Even after all this time, his thoughts were still jumbled together in one big mess. There were also big gaping holes in the things that he was able to remember. One would have thought that after all this time back he would have been able to regain the memories that had been taken from him. He supposed that that was just another part of his punishment. They knew that he had learned to control the bloodlust so they needed another way to make him suffer to make him remember who he was. As if he could ever forget! Every time he walked past a mirror or saw the thick curtains that covered every window within his house he remembered exactly what he was. Even little things served as a constant reminder. A couple walking hand and hand in the park without a care in the world or a group of friends just hanging out and having fun. Those were things that he knew he would never experience again. He had been granted that once, but it was taken away as though it had never been.

Sighing loudly, an act which he did only out of habit, Angel strode out into the atrium to look up at the night sky. It was a beautiful night, but he didn't dare leave the mansion. He might see her again. Even though that was what he wanted more than anything, she had told him that they couldn't be together. Angel had never hated Spike more than when he had came back and made Buffy realize just that.

Buffy. That single word was enough to let a tiny bit of light into his otherwise dreary world. She was his light. The one ray of sunshine that he could look at without being burned to a crisp. And now she was gone. Perhaps forever. Angel would walk into the sun if she had asked him to. How he wished that she had. The sun would be so much better than living without her. Strange, he had lived centuries without knowing her and in two years she had effected him the way that no other had.

"Stop it, Angel," he muttered to himself as he sat down on the steps that led out of the secluded garden. "You had almost gone a full minute without thinking of her. Stop brooding and go out. Yes, that's it. Go out and go.... Somewhere. I don't care where just get out of this house." Angel was well aware of the fact that he was ordering himself around, but couldn't bring himself to care.

So, with that decided, Angel left the mansion and began to wander around the dark streets of Sunnydale. He had no destination in mind. Subconsciously, Angel had decided that he would simply let his feet take them wherever they would. After the first stop he began to regret it.

"No, Will, I haven't seen him lately. Not since Spike left...... I want to, but.... It's not as simple as you think it is..... Sure I do. That's why...... Look, Will, I've gotta go. Giles wants me to patrol tonight. Something about some strange energy building up. See ya tomorrow. Bye."

With that, Buffy Summer, the Slayer, quietly snuck out of her bedroom window. She knew that there was no longer any reason to now that her mother knew that she was the Slayer, but old habits die hard. Not all habits, she reminded herself quickly. There was one habit that she had been trying to kick for a couple of weeks now. She wondered if Angel knew what she did. Probably not or else he would have done something about it.

From the first night that he had been back, Buffy had known that Angel was having a hard time sleeping. Nightmares plagued him every time that he let himself relax enough to fall asleep. There had been several times that she had shown up and found him in the grips of one of them. It had taken a great deal of coaxing on her behalf to convince the nightmare to let him go. After a while, they had learned and fled after only a simple touch. Whoever said that nightmare were dumb? Knowing that Angel had still been suffering from them two days before Spike's arrival, Buffy went to check up on him everyday while he slept. Just to make sure that he was sleeping peacefully. At least that's what she tried to convince herself. She knew that she was being selfish. Telling him that there was no way for them to see each other yet still showing up to watch him sleep. Serves him right for all the times he watched me sleep. It was a lame excuse, but Buffy chose to believe that one for as long as possible.

As always, patrolling took Buffy to the cemetery. It was no big thing. She would do a couple of sweeps, slay whatever vampires happened to be either waking up or roaming about then she would go home. Same as always. Then why did she have a funny feeling nagging at the back of her mind? Something was up. Something big. Whatever it was, Buffy was sure that Giles would know about it. Forgoing her second sweep, Buffy instead opted for stopping by the Watcher's house to see if he knew about anything.

Knowing that he should leave, Angel continued down the streets until he came back to the mansion. As soon as he set foot on the drive, Angel knew that something was wrong. The place had an evil feel to it. More so than he remembered there being when he, Spike and Drucilla had lived there.

"You're just imagining it," Angel muttered to himself. "You had a bad dream and now you're overreacting. Go inside and get something to eat."

The proud has become low.
Such a shame it is.
Oh well, there are always ways to rectify that.
See you around, Angelus.

The letter which Angel had found nailed to the front door with a knife had him worried. The only ones who knew that he lived here were Buffy, Giles, the Slayerettes and Spike. While he wouldn't put something like this past Xander, Angel knew that the teenager hadn't done this. Xander would have preferred something more permanent like a stake to the heart. No, this was someone else.

Pulling the knife out, Angel grabbed the letter and headed inside. There would be plenty of time to figure out what this meant. After all, the nightmares would wake him up around midafternoon. That gave him a couple of hours to do something before he went out at night and brooded. Not that he couldn't do that anywhere, of course.

"Such a shame it is," a voice whispered quietly as its owner watched Angel disappear into the mansion. "But I'll fix everything. Don't you worry, my sweet Angelus."

As had become her custom, Buffy left the school during her free period before lunch and headed towards the mansion. No one knew that she did this. Not even the one who lived in the old house. Angel could never find out about what she did because there was no way that she could explain to him that it was all right for her to see him, but not vise versa. Just imagining the look on his face if he ever found out almost made Buffy turn back. What if he caught her this time? While Buffy was planning on getting caught any time soon, she had a logical excuse made up in case she was. Even though it resembled the strange logic that Xander had used following his break-up with Cordelia, it was still some form of logic.

The evil energy that Angel had felt so clearly the night before was no longer there by the time that Buffy arrived the following morning. She snuck quietly into the mansion by way of the atrium that still had a broken door which she and Faith had crashed through the night that everyone had learned of Angel's return. Buffy left her backpack on the table by the fireplace before venturing further into the mansion.

She was only halfway up the stairs when she heard Angel shouting something. The words made no sense, but Buffy recognized the tone as the one that she heard coming from Angel when he was having a nightmare.

"It's not my fault!" the vampire cried out.

In an instant Buffy was storming up the stairs towards Angel's bedroom. While she had promised herself that she wouldn't let herself get emotionally involved with him this time, she couldn't very well let him suffer through a nightmare of such intensity even if it meant being caught.

When Buffy entered her former boyfriend's bedroom, she saw that he was indeed in the middle of a dream with enough intensity to cause him to throw his pillow to the floor and kick the crimson sheets to the end of the bed. Wanting to ease the distress that was so clearly etched on his face, Buffy strode quietly over to the side of bed and knelt down next to Angel's writhing form. As soon as she placed her hands on either side of his face he began to relax. He stopped thrashing and soon lay peacefully sleeping once again. Knowing that she was probably signing her own death warrant, Buffy continued to stroke his hair and features even after the nightmare had faded away.

Ten minutes later the executioner came in the form of a pair of soulful brown eyes. Angel stared at her in confusion for a few seconds before tentatively reaching a hand towards her face. His confusion only grew when he felt her solid beneath his questing fingers.

"Buffy? What are you doing here?" Angel whispered, his voice very low.

"I'm not here. You're just having a dream, Angel," Buffy lied. She leaned over and kissed him gently on the forehead. "Go back to sleep."

"But it's so real," he insisted, trying to rouse himself further. Being the middle of the day, his body refused to cooperate. Within moments, his eyes slid shut and he slipped into a peaceful slumber.

Not wanting to trust her luck any further, Buffy left his bedroom and started towards the living room where she had left her bag. She needed to get out of here before she did something stupid. She had already come close enough to being caught and Buffy didn't intend to push her luck.

As soon as Buffy picked up her backpack, she noticed something that she hadn't earlier. A piece of paper lying next to a knife. The paper reminded her of the kind Angelus had used when he had been taunting her. The writing, however, was not his. Curiosity got the better of her and Buffy picked up the letter so that she could read it. What Buffy read had her instantly worried. Someone wanted to make him into Angelus again. But who? Certainly not Spike. The peroxide-haired vampire had barely been able to stand the sight of his sire the last time that they had met. What about Drucilla? She would do anything to get her daddy back, but according to Spike she was too busy with the Chaos demon. For not the first time, Buffy wished that she knew more about Angel's past. Maybe that would give her more of a clue as to who had written this.

"I knew it," a deep voice said from behind her.

Buffy spun around, dropping the paper in the process. Her cheeks flushed when she saw the vampire standing there without his shirt on. It took every once of self-control that she had not to jump into his arms. "He-Hello, Angel. Fancy meeting you here."

"I should have known that I wasn't dreaming when I saw what you had on," Angel continued as though he hadn't heard her. "Whenever you're in one of my dreams you're always wearing either white or green. Never black... What are you doing here, Buffy?"

And the executioner raised his axe.

"Well, I um... It's a funny thing... I was..." Buffy stammered, suddenly at a loss for words now that she had to tell the truth. "All right! All right! Don't look at me like that... I just wanted to make sure that you were sleeping all right. I know that you've been having nightmares, Angel. I've been coming by every afternoon to check up on you while you were asleep. I know that I said that we shouldn't see each other anymore, but I can't seem to help myself. I just want you to be happy."

The executioner lowered the axe.

"You've been coming here every afternoon?" Angel asked in little more than a whisper. After the way that their last encounter had gone, it was the last thing that he had ever thought Buffy to do. "Just to make sure that I was sleeping okay?"

The axe was gone now.

"Yes I have. I know that I said we shouldn't see each other, but it was harder than I thought it would be," Buffy admitted, lowering her eyes to the ground. As she did so, she caught sight of the letter that she had dropped. Bending over, she picked it up and set it back down on the table. "I'd better go now. Giles wanted to see me at lunch. Try to get some more sleep."

Angel watched her go and nearly started to laugh. Nearly. "Go ahead and ask me, Buffy. I know that there's something that you want to know so you might as well ask it."

Buffy was shocked that he was still able to read her so well. Stopping, she turned around to face Angel with the question that had been building up inside since she had seen the letter on the table.

"Who's the letter from?"

Angel paused for barely a second before he answered her. "It's from my sister. Shannon. She's my twin."

That was the last thing Buffy remembered before she passed out.

Buffy came awake with a soft moan. She could not remember what had happened before she had passed out, only that she was lying on something that most definitely wasn't her bed. It kind of felt like Angel's couch, but she knew that it couldn't be that. She wasn't stupid enough to fall asleep there. What would happen if he woke up and found her there? How on earth was she going to explain to him why she could still see him, but he wasn't allowed to see her.

"Feeling better?" a concerned voice asked, dragging Buffy out of her daydream.

"I'm not sure that better's the right word," Buffy said quietly as she slowly opened her eyes. Sure enough, there was Angel staring down at her with his dark eyes. Despite her present situation, Buffy couldn't help but notice how beautiful those eyes were.

"You hit your head pretty good when you passed out. I would have caught you, but my reflexes aren't all that great when I'm still half asleep." As he spoke, the corners of Angel's mouth curled up slightly.

Buffy cheeks started to flush when he mentioned his interrupted sleep. "I'm really sorry about that, Angel. You don't normally wake up when I'm here... How long have I been out?" she asked hoping to change the subject.

"About three hours."

"Three hours! Are you sure? Oh shit! Snyder's going to be pissed. Not to mention the fact that I was supposed to meet with Giles during lunch," Buffy said quickly scrambling to her feet in search of her bag.

"W-Willow stopped by," Angel said a little hesitantly. "She said that she'd make up some excuse for you. So that Xander and Giles won't come here looking for you."

Buffy nodded her head. Not only had she gotten to catch up on some much needed sleep, she had also gotten out of a lecture from her Watcher about being on time and stuff like that. If only she could remember why she had passed out in the first place. She knew that there was something important that she and Angel had been talking about, but she couldn't seem to remember what it was.

"Angel, what were we talking about before I passed out? I can't seem to remember."

Without a word, the vampire picked up the letter. As soon as Buffy saw it, her eyes went wide and she instantly remembered Angel telling her about his twin sister who had magically appeared out of nowhere. Could his life get any stranger?

"So... You have a sister," Buffy said rather quietly. Then another realization hit her. "I thought that you killed your entire family. Did you bring her across?"

Angel let out a deep breath and sank down onto the couch beside the Slayer. "Shannon disappeared about three years before I was brought across. I... I thought that she was dead. I blamed myself for what happened to her. It's why I started drinking... Hell, it's probably the reason why I was in that alley to meet Darla."

"That doesn't make any sense. What does her disappearance have to do with you becoming a vampire? And how could it possibly be your fault?" Buffy asked, turning her body so that she sat facing Angel.

"Shannon and I, we had this thing about spending most of the night outside. We would much rather sleep all day and stay out all night rather than the other way around. Natural born vampires, I guess you could say," Angel said with a rueful smile. "We'd wait till our parents were asleep then we would sneak outside to the pond near our house. We lived out in the country, you see, so it wasn't like anyone could see us and tell our parents. We had so much fun. We would dare each other to do some of the stupidest things. You wouldn't believe the kinds of things that she talked me into doing. When we were about seventeen, Shannon convinced me that there was some treasure that had sunk to the bottom of the pond. I was a fool, always have been. So I went in. And this was in November so it was very cold. My lips were blue before the water was even up to my knees. Shannon was laughing like a hyena all the while. When I came back up, she wasn't laughing anymore. She wasn't even there. I got dressed and searched as far as I could before dawn, hoping to find her. But I never did. That was the hardest thing that I had ever done, going to tell my parents that Shannon was missing. They were down right furious with me for leaving her alone outside in the middle of the night. I tried to explain to them that Shannon knew how to defend herself, but they weren't listening. My father got drunk that night and beat me to a bloody pulp the next morning. As soon as I could stand up straight without feeling faint, I left the house and never went back. I found an apartment in the city and got a job at a pub. I drank just about every night in hopes of getting Shannon's face out of my mind. She was always there when I dreamed. Laughing and telling me to go down into the pond just like the last time that I had seen her. About three years later, a friend and I got kicked out one of the pubs because we ran out of money. He passed out and I spotted a beautiful woman in an alley... The rest you know."

By the end of his story, Angel was blinking madly to keep the tears at bay. It had been nearly two and a half centuries since he had last thought of his sister. He had pushed her back to the farthest reaches of his mind in hopes of forgetting her. Forgetting how he had let her down. He had completely forgotten about Buffy's presence until she wrapped her arms around him.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, pulling his head down onto her shoulder. Too tired and too lost in his own misery to complain, Angel curled up into a ball and settled himself into Buffy's arms. He felt safe there knowing that she wouldn't let anything happen to him.

"I never should have gone in the water," Angel muttered, hiding his face in her hair. "I should have stayed out there with her and not let her out of my sight."

Buffy stroked his head and held him close. "There was nothing that you could have done. Just think on the plus side, if Shannon is here, that means that she's alive. She's probably just a little nervous about seeing you after so long. We'll go out and look for her tonight. What does she look like, anyway?"

Without even pausing to think, Angel began to describe the sister that he hadn't seen in many, many lifetimes. "She's a couple inches taller than you with bright red hair. It's kind of curly, too. She always hated it when I would pull on one of her curls just to see it bounce back. Her eyes are like mine. That's the one thing about us that's the same. You'd never even know that we were twins to look at us."

Hearing the tiredness in his voice, Buffy began to rub the back of Angel's neck knowing that it wouldn't be long before he fell asleep. Once he was out, she could begin to decipher Shannon's message. There was something that she didn't like about it. Buffy's Slayer sense was telling her that Shannon was a vampire. It was the only way that she could still be alive two and a half centuries after her disappearance. Whether Angel had figured that out yet was another story. Clearly he wanted to believe that his sister was just the same as she had been the last time that he had seen her.

Shannon O'Conor scanned the book's contents once more to be sure that she had the spell right. She had been searching for that particular spell since her brother had been turned by the gypsies. No vampire should suffer the way that her brother was. The fact that he was her twin only made her more determined to set things right. She had nearly found it a few months ago, but had stopped looking when she had learned that Angel had reverted to his natural ways. Busy at the time, she hadn't been able to go to Sunnydale until the middle of the fall. By that time Angelus had become the weakling Angel again.

"Soon, my sweet Angelus, you and I will rule the night as we once did," Shannon whispered to the velvet draped windows. "Tonight I find you, tomorrow I complete the spell. And that little Slayer bitch is not going to stop me. She's going to suffer for sending you to hell. No one messes with my brother."