He found Buffy and Tara in the waiting room.

"She'll be okay," Tara said before Angel could say anything. "Thank you."

"Are you all right?"

Tara held up her hands. Slowly, her left palm began to glow. She traced a circle in the air, then closed the hand again. "I knew the moment you broke their power."

Angel gave a sigh of relief. Then he remembered he had something to tell Buffy. He pulled her aside.

"When Cordy told me Dawn wasn't really your sister, I decided to check whether your dad was paying child support for her. He wasn't. He remembers Dawn, but somehow the ones who changed his memory forgot to add the little detail that he owes you several hundred dollars per month to take care of her. He pulled a slightly singed check out of his pocket.

Buffy took the check, looking a little awed. "How did you even find my dad?"

There was probably a goofy grin on Angel's face. "I am a private investigator. Still don't have an official license...and I had to spend almost a day in that hotel cooling my heels and keeping Doyle from freaking out." He was babbling. "The check--that's retroactive; the checks that come will be for over a year. By the time he just has to pay the regular amount, Willow and Tara should be back from England. Giles said they would be glad to pay rent--it's still cheaper for them than the dorms."

"I...don't know what to say. This will make finances so much easier. Thank you."

"Buffy. I'm still taking your best friend away." He saw that bleak look in her eyes again, and he hated it.

"No, Giles and Wesley are taking her to England, and she wasn't really with me for awhile. Her power took her away." Buffy sighed. "I'm almost glad this happened, because I was afraid for awhile. I don't want Willow to do something drastic. And in that room, seeing Tara, dead..."

"What?"

"In the white room. They told Tara that would be her future, unless she changed it. That's what really freaked me, not that day I lost with you--I get that. But Tara, and her real future..."

"She is changing it."

"That's why it's worth letting them go."

That was the resolve-faced Buffy, the one who would face the things life threw at her because she had no other choice. The warrior. The one who had told him she would put him in the hospital if he didn't quit fighting with Riley, then made up in the alley behind her dorm and told him there was nothing he could help with.

He loved that girl, but there was something more now--

But when he turned to say something, she had already rushed off to Tara's side, through the main emergency room doors and presumably to Willow.

The L.A. city lights were beautiful. Not quite like the sunset he had seen that one day, but the next best thing. The Hyperion balcony was an awfully good place to sky-watch, and provided no one interrupted him, it had always been Angel’s favorite place to think and reflect. Be Mr. Slacker, as Doyle had called it--did call it--and Angel half-turned, expecting his old friend to walk through the picture window.

The form that slipped up behind him wasn't Irish but petite and blonde. She was frowning, but with only a ghost of her old fire.

"I thought you would be back in Sunnydale by now," Angel said.

"Leaving without saying goodbye? Kind of your thing." She paused, off the look he knew must have appeared on his face, added, "Will’s still in the hospital; they wanted to keep her overnight. They wanted to keep her longer, but we convinced all the doctors that we would take good care of her at home. Then the nurses wanted us to go home and wait, but Tara camped herself in the next chair and glared at every nurse who dared to look at her. I would have stayed too, but Willow told me not to get in trouble too, and that she’d be fine. She'll make a full recovery, and sooner rather than later; they'll leave for England next week."

There was a long silence while Buffy looked down. She said, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have dug at you about the leaving thing like that."

"If it still bothers you, Buffy, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for vanishing into the end of the battle like that, and I'm sorry for not being there in your life. I miss you every day, if that helps."

"It does. Thank you."

She crossed the balcony to look at the city lights with him. Angel hesitantly slipped his arm around her. She was still so fragile--

"It’s really something," Buffy said softly. "The life you’ve built here. It looks so peaceful out there, but it’s so big. So many people."

Angel said nothing. He was the people’s Champion. It was good, to be doing something to make his life mean more than it had, to have been more than a monster, but it was an endless task. There was no end of the road for him.

Or for her...

"It never stops," Buffy whispered. "It’s dangerous and lonely, and we didn’t ask for it, but it never stops."

"Don’t."

She brushed her hand along his cheek. "You’re not okay."

"Not liking the idea of letting you go again. Especially not like this."

"Like--"

"Like you’re still standing on the verge of giving up, and life is too much for you."

"I have to go back, Angel," Buffy said softly. "I’m needed. Even if it doesn’t stop. Especially since it doesn‘t stop."

"Your friends need you. It may have been selfish to bring you back like that--but they need you" It wasn’t an accusation. It was only the plain truth, and he knew it.

She looked up at him again. "Yours do too."

Angel sighed. "Doyle."

"He has something I didn’t--don‘t--you know. He’s not up there on a pedestal, needed to fight all alone. He’s needed as part of a team. And his--beloved--" Angel snickered; Buffy ignored him, "is right there next to him to be that strength. I think he’ll be okay." She paused and added, "I’m still sorry I wasn’t in time to stop Willow from using magic she shouldn't have used, although I'm glad it made her see she has to stop."

"I’m not sorry she used that spell. At least not for myself. And I really think Doyle's going to be okay."

"So what are you going to do now?"

Angel had a sudden memory of another time in the office, a scene he'd walked in on between his erstwhile employees. Imitating Doyle, he held up an imaginary stake, saying "Take that, Powers of Darkness!"

"Have you lost your mind? I know, that thing Tara did with her magic, it's still affecting you." Buffy grinned to show she was joking. "I don't think I've ever seen you be silly before, Angel.

"You'd think in two hundred some years, I'd learn that."

"I understand what it is to go in circles and not learn."

Ignoring the voice that always told him to be careful, Angel went over and put his arms around Buffy. "I love you. I worry about you. I always wish you were here."

Buffy leaned into his arms.

"How about you? What are you going to do now?" Angel said.

"Re-enroll in school, I guess.” She sighed. “I said once that I'd be a firefighter when the floods rolled back. I’m still working on that."

"Doesn't sound like you’d get a lot of rest in that job. Not that I’m sorry to hear you with plans."

"You kidding? Fire, Angel. The thing that burns away all the cold inside, the thing that makes every moment alive. Passion. You remember."

A single star shot across the sky before Buffy spoke again. "I know it’s just beginning, and I know scared is still coming..."

"Another thing Doyle also said."

"You two have so much in common." Buffy turned to look at Angel. "I'm happy for you. I really am."

"You--"

"I'll have my best friend back, eventually. Really back. Try not to worry. I'm strong."

"I love you."

"I love you, too. Angel? Can we pretend I don't have to leave, just for ten minutes?"

It was a lot longer than that, but eventually, Buffy slipped back through the picture window the way she had come.

Angel thought everyone would be sound asleep, after the few days they'd had. But as he left the balcony and came into the Hyperion lobby, he found all of his friends still in the main area, sprawled in whatever chairs they could find and talking loudly.

"They showed that tape to everyone at the party, celebrities, stars, rich people!" said Cordelia, snickering loudly. "And my fake 'milk' ad was just the warmup act for Wesley doing tap dances in his underwear. Huge screen. Enormous party. Wesley. Underwear."

"I think everyone understood the first time," said Wesley, beneath a face that was a brilliant scarlet. "Giles told me a few interesting stories about you, by the way."

"Oh? Can't imagine anything too much worse than..."

"He saw you making out with Xander behind the library book shelves. You actually knocked the books over you."

"That never happened!"

Judging from the laughter through the rest of the Hyperion, though, Angel suspected that whether it had happened or not, it would now be vividly remembered.

"Angel! Over here!" Doyle called.

Doyle and Cordelia were sitting so close together that Angel raised an eyebrow at them, and neither looked even the slightest bit embarrassed.

Angel pulled up a chair on the outskirts of the gathering, but Cordelia wasn't putting up with that, and she dislodged herself long enough to push Angel right up next to the rest of them.

"Have you done any other stupid things in the past couple of years that I need to be aware of now," Doyle said.

Angel gulped. He wasn't sure whether his own slide into darkness would be so funny--but then again, Doyle already knew about that.

"Ask him to tell you about his stint in an old folks' home," said Cordelia.

"What?"

"Yeah, it's boring what the guy did in your body, but tell us all about eating soft foods and staying away from the nurse's aid," Cordelia said, grinning.

He sputtered. By the time he, much aided by Gunn and Wesley, finished that story, Fred wanted to know how he had known what to do in the first place, and somehow that led to the subject of prophecies.

"Some of the passages in the Pergamum Codex are kind of a hoot," Fred said.

"Get out of here," Gunn said. "That stuff's actually funny?"

Cordelia inched closer to Doyle. He didn't seem to mind.

"Yeah," said Angel. "Want to hear about a few of the guys that wrote them? See, there was this monk, and he had a friend, and the friend got himself into huge gambling trouble..."

Absolutely no one acted afraid of Angel.

They were, after all, a family.

THE END