"Do you have any sugar?" the lawyer asked after taking a tentative sip from his cup.

Buffy wordlessly handed him the sugar bowl and a spoon.  Cocking an eyebrow, she watched as he shoveled heaping spoonfuls of sugar into the cup.  He seemed to notice her attention and smiled sheepishly.

"I sort of have a sweet tooth," he explained.

She nodded and took a seat at the kitchen table, sticking close to Angel.  Absently, he placed a hand on her bare knee where her skirt had ridden up.  She sighed, relaxing back into the chair as the gesture soothed her frayed nerves.  She and Angel had made some tough decisions the previous evening and the resultant emotional turmoil hadn’t lent itself to Buffy getting a good night’s sleep.  She had a pounding headache and, at the moment, her temper was bordering on waspish.

"So what’s the plan?" Angel asked bluntly.

Lindsey smiled genuinely.  He hated playing nice and apparently Angel didn’t want to do that.  It was a wonderful change of pace from the happy face he usually had to put on at work.

"I need to know everything about both of your lives since you met Clarice," he said evenly.

Buffy let out a sharp bark of laughter.  "Sure," she said sardonically, "no problem there."

Angel turned towards her, a frown marring his beautiful features.  She was instantly contrite.  She knew they needed Lindsey’s help, but she couldn’t help how uneasy he made her feel.

"I know you don’t want me here," Lindsey said matter-of-factly, "but you need me."

Buffy scowled, crossing her arms protectively over her chest, but remained silent.  Angel eventually settled back in his chair.

"Where do you want me to start?" he asked the lawyer.

"At the beginning," Lindsey replied.  "And I need to know *everything*.  If you think that you’re being set up, even the most inconsequential thing could be important."

Buffy found herself unable to sit by silently and listen to Angel lay out the intimate details of their life for a total stranger.  She retreated to her bedroom, curling up with Angel’s pillows as she stared blindly at the wall.  She smiled wryly to herself as she looked at her calendar.  It was filled with all sorts of notes about doctor’s appointments, injection times, peak fertility days and so forth.

"What a joke," she snorted, her eyes filling with tears.

She and Angel had regretfully given up on trying to have another child after a heated argument the night before.  It simply wasn’t a good time for a child and both of them knew that.  There were too many unknowns in their lives at the moment.  She hadn’t argued when he’d suggested they delay it a few months, but she hadn’t lied to herself either.  They had both known they weren’t delaying, they were throwing in the towel.

She knew it had been ludicrous to continue trying after Clarice’s death, but she hadn’t wanted to give up their dreams for the future due to mistakes from Angel’s past.  It was too bitter a pill to swallow.  But that’s exactly what had happened.  Clarice had struck again.

Buffy blinked and the tears ran down her face.  Real tears.  She swallowed convulsively, completely cognizant of how pathetic she was, as they slid down her cheeks to disappear in her husband’s pillow.  All her endless weeks of being a wreck and here she was still crying.

Buffy blinked awake groggily as the bed shifted under Angel’s weight.  She was silent as he spooned around her back, nuzzling his face into her hair.

"Are you alright?" he asked quietly.

"Sure," she said dryly.  "Why do you ask?"

"Because there’s mascara all over my pillow and I’m pretty sure it’s not from me."

She sighed, rolling onto her back so she could look at him.  He smiled, pressing a gentle kiss against her lips.

"So how was the meeting with Satan’s legal counsel?" she asked.

He laughed.  "I forget about this side of you," he said quietly.

She scowled.  "What side?’

"The side that doesn’t like people messing with your man," he said with a goofy smile.

She was unable to maintain her scowl as he smiled at her and eventually she melted into his embrace.  "No," she said, "I don’t like people messing with my things."

Angel hugged her tightly, nipping lightly at the flesh of her neck and she sighed, turning into him and kissing him deeply.

"So," she said, "give me the Cliff Notes version."

He sighed, sitting up in bed and leaning against the headboard.  Buffy did the same.

"He wants to see the dagger," Angel said seriously.  "He didn’t know if it would have any bearing on anything, but he thought it would be worth checking out.  It’s still in your desk at work, right?"

Buffy shook her head.  "No," she said, "I moved it a couple of weeks ago.  It’s over at Giles’ in the bottom of one of his weapon chests."

Angel’s brow furrowed.  "Why’d you move it?"

Buffy shrugged.  "I don’t know," she said.  "I just got paranoid about it."

"Paranoid?"

"It’s probably stupid," she said, not looking at him, "but I swear that someone moved it."

"Well," he said, "in light of that, especially, I think we should get it tonight and have Lindsey look at it."

Buffy nodded.

Lindsey turned the dagger over in his hands as Buffy, Angel, Giles and Nick looked on.  He set it down in the center of the table, staring at it with a  scowl on his face.

"Well?" Buffy prompted.

Lindsey shook his head.  "Nothing."

"What do you mean, nothing?" the former Slayer snapped.  "How can you not feel it?"

Lindsey shook his head.  "I’m sorry," he said, "but I don’t feel anything."

Buffy shot a pleading look at the former Watcher who picked up the dagger.  After several minutes, Giles set it down with the same disappointed expression as the lawyer.

Buffy sighed.  "You feel it, don’t you?" she asked her husband.

Angel nodded.  "Yeah," he said, "I do.  But it’s different now.  Before it used to feel … I don’t know … hot or something.  Now it still feels really familiar, but it’s not hot anymore."

Nodding, Buffy said, "I noticed the same thing."

"Fine," Lindsey said, "that’s even more suspicious.  You two can feel something but no one else can."

Nick had always heard his mother, Spike, and Giles reminisce about research parties.  Somehow, he’d imagined that they were somewhat more exciting.  He flipped the dusty book shut with a thud.

"Nothing?" Buffy surmised from the look on his face.

He nodded.  "Not a thing."

The collective enthusiasm dropped yet another notch.  They’d all been digging through Buffy, Giles and Angel’s extensive libraries on weapons and had yet to come up with anything even remotely promising.

Most of the heads in the room turned as Giles’ front door swung open and Xander and Anya walked in, followed by their oldest daughter.  Liz smiled warmly at Nick, taking a seat next to him as her father pulled up a chair at the table and Anya milled around impatiently.

"Any luck?" Xander asked hopefully.

The trio of scowls informed him that there had been nothing of the sort.  He sighed and slumped back in his chair.

"Can we help?"

Anya whipped around quickly, fixing her husband with an expression of incredulity.  "You’re supposed to be taking me out to a nice dinner," she said pointedly.

Xander’s expression was sheepish, but he didn’t relent.  "Ahn, hon, they might need our help."

She snorted loudly.  "I’m sure that between the five of them, that they can manage to research a D’Hoffrynian dagger just fine."

The entire group stared at her in silence.

Giles cleared his throat loudly and said, "Pardon?"

Anya flushed.  "Well ..." she flustered, "I wasn’t trying to imply that it would take all five of you to do something that simple.  I mean, I’m sure several of you are of average intelligence."

"No," Buffy said, "what did you say about the dagger?"

Anya’s brow furrowed for a moment and then she shrugged.  "It’s a D’Hoffrynian dagger."

"Bloody hell," Giles said, taking his glasses off to polish them.  "We’ve been researching this damn thing forever."

Anya smiled, realizing that the group was very interested in any knowledge she might have.  She took a seat at the table and picked up the dagger.  "Yep," she said, "I knew that’s what it was."

"Not that I’m not grateful," Lindsey interjected, "but could you explain exactly what it is?"

"If I’m not mistaken," Giles offered, "D’Hoffryn is the demon who initially turned Anya into a vengeance demon more than a thousand years ago."

Anya nodded.

"So the dagger belongs to this D’Hoffryn guy?" Buffy asked.

Anya frowned.  "Not really," she explained.  "It’s like my amulet, the power comes from D’Hoffryn, but it isn’t wielded by him."

"So ... "Angel speculated, "this dagger would belong to a vengeance demon, just like your amulet?"

Brow furrowing again, Anya did her best to explain the intricacies of her former life.  "Yes and no," she said.  "All vengeance demons have amulets, they are the power source.  The daggers are different, they’re weapons.  But the two are still one and the same."

Xander looked at his wife, slightly surprised that she’d managed to keep all this information from him for so long, especially considering her fondness for prattling on about everything, prawns in particular.  "So, did you have a dagger?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

Anya rolled her eyes.  "No, I didn’t have one.  They’re only used in specific conjurings."

"Such as?" Giles asked.

"When a vengeance demon is called in a certain manner, the amulet can be ... transformed ... into the dagger, into a weapon."

"So the demon could use it to kill the person she was called forth to punish?"

Anya nodded.  "That’s usually what happens, but this dagger feels different, muddled sort of."

"Muddled how?" Lindsey asked.

"Like I said," Anya explained, "the daggers and the amulets are one and the same, they should feel identical, but this dagger doesn’t.  There’s something more.  It’s like when the amulet was transformed, it was mixed with something else."

Giles sighed loudly.  "So, are we to assume that Clarice was actually a vengeance demon and that her intention was to kill Angel?"

"She had to be a vengeance demon," Anya said, "there’s no other explanation for her having the dagger, but it still doesn’t explain why the dagger feels strange."

"Not to sound crass," Nick said, "but if she just wanted to kill him, didn’t she have plenty of opportunity?"

"Very valid point," Giles said.  "And don’t forget, we still have two more interesting questions."

"What?"

"Who sent the vengeance demon after Angel in the first place, and who wanted her dead."

The End

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