more of a… quality of life sort of thing. It can wait until your friend is out of the woods, Mr. Angel."

Angel nodded, deciding not to press her. "Angel. It's just Angel."

She raised her eyebrows. "Just Angel. Just Spike. I feel very square." She sat up suddenly, her brows drawing together in consternation. "I don't believe I ever introduced myself, not properly. Sally Tolliver." She held out her hand.

Angel gave it a brief shake. "Nice to meet you, Sally Tolliver, unusual circumstances and all." He met her eyes briefly. "Uh, if there's somewhere you need to be…."

"Nah. Now that I've finished the one-way, I'm happily unemployed until the next contract."

Spike walked back into the waiting room, carrying his coat, his hair damp. "Well, I feel like a new man, one what's hungry and been up all night and gets to spend more hours in this cheerful little room." He dropped into one of the chairs opposite them. "You two best friends and all, now?"

"Yes, he is always like this," Angel offered. He gestured between them. "Spike, this is Sally Tolliver. Sally, Spike."

She extended her hand, and Spike took it perfunctorily. "Meetcha."

"You, too," she replied. "So, you're from France."

Spike gave her a hard look, then grinned despite himself. "Yeah, and you must be from Brooklyn."

She smiled, too, and glanced at Angel. "I did expect you to be Latino."

"I get that a lot," he mused.

"I need babysitters," Jim said, coming through the doorway. "Mostly we board pets here. People drop them off before they catch their flights." He maneuvered an animal carrier through the doorway. "But someone actually drove all the way out here to see about Miss Kitty, and I'm going to ask you guys to watch her kittens while she gets her postnatal checkup." He put the cage on the floor.

Sally was already out of her chair, a silly grin on her face, crawling a couple of feet on her hands and knees so she could see inside the carrier. "Ooh, they're adorable!"

Spike rolled his eyes and tried to share with Angel, but Angel's eyes were focused on the seat of Sally's jeans, which was no longer beneath the concealing flannel. Yeah, that always ended well. Spike rolled his eyes again and moved out of the chair so he could squat next to her in front of the cage.

Four kittens were at the door, staring solemnly at Sally's face. Two were calico, one was tabby, and the last one looked Siamese. Spike looked up at the medic. "Mama cat got around."

"Puts the tomcats to shame," Jim agreed. He looked down at Sally. "Say, Sally, you hungry?"

She looked up at him, the smile fading from her face. "No, thank you, Jim, not now," she answered slowly. She turned to Angel. "I'm sorry, I didn't think. I, uh, got a bite to eat while y'all were asleep." Sally turned back to Spike, who covered his surprise that she would lie over such an unimportant thing. "You're welcome to take the truck, if you want to go get something."

"There's a vending machine in the break room just off the loading dock," Jim added.

"I'm not hungry," Angel assured her, "and I don't want to leave Charles. What about you, Spike?"

He shook his head, then reached into the cage for one of the calicos. "I can wait. If I get really hungry, I'll just eat this little guy." He held it toward Sally, and it put a paw on her nose.

Jim smiled. "Well, this shouldn't take long, ten minutes, maybe. I'll be back for all four kittens then," he added in mock warning. Angel shot Spike a warning of his own over Sally's head.

"Come on down and play, Peaches." Spike handed his kitten to Sally and took another one, rolling over and plopping the tabby onto his tummy. "If you don't, I'll have to tell Sally here about all the times you haven't been so dignified."

Angel sighed. "Blackmail works every time." He took off his jacket and dropped it on the floor, then settled on top of it. "Give me a kitten."

⸹

"I wish I had a camera," Jim drawled from the doorway. Kittens and bodies littered the floor, along with wadded-up ATM slips, pens, and other detritus from Sally's large purse. Spike sprawled across a row of chairs, letting the ferocious little tabby underneath attack his hand and growling back at it. Angel was on his stomach on the floor, and the Siamese had its front paws in his hair, kneading as he scratched its head. Sally was scooting paper wads across the floor for the remaining two to pounce upon.

She looked up at Jim. "Aww, already?"

Spike scooped up the tabby and popped it back in the carrier. "Don't look so crestfallen, Angel," he teased, grabbing the Siamese. "If you're extra good this year, maybe Father Christmas will bring you one of your very own." Angel stood up quickly and shook out his jacket, gathering his dignity.

Sally rounded up the other two. "Bye-bye, little sweetie pie," she cooed, carefully putting the last calico in the cage and shutting the door.

"I think I may be sick," Spike announced.

"Now you know how the rest of us feel," Angel offered.

Sally glanced at the two of them and shook her head. At first, with all the silent communication between them, she'd thought they were lovers, but it was obvious now that they were either related or close as brothers. She stood up and handed the carrier to Jim. "Thanks. That was really thoughtful. Helped pass the time."

"Not at all," Jim said, opening the door wide for the cage. "You helped me out." The door shut behind him, and they heard him ask the kittens in a high-pitched voice, "Did ums miss umses mommy?"

"Now I know I'm going to be sick." Spike dropped down into a chair.

"From the sound of it, either y'all are kin or you've known each other a long time," Sally remarked, rounding up the makeshift cat toys.

"Girl we both knew introduced us, long time ago," Spike said when it became apparent Angel wasn't going to answer.

"Do you work at Angel Investigations, too?" She went to the garbage can by the door to toss the paper wads.

He gave a considering look at Angel before answering slowly, "No, I've never worked there. I just help out sometimes."

Angel sat down opposite Spike. "We're… we've known each other a long time. A lot of water under the bridge." He looked at the blond man for a moment, then gave up, shrugging. There were no words. "So, Sally," he said heartily. "Sit down." She turned from the door and sat one seat over from Spike. "You were telling me about your problem."

She looked up at the ceiling and exhaled. "You know, it's easier to talk about at night than it is during the day." She gave a rueful smile. "In the light of day, my problem sounds… farfetched, and since I never talk about it, I'm not good at talking about it." She gave both of them an assessing look, then tried again. "I got your business card from someone who said that your agency specialized in the, well, in supernatural things." Sally looked at Angel and waited for his response.

He nodded. "Right. Things that the police wouldn't believe," he paused for a second as an unbidden image of Kate Lockley swam into his tired consciousness, "um, ghosts, that sort of thing." His eyes flicked toward Spike. Like Kate, another type of ghost that haunted him.

"Okay. Good." She looked down at her hands and fell silent.

"We've seen a lot of odd things, pet," Spike said. "Just spit it out."

Sally continued to stare at the floor. "It's like this: since my husband died earlier this year, I've needed a safe, reliable way of unlocking myself in the morning. I have to be locked up, restrained at night to keep other people safe."

"Safe… from you?" Angel prompted.

"From me, yes. When I'm asleep, something else takes over, something dangerous. I'm a…" she took a deep, steadying breath, "a vampire." She tensed, almost cringing away from the expected reaction. When neither of them made any comment, she looked up. Both were trying not to grin.

She stood up from her seat and walked away. "Stop smiling. Trust me, it isn't funny."

Angel recovered first. "Okay, you think you're a vampire."

She spun to face him, no amusement on her face. "No, I know I'm a vampire. I've been a vampire for longer than the two of you have been alive." She lifted a shoulder. "Twice as long."

"Right." Spike slumped in his seat and stretched his arms across the backs of the two chairs on either side. "It'd be easier for us to believe if–"

Angel cut him off, trying from another angle. Maybe it was some other kind of demon, and the only label she had was 'vampire.' "Sally, how did you become a vampire?"

Her arms were crossed now, and there was a mutinous look on her face. She held up three fingers. "Bitten." One finger dropped. "Swallowed its blood." Another digit dropped, leaving one fairly insulting finger pointing at Angel. "Woke up dead." She completed the fist, then re-crossed her arms. "This isn't easy to talk about, you know."

"I'm sure it isn't," Angel said soothingly. She smelled mostly normal, and she was breathing. There were too many animals and humans in the building to reliably suss out her heartbeat. Without going to demon face, he couldn't check any further. "Look, Sally, we've been around you all day, we've been around you with kittens. You aren't a vampire. And even if you were, we couldn't make you not a vampire. I'm not sure what kind of help you want from us."

She looked heavenward. "I don't expect miracles. I have to be safe at night, locked up so that I don't hurt anyone while I'm sleeping and not in control of my body. That, I can do. I just need a reliable way of getting unlocked."

Angel looked at Spike, at a loss. He dropped his gaze to the floor, embarrassed. "Being locked up… What you're talking about sounds more like werewolves, Sally, not vamp–"

"Oh, what do you know?" she cried. "Look, if I've made a mistake, if this is too out there for you, just say so." Sally turned away and snatched up her purse and gym bag. "But don't tell me my business."

Spike thought of the manacles on the cot and wondered what she had been doing to herself. "Sally, we don't think it's crazy that you believe in vampires. We've… seen them."

"We are them," Angel said quietly.

"What?" Sally blurted, a fair amount of disbelief in her own voice, as she turned back from the door.

Angel looked at Spike, who shrugged. They turned to Sally, putting on their demon faces.

She stared at them a moment, shocked. Her purse and her gym bag hit the floor. Then, faster than Angel could react, she sprang at him. Spike exploded from the chair behind her and grabbed her shoulders, only then seeing that he had stopped the stake in her hand from going into Angel's heart.

"Oh, nice," she snarled in disgust. "'Help the helpless.' Good way to lure victims."

Angel grabbed her hand and twisted the stake toward her thumb, trying to disarm her. "We're… good vampires," he gritted out. She was strong.

"Hah!" She nearly wrenched free of Spike. "Pull the other one."

"We've got souls," Spike growled in her ear.

Like throwing a switch, Sally stopped resisting. Spike was tugging so hard that they both nearly toppled backwards. Angel looked stupidly at the stake she had left in his hand, then at Sally.

"Well, that's all right, then. Sorry about the stake; you can't be too careful." Sally looked over her shoulder. "You can let go now."

"Wait one bloody minute," Spike replied, angry himself now. "You nearly killed Angel!"

"I am sorry," she told him. "I've just made it a policy to kill every vampire I come across. I've never met any others with souls before. I should have realized." She looked up at Spike again. "Really, you can let go."

He did so, reluctantly. Angel was staring at her, too shocked to speak. In the silence, they all listened futilely for each other's heartbeats. Spike began to ask a question just as the door opened. Spike and Angel quickly resumed their human features.

"What's the commotion in here?" Jim snapped. "You need to keep it down so Mr. Gunn can get his rest."

"Sorry, Jim. It was me." Sally walked over to the door. "You know, I am hungry." She gestured at the two men behind her. "We all are, if you've got enough."

Jim looked at them, then back at Sally. "You're… all hungry?" he asked carefully.

"Yeah," she said. "Who knew?" Then she snorted. "I'm embarrassed to say I didn't. Too nervous last night to notice y'all weren't breathing, I guess."

Jim stared at Angel and Spike a moment, obviously trying to adjust to this news. "Okay," he said slowly, "I'll bring you something to drink." Still staring at the men, he let the door close.

"Show us your face," Angel said abruptly. "Your demon face."

She grimaced with distaste. "I don't like to." Sally went very still, and strong vampire features floated to the surface of her face, blurred, and disappeared. Angel glanced down at the forgotten stake in his hand, a sturdy, old-looking gray piece of wood, then handed it her.

"You… have a soul?" Spike asked softly.

"Uh-huh." Sally smiled. "Like I said, I've never met any other vampires with souls."

Angel sat down heavily and mumbled something.

"I'm sorry?" Sally tilted her head, trying to hear him as she tucked the stake back into her huge purse.

He cleared his throat. "You kill other vampires?"

She shrugged. "It's not like I go looking for them. I killed all the ones that I accidentally made, plus twelve others over the years. Seventeen in all."

"You've sired five vampires?" This was from Spike, who was looking through his coat for a cigarette now.

Sally looked uncomfortable. "Not so much me as the vampire inside me. Like I said, when I'm asleep and not chained down, he gets loose and goes on the hunt. I don't have any memory of it." She sighed and sat down in the plastic chair nearest to the door. "I can lock myself up when I go to sleep, but since my husband passed away in January, I haven't had anyone as a failsafe to unlock me. The vampire isn't too bright, but I'm running out of clever places to hide the key from myself." She looked over at Angel, then up at Spike. "It… isn't like that for you fellas, is it?"

Spike closed his eyes in gratitude as he found a last, slightly crushed smoke. "No, not like that. You speak as if you're separate, but that's not how it is. I am a vampire." He put his hand on his chest. "I have hunted, I have killed, I have–" He stopped abruptly. "Bugger this." He lit the cigarette. Even the great poof didn't take the multiple personalities approach this far.

"Here we go." Jim was back at the door, holding three quart jars of blood. He gave the occupants of the waiting room a bemused look.

"What kind of blood is this?" Angel asked sharply.

"Cow's blood. I went by the slaughterhouse this morning." He held the jars out to Sally, who took one of them. "I figured you might be staying a while," he told her. Jim handed each of the two men a jar.

"What kind of demon are you?" Spike asked conversationally.

"Jelash," Jim replied. He held up his right arm. "I was wounded too badly in the service to regenerate a human arm. I could use a glamour, but…" He shrugged.

"How long have you known that Sally is…" Angel trailed off.

"After I got back to the States after the war," Jim replied easily. "Her husband, Henry, got in touch with me. I was the medic in his unit, and he knew what I was. Figured I'd know a bit about helping Sally adjust. She's an unusual case."

"Which war?" Spike asked.

"The big one," Jim said. "World War Two. I was white then." He looked at Spike. "I'm a smoker, too, but I'm going to have to ask you to put that out, son."

"'S'alright, I'm done anyway." Spike stubbed out the cigarette. "It's just… it's not everyday that I meet a vampire with a soul."

"Seems like it to me," Angel said, mumbling again.

Sally looked at Angel, then gave Spike a puzzled look. "Ignore him," he advised.

"Look, I'm going to go see to Mr. Gunn," Jim said, headed back to the hallway. "Now that we all, um, understand each other, I can do more for him."

"He's human," Angel said quickly.

"I know he is."

An uncomfortable silence fell over them as Jim's footsteps died away. Sally unscrewed the top of her jar and drank. She closed her eyes in appreciation. "It's fresh," she commented. Spike sat down, looked at Angel, and shrugged. They opened their own containers and began to feed.

Spike suppressed a burp, feeling even the pathetic cow's blood buzzing through him, the last damage to his ribs starting to heal. "How'd you get your soul back, then, Sally?"

She gave him a quizzical look. "What do you mean?"

Spike gestured toward Angel with his jar. "Angel was cursed by gypsies. Me, I faced trials and earned mine."

"He hasn't even had his soul back for two years yet," Angel interjected, annoyed. "I've been living with mine for over a hundred."

"Poor soul," Spike shot back, grinning. "Bet it seems like longer it's been stuck with you." He turned back to Sally. "So, what's your story?"

"No story." Sally shrugged and took another sip from the jar. "I've always had my soul. I never lost it."

⸹

Next Chapter: Spike and Angel take the other ensouled vampire to meet Giles. They find some other old friends are there, too.