Spoilers: Takes place after "Rm w/a Vu" and "Beer Bad" and before "Sense and Sensitivity" and "Wild at Heart".

Angel stared out at the stars on display beyond the bar's window. They never seemed to end, stretching on forever in that dark and colorless void that was space.

He brought his drink up to his lips and took a sip. The taste broke him out of his reverie. He'd forgotten why he'd decided not to drink anything made by the Ferengis.

He looked around at the other patrons. Men and Women of varying species sat at tables scattered around the room, drinking, eating, and relaxing among friends. He was at Quark's, a bar on the space station Deep Space Nine. Quark's was run by a Ferengi, and it was evident if one looked over at the gambling tables on one end of the large room. They loved to bargain, and he could see the owner, Quark, over there right now with a few more Ferengis.

Half of the people there wore Starfleet Uniforms. The other half, which included himself, wasn't in Starfleet. Most of them were traders or children. In his case, he was a civilian from Earth visiting the station. He had undergone surgery to change his looks a little and make him appear older than his thirties.

The United Federation of Planets was in the middle of a war with the Dominion. Angel had to look older so Starfleet wouldn't recruit him for warfare. He wasn't a coward. In fact, he had been fighting on the Federation's side only a few months before. However, several people saw him get shot by a phaser blast, and he had to leave before they found out that he was still up and about.

A station where crewmembers from his old ship might recognize him wasn't the most logical place to be at the moment. Angel simply had to rely on his surgery as a disguise. Even if they did recognize him, he'd just have to say that he was his own father, and that he was here for the funeral, and hope the lie would work. They couldn't check up on the funeral because several were being held weekly on the station. It was war, after all.

The reason why he was there was because he got a call from an old friend. He'd asked to meet Angel on the station half an hour ago. Angel knew he had to be patient. His friend may have been called away to fight or help repair a ship, which were passable excuses. Being patient wouldn't be too difficult, however. He had time, and so did his friend.

The doors to the bar opened, and an Andorvian male stepped inside, wearing a Starfleet uniform. He glanced around the bar. When he spotted Angel, he smiled slightly and walked over to the table.

"Hello, Angel," he said.

Angel looked up at the Andorvian. His blue skin, white hair and blue eyes certainly made him appear different from the man Angel had known four hundred years ago, not to mention the Andorvian's twin ___. If they hadn't had that video conversation a few days ago when the Andorvian had proved he was Angel's friend, Angel wouldn't have known it was Alex McPhierce. The Alex he had known had been a tall, young Asian-American male who always dressed in casual clothes.

Alex was a shape-shifter, a dangerous thing to be on Deep Space Nine. Most shape-shifters were on the Dominion's side, except for Alex and the chief of security aboard the station, Otto. Otto was open about his shape-shifter heritage, but Alex had kept it a secret for nine hundred years. To reveal what he was now, a shape-shifter in disguise who had been in Starfleet since it began, wouldn't be the wisest thing to do. One reason was that the people around him would treat him with hostility. The other, however, had to do with the galaxy's paranormal population. Most of the demons and vampires alive at present knew Alex's real face and most of them wanted him dead, so Alex disguised himself for protection.

Angel smiled up at the shape-shifter. "Hey, Alex. Or should I call you Nam Quaama?"

"Nam is fine," Alex answered. He sat down across from Angel. "What should I call you? Angel, Angeles, or David Summers, Sr.?"

Angel smiled. Alex was one of the few people alive today who knew the meaning behind his alias's last name. "David is fine."

A waiter came over to their table. Alex placed his order and the waiter left to get his food. "How are you, David? Are you going to join in on the war, or have you already done that?"

"It was the latter," Angel answered. "I got shot in front of at least twenty-five witnesses who survived the battle."

Alex grimaced. "That must have hurt."

Angel nodded. "Yeah. Now I'm hoping that the surgeon I paid to make me look older did a passable job."

"Don't worry, you won't be spotted easily, unless someone looked at you really closely, close being about five feet."

Angel glared at the shape-shifter. "Thanks. That really helps me feel better. But if someone from my squadron recognizes me, you have to back me up."

The waiter returned with Alex's food. Shape-shifters didn't need to eat, but Andorvians did, and Alex had to maintain his disguise at all times to prevent anyone from getting even the least bit suspicious.

Angel gazed back out at the stars as Alex ate his food. After a few moments, however, Alex asked, "Do you miss her?"

Startled, Angel turned to look at the shape-shifter as regret and an eternal longing swept over him. He knew who Alex was talking about. "All the time, Alex. All the time."

Alex gazed at the sadness in Angel's irises in silence and companionship. He knew what it felt like to loose someone you loved to mortal death.

He could remember them all. He'd had more romances than Angel had, but unlike his partner in Immortality, Alex didn't need to worry about a Gypsy curse.

One in particular came to mind along with thoughts of Angel's ex-girlfriend Buffy. Her name had been Samantha Van Strasbourg. She'd been a beautiful young woman with her entire life ahead of her, before it was taken away by the one person Alex had hoped to never run into again.

Buffy entered the Bronze. It was packed with teenagers dancing, hanging out, or just talking. Through it all, she spotted Willow, Xander, and Anya sitting at a table near the stage.

When she reached it, Xander handed her a cup. "Hi, Buff," he greeted.

"Hey, guys," Buffy accepted the cup and sat down next to Willow.

Xander turned to Willow, "So, Will, you said you were thinking about joining a wicca group on campus?"

Willow didn't hear Xander. She was gazing at the stage, where Oz and Dingoes Ate My Baby were playing that night. She sighed contentedly.

Buffy smiled at her friend. She was glad Willow could have a relationship with someone.

Her own love life was another story. She could never have the relationship with Angel both of them wanted, and Parker had dumped her after they had made love. She hoped her relationship with Riley would turn out okay.

At a table up in the balcony, a group of young friends laughed over the music blaring out of the Bronze's speakers. Buffy, Xander, Anya, and Willow looked up and saw a few friends having a good time. Xander and Anya recognized one of them, but only Buffy and Willow recognized two.

They were Alex McPhierce and Samantha van Strasbourg, freshmen at UC-Sunnydale. Samantha used to go to Sunnydale High. She was smart, and like Willow, had tutored other students. Alex had come to Sunnydale to attend the college, and Willow and Buffy had seen the two together on campus.

While their friends looked on and joked, the couple kissed deeply.

Willow smiled. "Everyone's got someone. I've got Oz, Xander's got Anya, Alex has Samantha, and…"

"I've got no one," Buffy said.

Willow looked at her guiltily. "I'm sorry, Buffy, I didn't mean…"

Buffy smiled, although she felt bad on the inside. "It's okay."

"We're doing just fine," Anya said, trying to be helpful. After spending eleven hundred and twenty years as a vengeance demon, she still hadn't gotten used to being mortal again, and wasn't aware that she wasn't being very helpful. "In fact, when we're alone, he's quite pleasant."

"Anya," Xander warned, not wanting the ex-demon to tell his friends what they did together in private.

Buffy stood up. "I've gotta go."

"Don't go yet," Xander insisted. "You could sit and inhale your hot cocoa."

Buffy shook her head. "As much as I'd love sitting around gazing down at my drink any other day, I've got to patrol, then I need to do some major studying."

"I'll come to our dorm after Oz's set's over," Willow said. "We'll study together."

Buffy smiled. "Thanks."

"Bye," Xander called.

"Bye."

Hill Thomas had been running for a long time. The streets of Sunnydale were empty and seemed to be deserted. No faces peeked out the windows as she ran by. Families sat in front of television sets or dinner tables, ignoring what went on the streets of Sunnydale at night.

She knew she should go to a crowded area. It was safer in numbers, or so they said. Whoever they were. She ran toward the Bronze. It was the only place she knew that was close enough.

A girl of seventeen, Hill was the fashion queen of Sunnydale High. Ever since Cordelia Chase had left, anyway. Not that it was the same Sunnydale High. Since the school building blew up on last year's Senior Graduation Day, classes had been held in a few buildings outside of town, so it wasn’t even in Sunnydale.

That didn't mean the rest of the school had changed. Guys clung to her because she was popular, and because of her looks. Who wouldn't fall for her? So it hadn't been any big surprise when she'd picked up another cute guy at the Bronze earlier that evening. She figured he was a college guy, although he didn't tell her so.

His name was Ryan. They had gone to his place, a nice apartment a few blocks away from the Bronze. It had been nice for awhile. She'd even given him points for style.

Then Ryan had turned-no, shape-shifted-into a girl.

That was when 'Ryan' had lunged for her. For a few seconds, she was paralyzed with terror, but then a sense of survival she didn't know she had pushed her away from 'Ryan' and out the door as fast as she could.

The Bronze was in sight. Hill was in the parking lot next to the warehouse connected to the back of the teen hangout. She couldn't spot 'Ryan' anywhere. But after seeing him…her…it shape-shift, Hill doubted it couldn't change into something else.

When she looked back in front of her, she collided with that something.

Strong hands grabbed her arms and held her. Hill looked up to see 'Ryan', but it didn't look like him/her. 'Ryan' had changed back to a guy, but this guy was muscular and taller.

"Ryan, please," Hill pleaded. "Don't kill me."

'Ryan' smiled down at her. "Human, I don't care if you live or die."

Hill stared up at his eyes. Filled with a cold hunger for death, he looked like a serial killer. Hill knew this was the end.

She screamed until she dropped to the ground, dead.

'Ryan' turned away from the young girl's body. He heard several pairs of footsteps, changed into a bird, and flew away.

When Buffy walked out the Bronze, she heard a girl's scream coming from the parking lot. Buffy ran to help, pulling out a stake, with her friends on her tail.

Buffy got there several seconds later. She spotted a body lying on the ground. Buffy ran to her. She looked around at the shadows, but couldn't see or hear anything.

She knelt beside the body and checked for a pulse. She found none.

The unfortunate girl was at least a year or two younger than Buffy. She had burns all over her body. It was definitely not the work of a vampire.

One of the bouncers ran into the parking lot, followed by a small crowd. When the bouncer saw the body, he stopped dead in his tracks. "Woah. What happened?"

"Don't know," Buffy said.

"I'll call the cops," one of the onlookers said and ran off.

Buffy stood up.

Willow, Anya, and Xander made their way through the crowd.

"What happened to her?" Willow asked.

"Don't know," Buffy repeated.

Xander met her eyes. "Giles?"

Buffy nodded. "Giles."

"It just seems so stupid," Samantha van Strasbourg said over the phone. "That girl shouldn't have died. I knew her when I went to Sunnydale High. I tutored her once or twice."

Alex McPhierce, who was sitting on his dorm room bed in Stevenson Hall, listened to Sam through his phone, and nodded, even though she couldn’t see it. "It'll be all right. The police are going to catch the person who did that."

"I hope so," Sam said. "I love you, Alex."

"I love you too, Sam," Alex told her before hanging up.

He put the phone back on the stand between his bed and his roommate's. His roommate was lying in the bed across from Alex, listening to some rock music on some headphones. When Alex hung up, John, his roommate, put down the headphones and glanced over at him. "How's Sam?"

Alex shrugged and sighed. "She's coping."

"Yeah," John said. "When we left the Bronze and found all those cops swarming all over the place, I was expecting a guy with two puncture wounds in his neck."

Curious, Alex asked him, "Puncture wounds?"

"Oh, yeah," John said. "There have always been people dying of puncture wounds around here. The police can't figure it out. They just say gang members on PCP did it. But this burn murder, they can't come up with a story for that. It's new for them."

"Give them time," Alex muttered.

"Well, I'm going," John said, getting up.

"Where?"

"I heard about this party at a frat house, Alpha Beta Delta. Want to come?"

Alex shook his head. "Nah. I'll just stay here."

"Whatever, man," John said, and left.

Alex sighed and lay back on his bed.

Xander threw the book down, irritated. "There's nothing in that book."

The gang was gathered at Giles' apartment. Xander sat on the couch next to Anya and Willow.

Giles appeared in the kitchen doorframe holding a tray of tea and donuts. He set it down on the table in front of the couch and sat down in a chair. He took off his glasses, cleaned them, and put them back on, then picked up another book on the table and started looking. Xander, Anya, and Willow got donuts and kept searching. Oz was still at the Bronze, helping the Dingoes pack up their instruments. The Bronze would be closed the rest of the night.

"Here's something," Willow announced. Everyone looked at her while she continued, "It says that this kind of demon burns people's skin by touching them." She looked at Buffy. "Did you see any yellow slime lying around?"

Buffy shook her head. She turned to the others. "What about you guys? Have you found anything?"

Xander tossed another book on the table. "Nothing. We've found a few things, but nothing fits the profile."

"Here's something about a demon that burns people from the inside out, but he's really a living torch himself," Willow said. "It would be hard just to disappear like that after it killed someone."

"And Hillanne Thomas' burns were on the outside of her body," Buffy said, sighing.

"Burning people brings back so many memories," Anya said dreamily. "There was this mason, and his wife, whom he beat up regularly, wanted me to burn his-"

"Thanks for telling us, honey," Xander told her. "But please, stay on topic here, okay?"

Giles sighed. "Why don't you all go home. There's not much you can do tonight."

"Well," Buffy said as they headed toward the door, "I'm going to patrol, see if this burn-guy shows up. I'll see you later, Willow."

"Okay," Willow said.

Alex knew exactly what killed Hillanne Thomas. It was a shape-shifter, like himself.

Alex's hand began to shift into a dog's paw. Alex shifted it back. Unlike most of his kind, Alex didn't really like to shift. He preferred his human, male form over anything else. He cared about humans in a way no other shape-shifter could.

Samantha didn't know he was a shape-shifter, and he hoped she never did.

There was a knock on the door. Alex got up and headed toward the door, figuring it was John. His roommate was always forgetting his keys.

He unlocked the door. But John wasn't standing there.

A woman with long, dark hair tied in a pony-tail with a red ribbon stood on his door step. She wore a open white shirt over a red tank top and jeans.

"Hi, Alex," she greeted him.

Alex recognized the voice, if not the body. "Ryana?"

Ryana smiled. "Can I come in?"

"If I say no, you'll just go through the vent."

"True." Ryana walked into the room and sat on his bed.

Alex closed the door. When he turned back to Ryana, she was in her more common form.

It was the appearance all of his kind took when they were alone. Ryana had shifted into what appeared to be an old woman, with blond-white hair pulled back over her head, and a mouth, but no lips. "You know why I'm here."

Alex sat on John's bed. He did not change his appearance from the nineteen-year-old boy who went to UC-Sunnydale. "Perhaps."

"I came to link."

Alex sighed. "You know my answer."

"Come on, Alex," Ryana said. "Why settle for these petty human emotions? If you link with me, you can have so much more."

"No, Ryana!" Alex took a deep breath. "I won't turn my back on them."

Ryana was silent for a moment, studying him. "There's a girl, isn't there?"

Alex nodded. He couldn't meet her eyes. They used to be intimate, but it had been several generations ago. Back then, he would have agreed with Ryana's way of thinking. But it had been a very long time since he linked, and he didn't want to become the careless monster he'd been.

"She can give you nothing, Alex," Ryana promised. "I can give you everything. Don't turn your back on your own kind."

"Why not?" Alex asked, meeting her eyes, angry now. "They kill humans. That's reason enough not to trust them."

He waited a beat, then asked, "Did you kill Hillanne Thomas?"

Ryana stood up. "If I did, I would remember doing such a thing." She walked toward the door and opened it. "I'll be waiting, Alex. I know you'll change your mind sooner or later."

Ryana closed the door. Alex stared at it.

Buffy went on the normal route, slew a few vampires on the way. Then she did a short patrol around the Bronze, seeing as that was where the last killing had been.

The Bronze was still alive with activity. Apparently, with all the weird things that went on in Sunnydale, this was just another thing the human population would ignore.

She was about to make her third circle when she heard another scream. This time it came from the alley near the Bronze, away from all the police tape.

Buffy ran down there. And what she saw made her want to puke with disgust.

A brown-skinned demon was holding a young girl in place. The girl struggled, but couldn't get free. They faced the left side of the alley. From what Buffy saw of it, the demon had spines running down its backbone, and its talons were digging into the girl's arms, drawing blood.

"Please, Ryan!" The girl begged. "Let me go!"

"Good advice," Buffy said.

The demon whirled to face Buffy, dragging the girl with it. Buffy took out a knife from her weapons bag and dropped the duffel on the ground. She stood at the ready and waited. "Why don't you let her go and face me like a good demon?"

The demon did release the girl, who fell to the ground. The young girl quickly backed up against the wall.

"Go! Run!" Buffy told her. The other girl did as she was told.

Buffy turned back to the demon. "Okay, let's fight."

The demon smiled. Then it shifted into a girl. The girl's dark hair was pulled back into a red pony-tail.

The girl/demon smiled. "Okay. But not know. I've got so many places to go, people to see. But I look forward to killing you later."

Then, before Buffy's eyes, the girl changed again, this time into a bird, and flew away.