=======
Part Eight
=======

“Angel?” Cordelia approached the motionless vampire carefully. Angel had gone still almost as soon as the sudden quake was over; all that could be heard from him was mumbling mixed with a few sobs.

“Cordy?”

Encouraged by the call of her name, she took another step closer, “Are you okay?”

"He's not dead, is he?" Angel asked faintly, almost as if he was afraid of the answer, his eyes never left Lindsey's face.

“I can check,” she made a move to grab Lindsey’s limp wrist, but stopped when Angel growled lightly and held on to Lindsey tighter.

“Don’t touch him.”

“Okay, I won’t, but I don’t know if he’s alive or not... maybe you can put your ear on his chest and try to hear his heartbeat.” She signaled Wesley and Gunn to come closer while Angel leaned in and pressed his face against Lindsey’s chest.

“I can hear it... Thump, thump...” He let out a relieved sigh when he heard the steady rhythm of the heart. It was the most beautiful sound in the world. “I thought it wasn’t real… Can you hear it too?” He looked up at Cordelia.

“Umm, sure,” she nodded uncertainly.

The sudden light appeared in Angel’s eyes were almost blinding. The affirmative answer Cordelia gave seemed to make the nervous vampire relax. “Good, I thought I was imagining it because I wanted him to live… You won’t lie to me, right?”

"I'll never lie to you." Cordelia said numbly, in shock of the helplessness in Angel’s voice.

“Angel?” Wesley started, “I understand this is a crucial moment, but...”

“He’ll be okay, right?” Angel turned his gaze onto his friend; chocolate browns filled with worry and hope.

“Yeah, he will be, but you gotta let go of him first, you are crushing him to death and hurting his shoulder!” Gunn told Angel as he tried to pry his arms open.

“No!” Angel exclaimed as he batted Gunn’s hand away, then he examined Lindsey’s left shoulder and noticed the unnatural slackness of it, even if Lindsey was unconscious. “What should I do?” His voice returned to frantic.

“He needs rest, and you need to calm down! And we need to figure out what that quake was.” Wesley rationalized.

It took the combined power of Gunn’s strength, Wesley’s sound reasoning and Cordelia’s persuasion to make Angel loosen his grip on the unconscious lawyer. Gunn popped Lindsey's dislocated shoulder back in place while Angel looked on with worry. Cordelia and Wesley were busy researching and trying to get a hold of the people in Sunnydale.

=======

When Lindsey came to, he was tucked tightly into Angel’s bed, but the owner was nowhere to be found.

Slowly, he dragged himself up and leaned back against the headboard. The curtains blocked the sunshine from entering the dark room, but a few rays managed to escape through the cracks.

He raised his right hand to rub his head gently, trying to recall what had happened. He was walking down the steps with the disks when his sight had blurred, stolen memories rushing back into his mind.

“Alicia!” Lindsey cried out as he struggled to get out of bed, shouting a loud curse when he tripped over the covers in his haste. He landed on flat on his face with a thud.

“Lindsey!”

Lindsey looked up and was greeted by a concerned Cordelia.

“Alicia!” he repeated the name of his fiancee as if in a daze, the images that had flashed before he lost consciousness were beginning to blend in with the events he saw on the videotape yesterday and the questions Angel had asked him in the morning. "What happened?"

His answer was a stern glare from Cordelia that clearly stated ‘get back in bed’; before he had time to tell her otherwise, strong arms circled around his waist and lifted him up from the tangled blanket and the cold floor.

“You should be resting,” Angel told the stunned attorney as he hooked one arm underneath Lindsey's knees and one supporting his back.

“But...”

“Rest.” Angel deposited him back into the bed with his back to the prophet, so Cordelia missed the momentary tender smile from Angel.

“You don’t understand! Alicia is...” Lindsey closed his mouth temporarily as he rose up so Angel could rearrange the pillows behind his head after he picked up the entangled comforter and draped it over Lindsey.

“Gone,” Angel finished for him as he sat down next to Lindsey and took a hold of his hand into his own. “I’m sorry.”

“It seems so unreal,” Lindsey wrapped his fingers around the cool hand. “I had completely forgotten her...”

“It’s not your fault...”

“I know it’s not, but I can’t help it! I worked for the people who killed the woman I love!”

Angel did his best not to wince when Lindsey stated his love for Alicia and not to scowl at the mention of Wolfram and Hart, “How are you feeling?” He changed the subject rather clumsily, but he hoped Lindsey won't notice.

“Okay, my head still hurts.”

“It’s suppose to,” Angel explained when he was met with Lindsey’s questioning glance. “Glory had taken out...”

“Stolen is more like it,” Lindsey huffed at Angel’s choice of word.

“Stolen your memory, she did it selectively, and when she died, the memories returned to you. But it was so long ago, they had to force their way back.”

“Oh, lucky me.”

“Yes, lucky you, you could have died from the fall,” Angel’s eyes shined with concern and relief, “you walked away with only a dislocated shoulder.”

“I didn’t feel anything.”

“You wouldn’t, you were out for over twelve hours.” Angel couldn’t help but reach out and smooth Lindsey’s disarrayed hair.

“What time is it?”

“Almost eleven,” Cordelia, who was forgotten up to this point, answered.

"Let's get back to work." Angel said as he stood up.

"Feel better." Cordelia waved before she left the room.

"You rest now." Angel was almost to the door when he heard Lindsey calling his name.

“Angel.”

“Yes?” He turned back from the door.

“Stay with me till I fall asleep?” Lindsey pleaded. He hated the empty room when he woke up, and he hated the fact that he was alone and he hated himself for being so vulnerable, yet he liked the attention and tenderness from Angel.

“Sure.”

=======

“How’s Lindsey doing?” Wesley glanced up from the book in his hands when he heard Cordelia’s footsteps from the staircase.

“He seems fine, but Angel is being really weird."

“What do you mean by ‘weird’?”

“Weird like, he’s really nice to Lindsey, no more ‘you are an evil lawyer, and I hate you’...”

“Lindsey has changed, and he’s a new man now.” Wesley didn’t know why he was defending Lindsey, not even a day had gone by since he last advised Angel that trusting Lindsey could be a trap or he was bound to betray them.

But something clicked inside as they worked in silence, and then he spent the whole morning examining Lindsey’s actions over the last two days, starting when he first viewed the video.

Wesley finally made the connection between Lindsey and Faith; both had gone too far down the road of darkness and still wanted to turn back. If he could forgive Faith, why not Lindsey?

All his remaining doubts disappeared when he read in the morning paper that Wolfram and Hart’s main database was infected with a virus and the law firm would be closed for a week.

Angel was a whole different issue. Wesley was suspicious of Angel’s reaction last night, but hadn’t paid too much attention since there were more important issues at hand. But when he replayed the scenes from last night to help his research this morning, he couldn’t help but wonder if there was more going on between them.

Angel was protective and defensive when the others had suggested Lindsey’s possible betrayal, and obviously shaken when Lindsey had fallen down the stairs.

Wesley caught the last bit of Cordelia’s words when he finally came out of his thoughts.

“...and he was holding his hand and running his hand through his hair... Kinda like what he and Buffy did... Oh god!”

“What now?” Wesley sounded puzzled, partly because he missed the first part of her speech and partly because of her confusing use of pronouns.

“What if...what if Angel is in love with Lindsey?”

“That’s preposterous!” He exclaimed in shock, he had no idea where Cordelia got all these crazy ideas in her head. ‘Must be the visions,’ he decided quietly and grinned at the thought, he quickly hid the expression with a cough.

“No it’s not! I mean, what did Angel do when Lindsey fell down the stairs last night?” she looked at her friend, daring him to answer. “He cried! Angel cried!”

“He was just worried.”

“He didn’t cry when we were in the hospital!”

“Because he didn’t have a chance to! He had to stop Wolfram and Hart.”

“Fine, but I’m telling you, I'm right!”

Wesley decided not to argue with her anymore, he was doomed to lose. He drew his attention back on the literature.

“And he was jealous last night! His eyes were positively green!” Ignoring Wesley's lack of attentiveness, she continued, “He was so ready to punch the Host in the nose. You should have heard Angel, he was growling!”

“Who was growling?” Gunn’s voice startled them, but both quickly recovered.

“Angel, according to Cordelia,” Wesley replied as he picked up the book and walked over to his office, deciding that he had better leave while he could. “I need to do some research, you two talk.”

“What were you and Wes talking about?” Gunn sat down on the couch. He regretted asking when Cordelia's eyes gleamed and he knew it was the beginning of a very, very long speech.

"It all started…"

"Wait!" Gunn raised his hand, frantically searching his mind for something to distract Cordelia. "I'm hungry, let's get lunch."

"Okay," she looked at him strangely. "Let's talk about it on the way there."

Gunn inwardly groaned as his plan backfired in his face.

=======

When Angel strolled into the lobby ten minutes later, it appeared to be deserted, but his supernatural senses told him otherwise. He followed his instincts and found Wesley hunched over his desk and buried in another heavy book.

“Did Giles call?” the vampire asked in a light voice and hummed as he walked in the office, not wanting to startle his new boss.

“No, and I’m getting quite worried. He told me nothing except for the fact that Glory is destroyed, and that he needed to talk to you, said he has something he has to tell you in person. And since you were out, I told him to call back later, but he didn’t, and all I got was the answering machine when I called back!” The former watcher furrowed his eyebrow in confusion and concern.

The vampire had gone out that morning to rattle some demons for information on the previous night's events. Since most of them had gone into hiding, knowing that any natural events were usually the first and foremost sign of an apocalypse, it took longer than usual for Angel to find one who could be persuaded to reveal what they knew.

Angel smirked to himself as he looked down at his hand. If he had been human, the skin would have been broken and swollen from the beatings he had just rendered on the accessible demonic population. As it was, all he felt was a slight sting as he waded through the partially collapsed sewers to get back to the hotel.

When Angel returned, he had a few holes on his leather jacket due to some tiny cracks in the walls at an informant’s hideout. The Hyperion hotel walked away from the catastrophe with only a few broken picture frames, dozens of dishes and some cracks in the walls on the east side of the hotel, which was already fixed thanks to Cordelia’s enthusiasm and the cash Lindsey had brought. They had gone through Lindsey’s suitcases for a set of clean clothes for him and further data on Wolfram and Hart and Glory. They were surprised to find jeans and T-shirts and rolls of bills instead of designer suits and more disks.

“That’s odd, it isn’t like Giles at all,” the vampire tapped his chin thoughtfully as he lowered himself down in the chair in front of the wooded desk.

“Exactly! Maybe I should go down there and....”

“Let’s wait a while, we have unfinished business here too, and I’m sure Buffy can handle whatever is causing Giles not to return the call.” Oddly enough, it didn’t pain Angel as much as he thought it would to say the slayer’s name, he was more worried about Lindsey.

“Or we could listen to you,” the vampire quickly added, the look from Wesley clearly told him that he wasn’t in charge anymore and Angel wasn’t going to jeopardize their once broken relationship. His friends were the most important thing beside Lindsey... Whoa! His thoughts came to a screeching stop at the comparison.

“It’s all right, we need to figure out what Wolfram and Hart is up to and when will the ritual in Cordy’s vision occur.”

“Yeah...”

The two men remained silent for a moment, before Angel found the heavy air was unbearable, “Where’s Cordy?”

“She went to lunch with Gunn, about fifteen minutes ago.” Wesley stared at the clock for a moment, watching the minute hand move over a space. “I think they’d be great together, don’t you?”

“Cordy and Gunn? I guess so, they are both kids though...”

“You should be very glad that Cordelia isn’t here right now.”

“She’s the only person I know who can frighten me with just by a glare.” The vampire shuddered at the reminder of Cordelia's wrath, he had experienced it when he made a comment about her new dress being too revealing and suggested a long, wool coat over her outfit.

“What was she arguing about earlier?”

“You didn’t hear? She was being quite loud.”

“All I heard was fragments. Was it about the vision she had?”

“No, but it does have something to do with you...” Wesley paused, “and Lindsey.”

“What about me and him?” Suspense and surprise appeared on his pale feature, though it was gone in a second, it didn’t escape the ex-watcher’s scrutiny.

“That you are in love with him.”

“What? That’s impossible!”

“Then explain why you were sobbing when you thought Lindsey was dead?”

“Because he was our only source at destroying Wolfram and Hart...”

“We have their whole data base.” Wesley waved his hand at the piles of disks on the table.

“He was searching for redemption, and I can relate to that...”

“You weren’t crying when you thought Faith had betrayed you and ran away again.”

“Because...” Angel was thankful when the telephone rang, interrupting the former rogue demon hunter’s question and giving him more time to think of an answer to Wesley’s inquiries. “I have to answer the phone.”

“Fine.” Wesley muttered, “it could be Giles.”

“Angel Investigation... Hi, Giles!” Angel’s words confirmed Wesley’s guess. “No one got hurt, just a few cracked walls and lots of broken dishes.”

The researcher leaned closer to hear the conversation.

“Why didn’t you call back? And why did we keep on getting your machine? Is everything all right?”

Angel’s face faltered when he heard the watcher reply ‘no’. “But I’m sure Buffy...”

Angel had gone silent after his former lover’s name was spoken; he only nodded once or twice as he clutched the receiver tightly in his fist. “Thank you, no, you were right, I needed to hear it in person... Good bye.”

“What happened?” Wesley asked timidly, the vampire was biting his bottom lip in an attempt not to scream aloud, traces of blood were seeping from the wounds and forming at the corner of his mouth.

“Buffy is dead.”

He whispered the three words in a trance-like state; he was lucky when he felt the oblivion of unconsciousness crashing over him like a wave, saving him from further questions from his friend or the unbearable heartache. The last thought on his mind was that Buffy was gone, he hadn't been able to save her, and now she was gone...forever.

=======

Lindsey was woken by the loud noises coming from the lobby. Yawning, he got out of bed and headed downstairs after checking himself in the mirror. It was still a mystery to him why Angel had a full-length mirror in his room, being a vampire and all. His slow pace broke into a run when he heard Wesley’s worried voices, calling Angel’s name.

“What happened?” He managed to choke the words out of his suddenly dry throat.

Angel was sprawled out on the floor, his face paler than usual, and the ex-watcher was hovering above the unconscious immortal.

Wesley ignored Lindsey’s question by asking his help, “Help me carry him upstairs, will you?” He glanced at Lindsey’s recently dislocated right arm, and switched positions so it wouldn’t hurt Lindsey to carry Angel.

“What happened? Tell me!”

Wesley didn’t give the younger man another chance to hesitate or to inquire further; he simply hunched down and maneuvered Angel into a sitting position by pulling on the vampire’s limp left arm. The ex-watcher raised an eyebrow when Lindsey didn’t take the right arm as he wrapped the other arm around his shoulder.

Lindsey blew a loud sigh of irritation since his question wasn’t answered, but he complied Wesley’s order. The younger man carefully reached down and picked up the other arm then placed it on his good shoulder.

They moved Angel into his chamber with some difficulties due to the fact that they had to avoid sunlight and an unconscious two-hundred-odd-pounds vampire was not easy to carry.

After they got Angel settled in, Wesley mentioned for Lindsey to join him in another room down the hall. Concern and worry mirrored in each man’s eyes as they stared at each other in a silence that seemed to drag on for hours before either one of them spoke.

“What happened?” It was Lindsey who had spoken first.

“I think you’d better sit.”

“Just tell me!” Lindsey knew force and impatience wasn’t the way to get information or answers out of another person, but he didn’t care. All he wanted to know was what made Angel this way.

He glanced at the still form of the vampire in bed and ran over a list of possibilities of what could have caused this. He ruled out a demonic attack since there were no visible injuries. The fact that he didn't feel the usual magical undercurrents, combined with no long explanation form Wesley, led him to believe it wasn't a spell or a curse either. He was left with only one alternative: something had shocked the vampire so badly that it had rendered him unconscious.

As far as the ex-Wolfram and Hart employee knew, there were certain buttons within Angel that should never be pushed, however; he had never see the vampire passed out from a traumatic event.

“Well, this is a very complicated matter. You see, there was another slayer, besides Faith, her name was Buffy...”

“Angel was in love with her and after one moment of happiness, he lost his soul and became Angelus. She sent him to hell, he came back, left for L.A. Correct?”

“Yes, but how did you... Never mind, Wolfram and Hart.” Like the other workers at Angel Investigations, Wesley spat out the name as if it was the worst thing imaginable.

“During my time there, I had read up on everything about Angel,” he paused as he saw the unspoken question in Wesley’s eyes, “You are probably wondering why I still hired Faith if I knew they had a history.”

“I wouldn’t call is a history, but yes, why?”

“I guess I thought I could use it to my advantage, if she had known Angel and was able to injure him before, she could very well do it again.”

“How very thoughtful.” Wesley didn’t even bother to disguise the sarcasm in his voice.

“Can we move on to what happened to Angel? And how is Buffy involved?” Lindsey’s eyes lit up for a moment as he made the connection, “Is Buffy hurt from the battle last night? Or is she...” he swallowed his other guess as the ex-watcher nodded gravely.

Wesley chewed on his lower lip for a moment, reviewing what Giles had told him after Angel fainted. The watcher was brief but to the point, Buffy had given her life to stop the world from ending. However, it was Giles who had killed Glory while she was in her human prison, which was the part he was about to inform Angel of before the vampire had gone silent. The older man sounded guilty because of the action; even though he felt it was necessary, he still took an innocent’s life.

After a moment’s careful consideration, the former rogue demon hunter selected out the main points that needed to be announced to Lindsey and saved the details for once Cordelia and Gunn arrived. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Lindsey, it was just that there wasn’t enough time to go into details while Angel was unconscious and it would be easier if he didn’t have to repeat himself.

“Buffy Summers gave her life to save the world last night. And I’m pretty sure she was the one who had stopped the earthquake or rather,” he looked down for a second, and when he lifted his head, the younger man saw tears glistening in Wesley’s eyes, “She kept the world from ending, and saved our lives.”

“Oh my God! I’m so sorry...” All words escaped him and all Lindsey could do was stare at Wesley standing in front of him with his mouth hanging open at a very impolite manner. “How... When...” Lindsey snapped his jaw into place as he realized he was speechless and he was gaping at Wesley.

“I had about the same reaction five minutes ago.” The former watcher guided the stunned lawyer out the room and into Angel’s.

“Keep an eye on him while I call Cordelia and Gunn.” He shot Lindsey a meaningful glance before strolling out the room and down the stairs.

“I will.” He understood the message in the brief eye contact Wesley had sent him, ‘I trust you, don’t betray it’, and he wasn’t going to.

Lindsey pulled a chair next to the bed and plopped himself down in it. He needed to think of what he should say to the vampire when he woke up.

=======

Wesley set the receiver back down with a heavy sigh. Cordelia was not happy when he interrupted her meal, or her date, with Gunn, but the complaints stopped as soon as she heard the news. They told him they’d be back in less than ten minutes.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose gently, hoping to ease some of the tension building up inside him. It seemed as if his whole world had crumpled; Buffy was dead and on top of all this, Angel was unconscious. The fact that Giles had killed a human being wasn’t too much a surprise, since the former watcher had heard of the infamous reputation of the older watcher as ‘Ripper’.

Wesley prayed silently that nothing would happen to his two friends as they hurried back to the Hyperion. He didn’t think neither he nor Angel could afford another loss in their life at this moment, or ever again. The ex-watcher closed his eyes and replayed all the events involving Buffy in his mind. When they first met, she didn’t like him and he thought she was unorganized and rebellious. Wesley never told anyone, but he secretly admired the young girl’s strength and strong will, and did agree with Giles silently that Buffy was one of the best slayers in centuries, or maybe she was the best.

He didn’t realize that tears were rolling down his cheeks until Cordelia threw the door open with such force that it made a dent in the wall. Like him, Cordelia’s face was tear-stained with the smeared circles of mascara around her eyes as she wiped away another fallen tear.

“Wesley...” she made some sort of a strangled noise then plunged herself into the sitting ex-watcher’s arms.

“It’s okay... Everything will be all right.” Wesley was surprised when he saw unshed tears circling in Gunn’s eyes.

“Cordy filled me in on the details... I didn’t know Buffy, but what she did was definitely...definitely...” the vampire hunter trailed off with a loud sniffle. “How’s Angel holding up?”

While patting the sobbing prophet on the back, Wesley didn’t give an answer immediately. “He’ll be all right, we will all be all right.” He told his friends while glancing upwards, but would they really?

:: Part Nine ::