He smelled her long before she came into view.

Angel ducked behind a large tombstone, a pretentious monument to some long-dead scion of Sunnydale. Her scent, uniquely Buffy, was carried to him on an errant breeze. She was still several feet from him, with her back to the tombstone behind which he crouched. Another gust of wind, the harbinger of a faraway storm at sea, brought the scent of soap and sweat to his sensitive nostrils.

And adrenaline.

Peeking over the edge of the marble slab, Angel took in Buffy's flushed skin and rumpled jacket. She'd been fighting, recently, from the looks of it. Since she hadn't yet sensed his presence, Angel took the time to study the Slayer.

The Buffy Summers that Whistler had shown to him in Los Angeles during the spring of 1996 was gone, buried beneath layers of weary bitterness. The beautiful blonde teenager that had struggled with the newfound knowledge of her destiny had been replaced by a seventeen-year-old woman forced to grow up years too quickly.

Still beautiful, though, to Angel's eyes. Even with little makeup and her long hair pulled back into an unflattering braid, even with her knowing green gaze and the thin, faint scar slicing across her full lips, she was exquisite.

Angel shifted as she moved closer, her sharp stare skipping over his hiding place. He wasn't quite sure he wanted to let her know that he was following her, not sure yet how she would accept the fact that he didn't have any intention of hurting her.

Back at Giles', he hadn't missed her lack of self-esteem. Buffy covered it up well, substituting a thorough knowledge of vampires and battle strategy to replace the confidence she was missing in herself. But, Angel had watched as she studiously avoided any direct contact with himself or the other young men, Oz and Larry. She looked at Giles for confirmation of every word she spoke, not even aware she was doing it. He could see the growing respect in her eyes for the ex-Watcher and he wondered what Giles had done to gain the skittish Slayer's trust so easily.

Remembering the Buffy of old compared to the Buffy of today made Angel ache with sympathy for her. He wondered if she missed all of the things that young girls her age took for granted; late-night phone calls with friends, pretty clothes, movie dates, fashion magazines, dances. . .

Dances. Angel wanted to dance with her, hold her slender, powerful body in his arms and feel her melt into his strength, feel her give into the luxury of the moment. He wanted to press his face into her thick hair, feel it slip through his fingers. He wanted to bury his face into the heat of her neck, breathe in her scent and taste the honeyed texture of her skin.

He wanted to offer her comfort from her complicated, horrifying life.

He wanted to give her all of the love he had had for her since that day in March, 1996.

The day Buffy Anne Summers became the Slayer.

"Are you following me?"

Angel leaped to his feet so swiftly he bumped his head against an overhanging tree branch. He took a step backward, his hand coming up to rub the sore spot.

Buffy stared at him, an amused smirk on her face. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm not following you!"

Angel could've sworn he saw a flicker of disappointment in her eyes and she looked down at the ground. Scuffing her foot in the brown weeds, she shrugged. "Well. . . good! Don't. I stake first and ask questions later."

Angel shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. "Did you kill some vampires earlier? You look. . . mussed."

Buffy lifted a hand to her face, a self-conscious blush stealing over her features. "Oh! Um, yeah. . . over by the theater. . . five of them. Too late for their dinner though."

"Are they going to rise?" Angel asked as he fell into step beside her. He noticed just how tiny she really was; no more than five foot two or three, she didn't even reach his chin. She looked fragile, vulnerable, not the muscular little powerhouse that could take out five vampires in less than ten minutes.

"No. Just dead. I think they were tourists. Boy, did they take a wrong turn."

They walked through Rose Hill Cemetery in tense silence, both stealing looks at each other when the other wasn't watching. "I suppose I should double back and drag the bodies back to the school. Burn 'em," Buffy said as they stepped through the rusted iron gate and onto the sidewalk bordering Seventh Street.

"Don't bother, a clean-up crew comes through town every morning at daybreak. They'll take care of it. Did they have anything of value?"

Buffy gave him a strange look. "What do you do? Rob the dead?"

"I meant, anything that could be sent to family," Angel said patiently.

"Oh." Buffy looked down the street at the houses, many abandoned, many with large crosses nailed to the front doors and above the windows. "No. Well, I mean, I didn't look."

"Doesn't matter. As far as family is concerned, they'll probably never know what happened. Not much gets out about Sunnydale."

Buffy leaned back against the fence, wrapping her hands around the vine-covered bars. "Why is that? Why doesn't everyone leave?"

Angel sighed, tilting his head back to look at the sky. Earlier in the evening the stars had been out, but a cloud cover was moving in, bringing the promise of rain. The vampire hoped so; inclement weather tended to keep the monsters in their lairs. "Before the Master escaped his prison, this town was. . . quaint. A lovely, seaside community, full of artists and writers. Very picturesque. I think the people of Sunnydale, those that have elected to stay, to fight the demons, do so because they have hope that, one day, everything will be like it was."

Buffy snorted. "They're stupid. They should get out while they can. From the little I've seen, this town is a lost cause. If I was in charge, I'd just set the whole damned place on fire and let the vamp bastards burn."

She glanced at Angel and shrugged. "Sorry, no offense."

"No offense taken."

"Why do you stay?"

Angel frowned, wondering how much he should reveal to her. He looked at her, her face cast into the shadows by the trees overhead.

"I was waiting for you."

He turned and walked away, towards the high school. He could hear the soft clomp of Buffy's combat boots as she ran to catch up. He waited for her to say something sarcastic or biting.

But, the expected ridicule never came. Buffy fell into step with him and they walked silently down the dark sidewalk.