He's crying. He tries to remember the last time that happened. Last week. Oh.

The cell turns dark. Angel turns on his side. The bruises hurt less that way. The scars are harder to heal.

*

beat

*

"Look at him," says Willow, her hands on the bars of the cell. She touches the bars lovingly, as if she is a human mother touching a human child. She opens her mouth. Angel can see her tongue. He can see her saliva and he can see her tongue touching the roof of her mouth, all red gums, red from someone else's blood. He can see into her throat, past her esophagus, into the core of her stomach. "All poor and helpless. Just like a puppy. His eyes, Xander! Can't we hurt the puppy more?"

"Enough, sweet. You've done enough." Xander pats her shoulder. But his eyes are not gentle.

Angel remembers when Xander's eyes were gentle.

"But." Willow pouts. "Maybe later? Maybe later, we can hurt him? Hurt him real good?" Willow touches the side of her mouth on Xander's hand. Her saliva leaves a trace on Xander's skin after she touches him. She licks, seductively, watching Angel watch her. Angel does not stop watching Xander. Angel has always watched Xander. Even now. Especially now.

"Later. Later, we can. For now, the Master wants us to kill things." Xander touches Willow's mouth. Her mouth is salty and sweet and warm, Angel thinks, because Xander has been inside it. "You know you like to kill things for our Master."

"Pity." Willow sucks on Xander's thumb. The ghosts of blood and saliva are left on his hand. "I so wanted to see you hurt him. You are so good at hurting him."

"Later, I promise, darling."

Angel watches. It's not the same. It's not the same as before. But the little crinkly feeling is still there, the one he can't quite stop, not even when Xander hurts him. Not even when Angel knows it's no good. Especially when Angel knows it's no good, any more, to pretend that he thinks he knows how to stop.

They leave, Willow laughing, and the taste of her saliva is on Angel's lips, lingering cold.

*

beat

*

Buffy never came.

Angel knew when that was a certainty. He felt it in his gut. The knowledge twisted inside him, like a knife searching his insides. The Hellmouth without a Slayer. He hated her a little for that, for not coming. He wanted to hate her and he couldn't. He tried to hate her and it was too much.

There was too much hate around this place already.

Then people started dying.

He tried, at first, to stop it. But he was only one. The only one fighting. And one person can only do so much.

Then Xander and Willow came. And Larry and Oz. And Giles. They fought with him. They didn't have his strength, but they fought. They learned efficiency. What they lacked in efficiency, they made up for in resourcefulness.

They didn't fight for the same reasons Angel fought, but that was still good, that was more true than Angel would ever know. They fought because they had to. They fought because their friends were dying. That was a kind of strength. Angel liked that strength better, because he would never know it.

And Buffy never came.

*

beat

*

"You're bleeding," says Xander. "Vampires… do they bleed?"

It is raining outside. Angel's face is slick and warm with rain. He is breathing hard from the battle, in the way that vampires breathe. He has taken off his bloody and dirty shirt. They are alone together. It is dark and moist in the sewers. No one will bother them here.

"It's just a scratch," Angel says. He doesn't remove his eyes from Xander's face. "It's nothing."

"You'll heal right away, after? Won't you?"

It is still raining. Angel can hear the beat of the rain outside the darkness. It is musty in here, in the sewers, with the rags on the floor, with the broken bottles mixed in with the rags.

He believed she would come.

He really believed that, even when people started dying. He was supposed to believe that she would come because someone, after all, had to believe in something.

Angel realizes it's not his breathing he thinks he hears. It's Xander's. Xander can't stop breathing. And he's here, and he's real, and he remains in the place with the broken bottles and the rags. Life is life, after all.

"Yeah," he says. "We heal pretty quick. Not to worry."

"Good," says Xander. "I worry too much. About too many people. I don't want to worry any more. I'm sixteen, you know. I'm supposed to be thinking about calculus and SATs, not …"

"This is the Hellmouth," says Angel, more roughly than he intended. His voice softens as he picks up on Xander's wince. "Things are supposed to get ugly."

"Yeah." Xander's shoulders slump. "I just want to go home. But I don't know where that is anymore."

"Right here." Angel speaks without thinking. But the boy's looking off into the distance, and it's raining hard now, in the world above, where his friends are dying in the darkness, and where else does he have to go? It's dangerous out there, this time of night. Kids shouldn't be out past curfew. There's too much blood already. There's too much blood and Angel can't stop it. "You can stay right here." When he says it, it feels right. Too right.

"You won't..."

"I won't."

Xander doesn't mind the rags and the dirt and the broken bottles. Angel doesn't mind Xander, even though he talks a lot about Larry and Willow and movies he's never heard of and video games he used to play. That's saying a lot, these days. There's a human that Angel doesn't mind. That's big news.

Buffy is the ache of a dull what-if in his head that he wants to believe but can't.

Xander stays.

No one else did before.

*

beat

*

"Oh, look at the puppy." Delight spills into Willow's face. Xander licks the sheer enjoyment right off her eyes. "Look, we haven't even got to the beating yet and he whimpers."

"This is my favorite part." Xander grins, and bites Willow's mouth. She moans. "When he..." He takes the moan from her mouth. He takes more from her body.

It's silent down here, down here where the rats are kept. But Angel can't hear the silence for the roaring in his ears.

*

beat

*

"So I'm going to die." Xander says it deadpan. Monotone. Nothing there. Angel does not lose the game face. The vamp's dead, and he's still holding the stake in his hand. It's the first time Xander knows.

"You don't care? About…" Angel thinks about what they say here on the Hellmouth when things go really pear-shaped and there's nothing you can do about it, which happens every second of every day. Life is life.

But that doesn't seem appropriate.

"No." Xander stares at the sharp outline of the demon in Angel's expression. His eyes betray nothing. Angel feels something twist inside him, sharp and hard and useless. His mouth is dry, like it always goes dry when he kills one of his kind, but there is something else in the space between himself and Xander. Something he doesn't want to name. Angel does not smell fear. Angel just smells resignation, like the scent of hard frost and bitterroot, and it catches in his throat, dying quietly, a hum of something else. "I'm tired of seeing them die every day. I'm ready to see… I'm ready. For my turn."

"Your turn for what?" Angel's always been a whiz at the obvious rhetoricals.

"Death." Xander shrugs. He's dropped his stake. The word hangs soft and limp in his mouth. Angel wants to take it from him. As if he'd never said it.

He's still staring at Angel's demon. "Can I touch it?" The limpness leaves his voice and it's replaced with something not bitter. It catches Angel off guard.

"What?" Angel says again. He should have changed back, but that thing, hanging in the air between them, is too powerful. Angel doesn't want to change the demon for him.

Then Xander's fingers are on his face, touching his mouth, exploring the hard ridges of his face, his teeth, but gingerly. Then he springs back as if burned. "What are you, that you can't – do that for me?"

"Gypsies," says Angel lamely. "A soul." He shifts back to the human mask. Xander looks away. Angel wants to take it back. Angel wants to make it right. He doesn't want what might have been. For once.

"Yeah," Xander says, scuffing the floor with his feet. "Whatever. Nice kill back there. Listen, I'm supposed to meet Larry at the library for some reconnaissance. Giles says there's some new demon wrecking more than the usual havoc. Maybe we can save a life, you know? Larry's getting real good at the research thing. Who would've thought, Larry the quarterback and me, in the library, like this? Ha ha."

"Yeah. Who would've thought?" Angel's still standing there like an idiot. He finally closes his mouth.

"Don't wait up," Xander tosses behind his shoulder.

"Yeah. For Larry," says Angel. But he says it quietly, and Xander does not hear.

*

beat

*

"Xander's not here today." Willow poises over Angel, her legs spread, carving the knife into his chest, taking the skin from his body. Angel parts his mouth and the memory of where the skin had been floats over his brain, and the displacement is pleasant and fuzzy and takes over the overwhelming pain for just a moment. "I wanted some alone time with the puppy. Sorry, puppy. You're disappointed, I know. But I'll make it up to you, I promise. Willow will make it all better. Willow always makes it better."

She puts her hand on his mouth. It's gentle at first as she pries his tongue from his gums.

But then he screams.

He only screams for Willow.

*

beat

*

"He's so..."

"Yeah."

Angel and Willow are researching in the library. There's a battle going on in the hallways, but they have set up a bomb shelter in the stacks. Giles has established checkpoints. Larry and Xander are manning the checkpoints at the peripheries. Giles has this whole battle strategy.

"When he does that…thing. You know. With his face." Willow sighs.

"Do you think he's okay? Now?"

"He can handle himself," says Willow confidently. She licks her lips. Angel can see her gums. "He's all resourceful and clever, you know. I like that about him."

"Yeah," says Angel, but there's still something in his voice. "Resourceful guy. Right."

"You don't believe me?"

"I do," Angel rushes to reassure her. "I really do. Believe you."

"Okay, then, doubty pants. We were kids, third graders. It was Halloween. Halloween was fun back then, you know? Before the bad stuff happened. Before people started… well, you know how it is, now. Back then we didn't know any better. I didn't have a costume. I was supposed to be a ballerina, but I wanted to be a ghost. I cried about it. That's the stuff we cried about back then. But he said it was going to be okay. All the stores were closed, but he went home and grabbed an old sheet right under his dad's nose. He had an X-acto knife he took from school and he poked two holes for eyes and a hole for a nose, and he put the whole thing over my head and said whala, spooky Willow, say boo to the world. That's when I fell in love with him a little. You know?"

Angel remembers, then, a little the way it should have been. The way he imagines it should have been. But the ghost of could have been sighs, and he knows it's useless, to think like that. To fill in the gaps. Life is life, after all.

"I know," he says instead.

"Angel, come on, it's getting nasty out there. We need your help," says Xander, panting and sweaty as he ducks his head in the stacks.

Willow smiles radiantly. Angel wonders why Xander does not notice.

"I'm on it," he says, shutting the book.

"It's okay, you can tell me later," Willow says, giving them a little wave.

"Tell her what?" Xander asks as they maneuver through the trashed library. There are books everywhere. They might have been books once. There is blood everywhere. There are corpses, but Xander steps over them. Once they were students. Now they are dead. It happens here, just like that, all the time.

Angel can't remember what he was supposed to tell Willow.

*

beat

*

It's raining again. That hard kind of rain that gets into everything and does not stop. Angel follows Xander down the alley. Xander is rushing.

"Wait, stop. Not at this time of night," he yells after Xander's back.

"The Master is bringing reinforcements," Xander yells. "You know what this means. It could all be over soon. All this. Over."

Angel catches up with Xander and turns him around. They are facing each other. Xander is panting. There is rain on his face. Angel wants to touch his face right where there's pain in his eyes. Angel wants to take away the pain. Angel sees inside his mouth, down his esophagus, and there is someone else's blood on his lips, on his face. The blood of another friend who is dead.

"Isn't that what you want?" Angel's eyes are hard. He remembers when he wanted other things. Better things than this, just this, the human boy watching him who cannot see what is in front of him. He remembers when the world was beautiful and full and wide open for his hand to pluck whatever he wanted out of its bountiful, brutal, wonderful offerings. He remembers when it was so easy. When it was so easy to hurt and kill and lie and steal and he wishes he could have it back and he wishes he didn't want it back.

"No," Xander says. "Maybe. I don't know any more."

His mouth is open and everything is inside his mouth. Angel can't take his eyes away. Then Angel doesn't want to take his eyes away.

He remembers when he stopped believing Buffy would come. When he stopped believing that the Slayer would save them. When he stopped believing there was a fairy tale and a happy ending - the Slayer would make the world right again and make the rain stop pouring and make Xander's friends stop dying and make Xander stop hurting and change things back to the way they were before, when Angel was alone with his hurt and his pain and he didn't have to share anyone else's. The way the world was before when Angel didn't care if Xander's friends lived or died. When Angel didn't know Xander.

But then they kiss, and Angel doesn't want things to be different.

Angel tastes more rain than saliva, but he takes more and Xander takes back, and it tastes right and he likes it and he wants more and it's more than he's ever had before.

*

beat

*

When it's not raining Xander returns to the cell. Willow is not with him.

Angel does not like these times. When Willow is not there.

Xander opens the cell. He goes inside. He touches Angel's chest. The bruises Willow made are still there, and they will remain as scars even when they heal. Xander straddles Angel. Angel remembers when things were different. Angel remembers what it had been and the blood on Xander's mouth.

"Oh, baby," Xander moans. Angel feels the texture of the Judas Cradle on his back. It's the ghost of something he doesn't want to remember. But he has to remember now. All he can do is remember. Because all he can do is watch. And wait. And believe that maybe things will be different when she comes. If she will come for them after all.

The stake enters from behind, and the pain is gentle, sharp, easy. In the time before Angel might have called it exquisite. He gasps. Impaling had been his favorite method of torture, in the time before.

"Xander."

But his voice is cut off as pain takes over, and Angel does not feel anything any more except what might have been, that vague hope of if she had come, if only she had come. Then darkness overtakes and he doesn't remember anything any more.

*

beat

*

Angel does not have a bed.

But Xander didn't mind rags, before.

They struggle with each other's clothes. Xander's shirt is wet and hard to remove, but Angel takes it off him, licking the inside of his mouth the whole time. The sewers here are dark and cold and damp and people are dying above, maybe Xander's friends, but it doesn't matter because Xander's hands are on him and Xander's tongue is inside him and then Angel is inside Xander, and nothing else matters. The sound of the rain in the pipes that lead down to the sewers is the only indication that there is a world outside beyond this and Angel drowns that out because nothing else matters but this and nothing ever mattered but this and here and now.

*

beat

*

"Was it—was I--"

Xander looks very young then.

But Angelus looks back.

*

beat

*

"Remember this? Darling?" The implement finds Angel's heart, and searches around the cavity. "Remember how this feels?"

Angel remembers.

But he does not scream like Xander wants. That would be too easy.

*

beat

*

"You wanna die, kid?"

"What? Angel, what are you-?"

"Just answer the simple fucking question."

"Yes. Sometimes. I want to die."

"Well, today's your lucky day. How'd you like death in perpetuity? He would've liked that little riddle a lot, our boy Angel. He would have loved that punchline."

"What- Angel, I don't understand-"

His teeth are soft and sweet in his neck. It is over quickly. Too quickly. Too easy, even for Angelus.

"Just what the Master ordered," smiles Angelus. There is nothing left in Xander's face but another man's blood.

*

beat

*

"But what about Angel?" Willow's still on campus, still holding her books. The place is deserted. No one will know. Death happens all the time. Life is life because death is death, and sometimes there's nothing you can do about any of it. So you take it.

"That old crack? Come on, I thought you knew me better."

That's when Willow screams and drops her books.

"Now we can be together, forever. I thought you'd like that, sweet." He sucks her throat. It tastes sharp and warm, like the afterthought of perpetual spring. He takes that from her. He takes what could have been from her and it fills him with joy he thinks he knows.

*

beat

*

Giles's old spellbooks don't lead him wrong.

Larry and Oz help him get the materials. They sneak out at all hours of the day. They get themselves out of hairy corners. But they get everything. They don't ask how Giles knows magic. Giles knows enough to keep them alive, through this, through the Hellmouth, and that is enough for them.

"We'll need to set up here," says Giles. "Oz—think you can provide a good lure?"

"The best," he says. "Willow. Liked puppies."

Giles nods. They don't mourn in Sunnydale. Anymore. You're either dead or you're… not.

Willow and Xander saunter down the hallway at school, when the time is right. Angelus leads them.

Giles begins chanting.

"Spells. That wench is doing magic. I hate magic. Willow- stop him-"

Oz moves fast.

But not fast enough.

*

beat

*

"Oh puppy," says Willow, her mouth tasting like Xander as she moves a hand along Angel's jaw. "We'll spare your friends if we can have you."

"Go," Angel says to them.

Giles, Larry and Oz don't linger.

Life is life.

*

beat

*

"What would it be like, to die, Angel? Would it be like this?" Xander's words are soft and sharp on his skin. Angel tries to drown them out, but he can't. "Or like this? I love it when you scream, you know. Like this."

He puts his face on Angel's mouth. But Angel doesn't scream, just so he can feel what might have been. Forever is silent on his face, the taste of ghosts.

*fin.

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