Title:   A Past Not Forgotten

Author:   angelspike69 & anamcara420

Rating:   NC17

Pairing:   Angel/Spike

Summary:   It's been 25 years since the events in the alley.  Who survived?

Spoilers:   There will be some slight spoilers from Not Fade Away, and then it goes totally AU as the screen went black.

Warnings:   M/M sex – if this isn't your cup of tea, then don't read.

Disclaimer:   Joss created the characters.  We're just playing with boys, and having lots of fun.

Distribution:   My Perfect Rhyme.  If you'd like to archive it, please ask.

Authors' Note #1:   Thanks to dragonydreams for answering our request for a beta.  You are fantastic.

Feedback:   AngelSpike69 (marinersgal69@msn.com) & Anamcara420 (ldelrossi@excite.com)

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Chapter 10

Angel woke slowly.  He had dreamed – mostly vicious nightmares of his past but – as the fog lifted from his mind, he remembered.  He remembered Spike; Spike dressed in his usual black.  Spike...no...Will. His voice soft, gentle.  "No professor.  It's Will.  I'm your student.  Let's get you to bed."  His scent...Spike's scent was ...everywhere in this room.  He blinked open his eyes and quickly shut them.  The lamp was glaring on his bedside table.  Sunlight filled the room from the west window.  Sunlight...sunlight.  For a moment the old fear of the sun roared awake, and then his mind began to work normally.  Necro-tempered glass!

Angel sat up abruptly and stared around the room.  It was his bedroom; his bedroom in New York.  He closed his eyes again and sniffed.  He didn't dream it.  Spike's scent...how could that be?  Other images flooded into his now conscious mind.  The member of the Fell Brethren...in the park.  Stabbing it over and over.  Cutting its head off.  Screaming at it like a madman and flinging it into the bushes.  Feeling Spike near-by as he fought the demon.  That couldn't be!  Spike.

He remembered drinking a lot of whiskey.  He remembered a blonde woman who sat uninvited in his booth.  He snarled at her and she hurried away.  He knew he left the bar but after that everything was shrouded in confusion.  He stumbled and Spike...no..."No professor it's Will.  One of your students.  Let me help you home."

Angel groaned and got up. A shower.  I've got to wake up...remember!  He was unsettled. He didn't remember forgetting everything because of drink, except of course, when he was human.  Liam often awakened in a field unable to remember how he got there.  Angelus...I drank a lot and could always remember.  The vampire walked into his bathroom and turned on the shower.  He undressed and entered the large stall.  He stood and allowed the jets to pelt his body with scalding water as images from the past cascaded through his mind.  The final scene in the alley repeated over and over.  Spike asking him about a plan.  "Well, personally, I kind of want to slay the dragon."  Proud.  Always proud...impressed with himself.  Only Spike...only Spike could make him see the truth...a fool...he was an arrogant fool...Angel, the champion of the Powers That Be.  Angel, the vampire with a soul expected to earn the shanshu.  How could I ever have believed that Angelus, the vicious scourge of Europe, would ever shanshu?  Angelus thought he was invincible until the gypsies...Angel...I knew I was not.

I wanted to fight the dragon.  Always what I wanted. I fought the dragon and didn't watch over Spike! I'm sorry...so sorry.  I let them kill you.  I turned...too late.  He staked Spike.  Then the image of the young man; the young man who looked like Spike pierced his thoughts.  "No Professor, it's Will...it's Will. I'm your student.  Let's get you to bed."

Angel forced himself out of his reverie and turned off the shower.  Wrapping a large, fluffy towel around his waist, he walked into his bedroom.  He went into the closet and dressed in house pants and a sweater staring at the small door to the attic.  Kneeling down, he opened the door and pulled out one of the boxes.  He sat for a long while sifting through the sketches and photographs of Spike.  Finally he returned the pictures to the box, closed it and shoved it back into the small space.

He stood and looked around helplessly.  It was so quiet.  Always so quiet now, except in his head.  His memories were always hovering at the surface, never letting him forget.  He just wanted to forget...if only for a few minutes...just a few minutes of peace.  Peace... Sióchain.  Suddenly he recalled a prayer that his mother had said to him every night when he was a boy.

Deep peace of the running waves to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace of the gentle light to you.
Moon and stars pour their healing light on you.
Deep peace to you.
Deep peace to you.

It had been more than two hundred years since he'd recalled that prayer; two hundred years since he'd murdered his mother, father and sister.  Why are all these memories returning now?  Had the sight of Will opened the doors that he had hoped would forever stay closed?

He shook his head and grimaced, remembering the angel who had suddenly appeared to him fifteen years ago in Ireland.  Dominic, who hadn't returned despite his assertion that he and the other Sióchain angels watched over him.  He could never have peace; not with the guilt that always haunted him.  The brutal memories he could never forget.  But how could he ever forget?  He'd killed so many.  He'd killed his friends; friends who trusted him.  He'd killed Spike...killed the one person who understood him...who, he hoped, would help to soothe his troubled soul.

With a cry and a heavy heart, Angel returned to his bed and started straightening the rumpled sheets and blankets.  That's when he saw it, hidden within the folds of the blankets...a strip of black leather.  He pulled at it and realized it was Spike's leather duster...his second skin.  Confused, he wondered why it was in his bed and not packed away in the attic with the rest of his keepsakes, especially the pictures of Spike.

Then he remembered.  He had taken the coat out of its box.  He remembered that before he left the apartment last night, he had folded it and placed it on his bed.  He sat and ran his fingers across the soft leather; breathing in the scent of Spike.  He started.  Someone with gentle hands had covered him with the duster as he fell into an alcohol-induced sleep.  Who covered him?  Spike?  No, not Spike.  He was dead.  It was Will...his student who looked so much like Spike.  How did Will know where he lived?  He remembered leaving the bar and...and Will was suddenly there helping him to walk.  He didn't remember telling him where he lived, he just seemed to know.  How did Will know where he lived?

His head was really starting to hurt with all the thinking and the confusing images.  Angel wrapped his arms around the coat, holding it tightly to his chest, trying to draw some comfort from it...trying to soothe his lonely, tortured soul.  He had to stop this.  It's Will...he looks so much like Spike...when Spike was still Will, a fledgling vampire. 

As he continued to think of Will, images of the younger man's concerned face filled his mind.  "No professor it's Will.  One of your students. Let me help you home."  Shaking his head as if to physically dislodge his painful thoughts, Angel went into the kitchen and heated some blood.  He drank two glasses hurriedly hoping that it would begin to alter the effects of the alcohol.  He walked into the living room and glanced at the enormous grandfather's clock that ticked just like a heartbeat.  It was 4:30.  He looked toward the huge window at the edge of the room.  Already the sunlight had faded leaving a dull grey sky, which was quickly seeping into blackness.  Darkness fell early in January in New York.  He forced himself to look over the papers he had to return to his students in class tonight.  They had groaned and complained when he reminded them they had a paper due at the second class meeting.  It was in the syllabus.  Their topic of the short paper was their opinion about the importance of art in the world.  The first paper revealed a lot about each student.  He grimaced.  Only two would be happy with their grades – Norah and...and Will...Will had left his paper in his mailbox at the faculty mail room since he wouldn't be in class.  He shook his head.  He did allow the students to rewrite their papers but only the ones truly interested in art would make the effort.  The rest, taking the class because it was a requirement, would be happy with their C's.  Peering at the clock again, he was startled to see how much time had elapsed.  He got up and walked into the kitchen to put his glass into the dishwasher and then went into his bedroom to dress for class.

Angel went into his closet and perused the stack of sweaters neatly arranged on his shelves. Ponce...you are a ponce...designer clothes. He heard Spike's voice clearly in his head.  The younger vampire had tortured him constantly with his snide comments as he waited impatiently for his arms to heal.  Angel had insisted that he stay in the spare bedroom in the penthouse for the first few days after he was released from the hospital.  Spike couldn't go back to his apartment until his arms healed a bit more.  Angel saw the two of them on the sofa.  Spike trying to teach Angel how to play one of the video games the doctor recommended as therapy.  He grinned as he remembered the look on Spike's face when Gunn and Wes arrived with the games and the terminal...or something... and the controllers that you used to maneuver the game.  Spike had been thrilled and the four of them had a pleasant evening drinking and playing the very difficult games.  At least, it was difficult for him.  He smiled a little when he remembered the taunting he had to take from the three of them, especially Spike. "You're a vampire Angel...s'posed to have great reflexes.  How come your fingers can't stay on those keys?" He had been chagrined that Gunn and Wes could play easily, although Wes was a little slow. 

Again, Angel pulled himself from his memories and grabbed a pair of slacks and a sweater.  He dressed, shoved his papers into his briefcase, grabbed his coat and left the apartment unmindful of the icy rain that had begun to fall.

****

Angel peered around the classroom searching. Will wasn't there.  Did something happen to him on the way home? He forced himself to focus.  He couldn't stop the class.  

"Someone get the lights and we'll see the slides.  They will be your introduction into the art of Greece and Rome."

Angel did not know how he got through the next two hours. As soon as the slides were finished, he let the students leave early, saying the icy weather was getting worse.  He was worried about Will.  Could he have been hurt?  No...more likely he's disgusted...He had to help me home?  His vampire constitution failed him.  He knew that he had finished two bottles of Jameson's.  He wasn't sure if he'd had more.  He left his briefcase in his office and walked out into the freezing rain. His shoulders hunched with sadness and concern; his thoughts racing.  I could break into the registrar's office to find out where he lives.  Make sure he's okay.

Angel stopped abruptly when he heard the Irish music.  His feet had taken him to McSorely's.  He had spent many hours there when he had arrived in New York in 1902.  John McSorely patterned the ale house after a public house in his native Ireland.  The old man hired him because he was Irish, but he insisted he bathe and gave him some clothes that his son no longer wanted.  He washed dishes late at night for a while until he had enough money to travel.  He could never stay long in one place; never allow anyone to befriend him.  When he returned to New York in 1940, he often spent nights in the bar until late, just before closing.  He listened to the brogues of the Irish patrons who often spoke Gaelic; the language that he had known long ago.  But it became too popular after Life magazine did a picture story about the historic ale house that had first opened in 1854 and he couldn't risk being around so many people.

He sat alone in his tiny apartment night after night.  Then, of course, he had been forced by the Demon Research Initiative to rescue a submarine filled with American sailors and Spike.  Spike climbing up the ladder.  "You're still a dick."  He never knew if Spike had made it to shore until he arrived in Sunnydale.  You are a dick.  You'll never make up for any of it.  So many dead.  Spike...Fred...Wes...Gunn...Cordy.

He pushed open the door and scanned the room.  He had been surprised when he returned to New York to find it barely changed; still run by members of the McSorely family.  It was modernized a bit, but the old bar remained; the walls even more crowded with pictures of the famous.  Of course now it was more of a "happening place."  And several times he had to pass it by because it was too crowded.  But fortunately tonight, a table way in the back was empty and he strode toward it as he nodded to the bartender.  A young man placed a bottle of Jameson's and a glass on the table and Angel paid him. He drank his whiskey and tuned out the lively chatter of the other patrons lost in more memories: his debauched life in Ireland, Darla, Drusilla, Spike, Buffy, Spike...

"Tráthnóna maith agat."  "Dia dhuit."

Angel lifted his head and stared, unnerved that he hadn't heard anyone approach.  He recognized the intruder and stiffened.  He snarled softly but harshly, "God has not been with me for a long time, if ever."

"Cén chaoi a bhfuil tú?"

"Fine. Why are you here?"  Angel responded harshly.

Dominic sighed and sat down uninvited.  "Sióchain, A leanbh na páiret."

Angel snarled again.  "Peace?  I'll never have peace and I'm not your dear child.  What do you want?  More cryptic messages for me?

Dominic frowned.  "Are you not well, Angel?  Have you not found a place at the university?"

Angel nodded, his face hard and angry.  "What do you want, Dominic?  I am not a champion anymore.  Why are you here now?"

The angel reached out and touched Angel's hand.  The touch made the vampire's hand warm and he withdrew it.  Dominic frowned slightly. "Do you remember what I told you in Ireland?"

"You said several things."  Angel answered.

"Did I not tell you that someone would come to you to ease your loneliness?"

Angel stared at Dominic and suddenly trembled.   He didn't answer the angel but he felt a flicker of hope intrude into his misery.  The Sióchain angel smiled.

"Spike...Will...my student...he looks like Spike." Angel responded haltingly.

Dominic nodded.  "Spike shanshued right after he died in the alley that night twenty-five years ago.  He was reborn as a human baby, and he grew up as William Tate in London.  He had dreams and nightmares for most of his life, but as he grew older, they became more explicit.  He wanted answers."  The angel smiled.  "He tortured Rupert Giles for information and read the watcher's journals.  He came to New York to find you and find out who he was."

For a long moment, Angel could not speak.  Spike.  It was Spike.  It was his scent.  I am not losing my mind.  Then he remembered.  "The watcher's journals tell of Angelus.  Why would he want to find Angelus?"

"Yes, he knows about the soulless Angelus and even who he was as Spike.  But some of his dreams revealed a tenderness from you and the watcher's journals told nothing of his time with you in Los Angeles."

Angel lowered his head and hissed angrily.  "A tenderness?  Angelus...I was rarely tender.  I beat him brutally and often.  I taught him to stalk and kill human beings.  In Sunnydale...He hated me...I...I didn't want him around when he returned as a ghost."

Dominic interrupted.  "All that is true, but after Fred died, you grew closer."

Angel had gone rigid when Dominic mentioned his lost friend.  "I don't want him...once he finds out..."  He stopped and lowered his head.  "He's better off with no connection with me.  I...everyone...dies.  He's alive now...he has a new life...a better life.  I have no place in his life anymore.  He's in the light now...human, while I still live in the darkness...a monster.  Spike died...because of me."

Once again the angel touched the vampire.  He sought to infuse Angel with hope, but his guilt blinded Angel to all the good he had done over the years.  Yes, he had been a vicious vampire. Yes, he'd still be if the gypsies had not forced his soul to return to his body.

"William has always been haunted by his dreams and nightmares.  He wants to know the truth about who he was.  He wants answers to his dreams.  Yes, he is often terrified by what he remembers, but he made the decision to come to New York.  To find out whom he was; who he is."

The angel paused and spoke again, looking into the vampire's eyes, willing him to understand.  "Angel, you signed away the Shanshu to bring down evil.  You succeeded, in part.  There will always be evil, but it is not just you who must fight it.  You gave up something precious to you. You made a sacrifice. You are not the only champion; only the most famous."  Dominic smiled but Angel did not return it.

The angel continued.  "You had hope in your heart.  Hope that you could make up for all your...for everything.  You've lived for a long time without hope.  Without hope you cannot be a champion and the Powers of Good still need a champion."

"I no longer work for the Powers.  I have no allegiance to anyone anymore."  Angel answered quietly but with obvious anger.

"Because you've lost hope."  Dominic looked deeply into the vampire's dark eyes.  "The young man will bring hope back into your life, but you must allow it.  Push aside a little bit of the guilt and allow hope to grow.  Spike sought his soul out of guilt, but he became a champion in Sunnydale.  He perished there willingly.  He made a sacrifice.  He returned to Los Angeles and died again at your side, willingly.  When you gave up the Shanshu, it went to him.  You will not receive humanity, but William will bring you peace."

Speechless, Angel stared at Dominic as he continued.  "William is curious but he is frightened and often repulsed by the images of his past.  He has a human heart now and it is fragile.  A door has been opened but there is no guarantee that William will choose to walk through to you. Can you risk rejection?  You also must choose.  Can you forget some of your guilt?  Can you allow this young man to come into your heart if that is what he wants?  Can you accept it if he chooses to leave? Can you bring him peace?  Will you allow him to bring you peace?  The opportunity is offered.  The outcome is not certain.  You both must decide and it will not be easy for either of you."

Dominic stood.  "I've brought you much to think about, Angel.  Sióchain."

Before Angel could respond, Dominic walked to the door.  He turned back, smiled and disappeared into the night.  Angel sat for a long time, remembering the angel's words; thinking about all that he had said.  Finally, he stood and walked home.  Although he was not ready to accept all that Dominic said; not ready to trust any Powers That Be, a tiny spark of hope continued to flame in his unbeating heart.

TBC