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They Did Not Fade Away (Page 3 of 6)
By Hephaestus

Summary: Three years after Not Fade Away, things have changed so much, and yet not at all.
Author's Profile: @ fanfiction.net
Part of a Series: This is the prequel to What It Means To Be Alive.
Disclaimer: Joss owns all. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Comments: Please read and review!

. . .

Chapter 11

Angel was in the med-lab. He had been subtly trying to enquire as to the health of hybrids, the name the scientists had given Will and him. He was quickly coming to understand that they didn’t know very much.

His headaches had been becoming more and more frequent; they were coming on quicker and with more intensity than they had before. Besides the headaches was the fact that he just didn’t feel well. He couldn’t really describe his symptoms. Sometimes he was lightheaded, sometimes his legs felt like lead. Angel told himself that if the bozo in front of him couldn’t tell him the first thing about his physiology, then he certainly was not going to ask the doctor to examine him. That would lead to poking and prodding, tests, scans, and a lot of hassle over what was probably, Angel believed, to be the result of quitting drinking.

He had almost convinced himself that he was going through some kind of withdrawal. He had some symptoms. His hands shook a little sometimes and he was a little feverish. Other than that, none of the symptoms matched up, but that was because no one knew how withdrawal would affect a hybrid, he told himself. Angel was sure his problems would go away if just held out a little longer. He refused to admit to himself that even before he stopped drinking he hadn’t been feeling right. In fact, it had been almost two weeks of the same symptoms. He had decided that the incident after he tossed a client around the conference room a few days ago had been the worst of the symptoms. He hadn’t blacked out before then.

Walking back to his office, he shivered a little. It wasn’t cold in the hallways, so he blamed it on the memories of that incident. He would have slept longer on the couch in his office if the nightmares hadn’t woken him up so suddenly. The dreams had been getting worse for months, and lately, he had been trying to avoid sleeping altogether. They were vivid and horrendous. Memories of his past life, of what he had done as the demon, plagued his unconscious hours.

He had tried talking to Wes about the health concerns of hybrids last week. Wes seemed to know more than that idiot doctor, Angel thought, but that still wasn’t much. He and Will healed quickly; about at the same rate they did when they were vampires. Wes had tried to explain his mix up when translating the Shanshu. As Angel understood it, it boiled down to the fact that the word Wesley thought meant human actually literally translated as day-walker. At the time, Wes had concluded that meant human. They knew better now.

The fact that he still had most of his vampire abilities had turned out to be a double edged sword. They both had their senses, agility, stamina, speed, strength and healing. No one knew, though, if poisons effective against only vampires could affect them, or if poisons used on humans would affect them the same way it would a human. Wesley was basing most of his assumptions off of the physiology of the slayer.

Angel knew this, but he chose not to acknowledge it out loud. Wesley had explained that even though he could heal quickly and wasn’t affected to the extent humans were by simple bacteria and viruses, that didn’t mean he was invincible. If he pushed his body far enough, destroyed his immune system enough, Angel could get sick, Wesley had explained. It would take a lot to compromise his natural defenses, but it wasn’t impossible, or even improbable. Angel really didn’t want to think that he was sick. He hadn’t been sick since the last time he was poisoned, and he knew of no poison that would do to him what was happening to his body now.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept for more than an hour at a time, and that was a lot for him these days. His appetite hadn’t really come back, yet, either. Most of the time, he felt a little lightheaded, and he didn’t think his stomach would really take well to food. During the past week, nausea had started to accompany the lightheadedness. That was further incentive to skip meals. He figured, even if he was sick with some disease, his body would heal like it did from any other wound: quickly and with little effort on his part. There were times when he could feel his pulse racing, but he could normally get it to slow with deep breathing exercises.

Pushing any concerns about his health out of his mind, he got down to business. There were papers to be looked at and signed, a brief Will wrote that he had to be approved, a stack of minutes from board meetings that needed his approval. The stack on his desk didn’t seem to grow any smaller, even as he signed and read and signed and read until his eyes blurred. When he finally looked at a clock, he had to blink a few times to make sure his vision wasn’t failing either. It was almost midnight. His driver had probably left, not that he couldn’t drive himself now that he was sober.

He hadn’t needed the release the razor afforded him in a few days. He counted that as a good sign, a sign that maybe he was starting to get it together a little more. Maybe he wasn’t such a complete screw up, he thought. After contemplating that, he decided, that no, he really was a total screw up and probably shouldn’t try to convince himself otherwise.

Standing, he stretched his sore muscles, muscles that had been sitting for far too long. As he started doing a few simple tai chi moves to wake his body up, he felt stinging bile rise in his throat. He almost didn’t make it in time to his private bathroom before he started retching.

There wasn’t much in his system to purge. Somehow, though, his body found matter to expel. He sat on the cold tile floor, his head against the wall, knowing he was feverish and should probably go down to the med-lab. He wasn’t going to, though. He was going to rinse his mouth out and wash his face and go home and try to get some sleep.

The people in the med-lab would tell him to take it easy, get some rest, relax. As if he could really do any of those things. It seemed that every time he turned his back just for a moment the world went to hell in a hand basket. No, he thought, he needed to keep going, wait it out. This will pass, he told himself.

He finished some paperwork, and approved the rather beautifully written proposal Will had composed, and then packed his brief case. It was nearly two in the morning, and he was meeting the guys at six to run on the beach. They had been meeting four or five days a week for about a year. They rarely met on the weekends, and all of them enjoyed the quiet time in the morning, when few others were on the beach. They all had headphones glued to their ears during the run, it was too much effort to talk most of the time, but the comradely feelings were there none the less.

His driver wasn’t there, but another was in his place. Of course, Dan wouldn’t leave him stranded. Not that he was technically stranded, but he glad all the same, he was a little too tired to drive. He managed to shower and slip into bed without further problems, but only managed an hour or so of sleep before he bolted upright in bed, drenched in a cold sweat.

It was almost time to get up anyway, he reasoned. He needed to shower and try to eat a piece of toast before he met the others at the beach. The shower he accomplished, but some part of him rebelled at the thought of food the minute the toast was done. When he joined the others on the beach, they had started stretching and warming up already. No one needed to say anything, words were unnecessary between them during these times. Angel quickly joined the warm up; turned on his MP3 player and slipped it into the arm band he wore to carry it.

They started out slow, giving themselves a chance to get acclimated. Will and Angel also wanted to give Gunn and Wes a fighting chance of keeping up. By seven, they were all out of breath and almost complete with their warm down. Angel had started out with a sweat shirt and long sleeve tee shirt, but the sweat shirt was now tied around his waist. Gunn had followed suit.

Leaning against the car, Angel closed his eyes and steadied himself. He had been running on fumes for so long he wasn’t sure he could remember a time when jogging wouldn’t have exhausted him so much. He felt like he could sleep for a week. His head swam and his legs felt like jelly, but he forced himself to stay on his feet.

“You alright, man?” Gunn lightly clapped him on the shoulder.

“Getting old.” He managed a slight smile and got into his car. He needed to shower and change so he could be in the office by nine.

A strange feeling was tugging at him. The nudging had been becoming more insistent over the past couple of days. It had been strongest yesterday, but was growing even now. It was a feeling that was almost commanding him to start towards downtown, as if some higher being was sending him hunches instead of visions. He tried to shrug it off. He told himself that if the Powers wanted him to go somewhere, they would send him a seer to tell him so.

His heart almost jumped out of his chest when a young man with shaggy dark hair crossed the street right next to where his car was parked at a red light. It wasn’t Connor. Angel could sense that right away, but the feelings the almost sighting caused Angel could not be denied. A longing spread throughout him, but he violently stuffed it back into whatever corner it came from. It would swallow him whole and he would never come up out of the sea of despair that would claim him if he allowed those regrets to surface. He would be trapped at the bottom of the ocean forever, he told himself.

His fists clenched at the unbidden memory. His mind was a rotten thing, he thought. It tortured him any chance it got. Sighing, he closed his eyes for the rest of the trip home.

Showering and changing didn’t take long and the car was pulling into the lot of the law firm before Angel could remember getting into the vehicle. Time was escaping him lately; he would start reading briefs and realize four hours had passed without his noticing. He would be in the shower one minute and walking towards his office the next. He would have been alarmed if he had the energy to feel such an emotion.

Disassociation. It was called disassociation, he remembered. He had read that online when he googled time loss. Pop psychiatrists said it indicated trauma. That was laughable. Angel’s life was the definition of trauma. He blamed himself for the vast majority of it. He sat down at his desk, a cup of coffee waiting for him already and got started on the new day.

. . .

Chapter 12

“Why are we going there?” Buffy’s stance didn’t convey the animosity she felt at the moment. She was extremely suspicious about to traveling to former employers of her supposedly dead ex-boyfriend. As far as she was concerned, they had killed Angel the moment he walked through their doors.

“I have an informant within the company that tells me we should be concerned about some of their recent transactions. We have an appointment with the vice president to discuss these concerns.” Giles figured another lie now wouldn’t make much of a difference in the long run if it helped to fix the mistakes he previously made.

Buffy nodded, not really believing what she was hearing. “Why are Dawn and I going if this is Council business?”

“Dawn doesn’t have to go, but she has never been excluded before. You may be needed if he becomes threatening. Willow’s powers may be muted inside that building.”

“They have these beings that block magical energy. It’s supposed to make the building a more even playing ground. I may not be able to use my powers to the full extent.”

“‘Sides, Buff, it’ll be nice to have the gang together again. You know, for old times sake, and all that jazz.”

“That’s cute, Xander. Old times. Because they were so great.” Buffy almost slapped her hand over her mouth after she heard her rebellious tongue speak the words her brain hadn’t even formed yet. “Oh…I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that…I’m a little tired. Really, I’m sorry I’m so cranky. Let’s go.” She picked up her purse, trying to avoid the eyes that now seemed to all be downcast. Great, she thought, I killed the mood again. Go Buffy.

The car ride was mostly silent. She could feel Willow tensing at her side as the neared the building. Buffy chalked it up to the fact that Willow would be, for all intents and purposed, neutered once they were inside. That would have made her nervous too.

The security guard didn’t recognize them, as Willow was sure they wouldn’t. Xander was cool as a cucumber, the red head noticed, proud of her friend for turning into such a confident man.

A secretary met them at the elevator and led them to a small conference room. “Mr. Benson will be with you soon. Please have a seat and make yourselves comfortable.” She offered them refreshments, brought them their respective coffees and teas, and assured them Mr. Benson would be with them shortly.

The room was spacious but not so large that the occupants would feel dwarfed. It was modestly but tastefully decorated, the chairs were cozy and obviously expensive, and the staff seemed pleasant if not very business like. Buffy decided she could get used to a place like this. If it wasn’t evil, that was.

Yeah, she thought, that could slow my career here down. I’d kill all the clients.

. . .

Chapter 13

He was late. A new client had requested a meeting with him, a client that could generate a lot of revenue and be of great use in other areas. It was always handy to have a witch on your side.

Will heard the phone on Margaret’s desk ring as walked by, but it wasn’t until he had reached to open the door that she called his name. The movement was started however, and he entered the room before she caught up to him.

The files in his hands dropped to the floor. As did his jaw. The five people staring back at him looked no less shocked. For a few moments, time stopped and lasted forever. Margaret was saying something about security and magic and this group of people, but he didn’t really hear her. She had picked up the files and papers, though they weren’t in any kind of order now, and was frantically apologizing. She was about to call security when Will raised his hand.

His voice was barely above a hiss when he ordered her out of the room. She left, red faced, closing the door behind her. Will still couldn’t find his voice, and the gorgeous brunette that had locked eyes with him didn’t seem to have one either.

Anger was quickly replacing shock. How dare they show up here, in his conference room, after lying about who they were and conniving to get into the building undetected. Flashes of the past years, the devastation that had racked Angel and what it had done to the team, filled his mind, and in an instant he had amazing clarity.

He dumped the paperwork unceremoniously on the table in front of Buffy and turned on his heel. He wanted space between them. Facing her, he glared, thinking of the best way to tell them to get the hell out. The look on her face stayed his words. Tears were rolling silently down her cheeks. The look on her face was locked into one he imagined a catatonic would have.

He slowly licked his lips, and swallowed the lump in his throat. As he opened his mouth to speak, Dawn spoke up.

“Spike!” She was on her feet and closing the distance between them before he could react. He didn’t even try to catch the wrist attached to the hand that slapped him. He let her hit him again but caught her on the third try.

“You get two for free.” His voice was quiet, a little above a whisper. He gently relaxed his grip on her wrist. She made no move to slap him again.

“You’re dead.”

“I was.”

Giles was the first to speak. “Sit down, Dawn. Please.”

Before he could continue, Buffy was standing. “You died. I saw you die.”

“I got over it.”

Her blank visage was replaced by rage. She took a step forward but stopped, not trusting what she would do to him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Will’s anger changed to consternation. His mind raced a hundred miles per hour. “You didn’t know? You didn’t know I was alive? How is that possible?”

She exploded. “How was I supposed to know?” Her voice was hoarse she screamed so loudly. “Fucking telepathy? How was I supposed to know!” Her fists flew towards him almost faster than he could fight them back.

He took a defensive position, blocking her attacks, but she was able to land a few good blows. His own anger rose to meet hers and he lashed out, grabbing her wrists and turning her body so her back was to his chest. His arms crossed across her chest and held her arms down.

“I am no longer the man that will take your punches to make you feel better. Understand?” he released her none to gently, shoving her a few feet away in the process.

Everyone in the room was on their feet. Willow looked stricken, and Xander was trying very hard not to show his anger.

“What are you doing here?”

Willow managed to find her voice. “Fred didn’t tell you we were here?”

“No, it must have slipped her mind.” His arms crossed and his posture moved to one of downright animosity.

“Why are you mad at me? You selfish bastard, what did I do? How was I supposed to know?” Buffy was screaming again.

“I’m selfish? You little trollop, what about us? What about Angel? Did you ever think of him?” The look on her face stopped him cold. She really didn’t know. The mention if Angel’s name had frozen her to the spot. He watched as her shoulders shook a little and she seemed to be about to faint.

He still had his reflexes. He reached her before anyone else had made a move. He grabbed her wrists and shook her. Barely containing his anger, he shook her, yelling into her face. “You had to know! We told you! You knew! Buffy…” he looked at her, his anger breaking.

She watched pain break across his features before she pulled herself away from him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The naked pain on her face could convince him of no other truth than what she was saying. His mind starting racing again, thinking of all the possible reasons she wouldn’t have known. He came to only one conclusion. Looking towards the back of the room, he immediately singled Giles out. The man knew more than he was letting on.

“Start talking Jeeves.”

Before Giles could open his mouth, Will muttered a curse under his breath as the door to the conference room door nearly flew off its hinges.

. . .

Chapter 14

Angel stood staring. He couldn’t do much more than that. The woman across from his stared too. Will reached behind Angel to close the door and give them privacy. Not that this battle wouldn’t be heard throughout the entire building, anyway. He knew this was going to one hell of a fight.

“Angel.” Her voice was a whisper, and the word held awe and longing and so much more that Angel’s mind just couldn’t comprehend at the moment.

He had heard the yelling from three floors below in the archives. His head was pounding and he had been searching through tomes of dusty books that made his eyes water and his nose itch for hours. He wasn’t getting anywhere. He could feel blood rushing in his ears and he felt like he was going to be sick again. When the yelling had reached his already pained senses, he had decided he was going to kill whoever was doing the fighting. He was the boss; he could do things like that.

As the elevator rose steadily to the conference floor, he could make out the words a little clearer. He wasn’t trying to understand them, though. His senses were going haywire as far he could tell. The smells he could swear where on this floor made him believe one hundred percent in his insanity. There was no way he could smell those scents here, now.

His anger had built as he neared the door. He knew his head was cloudy, he wasn’t thinking too clearly, but in a moment it wouldn’t matter, because he was going to rip someone’s head off. That would make him feel better.

Throwing the door open, his feet refused to move more than a foot inside the threshold. He barely saw Will move, and he couldn’t really determine what he had done behind him. She was standing there, staring at him. When she said his name he thought he would die. His chest stopped working; his lungs weren’t taking in air anymore. He tried to make his mouth move but he was frozen in place.

He didn’t notice anyone else in the room, and no one made a move to speak.

“Angel.” She repeated the name, as if tasting a new thing she couldn’t quite decide if she liked or not.

“What are you doing here?” His voice and ability to move returned to him all in a rush.

She looked hurt. “I…don’t know. You’re alive.”

“Have been for a while.”

“How? When? How?”

The confusion must have showed on his face, because she made a move to speak again. He cut her off. “I told you! How could you not know? I made sure you would know!”

“I didn’t!”

“That’s not possible!”

“Why does everyone think that?” She was screaming again and his head protested sharply. His vision swam for a second, but he ruthlessly got control of himself.

The door burst open again and Gunn, Wes and Fred came rushing in. Will motioned for them to calm down, but Fred looked ready to tear people apart.

“What are you doing here?” Her words were dripping with venom.

Buffy looked at the angry faces directed towards her and she knew. She knew they hated her. Inside, she thought, she had always known that Angel hated her. He had to hate her to deny her in such an awful way. The looks of these people were almost too much for her bare, their naked hatred of her laid before here with no shame or apologies. She swallowed hard and tried to think of something to say. What could make this better?

Will jumped in. “She didn’t know. She really didn’t.” Looking towards the scoobies in the back, “someone better start explaining right now.”

Buffy couldn’t bring herself to hit Angel, but she was awfully close. “What are you talking about?”

He wanted to scream, he wanted to shake sense into her, he wanted to rip her clothes off and take her right then, without a damn for who was watching. He did none of things. His body was giving up. He could feel oblivion clawing at him. His voice came out deceptively calm and quiet, despite the turmoil that was raging inside him.

“I wrote you letters. A dozen letters, maybe more. I begged you…I begged you to contact me.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“If you wouldn’t fulfill my request in a letter, why would you answer your phone?”

Her voice matched his in quality for a moment. “I never got any letters.” She wanted to tear her hair out, rip his clothes off, ravage his mouth, scream until he begged for forgiveness and then make love to him on the floor. Instead, she stood stalk still, wondering what in the world he was talking about. One of them was crazy and she was equally divided in her choices.

Her words hit him like no fist ever could. Months of wondering, years of pain, the constant feelings of rejection, the dozens of times he tried to make himself hate her. All of it came back to him with a vengeance. His head spun, he opened his mouth to speak, and plummeted into oblivion.

Buffy saw him going down before he started to move. His eyes looked lost for a moment and his mouth moved but no words came out. His hand rose and made a small motion of reaching towards her, but his knees gave out before he could finish the movement.

Buffy ran towards him as he crumpled like a cheap paper fan. Will reached him first, grabbing his shoulders before his head could hit the floor. Wesley was by his side in an instant, checking his pulse. Gunn was on the phone calling for a medic.

Wes called his name, shook his shoulders a bit and checked his pupils. “Where the hell is that medic?”

“He’s burning up!” Buffy pulled her hand back from his forehead, feeling that no person could be that feverish and still be alive.

Buffy watched in a blur as he was lifted onto a stretcher and rushed into an elevator. Fred led them to a second elevator and got to some floor Buffy hadn’t paid attention to just as the stretcher passed them. A doctor met the group at the entrance to some kind of medical unit and told them to wait in the lounge.

Will paced, Wesley looked pissed, and Buffy couldn’t decide what she felt. Wesley periodically went to talk to doctors, who always told him the same thing. They were stabilizing him and would know more soon. After almost an hour, Fred stood and marched towards the double doors.

“Fred…”

“They will talk to me, Wesley.” The look in her eyes made them all believe that the doctors would in fact have little choice but to talk to Fred.

“Will he be alright?”

“I don’t know Buffy.” Wesley seemed to be making an occupation of studying the paint on the far wall.

“Has he…has he been sick?”

Will made a rather rude snorting noise. “Not like he’d tell us if he was.”

Gunn shook his head, “he was fine this morning. We went a run, he was fine. What…poison? Sabotage of the company? I mean, he was…” Gunn went back to studying his shoes, his gift for articulation suddenly failing him.

Fred came back a short time later. “He’s sick. He’s been sick. He was in here the other day asking one of the doctors about hybrid health.”

Wes’s face suddenly changed. “He asked me about that last week. I couldn’t tell him much.”

She continued, “His temperature is 102.3. They’re treating him for dehydration and exhaustion. He’s malnourished, and his blood pressure was around 175 over 110 when they last checked. He’s been sick for a while, judging by how dehydrated he is. They still don’t know why, but one of them said it’s probably an infection.”

“Infection? His body fights things like that, doesn’t it? I mean…”

“It will, Gunn, but if his immune system is compromised, I mean extremely compromised, he could become ill.”

“This bad, though?” Willow was having a hard time believing that Angel could be that run down.

“They’re going to pump him full of antibiotics. We’ll be able to see him in the morning.”

As Buffy leaned back in the chair, Fred turned to the doors, her head cocked at an odd angle.

Wesley stood, immediately recognizing that stance. She was on guard. It was a reflex Fred had absorbed from Illyria and couldn’t quite get rid of. “What is it?”

“It’s too quiet.” Will answered for her, already on his feet and heading towards the med area.

The instruments that were presumably once on tables were scattered on the ground. The doctor Fred had spoken to was lying near the bed, a needled sticking out of his neck. Angel was no where in site. Two nurses were unconscious and draped over chairs, and the IVs that had once been in a body were hanging limply from their stands.

“Where would he go?” Buffy immediately turned to the group beside her knew Angel the best.

“He went home. I’d put on money on it.”

“Take me there.”

Will nodded to her demand and she followed him to the car. Willow, Dawn and Xander weren’t far behind. Giles stood where he was, knowing full well that Wesley was going to have some questions for him.

. . .

Chapter 15

He managed to get home in one piece, without killing anyone. His head was swimming as he drove. Driving drunk was better than this, he thought. He made it inside, but didn’t remember if he set the alarm afterwards. He stripped off the hastily put on clothing as he made his ways up the stairs. He was burning one minute, shivering the next. Climbing into bed, he let his feverish body relax under the cool sheets.

There were times he felt a cool towel on his chest or forehead. He could almost hear voices sometimes, but they were swept away on the winds. The winds here blew fiercely. They carried away his reason and logic and motor functions. They pushed him this way and that, into places of his mind he didn’t want to travel. The wind didn’t care.

He yelled at the wind, he begged the wind. He wanted to be sedentary. He wanted to stop moving through the vines of memories. They were covered with thorns and tore at him as he went. The vines had names, stories, places they were from. Some vines were shaped like people. Those were the most painful to touch. The wind blew him into these the most.

When he wasn’t trapped, when he could get away from the tearing of his skin, he was in a safe place. He was never there long. There were soothing voices and gentle hands in the safe place. But a whirlwind always sucked him back down. The wind chased him. It looked like wolves sometimes. Other times, it was gentle, caressing, it convinced him to follow it with its light rustle of leaves and sweet high pitched sound.

Part of him never wanted to go with this wind, but he never really had a choice. If he refused, it dragged him and that hurt worse. The field of memories crushed him. The ground rose up and swelled around him, trapping him. He was naked and voiceless and nothing he did mattered at all. The faces were angry. The vines lashed at him. No matter how hard he tried to cry out, no sound ever came.

Buffy watched his face, the anguish on it. He hadn’t woken up in the past five hours. She knew the fever would break soon. He was staying awake longer and longer when he did come to. They had found him here, sleeping fitfully, the sheets drenched with sweat. Will had picked him up with little effort and moved him so the others could quickly change the sheets.

Will had called Wes to apprise him of the situation. It was universally decided that one group would stay with Angel and the other would stay with Giles to sort the whole mess out. Fred was in the lab working on the blood samples but she was fairly confidant he could overcome whatever it was with rest and adequate nutrition.

Fred had screamed over the phone that it was a shame no one had informed Angel that people need nutrients and vitamins to live. She thought he was still in the mindset of a vampire, who could technically go months without food before going totally insane. Will had assured her that Angel would eat as soon as he woke up.

That was yesterday. He had slept all night and most of the day today. It was nearing evening and he was starting to calm down now. Buffy hadn’t left his side except to use the bathroom and be dragged to the kitchen once by Willow. Xander had kept a steady stream of coffee coming up to Angel’s bedroom, and Will had made sure everyone was situated in the guest rooms and their things had been retrieved from the hotel. Dawn had began digging through Angel’s rather extensive library, pouring more effort into research for Angel’s and Will’s condition than Wes had been able to previously.

She looked at him. He had the flu. That was how she reasoned it in her mind. He was sick and she was going to look after him until he was better. Then they were going to have a very long discussion.

Buffy woke up in the chair that had been moved to his bedside. She stretched; her neck ached from the position she had slept in. The smell of food wafting through the house was tempting, and she wondered if she would have time to sneak away for long enough to grab something to bring upstairs with her. Looking at Angel’s peaceful form, she decided she could risk it.

His fever had broken overnight. Since then, he had slept peacefully for the most part. She had even been able to sleep for a few hours. Once downstairs, she saw Dawn and Will, their heads bowed conspiratorially as Xander and Willow finished putting the food on the table.

Will had explained to them that he no longer went by the name Spike. That was the name of a murderer, a man with no regrets and little shame. He was a man who had died twice and been brought back both times. He had a chance to redeem himself, to help people. His soul was a part of him as Xander’s was of him. It was no longer separate thing inside of him, something he kept locked away but which sometimes escaped. Will was not Spike. They could see that. Even his hair was different.

She walked over to the table to steal a few pieces of toast when the looks on the others’ faces compelled her to turn around. Angel was standing at the top of the stairs, looking a little stunned. He was wearing lounge pants and robe and nothing else.

Angel almost turned right back around. The Scooby gang was in his kitchen. She was in his kitchen. And he was barefoot. That didn’t seem right. Then she smiled. A full fledged smile he hadn’t seen since the day that never was, a day no one else knew about. She hadn’t smiled that way when he went to Sunnydale with that amulet. This was genuine and happy.

That smile made him walk downstairs. He felt like he had been hit by a truck. That, however, was better than he had felt in a long time.

“Good morning.” She didn’t know what to do with herself. She wanted to run to him and hug him and kiss him and do delectable things to him. But he looked a little apprehensive, and she knew she had to wait. She had to go slow, take her time. She couldn’t scare him away now.

Willow motioned towards the table. “We made breakfast. Come on, you should eat.”

He wanted to refuse food. It seemed like a foreign substance now. He opened his mouth to make a polite refusal but stopped as Buffy’s eyes narrowed.

“You look gaunt. Your face has never been his thin. Sit down, and eat. Now.” She grabbed the sleeve of his robe and pulled him towards the table.

He hadn’t thought anyone was here. Well, maybe Will, since he smelled food, but he hadn’t believed the others would stay. He was regretting his choice of attire, feeling self conscious over his lack of clothing, but Dawn was in shorts and t-shirt and Xander was only wearing track pants and Star Wars shirt. Angel began to feel a little better. Looking at Buffy though, made him frown. She hadn’t showered in a couple days and her hair was hastily thrown in a ponytail. There were dark smudges under her eyes.

“You haven’t slept in a while.”

She stopped and looked at him as if he had just grown a new head. “You’re really not one to talk about that right now. Pot, kettle, all that. Sit down.”

He chose not to respond. Everyone sat, Will gave him a shrug, but seemed comfortable with the whole situation, he had been around these people for longer, and more recently, that Angel had.

He put his fork down after shoving the omelet around his plate a few times. Brutal honesty, he thought. It’s really the only thing that works with this crowd.

“Isn’t anyone else completely uncomfortable? Am I the only one who understands how surreal this situation is?” he looked from face to face, waiting for someone to assure him he wasn’t totally insane.

Buffy nodded, swallowing. “It’s weird. But…you were hurt. We were here. We helped you get better. And…I got your letters. Giles dropped them off yesterday. I’m sorry, Angel, for the whole thing. It wasn’t my fault, and it wasn’t your fault. It just…it was almost a tragedy. Only almost, though, because we’re all here and we’re all together.”

It took him a moment to find words again. “Don’t you all have lives? Somewhere you have to be? I mean…you can’t just drop everything to come here and…”

“Yes we can.” Dawn interrupted him with vigor. “The past few years have been a fiasco. A fiasco that could have been easily avoided. Let’s make it right now. Let’s stop holding grudges and stop being mad at each other for no reason and start being nice. Nice people help other people. You need help.”

“I don’t need help.”

They stared at him, every jaw in the room but his on the table.

“You are kidding, right?” Xander was shaking his head. “You almost died. Died. Let me repeat that. You…almost…died. That sucks. You’re way too skinny, I know you live in LA, but it’s a little ridiculous. You either have shoe polish under your eyes or you haven’t slept in a very long time. Or you’re a zombie. Whatever, none of those things are healthy. Will said you’re basically a walking suicide waiting to happen, and you turned anorexic. That goes back to the scary skinny thing. Wake up, dude. You need help. Oh, look,” he made a dramatic show of looking around the room, “help’s here!”

“You’re an ass.” It was the first thing that came to Angel’s mind and it had slipped past his word filter faster than he could catch it. Will nearly fell off his chair and he was pretty sure Dawn had orange juice coming out of her nose. Even Xander was laughing. Angel was hard pressed to figure out what was so funny.

“Angel,” Buffy out her hand over his arm, “Please don’t kick us out. We want to help. I mean, you look bad. You need a few days off, with rest and food and sleep. Just a few days and you’ll be okay. Maybe not the best you could be, but you’ll be okay. And then…and then you can figure out where to go from there. Let’s get to the point where you don’t pass out, though, okay, because that was nerve racking.”

He nodded mutely and picked up his fork. He could never kick her out. No matter what. He wanted her here. He ate in relative silence, listening to the others talk amongst themselves. Will was in his element, he had eaten breakfast with these people before. Even when Angel was in Sunnydale, he had never felt part of this group. Dawn had been very young, then, and she had treated him like a novelty. He was a novelty, he thought; something different than anything any of them had ever seen.

Giles had never liked him. Angel hadn’t given him reason to, really. Angel had given him every reason not to trust him throughout the years. Torturing a man doesn’t really inspire trust. He tried to figure out what angle Xander and Willow were using. They seemed sincere in their concern, that in and of itself made him nervous. Angel never liked it when he needed to ask for help, and he liked it less when people were willing to give that help. It made him feel inadequate. He paused in his thoughts, well aware that he had a few complexes that might require intensive therapy, but knowing full well he would never get that therapy.

Buffy was looking at him. He racked a corner of this brain that had been half listening to what they saying in order to come up with a response for whatever she had asked him.

“Uh…yeah, I like working there. It’s…different than anything I’m used to, but I think I’m well suited for it. I get to boss a lot of people around, I inherited some great cars, and we’re actually saving a lot of lives. It’s working out so far.”

She nodded, a little surprised at the vanity in his answer and not entirely believing those were the only reasons he worked at Wolfram and Hart. She could tell when her Angel wasn’t telling her something. “But, why did you go to work there in the first place? I mean, was it a plan right from the beginning to kill them from the inside out, or did they blackmail you into it and then you thought of a plan?”

Looking a little startled, he tried to reply calmly. “Why would you think I was blackmailed into it?”

“It’s just so against your nature. You like to do things in the shadows, behind the scenes; you’ve never been one for limelight. I mean, I’m sure it’s a hard job, but there have to be perks. I mean, you must get more attention than you’re used to getting and…I would think that would make you uncomfortable.”

“It did at first. I’ve basically eliminated all areas of the company that made me uncomfortable, though. There used to be liaisons that basically followed me around, reporting my actions to the senior partners. I killed them and the partners, and I feel a lot better about working there, now.”

She smiled. He was starting to inject that dry sense of humor he had into his words now. “I’m glad you were able to get you killing on in a good way. But…it just seems odd…going to work for the devil you fought so hard against.”

He wanted her to stop asking questions, especially for right now. There were witnesses. “They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. It seemed like a good way to finally remove them from the picture. The senior partners, I mean. They…caused a lot of grief for me, for all of us, and this seemed…well it was the perfect way to hurt them. Work for them while at the same time destroying everything they had built. And I got to do it behind their backs. I beat them at their own game. That was exhilarating. I guess I needed the challenge.”

Dawn was standing, gathering the dishes from the table. When Angel stood to help her, he was greeted with five angry voices telling him in various ways to sit back down. It wasn’t worth fighting about, so he took a seat again.

Xander was looking at him intently. Angel had rarely seen such an intelligent and serious look from this man. Actually, he realized, he had never seen such a look from Xander.

“How did you take out so much of the demon population in the areas of all the Wolfram and Harts? There’s a big chunk of the demon population gone, that’s quite a feat. Especially for a guy that was supposedly really out of it for the past few years.”

“I wasn’t that out of it, Xander. I read every piece of paper that crossed my desk, I wrote a few briefs, and I personally killed a lot of evil executives. You all seem to think I was like a walking mindless automaton since I killed the senior partners. I was…a little depressed, but I had most of my wits with me.”

Will was looking at him with a mixture of amusement and astonishment. “Most of your wits with you? Angel, some of the briefs you wrote were good, really good. You made good decisions. Corporate wise, you were never really off the mark. It was your personal life that went up shit creek without a paddle.”

“What personal life?”

“That’s my point. And you were a mindless automaton some days. You wouldn’t even notice when someone was talking to you.”

“I purposefully ignored you. That’s not the same thing as not noticing. I just have an excellent ability to tune you out.”

Angel hadn’t meant to make a joke. Actually, he had delivered his statement in the dead pan way he said most things, but everyone else was snickering.

“Love you too, Peaches.”

“Shut up, Will. I wasn’t out of it the past few years. I was just…on a mental hiatus. But, look, I passed out for a few days, hallucinated a lot, and now I’m better. Ready to go back to the corporate chopping block and…”

“Hah! You’re not going anywhere! You feel better because you ate and slept. You are taking a few days to get back on track, mister.” The look in Buffy’s eyes as she spoke made Angel keep quiet. He was smart enough to know what battles he could win and which ones he should just surrender too immediately.

“I’ll go back on Wednesday. Good enough? That gives me the rest of the weekend plus a couple days.”

“I think we can survive without you for that long. Given that you approved the statements I sent you last week.”

“They’re done. Edited, approved, sent to the publisher. You’re good to go with those.”

“Good. In that case, take all week off.”

“I’m not dead.”

“Thank goodness for that.” Willow rose and stood next to Angel as she spoke. “It would have been awful if you had died. But, hey, since you’re still with the living, why don’t you show me around the house. I snooped a little already, but it would be nice to have an official tour.”

Angel took her words for face value, but the look in her eyes didn’t match the casual way she had spoken. He nodded, “I’ll get dressed, meet you in the library in a few minutes.”

“Good.”

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