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Disclaimer: Not mine; never were, never will be, I can't even hope for it. You know that, right?
Summary: Based on a challenge by Sara; what if the (horror) that is Angel and Cordelia's love was all a spell? Challenge posted at the end.
Spoilers: Through mid S6/3
Archive: My site: To Coin a Sunnydale Phrase Thanks to:Sara for the challenge, kolumbynne for her support, and Flauka for the read through and the begging. Sorry, girl, the sex wasn't in this one, though I have no idea why...
Small Warning: I think this is actually PG. No, I don't know what happened, either.

A World of Ick and Kissage...

It was almost as if it were meant to be.

Beautiful and pure, so very right it was unbelievable that they hadn’t acknowledged it before. What had stopped them? Foolishness, it was all foolishness to not admit to their feelings for one another. Yes, meant to be…

“They’re in love, isn’t that sweet?” Fred gushed, standing at the top of the stairs as Wesley and Gunn joined her and they looked at the couple below them.

Wesley frowned, “Who is?”

But Fred didn’t seem to hear him, too busy romantically sighing over the couple below as they watched each other from across the room. Gunn peered over the railing and shrugged, slightly nauseated. “Angel and Cordy,” he supplied and his frown matched Wesley’s.

When had this happened? *~* For weeks now, they’d been dancing around the subject, around each other. The ballet had been beautiful and it was then, okay, after they broke that hundred-year-old spell, that they realized they were meant for each other. Longer than normal glances, a touch here or there, that wasn’t before.

Just to see if it were real they went on a date, telling no one that was their intention. Dinner was normal, as if they weren’t trying their best to discern the other’s feelings. They talked shop in the darkened corner booth of the restaurant where Cordelia ate and Angel pretended to, and then went for a long walk on the beach, moonlight glittering off the ocean, the muted crash of waves following them. That was where they shared a kiss.

It was sweet and beautiful and they wanted to take it further. But something stopped them. What, neither could accurately pinpoint, but they agreed to take things slowly. Angel said he was afraid of ruining their friendship, that he was hesitant to move forward incase he wasn’t really what Cordy wanted – or should want. Cordelia agreed to take things slow for Angel’s sake, after all if they waited for each other this long, a few more weeks couldn’t hurt.

They went out every night, sharing things with each other as if they really were in the beginning stages of dating. Angel held himself back, however, and consciously or not he didn’t tell her of his past, couldn’t because he didn’t really know how to, afraid of her reaction. Wasn’t sure she’d accept him if she knew the true extent of his crimes and sins. Cordelia had never really liked him to change into his true face in front of her, so he didn’t, keeping that careful veneer of civilization he’d perfected in place at all times.

And even when they were fighting vampires and demons, he did his best to change back before facing her.

She took him shopping, and he vowed to live through it, saying that if the love of his life (wait, what?) wanted to shop with him, then he certainly was going to go with her. Even when they arrived back at the hotel, he several pounds heavier under the weight of all the bags Cordelia acquired, Angel still smiled at her, caressing her cheek and kissed her lightly, sending both Fred and Lorne into peals of glee. They had, they said, known all along.

Yes, Angel loved her, and if he could change for her then he would. Something tugged inside of him, telling him that wasn’t exactly right, that love was acceptance, but Angel ignored it. He loved Cordelia, and she him – at least he hoped that was the case, that she reciprocated his feelings.

“You know I love you, right?” Angel asked with a faint smile for the woman before him.

There, he finally said it. The words had been building inside of him for days, weeks, and he could no longer deny their truth. He had to tell her, almost as if coerced to do so, as if something was telling him he needed to tell her. But in a good way, make no mistake. Because that was how he felt, he loved this woman. (Didn’t he…?)

“I do, yes. And I love you,” Cordelia responded and nothing ever felt more right than saying those words to him. (Wait, to Angel…?)

Her smile grew and she took another hesitant step towards him. How could she not love him? Angel was everything one could ask for. Okay, he had a past, but didn’t they all? And, yes, his was longer and slightly more (much more but don’t think about that) gory than the average, but it was the past. She loved the vampire despite – or was it because of – his past. He wanted to amend for his sins and Cordelia wanted to help him.

‘I’m good for exactly two things in this world, International Superstardom and helping a vampire with a soul rid the world of evil.’

Where had that come from? *~* “They are?” Wesley asked, certain he had heard wrong. “With each other?”

They were? Since when? And where was he when this happened. Sure, they’d been spending more time together but that was, he was sure, a part of their friendship. But as he looked over the edge of the landing, eyes morbidly glued to the horror that was the scene before him, Wesley wondered if he was wrong on that account.

No, surely not, Angel and Cordelia?

Angel needed someone after Buffy’s death and subsequent resurrection. It was only natural he turn to the one person who knew her, knew how much he and the slayer went through. How much the brooding vampire loved the blonde, longed for her despite all they’d done to keep their distance from each other. Wesley, erroneously it now seemed, assumed that Cordelia was doing the friend thing with Angel. Certainly not anything romantic!

“Lorne agrees,” Fred sighed as the couple below them moved closer to each other, still smiling sappily and sickingly at each other.

“Don’t ask me, Fred seems to think so.” As Gunn spoke, the green demon rushed through the lobby carrying a thin book and a heavy looking bag. The couple was still whispering quietly to each other, completely in their own world, and didn’t notice the sudden commotion as their demonic friend rushed up the stairs.

“Oh, thank the gods, you three are here!” He whispered the words but the gushing was still present in his voice. “I was worried that I’d be too late. And then where would we be? Horrors, that’s what would have happened! Horror of horrors! Angelcakes over there would have his buns roasting, I tell you! Or maybe ours…”

Lorne glanced over his shoulder and shuddered. It was almost too late now, and here he was babbling like a schoolgirl. Well, honestly, what did anyone expect? Dumping this on him with barely an hour to gather the supplies and race to the hotel before something happened.

What did they think he was, Superman? *~* How had she been blind all this time? How had he? It was so obvious now it was almost scary. Yes, this was meant to be, they were meant to be, it had to be. Moving closer to him, smiling at the rightness of this (his Irish blue eyes a-smiling…blue, but wait, Angel’s were brown…) Cordelia couldn’t believe the joy that sang through her veins, the hum in her heart. *~* “Quick,” Lorne said and shoved the bag into Gunn’s arms. “We need to set this up before anything…physical happens.”

“What are you blathering on about?” Wes finally asked, lost and confused and not a little aggravated over the green demon’s prattling. Not to mention slightly sickened over the display below him.

“Angel and Cordelia! Do you see that, that…that?!”

“I thought,” Fred said in a timid voice, “That you said they were meant to be together.”

“What? I did?” Lorne shrugged. “Alright, so I did. But I didn’t realize what I was reading was all wrong! Wrong, I say, wrong! As in not supposed to be and just plain…trust me, munchkin, it’s wrong.” He shuddered again and turned his back on the disgusting display below, one that he found sweet and endearing but hours before.

“Lorne…” Gunn and Wesley said his name simultaneously and in the same threatening voice, demanding answers.

“Short version,” Lorne said as he backed up a step from the menacing faces. “Because they’re about to lock lips and then who knows what’ll happen after that and if it’s not broken before serious physical-ness, it’ll be too late. Spell cast over Angel and Cordy. Bad evil spell that made them think they were in love. Once bad evil spell is gone, everything will go back to the way it’s supposed to and poof! Everything will be right once again in the world.”

“Bad evil things,” Wes repeated, “As in Angelus?”

“What? Oh, no. Well, yes, but not…I’ll explain later, but right now…time, people, time is of the extreme essence.”

Okay, so he was leaving things out, like how he knew and why and, more importantly, who had cast the spell. That wasn’t the point; the point was to remove the spell as quickly as possible before it was permanent and undoable. Once that was done and everything was right again, he’d tell them.

And even if everything weren’t set to rights, the wrongness that was Angel and Cordelia in love would be over. *~* “Angel?” Dawn called in a soft hesitating voice.

She knew he’d be able to hear her, if he was there, but didn’t want to attract attention of anyone else. She came to LA for the vampire’s help, not to be sent back to Sunnydale like a child. The fact that she’d run away like one meant little to the teen when no one in Sunnydale seemed to care if she did or not anyway.

Pushing open the door further, Dawn risked a glance in. At first she was confused by the scene before her. A small crowd circled Angel and Cordelia at a good distance, Dawn recognized Wesley, who looked relieved as he lighted the last of the candles, but a skinny woman just looked confused. A circle of powder lay just beyond the two – Angel and Cordelia – halfway between them and the larger group, candles burning at regular intervals as well. The circle of four stepped back, and then took another step back.

Frowning now, Dawn looked to Angel and was about to call his name again when he and Cordelia kissed.

“Oh my GOD!” The teen screeched, hands flying up to cover her eyes, dropping her satchel with a loud thump in the process. “Oh, eww! That’s just gross! I so did not just see that! Yuck, what was that?”

Cautiously removing her hands, Dawn looked to the group and noted the pained looks of Angel and Cordelia. They still stood beside each other, hands entwined, entirely too close for Dawn to handle.

“Angel! What are you doing! Ugh, I’m too young to see horror shows like that.” Dawn shot Wesley a pointed look when the former watcher snickered. She turned her glare back to her sister’s (former) boyfriend and asked, angry and disgusted. “Cordelia? Hello? Are you listening to me? What do you think you’re doing?”

Shaking his head, as if to clear it, Angel said, “Dawn,” then looked confused by the name. “Dawn, what are you doing here?”

“I don’t know, I forget!” She replied honestly enough. She looked down as if the floor held the answers to his question, and could erase the scene she’d just witnessed and spotted her satchel. “Oh, right, help, I needed your help. Because I couldn’t go to Buffy and hello! What about Buffy, love of your unlife?”

Frowning again as if he didn’t know the name, Angel questioned, “Buffy?”

The entire room stilled. Cautiously Wesley asked as if he were afraid of the answer, “Do you remember Buffy, Angel?”

The vampire just shook his head again. “Buffy?” He said the name softly, reverently, and as if he should know it, but couldn’t place it.

Dawn looked like she was going to cry and held herself rigid as she spat, “Buffy, blonde slayer? Died recently and was resurrected?” She may be angry with her sister, hurt over Buffy’s seeming lack of interest in her, but no one messed with a Summers. It was a law. “Love of unlife, perfect moment of happiness, soul? My sister?”

Looking confused, but as if he were honestly trying to remember, or fight to remember, Angel parroted, “Slayer?”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Dawn said, picking up her duffle bag and looking a little green. She glanced at Cordelia who had that same look on her face as Angel, the one that said she was trying to remember but it wasn’t working, before turning to Wesley.

“What’s going on here?” The youngest Summers demanded as her stomach churned.

“Would you believe me if I told you that Angel and Cordelia think they’re in love?”

The bag dropped again and Dawn’s eyes widened, as she turned even greener than before. “Huh?”

“In love,” Cordelia said, less firmly than moments ago when she declared that love to Angel. “We’re in love…aren’t we, Angel?”

The vampire nodded absently, then turned to the woman in his arms and smiled. “Yes, we are.” He leaned in to kiss her again but stopped at Dawn’s strangled scream and shouted, “Ugh, stop already, just…stop. It’s gross and wrong!”

“Let them go, munchkin,” a tall red horned green-skinned demon told her and Dawn would have been at least a little cautious if she hadn’t seen stranger things in her life. “We’re ready.”

Still feeling ill, wondering if ‘moving on’ really meant ‘losing one’s mind,’ because, really, she couldn’t remember Angel ever giving Cordelia the time of day let alone falling for her, Dawn stared at the creature before her. Too shaken up to more than stare, she finally uttered, “Huh? Ready for what?”

“Trust me, sweetie,” he said and handed her a pouch of dried stinky herbs. “And sprinkle these over the couple when I say so.”

Not understanding a bit of it, not wanting to, but willing to help with any magick she could since Buffy banned her from having any kind of fun due to Willow’s “addiction,” Dawn took the pouch. The couple went back to ignoring their friends and making googly eyes at each other, hands still entwined, mouths inches away from the other. Dawn found it more than a little odd that they didn’t question the presence of the others in the room or the presence of so much magickal paraphernalia.

Or, hell, the fact that they were ‘in love.’ Ugh, there went her dinner.

Dawn looked away, torn between righteous anger on behalf of Buffy and serious confusion. Since when were Angel and Cordelia in love? She struggled to listen to the green demon, resisted making comparisons to Kermit, and watched as the circle glowed blue, the candle flames rising higher than the oxygen content of the air warranted.

The couple’s lips were locked now, and the demon was chanting faster as they started to leave the blue circle. Oh, God, please, please, don’t tell her they were going to do…oh, no, it was too horrible a thought! The magicks became almost tangible in the air and Dawn shivered from the strength of them. Generally speaking, Dawn thought as she caught the frantic green hand signaling her to toss the herbs on Angel and Cordelia, and despite her desire to learn about them, she always found it safer to be away from such strong magicks, experience taught her that, if nothing else.

Except, of course, she amended and dumped the rest of the bag over Cordelia’s head, making sure to get as much as possible in her hair, when breaking a spell that went against all laws of God, Man, Demon, the Natural Order, Entropy…the list went on as far as Dawn was concerned.

Angel answered Cordelia’s smile, drawing her more securely into his strong arms, settling his hands around her waist (something was wrong there, the waist was too high, the hips were too lush) and lowered his lips to hers. He had wanted to do this for a long while now, wanted to feel her lips under his as a prelude to feeling her body under his, wanted to know that she felt for him what he did for her. Wanted to consummate their love in a beautiful giving and taking of their bodies.

Even Angelus was silent within Angel and the soul could only think it was because the demon loved Cordelia as much as the soul. It was unfortunate for Angel that the spell also somehow muted Angelus who was screaming himself hoarse over the vulgar display he found himself a part of. And they said he was the repugnant one. At least he had taste!

Angelus began his berating once he realized that there wasn’t enough of anything in this world or the next to cause Angel to have a moment of true happiness with Cordelia. Therefore, he wasn’t likely to get free and if there was no chance of that, then there was no reason to be a party, however indirectly, to this abomination.

(Curse, damn it! What about the curse?)

Curse? No, there was no curse on this, their love, them. It was peaceful and loving and as Angel lowered his lips that fraction more, he knew it was everything he ever dreamed of.

Perfection, happiness…Perfect Happiness…wait…there was something there. But Angel didn’t care, and neither did Cordelia from the smile she gave him, hesitant, loving, shy (Cordelia shy?) and aroused.

The moment their lips met sparks shot through them.

No, literally.

As in bright blue electrical sparks surrounded them, and Angel gasped, pulling away from Cordelia with a jerk that left her stumbling for her own balance. Her eyes shot open, accusatory and hurt to stare into his own panicked brown ones.

“What the hell was that for, Angel?” She asked as she found her balance on her sneakers. Sneakers? Since when did she wear sneakers for anything but her too-good-to-really-sweat-exercises with her personal trainer?

“I don’t know!” He said and wondered what she was asking and what he was answering.

“You don’t know why you left me to fall?”

“I don’t know why I kissed you!” Where had that urge come from? He remembered thinking that Cordy was beautiful, but he never denied it, she was and he had eyes. He remembered thinking that there was something special about her and then everything was muddled.

What was he missing between beautiful and kissing? It had to be something; he’d never voluntarily consider kissing Cordelia. She was attractive, sure, but he didn’t want her, he only wanted Buffy. Angel’s eyes shot to Dawn and he fought to keep his composure. Buffy…

Answers came crashing through his brain and then Angel wished for the muddledness of moments before. In love with Cordelia? Nausea churned through him at the mere thought. No, he wasn’t, he cared for Cordelia, she was a close friend, his closest, she helped him through so many things, Buffy, losing Doyle, guilt, Faith, Buffy, guilt, Darla, Buffy…Buffy. He needed a longer résumé there.

In love with her? Angel shook his head. What had he been thinking?

“Oh, that. Wait, what? Kiss?”

Angel kissed her? No, that couldn’t be right. Sure, Cordelia admitted that she’d been attracted to Angel, hello, woman with eyes here! But she never thought about him as anything more than a friend since she began working with (for) him a couple of years ago.

“Oh ick!” Cordelia screeched as she remembered the kiss, ugh, and there had been more than one of them! And, more horrible, the fact that she thought she was in love with Angel. “Ick, Angel germs! Oh, ew, I kissed Angel!”

“No need to be overly dramatic, Cordelia,” Angel muttered as she raced for the refrigerator and a bottle of water. Angel turned to watch her, wondering why he’d think that he loved Cordelia and then suddenly why he, well, didn’t. Really, though, he was just as happy not thinking he was in love with her, thank you very much.

“At least that reaction I understand.” A voice muttered and Angel turned to look at Dawn.

“Dawnie, what are you doing here?”

“Oh you remember me now? You know, Angel, if I wanted people to forget me, I’d have stayed in Sunnydale. And hello! Kissage over there!”

Angel shook his head again, still trying to clear the fog that settled over his brain.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” he whispered and staggered to the stairs, flopping down on them before he could be sick. Or pass out.

********** “I don’t get it,” Angel said a few minutes later, still from his position on the stairs, still feeling as if his insides had been ripped open and washed out with bleach and holy water, shaken stirred, and closed – rather sloppily – once more. Cordelia continued to scrub her lips off in an attempt to wash away his kiss. Not the best thing to see, Angel thought as she went on and on with it, but understandable.

“Get what?” Cordelia asked as she continued to fanatically wipe her now raw lips. “God, therapy for the rest of my life!” She glared at Angel again, as if this were all his fault, and didn’t wait for anyone to answer her question. “This is all your fault, buddy,” she pointed at Angel, then, dramatically, “Repression is the only way to go on this one.”

“Okay, Cordelia, you can stop with the lip wiping.” He was starting to get offended. Not that he wanted, necessarily, for her to have enjoyed them, but still…maybe repression was the only way to go…

“Someone care to explain?” The question was directed at the group in general but Angel’s eyes strayed to Lorne who still clutched a book to his chest as if that would help the demon answer any and all questions anyone cared to pose. Failing that, somehow protect him from the wrath of Cordelia. And Angel, but the vampire looked more ill than anything at the moment.

“Well, duh! You and Cordelia are, ah…were? In love,” Fred volunteered helpfully, as if it was obvious, to the gasps of horror and shock from the aforementioned couple. “Really, you were, Angel. You went on dates, took romantic walks along the beach, shared ice cream,” she continued as if listing their so-called romantic exploits would help them realize they really were in love and Lorne’s little spell didn’t stop that from being so.

“Dates?” Cordelia screeched, “We went on dates? As in more than one? Ick, you mean we kissed more than this once?” She glared at Wesley and Gunn as if it were suddenly their fault. “And you let us?” She hissed at them.

“Wait, to the beach? Vampire here,” her arms were flailing about and she, too, looked nauseous. “No beach, beach bad for him; and wait, we ate ice cream together? Ice cream for the vampire with no active taste buds? I so don’t think so.”

Angel looked pained and for a moment his group thought maybe, just maybe, he really was in love with Cordelia. If he was, then her ranting on and on about the things they did, and in the worst possible way, would hurt him. But then he abruptly stood. “I don’t go the beach, Fred, and I don’t eat ice cream,” he said firmly, then added in a whisper that carried over the hushed group. “Not any more.”

Cordelia whirled to the gapping group, having some vague recollection as to why Angel didn’t go to the beach, but willing to ignore that faint memory for the moment. “Someone mind telling me what happened?” She demanded arms crossed across her chest, a look of fury on her face. A foot was tapping rapidly and her eyes shot sparks of fire at her so-called friends.

“If you are really my friends,” she reasoned at them, still nauseous and angry, “Then you wouldn’t have let things get as far as they obviously did between Angel and I.”

Someone should have stopped the madness.

“I can explain, Angel-cakes.” Lorne said and looked relieved to be able to do so. He didn’t know what Angel was talking about with the ice cream but no one else seemed to either, so maybe it was a form of vampire-memory loss? Unimportant at the moment. “It came, quite literally, to me in a dream. I thought it was one too many sea breezes at first, but this demon told me that you were under a spell from Wolfram & Hart, they were trying to make you lose your soul with Cordelia.”

Wesley, Gunn, and Dawn looked to Angel. Dawn grew angrier for a moment then looked and really saw the obvious pain on Angel’s face. Biting back the scathing comment she was about to make, the former key said nothing. From the looks of things, Angel wasn’t really in love with Cordelia and laying into him for betraying Buffy wasn’t what Dawn was here for, anyway. Still, she shot him a dirty look and knew he saw it.

Wes snorted in laughter before managing to control himself, adopting an innocent face and listening attentively as a good watcher was supposed to. He pushed his glasses higher on his nose, a classic watcher move and cleared his throat. “Demon? Who was this demon, Lorne?”

“No idea; he was blue-skinned, with spikes on his face. Said he worked for the Powers and that it was up to me to break the spell. And that if I didn’t do it within an hour, it would be too late and the spell would be permanent and unbreakable.”

As one, the group turned to look at Cordelia who looked pale, remembering what they were about to do when they were, thankfully, interrupted. She chugged more of her water and wiped at her lips again, shuddering as she did so. They looked at Angel and the vampire glared back. He, too, looked a little paler than usual.

“What? Don’t blame me; blame Wolfram & Hart. I had nothing to do with this.”

“How do you know this demon was trustworthy, Lorne?” Gunn asked, wondering, if he let loose the laugh that was building, who’d kill him first, Angel or Cordelia. Angel was faster, stronger, definitely the more dangerous of the pair, but from the looks of things, Cordelia wasn’t far behind in the willing to be dangerous mode – at least this once.

“Ah, well, see, I don’t know.” He admitted and shrugged. “What? I was so thrown by the whole thing, by the their love is a spell and if I didn’t fix it in a set amount of time – time which was very short, might I add – then the spell would be permanent and Angelus would get lose!”

Dawn, though, knew Angel. She knew Wesley and Cordelia only slightly and the others not at all, but had to pose the question. “How do you know that Angel having…” Lord, she couldn’t say it. It wasn’t the sex word she was having trouble with it was the Angel and Cordelia having sex that she was. “Ah, with Cordelia would have brought Angelus back. I thought Buffy said it was a perfect happiness thing, not a sex thing.”

Angel looked pained again for a moment, the broody look Dawn always associated with him back in full force. Much better than that sappy vacant look he had on earlier while he was drooling over Cordelia. Dawn shuddered again at the mental image.

Lorne looked puzzled for a moment. Admitting with a helpless shrug he said, “Ah, cupcake, well, I don’t know. Maybe Angel-cakes can answer that question.”

They turned back to Angel. His face was a mask; nothing could be read on it. His brown eyes were blank, reflecting the light of the lobby, his slanted cheekbones looking more angular at the moment as if he’d suddenly lost weight. When he spoke, it was with a quiet assurance none had heard from him in a long time.

It wasn’t with the outspoken quality they’d come to expect from him since Buffy’s, ah, resurrection, it wasn’t with the forceful commanding tone he’d taken during that dark time with Darla. It was simply Angel’s voice, pained, bearing the weight of a thousand, thousand chains, centuries of guilt and culpability. And, if one listened closely enough, a small thread of hope.

“This demon, Lorne, you said he had pale blue-whitish almost greenish skin?” At the green-skinned demon’s nod, Angel continued in his low steady voice. “And small whitish spikes?” Another nod and Cordelia was looking every bit as apprehensive as Angel’s intense questions were making the rest of them feel. Did he know this demon?

Swiftly crossing the space separating them, forgetting for a moment that she had just tried to rub her lips off from several remembered kisses – and other’s she’d rather repress –Cordelia’s sneakers softly slapped against the tile flooring as she locked eyes with Angel. Reaching out a hand, touching his tensely muscled arm, bound steel under the softness of his shirt; her voice was a hushed whisper across the lobby, clear to the fascinated audience.

“Angel…? Do you think it was him?” Hope, sadness, unfulfilled longing filled her voice.

Angel laid his hand over hers, nodding once. “Sounds like him, doesn’t it?”

“But, but, he’s…we saw, flash of light…and the visions. Do you really think so?” Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. She would not let them fall, she was Cordelia Chase and despite the severe decline of her circumstances, and whatever had recently happened to her, that she’d so rather forget, she would not let other’s see her pain.

“Maybe he’s still looking out for us, Cordelia,” Angel said in assurance and support, squeezing her hand once more.

“Who?” Gunn asked, slightly suspicious. “You know this demon Lorne’s talking about?”

“Knew, Gunn, and possibly.” The vampire said nothing more and Cordelia didn’t elaborate. No one asked any more questions for a few moments before Angel looked up and locked eyes with Dawn. One question at a time, then. And it was time to move onto the next.

Angel took a step up the stairs and looked back at Dawn. “Dawnie?”

Understanding the look, the youngest Summers grabbed her bag for the second time, and jogged to where he waited. Neither looked back.

Angel ushered her into his room, closing the door behind them and leaning against it for a moment. Tonight had taken a lot out of him, spell, awkward love something between he and his best friend, strange revelations about long dead and still terribly missed friends. All he really wanted to do was sleep. Well, maybe sit in front of his window with a glass of Scotch and a book of poetry he probably wouldn’t read and…think. He didn’t brood.

“Want to tell me why you’re here, Dawn?” Actually what he wanted to ask was more along the lines of ‘Where’s Buffy,’ ‘How’s Buffy,’ “Why isn’t Buffy with you,’ but those could wait. For the moment, five at most.

“Ah, right. Hehe, you’re probably wondering why I just showed up looking like a runaway and begging for a place to stay.”

Amused, Angel raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t asked for a place to stay yet.”

Dawn blushed and fidgeted with her hands for a moment. “Ah, Buffy is working at some fast-food dump, Willow’s addicted to magicks, Tara isn’t talking to her, Xander screwed up his wedding to Anya and is moping around like he’s King of All Who Brood – when we all know that’s you – Anya is who knows where. Spike doesn’t have any time for me since he’s so far up Buffy’s butt and Buffy doesn’t have any time for me since she started doing the super-slayer, I can work and patrol, sleep and clean and whatever all else she does thing.”

Angel took a moment to digest the single-breath information Dawn had dumped on him. He didn’t like it, not in the least. Buffy working at a fast food dump? And what was this about Spike? His grandchilde was supposed to watch Angel’s mate, not do…a low growl escaped him, making Dawn jump. Best not to think on things like that, going on a rampage now, hunting Spike down for the imaginative images Angel now had flashing through him mind wasn’t for the best. Even if it would make him feel better.

His mate did not work; his mate did not do anything with any other vampire except him. Then again, he hadn’t been there to see that she didn’t do any of the things she wasn’t supposed to. But damn it, that was why Angel (and Angelus) allowed Spike to live!

Point against him, Angel.

Spike should have, Angel thought again as a growl rumbled though him at the thought, as his grandchilde and even if they never really got along, it was his duty to see to his Grandsire’s mate. The more he thought of Dawn’s words, the angrier Angel grew over several things, not the least being that he should have done something about Buffy’s circumstances and not whatever horror he’d been doing with Cordelia.

Another point against him. Then again, was it his fault someone put a horrible spell on him and made him act as imbecilic as he had been the past few weeks? No, so point for him. In the end, it probably didn’t even out.

Dawn continued to watch Angel as the vampire scowled and growled, mumbling to himself every few moments. The younger Summers had to wonder how well his friends actually knew the vampire in not seeing that he was obviously still upset over Buffy’s death and not catching the Angel/Cordelia thing. Not that she did know him, not all that well, but she knew the romance between he and Buffy, and the fact that Angel always made time for her, Dawn, whenever she needed him. That was enough. Even if it hadn’t been real, it felt that way, and that was definitely enough for Dawn.

The scariness that was Angel talking to himself ended with a, “I’ll kill them all,” followed by, “My mate does not work.”

Turning impassioned eyes to Dawn, Angel stated, “So you ran away, Dawnie?”

“Uh, no? I just came to visit a friend?” He wasn’t buying it and Dawn thought that had as much to do with her wording as her tone. “Yeah, I couldn’t take it. No one understands me, no one even wants to, and…” to her horror, she felt her eyes brim with tears. Blinking furiously to hold them at bay, Dawn completely broke down when Angel’s arms came around her, holding her securely in his embrace.

She wasn’t aware of being led to his bed, of curling up on his lap as she cried, telling Angel of her anger and sorrow for her mother, for Buffy’s death and resurrection and her guilt that she wanted and needed her sister so much that she didn’t care Willow brought Buffy back from the dead. Even if it was heaven. For her loser of a father she really didn’t care about but it would have been nice if he thought about his children once in a while. For the fact that she had no one to listen to her, because they were all so wrapped up in their own lives.

Angel rocked the girl in his arms, suddenly and forcibly reminded of Buffy. How she used to cry over her parents fighting when she was first called and he watched her from the bushes outside her window. He rocked Dawn until she fell into an exhausted sleep and still he held her.

What had happened to them? Angel wondered as he absently rubbed Dawn’s back, his large hand a comfort to the girl even in sleep. He and Buffy used to be able to tell each other so many things, go to each other when they needed help or just a shoulder. Granted, all that changed when he left Sunnydale and her, but he never really wanted to leave her. He just wanted…

Maybe he was selfish. Maybe he was afraid of his weakness, which, granted, was there in a full-color poster: Buffy was his weakness. He couldn’t be around her without wanting her to the point of foolishness and he couldn’t be away from her without pining over her and the heartbreak he’d caused them both. Maybe he was afraid that he wasn’t what she wanted or needed. Only in the last year or two, after he effectively left Buffy and made it on his own – or tried to, had Angel discovered that he was the man she thought him to be all those years.

But then too much had changed between them and they could never go back. Or had it, could they?

Carefully he lay Dawn on the bed, slipping off her shoes and socks. He debated for a moment on taking off her jeans and shirt, but despite the number of women he’d had in his bed over his very long life, it had never been his only love’s little sister. The clothes stayed on. Pulling the comforter over the girl, he smoothed her hair to the side and kissed her temple.

Turning, Angel walked out the bedroom, paused to look blankly around the rest of his rooms, then out the door, quietly closing it after him. Dawn’s arrival, while obviously because the teen felt traumatized by her life, had sparked something in the vampire. And it had nothing to do with the spell he’d been under until recently. Shuddering at the memories, Angel wondered if Cordelia’s repression techniques might be for the best. Maybe a memory loss spell? No, can’t really trust those, besides, magick? Not on the best of terms with the souled vampire.

Everything, it seemed, was back to normal when he returned to the lobby. Gunn was polishing weapons, Wesley was pouring over a large dusty tomb in his office, and Cordelia and Fred were talking near the phones and computer.

“But you and Angel, Cordy! Moira and Kye-rumption! I know it; I can feel it. Maybe the spell was just a strange side-effect of something, and okay, maybe by the evil law firm, but it just shows something that’s already there!” Fred was typing away on the computer as she said this and was oblivious to Cordelia’s glare.

Slapping her hands on the counter, Cordelia leaned over to the computer nerd. “Let’s get one thing straight, alright, Fred?” When she was sure she had the shorter girl’s attention, Cordy continued. “That little horror between Angel and I? A world of bad and icky. He’s a brooding vampire with a soul who does good. He can’t get happy and Lord, mental image! I don’t even want to think of being the one who gives him that. He’s, he’s…”

She sputtered here, clearly worked up over the whole thing. And was looking a little green again as she shuddered over everything she was doing her best for forget. “Lord, Fred, Angel’s like my brother!” She shouted and went back to rubbing her lips, “Ugh, gross!”

Her hands – they needed a manicure, Cordelia couldn’t believe that falling ‘in love’ with Angel caused her to neglect certain mandatory aspects of her appearance. And the sneakers? So gone. Her hands covered her eyes as if in doing so she could block out the memories and that nasty inner third eye that caused her to remember such atrocities.

Stupid eye, if she could cut it out, she would.

Glancing up when Angel crossed the lobby, Cordelia paled and stood. “I’m going home. Don’t call, don’t visit, when I’ve forgotten all this, I’ll see everyone again.” She grabbed her purse, where on earth had she gotten such a hideous thing? And left. She didn’t look back.

In not doing so, she missed Gunn’s snicker and Lorne’s guffaw. Fred still looked confused and Wes ignored everyone as he continued to study his book; he was smirking behind the thick musty pages.

Angel looked relieved. How could he think that he loved Cordelia? All right, possibly in a small sisterly way he cared for her, but in love with? Ugh, gross, he could hear the echo of Cordelia’s words and smiled. Shaking his head, Angel still found it hard to believe that even a spell could make him think he was in love with anyone other than Buffy. Never. He was only ever in love with one person and she still held his heart.

Which concerned him. If Wolfram & Hart wanted him to lose his soul, thus reverting to Angelus once more, then why didn’t they just put the spell on he and Buffy? Much as he hated to admit it, or remember the pain he put his beloved through, it was a tried and true method.

Was there something else going on that he didn’t know? Walking to Wesley’s office, Angel didn’t bother to knock. “Wes, we need to find out what spell they used on Cordelia and I and why. And how far back the spell went. And if it really was Wolfram & Hart and if it was, why Lorne was so easily able to break it.”

Looking up from his book, Wes nodded. “I’ve already begun researching it, but Lorne’s scarce on details. I’m trying to backtrack, using the information we have on the cure to see what was used in the actual spell.”

Angel nodded and left. Next step: Call Buffy or not? Dawn hadn’t specifically said not to, but he knew the slayer had to be worried sick over her sister. Maybe he’d give Dawn until morning.

Hopefully, by then they’d have more answers.

Those Who Will Be Coming Back...

The sun was barely up, casting a soft glow over the land. Birds were chirping happily in their early spring mindset, and the day promised to be mildly warm and sunny.

Buffy was pounding on the punching bag in the basement, trying to work out her frustrations and fear, when a loud crash from upstairs echoed through the house. Racing up the twelve steps, she burst through the kitchen and came to an abrupt stop in the doorway between dining room and living room. Footsteps pounded from the steps above her but Buffy couldn’t concentrate on that.

There was a man in her living room.

A naked man, curled up on the floor, where the too-many times repaired coffee table once stood.

A naked man curled up on the floor, who looked as if he’d been put through the ringer – if that ringer was made of light and electric currents that accounted for the burns on his body.

A naked man curled up on the floor whose burns were healing right before her shocked eyes.

Buffy moved cautiously into the living room, aware that Willow, Tara, and Xander were also there, all staring in bewildered shock. Well, what else could they do? Even for them in Sunnydale this was unusual. And that was saying a lot.

Striding to the corner where she kept her newly acquired sword, Buffy gripped it firmly and stared at the…being before her. She was slightly disconcerted; demons crashed through her house, they tore down walls, smashed furniture, and generally destroyed the place. But they usually came from outside the house, they never suddenly appeared in her living room.

“Ow, damn it! What the hell…?”

“It speaks!” Xander said from the relative safety of the hallway, gripping a mace tightly in his sweating hands. The being – man – stood and Xander amended, “He speaks?”

Buffy gripped the sword tighter and moved a step closer as the dark-haired stranger carefully stood, as if testing his body. A twinge here and there caused his handsome face to tighten in pain and the bright blue eyes darken just a little. Still staring, nice body she didn’t want to notice, Buffy couldn’t help but feel like she knew him. From where she couldn’t say, but he seemed familiar.

Then again, it was to be hoped that naked men suddenly appearing in the middle of her living room would be partly familiar, right?

“Can I, ah, help you?” Buffy asked and then grimaced at the question. The sword was still at the ready but she was asking inane questions. What kind of slayer was she? Other than a currently confused one.

“Ach, lass, got a drink?” The man mumbled, Irish brogue thick and heavy in a sweet voice, still testing the aches and pains of his body. “What the bloody hell hit me?”

He finally looked at his surroundings, frowning more at the unfamiliar sight: This was definitely not where he last remembered being. His gaze swept over the trio in the hallway and if he had any clue what was going on he would have laughed at them, they looked such a wide array of emotions that it was nearly comical. When his eyes landed on Buffy, however, he smiled. It was the one thing that didn’t seem to hurt, so he smiled wider.

“Slayer, lass, it’s good to see you again.” When she didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge she knew him, he asked again, “Have any liquor here? A nice Irish Whisky would do me fine.”

“Who are you?” Buffy asked, stepping closer, sword still at the ready. “And what are you doing in my house? Is this anything to do with Dawn disappearing?”

“Dawn?” The man questioned, confused. Then again, when the last thing you remember had to do with saving the world and sacrificing your life, it was pretty understandable. To him at least.

Taking a step further, he realized that he was naked. Okay, so his aches were somewhat disappearing, and the confusion was all but overwhelming, but he was still naked. Trying to fight the blush he knew was covering his cheeks, he asked, “Anyone have any clothes I can borrow?”

~~~~~~~~~~

Waiting impatiently for the man – who had yet to reveal his name and that made Buffy all the more annoyed – to reappear, Buffy again began to worry over Dawn. Again.

The girl had originally told her sister she was staying at Tara’s, and Tara that she was staying at home with Buffy for quality sister bonding time. The lie unraveled fairly quickly when Tara saw Willow and asked the redhead for a blouse she still had. The couple – former couple – arrived at the Summers’ residence to find Buffy madly cleaning.

Dawn was nowhere to be found and Tara mentioned that she thought Dawn and Buffy were spending quality time together. Frantic, Buffy scoured Sunnydale. Willow and Tara called every friend of Dawn’s they could think of, ran down Spike because Buffy seemed reluctant to involve him – in any way, shape, or form – and when that turned up empty, called Xander and met back with Buffy at her house.

The sun was lazily rising by then, the first faint blushes of the new day creeping over the land and they agreed that sleep was needed. Buffy couldn’t, however, and went to the basement to take her frustrations out on her punching bag. As soon as it was late enough, she planned to call Dawn’s friends again, threaten them if need be, before searching the town once more.

Of course, now she had an unexpected houseguest and just where did she know him from? He seemed familiar, and there was no danger-vibe coming off him, so Buffy was fairly certain that Xander would be safe with the stranger.

The man in question walked down the stairs in clothing borrowed from Xander. It was a good thing, Buffy supposed, that her friend kept several changes of clothes in her house. Whatever would they do otherwise when strange naked men suddenly appeared needing pants?

He appeared to be laughing over something, even though Xander didn’t share his mirth. It was almost as if the man had a secret that he desperately wanted to share but didn’t want to ruin the punch line. Perfect, a comedian. Just what she needed.

Sword still in her grip, Buffy stood and faced the seemingly harmless man. If he didn’t try anything while changing, then what were the chances…?

“Now that you’re clothed are you planning on telling me who you are and how you ended up in my living room?” How he knew her could wait for the moment.

“Would you believe me, lass,” he said with an irresistible smile and a twinkle in his eyes, “That I haven’t a clue?” At her raised eyebrow, he hastened, “Honest, last I remember, I was knocking Angel over the railing, and believe me when I say I have no idea how I managed that one, and kissing Cordelia.”

“Doyle.” Buffy said in a flat voice that bespoke none of her shock. Considering that she had heard, “You’re dead.”

They both ignored the gasps of surprise. The first was from Xander at the kissing Cordelia part, the second from Willow and Tara, most likely at the dead part. Buffy was sure they had tons of questions for him. Imagine, two people – in the same room! – who returned from the dead. It was a Wicca’s wet-dream.

“Well, yes, I thought so, too.” He said and, realizing he wasn’t getting anything to drink, sat on the couch Buffy recently vacated. The borrowed clothes were a little big, but other than that fit well enough. “In fact, I distinctly remember dieing, not a pleasant sensation, let me tell you.”

“Yeah,” Buffy murmured with a distant sad look as her friends looked terribly guilty. Good, she thought but suppressed the urge to say it aloud, they should. Should have left well enough alone, so far as she was concerned “I know.”

“Yes, well,” Doyle cleared his throat, uncomfortable, and went on. “So I kissed Delia, and the next thing I remember I was in your living room.” He looked around. “Nice digs, slayer.”

“Thanks,” Buffy replied without realizing it. Then, “Doyle, uh, I fairly certain you died nearly two years ago.”

She looked to her friends, now standing in a semicircle around the couch as they listened to Doyle’s short tale, for confirmation. They all shrugged; then again, none of them knew the man. They hadn’t met him for a brief introduction one fine fall day when confronting an ex. They hadn’t listened to Angel as he told her, in a flat emotionless voice, of his best friend’s death scarcely a week later. They hadn’t offered to go to LA and hold Angel as he cried, as she knew he wanted to.

They hadn’t met Angel one night on a moonless beach near a beach house he owned and done just that. Cried with him over the death of a man he’d known for far too short a time and whose death dealt an almost fatal blow to the vampire. Hadn’t kissed Angel goodbye as the sun set on another painfully bright day and promised that if he ever needed to talk…

“Uh, so, now you’re alive?” This was from Willow who looked like she wanted to ask more questions than that.

“I guess,” Doyle said, dubiously. “I feel alive, or, rather, everything hurts, does that count?”

She nodded readily, agreeing, “I’m sure it’s a step, yes.” Turning to Tara, she asked, “Do you sense anything around him?”

Focusing on the man still sitting on the couch, the blonde witch frowned as she tried to read his aura. “Peace, harmony, a balance that was thrown off, maybe? He’s supposed to be here, Buffy,” Tara directed that last comment to the slayer. “He’s supposed to be here but I have no idea how. Just that it’s important he is.”

Nodding, Buffy turned to Doyle who was also nodding, a smile on his face. “See?” He said, “All’s well. Now then,” he rubbed his hands together and looked around the room. “Where’s Angel?”

Sucking in a quick painful breath, Buffy looked at the floor. “In LA, still, where else would he be?”

“Ah, you, as,” Confused, sure that his friend was bound to get back with the slayer sooner rather than later, Doyle directed his next comments to the friends. “He’s not here? Doesn’t, isn’t…really?”

“Nah, Dead-boy hasn’t been here more than two years,” Xander said with a smug look on his face that belied the heartbroken one on Buffy’s. Doyle decided he wanted to punch that look off the whelp’s face, but kept still and focused on the slayer.

Thinking quick, seeing no help from the boy and wondering if the rest of the friends felt the same way about Angel – and hoping, for Buffy’s sake, that they didn’t – Doyle tried again, hoping to sound more articulate this time. “I, ah, should get going then. I really want to see him and Delia again, missed them, ya know. So if you wouldn’t mind, maybe, driving me to LA?”

“I can’t,” Buffy said and checked the time once more. Only forty minutes had passed since this whole thing began; still not late enough to call Dawn’s friends – again. Time was never on her side. “My sister, Dawn, she’s missing. I have to find her.”

Thinking quick, having noted the change in Buffy’s aura when Angel was mentioned and wondering why she’d never seen it before and how blind they all were, Tara offered. “I’ll stay, Buffy. When it’s later, I’ll call her friends again and double check the school, the park, all the places she likes to go.”

Glancing at Xander, she continued before anyone could object. “Xander needs to get to work, Willow can help me, and it’d be better if we find her first, you, ah,” drat, Tara thought, she’d talked herself into a corner. “You, ah, might be in a better mood if you had time to relax first.”

Xander snorted and Willow didn’t look at all convinced. Better mood after visiting Angel? What were the chances of that? About, the two childhood friends thought, the same as Dawn having gone to visit Hank Summers in LA.

Trying once more, Tara smiled at Buffy. “It’ll just take a few hours; you can be home before school’s out, Buffy. And who knows, probably by then we’ll have found Dawn. She’s probably just with a friend, I’m sure.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Thirty minutes later Doyle was bundled into the car, still alcohol free, much to his annoyance, and still wearing clothes from Xander Harris of all people. Ah, the world was full of irony, wasn’t it?

The slayer seemed preoccupied, and honestly, Doyle couldn’t blame her. He’d be frantic if his sister were missing. Especially on the Hellmouth. Still, that didn’t explain the two separate emotions he witnessed in her eyes. One was a deadness he couldn’t recall seeing in her eyes on the single occasion they’d met. She’d been alive then, or rather full of passion for a certain vampire Doyle considered a very close friend.

Granted, the couple seemed off, not really together when they’d been in that same room, and Doyle wished, not for the first time, that he could remember what happened during that day Angel told him about. The one the vampire foolishly gave back. Still, the slayer’d been full of life. Now she seemed empty.

The second was a distinct fear. Apparently, if his sense of these things was accurate and he certainly hoped death hadn’t messed with any of those senses, it was fear of Angel. Which wasn’t something Doyle ever thought to see.

Maybe they’d hit some serious traffic and he’d get the chance to speak with her. There was a lot about Angel he wanted to know. Actually, there was a lot about the last two years he wanted to know. Buffy climbed into the car with a mutinous look on her face and a hard glint to her eye. Maybe talking with her wasn’t an option.

********** Fifteen minutes into the ride, however, Doyle decided that he couldn’t stay silent.

It was bad enough being dead, though he couldn’t remember that, but coming back from the dead? That was a whole other story, and one he’d very much like to hear. A painful one he’d very much like to hear even if that memory was fading as quickly as his wounds had. Still, two years had passed and a lot had to change. Cordelia, Doyle wondered, was she still an aspiring actress, or had she made it big?

Personally, he couldn’t see that, but was willing to give his princess the benefit of the doubt. This was America; anything was possible if not probable. And Angel, what had become of his friend? Was he still fighting, okay, yes, that was a definite yes, Doyle knew that. But he wasn’t with Buffy. That was something Doyle felt sure would happen despite the fact that it wasn’t quite working out when he’d left.

Died.

Whatever.

“So,” he began and then had no idea how to actually complete that opening. “How’s it going?”

Buffy shot him a look as they rolled out of Sunnydale and towards LA. This was going to be a long drive, she could just tell. “Well enough,” she replied in as neutral a voice as she could manage. It was unfortunate that Doyle wasn’t fooled.

“Really? See, I’m confused, lass,” he turned in his seat and stared at Buffy. If he couldn’t understand his own circumstances, he’d try for others. Maybe everything would make sense once they got to Angel in LA; Doyle doubted it, but the happy denial bubble helped keep the crippling terror at bay. Still, it was a little hard to be confused and scared of his circumstances when the last thing he remembered was punching Angel and kissing Cordelia.

“Last I heard you and Angel had that forever kind of love; I know he loved only you, you seemed to feel the same, and okay, there was a rather pesky curse that stood in the way of any real intimacy, but that could almost be overlooked when dealing with that whole true love thing, yes? Okay, yes again, I’ll admit, there was that unfortunate mix-up with the whole human thing, but, really, I’m sure you two could have worked things out. What’s life if not change?”

The car jerked wildly at Doyle’s words and he thought his brief resurrected life flashed before his eyes. “Jesus, lass, careful! I’d like to live a little longer than a few hours if ye don’t mind.” Slowly releasing his white-knuckled grip on the door handle, Doyle looked to Buffy.

She looked like he felt, though he was sure it wasn’t for the same reasons; pale, shocked, and in emotional pain. He was sure she hadn’t looked like that before, or, well, not to this new degree, so what happened? “Lass, Buffy? Are you okay?” Maybe he should have driven, despite his recent return.

“Human?” It was no more than a squeak and the car jerked slightly to the right again. Doyle grabbed the door handle and prayed for the car to stay on the road. Yeah, he should’ve driven.

Oops. Damn his Irish soul, she didn’t know! Two years and not only had Angel managed to keep it a secret, and well, that was to be expected, bearing the brunt of the guilt and memories all along, that was Mr. Broody for you, but Cordelia had kept it a secret as well? Will wonders never cease. Imagine that.

“Ah, lass, it wasn’t what I meant, I mean, well. Fuck me and my big mouth, have you a drink?” Doyle normally didn’t curse in front of ladies, but he’d had a rough day. It was bound to affect him somehow.

Pulling off immediately even if she had no idea where they really were, Buffy drove several miles in silence until they found an opened bar. Neither questioned the fact that it was opened at not even to six in the morning, or that the area was deserted as far as anyone could see. Two cars sat in the parking lot, and the flashing neon sign beckoned them.

“Lost Souls” the sign read, and both slayer and seer felt that was more than accurate. It raised several more questions, such as the irony of the one opened bar in the middle of nowhere being called something both felt, in their lives and especially now, but they chose not to comment on it.

Still not speaking to one another, the odd-looking couple marched into the establishment, took a corner booth, and waited for the harried looking waitress. Considering the place was almost empty, Buffy couldn’t imagine what had her so harried looking. Then again, maybe she didn’t want to imagine; with a name like Lost Souls, maybe the waitress was just one of the many out there.

“What’ll it be?” She asked and popped her gum impatiently. Her tag said her name was Beth, but Buffy couldn’t be sure. The tag was upside down and the tattoo on her arm read Spike and Fanny. For a numbing heartbeat, Buffy thought the woman tattooed Spike’s name – the one she, Buffy, knew – on her arm. Then realized that chances were pretty good there was more than one Spike. Spike Lee, Spike Brown…Spike the dog.

Buffy chuckled at that but didn’t comment. If she truly was a lost soul, then the identity didn’t matter, did it?

“Whisky, the bottle,” Doyle said and there was a definite note of desperation in his voice. “And two glasses clean, preferably.” He ignored the look the woman gave him and she just shrugged.

“Oh, do you have any onion rings?” Buffy asked.

Nodding, she went to fetch their orders.

They waited barely a minute before ‘Beth’ returned with their drinks, promising their onion rings would be out shortly. And then mumbled something about waking the cook, but they ignored her. It was early; everyone had problems. Doyle poured them each a glass, knocking back his with a hiss and a smile-like grimace, and pouring another before Buffy had the chance to do more than sip at her own drink.

“Tell me,” she said and her voice was shaky. Gulping the burning liquid – was this alcohol or turpentine? – Buffy motioned for Doyle to pour another for her, took a sip of her refilled glass, and tried again. “Tell me what you meant about human and Angel in the same sentence.”

I don’t want to, was what he almost said, because I’m suddenly afraid for my life. However, he didn’t, simply took another swallow of his drink and told her everything Angel told him just the other day – two years ago? – about a day he’d been human and mysteriously – and stupidly in Doyle’s considered opinion, the Irishman had done more than one stupid thing in his life – given back.

The story wasn’t that long, Doyle didn’t know too many details, but he could guess. So, okay, he embellished. He really wasn’t sure they’d spent the day in bed, but he figured they did. It made the most sense. And he wasn’t entirely sure they’d planned parts of their future, but hey, it blended with the story. Of course, he stopped when the first tear finally slid down Buffy’s cheek, but it was too late by then.

He had to tell her the ending.

“What do you mean he gave it back?” Buffy demanded as their onion rings were finally served. She finished her third glass, suddenly sure she wasn’t going to regret drinking this much this early in the morning on an empty stomach and asked, her voice rising, “How the hell do you give a day back, damn it? How do you take a day together and then make it not happen?”

Quickly glancing around, he noted that whatever patrons dotted the dim interior all had their own problems and didn’t care for theirs. Lost souls indeed. That or they thought Buffy was already drunk. Either way worked.

“Buffy, dear, I don’t know. Angel didn’t say how he did it, only that he begged the Oracles to do it; he kept repeating that he couldn’t let you die, couldn’t be the cause of your death, and that if by giving up his happiness with you he ensured that, he was willing to sacrifice.” He poured them both another drink and signaled for another bottle. This one may have only been halfway empty, but he wanted to make sure they had more incase he was too drunk to ask later.

~~~~~~~~~~

Time really was meaningless.

Or at least it felt that way. Doyle opened a bleary eye and tried to focus on the woman in front of him. Her head was cushioned on her folded arms, one hand gripping the shot glass tightly as if afraid to spill the few drops that remained. She’d passed out only minutes before, and Doyle was now faced with the remnants of their second bottle of whisky and a dead-weight slayer.

His day was looking up. Really.

Forgoing the niceties of refilling his glass – and not entirely sure he could – Doyle carefully took the bottle in hand and slowly brought it to his lips. It was barely seven in the morning; this was early, even for him. Swallowing the contents of the bottle, and hoping that the opening was clean enough for that, Doyle tried to piece together the conversation he’d had with Buffy.

Putting together a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle was hard enough, doing so when one’s brain was swimming in a sea of numbing alcohol was a little too much. Still, he was determined to figure out what went wrong before he passed out.

But damn it, something was poking him. Opening eyes he didn’t remember closing, he looked into a pair of unfamiliar brown ones.

“Oh, you are still alive,” a voice said in a banshee-like screech that made him cringe – and then wish he hadn’t moved at all. “Your girl is in the bathroom, just so you know.”

With that, the banshee left and Doyle closed his eyes again. What had she been talking about? He didn’t remember going out with Cordelia last night. A figure stumbled into the booth across from him, leaning her head against the worn cushion of the booth and Doyle opened an eye again. Blonde, this girl was blonde and definitely not Cordelia. His Delia had beautiful long brown locks that he wanted to run his fingers through as he cradled her head and kissed her. This woman had short blonde hair and looked…wait a minute. She looked like Angel’s girl.

Now he really was confused.

In a flash of blinding pain that came complete with surround sound, entirely-too vivid colors, and smells he’d rather not have to deal with at the moment, Doyle remembered. Death, life, Buffy (and her death and life), his own confusion at being dead for apparently two years and subsequent rebirth in her living room. Oh, and the fact that they just spent the past who knew how long drinking themselves under the table as she told him why, exactly, it didn’t work between her and Angel. And her tears. Apparently, no matter how much she said it didn’t work, she really didn’t believe it.

Oh, no, now he wasn’t, confused that was. Thanks so much for that, he thought bitterly as he rode through the pain of remembrance. This was worse than a vision.

“Want me to drive, lass?” His words felt as if they were coming from someone else, and Doyle really would have thought that if not for the pain in his throat as he uttered them. “We should be going, and even if I don’t think the sun has set, it’s still a drive.”

She mumbled something, but dutifully dug the keys from her pocket, slapping them on the table as if they weighed too much for her. They both winced at the echoing noise that accompanied that move. Doyle took the keys, reached into his own pocket for money to pay for their entirely too early drinking binge and realized he had none.

“Money?” He whispered and looked at Buffy. She began to nod but stopped and reached into another pocket, pulling out several crumpled bills. Throwing them on the table, Buffy slid back out of the booth and stood, eyes still closed and grasped Doyle’s arm as she tried to stand.

“You really think he loves me?” Her voice was small and scared. As if, Doyle thought, the walls she obviously built around herself were crumbling and real emotion was leaking out. At least he could solve someone else’s pain.

“Lass,” Doyle said confidently through the headache, “I know he does. Trust me, despite a few decades of maiming and torturing that man broods over you and only you.”

“When you saw him last time; I mean, it was two years ago, things change.”

Ah yes, The Meeting, Doyle thought and wondered why he thought that in capital letters. The one where she and Angel had met, for less than a day, after her return from heaven. Doyle had no idea why Angel was so distant, why he left Buffy when she obviously needed him, hell months later Doyle, a virtual stranger, knew that she still needed him. There was something tickling the back of his still alcohol-hazed mind, but Doyle couldn’t figure out what it could possibly be.

“Trust me, lass, he loves you. If he didn’t you’d know, don’t you think?” At her look of confusion as he helped her into the SUV, both of them squinting at the sun, Doyle elaborated, wishing he had a pair of extra dark sunglasses. “If he didn’t love you anymore, don’t you think he’d have said something? Angel’s many things, he’s obstinate, he’s foolish, definitely a fool for love, and he’s a martyr, but he’s not a liar. He’d never continue to lead you on if he no longer felt the same way.”

Buffy nodded, eyes closed once more, head resting against the headrest as Doyle pulled out of the parking lot and onto the freeway once more. She could have sworn that they’d spent hours in that dingy bar, but it was barely an hour after she pulled off the road. Her sense of time wasn’t that off, was it? So why, then, did it seem as if she was in a time warp of some sort?

“I wish I could believe that, Doyle, but if I do then that means he hasn’t loved me since I was in high school. Because if he really did, and you’re right, then don’t you think he’d have said something?”

What was he, a therapist? This was going to take the rest of their nearly two-hour drive. Possibly the rest of his newly rebirthed life, if Buffy’s level of depression was any indication. Then again, it was rush hour now, thank you Mr. Whisky, and rush hour in LA was notoriously…slow.

Plenty of time to figure out what she meant by that.

~~~~~~~~~~

“I’m still in shock,” Buffy admitted as they sat across the street from the Hyperion Hotel, neither ready to get out of the relative safety of the car and meet their respective pasts.

Doyle smiled and finished the last of his water, glad Buffy had talked him into stopping halfway here for non-alcoholic refreshments and aspirin. And gum. He watched as she dug through the center consol for lip-gloss and a brush, hiding the knowing smile as she subconsciously made herself look presentable for Angel.

“About what, lass?”

They’d talked about a lot in the hours it took them to make their way from Sunnydale south to LA. His life, hers, loves, losses, Spike (never did Doyle want those images in his mind, thank you very much) Dawn, mystical happenings out the wazoo, it was brought up, discussed, dissected, and, hopefully, brought some healing to them both. Neither had the best of lives, though their demons were somewhat different. It helped just talking with someone who wouldn’t judge, wouldn’t impose their thoughts and opinions on the other. Doyle hadn’t felt this…free in, well, ever.

“Cordelia. You being in love with her. I mean, yeah, she had some decent qualities, ah, she…well, she…” Buffy trailed off, trying desperately to remember details about her high school rival/friend. “Direct, she was direct. Said what was on her mind and didn’t care what other’s thought about it.”

Doyle laughed, running a hand through his own hair. “I know, Buffy, she’s a little hard to take sometimes, but she’s got a good heart, she just doesn’t always want to show it. I think she was hurt before.”

“Xander,” Buffy nodded, “Her boyfriend in high school. He cheated on her after Cordelia gave up everything she ever knew for him. Then I think there was something about her father and jail. Tax evasion or something, I can’t remember, there were one or two other things on my mind at the time. Still, for the girl who had literally everything, that had to be hard on her.”

Doyle nodded as if he thought this all along and now she was just confirming his previous assumptions, and then paused. “The guy whose clothes I’m wearing?”

Buffy snorted. “Yeah,” and a giggle escaped her. Turning serious, she admitted, “I hope she feels the same way about you, Doyle, you’re a great guy.”

Smiling at the compliment, the former seer took whatever courage (sober courage as it was) he had and opened his door, walking to the other side and doing the same for Buffy. He didn’t object when the slayer slipped her small fingers into his hand, but squeezed them in support. In the hours they were stuck in the car, she had revealed a lot to him and Doyle realized that despite the façade she put on, even for him, despite whatever her friends may or may not think, Buffy Summers was still a scared young woman with too much responsibility and not enough support.

Her friends might think they supported her, but Doyle had a sneaking suspicion that it was limited, that they didn’t truly understand what she went through on a nightly basis. Until they did, real true support couldn’t be forthcoming. Angel understood; Doyle was willing to stay sober for a month on that assumption alone.

To rip her out of heaven without researching where she was? Irresponsible at best. To expect her to take on the responsibilities and duties of the living when she was still adjusting to being alive once more? Cruel and unjust, to be sure, but there was something else there. Did they honestly expect her to be unscathed no matter where she’d been?

Being taken from heaven and sent to her version of hell on earth was one thing, but if she were truly in hell as they thought, wouldn’t they have understood the implications of that? If they thought about hell, then they’d have realized that it wasn’t all sunshine and roses (think heaven here and the pain of being ripped from that peace) but torture, pain, death. Doyle shook his head. He didn’t understand any of that. It made no sense to him whatsoever how her friends, those supposedly closest to her, could do that.

Crossing the street, still hand in hand, Doyle pushed those thoughts away, and admired the new home for Angel Investigations. He wondered, as they stared at the imposing structure – did Angel do anything small? – what else he’d have learned from the woman beside him had they had more time. And what else he’d have confessed to her. He wasn’t too surprised to find that he’d opened up more with Buffy in the few hours they’d been together – drunk or not – than he had to either Angel or Cordelia in the months they were.

Then again, there was something about shared pain that made one talk. Angel wasn’t one to share, except with the story of the day he’d given back. And Cordelia was only beginning to accept him as an equal never mind the demon part, so they’d never really had a heart to heart.

What would have happened, Doyle wondered as they paused at the doors to the hotel, had he lived? Would Angel have eventually opened up to him? Would their friendship have grown and solidified as Doyle hoped it would? And what of Cordelia?

So many questions, so few answers.

Buffy squeezed his hand once more. “Those who will be coming back are now here,” she whispered and together they opened the doors, striding through the lobby to the reception desk.

Swallowing once, Doyle called out, “Hello?”

A quick staccato of heels tapped against the floor and a voice answered, “Yes, can we hel…?” And then the body was in sight and the woman who answered looked up and stopped dead, the file she’d been holding fluttering to the floor in a scattering of papers.

Cordelia Chase stared at the sight before her, swayed once, sure she was having either the most bizarre vision ever – and minus the pain – or that she’d suddenly been sent to some hellish world where the past came back to haunt her. Either way, she didn’t want to deal. Too many things came rushing back at the sight before her and she didn’t even notice the woman at his side.

“Doyle…?” It was no more than a whisper before the woman Doyle loved fainted. In a burst of speed, he leapt over the counter and caught Cordelia before she hit the ground.

Lifting her in his arms, Doyle’s eyes locked with Buffy’s and he grinned. “I guess she remembered me.”

Nodding Buffy felt her own eyes drift towards the stairs, wondering if the feeling she always got telling her Angel was near was still accurate. She could feel him, a tingling across her skin that was different from other vampires, so much more.

“It’s the way to make an entrance alright, Doyle.”

Wait...What?

“Cordelia came in this morning,” Wesley informed Angel, in a low voice so as to not wake the sleeping girl. He had no idea why Dawn suddenly showed up in LA, but knew he wasn’t going to get anything out of Angel on the subject. Instead, Wes eyed his friend critically, noting that the vampire probably hadn’t moved from his position in his favorite chair since about four this morning when he stood from the book he was reading and announced he was going upstairs.

Wes was hoping that his friend would at least attempt to sleep, but that didn’t seem to be the case. To coin a Cordelia phrase, Duh! He should have known better, Wes admitted. His friend was brooding, that much was clear no matter how vehemently Angel tried to deny it. Was it over Cordelia and the love spell? Had his vampiric friend really developed romantic feelings for Cordy? Or was it the fact that Wolfram & Hart was trying something completely new to rid Angel of his soul? Or the sudden appearance of Dawn and the inevitable thoughts of Buffy?

“Oh?” Angel said the word, but made no attempt to do anything more.

During the night, they’d tried to figure out – sans Cordelia – what spell had been cast on the couple; they already knew the answer as to who cast the spell – Wolfram & Hart. And even if Lorne’s dream hadn’t confirmed that, they’d all assumed it anyway. Wes was beginning to think the law firm needed a new project. Trying to bring forth Angelus was tired already. Besides, from everything Wes read, and his one brief acquaintance with the demon, Angelus didn’t really play well with others. He liked to be in charge, not bow like a lackey to the Senior Partners.

“Yes, she told Fred that since you probably wouldn’t be showing your face before this afternoon, it was safe and her buried memories could stay buried. Apparently, she had things to finish that she hadn’t gotten too yesterday, what with…everything and all. And wanted to do it before leaving for, and I quote, ‘A company paid trip to anywhere but here,’ unquote”

Angel nodded his unfocused gaze still on the bed in the other room where Dawn continued to sleep. Only listening with half an ear to what his friend was saying, Angel continued to think of the past few years, the mistakes he’d made, the joy he’d had, the friends he’d made…and lost. He had a lot to tell Buffy that was the majority of what he’d thought about during the long night and early morning hours. A lot about how he felt and why they should try to get back together despite the myriad obstacles before them; he desperately needed her if the past year was any indication.

But there was still one thing that bothered him the most.

Dawn said that it wasn’t sex that caused Angel to lose his soul and she was right. It was contentment, an end to the constant screams from Angelus’ victims. It was being in Buffy’s arms as she held him, accepted him. It was knowing that no matter what happened, she accepted him and that no matter what he’d done in his past, she would continue to do so.

Perfect happiness wasn’t an orgasm, it was knowing that the woman he loved, loved him – all of him, Liam, Angelus, Angel – back. And knowing that that love would never change would never die.

Therefore, if finding out that Buffy was dead shattered him, destroyed him to the point where even Angel didn’t know himself, then finding out she was alive should have mended everything. The moment those words were out of Cordelia’s mouth – “It’s Buffy, she’s alive!” Angel should have been gone, back to the aether, and Angelus should have been the one to greet Buffy in their cabin by the beach. The fact that it hadn’t happened, that Angel was still within his body and Angelus was a ferocious growl (he didn’t like Cordelia and certainly didn’t like that Angel wasn’t with Buffy because hey, vicariousness was the way to go, it seemed) in the back of his mind scared Angel.

If he truly loved Buffy, still, then shouldn’t that have happened? Shouldn’t that moment of happiness Angel knew he experienced have been enough to rip him from his body? Oh, he’d spent the last months rationalizing why that had not happened: he was wary of the magicks Willow used to bring Buffy back, he was unbearably sad knowing that Buffy had been in heaven and that her so-called friends had pulled her from eternal contentment without a thought to where she was.

The fact that he hadn’t known, undeniably, where Buffy resided in the afterlife until they met was beside the point. Angel knew that Buffy, the sole light of his life, was in heaven. Any place else was unthinkable. He was cautious, was another rational, cautious because he knew that believing too much in this miracle would get them all in a world of pain and hurt in the arms of Angelus.

None of it mattered.

The simple fact was that in the instant Cordelia told him Buffy was alive, and goddess help him, Angel could even now feel the uninhibited joy that lanced through him as he raced from the gardens to the phone. Yes, he felt such an unbridled moment of pure happiness, Angel knew, he knew, his soul should have been gone from this body. But that hadn’t happened. The second he heard her voice he should have screamed in pain as his soul was tore from him; the moment he laid eyes on her Angelus should have been there to welcome her back to the world she’d left.

It didn’t happen that way and Angel never confided in anyone his fears, never told them that he was deathly afraid that he no longer loved Buffy enough to lose his soul with her. That was inconceivable to him, Angel knew he loved the blonde slayer more than even his own life, but….Then again, that should have told him he still did love Buffy in that all consuming way, but Angel was too desperate to figure out why he was still there to truly dwell on it until now.

Strangely enough, no one asked why he hadn’t experienced a moment of happiness at her resurrection, not even Buffy. Was that why she hadn’t pressed the issue of his leaving again? Because she had the same fears?

And really, that was quite the catch 22 wasn’t it? Now he could be with her without worrying about the consequences, and yet how to explain that? ‘Oh, hey, Buffy, I love you, but it seems that I don’t love you enough to lose my soul. Wanna shag?’

Of course, then there was the fact that Angel knew he still loved Buffy. He knew he did because the thought of her with another torn at him. The thought of living without her for another instant was intolerable even if Angel knew it still had to be so. And all this, this huge circle, this catch 22, all led him to stay away from her when he sensed she needed him. She needed his support and love; she needed only him after she returned.

When Dawn showed up, his first thought, after all, was of Buffy. Well, granted, after that horrible spell was removed. Angel shuddered and willed himself not to think of it. (Repression, repression, repression, that was the key.) He ignored Angelus’ taunting laughter as well over the whole debacle. Repression, repression…

Angel continued to stare at Dawn, ignoring Wesley and wondering what he was going to do next. That was when he felt it. That tingle that raced across his dead skin, sparking life within him that only one other could ever spark.

“Buffy?” He didn’t realize he’d said her name aloud and Wes looked at him in confusion.

“No, we were talking about Cordelia.” The former watcher said.

Standing, Angel moved quietly to the door, careful not to wake Dawn. He never heard Wes’ words, didn’t realize that his friend was right behind him as he moved out the room and down the hall.

The second he did, he knew he was right. Nothing else mattered in that moment, nothing but the driving need to see her again. She was here, the object of his desires and thoughts, right there as if conjured specifically for him from his musings. He knew she was, he felt it, which put to rest any absurd thoughts that he no longer loved her. If he didn’t love her anymore then he wouldn’t feel her, right? It made sense and the relief Angel felt at that observation was almost overwhelming.

As he neared the stairs, Wesley right behind him, Angel heard Gunn shouting. “Hey, what’d you do to her?” And Fred ask in that timid voice of hers, “Did she have a vision?”

Moving faster, Angel was halfway down the steps when he ground to a halt, too abrupt a stop to prevent him from stumbling the rest of the way into the lobby. Wes moved more cautiously, scanning the scene with a practiced eye and noting that in addition to the strange man holding Cordelia as if she were the most precious thing to him, was Buffy. Speak of the devil.

“Nothing, man,” the Irish voice said and Angel thought he was going crazy. Was he in hell again? Hallucinating as the denizens of the underworld taunted him with images he knew would never come true? “She fainted and I caught her.”

“Doyle…?” Angel hadn’t realized that he moved further into the room, closer to his mate and (once) dead friend. Actually, Angel hadn’t realized that he could move such was his shock.

At the sound of the vampire’s voice, a hoarse croak that sounded hopefully painful, the group looked to him. Buffy took a step forward, whispering his name in that voice she always used, hope and love, need and anticipation, before moving back to Doyle’s side in a show of solidarity that wasn’t lost on the vampire. Gunn and Fred, who stood quietly beside her lover, stared in silence at their boss and Wesley took the whole thing in, equally silent.

Just then, Cordelia began to stir in Doyle’s arms and everyone’s attention swung back to her. “What the…?” She sat up, the past few moments a little blurred. Had she had a vision? She didn’t remember it if that was the case. Looking up into the face of the man whose arms were wrapped tightly around her, Cordelia smiled.

Then screamed.

She started trembling and tried to speak, but wasn’t sure the words that left her mouth were coherent in any way, shape, or form. The thought that she was crazy was strong in her mind, but more, the thought that maybe miracles really did come true.

“Doyle?! Wait, you, but you, and then you kissed me and there was light and then you were gone-” Sputtering her words out, Cordelia pushed at his arms until he released her and she stumbled a step or two backwards, hiding behind Buffy who she at least knew was alive. Now. Again. Whatever.

“Wait, what?” Fred asked, now seriously confused. What happened to her nice little world of yesterday where Angel loved Cordy, and Cordy loved Angel and there were no spells and no obvious fright at an attractive man who continued to look at Cordelia lovingly. And who was the blonde?

Angel swung his gaze back to Buffy as if she had the answers he sought. “Buffy?”

Fred stared at the blonde she’d just been wondering over with a smidgen of jealously. Oh, so this was Buffy? She was…mildly pretty, in a blonde way. Then who was this Doyle? She read all the files Angel Investigations had and his name wasn’t listed in any case she’d looked at. Oh, wait, yes it was, from a couple of years ago. Allen Francis Doyle, half Bracchan demon, died while trying to save…wait, what? Died? Fred idly wondered if anyone stayed dead around here.

Meanwhile, Cordelia was hyperventilating, having moved from behind Buffy who had moved closer to Doyle and was now leaning against the reception desk and staring at Doyle. Doyle, for his part, looked like he wanted to preserve this moment forever. She was chanting ‘Doyle’ over and over again like it was going to help in some way.

Buffy turned to her new friend and smirked, “You’d think that after all she saw she’d be used to this kind of thing.”

That snapped Cordelia out of her shock and she snapped her mouth closed. Doyle smiled and said, “Hi ya, Princess,” and braced himself when Cordelia threw herself across the few feet separating them and into his arms. A woman of many contradictions that was his princess.

Buffy raised an eyebrow and turned back to Angel. He had a bemused expression on his face and took a step or two towards the embracing couple. Stopping next to Buffy, he looked at her, at a loss for words. Doyle was whispering to Cordelia and Angel didn’t want to intrude even if he could make out what they were saying. Vamp hearing and all. He desperately wanted to see his friend, talk with him, hug him hello just to see that he was alive, for real. But he didn’t.

If anything Angel understood the scene before him. He understood seeing the one you loved after such a space of time, believing them dead. Angel knew Cordelia needed this time with Doyle and knew, however much he wanted his own time with his friend, his first true friend, that Doyle needed time with the woman he loved.

“Buffy?” It was all he could utter and he tried to put all the confusion he felt over the situation plus all the love he still held for her into the one word. Maybe she had some answers.

“He showed up in my living room early this morning, Angel,” Buffy admitted. “Just appeared there in a burst of light, naked and alive and claiming that he saw you just yesterday. He was anxious to return to LA, especially once the whole time thing was sorted out, so here we are.” She glanced at her watch and asked anxiously, “Can I use your phone? Dawn’s missing and Willow and Tara were double-checking with her friends when I left.”

Angel nodded, still dazed then shook his head. “Buffy, wait.” When she looked back at him, he jerked his head in the direction of his rooms. “Dawn’s here, Buffy,” he raised his hands to ward off the explosion he saw coming. “She showed up last night and well, we were in the middle of something.” He ignored Gunn’s snort of amusement and Buffy’s raised eyebrow.

“I’ll tell you later,” he promised, not looking forward to that one damn bit, “I was going to call you this morning but well,” he gestured to her as if saying, here you are.

“Here, Dawn’s here?” Torn between anger that her little sister had taken off in the first place and that Angel knew she was here and hadn’t called – despite his valid reasons, she was sure – and the fact that Dawn was obviously alive and safe, Buffy walked quickly to the stairs. “Where?”

With one last glance at the still embracing couple – Angel wondered how long it was going to take Cordelia to start the questioning – he led Buffy to the second floor and his rooms. Quietly opening the outer door, he waved her closer, pointing to the bedroom door, which stood ajar. Dawn was still sleeping peacefully in his bed, wrapped in the blanket he’d thrown over her.

For a moment, Buffy felt an unreasonable surge of jealously at her sister. Dawn was the one to sleep in Angel’s bed; her little sister was the one to breathe in his unique Angel-scent, his Angelness, when Buffy couldn’t, when she was forced to endure night after night without him. Without his comfort and love, without his cool embrace and loving touch. Her life sucked.

Backing out of the room, Buffy leaned against the wall, shutting her eyes against the image of her baby sister in her once-lover’s bed and the accompanying jealously that refused to leave her even as she was awash in relief that her baby sister was safe. Angel closed the bedroom door and turned to her, suddenly at a loss for words despite his all night thinking (brooding) marathon. He had no idea how to begin what was sure to be a long drawn out and probably angsty conversation.

How, exactly, did one go about confessing utter stupidity?

Buffy let the events of the morning rush through her and wondered if she could persuade Angel to allow her the same luxury as her sister. Would he be willing to hold her as she slept? She’d had such a long day already and could feel the alcohol-induced headache returning. All the breath left her when Angel placed his hands on her shoulders, drawing her closer to him as if reading her mind.

He held her there, a little uncertain at first, but then her head tucked under his chin where it belonged, her body molded to his, her arms around his waist. This, he thought, this was right, this was real, this was true.

“Have you and Doyle been drinking?” He asked eventually as the silence played out between them.

It was still semi-uncomfortable, there was a lot between them, but Buffy realized several things during her drinking binge with Doyle. And one was that Angel was the best thing to ever happen to her, despite the years and tears between them.

“Yeah, on the way here,” Buffy said as she thought of Lost Souls once more. What a strange little place that was. “We found an opened bar before dawn this morning, don’t ask me where or how, and drank Irish Whisky and spilled our lives to each other in the oddest therapy I’ve ever had.”

Angel chuckled at that, forcing the automatic Buffy shouldn’t drink thoughts away – she never had any luck with alcohol. He also held the jealously that Buffy could talk with his no longer dead friend and not himself at bay. If he had any say in it, they’d talk before she left to return Dawn to Sunnydale…before returning to him. If there was anything his all night thinking (brooding) marathon taught him, it was that the separation between them needed to end.

“And was it as therapeutic as you hoped?”

“Enlightening, I’d say. It was most definitely enlightening.” Which reminded her… “Speaking of,” Buffy said her voice accusing as she pulled almost out of his embrace. Almost but not quite; she was so comfortable there she couldn’t bear to move away completely. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

“There’s a lot I want to tell you, Buffy,” Angel said honestly, his fingers running over her spine, tangling in her hair, making Buffy weak in the knees. “A lot that I’ve thought of over the past few hours that I want to share with you.”

“Any of that have to do with being human for a day?”

**********

Angel stared at Buffy in shock as his mouth worked silently trying to find an answer for her. “What?”

How on earth had she known about that? Doyle, of course. So, along with the myriad questions Angel had on Doyle’s resurrection, not to mention why Wolfram & Hart would want him to think he, Angel, loved Cordelia enough to lose his soul to her, plus the less mystical aspect of Dawn running away, Angel now had to deal with a day he’d hope to someday repeat. And this time not be forced to give it back.

Buffy continued to look at him, her face unreadable, and her eyes holding a careful blankness that warned Angel of the impending tongue-lashing he was most likely about to receive. Ah, but she did have a talented tongue, when used certain – suddenly aching – parts of his anatomy.

“I wanted to tell you…but I couldn’t and it didn’t really seem appropriate, what with Riley and all, and then,” Angel still held her as he tried to justify his actions. Was there any justification? At the time, he’d thought so but now, confessing to her, holding her after so long, after so many things, Angel wasn’t so sure. “Then Doyle died and well, you were moving on and I, I was…”

“It’s okay, Angel, I understand.” At his incredulous look, Buffy smiled and slipped her fingers into his hand, leading him slowly out of the room and back into the hallway. His hand felt so right in hers and it was so easy to slip back into old habits such as touching him like this.

Barely five minutes had passed between them leaving and now, but Buffy had a feeling that Doyle was going to need her. Or maybe it was the way Cordelia was eerily silent. The slayer thought for sure that they’d hear her screeching explosion all the way in Cleveland.

“Doyle explained to me everything you told him. I wish I could remember it, Angel,” she admitted wistfully. “And I wish you’d consulted me on it!” This was said fiercely and with a sharp jab to his ribs. As they descended the stairs to where Angel’s gang stood around Doyle and Cordelia, who looked as if she wanted to punch the Irishman, Buffy gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “We’ll talk about it more, trust me on that.”

“I couldn’t tell you Buffy,” Angel told her quickly and quietly as they slowly approached the group. “If I did, I knew you’d talk me out of it and that would mean something would happen to you. I couldn’t let that happen, you know that.” He pulled her to a stop before they were close enough for the other’s to overhear their exchange. This wasn’t exactly the place he wanted to have this conversation, but since it had been brought up, now would have to do.

“Being human meant that I couldn’t defend you like I could as a vampire. And I had to protect you, Buffy, I couldn’t go on not doing the one thing I know I was meant to do.”

Buffy nodded, pushing aside her tears and her anger over the situation. They’d have plenty of time to discuss everything later. She’d make sure of that. Now was for other things. “I have to call home and let them know I found Dawn.”

Angel nodded and led her to his office before returning to the still silent group. Eerily silent, actually, and he was growing more nervous by the moment.

“Doyle.”

Doyle looked up and smiled, skirting the still glaring Cordelia and crossing the small distance to his friend, clasping him in a tight embrace. Pulling back, the former seer said. “It’s good to see ya again, Angel. Even though it seems like only a few days, I’m told it’s been quite a few years.”

Angel nodded, and resisted pulling Doyle back in his arms for another hug. Just to make sure his friend was well and truly alive. Really, after everything that happened to him in the past few years, Angel felt he could hardly be blamed for that.

“How…? Do you remember anything?” Angel had so many questions, but had no idea how to ask any of them.

“I remember punching you,” Doyle said with a sly grin as Gunn snickered. He’d only just met the younger man, but his sense of humor was something Doyle could appreciate. “Then kissing Cordelia,” Doyle looked back at the still silent woman in question as Buffy reentered the room, “Then pulling that machine apart,” he shuddered here in remembered pain. “Then waking up in Buffy’s living room.”

“Naked,” Buffy added and grinned as everyone turned to look at her, Angel glaring at her revelation. “And covered with burns that healed almost instantly.”

Buffy eyed Cordelia carefully, noting the look on her face and carefully moved the few feet to where Angel stood. That look was well known and dangerous and Buffy didn’t want to be anywhere near when the other woman exploded. Buffy didn’t have to wait long, as soon as she was again by Angel’s side Cordelia opened her mouth.

“You!” She said, pushing herself away from the counter to stalk towards Doyle. The effect was scarily convincing, definitely reminiscent of a younger Cordelia Chase whose sharp tongue and mostly stinging wit had everyone in Sunnydale High quivering in her wake. The click of her heels did nothing to detract from the effect, in fact the echo added to her performance.

“You kissed me, and I thought it meant something! I thought you really meant those words, that love you spouted and what do I find?” She was right in his face now and all anyone could do was gape in amazement.

“Queen C is on a tear,” Wesley said in a staged whisper as he settled in to watch. Whenever her wrath wasn’t directed at him, Cordelia was always amusing to observe.

“You gave me those visions! You…you knew! You knew that was what’d happen and you gave me these brain breaking visions!” Her finger kept poking the Irishman in the chest; said Irishman took it all with a silly grin on his face. “You could have warned me! But no, you just jumped across to that stupid machine and did the whole noble thing. What were you thinking?”

She paused for breath and Doyle jumped in. “I was thinking to save you, Delia. That ‘stupid machine’ would have killed you and all the others in the area. I couldn’t let you die…”

Cordelia looked at him in shock, all her scathing words deserting her in an instant. She wasn’t mad, really, but overjoyed at Doyle’s apparent resurrection. Well, that and the small fact that maybe with his resurrection she wouldn’t have the visions any longer. Okay, so she was mad, he died, sacrificed himself as only heroes were suppose to and left her alone with Mr. Broody-pants himself, one more item on the Brood List to rival all lists.

Still, Cordelia had missed him and was more than happy to see him again. Even if he was a contrary Irishman with a penchant for too much alcohol and stupid heroics.

The group was partly amazed at the stunned silence currently emanating from Cordelia at this latest revelation and wondered how long it would last this time. Buffy slipped her hand into Angel’s, squeezing it. She knew what Doyle was talking about because it was why she jumped from that tower for Dawn. Why she was willing to face the First Evil for Angel, why Angel had given up that day they’d both been human. For the one they loved.

“Oh, great, nobility,” Cordelia whispered, but you could hear the tears there. “Why did you have to be the hero, Doyle?”

Gently gathering the woman before him in his arms, Doyle whispered, “Because I couldn’t let you die, because I realized why Angel did what he did, why he gave back that day as a human; to protect the one he loved.”

Completely breaking down, Cordelia Chase did something she’d only ever done twice before, once when Doyle died, and once when Buffy did a year and a half later. She cried. Cried in the presence of others, not caring that her makeup was ruined, that they could see her weaknesses, and that they were all looking at her. She cried in the arms of the only man she’d ever really let herself become close to, though he never knew it.

Fred looked on in silence, frantically revising all her previous conceptions about the people she thought she knew. Angel didn’t love Cordelia, not with the way he acted with that slayer girl. Cordelia, the woman Fred never imagined ever cried, sobbed like a baby in the arms of a man recently returned from the dead. And how exactly does that happen? It was so frequent that the former slave wondered if just anyone could do it, or you needed a special subject.

Like Buffy, she was the slayer, and the world needed a slayer. Fred frowned, wasn’t there another one? Still, and Doyle…well, he was the one to give the visions to Cordelia, so maybe he was brought back from the dead to…take them back? No, no that didn’t make sense, plus there was that whole Darla thing Gunn and Cordy told her about, and Darla was a mean vampire, so there’d be no reason to bring her back from the dead, right?

So then, what were the criteria? And, Fred wondered as Doyle led Cordelia into Angel’s office, closing the door behind them, how had her world turned so violently within the last day?

“Um, so he’s back from the dead, too?” She asked, her curiosity burning for satisfaction. “Is this a common thing with you people?”

“I thought you said he was half demon,” Gunn said, as they all ignored Fred’s question. Not out of meanness or spite, but because the obvious answer was…yes.

“Yeah, Bracchan demon,” Angel said, his eyes still glued to the closed door even as his hand gripped Buffy’s in an effort not to interrupt his friends’ reunion. Was it unreasonable to want time with Doyle, too?

“Is that like the vamp thing then,” Gunn continued over a yawn, “Where he can hide it?”

“Something like that,” Angel agreed, pulling his eyes from the office. He didn’t want to listen to their conversation, but he very much wanted time with Doyle. The Irishman was his friend, too.

“Did he say anything, Buffy,” Wesley asked in full Watcher mode, “About what happened to him? Where he’d been during the two years he was, ah…?”

Buffy blanched, visibly paling under the watcher’s questions but mutely shook her head. She wasn’t ready to share anything Doyle told her for one, but deeper, she didn’t want to think about death, hers, his, anyone’s, or their coming back from that death. Doyle hadn’t remembered where he’d been, not like Buffy had. For his sake, the slayer hoped that it hadn’t been heaven, that he hadn’t been ripped from the peace she’d known there.

“Ah, no,” she whispered, clutching Angel’s hand like a lifeline.

“Wes,” Angel said to his friend, his dark gaze piercing the human. “I think that those questions are for Doyle, and only if he wants to answer them.”

Wesley, immediately realizing what he’d done, nodded. He opened his mouth to apologize to the still pale and shaking slayer, now wrapped in Angel’s strong arms, but couldn’t force the words to leave his mouth. How did one go about apologizing to a woman he’d only wanted to help? One he’d failed miserably but now wanted to find some common ground with?

This, obviously, wasn’t the way to go about it. Angel never said anything about Buffy’s resurrection, then again, the way he and Cordelia mocked their relationship, Wes couldn’t blame the vampire. He’d assumed, like her friends, that she’d been sucked into Glory’s hell dimension. Giles never said anything about it, too torn over the death of his slayer, his daughter, to discuss it and Wesley couldn’t blame the older man.

In the moments they stood there, Buffy’s shaking gradually subsiding under Angel’s loving embrace; Wesley wondered how he could have possibly been so blind. So wrong. Buffy wasn’t in hell, she hadn’t been sucked into Glory’s hell dimension. She’d been in heaven, where she belonged, where slayers go because what greater force for good was there?

Oh, he’d been a blind thoughtless fool! Wesley scolded himself as Buffy turned back to the group, only the faintest hint in her eyes betraying the depth of pain she felt. And now he’d allowed his brain to run away, to ask stupid questions he should know better than to ask. And still he had no way to apologize to her.

Drawing a deep breath, Buffy said, more to Angel than the rest of his friends, “I called Willow and Tara.” She wasn’t trying to keep it a secret, but she also wasn’t sure she could actually face them, not after breaking down in front of them. A quick look at Wesley showed her that he understood what he’d done, what he’d said with his unintentional words but couldn’t find a way to apologize to her. That was fine with Buffy, so long as he realized it.

“They’ll be here around four or so,” she continued with a quick smile at her former watcher, “Assuming Xander gets out of work on time. When I talked to her, Tara mentioned something about a strange dream she had about Doyle.” Apparently, the blonde witch had fallen asleep while waiting to re-call Dawn’s friends, not that Buffy blamed her; she was exhausted, too.

Angel traced the deep circles under her eyes with a gentle thumb and Buffy thought she’d break down again. She was exhausted, mentally and physically. Between the thing with Spike she’d – thankfully – broken off weeks ago (what had she been thinking?), then this whole Dawn rebellion thing, the slayer wasn’t sure she was cut out to be anything more than that, the slayer. Buffy wasn’t so good at the juggling act.

“Why don’t you guys go home, or crash in the spare rooms upstairs. It’s been a long night,” Angel said, turning to his friends but not releasing Buffy. “And I think we need to rest before researching anymore.”

His carefully worded order wasn’t lost on the men, and Gunn nodded. “I’ll stay here; it’ll be easier than heading home again.” He didn’t add, though it was obvious, that he wanted to be on hand for any further excitement. These past hours, he admitted, were better than anything that happened since Angel kicked Darla out of town.

Wes nodded his agreement as well. “I think I’ll take my guest room, Angel, as most of my research materials are in,” he jerked his head in the direction of the still closed office door. “I’ll take whatever is in my office and see you in a few hours.”

But Fred, caught up in yet another mystery and wondering if they were connected, asked, “Do you think Doyle’s return has anything to do with the spell that made you and Cordelia think you were in love?”

Buffy felt her world spin as she turned towards Angel. “Wait…love? What?”

Now I Remember Why I Don’t Like You

It took Angel five of the longest minutes of his life to shut Fred up, quell Gunn’s laughter, shoo Wesley off to his research, and usher Buffy back to his room.

Closing the door with an audible click and doing the same for the door to his bedroom, so as to not awaken Dawn, Angel tried to gather his thoughts. Unfortunately, Buffy was glaring at him as if he’d just confessed to being Quinten Travors in disguise who planned to do unspeakable things to Dawn to discover the secrets of the Key. Best get right to it then.

“There’s a lot of back story, Buffy, but the general gist is this: Wolfram & Hart, that law firm I told you about, wants Angelus loose. They don’t realize that loose or not, neither of us will follow their lead. They also don’t understand the logistics of the curse, which is probably just as well, and think it’s sex that releases my hold on the body.”

Buffy’s glare turned to green slits of ice as Angel explained the problems he’d had in the past months. Lilah Morgan, the Senior Partners, Fred thinking that there was something more to his friendship with Cordelia, and finally this spell. “So they tried to get you to have sex with…Cordelia? Angel, really, Cordelia?”

Shaking his head, trying not to remember the past few weeks, it was much better that way, he held up a hand. “Buffy, please. They obviously know about you if they know about the curse, but…” Should he tell her of his suspicions about his soul? Suspicions he hadn’t fully worked out himself. No, that wasn’t part of the current discussion. “Anyway, that’s for another time. And we will talk about that,” he stressed with a hard look at her.

“So,” he continued, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “They cast this spell over the two of us, Wes is researching that, to make us think we were in love. And, ah, it seems that the spell was irreversible once we, ah, consummated that so-called love.” He admitted haltingly. Then, faster and with obvious relief, “But Lorne had a dream about it, realized it was a spell, found out how to break it, and did so before anything…untoward could happen.”

“They wanted you in love with Cordelia?” Buffy asked as she tried to work past the jealous anger that clouded her vision. “Now I remember why I don’t like her,” the slayer muttered.

“Why?” She questioned, trying to understand. “Was there something there before? I mean I know you work with each other, but maybe they did it because they thought there was something more to your relationship and worked with that. You can’t just create love out of nothing, can you?”

Crossing the room to where Buffy stood, Angel grasped her shoulders, forcing Buffy to look at him. “Buffy, look at me. I care for Cordelia; she’s a friend and has been a good one over the years. But it’s nothing more than that, it never has been and it never will be. Just because I don’t love her as more than a sister doesn’t mean that I want harm to come to her; maybe they confused that with something else, I don’t know.”

Buffy scowled but said nothing. She was going to have to have a little talk with this law firm. And Cordelia, oh, yes, Buffy planned on speaking with Cordelia, too, just in case there was something…more on the brunette’s part. The other woman was always jealous of Buffy’s relationship with Angel, Buffy thought, why should anything change that? Then Buffy remembered the shared look between Cordelia and Doyle. Maybe something could change that.

“Remember what I told you?” He asked with a slight smile, one that guaranteed her knees to weaken. “I’ll only ever love you, in all my years.”

Her entire body relaxed with that her hands moving up to clasp his wrists, and Buffy smiled. “I remember, Angel. But I’m still going to find whoever put this spell on you and make them very, very sorry.” Then, because the jealous haze had cleared a little, “What did you mean by they didn’t understand the logistics of the curse? They think that it’s just sex, don’t they.” Buffy nodded, remembering his explanation on what happened, and what she once told Dawn about the release of Angelus.

“They don’t know it’s contentment, love, belonging, do they?” Buffy smiled, smug now. So she held everything about Angel jealously close to her heart; considering the too few memories they made together, Buffy felt she was entitled. And while there was that constant threat of the two of them losing control and Angelus getting lose, Buffy took a bizarre sort of pride in the fact that it was she and no one else who held that power.

Yeah, logic really had no place there and Buffy was perfectly content with that.

“And just as well, too, because if they did, they’d realize you were the only one to hold that power over me,” Angel admitted, drawing Buffy closer. Tucking her head under his chin, the vampire continued, “But that’s something else I think we should talk about.”

“What?” Buffy asked with sudden apprehension. He wouldn’t tell her he no longer felt that way for her, would he? Not when he held her in his arms so tenderly, so protectively. “Is it about…about your soul?”

“Later, Buffy, we’ll talk about that later. Now,” Angel waved his feeling that maybe there was something more to the soul-curse than he realized. Why hadn’t he lost his soul when Cordelia told him Buffy was alive, when he saw her again, when he held her, kissed her? But that was a question for another time.

Leading her to the plush leather chair, Angel sat, bringing Buffy with him and wrapping his arms securely around her. Nothing was solved between them, as always they had way too much to discuss, but that didn’t matter. It’d been too long since Angel last held her and he wasn’t wasting this opportunity. Besides, he didn’t want her to bolt when he voiced his next question.

“What’s this about you and Spike?”

Stiffening, Buffy did try to pull out of Angel’s arms. Closing her eyes, she cursed however it was he found out about her indiscretion with the vampire. “How…?”

“His scent’s all over you, Buffy,” Angel growled, surprised he’d managed to last this long before questioning her. “What happened?”

~~~~~~~~~~

Dawn silently cried behind the closed door of Angel’s bedroom.

She’d woken some time ago, refreshed from the best night’s sleep she’d gotten in over a year. So that was what Buffy meant about always feeling safe with Angel. If just knowing the souled vampire was in the same building, that he watched over her, Dawn, as he did her sister, made the younger Summers’ feel safe enough to sleep for twelve hours, what must Buffy feel?

It was quite by accident that Dawn discovered Buffy felt the same way, but a thousand times more. She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, honestly, but…and well, she wanted to know why her sister was so distant, so cold towards everyone. Dawn discovered more than she ever wanted to know.

As she listened to Buffy confess everything from the past year to Angel, Dawn cried. For the sister she never really knew, for the slayer who sacrificed it all because she didn’t feel connected enough to this world to care if she lived or died. But most of all the overwhelming anger Buffy felt towards her friends for not letting her rest and for her sister for not recognizing Buffy’s need as well. Friends who hadn’t cared if she was in heaven or hell, they simply wanted her back. And they got their wish, dragging her from heaven, kicking and screaming, to a world she didn’t want to inhabit any longer.

And what did they do? They forced her to take over the rigors of daily living almost immediately. They hadn’t cared that even if she had been in hell there were certain emotional problems she’d have, but to be torn from ultimate peace…no all they cared about was that Buffy was back with them. And since she was back, she was the slayer, the leader of their group, and frankly, they hadn’t managed that well without their leader. So they thrust her back into that position and hadn’t cared that that had contributed to her emotional downward spiral at all.

Dawn cried harder when she heard Buffy confess her ‘relationship’ with Spike. So that’s where she was all those nights, patrolling then screwing Spike. Dawn would have been angry, and okay she was because she still felt neglected, but then she hadn’t heard the rest of that confession. How Buffy needed to feel something and Spike was the only one willing to help her through that. Even if it had been in an emotionally abusing and controlling way.

When Dawn got back to Sunnydale, she was so kicking Spike’s ass.

Eventually the sobs quieted from both Summers’ girls and Dawn risked opening the bedroom door a crack. Buffy lay in Angel’s strong, protective arms, obviously spent. She curled trustingly in those arms, allowing the comfort and security of them to lull her into a sleep the slayer hadn’t felt in months, if not years.

Angel’s eyes shot open even though Dawn swore she hadn’t made a sound. Damn vampire senses. Opening her mouth, Dawn wanted to say something, but had no idea what. Should she apologize to Angel for this, or should he be the one thanking her for running to him in the first place. After all, it brought he and Buffy back together. No, she should probably apologize to Buffy, but the slayer was asleep.

“I’m sorry,” Dawn whispered and wasn’t sure if she were saying that to Angel, Buffy, or both.

Angel simply nodded, not moving from his position in the chair as Dawn tiptoed across the floor. “There’s food downstairs, Dawn,” he whispered, “Go down the stairs and to your right to the kitchen area near the front desk.”

Dawn nodded and quietly opened the door, shutting it firmly behind her. Angel watched her leave the room, listening to her footsteps as they echoed on the hallway. He’d known she listened to Buffy’s confession and cried with the slayer over things neither could change, he could see the visible signs of sorrow and anxiety on Dawn’s face when the younger woman crept out of the bedroom. But Angel couldn’t comfort Dawn, not while Buffy still needed him.

Carefully standing, the slayer still curled in his arms, Angel carried her to his room, laying her gently on the bed. Removing her socks and shoes, he toed off his own before climbing into bed with her, tugging the comforter around them. The vampire debated removing Buffy’s clothes – just so she’d be more comfortable, of course – but decided that was a temptation they didn’t need.

Closing his eyes, Angel allowed himself to drift off to sleep, holding the only woman he ever loved in his arms.

~~~~~~~~~~

Cordelia stared at the man before her.

In an unprecedented move, this was the third time today she was speechless.

Doyle just finished telling her everything he’d kept secret for the past months. Months by his time, years by hers, but Cordelia was trying to assimilate it all and wasn’t in the mood to quibble over technicalities like that. As far as the man before her was concerned, he’d jumped across that opening, dismembering that machine only yesterday, two days ago at most. Not close to the two years that Cordelia knew to have passed. In that time, she’d often remembered him, but since it was impossible (she really should know better) to change the past, Cordelia tried her best to leave the best unfulfilled thing to ever happen to her in that past.

He loved her.

Okay, so she got that, really she did. She realized it in the moments before Doyle did jump, when he kissed her, when he said it was a shame they’d never have the chance to see if his face – the demon one – was a face she could love. When she’d finally broken down in Angel’s arms, weeks after Doyle’s death when Wesley already joined their ranks. The vampire confessed Doyle’s big secret, not that he was half demon, Cordelia realized that moments before his death. No, it was that Allan Francis Doyle was in love with her.

Well. That was all well and good and Cordelia treasured that. It was different from sitting face to face with a man one watched die, having him confess that love.

“Have you changed so much, princess, that you suddenly can’t find anything to say?” Doyle teased, afraid that he’d somehow broken her.

That snapped Cordelia out of her stupor. “Look, I’m trying to understand it all, okay? I mean it’s not everyday someone returns from the dead.” She paused and realized what she said. “Actually, that’s more common than one would think. Anyway,” she waved that away, “I mean. You were there, and that kiss, and well, then you jumped, and I don’t know what I really feel for you because you were dead and I never got the chance to really feel those feelings! How do I know what I felt for you two years ago is real?”

Her voice was beginning to rise in her panic. “I mean I thought that there could be something, but you weren’t there to…and well, what if I just built you up in my head, thinking that whatever it was I felt for you was the real thing, was love and the real kind, the forever kind, but then it might not be because you died and we couldn’t explore that with dates and more kisses and fights and the make-up sex!”

Cordelia stood, breathing heavily and Doyle thought she’d hyperventilate if she didn’t calm down. “Now, princess, just relax…”

“Don’t tell me to relax!” She snapped at Doyle, “I mean I thought so much to you, I wondered all those what might have been,” and now she was screaming, “And I was really sad that we couldn’t have that, even the chance and then, then, then-”

Doyle leapt to his feet when Cordelia paled, her breath coming in shorter bursts than was healthy. “Easy, Delia,” Doyle soothed, sitting her back in the chair and crouching before her. “Breathe, Princess, you’re going to pass out if you don’t.”

Listening to him, Cordelia did as he instructed and tried really hard to not to think that a man who’d been dead less than a day ago was giving her advice on how to breathe. But it worked, and eventually she calmed. Calmed enough to look back in his handsome face, to see the concern in his twinkling blue eyes, to see the love shining there. Yeah, she was a goner.

“I’m really tired, Doyle,” Cordelia admitted eventually. Between the horror that was remembering her so totally false love for Angel, and this, the breaking point was quickly approaching. “I have a room here, we all do, and I’m going to go lie down.” She stood, taking a deep breath as she did. Holding out her hand, Cordelia smiled, “Come on, I’ll fill you in on what’s been happening here.”

Doyle smiled, clasping her smaller hand in his and allowing her to lead the way. He couldn’t wait to find out how his friends fared during his, ah, absence.

~~~~~~~~~~

Spike stood inside the Summers’ kitchen. Buffy wasn’t there, that much he knew, nor was the niblet. Red was upstairs with the other one and their conversation floated down to his vampire enhanced hearing. Buffy was in LA, returning one of Angel’s errant friends, it seemed. And Dawn ran away to LA as well. Why was it always about Angel?

Then again, the moment his grandsire discovered his, ah, impropriety with Buffy, Spike was dead. There were two ways to play that. The first was that he, Spike, was trying to help the slayer learn to live again. Since her friends yanked her from heaven then left her to fend for herself, and since Angel was in LA doing the do-gooder job, or whatever he did, that stupid help the hopeless bit, or was it helpless? What did it matter, the point was that the older vampire wasn’t there and he, Spike, was.

The second was to play on vampire dynamics. As Angel’s grandchilde, Spike was in a unique position. Buffy was the marked mate of Angel and, in the vampire community, that was as close too sacred as they got. But, since Angel was in LA, that left Buffy defenseless, despite her slayer status. Being the concerned grandchilde, Spike saw it as his duty to protect her.

The fact that he blatantly transgressed upon territory that wasn’t his to touch could be played off as something else. Like…like Spike sleeping with Buffy because he was Angel’s grandchild.

Spike didn’t think Angel would go for that, poof or not, there was one thing that really got the vampire angered and that was any harm to Buffy.

So, stay in Sunnydale and hope Angel didn’t bother to make the two-hour trip to beat the shit out of Spike, or head as far away as possible and hope Angel didn’t bother expending the energy finding his wayward childe. A third option was that Spike could go to LA and present himself to Angel, with possibly a mixture of the aforementioned reasons, and hope for the best.

Fuck that, Spike thought, he was outta the God-forsaken town that swallowed his life, his pride, his everything long ago in that pit called the Hellmouth. What’d this town ever offer him? Nothing but pain and heartache. He’d lost his Dru here, his Dark Princess. He lost his ability to hunt and kill, but not the need to do so. Damn town with the damn slayer and okay, so he still wanted her, but that didn’t matter when his life was on the line, did it? No. He was so gone; the second the sun completely set he’d pack up the car and head east.

He missed Europe; maybe it was time to see the sights once more.

~~~~~~~~~~

Lilah Morgan was fuming.

What happened, where did it go wrong? Her team had carefully assessed the possibility of this plan working and it was a high one. They’d gone over it again and again and even, much to Lilah’s chagrin, consulted with several outside groups and asked the freaky little girl in the White Room a very specific question about the plan.

“If Angel falls in love and consummates that love will this precipitate the release of Angelus?” Her answer, after several long minutes and a really scary cryptic smile of “Yes,” spurned their plan ahead.

So how the hell had it not worked?

Angel was still walking around, all good and souled, and Lilah was once more in serious hot water. She didn’t want to think how literal that might be. And now it looked like that slayer was back in town. Which was fine, Lilah thought, and might be useful for her plans. But how much did Angel still love the girl? All her research indicated they’d both moved on, but maybe research was no match for visual observation.

Grabbing her purse and jacket, Lilah went to do a little legwork, not trusting anyone else to it. She was going to see just how ‘over’ each other Angel and Buffy really were.

**********

It was mid-afternoon by the time everyone woke.

Dawn spent the day with Lorne, talking Karaoke, eating large sandwiches, and generally getting along. It’d been a while since someone actually listened to her, and Dawn reveled in the attention from the green-skinned demon. It was nice to talk, Dawn thought, about nothing and everything, and a wonderful change with not having him say things like he needed to do homework, or go patrolling, or get to work, or whatever.

Still, Dawn didn’t forget, couldn’t, the confession she’d heard from Buffy. Which was why she bent Lorne’s ear and resolved, with his encouragement, to speak with her sister sometime in the very near future. Assuming Buffy didn’t kill her for running away in the first place.

She heard the commotion from the lobby, where Lorne manned the not ringing phones and Dawn leaned a little about both the demon’s home dimension and the running of Angel Investigations.

“Cordelia what are you talking about?” Angel asked, exasperated from the landing above the marbled lobby. He was still tired, wanted to return to bed with Buffy, who stood next to him, and didn’t really feel like listening to his friend screech about…hair products?

“I went to shower,” Cordelia said between clenched teeth, her hair still wrapped tightly in a towel indicating that fact. “And I always keep things here in case of demon-goo related emergencies. I know,” she emphasized, “That I had a full tube of hair gel in my bathroom cabinet. It’s now gone and you, Mr. I’m a vampire but need more hair care products than I do, are my prime suspect.”

She folded her arms and tapped her foot impatiently on the carpeted hallway. She shot Buffy a glare when the slayer stifled a giggle and then turned that glare to Doyle who stood behind her, looking entirely too innocent to really be so. In a strange way, it felt good to be back, as if she hadn’t been herself in a long time. Cordelia Chase desperately hoped it was that awful spell and now that she was no longer under its detrimental influence, all would be well in her world once more.

“Well,” she asked, “Where is it?”

“Cordelia,” Angel said patiently, trying to remember that she had changed in the past few years from the bitchy high schooler he couldn’t stand to be in the same room with, into a fine young woman who cared for others. That image was shot to hell when the woman before him advanced another step poked him in the chest, again demanding the return of her hair gel.

“I don’t have it,” Angel said through clenched teeth. “I wouldn’t steal your hair gel,” he added, annoyed.

“Of course not!” Cordelia said, “You probably used it all already! You go through that stuff so damn fast I’m not surprised. You owe me mister,” she warned, “You own me a new tube. And I want the expensive stuff, the good stuff.”

Doyle swallowed another laugh at seeing his fierce vampire friend defending himself over missing hair gel. “Princess, maybe you used it already?”

“I’m sure,” Cordelia huffed, “That I’d remember using it. I keep a tube here for emergencies, and since there haven’t been that many, I haven’t needed it!” Then she stopped. “Oh, wait,” she said, with not an ounce of remorse in her voice, “Never mind. I gave it to Fred when we got back from Pylea.”

Shrugging, she turned and walked back down the hallway to where her room was. Angel scowled and couldn’t help himself. “Now I remember why I don’t like you,” he mumbled to no one in particular, though both Buffy and Cordelia heard him.

“Hey, I heard that, Angel!” She shouted but didn’t turn around. “Just for that, I want a new tube anyway!”

Angel growled at Cordelia’s retreating back. Friend, she was a friend, he repeated to himself, and it didn’t do at all to strangle one’s friend. Now, the vampire was hard-pressed to remember that, however, because he really didn’t like being woken up from a pleasant dream where Buffy did wonder things to his body. Okay, waking to see the blonde slayer there helped, but this thing with Cordelia was most certainly not on the list. Buffy laughed then, releasing the mirth that was trapped under Cordelia’s glare and Angel’s glower.

“She’s changed,” the slayer parroted, “She’s a different person, Buffy, she really does care.” Another bubble of laughter issued from her mouth and Angel watched, fascinated. She looked so much younger than she did hours ago when she first entered his hotel. “I love her like a sister, Buffy,” the blonde continued over her laughter.

“Shut up” Angel grumbled, wondering how his friend could change so drastically from, literally, one day to the next. “I was blinded by a spell,” he justified, still watching Buffy’s lips, “And can’t be expected to think clearly. Obviously I was mistaken; she reminds me a little too much of what she was like in high school, the brief times I saw her there, and our first year here.”

Buffy’s lips curved into a wider grin. “Oh, Angel, you’re such a sucker, sometimes.” She walked closer, tracing the side of his face with a finger. “You try to help everyone; try to see the good in everyone so that you can save them. I’m sorry, baby, but some people are beyond redemption.”

Angel heard what she said, really, he did, but was too captivated by her lips to really care. Honestly, how was a vampire supposed to think clearly, when her lips looked so inviting, so sexy, so…. Without another thought, Angel pulled Buffy into his arms and kissed her, allowing the feeling of her lips to wash over him, the taste of her to remind him, the scent of her to soothe him.

They explored each other’s mouths as if it were their first kiss all over again, tasting, savoring, remembering. Buffy leaned closer, pressing against Angel’s cool hard chest, whimpering when his hands tightened in her hair, tilting her head to the side and allowing his mouth unrestricted access to her neck. She tasted just as he remembered, Angel thought as he slowly backed her against the wall, sweet, tangy…Buffy.

Neither noticed Dawn as the younger Summers walked up the stairs now that it was safe to do so. They never noticed the former Key’s smirk of satisfaction or her triumphant smirk at Lorne who looked on equally fascinated. They’d had that discussion, about how Lorne could possibly think Angel belonged with Cordelia in any way, shape, or form. Even when the Pylean admitted Wes and Gunn hadn’t seen the same thing, Lorne also admitted that he didn’t listen to them, blindly pushing forward with the wrongness that was Angel and Cordelia.

Satisfied that all was well and that she certainly wasn’t needed in the hallway, Dawn returned to the lobby and her soda. With the amount of caffeine she’d consumed today, she knew she’d bounce off the walls until sometime tomorrow. Hmm, maybe someone here had a toothbrush she could borrow. She looked over at the man who joined her as she walked back down the stairs and smiled. He smiled back, his blue eyes twinkling as they drifted from the hallway back to Dawn’s face.

So this was Doyle. Huh, he was cute, in a strangely Xander-ish way. “Now what’s this I head about you returning from the dead, too?”

“Long story, lass, but trust me when I say this is where I’m meant to be.” Doyle nodded to Lorne and went in search of some whisky. He doubted Angel still stored some, and while he didn’t need the alcohol to dull the pain from a vision, his body was addicted. Hmm, maybe that was the first sign to ease off the sweet nectar of life, especially if he wanted a long life with Cordelia. Pouring himself a glass of water, and grimacing as he drank it, Doyle looked over at the tall, thin woman before him.

“You sure you’re Buffy’s sister? You look nothing like her. But I hear there’s a reason for that. The key, huh, never thought I’d meet you, heard a lot about you, though.”

Surprised, absurdly pleased, Dawn hopped back on the stool. “Really? But you were dead, how’d you hear about me?”

Doyle looked puzzled as he absentmindedly swallowed the rest of his water. “Don’t know, lass, but I did, someplace. Mystical ball of energy used to open the door to some hell world. Stars aligned and whatnot, but…hmm,” he frowned as he tried to remember what he knew and how he did. “There’s more to your history, but I can’t remember it now. You weren’t created for that alone, it was merely a convenient side effect.” He frowned again, lost in thought. “Wish I could remember where I read that, or heard that.”

Just then, Cordelia yelped. “God, get a room already!” She appeared at the top of the steps with Gunn beside her; Fred was nowhere to be seen. Gunn laughed and Cordelia scowled more.

“What, if they can, why not?” He asked.

“Because they can’t,” Cordelia snapped, then repeated tiredly as she had numerous times to various people over the years. “Curse, Happiness, Angelus. Not pretty.”

Gunn shrugged, not too concerned about Angelus; of course he’d never actually met the vampire, so what did he really know? “So what do we know about this curse, anyway? One would think that Angel researched it to death by now, but I haven’t heard anything about it except what you tell me.”

Angel and Buffy walked into the lobby just then, hand in hand and looking flushed. No one noticed Doyle’s look of interest at Gunn’s words. Studiously ignoring everyone, Buffy focused her gaze on her sister. “I think you and I need to have a little talk, Dawn,” she stated, “Don’t you?”

Gulping, Dawn knew that look; it was the one demons were known to run from, she nodded. “Yeah, I suppose.”

“Good,” Buffy nodded and jerked her head back in the direction of Angel’s rooms.

Angel watched her go with a look on his face no one had ever really seem before. Utterly besotted. Even with the spell forced upon them, he never looked at Cordelia that way. The moment she was out of sight, if not reach, Angel turned to his friend. “Doyle,” he said and wondered what else to say. Hours had passed and he’d spent them with Buffy, not with his newly resurrected friend. Still, it didn’t look as if Doyle minded, what with the looks he and Cordelia were sharing.

Gunn started for the doors, “I’ll get some food for everyone, Angel, any requests?” There were calls of pizza, Chinese, cheese steaks, and Mexican as he walked out the door, nodding.

Lorne shrugged, gathered his drink, and headed upstairs, too. He knew when he wasn’t wanted; more specifically, he knew the three friends needed their own reunion time. Besides, he didn’t want to be in the same room with the reminder of what he’d help perpetuate.

It was bad for his ulcer.

~~~~~~~~~~

By the time Gunn returned nearly two hours later, loaded down with bags of various foods, Angel, Doyle, and Cordelia were laughing like old times.

“I swear, you two have no appreciation for the finer things in my life,” Cordelia said but her laugh belied her worlds. “Being a princess was a very prestigious job! I had everything I ever wanted, jewels, clothes, servants…” she trailed off with a sigh. “It wasn’t so bad.”

“Then why didn’t you stay?” Angel questioned with a laughing smirk.

“What and miss the blinding pain from the visions?” Cordelia shrugged, not willing to admit, aloud, the reasons. Namely, that they were the one and only thing she had, thanks to her gift from Doyle. And no matter how often she cursed him and his ‘gift’ she really did feel as if she needed them; they helped Angel, they helped Cordelia feel like she wasn’t the useless spoiled rich girl from the ‘Dale who didn’t help.

Spying Gunn, she stood, “Ooh, food.”

Doyle and Angel exchanged looks and Doyle couldn’t help say to the vampire in a low voice, “Has she really changed that much?”

“Sometimes,” Angel smiled. He couldn’t seem to stop, not since Buffy walked into his hotel with Doyle. He really should be waiting for the other shoe to drop, because frankly good things didn’t happen to him, not without serious repercussions.

“She changed a lot a few years ago, first after you…” he couldn’t bring himself to say the word but continued. “Then after Wolfram & Hart put her in a coma with the visions playing constantly in her mind. She almost died then, and I think that helped change her. Of course, now she’s pretty much back to normal, or the Cordelia you should remember.”

Doyle smirked, “Ah, yes, the spell.” He snickered a little at Angel’s pained expression, “Ah to have seen the look on your faces when that Lorne fellow broke it!”

“It wasn’t fun.”

“No, I imagine it wasn’t, but I’d still have liked to seen it.” Tempering his laughter as Cordelia dished out some food for herself, Doyle asked, “How’s Buffy taking it? You two were upstairs a while, you talk things out?”

Slowly nodding, his eyes straying to the upper levels, Angel allowed a small smile to grace his face. “Yeah, we talked, more than we had in years.” Shooting Doyle a look, he added, “I hear I have you to thank for telling her about that…day.”

“Ah, right,” Doyle said, somewhat nervously, “I didn’t think, that after two years, Cordelia could keep that a secret. Besides, I always figured you two’d get back together. Imagine my surprise when she spilled her life and you weren’t that involved in it.”

A chagrined look on his face, Angel once again moved his eyes to the stairs where Buffy was, even now, walking down them, Dawn in tow. “A lot’s happened in those two years, Doyle,” he said to his friend as he walked to greet Buffy. “But all that’s changed now.”

The shorter Irishman nodded, a goofy smile on his lips; he so loved a happy ending, it was the romantic in his soul. Turning back towards his own, hopefully, happy ending, Doyle walked to Cordelia. She’d piled his plate with foods from several Chinese cartons and a glob that looked like a nacho mix.

“What do you want to drink,” she asked, as if they’d done this hundreds of times, when in fact it’d been over two years and they’d never managed that date. “There’s your usual assortment of soda, water, and coffee, but no whisky, sorry.” Shooting him a censuring look, she added, “But I think you’ve probably had enough of that for today.”

“Ah, soda, Delia,” Doyle said, only slightly pained to drink something other than his beloved whisky. “Or iced-tea if there is any.”

The confused look lasted only a moment before Cordelia smiled at him, a brilliant smile that rocked Doyle to his toes. Oh, yeah, two years or not, he still loved this woman.

“What’s for lunch?” Dawn asked, bouncing up to the food, “I’m starved.”

Buffy chuckled softly, still next to Angel as she whispered to him how her talk with Dawn went. “And thanks, Angel,” she said, squeezing his hand, “For letting her stay. I think that helped, being here with you.” Then, with a saucy grin, “I know it helped me.”

Brushing a strand of hair from her cheek, Angel grinned back. “Any time, love, any time.”

And To Think, I Once Dated You

The expanded gang were sitting comfortably around, talking about various demons they killed and strangeness they’d seen, their best stories, and generally trying to get to know the newcomers as best they could. The door leading to the lobby was opened so they could hear anyone who came in, especially the Sunnydale gang who were due soon, but they were currently happy in the rarely used family room.

Fred was fascinated with Dawn’s mystical beginnings, and made Wes – who talked with Giles more than anyone realized – and Buffy repeat what they knew until they both told her to simply wait for Willow to arrive or to contact Giles in England. Lorne kept mumbling about Higher Powers at the oddest times, but when questioned, couldn’t remember why he’d said anything. Wesley listened to Buffy’s stories with a different perspective than he’d had when she’d been her watcher, finally beginning to understand the complicated young woman before him.

Buffy, for her part, relaxed for the first time in months, possibly a year. Dawn curled at her side, head resting on the slayer’s lap as the slayer rested against Angel’s side. They still had tons to talk over, work through, and work out, but it was nice to be able just to be together. Buffy sighed and moved closer, smiling when Angel tightened his arm around her shoulders.

Dawn smiled at the display and went back to listening to the stories. Buffy stroked her hair, making Dawn feel young and loved again. Angel was there, with her sister where, though Dawn didn’t realize she felt this way until yesterday’s blinding spellness, he truly belonged. Yeah, she thought as the group around her laughed, this was how it was supposed to be. And if Buffy needed time away, Dawn vowed to give her only a little grief about it; after all, it wasn’t only a younger sister’s job, now the younger sister understood what her older one had been through, and what Buffy needed.

“Wait, so let me get this straight,” Gunn said as he sputtered with laughter, ignoring Cordelia’s glare. “Cordy here yelled at the vampire and threatened him with a metal spatula? And he ran away?”

Cordelia smirked as Buffy nodded, “Yeah, Homecoming was way more exciting than the publicity indicated. It was the remaining Gorch brother, you remember him, Angel?” At the vampire’s nod, Buffy returned to her story. It’d been so long since she could do this, share experiences with others like her, others either who hadn’t been there for some of the more harrowing events, or who appreciated her stories in ways Riley never could. He always felt too intimidated by her strength and past exploits.

“Haven’t heard from him since,” Buffy said, “So I guess I have you to thank for that, Cordy.”

It was one of the first things Buffy had said, directly, to her former high school friend and Cordelia accepted it with a graceful nod.

“So you don’t kill all the demons and vampires you meet?” Fred asked, enthralled with so many things about this group. She was still getting used to the dynamics there, then with the added ones of Buffy and Dawn, plus the old and new ones with Doyle, Fred just listened and watched.

“I mean I know you are friends with Lorne, and you wouldn’t kill Angel,” she said with a nervous laugh and wondered at the pained look on Buffy’s face and the downcast eyes of Wesley, Cordelia, and Dawn. Angel kissed the top of Buffy head but otherwise gave nothing away. “But what about this Gorch one? You didn’t track him down?”

“Nah, he wasn’t worth it,” Buffy said in a firm voice that belied the inner turmoil she felt over Angel’s death. “Besides, at the time I was too busy recovering from the slight concussion I had, and…other things seemed way more important than him. As for any other ones…sometimes they’re worth keeping alive, for information, others just aren’t worth the energy it’d take to hunt them down.”

“It’s a call,” Wes said, smoothly interrupting Fred before she could go on about the files he knew she’d read. Drusilla and Darla, Spike, there was something Angel said when Wes returned to the lobby for lunch about the other vampire and the former watcher wondered what it was. Other than their history of animosity, of course.

“Sometimes they’re useful, most times not,” he continued with a smile as he dug through the remains of the Lo Mein. “Still, if we killed every demon we ran across, Doyle wouldn’t be here.”

“Or maybe he would,” Dawn quipped, “What with the resurrection bit and all.”

Doyle laughed, toasting Dawn with his glass of iced-tea; he was developing a taste for the caffeinated beverage and that kind of worried him. What worried him more was the other demon’s mutterings about Higher Beings and Powers and whatnot. It all sounded vaguely familiar, but Doyle couldn’t place anything.

“Hello?” A voice called from the lobby and Fred jumped up to see who it was. Buffy nudged Dawn to follow as the voice sounded like Willow’s. Dawn went to the door and motioned the Scooby Gang in. “We’re all in here.”

Willow led the way, with Tara close behind and Xander bringing up the rear with…Giles.

“Giles?” Buffy asked, immediately on her feet to give her watcher a hug. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s a long story, Buffy, but it is good to see you,” Giles smiled as he hugged her back. Dawn impatiently awaited her turn and the moment Buffy released Giles, the younger Summers threw her arms around him, too.

The general commotion and introductions lasted only moments before Tara fainted.

Angel was across the room in a heartbeat, catching the blonde witch before she hit the ground and laying her across the recently vacated couch. In all the hubbub over Tara, no one immediately noticed Lorne passed out in his chair.

“Think it’s connected?” Wesley asked his counterpart as the pair of them polished their glasses, unconsciously mirroring the other’s movements.

Giles shrugged, “Probably, since when has anything that’s ever happened to us been coincidence?”

“Tara?” Willow questioned, frantic, “Baby, wake up.” The redhead clutched at her ex-lover’s hand and gently stroked her face, whispering to her all along.

Fred looked helpless at Lorne, meanwhile, and tried lightly slapping him once or twice with no results. Giles and Wes conferred in hushed tones as they watched the rest of the combined gangs stand helplessly around. With no visible injuries, no signs, whatsoever, of attack, and no way to discover what happened to the two, there was nothing for anyone to really do.

“So, Willow,” Cordelia said from her position near Doyle as she watched the red-haired woman plead with her obvious lover to wake. “You’re gay?” At the other woman’s look, Cordelia shrugged, “How very PC of you.”

Dawn sniggered but said nothing. She was fine with Willow and Tara; in fact, she wanted them back together. And while Cordelia was never Dawn’s favorite person, the brunette’s way with words and situations never failed to amuse her. Right now, with the added weirdness to the weirdness that was already happening here, it was needed.

“Higher Beings!” Lorne shouted into the room, suddenly coming away and jerking upright. Dawn sniggered again when everyone immediately went on the defensive, expecting an attack.

Looking at the greened-skinned demon skeptically, Giles asked, “What do you mean?”

“Huh?” Lorne questioned, putting a hand to his head and rubbing immediately beneath his red horns.

“You said higher beings,” Giles repeated. “What did you mean by that?” When Lorne continued to look lost, Giles turned to Buffy and Angel. He noted their close positions to the other, saw the way Angel hovered over Buffy as he often did in the days before the vampire left Sunnydale, and noted the almost liberated look on Buffy’s face. His poor girl hadn’t looked so free, so happy in too long.

“That’s the reason I’m here,” Giles said and also noted the disappointed look on his slayer’s face. “Part, anyway,” he amended with a smile. “The Coven in Devon saw something about higher beings, about someone returning to the fold to right a great wrong. Or injustice, or possibly both,” Giles looked confused and admitted, “They were a little vague on that.”

Buffy smirked at that, glad that they weren’t the only ones always one-step behind. Willow stood to listen, intrigued with what Giles said. Tara was still unconscious but Dawn sat next to her on the couch, holding her hand in place of the redhead.

“Right then, so they said that it involved the slayer, I’m assuming it meant you.” Turning to Angel he questioned, “Faith’s still in jail, yes?” At the vampire’s affirmative nod, Giles shrugged. “It could have to do with her, but when I arrived at the house, Buffy, Willow and Tara informed me that a gentleman suddenly appeared in your living room. One who apparently died over two years ago while working with Angel?”

Buffy nodded, gesturing to Doyle who stood with Cordelia at his side. Cordelia clutched his arm tightly, afraid to let go lest he do something monumentally stupid again, like jump into a bomb to save a bunch of people. And, okay, herself, but she’d just gotten him back…

“Doyle,” Buffy introduced but let Angel tell Giles the rest – the short version at least.

“He died a little over two years ago,” Angel said and the remembered pain in his voice came through loud and clear. “He diffused a bomb, created by the Scourge, and meant to destroy anyone with human blood in them for a several mile radius.”

Fascinated, Giles turned to the other man. “You were dead?” He didn’t seem as surprised as he should; being a watcher for so many years, plus living on the Hellmouth and dealing with Buffy’s many exploits, had tempered his shock level, drastically.

“That’s what they tell me,” the Irishman admitted with a smile. “But I don’t remember it.”

Tara began to stir and Willow immediately rushed to her side. With her former lover’s help, Tara sat up, smiling at the woman who handed her a glass of water. Sipping her drink, Tara took a minute to digest all she’d seen and felt when she entered the room. It was a myriad of emotions, things she hadn’t fully understood when she’d first seen Doyle, but that seemed to make perfect sense, as strange as that seemed, now.

“Is he here?” She asked Willow, hoping her ex-lover would understand whom Tara meant. Willow did and nodded, moving to the side so Tara could see Doyle. Standing, handing the glass to Dawn, Tara moved a step or two forward.

“I don’t know why I didn’t pick up on it before,” she admitted in a low voice directed at the man she’d only just met. “It’s so clear now. Maybe it’s the dynamics of the people here, or maybe it’s something else, but I know where you were.”

Doyle looked shocked and, if one knew him well enough, scared. He didn’t remember where he’d been and frankly wasn’t sure he wanted to. Angel remembered and he was in hell. Buffy remembered and she was yanked out of heaven. Doyle didn’t remember and was sure, the more he thought of it, that he didn’t want to. Ignorance being bliss and all.

“You do?” This was from Cordelia, and she sounded torn between curiosity and the fear she heard in Doyle’s voice. She moved closer to the man she never had a chance with, never knew if it truly would have worked, never knew if they were meant to be or if it was all just because he’d died so suddenly and heroically.

“Yes,” Tara murmured, stretching out a hand to Doyle as if mesmerized. “Bright lights, colors and sounds, hope…you were a higher being, Doyle, you helped guide those on this plane towards their destinies. You helped guide Angel.”

“I did?”

“He did?” Angel asked, somehow gratified that his friend was there, helping, even if it was hard to believe the past two years were anything but horrifying in some areas.

Tara nodded, again; completely oblivious to the fact that she had everyone’s undivided attention. “You were kicked out, I think, that’s why you don’t remember. You did something…I don’t know what, and they returned you to earth.”

“Ah,” Doyle said, trying to figure out what else to say to that. “Well then.”

“It was you,” Lorne spoke up, “Who broke the spell?” They’d already figured as much, but it was nice to have confirmation. Besides, with this new woman telling Doyle things he, Lorne, should have been able to read, he wanted to justify himself, somehow.

Doyle shrugged, still in the dark about things the witch before him seemed to know, but Tara looked at the demon curiously. “Spell?”

“Oh, right, that one,” Lorne said and tittered a little, suddenly uncomfortable. Angel and Cordelia were glaring at him, and if looks could kill, the one he was receiving from Buffy would put him a good ten feet under. Still, what else was one to say? “The one where Angel and Cordelia thought they were in love.”

The Sunnydale gang, or those who hadn’t been there for rounds one and two of the story, stared at the horned demon in shock. Finally, Xander started to laugh. He laughed so hard it was a wonder he didn’t pop something.

Sputtering, he said, “Angel and Cordelia in love? Oh, ha, that’s great. The vampire and the cheerleader, in love, oh, ha,” he was overcome by laughter and couldn’t finish the sentence. Didn’t matter, everyone understood, if no one else shared in his obvious and hysterical mirth.

Angel glared at Xander, wondering why he hadn’t killed the boy before, while Cordelia shot daggers at him and hoped he’d combust on the spot from laughing too hard. She dated this lunatic? Buffy tried to quell the flare of jealously she knew was unwarranted, but grasped Angel’s hand tighter, as if conveying her possession on his total being. Dawn just covered her eyes, moaning something about being blind from the trauma of the situation.

Giles looked at Wesley. “I need a drink.”

**********

Lilah watched the proceedings inside the hotel through high-powered binoculars and a listening device she had absolutely no idea how to really work. But it was set to catch all the voices from down and across the street, through the building and several rooms in. nifty gadget.

So this was Doyle, she thought. Interesting. Dismissing him almost immediately, she tried to look at Angel through the binoculars, but there was a stupid pillar in her way. Of all the rotten luck. It was obvious, however, that their spell was broken, as Cordelia was currently on the opposite couch with this Doyle, wrapped around him as if old lovers. Typical.

Ticking off the rest of the group inside, Lilah admitted she was at a loss on several of them. Oh, she’d kept tabs over the years on the slayer, but frankly, Buffy Summers wasn’t of much interest to the firm. That may, Lilah admitted, have been a slight miscalculation on their part.

Especially since it looked like she and Angel were back together. Well, that Moment of Perfect Happiness could still be got, the lawyer thought, Buffy, Cordelia, she didn’t care who could give the vampire that moment, she just wanted it. Even if it looked as if this slayer truly was the only one to possess that capability.

~~~~~~~~~~

Tara insisted that a simple memory retrieval spell would work, not looking at Willow as she said that, and that she needed a few ingredients to do it. Lorne, after hearing about the spell, agreed that it was their best bet.

Gunn, Fred, and Dawn, went with her to the local magick shop, and Willow promised to stay behind. She was still in magicks withdraw and decided, with the enthusiastic support of her friends, that she didn’t need to added temptation of the shopping trip. Xander said nothing, but he wanted to stay if for no other reason than he wanted to see, first hand, Buffy kick Angel’s ass for even thinking he was in love with Cordelia.

He was sorely disappointed when Buffy revealed she already knew and she and Angel already discussed it.

Giles wandered off with Wesley, to look over their notes from the past months, reminisce about England, and ignore the rest of the gang still in the family room. They locked themselves in Wes’ office with a pot of tea, a tray of biscuits, and a bottle of scotch and didn’t plan on venturing out again until Tara returned and they could figure out just what happened to Doyle.

Buffy sat next to Angel, across from Cordelia and Doyle, with Xander still chuckling quietly in a nearby chair. Lorne went to call come contacts about finding one of the key – and rare – ingredients for Tara’s spell, and disappeared around the time the alcohol did.

“So let me get this straight,” Xander smirked, “There was this spell on you two, put there by some evil law firm in the hopes that you’d lose your soul and become Angelus again and rule the world for them?” At Angel’s reluctant nod, Xander sniggered, “Did they really think that Angelus would play well with them? I mean, come on! The guy was around for months and the only way Buffy stopped you was by sending you to hell. You tried to destroy the world! How’s that playing well with others?”

“It wasn’t him, Xander,” Buffy said but didn’t expect her friend to really listen to her. He hadn’t before, no matter how many times she’d tried to explain the differences between Angel and Angelus, why should this time be different?

“Right, right,” Xander waved her comment away, as he had before on numerous occasions. “But what cracks me up the most, is that they spelled you to fall in love with…Cordelia?” Another bark of laughter, then, “Why?”

“And why not?” Cordelia asked, insulted. Just because she was overly traumatized with ‘being in love’ with Angel, and wondered if Tara could do a small memory spell on her to rid the former cheerleader of that horrible time, didn’t mean anything. Xander acted as if she were the most repulsive thing in the room, the very last woman they could get Angel to fall in love with.

“Uh, what?” Xander asked, “You mean you are in love with Angel?”

“Ew, no!” Cordelia snapped, “That’s not my point. My question was, why shouldn’t he have fallen in love with me, I’m not unattractive, we’re the best of friends, and we work closely together. Other than the fact that I see him as my brother, with absolutely NO romantic feelings whatsoever, means nothing to the hypothetical question.”

Doyle hid his smile as Angel quietly smirked next to Buffy. He could tell his beloved wanted to rip Cordelia’s throat out simply for being under the spell to have them fall in love, but she, too, smiled at Xander’s predicament.

“Ah, er, urm…” Xander trailed off and looked to Buffy for help, but she was still pissed about the Angel/Angelus comparison and wasn’t about to help him out. Doyle simply enjoyed the interaction, he’d seen his princess with any of her friends, and Angel smirked at the boy, silently cheering Cordelia on.

When it was obvious Xander had no answers for her, Cordelia stood in a huff, and stormed to the lobby ostensibly “To do some filing.” Angel, not wanting to be anywhere near the boy who loved to be a pain in his ass since the first time they met, stood, tugging Buffy’s hand and lead her out of the room. There were still things to discuss, and…acquaintances to renew. Plus Angel wanted to ask her to stay in LA. He couldn’t move back to Sunnydale, no matter how much he longed to, it wasn’t where he belonged, not anymore. He was needed in Los Angeles, but more importantly, he needed Buffy with him.

Now, how to convince her of that?

“So, you and Delia were an item, eh?” Doyle asked when it became clear they were the only two left in the room.

“Yeah, back in the day.”

“And were your conversations always like this?”

Xander snorted, “No, usually they were much more vicious. Cordelia has a nasty tongue on her, and I was usually on the receiving end.” Settling more into a more comfortable position, Xander asked, “How is it you never realized that? She’s not subtle, and I doubt that she’d hide her true feelings from anyone.”

Doyle shrugged, slightly annoyed with Xander’s attitude towards the woman he loved, but wanted to know what was behind that attitude. “Oh, I know she’s a sharp wit and a stinging tongue, but she’s got a lot underneath that. She’s kind and generous, too.”

Xander refrained from laughing, though it was a close thing. “Kind, okay, I’ve seen. Generous? Please, fill me in on this.”

Doyle smiled and prepared to tell his love’s ex exactly how Cordelia changed from the high school bitch to someone who helped. And if he needed to embellish a tad, Doyle thought, then Xander would never be the wiser.

The key was to hide this little swap from Cordelia herself.

~~~~~~~~~~

Buffy sat stiffly on Angel’s bed, remembering how, just hours ago, she’d been perfectly comfortable in that bed, wrapped securely in his Angel arms, and Angel scent.

No thoughts of horrifying love spells were in their cocoon, no friends who never understood their relationship anyway, no sister who needed more attention than ever and from Buffy who didn’t have that in her any longer, no Spike, no Darla, no curse. Just Buffy and Angel, the way it was meant to be.

Cordelia’s screeching accusations, over hair gel of all things, woke them from that peaceful slumber, and now Buffy didn’t know how to act around Angel. Granted, she’d never understood how Angel managed his hair without a mirror, but then again, when he Darla turned him that luxury wasn’t commonplace anyway. Still, he did have a tendency to use copious amounts of hair care products, but to wake them from the first undisturbed rest Buffy had in months? Cordelia needed to work on her timing.

Which brought the slayer back full circle. She was sitting on Angel’s bed, awkward as she waited his return. He’d left her in the bedroom and was currently rummaging through a trunk in the far side of the room. Should she stand? Go over to him and touch him? Leave as fast as she could, because historically speaking, things between the two never really worked without profuse angst and pain?

Strip naked and lounge on his bed as a surprise for his return?

That last held the most appeal, but it brought Buffy back to the Do Not, Under Any Circumstances, Ever Do Again rule. She and Angel couldn’t make love because stupid vengeful gypsies decided that having the threat of Angelus hang over everyone’s head was a good idea. The least they could have done was warn Angel it was a possibility. But no, nothing was mentioned…and Buffy was getting off track.

Her hands alternated between clutching the sheets in her balled fists, and twitching on her lap. Her imagination ran wild in the few moments Angel was gone, and Buffy wasn’t sure which was worse. Not knowing what he was looking for, or wondering if he was simply looking for a way to let her down easy. No, that didn’t make sense, and Buffy was fully aware of that.

They hadn’t spent the past few hours talking things out, things that should never have been left to fester as long as they had, things that concerned not only both of them, but them as individuals, too. If Angel planned to reject her in his life, they wouldn’t have bothered with all that, right? Of course, right. It didn’t stop the Low-Esteem Buffy from taking control, the one that reared her ugly head whenever matters of Angel were involved.

Suddenly Angel was back in the bedroom and holding something clasped tightly in his hands. He was giving her gifts? That certainly didn’t signify the end of their budding make-up, did it. Clearing her throat, and releasing the death grip she had on the sheets, Buffy waited as he settled beside her, looking as nervous as she felt.

“I ah…I know that things are far from settled,” Angel began, looking straight at her, trying to will her to understand everything he was going to say and believe it all. “I know that we still have things to discuss and that so much time has passed that our relationship will never, can never, go back to the way it was. Then there’s the curse and Angelus…and all that entails.”

He wasn’t explaining himself well at all, but Angel pushed ahead nonetheless. Without the admission that Angelus wanted Buffy as much as he, Angel, did. No need to burden her with that, too. “I know that you have responsibilities in Sunnydale, but well, but there are others who can do that. Faith’s in jail, true, but there’s…”

Oh, boy, he was never this inarticulate before! “What I’m trying to say, Buffy, is that I’d like you to stay here, in LA, with me. I still can’t make love to you, the only way you’ll ever be able to have children is with…” clenching his teeth, Angel spat, “With another man,” then, softer, “But I love you.”

His eyes glazed in panic when he heard the hitch in Buffy’s breathing. But then he saw the smile and relaxed. “You love me, still?” At his nod, Buffy smiled, a brilliant smile that took Angel’s non-breath away. “I love you, too.”

“Good,” Angel whispered, clearing the emotion from his throat, “I’m so very glad to hear that. Makes what I have to say next, easier. I want you to stay here; I want us to be together, as much as we can. Too much has happened and I don’t want any more time to pass without you near me,”

Slowly opening his hand, Angel showed Buffy what lay in his palm. It was her claddagh ring. The tears Buffy tried to hold in spilled over at the sight and all she could do was murmur, “Angel…”

“I found it in my things when I left Sunnydale, after…I don’t know where it came from, at first I thought you put it there as a sign that you no longer wanted me. But then I remembered Willow saying something about my ring when we were in Sunnydale for, for…for your funeral.” He held his own hand up, showing Buffy the claddagh on his left hand. “She said that you had one just like it, but she hadn’t seen it in ages. Not since you returned from wherever you’d gone that summer.”

“I left it in the mansion,” Buffy admitted as her eyes caressed the ring, “It was only after you returned that I looked for it again, I thought it lost.”

“Not anymore.” Angel leaned down to kiss her, a soft touch of his lips. “Wear it again?” He asked even as he slipped the ring on her finger, closing her fingers around the symbol of his love.

Buffy smiled as another tear fell, leaning up to kiss Angel again, in silent agreement.

~~~~~~~~~~

The shopping trip a success, Lorne’s source promising delivery by six that evening, everyone re-gathered in the lobby as Tara explained the spell she planned on using.

“It’s fairly simple,” Tara said to Doyle as everyone else listened. “It simply unblocks your memories, ones that are being purposely blocked, not ones you just can’t remember. The effects only last for a few hours, so there’s no real danger of damage.”

Doyle nodded, clearly uncomfortable though he put on a good show. “No worries, right?”

There were so many things he was afraid of going wrong that the Irishman couldn’t even think of where to begin. He didn’t want this, but it looked as if it were the only way to unlock any memories he had from the years he’d been dead. Why anyone wanted to know about that time was beyond him, but maybe he’d remember helping Angel, what Cordelia’d been up to the past years – Doyle knew himself well enough to know that he’d spy on his friends.

“There are a few,” Tara admitted, “But as long as you don’t step outside the protective circle, then it should all be good. As long as the memory spell is active and you’re within the circle, nothing should go wrong. We’ll even set up a timer so you can see how much time has passed, okay?”

Doyle nodded but said nothing further. “Good,” Tara smiled reassuringly at him, “Then we’ll begin setting this up, it should take about an hour, plus we’ll have to wait for Lorne’s friend to bring the memory crystal.”

Doyle nodded again and silently took Cordelia’s hand, leading her back upstairs. He may have to participate in the spell, but that didn’t mean he had to stay and watch. He was sure that when the time came, Tara would call for him. Until then, he planned to spend that time with Cordelia, discovering all that changed with her in the past two years.

Buffy gestured to Giles as Angel led the slayer into his office. Closing the door behind them, the couple prepared to tell the former watcher what they’d decided earlier.

Dawn, for her part, was bored.

She didn’t want to go into the main portion of the lobby, that was where Wesley, Lorne and Tara were setting up the spell. Xander and Willow were in the family room, away from said spell so as not to tempt Willow further. Buffy and Angel were in the latter’s office with Giles, and Cordelia and Doyle were upstairs. Fred helped Lorne with the grinding of the herbs, and Gunn looked on, as bored as Dawn felt.

Standing, the bald man began cleaning some of his weapons, halfheartedly listening to the conversation between Lorne and Tara, with Fred’s comments interspersed. Dawn wandered over to the man and picked up a sword

“Hey, watch it,” Gunn said, snatching the sword from Dawn’s hands. “That’s an antique.”

“Ottoman Empire, right?” Dawn asked as she peered at the sword from several feet away, already trying to figure out how she could reach it without Gunn grabbing it first.

Surprised, Gunn nodded, “Yeah, fourteenth century. Angel had it, but I took it over. He has way too many ‘favorites,’” Gunn smirked, “He needed to learn to share.

Dawn laughed, walking to the other side of Gunn. “Buffy’s the same way, she hoards all her weapons, keeping them in trunk after trunk, in closets, under furniture.” The young woman shrugged, “She keeps saying you can never be too prepared and that having a weapon within easy reach is never a bad thing.”

Snatching the sword from under Gunn’s watchful eye, Dawn gave the beautiful weapon a few experimental swings through the air. Gunn grimaced, but allowed Dawn her fun. It wasn’t every day he got to share his weapons, after all, and she obviously knew how to handle the sleek sword. Must be from living with the slayer for so long.

Just then, Fred wandered over to them, chattering away about how the brain worked and how this memory spell might affect Doyle’s brain patterns. Dawn made some complicated hand moves with the Ottoman sword and listened to Fred babble for several long minutes.

“I wonder if it’s his real body,” Fred asked as she watched Gunn polish a blade. “I mean the first one was burnt, right? Then was the body reanimated like a vampire’s or was it preserved, and what preserving agent did they use? If it’s the same body from before Doyle jumped, then will the memories from his time as a higher being be there, or only the ones that were there pre-death?”

Fred paused to take a breath and Dawn said, returning Gunn’s sword to the pile of yet-to-be-cleaned. “Is this incessant need to talk all the time a nervous habit? You really should relax,” Dawn added as she began walking over to where Tara stood, looking at the circle. “Babbling is a sure way to let the demons know where you are.”

Gunn snickered, but said nothing. He agreed with Dawn, though he’d never tell Fred that. Fred, for her part, looked after the girl confused. “I don’t talk that much, do I?”

~~~~~~~~~~

“I see,” Giles said as he rubbed his glass lens. “Are you sure that’s wise, Buffy?”

He was still in shock over Buffy’s confession about her affair with Spike, and Giles wasn’t sure her springing this move to LA was a good thing to follow. Then again, if it got her out of Sunnydale and away from Spike, there was absolutely no harm in it, as far as Giles was concerned.

“Positive,” Buffy smiled. “I’ll be close enough if anything big happens, but frankly Giles, I need to leave. I need to be with Angel and I don’t want to waste another minute away from him.”

At that, Giles smiled. He couldn’t not; not with what he knew of Buffy’s feelings and relationship with the ensouled vampire. “It’s not my place, Buffy, to tell you what to do, but I think you should follow your heart. I know I haven’t always said that before, but I’d like to think I’ve changed over the past few years as well. I just worry,” Giles said, shifting his words from Buffy to Angel, “About the curse.”

“I know,” Angel nodded, “And it’s a valid fear. But I think both Buffy and I are mature enough to deal with it, especially now that we know the consequences of what happens.”

Slightly uncomfortable with discussing Buffy’s sex life – and soon to be lack thereof – Giles nodded. “I’d decided to stay in Sunnydale,” he admitted to a happy yelp from Buffy. Before he had a chance to finish, the slayer enveloped him in another hug. “Yes, I’m happy about it, too, Buffy,” he smiled as she released him with a sheepish look. “I thought that returning to England was best, but that’s no longer my home. Here is.”

Angel smiled as he shook Giles’ hand. “We’ll set up a room for you, then. I assume you’ll be staying in Sunnydale?” At the other man’s nod, Angel finished, “Then you’ll always have a place to stay here.”

Giles smiled at the couple before him and prayed that they could make this renewed relationship work. They deserved it even Giles could admit that.

~~~~~~~~~~

Lilah Morgan continued to watch the hotel from the sunlit rooftop across the street.

The high-powered equipment told her several things, but only one of which was important. The slayer – the only being ever to release Angelus – was moving in. Oh, happy day, and if it wasn’t so undignified – and in public – and she wasn’t in heels atop a building, Lilah might just have danced a jig.

What were the odds, she wondered, of Angel keeping his hands off the blonde? Slim-to-none, Lilah was sure. Yeah, they talked a good game, but given the test? They were both likely to fail and Lilah planned on being there to pick up the pieces. More specifically, she planned on using that eventual and inevitable slip-up to get what the Senior Partners, and consequently she, wanted. Angelus.

She didn’t jump for joy, nor did Lilah shout to the heavens. But the lawyer did allow herself a small chuckle and a broad grin before descending to her waiting car. When the spell hit, that memory one, she wanted a closer seat. After all, any answers she had on the mysterious Doyle were welcomed. And might just be able to help her along with her advancement.

Lilah was nothing if not ambitious.

All's Well That Magick Fixes

They surrounded him en masse, and Doyle felt decidedly uncomfortable.

In fact, he felt worse than a fish in a tank, or a puppy at the pet store where all those kids insisted on petting and touching. He stood in the middle of the protective circle, still clothed in Xander Harris’ clothes, back in LA, where everyone told him he’d been dead for the better part of two years, eyeing a witch he’d never met, two watchers who insisted they could be trusted, a green-skinned, red-horned demon with a flare for the Liberace Dress Code, and did he mention he was in the middle of a magickal protective circle?

That wasn’t the worst part, no the worst was that he hadn’t a drink in hours and was desperately in need of one. Desperately.

Frantically searching the dimmed lobby, Allan Francis Doyle sought the eyes of the woman he’d loved for the all-too brief time they’d known each other and wondered, again, if things would’ve been different if he’d lived. Ah, the first time, not this resurrection business.

Oh, yes, and now they wanted to do some memory spell on him, were even now chanting something to that effect, in the hopes that he could remember where’d he been those two years. He didn’t remember and that was fine with him. It wasn’t, however, good enough for anyone (and everyone) else.

Suddenly Tara shouted, “So mote it be!” And everything went dark.

No, actually Doyle just passed out. When he came to scant minutes later, everyone was in the same positions, having been ordered by Tara not to come closer, and damn it all, he remembered.

“Fuck,” he said and he stood once more, holding his head. “Next time, warn me, will ya?”

Tara nodded a small smile on her face as they all anxiously looked at him. Oh, right, they wanted to know if the spell worked. Damn it did. And what was worse, he couldn’t lie about it. Then again, he really didn’t want to.

“Well?” Cordelia asked, impatient to know the results of the spell. “Did it work?”

Nodding slowly, Doyle said, “Yeah, princess, just give me a moment. There’s a lot of new stuff in my head.”

It wasn’t in any order, these new memories, and Doyle tried to sift through them as best he could. “It was me who told you, Lorne,” Doyle confirmed, “About the spell. Lilah, I believe, had it cast because she saw the way Angel protected Cordelia. I guess she thought that that relationship could be manipulated into something more, I don’t know.” He rubbed his forehead, glancing at the two in question before continuing.

“It wouldn’t have worked because, even spelled, the right ingredients weren’t there, sorry princess.” Cordelia looked more relieved than angry, though, but that could have been because of the metaphorical daggers Buffy was shooting in her direction. Angel lifted the slayer’s hand and kissed the palm, soothing her and Doyle smiled.

There was something nagging him, but the former seer and, apparently, former higher being, couldn’t think of what it was.

“Do you remember why you’re not there anymore?” Tara asked, “I mean do you know the reasons you’re back on earth, seemingly resurrected?”

“No, that’s a little fuzzy. I remember a lot of the last years, but most of my memories center of Angel and Cordelia, and what they went through here.” Doyle lapsed into silence once more as his eyes rested on Buffy. In a flash, he remembered the last two years of the slayer’s life, but didn’t want to tell her. Slayer…he flashed to Faith, and remembered helping the other slayer through the long nights when only her memories kept her company.

He should call her, talk to her, and find a way to get her out of prison, see if anyone knew of a way to do so, legally. The second slayer had a destiny to fulfill and prison wasn’t where that road lay. Faith had demons to kill and apocalypses to stop, a town to guard – Sunnydale because Doyle now remembered that Buffy’s destiny, as it always had, lay with Angel.

He said nothing of that, however, simply let them all believe he continued to sort through his memories. He wasn’t Fate or Destiny, and couldn’t reveal other’s paths to them. In fact, that was what got him thrown out of that plane, anyway. He’d meddled once too many in the affairs of others. The whole three strike and you’re out charm.

The first was when he’d discovered that Buffy was alive (resurrected, those damn friends of hers) and anchored Angel’s soul moments before Cordelia shared the joyous news with her boss.

The second was to change the past few months from the moment Buffy jumped off the tower in Dawn’s place to the moment she returned, all her memories intact. In reality Dawn disappeared, her job as The Key finished. But Doyle knew that Buffy genuinely loved her sister that Dawn was created from Buffy and that added an extra layer to their relationship. If Dawn wasn’t back when Buffy returned, then that would’ve destroyed the slayer, mocked everything she’d given up. So he reversed a few things, cheated time and death – not knowing it’d become a pattern – and given Dawn non-mystical life for Buffy to return to.

The third was when he told Lorne how to break the spell over Angel and Cordelia…

Wait a minute, Doyle thought, his head coming sharply up to look at his vampire friend. Soul? Curse? Anchoring? “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” Doyle breathed, “I can’t believe I forgot that!”

He was staring so intently at Angel that he didn’t realize the panicked looks the rest of the room gave him. Buffy clutched, frantic, at Angel’s hand as the vampire stared with carefully blank eyes at his friend. Whatever it was, it couldn’t have been good, nothing of his life, with the glowing exception of Buffy, ever turned out good.

Still, Angel controlled his voice as he asked as nonchalantly as he could, “What’s that, Doyle?”

Gulping and wishing mightily for a drink, Doyle answered his friend with the best news Angel could hope to hear. Well, second best news, as the fact that Buffy stood at his side took the obvious first place.

“I did it; I can’t believe they didn’t fry me in boiling oil! And I can’t believe I forgot! Of all the things,” Doyle muttered, still in shock over his recently remembered news. “Damn, I’m sorry, Angel, man, if I’d have known sooner, or, well, remembered maybe. Then all this, wow, months, and I never…hey, but I did tell you! You stubborn fool! Only you could rationalize yourself out of the second best news to be had.”

Righteously angered by now, Doyle crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Angel. It took him a moment to realize that the absolute silence lying thick over the room was not because of his shocking revelation, but because they had no idea what that shocking revelation was. Oops.

“Doyle!” Cordelia shouted in a high-pitched breathless voice. Just because she wasn’t in love with Angel didn’t mean that she wanted anything horrible to happen to him. He deserved happiness, just not, you know, HAPPINESS.

“Oh, right. Sorry, Angel,” Doyle apologized. “It seems that once I knew that Buffy’s friends were pulling her out of heaven and back here, I figured that it’d be safest all around if Angelus couldn’t make an unscheduled appearance. So, in my first strike of the round, I anchored your soul so you couldn’t lose it no matter how much happiness you experienced.”

Doyle looked into the still silent room and elaborated as much as he could. There were things he still couldn’t remember, but that didn’t matter now. “Ah, it seemed that the Powers were afraid that if your soul was anchored, or if you knew about it, then you’d stop working for them, spurn your redemption and go off to, well, be happy with Buffy. They didn’t see the big picture, or rather, they didn’t understand you the way I did.”

“You…” Buffy trailed off and cleared her throat. .”

They’d talked about that, she and Angel, about his fear that he didn’t love her the way he used to because he hadn’t lost his soul when Willow called to tell him she, Buffy, was alive. He swore that nothing changed in his feelings and maybe it was simply a matter of him always holding himself back now that he knew of the curse, but Buffy wondered. She knew, she knew that he loved her, and while she wasn’t in any hurry to greet Angelus again, a tiny small part of her hated that things changed between them so much that she couldn’t give Angel that moment of happiness.

That last bit of doubt floated away as if it never existed in the light of this news. Angel hadn’t lost his soul because Doyle took the initiative, saw what probably would happen once Angel heard the news, and simply fixed the problem?

“Anchored?” Buffy tried again, but her brain was trying to wrap itself around this newest news and she couldn’t get past the part that told her she and Angel didn’t have to be as careful as they’d thought. Or careful at all actually.

Angel stared at his friend, silent. He blinked once, but other than that gave no indication he was still cognizant of his surroundings. Anchored, his soul was anchored. Doyle defied the powers and anchored his soul because he knew the consequences of even the smallest bit of happiness where Buffy was concerned.

“I need to sit,” Angel murmured, and did just that, carefully lowering himself to the floor and pulling Buffy with him, as both refused to let go of the other’s hand. He numbly felt Buffy’s arms wrap around his neck, her face buried in the crock of his neck, and her tears on the side of his throat.

“Doyle…” Too choked with emotion to go on, Angel simply looked at the half demon standing in the protective circle. He didn’t know what to say, words escaped him. The gift Doyle gave him was so overwhelming that Angel didn’t even know where to begin. “Thank you,” he whispered, still holding Buffy close to him, burying his face in her hair as he whispered to his love.

She laughed and nodded, holding him tighter as everyone looked on. No one saw Lilah’s thunderous look upon hearing the news. All her plans, all her hard work, her sacrifices, her…all for nothing. If a former higher being anchored the soul of the only vampire with one, then there was no way she could take that away. Research was involved, because there might be one, but Lilah wasn’t about to hold her breath.

Of all the beings to break the rules, it had to be one closely associated with Angel. Just her rotten luck. How was she going to explain this to the senior partners?

She was doomed.

Back inside, Doyle told those still listening of Wolfram & Hart’s plan to bring back Angelus and how he’d told Lorne, via the dream and the only one in the LA group to possess magickal knowledge, how to break it. It wasn’t, Doyle insisted, that the spell would have worked, but once Angel and Cordelia…ah, consummated it, the false feelings of love would be permanent.

An hour passed, then another, and by the time the spell ended, Doyle was exhausted. He’d told everything he remembered that he felt he could share. The memory crystal captured it all for further dissecting, as the moment he stepped out of the protective circle Doyle knew he’d forget once again.

Standing, he looked from the timer to Tara and when she nodded encouragingly, gingerly stepped out of the circle. Another wave of vertigo washed through him and he stared for a bit around the room. He still remembered bits and pieces, even though he wasn’t sure he was supposed to, but Doyle didn’t care. From the looks on everyone’s faces, it didn’t seem as if he’d preached doom and gloom, so that was a good step, right?

“Hey, has anyone seen Angel or Buffy?” Fred asked, looking around the lobby for the vampire and his slayer as Cordelia embraced Doyle in a hug that looked as if she didn’t plan on letting him go anytime soon.

“Oh,” Dawn said in a voice that tried for longsuffering. She failed miserably because she couldn’t erase the broad smile on her face at her sister’s happiness. And a happy Buffy made for a less strict Buffy. “She and Angel went upstairs ages ago. I think the bit about the anchoring of the soul finally sunk in and they went to test that out. Repeatedly.”

“So I take it that all went well?” Doyle asked once Cordelia released him. He’d heard what both Fred and Dawn said and wondered what news he’d given his friend to make the couple disappear before the end of the spell.

“I’ll fill you in later,” Cordelia promised, “But while you were a higher being, you fixed Angel’s soul. No more clause, no more Angelus, I say we celebrate.” She smiled at the man beside her and it was clear to everyone that she meant just the two of them.

“All’s well,” Lorne reiterated.

“Yeah, that I apparently fixed,” Doyle laughed as he took Cordelia’s hand and led her up the stairs. They had plans, too, and neither wanted to be late for their first official date.

“Or that magick fixes,” Dawn said as she helped Tara clean up from the spell. “Without Tara’s spell,” she went on, “We’d never know that Angel’s soul was anchored and that Angelus could never return. You wouldn’t have remembered, and I highly doubt that the Powers would’ve bothered to mention it to any of us. They don’t seem the type to share.”

Doyle laughed as he followed Cordelia back to her hotel room, to gather her things. Their date, Cordelia decided, consisted of buying him new clothes. And maybe, she smiled, if she played her cards right, taking them off him as soon as they returned to her apartment.

Gunn sighed and shook his head, looking around the rest of the group. “Anyone up for pizza and a movie?”

Willow, Xander, Dawn, Tara, and Fred nodded. Giles looked more hesitant. “We do have to get back to Sunnydale,” he reminded his group, “And Dawn I believe we have to discuss whether you’re staying here, or returning with us.”

“Aww, Giles, now? It’s late; can’t we talk about it in the morning?” Dawn begged, wondering if Buffy would let Dawn stay in LA with her, as it seemed she wasn’t leaving Angel’s side anytime soon.

“I agree with Dawn,” Wesley said, “We’ll discuss everything in more depth in the morning, and I, for one, am starving.” He glanced at Giles and saw the older man’s nod of surrender. “Gunn, is there anything good playing in the theater?”

The group walked out without a backwards glance, leaving the two newly reunited couples to fend for themselves. Well, it wasn’t like they were going to have any problems with that. Cordelia walked down the stairs with Doyle in tow, a silly smile on her face at the prospect of getting to know the man once again.

Buffy and Angel didn’t get out of their bed for three days. Food was left at the door, and everyone else stayed as far away from their room as possible as the sounds the couple made tended to travel. The couple didn’t care, and by the time they reemerged Tara and Willow had already found a lovely soundproofing spell.

They cast it immediately.

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