Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I didn't create the mess they're in. That credit all goes to Joss Whedon. I'm just borrowing (in a strictly non-profit sense) to take a shot at putting things back on track. Lyrics and title are from "Heal Me," by Melissa Etheridge.
Spoilers: "Dead Things"/"Waiting in the Wings"
Rating: PG13
Author's Note: This story fits in between "The Lonely Season" and "You're the Only One."
Summary: Can you "reunion?"

Ain't it crazy
For a moment there
I just gave up trying
But now I see
You can let the light in
You can begin again

* * * * *

Buffy sighed as she padded across her bedroom carpet. Another long day at work, and still more hours of patrol to go; not exactly the glamorous "adult" life she'd once imagined. But at least she'd been able to squeeze in a quick shower, with still a sliver of free time left before she needed to head out to keep the world safe for humanity. This had become the greatest of all luxuries: a few minutes of pure Buffy-time.

She rubbed the back of her neck absently as she searched the pile of newspapers on her desk; she had a strange prickling sensation that wouldn't seem to go away. It almost felt like...like something it couldn't be, she reminded herself firmly. It was dry skin, nothing more, and she had to ignore it if she was going to get anything accomplished with these help- wanted ads. Provided she ever found the help-wanted ads, of course, midst the chaos that was her desk.

At last she found the correct section and sat down to start her search for the perfect new job, one that didn't involve double-shifts, late nights or, hopefully, grease traps. It was all part of her fresh start: new job, a solid training regimen, night classes, working on her parenting skills and complete absence of the bleached blond undead. All salute the new Buffy, clean and celibate for two months and counting. Maybe in Slayer terms it wasn't much of a victory, but she counted every lonely night she managed to avoid the twin demons of self-pity and Spike a personal triumph.

Now if she could just conquer dry skin, she fretted, her hand once again creeping up to soothe her tingling neck.

* * * * *

Angel stood on the doorstep, nervously shifting Connor's car seat from one hand to the other as he tried to decide how he should ring the bell. One quick ring, just as a 'hi, I'm here' thing? But what if they didn't hear it? So maybe a longer one...that they could become annoyed by; oh yeah, that would do the trick. He made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat as the choices swirled in front of him, all smugly centering on the little glowing piece of plastic next to the front door.

It was Connor who finally prompted his slightly shaking hand to press the bell; the baby sneezed in his sleep, just once, but it was enough to jolt his father out of his own thoughts and into the real world.

Connor seemed to do that to him a lot.

Once the deed was done, and Angel could hear the echo of the bell on the other side of the door, the real war of nerves began. He was committed now; he had to stay and face her, no matter how much he dreaded it. Yeah, 'dreaded' was the word, he decided. He was not looking forward to seeing her smile again, or hearing her voice softly call his name, or feeling the warmth of her skin as she brushed her fingertips against his...

No, he was definitely dreading this.

He heard approaching footsteps, and tried to compose himself. Tried to remind himself of why he was here. The only problem with the latter was that every single thought flew from his mind except for the knowledge that Buffy was on the other side of the door. Coming closer.

To him.

This very moment.

On the other side of that door, now slowly swinging open.

* * * * *

"Dawn," he said with a gulp, as the front door opened wide to reveal Buffy's little sister.

"Angel," she answered in equal surprise. "What are you doing here?" Her unabashedly curious gaze traveled down the length of his arm to the car seat in his hand. "With a baby?" she added, sounding, if possible, even more shocked than he felt.

"I...I came to see...is Buffy...can we come in?"

She smiled as his fumbled words finally came together in a request. "Sure," she said easily, stepping back out of his way. "Come on in."

Angel stepped into the Summers house, craning his neck to peer into the living room and dining room as he entered. No luck; no Buffy to be seen.

"Buffy's upstairs," Dawn said quickly, unable to help seeing Angel's less- than-furtive glances around the house. Before he could answer, she flipped her long brown hair over her shoulder and yelled up the staircase, "Buffy!"

"Dawn, don't..." Angel said anxiously, his hand instinctively moving to shield the baby.

"Get down here!" Dawn continued, over Angel's abortive attempt to quiet her.

"Wake the baby," Angel finished with a sigh as the frightened Connor began to wail.

Dawn turned back to face Angel, her hand clapped over her traitorous mouth. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said immediately, "I didn't mean to scare it. We're kind of used to yelling and screaming around here. Hellmouth, demons..." she shrugged philosophically, "you know how it goes."

"It's okay," Angel muttered as he placed the car seat on the floor and squatted down to release his son from the straps that held him secure. "Connor gives back as good as he gets."

"Dawn, what are you bellowing about?" Buffy called from upstairs. "And why do I hear..."

The Slayer's voice trailed off as she rounded the upstairs landing and saw a hunched up, black leather clad figure in her doorway. She couldn't see the man's head, and for a moment she thought...but she knew it couldn't be him. It had to be Spike, because it couldn't be...but those shoulders, the breadth of them...that was not Spike, however much it couldn't be...

"Angel?" she asked hesitantly, her steps slowing the closer she came to matching reality with fantasy.

He turned around as he stood up, answering her question without a word. He couldn't have answered her if he'd tried; his attention was focused on the infant in his arms...a baby?...Angel?...to whom he was crooning.

"It's all right, little one," he whispered, the words sounding hushed to all but the most curious of Slayer ears. "Daddy's here."

Daddy?

"Daddy?" Dawn chirped, giving substance to the question screaming through Buffy's brain. "He...she...it's really yours?"

"He," Angel said, slightly affronted that there should be a doubt. "His name is Connor." He glanced at Buffy, his voice softening as he gave breath to the unthinkable. "And yes, he's my son."

* * * * *

"Oh boy." Dawn's eyes grew wide. "I mean it's a boy, and oh boy, wait till Xander hears." She stuck out her arms towards the baby. "Can I hold him?"

Buffy almost laughed at Angel's instinctive backpedaling. The Scourge of Europe was scrambling to get away from an unarmed human girl; it would have been funny if Buffy hadn't known the real person he was afraid for: his son.

His son.

"He's, uh, still a little upset," Angel apologized hastily, the truth of his words borne out by Connor's sobs.

Buffy watched him cuddle the baby in his arms and images she hadn't allowed herself to picture in four years...images she'd lost claim to almost before she was old enough to desire them...suddenly filled her mind's eye.

She'd been so young when she found out Angel couldn't have children, yet she still remembered those few fleeting daydreams she'd been allowed before his confession killed them. Angel with their child in his arms, that melting look of tenderness in his brown eyes, that soft lilt to his voice...it was exactly as she had imagined it.

Except that the child in his arms tonight was no part of her.

Buffy dragged herself with difficulty from the seductive depths of the past, but she realized there were limits to which her strained nerves could be stretched. An audience numbered one, two and possibly three on the list.

"Dawn, go upstairs," she said softly. "Please."

Dawn swiftly shifted her attention to her older sister. "But I want to hold the baby. And if you guys need to talk...maybe I can watch him?" She directed the question at Angel, though her eyes never left Buffy's frozen face.

"Upstairs, Dawn." Buffy turned to Angel, still trying to quiet the frightened Connor. "Why don't we go in the living room? The lights are a little softer, and maybe he'll settle down if you can sort of rock him or something."

Dawn pouted, but she sensed no chance of a bid for mercy with her eerily controlled sister. She slumped up the stairs as Angel grabbed the diaper bag and followed Buffy into the living room.

A rocking chair not being an option, Angel sat on the sofa, shifting the baby to his other shoulder as he continued to stroke Connor's back and make soothing noises. Buffy sat on the sofa as well, though she took care to leave a cushion between she and her former lover. And her former lover's child.

"He's beautiful," she said softly.

Angel grinned, fatherly pride struggling with realism. "Thanks. I think so too." He put Connor slightly away from his body to gaze down at the small, red face of his only child. "But how can you tell right now?"

"He's yours."

Angel didn't know how to answer her, and Connor fortunately did not give him the opportunity. Deprived of the comfort of his father's shoulder in his hour of need, the child's cries gained in volume once again. Angel hastily pulled him in again and resumed the rhythmic stroking and crooning that had become second nature to him the past few months.

Buffy watched silently, fighting the urge to take part in this moment. She didn't know where the feeling was coming from; she'd never been a real baby person until this very moment. Finally she surrendered, sliding forward on the cushion, close enough to touch the baby, and the baby's father.

"Angel, he's going to make a mess of that leather coat. Why don't you let me take him so you can..." she glanced at the shirt collar poking out from under the leather, "let him cry on silk instead," she finished in disbelief. She blinked her eyes and stared. "You're wearing silk and leather to travel with a baby? Even I know that's an invitation to fashion disaster. What were you thinking?"

He looked sheepishly at her over the top of Connor's head. "Could it be...no time to shop these days?" he suggested.

"Okay, well, I guess that makes sense," she allowed, sharing his grin even as she felt herself drowning in it.

Buffy had spent a lot of the last three years building up sufficient defenses against the quicksilver half-sad smiles that lived in her memories, but she had no proof against this new Angel and his easy grin. There was an unusual air of confidence about him; he seemed almost relaxed, even in this awkward situation, and in his eyes she saw a sly twinkle that drew her in against her will. She had to distract herself, and fast, before she dissolved into a puddle at his feet.

"Look, that, umm, collar is going to crease his poor little face. Maybe we can find a blanket or something that you can wear to protect your shirt."

She glanced around the room for a makeshift baby blanket, until she saw Angel's hands holding out the baby in front of her.

"I'm not really worried about the shirt," he said softly, "but I would like to get my coat off."

She reached out hesitantly and took the baby, now hiccoughing quietly, into her arms. Connor, still groggy from the long car trip, burrowed into her shoulder and started to relax.

"He likes you," Angel said.

Suddenly that seemed to be the most important thing in the world. Angel couldn't help but smile at the picture they made as he shrugged off his coat and resumed his seat; they just looked so...right...together. He didn't bother to analyze the thought; for once he simply enjoyed.

Buffy wanted to make small talk about the baby, about Connor. She wanted to ask when he was born, and how much he weighed and if he was hooked on the Teletubbies yet. But the only question she could move through her frozen brain was far more complicated.

"How?"

Angel looked away, looked down at his hands, looked everywhere but Buffy's face. "There was...there is...a prophecy," he answered haltingly.

"That's not what I meant."

He finally looked her in the eye. "I know."

"Angel."

He sighed as his eyes traveled once more to Connor's small head, nestled against Buffy's breast.

"There's a lot of things we need to talk about, Buffy, and Connor is only one of them." He swallowed nervously. "If you don't mind, I'd like to work my way up to him, because I'm pretty sure what I have to say is going to make you mad, and I'd like to get some other things cleared up first before you bring out the handcuffs and stakes."

It was Buffy's turn to look away. He didn't know...he couldn't know. And he wouldn't know.

"I think," she said slowly, forcing a display of calm she did not feel, "we should do this alphabetically." She made herself face Angel again. "Last time I checked, that would put Connor pretty close to the beginning of things, what the 'C' and all."

"Unfortunately a 'D' isn't going to push things back much further," Angel admitted, "and that's where Connor begins. With Darla."

"Darla?"

Whatever Buffy had expected, it was not this name from the distant past. Angel's ex had been carpet lint for almost as long as she had known him; how could she have anything to do with the child Buffy now held in her arms?

"But how is that...that's not possible. She's dead. I mean really most sincerely dead."

"They brought her back. Wolfram & Hart, I mean. About 18 months ago...well, actually a little more, I guess...they brought her back and sent her after me."

Eighteen months. Buffy could feel the figure spinning dizzily through her brain, prompting a hysterical urge to giggle. Eighteen months. Incredible. Was there anything Buffy could do that Darla hadn't already tried?

"It's still not possible," she insisted, realizing the instant the words left her mouth how ridiculous they sounded coming from her, of all people.

Angel smiled ruefully, acknowledging the absolute even as he reminded her of its vanquished status. "Let she who hasn't risen from the grave cast the first headstone."

"Not funny," she snapped, unreasonably irritated by the discovery that his sense of humor was now akin to her own.

"No," he agreed, "it wasn't."

He never told her; Buffy couldn't believe he had never told her. He said it so casually, like it no longer mattered except in the way that it brought Connor to him, but it must have been a horrible shock at the time. And yet he had never said a word before tonight.

"Why am I just hearing about this now? Didn't you think I might be the slightest bit interested, since once upon a time she tried to kill me?"

He had known this question was coming, and he thought he was prepared. But nothing could ever shield his heart when he saw pain on Buffy's face.

"When I first found out, I couldn't...I just couldn't. I wasn't sure if you'd want to help," Angel looked down at his folded hands, "or maybe that it wouldn't matter that much to you. And I didn't want to know if it was the second one."

She refused to feel guilty for his uncertainty; he was the one who thought they didn't belong in each other's lives.

"So fine, after it was all over you couldn't have dropped me a card? Left a message on my machine?"

Angel's head snapped up, his dark eyes holding her fast. "After it was all over, your mother had just died. I didn't want to add to your worries. So I told Giles, asked him to keep an eye out for Darla. He never called me, so I guess she never came this way."

"You told Giles...but not me?"

"I told Giles she was back," he swiftly corrected her. "I didn't go into details."

He barely let himself examine the details back then, let alone shared them with others.

"I don't understand any of this." She took refuge in the facts, pushing hurt feelings to the background for later examination. "What was she supposed to do after her grand reentrance? Kill you?"

Angel shook his head; his life was never that simple. "I'm not sure exactly what the master plan was. Have me turn her, drive me crazy, make me lose my soul, make me evil even with my soul...I never really figured it out. But she came back into my life as a human, and I tried to help her, and then they..." he paused, remembering that awful night, "they had Dru turn her. In front of me. There was nothing I could do."

"Oh god, Angel, I'm sorry," Buffy breathed. She looked down at the child resting quietly in her embrace. "When? How old was he?"

He smiled grimly. "Did I mention the word 'prophecy'? Connor wasn't even conceived at that point."

"That doesn't make any sense," Buffy replied flatly. He'd told her once he couldn't have children and she'd accepted it, even understood it. "She's a vampire again, you're a vampire...two vamps does not a baby make. Even one in the mix would take one heck of a prophecy."

"You know me; never do anything in a small way." He shrugged; Darla's part of the prophecy had long ago ceased to concern him. "I can't pretend to explain it, Buffy, but Connor's birth was foretold. I just wish I'd been better prepared for Darla's rebirth; when I first saw her...I thought I was going crazy."

"I can see where you'd get that idea." She tried to casually drop the next question into the conversation, though technique took a back seat to need. "So, umm, where is she now? She's not like, out in the car or something, is she?" Buffy looked queasy at the thought.

"She died," Angel answered brusquely. "The prophecy...it allowed Connor to be conceived, and protected him while she was carrying him, but it couldn't make a dead body give birth. So she staked herself to save him."

"I'm...well, I guess my line for tonight is 'I'm sorry'."

And let's have a big round of applause for Miss Insensitivity 2002, she berated herself. Even Cordelia must seem the essence of tact compared to Buffy the Amazing Foot-Swallower.

"We weren't together, Buffy; Connor was conceived and then I didn't see her again until she was ready to give birth." Angel could tell by the way she was avoiding his eyes that she didn't understand. "One night it all built up...everything she was doing, everything I had seen, everything I'd given up...I was drowning and I just lost the will to hang on anymore."

No, he wasn't supposed to do that. She didn't care that he thought himself weak; he was the strong one and she needed to him stay that way, to have stayed that way while she had been drowning. Shame gave way to anger, good old familiar anger.

"So you slept with her to lose your soul? How could you?"

Angel stood up and began to pace. However deserved the accusation, he was still getting pretty tired of hearing it.

"Why does everyone think I'm so anxious to lose my soul that I deliberately put it at risk?"

"I'd say your little tax deduction is a pretty good answer to that." She bit her lip before she continued, "Not to mention a certain other time...that we're not going to mention."

They were most certainly going to mention it, Angel vowed silently, but not now. Now was about Connor, and by extension, Darla.

"I wasn't trying to lose my soul, Buffy," he said slowly, calling on every morsel of patience he had at his command. "I was just angry, and lonely, and confused. It seemed like everything I had been doing was for nothing; even if I got rid of every bit of paranormal evil in the world, the normal human stuff still ranks pretty high on the darkness scale." He stopped pacing and turned to face her. "I had no hope left, so I turned to Darla thinking...thinking at least if I embraced evil I was making a decision, not just reacting."

Buffy couldn't speak; it was as though he had taken the words from some place deep within her own soul and laid claim to them as his.

"Besides," he added, returning to the sofa, "it's not like I hadn't slept with Darla since my soul was restored; I told you a long time ago that I went back to her for a short time after the first curse. Did you really think she put up with my soul for the sake of my conversational skills?"

"I tried not to think about it, period," she admitted, raising an eyebrow at him.

Angel reached out and gently stroked Connor's back, finding, as always, a touchstone in the simple fact of his son's existence. He was what mattered, not Darla or the past.

"Why would I feel any more for her now, when I know what true happiness is?"

Buffy rested her cheek on Connor's silky fine hair, feeling his tiny heartbeat pound against her chest. He was warm, and soft, and the dark pools beneath those blue veined eyelids were his father's eyes. Child of two vampires, he was the closest thing to a miracle she had ever beheld, and all she could do was wonder why she, supposed savior of the universe, could take no credit or claim.

"Why are you here?" she whispered.

"He's hungry," Angel answered, in typical Cryptic Guy fashion.

"Excuse me?" She raised her head and stared at her former lover. "They don't have formula in LA?"

"He's going to start crying in a minute," Angel warned her. "You won't be able to hear the answer to your question if we don't get a bottle in his mouth pretty quickly."

Buffy moved her head so that she could look down at the baby, still nuzzling her in apparent contentment. "How can you tell? He looks pretty happy to me."

Angel took his hand from Connor's back and leaned forward, almost resting his head on Buffy's shoulder as he pointed to his son's mouth. "See his lips, the way they're making a fish face? He's hungry."

"That's so cute," she breathed, momentarily entranced by the sight of the tiny mouth working against the ruffled edge of her blouse.

Suddenly every cell in her body became aware of Angel's dangerous proximity; one of his arms stretched behind her back, the other hand just inches from her breast, his head almost resting on her bare shoulder. She lifted her troubled eyes to meet his, wondering if he was experiencing the same old breathless feeling from simply being next to each other.

"Maybe we should...go feed him," she suggested, the words dragging from her mouth one syllable at a time. She didn't want to move, didn't want to break the spell, and yet if she didn't move soon, something irrevocable might happen.

He saw the reluctance in her face, and he could sense the tension in her slight frame. She was as torn as he, wanting to hide from the feelings that rose too easily between them, and wanting to bask in them at the same time. It was the same old merry-go-round, but this time there was another passenger to consider.

Connor.

Angel slowly, carefully, backed away on the cushions, using the hand that had so nearly touched her silken skin to grab for the diaper bag. He cleared his throat and tried to speak calmly, suppressing with force of long habit the desire he could feel clawing at his heart and body.

"I, uh, brought some stuff with us," he said, only the faintest trace of huskiness coloring his voice. "I need to heat it up, though, if you've got a pan and some water."

She wasn't sure if she was grateful or hurt that he ended the moment, but she seized it in good grace. "We even have a stove," Buffy promised, "since I'm guessing you're not big on that newfangled microwave technology."

She stood up quickly, Connor still clutched in her arms. Angel slipped the diaper bag over his shoulder and reached out for his son.

"It's okay," she said, stepping sideways to slip past him without any part of her body contacting his. "I've got him."

Angel sighed and followed her into the kitchen. Though he'd thought to bring along basic supplies, he hadn't really factored in his son's needs, and how they would mesh with his own. Now he faced heart-wrenching confessions over a pan of boiling water. What was next; a profession of eternal devotion over a dirty diaper?

No, that last one wouldn't happen, he reminded himself, because that wasn't why he was here. He was here to...

Connor's first hungry wail pushed aside any thoughts of why he came, leaving only the fact that he was here...and not alone.

* * * * *

Buffy awkwardly tried to balance Connor on her narrow hip as she bent down to pull a pan from the drawer beneath the stove. Angel leaned over to help, but his sudden presence by her side took her by surprise and she stumbled backwards, stepping on his foot.

"I can do this," she said impatiently. "If I can save the world, I can probably boil a pan of water."

He forbore from mentioning his memories of her early cooking attempts, times that made him grateful he didn't need to eat; he simply backed away, hands raised in the air.

"Sorry, I just know it's a little tough at first to keep a good hold of him and still have a free hand. I was only trying to help."

Buffy snorted, in lieu of a more formally worded retort, and bent down once more to retrieve the pan. She couldn't explain why she needed to hold on to the baby when Angel was willing to do this by himself. Maybe it was some deep-seated recognition of the barriers her Slayer state placed between her and eventual motherhood. Maybe it was just what Xander would have called a 'chica-thing', this need to prove that she could care for a child.

Or maybe it was that in holding this child she was holding a piece of Angel; the piece that she could never have, and yet the only piece she could legitimately touch.

She focused her attention on the water in the pan, willing it to boil and speed along a process that was creating a large, silent, hole in the conversation. Angel busied himself getting the formula prepared, sneaking quick glances over his shoulder at Buffy and Connor when he thought she wasn't looking. She knew what he was doing, but since she was using all her strength to keep from doing the same thing to him, she decided not to call him on it.

When at last the bottle was ready, she looked anxiously from baby, to bottle, to father.

"Do I just sit him up?" she asked hesitantly, gnawing on her lower lip in consternation. "Not by himself, I mean; I know he's too young for...he is too young, right?"

Angel smiled gently; her questions sounded so like his own the first few days...weeks...months, really...of Connor's life. He had been too afraid to ask anyone, though; too afraid a sign of ignorance would show he was unworthy of the trust placed in him.

"Just sit down," he said, pulling a chair out for her, "and kind of prop him up in your arms. He knows how to do the rest."

She smiled at him in return and started to sit down, marveling at how bizarre it was to be doing something so...ordinary...with the most extraordinary man she knew. It almost seemed like someone should have a camera to record the moment before it vanished forever.

Then the kitchen door swung open, and the perfect moment in time evaporated as though it had never been.

* * * * *

"All right, where's the big bad bug?" Spike grumbled as he sauntered through the doorway. "Super Spike is here to save the dam...dammit!" He scowled at Angel. "What the hell is going on here?"

"I was just going to say the same thing," Buffy snapped, quickly getting to her feet. "How did you get in?"

She forgot for an instant that Connor was in her arms, but Angel's reflexes were as good as hers, if not better where his child was concerned. The baby was out of her arms before her mind even registered she had been temporarily off-balance.

She tore her eyes from the sight of Angel once again cradling Connor in his arms, turning her confusion onto the source: Spike.

"I revoked your invitation; I revoked it so much it's a wonder you can set foot outside your crypt. So how did you get in here?"

Spike was too busy gaping at the image of his sire with an infant to register Buffy's question. He couldn't decide what bothered him more: the revolting picture his formerly bad-ass mentor made with a googly-eyed brat in his arms, or the fact that said bad-ass mentor was obviously making himself at home in the Summers' residence again.

"Spike!" Buffy's voice was sharp, and flavored with the faintest hint of panic. "You've got about two seconds before you end up on the wrong end of a wooden spoon. Talk."

She almost bit her tongue as the last word left her mouth. Spike definitely knew how to talk, but what he said was invariably designed to cause maximum emotional damage. Giving him a chance to speak, let alone begging him to, was tantamount to opening a vein and giving him a straw.

"It was the niblet; she asked me to come," Spike said, forcing his attention away from Angel with the greatest of effort. "She, uh, knew old Spike would never do her no harm and..."

"Oh that's a laugh. Just because you can't kill people anymore does not make you harmless. If anyone knows that..." she faltered, suddenly wary of revealing too much. "Well, if anyone knows that, everyone knows that," she finished lamely.

"What I want to know is what he's doing here?" Spike jerked his head at Angel, who was now trying to soothe his crying child. "And what's up with the half-pint he's packing?"

"This is my son," Angel answered, with the faintest of growls in the back of his throat.

He sat down at the table, very deliberately picking up the bottle and putting it in Connor's mouth. Although more questions were born screaming in his head with each word out of the younger vampire's mouth, Angel was making a great effort not to let any of them show on his face.

"Fine, Dawn invited you," Buffy said, trying to regain control of the conversation. "Now get out so I can uninvite you. And the next time she invites you...well, you don't actually have to worry about that because you're out of next times."

But Angel's answer had robbed Buffy of her hold on Spike's attention. "Son?" he exclaimed, taking a few steps toward his sire. "What the bloody hell are you talking about, mate? All that smog in LA finally settle in your oversized head?"

"He's my son," Angel repeated, his eyes steadily fixed on Spike's as he shifted the child out of the younger vampire's reach. "And if you ever lay a hand, accidental or otherwise, on him, your immortality will be over before the sensation from your fingertips registers on your underdeveloped brain."

"Spike, just get out. You don't belong here."

Spike barely restrained a shudder when he glimpsed the cold promise in Angel's eyes, but the Slayer's expression offered scarcely any more in the way of warmth. In her though, he at least had a weapon.

"Seems to me I belonged here more recently than Pops." He jerked his head at Angel again, carefully avoiding his sire's gaze for all his jaunty tone. "And a lot more frequently, if certain gypsy curses are to be believed. Course, judging by the tadpole, he's been finding somewhere to store his sword at night." Spike dared a quick, impudent grin at the older vampire. "Don't suppose you'd be willing to share her number with an old pal?"

"I believe the lady asked you to leave, Spike." Angel kept his voice calm and even, knowing even the slightest sign of temper or unease would be an admission of weakness.

Spike pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and threw himself down in it, propping his boots up on the table. "Yeah, well, the lady has her moods, you know," he confided. "One minute it's 'Get out! Get out!' and the next it's 'Get..."

Buffy's fist connected with his jaw before he could complete the sentence, forcing him to swallow the thought, and almost his tongue, as he hurtled backwards against the wall.

"Get gone," Buffy said succinctly. She stood slightly at an angle to the prone vampire, weight evenly balanced and fists raised for a second assault, should it prove necessary.

"Buffy, no!" Dawn shouted as she ran in from the hall.

* * * * *

Buffy didn't even bother to look at her sister; she didn't dare take her eyes off of Spike for an instant.

"Dawnie, go back upstairs."

"No," the teenager insisted, running a few more steps into the room, until she was standing at Spike's side. "It's my fault he's here; I invited him. I said it would be okay just this once," she quickly glanced down at the vampire, "but he was supposed to come before you got home from work."

"Ran a little late, that's all," Spike grumbled from his spot on the floor. He cautiously sat up, though he made no move to get to his feet quite yet. Though he might not win in a show of strength against his sire, there could be pathos points to be awarded.

"Oh, sure, just happened to run late," Buffy scoffed. "Just happened to on the odd chance that I might just be home and we could sort of...bump into each other."

Spike leered up at her, sensing another golden opportunity, and judging himself to be relatively safe with Dawn at his side.

"Thought we might bump a few things, actually."

"Buffy, I'm sorry," Dawn said quickly, jumping in verbally before her sister had a chance to spring physically. "There's a humongous bug in the basement; I saw it there last night. And you know I hate bugs, and I know you hate bugs, and I thought since you have to kill all the really evil creepy-crawlies, maybe I could get Spike over here to kill a not-so-evil but really creepy creepy-crawly."

"The only creepy-crawly in this house is Spike," Buffy answered, restraining her temper with great effort, "and I can handle him myself."

"And what a set of hands she's got, too." Spike nodded pertly in Angel's direction, the younger vampire's eyes glittering with barely suppressed amusement. "Can make a fellow downright weak in the knees sometimes."

"Spike, maybe you'd better go." Dawn reached down and gave him a hand up, nodding her head at the back door. "Buffy can kill the bug, or Angel can kill it and..." But she had said one name too many; Dawn could see it in Spike's grim face.

"Oh, I'm not going anywhere while he's still here."

Angel stood up slowly, the restrained power in his figure in no way diminished by the small child he held in his arms.

"If you don't respect the fact that Buffy can kill you very easily...trust the fact that I won't."

Spike took an inadvertent step backwards, trying to escape the suppressed fury in his sire's eyes. The younger vampire quickly realized his mistake, however, and tried to make it look as though he was broadening his stance, preparing for battle.

"You'd be a mite more scary without the rugrat, chum." Spike sneered, desperately trying to save face. "As it is...well, what a perfect little prairie wife you'd make."

"I don't need you to fight my battles for me, Angel." Buffy spared an exasperated glance at one former lover before she advanced on another. "You have no business here, Spike. Not now, not ever. Leave before I have to hurt you."

"But baby, I like it when you hurt me," the blond vampire cooed, suddenly enjoying the dangerous thrill of laying down his cards in front of Angel. "Almost as much as you like it when I give it back to you." He took a step forward, running his hand down her arm. "And you do like it; I know you do."

She twisted her arm underneath his hand, swinging it upwards to catch his wrist and force it behind his back. With a sweet smile she shoved him towards the door, and into it, before pulling him back to open it.

"Well I know I enjoyed that." She shoved him out the door, standing in the center of the doorway for a parting shot. "But mostly, I like the part where we say 'good-night'."

She started to slam the door, but caught the knob before the door hit the sill and finished closing it gently. No sense in giving Spike the satisfaction of acknowledging he had drawn blood.

Angel was already sitting down again with Connor by the time she turned around. She watched in painful fascination as one of his long fingertips caressed the baby's cheek while the others held the bottle securely in Connor's mouth. It was a gesture inherently Angel-like, a fleeting moment of public, and spontaneous, tenderness.

"I'm, umm..." she cleared her throat, "I'm sorry about that. Spike, I mean. He, umm, got used to making himself at home and he forgets..."

"That he's not invited anymore," Angel asked quietly, not looking up from Connor.

She sighed in relief; maybe he had been too preoccupied with Connor to notice Spike's less than subtle hints.

"Yeah, that." She hurried back to her chair beside Angel and held out her arms. "Want me to finish feeding him?"

Angel regarded her steadily for a moment before shifting Connor's weight over to her arms.

"It's not so easy to get rid of a vampire once you let them in," he said quietly. "You should remember that."

"I will," she promised, flashing him a bright smile. "It's just..."

"It's even harder once you've invited them into your bed," he continued, forcing his voice to remain calm.

* * * * *

Part 2

He knew. Oh god, he knew.

Buffy's head snapped up at Angel's words, and her lips opened automatically to deny his suspicions. But when she looked into his face, she realized she couldn't lie to him, not about this. She had lied to herself, and to her friends, for months. But now, even when a lie seemed the kindest thing, she could not do it to Angel. Too many feelings had been strained and broken between them over the years; she would not sacrifice the final fragment of trust remaining in his eyes.

But oh, how angry it made her to have him so easily see the truth everyone else had been blind to.

"Actually we usually didn't make it to the bed," she snapped, letting that anger getting the best of her.

"Buffy, don't," Dawn whispered.

Neither Buffy nor Angel seemed to hear her; the emotions flowing between them ran too strong and deep to acknowledge any outside influences.

"Typical Spike," Angel choked out with a bitter laugh. "That boy could never even spell 'class' let alone practice it."

"Takes two to do the horizontal tango," she shot back. "Are you saying I don't have any class either?"

"I'm saying he took advantage of your vulnerability. You were confused and in pain, and he feeds off of that."

Angel held back his fury through sheer force of will, though every cell of his being was raging for action. He wanted to torture Spike, and stake Spike, and then torture his ashes.

"Do you think I don't know that?" she hissed, her face scarlet with remembered shame. "Do you think I'm so dumb I didn't realize he only stopped trying to get me killed when my mom got sick? Literally the same day he stopped; do you think I didn't get what that meant?"

"Then why?" he whispered.

"Maybe I liked it," she snarled. "Maybe I liked being appreciated for being weak for a change. Big Bad Buffy, always the strong one, savior of the universe...it starts to get old, you know? He didn't want me to be strong, except for physically; he didn't need me to be strong. Hell, he didn't even like it when I was strong. It was...a relief."

"Buffy, please let me take the baby."

But Dawn's request fell on deaf ears.

"Everybody has their moments of weakness. If anyone understands that, I do; I practically made a career out of it. But to live your life that way...to be almost proud of it...that's not you; you're better than that."

A part of him was already wishing he had never made love to her at all, ever, so that he would have no way of imagining the way she looked when she was in bed with Spike.

"But I didn't want to be me anymore; don't you get that? The 'me' you're talking about was tired of feeling alone and angry, and not being allowed to be either. I was tired of trying to be 'happy Buffy' by day so they wouldn't feel bad or worry about me, and then screaming into my pillow at night when no one else could hear."

Now Angel wanted to stake himself. He had left her alone to deal with all of this, knowing what Spike was, and knowing how badly confused she already was. How could he have been so careless?

"I've been where you were," he admitted with difficulty. "For the past year I've been there. I've worked so hard to win back my friends' trust, and make them feel secure that as least as long as my soul is safe I won't ever cross the line again. And that meant a lot of 'happy Angel' moments, until even I started to wonder what was real and what was fake." He shook his head at all the lost time that lay between them. "If you had only talked to me...I would have understood."

"You mean because I had such great luck the night of Mom's..." she caught her breath before she continued, "I admitted I needed you that night and you couldn't get out of town fast enough."

He had relived that night so many times in his mind, trying to find some way he could have changed things, changed himself, so that he could have stayed. Every time he replayed the memory, however, he came to the same inescapable conclusion: he had not been ready. Not then.

"It had to do with how much I needed you, not the other way around. You know that."

"It doesn't matter anyway," she said, and tried to believe it.

"Yes it does," he insisted. "You matter...too much to waste yourself on Spike. He couldn't help you deal with your pain, Buffy; his only interest is in creating more."

"Oh yes, poor little Buffy," she sneered. "If you thought I was in so much pain, where the hell were you? He was here at least."

Angel stared at her in sick amazement. "You didn't want me here. You made that very clear the last time I saw you."

"You mean the time that you didn't mention you'd already road-tested your soul with Darla?" Through the film of barely suppressed tears, she noticed Connor had stopped sucking on his bottle. She lifted the baby up to her shoulder, jerkily patting his back as she continued, "What, it's okay for you to sleep with vampires but it's not okay for me?"

"No, please," Dawn quietly begged. "Please don't do this." She began inching her way backwards towards the hallway, intent on escaping the anger in the room before it swallowed her too.

"Stop making it sound like a double standard," he snapped, the fragile hold on his temper beginning to weaken. "I am a vampire, so yes, I guess it is okay for me to sleep with them. Once." Angel held up his hand, pointing his index finger at the ceiling. "One night. From the sound of it, you were logging frequent flyer miles on Air Spike."

"So now we're counting? Do I have to remind you how long it would take me to catch up with even your pre-death track record?"

God, why was she doing this? She wanted to explain, she wanted to make things right but when she saw the hurt in his eyes, hurt she had caused, the old darkness roiled out from the corners of her battered soul. Pain was not only a weapon, but also a shield to hide behind.

"And can I remind you...vampire slayer? Where does it mention sleeping with the enemy in the Slayer Handbook?"

"Maybe I'm just field-testing." She shrugged, trying to pretend his words didn't scrape her nerves raw. "A couple of times with you; a couple of dozen times with Spike. Get to know the strengths and weaknesses."

Dawn was almost out the door, but something in Buffy's words stopped her in her tracks. Had her sister just said 'a couple of times' with Angel?

Angel stiffened in his chair. He knew her words were pouring out of her own inner turmoil, but that made his wounds no less deep. "Happy to be of service," he growled. "Anything for the cause."

"Hey, I'm just sorry the second time wasn't quite as much fun for you." She bit back a harsh gasp as she fought for the breath to continue. "Guess Darla and I have even more in common than I thought. Blonde hair, resurrection...and the amazing inability to show you a really good time."

Dawn was beginning to get a glimmer of the fight behind the fight, and it frightened her. She hadn't known...Buffy had never said anything...if Buffy had only said something.

"Buffy, wait," she said hesitantly. Maybe it still wasn't too late, if she could just get them to listen to her.

If.

* * * * *

She was still stuck on that night, that moment in time when the world's possibilities opened for him and left her on the other side of them. He was no closer to making Buffy see the truth than he had been the last time they saw each other, maybe even a few steps further behind.

"Why did I come back here?" Angel muttered, running his hand through the dark spikes of his hair.

She laughed harshly. "Funny, I tried to ask the same thing and you changed the subject so fast I almost missed the turn. So why are you here?"

Why was he here? Angel opened his mouth to answer, and suddenly realized he was no longer sure. He'd had a purpose when he started out, even if he had been reluctant to carry it out. Somehow, though, between the confessions and confrontations that followed his arrival, he'd lost track of how he came to be here.

But looking into Buffy's tear-bright hazel eyes, he wondered if maybe, just maybe, he'd found the real reason at last.

"You have to listen to me," Dawn implored. Her voice was growing louder with each imprecation, but she still seemed unable to get through the thick clouds of emotions separating her sister and Angel from the rest of the world.

"I came because I couldn't leave things the way they were," Angel said, realizing the inherent truth in his words even as they were being shaped. "I tried to move on with someone new; I tried to get past it...but I couldn't. I lied to myself, and I lied to...other people...but I couldn't give up on all that we meant to each other." He shook his head helplessly. "It took me too long to find you."

Buffy caught her breath; for a moment he sounded like her Angel, the one she remembered. Not Angel the detective, or Angel the father, or even Angel the friend, just...her Angel. Her Angel would understand her pain she had gone through, the isolation, the desolation, because he had also gone through it.

Gone through it and emerged on the other side, while she still struggled alone in the darkness. He might not want to believe it, but in some ways her Angel had moved on without her. Now it was up to her; did she want to catch up with him at last?

"Angel, I'm not..." she closed her eyes and prayed for strength, "I'm not the person I used to be. I'm so tired of all the anger and the hurt, and I'm trying to get past it, but it's so hard. For the longest time it was easier to give in to it, and I guess that's where Spike came in." She opened her eyes, and watched him intently, trying to communicate with her heart as well as her voice.

"When I saw you, and we...and nothing happened to you...I should have been glad." Her voice broke. "God, I wanted for so long to be able to touch you and have it be safe, but knowing that I couldn't really touch you...that I'd never be able to get that deep into your soul again...I just knew there was something broken in me."

"Buffy, I don't know how to explain it any better now than then, but I know what I felt." He leaned forward, catching her shoulders in his frantic grasp. "I was happy, truly happy, that night; I swear it." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I thought we both were."

She shook her head, a fine mist of tears floating off the planes of her cheeks. "No. I know there was something wrong with me. I thought it was physical at first, but later I knew it was something more." She slipped Connor down to sit on her lap and gripped Angel's wrist with one desperate hand. "All this...hate...this huge anger that's been building inside of me since Mom got sick...it made me into someone I couldn't even recognize. How could it not affect you too?"

"Buffy, it's not your fault!" Dawn shrieked. "You have to listen to me!"

* * * * *

They finally heard her, and turned as one to acknowledge her.

"Oh Dawnie," Buffy breathed, her eyes darkened with anguish. "Why are you still here? You shouldn't be here."

"I'm sorry; I really didn't mean to listen." The teenager impatiently brushed away the tears from the corners of her eyes as she advanced on her sister. "But maybe it's good I did, because you're wrong, Buffy, and if I'd known what you did...what you, umm, both did," she cast an embarrassed glance in Angel's direction, "I would have explained what I did, and why what didn't happen didn't happen."

Angel released his hold on Buffy's shoulders, and slipped his hands down to remove Connor from her lap. He shifted the whimpering baby to his own lap and settled back in his chair, trying to soothe his son as he talked.

"Dawn, you're not making any sense. I know you mean well, but this really doesn't...well, it doesn't concern you."

"He's right, Dawnie," her sister added sadly. "We made this mess ourselves; you had nothing to do with it."

Dawn knelt down in front of Buffy, taking her sister's icy hands in her own warm ones. "But I did," she insisted. "I was only trying to help...and I didn't even know it worked until I heard you mention the last time you saw each other."

Buffy flushed and looked away. "Okay, that part really didn't concern you."

"I cast a protection spell," Dawn said, gritting her teeth to hold back all the names she wanted to call herself for being so stupid. What had she done? How could she have let it get this far? She had to fix it; she just had to.

"When you left that day to see Angel...I knew you were, well, kind of...not in control yet...and I thought how upset Willow said Angel was when she told him you died...and then I thought how happy he must be now that you were alive again, and...well, 'happy' and 'Angel' kind of equal world- endage around here." Dawn smiled tentatively at her sister, hoping to coax at least a hint of the famous Buffy brand of wry humor to the surface. "Even I know that, and I was just a kid the last time."

Buffy licked her suddenly dry lips, never taking her eyes off of the younger girl's face. "What kind of spell? Where did you find it?" Another thought struck her, almost too much to bear. "Did...did anyone help you?"

Dawn quickly shook her head, knowing she meant Willow. "No one else knew. I mean, I talked to Tara about a protection spell for you, because you might get hurt if Angelus came back, but she said from everything Willow told her, you'd be the last person he'd hurt." She glanced at Angel, her brow wrinkled with concern at her unavoidable cruelty. "She said you'd kill the rest of us before you'd touch Buffy, because that would hurt her more."

Angel laughed harshly, his hold on Connor unintentionally tightening as he tried to ward off Angelus' memories; memories that were never far enough away even in the happiest of times.

"She knows me pretty well for someone I've barely met."

Dawn transferred her gaze back to Buffy. "I still thought you were in danger, but what Tara said...it made me realize that the real person who needed protection from Angelus was Angel. I mean the demon takes him over and kicks his soul out; that sounds pretty much like hurting him to me. So I cast a protection spell on Angel's soul, to keep it safe from the demon." She clutched Buffy's hands tighter, trying to communicate her anxiety. "But I didn't know you guys...did anything. I mean you never said, not one word, so I didn't know if the spell worked. That's why I never told you."

"I don't understand," Buffy whispered, looking desperately to Angel for a way to make the world make sense again. "I can see Willow channeling that kind of power...but Dawn? She just..."

"Just a kid," Dawn finished scornfully, dropping her sister's hands. "I'm fifteen, Buffy; I'll be sixteen in a few months. How old was Willow when she restored Angel's soul?"

"She's the Key," Angel added softly. "As much as there is mystical energy flowing through you, there's probably even more flowing through Dawn, human or not."

It was Dawn all the time, not him; he wasn't forgiven. Yet Buffy was alive, and the same connection still bound them as one after all this time apart. And then there was Connor. Angel could live very happily without forgiveness in the face of so much mercy.

"But a protection spell?" Buffy's voice drew Angel back from his reverie. "That was the answer all along? I don't just mean for that night...but the whole time?"

He shook his head regretfully; he could see where Buffy's thoughts were turning but that path only led to more lost time. "We don't know that; we can't. It might have taken Dawn's power to give the spell enough strength, and we both know she wasn't really always with you."

"No, it can't be that simple." Buffy pushed her chair back with a scrape and got to her feet, suddenly too restless to sit still another moment. "It wasn't just the protection spell, though maybe...no, there was...there is...something off about me." She paced around the kitchen table in a tireless circle, trying to find a straight line to the future. "I've known it since I got back, and all the spells in the world don't explain why Spike could hit me."

Angel straightened in his chair, his instincts once more calling for battle. "Spike can do what? I thought he had some sort of Pavlovian chip in his head to prevent violence against humans."

"He does," Buffy answered sharply. "I just don't seem to qualify anymore. Tara tried to feed me some biological nonsense, but I know it's not that; it's something deeper." She stopped pacing and held up her hands to keep any well-meaning protests at bay. "I'm not using that as an excuse anymore, but it doesn't change what I feel inside. I don't feel...me...anymore. I feel closer now than I used to, but something's never...reset...since I died."

Angel looked at her strangely; did she really still know so little about the true nature of her destiny?

"Buffy, I don't know if it has anything to do with Spike, but that part of you...it's never going to reset." Angel shifted Connor on his lap, freeing one hand to reach over and gently touch Buffy's knee. "Didn't Giles ever explain to you about Slayers and magick, especially deep magick?"

It was Buffy's turn to be confused. "No, when Giles talks about magick, especially these days, the preferred words are 'no,' 'don't' and 'stop'. And not in that order."

"You were born with a certain amount of magick, Buffy; all slayers are. It protects them until they are called, healing wounds, preventing illnesses, that sort of thing. Later, when the slayer is called, it brings the prophetic dreams." He smiled sadly at her. "I know you've had those."

She shivered and rubbed her hands on her bare arms; she remembered all too well when those visions concerned Angel.

"The older a slayer gets," Angel continued softly, "the stronger the magick in her becomes. And if a slayer died...and deep magick was used to bring her back..." he shook his head, "I can only imagine how much power would settle in her."

"But it's not like I can bend spoons with my mind or anything," she protested. "If anything I feel weaker physically since I came back. I've been training and training, but it all seems so much harder now."

"It's probably the magick in your soul fighting against the power in your physical being. Each side wants to be dominant, and you're caught in the middle." A quick flash of his old trademark half-smile flitted across his face. "Been there, done that."

"So what you're telling me is that I was right all along; I'm not really human anymore." She dropped into a chair, suddenly deflated. After all this time, being proven right would take some adjusting.

"No, that's not what I meant at all," Angel protested. "You're not less than human, Buffy; you're..." he shrugged, "more, I guess. Human plus a little something extra that makes you the sum total of Buffy Summers, version 6.0."

Dawn beamed at him. "Hey, you make computer jokes now. Not good ones, but still...hey."

Angel didn't even seem to hear the younger Summers; he only knew Buffy's pain, the pain he couldn't seem to assuage.

"It had nothing to do with how I felt about you that night," he said softly, "and it had nothing to do with what did or did not happen with my soul. I was happy, dammit; happier than I remember being since..." his voice trailed off as he remembered the last time he'd truly been happy, on a day only he would ever know. "Since the night of your birthday," he finished softly, hoping someday she would forgive him his lie.

Hoping there was a 'someday' for them at all.

"I can't...I can't do this right now," she said abruptly, knocking over the chair she been sitting on in her haste to get to her feet. "If you came back to show me your shiny new life, then...done." She began moving sideways towards the kitchen door, keeping her eyes focused on the tile to avoid Angel's knowing gaze. "And if you came back to convince me that I can still give good happy...thanks for the update. But I can't...I just can't."

Angel got to his feet in alarm. "Buffy," he began.

But he began too late to keep her from opening the door and fleeing into the dark night.

* * * * *

Buffy moved quickly but aimlessly along the dark streets of Sunnydale, hoping against hope Spike had already made it back to the safety of his crypt. She was in the mood to hurt someone tonight, someone other than herself or Angel, for a change, and Spike would be a satisfying choice. But after all she had been through with, and because of, Spike, when she finally dusted him she wanted it to be more than a matter of blowing off steam.

She could hear Angel calling her name as he followed her, and she fleetingly wondered if he had the baby with him, or if he actually entrusted Connor to Dawn for the time it would take to track her down. Her little sister had zero experience in dealing with small children, but whether or not she'd told Angel that was anybody's guess.

Buffy broke into a run when she heard Angel's footsteps closing in on her, his longer legs giving him what she considered to be an unfair advantage. She'd had all the gut-wrenching scenes she could handle tonight, and most of her wanted to find a nice quiet cemetery to hide in while she worked out her issues through mass demon-slayage.

A traitorous part of her knew, though, that Angel would know unerringly where to find her, and he wouldn't see work as a barrier to talking things out. They'd had some very intense discussions in the past in the middle of patrol; their emotional ties seemed to add to their fighting skills, not distract attention from the job at hand. If it hadn't been so useful in a survival sense, it would have actually been rather irritating.

A sign caught her eye as she sped past, and she made an abrupt turn to head back towards it. St. Mary's Cemetery, the sign had said; she knew it was a new cemetery and thus not one of 'their' places. It was also bound to contain at least one or two of the freshly undead, whom she could pummel unmercifully until she saw fit to disperse their soulless corpses into the cool night air.

Or at the very least, she could find a quiet place to cry.

* * * * *

"Buffy!" Angel shouted, just before he saw her veer off to the right. "We still need to..."

It was no use; she wasn't going to stop until she was ready, and that probably wouldn't be until she'd vented her frustrations on a few hapless vampires.

Angel's steps slowed as he followed her path through the gates of an unfamiliar cemetery. No sense in rushing now; he'd know where to find her by the sounds of battle, and with the mood she was in right now he'd do better to stand on the sidelines until she'd remembered exactly who the enemy really was.

His cell phone bumped against his hip, reminding him of the other fixed point in his universe. He hadn't liked to leave Connor with Dawn, but Buffy had left him little choice. His son was fed and warm, and Dawn was only too eager for the chance to take care of him. She also had his cell phone number, the pediatrician's number and the number of the nearest hospital; he made sure of that even in his haste to leave.

At that, he still had almost brought the baby with him, but the night air was too chilly and Connor wasn't quite old enough for his first patrol. Angel was fairly sure he'd never feel Connor was old enough for that first patrol, but that was something he had a number of years to work on.

Years he was realizing he'd almost spent with the wrong person.

He couldn't believe how close he had come to blowing everything, with Buffy and with Cordelia. Cordy was his closest friend, his personal cheerleader and many times his confidant; for all that he loved her dearly. But the past few hours had reminded him of all the feelings he had tried so hard to leave behind him in Sunnydale; all the pain, and the heartache...and the peace and the joy and the hope.

He'd found a measure of peace and happiness in LA, but they were bought with conscious effort and a deep struggle he didn't dare share with his friends. Angel had shaped his habits into more human patterns, forcing himself to dredge up long-repressed memories of the man he used to be to use as an example. He could never be Liam again, but his human self had been liked, if not respected, and he had seldom been alone.

But finding the positive aspects of his human existence wasn't enough to build a life on; being human had not automatically made him a good person, and the fragments he could extract were meaningless without all he had learned since those days. He had almost made a costly mistake, and Cordelia a great disservice, by pretending this was not so. Tonight had removed the blinders from his eyes.

Now if he could just find Buffy and explain, or rather finish explaining, maybe he could finally put all the pieces together the way they had always meant to be arranged.

It was about time past, present and future started working together...just as soon as he found Buffy.

* * * * *

She had ducked off to the side as soon as she came through the gates, hoping to find a tree or a tall monument to block Angel's view of her progression through the cemetery. She didn't want to talk to him right now; she just wanted to stake a few vamps and be on her way. Very quickly on her way, before he could catch up with her. Honestly, how many times did a girl have to run away before a guy got the message?

Running away, she was running away. Again. Buffy's steps slowed and then stopped. Lately her subconscious has been sending her some very unpleasant self-truths, and she had a feeling tonight's were going to be no easier to bear. But since the day she had forced herself to be honest about Spike, the volume control on her little voice seemed to malfunction with the most depressing frequency.

Buffy had always prided herself on not backing down from a fight, yet since the moment she'd been faced with the reality of her mother's mortality, she'd been in almost constant flight. She'd tried to lose herself in her slaying, tried to withdraw into her own childhood, she'd even thrown herself off of a tower to stay one step ahead of her own inadequacies.

Nothing helped.

As the Slayer, Buffy had saved her mother from vampires, from killer robots, and from reliving her adolescence courtesy of drugged candy. But the truth was, she'd only saved Joyce so that her own brain could betray her. Buffy had never really saved anyone; she couldn't. They were all going to die and leave her some day, while she kept being brought back over and over again to face their loss. Even the one who couldn't die had left her.

But now he was back, searching for her, and she was still trying to stay just a little bit out of reach so he couldn't break her heart one more time. Except in doing so she was breaking his heart, and that was the one thing in her life she knew she was meant to protect forever.

Buffy turned slowly, almost unwillingly, and made her way back to the gates, where she knew he would be waiting for her.

* * * * *

Angel felt her approach long before he saw the small figure moving towards him across the damp, moonlit grass.

"Buffy," he called out softly, as though he couldn't already feel her with every cell of his body.

"What gave me away?"

He shrugged, trying to project a calm he didn't feel. "Not too many girls with heartbeats hang out in cemeteries at night, at least not if they want to keep that heart beating."

"Guess I'm just quirky." Her light tone fell away as she came to stand next to him. Looking up at his troubled face, haloed by the moonlight, she let the love in her heart color her voice. "And I guess I'm tired of running; I think it's time we both stood still long enough to really talk."

He nodded somberly. "It's been a long time."

"Do you need..." she stopped herself, pushing selfish desires aside in favor of her better instincts. Connor was a baby; he needed, and possessed, the first call on his father's attention. "Do you want to go back to the house first so you can check on Connor?"

He did, but he knew it had more to do with his need for Connor than Connor's for him.

"He'll be fine with Dawn for a little while," he said resolutely. He mentally scolded himself for being an overprotective father, even as he surreptitiously brushed his hand across the cell phone in his pocket. Good, he could still feel the faint vibration that meant it was turned on. "She said Willow should be home soon anyway. But thanks for asking."

The smile still flashed as quickly across his face as in the old days, but even in this half-light there was a visible lightness to it that she had never seen been before tonight. Buffy wasn't sure if it had to do more with her offer, or the mention of his son's name, and she suddenly didn't care. Tortured past be damned; he was here, she was here, and the future was still up for the reinventing.

There was a marble bench with a wrought iron back just inside the gates; Angel gestured to it, and waited in true gentlemanly fashion for Buffy to be seated before he took his place beside her.

"I'm sorry," she began, and then laughed self-consciously. "There's that phrase again. But I really am sorry. For running off, I mean. I was," she looked back at the dimly lit graveyard for a moment before she faced him again, "I was a little overwhelmed, but that's no excuse."

He reached out to cover her chilled hands with his own still colder ones. Somehow the contact warmed them both.

"You had a right to be overwhelmed; I show up on your doorstep unannounced...with a baby you knew nothing about...and then Spike comes in and shoots his little poison darts...the only thing missing was a demon trying to take over the world."

"It wasn't you, Angel. Or Connor. Or even Spike, really." She paused for a moment to consider. "Okay, part of it was Spike; specifically you knowing about Spike. About Spike and me."

She had to fight to keep her gaze focused on his face. No more running away, no more hiding in the shadows.

"I won't lie; it was a...a nasty shock," he admitted. "I still haven't quite processed it yet, but...I'm not going to judge you Buffy, if that's what you think. I'm the last person fit to do that. And I'm sorry if my temper got the best of me for a little while; I know I said some things I shouldn't have..."

"Angel, no," she immediately protested.

"Yes," he said firmly. "I may have spent less horizontal time with Darla, but I let her rule my life as much as you let Spike take over yours...and for pretty much the same reasons, I think. We were both tired of being scared, and lonely, and helpless, but it seemed easier to find someone to turn those feelings up a notch than it did to fix things."

She nodded, no longer afraid to succumb to the lure of his brown eyes. "There isn't a way to fix what needs fixing; it just has to be lived with. And I thought I got out of all that...until Willow brought me back."

"I can't quite find it in me to be totally sorry about that one, Buffy." He smiled and squeezed her hand. "I don't want to find that way to live with it alone anymore."

For a moment he thought he had moved too fast, presumed too much, but the soft smile that blossomed on her face gave him hope.

"Bet you say that to all the girls," she teased. She was still a little too shaky to echo his faith in their future, but she thought a little humor would buy her some time. At least she thought that until she saw the smile fall from his face, and felt his hands gently release her own.

"Buffy," he said, awkwardly shifting in his seat, "maybe I'm rushing things a little. There are still some more things we need to talk about when it comes to the past, before we can start thinking about the future."

"Well, yeah, sure," she uneasily agreed. Three years without Angel and she could still ready his body language so well it hurt. She suddenly remembered his earlier comment about trying to move on, specifically that he'd tried moving on 'with someone new'.

There had been someone else, someone not Darla.

* * * * *

"You know that I love you," he began. "Nothing has ever changed that."

"Angel, this is starting to sound like the beginning of a sentence I'm really not up for this evening." Buffy started to stand up. "Maybe we should..." She suddenly realized she was poised for flight yet again. "Maybe we should sit down while you finish your sentence," she said unhappily, taking her place beside him once more.

"After Darla left...no, I guess this really goes back to when she came to LA. I really wanted to help her; maybe I thought it would complete some weird cycle if I could help save the soul of the one who stole mine. I'm not really sure." He shook his head, trying to clear away the host of memories assaulting his inner eye. "Anyway, I was convinced that I was the only one who could save her, and I was convinced she wanted to be saved. Turns out I was wrong on both counts."

"So Darla with soul..."

"Was not substantially different from the soulless variety," he agreed with a bitter smile. "She...I was going to say she alienated me from my friends, but the truth was I did it to myself."

Buffy nodded unhappily. "Been there."

"I pushed away everyone and everything I could, thinking I was trying to keep her from getting to me. Instead, I gave up every anchor to this world I had."

She squeezed his hand. "Not all of them."

Angel stared at the small, strong hand gripping his so fiercely. Would she still stand by him so staunchly when she knew it all, he wondered.

"I almost lost everything," he continued steadily, clinging to his chosen anchor with all his might. "But when I slept with her, I guess I hit the rock-bottom addicts talk about." He suddenly lifted his head, adding anxiously, "Don't...don't ever tell Connor I said that. Please."

"I won't." She sketched an 'X' across her breast with her free hand. "Cross my heart and hope to not to be resurrected." She smiled ruefully as her hand fell once more to her lap. "No good to make promises on dying; I never seem to stay that way for long."

Angel didn't seem to hear her; he was sinking fast into the quagmire of past mistakes and bitter memories.

"I wasn't sure they would take me back after all that I said and did. I wouldn't have blamed them if they didn't." His broad shoulders rose and then fell under his thin silk shirt as a ghost of a smile drifted across his face. "But they let me back into their lives, and slowly they began to forgive me. It wasn't easy, but I appreciated the chance and I wasn't going to blow it."

She hesitantly raised her hand to brush her fingertips down the plane of his cool cheek. One thing, at least, had not changed; he still seemed to have no idea how beautiful he was, inside and out.

"I think they were the lucky ones to get another chance," she murmured.

He closed his eyes and took an instant to savor the feel of her soft hand against his skin. No matter how much time and distance separated them, the slightest touch from Buffy seemed to make his dead heart do somersaults in his chest.

"I wanted to make things easier for them; I wanted to reassure them that I would never lose control like that again. I guess I wanted to reassure myself too. So I worked hard at being just a regular guy."

She shook her head, a small chuckle escaping as her fingers continued down the line of his throat. "You could never be a regular guy."

"You'd be surprised." He swiftly reached up and caught her hand as it touched the collar of his shirt. Pressing a tender kiss to her fingertips, he reluctantly continued, "After Connor came it became even more important to play the human game. I can never give him a completely normal childhood, but I knew there were a lot of things I could give him, and me, if I was willing to."

She was abruptly reminded of where this conversation began. "You mean things like...a mother?"

He nodded, gritting his teeth when he saw the pain flash through her eyes. "I wanted that for him. As for me...I wanted to stop hurting. I wanted to stop falling asleep wondering where you were and what you were doing. I wanted to stop waking up looking for you on the other side of the bed because that's were I always felt like you belonged." Angel paused to draw in a rasping breath. "I wanted to stop wondering every time the phone rang if it was you needing me, and most of all I wanted to stop needing you, because I was sure you were really gone from my life this time."

She fought to control her voice as she promised, "Never gonna happen."

"For a while, I didn't believe that. The only thing I was sure of was that there was a woman already in my life who accepts what I am and what I've done...who loves my son and, in her way, loves me too."

Buffy forced air through her suddenly frozen body. Everything he'd said tonight...the way he touched her hand...the way he smiled at her...it couldn't have all been about good-bye.

"Who?" she whispered.

He doggedly avoided the question; there was still more to the confession than just a name.

"I convinced myself that I loved her...more than that, that I was in love with her. And earlier tonight I worked up the nerve to tell her." A part of him wanted to laugh at his foolishness, but then the moonlight sparkled off of the tears on his beloved's lashes and he felt more like cutting out his tongue. "It was probably the luckiest mistake I ever made because she didn't believe a word of it."

"She who?" Buffy insisted.

He gritted his teeth and prepared for the meltdown.

"Cordelia."

* * * * *

Go to Part 3