Angel gave another thought to Buffy, then admitted to himself that he had done nothing but think about Buffy for the last twelve hours. He realized with somewhat of a shock that his mind was so full of Buffy that he hadn't even thought to have a drink. He exhaled, leaning back in the chair as he stared blindly at the wall. Drinking. He did entirely too much drinking. Funny how it hadn't seemed odd before this moment. What would Buffy think if she knew? Getting involved with a drunk wasn't something most women did willingly. He would simply have to stop, there was no other option. He wasn't going to let something as stupid as alcohol get in the way of things with Buffy.

His mind made up, Angel once again looked at the dagger. Normally fulfilling an obligation to a woman who didn't want to speak with him wasn't the most pressing matter on his mind. Then again, the dagger presented a wonderful opportunity. It was a very convenient coincidence that he had questions and that the top authority on the matter also happened to be the woman he couldn't stop thinking about.

The little bell over the door dinged as he entered the gallery shortly after lunch. Downtown Sunnydale was crawling with shoppers out enjoying the wonderful Saturday afternoon weather, but the interior of the gallery was oddly quiet. Apparently antique weaponry wasn't overly popular with the yuppie crowd. The situation suited Angel perfectly. He wasn't in the mood for an audience in the event that things didn't go well.

Summoned by the door bell, an employee entered the showroom from one of the myriad of offices at the back of the gallery. Angel's lips pursed into a thin line. Another attractive younger man, apparently Buffy couldn't get enough of them. The new arrival appeared to be older than the one last night. Angel put his age somewhere in the mid thirties. "May I help you, sir?" the employee asked.

"I would like to speak with the proprietor," Angel replied in overly dry tones.

"Ms. Summers is busy at the moment," the employee explained. "Is there something I can do?"

"I'll wait," Angel replied tersely.

Buffy's employee had no trouble picking up on the hostile vibes rolling off Angel, and he didn't seem impressed. Not one to be easily intimidated, he cocked an eyebrow and slowly assessed Angel from head to foot. Affecting a pompous air, the employee continued, "Just between you and me, I don't think you can afford anything in this gallery, sir. Ms. Summers is not in the habit of wasting her valuable time. Perhaps you should leave."

Angel almost snarled. He wasn't dressed to the nines, but he didn't look like a vagrant either. He knew that his newfound sobriety came with a few unpleasant side effects. He was a little clammy and probably too pale, but he didn't look like a junkie. As he opened his mouth to respond, Buffy walked into the showroom. Her head was down and she was studying a clipboard. "Dan," she said absently, "do you know where the crate with the ... " Buffy looked up and had little trouble sensing the tension between the two men. "Angel," she said with more than a little surprise, "is there something you need?"

"I need your opinion as an appraiser of antique weaponry," he said, stepping away from Dan.

Dan looked at Buffy and she gave him a small nod indicating that he should leave. He obeyed, but clearly wasn't happy about it. As he walked past her, she handed him the clipboard, indicating that he should track down the missing crate and begin cataloging items. Dan left in a huff.

"Boyfriend?" Angel asked caustically. His good mood was shot all to hell. His head hurt and he was feeling shaky and a little nauseas. The blindingly possessive anger over Buffy that Dan provoked did not improve matters.

Buffy smiled wryly, crossing her arms over her chest and answered, intentionally vague, "Employee."

Angel's eyes narrowed to slits. "I didn't realize the two were mutually exclusive."

"They aren't," Buffy said, flashing him a genuine smile. She loved the fact that after more than two decades of being apart she could still drive him nuts. "Let's go in my office."

Angel grumbled under his breath, but followed her closely. He didn't know who Dan was and Buffy hadn't gone out of her way to assure him that he wasn't her boyfriend. Hell, maybe she had several of them, after all, Nick was still in the picture somewhere.

Buffy picked up the dagger again and then looked back at her computer screen. Her brow was furrowed deeply. She had been certain that Angel was just making excuses to bother her, but the relic was indeed genuine, and very interesting. It seemed very familiar, but she couldn't put her finger on why. "Where did you get this?" she asked Angel, who was seated in one of the chairs on the other side of the desk.

"Clarice," he answered evenly.

"Huh?"

"The young woman who was with me last night," he said. "She told me that her grandfather gave it to her. She asked me to see if I could find out anything about it."

"I take it you haven't had any luck," Buffy said, in what she hoped was a business-like tone.

"No," he answered honestly. "I've come up with exactly nothing. I was hoping you would have more success."

"Trying to impress her?" Buffy asked, almost cringing at the catty quality of her voice. She hadn't meant that. Okay, she had, but she didn't want him to know that.

Angel smiled, relieved he was getting to her as much as she was getting to him. "No," he said.
"We're not speaking at the moment. Actually, I doubt we will ever speak again, but I agreed to look into this."

Buffy congratulated herself for not sighing audibly. "How long have you been ‘looking into this'?"

"A little over a month."

Buffy turned from the computer to face him. "If you weren't getting anywhere with it, why didn't you just come and ask me?"

Angel stared at her for a moment. "I was avoiding you," he answered with brutal honesty.

Buffy nodded. It was fair. Their last meeting was nothing short of horrible. "I figured as much," she said quietly.

Angel frowned, his brow furrowing. This wasn't the time or the place to delve into their sordid, painful past. "What are you doing tonight?" he asked.

"Working," she answered automatically. It was the truth. She would be spending every free second for the foreseeable future working.

"Do you think, maybe, you could take off an hour for dinner with an old friend?" he asked cautiously.

"With an old friend? I think, maybe, I could," she answered with a smile.

Buffy stood up and brushed the packing material off of her black slacks. She spent most of the day digging through crate after crate of artifacts from her newest client, Jason Houseman. The collection was incredible, but she still couldn't get her mind off Angel or the dagger. Walking back into her office, she sank down into her chair and picked up the dagger. It was so familiar, but it wasn't the way the dagger looked that was setting her off. She was fairly certain she had never seen it before. It was the way the weapon felt. She couldn't explain it, but every time she touched it, there was a fleeting sense of recognition.

Who the hell was Clarice and what was the story behind her dagger? Buffy suppressed a surge of jealousy. It had taken every ounce of self-mastery she possessed to not rip Clarice's hair out in Jack's the previous evening. She knew it was crazy. She and Angel hadn't been together for a very long time. He was free to spend time with whomever he chose. Why exactly he would choose to spend it with the spoiled child was beyond her.

Buffy cringed. What if that's what Angel was into? He dated her when she was only sixteen. What if he liked them young? True, given Angel's real age, anyone who was breathing was young by comparison, but what if he was repulsed by mature women? Buffy admitted to herself that she was being overly dramatic. She knew that Angel was still attracted to her. Why else would he have been practically foaming at the mouth about Nick and Dan?

But even if Angel still wanted her, Buffy acknowledged she wasn't sixteen anymore. Not that she wanted to be. She wouldn't repeat her teenage years for anything. She was much happier now. Sure, she was a little heavier, and she had a curvier figure from childbearing, but she still looked damn good. And what's more, she wasn't an insecure child anymore. She was a composed, collected, in-charge, mature woman.

"Then why am I sitting here driving myself crazy over my high school boyfriend?" she said aloud to herself.

When Angel arrived at seven, Buffy was trying to make herself look presentable. She didn't look horrible, but it was apparent she spent most of the day digging through boxes. She was making a face at her hair in the mirror on her office wall, when Angel's reflection appeared behind her. She jumped, putting her hand over her rapidly beating heart, as she twisted around to face him.
"You scared the crap out of me," she hissed.

He smiled. "Sorry," he said, looking anything, but sincere. He probably enjoyed the novelty of being able to frighten people with his reflection. Not that his reflection was frightening. His reflection was very easy to look at, but the fact that he had one was a bit unsettling.

"I don't think making faces at it is going to fix it," he said, pointing at her mussed hair.

Buffy frowned. So much for being the composed, collected, in-charge mature woman. She probably looked like a dirty street urchin. "I don't know why I'm even bothering," she said haughtily. "It's not like impressing you is at the top of my ‘to do' list."

Angel smiled even wider. "You don't have to do anything. I'm already impressed. Besides, I like the bedhead look on you," he paused for a moment and frowned. "Assuming you didn't just get out of bed, that is," he amended.

Now it was Buffy's turn to smile. "I guess you'll never know," she said with a wicked gleam in her eye as she walked out of the office, expecting him to follow.

Buffy looked up from her burger with an exasperated expression. "What are we doing?" she asked Angel pointedly.

He glanced around the interior of the restaurant to see if anyone was listening and then leaned in towards her conspiratorially. "I can't be certain," he whispered, "but I think we're having dinner."

Buffy scowled, picked a French fry off of her plate and threw it at her companion. "That's not what I meant," she said with a smile. "And when did you find a sense of humor?"

"About the same time I found lower back pain," he said seriously. Buffy laughed. "Go ahead, yuk it up. It's the truth. There's too much bullshit associated with life. People take things way too seriously. We don't have much time. Why waste it on getting excited about things that don't matter," he explained.

"Wow," she said with mock admiration. "That was deep. There's the Angel I know and love," she quickly caught herself. She hadn't really meant that, it was just a turn of phrase.

"Don't get excited," he said quietly. "I know what you meant. I also know that you're wondering why we're sitting here having a friendly meal, instead of ripping each other's heads off." Buffy nodded. "The answer is, I don't know," he said honestly. "But I'm glad. I don't want to fight with you, Buffy. I never did. I want to be your friend."

Buffy regarded him carefully. "So have you actually been following your ‘life's too short, don't get overly excited' policy?"

Angel looked away. In all of his recent reminiscing, he tended to avoid thinking about the fact that Buffy was one of the few people in the last three centuries that truly knew him. If he was going to be her friend, he was going to have to embrace that fact. He couldn't hide from her. "No," he answered honestly, meeting her gaze again, "I haven't. I've spent most of my mortal life brooding or burying myself in one vice or another."

"And what exactly were those vices, professor?" Buffy asked, not confident at all that she wanted the answers.

Angel studied her for a long moment. This could very well bring a screeching halt to their cease-fire. "Women and booze," he said evenly, waiting for her reaction. "A lot of both."

Buffy nodded slowly and looked at his plate. He spent the entire meal pushing food around, but not consuming anything. "Is the drinking why you're not eating?" she asked, her voice free from censure.

He smiled wryly. "I was hoping I could sneak that one past you," he said. "Yes, I quit drinking which is why I'm not eating."

Buffy cocked and eyebrow. "Guess you don't do anything halfway, do you?" she asked, knowing full well if not drinking was affecting him so profoundly that he must have been in pretty deep.

Angel grinned with boyish charm. "I was on a liquid diet for two and a half centuries, some habits are hard to break."

Buffy looked nonplussed with his attempt at humor. "Are you okay?" she asked.

Angel nodded. "I'll be fine in a few days," he said, wanting to change the subject.

"You should go to the doctor," Buffy pressed.

A wicked glint crept into Angel's eye. "Tell you what," he said, "if I don't get to feeling better in a few days, you can take me to the doctor."

Buffy smiled crookedly. "And how am I supposed to know if you're feeling better or not?" she asked pointedly.

"I guess you'll just have to check up on me," he said smugly.

Buffy frowned, but nodded. This was Angel, the man who had always kept his own counsel on everything. He obviously had a rather serious problem that he was downplaying, but he was honest with her about it. He even went to far as to ask her for help in a round about way which in itself was shocking.

And aside from the drinking, there were also the women. That fact did not sit well with her, but she also knew that getting upset about it was pointless. Angel was a healthy, human male. Of course he had lovers, there wasn't anything to stop him. No looming curse, no self-hatred over the fact that he was a vampire. His admission that there had been lots of women and alcohol should have made her angry or upset, but it didn't. It made her sad. People didn't drown themselves in sex and drink because they were happy, well-adjusted individuals.

"I take it you never found anyone special," she said quietly.

"I found someone special," he said, "but she hasn't been talking to me for the last twenty-five years."

Buffy's immediate pain over his admission that he found someone quickly faded in the realization that he was talking about her. "There wasn't anyone else?" she asked gently, more than a little awed.

"I told you there were lots of ‘someone else's'. But no, there wasn't anybody that actually meant anything to me. Not since you. Not before you either to be honest."

Buffy didn't know what to say. In all the time that she knew him, he was never this forward or sincere with her. Where was cryptic guy? Maybe he had realized that life was too short to play games or leave things unsaid.

"What about you?" he asked evenly, looking like he was about to choke on the words. "Anyone special?"

"I have people in my life I care about a great deal," she said evasively, more out of habit than a desire to conceal anything from Angel.

"What does that mean?" he asked, clearly unhappy, especially after his uncharacteristic honesty.

She smiled at him and then held up her left hand. "Do you see a ring?" she asked.

"No," he answered grouchily, "I don't see a ring. But that doesn't mean that there wasn't someone before – or that there isn't someone now, who hasn't gotten around to giving you a ring."

Buffy's lips curved into a thin, mirthless smile. Long ago, she lost her shoulders to cry on. She grew up, she handled problems by herself. She was not accustomed to sharing intimate details of her life with anyone. But at the same time, his stark honesty deserved to be returned in kind. She owed him that much – owed herself as well.

"Angel," she explained patiently, "you're the only man whose ring I have worn. It doesn't mean I'm a saint or that I waited for you. I have had lovers, several of whom you already know about – and a few more you don't. But no, there aren't any romantic attachments. I never married. I don't have a lover."

"So what about the other men with you?" he asked, in a suspiciously neutral tone of voice.

"Other men?" she asked.

"Dan and Nicholas," he prompted.

"Oh," Buffy replied with a laugh, forgetting she had been torturing him earlier. "Dan works for me. End of story."

"And Nicholas?"

Buffy's expression sobered and her large hazel eyes fixed on Angel.

"You just said you were single," he pointed out petulantly.

"I am," she replied.

"Then who is Nicholas?"

Buffy took a deep breath and said, "My son."

 

The End

 

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