FIC: Ghosts 3/5 (Buffy/Angel, R)

[carlyinrome]

TITLE: Ghosts
RATING: R
FANDOMS: BtVS/AtS
PAIRING: Buffy/Angel
SPOILERS: Post “NFA.” There are some aspects of the S8 comics-namely, location-but this story contains none of the comics’ original characters or plotlines. The sequel to If You Drive Me Back, though it isn’t really a prerequisite.
SUMMARY: I married my lieutenant.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: For ba4ever, who requested post-NFA with dom Buffy, and for clevermonikerr, for her love of the first one. And it must be said: my beta reader, myhappyface, really went to the mat for me on this one, and I am endlessly, wordlessly grateful. Every little thing she does is magic.

( Part One ) ( Part Two )
It didn’t take Willow long to locate the memory retrieval spell, to set up for it. She took her ingredients into the basement, where there was plenty of room to work and low probability of random interruption from the house’s denizens.

Buffy paced as Willow set up. It wasn’t enough time.

“You’ve tried everything, researchwise,” she asked again.

“And then some,” Willow said. “Buffy, calm down; he’ll be fine.”

“You’re kind of freaking me out,” Angel said.

“And annoying me,” Kennedy added.

Sasha poked around Willow’s ingredients until she was shooed away.

“What is she doing?” she asked.

Angel explained it to her in Russian.

Buffy, in the interest of not freaking Angel out, forced herself to stop pacing. Instead, she went to stand by Angel, clutching his hand.

“Are you nervous?” she asked. “It’s okay to be nervous. If you-we could wait, maybe.”

“I thought timing was kind of a factor, here,” Angel said.

“It is. But . . .” Buffy faltered. She searched desperately for words that would make this easy, that would fix this, but came up blank.

“I’m not nervous,” Angle said. “I’m kind of excited, actually. I mean, there’s so much I don’t know . . . and any minute, I’ll know it.”

He smiled. Buffy’s smiling muscles were atrophied.

Willow finished blessing her spell, and brought it-in a large Tupperware bowl-over to Angel.

“Okay,” she said. “Ready?”

Angel straightened. “I am.” He eyed the bowl dubiously. “Um . . . is it-will it hurt?”

“Nope! Though I don’t know how it’ll taste.”

Angel frowned. “Taste?”

“That’s right,” Willow said. She ran her finger around the inside of the bowl, brought it up covered in the potion. It looked vaguely like tapioca. “Open up.”

Angel opened his mouth. Willow touched the tapioca finger to his tongue, then took her bowl and took a step back. Angel, wincing slightly, closed his mouth, swallowed.

“It tastes terrible, for the record,” he said.

“Who cares how it tastes,” Kennedy said. “Did it work?”

Buffy’s heart was pounding in her ears; she could barely decipher Kennedy’s words. She relinquished her hold on Angel’s hand, afraid she’d hurt him.

Angel smiled bemusedly.

“I don’t think it worked,” he said. And then his face went blank, his eyes focused on something invisible, far away. His jaw jerked, and he took a step, like a sleepwalker, and then crumpled to his hands and knees, no longer able to bear his own weight.

Buffy rushed to him. She knelt beside him, placed her hands on his shoulder, his waist, preparing to help him back to his feet. But the moment he felt her touch, Angel convulsed harshly. Bronco.

“Don’t,” he said, and his voice was an old dead thing, a tomb dweller’s voice.

Buffy removed her hands.

Kennedy came to join them, kneeling opposite Buffy. “Did it work?”

“I’m going to go out on a limb here,” Buffy said, “and say, ‘yes.’”

Kennedy beamed up at Willow. “That’s my girl.”

Sasha’s dove-grey eyes were wide. “He is hurt?”

“Well, not really,” Willow said. “Kind of.”

Angel hadn’t moved. He remained on the floor, on all fours, eyes down, apparently oblivious to the women chattering around him. His muscles were extremely tense, and every once in a while, he’d shudder. Buffy wanted to move him, but didn’t know how, without touching him.

“Honey,” she tried. “Angel, are you okay?”

“Do you remember, about the Black Thorn?” Kennedy interjected. “Because that’d be super helpful right now.”

Buffy was about to tell Kennedy to shut up, to leave the room leave the house leave the planet, but just then, Angel spoke.

“I remember. Everything.”

“Great!” Kennedy said. “We’re kind of on a deadline, here, so if you could just, you know-”

She reached out to touch him, to sit him up. No, don’t touch him, Buffy thought, but before she could open her mouth, Angel, viper fast, had snapped his hand around Kennedy’s wrist, stopped her arm’s descent. He looked up at her; a thrill of fear coursed through Buffy. His face was a mask blank with rage, but his eyes . . . she hadn’t seen them like that, manic and feral, since he’d come back from hell.

“I said don’t touch me,” he said softly.

Shock was evident on Kennedy’s face. The unfamiliar emotion made her look bare, small.

“Let go of me,” she said thinly.

Angel released her. He sat back on his haunches, shaking.

Sasha said something in Russian. Angel ignored her. His wild eyes focused on Willow.

“Undo it,” he said.

Willow’s face fell. “Angel, I-”

“It’s a lie, take it back!” He came to his feet unsteadily, stalked gracelessly toward her. Buffy and Kennedy rose too, shadowed him from a safe distanced. “I don’t know how you put these things in my head, but I want them out.”

“Angel,” Willow said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t-”

Angel lunged at her, all muscle and desperation. His hands closed around her throat, and Willow went pale, went slack. For a moment, Buffy was too panicked to move, and the moment cost her the upper hand; Kennedy did not hesitate, and by the time Buffy was able to move, Kennedy had hauled Angel off of Willow and thrown him against the wall so hard that it shook, so hard that Angel was still.

Kennedy fussed over Willow. Buffy’s eyes fell to Angel, crumpled on the floor, bleeding and unconscious. His slack face was no less frightening. She went and knelt beside him, checked to make sure he was breathing.

Sasha looked around helplessly. “I do not understand.”

“Here’s the Cliffs Notes,” Kennedy said, walking toward Angel. “We woke up the beast, and now he needs to be put down.”

Buffy jumped to her feet and positioned herself between Kennedy and her husband. “I would love to see you try.”

“Whoa!” Willow said, coming between them. “Let’s just-let’s just everybody calm down. I mean, we’re all just . . . we’re all just a little worked up.”

“Maybe because your girlfriend said she was going to kill my husband,” Buffy said. “You can understand how that’d make a girl testy.”

“No one’s killing anyone!” Willow said. “She didn’t mean it, Buffy; Angel’s human. Kennedy would never hurt a human, right, Kennedy?”

Kennedy’s expression was hard.

“He could have killed you,” she said.

“He wouldn’t have hurt me,” Willow said. “He just-”

“He had his hands around your throat! You woke up . . . you woke up those vampire memories, and now-he’s not human anymore. He’s-he’s a half thing, he’s-”

“He’s human,” Buffy said. “He breathes, he ages, he tans. He’s my husband.”

“He’s dangerous,” Kennedy said.

“He was upset!” Willow said. “Kennedy, just-”

“I’m not going to kill him,” Kennedy said. “I’m not the monster here. But he’s dangerous. He needs to be contained.”

“I can take care of him,” Buffy said. “I can . . . contain him.”

“Gee, I feel better now,” Kennedy said. “From what I’ve heard, you’ve been great at containing him. You know, if lots and lots of dead people is any indicator.”

Buffy shouldered past Willow, so she was standing inches from Kennedy.

“You don’t know anything about that,” Buffy said. “And if you-”

Willow let her hand rest on Buffy’s arm.

“Buffy,” she said. “Please don’t.”

Buffy glanced back at her friend. She was wearing her Concerned and Reassuring face, but her eyes were nervous. There were some red smudges on her neck, fingerprints.

“Will, it’s Angel. He’s my husband.”

“I know,” Willow said. “And, don’t mistake, I love Angel, too. In a completely platonic, non-Fatal Attraction kind of way. But Buffy-I don’t think Angel would ever hurt anyone else, not on purpose. But he could try to hurt himself. I mean . . . you told me he tried to kill himself, right, after he came back from hell?”

Buffy looked down at Angel’s unconscious face. She hadn’t thought of that. She remembered that night, the night it had snowed in Sunnydale. How frayed he’d been, how wild and needy and desperate. And her terror. She remembered her terror, the cancer gnawing away at her insides because against all odds she’d gotten him back, and here she was, going to lose him again.

“I don’t think,” Buffy began, and then stopped. She couldn’t force the rest of the words up. She looked at the red smudges, like errant lipstick, on Willow’s neck, at Angel’s still face. “What do we do?”

***

Angel was heavy, even between Buffy and Kennedy and their Slayer strengths. Sasha still didn’t understand, and flitted about nervously. Willow had tried to explain to her that they were doing this to help Angel, but either the sentiment didn’t translate or the girl didn’t buy it. She hovered anxiously in the periphery, torn between her loyalty to Angel, and her respect for Buffy.

“You should not,” she said. Buffy angled a glare at her, and she shrunk back against the wall.

“Listen, junior,” Kennedy said. “The grownups are working, here. Either help, or be quiet.”

Sasha chose to be quiet.

Buffy wondered what life would be like without knowledge of how to securely brace manacles to a cement wall. Ah, the world of the professional demon killer came with so many surprise skill sets. She and Kennedy braced the chains and cuffs to the basement’s back wall, and then they carried Angel over to it, puffing and arguing. Kennedy secured the manacles around his wrists while Buffy and Willow-Sasha refused to abandon her sentry-brought a cot down from the sleeping quarters and set it up against the back wall. Buffy lifted Angel onto the cot herself.

Willow hugged her. “It’s for the best.”

Buffy looked at Angel, slumped, lifeless and chained, across the cot. He’d been out a long time. Was it normal for people to be unconscious that long?

“I hope so,” she said.

***

Buffy sent the other women away. She sat with Angel, alone, until he woke up. He was out less than ten minutes, but they stretched out for an eternity of wondering and worrying. He woke quietly, as though he had just closed his eyes for a moment.

“Hey,” Buffy said when she saw his eyes open. “How’re you feeling?”

Angel blinked a few times, confused by the change in perspective. He sat up; the chains rattled. He looked down at the manacles binding his wrists, followed the chains up to their mount on the wall.

“Don’t be mad,” Buffy said. “It’s just for a little while. For your own good.”

“Do me a favor, and stop doing things for my own good.” He held up his wrists. “Unlock them.”

Buffy hesitated. Upon leaving, Kennedy had hung the keys on a nail on the opposite wall, where Xander had had a dart board until the lack of depth perception really took his enjoyment out of the game. Buffy looked at them dangling there for a moment, then looked back at Angel’s grave face.

“It’s just for a little while,” she said.

Angel didn’t say anything. Buffy started to explain why it was for his own good, but it was obvious that he wasn’t listening. After a moment, he spoke over her.

“Is Willow okay?”

“She is. She knows you just-you just kind of lost it for a second. She knows you’d never hurt her.”

A darkness passed over Angel’s features. “She doesn’t know what I’m capable of. What I’ve done. If she did, she wouldn’t say that.”

“Angel-”

“Tell her I’m sorry.”

Buffy weighed the options in her head. She wanted to tell him how ridiculous he was being, that those horrible things had happened in another lifetime. She wanted to promise him that everything was going to be all right, that soon he’d be happy again, they’d be happy again.

“Okay,” she said.

Angel tested the reach of the chains. “This isn’t going to fix anything, you know. It’s just procrastination.”

“Well, I’m great at that.”

He just looked at her, face solemn, eyes haunted. She put her hand atop his, and he didn’t pull away.

“I know,” she said. “Angel, I’m so sorry.”

***

“Is he talking?” Xander asked as Buffy finished her trek up the basement stairs and arrived, exhausted, in the kitchen.

“Not even a little,” she said. “I couldn’t get him to say a word. I couldn’t even get him to look at me.”

She’d been down to question Angel three times since Willow had given him his memories back. Each time she’d found him uncooperative; each time she’d found him in a different mood, each more frightening than the last. At first he’d been raw, restless, and unable to focus; then incoherent, weeping; this time, catatonic, by all indications completely unaware of her presence.

“We did this for nothing,” Buffy said. “This isn’t going to help anyone.”

“I-I think I know a way to get him to talk,” Willow said. She caught Buffy’s expression and added, “A completely harmless way.”

Kennedy hopped to attention. “What do you need?”

“About thirty minutes,” Willow said, “and some ingredients from the pantry.”

***

Angel growled, and pulled hard against the chains. Two of the junior Slayers grabbed him, held him to the wall, as Kennedy, with more force than was necessary, pried open his jaws.

“Sorry, Angel,” Willow said. “But . . . you know.”

She tipped the contents of her vial into his mouth. Kennedy clamped his jaws back shut before he could spit it out. It burned in an herby, cough-syrupy sort of way. Angel held his breath as long as possible, but eventually had to swallow. He could feel the liquid burning all the way down to his stomach, and his tongue and throat began to vibrate.

Kennedy and the other Slayers released him. His tongue twitched as he glared up at Willow.

“What did you do to me?”

Willow looked almost apologetic.

“It’s just . . . well, it’s a little . . .”

“You witch bitch,” he growled, more a spasm than a statement. “Palabrium? You had no right, you had no right to just stick your magic wand into my head and-”

Buffy looked at her friend. “Will? What’d you give him?”

“It’s just a little . . . potion. Just a little one! It’s . . . it’s kind of like a truth spell, you know, to . . . to make him talk.”

“In fact, he won’t be able to stop,” Giles said. “Not until it’s worn off.”

Buffy glanced nervously at Angel. He was still talking, an angry and occasionally nonsensical constant stream. The way he was moving his mouth was mechanical, not quite human; it looked almost painful. “How long will it last?”

“About twenty minutes,” Willow said. “Or . . . maybe thirty.” She flinched under Buffy’s sharp gaze. “Well, he’s big, Buffy, so I gave him a little more than I’d usually make, and so . . . I’m not sure.”

“Regardless, we have a limited period in which to question him,” Giles said.

Buffy nodded. She had a job to do. She pushed past the junior Slayers loitering about and knelt in front of Angel, a foot or so beyond the reach of his chains.

“Angel,” she said. “Honey, I know this is uncomfortable for you, but we need to ask you some questions.”

“-you’re always needing something,” Angel spasmed. “I need to keep your memories, I need to give them back, I need to send you to hell-”

“Angel. Tell me about the Black Thorn.”

“-a piece of meat. The Black Thorn is a secret society-not like the Illuminati or SPECTRE-”

Buffy frowned. “What’s SPECTRE?”

Giles sighed. “Do they not teach you children anything relevant in school these days?”

“Is it, like, something I should know from history? Are they the people that tried to assassinate the Archduke of Australia?”

“The Archduke of Austria,” Willow said.

“-like the opposite of a non-profit,” Angel said. “Evil, but not just for evil’s sake. Evil for profit. Evil doesn’t just make money; money isn’t the point. The point is power-”

Buffy frowned. That was a dogma she was familiar with.

“So, it’s just like a club?” Kennedy asked.

“-doesn’t go away. It’s like a club, in the way that a meteor plummeting toward Earth is like a pebble. It’s big, it’s heavy, and if you don’t do something, it’ll kill a lot of people-”

“You’re tattooed with their mark,” Buffy said. “You’re not evil. You’re not a meteor.”

“-grist for the mill. I joined the Black Thorn in order to infiltrate them. To destroy them from within-”

“What happened?” Willow said.

“-hubris. We destroyed one cell, one tiny head on the hydra. And everyone died-”

“Yeah, we get it,” Kennedy said. “Go team you; you killed all the bad guys.”

“-my team, my friends, my family. All of them dead-”

A cold chill ran through Buffy. She had never even tried to find out what happened to Angel’s friends; they had been so out of contact before his memory loss that she wasn’t sure, really, who his friends were anymore. But she should have tried; she should have at least known whether they were alive or dead.

“-loved them and I was their leader and they trusted me and I led them all to their deaths-”

“The Black Thorn killed them?” Giles asked. “Other cells?”

“-mission. Wolfram and Hart, to punish us for our betrayal and for-they were good clients-”

“So what’s the Black Thorn doing here?” Willow asked.

“-for money; stupid. We never should have gone there, but I didn’t think I had a choice, for Connor, I had to-had to be a provider, to protect him, and-”

“Angel,” Willow said. “Do you know what the Black Thorn is doing here? With the pregnant women?”

“-thinks I’m dead. I don’t know. I knew very little about the inner workings of the cell of the Black Thorn I was in the middle of; I don’t know anything about other cells, except I assume their general purpose is the same-”

Buffy sighed. “To get rich doing evil? That’s not much of a lead.”

“It’s something,” Willow said.

“It’s not enough,” Buffy said. “It wasn’t worth doing this to him.”

***

Days went by. Angel’s moods were mercurial, unpredictable. At times he was so lucid and calm that Buffy was reaching for the keys to bring him down and back into her life. And in the next second he’d be raging, or catatonic, with grief. He couldn’t be coaxed to eat, and he couldn’t stand to be touched. He fought against the restraints, and against his own body. He had nightmares that woke the household.

On the front, research had turned up no new answers about the Black Thorn. In the early dawn two days after Willow had performed the spell to give Angel back his memories, Yael had come across another murdered pregnant woman.

***

Angel woke to a warmth beside him, and to a familiar smell. Lipstick; licorice; the clean, earthy, wild smell of a horse or fox. He opened his eyes, but only to be polite. He knew her by scent.

“Faith.”

She was sitting beside him on the floor, her legs pulled close to her body, hands resting on her knees. The predator in repose.

“Hey,” she said. “Sorry-I would have been here sooner, but I was out of town.”

“Spain,” he said. “I remember.”

“Yeah, well. Dawn called me, told me you were in trouble, so here I am.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Angel stretched as well as he could, given the constraints of his chains. His muscles ached from disuse.

“Is there something-dammit, is there anything I can do? You want-fuck, I don’t know, candy, or-or smokes, or something?”

“Hustler?” Angel guessed. “The things I brought you in prison?”

Faith’s dark mouth split into a grin. “Oh, yeah. Good memory.”

“That’s my curse.”

Faith frowned. “Seriously. Is there anything-?”

Angel met her eyes. “Can you get me out of here?”

Her brow shot up. “Seriously?”

He nodded. Faith stood up. “Hell yeah, I can.”

She had planned on just wrenching his chains from the wall, but on her way to her feet she spied a glint of silver on the far wall-the keys. She unlocked Angel’s manacles and helped him to his feet. He tottered a bit at first, legs rubbery and cramped. His wrists were sore, and he rubbed at them absently, his hands encircling the knot of bones, making new manacles of his own flesh.

“Do you have someplace we can go?” he asked, following Faith up the stairs.

“Sure. I got a place here.” At the top of the stairs, she motioned for him to hang back while she checked the hallway for traffic. “All clear. We should go out the back.”

“I need a few things.”

Faith hesitated, then checked the route to the stairs leading to the sleeping quarters on the second floor. “Okay. Clear, but hurry. I’d like to keep the violence to a minimum.”

“You?”

She shrugged. “Maybe I’m mellowing out in my old age.”

“You?”

The upstairs hallways were empty. In his room, Angel carelessly tossed clothing and toiletries into a duffle bag.

“Maybe you should think about a shower,” Faith said. “You’re kind of ripe.”

“Later.”

Bag in hand, Angel hurried to the room next door. It was dark-naptime. He filled the duffle’s remaining space with Kaya’s clothes, a few books, her Eeyore. He zipped the bag and handed it to Faith, then bent to Kaya’s bed, picked up the sleeping child, blankets and all. She murmured somnolently, readjusted her thumb in her mouth, and then was still.

“Let’s go.”

***

Giles was in Super Stuffy Pedant mode, so Buffy didn’t even chance glancing at her phone as it vibrated against her leg. By the time he’d finished his spiel, she had five missed calls.

“What’s the crisis, Will?” she asked when her friend picked up-first ring. “You could have just left me a voicemail.”

Willow’s voice was thin with panic. “Kaya’s gone.”

Buffy’s insides turned to stone. “What? What do you-what does that mean?”

“Kennedy and I were watching her, but then she got cranky, and we put her down for a nap and went to research. And everything was fine-we had the baby monitor, and there was no noise. She didn’t even cry! But when we went to get her up, she was gone! Not in her bed, not-the door was still shut, so I don’t even know how she got out, and we’re looking everywhere but we haven’t-”

Buffy was already running to her car. “I’ll be right there.”

***

They’d found nothing. True, the grounds were enormous and thick with wilderness, but-dammit, how had she even gotten out?

Some shivering ex-potential just past puberty was giving Buffy an update. “. . . and we checked the barn, and the training rooms, and-”

“You’ve checked everywhere?” Buffy asked tensely, running her hand through her hair. A whole goddamn army, and they couldn’t even guard one toddler.

The Slayer hesitated. “Well . . . not the armory, or the basement, but they’re locked . . .”

Buffy glared. “Take some girls, check the armory, and then report back to me. I’ll check the basement myself.”

She grabbed the keys from their hook beside the door, and took hold of the knob; sometimes the door stuck, and it was easiest to unlock if the door was flush against the frame. But when she touched it, the latch gave automatically. A sinking feeling gnawed at Buffy’s insides. Someone had forgotten to lock the door, and Kaya could have pressed against it and fallen down the steep stone steps . . .

Buffy took the steps two, then three at a time. Nothing. There was nothing there, nothing to indicate that Kaya had ever been down there. She didn’t know whether to be relieved, or more frightened. And then she noticed Angel’s chains were empty, and the feeling doubled.

***

“I want to know how this happened,” Buffy said, the incessant droning of waiting for Angel to pick up his cell phone trilling against her ear. “Why was no one on guard?”

Kennedy stuck out her jaw. “There was someone on! Faith was here, and-”

Buffy dropped the phone. It kept ringing; she could hear it from the floor. Or maybe the sound was internal, a feature of her fear and rage. “You. Left Faith. Alone with Angel.”

“Well, yeah,” Kennedy said. “I mean, she’s a Slayer-a really great Slayer!-and I-”

Buffy stopped listening. She could hear Angel’s cell phone ringing upstairs. Wordlessly, she tore up the stairs to it. It was there, she knew, without him or her daughter attached to it, on his dresser, just as it had been for days, since Willow had given him back his memories and he’d gone away. But she ran anyway.

There it was, ringing desperately, its alert light the only light in the empty, empty room. She picked up the phone, hit the ignore button so the ringing would stop. She sank to the bed with the phone in her hand, the refrigerator bright light of the screen, the horrible dark letters: BUFFY. Call ended.

She opened his address book, scrolled down. He had very few contacts: her, Dawn, Giles, a few people at work. She scrolled the cursor to FAITH, and hit send.

***

Cooking was not one of Faith’s fortes. On the whole, her fortes had to do with beating things up, or getting them laid. On the whole, her fortes did not have to do with aprons, and that was the way she preferred it. Angel, though, was worth special effort. Here was a man who would sing Barry Manilow, in public, to save a soul. Here was a man who had brought her pornography and homemade brownies while she was in jail. This was a quality man, and so Faith cooked. She was making grilled cheese sandwiches, which was good because it only had a few ingredients to keep track of; and macaroni and cheese, which was good because all the hard parts came already done in the box, and it was mostly boiling water after that. Not haute cuisine, but one of her dinner guests hadn’t eaten in days, and the other was two years old and thought juice boxes were hot shit, so Faith predicted excellent reviews.

She was slapping school bus yellow pieces of American cheese, the kind that came individually wrapped, onto thickly buttered slabs of white bread, when her phone rang. She wiped cheese grease off her hands and picked it up. The screen said Angel. Faith glanced briefly up at Angel: he was sitting at the kitchen table with Kaya, marching small, plastic safari animals over the place settings, and not prank calling her. Which meant that it was B. This was gonna be fun.

“Hey, Buffy,” Faith said. She tucked the phone between her ear and shoulder so she could continue making sandwiches while talking. “What’s up?”

Buffy’s voice was tight and icy. “Let me talk to Angel.”

Faith held the phone out for him. “Hey, Angel. It’s the little woman.”

Angel regarded her blankly for a moment.

“I don’t want to talk to her,” he said finally.

“Hear that, B?” Faith said.

“I don’t care what he wants,” Buffy growled. “Give him the phone.”

Faith looked at Angel. He shook his head. “No.”

“He has Kaya, right?” Buffy asked. “I mean, he has her and she’s okay-”

“The kid’s fine,” Faith said.

“Ask Angel if he knows what parental kidnapping is.”

“Is that a threat?” Faith asked. Angel looked up, briefly, but Faith rolled her eyes and he went back to Kaya’s game.

“No,” Buffy decided finally. “Just . . . I . . . tell Angel that I want to talk to her.”

“She wants to know if she can talk to the rugrat,” Faith reported.

Angel was quiet for a moment. Then he turned to Kaya. “Do you want to talk to Mommy?”

Kaya wiggled her crocodile across her placemat. Crocodiles were very wiggly. When they curved their tails and bodies, they looked like S’s, the wiggliest letter.

“Okay,” she said.

Faith held the phone out to Angel; he took it like it might be poisonous, holding it away from his body. Cell phones made him nervous, what with the radio waves or the microwaves or however it was they worked, and he didn’t like Kaya to use them, but Buffy didn’t hold to the same ideal, so Kaya was versed in working the little machine.

“Hi, Mommy!”

All the unpleasant weight lifted from Buffy’s chest. “Hi, sweetie. How are you? Are you okay?”

“Me and Daddy are playing Animals. And Aunt Faith is making mac’ an’ cheese!”

“That’s great, honey. Did your daddy say . . . did he say when you’re coming home?”

“He said we’re going to stay with Aunt Faith for a while.”

Some of the weight pressed upon Buffy’s breast again. Angel’s concept of time was different than hers; ‘a while’ could mean anything, but it definitely meant more than a day or two. And she couldn’t chase him, because he’d run, and he’d had two hundred plus years of learning how to hide. She could lose him in supermarket crowds. No. Her only chance was to reason with him.

“Okay,” Buffy said. “You be good; I’m going to see you soon. I need you to give the phone to your daddy.”

“Okay. Bye bye, Mommy.”

“Bye bye, sweetheart. I love you.”

“I love you, too!” She thrust the phone at Angel.

Angel shook his head. “Tell your Mommy goodbye, honey.”

“I already did.”

“Well, do it again, okay?” Kaya leveled an unpitying toddler’s gaze at him, and he relented. “You didn’t tell her goodnight, did you?”

Kaya grinned. “No!” She brought the phone back to her ear. “Goodnight, Mommy.”

“What? Kaya, no, honey, I need to-”

Angel brought the phone to his ear. “Goodnight, Buffy.”

He folded the phone closed, drowning out her protests.

***

Kaya blew soap bubbles, marveling as the iridescent spheres drifted dreamily about the room. Angel, shirtsleeves rolled up, knelt beside the tub, his mind on more practical matters, like shampoo and dirt under the nails. Faith, sitting on the closed toilet seat, wished Angel wasn’t one of those overprotective parents hers hadn’t been, so she could smoke in her own damn house.

“So,” she said. “Well, there’s only one bed. Not like I have a guest room or any of that bullshit. But the couch is okay; it doesn’t fold out, but it’s pretty comfy. Um . . . I guess you and the kid could take my bed, and I can take the couch . . .”

Angel shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Listen, Sir Galahad, it’s not like I’m gonna mind you putting me out-”

Angel lowered his eyes. “That isn’t what I meant.”

Faith waited. A lot of conversation was waiting, with Angel.

“I haven’t . . . I haven’t really been sleeping well,” he continued, finally. “I don’t . . . I don’t want to wake her up.” He looked up at Faith, hopefully. “Maybe she could sleep with you . . . ?”

Faith cocked an eyebrow. “Do I look like a nanny to you?”

Angel considered for a moment. “Maybe in a few of my more eclectic fantasies . . .”

Faith rolled her eyes. “The munchkin can sleep on the couch; you can sleep with me. And no,” she said, cutting off Angel’s protest, “don’t worry for a damn second about how I’m going to sleep.”

“Well,” Angel said uncertainly.

“You want to sleep on the couch, don’t you, munchkin? You’ll be fine, huh?”

Kaya grinned, pleased to be involved in the discourse. “I want to sleep on the couch.”

Angel sighed. Women always seemed to be ganging up on him.

“Okay,” he said.

Angel made Kaya up a little bed on the couch. He laid down blankets, and her Eeyore, and he took the cushions off the top to make the sleeping surface deeper, and to place on the floor in case she fell out of bed in the middle of the night. He tucked her in, and read her a story, and told her about fifteen times that if she needed him, he’d be right down the hall. She was already dozing by the time Faith dragged Angel off to bed.

“Have you ever been told you’re a little overprotective?”

“It’s not really a fault, with parenting,” he said. Then, to Faith’s gaze: “What? It isn’t!”

Angel brushed his teeth, and changed into pajamas. Faith’s bed was only a double; she didn’t need a lot, and she generally did not encourage her gentlemen callers to stay and cuddle. She did not intend to spend much of the night there, though; she had patrol, and that would keep her out pretty late.

That was the plan, at least. Angel turned down the covers, then hesitated, taking in Faith’s still fully-dressedness.

“You’re not . . . I thought . . .”

Faith motioned vaguely to the great, manic city beyond the walls of her flat. “I have Slayery things to do.”

Angel lowered his eyes. “Do you think . . . do you think you could maybe . . . maybe stay? Just . . . just until I fall asleep?”

Faith was surprised enough by the question that she would have agreed even if it hadn’t been Angel asking.

“Yeah, okay.”

Faith slipped off her boots, switched off the light, and climbed into bed next to Angel. He turned to his side to give her as much room as possible; he was big, and he took up a lot of the small bed. The muscles in his back were taut, Faith could see through the dark, through the material of his t-shirt.

“Um . . . sweet dreams,” she said.

***

Angel’s admission that he ‘hadn’t really been sleeping well’ turned out to be major understatement. Faith, who had accidentally fallen asleep beside Angel rather than leaving as soon as he nodded off, woke to the most terrible noise she’d ever heard. An unearthly, desperate keen, all pain and grief and sorrow.

Angel was screaming in his sleep. Faith shook him, hard. Anything to stop that noise tearing from his throat. He woke with a rigor and a shock that suggested electrocution more than waking. He trembled, and cried, but the screaming stopped. His fingers, strong and shaking, clawed Faith’s body for purchase.

“You . . . you had a bad dream,” Faith said. “It’s . . . it’s okay now. Really.”

She patted his shoulder, trying to calm him. A howl rent itself from Angel’s chest, and he buried his face against her neck.

“Kill me,” he whispered. “Please. Please, just . . . just do it.”

Every muscle in Faith’s body steeled.

“Shut up,” she said.

Angel sobbed against her collar bone. “Faith, kill me, please, I just . . . I can’t . . . please.”

And then she got angry. “Shut up. Shut up. You’re Angel, and you’re better than this, and you’re going to stop feeling sorry for yourself, and pull your shit together, and get on with your life.”

“You don’t know what I’ve done. Please do it, Faith. I’ll do-I’ll do anything, please . . .” He pressed his lips against hers, uselessly, felt numbly for her breast. “I can . . . I’ll do anything, please, just, please do it, please just . . .”

She hit him. Hard. Her fist connected with his cheekbone with a cartoonish crack, and Angel tumbled off the bed from the force. On the floor, tangled in twisted sheets, he didn’t even act as though he’d noticed; he folded around himself, crying, begging.

Faith jumped off the bed, grabbed Angel by the arm, and dragged him to his feet. She slammed him against the wall so hard that it shook, that his teeth rattled in his skull. He looked at her like a puppy used to being kicked-with fear, and sorrow, but also acceptance. Expectance.

From the next room, a single small wail cut through the night: Kaya, roused from slumber. Angel’s attention immediately piqued, and he looked in the direction of the noise.

“You’re lucky you’re good enough to be worth my time and my fucking patience, Angel. You’re a good man; a decent, worthwhile man, and lemme tell you: I know from experience that that’s a rare fucking find. And you’re stronger than all this poor me bullshit. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t really fucking disappointed right now, because forever you’ve been the best, most patient, moral person I know, and now you’re just giving up.”

Angel didn’t say anything. Another of Kaya’s cries tore through the night.

“That’s your kid in there, you asshole. Who do you think’s gonna take care of her if you’re dead? Cuz it ain’t gonna be me.”

Angel’s jaw tautened. He didn’t say anything. He untangled himself from the blankets, and went to take care of his daughter.

***

Kaya munched jammy toast while Angel scrambled eggs. He’d spent the rest of the night sleeping on the floor beside Kaya, and he’d been mostly silent today. His cheek was dark and swollen with bruised flesh. Faith sat on the counter, watching him make the kid breakfast.

Angel set Kaya’s plate in front of her, and handed her utensils. She grinned widely and then immediately set upon demolishing her eggs. Angel returned to the kitchen.

“How do you like your eggs?”

Faith had never been asked the question before. “Oh, um, I-don’t worry about it. You don’t have to cook for me.”

Angel’s gaze was unwavering.

“Over easy,” she relented.

The corner of Angel’s mouth turned up as he turned back to the stove.

“I know, ha ha. Just like me, right?” Faith said.

“Thought never crossed my mind,” Angel said.

The only noise was the hissing of the eggs on the skillet, the scraping of Angel’s spatula against the metal, the delighted munching of the child at the table. When Faith’s eggs were finished-they were nearly cartoonish in their perfection-Angel slid them onto a plate, and took the plate to the table. He motioned for her to come and sit down, and she hopped down from the counter and made her way over, cautiously.

“Thanks,” she said, sinking to a chair.

Angel handed her a fork. “No problem.”

Angel took the chair between the two ladies, sat silently as they ate. Faith eyed him.

“You’re not eating?”

He shook his head. “Not hungry.”

“We’re having breakfast!” Kaya announced.

Angel smiled. “That’s right.”

After breakfast, Angel helped Kaya take her plate to the kitchen, lifted her up so she could place it in the sink. He sat her on the counter with a sponge so she could dab at the plates before he washed them.

“I’m helping!” she told Faith.

“That’s great, kid,” Faith said. “How ’bout I loan you out to a restaurant, you can start making some money?”

Kaya giggled.

Angel washed slowly, methodically, his hands sure, his eyes on the job at hand.

“So,” he said. “I was kind of an asshole last night.”

“Yeah, you were,” Faith said agreeably. “But it’s understandable. Forgivable, even. I’m great at forgiving now. I had this great mentor who was all about it.”

The tiniest of smiles tugged at the corner of Angel’s mouth. “Jesus?”

“Nah, I can’t see this guy in sandals.”

They shared a smile. Slowly, Angel’s faded from his face.

“Look, Faith-”

“Don’t get all touchy-feely with me, Angel. I know you like to hug and all, but I’m kind of manlier than that.”

“Faith,” he said. “I . . . thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

***

Waiting was not one of Buffy’s skills. As Angel was all too fond of pointing out, patience as a virtue, but it was, from Buffy’s perspective, about as useful a virtue as chastity. It worked for some people, in some situations, but not her, right now.

Buffy was peripherally aware that Faith kept an apartment in Scotland-largely because she’d heard Giles griping about paying for it-but she had never actually been there before. Faith wasn’t in the book, and the tangled web of paperwork that told the story of the Scoobies’ finances just confused her.

Buffy found Dawn in the library, pouring over some enormous, dusty tome.

“I need a favor,” she said.

Dawn raised a brow, but not her eyes. “There’s a shocker.”

“You-you know where Faith lives when she’s here, right? You’ve been there?”

Dawn looked up at her sister, sighed. “Buffy, don’t. Really.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t try to flush him out,” Dawn said. “You need to just . . . just be patient, and wait for him to come to you. Really.”

Buffy studied her shoes. “It’s not about that. I mean, I need to see Kaya, and I have to talk to Angel about-you know, demony things.”

Dawn zeroed in on her sister with an unpitying gaze. “Yeah, ’cuz you’re really hurting for people to talk demons with, in this house.”

“The mini-Slayers aren’t really good for solid tactical advice,” Buffy said. “Now that Angel’s got his memories back, he is. He could really help-”

“That’s crap, and you know it. Buffy, please. Just leave him alone; you’re not going to fix this by picking at it. Just let it heal.”

***

“If you don’t shut that thing up, I’m going to break it over your head.”

Angel frowned, examining Faith’s cell phone the way you might a new species of insect. It had been trilling for nearly an hour, the screen intermittently lighting up with Angel’s own name, a strange omen. Since it was Buffy, who wanted to talk to Angel and not her, Faith refused to answer it.

“I don’t know how,” he said.

“Just flip it open.”

“That’ll answer it. Won’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know how to turn it off without answering it.”

“Well,” Faith said. “Then do that.”

“I’m not ready to talk to her.”

“I will break it over your head,” Faith said again.

Angel sighed, and opened the phone.

“Angel?”

He stared at his own name emblazoned on the tiny screen for a long moment before finally bringing the device to his ear.

“Hi, Buffy.”

“Are you, like, screening your calls? I’ve been trying to get a hold of you forever-”

“Yeah, I know.”

“So, what? You’re just-”

“I’m not really ready to talk to you.”

“Well, get over it.”

Irritation burned dully in Angel’s chest. “It’s not that simple.”

A long pause. Then: “I know. That’s not what I-you’re going to have to talk to me. Not about . . . you know, our stuff. About demon stuff. I need you.”

“You’ve been doing just fine without me.”

“But I’d be doing better with you. You know the Black Thorn; you’ve been up against them before.”

“And it worked out so well,” Angel said. “Anyway, I told you everything I know.”

“Angel, please. This isn’t about me, it’s not about . . . us. It’s about fighting the good fight. Come on.”

Angel looked at Faith, watching him with some interest. The night he had been walked through the police station, Kate on one side, Buffy on the other, only to find Faith, looking so small, so fragile in her first attempt at redemption, waiting for them at the other end.

Angel sighed. “Okay. I’m on my way.”

***

Faith drove Angel to the manor, but refused to go inside. She sat, idling, in the driveway. The house was mostly empty; Kennedy and Yael were leading classes out in the field. Angel found Buffy with her friends in the library, pretending to research.

“Hey,” he said, darkening the doorway.

Buffy jumped. “Uh, hi.” She stood, smoothed her clothes self-consciously. “I, um-I would have come to . . . let you in, or . . . hi.”

“Hi.”

Giles and Xander dropped their own books and advanced on Angel.

“Angel,” Giles said, his voice hard, his eyes pouring over Angel as they did the dry old words of his books. Angel was reminded of his father, and then stung by the memory.

Angel fanned his hands to show he was unarmed.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I was invited.”

“Don’t be silly,” Willow said. “You’re our friend! You’re-well, this is your home, you don’t have to be invited . . .”

Angel caught sight of the bruises still on her neck, and lowered his eyes.

“Still,” Xander said. “Better safe than sorry.”

“Sometimes the old rules are best,” Giles added.

“I invited him,” Buffy said. “Since we aren’t really getting anywhere with our research, I thought maybe it might be helpful to have the only one of us who’s ever actually dealt with the Black Thorn here.”

“Just Q and A,” Xander said.

“Strictly business,” said Giles.

“That’s what they tell me,” Angel said. He glanced at Buffy. “Isn’t that right?”

Buffy straightened. “Absolutely.” She could feel the impending silence pressing painfully upon her.

“You look good,” she added.

Angel lowered his eyes.

“So!” Willow said. “Um, Angel, have you . . . well, I know you’ve got other things to do, but we thought maybe you had something to tell us about the Black Thorn.”

“Since you’re such good friends, and all,” Xander said.

Buffy shot him an ugly glance. Angel walked away from the group, studied the books covering the library tables: his eyes scanning the covers, his fingers sliding over the pages.

“I’ve been thinking about the marks.”

Buffy frowned. “You mean the tattoos?”

Angel shook his head. “They’re not tattoos. They’re put on magically, some kind of spell.”

Giles removed his glasses, hovered over them for a moment with his handkerchief, and then replaced them without polishing. “Yes, body modification is a fascinating subject. Have you a point?”

“My point is,” Angel said, his tone miraculously level, “marking members of a secret society makes it less secret.”

“So the Black Thorn’s dumb,” Xander said. “Good for us.”

Buffy studied Angel’s face.

“That’s the point,” she said. “Right? That they aren’t dumb. So we must be missing something.”

“They have to be using the marks for something,” Angel said. “And I think it’s a detriment to us that we don’t know what it is.”

“I haven’t found anything about that in my research,” Willow said.

“Not surprising,” Giles said. “Given the wealth of information we have on the Black Thorn, total.”

“Well,” Willow said. “I’m sure that there’s information somewhere. We just have to keep looking.”

“Slow and steady wins the race?” Angel said.

“You think we should stop looking?” Buffy asked.

“I told you he was evil,” Xander said.

Angel was unruffled. “I think we should stop looking in the same places. I understand the desire to keep things in the family, but I think it might be best if we moved out of our comfort zone, on this one.”

Buffy frowned. “What do you mean?”

***

Buffy, Angel, and a bushel of tomatoes walked down a street it was not advisable to bring delicate fruits down.

“I thought you said you knew where it was,” Buffy said.

“I said I’d know it when I found it.”

“I did not dress for walking,” Buffy said. “And these are heavy.”

“You can bench half a ton,” Angel said, adjusting his hold on his own container of tomatoes. “You can carry half a bushel of tomatoes. They probably weigh less than those impractical shoes.”

Buffy frowned. “They are not impractical. They’re stylish.”

“They are impractical. And stop whining.”

Buffy stomped a totally practical boot. “They are not! And I’m not stopping until we get there.”

Angel nodded at the storefront before them. “We’re there.”

“Oh,” Buffy said. “I guess I’ll stop whining, then.”

Angel held the door for her, somehow still graceful while precariously balancing his tomatoes. Buffy entered the shop, looked around. The door tinkled closed behind her, and she could feel Angel’s familiar presence shadowing her.

“This is . . . nice,” Buffy said.

The shop was dimly lit by candles and prehistoric fluorescents. The walls were lined with shelves full of trinkets and curios: love potions, shrunken heads, monkey paws. The usual accoutrement of an occult store. There was no one manning the front; a beaded curtain obscured the back room. Angel made his way for it.

“This looks like a head shop!” Buffy said. “Are you sure-”

“I can tell a real psychic from a fake one,” Angel said.

Buffy was about to continue the argument, to ask how, exactly, he’d learned that, but that would only bring up his restored memories, and they really didn’t have time for that fight at the moment. So Buffy held her tongue, and brushed aside the tacky curtain, following Angel into the back room. She stopped dead in the doorway. The back room was nothing like the front of the store. It looked like a storage room, or a break room: cement floors, a folding table with a peeling plastic top, an old black and white television with rabbit ears. A dark-skinned teenager with braids to her waist was beating on the television, cursing.

“Bad time?” Angel asked.

The girl looked up at them. “Terrible fucking reception back here.”

Angel’s dark eyes roamed the bare walls. “It’s the cement.”

“I gotta get a dish,” the girl said. “Shop’s closed; mam went to lunch. Back at one.”

“I’m here to see you,” Angel said. He sat his tomatoes on the folding table. “We brought an offering.”

He motioned, and Buffy set her tomatoes down, too. The girl frowned, picked up and examined one of the ripe, red fruits.

“You know, gold is customary. Or cash. Cash is always good.”

Angel smiled. “They’re good for you. Antioxidants, lycopene. Plus, they’re an aphrodisiac.”

The girl’s brow rose. “Oh yeah?” She studied the fruit with renewed vigor. “All right, then. Have a seat.”

Buffy and Angel sat in the folding chairs arranged around the table.

“I’m Angel,” Angel said. “This is Buffy.”

“Cassandra,” the girl said. “What can I do for you? Want your fortune told? How many kids you’ll have, all that?”

“No thanks,” Angel said. “We’re interested in something a little more . . . specific.”

“I figured,” Cassandra said. “But it’s that soft stuff that pays the rent, innit?”

Angel unbuttoned his shirt, pushed the lapels aside to bare his tattoo to the girl. “I need to know what it’s for.”

Cassandra frowned, and laid her fingers over Angel’s tattoo.

“Oh, love,” she said. “You’re in big trouble.”

“So what else is new,” Angel said.

“The Black Thorn,” Cassandra said. “Not friends you want to keep.”

“He’s too popular for his own good,” Buffy said. “The tattoo. What’s it for?”

“It’s a complicated spell,” Cassandra said. “Multifold, or what have you. Looks like they wanna keep tabs on you-”

Buffy paled. “I knew it. They’re tracking you; they’re just waiting to-”

“Naw,” Cassandra said. “They made it for tracking, but he fucked it up.” She tapped the scar breaking the tattoo. “Broke the spell. Still, the other may work.”

“The other?” Buffy said.

“Yeah. Multifold, remember? It’s also a key.”

“A key?” Angel said. “To what?”

Cassandra shrugged.