Curiosity killed the cat, and it isn't all that great for the vamp either.
Spoilers – Angel S5 and beyond, some speculative, some confirmed.
Disclaimer – I don’t own them; Joss and Mutant Enemy and all the various other Powers That Be do. If I owned them, I think they’d have been much, much happier.
Comments and feedback to Ralkana47@yahoo.com would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Author's Note – Takes place approximately five years after Chosen and Home.
Author's Note II – Huge thanks to Jo for the title.

Angel startled awake when he felt the sun’s rays on his face, and he forced himself not to bolt away from them. He raised one hand, shielding his rapidly watering eyes. “Goddammit, Harmony, close the freaking blinds!”

His secretary rolled her eyes as she did as he asked. “Well excuse me for thinking that after a gazillion years in the dark you might want some sun – you know, since you’re here where it can’t fry you.”

He rubbed his eyes, blinking as the room dimmed back to his level of comfort. “It’s just too damn bright.”

She handed him a cup of blood as she dropped the first of the day’s reports on his desk for him to sign. “Maybe if you actually spent some time with the blinds open, the sun wouldn’t seem so bright.”

Angel growled as he picked up his pen; they had had this argument at least once a week for as long as she’d been working for him. He began signing, and she was still prattling on.

“…there’s no reason for your complexion to be that pasty, not when you work – and live – in this building. And speaking of living here… did you even go to bed last night? Your hair’s even crazier than usual, and that wrinkled suit? So passé.”

He stifled a yawn. “Working late.”

“There’s a shock,” she muttered. He listened half-heartedly as she rattled off his schedule for the day, and a smile quirked the corner of his mouth. As much as he hated to admit to himself – and would have denied to anyone else, even under threat of torture – he had grown fond of the ditzy vampire. And, he grudgingly thought, she’d become a much better secretary than Cordy’d ever been. That thought pulled him out of his musing, and he stood.

“I promised Cordy I’d return this analysis to her by nine,” he said in reply to Harmony’s questioning glance. “She needs to know how many new seers she can recruit now that the quarterly budget’s in.” His secretary held out her hand, and he shook his head. “Nah, I’ll take it. Need to talk to her anyway.” He glanced down at himself. “After a shower and a change.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You told Fred you’d meet with her division this morning.”

“Reschedule?”

“You owe ‘em, boss. Big time.”

He sighed as he headed for the door that led to his private suite. “I know. Can you think of anything?”

“Money’s always good,” she said as she left his office.

**********

A short while later, showered, changed, and feeling slightly refreshed, he headed for his seer’s department. Angel grinned at the thought; his friend was well and truly back.

She’d remained in the coma for three and a half years, and only repeated assurances from Fred’s division that they were slowly making advances had kept him from taking her off of the half-medical, half-magical life support she’d been on.

Then, suddenly, she’d started slowly improving on her own, and eventually she’d awakened, with nearly all of her memory intact. Things had been strained at first, but she’d shown true remorse and had been disgusted by the things her body had been manipulated to do. With the support of her friends and some physical – and metaphysical – therapy, the old Cordy had come back with a vengeance.

There had been some awkward moments between her and Angel at first. Cordelia, trying to be gentle and failing miserably, as usual, had told him that most of the emotions she could recall feeling had been manipulated, not her own, and she was relieved – and slightly indignant – when he smiled and told her that he understood.

The years of her incapacitation had given him ample time to mull over his feelings and discover that what he’d felt had mostly been loneliness. He’d felt the crushing grief and guilt of Buffy’s death, and then he’d longed for a proper family for his son. There had been despair at Connor’s abduction and then bewilderment at his strange return, and Angel hadn’t wanted to face any of that alone.

He stopped in his tracks, closing his eyes. Connor. His last hope, cherished and tucked away for so long, had been that Cordelia might somehow remember his son if she ever awakened. But when he had slipped and mentioned the boy’s name in one of their first conversations, he had seen nothing more in her eyes than the curious confusion he had seen in the eyes of all of his friends at one time or another.

Angel blew out an unneeded breath as he quashed that painful train of thought before it went any farther. He stifled another yawn, nodding politely at a couple of employees as he passed and hiding his grin at the way they visibly straightened up as he walked by.

He felt a bloom of pride that he tried, by force of habit, to tamp down before he stopped himself and let it blossom. A recent LA Times headline had caught his eye and he’d smirked as he’d read that LA’s violent crime rate was down for the fourth year straight. Politicians from most of the nation’s other big cities were pleading with the mayor – who was befuddled but no less willing to take the credit – to tell them how he’d done it.

“Take that, Holland,” he muttered as he swept through the door of the Division of Visionaries, a name Cordy had laughingly told him gave her the kind of migraines she’d once gotten from the visions themselves.

He strode through the department and was at her door with his hand raised to knock when he heard the phone ring within. The soundproofing that kept the offices private for the sake of his employees posed no problem to his enhanced hearing, a fact he continually failed to mention at the bi-annual State of the Firm meetings.

“Chase,” she answered succinctly, and then, “Xander! You’re up early.”

Angel grimaced and turned to go, prepared to come back later. He was glad Cordelia was repairing her friendships with the people she’d known in Sunnydale, but he kind of wished she hadn’t chosen to start with Xander Harris.

He’d gone two steps when her voice, raised in amazement, stopped him. “You’re kidding! When!”

Alarmed, he prepared to knock again but her laughter made him pause.

“A June wedding. Could she get more clichéd? Okay, okay! Yes, it’s sweet. She deserves something normal. It’s a freaky life she’s got. Well, yeah, all of us do, I guess.”

Angel’s alarm faded as he realized no one was injured or dead, and then it ratcheted back up when her words registered.

“Wedding?” he whispered. Calm down, he admonished himself. Could be Willow, or… or one of the Cordettes, or even Faith.

“Bridesmaid Willow, huh? Not a surprise.”

Angel blinked as his fear rose. Okay, not Willow. And if she’s a bridesmaid, probably not a Cordette or Faith.

“So what’s he look like?” she asked, and then she laughed. “Xander! You know he hates being called that. Okay, yes, Dead Boy is accurate, but still. Well, at least she’s over her tall, dark, and broody phase. It’s about time.”

Angel drew back from the door, confused, scared, and stinging slightly from Cordy’s remark.

“Makes sense. Giles has always been more of a father to her than her real dad. He should give her away.”

The report he’d meant to give her slipped from his fingers and fluttered to the floor. Numb, he turned and walked away from her office, barely hearing as she told Xander, “Well, I expect an elegant formal invitation on my desk, pronto.”

Absolutely oblivious to his surroundings, Angel practically stumbled back to his office. Harmony stood up as he neared her desk, but her worried look went completely unnoticed by him.

“Angel?”

“Cancel today,” he said flatly.

“All of it?” she asked, stunned.

“Everything,” he answered as he shut and locked his office door. He vaguely heard her try the knob before banging on the door and calling his name, but he paid her no attention. Like an automaton, he crossed the dark room and hit the button on the panel by the window.

The blinds snapped open, flooding the room with sunlight, and Angel pressed his forehead against the warm glass, fleetingly wishing the windows weren’t necrotempered. The pain of the burning couldn’t be worse than what he was feeling now.

“Married,” he said dully.

Angel wracked his brains, trying to remember every word of every email Buffy had sent him – it was the least heart wrenching and most convenient way for them to communicate. He could not remember her ever mentioning a serious beau.

In his last email, he’d told her he had something important to tell her that he wanted to say in person, and her reply had been jokingly threatening. She’d told him that a teasing opening like that was bound to get her to his office door with a stake at point blank range, a prospect that hadn’t terrified him as much as it had made him hopeful. No mention had been made of any big news of her own.

“Why would she tell you about a boyfriend?” he growled. “You probably would have been the last one to find out.”

He remembered Cordy’s easy tone of voice, and he closed his eyes as his face crumpled. God, how it had hurt to hear her so casually discuss the death of all his secret hopes.

Angel sighed. He’d gotten so damned good at concealing his emotions about everything regarding Buffy that his friends no doubt thought those emotions had ceased to exist. He and Buffy were civil yet distant, and the mention of her name no longer brought any outward display of feeling from him.

He knew her friends thought she’d moved on long ago. And apparently, they were right. She was engaged, after all.

He slammed a fist into the thankfully reinforced glass of the window. He was at his desk and dialing her number before he realized what he was doing and, horrified, he dropped the phone back into the cradle like it had been dipped in holy water.

The need to call her and beg her to tell him it wasn’t true was tempered by the fear that he would do so only to hear her beautiful voice tell him – in tones of rapture and bliss – that it was. He couldn’t handle that now. Hell, he was fairly sure he couldn’t ever handle that, but he knew he couldn’t handle it now.

Angel wondered how she planned to tell him. He wondered if she’d told Xander to tell Cordelia to tell him. He wondered if Cordy would manage to keep that giggly, gossipy tone out of her voice when she did.

His fists clenched. “I need to kill something,” he decided.

A quick stop at his weapons chest and then he’d head for the main reception desk to pick up a stack of the Minor Threat/Demon/Infestation forms. Things he could make bleed without needing help from any of his people.

**********

When Angel returned to the office, it was after dark. He was battered, bruised, bloodied, and exhausted, but no less agitated. He’d lost track of how many demons he’d killed and how many nests he’d exterminated. By the time the bloodlust had faded some and he’d thought to turn his cell phone back on, he’d missed seventeen calls. Four from Harmony, three from Cordelia, two from Lorne, three from Wesley, four from Fred, and one from Gunn.

The last one surprised him; Gunn rarely deigned to communicate so simply with anyone these days. His friends must have been really worried to bring Gunn into it. His cell phone battery – which he’d never been able to get into the habit of keeping fully charged – had died before he could actually return any of the calls, and he’d decided to just go back and check in with them personally before dragging his ass to bed.

He headed for Wesley’s office, figuring they were probably holed up in there planning a citywide search. He tried to feel guilty that he’d worried them, but his emotions were deadened by fatigue, a fact for which he was as grateful as he currently could be.

The building was mostly empty. Only a few offices and cubicles were lit, the territory of the rigorous overachievers trying to make it to the top of the corporate ladder. Now that murder was no longer an acceptable method of advancement in the LA branch of Wolfram and Hart, the young up and comers had to rely on other means. Metaphorical backstabbing and ruthless alliances were still very much in vogue, despite Angel’s best efforts, but getting there on one’s own merit was very slowly catching on.

Angel prowled the silent corridors, stopping when he felt a familiar tingle. Irritably, he shook it off.

“Psychosomatic,” he muttered. He’d been agonizing over Buffy all day; it wasn’t surprising that he was imagining he could feel her nearby.

The closer he got to Wesley’s office, however, the stronger the tingle got, and when he turned the final corner, he wasn’t all that surprised to see her. She was sitting in one of the plush visitors’ chairs in Wes’ outer office, absentmindedly twirling a stake. The door to the inner office was closed.

“Buffy.”

Her head snapped up. “Angel.” Her eyes widened as she took in his wounds, his torn clothes, and the gore-covered axe he carried. “Tough day in the boardroom?”

“What are you doing here?” he snapped, hating himself for sounding so harsh and completely unable to stop himself.

A hurt look sprang into her eyes. “We were visiting Dad. I went for a walk. Ran into a very large demony thing. All I had was a stake. I figured Wes could tell me what it was and how to kill it.”

“Where’s Wes?”

She was watching him worriedly as she hooked a thumb over her shoulder, pointing at the closed door behind her. “Went to get a book, or so he said. His office is packed, and I think they forgot about me, which isn’t really surprising since they’re freaking out because someone’s been maintaining radio silence all day. You okay?”

She obviously doesn’t know you know, he told himself. “Fine,” he bit out. “Had to work through some stuff.”

“Are you sure? I’ll… I’ll just tell them you’re here.” She slid off the chair and headed to the inner office door.

He caught her wrist, flinching back and dropping it when he felt her warmth against his skin.

“Angel…”

He took a deep calming breath. I will be happy for her, he vowed. Normal life. What she always wanted. What I left so that she could have. “I understand that…” His voice gave out on him, and he stopped, clearing his throat. Normal life. He thought of the news he’d been so anxious to tell her, and he bit back a mirthless laugh. What the hell is the point, now?! He would be happy for her, even if it killed him. And it probably would.

“I understand that congratulations are in order,” he managed to force out.

She smiled at him, and what was left of his cold heart shattered. “You heard already.”

Unable to speak, he nodded at her.

“I was… surprised is not a strong enough word. Knocked-on-my-ass shocked just barely covers it,” she chuckled. “It was definitely a whirlwind romance.”

The agony was slowly fading – no, not fading. It was just being overtaken by a mindless wrath. How could she stand here and talk about it like this? She’d lashed out at him in anger before, but she’d never been this callously cruel to him. “I gathered that,” he said emotionlessly. “Since you never even mentioned him.”

She stared at him oddly for a moment, and then she shrugged uneasily. “He’s a good guy. Smart, cute in a Xanderish sorta way. He’s an artist. I think you’d like him.”

The jealous rage bubbled up. “You think – “ The anger choked off his words, and he swallowed harshly. “You think I’d like him.”

He forced all of the emotion deep within himself, truly afraid he might snap her neck if he didn’t. There was a barely audible crack, and he looked down to see that his fist had clenched around the haft of his axe, splintering it.

“I’m dripping blood on the carpet,” he said impassively. “I need to go clean up. Please tell them all that I am in my office.”

Without another word, he brushed past her and walked down the corridor. There was a stunned silence, and then she called his name. His pace sped up until he was sprinting towards the stairwell that would take him away from her and into his lair where he could lick his wounds and maybe curl up and die. She got there a half a step before him, planting her back against the door.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she yelled. Strangely enough, it was the fear in her eyes and her scent that kept him from wrapping his hands around her throat, when at one point that would have only urged him on to the kill. “Angel, I know Dawn’s always had a major crush on you, but I didn’t think losing her attention would make you act like this.”

Angel gaped at her, and the axe fell from his hand, landing heavily on the floor with a metallic thunk.

“Wha…” he said blankly. “D-dawn?”

“Uh… yeah. What did – “ Her eyes got huge and her mouth fell open. “Oh. God. Oh my God. You… you thought… I – “

She squeaked as he pressed her against the door. His hands were in her hair and his lips were on hers. He nipped at her lower lip, making her moan, and then his cool tongue slid in to explore the warmth of her mouth, claiming and reclaiming her. A possessive growl rumbled from deep in his chest, and he was shaking with relief. He ground his hips against hers and she whimpered, clutching at his broad shoulders as she wrapped one leg around his hip to pull him closer.

Finally he pulled away, and she clung to him, panting, her legs wobbly. There were tears on his cheeks, and she gently brushed them away with her fingertips.

“God, Buffy,” he groaned. “I… I thought – “

“You’re an idiot,” she said affectionately. And then she frowned. “And how the hell did you find out, and who screwed up the message that badly? Talk about the Telephone game from hell!”

He smiled sheepishly. “Sorta. I overheard Cordy’s call from Xander.”

She raised an eyebrow. “That’ll teach you to eavesdrop, Stealth Guy.” She looked down at herself. Her skin and clothes were now liberally smeared with the gore he was covered in. “Ick. Shower would be good. Maybe a fire hose.”

“My soul is bound,” he blurted out.

She stared at him, one hand frozen in the act of trying to wipe gunk off her cheek. “That was your big news, I take it,” she said shakily. When he nodded, she grabbed the lapels of his coat and pulled him down for another searing kiss. When they broke apart, she breathlessly asked, “How?”

He shrugged. “Fred. Wes. Magic and needles. Blood. Orbs and chains.”

She laughed disbelievingly. “It sounds like there’s a really long story behind that.” When he opened his mouth to speak, she stopped him with a finger on his lips, shivering when he kissed it gently. “Which you can tell me later. I seem to recall hearing about a luxurious suite belonging to the CEO of this fine firm. With a king-sized bed and a huge bathroom. Equipped with shower.”

He gazed into her eyes, unconsciously lifting a hand to smooth a lock of hair away from her cheek. “I thought you needed time.”

“Five years is long enough, don’t you think? Especially in our little gang of misfit adventurers. I don’t want to wait anymore, Angel.” She touched his chest briefly. “Not now that there’s nothing in our way.” She bit her bottom lip, dropping her eyes. “I mean… if you want – “

He laughed, tipping her chin up with his finger. “My reaction to this little farce doesn’t answer that for you? I love you, Buffy. Always.”

Tears filled her eyes and spilled over. “I love you too.” She rested her cheek on his chest, grimacing when it stuck to his shirt. “Okay, ew. About that shower…”

“It’s a small shower… might be a tight fit.” His grin was decadent, and it made her knees weak.

“I’m sure we’ll manage.” She grabbed his hand and then stopped. “Maybe we should tell them you’re home?”

“I’ll call them from my office,” he said impatiently, and she laughed.

“All right then, boss man, show me whatcha got.”

“I fully intend to,” he growled, pulling her into the stairwell after him.

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