---

Dawn looked exhausted, and Angel was about to suggest that she should go up to bed when Wes and Gunn came in. Wesley was holding his glasses in his left hand, massaging the bridge of his nose with his right, while Gunn had a hand pressed gingerly to his right temple. Both zeroed in on the bottle of painkillers left out from Cordelia's use of them, and Wesley snatched them up first.

"Oh," Gunn said, "I suppose you get them first because you're the boss?"

"No," Wesley replied, tossing two tablets into his mouth and swallowing them dry before passing the bottle to Gunn. "I get them first because I hold the moral high ground. Your headache is all your own fault."

Angel looked back and forth between the pair. Spike, he could dimly sense, was outside in the courtyard; probably having a smoke after having to share his fun with a pair of humans. Or avoiding Angel. "I thought you weren't harmed."

Wesley snorted. "Oh, the demon never laid a claw on us. Spike, on the other hand..."

Angel was not entirely aware of leaping to his feet; he was caught up in an almost painfully complete sense of comprehension. Whatever showed on his face, though, it seemed to make Wes nervous. "Angel...?"

Angel held himself still. Spike was pacing. Spike wasn't avoiding him, Spike was awaiting him. As a good boy ought when he's done wrong. "Gunn. He hit you?"

Gunn lowered the hand, looking worried. "Yeah, but. It was no big thing, man. And that chip worked like a charm. His head probably hurts worse than mine right now."

"The chip," Angel said, heading for the doors, "is the least of his worries."

Wesley caught him up just before the doors, stepping in front of him. "Angel, strange as I feel saying this... You shouldn't blame Spike. Gunn was asking for it, literally. *I* was about to hit him."

Angel flicked a glance at Wes, then returned his attention to Spike, who stood in the far corner of the garden, staring at the wall. Angel could hear him breathing. "What Spike did had nothing to do with Gunn. He wanted to make me angry. And he succeeded."

He met Wes's eye for just a moment, and Wes backed away. Angel stepped out into the night, shutting the doors behind him with a quiet click. Spike immediately turned to face him, melting into an insolent slouch, mouth flat but eyes anticipating what was to come with a dark sparkle. Angel felt the scowl form easily on his face as he crossed the distance between them; slipping into the old role was so easy when there was a taste of real anger behind it. He curled his fingers into Spike's shirt and coat, getting a solid handful to shake him by, and drew him up close. "You know better than to touch what's mine."

Spike raised his chin a fraction, not defiant posturing but a baring of his throat. "M'not really sorry," he remarked, almost conversationally, and Angel jerked him up off his feet. He'd never been sorry. That was the way the thing played out, every time. But Angel had it in mind to make Spike, for once, take this thing seriously. Spike was going to be sorry when Angel was done with him, because Spike wanted Angel to make him so. Angel got it now.

He shook him a little, and drew him roughly against his own body, and even as he glared down into blue eyes staring up, even as he shaped the words he would speak in his mind, he thought about how different this was.

He could feel, tingling in his hands, and see, dancing before his mind's eye, exactly how Angelus would have handled such astonishing insubordination on Spike's part. He could have managed the thing, too. The hotel could easily yield up a paring knife, a length of rope, a vial of holy water, and a couple of stakes, in the time it would take Spike to go up to Angel's room and take his clothes off.

But Angelus hadn't known how to manage Spike, and Angel had a sneaking suspicion that the new improved version of himself had a trick or two Spike wouldn't be expecting. So he pressed his cheek along Spike's, and whispered the words into his ear. "You know, don't you, I could never make you behave when you didn't want to." Spike, as he'd expected, went perfectly still against him, not daring to pull away or even balance himself, just hanging from Angel's grip. Oh, yes. Spike remembered how they had both learned that lesson. "But if you want this, you're going to have to behave, Spike. You're going to have to be good." He drew back to gauge the effect this was having on Spike; he was staring up at Angel with an expression of horrified disbelief. Message received.

And then, just for the barest instant, Spike's attention wavered. Hard to say what it was that told Angel so–-his eyes stayed locked on Angel's, he didn't twitch a muscle--but it did, and Angel cast about for what had, at this most inopportune of moments, caught his child's attention.

*Dawn*. Now that he cared to think of her, he could hear her pounding pulse, smell her fear, ten yards away on the other side of the french doors. Angel came back to himself in a sick rush. Christ, what would she, what would they all, be thinking?

But he showed no uncertainty to Spike, awaiting his pleasure, at his mercy. "I want you to go inside, by another door," he growled. "I want you to find a corner to stand in, and I want you to wait for me there, and think about how much you want to make things right."

Spike gave the barest wide-eyed nod, and Angel released him; he stumbled backward, and gave a little scrambling half-bow as he hurried away to do as he'd been told. Angel, alone in the courtyard, buried his face in his hands for a moment, before feeling along his forehead to make sure he was fit for human company. With a fortifying breath, he opened the doors and stepped back inside. Dawn was standing there, looking poised to run, arms folded tight. She stared at Angel with wide blue eyes full of fear and betrayal, and even as he opened his mouth to offer some facile reassurance, she turned and fled.

Spike chose his spot quickly. Far enough from the lobby and the inhabited rooms that no distressing sounds should reach human ears, but not so far off or carefully chosen that he would seem to be hiding. Hiding would make it worse.

Spike pressed his fingertips against the walls that adjoined his corner, leaning his head against the plaster and trying to catch his breath. How had he forgotten that this was Angelus he was dealing with? Soul-leashed, maybe, but still and all the same demon, and wasn't that the point of the exercise? So easy for him, it only took a word or two to reduce Spike to this, huddling in the dark and trembling for him. But then he'd never dreamed that Angel, after all this time, would bring that up again, would ask him to do the one thing Angelus had never been able to demand of him.

He still remembered every torment he had endured, and later, when Angelus got cannier, every torment Dru had endured, for his defiance. But he had never dreamed of giving in, til now.

Dawn slammed through the door from the stairwell, her footsteps pounding down the hallway, loud in the silence. He could smell her fear; it was for him, and not unjustified, which made him feel a little sick. He couldn't decide whether he wanted her to find him or not, but waiting in a corner was an implicitly silent activity, so Spike kept still and left the thing to fortune.

She was at his side within a couple of minutes, and he turned his head to look at her face, the confused fear in her eyes. It had been a long time since he trusted anyone enough to be that shaken when they turned scary on him, but Spike remembered the feeling. "It's all right, Dawn."

"Is it?" The tears were close to the surface, in her voice, high and loud and rough. "Then why are you whispering?"

Shushing her would probably be counterproductive, no matter how his instincts screamed that she must be quiet, that they must both be quiet, and he had to think of something to say and he must not let her see him thinking of Tonio's left ring finger tapping the beats for that entire hellish night, even when Angelus had reduced the pinky beside it to a shapeless lump of mangled flesh.

Spike struggled to pull himself together, but he couldn't focus, on Dawn standing before him or on Angel, who must surely be coming for him soon. The door to this room stood open, so he would not burst through it with a great crash like he had that night long ago, startling Spike to silence, draining the color from Tonio's round cheeks. "Dawn, it's... He's just angry. It's nothing."

"Nothing? He... Spike, he'll hurt you, I saw his face and he's crazy."

"We're all crazy, Dawn. Demons are like that. But he's still got his soul, and that means you can trust him. If I thought Angelus were anywhere about, trust me, I'd be throwing you over my shoulder and heading for the hills. But it's all right. You're safe." He'd thought Tonio was safe, because Angelus had given him to Spike for a toy, and it was beneath his sire's dignity to pay attention to what Spike did with the human after that. All the hours that Tonio was dying, Spike thought about the fact that he could have made it quick and easy and painless, if only he'd had a proper fear of his sire, for the human's sake.

"Are you? Safe?"

Spike took a breath, trying to work out how to answer that question; No, but that's all right probably wouldn't reassure her much. "More than I used to be," he said, and, all right, that didn't work either, but he couldn't help it, Angelus was in his head, in a warm room, dim just like this, so that a human could only see enough to be more frightened, so that a vampire wouldn't be overly distracted by visual aesthetics when his medium was broken flesh, and sound.

And suddenly he was aware of Angel, not two rooms away. He went even more still, and said helplessly, "Dawn..."

"Reassure her, Spike," Angel said, his voice easily reaching the vampire's ears. "I don't want her to be more frightened than she has to be. Your punishment will wait til she's gone."

Spike took a steadying breath and squinted, focusing on the white-faced girl. "Dawn, have you ever seen my other face?"

She shook her head, looking baffled.

"But you know it's there, right? Bumpy fangy demon face. It's what being a vampire really is."

She nodded.

"It's like that, Dawn. What you're seeing between Angel and me, it's our demon face. We don't usually wear it in front of you, because it's scary and ugly, but it's there, it's always there. As long as you've known me and Angel, we've had demon faces underneath our human ones. Angel's not a different person than you thought, Dawn. He's still good, a champion like your sister. But when he has to deal with me, there's this other face he wears. That's all." Dawn didn't look like she believed that for a second, and Spike supposed it was less than reassuring to have that face suddenly visible when it had for so long been politely hidden.

"The point is, Dawn, I'll be all right. Angel's no cream puff, but he's not Glory, either, and I did well enough there." But that wasn't helping either. Dawn smelled even more scared, probably remembering now what Spike had looked like after Glory got done with him. He could smell her sweat, and suddenly he remembered the smell of that room, Tonio's blood running rich with fear and pain, sweat and piss and worse, wet leather and spilt wine, and the smells would have choked him if so much did not depend on the perfection of every breath, but Spike coughed now, in memory. When the spasm passed, Dawn was still standing there, staring at him, and she reached out, sliding a hand under the collar of his duster, curling her fingers over his shoulder. "I'm scared, Spike. Please. I'm scared."

He didn't want to say it, but he'd tried everything else. If he said it, then it would be out there, it would be true, and then there would be no going back and no refusing, but Dawn was so scared and he had to say something. Had to reassure her, like he'd been told. He shrugged out of the duster, wrapping it around her as best he could, since she wouldn't let go of him. He pressed his forehead to hers, and whispered. "Listen to me, Dawn. He's not going to do anything I don't want him to. I know that. All of this, it's all what I want. I know it's weird, but... I need him. I need this." *Need somebody to keep me in line, need somebody to make me what your sister might've wanted me to be. Somebody to keep me from becoming the thing that sat in the dark at my side, killing Tonio.*

Dawn looked... still horrified, actually, but she was starting to get it. Her fingers relaxed a little from their death grip on his shoulder.

"I'll scream," he added, for good measure. "If it's too much I'll scream, and you can grab the boy detectives and come running, all right?" He pulled her hand from his shoulder, squeezing it gently before he let go. Dawn dropped her gaze all at once, chin to chest, and clutched the coat around her.

"Promise?"

"Promise."

She nodded quickly, stole one more wide-eyed glance at him, and then walked out, breaking into a run when she reached the hallway.

Spike rubbed his bared arms, knowing perfectly well that the chill he felt had nothing to do with relinquishing his coat. He turned to face the corner again, no leaning this time, chin up, eyes straight ahead, hands at his sides. When he could no longer detect Dawn's heartbeat, he heard the door close behind him with a quiet click.

The waiting was over.

Angel's steps crossing the room were easily audible in the silence, so Spike knew the exact moment when Angel came to stand directly behind him. Angel turned him to face straight-on to a wall, and then said quietly, "Hands up, flat on the wall, head-height."

Spike obeyed.

"Which hand was it that offended me?"

Spike hung his head, not eager to see what came next. "The right," he said, quiet but clear, so that he would not be made to repeat himself.

Angel's left hand settled over the nape of Spike's neck a bare instant before he threw the punch. His fist was so perfectly on target that Spike barely felt the actual impact against the base of his hand; that sensation was almost entirely overwhelmed by the explosion of white fire engulfing his arm from his fingertips to his shoulder. He made no attempt to stifle the sob that broke from his throat, and leaned hard against his still-braced left hand. Angel stayed still a moment, close behind him but not quite touching, and then his left hand slid down from Spike's neck and around him, drawing Spike back against his body. His right hand slid down Spike's right arm, drawn up in wracking pain. His hand closed over Spike's wrist, and his strong, nimble fingers began pressing, here and there against bone and nerve, and Spike went limp against him, biting his lip to hold back any sound as Angel's ministrations alternated ease of the crippling pain and its sudden and complete return.

Angel's face pressed against his hair, and his lips brushed Spike's ear as he whispered. "You struck a human under my protection, and for that you have been punished. But you also forgot your place before me, defied the proper order, and for that I shall not punish you. For that you must atone."

Spike shuddered. He had thought that Angelus would force him to kill Tonio, that night, but he was crueler than that. If he had ordered Spike to do it, he would have obeyed to the letter, and snapped the human's neck before he even knew he was in danger. Instead, Angelus had killed Tonio himself, and Spike's punishment had been to watch, to stay by Tonio's side.

"There's a bar, called Caritas. I'll take you there. It's a haven for demons, no violence of any kind permitted. The host can read the futures of those who sing for him. You will choose a song, Spike, and you will sing for me."

*Give him one last lesson then, singer*. The only words Angelus spoke that night, but Tonio and Spike had done as they were bidden, Tonio tapping out the beat and coaching Spike through his scales, and then drawing him on through every bar of music he'd been taught, even after Angelus had deprived him of his voice. More than eight hours, and Spike had sung without pause for his singing-master, and Tonio had kept him steady on til the last beat of his heart.

And after that, no matter what he did, his sire could never compel Spike to sing in his presence.

But this was not Angelus at his back. Tonio's suffering was long since over, and more than anything, Spike needed to belong in these arms. Another long breath, and Angel's touch was now slowly, slowly, easing the pain radiating from his wrist, so that the tortured muscles of his arm loosened. He steadied his legs, and lifted his head.

"As you will, then. Sire."

Dawn slowed to a walk as she approached the stairs down to the lobby. She jammed her hands into the coat's pockets and wiped her eyes, trying to find a sane expression to plaster onto her face. She could hear Cordy's voice, then Gunn answering. His voice, too low for her to make out the words, cut off as she came into sight of them. Gunn just stared up at her, and Cordy and Wes turned to watch as well. Dawn fixed her eyes on her feet, pulling out one hand to hold on to the railing and bunching the other around a handful of lining and leather. Nobody made a sound as Dawn walked to the bottom of the stairs and crossed to the couches to take the place where she'd been sitting before Wes and Gunn came in, before Angel jumped up and everything went crazy.

She risked another look up and they were all staring at her. As she pulled the coat tighter around her, she realized how strange it had to look to them, her coming back in Spike's coat. "Spike said not to worry," she volunteered, if only to stop them all looking like they expected her to burst into hysterics, or drop dead, at any second. "Unless we hear him screaming."

They all looked about as reassured as she felt, which was strangely comforting. Cordelia moved to sit right next to Dawn, but didn't try to hug her or anything, which was good. Dawn still wasn't sure about not bursting into tears in the next few minutes. When Spike said 'complicated'... she hadn't imagined this. She hadn't imagined anything, really. She'd thought it was cute. She felt stupid and small and helpless now, knowing.

She looked over at Cordelia, who was staring at her hands, folded in her lap. "Do you remember the first time you talked to me?"

Cordelia looked up with a little smile. "Hiding in a broom closet for three hours while Spike tried to kill Buffy? Yeah, it sticks with me." Dawn nodded. "You didn't try to tell me everything would be okay, then, either." *That bumpy-faced guy is trying to kill your sister, and if he finds us, he'll kill us, too. So be quiet.* But Cordelia had placed herself between Dawn and the door, as automatically as Willow, and sat calmly, just like this, like they taught you about waiting out vampiric crises in charm school. It was reassuring in a way that words couldn't be.

Dawn was glad for the continuing silence, tense though it was. She couldn't help listening for the sound of Spike screaming, or any sound, really, to tell her what was going on. She tried not to imagine what Angel might do to Spike, but she couldn't block out the whispers she'd overheard, years ago, about Angelus.

And then she glanced up and there they were, coming down the stairs. Angel had his coat on, and Spike was following him, one step behind. He had his arms folded. His left hand was rubbing at his arm like he was cold, but his right hand stayed still. No blood though, no bruises, no limp. He looked... okay. Like he'd been yelled at, and kind of nervous, but okay.

Everybody watched them walk down the stairs, just like they'd all watched Dawn. Spike stopped at the bottom, but Angel kept walking, coming toward them. He had one of those inscrutable Angel expressions, but the way his eyes flickered over all of them as he came closer made Dawn think he was sort of nervous. To her surprise, he didn't say anything to his friends, didn't even really look at them, but came and crouched right in front of her. "Dawn," he said quietly, looking down and then back up. "I'm sorry I scared you like that. I told you I wasn't going to put you in an awkward position with me and Spike again, I told you we wouldn't fight, and I screwed up. I didn't think how you would feel about this. I'm sorry."

Dawn could feel that her mouth was open, and closed it, just nodded a little. Over Angel's shoulder, it looked like Wes and Gunn were wondering what alternate universe they'd just fallen into, so at least she wasn't the only one.

Angel went on. "I'm going to take Spike out to a place called Caritas, now." He glanced toward Cordy. "They can tell you, it's a safe place. No trouble of any kind. But I want to know that you're okay with it. You can come along, if you want, if that will make you feel better, or just say the word and we won't go at all."

Dawn blinked. She'd never quite understood before about Angel being two different people, but, God. He was looking up at her, totally sorry, and she turned and looked back at Spike, who gave her a sort of semi-encouraging smile. He still looked kind of nervous, and cold, but he didn't seem to need rescuing.

"No," she said finally. "It's okay. I just..." She got up, and Angel moved back to give her room as she brushed past him and went to Spike. When she was standing in front of him, she took off the coat and handed it back to him. "You look like you need this more than I do."

He gave her a genuine smile as he put it on, and ran a self-conscious hand over his hair. "Ta."

When Dawn turned around again, Angel was standing near, watching them. Dawn raised an admonishing finger. "Have him home by his bedtime, now."

Angel smiled. "Yes, ma'am."

Angel was relieved to find Caritas nearly empty. Spike had been silent on the ride over, but seemed to be relaxing in the face of the inevitable. Angel had thought, for a moment there, that he would refuse, that he had pushed too hard, asked too much, but so far, Spike seemed willing enough. He supposed his child's choice of song would be... instructive.

He kept his hand on the small of Spike's back as they walked in, and steered him to a table near the freshly-repaired stage. There was tinned music playing, a few demons at the bar and a few others at tables. Lorne was working what crowd there was, but spotted Angel and Spike within a couple of minutes and walked over as they were still standing by the table. "Angel, sweetcheeks, good to see you! And who's your friend?"

Angel gave Lorne a smile. "Lorne, this is Spike. Spike, Lorne. Spike's going to sing for you tonight, if that's all right."

Angel felt some small, and entirely evil, amusement at the slightly too-enthusiastic smile on Lorne's face. "Hey, great!"

"Spike? Remember what I told you about Lorne?"

Spike was watching the host with obvious wariness. "Yeah. Look, whatever you see, you just tell him, right? I don't have secrets."

Well, that was interesting. He'd been going to ask for Spike to say exactly that, but he hadn't expected him to come out with it on his own. "The list of songs that are available is over there," Angel said, nodding off to one side of the stage. "Why don't you go choose something."

"Just let the bartender know when you're ready," Lorne added, "He'll get you set up."

Spike nodded, gave Angel an extra little look to make sure that he was dismissed, and headed off.

Angel sighed, turning to Lorne and meeting his curious look. "It's... a long story."

Lorne glanced around. "Well, I'm not exactly being dragged in six directions at once, big guy. Why don't you tell me about him? It'll make the read easier. He's a vampire, I picked up that much."

Angel sank into a seat, and Lorne followed suit. Angel rubbed at his face, feeling suddenly weary, the last few hours catching up with him all at once. "He's... mine. I'm his sire. He tried to kill me a couple of years ago."

Lorne glanced over at where Spike's back was visible as he hunched over the catalogue. "But now..."

"Now." Angel stared at the tabletop. "He fell in love with Buffy," Angel said. "And... Buffy died." He glanced up, and Lorne gave him a sympathetic look. Angel felt almost dizzy again with the sense of free fall that came with knowing Buffy was gone. He looked quickly to Spike, steadying himself by the sight of that familiar form. "Spike had been helping her, especially right before. What they were up against... no human had a chance, they needed him, mainly to protect Dawn, Buffy's sister. Spike..." Angel had never gotten a complete story from anyone in Sunnydale while he was there; bare outlines from Willow the night she'd come to tell him, and a stray comment here or there, but they didn't want to talk, and he didn't dare press. "I don't know what happened, exactly, but obviously something went wrong."

He watched Spike flip pages for a moment, trying to sort out the threads of this very long story, and started again. "After I got my soul, I was... lost... for a long time. Finally, this guide came to me. He told me I had a purpose, and Buffy was it. Helping her. Even after I had to leave her, after I came here, I always felt like she was my purpose, my guiding star. I could never touch her, but I could look toward her and find my way. When Willow told me she was dead, I didn't know what I was going to do. With everything that's happened... I felt like I was cut off from everything, like I'd lost everything, not just her. I wanted to run, just get away from everything I knew. But I had to go up for the burial. Spike was there." Angel felt a wry smile cross his face. "Drunk out of his mind. But I could see, he felt as lost as I did. Buffy had been his star too. We ended up fighting, but, God, it was just like old times.

"Dawn wasn't doing too well either; Buffy's the only family she had. Even with everybody else there for her... I told her if she needed me I'd be around. And that's the only reason I didn't take off, in case she needed me. Then she turned up yesterday, with Spike, and... I think they need me, Lorne. And I think I need them."

Angel looked up uncertainly, to see what the demon was making of all this. He looked fascinated. "So, you and Spike, you're... what, exactly?"

Angel sighed. "That's the question of the hour."

Just then, Spike moved away from the catalogue, toward the bartender, who scribbled something on a scrap of paper and waved him toward the stage. Angel suddenly wished desperately for a drink, or one of Spike's cigarettes. Something to do with his hands, at least.

Lorne scooted his chair around slightly, the better to face the stage, and Angel did likewise. He couldn't take his eyes off Spike, who leapt up to the stage in a flare of leather. The music from the speakers cut off, and a voice encouraged the crowd, such as it was, to turn its attention to Spike. Angel forced himself to keep still as Spike, every inch of attitude firmly in place, slunk up to the microphone stand and wrapped his hands around it, sinking into a posture Angel remembered well. It looked like every joint in his body was bending, made him shorter, entirely composed of sultry impossible curves. He kept his head down until the music started, a single chord and then Spike's eyes were pinning him in place and that voice he hadn't heard in so very, very long was washing over him, sounding like darkness and sweetness and reawakening that sense of awful joy that he had tried to forget. "I know I've got a bad reputation, and it isn't just talk, talk, talk. If I could only give you everything..."

Angel had never heard the song before, but it seemed made for Spike's voice, made for this moment. Spike's eyes were dark with some emotion Angel didn't want to recognize, and his... oh, God. His hands were wrapped around the microphone, but one finger, the left ring finger, rose and fell in perfect time, keeping the beat. All at once Angel felt truly sick at what he was making Spike do, because however horrified he was at what Angelus had done to that opera singer who'd taken up too much of his child's attention, Spike had to be remembering it with perfect clarity now, and without even the thin comfort of 'that wasn't really me.' It had been Spike, this same Spike who stood before him now, who suffered through that night. Angel would have called the whole thing off at that instant, if he could only have moved.

"...years disappear below my feet, been breaking down, do you want me now? Do you want me now?" And on that line, Spike rocked forward a little, intent gaze turning pleading to match that entreating stance, and Angel raised a clenched fist to his mouth. Message received, loud and clear.

Angel was faintly conscious of Lorne, at his side, looking absolutely transfixed. He wondered if that meant Spike's future was really engrossing, or just that Lorne couldn't believe that anyone who had anything to do with Angel could actually carry a tune.

There was a break in the lyrics, and Spike dropped his gaze, swaying with the music, pure seduction, pure submission. Angel tried to catch his breath, and then those eyes were back. "Don't try to be an inspiration, just wasting your time, time, time. You know about the best I'll ever be, see it in your eyes."

Angel wanted to shake his head, deny that, but Spike might take it for disapproval, so he only pressed his hand harder to his mouth, and drank it in, trying to impress every image, every note, every syllable on his memory, because he was never, ever, going to ask Spike to do this again.

"Do you want me now? Do you want me now? Don't you think I've heard the talk?" Pulling the mike smoothly from the stand, Spike sank to his knees, his eyes never wavering from Angel's. "Nobody's going to tell me who to love, been breaking down, do you want me now? Do you want me now?"

Angel couldn't bear it anymore, the pleading, the hopeless helplessness thinly veiled in stage presence and black leather. He lowered his hand and nodded, a response and a release. Spike dropped the mike and jumped down from the stage, making for the bar as the background music played on.

Angel turned his face away and scrubbed at his eyes a moment before looking to Lorne. Lorne was still staring at the empty stage, but after a few seconds he turned to Angel. "Are you sure he's yours?"

Angel rolled his eyes, smiling as some of the tightness in his chest slowly eased. It was over. He'd asked more of Spike than he had any right to, but it had worked, and now it was over. "He had lessons."

Lorne blinked. "Angel, darling, he re-keyed the entire song to suit his voice. Probably off the cuff. That's amazing. I've gotta ask him if he'll come in again sometime."

Angel shuddered. "As long as I don't have to be here." Lorne looked a little weirded by that, but Angel waved it away. "What did you see?"

Lorne vented a sigh. "I saw a lot. You... wanted to know about you and him, about what's going to happen with you two?"

Angel nodded slowly. "Just tell me what you think I should know."

"You two are going to be okay. It's not... It's going to be rough, Angel, there's going to be a lot of... stuff. I think you know. You're not going to ride off into the sunset together. But you won't desert each other, either."

Angel turned that one over, looked at it from a couple of different angles. "So Spike... he's going to be okay? He's going to be happy?"

Lorne grimaced. "Yeah, your boy'll do all right."

Angel looked over toward the bar, where Spike was hunched on a barstool. Angel could see him shaking. "Could you... go tell him that?"

Lorne followed the direction of Angel's gaze, and turned a merciful smile on him. "Sure thing, sugar."

Spike slumped onto a barstool. The bartender headed for him, and before he could make the almost inevitable offer of nice fresh human blood, Spike growled, "Whiskey. Neat." The barkeep was a good one; just nodded and went to fetch a glass. Spike stared at the bar, pressing his hands, flat and above all still, on its surface. He could feel the sweat beginning to dry all over his body, and felt glad for the duster, which let him look like something other than an utter sopping coward. The bartender returned with a glass, and, with a measuring glance, set down the bottle within reach and moved away.

Spike downed the first, so quickly it might have been weed killer for all he tasted of it, and poured a second. He wrapped his hands around this one and rolled it back and forth, watching the liquid slosh and remembering that little nod. He'd felt like his heart was going to burst. Angel said yes. Angel said yes. Spike raised the glass to his lips, using both hands to steady it, and swallowed it down, only marginally slower than the first.

As he reached for the bottle to refill his glass, Lorne appeared at his side. "I think you're doing it backward," he remarked. "You're supposed to have stage fright beforehand."

Spike allowed himself a smile at that, and Lorne smiled easily back and sat down on the next stool. "So," Spike said. "You see the future whenever somebody sings for you, that how it works?"

Lorne nodded.

Spike thought of Dru, and Cordelia. "That ever make you happy?"

Lorne seemed startled by the question, and paused before answering. "I'm able to help people by it, sometimes," he said finally. "But, no, it's not always a cakewalk."

Spike looked back to his drink, and nodded. "I don't want to know," he said quietly. "Whatever you saw... I don't want to hear it." His glass was still empty. Ought to do something about that. He raised the bottle, tilting it and gauging its contents, wondering how much he'd have to drink to just pass out. That would be nice.

"I won't say anything, then," Lorne said, getting to his feet, "but... put your trust in Angel. He won't let you down."

Spike looked up at him. "One thing."

Lorne nodded.

"What you see... can it change? Or is it always the same as it starts?"

Lorne smiled, a little sadly. "Everything can change, Spike."

Spike nodded, and refilled his glass. After a minute, Lorne left him to himself.

Angel calculated that he'd caught Spike about two drinks short of completely losing consciousness. The blond leaned heavily against him as they made their way through the night-quiet hotel, arms looped loosely around Angel's waist, his stumbling feet somehow never quite tripping them up. Angel was making for his room, and bed, when Spike suddenly stopped short in the middle of the hallway.

"What is it, Spike?"

He rubbed his head against Angel's shoulder for a moment, before lifting his face to speak. "Gotta check on my girl, see she went to bed."

Angel considered pointing out that it was obvious all the humans had turned in for the night, or that Dawn had clearly been headed for bed since well before they left, or that they could both hear her, sleeping serenely in her room, from where they stood. But Spike was in no position to be swayed by logic. Swayed by gravity, yes, but not logic. Angel shifted his grip on Spike and aimed them toward Dawn's room.

"We'll have to be quiet," he murmured, "I'm sure she's sleeping."

Spike nodded, head once again nestled against Angel's shoulder. "Just gotta see."

Dawn's doorway was the first they'd managed to pass through without anyone kicking anything since Angel dragged Spike off his barstool. Angel guided Spike to the side of her bed, and stared down at the sleeping girl. The sight was strangely familiar, and it took him a moment to remember, creeping into Buffy's house, tickling at Dawn's nose til she shifted in her sleep to just this perfect pose of innocent slumber before he took out his sketch pad and drew her portrait, considering with every pencil line how Buffy would know he'd been right here...

Dawn, now as then, slept on undisturbed by the monsters beside her bed. Angel turned his gaze to Spike. "Come on," he whispered, "we should get to sleep." But Spike, perfectly balanced between Angel's shoulder and the lullaby of Dawn's heart, was already there.

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end 5/6