Parts 4, 5, and 6 of Kin of the Heart
Rated SAFE

Bad Karma

"Hey if it isn't G-man--the G-dog of Sunnydale, bad boy of England," Xander joked as he came through the library doors. It was weird, thinking of Giles as being a delinquent with a suspiciously diabolical ex-friend. Giles paused, his jaw tightening in that way that suggested cleaning of glasses was imminent, but he had a pile of books in his hands so he just kept walking back toward the stacks after a brief hesitation.

"Xander!" Willow hissed at him, and Xander shrugged. After finding out that Giles in his wild and magicy youth had summoned a demon, he was so not feeling bad for not sweeping it under the carpet. The girls might be willing to go back to thinking of Giles as the dusty librarian, but Xander couldn't help feeling like his world had shifted two inches toward the weird. Okay, it started shifting when Angel turned out to not be the biggest jerk of the century, but Giles summoning a demon was coming up a close second on the weird-o-meter.

"I'm just calling 'em as I sees 'em. Giles has a definitely non-tweedy past, and if you can't trust Giles to be boring, who can we trust? Maybe Snyder is a covert agent for Russia or Miss Calendar is a secret race car driver. I mean, this is giving me a good case of the wiggins."

"What's wiggins worthy?" Buffy asked as she came through the doors behind him. Xander dropped into the chair across from Willow and just prayed she would stay on her side of the table. His love life was getting entirely too weird, and right now he wanted large objects between him and Willow whenever possible.

"Giles and the non-tweedy past," Willow whispered, her eyes darting toward the shelves where Giles had disappeared, and Buffy frowned at him.

"We aren't talking about that. Didn't we agree to not talk about that?" Buffy looked at Willow for confirmation, and she nodded.

"You agreed. Cordelia and I were just in the room when you two did the agreeing, which would make us agreement-contiguous and not directly agreementees."

"You studied your vocabulary for Miss Kestner," Willow smiled at him brightly, and Xander shrank back. Right, no more doing anything that might be remotely related to schoolwork he vowed to himself as he felt that deep-set guilt at not being able to like the girl who actually liked him. He also cursed Angel for nagging him into doing that bit of homework. Contiguous was so not a word he needed in life. He already knew he couldn't drive to Hawaii and Canada.

When Xander didn't respond to the compliment, Willow's smile wavered. She got an uncertain, awkward look on her face complete with nose wrinkle. He was so screwed. The girl who hated him let him feel her breasts and rubbed up against him in a way that made him think she was definitely getting way more out of their relationship that he was. How could you tell if a girl had actually finished, anyway? Xander filed that thought away. Maybe when he got old enough to drink he would get drunk enough to actually ask one of the girls. He looked at Buffy doing her makeup in the world's tiniest mirror. Maybe he would get drunk enough to ask Angel instead.

Seriously, it didn't even make sense in Xander's head. The girl who actually cared about him left him totally cold. Willow and sex was like Barney and sex…. just wrong. Way wrong. Purple dinosaur mutant levels of wrong. Shaking off the feeling of impending doomage, he focused the conversation back onto Giles. "Hey, I'm all with the impressed." Xander nodded thoughtfully. "I mean, it's like finding out that a colorblind person painted the Mona Lisa or something... like the music guy who was deaf and wrote music way better than I could with two working ears... I'm very much with the impressed."

Giles appeared from behind the stacks. "So, I take it you had assumed I was either colorblind or deaf?" he asked as he cleaned his classes.

"Just socially," Buffy said apologetically. Giles' fingers paused in their cleaning and then resumed.

"We all have pasts, at least those of us old enough to have lived more than a few short years." This time Giles looked straight at them. Willow blushed madly and slid close to the end of the table, which Xander assumed was part one of a strategy designed to get her around the table and next to him. Aw shit.

"Definitely not the colorless past I expected from the king of tweed and fifteen ways to say 'stupid,' all of them requiring five syllables or more." Xander got up and headed for the checkout desk where he'd stashed some candy bars.

Giles just sighed. "This is not something for which I should be admired. If anything, I hope you all take from this a lesson on the unintended consequences of impetuous acts and that you avoid making similar mistakes."

"You mean we have to cancel the demon summoning we have scheduled tomorrow night?" Xander asked innocently as he looked at the girls. Willow was horror-struck, but Buffy's mouth kept twitching.

"I really do fear that your sophomoric inability to take anything seriously will eventually cause serious problems," Giles said tightly, anger seeping through the oh-so-proper manners of his.

"Sophomoric. Three syllables, but that means stupid, doesn't it?" Buffy asked and now she was grinning.

A little part of Xander had flinched away from Giles' open scorn, but he smiled back at Buffy. Yep, there was a girl who knew how to distract the Giles' glare of doom... how to distract it and not wilt into an apologetic puddle of angst under it. He totally understood why his cock went lusting after Buffy. Willow was just as pretty, but his cock had definitely decided she was in the "Barney" category. Maybe he just liked girls who didn't wilt under wilt-worthy criticism. Xander leaned his elbows on the counter and munched on his chocolate as he thought about Cordelia.

She was totally going to publicly humiliate him sooner or later, and she had the moral compass of a really uncompassy thing. She wasn't quite as bad as Spike since she wouldn't actually massacre a village to get a good deal on shoes, but she might leave the village undefended to go find a good deal. She seemed to have the whole 'bad idea' checklist. So, why was his stupid cock totally Jonesing after her? And better question, why was she returning the lusty feelings?

"Earth to Xander." A voice broke his concentration, and he looked up to see Buffy staring at him in concern. "Okay Mister, what's her name?" she asked with a smile.

"What?" Xander yelped. No no and oh god no. He was so not ready to deal with this. And that scrunchy look on Willow's face? So not going there. "Who's name? Did I miss a girl demon coming into town because I already told you, I am scheduling serious out of town something when the next girl demon hits town. The whole demon magnet joke is getting way too not-jokelike." Now Buffy looked confused and Willow looked relieved. He didn't want Willow relieved. Okay, he wanted her relieved, but he didn't want her relieved because of him being on the available list because he wasn't. The only thing stupider than dating Cordelia would be cheating on Cordelia. Even he knew that.

With an amused expression, Buffy shook her head. "No, no girl demons or boy demons either. We're definitely coming up short on the demon front, but I know that look. That's the look of someone totally getting sat on by love. I don't know why people paint love as a little baby Cupid. Love is this huge, hairy biker dude with tattoos that say "Mom" on one arm and "Send 'em to Satan" on the other.

Willow nodded sadly. "Really big... hard to breathe when he sits on you big," she agreed.

Xander shoved the rest of his candy bar in his mouth and tried to say nothing.

"While it has been quiet, we actually do have a demon to discuss, a female demon as it happens," Giles said. He detoured into his office and reappeared with a moldy book. Sitting next to Buffy, he opened to a page and pointed to an illustration Xander couldn't see. "I hadn't heard anything of her before now, but apparently she attacked a church service Sunday night causing pandemonium. I suspect she came with William the Bloody."

Xander's chocolate betrayed him and headed straight for his lungs as he tried to cough it back out. Tears ran before he could finally catch his breath and get all the pipes working again. "Food goes in, it isn't actually supposed to spray out," Buffy offered oh-so helpfully only without any actual help.

"Are you alright?" Giles had stood back up.

"Yep, just a slight chocolate mishap. It's all good," Xander assured him as he grabbed his Coke and tried to wash down the bile that had come up with all the choking.

Giles stared at him for a second and then turned his attention back to the book. "Her name is Drusilla, and she's been a companion to William the Bloody for many decades although she appears to have dropped out of sight in Prague. Three people died in the attack Sunday night."

Xander groaned. Great. He was in for extra doses of Angel-brooding. He reviewed his options: 1) stay home and listen to parental units fight 2) go to apartment and listen to Angel sigh dramatically 3) go to apartment and torture Angel out of sighing dramatically. This would take major weaponry. Xander wondered if he had enough pocket change to rent the entire "Revenge of the Nerds" series.

"Xander? Are you in there?" Buffy had moved to in front of Xander where she waved her hand in front of his face. "What is with you. If there isn't a girl, we might want to check for brain tumors," she nodded dramatically, but Xander could tell by her expression she actually was worried.

"I'm fine. I'm just wondering how to get from here to Angel's apartment fastest if I make a pit stop at the video store," he admitted.

"Angel's apartment?" Giles frowned. "I do worry about the number of evenings you have spent there recently."

Okay, maybe they should check him for a brain tumor because he knew that Giles was not really okay with Angel, and he seemed so much more willing to share his not okayage now that it was Xander being friends with Angel as opposed to Buffy lusting over him, which was unfair because lustage was so much more dangerous than friendage. Xander was discovering that little truth thanks to Cordelia.

"You and Angel aren't..." Buffy had a horrified expression as she made a little back and forth gesture with her finger.

"Skiing?" Xander guessed as he watched the gesture in confusion.

"No, together, like... together," Buffy clarified. It still took Xander's brain a second to translate that.

"What?" Xander wailed. "No! No and no. Really no. God, Buffy, just because Angel's gay so does not make me gay."

"Angel's gay?" Buffy's voice had dropped to a whisper--a horrified whisper.

"Um..." Xander stalled as his brain lost control over any parts that could use the English language.

Giles took over the conversation with a sigh. "Buffy, sexuality is quite different for demons. In the case of vampires, sex is used to establish hierarchies and reinforce control. The gender is irrelevant."

"I'm thinking it's way with the elevant!" Buffy disagreed.

"He isn't really gay," Xander struggled to explain. "I mean, yeah, there was this one guy, but he likes girls way more, but my point was that I don't like guys. Okay, I like guys in that I like to hang out and read comic books, but I don't like them in the naughty touching way so me and Angel... so not going to happen."

"One guy?" Buffy asked, her eyebrows now totally higher than Xander had ever seen them before. "You knew the guy I liked liked guys, and you couldn't tell me about the one guy?" She put her hands on her hips in a slightly scary way.

"Okay, first, I didn't know then. Second, if you're dating a guy, you can pretty much assume he's not telling you something, Buff. Angel was with the not telling you he was a vamp, and Ford didn't tell you that he was trying to sell you out, and Owen really didn't tell you that he wanted to take the whole tortured artist cliche to a whole new whips and chains level. I mean, witness me. When I first met you, I so did not tell you that I was the village idiot because that would have been bad for my dating potential." Xander smiled as he tried to patch over the damage his village idiot mouth had done, but Buffy still had on her tragic face.

"No wonder he did a vanishing act on me." Buffy bit her lip and sounded about ready to cry.

"No, that's not it," Xander hurried to say. "The one guy was like a hundred years ago, and I found out by accident. He's totally into girls." Buffy got an even more hurt look, and Xander realized how dumb he was about two seconds too late. "He's totally into really old girls... really, really old... ancient... like a hundred or older, so I'm sure if you were a century or more, he'd fall over himself for you. I mean, Mrs. Haggarty is too young for him, and I think she saw the Civil War first hand."

Buffy's pained expression didn't ease any. God, she'd been through Owen, Ford, Larry, and that tall kid with the hippy pony-tail on the swim team, and she still obsessed over Angel. At least Xander wasn't alone in his self-destructive love life.

"Perhaps we can return to my original concern: the number of evenings you spend at Angel's apartment. I find your unusual preference for his company more than a little disturbing." Giles gave Xander his 'I'm not letting this go' look.

"Did Giles just say he got the wiggins in his very Gilesy way?" Xander asked as he looked at the girls. Buffy ignored him.

"Definitely." Willow smiled and gave him a little nod, and Xander mentally kicked himself. Way to send mixed signals. God he hated his love life. "And now that Giles said it, I have to say that it seems a little weird. You hate Angel."

"I hate a 270 year-old man lusting after one of us. It's like one of us kissing old man Anderson."

Willow shuddered. Her Jesse and him had grown up daring each other to race through the wizened old man's back yard, so she knew what he meant. "Way to put the totally disturbing mental image in the brain. I'm never going to escape that thought," she said as she wrinkled her nose. "I guess it's hard to remember Angel's that old when he's such a hottie."

"Yes, I had expressed a similar concern over ages; however, do I detect obfuscation in your answer?" Giles asked. Xander blinked helplessly in the silence that followed that bit of watcher-speak.

"He thinks you're with the changing the topic to avoid answering, and you do seem a little avoidy," Willow translated.

"Yes, I do believe I already said that," Giles said with a tight sort of control that from Xander's father usually meant screaming and profanity was on the horizon. With Giles it just led to glasses cleaning.

Xander sighed. He was so bad at the lying. Seriously bad. "I've been staying at Angel's because the parents are going through a rough spot," Xander admitted. Willow got up and moved closer, like she wanted to give him a hug, and Xander started checking for exits. "And I'm safer at Angel's because Drusilla? She totally hates me. I can't walk by a shaded alleyway without her doing her impression of a crazy stalker lady, which since she's crazy and following me, is really not much of an impression."

"What?!" Giles demanded. "You've hidden this from us for how long?"

"What do you mean? Why didn't you tell me?" Buffy wailed in a hurt voice at the same time, and Willow was going too, but Xander couldn't actually hear her over the other two.

He held up his hand. "Whoa, time out!" Buffy and Giles fell silent.

"Xander, how could you?" Willow asked sadly, in a tiny hurt voice.

"How could he what?" Cordelia asked curiously as she swept into the room. "I'm going shopping tonight, and I need someone with a stake to escort me and stand between me and any demons with slime, horns, or body odor."

"We're a little busy, Cordelia. Why don't you go polish your nails or something," Buffy suggested. "I hear Tibet is nice this time of year… or Timbuktu. And where is Timbuktu anyway?"

"Africa," Willow supplied, but Cordelia was already dismissing her with a sniff.

"Someone needs a little time with a masseur... a masseur and a genius hairdresser because a lesser cosmetologist would be at a loss as to what to do with the horrible bleach job." Cordelia ignored the unfriendly looks and walked to the end of the counter, leaning on it as she studied each of them. "What's with the attitudes? Did someone from the fashion police finally ticket you losers?"

"Xander's been stalked by a vampire, and he didn't even tell us," Willow said, and how did one person get that much hurt into her voice?

"The dark-haired loony-toons with the Adam's Family fashion sense?" Cordelia asked. Xander wasn't sure if he was relieved or horrified when all the gazes that had been focused on him turned to Cordelia.

"You knew?" Buffy had a cold tone to her voice that even made Cordelia hesitate, but only for a second. Then she shrugged casually and pulled a nail file out.

"She kept showing up whenever I drove Xander anywhere. But Angel or Spike always stop her before she can do anything more than ramble on about how the puppy ate up her daddy. Total fruitcake."

Giles had been silently turning a violent shade of red, but now he exploded. "Spike? William the Bloody? You have been fraternizing with William the Bloody? Angel has renewed his familial relationships? I will stake him myself." Giles suddenly looked very unGilesy and very much like someone who might summon a demon or two.

"It's not--"

"I am uniquely uninterested in why you would put Buffy and Willow at such risk," Giles snapped so violently that Xander jerked back. "I want you out of my library."

"Giles," Buffy said. Willow just looked from one person to another in shock.

"What happened to we all make mistakes in our youth?" Xander demanded.

"Doing drugs, an insanely bad relationship choice... these are not the same as cavorting with a demons who make up the majority of the Scourge of Europe."

"Scourge is sounding unfunlike," Buffy admitted, "but that doesn't mean that Xander is pulling a Ford here."

Xander crossed his arms. "And even if I were, summoning murderous demons seems more scourgelike than druglike."

"Xander," Buffy hissed. "Not helping."

Cordelia gave a snort. "Oh please. If you can't tell the difference between Ford and Xander, you deserve to get eaten. Xander would never betray anyone."

Giles glared at her. "Oh? He just socializes with William the Bloody?"

Cordelia laughed. "He just tries and fails to avoid Spike. I find the littlest vamp amusing, but then it's easy to be amused when he's making passes at Xander and not me. Personally, I think he's a little blind because I am obviously far more desirable as a shag, as Spike puts it, than Xander is." Cordelia's words had shocked everyone into a perfect silence. Giles' glasses were in one hand, dangling forgotten at his side. "But that's Spike. I think he's just lonely for Angel's attention. I told him that, and he threatened to eat me, but I know men, and Spike likes being tortured way too much to eat me. I'd worry about him turning me so that he could be permanently subjected to my painful honesty, but I think he's too afraid of me."

"Cordy," Xander said desperately.

She sniffed. "He so is."

"Cordy."

"What?"

"Seriously--stop helping."

Cordelia looked at him for a long moment, and then rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I'm going shopping." When no one said anything, she turned and headed for the door, slamming through the double doors with enough force to let Xander know that his shitty love life had just taken a turn for the shittier. His eyes were still watching the doors clack shut when they came open again, and Angel was there in the open door.

"You," Giles growled as he reached toward the circulation desk and the crossbow he kept under it.

"I'm not working with Spike," Angel said quietly without trying to go for cover, and Xander wavered between standing dumbly still or throwing himself over the crossbow to keep it away from Giles. He did what he usually did... went for the option with 'dumb' in it.

Giles snatched the crossbow and pointed it at Angel. "That's not what I hear."

"Okay, let's all calm down before we have blood or dust on the floor because you know Snyder is not really forgiving with the unidentified stains," Buffy suggested as she stepped between the two men. "Angel, did you know that Drusilla killed last night?"

"I'm not surprised. She's been increasingly agitated. It's taken both Spike and me to keep her under control as she's recovered from the attack at Prague." Angel sounded calm, even with the crossbow pointed at him and all the condemning stares. Xander wanted to hide because that much hatred in one room was just not healthy but as the only person in the room not looking at Angel like his soul had suddenly slipped off and slithered through the storm drain like a dirty dollar bill, he really felt like he should probably stay.

"So, you are conspiring with Spike." Giles raised the crossbow.

"Spike has been keeping the Hellmouth quiet, and I've..." Angel tightened his lips for a moment. "I've renewed a tentative friendship with him that does not include hunting humans or doing anything that I wouldn't be able to tell Buffy," he said carefully.

"And yet you haven't told Buffy or anyone else," Giles said, and Xander tried not to take it personally that he had just been officially reduced to no one.

"I haven't seen her."

"Nor have you sought her out. In fact, since Spike has reappeared, you have been remarkable quiet except for an odd friendship with the one person who seemed to annoy you the most." Giles glanced over toward Xander. Oh, this was going so incredibly bad.

"I took Eyghon into myself to save Ms. Calendar," Angel pointed out calmly. "I brought you the information on Ford and his coven of vampire fans, and I only found out about Ford through Spike. Spike understands that all of you are under my protection."

"I assure you that I do not need your protection," Giles answered coldly, the crossbow dipping just a little bit, which Xander was hoping meant that he wasn't actually going to shoot anybody. "As the slayer, Buffy needs to know who is in town. We will have to make plans to address the problem with Spike and Drusilla, but certainly not with Angel in the room. Angel or Xander," Giles said as he gave Xander a hard, cold look.

Angel gave a sound that came very close to a growl, close enough that Giles' brought the crossbow up and aimed. "Xander has never done anything except help. I have never done anything except help."

"For which we have only your word. You cannot expect me to believe that you have civil conversations with William the Bloody without being in collusion with him."

Xander officially couldn't take it anymore. He stepped out from behind the counter and into the path of the crossbow, and that was definitely a growl he heard from behind him. "Okay, Giles, here's the thing. Family is family. My cousin whose name will never be uttered…" Xander looked toward Willow, and she was already making her 'ick' face.

"Whose name will never be uttered?" Buffy asked as she looked from one of them to the other.

Xander shook his head. "There was an incident involving cub scouts and an overnight trip and some ickiness that is so icky that I have to wash my brain with soap every time I think about it. And if they gave him the death penalty, I wouldn't argue. I so wouldn't. After what he did to those kids, I'm totally okay with putting him under the jail, even if he was only seventeen when he did the icky."

"Is there a point to this?" Giles asked in a very cranky voice, and Xander noticed that the crossbow was still pointed right at him.

"He's family. I might think he so totally deserves the death penalty, but I wouldn't hit the switch on the electric chair," Xander said quickly. "I don't think Angel or I would ever call Spike good, but you can't ask Angel to go after Spike or Drusilla. They're his family. Evil, twisted, owning no fashion-sense family, but family."

Slowly, Giles lowered the crossbow, but his expression still didn't look all that forgiving. "So, we should just allow them to kill townspeople? Really, Xander, what are you thinking?"

"I never said that. I mean, if Buffy finds him, the two of them can have it out, and I'm rooting for team Buffy all the way. I tried to stake him myself and got my stake taken away before he dragged me across down tucked under his arm, and this was so not good for my fledging male ego. I get enough humiliation at school, so I am not going to stake him just because me and staking Spike is hopeless on a monumental scale."

"He… he what? Xander, why didn't you say something? I'm going to find him and shove the stake so far in he's going to be dust before he notices it," Buffy growled. She looked at Angel and immediately that same hurt expression from earlier was back, replacing the anger. "Angel, I have to say that I'm a little confused here. I mean, yeah, I get the creepy relative analogy, but not telling me about Spike and Drusilla is feeling not-so-helpful. And letting Spike attack Xander… I thought you liked Xander. I was all jealous of him because you two were being with the friends."

"Xander was never in danger," Angel quickly explained. "Spike brought him to me because he thought Xander wasn't safe on the street. I would never put any of you in danger, which is why I told you that Spike was here and that he was a dangerous, determined Master Vampire. He's killed two slayers. I just didn't mention that he had set up court."

"Spike was protecting Xander?" Giles demanded. The crossbow slammed down on the counter, but if anything, Giles looked even more angry. "And why might he do that?"

Angel stared at Giles for a long minute. "Xander spends a lot of time at my apartment. Spike could smell that. He hoped to make peace between us, and protecting someone he sees as belonging to me is his way of ensuring that. He doesn't have a soul; he doesn't understand friendship."

Giles narrowed his eyes and Xander looked from one man to the other trying to figure out what he was missing. He was big with missing something here. But Angel turned to Buffy, taking a step toward her with a pained expression on his face that Xander thought that maybe Angel hadn't given up on Buffy as much as he kept telling everyone he had given up on Buffy.

"I came here to help you, to make sure you weren't one of those slayers that died a month into her destiny. I've told Spike to stay away from you, but if you start hunting him, that won't stop him from hunting you right back. He wants to hunt you. For him, hunting a slayer is a sport, and he learned from Angelus—from me before I got the soul. He'll wear you down until you don't have the energy to fight him, and then he'll kill you."

"You sound like you don't have any faith in me. Slayer here. I killed the Master." Buffy chewed her lip, and Xander could feel the pain circling the room. Willow looked over to him for comforting, and Xander quickly broke eye contact. Buffy and Angel stared at each other with a desperation and fear that made Xander ache. Oh yeah, they were all officially screwed. The guy who summoned the demon was probably the mentally healthiest one in the room, and that wasn't exactly a shining recommendation for any of them.

"You're sixteen years old. He's a hundred and twenty. He'll trick, cheat, lie, and manipulate you in ways that you can't imagine," Angel said slowly. Xander made a mental note to borrow some money from Buffy before they left because not even Revenge of the Nerds was going to fix this brood. They were going to need an all night marathon of Thundercats for this level of angst.

"I can prepare her," Giles quickly offered.

Angel looked at the two of them for a second and then slowly nodded. "Make sure you train her to expect the unexpected. I know Spike has carried guns before, and he's a good shot."

"Whoa, wait, like gun guns? With bullets guns? 'Cause I'm okay with the bulletless guns, but if there are guns with bullets around, I'm calling that a definitely slayerly foul. Isn't that against the vampire handbook or something?" Buffy demanded as she looked toward Giles. It creeped Xander out that Giles looked surprised because Giles was supposed to be the one who knew everything. "When did they start giving gun licenses to the undead? There should so be a law."

"I've never heard of…" Giles started.

"It's rare," Angel interrupted him. "Master Vampires with enough control over the demon to prefer weapons are generally old enough that their weapons of choice are crossbows or swords. Young vampires don't really have the control to use a weapon. They could have a gun and still attack Buffy with fangs and hands because that's the vampire's instinct. But Spike, well, he never did play by the rules. And I'm warning you right now that vampiric instinct was never very strong in him, which is why he's so unpredictable. I helped create him, and I still can't understand him half the time."

"Okay, getting the wiggins here. He's going to shoot me? Giles, is there money for a bullet-proof vest in the slayer budget because I am so not interested in getting shot."

"I can't imagine—" Giles trailed off, frowning before he jammed his glasses back on.

Angel didn't wait for Giles to get his thoughts together. "Don't try to imagine with Spike. He'll surprise you every time. The only reason he isn't controlling a large city is because he doesn't have the patience to sit still that long or the bloodlust that would drive him to try."

"No bloodlust?" Giles almost squawked. "Good lord, they call him William the Bloody. His nickname comes from torturing people with a railroad spike. He ate an entire orphanage! One might question your judgment on this issue if not your honesty."

Angel glanced over at Giles before focusing on Buffy. "If it comes to a fight, you know I support you," he said earnestly, and Xander flinched at the doubt in Buffy's eyes. Angel nodded as though he'd expected her to doubt him. Okay, that had to have hurt, but Angel just kept talking to Buffy in the same earnest tone. "I can't help you go after Spike and Drusilla. They're part of me, and it's not a part I'm proud of, but it is part of me. However, I will tell you this—Spike is most dangerous when he's trying to impress someone. I don't doubt that he killed an entire orphanage. He would have done that for Drusilla. He didn't care about torturing anyone, but when he discovered that it impressed Angelus, he tortured people beyond what even Angelus had ever considered. Don't challenge him in front of other vampires or even in front of your friends or he's going to feel a need to impress you, and you won't like what he does."

"Angel." Buffy said the word like a cry or a curse, and then she fell quiet.

Angel nodded slowly. "I know you don't trust me, but I am trying to do the right thing here."

And there was Giles stepping into the mess again. "By protecting a vampire known for his torture and another who you freely admit would have asked him to massacre an orphanage? You leave us little reason to trust you."

"Maybe that's how you see it," Angel offered quietly, but Xander got the definite impression Angel was about to snap. He sometimes got that look in his eye right before Spike pissed him off really bad. "I've given you my best advice. I'm telling you that as long as Buffy doesn't attack Spike or Drusilla, the number of new fledges and the number of people dying is going to stay low. Spike wants to impress me, and right now he's doing that by running a tight court. I've done the right thing, and someone once told me that you have to do the right thing and walk away, whether people listen to you or not. If you need me, you all know how to find my apartment."

Angel turned to walk away, and for half a second, Xander was frozen—so caught up in the emotions of the moment that he didn't understand that Angel was walking away from him too.

"Hey! Wait. With your crazy childe walking around accusing me of being the puppy that ate you, I am so not walking to your apartment alone, and my testosterone levels dipped to new lows just saying that," Xander said as he hurried after Angel. Angel stopped at the library doors.

"Xander!" Willow called, her voice hurt again. Of course, that hurt was nothing compared to the massive emotional triage that was going to be required when she found out that he'd been naughty touching with Cordelia.

"I'll see you guys later," Xander yelled over his shoulder as he reached Angel and just sort of pushed the vamp out of the room with both hands. Retreat was the word of the day, and they so needed to.

"Xander, you probably need to talk to Giles," Angel pointed out as Xander kept right on pushing him down the hall and toward the exit.

"Nope, nu-huh, not happening. The man who summons demons does not get to tell me I'm screwy. I mean, I know I'm screwy, but any loose screws are on the Cordelia front, not the you front," he pointed out as they reached the exit. Angel looked down at him in amusement before pushing the doors open.

"You haven't told them about Cordelia?" Angel guessed.

"Okay, did you see Willow? Did you see the Willow eyes?"

"I didn't need to see her eyes, I can smell her when she gets near you," Angel pointed out before he headed down the steps so fast that Xander had to run to catch up with him. And by the time Xander had caught up half way down the block, he was out of breath enough that the punch he aimed at Angel's arm didn't have much actual punch behind the punch.

"Okay, stuff like that is just disturbing. You cannot go telling me that you're sniffing up my friends. It's upsetting."

"And Caveman wasn't? That was the worst movie you have ever subjected me to," Angel countered.

"Okay, Caveman is hilarious. 'Caacaa… doodoo… shit'," Xander quoted. "How can you not love that?"

"Easily."

"God you have a stick up your ass. I'm surprised you don't stake yourself on it when you sit." Xander sighed as they walked down the street away from Angel's apartment. He wasn't surprised since he figured Angel was going to need to kill something after that little scene. For several minutes, they walked in silence, going in and out of the yellow circles cast by the streetlights. "Do you think Buffy's going to go after Spike?" Xander asked quietly.

"I hope not."

"Bloody hell, I hope so." Spike jumped out from behind a bush, and Xander gasped, lost his balance, and grabbed at Angel's arm as he managed to half drag them both into the street. Spike started laughing so hard that he sounded like he might hyperventilate. A car laid on its horn, and Xander found himself lifted by his waist and practically tossed back toward the safety of the sidewalk. Yep, he could officially feel his testosterone hitting new lows, and thank god no one was around to witness that. Well, almost no one.

Spike leaned on the streetlight and gasped for air between bursts of laughter. "Goin' to give yourself a heart attack if you aren't careful, pet," he pointed out when he finally managed to get the air to talk. Xander glared, and that nearly set Spike off laughing again.

"William," Angel warned darkly.

"Don't get your knickers twisted, luv. Boy just needs to learn ta think on his feet a little is all. You're trainin' him up right proper if some demon walks up, introduces himself, and then sets the rules for a challenge. I just thought I'd give little brother a few hints about how demons really do it." Spike gave Xander a wink and then started down the sidewalk. Xander might have turned his back and walked away in protest, only Angel's hand in his back was already nudging him to follow.

"And again with the creepiness of the brother comments. You really are a weird, weird and slightly one-tracked with the mind, aren't you?" Xander asked in disgust. Angel had carefully explained that it was safer for Spike to believe that Xander truly would be his little brother one day, but that somehow just made things creepier.

"Yep," Spike agreed quickly enough. "I heard most of that little drama. Better than Passions, you lot are. Seems a right waste bein' in town with a slayer and not taking my third, so I'm ready if she comes gunning for me."

"You heard?" Xander's mind went into panicked overdrive as he considered what they might have said that definitely wasn't Spike-safe.

"He was on the roof," Angel said.

"Wait, you knew?" Xander demanded. "You knew? And you…" Xander looked at Spike, "what Angel said... you aren't with homicidal?"

"Fuckin' hell no. He said I tortured better than he did, didn't he? Even said I ran a tight ship with the court." Spike had a very pleased grin on his face and Angel just rolled his eyes.

"But he was all with the saying you were just out to impress people, and please just ignore me because if you're not upset, I really should not be trying to get you upset because people who know how to torture should not be upset. And people who upset people who know how to torture are stupid."

Spike turned a concerned look at Xander before he focused on Angel. "Not the brightest, is he?"

Xander answered for Angel. "No, no I'm really not."

"He just doesn't understand vampires. Most humans don't," Angel corrected him. Angel also reached over and popped Xander on the side of the head hard enough to sting.

"Hey!" Xander objected as he shot out a punch at Angel's stomach only to find the vampire ten feet away before his punch came anywhere near.

"I hate vampires. I've said it before and I'm repeating my official stance: vampire suck."

"I know I do, rather good at it, I am," Spike offered with an eyebrow wiggle.

"Oh my god. Stop. Just stop. My brain is going to implode if you don't stop with the weirdage. I don't want to know you suck."

"Want to know what I suck?" Spike asked cheerfully.

"William, leave him alone," Angel ordered, and then a large hand fell on Xander's shoulder, pulling Xander to the far side of the sidewalk so that Angel was walking between Spike and Xander.

"Oi, just playin'. So, you think the slayer's coming for me?"

"She might."

"No way," Xander disagreed. Both vampires looked at him.

"Okay, we all agree I know nothing about vampires, but I know Buffy. She's still all stupid about Angel, and if Angel thinks you're family, she's going to find some excuse to not stake you. And the whole gun thing… that really works as far as excuses go. Now if I just understood Willow and Cordelia as well as Buffy, my life might not suck." Xander held up a finger toward Spike. "And do not make suckage puns."

Spike chuckled. "Still, too bloody bad. Wouldn't mind trying this one out. She's good."

"Spike," Angel growled.

"Not goin' to go after her. At this point, I figure you'll never share your boy if I make you throw a wobbly."

"And again with the inappropriateness." Xander sighed. "I hate vampires. I hate vampires nearly as much as I hate my love life."

Spike really started laughing then. "Your boy's growin' up there Angelus. So, you've figured out that we're all screwed when it comes to the birds, huh? Welcome to the club, mate. Love turns all of us into her bitches sooner or later."

"I wouldn't have minded later."

"You'll be love's bitch later too," Spike promised. "Once love's got you on the hook, that's one lady you never get away from. Right, Angel?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Angel sighed. "We all do stupid things for love. We just have to hope that love doesn't kill us in the end."

"Oi, don't turn all maudlin on us there Captain Hairgel," Spike complained. "Bloody hell, let's go kill something, get some Jack and make fun of some late night television."

Xander might have objected, and he knew Angel definitely would have argued, but Spike was off down the street in a flapping of leather that always reminded Xander of Batman's cape, even if Angel was much more Batmany than Spike ever dreamed of being. Xander glanced over, and Angel had his constipated look. Yep, major brooding on the horizon.

"Come on, I escaped death by Cordelia shopping tonight, and killing of something slimy is sounding good. I even promise to not drink the Jack. Alcohol and the Harris family genes are not with the mixy."

For a second, Angel didn't seem to move, and then he started off down the sidewalk after Spike, one of his hands still on Xander's shoulder and pulling him along. "If you get anything slimy on you, I’m not letting you in the apartment," Angel warned.

"Hey, it's my apartment."

"It's my couch, and I'm still trying to get the Doritos powder out of it."

"You are such a gay guy," Xander said, and then he started running down the sidewalk, trusting that Angel would be at his back when he actually did find something slimy, or when something slimy found him because something slimy always found him. Spike accused him of having bad karma. And really, how weird was it that the torturing vampire thought he had bad karma?

Rust Upon Iron

“Guilt upon the conscience, like rust upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, gnawing and creeping into it, as that does which at last eats out the very heart and substance of the metal.”

Angel checked both directions for nosy neighbors before he quickly climbed the tree outside Xander's house. Knowing the elder Harris, a man climbing in Xander's window would be cause for more trouble than either he or Xander cared to deal with. Angel sometimes wondered if the beatings his own father administered weren't kinder than the words Tony Harris would use against his son. Listening to that man made Angel's teeth itch like the smell of fresh blood did.

Sometimes Angel thought this society's attempt to protect children from a whipping had just turned parental anger toward far darker paths. Angel still couldn't get the memory of The Breakfast Club out of his head. So much pain, and no villains, just people who thought that as long as they weren't physically striking the children they weren't damaging them.

But then again, parents in the past had not been limited to their use of the switch. His own father had certainly used choice words when describing Liam's faults, especially once Liam got old enough and large enough that his father feared to take the switch to his backside. Those were memories Angel liked to avoid, but being around humans so often brought back memories of his own human failings.

Once again, Angel wondered if it was worth it. He wondered if he truly wanted to live in the world. When he'd seen Buffy sitting in the sun in LA, he'd been enthralled to her beauty. He'd been ready to sacrifice everything to her cause, but now he wondered how much of that was just his pride coming through again. He'd swoop in and play knight to her damsel; however, she didn't need him. And God knows that his presence had made Buffy's life more difficult… again. Even when he tried to avoid her he still managed to hurt her. He shoved that thought aside for the night as he perched outside Xander's window and softly rapped on the window. Even if he couldn't fix the damage he'd done to Buffy, maybe he could help Xander.

Peering in through the dusty window, he could see Xander stomach-down on the bed. The radio played that song with the twangy voice that Angel particularly hated, and the lights were off. He rapped a little harder, and the only indication Xander had heard was a shifting of feet. For long minutes, Angel sat in the dim light of a sliver moon and wondered whether this was one of those times when someone needed to be alone or one of those times when they wanted someone to push back when they pushed away.

Even if he didn't miss being evil, sometimes Angel missed the certainty he'd felt before the soul. Now he had no more answers than Xander or Buffy. He had far fewer than Giles seemed to possess, not that Angel thought any of that man's answers were appropriate for their current disaster. Thoughts of the disaster brought him back to Xander laying stomach-down on the bed ignoring him. The frustration of being ignored by a sixteen year old settled the matter.

With an aggravated sigh, Angel pulled out his knife and started jimmying the window. The screen was rusted and gave a weak shriek as Angel pulled it out and propped it against the wall next to Xander's window before working the lock on the glass pane. Sliding the main window up, he thought he might have guessed right because Xander didn't turn around and start cursing him out. Xander rarely withheld his displeasure, a trait that amused Spike no end… at least until Xander turned that tongue on Spike.

Angel crawled in through the window and stood nervously next to the open window, his thoughts still focused on Xander and Spike. If not for the fact that Xander was so quick to insult Spike by calling him murderous and unpredictable and heart-attack inspiring, Spike might have tried to curb Xander's sharp tongue with some discipline of his own, but the boy did play to Spike's ego without ever understanding how the demon could preen under Xander's words. When Xander would call Spike evil, the vampire would smirk and encourage Xander to keep right on calling him names. Xander didn't understand, and Angel knew that. Angel knew it and he didn't do anything to try and educate the boy. That was one more pennyweight of guilt on his soul.

Awkwardly standing next to the open window, Angel waited for Xander to say something, but he didn't. A breeze played with the edge of the curtain, flipping it up, and Xander reached out and poked at his radio, mercifully silencing the miserable voice.

"Xander?" Angel said softly. He could hear the parents downstairs, but he still wasn't sure how Xander was going to react to him, so he stayed close enough to the window to make a run for it if Mrs. Harris and her fry pan came running after him. Mr. Harris was, no doubt, too drunk to make the effort. Xander rolled over and blinked up at him with swollen eyes.

"What?" he demanded, his voice rough and angry.

"He's left town," Angel offered, not sure what else he could offer the boy. The smell of salt sullied the air.

"Too bad. I'm sorry Buffy didn't stake his ass. He should be dust." Xander's voice didn't crack, but silent tears slid down his face as he breathed in jerky gasps.

"Maybe," Angel agreed. "I couldn't be the one to stake him, though."

"Wasn't she important enough?" Xander asked, and the anger had started mutating into something darker. "Maybe she wasn't. Maybe Spike came to you and asked permission, what with you being all sirey. Did you let Spike kill Kendra?" Angel flinched at the hatred that came from Xander, but if he left now, he knew he'd lose the boy's friendship. Xander had many good qualities, but open-mindedness was not one. If this hatred festered until morning, Angel suspected he would lose the boy's trust forever, and he suddenly realized just how much he cared about that not happening.

"I never gave Spike permission, and he never asked," Angel hurried to promise Xander "And yes, Kendra was just as important. She was just as beautiful and worthy as Buffy. I should have protected her, but I didn't, and she's dead. I can't fix that. I'm sorry." Angel shifted uncomfortably.

Xander rolled onto his stomach, his back shuddering with sobs, and Angel could feel guilt clinging to him like oil, only this time Xander wasn't going to torture him out of his bad mood. He felt like he had lost both Spike and Xander. It wasn't a good feeling. All he needed was the taste of rat's blood in his mouth, and he would feel like he had slipped back into a life he had gratefully escaped. And still, Angel couldn't feel quite as bad about his own pain as he did about Xander and Buffy and even Willow's anguish.

"Giles shouldn't have been so hard on you," Angel said quietly as he shifted from foot to foot. Oh god, what made him think he could do this? His emotions were as rusted as Xander's screen.

Xander gave a dark laugh. "You mean where he told me that Kendra would still be alive if I hadn't fraternized with the enemy? Oh yeah, he really should have. I lost track of a little truth there for a while, which is funny because it's the truth I started out with. Vampires bad. You remember that truth?" Xander turned and gave Angel a cold glare that worried Angel more than all the hot hatred and yelling he'd heard earlier as he'd eavesdropped on the others as they gathered in the library. Giles had brought word after Spike had tracked the watcher down and bragged in his usual Spike fashion. Thankfully Giles had gone and found the body without the children. But that small bit of mercy had vanished by the time he got back to the library and had taken aim first at Buffy and then at Xander. Buffy had escaped with minor emotional damage, but Angel still wanted to tear Giles' throat out for the words he had used against Xander.

"Vampires are generally evil," Angel agreed slowly with Xander's claim.

"No, no not evil… bad," Xander hurried to correct him, sitting up on the bed. "Bad as in bad for you, like Twinkies are bad for you, only, like with Twinkies, I tried to ignore the whole badness. But here's the problem… ignore the badness of Twinkies, and cavities are in your future. Big, huge, drive a truck through cavities that leave you with the nasty whine of a dentist drill poking holes in your head. With vampires, the badness spreads like chickenpox or marker stains on your Sunday-best shirt. I let the badness in, and Kendra paid for it."

"You had nothing—" Angel started. Xander talked right over him.

"And really, that's funny because I was first on the 'vampires bad' bandwagon when Buffy was dating you. I staked my best friend in the whole fucking world because I got it. Vampires bad. But then I went and got stupid again, which is not big with the surprise because I do a really good impression of stupid. Put me and stupid next to each other, and you can't tell which is which. I am the perfect mirror-image of pure stupidity," Xander almost hissed, and Angel froze, not really sure exactly what he could say to fix this. Jesse had been one topic that Xander never wanted to discuss with him, that Xander would walk out of the apartment if it came up. This wasn't feeling like safe territory right now, and Angel had no answer to soothe Xander's pain.

"You know that first night I showed up at your apartment?" Xander demanded. "That first night, I only came over because Buffy wanted to come check on you because you'd done the disappearing act again, and I didn't want her falling into the whole big, brown eyed pouty sympathetic thing you have going, and instead I fall for it. Stupid Xander. Stupid, stupid Xander. Forgot the first rule there, Xander. Vampires bad. Vampires very bad." Xander stood up and advanced on Angel, his finger poking the air until he came close enough to poke Angel's chest, and Angel stood silent, struggling with his beast's need to push Xander back and put the boy back in his place.

"This isn't your fault," Angel offered softly. After Giles' angry words in the library, Angel wasn't sure Xander was ready to listen to that, but at least the finger stopped poking him. Xander just stood with his face twisted by all the grief he'd hidden in front of his friends as he'd comforted them and endured Giles' diatribe.

Slowly, Xander nodded. "This is Spike's fault. He killed her. He killed Kendra, which, you know, is like a 'duh' moment because he's been out there killing this whole time, and I just let myself ignore that as long as he wasn't snacking on someone I knew. This doesn't make me a good person."

"It makes you human," Angel disagreed.

"Go away," Xander whispered as he turned his back on Angel. The vampire instinct surged, and for a half second, Angel teetered on the edge of grabbing the boy and throwing him down in order to force a little respect into him. He physically withdrew a step just to avoid the temptation, even though the scent of his bloodmark on Xander's skin called to him.

Instead of following the beast's urge, Angel focused on quiet logic. "It you had stuck to your rules—if you had continued to insist that vampires were bad, where would Buffy be?" Angel asked with a false calm, most of his attention still focused on controlling the beast inside.

"Seriously, Angel, me and my stupidity need some quality alone time," Xander sighed.

"Someone hired the Order of Taraka. If Spike and I hadn't taken out the one-eyed bounty hunter, what do you think would have happened?"

Xander sighed and sat on the edge of the bed giving Angel a calculating look, as though trying to figure something out. Finally, he answered. "Buffy would have killed him, and then Buffy would have staked Spike, and Buffy and Kendra would have gone for ice cream after, only with no ice cream and more reports because Kendra was one for reports," Xander gave a strangled half-laugh at his own joke, and Angel could hear the desperation. "She didn't deserve to die. How could he kill her?" Xander asked in a small voice that Angel couldn't ignore. He stepped forward and let his hand rest on Xander's shoulder.

"Kendra didn't listen to Buffy or me. She went after Spike. None of us could have saved her the second she made that choice. And no, she didn't deserve to die. No slayer does, but that's what happens with slayers. They challenge some demon who's faster or who fights dirtier, and they die."

"Buffy didn't. I brought her back."

And there was the rub. The boy had managed one miracle, and he couldn't escape the expectation that he could simply pull another out of the air. Angel remembered the foolishness of youth, but he still couldn't quite understand it. But one way or another, he had to convince Xander that he couldn't carry the blame for Kendra's death. "You couldn't have saved Kendra," Angel pointed out, struggling to make a more valid argument, but really, it was so obvious that Angel couldn't quite decide how to prove it. It was like trying to prove the sky was blue.

"Maybe if I'd been there. I could have asked Spike…" Xander stopped and gasped for air, fighting the need to cry for a second. "I really do need to be checked for brain damage. One too many hits with the headstones maybe because there I go thinking of Spike like someone I could talk to when he's just a cold-blooded killer. A demon. A thing that needs to be turned into dust."

Angel sighed. Xander's guilt and his intolerance were both running high tonight, and neither were Xander's most charming personality traits. "He's the same demon he always was, with all the positive and negative traits still there."

"I thought he was a friend. How stupid am I?" Xander whispered so softly that Angel wouldn't have caught it without vampire hearing.

"You aren't stupid. In his own way, he offered you something as close to friendship as he could. Spike cares about you," Angel answered, not sure that Xander really wanted the truth right now, but that's all Angel had to offer. The others had ranted and raved… everyone except Cordelia who'd been surprisingly silent… but none of them understood Spike or his relationship with Xander. "If you had been there, maybe Spike would have stopped. He probably wouldn't have, but maybe," Angel admitted.

"He cares?" Xander asked incredulously as he looked up at Angel with a wet face. "How can you say he cares? He killed Kendra!"

"I know."

"I hate him. If he were here right now, I'd stake him."

"I know you'd try. He knows you would too, that's why he left," Angel offered soothingly.

"What?" Xander's anger yielded to confusion. "Okay, this is making sense of the not-even kind because no way would Spike leave town because of me. Spike knows he can kick my ass no matter how much I want to stake him, and I want to stake him a whole lot right now. Big with the wanting to stake him. I'd sacrifice my Batman collection to turn him back into dust."

"He thinks you might get hurt when he has to stop you from trying to kill him. William knows you aren't a threat, but he doesn't want to hurt you," Angel offered gently as he came and perched awkwardly on the edge of the bed next to Xander.

"Right. I'm just the loser. I'm just the one no one listens to or worries about or whatever the hell people do with people they respect, and I obviously don't know because no one actually respects me or what I have to say. I say 'just leave it alone, Kendra,' so of course she has to go and be Wonder Woman, only with not so much wonder because she's dead. She's dead and I didn't do anything to stop the whole process of her getting dead." Xander put his head in his hands in a gesture of supreme fatigue, and Angel could feel the urge to just leave, to escape from the boy's pain, but he wouldn't. He might not know how to handle this, but he would sit and at the very least endure the pain with Xander. The room was silent as they sat side by side.

"What's wrong with me?" Xander finally whispered.

"Nothing," Angel quickly assured him as he put his hand on Xander's back and tried to figure out if he should pat him or just leave the palm pressed against the shivering shoulder.

Xander snorted. "I'm thinking there's something hugely wrong." Xander leaned forward until his head rested on his arms, which were crossed in his lap. "I killed my best friend because he was a vampire. And trust me, if vampires really do get part of their personality from the host, then Jesse-vampire was about as harmless as vampires come. Only I don't know that because he's dust. Or actually," Xander said after a pause, "I do know he was harmless because any vampire I can dust is pretty high on the harmlessness scale. So, Jesse's dead because he's a vampire. Only I go and make two brand new friends, oh, both of them are vampires, but I never even stop to question that.

Swollen eyes turned to look at Angel. "Either I killed my best friend when I shouldn't have or I didn't stake Spike when I should have, but I fucked up somewhere. What happened to my nice simple 'Vampires bad' rule? That rule made sense to me. God, I can't do this. Giles is right. I screwed up. And the Willow eyes.... I don't ever have to worry about her with the crushing again because she looked at me with those eyes that said that she was so sorry I had so completely fucked up, and I did. I fucked up, only Kendra is dead, and how much sense does that not make?"

"The real world isn't supposed to make sense," Angel said softly. "And you didn't fuck up. You told her that Spike was too dangerous to go against."

"Which is a little like waving a red flag in front of a bull… or waving a vampire in front of a slayer. Yep, we're back to me being the poster child for stupid."

Angel sighed, not sure how to defuse this cycle of self-hate. Sadly, he found himself afraid to try because at least when Xander was focused on hating himself, the boy wasn't spewing hate for Angel and all vampires. He just couldn't in good conscience allow Xander to continue to carry this burden. Not for the first time, Angel cursed Giles for allowing Willow and Xander to tangle their lives and destinies with Buffy's. He accepted that he would probably not be able to give Buffy a normal life, but now he doubted whether either Xander or Willow would have one either. And in their case, they had no destiny to steal their futures. They only had their own naïve belief that they could fix the world if they only made the right choices.

"Before you, life was simple for me. As a vampire, Darla ruled my world. When I got the soul, I suffered the way I was supposed to as a damned creature. Then Whistler showed me Buffy and then I knew I was destined to be with her. Three different lives, three very simple rules," Angel started as he struggled to find a way to explain nearly three hundred years of life to a sixteen year old.

Xander snorted. "If you start that Romeo and Juliet crap again, I'm going to point out that they ended up dead. Dead is not the happy-happy joy-joy fairy tale ending unless you're reading those old, really violent fairy tales where everyone ends up burned alive or cut to pieces or something, and dismemberment is still not with the happy unless you have a pretty serious psychological disorder. Like the kind of disorder Spike has," Xander finished wearily. "And you know, maybe you should just leave so I can get some sleep before my brain implodes." Xander sat up and looked around the dark room as though searching for an excuse to get rid of Angel. Time was running out.

"Not Romeo and Juliet," Angel promised as he ignored Xander's request for him to leave. "My mother used to sit near the fire with her stitchery and tell me stories of Lusmore of Knockgrafton."

"Which would be something I know nothing about, and tonight is not a good night for long, Gilesesque stories," Xander hinted with his usual lack of subtlety.

"Lusmore was born with a huge hump on his back. Even though he was deformed, he was a good man." Angel ignored Xander and his rolling eyes. "One day, Lusmore heard the fairies singing, and he was full of so much joy that he joined them, singing with such a pure voice that they whisked him away to their magical kingdom and cured him, took his hump off and made him whole and beautiful."

Xander stared at Angel with obvious confusion. Okay, so maybe the metaphor wasn't as self-evident as Angel had thought.

"Xander, when the gypsies cursed me with a soul, I saw the demon as a deformity that would one day be swept clean, and when I saw Buffy sitting on the stairs of her school in LA, it was like finding the fairy kingdom and knowing that I was this close to being cured. I just had to figure out how to sing beautifully enough to earn the cure."

"Singing for a cure?" Xander asked skeptically.

"With one small problem," Angel shrugged. "I'm not actually all that good at singing. Spike once said he'd rather have me whip him than sing one bar song with him in the room. But I still couldn't help feeling like Buffy was the key to making everything right with me, that I just had to be smart enough to figure it out."

"That's…"

"Profound?" Angel supplied.

"Stupid," Xander corrected him. Angel frowned at him, and Xander held up a hand palm up. "I'm sorry, but it kinda is. And in your example, if the curse is the hump, then taking it off would be like curing you by taking off the soul. No offense, but after Spike's many hours of reminiscing, if you and your soul part ways, I'm vacationing on another continent. Possibly another continent in an alternative dimension."

"My point," Angel said, flinching away from even the thought of losing his soul. He knew the dark corruption lying in his heart the way no one else ever could, not even Spike. "My point is that life seemed simple. The rules were so clear—If I found a way to keep Buffy alive and happy, I'd have my cure. Then you showed up and pointed out that Buffy isn't just the slayer or a girl I had worshipped from the shadows. She is a human soul with human needs and fears and desires and a truly strange taste in music, and that is so far from simple that I feel like an idiot for ever having my Lusmore fantasies." Angel fell silent, just hoping that Xander understood this time.

"So, your way of cheering me up is to point out that I have company on the short bus of life?" Xander asked.

"My point is that you taught me to see that the more complicated truth is harder to accept but far more accurate."

"See, I know I didn't teach you that because I don't even get that. There's nothing complicated here. I screwed up by not helping Giles and Buffy go after Spike. Kendra came to help us. Kendra is dead because I didn't help Giles and Buffy. See? Simple." Xander crossed his arms as if daring Angel to contradict him.

"It's as simple as Buffy being the solution to my curse or Lusmore getting his hump removed," Angel agreed, "and just as wrong. "You know that Spike is… Spike is complicated. He's evil, but he's not particularly devoted to evil. He did far more good than evil in town, even if he only did it to keep in my favor." Angel glanced at Xander's stubbornly set face. "And to keep some hope alive that I would let him bed you," he added. Xander glared at him, and Angel had to school his face to impassivity in order to avoid laughing at the exasperation in Xander's eyes. "Life is messy. We both made choices that we wish we could take back, but neither of us is to blame for this."

"We're to blame for letting Spike live," Xander said, but this time, Angel could see that the boy said the words in the desperate hope that Angel could talk him out of believing them.

"There is no blame there. Dozens of people are alive today only because Spike ruled the Hellmouth with a vicious ruthlessness that left the minions too afraid to make new fledges. If we could go back in time and dust Spike, would we trade away the life of a mother of three in order to save Kendra? Would we really kill Spike knowing that dozens of people would then be vamped by the minions? Would Kendra even want that?" Angel could see the emotions war in Xander's conscience. "We did what we knew would save people. We don't have anything to apologize for because we did save people, many people. I seem to remember Willow having pie charts of mysterious deaths and barbeque fork accidents at one point, and the numbers showed that human deaths had dropped back down to pre-Buffy levels."

Xander did laugh at that. "That's Willow. Don't give her enough homework, and she'll just invent her own. And her pie chart was definitely on the side of Spike being good for the human half of good old Sunnyhell."

"Willow will come around first, you wait," Angel said "Her numbers prove that we made a good decision, and she'll see that. I know I should have tried harder to gain Kendra's trust so that she would allow me to place her under my protection. However, we weren't wrong for letting Spike live. Those pie charts represent people who are alive today because of that choice, Xander."

Xander sat next to Angel and stared at the wall where a poster of Seven of Nine stared back. "I want to believe that," he finally whispered to the air. Angel's hand was still on Xander's shoulder, and now he slid it around Xander's back and pulled the boy into a one-armed embrace.

"Then do. It's the truth," Angel suggested.

"But it feels… it feels wrong because I should feel guilty, but what you're saying is not guilt-inspiring."

"You shouldn't feel guilty," Angel said, and obviously he had failed because the whole point of this conversation was convincing Xander to give up his guilt, yet the boy continued to cling to it.

"Giles said—"

"No!" Angel snapped, cutting Xander off mid-word. They both froze, listening to the downstairs television as they waited to find out if Mrs. Harris and her frying pan were on their way up to find out why there was shouting coming from Xander's room in the middle of the night. Angel tightened his arm around Xander, desperately hoping that he wouldn't have to run, but prepared to dart out the window when the first footstep landed on the stairs. It never came, and Xander took a deep breath as they realized they had avoided company. Mrs. Harris had probably fallen asleep next to her husband on the couch.

"No," Angel said more quietly but just as firmly, "Giles carries his own guilt, for his youth summoning demons or his failure to protect Kendra or his inability to get Buffy to take training seriously. I don't even pretend to understand his guilt or his motives for being so harsh. But for whatever reason, he has spoken to you far more sharply than he should. You can't take what he says so seriously."

"But—"

"You know how much guilt you feel for Kendra's death?" Angel interrupted as he tightened his grip a bit. "Imagine if you were the adult who had been charged with protecting her. Imagine that you had to call her other watcher or her parents and admit that she died on your watch. Imagine that you have to write a report to the bosses who expected you to keep her alive, and you have to admit that you failed in your job, a job you've been training for your whole life. Xander, you're too smart to think that Giles' anger is for you."

Xander angled his body toward Angel a little, squirming uncomfortably, and Angel just used it as an excuse to pull the boy closer. "He's angry with himself," Xander said softly. "And I'm the one who's closest to being like him what with the having a penis and all because Willow and Buffy are definitely penisless, not that I've looked or anything. But Giles is angry with himself and so he takes it out on me."

Angel nodded. "I think my father did the same thing. The Catholics were losing land and position, and my father turned against his own father and the Church, publicly denouncing his own family and marrying the protestant daughter of an English settler. When I showed any sign of rebellion, he turned on me viciously."

"Do I want to know how this story ends?" Xander asked uncertainly, but he didn't try to pull away. If anything, he sagged into Angel and let the vampire support his full weight.

"Probably not. It would give you nightmares," Angel admitted. "I don't like thinking about it."

"Just like Giles doesn't like thinking about how bad he feels, so he takes it out on me?" Xander asked.

"Maybe. But whether it's that or something else, you shouldn't believe him when he says these things," Angel answered as he slid back on the bed, scooting toward the wall and pulling Xander with him. Xander just let himself be maneuvered.

"This is freaky," Xander said softly as Angel finally got settled with his back to the wall and Xander half lying on his chest.

"Do you want me to leave? I don't want to make you uncomfortable because I'm not planning anything." Angel tensed up, suddenly remembering just how uncomfortable Xander had been at the idea that Angel had been sexually intimate with a man. Maybe the bed wasn't the best place for him to offer comfort.

"No, not that. I mean it's freaky that you get this stuff. I mean, how long has it been since you were around the whole family dynamics thing?"

"A while," Angel admitted. "I'm a little rusty sometimes, and you know I don't always understand you… or Buffy either. But maybe that distance helps me see things a little more clearly because I'm not caught up in the middle of human emotions."

"Not caught up in human emotions. That sounds…" Xander paused, "that sounds lonely," he finally finished.

Angel sat in the dark with Xander's warm weight against him, the smell of Angel's bloodmark strong because of the sweat and emotion still seeping from the boy. "Not recently," Angel admitted as he leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

Xander's hand clung to Angel's shirt, and the boy's breathing evened out as Angel traced circles on his back with his fingers. Eventually, the smell of salt tears faded and the familiar soft snores started a few hours before dawn. Laying in the dark holding the boy, Angel considered just how much a year had changed his world. A year ago, he would have secretly cheered Giles for his verbal tirade. Now, he recognized that anger for the weakness it had always been. No, he wasn't perfect. He didn't blame himself for not killing Spike, but when the next slayer came to town, Angel wasn't going to allow his fear to keep him from insisting on being a part of her life. Buffy wasn't his quest, but the slayers were. He would give every single one of them a chance to grow up and a fighting shot against the demons they were destined to fight. It wouldn't be simple, but hopefully it would be the right thing to do. And if he fell off the wagon on his path to redemption, he'd just have to trust Xander to point it out, just like he planned on staying around and putting Xander back on the right path when the boy's self-hatred threatened to overwhelm him.

Neither of them had parents or family who could provide the sort of support that Angel had seen when Xander had insisted they stay up for two days straight to watch a marathon of Leave it to Beaver, but they could be family to each other.

Mending Fences

"Hey! Anyone in a mood for pizza and only halfway melted ice cream?" Buffy asked with an uncertain expression on her face as she stood in the door.

"And Twinkies. Don't forget the Twinkies," Willow added as she held up a plastic bag from the grocery store. "We come bearing Twinkies and apologies."

"Hey. And how did you find me?" Xander asked in confusion as he stepped away from the apartment door to let them in.

"This was our second guess, and your mom might be a little on the grumpy side when you go home because she was definitely big with the believing you were upstairs," Buffy said with a sympathetic cringe. "And the ice cream was not half melted before she started with the ranting about you being irresponsible."

"Oh great," Xander said as he headed back to the couch and flopped down. "Buff, I know you're big with the being pissed at me, but do you think that maybe next time you could just punch me or something? Now I have to go home and listen to the parentals fight."

"Yeah, sorry about that."

"I don't suppose you could hit me now and break a bone or two... something small enough to not hurt much but big enough to justify a short stay in the hospital and a little sympathy?" Xander asked with his best hopeful look in Buffy's direction.

"Xander!" Willow said with way more horror than the situation really called for. It was awkward, but at least she was struggling toward normal. Xander headed for the kitchen where Angel had plates and bowls.

"Hey, I'm all for staying unbroken normally, but the parentals are going to nail my window shut if they figure out that I'm pretty much avoiding them more often than I'm staying home." He stacked the dishes on the counter and Willow dished up chocolate marshmallow ice cream while Buffy started divvying up the pizza.

"Hey, I'm there with you. Mom is really starting to get the hairy eyeball down good when I come home late, but sometimes the vampires are just not good with letting me dust them before curfew," Buffy shrugged. Willow stayed remarkably silent, but then Xander remembered her confessing that she wished she had a curfew. Here they were living on a Hellmouth with murder stats that could rival New York City, and her parents were more concerned about stifling her adult whatchamacallit than making sure she didn't end up dead. Yep, Xander could see how that would give a person a complex.

"So, any new with the news?" Xander asked, changing the subject.

"You missed the big 17 party for Buffy," Willow said, jumping on the change of topic.

"Yeah, I didn't really think you guys wanted me around." Xander took a plate and a bowl and retreated to the chair that was normally Angel's. Balancing the pizza plate on the arm, he started on the slightly gloppy ice cream.

"I wanted. Didn't you want?" Willow asked sadly as she turned to Buffy for confirmation before she headed for the couch.

"I was huge with the wanting, but with a side of cowardly because I didn't want to call and admit that'd I'd been huge with the bitchiness and blame. We're talking epic Cordelia-levels of bitchiness," Buffy nodded as she sat next to Willow. "I really am sorry, Xander, and I'm claiming temporary insanity because the things I said were pretty insane."

Xander focused on his ice cream and didn't mention what all of them were avoidingly circling. The girls hadn't said the worst of it, they'd been more insult accomplices as Giles called Xander a traitor and an idiot, and while the idiot part was about right, Xander wasn't a traitor. However, that word had kept him out of the library and away from the girls for nearly two weeks now. He'd spent Buffy's birthday out practicing sword fighting on fledges, and Angel hadn't even lectured him when he'd ignored easy kills and went for the long-drawn out, ugly fight. Of course, Angel had to rescue him twice, but that wasn't exactly new either.

"Get anything good?" Xander asked with a cheerfulness that felt fake even to him.

Buffy smiled. "A demon arm. Which tried to kill me when I opened the box, so the party just screamed slayerfest."

"Okay, in the history of gift-giving, that's like worse than the time I got Willow bugs for her birthday," Xander said as he finally looked up from his gloppy bowl.

"You were six. I forgave you.... after therapy." The smile Willow gave him was strained, but at least it was genuine. When he smiled back, she caught her lip between her teeth and her eyes fell back down to her plate. Buffy was the slayer, but Xander knew that Willow was the one who really relied on Giles to be all parental unit-y, so this had to be hard on her.

With a shrug, Buffy shoved pizza in her mouth and then talked right over the chewing. When you were a slayer and consumed as much food as Buffy did, you learned to talk and chew at the same time or just not talk much. "Yeah, well it turns out that the arm was only one part of a tinkertoy ending-the-world demon that got chopped to little bits at some point. It looks like Drusilla was trying to put him back together."

"Drusilla?" Xander frowned at that. Yeah, she was nuts, but he'd been fairly sure she was run-of-the-mill nuts and not world-ending nuts.

"Which is not really surprising because of the whole crazy demon vibe she has going on, but the bizarre part is that Spike mailed me the arm, and he shipped the head to the Council in England," Buffy made a face at the thought of that piece of weirdness.

"Um, doesn't that make it a little harder to assemble?" Xander may have liked Spike, but if Drusilla asked him to end the world, he would have thought Spike would bring the torch for the world-ending bonfire party.

"You'd think, yeah." Buffy frowned. "But I guess he had an agenda other than ending the world."

"He wasn't all bad, you know."

"Xander, he killed Kendra," Willow gasped.

Xander's guts knotted up as the old fight restarted, but if they didn't talk this out, the old fight would lay there and rot until they couldn't stand each other. In his seventeen years, Xander had learned two things from his parents: don't let problems rot and don't drink. Of course his not letting problems rot philosophy sometimes led to more honesty that was good for him, but it was better than ending up like his parents. He sighed and pushed on. "I know. He's evil, and I'm big with the knowing that. You don't even want to know some of the stories he told me when he was trying to be nice. Spike being nice was kinda absolutely terrifying. His idea of a bedtime story will either be fodder for many years of therapy or the start of a whole new career as a horror film writer. But he still wasn't all bad."

Willow dropped her plate on the coffee table where it rattled against the wood. "What's wrong with you? You know that vampires are evil, but now you're sticking up for one. And you're dating Cordelia. I heard Harmony talk about it. And she said you and some big hunky guy sometimes walk the cheerleaders home and beat guys up, and I don't even know you anymore."

"That would be called patrolling," Xander shot back at Willow, and he immediately felt guilty as she shrunk in on herself. "Willow, I'm just patrolling, and yeah, Angel goes with me because I'm way better with the flushing demons out than the killing of demons."

"And here I thought we were going to deal with one weirdage at a time," Buffy sighed. "Well, since that plan's all shot, let me handle this with my normal tact," she suggested. "Xander, what the hell are you thinking dating Cordelia?"

Buffy's normal tact made Xander shrink back and for a half-second, he just considered denying the whole thing. Of course, then Willow would run back to Harmony and tell her she was wrong, and then Harmony would tell Cordelia, and then Cordelia would hunt him down, eviscerate him, and stretch his skinned hide across the football field as a warning for other social climbing losers.

"I'm mostly thinking with the head that's not on my shoulders," Xander admitted with a shrug. Willow turned bright red. "Hey, it's what guys do," he defended himself. And the fact that women had twisted guys around by the cock was at the center of at least fifty percent of Spike's really scary stories.

Buffy looked over at Willow with worry etching deep and unattractive lines on her face, and Xander knew exactly what she was thinking. The problem was that Xander wasn't sure how to make Willow feel any better about this. He just didn't like Willow. And the more Willow pouted at him and played teacher's pet to Giles, the less he liked her that way. Yeah, she'd always be sisterish the way Spike would always be Angel's family, but somehow, the idea of naughty touching with her in a closet freaked him out way more than naughty touching with Cordelia ever had. Buffy looked at him with the worry slowly morphing into anger.

"I don't control the not-on-the-shoulders head!" he defended himself. Buffy did not look even a little amused. "Come on, look at my track record. The girls I've actually gotten dates with include a life-sucking mummy and witch fond of ratting people. Add in there the girls I've crushed on and you have a hyena-infested pack member and a preying mantis monster. Put all those girls in a lineup, and Cordy fits in there a whole lot better than anyone in this room."

Hopefully that worked because Buffy's face turned from angry to a slightly squicked sort of sympathy. "Okay, on the officially sucking in the picking partners department, you win. I mean, I thought I was the record winner, but when you line up your dating life like that, my back-stabbing traitor, masochistic poet, and a couple of losers just don't compare with your string of disasters."

"Gee, thanks," Xander said sarcastically, and Buffy smiled at him. Willow, however, was not going to be that easily distracted. She was already shaking her head.

"I don't know you anymore, Xander. You say you like girls who can hurt you, and you hang out with Angel and fight and you hang around with Spike."

"Hey, there was not hanging around with nearly as much as there was me and then there was Spike who was enjoying making me blush and trip and generally making my life miserable when he wasn't rescuing me from Drusilla or some random monster of the week."

"Which is hitting the weird-o-meter pretty hard," Buffy pointed out.

"Yeah, this I know. Spike had it in his head that sucking up to me would make Angel less growly around him, and Spike's idea of sucking up included wedgies. Okay, not real wedgies, but emotional type wedgies with the things getting painfully pulled into tight spaces where they are not supposed to go. His sense of humor was definitely on the humorless side," Xander said, refusing to go any farther into Spike's habit of poking the gay-button whenever Angel was out of earshot. Cordelia insisted Spike was just trying to be big-brotherly. According to Angel, Spike was trying to torture the older vamp vicariously by going after Xander. Xander just tried not to think about it much at all. That went into the little box along with the knowledge that Spike had killed Kendra, and Xander tried really, really hard to never think about any of it. "Look, maybe we just shouldn't talk about this right now," Xander suggested hopefully.

"Xander, talking would be good."

"So you can not listen to me again?" Xander said with a little more venom than he'd intended. Both girls flinched from that, and Xander immediately felt like a heel.

"I'm listening. I've always listened," Willow said softly as she picked at the cheese on her pizza. Xander had never seen food so unloved at a Scooby meeting.

Buffy quickly nodded. "And I'm all listening-girl. Look, I know we all over-reacted, and I'm trying really hard to not be with the reacting. See me? This is me listening with absolutely no over-reacting or reacting or even acting. I promise to do nothing that ends with an 'ing'."

"Breathing?" Willow asked with another strained smile. Buffy shrugged.

"Okay, maybe I'll do that. Xander, I know you didn't make Kendra go out looking for a fight because I was there with you when we did the 'Spike is a gun-carrying evil spawn of Satan' speech for her. I know this. But you talking about Spike like he's just a guy from school or something is doing the wiggy in my brain."

"Big wiggy. Xander, he ate people, and eating people equals evil. Well, not when the eating of people is over like with Angel, or like with you when you went all hyena... not that you ate anyone... but Spike is still with the eating people, and as people we need to stand up and say no to people-eating." Willow blurted her words out as though relieved to finally be getting to the conversation she wanted to have with him.

"Can't argue with Willow-logic," Xander agreed wryly. Spike would have recognized the sarcasm, but Willow was already nodding her head in agreement.

"Darn tooting you can't, mister."

"Willow, I hate that Spike eats people, and I am totally on the Spike-evil train with you guys. I told you he was evil back before you knew who he was. I mean, he just about gave me a heart attack at least a dozen times a week, and that was when he was trying for nice. Not that nice and Spike are really two great tastes that taste great together." Xander let his words trail off, not quite sure where he was going with this. Sometimes he wished he could just erase the last year and go back to being the guy who just agreed with whatever Willow said. It was easier that way. Neither of them did conflict very well, which wasn't really surprising. In Willow's house, raised voices or any sort of conflict was met with long lectures in words Xander didn't even understand but that came down to 'nice people don't disagree.' In Xander's house, raised voices just led to more raised voices and then screaming, and throwing of things and on a really good night, the calling of police. Yep, they both officially sucked on the disagreeing front.

"Xander?" Buffy looked worried again.

"Okay, look, he's evil. I get that. He also has a side of funny and a secret love for poetry. No one who loves poetry can be all evil. Nerdy, yes, but not evil."

"Spike is nerdy?" Buffy choked down her bite of pizza and started laughing.

"And he would so eat you for saying that, and then I would feel guilty because me sharing his secret love for poetry led to the lifelessness, and I have enough guilt already. But as much as he is dangerous and evil, it's just not that simple."

"Evil is simple, Xander. He ate an orphanage." Buffy crossed her arms and got that 'me, slayer' look on her face.

"Because Drusilla told him to."

"Which is not making me feel any better about the eating of orphans part of that story." As Buffy spoke, Willow nodded enthusiastically, so Xander knew he was facing a united front here. And the fact that he was outside the united really hurt, but he couldn't just unknow things, not even if he wanted to.

"Do you know why she ate children? Do you?" Xander demanded. Both girls looked confused, like it had never occurred to them to ask for a reason. "Angel tortured her. He tortured her family in front of her. He chained her up and beat her and raped her and did all kinds of things that he's only hinted about and honestly, I so don't want to know."

Willow lost all color, and Buffy wrinkled her nose before she finally answered. "Okay, officially not making me feel any better, but I do have a sudden urge to scrub my lips because I kissed Angel at one point. What is wrong with my taste in men?"

"That's not my point. My point is that Drusilla on bad days wants everyone to hurt as much as she hurt before Angel got around to killing her. And on good days... she thought that if she ate the children they wouldn't ever have to get tortured by Angel. Drusilla is totally loony toons, but she isn't totally evil, either."

"So I should stop vampires and give them a 'how evil are you' quiz before I slay?"

"Not unless you're feeling particularly suicidal," Xander sighed.

"Then what are you trying to say?"

"I have no idea." Xander stuck his spoon in his liquefied ice cream and headed for the kitchen. He should rinse the dishes because Angel complaining about ants was not really the way he wanted to end this very shitty day. Standing at the sink, he watched the chocolate stream streaked with white marshmallow vanish down the drain before he started washing the dish.

Warm hands came around his stomach, and a familiar head rested against his back. "Oh Xander," Willow whispered.

Xander leaned against the counter for a second before he let his hands rest against Willow's arms. "Yep, that's me... clueless Xander."

Buffy was there too, her hip leaning against the counter as she rested a hand on his shoulder. "You're just clue-lite, like the rest of us."

Xander nodded, and for one second, he was just tempted to let it rest, to just accept the forgiveness they were offering him, and chalk this up to one more case of Xander-stupids. He almost made up his mind to do exactly that, but then it occurred to him that the girls would expect him to go back to the library and play humble to Giles' English disapproval. And really, Xander couldn't do it. "It's just... He wasn't all evil. He was like marble cake with lots and lots of evil and streaks of something..." Xander hesitated as he considered what to say. Spike was funny and arrogant and insecure and protective.

"But if you ate a piece, you'd taste the evil and not the other stuff," Buffy pointed out. Willow slowly let go of him and stepped back.

"Oh yeah," Xander agreed as he turned to face them. "Like a cake made of bitter, but you could pick the not bitter parts out if you're really careful." Buffy looked at him skeptically. "And if you're either particularly suicidal or you have a three hundred year old vampire standing right behind you offering to turn him into dust if he gets all evil, but it's probably smarter to just look at the whole cake and say 'evil.' But that doesn't mean the not-evil parts aren't there," Xander struggled to explain.

Buffy looked at Willow and Xander couldn't believe how desperate he was for them to understand what he was saying. Finally Buffy nodded. "Okay, I can live with that. So, Spike had not-evil streaks that still don't erase the fact that he was evil."

"Eating of people bad, and even if he did like poetry, he was still evil," Willow said, her mouth set in a firm line.

"Oh yeah," Xander agreed, "and he'd be the first to agree, well, except for the him liking poetry part which he would deny and probably just kill you over."

Willow made her scrunchy face.

"So, we're good?" Buffy asked.

"I'm good," Xander said. "Are you good, because there's a 'you' in there before there's a 'we.'"

Buffy nodded. "We're always good, Xand. And yeah, I said a bunch of things that I so shouldn't have that implied less-than-goodness, but that would be where my clue-liteness came in."

"Willow?" Xander asked uncertainly. She chewed her lip before she took a hesitant step forward. Xander opened his arms, and she came close and hugged him hard. Buffy wrapped her own arms around both of them, and Xander found himself struggling not to cry as both girls clung to him and made little close-to-crying sounds themselves.

Hearing them hug, Angel abandoned his post in the hall and headed toward the other side of town. He'd known that the girls would eventually take Xander back in. They were too smart to believe that Xander wanted or allowed Spike to kill Kendra. But if Giles wasn't on his best behavior, the friendship was just going to get torn apart again. The watcher was having a harder time getting over his stupidity, so it was definitely time for the adults to have a little conversation.

Angel waited in the shadows outside Giles' apartment for the man to get home. When the silver Citroen coughed its way to the curb, Angel stepped out from the shadows and waited. He could tell the moment Giles saw him. The man stopped just short of pulling a stake out, settling for clutching it in his pocket as he stood beside the car, obviously ready to jump back in.

"To what do I owe the displeasure of your company?" he asked tightly. Angel studied him trying to decide how to handle this. He wasn't particularly diplomatic and hadn't been in any of his incarnations: Liam, Angelus or Angel. However, this man had his head so far up his arse right now that Spike would disembowel him if he'd heard Xander cry even once. Spike might have forgone killing Kendra if he'd known how Xander would be blamed. Maybe.

"Xander and I are not to blame for Spike's actions," Angel started. He could see from the way Giles' face hardened that the watcher was not about to listen. Well, if he wasn't good at diplomacy, at least Angel knew where his strengths did lie. "And we are not to blame for your failure to protect her."

Giles went stiff. "Thank you ever so much for your insights," he said contemptuously.

"That's why you're blaming Xander, isn't it?" Angel asked as he moved forward. He enjoyed watching Giles twitch at his approach. At least the man wasn't foolish enough to assume Angel was harmless. "It wasn't his job to protect Kendra, it was yours."

"And I fulfilled my duties to the best of my ability," Giles said sharply as he slammed the car door and headed for his apartment. Angel stepped into his path and forced him to stop.

"Which wasn't good enough."

"I have no interest in your opinions, vampire."

"Is that why you didn't come to me with your hate?" Angel demanded. Giles attempted to step around him, but Angel shifted into his path again. "Or do you simply find it easier to attack seventeen year old boys?"

That got a response as Giles turned on him with fury in his gaze. "I simply told the boy a few obvious truths. If he chooses to see them as a condemnation or an attack, then he should reconsider his own actions."

"He's a child, and he couldn't control Spike any more than you could control Kendra. Only, it was your job to control Kendra, wasn't it?" Angel asked. He enjoyed the slow red color that spread through Giles' face.

"He's a fool," Giles said as he turned as though to go to his apartment, but his slow, mortal reflexes betrayed his true move. He dropped his bag and thrust out with the stake. Angel twisted to the side and grabbed the watcher's wrist with one hand and the back of the man's neck with the other. It only took one second to force him to drop the stake and slam him face first into the side of the apartment complex.

"So, now you show your true colors," Giles said with a low laugh that had nothing to do with humor.

"Yes, I do," Angel agreed as he stepped back and let Giles go. "Next time you feel like attacking a boy because of your failure, you remember this and how much worse this could have gone," Angel suggested.

Giles straightened his jacket before he turned around, and he had that same contemptuous look on his face. "You've bloodmarked the boy, haven't you? How long before he turns up dead and I have to counsel my slayer to kill him? Will you still claim the moral highroad then?"

Angel stopped, shocked into stillness for a moment. "I don't plan to ever kill Xander."

"Is that what Spike thought? I can't imagine why a master vampire like William the Bloody would be so protective of the boy. Not unless you care to claim he as a soul as well." Giles' glare dared him to try and make that claim.

"William has no soul, and he believes that I'll turn Xander, but that's because he doesn't understand how my soul changes me," Angel tried hard to not let the demon inside him come crawling out, but the anger and viciousness was right there under the surface struggling to emerge.

"So, you're the almighty champion? The one who allows the slayer to face the Master alone?" Giles sneered.

"Just like you did," Angel countered, and he could see the direct hit he'd scored with that comment. "We both want to protect Buffy, but I cannot understand why you feel such a need to attack Xander. Could it be because he has managed to do what you can't? Is it because he saved Buffy when you allowed both Buffy and Kendra to walk into their deaths?" Angel asked with a slow smile that made the darker parts of his soul thrill. He still had the power to torture people in the ways that truly counted. Giles was almost vibrating with rage.

"Xander has been corrupted by you and by your childer."

"Like Ethan Rayne corrupted you?" Angel asked, his smirk widening as he started to slowly circle Giles. He kicked the fallen stake into the far bushes. "Only Xander has never summoned a demon or acted in a way that put human lives in danger. The worst thing he's ever done is force me to watch Revenge of the Nerds, and you should appreciate his touch for torturing me. Only you don't. You blame him every time you are derelict in your duties."

"I blame him for being stupid and naïve."

"For being seventeen?" Angel asked. "Again, a shortcoming you once shared. Do you hate yourself so much, watcher? Do you truly think that if you, the grown man, simply blames a boy, you can escape that nagging guilt that gnaws on your soul with every failure?"

Giles had gone stone-faced, and Angel smiled because he didn't need human cues to know how badly he was hurting the other man. He could smell the misery and the fear rolling from his skin and gathering like mist.

"You've been training the girl, showing her the white magics that you can't touch since you're corrupted with your own taint of evil. I can smell that evil you know. You trained Kendra. You train Buffy. It's only Xander who you abandon and leave to the mercies of a merciless Hellmouth. Do you want him dead? Is that your way of trying to destroy yourself? Because if you want to die, if you truly hate yourself that much, I can bring death. I can even make you enjoy death, watcher, and I won't destroy some innocent bystander in the process.

"Xander is hardly innocent," Giles said, his voice brittle.

"Because you weren't at his age? Or because you can point to someone and say Xander caused the death of that person? Of course, if we are to count the number of deaths at a person's door, who would we count for you? Philip Henry? Diedre Page? Thomas Sutcliff? Kendra Young? Buffy Summers? That's quite the trail of bodies behind you. Of course, Xander saved Buffy and he tried to save Kendra, and maybe that's why you can't forgive him. Maybe that's why you hate me... because I've done a better job of protecting Buffy than you ever could."

"I hate you because you're a monster—a monster with the blood of hundreds on his hands," Giles quickly snapped as he came back to life.

Angel laughed, low and dangerous, and Giles clamped his mouth shut and his fingers twitched. Angel just kept right on laughing, this time at Giles' foolishness at believing that the vial of holy water in his pocket would protect him. "My demon has the blood of *thousands* on his hands, Rupert," Angel corrected the man. "But my soul has the blood of..." Angel thought about that for a second and then held up two fingers, "two innocent people. It seems that your soul has a longer trail of bodies behind it than mine. One more reason for you to feel your failure, watcher—one more reason for you to lie to yourself about why you really feel so much hatred."

Giles had again gone stone silent, his lips clamped tightly shut, and for a moment, Angel breathed in the smell of terror and guilt and had a nice little fantasy about torturing the man into honesty. His mind conjured images of what a chainsaw could do to human flesh. And suddenly Angel jerked himself backwards away from that smell and away from the sickening fantasy that had invaded his thoughts. This wasn't about torturing Giles; this was about making school safe for Xander.

"You would destroy Xander just because you want to destroy some part of yourself," Angel said as he redirected his thoughts back to his objective here. "You need to be honest with yourself and far more cautious about what you say to him before you do any more damage to a young man who has never done anything except try to protect the people he loves."

"Like you?" Giles spat out scornfully.

"No," Angel shook his head, "I'm the safe place where Xander hides from his parents and from you; I'm not someone he loves. He loves Buffy and Willow and Cordelia. And if you're too big of a fool to see that he has nothing but loyalty in his heart, I will snap your neck and hope the next watcher they send has more sense than you do."

Angel turned and walked away, leaping up onto a low wall and going around a corner before he doubled back to watch the aftermath of his meeting with the watcher. The man sat on the ground clutching a small bottle and looking as if he had aged at least ten years. Angel kept waiting for him to get up, but it was nearly an hour later before Angel abandoned his spot on the roof of the apartment, and Rupert Giles was still sitting in the flowerbed clutching his holy water and staring into space.

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