Almost Like Love

by SpikesKat

Anger had kept Angel going in those first few days after returning from Sunnydale, having given the amulet to Buffy then being told to leave, to be the next line of defense – or so she said. All he’d seen was her, desperate to push him away, to shut the door on the past and move forward.

Which was fine with him.

He had a lot of things on his mind; he didn’t need to add thinking about her and Spike being “together”, that Spike was “in her heart” to the list.

Angel banged his fist on the desk, and when that didn’t ease the tension that had taken up permanent residence in his body, let out an angry growl and swept his hand across the surface, sending the stack of file folders perched on the edge tumbling to the floor.

The split second of satisfaction he felt at the release quickly gave way to other feelings. Feelings that crept up on him when he least suspected it. Not the least of which was his overwhelming guilt.

He abruptly pushed away from his desk and stood, then crossed to the window to stare out at his domain, arms crossed over his chest. From high atop his new office, he could no longer see the little people that made up the city of Los Angeles, the ones he’d saved by sacrificing his life away, and that of his friends. A deal with the devil to ensure their safety… and that of his son.

It had seemed fairly straightforward to Angel at the time. Become the CEO of the LA branch of Wolfram & Hart, have his friends take managerial positions in different areas within the company – minus their memories of Connor – and his son would have a new life with a mother and father who loved him. A nice normal life. As a bonus, they’d thrown in the amulet to help with the brewing situation in Sunnydale.

Then Buffy and her bedraggled group had shown up at the Hyperion, battle weary but running high on their defeat of the First. They’d tumbled through the double doors and down the steps, some more animated than others. His eyes had scanned over the small crowd, alighting on Buffy’s pleasure-filled face, though it was tinged with sadness.

The sadness, he’d soon found out, was due to Spike’s demise.

Spike had gone out in a blaze of glory thanks to the amulet, taking him, the First, and the rest of the Turok-Han back to hell.

Angel sighed and leaned his forehead against the glass and closed his eyes; his hands were pressed flat against the glass. The afternoon sun beat down on him and he wondered, not for the first time, if Spike had felt like this while down in the bowels of hell – the heat as the amulet activated surrounding him like a blanket, bringing a flush to lukewarm skin.

For Angel, it stopped there, protected as he was behind the special glass the Senior Partners had had installed in the building prior to his arrival.

For Spike, it… hadn’t.

And it was Angel’s fault. For going to Sunnydale and giving Buffy the amulet. For believing Lilah’s lies.

For taking the easy way out.

Spike hadn’t. He’d stayed until the bitter end, his hand already in flames when he’d told Buffy to go, that he was responsible for the clean up. She’d cried in Angel’s arms, describing in detail how the flames had licked their way up Spike’s body, enveloping him, how his face had begun to turn to ash before she’d been forced to jump through the seal and make good her escape.

“He sacrificed himself because I chose him as my champion,” she’d sobbed.

She’d been too distraught to see that he’d held her too stiffly, patted her shoulder too awkwardly for any real comfort.

“What am I going to do?” she’d wanted to know after her tears had dried up, looking up at him with bright, luminous eyes.

“You’ll live,” he’d told her. “It was what Spike would have wanted.”

He’d stepped away when she lifted her face, as if for a kiss. Ignored her calling his name as he swiftly left the room.

If he’d stayed, he would have been half-tempted to kill her for taking Spike from him, however inadvertently. He’d put it down to demon logic at the time.

But as he’d bade a terse goodbye to Giles and stormed out the door to return to Wolfram & Hart, then spent weeks of fruitless researching on possible ways in which to revive Spike, he had to wonder if it was something else entirely.

Some lingering emotion, buried deep within his soul, which if revealed, would come close to breaking him, much like his son’s hatred of him almost had.

Angel wiped absently at his tears and resolutely turned away from the window to retrieve the files from the floor. He settled back in his chair and for the next several hours, focused on reading what was before him, making notes as needed, signing where indicated.

Minions came and went.

The phone rang.

Life as the new CEO of Wolfram & Hart went on.

The End

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