I could see her after, saying that the streets of Charm City felt a lot less scary."Give me a good dope murder, any day." And she knows how to dress for slime.

Kay Howard is the only television detective ever whom I would not only trust, but expect, to walk up to something like thre Big Rubber Demon, say something entirely realistic and exasperated, and then without thinking too much about the logistics, break the critter's arm.

"Oh, for the love of... Do I have to do everything?" Grr, argh, squish. "I'm not cleaning that up...I'll tell you that, right now."

"I'm not cleaning that up...I'll tell you that, right now."

And glaring at everyone as she says it. I wonder how she'd work with Gunn? Probably superbly. She likes brains and she respects stubbornness.

OK, my brain is draining.

Buffy shags Angel, he loses his soul - what the hell was the name of the episode?

Edit - never mind. Not Innocence - Surprise, right?

Yes. Sex in Surprise, Angel wakes up gasping, takes several minutes to put on his clothes (including coat), stumbles out into the rain, falls down and twitches. Beginning of Innocence is where he pops back up and eats the smoker.

Well, shit. I couldn't stand it anymore.

Be warned - total schmoop.

Fourth Thing That Should Have Happened in Sunnydale

"You're shivering."

She was; he was quite right. The water in the harbour had been as cold and dank as the taste of failure, knowing they'd lost that crucial piece of the Judge.

"Angel -" Her teeth were chattering, nearly grinding. Cold, wet, reaction setting in, the flicker of energy as the adrenaline of that fight at the docks crested and then sank. She was played out, limp, exhausted. And half frozen.

"We need to get you into dry clothes. You're going to catch pneumonia. Come on - my place."

Somewhere between the docks and the cemetery, Buffy gave up. This was a rarity for her - she was the Slayer and the Slayer stayed alert, aware, one movement would take her across the room, ready to do what she'd been chosen to do. But tonight, she was turning seventeen, the world was likely going to see something she might not be able to stop, and yet all she could think about was her own relief that Angel wasn't leaving, wasn't sailing, wasn't taking that damned demon's funky-assed arm off to the Gobi Desert or wherever.

When that realisation, and her own acceptance of her own enjoyment, sank in, she gave up being the Slayer. It snuck up on her, slow and easy, as Angel led them through Sunnydale, dark streets, side alleys, stopping, despite his worry over her, to make certain they were still alone. The understanding, his protection of her, loosened her Slayer-skin a bit more, making it that much easier to slough off, for just a while, a blessed little bit, where she was turning seventeen and she had this gorgeous guy looking out for her, caring what happened, worrying over her. She stepped away from the Slayer-skin and became Buffy Summers, sixteen-going-on-seventeen, wasn't that a song from some stupid musical her mother liked? Oh hell, her mother, and what was Giles going to say when he found out they'd lost the arm, screw it, she didn't care. Caring about that was the Slayer's job and she'd been the Slayer nonstop for a while and she was taking a birthday break, for cake and dry clothes and -

"Buffy?"

(continued)

(continued)

She hadn't even noticed they'd arrived; Buffy Sixteen-Going-On-Seventeen had been so lost in her beatific dream of Non-Slayerhood that she'd followed Angel down into his crypt. He'd already taken his shirt off - Jesus wept, he had the most amazing chest ever and she was cold, no, she was hot -

It happened naturally, Sixteen-Going-On-Seventeen the same endearing mixture of shy and eager as anyone else. The cold wet clothes slipped down her skin - he warmed her despite his own perpetual chill, lips finding the rosy gold of her skin, touching breast and belly. Happy birthday me and I don't give a shit about tomorrow, I don't, nothing can come close to this, the entire universe can pop like a zit and I don't care, I don't, oh God oh Angel....

Afterward, they lay spooned, his lips rhythmically brushing her bright tangled hair as she slept. Eventually, curled to protect her against what might come, he slept as well.

• * *

Outside in the churchyard, Jenny Calendar held an orb in her hands. She had been whispering a spell since moments after slipping into the deep shadow of the stairs to Angel's crypt.

Defying her uncle had not been a small thing. Yes, the honour of the tribe was important to her - how not? After hundreds of years of persecution, after near-decimation by Hitler and centuries of being belittled, used, abused, chased from town to town, honour was the tribe's currency, their memory. Jenny Calendar - the Janna of her tribe, the witch, the girl with the knowledge and power of the phurai dai, the wise woman of the Romanies - did not take that lightly. And debts were debts.

But she owed more recent debts, and in the end, those had overshadowed the debt to the girl Angelus had raped to death, as he drained her. She owed, not Angelus, but Angel; she owed Buffy. Certainly, she owed Rupert, in the best way.

So she stood in a dark space and whispered the spell, over and over, the spell that would undo the curse that poor murdered child's family had laid upon Angelus the destroyer, two centuries past. She held the orb, the soul catcher, breathing her spell, hoping its use would not be necessary.

She stayed there until daybreak. As the sun broke the planes of the eastern horizon, she slipped away, leaving Buffy slumbering peacefully, with the still-ensouled Angel pressed against her.

• * *

Deb, ya big schmoop, you made me sniffly.

I just think a little birthday happy? Damnit, they'd earned it.