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Author's Chapter Notes:
Many thanks to Dawnofme for trying to make me look better than I am.
Chapter Ten

Angel didn’t know where he was.

Crumpled uncomfortably on a stack of old, wafty clothing, his mouth tasting like bile and his body smelling just fractionally better than the pile he’d slept on, Angel stumbled to unsteady feet and groaned. He didn’t remember hangovers being quite so incapacitating as a vampire, but then, he had difficulty recalling ever drinking quite this much before. He might have been a drunkard in life, but once he’d encountered Darla he’d been drunk on blood rather than booze.

He was weak, as if he’d been drained of his normal vampiric strength and left in an alley like a helpless human. His top lip curled up in disgust, despite knowing somewhere in the back of his brain that he shouldn’t feel that way—that humans weren’t the thing he loathed anymore. Humans were friends—girlfriends—and he’d sworn to serve and protect and save the world whenever the occasion called for it. He ran those thoughts around his head like a newsreel and then accepted, in a daze, that it was the biggest load of bullshit he’d ever tried to convince himself. There was no human that thought of him as a friend, and no human girlfriend—not anymore. Not since he’d tried to kill Buffy.

Had killed Buffy.

He’d been drinking to try and stave off that hard fact—that he’d more than likely killed Buffy by burying one of her own stakes in her back. The guilt had been overwhelming, but now that he barely stood, relying heavily on the wall behind him to keep him upright, that guilt seemed to have taken a fast train to Who-gives-a-fucksville. Angel wasn’t sure what he felt right now, other than sick. And apathetic.

And aware that he was about to be found if he didn’t hide himself fast.

“I’m telling you, Giles. We have to do something. She’s not going to talk unless we make her.”

Angel hid in the dark—a thing he’d learned to excel at in the centuries since he’d been dead—and clamped down on his impulse to leap out and gut the boy. The man, he’d leave to watch as the teen spewed up his own blood and tried to stuff his intestines back inside. Again, something niggled that this response was wrong, that it should have appalled him, but Angel shrugged it off irritably, feeling his whole body start to shiver uncontrollably.

“And if we try to force her, she’ll never talk to us at all. Perhaps she’s confiding in Willow as we speak—and rather loudly, I might add. If Angel was around here somewhere he’d have been warned thoroughly by now. But please,” Giles encouraged, sarcasm dripping from his tongue, “do continue to vent about your frustrations regarding Buffy’s refusal to reveal her whole life to you.”

Xander effectively shut up, but threw a resentful glare at his would-be mentor. Would-be in that he hadn’t anything Giles would be interested in training—no book smarts, no super-powers. All he had was his average Joe commonsense, which in this Hellmouthy world apparently wasn’t worth a damn except to keep himself alive.

They wandered on down the alley, peering intently into every shadow, the silence between them broken only by the clomping of Xander’s footsteps. Angel gradually materialised, looking after them thoughtfully. The way they’d spoken… Buffy’s alive, he realised, feeling a curious lack of anything. He wondered if her precious support group knew that she was now Spike’s whore—Spike’s replacement of the sire she’d killed.

Fury erupted inside Angel and he staggered drunkenly over the pile of rags that had serviced him through the darker hours of the previous day. How fucked up was he that he’d gotten so drunk he’d collapsed in an open alleyway? Not only could he have been at risk from every violent vagrant in downtown Sunnydale, but he’d left himself open to becoming extra crispy from the sun, if not just turned to dust.

Of course, he’d needed to hide. Spike was going to be on the warpath for the crime committed against him—for Angel’s dismissal of code. He couldn’t remain sweet, soppy and soulful for much longer or Spike would have his dust sooner than he could say the slayer was a vamp whore. To survive, Angel had to look out for himself. And he did want to survive, he found. Years of standing blindly in one spot, achieving nothing unless some government agency was waving certain death in his face, he’d done nothing but exist. He’d long ago stopped living and it was time he remembered what he was. What he’d been made for.

He’d killed Darla for the Slayer. And the Slayer had repaid him by killing his childe.

Hot needles of anger speared through him, banishing the liquid haze he’d been in since he’d woken up to find that she’d sent her ineffective goons after him. They wanted to hunt him down? They didn’t know the meaning of the word. He wasn’t afraid of them; Spike was a different story. Spike could hunt—had been taught by the best. To win this war, Angel needed to change.

The soul was already battered, not registering with him like it used to. He felt the edges of it shrivel inside him and Angel smirked. It felt good to be less of a do-gooder. To see the world in the regular shades he’d been used to. The shades he’d created in his reign of horror.

There was sadness that he stood on the edge of his evolution without his family—the women dead and dusted and the male out for his blood. Spike was no loss, but the women…Darla had known what the world was about, had willingly taken the risks that lead to her death, but Dru... She’d been an innocent when he’d tortured and turned her and an innocent in the end, blindly following Spike in her weakened state when she should have come to him instead.

The pain welled in his chest and a tormented cry echoed down the alleyway. There was no other sound in response, no quickened footsteps and Angel realised belatedly that he was lucky Giles and Xander had wandered elsewhere to continue their search for him.

He was alone; that’s all that mattered now. Alone and changing. This was becoming a different world to the ones he’d known as a proper scourge and a whipped, souled wimp. He could make himself anew while he battled for his life. And if he could remake himself, he could remake his family.

At least a mate. He could find someone to walk beside him, to experience his enlightenment alongside him, and that way he stood a chance at beating off Spike. He didn’t fancy succumbing to clan rules, the code so old he’d not even thought of it when he’d embedded the stake into Buffy’s back. The Slayer. She wasn’t Buffy to him anymore, not now that she’d accepted Spike’s cold come into her body. Not now that she was covered in his mark.

Angel stood tall, strong, and only wobbled from inebriation slightly. Yellow demon eyes peered ahead of him into the night, and seeing no threat, he embarked on his new path. Alone, yet seeking, searching. He’d find her somewhere, the one who’d share his bed. He’d find her and he’d show no mercy till she’d capitulated to his every whim.

Oh yeah, the world was looking up, and at last, it was going to be his.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~


Buffy looked up into the sky and wondered how long it would take her to count every shining star she could see. All night? A hundred nights? Suddenly the idea held a whole lot more appeal than sitting down with Willow and unloading everything that had gone on in her head, and heart, over the last however long. Since Spike had left town, the days ran into each other; the nights were as indistinct as the last and she had no way of being able to tell anymore how long it had been since Dru had impaled herself on Buffy’s stake.

“Ah-hem.” Willow cleared her throat loudly, obviously, and Buffy screwed her eyes closed tight. Star gazing wasn’t going to happen tonight, and quite frankly, star counting had been a completely dumb idea, probably brought about by sleep deprivation.

Nerves consuming her, Buffy turned around and really looked at her friend. Willow was perched expectantly on a headstone, her heels bouncing back against the name of the poor person who lay beneath the earth. She looked innocent—so innocent that Buffy started to wonder if telling her closest friend everything she was feeling might be a mistake. But who could she confide in? Giles? Somehow she didn’t think he’d quite get the whole sexual element of her thing with Spike. Her mother would flip—if she could even get past the whole killing someone with a stake issue when she didn’t know about the supernatural secrets of the Hellmouth. And Xander? Xander was already making snide comments to her face. If he knew the truth, Buffy doubted he’d ever speak to her again. Or be able to look her in the eye.

Feeling the sting of tears and knowing she’d run out of time and excuses, Buffy flopped onto the grass. She’d picked this place for a reason—all the occupants surrounding her had been laid to rest for over twenty years. There was extremely little risk of interruption of the undead variety, and now Buffy wondered what she was thinking. Subconsciously she knew she had to unload some of the burden to someone, and Willow was the choice that made the most sense. Willow was really her only choice. It was tell all or slowly go insane—and then she’d be no better than Drusilla herself.

Taking a deep breath, Buffy stared at the grass as she twisted it with agitated fingers, and told Willow her tale.


Chapter End Notes:
I know this story has taken a very long time to get going, and hopefully I can kickstart it again and get back to writing. Thank you all for your ongoing support.



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