"Do you want to come by for a while?" Angel said.
Buffy looked sideways at him. They'd just finished their night of patrolling; morning was coming on, and she knew he had to be as ready for sleep as she was. They'd gotten well into the teens on their demon slayage, and they'd talked shop about good and bad neighborhoods, vamp tactics and so on.
In other words, their business for the night was definitely at an end. There was absolutely no reason for him to ask her to his rooms, and there was no reason for her to accept.
"Sure," she said. "I'd love to."
They got off the lift on his floor -- a few levels lower than her own -- and went down the hallway. "Who are your neighbors?" she whispered.
"I don't really have neighbors," Angel said. "There are people who live near me."
"Gotcha," Buffy said, a little more loudly. "So it's okay for me to start singing at the top of my lungs, then."
That got her a smile. "They'd never suspect it had anything to do with me. That much I can promise."
"Oooh, I could yodel," she said as his door slid open.
"Wait until we're patrolling. Should scare the demons," Angel said. He did something that seemed very complicated with the oil lamp, which flickered into soft light. "Would you like some wine?"
"Sounds great," she said. "I'm, what, 370 years old now? That's legal in any jurisdiction."
Angel chuckled as he went into the kitchen, and Buffy made herself comfortable on Angel's cozy sofa. For a moment she enjoyed the wavering light in the room; it was soft and forgiving, and it made everything look golden and welcoming.
As Angel came back in, carrying their goblets of wine, he paused for a moment. His eyes were dark in the dim light, and he seemed to be studying her face, her mouth. Then he deftly handed her one goblet, put the other on a table and began lighting another couple of lamps.
Buffy felt suddenly awkward, and she cast around for any possible topic of conversation. Her eyes fell on the large, carved box in the corner. "Hey, is that new?"
Angel half-turned, then stared at the box. "I don't believe it."
"Angel, what is it?"
"They brought it back," Angel said, kneeling on the floor by the box. "I keep some of my most precious things in this box. "This -- this is what was stolen from me a couple months ago --"
He opened the lid slowly, carefully. Then he breathed out a sigh of relief. "And everything's inside. At least, it looks like everything --"
Buffy sat down on the floor beside him. "What all have you got in here?"
"Lots of things." Angel frowned and lifted a carved-stone bottle from the box. "Including at least one thing that isn't mine." He uncorked the bottle and looked inside, then was quiet for a moment.
"Angel? What is that?"
"Something that belongs to whomever took this box from me in the first place," he said. He recorked it and handed it to Buffy. "Keep this. Hide it."
"Why? Don't you want to, I don't know, fingerprint it or something?" Buffy looked at the bottle curiously.
"I doubt that would do any good. But whoever put that in there will come looking for it, eventually. The longer they have to look, the better chance I'll have of finding them."
"Good point," Buffy said. "Why would anyone take your personal things? You said yourself, valuables aren't as valuable anymore --"
"Depends on what they are, what you want them for," Angel said. His voice was grim. "And I think I know what they wanted."
He held up a sweater, too small to be his own. Perhaps it had once been white, but now the front was thready and yellow with age; the back was stained dark -- with blood, Buffy realized.
Then her heart dropped as she remembered -- that was her sweater. The sweater she was wearing in the battle against Glory, the one she wore as she jumped to her death. And that was her own blood.
Buffy felt a little weak, and she took a deep, steadying breath. "Oh, my God."
"They would've needed a part of you for the spell," Angel said quietly.
"So that's the blood that was so important," Buffy whispered. "How -- how did you get this?"
"I asked for it," Angel said. He looked at her carefully. "I know that must seem strange. I think it seemed strange to them, too --"
"Lots of other keepsakes," Buffy said. She was still reeling from the sight of that sweater, from the vivid recollection of her own death. "Why this? I -- I'm not -- I just want to understand, Angel."
He was silent for a while, then spoke slowly, haltingly. "Vampires can -- we can tell a lot, from blood. The scent of it communicates -- individuality. Emotion. When I had this, I could know what you were feeling, those last few moments. It -- it made me feel like I was with you then --" Angel hung his head. "This is when you tell me that this is just too strange."
"It's not," she said softly. "I mean, I have a high threshold of strange, but -- no, Angel, it's not."
Angel lifted his head to look at her for a long moment, then folded the fragile garment and placed it back inside the box. Then he began sifting through the box's contents. "Now, here's one thing I know you'll want to see." After fishing around for a bit, he held up a book.
"The Keeper of the Key, by Dawn Summers!" Buffy grabbed the book and gripped it tightly. Her uneasiness was fading; in its place was a sense of discovery, of joy. "Oh, Angel, this is -- I don't have words for what this is."
"Take it," Angel said. "You should have it."
Buffy didn't argue; she blinked away a couple of happy tears as she ran her hands over the cover. "Wish this still had the dust jacket," she said. "Would've been nice to see what Dawn looked like --"
"I don't have any photos of Dawn," he said apologetically. "I do have these --" After a couple more moments, he pulled out a couple of framed images. Buffy reluctantly set the book down next to her and accepted them.
One of the pictures -- they were both faded, now, brownish with time but still clear -- showed Wesley, perhaps the same age he had been in the sketch on Angel's wall. He was still rail-thin, but he had gray hair at his temples and his glasses looked a little thicker. A pretty, plump, fair-haired woman was standing next to him; two little girls, who appeared to have gotten the best of both parents' genes, were beaming in front.
The other photo showed a large family gathering -- a wizened grandmother, middle-aged parents and almost a dozen children, all laughing at once, maybe at the photographer's joke. Buffy squinted at the photo for a minute, then realized with a start that the grandmother was Cordelia. Wrinkles and gray hair aside, there was no mistaking that smile.
Buffy looked up and saw Angel staring down at the photos soon, that same nostalgic softness in his eyes. "They look happy," she said, surprised at the tremor in her voice. She didn't know if it was the expression on his face that was so moving, or whether she was just so homesick that even Wes and Cordy could get to her.
"They were, I think," Angel said. "That's how I remember them, anyway." He was quiet for a moment, then cleared his throat and said, "I forget -- did you know Charles? Charles Gunn?" He held out another photo, this one of a slender black man with gray in his beard and a teenage boy who looked just like him. When she looked at the photo blankly, Angel regretfully said, "I guess not."
"He was your friend?" Buffy asked. When he nodded, she said, "So tell me about him."
Angel looked surprised, but he smiled, sat down, leaned his back against the wall. "Where to start --"
"How did you meet? Do you remember?"
"Couldn't forget that," Angel said. "He tried to stake me. Got pretty close, too."
"Doesn't sound like that went well."
"It's actually how I met a lot of people." Angel looked at her with no small measure of amusement. Buffy blushed, recalling a long-ago alleyway and a handsome stranger who insisted he didn't bite.
"So, how did you and Gunn get past this whole staking thing?"
Angel began talking -- about Gunn, about a cop named Kate, about an Irishman named Doyle. He kept going through his box, pulling out various pictures or letters or keepsakes to illustrate his stories -- tales of alien dimensions and world wars and magic spells gone awry.
As Angel spoke, Buffy realized that she'd never heard him talk this much before. She'd never realized that, given the chance, Angel was a good storyteller. Or perhaps he had simply become one in the past few centuries. She could see the places he described, imagine the Keep rising up out of the rubble of post-plague London, envision the technological wonders of the not-so-distant past.
And the people he described -- the friends he described -- he made them seem real. Gunn's courage, Lorne's humor, Shireen Ishak's maternal warmth were all so vivid to her that Buffy felt almost as if she had truly met them, and wished she had. He talked about them with insight. Compassion. Humor. Slowly she realized, no matter how dark and forbidding things were right now -- "Angel?"
"Yeah?" he said, putting down a small hologram of a happy 22nd-century family.
"Most of these years -- these were good years," Buffy said. "You were happy."
"As happy as I could be," Angel said. "And sometimes, I even knew it."
"I'm glad. I'm glad you found these people. I'm glad they found you."
"I'm glad I got to tell you about them," Angel said. "I hadn't looked at these things in a long time. I -- I think I didn't want to let myself remember how much I missed them. But it's better, remembering." He smiled down at one of the photos.
Buffy looked at the picture and saw a girl with long, dark hair and glasses. Pretty. Fred, he'd called her. And his voice when he said that name -- "This girl -- did you -- were you -- in love with her?"
"I don't know," Angel said. Buffy was surprised how hard her gut twisted at something that slight. "She was intelligent, understanding, funny. In other circumstances, maybe -- I don't know."
"What were the circumstances?" Buffy said. She could hear the coolness in her voice, hated it, wished she could banish it away. 350 years, she reminded herself fiercely. 350 years, and you were dead and gone. Try to understand.
"This curse, for one," Angel said. "And I met her -- I met her only a short time before you died. And then I was in mourning. I couldn't even think of anyone else in a -- romantic sense -- for a long time. A very long time."
After a pause, Buffy said, "But you did. Eventually."
"Yes," Angel said simply.
He didn't seem guilty about it -- but then, Buffy thought, he shouldn't have to be guilty. But again -- "I'm trying to be glad about that. I mean, I had Riley, and 350 years is a long time to be alone. I -- I wouldn't want that for you -- " She sighed and let her face fall into the scowl she'd been fighting. "Can I just tell ya that I kinda want to kill somebody?"
Angel looked as acutely uncomfortable as only he could look. "Buffy -- don't feel like that. I mean, there were people I cared about very deeply. There were -- sometimes there were people who shared my bed." And oh, that burned, that burned like acid, like fire. Buffy bit her lip as Angel continued, "But there hasn't been anyone like you. Anyone who could compare to you."
"Even when you made love to them?" Buffy said, hating herself for the words.
Angel said, "I've had sex over the years. But I haven't made love since that night in L.A."
Another cut, another slice out of her heart. Buffy raised her eyebrows, determined to see this through. "And who was the lucky girl?"
Angel hesitated and looked at her questioningly. "Buffy -- that night in L.A. Our night. When I was human."
"You were human?" Buffy sat up straight. "How did you turn human? Why did you turn back?"
"You -- you don't remember?" Angel said. He looked bewildered -- no, worse than that, bereft. "Buffy, you came to Los Angeles to see me, and -- I became human. Just for a day. And we were together --"
"Angel, that never happened," Buffy protested. She knew she was telling the truth, but he looked so sure of his words, so confused at her reaction, that she half-doubted herself. "I mean -- I wish it had, but --"
"It did. I know it did," Angel protested. He leaned forward, searching her expression. "I've treasured those memories for centuries, Buffy. I was able to see you in the sunlight. To let you hear my heart beat. To make love to you."
"We made love again?" she said, in a small voice. "And you weren't -- you didn't --"
"No. It was -- Buffy, we were -- God, how can you not remember this?" Angel slumped back against the wall. "Not even -- you don't remember the kitchen table?"
"You and me -- we were on a -- oh." Buffy felt her cheeks flush as she imagined it. But that was all she was doing -- imagining. "Angel, I would SO remember that."
"But you don't?"
"I'm sorry," she said. "But -- think about it. Why would you just be human for a day?"
"I asked to be changed back --"
"Why would you do such a thing?"
"-- because you were in danger." Angel frowned. "There was something about a prophecy -- this part is fuzzy -- but there was something about my needing to fend off some danger, so that you could live."
"You gave that up for me," Buffy said softly. Then she shook her head. "I mean, you thought you did. Angel, that can't have been true. I mean, if the prophecy had been true, I wouldn't have died like that, would I?"
"I guess not," Angel said. "I -- maybe some spell made me think that -- or maybe I dreamed it, or --" His voice broke, and he took a deep, unnecessary breath. "Not real?"
"Not real," Buffy confirmed. Then she paused. "Wait --"
Angel's face lit up with hope. Buffy held her hand to her face. "The false memories -- the ones about my life with Dawn. I told you about that, remember?" When he nodded, she continued, "Do you think -- maybe -- when they changed our memories, they made that one up for you?"
"Maybe," Angel said. "That would explain it, perhaps. You -- you really don't remember it? Not at all?"
He looked so lost that Buffy almost wanted to lie, to say she did remember this perfect, beautiful day. But it seemed so -- sacred -- to him that it would be wrong to lie.
"No," she said. "I wish I did. You don't know how much I wish." She felt vaguely that she had said too much, but the overwhelming sense of confusion and loss drowned out anything as trivial as embarrassment.
After a few moments, he simply said, "I wish too."
Damn monks, Buffy thought. Damn damn damn damn. So you had to make up your memories, but you didn't have to manipulate him like this. Or you could at least have let me remember it too. "I wish you'd had something real to remember me by."
"I did," Angel said. His voice was steadier now. "Come see."
From the very bottom of the box, he pulled out a packet. Papers, old and yellowing and fragile, were tied together with ribbon as frayed and fragile as the one she'd seen in the library the day before. Buffy took them in her hands, untied the ribbon, lifted the first letter.
Her letter. In her handwriting. On this ancient paper --
Buffy felt it hit her all over again, the weight of all the years she hadn't seen. This was an antique. This was something centuries old. And this was hers.
She looked down at the note, made out the words, faint against the aged paper:
"I know you're nervous about my birthday present, but don't be, because whatever you get me I will love. Don't you have a birthday, Angel? Because we could have a party for you, too -- whoops! I'm not supposed to know I have a party! Don't tell, OK?"
"Oh, God," she laughed weakly. "I was such a kid."
"Sometimes," Angel said. "But there was always more to you than that."
Buffy kept flipping through the notes -- he seemed to have every one she remembered writing, from that last letter of gratitude she'd sent, after he comforted her following her mom's funeral, to the very first, a scrawled, tearful missive that was all about the way he'd saved her from Darla and everything, and how she would never forget him, even if he was a vampire.
She realized that the ribbon was looped through her old claddagh ring; she slid it off, held it in the palm of her hand. For a moment, she wanted to slide it back on her finger, an impulse that surprised her. Instead she smiled gently at Angel and gave it back to him. He accepted it wordlessly. He, too, was staring down at the letters, caught up in memory.
Finally she reached the bottom of the packet; there was her photo, the only one he apparently had. It was one of her senior portraits -- baby fat still in her cheeks -- and it was in black-and-white. "Well, this explains it."
"Explains what?" His voice was low.
"How you could get the color of my eyes wrong." She looked at him sideways. "Just out of curiosity, what color did you think they were? And what about Spike?"
"He thought your eyes were blue, like his," Angel said. "I thought they were dark, like mine."
Buffy laughed softly. "Men."
"Yes," Angel said. "We both forgot. Your eyes are your own."
He looked at her intently then, as if trying to commit her to memory beyond any forgetting. She felt shy under his gaze for a moment -- then not shy at all. The letters, the ring, his face so near to her own --
When Buffy and Dawn were little, their mother would read to them -- "The Trumpet of the Swan," "Bambi," "Harriet the Spy." And Buffy's favorite of them all had been "A Wrinkle In Time." She remembered how she had been enchanted by the way Meg and Charles and Calvin could travel through time and space -- they used something called a tesseract. The way they described it in the book, two points in time and space could be far apart, like at opposite ends of a sheet of paper. Going between the two could take forever -- but in a tesseract, you just folded up the paper, and the two points would touch. Time and space were gone, folded up in an instant.
Right this moment, Buffy decided, she knew just what a tesseract would feel like. She felt as though all those years -- two years for her, 350 for Angel -- had just been folded up into nothing. When she untied those letters, she had somehow loosed the memories within them, set them free to flow back into her heart all over again.
And, maybe, into Angel's too -- the way he was still looking at her --
He dropped his eyes, leaned back. "It's almost sunrise," he said slowly. "You should probably get some sleep."
Buffy breathed out, trying to push some of the tension and disappointment out of her chest. "Yeah," she said, getting awkwardly to her feet. "Naptime sounds good right about now. So, um, see you tomorrow?"
"Right," Angel said, sounding distant and strange to her ears. "Tomorrow."
Buffy felt as though she should say something else -- but what? She turned and went quickly to the door, but just as it slid open, she heard Angel's voice. "Buffy?"
She stopped, but didn't turn around. "Yeah?"
"Wait --"
Buffy's heart was pounding, but she slowly turned around. Angel was standing right behind her -- holding out Dawn's book and the bottle. "Don't forget these."
"Oh," Buffy said. "Of course not."
**
"Isn't there some sort of vampire aphrodisiac?" Xiaoting said, spearing her salad with gusto.
"Aphrodisiacs are not what we need," Buffy said. "The one time me and Angel had sex, we broke his curse and set free Angelus, an individual you do not want meet. So no on the undead Viagra."
"So what are you going to do?" Xiaoting said. She and Buffy were eating together in a common room not far from their quarters. A few Watchers milled around, pretending not to watch; Agatha was eating her own salad at a nearby table and pretending not to listen. Sumiko's Watcher was trying to pantomime the use of some kind of equipment, but was either having no luck making himself clear or winning Sumiko's interest. Noor was lecturing Sky about some point of technique or other. Sky was at least putting on a show of listening.
Buffy shrugged. "What else can I do? Go patrolling. Be friends."
"That's not what you want," Xiaoting said. "Not what he wants either, I don't think."
"Angel and I don't get what we want," Buffy said, surprised at the sudden bitterness within her. "We learned that a long time ago."
Xiaoting held up her hands. "Touchy," she said. "Just trying to be helpful --"
"I know. I'm sorry. Lotsa baggage there, and you didn't pack any of it." Buffy sighed.
"What was in that bottle, anyway?"
Buffy shrugged. "I checked it out. No vintage wine or anything. Some silvery kind of liquid -- ink, maybe?"
"Something to do with magic?" Xiaoting said. "You told me that paper and ink were really just for magicians now."
"I hadn't thought of that," Buffy said. She started considering the implications -- but was interrupted by the sound of Sumiko's Watcher raising his voice.
"Just press this panel," he said impatiently. "This panel means play. I've done it for you several times now. Just try it. Just press it."
Sumiko looked at him passively, then devoted her full attention to her salad once more.
"Damn it, stop that!" the Watcher shouted, slamming his hand down onto the table. Everyone in the room jumped -- except Sumiko, who raised her head slowly, almost tiredly. "Stop ignoring me! You must learn English eventually, and if you refuse to work with any of the teachers, you'll have to practice on your own. And you'll need this machine to do it. It's so simple an infant can use it. How can you not understand how to use this?"
"Hey!" Buffy said. The Watcher jerked his head over at her; his face was red and his eyes wide. "Back off, okay?"
"I most certainly shall not," the Watcher said. "She must learn. This continued ignorance is -- insolent wilfulness."
"You want wilful?" Buffy said. She got to her feet and walked over to the table. "'Cause I'm not sure you really want to deal with that."
"This is insanity!" the Watcher said, gesturing at Sumiko and the tiny machine on the table. "How can she not want to learn English? How can she not understand how to use the recorder?"
"She's never even seen a machine before!" Xiaoting said. Buffy half turned to see that she was close behind -- and Agatha, Noor and Sky were all by her side. To a woman, they looked furious.
Flush with her new backup, Buffy turned back and said, "Yeah, what about that? I mean, Sumiko doesn't know jack about technology. She probably thinks the lights and doors and water are all magic."
"They aren't?" Agatha said faintly. "But -- but -- you just say 'lights' and the lights come on --"
"I'll explain later," Xiaoting muttered.
"How hard can it be?" the Watcher said, his fury unabated. "To play the recordings, you press play. To record your own voice, you press record. I've shown this to her a dozen times, and if she hasn't learned it, it's because she doesn't want to."
"Maybe she just doesn't want to learn it from you," Buffy said.
"That's entirely uncalled-for," the Watcher said.
"On the contrary." Buffy and the other Slayers all turned to see Markwith coming into the room. "It seems an apt observation."
The Watcher rose from his seat, somewhat abashed. "Sir -- this Slayer refuses to learn even the rudiments of English --"
"She is not just any Slayer," Markwith said. "Sumiko was the longest-lived Slayer of them all."
"So far," Sky whispered.
"She was a master of swordfighting, martial arts, tactics," Markwith continued. "Imagine how difficult it would be, for a master of so many things, to be forced to start all over again."
Sumiko was watching this entire conversation with little more interest than she had given her Watcher at first. But Buffy felt something in the truth of Markwith's words; whether through insight or pure luck, she sensed, he was onto something.
"So she wants to concentrate on her strongest skills," Markwith said. "Well and good. She'll talk to us when she's ready. She'll fight for us now."
The Watcher's chest puffed up. "As her Watcher, sir, I have to protest. Nothing good can come of letting her remain in silence and ignorance --"
"You're wrong," Markwith said.
"You think silence and ignorance are good for her?"
"No," Markwith said. "I meant that you were wrong about being her Watcher. It's clearly not working out for either of you. I'll take over from here. Thank you for your help."
The Watcher opened his mouth, closed it, then stalked out of the room. Buffy bit back a smile.
Noor half-raised her hand. "I want a new Watcher also."
"Not until you've shown you can stop sneaking away from this one," Markwith said. "He said he lost you after only twenty minutes in the field last night."
"He is slow and stupid," Noor said.
"Foolish to patrol alone, Noor," Markwith said. "Give your Watcher a fair try, and if you still want to work something else out after a month or so, we'll see. Now, maybe Sumiko and I can try this recorder."
Sumiko was eating her salad again, and Markwith sat patiently by her side. The others returned to Buffy and Xiaoting's table -- in a unit, as they had not been before. "Perhaps Markwith is not as bad as I thought him," Noor said in a low voice.
"Perhaps Markwith is not as blind as I thought him," Xiaoting said.
"Do you ever stop matchmaking?" Agatha said.
Sky made a face. "C'mon. Aaron Markwith's 40 years old if he's a day."
"Wouldn't be anything new for her," Xiaoting said, gesturing with her fork. "I heard that Sumiko was married to her Watcher, back in the day."
"Really?" Agatha said.
Buffy glanced over her shoulder at the table, at Sumiko's delicate face. She thought the name to herself, remembered the tears in Sumiko's eyes as Buffy had said it.
Tobias Earnshaw.
Markwith was smiling down at Sumiko with the first genuine expression Buffy thought she'd ever seen on his face. He looked -- gentle.
Will wonders never cease, she thought.
*