Okay, so, this chapter touches on a couple of scenes from my collection of one shots With You. I'm tempted to separate them as their own little series – Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

The following morning, Jenny finds Laura waiting for her outside of her classroom. The two women stare at each other as they freeze in the middle of the deserted hallway. Instantly, she knows she was right to insist to Rupert she do this alone. There's a flair of recognition in her, not because she recognises Laura or has a vague recollection of her. She recognises the look in her eyes and the way she holds herself. Jenny held herself in a similar way when she was in Sunnydale with Rupert after her secrets were revealed. She refuses to let her memories spur her into either kind of sympathy or resentment.

Jenny promised herself, and Rupert, to listen to Laura before reacting.

No verbal greetings are exchanged as she strides forward to unlock her room. Laura raises an eyebrow, taking half a step back, either in self-preservation or indignation, Jenny doesn't care. She's got a tight rein on her temper; she can be civil, she can listen. Her empathy is in check until she hears Laura's explanation for her deception. Jenny gestures for Laura to go ahead of her into the classroom.

"We're going to do this now?" Laura asks. Jenny knows enough of Laura's timetable to know she has a free period first thing, just like Jenny. They have time to start this conversation without being disturbed by faculty or students.

"Isn't that why you're waiting for me?" Jenny's done avoiding everything she's avoided for the last five years. Her family included. They never paid much heed to her; they didn't care about her personal feelings when her life got tipped upside down. They don't get to underestimate or intimidate her now.

"I deserve that," Laura concedes, flipping on the classroom lights through the switches by the door. "You're here alone?"

"Rupert is following up on his research, he's meeting me for lunch. I needed to speak with you alone, he understands that."

It was a decision they made in the middle of a sleepless night after they tucked themselves back into bed. Rupert hadn't argued with her, a sign that he believed she wasn't in on a new plot to dupe him. Jenny's resolve on that point was strengthened by her need to make sure he was safe from any comeback from her family. Whatever misconceptions her family holds, will lie solely at her feet, not his.

That isn't to say Rupert wouldn't support her through that or attempt to help her; they were determined to share their lives, the good and the bad parts.

"He trusts you?"

"We trust each other," Jenny stresses. "We're meeting for lunch to reassure him that I'm…, I'd like to say fine, but he knows me well enough to know I'm pissed off."

Laura's eyes narrow as the information sinks in and wisely doesn't try to spin it as a slight on Jenny's relationship with Rupert. Good. Instead, she turns on her heel and enters the classroom.

"Depending on how this goes, he would like to see you again," Jenny tells Laura.

"Really?" Laura seems oddly amused by that. "Whatever for?"

"If you're who you say you are and if our paths, our lives, are going to keep crossing, he'd like to know you and if you pose a threat to me."

Laura only huffs and just walks further into the classroom. Jenny follows her as they walk down the centre aisle between the seats, leaving the door open. It's earlier than most staff arrive, let alone the students. A handful of support staff can be found wandering at this time in the morning. At least someone will hear the screams if this devolves into that kind of encounter.

Jenny approaches her desk, dropping her bag onto her chair before turning to find Laura sitting in the front row, waiting for her.

"I would have brought you coffee if I thought you would drink anything I gave you right now," Laura starts.

"I don't think you'd try to poison or drug me here," Jenny counters coolly. "Actually, I don't know you well enough to know what you'd do."

"Fair point." Laura sighs, looking up at the ceiling in exasperation, for strength, Jenny can't pin down her tells right now. Her judgment is clouded by overthinking everything she knows, she thought she knew, about the woman she thought of as a friend. "What would you like to know?"

"You called me Janna, you said I had a family. I don't know you, I'd like an explanation." She's fairly certain a request for an apology wouldn't get one even if Laura was sorry for her actions.

"We met once." Jenny cocks her head to the side. "You were a baby," Laura explains, rolling her eyes. "Don't try to remember my dear. I was about to leave for college and you'd just been born, kind of fitting that we meet like this years later," Laura gives a short laugh as she shakes her head. "You weren't the first sent to watch Angelus."

"You were?" Jenny knows the names of her predecessors. Enyos drilled their names into her head with endless stories she was forced to listen to. Laura's name wasn't on the list.

"Well," Laura bobs her head to the side. "I didn't get to watch him in the end. I came here for school and got lost in this world." She pauses. She looks over at Jenny kindly. "We're not related, not by blood but you know how it goes with us, we're family."

Jenny nods, leaning back against her desk. She folds her arms across her chest. "So, what happened with Angel?"

Laura raises an eyebrow, her neutral expression flickering for a minute. "I understand that's how you know him but after everything, don't be complacent."

"I met Angelus, Laura, I know the difference," Jenny cuts her off. "Angel once had my throat in his hands to save my life, Angelus would have snapped it."

"You did get up close and personal," Laura muses. Jenny refuses to let her rile a reaction from her. "I never went anywhere near him. I, uh, used to be a lot like you, Janna.

"It was such a long time ago. I was sent here to watch him," Laura shakes her head. "I arrived in New York, he'd been here for years, living in the shadows." She laughs. "I didn't try looking for him, I was eighteen and in a bustling city. Before I left, I was so full of bravado, so full of shit. Being overwhelmed by the enormity was intimidating, even for me.

"I was determined to do what I was trained, what we were prepared for. Watching the monster who destroyed so many of our family, we lost so many in Angelus's name not least a daughter."

"What happened?" Jenny knows what happened to her long-dead relatives. Her stomach hasn't stopped churning since last night.

Laura's expression glazes over. "I enrolled in school, I needed to establish my routine before I took over watching Angelus. I was told to keep my distance and not directly interact, guess they took a less stringent approach when they sent you."

"Okay, you don't get to keep bitching about something you know nothing of," Jenny rages, feeling the heat rise to her face as she lets her anger fly. As genial as she promised herself she would be, she won't let Laura make insinuations about her time in Sunnydale or her relationship with Rupert and the children.

"There she is, that's who I've been looking for," Laura murmurs, eyes holding Jenny's. Jenny bristles yet refuses to give her any more satisfaction. "I know more than you think, Janna," Laura, half statement, half warning in her tone. "As I was saying, I was due to take over watching Angelus. Back then, our family would rotate people so he wouldn't catch on."

"He knew," Jenny tells her, her tone brokering no argument Laura could make. "He found out about me a while before he lost his soul. He thanked me. Angel knew about the ones before me, too, he'd never spoken with them though."

She isn't going to delve into her experience with Eyghon, Laura doesn't deserve to know about that. Angel's revelations and appreciation the night he checked on her afterward had stayed with her, motivating her determination to reconnect him with his soul when he lost it. If she'd known about the loophole that night, she would've told him to watch out for himself. It would have saved everyone from a whole lot of pain.

Laura accepts the knowledge without much consideration, it doesn't bother her. "Like I said, I never got the chance to go near him. I was in my second term, I came back after the winter holidays and I was supposed to start taking over my predecessor. I met Enyos at his apartment building ten blocks west of here."

"Enyos?"

He'd never mentioned anything about watching Angel himself. Jenny knew he was dedicated to their mission but he acted as a handler rather than taking direct action.

"There's a reason he oversaw those after him, he had more experience than most. He was quite zealous when he was watching Angelus. Nothing else mattered." Laura shook her head. "I went over to his place and he's smoking his pipe, like always. I sat on this chair in the corner by the window while Enyos explained what he'd been doing and what I shouldn't He gave me a rundown of other vampire and demon activity to avoid.

"Angelus was struggling with his proclivities but it was easier to hide his feeding habits near to other vampires. No one would bat an eye." She takes a deep breath. "Angelus was caught up in a robbery gone wrong at a late-night diner just down the road. It had been in the local papers. The owner was bleeding out from his wounds and your Angel fed on a dying man, it was a rare exception for him."

Jenny looks down at her hands. Enyos had told her about Angel's time in New York in the seventies, she hadn't known it was personal knowledge.

"Well, Enyos wanted me to be prepared," Laura continues. "He spent the evening drilling the routines into me. That's all I thought it was, he was going to take me to a bar. I was supposed to take on a bartending job to cover why I'd be in the area at odd times of night, he gave me a fake ID to say I was twenty-one to get the job.

"Anyway, we were getting ready to leave and Enyos peeks through the curtains to check the alley before we did. He didn't say anything, just crooked his finger at me to come closer. He hadn't opened the curtains that much, a fraction but it was enough to see the vampire feeding from a boy not much older than me."

Laura meets Jenny's eyes. Jenny feels the bile rise to her throat.

"I'll never forget how the body slid to the ground when he was drained." Laura averts her eyes as she swallows. Her tongue darted reactively to moisten her lips. "I looked at Enyos and he was just blank/ That boy, that life meant nothing to him. He told me I had to know, I had to live with it, it was just a part of the job. I was going to see much worse as a byproduct of watching Angelus."

Jenny blinks as she crosses her arms, she might have to sit on her hands if she doesn't. Enyos had a brutal honesty about him with no compassion, he was singularly focused on watching Angel. Enyos never subjected her to that kind of viewing when he was preparing her. She's seen plenty when she was in Sunnydale to understand the feelings Laura felt when witnessing the scene she's depicting. Jenny is grateful he spared her the macabre display he subjected Laura to due to her own recreational interests; she'd embraced learning about the old incantations – she held little power herself, but that didn't stop her fascination – to spread out to the wider world. Jenny was compassionate but she wasn't ruffled by monsters, Enyos was acutely aware of that.

"I must've reacted in a way Enyos didn't like," Laura barks out a laugh. "He didn't like anything; I don't think he liked himself that much. I met him for a couple of weeks, and each time he would find a new way to introduce me to that side of the world.

"Eventually, he told me I wasn't ready, I didn't have what it took to watch Angelus," Laura sighs, still disagreeing with the decision made about her years earlier. "Offered to have me sent home but I refused to go. I wanted to stay on for school at least and help him if he needed anything. He said I didn't have what it took to watch Angelus."

"But you stayed anyway," Jenny cuts in.

"But I stayed anyway," Laura agrees with a bob of her head. "Not because Enyos gave me an out or because he was right. I fell in love with the college and the independence it gave me from our people. I stayed and made a life for myself. I kept the job at the bar."

It's difficult yet necessary for Jenny to listen to a story so close to her own. She tries to pick through the truth for lies only she can't discern any. She's pretty certain Laura is telling the truth. The only thing Jenny doesn't understand is why she's never heard of her. No one mentioned Laura growing up, Enyos never used her as an example of what he would consider failure.

"Your parents must have been pissed off," Jenny says. All of her people's families prided them on the honour of being chosen. It wouldn't have been easy for her family after Laura was rejected from their mission. "I don't know anything about you."

"My parents passed away when I was a child, I wasn't close to anyone else so my embarrassment wasn't personal to anyone but Enyos." Laura shakes her head. "He stayed on and took my place. Part of me thinks he rejected me because he wanted to keep watching Angelus."

Jenny considers it. She wouldn't put it past her uncle. "So, what happened? You never went home?"

"I was afraid of what would happen if I did," Laura exhales. "You know what they're like, Janna. I lost touch with most except Enyos. I don't know why he bothered to keep in touch if he thought I wasn't good enough."

Jenny nods. He had been strict with her. He treated her like a child who needed harsh lessons. Hers was, perhaps, easier than Laura's depending on your perspective. Her uncle kept the reasons for his methods to himself, much like the loophole that lost Angel's soul. He wasn't a talker even to his closest relatives.

"I found out about Enyos's death and Angelus's return when I received an invite to the funeral. I phoned home for the first time in years. I managed to get hold of one of the elders."

"You never went to the funeral, I was there."

It's the only accusation Jenny will allow herself, for now anyway. She kind of wants Laura to get to the point. She wants to move past her empathy, and her understanding because she knows how difficult Enyos could be. She doesn't want to know why he chose her over Laura despite to two decades between them. She promised Rupert she would listen before making up her mind. Rupert thought it would be important to her, to Laura.

"No, I couldn't," Laura meets her eyes. "I bowed out because, years later, I was still embarrassed and couldn't see past my own arrogance. Enyos lived and died because of Angelus, his funeral shouldn't have been a battleground about reimposing a curse that was lost before Enyos was born."

Laura's counter-accusation prods at Jenny's patience. "What's the difference between what Angelus was doing in Sunnydale and what he did to our family over a hundred years ago? He was stalking a seventeen-year-old girl. He was making her life hell intending to kill her after killing those closest to her. How is that different except that it was someone else's family?"

"I understand your point," Laura sighs. "But that was always going to be a hard sell to the elders, and you knew that. Why would they bother with the same punishment when he knows the loopholes and avoids it?"

"Why keep it from him? At least this way, Angel knows he can never be happy. He'll never be complacent."

"You think it's so simple."

"I think it's simple enough, I don't see why I was never told until it was too late," Jenny says, punctuating her point by raising her voice.

"You would have told him," Laura shrugs. "Enyos knew about your feelings for the watcher, he didn't want to tempt you more."

Jenny shakes her head. "Angel is important to the world, the work he's doing makes a difference. Telling him wouldn't have been about Rupert."

"Would you have told Angel if you weren't involved with Rupert and his slayer?" Laura doesn't give her time to process the question. "It doesn't matter, my dear, the vampire knows and that time has passed."

Jenny scowls at Laura, who is building to her point.

"Imagine my surprise when you showed up here," Laura continues. "You were so quiet, a shadow of how Enyos described you. He said you had fire, spirit. I saw pain and love; you were grieving like a widow. Broken and you refused to fix yourself."

"Why didn't you tell me then?"

"You would have run away," the older woman responds. "I wanted to protect you even if it meant watching you from afar."

"And how did that work out for you?"

"Seeing as you're still here and alive, I'd say pretty good. We've lost too many of our people to the monsters of the world, I wasn't going to let them take another member of our family if I could help it." Laura's expression cracks her cheek twitches. "I couldn't watch Angel then, but I could watch over you now."

"And how did you do that?"

"I may have sent out some rumours amongst, uh, the, uh, demon world. That bar Enyos got me the job at, was a demon bar. I made connections and friends, that I still have now, they sort of dealt with that for me. I think Angel reiterated my rumours when they got back to him, to protect you."

Jenny raises her eyebrows at that. In all of her conversations with Rupert, neither of them broached the subject of Angel other than he had taken over the fight in LA. Laura's plan could have backfired and put a target on her back.

"Anyway, this is a solo endeavour," Laura promises, confusing Jenny. "Our people know nothing about any of what I've done."

"Why would you do any of this?"

Laura shrugs, as though it's the easiest answer of all. "Because you're family, I'm not going to apologise for it. I'd actually like to keep getting to know you."

Jenny pushes away from her desk, pacing in front of it as she combs a hand through her hair. She feels like she's been pulled through the wringer. "Okay, so what was that with the scene with Rupert last night? He's not a threat to me, he makes me happy."

Laura pulls a face. "He hurt you, he made mistakes."

"I hurt him, I lied to him," Jenny rolls her eyes. "I made my fair share of mistakes."

"How do you know this time will be different?"

Jenny considers her question for a long minute. "You're right. For nearly five years, I felt like I was a ghost, I might as well as been dead. You've seen the difference with him in my life. Being in my life means accepting Rupert is a part of my life."

AN – Any thoughts on me breaking down With You into individual stories? Or at least separating the three that inspired this chapter. Thank you for letting me know you're still reading – it's helped spur me on in between juggling real-life