"Wesley, I'm telling you, if he doesn't shut up..."

"You'll do what, wanker?"

"William, do stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Being annoying, shithead."

"You're letting the little boy stand up to me, you English freak? I'm surprised."

The car pulled over and Wesley shut the engine off. "Gunn, would you please do me a favor?"

"Yeah?" Gunn answered.

"Could you find some way to get into that vampire body bag and stuff a gag into the pissant's mouth? We have a while to go until we get to Los Angeles, and I think everyone involved would prefer Spike didn't meet his end with a stake wielded by me."

"You, ponce? When'd you get some stones?"

"Gunn..." Wesley said, his patience teetering on the line between lost and ever-so-slighlty there.

"My pleasure," Gunn said, reaching over the front seat and opening the bag, letting some sunlight hit Spike.

"Bugger! That hurts!"

Gunn pulled a bottle out from the back seat and handed it to Spike. "Shut the fuck up."

"What is it?" Spike muttered.

"Tequila."

"Now we're talking..."

"Mary hash a wittle lambchop, fleesh ash white ash snow," Spike sang at the top of his lungs as he was hurried into the Hyperion. "And everywhere that Buffer went, the lampchop wash sure to go...hell too. You know hell ish hot, right mate?" he added, throwing his arm around Gunn's shoulder.

"Angel, it was the only way," Wesley said, looking at his former boss and current employee. "I wish you'd warned us what kind of drunk he'd be."

Angel ignored Wesley and took a good, long hard look at his childe. Something was different. And from the drunken rhyme, he knew what it was.

He had fallen for Buffy.

He'd been devastated when she died.

And now, he just didn't care.

"This just gets better and better," Angel muttered, shaking his head. "Gunn, go take him up to the room, hit him on the head and throw him in a cold shower. Remember to take the jacket off first."

"Why hit him?"

"Well, you want to keep your hand when you take that jacket off, right?"

"Good point." Gunn led the less vocal Spike up the stairs.

"Wesley, are you sure..."

"Not anymore. He seems more devastated than you did."

Angel nodded. "We need his help. I just hope he gives enough of a damn to do what Lorne said he had to do."

"What the bloody hell?!?"

Cordelia looked up from the desk, glancing at Fred and Wesley. "Apparently, he arises."

Spike stalked down the stairs, water dripping off into small puddles on the floor. "I'm bloody wet, and I'm frickin cold. Tell me why."

"You were drunk," Cordelia said.

"No shit, Sherlock. Whipping boy over there gave me a bottle of tequila," he said, indicating behind him to Gunn.

"Try more like five," Gunn muttered, getting a giggle from Fred.

"And we need you sober," Wesley said, finishing Cordelia's statement.

"Why go to all the trouble of liqouring me up, then? Oh, wait...because you kidnapped me when I was visiting Buffy's grave!" he shouted.

"You didn't say that part," Cordelia said, throwing a glance at Wesley.

"It didn't seem important."

Spike flew at Wesley. "You bugger! You bloody smart bugger! You haven't an ounce of brains between those large ears of yours, haven't you?"

Spike was a few inches away when Angel finally put a stop to the chaos with one word. "William."

The younger vampire turned around to look at his sire. "Yeah?"

"Here," he said, offering him a mug of warm blood. "You haven't fed lately, have you?"

Spike softened a little at the not of concern in his sire's voice. "Haven't had the heart, or the will." He took the mug but just looked at it. "Been busy with Dawn."

"Who's Dawn?" Cordelia asked. Apparently the spell had never been administered to Angel, Cordelia and Wesley.

"She was the Key. She was made to be Buffy's sister. She...Buffy died to save her." He swallowed a bit of the blood. "Why did I get kidnapped here, Liam?"

Angel nodded, taking the use of his real name in stride. "We need your help. A friend, a former detective in the LAPD...she's had a rough time of things. On top of that, a former bad guy has returned, and he wants to help us. But he's also had it a bit rough. I didn't exactly give him the best send off from LA."

"What did you do?"

"Put a sign on the back of his truck that said 'Cops Suck' and didn't say anything about it."

"Surprised he made it out of town alive," Spike muttered. "And why should they matter to me?"

"One of them...one of them has to go to Sunnydale, and the other one has to stay here. We don't know who. And neither of them are really in any condition to help right now; they're both on pity and guilt trips. Snap them out of it. Figure out who you need more in Sunnydale. Fill them in on everything you can."

"Why couldn't you just have asked me?"

"Would you have come?"

"No."

"That's why you got kidnapped."

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