DISCLAIMER: Don't belong to me, never have, never will.
TIMELINE: After everything we know. Twenty years after 'Forever'.
SPOILERS: Forever, IWRY, To Shanshu in LA
SYNOPSIS: Buffy has a predicament and needs Angel to help her out.
DISTRIBUTION: Mail me and ask
FEEDBACK: Please?
RATING: PG

He hadn't seen her in twenty years, not since she was twenty years old, at her mother's funeral. And still his memories were as clear as crystal. Beautiful, eerily green eyes, soft blonde hair in loose curls. Creamy, silky skin, petite with sleek muscles underneath the honeyed surface. The liveliness she sparkled with.

She was forty now and still alive and slaying. Probably would for quite a while, the End of Days seemed to refuse coming. Sunnydale had been rendered into ruins though, and then rebuilt with a new name and look given by the new city mayor. Now the town went under the name 'Hellmouth'. It had made him laugh when he heard that one; he liked the change of name though...much more fitting than 'Sunnydale'.

The new town had quite a few improvements. All the cemeteries now lay in a nice quadrant around the Hellmouth, which was disguised as a big, grassy park with a memorial in the middle of it, dedicated to Sunnydale. The churches could be found within walking distance from anywhere in town, supplied with free-to-take crucifixes, a total of twenty.

Most of the Scooby gang still lived there. If you hadn't already guessed it, Xander was the city mayor, happily married to Anya, who worked for the department of treasury. Giles worked at the museum, almost sixty years old now, and Tara and Willow taught religion and computer at the local college, all the while practicing Wicca. Spike was also around, Angel didn't know where. Buffy and Dawn kept together, even though they traveled a lot from what he had heard. Apparently, Buffy had left her in Japan with Oz for the moment to get some vacation, as she had two children to take care of nowadays.

On his side, Wesley had married Faith, who'd gotten out of jail for quite a while since now, and worked with him at the bureau. Cordelia and Gunn had also gotten married, living not far away from him and also still working for him. The bureau went by well now, it had become known and he was hired often. Not always for demonic cases either.

Which brought him back to Buffy. She had called him just an hour ago, asking him to help her. He had been happy to hear from her, they kept in touch even as they didn't meet. For the moment, she was in LA and she needed him to pick her up.

Angel sighed as he pulled up outside the building she was in. For obvious reasons, he hadn't been able to come until now, so she had to spend the day there. And he couldn't exactly say this was the way he had envisioned he would see her when they met again. He really still hadn't quite gotten why she was there anyway.

Sighing once again, he entered the well-known place and walked up to the desk.

"Yes?" the receptionist asked, looking up.

"Hi" he said. "I'm Liam O'Connor"

The woman nodded.

"It's that way," she sympathetically said. "They're waiting for you."

Angel nodded and walked into the direction she'd shown him, stepping through the open door. Inside, Buffy waited together with an elderly man, dressed in a black, hooded shirt and a pair of leather pants. As he entered, he could see that she smiled at him, even as he didn't see much more due to the hood shadowing her face.

"Hi Angel!" she quipped. "It's great to see you."

Angel gave her a look and an amused smirk.

"Of course" he said. "Whom else would come and bail you out of jail?"

*

You couldn't exactly say the silence in the car was overwhelming. It was rather inexistent. He started talking as soon as they had gotten into the car.

"Ok" he sternly said. "We really need to talk about your choice of occupation. What did you do for the judge to put your bail at a supposedly unpayable sum?"

Buffy smiled a little

"I picked up a little thing at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art," she flippantly said. "They will never be able to prove it though."

Angel gave her an incredulous look.

"What did you steal?" he asked.

She shrugged.

"A painting" the Slayer answered. "Nothing too famous, but my client wanted it. "

A grimace appeared on her face.

"Not the profession one would have expected me to choose, huh?" she jokingly.

Angel smiled a little at that, but then sobered up.

"I wouldn't have pictured you as a burglar" he commented. "How does Giles take it, if he knows that is?"

"Well, first, I'm not a burglar, I'm a thief" Buffy corrected him. "And of course Giles and the others now. They had a hard time with it first, but they've come to terms with it. It's not like I would be able to have a normal job anyway. Been there, done that, didn't work out."

Rolling his eyes, Angel turned around the corner and up the driveway to the mansion in Beverly Hills he lived in nowadays.

"I guess it suits you," he said. "A slayer can't always keep on the same side as the law."

That made her laugh, sending pleasant tingles up his spine.

"I know" she smiled. "You've grown up Angel. I think I like you this way, loosened up and less broody with a strange sense of humor."

"Well" he retorted. "I think I like you this way, matured, funny and a criminal."

Suddenly serious, she reached up to stroke his cheek gently.

"I know you're not completely comfortable with what I am nowadays, Angel," she whispered. "I won't burden you with that if you don't want me to. I still love you after all. You knew that, didn't you?"

Taking her hand in his as he stopped the car, he smiled back, an easy, sweet smile he was very economic with.

"I know" he replied, a husky tone appearing in his voice. "And you're still my girl, Buffy. You're you, no matter what side of the law you're on."

They looked into each other's eyes for a while, then let go of each other and got out of the car, chatting slightly as they made their way to the front door.

"So" she said as he opened the door. "This is the place you live in now."

"Yes" he answered and stepped inside, punching in a code to the security system. "I bought it about ten years ago when I needed more space at the Hyperion as 'Angel investigations' had grown."

Gesturing for the blonde to enter, he turned on the light. Looking around, Buffy gasped. She was standing in a huge hallway, decorated in midnight, silver and black, centered by a huge painting of an Angel opposite of the door, a balcony situated just above it, the only way out of the room leading to it in the form of two stairs.

"Splendid, isn't it?" Angel softly said. "Don't worry though, the rest of the mansion is more home like."

Buffy nodded, still a little taken.

"I certainly hope so," she said. "It's breathtaking but a little too much."

Angel grimaced.

"Tell me about it" he said. "But it came with the package."

Leading the way up the stairs and through a labyrinth of corridors, he showed her the way to a guestroom. It was pretty large, consisting of a bedroom and a living room, but it shared a bathroom with the suite next doors.

"I live in the suite next to yours" Angel told her. "It's very hard to find your way around here, so don't go anywhere. Take a shower, freshen up. I'll go get you some food and clean cloths for you. We can catch up later."

Buffy nodded and he watched her as she slipped away.

*

A thoughtful look on her face, Buffy entered the room he had chosen for her. Decorated simply with black, silver and white, it was beautiful, but far from her mind. Instead, she thought of Angel. She felt really strange seeing him after all these years. And afraid of what he would think of her. Not about the thief thing, but rather with the person she'd become. The sweet, happy-go-lucky girl he had loved was not there anymore, and she didn't know if he would like the new her.

Finding her way to the bathroom, she dropped her black hood to reveal her features. He hadn't seen her in the light yet, but she knew it was unavoidable. She couldn't hide it anymore.

Looking at herself, she saw a young woman around twenty-five. Blonde, tanned and beautiful. Not the forty-year-old woman she should see. And she saw her mark, the thing that had ended her innocence and marred her beauty - the thin, white scar so clearly seen in her honey tanned face, stretching from her left temple to the right side of her chin, crossing her eye and mouth at the way. An obvious wound from a knife.

Sighing, she gingerly touched the old wound.

"Let's hope that the old saying that it's the inside which counts are true," she mumbled.

Then she stripped down, revealing a matching scar stretching over her full, upper body. Ignoring that one, she stepped intothe shower to make the hardships of the day wash off, leaving her cloths behind in a neatly folded pile.

*

Angel was deep in thought as he prepared a tray with coffee and some snacks for Buffy and a cup with temperate blood for him. It had been something about Buffy to alarm him; she had been very tense about something. Almost as if she was afraid of him finding out something. She hadn't relaxed a bit since they had left the station.

Years of experience had taught him that women could fret about the weirdest things. Darla had a thing about her hair, Drusilla loved her nails, and Cordelia cared about all her appearance almost maniacally. But Buffy? Sure, she had every women desire of being perfect, but she had never been as she was now. Not even when coming to the Bronze with hay in her hair.

The centuries old vampire smiled. She had been so beautiful then, cheeks flushed by the exertion, blazing with the power, which had been given her. Alive in a sense he had never experienced himself. Not even before his turning, when he was Liam. He had been too busy whoring around and drinking back then.

She had hid her face from him. Even when they got intimate in the car. And he could bet that her tenseness had something to do with that. His sharp eyes had also seen something through the shadows, but they had not made out quite what. Something had been done to her face since the last time he'd seen her. Something, she was afraid to show him.

*

She found cloths waiting outside the bathroom, lying on a natural colored chair. It was not cloths in her size, or even women's cloths. As far as she could see, it was rather men's cloths, Angel's. A huge, black shirt and a pair of once white drawstring pants he apparently managed to shrink and discolor in the wash.

She smiled at the thought of him washing. It was too hilarious.

Grabbing the cloths, she locked the door once again to slip into the cloths and neatly wrap her hair up in a bun with one of her trusty stakes. Always classy and certainly convenient when fighting. Then she stepped out, hesitantly, as if she feared that someone would jump her.

Fingering her scar, she paused before the door leading into the living room.

"C'mon, Buffy" she muttered to herself. "You can do it. It's only Angel after all. You've known him for eternity. Hell, you even slept with him. He won't bite."

Slowly, she opened the door, stepping into the room she knew he would be waiting in. And so he did. Standing with his back to her, he looked out through the window, staring at something she could not see. Relaxing slightly, she sighed. The confrontation wouldn't come for a few more seconds.

"I'm not going to bite, you know."

The sound of his voice both surprised and amused her, as it almost echoed her earlier thoughts.

"I know," she said, stepping further into the room. "I just don't know how I, how you, should take all this. Take me."

Frowning, he turned around to face her, starting to say something, then stopped, his face getting hard and unreadable. Her heart made a painful jump. 'He's disgusted' she irrationally thought. 'He's disgusted with me.' Then all thoughts disappeared as he suddenly stood in front of her, cupping her face in his large hands, tracing her scar with his eyes.

"Who did this to you?"

His voice was low, vicious, sending chills down her back. It was Angelus speaking, possessing, almost raging overtones in his voice. But at the same time, it was Angel, love concern and unimaginable fury directed towards the one who did this to her. And most of all, compassion, coming from both of the creatures, which inhabited that undead body.

Shrugging away from his touch, averting her eyes with sudden shame, she took a step away from him, away from his voice, touch and question. She knew how to handle neither; she had once though, twenty years ago. But now, they were strangers to each other. They had changed so much.

And now Angel proved it, as he instead of giving up and letting go, chased after her, trapping her against the wall, holding her head with an almost caressing grip, forcing her to look into his chocolate brown eyes.

"Who did this to you?" he repeated, firm gentleness in his voice.

Giving in to the temptation to just tell him, to confide in him, she finally opened up and relaxed.

"It was a mater in Canada," she quietly said. "He'd gotten Dawn. Will laid a spell for me, transferring her wounds to me so she would survive. He's dead now. But I've got the scars as a reminder."

She lightly touched her shoulder, indicating the scar there. Which caused Angel's eyes to darken over once more. He ripped the shirt open, growling as he saw the thin line trailing down her body.

"This was deep," he said in a controlled voice.

Blushing, she covered herself up, causing Angel to realize what he had done. He have her an amused look.

"I've seen it before, you know" he almost smirked.

She blushed even more. It was silly really, a forty-year-old woman blushing like a schoolgirl. Angel had really changed. In old times, he would have gone into repressive mode, but now, he just shrugged it away. But she liked it. The change indicated that he in some ways had managed to come with terms with himself; loosing some of the remorse, guilt and utter disgust for himself he'd held inside for a century. And she was proud.

Trying to change the subject, she searched her head for something to talk about that was not their earlier sexual adventures.

"You haven't said anything about my appearance" she finally said, a strange nervousness rising in her throat.

Angel frowned.

"Why should I?" he asked. "You are just as beautiful as you were without the scars."

Buffy nodded her head furiously.

"Exactly" she said. "Don't you wonder about my apparent agelessness?"

The vampire shrugged.

"No, I don't" he nonchalantly said. "I don't. The end of days has not come yet, and the Powers To Be once told me that you would be alive then."

Buffy raised her eyebrows in mock anger.

"Can I hear a hint of guilt in your voice?" she teasingly wondered. "Have you done some decisions concerning me without asking again?"

Angel turned away, trying to conceal the guilt in his eyes. Buffy stared at him, baffled.

"You have, haven't you?" she said.

Placing a mask over his face he turned back to her.

"Of course not" he easily lied. "I've learned my lesson."

"You have?" the Slayer replied sarcastically. "Somehow, I find it in myself to doubt you."

"Haven't you always?" he threw back at her, wincing at her hurt expression. "I'm sorry."

Stepping away from him, hunching her shoulders from the invisible blow, she just looked at him.

"No, you are not" she emotionlessly said, desperately willing the tears not to fall. "You meant every word. And you know? You're right. You're better off without me."

She almost ran to the door and through it. The tears had won the battle and fell in endless rivers down her cheeks. She could hear Angel curing in the room she'd just left and could make out him moving towards the door. Trying to get away before he saw her defeated like this, she started to run down the corridor, but was caught between her third step and next.

"Let me go" she choked out as she was held against a broad, hard chest.

His answer to that was just to hold her closer to him as she cried.

"No" he fiercely said. "Never again. I will not live without you again. Please believe me. And I'm sorry. For everything."

She could not reply, still shaking with tears, concentrating on letting out the pain she'd carried for so long inside, caused by him, by others. As he gently guided her backwards, her still in his arms, she could do nothing but comply. A door was opened, and she was led to a couch where he sat them both down.

When the tears subsided, he let her loose, giving her enough space to look seriously at her.

"You were afraid that I would reject you," he stated in a soft voice.

Buffy's eyes widened as she tried to deny that very true fact. Angel seemed to sense that too, and therefore placed a pale finger on her lips.

"No" he said. "Let me speak."

Hesitantly, she nodded, still not sure about what he would say. He seemed to prove that he knew her better than she over and over again that day.

"You were afraid," he continued. "Afraid about what I would say about your scars, your agelessness. Afraid, that I would not find you attractive anymore, that I would have lost my love for you. Isn't that true?"

Closing her eyes, Buffy forced herself to nod. Trying to ease her discomfort, Angel gave her one of his trademark half smiles, even as his eyes stayed serious, true to the grave matter.

"We both know what this means" Angel gently said. "We're both older, wiser now, we know how to deal with this lack of trust between us. Which is completely understandable considering the shaky ground our relationship was built on. We were simply too young..."

That sentence brought out a real smile from her.

"Well, maybe not in years" Angel admitted and grinned back. "But in love. You were too innocent, so inexperienced at being in love. I was too hard, too pessimistic. Too protective."

"Finally admitting it," Buffy muttered under her breath, coaxing a smile out of the vampire.

"Yeah" he said. "To be honest, if we had met later in life, we could have saved ourselves a lot of pain."

"We're together now," Buffy pointed out. "And if you want to..."

She blushed, looking down. It felt so childish to blush all the time. Angel seemed to intercept her train of thoughts though and forced her to look at him.

"I would like that very much," he silently said, bringing feelings into the words no other person could really comprehend.

She smiled back at him, blinking some remaining tears away. Then she let go of the tight reigns on her feelings, throwing her arms around the Irish man, just to be crushed to him by his. They didn't speak, or even kiss, but just held each other as close as possible.

When they finally separated, both their eyes were suspiciously blank.

"No secrets?" she vulnerably asked.

He shook his head.

"No secrets" he replied. "Just the love we share."

The next moments were spent in emotion full silence. But then Angel broke it by giving Buffy a mischievous grin.

"Now" he said. "Have you ever heard the word 'shanshu'..."

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