"*This* is Caritas?" Buffy exclaimed. "A karaoke bar?"
"That was my first reaction, too," Angel muttered.
"It’s a sanctuary," Wesley explained. "There are spells laid on it to make violence impossible. That makes it a good place for us to meet our informant."
"I think it looks *neat*," Willow chirped, taking Tara by the hand and leading the way down the steps.
"The karaoke serves another purpose," Wesley explained as the rest of the group followed the two witches down the steps. "The proprietor of Caritas is a demon named—well, actually, he prefers to simply be called the Host—and he can read people’s auras and help guide them toward their destiny. But they have to sing first, so the soul will be open."
Buffy shuddered. "Sounds like fun."
"Might come in useful, though," Riley said. "I think we have a few things we could use some guidance for."
"That we do," Angel sighed. "That we do."
*
Gunn was waiting for them when they entered the bar, as was the Host. The spell had taken some time, and the group had decided to walk/patrol their way over, so they’d probably been waiting for a while.
Gunn drew the Angel Investigations group aside as the Host effusively greeted the Scooby Gang and guided them to a cluster of tables in a back corner. He seemed genuinely concerned with their welfare, offering them free food and (non-alcoholic) drinks. It was only when they bothered to look around that they found they’d been placed in a relationship counselor’s version of assigned seating. Buffy sat at a table with Riley and one empty chair. Willow sat with Oz and Tara , while Giles, Joyce, Anya, and Xander all kept each other company. Faith was sat by herself at a table with three empty chairs, a basket of buffalo wings, and an assurance that "they’ll be here in a minute, honey."
Spike refused to be visibly associated with the Sunnydale crew in any way. He sat down at the bar and was delighted to discover that they served his all-time favorite, a concoction he referred to as an Irish Red: high-test whiskey and type AB positive.
*
"I already talked to Merle," Gunn told the other three members of Angel Investigations. "He doesn’t know anything."
"How sure are you of that?" Angel asked. "He’s tricked us before."
Gunn smirked bitterly. "I asked him about Angelus, and he looks at me like I’ve asked him where my house is. After he finishes explaining to me that I work for Angelus, I explain to *him* what’s happened."
"How did he take that?" Angel asked, a grin of grim satisfaction on his face.
"Looked real scared, suggested that I leave the city, and bolted for the door," Gunn replied.
"That actually would be the course of wisdom," Wesley said.
"Well, no one ever accused us of being wise," Gunn shrugged.
"No, they never did," Cordelia agreed.
"I guess that leaves us with whatever guidance Lorne can provide," Wesley said.
"Which means Angel’s going to have to sing," Cordelia groaned, covering her eyes.
"Will you knock it off?" Angel complained as they started back out toward the tables. "It’s not like it’s fun for me either, you know!" He called after them. He started to follow, but Gunn caught his arm.
"Wait a second," he said. "Before you go, what can you tell me about—what’s her name—the brown-haired one who liked my axe?"
"Faith?" Angel said, surprised. "Why, are you interested?"
Gunn shrugged. "We seem to share some interests, and it’s hard to find a girl like that."
"There’s only one other like her in the world," Angel agreed.
"There you go, getting cryptic. What does that mean? A straight answer, if you can manage it."
*Okay,* Angel thought. *A straight answer you want? A straight answer you get.*
"She’s a Slayer," He answered bluntly.
"A Slayer?" Gunn asked.
Angel nodded.
"Like English told me about? The one girl in all the world?"
"Well, one of the two, right now. Buffy’s the other. It’s a little complicated."
"And she really has, what, superpowers? The strength and all that?"
Angel nodded. "She really does."
Gunn grinned. "Cool."
Angel scowled. "Yeah. She’s powerful, and she’s dangerous, and that’s right up your alley. But there are some things that *aren’t* cool."
Gunn looked at him, his grin gone. He could tell when The Situation Is Now Serious. "Done some bad things, huh?"
Angel nodded. "That, and she has a few things to work through."
Gunn shook his head and grinned. "Do either of us even know anybody who isn’t messed in the head or doesn’t have a dark past to make up for?"
Angel thought about it for a moment. "Well—no, well maybe there’s—no."
"Would we even know how to deal with someone who had their head straight?"
Angel grinned ruefully. "Probably not."
"Still, thanks for the 411. I’ll watch my step."
Angel patted him on the shoulder as they started toward the tables. "That’s all I was trying to accomplish." Then he spotted the tables where the rest of their group was seated. Cordelia and Wesley had joined Faith, leaving an empty seat beside the secondary Slayer herself. The other empty chair was beside Buffy.
"I’m going to kill Lorne," Angel muttered as they started across the room.
*
"Ladies and Gentleman and everyone else out there, we have a special treat for you tonight," Lorne announced from the stage. "Some celebrities from out of town. They come from a little town to the south of us, I’m sure you’ve all heard of Sunnydale, and we’ve got kind of a Broken Hearts club on tour from there with us tonight. Could all of you welcome the Slayers and the Sunnydale Slayerettes!"
The response was mixed, but enthusiastic all around. A group of Brakkens and Anomovics, apparently out for a bachelorette party, clapped and cheered. Any vampires present, of course, booed.
"Well, our cover’s blown," Faith muttered to Wesley.
"Stealth wasn’t really an option," He replied. "You can’t take two Slayers, a werewolf, two powerful witches, and the world’s only vampire with a soul anywhere and hope to sneak in. Our presence was detected the moment we entered the city."
"Glad to hear that," she muttered, settling back into her chair.
"Think one of you could step up here and grace us all with a song?" Lorne invited from the stage.
The Scooby Gang and Angel Investigations all looked at each other in blank panic.
"Don’t look at me," Angel grumbled, settling into his seat on the opposite side of Buffy from Riley. "I’m not going first."
"Thank you," Cordelia said.
"I thought I told you to knock it off."
"Giles," Buffy hissed. "Think you could go up there and buy us all some time?"
"Certainly."
*
As Giles took the stage to polite applause and launched into Pink Floyd’s "On the Turning Away," several of the Scooby Gang’s tables clustered into tight huddles.
"I need both of you to sing," Buffy said.
Angel winced. "Are you sure, Buffy? It’s really not pretty."
"Then I need you to join Spike at the bar," she said. "I need at least a few minutes alone with each of you."
Riley and Angel looked at each other. Then they looked at the bar, where Spike had started on his second Irish Red. Then they looked back at each other.
"Does he have any Garth Brooks?" Riley asked.
"Yeah, I think so," Angel said. "And I think there’s a few new songs I can try that might not go so badly…"
*
Giles left the stage to much more enthusiastic applause.
Riley sprang up almost as soon as the watcher was done singing. He was not a man given to long contemplation. A decision had been made; best to act on it before any sign of stage fright set in.
It turned out that the Host had several Garth Brooks songs. Riley decided against "Friends In Low Places"—maybe later. He almost went with "The American Honky-Tonk Bar Association", then decided that he didn’t want to announce "Hello, I am a hillbilly" to the LA supernatural underworld.
He decided on "The River". A bit sappy, perhaps, but not as difficult as "Standing Outside the Fire", and he really didn’t feel up to "Two of A Kind, Working On a Full House" right now.
He took a deep breath as the music started to play and the text started to scroll on the screen. He didn’t need it.
"You know a dream is like a river…"
*
Angel turned away from the stage, back to Buffy. "He’s not bad," he admitted.
Buffy smiled, a bit sadly. "You know, the two of you are starting to make a regular habit of saying nice things about each other."
"Uh-oh. Can’t have that. I’ll have to start insulting his lineage again right away."
She chuckled and they sat in silence for a moment, but just a moment, before he said "This song isn’t really that long—what was it you wanted to talk about?"
Buffy nodded. Best cut to the chase—there wasn’t enough time to lead up to anything. "First of all, I wanted to tell you how sorry I am for last night. It was crazy—I was crazy. I know there’s no excuse, but—"
"Don’t even worry about it," Angel interrupted. "Those weren’t your natural reactions. Oh, I’m sure you would have been furious, but you wouldn’t have been trying to *kill* anybody if it weren’t for Belial’s influence."
She looked up at him doubtfully. "Are you sure?"
He laid his hand on hers. "I have witnesses who’ll back me up on this—he put some mystical additives into your tranquilizer dart. It was really subtle, but he was controlling you." He gripped her hand more tightly. "And you broke loose to save me. That’s not just love, Buffy. That’s a miracle."
"Love is a miracle."
He smiled. "Yeah. I’d agree with that."
Her own answering grin was rueful. "Then I have too many miracles in my life. Who would’ve thought it was possible?"
He remembered Riley up on the stage, and released her hand. Strange how, even after all this time, the rest of the world vanished whenever he was with her. "Was there anything else?"
"Yeah," her voice hardened slightly. "Yeah, actually there was. All of that stuff Belial was saying—how much of it was true?"
For the second time that night, he decided that bluntness was the best policy. "He had the facts right," he confessed. "But he gave it Satan’s own editorial spin."
"Okay," she said, her voice hardening further. "Here’s your chance to explain." She glanced up at the stage. "Better hurry. I think Riley’s wrapping up."
"It’s like I said last night. Every decision—and every screwup—I’ve made has always been because I love you. I can tell you the whole story of the day I was human some other time, but during that day I discovered that you would die if I didn’t have my strength. If I wasn’t a Warrior."
"And let me guess: you just went ahead and took care of it. You had whoever you had undo the day, undo it without even talking to me. Without hearing me mention Xander, Riley, Giles, and Wesley—none of them have super strength, and they help. You just had a day of my life unmade without even consulting me."
Angel held out his hands. "I’m 274 years old, Buffy. For about 250 of those years, that was the kind of thing that was expected. All I can say is I’m sorry."
"Sorry?" She sighed and deflated, her shoulders dropping. "For giving up everything you’ve ever wanted to protect me? Yeah, I have a right to be angry."
"You have a right to feel any way you want."
"Oh, stop." She stared into her Coke for a moment. "And you’re my husband," she said after that moment had passed, not looking up.
"I guess I am," he said.
Riley had finished, and he was descending from the stage, accompanied by yips and yeehas from the bachelorette party.
"What are we going to do?" she asked, shaking her head.
"I don’t know," he said, patting her hand as he rose to his feet. "But I talked to Riley this afternoon, and we both love you enough to want you to be happy, even if it can’t be with us." He grinned. "He also pointed out that my age excuse will only work once, and it’s time to let you make some of your own decisions. So whatever you decide. That’s what we’ll do."
"Great. No pressure at all."
He shot one last rueful grin at her as he headed for the stage. "Sorry."
*
Angel was a little surprised, but pleased, that Lorne had both of the songs he was hoping for.
When he pointed at the song list, Lorne put his hand over the microphone. "Are you sure?" He said. "Don’t you want something…shorter?"
"Just trust me on this one," Angel replied. "I think I may be on to something."
"But aren’t they a little—I don’t know—close to home?"
"That’s the point. I need some answers on both issues, and I need them fast."
"Okay, big guy, it’s your funeral." He took his hand off the microphone. "Ladies and gentleman, we have tonight one of our semi-regulars. You’ve all heard of him: Angel, the vampire with a soul. Tonight, he wants to make a little change-up from his usual repertoire." With that, he stepped out of the way and handed the microphone to Angel.
"Thank you," Angel said. "Some of you here have heard me sing before. Before I started, I just wanted to thank you for not fleeing the room. But something occurred to me as I was sitting out there in the audience tonight: maybe the reason I have so much trouble is because I’m trying to sing outside my style. Tonight, I’m going to correct that mistake."
He nodded to Lorne, who hit a button. The first notes of Meatloaf’s "Original Sin" began to growl out of the speakers.
"I’ve been lookin’ for an original sin…"
*
Riley sat down in the seat that Angel had just vacated.
"You did great," Buffy said by way of greeting.
"Thanks," he said. "I didn’t think you were paying that much attention."
"Not that much," she admitted, looking guilty. "But I did look up once in a while, and you were doing good then."
He chuckled, then turned serious again. "So what were you talking about?"
"Oh, things. Stuff. I apologized for beating him up last night, he explained what Belial was talking about. That kind of thing."
"Apologized?" Riley said. "But Belial said he was controlling you."
"So Angel told me," Buffy said, pleased to have independent confirmation. It would be just like Angel to lie about something like that to make her feel better. Then she leaned forward, meeting Riley’s eyes. "He *also* told me that you gave him a little talking-to today. Something about his ‘age excuse’ only working once, and letting me make my own decisions."
He nodded. "Yeah, that’s true."
"Thanks."
He shrugged in a way that she had long since learned meant ‘Shucks ma’am, ‘tweren’t nothin’.’ "I’m a psychologist. It’s my job." He paused. "So. Have you *made* any decisions?"
She heaved a deep sigh and looked down at the table. "No."
He sighed, too, and joined her in contemplating the table.
They sat like that, unspeaking, through a verse of Original Sin. Finally, Buffy spoke up again. "I don’t throw away lovers like old shoes, Riley. I’m not going to just forget everything we’ve been through together, and everything you’ve done for me."
"I didn’t do those things to obligate you."
"I know. That’s why I love you."
She looked up, then, and he raised his eyes to meet hers. The tears he saw standing in them tore his heart, but he realized that nothing he could do would help. He was, after all, part of the problem.
"But he’s my husband, Riley. Belial wasn’t lying about that. And I love him, too."
With a gusty sigh, Riley sat back in his chair, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples. "Mexican standoff," he sighed.
"Mexican standoff?" she asked, looking at him quizzically.
He pointed at his temple, cocking his thumb. "Guns to each other’s heads. Safeties off, finger on the trigger. A no-win situation. It’s probably racist, but I’ve watched too many old Westerns."
"What do you do in the army when you have a no-win situation?" she asked, leaning on the table.
"Call for evac."
"Sounds like a good idea," she said, sitting back in her chair.
He opened his eyes. "Huh?"
She pointed up to the stage, where there had been a pause while the Host stepped up to announce that Angel would be doing a second song, Meatloaf’s "Bat Out of Hell". "Let’s just relax and watch the show. Tearing our hair out won’t give us the answer. Especially when we have more important things to worry about."
Riley nodded. "I hope this…Host fella can get us the intel we need."
Buffy’s eyes lit up. "Maybe I should sing," she said.
Riley chuckled. "You’ve got a while to wait. This is Meatloaf. The man doesn’t have a single song less than ten minutes in length."
After a verse worth of listening, Buffy remarked "You know, he’s not half bad. I don’t see what all the fuss was about."
"Look at the shock on Cordelia, Gunn, and Mr. Wyndham-Pryce’s faces," Riley said, pointing at the Angel Investigations table. "I’m betting that this is a bit of a change."
*
Nearly fifteen minutes later, Angel descended from the stage to thunderous applause and the hoots and whistles of the half-drunken brakkens and anomovics. Rather than returning to the Scooby Gang’s seats, he approached the bar, where Lorne was standing with a glass of bourbon on the rocks pressed to his forehead.
"I have *never* seen lovelines as tangled as yours," Lorne moaned as Angel leaned against the bar beside him.
"We can talk about our love lives later," Angel said impatiently.
"Maybe if the little lady would get up there and sing," Lorne mused.
"Later," Angel interrupted. "Did you get anything about Angelus from the first song?"
Lorne’s face turned serious. "Yes, I did. In fact—"
Across the room, Cordelia shot to her feet, clutching her head, and screamed.
Angel was only halfway across the room when she started to collapse, but Faith had already caught her and gently lowered her to the floor as the rest of the group leaped to their feet. Riley and Buffy immediately started to handle crowd control, keeping the sudden press of curious demons back.
Faith, the only one present who was uninformed about Cordelia’s powers, was almost in a panic.
"What is it?" She asked, desperately trying to hold the thrashing visionary down. "What’s wrong?" She looked desperately up at Wesley. "Is Angelus doing this?"
"No," he said, dropping to one knee at Cordelia’s other side and pulling his jacket off. "She’s having a vision." He shoved his rolled jacket under Cordelia’s head. "Just hold her, she’ll be better in a moment."
"Fire,"
"What’s that?" Wesley asked, looking down sharply. Cordelia had stopped thrashing.
"Fire," she repeated.
That was the moment Angel arrived, Lorne close on his heels.
"Is she all right?" He asked.
"Fire!" She said again, reaching out to Angel.
He knelt and took her hand. "Just take it—"
She grabbed his hand and used it to pull herself into a sitting position. "Fire, Angel, fire! He’s going to blow up a building!"
"Got an address?" Gunn asked.
"I do," Lorne answered, scribbling on a cocktail napkin. "I got this from your aura," he said, handing it to Angel. "It was during the first song, and there was a feeling of imminent disaster. This is probably it."
Angel looked at the napkin. "Oh, merciful Christ," he gasped. Then he jumped to his feet and pulled Cordelia to hers. "We need to move," he said, whirling toward the door.
"Long way?" Gunn asked as the group fell in behind him.
"Across town," Angel said. He tossed the folded napkin over his shoulder.
Wesley caught it and opened it. "Dear God," he said.
"What is it?" Cordelia asked.
"This is Kate’s address."
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