Who: Angel and a pest Spike What: Aurelian bonding When: Today Where: Wilderness Warnings: Oh, who knows.
It had nearly been a month since Angel first walked in on Fred experiencing her death for the first time. He hadn't known what was going on nor did he realize that she wasn't really dying. His enhanced sense seemed to say that while she was experiencing something traumatic, it didn't seem to be entirely physical. When he found out that Darla had experienced the same thing not long after, he knew it wasn't stopping there. Cordy, Buffy, Wes. All of them were reliving their deaths and he didn't have a clue as to how to stop it. Some were saying that it would eventually, but they had to wait. Wait for what? No one was able to give anyone any answers beyond that, but Angel still searched as much as he could and he'd keep searching until it stopped or he found the answer.
Connor was still staying at the cabin and he knew it was almost harder on his son to watch his mother die each time because he knew she'd done it for him. Angel knew without a doubt that Darla would relive that night for as long as it took and she'd make the sacrifice all over again if necessary because he would have done the same if he'd been in her shoes and god how he wished he'd been in her shoes. They deserved a lot of things for what they'd done as unsouled vampires, but Darla had her soul. She wasn't the vampire she was without it. She cared unconditionally for the baby she carried for nine months and yet she never got to properly meet him until now. Except the last month was plagued with nights of death over and over again.
They still had a few hours before it was time for the deaths to happen again, so he decided to get some air. Connor must have had the same idea because he had left around lunchtime and Angel hadn't seen him back yet. Darla and Fred stayed inside, but Angel decided to go for a walk and see if he could find anything to eat either for himself and Darla or for Connor and Fred.
The sun was out and normally he'd been forced to stay inside, but the ring he'd been given helped bypass the old curse that kept him locked indoors. It was something he found out Bonnie Bennett had charmed up for him thanks to a favor for Spike. He took it off sometimes and let Darla walk outside in the sun so she could see the world as she should be able to again. It gave her the chance to take Connor for walks in the sunshine rather than only in darkness.
His senses were alert when he stepped through some brush. Food for himself and the others was harder to come by these days, so he took most anything that he could get. He thought he heard some rustling from about twenty yards away, but that was about the time he heard something else start to approach. His other senses alerted him that it wasn't just any something. It was someone. Spike.
Forgetting whatever may have been lurking in the woods, he waited for Spike to join him. "Following me now, Spike?" There wasn't much expression on his face when he asked the question so it was kind of hard to tell if he was joking or annoyed. Usually Angel always fell somewhere in the middle on any given day anyway.