DISCLAIMER: Drone, drone, drone.
TIMELINE: After 'Blood Ties' and 'Happy Anniversary'.
SPOILERS: Well, yeah.
SYNOPSIS: Buffy. Angel. Dream. Chitchat.
DISTRIBUTION: If you would like it, just ask.
FEEDBACK: It'd be nice < g >.
RATING: PG

Call me selfish, call me unfeeling, call me a big lump of heartless insensitivity.

Call me a scared Slayer facing an unbeatable god(dess) who's after her bewildered not-really-related-but-real sister.

Obviously, I assume Angel is still going through stuff. But as of a few days ago, I really am as well, and if he won't share? He can damn well indulge me while I do. I need someone... out of it. Someone who didn't live the past couple of days here.

Apart from the part where he didn't send a card, again... it still hurt when he didn't. Less than last year, when I cried for half an hour then dried off and went to meet Riley, who also failed to send a card this year. That didn't get to me as much - he only saw in one, after all.

I'm pretty sure Angel won't have forgotten the date.

* * * * *

Due, I guess, to my extreme reluctance to leave Dawn, the dream manifested itself - again - in my house. It's kind of like being a mother, only with the potential for bloodletting and violence.

Though my mom does always get this glint in her eye when she's doing the food shopping.

There was quite a lot of the 'bloodletting and violence' part in the last couple of days; but what I told Dawn was true. *Our* blood is the same. It really cemented for me that yeah, she's here, and she may not have always been, but now, she's real. She's human.

Probably if either of us have weird blood, it's me.

When we left the hospital tonight, we came straight home and just sat silently, the three of us, as a family. And then we hugged warmly, and we all came upstairs to our separate beds. I got up for a glass of water a couple of hours ago, and I could hear Dawn crying, really softly. I thought about going in, but what could I say? This is something she has to learn to deal with, and if not that then at least come to terms with. I want to help her - I will help her. And eventually she will accept it. She is going to be okay. But I remember from when I was Called; she's got something nobody can tell her how to feel about, and it's going to take her a little while to figure it out for herself.

I really hope she doesn't take as long as me, which was pretty much years.

Or maybe she's just mad with herself for burning all her journals.

Anyway, I figured the dream would be pretty easy because what with all the Buffy-birthday and blood and silence and crying, Angel was floating around in my head. Of course, I don't know how long it actually took, in terms of how long I was asleep, but I know it takes you a while to get into that state of sleep and... it really doesn't matter.

Angel never spent a lot of time in my living room. It doesn't have easy outside access. Well, there's the front door. But 'front door' would usually have meant 'mom knowing', and so it was always simpler to just have him come in the window and bribe Dawn. It wasn't like it was a problem for him, and he never minded, or never told me if he did; he actually seemed to prefer it. After Mom knew everything, she wasn't always so keen on having him in the house; obviously there were no getting-to-know-all-about-you dinners. I wonder if he ever minded that?

Despite not being (not having been) a regular fixture, he looked pretty comfortable in my dream-living room, which was a darn good rendition. Except I changed the carpet colour slightly, because I've never liked that rug. He looked pretty good being pretty comfortable. We *should* have had him over.

Not just because he goes with the furniture.

Apart from the couch, which he was sitting on and looked sort of too big for.

"I have a problem," I announced, striding through from the hall and planting myself on a chair opposite him.

"Old age?" he said, openly staring at my legs, which I admit were quite on display. I appeared to be dressed in what I would have been wearing if this was real, and I'd just come down to talk to him. From being in bed. No woman wears decent stuff in bed though, do they? Not when they're sleeping alone. I had on the old t-shirt that I *actually* put on tonight to sleep in, which I really, really hoped he didn't realise was one of his.

But that wasn't the main insult.

"I am not old!" I spluttered. "Haven't you got any manners?"

"I'm trying not to," he said agreeably.

"I'm..."

"Twenty years old, yes." His voice changed subtly, going from mocking to caressing. "Happy birthday, Buffy."

"Thank you," I bit off, suddenly mad that he thought a few words somehow replaced his presence. "How sad that it slipped your mind in time to send a card."

"*Nothing* about you has slipped my mind," he shot back. "All or nothing was the deal, Buffy. I'm not going to be some guy you send Christmas cards to in ten years with a letter on how the family are doing."

"Whose deal?" I asked him through gritted teeth, absurdly feeling like I should be quiet so I didn't wake Dawn or Mom up. An angst- filled Our Relationship conversation is just what I don't need right now. Or ever, really. But especially right now.

"I don't know," he said calmly, "but we never got in there to cut it."

"This metaphor is losing me," I snapped, "what are you talking about?"

"My stuff," he said dismissively.

I'm curious. And a little worried. But hey, lead-in for my stuff.

"Want a quick version of that letter on how the family are doing?" I said, making it clear that he would hear it whether he wanted to or not.

He sighed and leaned his head back onto the couch, closing his eyes. His face all smoothed out for a minute, and he looked so much younger without all that tension. I didn't even realise you could *show* tension in your face, but it's definitely there on him. Making its mark.

Vampires don't change, but somehow he looks different every time I see him.

"Dawn knows what she is," I said, unsure whther he was listening or not.

"What? How?" Listening.

I heaved my own sigh. "Spike showed her," I admitted reluctantly. His expression closed off, became thunderous, and he'd opened his mouth to speak, but I stopped with him, holding up my hand to forstall the explosion.

"She read some of Giles' notes. It wasn't his fault. I should have told her."

"Who told you that? Spike?" he asked derisively.

"Yeah," I said, affronted.

"It didn't occur to you he was spinning a line to save his own ass? You had your reasons for not telling Dawn."

"I know I did," I snapped back, annoyed by the insinuation that I couldn't tell the difference between Spike making a point and Spike mouthing off. I don't like him, but he's more perceptive than Angel gives him credit for.

That whole 'you'll never be friends' speech, as a for instance. He was right; it's not brains, it is blood, and I'm going to be in love with Angel 'til I die.

"And my reasons weren't right. She had a right to know what was going on. The guys had a right to know what they were protecting." I still wasn't entirely sure I hadn't done the right thing keeping it a secret, but... I probably should have told them before now. Glory didn't know about my friends.

Of course, now that they know, she does. The only unfailing universal constant in my life; Murphy's Law.

"How did she take it?" Angel asked. I'm still not even sure whether Angel remembers her... obviously, here. But he may not even remember *any* of the dreams when he wakes up. Maybe Cordelia is a better example.

"She wasn't delighted," I answered, curling up in my seat. "Freaked out at first. Ran away. But she's back and we're working it out."

"Do you think she'll be okay?" he said, regarding me solemnly.

I started at the carpet for a moment. "I think she will." I looked up, met his gaze and gave him a fleeting smile, "She's a Summers gal."

He graced me with the ghost of a smile himself. "Made of tough stuff."

"We are," I agreed. Summers women are, at any rate, far better than the Summers men.

Though a lot of things are better than the Summers men. I'm suddenly so glad those monks decided to send her to me as... well, *her*.

"What about Glory?" he said.

Yeah, fine. Bring me down.

"She still doesn't know Dawn's the Key," I said brightly.

"But apart from that she's still an really tough, possibly lunatic goddess who eats people's sanity, who you can't beat?" he surmised, more or less correctly. He didn't mention she's in no way prettier than me.

"Yes," I said without losing any of my cheer-ready pep. "Maybe you should visit. We can starve her out."

"I've been sent mad by a singing green demon who drives badly," he complained, segueing from me without even seeming to hear my comment.

"Well, if you will go to these bars..." I said, joking.

"Kareoke bars are demon spawned," he said randomly. "That's why all the demons go there."

"Demons don't usually sing kareoke," I pointed out to him.

"This one does," he said mournfully. "Then he can see into people's souls. When they sing. He owns a bar."

"Have... have you sung?" I asked, biting my lip so I didn't laugh.

"Yes. Badly," he said, slouching down into the plush seats of the couch.

I can imagine. God. How scary.

"Not for a while though," he said. "But he pretty much proved to me he doesn't always need the singing."

"What's he seen in your soul?" I asked, becoming serious. Angel's soul is very important to me, and that's completely not as trite as it sounded.

"Different things," he said. "And beige."

"Beige," I repeated. "Like, the colour beige?"

"There's no other meaning for beige, Buffy," he reprimanded gently.

"But that doesn't mean anything," I protested.

"I don't know," he said. "I found it annoying at the time. He'd woken me up to find some grad student he thought was going to end the world."

"Oh," I said. We get so many apocalypse warnings here, it never really registers that other reasons might wind up being the End Of The World. I wonder how many near-misses there are? On, I don't know, a yearly basis. And none of them work. Makes you think about the laws of averages. Statistically, I imagine we're nearly up.

These dreams are never positive anymore.

"And I assume he didn't..." I ventured, ready to catalogue for my mental list of Ways the World Could End. It's not that I think it'll be useful exactly... just interesting. Maybe if it gets really long, eventually I can publish it. As humour, obviously.

"No. Wasn't even trying to, in the end," Angel said, with a faint hint of disgust, "he figured out how to stop time and decided to stop his girlfriend leaving him. Some people have no vision."

I could tell he was half-joking - personal armageddons are one of his touchy subjects, for obvious reasons - but that really irritated me. From where I am right at this point in time, that doesn't seem like such a bad use of a machine.

"But doing it because you just fancy the end of the world is a good reason?" I said. "It was yours."

Cruel, I'm aware. God, I'm aware, and usually I wouldn't say *anything* like that to him. He's not responsible for the demon choosing to try. He feels it, but I don't think it, and he doesn't deserve my or anyone's blame. His normal reaction to that would be guilty-Angel; quiet, pulled into himself, unable to meet my eyes - and a little I-can't-believe-you-just-said-that-to-me, all wounded confusion and irresistible puppy-dog eyes. With his eyes, he's already halfway there.

But he's also halfway to implacable, emotionless, nothing-showing Angel, which was pretty much what I got. Hardly any reaction to something that should have made him at least flinch.

He wouldn't have minded all that much if the world had ended.

I thought I'd met Angel scary, but to see him, someone who's so... he's big-hearted. Kind, and loving and generous, and it's really awful to see it just all pushed away from the core of who he is.

"It was their anniversary," he told me. A little bit of unsolicited information about the would-be world-ender, I think.

"Yeah?" I said, "what did they do?"

"Split up," he said tonelessly. "He said she said she thought he was hollow."

"She told him he was hollow?" I said, interested despite myself. That's a bad break-up.

"He heard her telling someone."

Less interesting. "Oh."

This is all I ever say around him.

"It'd be pretty good to be hollow," Angel said wistfully.

"Like, literally?" I said. I saw that film. It wasn't good. The film, not the idea. Well, both, really.

"No," he snapped. "Emotionally. Like you've felt such depths of emotion and it's just deadened you so you don't feel anything else."

"I think it'd be lonely," I said, watching him carefully. The conversation had lost its irreverent edge somewhere and he'd started actually *talking* to me. I understand he's tired of always feeling beaten right now, but he can't want to feel this numb forever... not feel broody, or happy when he gets a case, and I'm getting so movie of the week, but doesn't he love anymore? Want to love? Want me?

"It doesn't matter," he said, staring straight ahead. "Never happens."

Hmm. Good, I suppose.

He got up to leave, like he was a real house guest or something, and like a real hostess I got up to see him out.

Habit is so strange.

At the door we paused, probably realising the weirdness of the little meaningless ritual we were about to act out, and silently, mutually decided to drop it.

Before he opened the door, I tangled a hand in the collar of his shirt and pulled his face down to mine. We kissed softly for moments, and then I pulled away.

"Did you feel that?"

He smiled - maybe the first genuine smile all night - and said, "Yeah. Always." He leaned in and kissed me again, a light brush on my forehead, and then we turned away from each other.

I began to make my way upstairs, feeling him lingering behind me.

"Oh, and Buffy?"

I turned around the stairs and looked at him leaning on the side of the doorway. Cold air blew in and up to me. When he went outside, what would happen? Walk off into the distance, coat flapping? Big black dream car running on perma-full dream tank?

"The shirt looks better on you anyway." He didn't wait for a response, just disappeared out the door.

And I do mean disappeared.

Is this a symbol of how we're in a dream, or of how he's falling in real life, or of how I need to stop looking for meaning where there isn't any?

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