The phone would not stop ringing. Buffy tried to ignore it, after cracking open one eye and seeing the luminous glow of her clock proclaiming it was 1:00 in the morning. She knew it was not an emergency as far as Giles or the crew was concerned, because she now carried a small pink pager with her wherever she went. Buffy had brought the idea up to Giles about six months ago, and he had looked doubtfully at the small device.

"I’m not quite familiar with the workings of one of those."

She rolled her eyes at him. "*You* don’t have to be familiar with it. I carry it with me and when you need me, you just call the phone number and it beeps. Or vibrates." Buffy grinned. "I like the vibrating part."

Conceding reluctantly, her Watcher had admitted to the benefits of the pager, and he had liked the fact that she could be reached at any time. Therefore, Buffy grumbled to herself, whoever was on the phone was not looking for her services as Slayer.

She reached over and snatched the phone from the cradle. "Hello," she sighed.

"Buffy?" A voice, impatient and exasperated.

"Hmmm?" she yawned, already her eyes closing again.

"It’s Cordelia."

Cordelia. Buffy’s eyes flew open and stared at her ceiling. Interestingly enough, hearing Cordelia’s name did not bring forth the image of her face. Instead, Buffy thought immediately of strong, male hands, dark haunted eyes, lips that...

"Buffy!" Even more impatient.

Buffy blinked once and focused. "Yes, Cordelia?"

"I need your help. Well, not me, really. But your help is definitely needed."

She sighed in irritation.

"What kind of help?" She didn’t want to help. She wanted to sleep.

"Look, can you just come here? It’s not explainable."

"*Come* there? It’s one in the morning."

"God, don’t I know it," Cordelia groaned. "I’ve been up for an hour already with him."

Him? "With...with...him?"

"God, I hate babysitting drunks. I won’t do this anymore, it’s been every other night now for at least a month. He doesn’t pay me enough. Get your ass here and see if you can do something with him."

Drunk? Every other night? This was too confusing for Buffy to process. "Ok," she agreed groggily. "I’ll come."

"Thank God," Cordelia snapped. "Hurry the hell up." And with that, the connection was broken.

Ah, Cordelia. Good to know that in this ever changing world, she would always stay the same, Buffy thought as she sleepily pulled on a pair of shorts and a t shirt.

*****

The drive to Los Angeles was quick when there was no one on the freeway. Buffy left the radio off and the trip was silent, only the hum of the tires on the pavement echoing inside her car. The silence let her think better, let her process slowly where she was actually going. She had not asked Cordelia where here was when the girl had demanded she come. That would have been fooling herself into thinking she didn’t know where Cordelia was, when all along Buffy knew perfectly well.

Angel’s.

When he had mailed her a single letter after he had left Sunnydale, inside the short note he had included his address and phone number. Buffy had never used either one, but she had looked up the address on a map and promptly memorized it. She had never actually driven the route until now. She knew that Cordelia shared the place with him, Angel had taken her in out of sympathy for her lack of funds. Buffy also knew that Cordelia worked with Angel, and that was as far as the relationship went. She thought. She hoped.

And here she was, at two o’ clock in the morning, looking dubiously up at a stately brick building. His apartment was on the second floor of the two-story complex. The remnants of the earlier phone conversation flitted through her mind: "...I hate babysitting drunks..."

Drunk? She couldn’t have meant Angel. Angel had never even taken a drink of so much as cough medicine in the entire time she had known him. Angel didn’t drink.

A faint sound of glass crashing snapped her out of her reverie and sent her on the run toward the building.

*****

She followed the shouting.

Growing more and more apprehensive with every step, she traced the noise to the corner apartment at the end of the hallway. Knocking tentatively, Buffy received no answer, and the ruckus inside continued. Glancing anxiously back down the hallway, she wondered how long it would be until the other apartment doors began opening and curious heads poked out. Spurred on by that thought, she pounded hard on the black painted door.

The shouting ceased, followed by a door inside the apartment slamming so hard that Buffy felt the vibration.

Then the door in front of her was jerked open and Cordelia stood there, furious. Buffy had never seen her looking so disheveled. Her brown, usually shining hair was brushed impatiently back from her face, a few wayward strands floating about. Her cheeks were flushed and her chest was heaving, and if Buffy didn’t know better, she would think that Cordelia had just had a good tumble in the hay.

"Finally," Cordelia fumed, turning and walking back into the apartment. Buffy followed cautiously, her mind wanting to take in every nuance, every bit of Angel’s apartment, but too curious about the "emergency" to do so at the moment. A smashed liquor bottle on the kitchen floor, fumes wafting from it, vaguely registered in her mind. She watched apprehensively as Cordelia pounded on a closed door. "Angel!" Cordelia shouted.

From the other side of the door, Buffy heard Angel groan. "Go away!"

"Open the fucking door!"

Buffy’s eyes widened at the use of profanity. It seemed that some things about Cordelia were not the same. A year ago she never would have used language like that. It would have been beneath her.

"Go FAR away!" Angel yelled.

Ohhhh, his voice....that smooth, quiet voice...Buffy was alarmed to find tears threatening the back of her throat. It had been so long, and she’d missed him so much...the only picture she kept in her mind was Angel standing among the ruins of the failed Ascension, pleading with her across the distance to understand, and to accept, and to forgive.

She had not been able to do any of those things. He had left her, and she had died a little.

Muttering, Cordelia brushed past Buffy into the spacious kitchen, and withdrew a paper clip from a drawer. She returned to the door and bent over the lock, concentrating. Buffy arched an eyebrow. Cordelia, picking locks?

After a minute, there was a small popping sound from the lock mechanism and Cordelia gingerly tried the door handle. The doorknob turned easily and Cordelia left it that way, the door open a mere crack. "There," she proclaimed. "He’s all yours. God, please do something with him, or the next time he wakes me up like this I’ll wait till he passes out and dump him outside for a sunbath." And with that, she proceeded to leave the room.

Buffy stepped in front of her, eyeing her strangely. "Wait just a second. You wake me up in the middle of the night, you won’t tell me anything on the phone, I drive for an hour to get here, and all you can say is ‘please do something with him’? What...what’s going on here? Why is he like that?" Buffy gestured in the direction of the now-unlocked bedroom from where not a sound was heard.

Cordelia blew a strand of hair from her face and sighed dramatically. "He’s always like that these days," she informed Buffy, who was alternating glances between Cordelia and the unlocked door. "At least three or four times a week." She shook her head and looked with disgust at the broken bottle in the kitchen. "He drinks. He comes to work. Doyle brings him back home, where he drinks some more. He usually breaks something, which wakes me up, so I get up and try to sober him up, which makes him mad and he drinks even more. Sometimes he does the whole drunk sobbing thing, sometimes not. But it’s always about you. Every damn drunken binge is about you."

"Me! How do you know that?" Buffy forced the words out over the still threatening tears.

Cordelia looked bored now, and she yawned. "He babbles endlessly about you when he’s smashed. Refuses to mention your name when he’s sober. It’s like you don’t exist when he isn’t drinking, but whoo boy, as soon as he gets that liquor in him, out comes the whole Buffy saga. Mumbles about the curse, that whole thing, on and on and on. God, it was old after the first night. Can I go to bed now? He probably won’t give you any trouble."

Buffy wrinkled her brow in distress, ignoring Cordelia’s question. "The curse...he talks about the curse?"

"Oh, yeah. Over and over again."

"That curse is killing him," Buffy said softly, sadly.

"Oh, there’s no curse," Cordelia said airily.

Buffy lifted her eyes to Cordelia’s brown ones. "Yes, there is," she said slowly, but Cordelia shook her head.

"Nah, that whole thing was overwith before he left Sunnydale." She looked pointedly at the kitchen clock.

A small bit of panic broke off from the rest and welled up into Buffy’s throat. "Cordelia," she said clearly, "what do you mean, overwith?"

"I mean, overwith! Can you keep up, please? It’s gone, there’s no curse anymore. No more scary Angel monsters."

"Bef...before he left Sunnydale?"

"Right. He didn’t tell me till later though, and of course he was blubbering like a drunk idiot at the time. Did you know vampires cry blood? That’s just...ick."

Buffy made her way to the nearest chair and lowered herself into it weakly.

"What did he say, exactly?"

"Oh, I don’t remember all of it. Just that before he left, that little demon, what’s his name...Walrus? Wellman?"

"Whistler," Buffy said dully.

"Riiiiight, Whistler. Whistler came and told him there was no curse anymore. He told him why, too, but at the time Angel was doing the let’s-get-wasted-and-share thing and I just wasn’t that interested, especially since I was wearing white and trying to keep the damn blood off my suit."

"No curse," Buffy repeated, trying to understand it. "No curse...and he still left me?"

Cordelia let out another bored sigh. "You two sound exactly the same. From what I’ve gathered from the lush in the other room, he’s started drinking to escape the fact that he left you. He just goes on and on about making a mistake that he couldn’t fix, it was for the best, blah blah. But now...you’re here! So it will all be fine and I’m going to bed right now and pleeeeeeease don’t let him try to use the microwave like he did the other night. He tried to heat some blood...ick, again...and he dumped it into a metal pot and stuck it in there. Nearly burned the damn place down. God, if he doesn’t get it together soon..." Buffy could hear her mumbling as she left the living room.

Buffy swung a frightened gaze toward the closed door. If she were going to help him, she couldn’t think about what Cordelia had so casually told her. She could not dwell on the fact that Angel had known that his soul was bound to him, yet he chose to leave her. If she did think about that, Angel would definitely be in more danger from her than from anything he found in a bottle.

Rising determinedly from the chair, she headed for the closed door. Easing it open slowly, she poked her head carefully into the room. Her eyes took in the dark furnishings that were accented with silver, everything very modern looking and all of it black. The furniture was sparse, yet the room did not look bare. Her gaze was drawn to the immense bed in the far corner of the bedroom, and there, lying in a sodden lump, was Angel.

Buffy stepped all the way into the room and the smell of alcohol assaulted her. Wrinkling her nose, she tentatively crossed the floor to the bed, wary of the man lying so still. When she reached him, she drew her bottom lip between her teeth and took a breath.

He was half naked, his shirt discarded over the bedframe, and his pants unzipped just enough for her to see the flat muscles of his lower abdomen disappear into his pants. He lay with one arm over his stomach, the other arm flung out beside him, his face turned away from hers. Buffy focused in on his chest, the pectoral muscles so well-formed, the flat, coppery nipples. She wanted to touch one. Her stomach fluttered at being so near him again, at being so close to his nakedness, and her finger reached out of its own accord to—

"Buffy," Angel slurred, and she started, snatching her hand back. He lay watching her, his eyes bright with drink, his normally pale cheeks flushed slightly with the alcohol.

"Hi," she said dryly, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"You shouldna come, lass," he said, shaking his head. "Nope, shouldna come.

Gotta fire that lass that lives here. You know that lass who lives here?"

"You mean Cordelia?" Buffy’s lips twitched in spite of herself, and she noted curiously that he had lapsed into a thick Irish brogue.

"Yeah, tha’s the one. Cordeeelya. Cordeeeeeeeeelya. Cord—"

"Ok," Buffy interrupted, putting her hand on his cheek. "That’s enough. Can you sit up? You need a shower."

"No," Angel mumbled. "No shower. Drink. Me needs a drink. Gimme that bottle."

Buffy looked at the nightstand and saw the half-empty bottle of Bushmill’s Irish Whiskey. Discreetly, she picked it up and slid it underneath the bed, out of sight. She put her hand on his arm and squeezed to get his attention. "Angel. You need to get in the shower. You stink."

He turned bleary, tortured eyes to her. "Now she’s a-tellin’ me what to do," he announced to the room. "Me goddamn hallucinations are tellin’ me what to do!"

"I’m not a hallucination. I’m real."

"Real? Wha’s real, anyway? Nothin’." He flung an arm over his eyes.

Buffy sat back, frustrated. Nothing like trying to argue with a drunk. But then...why was she arguing with him? Why not just...show him she was real? An idea formed in her mind and took shape. Time for a little resourcefulness. She turned to the inert figure on the bed and hooked one of his arms over her shoulder. Sliding off the bed, she managed to drag Angel with her, though he mumbled and protested at the movement. "Oof," she grunted, sliding one arm around his bare waist and taking a step toward the bathroom that was connected to the bedroom. He dragged behind her, but at least his legs were supporting him, she thought, taking the last heavy steps into the small room and depositing him against the sink.

Panting, she leaned into the tub and turned on the spray, letting it warm momentarily. Buffy turned back to Angel, who was half-sitting, half-leaning against the sink, watching her warily. "We’re going to take a shower," she told him firmly.

He leered drunkenly. "Oh, I like this one."

"This one what?"

"This dream. Issa good one."

"You dream this?"

He nodded wobbily. "Yeah, issa good one. So’s the one in the car. And the one in the bed, with the feathers. You like the feathers."

"This isn’t a dream, Angel. You’re just drunk."

He laughed hollowly, the sound echoing off the white tile. "Yep, issa dream all right. ‘Cause tha’s wha you always say, and then I wake up and then you’re not here."

Buffy’s heart broke a little more right then, hearing the torture behind Angel’s words, not bearing to know that he lay and dreamt of her and woke up with empty arms. She turned away from him, blinking furiously at the hated tears, and felt the temperature of the water. It was warm and soothing.

"Let’s go," she said briskly, moving toward him. "Take your pants off."

"Help," he pleaded, clutching the countertop with one hand and reaching for her with the other, sliding precariously off balance.

Buffy swallowed tightly and let him support himself with a hand on her shoulder while she lowered his zipper, one tiny notch at a time. Her nostrils flared slightly and she licked her suddenly dry lips, feeling the warmth pool low in her belly just from being so near him. She lowered the zipper all the way, her gaze caught by the dark hair springing from his pants, and she noted that he was not wearing any underwear. Oh, how easy it would be to reach inside, and gently caress his cock, to feel that smooth hardness against her palm.

Wait. His hardness? She glanced down again, realizing that he definitely was hard, and growing by the second. Buffy paused. She had always heard that alcohol had the opposite effect on males, sometimes rendering them practically impotent until they sobered up.

Apparently, vampires were different.

She looked up to find Angel watching her, his eyes haunted, but flickering with desire, and then he was clutching her shoulder while he shoved his pants down with the other hand and stepped out of them clumsily. "Now you," he said, weaving unsteadily.

Buffy took a deep breath and lifted her shirt over her head. She had not bothered with a bra when she had left her house, and the chill in the bathroom made her nipples peak. She slipped out of her shorts, leaving them with Angel’s pants, and then she took his hand gently in hers. "In," she insisted, tugging him toward the steaming shower, and he followed her like a child.

They stepped under the spray together, letting the water wash down over them and turning their hair darker shades. Buffy watched appreciatively as the water beaded across Angel’s tattoo and then slid down to the small of his back, running in rivulets over his tight ass and down his legs to the drain on the floor. Her insides clenched in response when he turned to face her, and she slicked his hair back on his forehead for him. "Gotta sit," he mumbled, and slid down the wall to the floor of the shower.

"Then I’ll sit with you," she said, and sat.

They sat under the waterfall above them for long minutes, just staring at each other, and then suddenly she was in his arms and he was kissing her desperately. Angel held her head tightly between his palms while he drank the water from her eyelashes, her nose, her lips, and then he was sweeping his tongue across her bottom lip to coax her to open. Buffy did, taking in a long, shuddering breath when he invaded her mouth, and she began to cry at the familiarity of him.

He was rain and grass and spice, and she could taste the whiskey on his tongue. Her tears slid down from behind closed eyes, mingling with the water, and he kissed them away, whispering Gaelic endearments to her as he did. She melted into him, wanting to be absorbed by the coolness of his skin, and he seemed to want the same thing because his hands were roaming hungrily and his wet body was sliding into hers.

"Buffy," he whispered, "Buffy...I left you. I left you."

She sobbed, "I know. How could you?"

"God, I don’t know," he groaned, leaning his head back and squeezing his eyes shut. His intoxication was fading, the lack of blood in his veins causing the alcohol to dissipate quickly. It was why he always drank into the early morning. If he stopped, even for a short while, he sobered up within minutes.

When he looked at her again, his eyes were almost clear. "Are you here?" he asked wonderingly, and she nodded through her tears.

"I’m here. Cordelia said you needed me."

"She was right," he murmured, enfolding her in his arms, lying down with her and letting the water pound down around them in the tub. Buffy reached up and encircled his neck, feeling his smooth damp hair between her fingers, clutching him close. In response, Angel lowered his head to suckle at her breast, first one, then the other, teasing the ends into hard points. She arched into him, wanting more, wanting his whole mouth on her, everywhere. Her clit began a slow throbbing, and she tried to ease it by pressing into him, telling him what she needed, and he responded.

Sliding easily down her wet body, he took her into his mouth, using his tongue to probe her dark recesses. He masterfully slid it up and down the slight crack between her legs, feeling Buffy grip his head with her thighs. Angel found her pulsing clit and kissed it, letting his lips rest on it while his tongue swept teasingly across it. Buffy whimpered and tried to push herself further into his mouth, wriggling her hips on the wet tub floor, but he held her down firmly and continued his onslaught. "Stay still," he whispered, and she did. Angel slid his hands underneath her buttocks and lifted her, eyeing greedily her pink, lush opening, and he began to suck on her in earnest. Buffy arched upward immediately, her hands splayed out beside her, sobbing, and Angel sucked even harder, waiting.

The moment he felt her first shudders begin, he lowered her to the floor of the tub and thrust himself into her roughly. She convulsed around his cock, crying out into the echoing bathroom, clutching at his shoulders and leaving little half-moon marks from her fingernails. Angel drove into her hard and deep, a fierce need to possess her overwhelming him. She was his, she had always been his, and he had been a hundred kinds of fool to leave her.

"I need you," he ground out, taking her chin in his hand and making her look at him. Her hazel eyes with wet spiky lashes met his unflinchingly. "God, I have to have you," he groaned, lowering his dark head. Angel felt Buffy’s legs opening wider, inviting him, and he could not thrust deeply enough to fill the emptiness of the past months. Giving several more deep thrusts, he heard Buffy start to moan softly beneath him, and she lifted her hips to bring him deeper. He paused, on the edge, and then he was over the precipice and he could not support himself when his climax rocked through him. He collapsed on her, shaking and trembling, while he shot his seed deeply inside, and he could feel Buffy’s muscles tense while she came.

They did not pull apart until they felt the water turn tepid and Buffy began to shiver slightly. Without a word, Angel rose gloriously from the floor of the tub, the water streaming from him, and turned off the tap. Pulling Buffy with him, he stepped out of the shower and searched the small linen closet for clean towels. Finding none, he looked embarrassedly at Buffy, shivering in the cold, and cursed. "I haven’t really done laundry for a while," he said lamely.

"I figured," she smiled, gesturing toward the pile of clothes on the floor of the bathroom. "Drinking will do that to you." Angel had the good grace to look ashamed, and Buffy’s heart twisted. "It’s all right, baby. You don’t need to drink anymore."

Abruptly, Angel picked her up and headed into the bedroom. Pulling back the satin comforter, he deposited her onto the clean (thank God, he thought) sheets and climbed in beside her. Tucking her head under his chin, he swallowed and said, "I’m coming home."

Buffy closed her eyes in silent thanks but did not speak.

His voice was low and strained. "I can’t be here without you. It was ridiculous, me leaving you that way. I’m a wreck, Buffy. I can’t even get through a week without drinking myself into oblivion to forget you. I love you, God, I love you so much that it’s killing me." He finished in a whisper, ashamed at his behavior and ashamed that he had to beg for her forgiveness this way.

"If you don’t come home, Angel," she said softly, "then both of us will die."

The relief swept through him, strong and poignant, and he closed his eyes against the threat of tears.

"But, Angel?"

"What, love?"

"Leave the whiskey here," she said drowsily.

He grinned.