Past, Imperfect

3.

twelve months ago....

Angel swept into William Bluddy's bookstore "Rare Reads" and dropped his small parcel on the counter. He banged the bell on the counter and surveyed the empty room. He was tired and irritable and he wanted to go home. But William had been bothering him for these books and he had swung through Sunnydale on his way back from San Francisco.

"Can I help you?"

Angel turned to see a small, striking blonde eyeing him with keen interest.

"Looking for William. Is he around?"

"No. He's not."

"Are you expecting him back soon?" Angel asked, meeting and holding the girl's pointed gaze.

"No."

"Don't say much, do you?" Angel said.

"I'm more of a doer," the girl replied, dropping her eyes seductively.

"I just bet you are," Angel said. The girl's close scrutiny of him was a definite ton, on, but Angel didn't have time to stand here and flirt with William's hired help. "Do you suppose he's at that club of his? What's it called?"

"The Bronze," the girl purred.

"Yes."

"He may be."

"Thanks for your help...." Angel trailed off waiting for the girl to fill in her missing name.

"Darla," she supplied, smiling.

"Darla. Well, Darla, thanks."

Gathering the package, Angel made his way through the shelves and exited into the bright January afternoon.

***

The Bronze was a coffee bar-cum-dance club and one of the few interesting places in Sunnydale, unless you had a real preoccupation with cemeteries; for some reason there was an abundance of those in town.

Angel blinked twice as he entered the cool, dim former warehouse. Two or three of the sofas were taken with university students, feet propped on battered tables, lattes propped on open textbooks. Angel scanned the room, but saw no sign of William's peroxide head. He made his way through the room and settled on a stool, admiring the curved groove at the back of the petite bartender's neck. She was cleaning the espresso machine vigorously, humming to the power rock song that played on the club's stereo system.

Several minutes passed and Angel sat, quietly admiring the girl's attention to detail; the way her small unadorned hands sought out and polished the most hidden places on the fancy machine. Finally, she put down her rag and brought her forearm up, passing it across her moist forehead. "There," she muttered.

"It looks good," Angel said.

The girl spun around, startled by the voice and by the fact that there was someone actually sitting at the bar on a Tuesday afternoon in January. She took a step closer. "I'm sorry," she said. "I wasn't paying attention. Can I get you something?"

Angel took a long, slow, painful breath. He had seen beautiful women before. Perhaps he'd even seen women more beautiful than this one was, but there was no question that this woman possessed some quality, some unnamable quality, that Angel was certain was very rare.

"I'm actually looking for William," he said.

"Not here," she said, with a smile that displayed dazzling teeth.

"Oh," he said.

"But he'll be here. At some point. He always is," she continued. "If you'd like to wait, I could make you some nice clean cappuccino."

He stared at her blankly.

"You know, cause I just cleaned the machine," she paused, waiting for him to get the joke.

"Okay, a cappuccino," Angel agreed, even though he rarely drank anything but plain coffee.

The girl busied herself with the task at hand, measuring and frothing and finally placing the cinnamon-sprinkled drink in front of him.

"So, are you a friend of William's?" the girl asked, leaning against the bar.

Angel sipped his drink carefully, cautious not to let the milky foam linger on his upper lip. "No," he said, shaking his head. "It's business."

"Oh. Does he owe you money?" she asked.

Angel put his cup back in its saucer with a clatter. "No. He doesn't owe me money. Why? Does he owe you money?"

The girl laughed, tossing her ponytail. Angel watched the silky blonde trajectory slide across the girl's marvelous shoulders and felt the permanent knot in his stomach unravel a tiny bit.

"I'm Angel," he said, holding out a cup-warmed hand.

"Sure you are," the girl laughed again, placing her own smaller hand into his. He squeezed softly and tried to meet her eyes.

Angel let go of the girl's hand reluctantly and watched as she pulled her fingers through her hair. "Is your name a secret?"

"I have no secrets," she smiled. "My life is an open book. I'm Buffy."

"Buffy? That's unusual."

"If you want the full story, ask my mother. Too much daytime television, if you ask me. Although I might have gotten saddled with a name like Ridge or Thorne, if I'd been a boy. I mean, seriously, what kind of names are those?"

Angel shrugged. "I don't know. I don't watch daytime television."

"Really?" Buffy cocked an eyebrow quizzically. "I would have said you were a total slave to 'Passions.'"

The reference was lost on Angel. "Would you have dinner with me?" he asked. The question came out of nowhere and Angel was almost as surprised by it as he was by Buffy's reply.

"No," Buffy said, offering Angel an alarmingly brilliant smile to soften her response.

Angel O'Connor stood, pushing his cup and saucer across the bar to Buffy. "How much do I owe you?" he asked.

"It's on me," she said. "Well, actually, it's on William."

"Tell him I was by, would you?" Angel said, gathering his briefcase and heading toward the door.

Buffy watched his broad back and sighed. She didn't know which was more shocking: that he'd asked her out at all or that he'd given up so easily.

***

At six o'clock, Buffy stuffed her knapsack with her bottled water and her sociology textbook and made her way to The Bronze's back exit. She stifled a yawn as she pushed out through the heavy metal door. The alley was deserted and she picked her way through the stray bottles toward the lights of Main Street. She spotted him, then, leaning against the main entrance of The Bronze, eyeing his shoes and glancing up whenever anyone entered or departed through the main door.

"Still waiting for William?" she asked, as she came to stand in front of him.

A slow smile spread across his face. "Do I have to dignify that question with an answer?"

She smiled and glanced back over her shoulder. "There's a nice little pizza place around the corner."

"I thought you didn't want to have dinner," Angel replied.

"Pizza is not dinner," Buffy said with a grin. "Pizza is pizza. I often eat it for breakfast."

Angel took Buffy's knapsack off her shoulder and together they stepped off the sidewalk to cross the street to Urbano's Pizzeria.

The place was an Italian restaurant cliché: red and white checked tablecloths, empty wine bottles that served as candle holders, Dean Martin on the sound system. But the service and pizza were excellent and as Angel poured the remainder of the carafe of red wine into their glasses, he realized that he couldn't remember the last time he had felt so relaxed.

"So, is the book business lucrative?" Buffy asked.

"If you mean, do I make a lot of money, then, yes, it's lucrative," Angel said, feeling none of his normal annoyance at having been asked to divulge personal information.

"Who'd have thought there was money in books," Buffy said

"Well, of course, we're not talking about the books you get at Barnes and Noble. I look for specific books for specific customers; collectors who are interested in very rare volumes to lock away behind glass and show to all their rich intellectual friends." Angel shrugged. Personally he believed that books were meant to be read, but it hardly mattered to him what his customers chose to do with the volumes he hunted down for them. He'd fallen into his line of work purely by accident and it had been a good fit. He worked solo, came and went as he chose and made a more than sufficient living. The fact that he had developed a reputation as a bastard was a side effect he could happily live with. At almost 30, Angel was exactly where he wanted to be.

"And you? What do you hope to do after university?" Angel asked.

Buffy sat back in her chair and regarded Angel with characteristic amusement. "I haven't got a clue. See the world. Become an action hero. Get married and have a dozen kids."

Angel found himself admiring Buffy's innocent hopes for the future.

When the waiter brought the check, he was reluctant to pay it. The handwritten bill signaled the end of one of the few evenings in Angel's recent memory when he'd actually felt like himself, instead of the hard shell he'd become.

"May I walk you home?" he asked.

"Yes. That would be great," Buffy said, slipping into her woolen coat.

It was a clear, bright night. The moon hung suspended by ropes of stars and the air was as crisp and fragrant as a basket of autumn apples. The pair walked in companionable silence down the nearly empty streets of downtown Sunnydale. In front of Buffy's apartment building, Angel hesitated. He felt off balance, unsure.

Buffy smiled up at him, her eyes wide and clear. "I had a great time, Angel," she said.

He nodded. He couldn't seem to slide his eyes past her mouth, wanted more than anything to kiss her and felt like a foolish schoolboy for hesitating. Before he had time to consider his next move, the door to Buffy's building swung closed and Angel was alone.

***

Angel sat wide awake in his hotel room for hours after he'd left Buffy. The bottle of scotch he'd purchased on his walk back to the hotel sat, unopened, on the little table next to the chair where he sat, contemplating the person he'd allowed himself to become over the years. As quiet introspection was something Angel rarely indulged in. He was who he was. There was little he could do, or wanted to do, if he was totally honest with himself, to change the facts of his life.

Born to wealth. Spoiled by an indulgent mother. Schooled privately and then at Oxford. Smugly aware of his physical appearance. Possessed of above average intelligence and keen business sense. A loner. Angel ticked off the facts like he was tallying figures in a ledger. Next to the radiant Buffy Summers, however, Angel O'Connor felt inadequate.

Normally drawn to brittle, shrewd woman with an overdeveloped sense of their sexuality, the last person on earth Angel would have expected to feel hopelessly drawn to was Buffy Summers; coffee bar waitress and college student. Yet, here he was, just past two am, unable to sleep, a yearning as deep as any he'd ever felt wedged against his normally reticent heart.

Angel would have a difficult time pinpointing just where his aversion to relationships had come from. He wasn't a believer in any self-help philosophy, didn't ascribe to any of the plethora of celebrities and new-age gurus who pointed to a better way of living, eating, exercising, and loving. It was all bullshit to Angel.

Despite his privileged upbringing, Angel had been taught, at a very young age, to depend on himself. His mother had indulged him, certainly, but it had more to do with her own fantasies of motherhood than anything Angel might have needed as a young boy; those crucial early years were a blur to him. He couldn't remember a single outing with his mother, a single midnight kitchen raid for hot milk and cookies, a single day at the beach. His father was a slave to his law firm; a rigid, distant man who had had a series of affairs, which Mrs. O'Connor either condoned or ignored until he died, unexpectedly, of a heart attack.

So, maybe, if he wanted to make the leap, he could blame his parents and their pathetic excuse for a marriage for his own reluctance to get involved with anybody on a level deeper than flesh. But Angel knew it was more than that. He had chosen a profession that, by its very nature, called for single-mindedness and independence. It was foolish to even be considering embarking on a relationship with someone like Buffy Summers.

Sunnydale was meant to be a short stop, a quick in and out to check on certain things before he headed back to LA to get on with his life, but Angel suddenly felt as though his life were just about to begin.

***

By 7 am, he was waiting outside her apartment. He'd stopped for tea and donuts on the way, although he was anxious at the thought that he might have ed hed her the entire time he'd been waiting to pay.

The sight of her, long coat billowing in a burst of colour as she pushed open the door of her building, stopped his heart.

He stood, leaning against his rental car, a goofy lop-sided grin marring his normally silent face and waited for her to see him standing there. He was exhilarated to see her eyes reach across the street and even more gratified to see the smile she bestowed upon him as she made her way to the car.

"Good morning," she said. Angel could smell her freshly washed hair which was pulled back in a damp ponytail.

He nodded.

"Is that for me?" she said, indicating the paper cup he held in his hand.

Another nod.

She took the cup and smiled against the lip of it.

"I have an eight o'clock class," she murmured into the steam.

"I brought donuts," he said at the exact same time.

She lifted her lashes, revealing startling kaleidoscope eyes.

He couldn't help himself, standing there with those eyes on him, bearing down on him with the unknowable knowledge of all he was and wasn't. He took the cup of tea from her trembling hand and set it on the hood of the car. Angel knew he was standing on the precipice of the most important moment of his life: he couldn't let go of Buffy Summers.

"If it's too soon," he said, softly, "you just need to tell me."

She shook her head imperceptibly and held out her hand. With a little tug, she propelled them both across the street and into her building, up the stairs and into her apartment. Door shut behind them, Buffy turned and regarded Angel seriously.

"I'm quite sure I've waited long enough for you, Angel," she said.

She shrugged off her coat and hung it primly on the hook on her door. She waited for him to follow, and he slipped off his expensive leather duster and hung it intimately over hers. For a long moment they stood. She turned and slipped down the hall, looking back and beckoning him with her eyes. He hesitated, wondering at this uncharacteristic abandon, and then followed her.

Her bedroom was spare and charming: pale yellow paint, windows hung with sheer muslin attached to brass rods with little clip-on stars, a wide, plain bed covered in a patchwork quilt. Buffy stood by the window, her back to Angel when he entered the room.

He stood just inside her door, afraid to move or speak. She turned suddenly and smiled.

"I had a dream about you. Before I even knew you existed, I dreamt you."

Angel's heart lurched when he saw that Buffy was crying. She did nothing to stem the flow of her tears. She seemed rather oblivious to them, but Angel felt the urge to cross the room and wipe them away.

"You strike me as a man who needs saving, Angel."

He started toward her, crossing the room and standing in front of her, not touching, but close enough that he could. "You are a revelation to me, Buffy," he said, simply.

"Perhaps."

"I hope that I won't disappoint you," he said, resting the pads of his thumbs on her cheeks and sweeping upward, gathering her tears as he went.

"You won't disappoint me if you're honest. Can you be honest, Angel?"

He gave her a small, sad smile. "I don't know," he said, honestly.

She rested her small hands on his and drew his palms to her mouth, pressing a warm kiss into the tender place at the center of each hand. Then, lifting her eyes up to meet his, she offered him her heart.

***

Angel clawed his way out of the memory of Buffy's face looking up at him with such open acceptance and love that Angel had, for a moment, been sure he was having some sort of weird waking dream. In his whole life no one had ever looked at him like that. Usually he was eyed with wariness, suspicion, shrewd appraisal, lust. Even Cordelia, weeks after he had walked away from Buffy, had never looked at him as though he were anything but what he was: a man with neither a conscience nor a heart. Odd, the people before Buffy would have claimed some knowledge of Angel personally or professionally, either through business or a sexual encounter, but in the end, none of them knew one tenth of what Buffy knew in less than twenty-four hours.

"Angel?" Wesley said, slipping through the bubble of memory.

Angel sed hed his eyes towards his friend who was leaning forward, cradling his empty coffee cup in his thatched fingers.

"I know. It doesn't make sense," Angel said, quietly.

"What doesn't make sense? That you fell in love or that you walked away from it?" Wesley asked, holding Angel's gaze with his own.

Angel closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. "Both, I guess. I never did anything in my whole life to deserve her and yet there she was like an apparition out of nowhere. She never asked for all the complications I brought to her life."

"Well, Angel, you're a complicated man," Wesley said, cajoled.

"Shit," Angel spat. "I'm not talking about that."

Wesley arched his eyebrows expectantly. Although he considered himself to be a close friend, he knew that that didn't give him any better insight into Angel's character. There was a certain amount of mystery surrounding Angel O'Connor, missing information that prevented Wes from having a clear picture of the man. It was not an understatement to call him complicated. Despite the years they had spent working together, Wesley didn't feel capable of writing Angel's obituary.

"I'm talking about what I was capable of doing," Angel said, angrily.

Wesley snorted behind a concealing hand. Angel rewarded him with another dark look.

"What? Oh, for heaven's sake, Angel, what you were capable of doing? Did you ever think you were capable of bringing Buffy great happiness? How do you know what you're capable of? You shock the hell out of me every day and I'm still here."

"It's not the same," Angel said.

"No. It's not. But it's not all that different, either." Wesley stood, stretching his long legs and leaning against the balcony, which surveyed the road and a small green space below Angel's building.

"I haven't told you the worst, Wes," Angel said, his voice a strangled whisper.

Wesley turned back to face his friend. "Well, then, let's hear it."

***

Buffy led Angel to the bed and drew him down to the intricately patterned quilt. They lay, facing each other reverently. Angel could feel his heart thudding in his chest and was startled by how loud and unnerving the sound of it was in his ears.

Buffy's eyes were wide open, multi-coloured prisms, catching and reflecting light. Tendrils of her butter-coloured hair had slipped from her ponytail and framed her face. Angel didn't know where to rest his own eyes: her poreless skin, her lovely mouth, the small mole on her neck.

"Tell me your middle name," she said.

"Liam."

"Where were you born?"

"Galway, Ireland. But I came to America very young. No accent."

"Do you have siblings?"

"A sister, Catherine."

"Ever been married?"

"No."

"Want children?"

"I hadn't thought about it until this very instant," Angel said with a smile.

Buffy lifted a finger to trace the stern line of Angel's jaw, his slanted cheek, the thick fringe of dark lashes.

"You're very beautiful," she said. "Your mother named you well."

For the first time in his life, Angel felt self-conscious of his looks. He'd considered them an asset when he was able to use them to his advantage. Otherwise, he rarely thought about his physical appearance at all. fact that Buffy was drawing attention to the way that he looked both elated and made him uncomfortable, all at once.

A long golden moment of silence stretched between them.

"My turn," Angel said, relishing the feeling of her fingers tracing the smooth skin behind his ear and at his nape.

"Open book, remember? Ask me anything."

"Middle name?"

"Anne."

"Parents?"

"Yes, Joyce and Hank. Divorced. Somewhat amicable."

"Siblings?"

"No. These are easy. Ask me something hard."

Angel thought for a moment.

"Ever been in love?"

"In seventh grade. And once in eleventh grade."

Angel shook his head. "I don't mean that kind of love."

"Love is love, isn't it?" Buffy said, innocently.

"Is it?"

"Well, I think yes. How do you quantify it? How do you decide, when it's over, that it wasn't what you thought it was, when you believed in it at the time?"

"I guess I hadn't thought of it like that."

"Have you ever been in love, Angel?" she asked, fingers caught in his hair, words whispering past his face.

"No," he replied.

She paused. "I think you should kiss me now."

Angel couldn't remember ever being so nervous at the thought of pressing his lips against the lips of another. He moved his head forward, watching her pupils dilate at his approach. She smelled of clear water and vanilla. Her lips were soft and unadorned. God.

He hovered over her lips, barely brushing against them with his own mouth. Kissing was something he had mostly considered as a precursor to sex. Kissing had never meant anything on its own. Yet, in that second before he pressed his lips fully against hers, Angel felt as though this kiss meant the world.

She sighed against his mouth, a sound that shook the very foundation on which he'd stood his whole life: take no prisoners, no one gets in, no one gets out. She tasted of honey and, faintly, of mint toothpaste. He cradled her face in his hands and pressed closer, aware that she was moving with him. Her lips parted beneath his, inviting his tongue and Angel moved into the warm space between her lips, his tongue tentatively seeking its mate.

He deepened the kiss, nibbling her lips, sliding across them with measured abandon. He felt her hands slide into his hair, holding his head closer and causing a rush of feeling down his spine. He felt himself grow painfully hard inside his pants: part lust, part something he couldn't define.

It seemed like an hour had passed when he finally managed to pull back from her mouth. Her eyes were waiting for him.

"God, Buffy," he whispered.

"What I said before, about the seventh and eleventh grade, I think I'm prepared to qualify my statement, now," she whispered back.

Angel smiled. "No, you're right to hold on to those memories, to cherish them. I'm a cynic at heart."

"Well, I guess I'll tackle that first," Buffy said. "No time for cynicism."

"No," Angel agreed, "I suppose not."

Buffy propped herself up on one elbow and studied Angel's face. She doubted she would ever tire of looking at it. Perhaps he wasn't classically beautiful, his mouth too wide and his brow too strong, but he was striking in a way that defied all logic. His teeth were perfect: white and even. His cheeks slanted sharply without making him look emaciated. His eyes were pure brown, the colour of dark wood. In them Buffy was sure she saw power and hunger and loneliness. She pressed a kiss to his foad aad and his nose and then, to his mouth, which set them off once more.

This time there was something less meandering about the kiss. Angel felt certain, when he felt her lips on his, that there was a destination. Placing a large hand on her back he unhinged her elbow and she fell back onto the bed. Without leaving her mouth, Angel ran his fingertips along her neck, over the knobby bones at the base of her throat, down the valley created by her breasts. Her breath hitched and gasped beneath his mouth. He was almost afraid to look at her, afraid to see reproach in her eyes for having touched her too soon, but when he looked at her, her eyes were remote and opaque: he could see nothing in them but himself.

He slid his hand underneath her white t-shirt and spanned the width of her flat belly. She was trembling and, to his surprise, so was he. He slid up the slope of her ribcage and then up over the curve of her breast, the smooth satin of her bra puckered at her nipple. Dipping a finger into her bra he made contact with the pebbled peak and felt Buffy suck in a quick mouthful of air. Angel was of two minds: get her naked and beneath him as quickly as possible and slow down in an effort to ensure she was with him until the very end. Still, neither option precluded him seeing her creamy naked skin, so he sat back on his haunches, pulling Buffy up and then tugging her shirt over her head. Her bra, a tiny scrap of satin was a marvel of technology; sexy and functional and Angel almost considered leaving it on, but while his groin pulsed painfully he reached behind her back, between her butterfly shoulder blades, and deftly unhooked it, letting it slip down her shoulders and arms.

God.

"Hardly worth..." Buffy started.

"Shhh," Angel said, placing two long, thick fingers against her swollen lips. "You're beautiful."

Indeed she was. Perfect, gently rounded breasts with puckered pink nipples sat regally on her ribcage. Drawing her legs on either side of his lap, Angel tilted her back just enough so her breasts lay before him, a feast. He kissed up the underside of one, then the other. He stroked and licked but ignored her nipples, sensing that he needed to take his time, that this was important. He lay her flat on the bed and stood up, shucking his shirt and shoes, socks and pants. Leaning over her, he unsnapped her pants and slid them down her narrow hips. He heard her shoes hit the floor. Her satin panties matched the discarded bra.

He could smell her. The aroma was a heady mixture of sweet and salt and Angel had an overwhelming desire to bury his face between her legs. Instead, he started at the top: kissing eyelids and earlobes, throat and shoulder, trailing his fingers up and down her slim arm, scratching her upturned palm with his index finger, finally touching her neglected nipples with the tip of his tongue, gently abrading her with his teeth. He felt the quiver in her belly, heard her whimpers from far away, listened for her to say 'no,' and when she didn't, moved down, sweeping his hands along her ribs, brushing a palm against the coarse hair covering her pubes. He was gratified to feel her buck against his hand, encouraging his touch.

Positioning himself against her smooth thighs he paused. This act was worth savouring. Poised over her intimate centre, he slid his glance up over her belly, breasts, up-turned chin, willing her to see him as he dipped his tongue forward to taste her for the first time. Sensing him, she acknowledged his intent with cautious eyes.

"Buffy?" he said, his words drifting up to her.

She reached down to lock her fingers with his. "I'm okay, Angel."

He needed no other encouragement, might not have been able to prevent himself, anyway, from parting her feminine lips and pressing his flattened tongue against her, pausing to allow the sweet, sweet taste of her assault his already reeling senses. She lay still beneath him, yet he could feel her vibrating against his tongue. He moved up, pressing the tip of his tongue against the little nub of flesh, drawing circles around it, and finally, placing his lips on it and sucking gently. Her hips lifted off the bed and he reached under her, cupping her firm buttock in his hands, holding her firmly against his mouth as she exploded all around him.

He held her until she stilled, watched her breathing slow, saw her eyes flutter open to reveal wonder and peace. The he slid up her body, until he was poised at her opening, his sex flirting with hers. Was it too soon? He couldn't remember a time in his whole adult life when he had ever considered that question.

Her body unfolded below him. She hooked her legs over his hips, locked her ankles at the small of his back and drew him forward. Inch by precious inch, he moved and felt her open beneath him. She was so tiny, so perfect, so tight and slick, that Angel thought he might come before he was entirely inside her. She blinked up at him, concentrating so hard on his face that he was sure he might melt away under her careful scrutiny. But he held her eyes and moved forward, as he thrust and...

Angel watched Buffy's eyes fill with tears at the same time as he felt her body resist the intrusion. He hesitated, unsure of what he should do, unwilling to believe that she would give herself to him so totally.

"Buffy?" he said.

She shook her head. "Shhh. It's all right."

He hung back, suspended above her for a long moment, before he shifted, withdrawing and re-entering her body with precision. Slow. Slower than he would have thought humanly possible, Angel reached into the deepest, hungriest part of himself and tamped down the flame. He thought of a million ways he could touch her, a million ways he could position his body to allow him better access to her, but he couldn't leave her eyes. Nor could he stop his own release, which came barreling up his spine, resting for a moment in his testicles, before emptying into her sleek core. Still, he stay suspended above her, not even allowing himself the luxury of closing his eyes when he came. She should know. She should know. He lay his head in the curve of her shoulder and moaned, pushing past the lump in his throat, holding back scalding tears of his own.

***

Returning to Los Angeles was the hardest thing Angel O'Connor had ever done. Harder than cutting off ties with his mother. Harder than maintaining the impression that he was a hard ass. Harder than pretending to enjoy his weekly dinners with Wesley and his cronies, which he only did so that Wes would believe that he wasn't a total social misfit. Harder than keeping secrets from Buffy. Now, the thought of returning to LA, to a life he could suddenly care less about, seemed daunting.

He sat at her tiny kitchen table, drinking coffee and watching Buffy flip pancakes. Her hair, caught in a messy bun at the top of her head threatened to topple at any minute and he couldn't seem to make himself focus on the Sunday paper. The silhouette of her lithe body glimpsed through the sheer robe she wore was practically more than Angel could stand. How long since they'd been out of bed?

In the thirty-six hours since they met, Angel felt reborn. He ignored Rupert's cell messages, ignored the fact that he was meant to be traveling to New York in less than a week, ignored the nagging feeling that he was supposed to be a different person and concentrated, instead, on falling in love with Buffy Summers. Was it prudent, he wondered, to abandon the carefully erected walls he'd built around himself? He didn't seem to care. That his involvement with her might interfere with his career was a risk he was more than willing to take.

She was humming. He folded his paper and padded, shirtless, to the stove. She couldn't help but feel his arousal pressing into the small of her back.

"Hungry?" she asked, flipping a blackened pancake.

He wrinkled his nose. "Yes."

He slid his hands up the front of her robe, untying the belt and moving against the smooth, warm silk of her skin. He hadn't been able to bring him to to ask why she had never made love with anyone else. The fact of her virginity was so amazing, so precious to him that he was afraid to broach the subject.

Angel felt her loll against him, spatula hanging loosely at her side. He reached over and turned off the stove. The pancakes could wait. He could not.

***

Dearest Buffy,
t set seems impossible that I have been away from you for three weeks now. Where does the time go? How do I fill my days without you? Well, you know how, obviously. But I can only visit so many antiquarian bookstores before the whole business of tracking down rare volumes seems rather pointless. You should have come. I should have insisted. I know, it seemed too early to be going away together. But I know my own heart, Buffy. I knew it the moment I lay my eyes upon you. Perhaps it seemed to you that I was moving too quickly, but it seemed to me that the whole world had slowed to a stop. Now, three whole weeks have gone by. Three weeks that would have been better spent witu, tu, talking, uncovering bits of your past. You may even have been able to convince me to reveal a few of my own dark secrets. I am miles away, in this huge sprawling city; a city I actually once loved, but which now seems immense and foreign to me because you are not in it. Sew quw quickly you have made the place where you are home.

Angel

Dear Angel,

It was nice to receive your letter this morning. I felt like a greedy girl who has come upon an entire box of chocolates. I found a quiet place to read it and gobbled it up in one sitting. You are too, too far away. I am lonesome without you and have ruined my calendar with black X's through all the days you have been gone. I know your work is important, but I wish it was me you were searching for and not first editions. Oh well. Soon enough you'll be home. I promise to trust your instincts about us and not let my fears stand in the way because I know you're right, Angel; I knew it the moment the jet smoke faded from the sky.

Yours,

Buffy


Dear Buffy,

I've been looking forever and, suddenly, among a pile of books outside a little shop on Charring Cross Road, there it was. Imagine! "The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins," First edition. Giles will be thrilled beyond belief when I deliver this to him upon my return to LA. Forgive me. I know that you don't share my love of books. Well, I'm putting words in your mouth now, aren't I? You've never said one way or the other whether you think what I do is exciting or incredibly dull. I wish I had a more interesting line of work: private investigator, or traffic controller or king. I doubt you'd like Hopkins, Buffy. He writes mostly of God and the natural world and I think you haven't much use for either of those. I didn't either, until I met you and realized there must, indeed, be a God, and a benevolent one at that, if you were put in my path and I was lucky enough to have discovered you.

Angel


Dear Angel,

My mother died. I know that by the time you receive this, it will be days after the fact and there will be nothing that you can do. I am sorry to spring the news on you this way. I tried to call the hotel, but they said that you had checked out. I am sending this to the American Express office in Paris, as I know that that's where your itinerary suggested you'd be next. Perhaps, though, your plans have changed. I am alright, Angel, though I must admit that I'd be better if you were here. This is one of those moments when time will have stopped for me. The day my mother died.

Buffy


Dear Angel,

I haven't heard anything from you since I sent the note about my mother. Did you not receive the news? When are you coming home?

B


Dear Angel,

I am sending this to you in LA because I know that, by now, you are back there. I'm wondering what's happened. You've not been in touch. Is everything okay?

Buffy

***

"And so it went," Angel said to Wesley. "Weeks and weeks of me traveling to Sunnydale and Buffy coming to LA. I managed to keep everything separate. Her, my life...well, she was my life."

"I'm not sure I understand, Angel," Wesley said. He was supposed to be picking up Fred in thirty minutes, but he had the feeling that he was not going to make it. He should call.

"I know. This wasn't supposed to ever happen."

"What wasn't supposed to happen?" Wesley asked.

"I'm...not a book dealer, Wes. I mean, I do that, but that's not what I do," Angel said, quietly, staring at his hands.

"Pardon me?" Wesley said, clearly confused. "Well, what have we been doing for the past four years then? I was quite certain we were selling books."

Angel met his friend's eyes. "Yes, we were." Angel hesitated. He'd known that it was possible that at some point he would have to make this revelation to Wesley. Part of the reason he had very few friends was to prevent the number of people he would have to come clean to. Cordy had been a huge mistake, but at least he'd been able to make a tidy break from her. "I work for the government, Wes. I work undercover."

Wesley couldn't help himself, he laughed out loud. "Oh, I see, you're a spy," Wesley said, mockingly.

Angel shook his head. "No. Not a spy. I'm investigating a ring of very specialized forgers. They've bilked legitimate collectors and museums out of millions of dollars. I'm very close to busting things wide open. In fact, when Buffy's mother died, I was in Paris tracking down an important lead. That was the beginning of the end for us. I mean, Christ, her mother dies and I'm on the other side of the world. I can't walk away from my work and I can't tell her about my work and so she just believes I'm this asshole who doesn't care enough about her to be with her at the time she most needed me. That's when I realized it just wasn't going to happen for us. It had nothing to do with my feelings for her, nothing. It had everything to do with who I am." Angel's words came out in a rush, carefully erected defenses torn down in a tumble of words. He looked cautiously at Wesley, waiting for his response.

Wesley shook his head in disbelief. "It's true, then?"

"It's true."

"And so, what part have I had in this little charade because, obviously, unbeknownst to me, I have played a part," Wesley said, with simmering anger.

"Yes. You've played a part. You're my cover. You were thoroughly investigated and came out spotlessly clean. So, I associated myself with you and we built a nice little business, which allowed me to come and go in the circles necessary to do my work. I am sorry that you couldn't know, Wes, but I hope you understand that what I do is potentially very dangerous. Millions of dollars are at stake."

"Damn you, Angel," Wesley said, standing and moving back towards the doors that led into Angel's apartment.

"Wait," Angel said, following.

Wesley didn't hesitate. He swung around and crashed a fist full of knuckles into Angel's face. "You bastard. You selfish bastard."

Angel didn't strike back, although his first instinct was to ram Wes against a wall and let go with all his pent up anger and sorrow and frustration. Instead, Angel stood and watched his friend pick his way through the litter and down the hall to the door.