Author's Note: Big thanks to my beta Kar for making some time for me. Posting may be slow for a little while between business in her life an mine. Thanks to everyone who has been reading and reviewing.


In our sixth installment Buffy meets Angel.


Chapter Six


Angel was human. Angel was human!

And she was such an idiot.

It welled up in her, the hope, the stupid hope. Angel was human! They could be together!

And then it sunk in, what Xander was saying. Angel was human. Angel had been human for a while. Like years. Angel wasn't waiting around for her. Angel didn't need the safety of loving her anymore. He could love whoever he wanted whenever he wanted. Angel was free to get as happy as he wanted. Angelus was completely, utterly dead.

So, as far as she could tell, was the Angel she'd known.

He smiled at her and kissed her cheek and ate his French fries and told her about his wife and kids. He had pictures in his wallet, a thick platinum band, and a badge. He was a cop, so he could still help people, he said. Buffy listened to him talk about his life and realized she had absolutely nothing to say to him.

Instead she just politely pretended to listen while he talked about his life. The last time she'd seen him, he'd promised her forever. She knew it wasn't fair, but she felt cheated on. Maybe it was karma. She remembered bragging to him, trying to hurt him, telling him about Riley and how happy and loved she was. And he'd reminded her that he didn't get to do any of that.

Only now he did. Now he was happy and healthy and human, and eventually she would be really happy for him. Outside the restraint the sun dappled over his face, making her feel slightly queasy. He just smiled and kissed her cheek again before disappearing into the parking lot, humming to himself.

She called Tara and sat in the corner café drinking coffee until her ride arrived. The caramel flavor tasted really good after the bland, fatty burger. She watched a couple of teenagers flirt with each over steaming cups and mourned her lost love a little.

The creepy silence of the car on the ride home made her anxious. She couldn't adjust to the new cars. Tara had tried to explain about how the old engines started making people really sick. Buffy knew she was being silly, but the missed the familiar purr of the motor.

"You want anything, Buffy?"

Buffy forced a smile for Tara. "No. I'm good. Thanks for the ride."

"That must have been hard." Off Buffy's look, Tara smiled wryly. "I know what it's like to see someone you love transform and move on. It's okay to be sad about it."

"But he changed for the better," Buffy protested, belatedly realizing how mean that sounded. It wasn't Tara's fault that Willow had gone demon. "It's really petty of me not to be happy for him."

"It's just human," Tara assured her.

Buffy nodded and watched the trees rush by. It was getting close to sunset. Time for work. At least when it came to slaying, she knew what she was doing.


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She had been sullen and withdrawn on patrol, tearing at the back of her hand with her nails and scolding Tashi over little nothings. Angel had put her in a fair state. He could only imagine what Peaches was like now. He hadn’t seen him in years, not since Faith’s funeral.

Buffy had eventually declared herself done for the evening and left the two of them to finish out patrol on their own. Likely just as well. Tashi was starting to rely on the other slayer too much, letting her take on the fiercer game. That was no good.

Seeing Buffy sitting at a table in The Bronze gave him a dizzying sense of deja vu. When Spike took a seat next to her, she ignored him but didn't storm off or anything. He ordered a drink and sat silently scanning the crowd with her.

"I don't want to talk about it," she told him eventually.

"Neither do I. So that works out well then."

She rubbed at her wrist and gave him a small smile. "Why is it so easy being with you?"

"I expect because I haven't changed so much as the others."

"You have though," she protested. "You only look the same. The soul--"

"Ah." Of course, the soul would mean everything to her.

"Don't," she said quietly. "You don't know what I was going to say."

He braced himself. "Let's have it then."

She took another sip of her beer and squared her shoulders. "The soul. It didn't change you the way I thought it would. At least, not that I can tell. But you are different."

He thought about the vampire he'd been when she'd left the world. Spike the pathetic outcast, living in a hole in the ground among stolen under things of his lady love, plotting both her seduction and her death. Spike didn't recognize that version of himself either.

"I feel like I have to get to know everyone all over again. You're all different, but I'm just the same." Her wrist was turning red where she rubbed it. "I'm just the same. More or less."

He knew the Scoobies thought he was ignorant of their misguided attempts to wrest her from hell. All those nights spent wondering what he would do with any piece of Buffy they brought back, how he'd never give her up again no matter what. And now she was sitting within arm's reach, looking at him with those big eyes, waiting for him to say something, actually caring what he had to say. "Not entirely the same," he pointed out. "Quite a bit more tolerant of me."

She grinned and tossed back the rest of her beer. "You're a lot more tolerable than I remembered."

He sniffed a laugh at her. "Thanks ever so. Can I buy you another?" he offered.

She held up her hands. "A world of no. I'm two drink maximum Buffy. I do not want to spend another morning feeling like my stomach want to escape my body."

"Can't imagine anyone wanting to escape your body," he voiced without thinking, immediately regretting it.

But then she just nudged his knee with hers. "That's sweet," she informed him, voice dripping with sarcasm.

He watched her rub her wrist again. "Going to worry down to the bone, pet."

She looked down at her hands and immediately folded them in her lap. "I just want something to feel good," she sighed.

Spike had far too many ideas about things he could do to make her feel good. He had changed, but Buffy was exactly the same, still the woman he’d started changing for. Had he changed enough to stop loving her?

Watching her lean against the bar, her eyes scanning the crowd for prey, wearing that fierce, calculating look he remembered so well, he was starting to think not.



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