Ceremonies of Innocence

by Persephone

Two weeks later.

There were times when she didn't wonder if she wasn't a glutton for punishment.

Cat smiled thinly as she window-shopped through the fiberglass and tiled avenues of the mall. A little over two weeks had passed since what Jade had dubbed 'their close encounter of the scary kind' had happened here and not a day had passed without her thinking on it. Wishing she hadn't been such a 'fraidy-cat and run off without investigating further. Really, it was somewhat embarrassing. Running was not an option she took lightly. Cat believed very firmly in standing your ground and not being intimidated. Sometimes that position got her into trouble but then trouble was relative for the Tomorrow People. For crying out loud, she had faced a group of blood-thirsty cultists down and not retreated.

'But then the cultists had been human,' a tiny voice in the back of her mind whispered.

She hadn't quite worked out an answer for that one yet. Yet.

So here she was, strolling aimlessly through the mall, half-hoping that she ran into Mr. Mystery and half-praying that she didn't. Mostly, she was thinking what an idiot she was. After all, it wasn't very likely that whoever he was would just be lurking around, waiting for her to return, was it?

Angel watched her from behind one of the center columnades. At first, he hadn't been sure it was the same girl though that mane of fiery red did give him hope. No, it wasn't until she turned around that he knew it was she. He wasn't one to forget faces--not a one in over two hundred years.

Even though he wished sometimes that he could--especially the ones haunting his dreams.

Besides, the girl was arresting by herself, to say the least. The blood of the Celts, the blood of his ancestors, ran through her veins--a creature right out of the old stories. Tall and proud with her oval face and high cheekbones. No poet would praise her feature by feature--they were too strong for that. A bard would, seeing in her, as he saw, the past reborn, the evidence of the immortality humans were given through their children. The immortality of his people.

And a reminder of what he had lost. One sort of immortality denied, another granted.

At a cost.

Angel batted away the desire for self-flagellation. There were more pressing matters at hand of which this girl was merely one. But the one she presented was the most enigmatic of all.

He had sensed her. That, in itself, wasn't out of the ordinary. What was out of the ordinary was that she had sensed him in return. Moreover, she had touched his awareness, her and one of her two friends. Touched it with a control that bespoke power and experience. Something that indicated to him that she had more than just passing psi abilities. And she had seemed to be aware of his own, somewhat limited psychic abilities--apparently not liking what she had sensed if her reaction two weeks ago was any indication.

Curiosity had impelled him to loiter here--that and boredom. London was an exciting and beautiful city but until Buffy arrived there wasn't a whole lot for him to do except prowl the streets. And try to stave off the minor apocalypse Giles had mentioned to him over the phone. Apparently, for some odd reason or another, the first inhabitants of London had chosen to build their city on a dormant Hellmouth which had begun showing increased activity in the last few years.

And here he thought he had left Sunnydale to escape that kind of fun. 'Silly me,' he thought wryly.

Since he was awaiting the impending arrival of the Slayer and her Watcher, there wasn't much he could do except that--wait. This at least had given him something to do in the meantime. Night after night, just hanging about hoping for her--any of them, actually, to reappear. To give him a chance for further observation. To determine if they were a threat or threatened by his presence. He had almost despaired of a return engagement when just as mysteriously the red-head had returned, alone this time. Perhaps, it was just as well. Trying to keep track of three girls would have been hard enough--but three girls with psychic abilities might have been too much even for him.

If they were just girls. When dealing with the Hellmouth, one could never be too sure.

He watched her as she paused in front of the glass window of a clothing store, saw her shoulders rise and fall evenly. Then her head rose and she pivoted around.

To stare straight at him.

'Where are ye?' she thought, 'Are ye even here?'

She was half-afraid to let her shields down. Afraid of what she might find. Curiosity, however, was not seeing fit to let her off the hook this time. Knowledge is power, it whispered, and this thing could be trouble in the future. Better to face whatever this was head on now than later. The situation could be worse and more people might get hurt.

It was a noble and completely compelling reason to throw her life on the line--or so her damned curiosity thought.

Cat heaved a huge sigh. 'Adam would kill me if he ken what I'm going ta do,' she thought and regretfully acknowledged he might be right. Not that the thought seemed to be deterring her. Instead, she started slimming the constructs around her mind, feeling the buzz and pressure of the collective minds milling around her pressing in. If she kept this up long enough, she'd end up with one hell of a headache--

She found him. And gratefully raised her shields again until she could sense him alone. Her skin began to crawl as the uncomfortable feeling of eyes boring into the back of her skull hit her. She turned to find him staring through the crowds at her from a position half-hidden behind a columnade. For a long moment, it seemed all that they could do was stare at the other.

Years later, she would probably what impelled her to start moving towards him, to make the first move. In fact, she would have liked to have known what suicidal impulse prompted her feet to move of their own volition right now. All she did know was that the interval of space separating them was vastly and rapidly diminishing.

Angel wasn't sure what alarmed him more: the determined air of the young woman approaching him or that he was actually staying put long enough to let her approach. He found himself leaning against the column casually as if this whole situation were the most normal thing in the world, as if he weren't feeling nervous at all. The girl certainly was, he could practically taste her trepidation. Had he been his old, bad self, it would have made her taste all the sweeter. Angel banished that thought with a grimace of disgust and self-loathing.

She came up within mere inches of him before she even faltered a step. Brave, he would give her that. Or possibly stupid but that would remain to be seen.

"Can I help you?" he drawled, surprised at the arrogant laziness in that. It belied how he truly felt and he was, for the moment, grateful for that.

"What are ye?" she demanded without preamble. The rolling brogue confirmed his suspicions about her Celtic roots--Scottish.

"I beg your pardon," he replied mildly, "Don't you think that's a bit rude?"

That seemed to throw her. For the first time, there was a crack in that tough facade. "I--," she floundered.

"I mean, if I walked up to you and asked what you are, wouldn't you be offended?" Angel continued. 'I must be out of my mind,' he thought, 'to play these games with a total and potentially dangerous stranger.'

There was something about her. She didn't feel dangerous despite the warnings his brain was screaming at him. If anything, he felt the overwhelming urge to relax, to trust her. Felt that no matter what might happen, she was not dangerous to him. That she couldn't, wouldn't, hurt him if she wanted to. He couldn't explain it; this willingness to trust a complete stranger puzzled him more than anything else.

Evidently, it puzzled her as well for she cocked an eyebrow at him. She opened her mouth, shut it, then opened it again. Finally, "Well, all right then. How about we start wi' who are ye and move on from there? Do ye have a name?"

He hesitated. There was still time to walk away from this, to evade her questions and leave. He sensed that she would even make it easy for him. There was no need to take this plunge.

But he did take it. "Angel."

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