And every time I’m close to you
There’s too much I can’t say
And you just walk away
And I forgot
To tell you I love you
A night’s too long
I’m cold here without you
I grieve in my condition
For I can not find the words to say
I need you so

Buffy switched off the radio quickly. Watching from her desk, Willow noticed the force that had gone behind that simple movement. They were lucky she hadn’t broken the radio. “Don’t like Sarah McLachlan?” Willow asked curiously.

“Her stuff hits too close to home,” Buffy said. When she didn’t continue, Willow sighed.

“What was it this time?”

Buffy said nothing, and put a lot of attention into organizing her desk into neat little piles.

“It has something to do with Angel, right?”

Still nothing, and this time Buffy moved on to organizing her closet. By color.

“Buffy, stop it!” Willow demanded suddenly. “All this pacing and cleaning is making me dizzy. Now, tell me what happened.”

Buffy sighed and flopped down onto the bed. “It’s Angel,” she began.

“Yeah, I kind of guessed that, ‘cause he’s in town and you usually are all happy then, but he’s not here and you are and something’s bothering you. So, what did Angel do?”

A long pause.

“Did you two have a fight?” Hard to imagine that, considering the pair of them had seemed joined at the hip lately.

“Yeah,” Buffy said softly.

“Buffy, couples have fights all the time. What was this about?”

Buffy sighed again. “That Angel never talks to me.”

“Well, I know he’s not the most talkative guy in the world…” Willow began.

“That’s not all, though,” Buffy explained. “Did you know that we’ve never spoken about when he went evil, or when I sent him to Hell, or any of that?”

Willow looked at her roommate in surprise. “Never?”

Buffy shook her head. “I tried to talk to him about talking, and he kind of bolted. Well, not kind of. There was no ‘kind of’ about it.”

Willow was quiet for a long time. She regarded Buffy seriously. “Have the two of you ever fought before? Just a normal couple sort of fight?”

“No. I feel awful, Will. He wasn’t ready to talk about it. I shouldn’t have pushed.”

“It’ll be okay,” Willow said with a smile. “It was only your first fight…a milestone. And Angel loves you. He’ll be back any minute asking for your forgiveness for running off, and you’ll ask for forgiveness too, and I’ll make a discreet exit while the two of you kiss and make up.”

Buffy laughed. “Make out, you mean.”

“Oh yeah, that too.”

He felt awful.

And not just emotionally awful. His churning emotions were bothering his physical state too. He felt sick to his stomach. It was a new feeling, actual nausea. Well, okay, there was the time with the roller coaster.

But this was different. This time it was completely caused by emotions. Nervousness, mostly. And fear. Nervousness about apologizing to Buffy.

Fear about speaking at all.

But fear could be conquered. That was one thing that Angel knew for sure as he stood outside of Buffy’s dorm. And Buffy was right. They couldn’t really go forward with their relationship until they truly faced some issues in their shared past. The thing was, as painful as these emotions right now were, the emotions that dwelled back there were even more painful. The memories got only harder to face as time went on.

Some of them, Angel would just as soon forget. When it came to Hell…Angel knew he was repressing, which wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Ignored, those memories might come back to him at the worst possible time. The thing was, though, he didn’t want to remember. He certainly didn’t want to talk about it.

But he had to, that was for sure. If nothing else, Angel at least owed Buffy an explanation of why he didn’t want to talk about it. She wants to help, a small part of Angel’s mind prodded. Maybe it’s time you let her.

It had taken Angel a half an hour standing here to get the point where he knew he had to speak to Buffy. It had taken another half an hour before he worked up the courage to go to her, to approach the door to her building. Yet finally, here he was, about to take that big step and actually open the door…

Still standing across the street, Angel’s body had yet to follow the path his mind had taken. Almost hesitant, he walked forward, moving quietly in the total darkness he was used to and drawing ever closer to Buffy.

A rustle in the nearby bushes drew Angel’s attention. He whirled, battle ready, and was struck with a terrible pain before he completed the motion. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

She wanted nothing more to run out into the night, into Angel’s arms, and apologize profusely for the afternoon. She’d tell him that they didn’t have to talk about it… Hell, they didn’t have to talk at all. All she wanted was to be with him, and have everything be forgiven. The thing was, she didn’t even know where Angel was staying when he was in town this time.

The shrill ringing of the telephone interrupted Buffy’s reverie. Her heart leapt, and she felt herself growing nervous. Please, let that be Angel, she thought. The phone rang again, and Buffy picked it up quickly this time. “Hello?” She felt out of breath.

“I need to talk to Angel,” the equally breathless and…pained…voice on the other end said quickly.

“Cordy?” Buffy asked in confusion.

“Yeah, it’s me. Pass the phone to Angel.”

“Um, Angel’s not here, Cordelia.”

“Well, where is he?” Cordelia asked impatiently.

“I don’t know, alright?” Buffy blurted.

A long moment of silence on the other end. Cordelia cursed. Buffy had never heard her curse before. “Well, that’s just great,” she said sarcastically. “I get this vision where he’s in danger, and he’s not around to hear it! Great, big old waste of a headache.”

“Cordelia!” Buffy yelled, interrupting her rambling. “You had a vision? Tell me what you saw.”

“Hey, my visions are for Angel, not for you!” Cordelia protested.

“If it involves Angel, it involves me. Now, you said he was in danger.” Buffy tried not to let her rising panic show in her voice. “You have to tell me.”

Cordelia started to protest again.

“Cordy!” Buffy yelled in exasperation. “Please! I promise you, I will go find Angel, and I will tell him word for word exactly what you saw. Now tell me already!”

Finally Cordelia relented. “Well, it was real dark, and Angel was outside. Then I got this flash of two guys in full, like, military get up, and just this big sense that he’s in danger. All right? Can I go now?”

Buffy nodded, then realized Cordelia couldn’t see it over the phone. “Yeah, thanks Cordelia.”

“Does it mean something to you?” Cordelia asked suddenly.

“It means I know where to start looking for Angel.”

He’d followed Riley at a distance after the vampire had made his claim as to the identity of Buffy’s new boyfriend. He should have done something right away. He should have tried to stop Riley from taking any weapons with him at all until he calmed down. Still, he trusted Riley to do the right thing in the long run. He certainly didn’t expect him to do anything this stupid.

“I mean, you electrocuted a human being! You know, as in a person with a pulse? And body heat? You’re lucky you didn’t shock him into a heart attack or something!”

“Will you just shut up?” Riley said testily. “Okay, so I was wrong. I was stupid. Are you going to help me figure out what to do now, or are you going to run and tell Ms. Walsh what I did?”

The shocked man in question was being carried between the two of them through half dug tunnels beneath the town. This had almost been the site of the Initiative’s base until a tunnel collapse had begun a series of strange disasters. Still, this tunnel was sturdy, as was the room they were heading towards.

“Well?” Riley asked.

“I’m thinking about it,” Forest replied. Still, as inept as Riley was, he was Forest’s friend, and he wasn’t in the habit of turning friends in.

“He’s heavy,” Riley said after a moment. “We should have just left him.”

“And leave him as prey to any vampire that came along?” Forest asked. “Surely you don’t wish that on him, even if he ‘stole your precious Buffy.’”

Riley made a face at that comment. “Of course not. We could have called an ambulance and just watched until they arrived.”

Forest sighed. “Now you think of that. Well, we can’t take him back now.” They entered the room that was almost their headquarters. Together, Riley and Forest laid Angel down on one of the tables that remained. “He does need medical attention, though,” Forest pointed out.

“I’m more interested in how he survived,” Riley replied. “That was enough shock to immobilize a large hostile. It should have killed a human being.” He pulled a rope out from his belt and began to tie Angel’s wrists and ankles.

“Surely you weren’t planning on keeping him here!” Forest said in surprise.

Riley just looked at him. “What were you suggesting? That we bring him to the Initiative and reveal what we did? We’ll get kicked out or worse. More likely worse. No, wait, how about we fix him up and release him? Oh yeah, that’s a good idea, reveal the presence of the Initiative to someone who is quite likely dangerous.” His tone was sarcastic now.

“So, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Riley replied. “But he’s staying here until I figure it out. And so are you.”