Thanks to the reviewers for the great feedback on this, my first fic. This chapter is bereft of beta, so feedback is most appreciated.

Disclaimer: Nothing is mine, sadly. All is Joss's.
*************

Angel’s office door slammed open as Gunn and Wesley came running in. “Angel!” called Gunn.
 
“I’m here,” Angel replied. He edged back to the wall to stay out of the sunlight and stood up.
 
“What happened?” asked Wesley. “Harmony said Spike was here. Were you two fighting?”
 
Angel shook his head. “He jumped.”
 
“What?” chorused Gunn and Wesley. Both of them had become familiar enough with Spike over the last few months to know that this was completely out of character for him. Wesley in particular could not conceive of William the Bloody, Slayer of Slayers, voluntarily leaping to his death. “I thought he had gone to Europe to see that girl, what’s her name?” Gunn continued.
 
“Buffy,” said Angel. “She committed suicide.”
 
Wesley couldn’t believe his ears. He hadn’t known the Slayer long, but he would never in a million years have pegged her as the suicidal type. She had faced countless battles, private and demonic. Suicide was unthinkable.
 
Angel passed Buffy’s note to Wesley. “Spike brought this back from Rome.”
 
Wesley read it, comprehension dawning. “I see.” He quietly passed the letter to Gunn. “Angel, I’m sorry. I know you had a history with her.”
 
Angel edged around to the door. “I… I need to be alone for a while.” He stalked off down the corridor toward the elevators, nearly plowing over employees in his path.
 
Gunn finished reading and turned to Wesley. “Man. Poor Spike. I had no idea he had it so bad for this girl.”
 
“I need to call Giles,” said Wesley. “There has to be more to this.”
 
Wesley went off to make the call. Gunn reread the letter, sighed, and then went about arranging to have the office cleaned and the glass repaired. What a mess, all around, he thought.
 
**********
 
Wesley hung up the phone. He had had a long talk with his fellow former Watcher and was stunned. The stupid senselessness of it all. Three days. They had missed each other by three days. Wesley always quietly thought that Angel had been more than a little pigheaded to not at least tell Buffy about the amulet, its mysterious return, and who had returned with it. Angel and Buffy’s relationship had ended years ago, yet he was still so jealous and possessive of her. Wesley always thought it was stubborn and a bit ridiculous of Angel to keep carrying the torch for a relationship that was clearly over. But now, when the consequences were so dire… Wesley didn’t know what to think. Senseless.
 
Wesley collected a bottle of scotch from the cabinet in his office and took the elevator up to Angel’s apartment. He knocked on the door. “Who is it?” Angel’s voice sounded tired.
 
“It’s Wesley. May I come in?”
 
After a pause, the door opened. Angel had clearly already started drinking. Wesley held up the scotch. “Need some more? And an ear?” Angel nodded. “Come in, Wes.”
 
Angel led the way to the living room. He grabbed another glass from the bar and handed it to Wesley. Wesley poured them both a good measure of scotch and sat down. They drank in silence for a while.
 
“I screwed up, Wes.”
 
Wesley looked up at the vampire, who was staring into his drink as he spoke. “I couldn’t bear the thought of him and her together. I know that I had no future with Buffy. But the thought of her and Spike? That annoying pain in the ass? I thought I was doing what was best for her. Again.” He downed the rest of his drink and reached for the bottle again.
 
“You had no way of knowing how she felt about him, Angel”
 
“I didn’t bother to find out, did I?” He looked up and continued bitterly, “I never could accept that my plans weren’t her plans. I hurt her more by trying to do right by her than I ever did as Angelus.”
 
“Spike could have contacted her sooner. You can’t blame this all on yourself.”
 
“I did everything I could to convince him to give her up. I could have helped him get over there faster. I could have called her for him. But I didn’t.”
 
Angel took another drink and continued, “What’s funny is that I feel just as bad about Spike’s death. Perhaps more so.”
 
“Why is that?” Wesley had almost never heard Angel say a kind word about the other souled vampire.
 
Angel struggled to put his thoughts into words. “He was right, you know.” More scotch was downed and replenished. “When we were fighting over that cup, he said that I made him a monster. He was right.”
 
“Angel, he was a vampire. Drusilla sired him, not you.”
 
“Spike was always different,” Angel interrupted. “He never quite lost all his humanity, no matter how often I tried to beat it out of him. Before he was turned he was a devoted son and a poet, if you can believe that.” Wesley tried to reconcile the image of the peroxide blond swaggering around in his leather duster with the idea of what he imagined a Victorian era poet must have been like. He took another drink himself, unable to reconcile those two images.
 
“He cared for Drusilla for a hundred years, Wes. I destroyed her, but he did everything he could to protect her, care for her. She had conversations with dolls and invisible fairies, but he was patient with her. She was faithless and cruel to him, but he stayed. He called himself Love’s Bitch, and he was.” Angel looked up with miserable eyes. “There was some streak of humanity in him that nothing could squash. Nothing except me, that is.”
 
Wesley had never seen Angel quite this morose before. “How could you have known this would happen, Angel? You can’t control others and what they do.”
 
“Doesn’t stop me from trying, does it?” Angel yelled suddenly, throwing his empty glass against the wall with a crash. He buried his face in his hands. “I don’t even know what I’m doing any more, Wes. Am I still on the right side? What the hell good is this soul if I still can’t keep from hurting people?”
 
Wesley was at a loss for words. Angel was remorseful and drunk, and this could not lead anywhere good. “What are you going to do now?” he asked quietly.
 
“I have no idea,” Angel replied. He got up to fetch another glass.
 
TBC