Title – Implications of Lies

Disclaimer - not mine.

Rating - PG

Spoilers - everything ever.

Pairing - Buffy/Angel.

Synopsis – some secrets begin to be revealed...

Feedback - always.

AN – Angel's POV.

I don't know why I did what I did just now. Don't get me wrong, I couldn't be more at peace with this decision, it *was* the right move and as long as I live, I will never regret it. But... why. This is what I don't understand... why. Didn't I say it myself that I could never promise her I'll always be here? And I couldn't, because time and again, the fate, the Powers, however I choose to call them, they proved to us it was out of our reach. There were always things greater than ourselves that came up and drove us apart, eventually we just had to face up to the fact the future was never ours, not a join one, at least.

So what did I just do? Didn't I just put my ring on her finger? No, I didn't promise her sunshine and roses, but didn't I just promise her forever, in spite of everything, didn't I promise her that no matter what, I would always be with her? What did I just do... broke her heart for years to come. How am I supposed to keep a promise that was never my to make? I will do everything in my power to keep it, I knew that when I made it and I know that now. But what if, again, it will be beyond my power?

I've always been strong, too strong for an ordinary guy, even though I never put my strength to a test or into action up until this night. I found it odd even before I realized I was more than your average normal Joe, I always suspected something wasn't right there, with me. And now that my eyes were open to so many new things, in a way, it even scares me. Because now I know for certain there was a reason for the abilities I never knew where to place before, there was a reason why they were there and why I had them. Someone, or something gave them to me so that I would be able to serve their purpose, whatever it is.

And then they brought me to her.

I never held a stake before in my life, I'm sure of it, not in the life I'm supposed to have lived as a human, anyway, and that was the reason she was reluctant to let me join her on patrols. In my entire life, I never saw a vampire, or a demon, let alone fought one and prevailed. I never even knew I could. And tonight... I still don't know what happened tonight, I think I was more surprised by the way everything unfolded than she was. I didn't know I would slip into this life so easily, that it would come so naturally to me. At first, I felt like something was controlling me, like something has taken over me and was working my body, that it wasn't me. I'm still trying to absorb the fact that at every single second for the last twenty-nine years I did two things simultaneously and not wind up in a mental institution as a result. You'd think after two years of awareness, it'd be easier, never mind the fact that in the last few days it feels as if I've assembled more knowledge about myself than in the past two years. It's not, and the scariest part is that I don't know if it'll ever be. Will I be forced to make a choice in the end, give up one life or the other? If this is the case, how am I supposed to choose?

"Angel?"

I quickly push these thoughts away to the back of my mind as I hear her calling me. But it's too late because when I look down into her eyes, I can see them reflecting in her orbs so clearly it's almost unbelievable. How can she do that? "I... I was..."

"Stuck in brood-land again?" she suggested knowingly with a small smile as she turned to ring the doorbell. Only then I realized we've been standing before her door for several minutes at least while I was stuck in my own little world of brooding, as she likes to call it and the entire time, she was watching me. With that comes the question just how good or bad is that, considering I know what she really wants to hear is, from me, what I was thinking *about*. As I steal another glance at her, I know she's going to let it drop, for now, but when it does come back, it's going to come back bigger and stronger. And I'm not sure I'm ready to face those questions yet. I wrap my arm around her shoulders and pull her closer, and it's not long before I feel her strain ease a bit as she inclines her head on my chest with a sigh.

"So are you two officially moving outside to live in the rain?"

We both look up at Xander, both unsure of what to say back or how to take his mischievous grin. We are both dripping wet... but so is here. I open my mouth to say something, but Buffy beats me to it.

"Look who's talking, Xand," she comments, as we make our way into the house and towards the kitchen.

"I just came in," he doesn't waste time to throw a comeback as he tails us there, "ran in here straight from the car, your excuse being?"

"You know-"

But he cuts me short, answering his own question, "The only reason I'm asking is because I didn't want to interrupt."

Thus end the guesses whether he saw us or not. I make a mental note it wouldn't be Xander if he didn't use the opportunity to rub it in our faces, even as a joke.

I exchange a barely detectable smile with my girlfriend as I help her take off her jacket. My girlfriend... my girl... my fiancee... Can I call her that?... I let out a bitter chuckle and they both look at me, each one with a different question in the eyes. I look away.

"We were *patrolling*," Buffy maintains her stand nevertheless, as Connor and Liz enter the kitchen together.

"What happened?" this time it's my son who asks the question though he doesn't seem to suspect what Xander already knows, and as expected, takes the opportunity to enlighten him as well.

"They were *patrolling*," he pointedly stresses the last word. When his eyes catch the wound on Buffy's arm, he quirks a brow, "okay, so maybe they were, some of the time." Connor throws him a confused look before walking over to one of the cupboards, retrieving a first aid kit and putting it next to me on the table. "Only that I'm more familiar with their 'patrols' than anyone else in this room, except these two," Xander continues his monologue, throwing an arm around my son's shoulders and nodding at us occasionally. "And I doubt they changed much since eleventh grade. See their patrols go like this - smoochies, maybe a couple dead vamps here and there, yet more smoochies, some more smoochies, then they go home, unless there are even more smoochies. The last one doesn't apply anymore because... well, now they don't have to go to separate homes, they can smooch here."

I look up at my son and his girlfriend and quickly return to treating Buffy's wound when I detect the knowing smiles dancing in their eyes. The thought then occurs to me that we didn't tell them yet anything about what happened tonight. They didn't ask because they must have not noticed the ring on her finger. A part of me wishes they didn't... at least for a while. I don't know why I feel the way I do, because the other part of me wants to climb up to the highest tower and scream at the top of my lungs to let the entire world know that she is finally mine, in every way, *my* girl. And yet I can't bring myself to even tell her best friends, her family... *my* family, too.

"You know what I think? Aw."

"Sorry," I mumble back an apology, realizing I was again, too wrapped up in my thoughts, and resume cleaning her wound more carefully as she looks back at Xander.

"*I* think that some of us are still stuck in said eleventh grade. And as far as vampires go, tonight's count is nine. Nine in one sweep."

"Nine vampires in one sweep?"

We all turn to look at Giles, who together with Willow just entered the house. There is something in his eyes I find confusing and foreboding but at the same time I don't know what it is. I sigh and turn my attention back to patching up Buffy's arm. She must have noticed the abrupt change in me because she breaks her challenging gaze from Xander and momentarily turns to peek at me. It won't be a long-shot if I say we're sharing a thought.

"Giles, it's not that unusual," Willow points out, probably relying on her past experience.

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. It is rather hard to tell nowadays." He takes a moment to ponder it and looks at Buffy, "What were they doing together in a cemetery? You very seldom come across a group of so many."

"Throwing a deathday party?" she quips and then just shrugs, standing up. For some reason I don't find it in me to laugh, so doesn't she. "I never really stopped to ask, we were sort of in the middle of fighting."

"Maybe I should go back," the unexpected yet typical suggestion comes from my son and we all turn to him. But at the slightest flicker of concern in his girlfriend's eyes, I shake my head in blunt refusal. I maybe trust him, but I also know he only let her in on everything a short while ago and even though she wasn't completely ignorant before, too short a while to allow himself back to his old routine.

"No."

He obviously misinterpreted my intentions. "Dad, they could be looking for something."

"Well, they're not looking for it anymore," Buffy replies instead of me, and taking my hand in hers, leads me out of the kitchen.

"Dad, I don't get it," Connor follows us to the living room, obviously me forbidding him to go on patrol left him thrown in the least. I don't know how to explain my reasons any better given the present audience and inwardly I hope I won't have to. For some reason *everyone* seem to understand it but him, even Giles keeps quiet, knowing Buffy wasn't neither rash, nor reckless with what she said. She, just like I, has taken his comment for all it was and had every intention to go back.

"You can't go back," he continues to argue emphatically, unwilling to let it go. "Buffy's hurt, you're not going back like this."

"I've had worse, trust me," she brushes him off with a smile, "so generally speaking, I'm just wet. But now I'm going up for a shower." Before climbing up the stairs, she leans closer to me and ghostly brushes her lips over my earlobe as she whispers, "I hope to see you there, too."

"Get a room!" Xander yells after her and is instantly answered with, "Going to."

I sigh and shake my head, mentally discussing if he's ever going to change, at least in regard to Buffy and I. "Connor," I look back at my at the moment not-to-happy son and do my best to sound resolute and hope he will not defy me this time. "Don't go there. Listen to me, and don't go. I'll explain everything later."

"Fine," he huffs, folding his arms on his chest in a way he reminds me of himself at eighteen. I allow some resemblance to a smile at that he reminds me of something he was. In some way, it gives me hope that maybe not all the years are lost on us yet, maybe even some of what is already destroyed can still be restored. With every pattern of behavior I detect in him, even under negative circumstances, I feel closer to him and it gives me more hope. I don't know if he feels the same way, we don't talk about these things. Sometimes I think maybe we should, but then I feel some things are better to be left unsaid and some feelings unshared. In a sense, we are both walking a fine line these days, but we always have, only with this Connor, the one Buffy raised, the chance to slip, for either of us, appears to have lessened somehow.

"Angel, a word with you?"

I snap out of my thoughts and look at Buffy's former Watcher, suddenly feeling a huge lump is forming in my throat as the unusually sharp look in his eyes pierces its way through me.

"I'm gonna drive her home," my son excuses himself out of the house and takes his girlfriend along. And I wonder how come he's suddenly so eager to leave. I wonder if maybe he doesn't want all the mysteries to be solved, maybe he's afraid of the solution, of the implications it might have on him. I told him I could never promise him what he wanted to hear and thinking back at it, it might have been the wrong thing to do at the time, the wrong thing to say. People say lies only complicate things... but now I think sometimes lies are necessary.

As I follow Giles, Willow and Xander into the living room, my tension grows to magnitude beyond my grasp. An inner voice asks why Buffy isn't present for this conversation. There is only one thing that currently springs to mind and Giles would want to talk about and I don't understand why he would choose a time when she is not around to answer questions that concern both of us. I want to ask him, but at the same time, I can't seem to be able to. So I just sit down and wait for him to start speaking.

"What was the first thing you remembered?"

At least he's straightforward. But the first thing I remember... "It's... private," I try to avoid talking about that for the simple reason it's none of their business and I don't see how it can have any implications on whatever is going on with me or why I'm here or why I am what I am.

"Tell me about the Oracles, Angel."

He doesn't waste time, does he. I suck in a breath and look him straight in the eye. "I told you, it's private."

Willow and Xander exchange a look on the sofa, but only one of them appears to be thrown by these questions.

"You made a deal with them," Giles continues, reluctant to allow me the upper hand. He's not going to give up and I know it. His gaze is hard and set and I don't know what is the correct way to interpret it. Does he think I've been hiding something important? I could have sworn I wasn't, but I doubt he'd listen. But what if everything lies in my answer, what if I don't even know something is important?

"You didn't tell Buffy about this?" I have to make sure.

His reply though, comes as the *last* thing I expected to hear. "Buffy told me. This was what gave me the lead."

"Buffy..." I cast my eyes down to the floor, inhaling another deep breath. I have to take a few moments to digest everything. Buffy knows... She knows I lied to her, hid it from her... She knows and she never told me. How did she find out, how long have she known? Yet somehow I doubt these questions are the ones I should be asking at the moment.

"What was the deal, Angel?"

I gaze up at him and blink to clear my suddenly blurry vision. I wet my dry lips and inhale. "My life for hers," I avert my eyes, refusing for some reason to meet his. "That was the deal."

Silence fills the room for a moment and to me it's deafening. I suddenly understand why Buffy shouldn't be a part of this conversation and put my entire concentration in perceiving the sound of the water running upstairs. I need to make *sure* she's not.

"What else?"

My head snaps up in surprise. How could he know *this*?! "What?"

"What else? The second part of the deal, the one you neglected to tell Buffy."

I chuckle at that and nervously comb my hand through my hair. How the hell can he know about that? Even Buffy never did. I swallow hard and look up at him. "If it's something Buffy never told you... How do you know it even exists?"

"I've done some interesting reading as of late, Angel," Giles comments gravely, and before he can continue, Willow chimes in.

"And summoning."

He throws her a glance and exhales, as he leans back in his seat, never breaking our eye contact. His eyes gradually soften and I wonder if it's for the best or for the worst. I feel like a rat in a cage, equally being locked up and probed. I never thought these things would come and backfire at me like that, I thought I put it behind me. I hoped I was doing right, I never wanted to wrong anyone, not the woman I love. I never wanted to bring any harm... I don't remember I did...

"Angel," he speaks again, and his voice sounds differently somewhat, less accusing, maybe. In a sense, it supplies certain comfort and on the other hand... it doesn't. "Angel, I'm not here to attack you. I'm trying to help you. "*We*," he glances at Willow who's sitting right next to him before continuing, "are trying to help you. It isn't going to work unless you cooperate. So we'll try again, I need to hear this from you. What was the second part of the deal?"

THE END