Angel had already checked on Doyle three times, and with absolutely no change in his friend's posture and absolutely no sound coming from Wesley's closed door, Angel ended up in his own office, staring out the window.
The sun was just beginning to go down. Angel's vampire sense always let him know exactly when it was safe to go outside, and it would be safe in about another fifteen minutes.
He could always go rescue Willow all by himself. A voice from another time and place almost seemed to audibly enter his office. "I had someone by my side. He's dead now. I won't let that happen again. I work alone."
There was another vivid picture. Doyle had called his old office ‘the batcave,' emphasis on the 'cave' part. What would he say about Wesley's castoff workspace? Angel's sitting in his cage, aka office, brooding as usual.
Only it's you I'm brooding about this time, Doyle, Angel answered the thought.
"I'm not unflappable," he'd told Cordelia.
Unflappable? Numb, maybe.
In point of fact, he was crying.
It didn't happen very often, and when it did, Angel hid away from the others and away from any mirrors that might not-show his reflection. When he said he didn't care, usually he meant it. Caring meant conscience meant pain. And the pain made him human...but usually there was only so much he could bear to care about, bear to think about--he had understood exactly what Buffy had meant when she said there were memories she just couldn't call to mind.
It was bad enough when the regular memories intruded on his consciousness like sledgehammers.
"Hey," came a soft voice from Angel's now-open door. "I'm sorta glad some things never change. Here you are sittin' in the dark."
"Doyle."
"Tears? Am I really worth that?"
Damn. "I wasn't..."
"Yeah, as a matter of fact...nice night," Doyle finished, he said it with a flash of his old humor that gave Angel a chance to compose himself. "Cordelia didn't think I'd be wakin' up for a long while."
"You didn't want to be alone."
"Well, that, and I was hopin' you could find something a little closer to my old clothes before Cordelia gets back."
"Tweed suits you."
"Liar."
"Since when did you care about what you wore?"
"Not a lot else to care about at the moment." Doyle drifted over to the window. "Where is everyone?"
"Trying to rescue Willow. You know, Buffy's friend? The witch who did most of the spell casting earlier today? I couldn't go because she also happens to be the one person who has absolute command over my soul, so it's not safe for me to get close."
"Yeah, I remember her voice. I can't--I can't describe very well where I was, but there was this new voice calling me. Light and sweet, but a voice you didn't want to disobey."
"And you proved yourself a hero again," Angel said softly.
"What? No--you--"
"Everyone on the team is more of a hero than I am," Angel said painfully. "We had that talk about being tested? I kind of flunked."
"No way."
Angel suddenly began to tell Doyle all about Darla. How he'd been with her before Buffy but never loved her, how Wolfram and Hart had thrown her in his city as a human being with a soul, how he'd thought he'd had the chance to save her whether or not he survived it himself, how he'd found out the chance was all an illusion, one more game, how he'd slept with the vampire Darla just to chase away the cold. He hadn't thought he cared. If Darla herself had walked into the room the previous day, he'd probably have--not brushed her off, but treated her as the enemy she was rather than a person he had wronged. If she had walked into the room when Angel still had no one to talk to but himself.
He cared. He had always cared.
"The others, they're the heroes," Angel finished. "They stayed together, they even saved a few lives while I was off doing my thing. Wes took a bullet. Gunn stood up to his old gang. Cordelia--she's proved herself so many times. Running a new AI team, leading us out of Pylea, holding on to the visions no matter what--well, I'll let her tell you those stories, don't want to spoil her moments."
"You don't know what the others are going to face," said Doyle. "That's the thing about this life. Whether you have a mission or not, the tests just keep coming."
Angel had been talking, just as if Doyle was fine and everything was normal. "There's something about resurrection spells you have to know," Angel said painfully. This was something he hadn't been able to tell Buffy, something he shouldn‘t even have known, wouldn‘t have if he hadn‘t spent so much time an unwilling guest of the Gypsies. "You still have to answer that call to come back. And if you ever decide to refuse the call...you can."
"What are you sayin'?"
"Not accidentally, but if you choose, you can make it as if Willow never cast that spell this morning. All you have to do is make the choice and hold it in your mind." Every word burned.
"No."
"Then I was right. Still the hero."
Doyle looked away. "I won't reverse the spell--guess I'm back here for a reason--but I can't make that solid choice to stay yet, either, if that makes any sense."
"Let's go get drunk."
Doyle's face lit up. "Really?"
Angel cynically hoped that Doyle was excited that Angel wanted to get out of his workspace and not that eager for his first drink in two years. "Well, if I have any more than one, we'll have to get Lorne to drive us back to the hotel," he said in an undertone. "But yeah, speaking of whom, there's someone I want you to meet."
