by Indie

Future fic, starts in May 2025. Angel's in Sunnydale teaching history. Buffy runs a gallery. They aren't speaking - at first. Sort of dark, sort of fluffy. It's AU. Splits off after BTVS "The Body" and A:TS "Epiphany". Assume that Sanctuary/Yoko Factor cross over didn't happen and that "Something Blue" happened a month after "Pangs".

This entire series is dedicated to Monica R., Jennifer C., Red and Kim H. for all of their wonderful feedback and support!! 
DISCLAIMER: Joss, the WB and Fox own everything, I own nothing

The loud crash startled Angel and he winced as he looked at the mess of papers scattered all over his office floor. Bending he started the irritating task of returning the loose sheaves of paper to their proper folders. 

"Do you need some help in here?" came a cheery female voice from the partially open doorway. 

"No, I'm fine," Angel said sighing. "I just knocked over a box. I'm almost finished in here." 

He turned to offer a smile of thanks to the well meaning secretary. She made a disapproving clucking noise at him and said, "You're going to work yourself to death. Classes don't start for another three weeks so it probably won't be the end of the world if you don't get your office in order this afternoon." 

"You're probably right, Grace, but I just got here and I need to make a good impression. I don't intend to spend the rest of my career teaching intro history to a bunch of freshmen who could care less." Angel punctuated his admission with a wink as he sank completely to the floor and began alphabetizing papers. 

Grace just shook her head laughing as she retreated from the office leaving Angel to his mess. 

Three hours later the office was finally finished. It was only shortly past six in the evening, but the entire building was completely empty and quiet, most of the employees having rushed for the exits the second the clock hit five. Angel collapsed into the chair behind his desk with a groan. The office was finally in order, now he needed to start getting the syllabus and readings ready for the intro history class he would be teaching at the beginning of summer session. 

What would have amazed Grace was that Angel didn't start preparing. Instead he sat at his desk and looked out through the open window at the early summer sky. He reached into one of his freshly organized desk drawers and pulled out a small flask.  Unscrewing the lid, he took a long gulp of bourbon. 

He was back. In Sunnydale. And he was human, and sore and tired but that came with the territory. 

Angel laughed bitterly to himself. He was finally an average ordinary man, and despite what his flirtatious manner with the aging department secretary might indicate he was still very much alone. 

The battle at the End of Days took place more than two decades ago. The forces of good had prevailed, but they had not escaped unscathed. Buffy and Angel were both there, fighting on the same side, but not together. 

They were estranged, to put it mildly. Their last encounter, shortly after the end of days and Angel's shanshu was horrible and public. They didn't speak now. They didn't even inquire about each other. 

Their final argument, in front of scores of bystanders, had been full of accusations, revelations and recriminations. Angel confronted Buffy about Parker, Dracula and Spike. He seethed about Riley. Buffy in returned shared her knowledge about his recent sordid relationships with Darla, Faith and a slew of nameless faceless women, both human and demon. 

They had managed to refrain from coming to physical blows, but the verbal ones were infinitely more vicious and wounding.  Neither of them had pulled any punches, and they both hit below the belt. Angel's humanity only added fuel to Buffy's fire.  She hated him, she'd screamed. She was glad now at least the world would be spared his presence sometime in the foreseeable future. 

It had been ugly. 

And now he was in Sunnydale, and so was she. They could probably go on avoiding each other until one of them died. That would probably be for the best. Angel grabbed his worn leather satchel and headed to his small apartment close to campus.

The first day of the summer session arrived quickly. Professor Jacobson, as Angel was now known, had about forty students in his Intro to History class. They seemed to be a good group. A lot of them were over achievers trying to get a semester ahead rather than underachievers forced to repeat as he had feared would be the case. 

Professor Jacobson was a big hit as usual. That was how he got this job. Students loved him. He had a Ph.D., but it was from some anonymous school. He earned the degree over years of night class, his days spent eking out a meager living. His credentials weren't outstanding. 

In the classroom, however, he was magic. His certificates did not do service to the vast wealth of knowledge he possessed.  His passion for the subject was a palpable presence. He was amazing to watch. People were drawn to him. 

Especially women. 

Professor Jacobson was very popular with his female students and colleagues. Angel had aged, as humans are wont to do, but very gracefully. At forty-eight human years, his hair was still thick but the dark brown was beginning to be peppered with streaks of gray. Wrinkles lined the corners of his eyes and mouth. His eyes still had their piercing gaze, although it now shone from behind a pair of stylish glasses. He was still in amazing physical condition, running five miles and lifting weights each day. After being blessed with mortality, he found himself doing everything to avoid it. 

After class he was swamped with students. They asked questions about office hours, attendance policies and a plethora of other things he covered in his earlier lecture. He handled them all one at a time until he was down to the last. 

"Hi," the student said extending her perfectly manicured hand, "my name is Clarice Jenkins." 

Angel took the proffered hand and smiled warmly. She was very attractive, tall, dark hair, deep olive skin that hinted of Mediterranean ancestry, fresh out of high school. She wanted him. He could tell. She wasn't from the west coast. The cut of her expensive designer clothes, the slight accent, all pointed to the east coast. Probably New York. Probably Manhattan.  Angel would also hazard a guess that her father was very very wealthy and that Clarice was accustomed to getting what she wanted. 

"Professor Angel Jacobson," he replied coolly. 

"This is going to sound kind of silly," she said offhandedly. 

But it was not an offhand comment. Everything about this woman screamed premeditation. Angel felt himself being hunted. 

"I know you said your field of expertise is medieval weaponry," she continued. "I have this, well, relic I guess. It's a knife.  My grandfather gave it to me years ago. I was just wondering if you could take a look at it and see if it's worth anything, or if it's important." 

"An old relic?" Angel asked. She'd obviously prepared, he hadn't heard a pickup line that original in quite some time. 

"Yes, I don't have it with me today," she explained. 

"Well, maybe you could bring it to class next time and I'll take a look at it," Angel offered. 

"Yeah, or I could bring it by your office sometime," she said casually. 

Angel regarded her carefully. She was very aggressive. Fortunately for her he was very sexually frustrated and very available.  He wasn't about to pass on a free fuck with a beautiful young heiress. 

"I'm free this afternoon," he said. "I'll be working on a paper, but I don't have any meetings scheduled." 

"That works for me, I'll be there at 4:30," she said, grinning. 

"See you then. Do you know where my office is?" Angel asked. 

Clarice held up the syllabus with his office number and phone clearly listed. She waved at him and sauntered off. 

Angel laughed under his breath. He hadn't had one this lively in quite some time. The amazing Professor Jacobson often had affairs with his students. It was just too easy to pass by. 

Clarice was just the way he liked his lovers, forward, rich, and young. Angel wasn't in a financial position to take care of anyone besides himself and the age difference always made a convenient reason to break off the relationship after a month or two. Forward was an important trait. He needed his lovers to know what they were doing. He wasn't seducing anybody. Let them attack, made it less likely for him to get turned in for disciplinary action.

Clarice didn't show at 4:30, in fact she didn't make it to his office until just before five. Right when all of the office staff were leaving for the day. Damn she was good. Angel would bet she slept with half the instructors at the exclusive prep school she had most definitely attended. She walked into Angel's office and sat on the corner of his desk as he wrote on a legal pad. 

"Did you bring your relic?" he asked, casually studying her. 

"Of course," she said coyly. She opened the designer backpack she was carrying and pulled out an elaborately decorated dagger. 

Angel eyed the piece with interest. He'd half wondered if there really was a relic. It was amazing. The craftsmanship was completely beyond anything he'd ever seen before. He handled it very delicately. 

"Where did you say you got this?" he asked. 

"From my grandfather. He gave it to me when I was just a child," she said. 

"And you don't know anything about its origins?" he asked. 

She regarded him carefully and then answered slowly, "No." 

Clarice gently took the dagger from his hands and laid on the desk. She approached so that she was standing between his knees, her sizeable height towering over his seated form. He leaned back in the chair and studied her face. 

"Is there something else you want, Clarice?" he asked quietly. 

"You know there is, Professor Jacobson," she answered. 

With that, she placed her hands on his thighs and pushed him and his rolling chair back about a foot until they hit the wall behind his desk. She then knelt between his legs. Angel looked at her calmly, his arms resting on the arms of the chair. 

Clarice leaned forward and began unbuttoning his shirt. Angel sighed deeply. As she uncovered his bronzed skin, she kissed down his chest. When the shirt was completely unbuttoned she pushed it open and drew one of his nipples into her mouth.  Angel gasped and placed his hand gently on the back of her head, urging her lower. 

Clarice complied, her hands coming up to undo the button and zipper of his dark slacks. Angel lifted his hips to aid her as she pulled the slacks and his boxers from his body. Clarice smiled as she saw his huge cock spring free. She gently grasped it and began to lick him from root to head, pulling back his foreskin and running her tongue over the weeping tip as he came fully erect. 

Clarice gave head better than a lot of whores Angel had known. She put her mouth over the head and proceeded to take him all the way to the root without problem, no mean feat. She sucked roughly, her hand following as her mouth retreated on the upstrokes. Angel was panting as Clarice continued to suck him. He felt his balls tighten and moved to stop her. She looked up at him and shook her head, taking him to the root again and sucking with more force. 

Angel came with a silent cry, shooting his now warm, now vital seed into her welcoming mouth. She milked him until he calmed and then released him from her mouth, swallowing his cum. 

Angel urged her to her feet and pushed her back against the desk. He put his hands on her expensive black skirt and pushed it up her thighs to her hips. As she bit her bottom lip, he pulled her wet black silk panties down her nylon free legs. Scooting his chair forward he urged her on her back on his desk, making sure she didn't lay on the dagger. He positioned her legs over his shoulders and bent forward to lick her wet sex, waxed free of hair. 

She moaned as his tongue circled her clit and then slipped lower to enter her throbbing channel. He licked her from top to bottom as she started to writhe. He sucked her tender bud into his mouth as he plunged two fingers in and out of her. She came with a small shout, grinding her pelvis into his face. 

He slowly scooted the chair back, lifting her thighs from his shoulders. He rose to re-button his shirt and tuck his semi hard cock back into his pants. Clarice turned away from him as she rearranged her clothes. Long minutes later every last hair was back in place. She popped a breathe mint into her mouth and offered him one, he declined. 

"I rather like the taste," he explained. 

Clarice shrugged, throwing her backpack over her shoulder. 

"So the dagger," she said, motioning to the desk. "You'll look into it for me?" 

"Yes, give me some time. I'll let you know," he answered. 

She turned to leave his office, checking one last time to make sure no evidence of their tryst was visible. She closed the door behind her, leaving him alone in the building. 

Vanity, Angel thought as he reached for the flash in his desk. Vanity was also a very important trait in his lovers. Aside from the fact that it meant they were always neat and fragrant, it usually assured selfishness as well. Selfish, vain women didn't want an almost destitute, aging, associate professor as a husband. Neither did they didn't want to watch their perfectly toned bodies to swell with a growing child. 

Angel had made that mistake once. He got involved with a very young, very sweet student during his first year teaching.  Amanda was a far cry from the jaded, callous women whose company he now kept. She had been innocent and refreshing.  She had been too much like Buffy or maybe even Willow. 

Angel took a drink of bourbon. 

He'd broken her heart, probably ruined her life. She had been scared when she found out about the pregnancy, but beneath the fear was a true sense of joy. He hadn't shared her enthusiasm. He'd been enraged. He'd made it clear he would not marry her and he would not have a bastard child running around. It crushed her. He didn't have to push her very hard. She was a thousand miles from home and he was her only friend. He coerced her into an abortion. Angel knew she would have been willing to go home and raise the child without him, but he didn't want that. He couldn't have a child. And now he didn't. He'd had to sell his piece of shit car to pay for the procedure. 

And now he didn't date nice girls. He dated women who sold their souls for money, power and beauty. He dated women who wanted nothing more than a good time from him. Most of the time he could manage to deliver that, he sure as hell couldn't give then anything more. He didn't have anything more to give. 

Angel took another deep draught from the flask. Vain, selfish, beautiful and young, let's not forget young. Young women were great. Sure, the firm bodies were nice but Angel had been around enough to know that older women tended to be much more interesting in bed. Experience was often much better compensation *very* well for a toned ass. 

However, older women tended to see through his charming bullshit act and find the moody drunk lurking underneath. So young it was. They bought his lies, loved his cock, and didn't ask questions.

Life trudged forward. Angel was into his fifth week of the summer session. He was still seeing Clarice, banging her senseless several nights a week. He was also drinking more, his past ghosts in Sunnydale necessitating his need for oblivion. If Clarice noticed, she didn't say anything. He could still fuck like a freight train and his body looked fantastic. She wouldn't complain, she didn't give a shit about his pain. 

Angel had given a bit of effort to researching her dagger. He wasn't having much luck on his own. A colleague suggested he try the local antique gallery, they specialized in medieval weaponry. The colleague even went so far as to recommend the proprietor, one Buffy Summers by name. Seemed Miss Summers was the leading assessor of antique weaponry value in the nation and one of the top three in the world. Angel thanked his colleague and decided that hell could freeze over first. He would dig through some more musty old books alone. 

It was one night after spending an eternity digging through his books and still coming up empty that Clarice prodded him into going *out* for a drink. This was after he screwed her ten ways from Sunday on top of his useless tomes. 

A quick shower later and they were in downtown Sunnydale. It was a Friday night and even though summer in a college town, it was hopping with activity. Angel flatly refused to go to any of Clarice's regular hangouts. Loud dance clubs teeming with drunk underage children were not his style. He instead headed for Willy's. 

It wasn't Willy's anymore, now it was Jack's. The demon clientele left along with Willy and the closing of the hellmouth during the end of days. Now the basement level bar was frequented by townies and an older university crowd that liked the intimate atmosphere and the pronounced lack of ear splitting music. Angel had been in several times during the last two months and he knew the bartender, Jerry, by name. 

Angel and Clarice went inside and found a booth in the corner. Thanks to Jerry, Clarice didn't need to use her painstakingly produced fake id to be served her usual vodka and fruit juice concoction. Angel drank bourbon, neat. They drank, mostly in silence, using their feet to molest each other's nether regions for several hours while the dilapidated juke box churned out depressing jazz tune after depressing jazz tune. 

Just when she came in, Angel wasn't certain. Buffy. She was sitting in the middle of the room at a small table, and she wasn't alone. Angel had no idea who *he* was, but he was Buffy's type and he was sitting with her. The boy - and he was a *boy*, decidedly younger than Buffy - looked like all the other lovers she'd ever had. He was solidly built, dark hair, and at least a foot taller than she. 

What was Buffy doing with a boy? She had always liked older men. Angel thought about it for a moment. Buffy was forty-four years old. When they had dated, older men meant developed bodies, charm, money, a car. Now, older meant false teeth, baldness, possible incontinence. Angel could understand her change of attitude - which is not to say he liked it. 

*He* was still older damn it! Old didn't have to mean stinking of death. 

Buffy looked fantastic. She wore a smart black suit with a pair of heels only she could pull of wearing with that outfit. She must have come here after a business meeting. Her hair was pulled up in a sort of French twist. It was still blonde, darker than she used to wear it. She was radiant. She was in her mid forties but didn't look it. You could tell she wasn't a child, but she had a timeless appearance. Angel was getting hard just looking at her. Bitch. 

Angel looked down at the table. Both his and Clarice's glasses were empty. The bar was now at capacity and the lone waitress was having difficulty keeping up. Angel rose to go to the bar. 

"I'll be right back," he assured Clarice. 

Angel walked to the bar and gave his order to Jerry. It took a few minutes but eventually his mission was accomplished. He turned to head back to the table, and looked directly into Buffy's face, not that he could have missed it, she was a foot from him. 

"So, were you ever going to bother talking to me or were you just planning to glare all evening?" she asked pointedly. 

"I wasn't glaring," he answered, quickly falling into their habit of bickering. 

"Oh, okay, whatever," Buffy said sarcastically. "I don't think your date appreciates it very much." 

Angel looked at the booth. Clarice was following the exchange very intently. She didn't look happy. 

"Yeah, well, I bet your little tag along over there isn't too happy you're talking to me either," Angel countered. 

"That's rich, Angel. My 'little tag along'. He's twenty-four, which means he's old enough to be in here. Don't even try to tell me that 'miss thing' over there didn't graduate from high school a month ago," Buffy sniped. 

Angel laughed. "I think it was two months ago," he said quietly. 

Buffy's irritation dissipated and smiled. "How are you, Angel?" 

"Old," he said laughing again. "How are you?" 

"Not too bad, busy. I work a lot." 

"I heard, top assessor of antique weaponry in the nation. You probably don't have a minute of free time," he added. 

"Not really. I work mornings, days, nights, whatever it takes to get the job done. I'm in the middle of a big project right now. A private collector wants me to go through his entire collection, over 3000 pieces. He shipped them to me for cataloging last week." 

"Hey," a voice interrupted. It was Buffy's 'tag along'. "I need to go, I'll catch you later, okay? Dinner on Sunday." 

"Nicholas, this is Angel. He's a professor at UC Sunnydale," she said introducing the young man to Angel. Angel's eyebrow shot up, how had she known where he worked? 

"Hello," Nick said, extending his hand. 

"Nice to meet you," Angel countered with a firm grip. 

"See you later sweetheart," Buffy said as Nick leaned to kiss her on the forehead. 

The boy left. 

"Looks like you're alone for the evening," Angel noted. 

"Looks like you're going to be if you don't get back to your table," Buffy said wryly. "Go on. I'll see you around some time." 

With that, Buffy left the bar. Angel found his way back to the table. Clarice was enraged. 

"Who the hell was that?" she asked. 

"My wife," Angel answered very matter-of-factly. 

That stunned her. The usually unflappable Clarice didn't have an answer. Angel was slightly amused. He wasn't lying. The night of Buffy's seventeenth birthday Angel had married her. Claddagh rings, ceremonial taking of the bride's virginity. According to the tradition he was raised with, she was his wife, and would be until one of them died. 

"Clarice," Angel started quietly. 

"Just go! I don't want an explanation just leave me alone," Clarice seethed at him. 

Angel got up and left with a shrug. He didn't owe Clarice anything. They used each other, nothing more. There was nothing between them, not even friendship. 

Now without transportation due to lack of Clarice, Angel set out to walk the two miles to his apartment. He should have felt like shit. He'd just been handed his walking papers by his beautiful little heiress lover. But he didn't feel like shit. He felt wonderful. He felt warm all over, and oddly relieved, and it was all because of Buffy. 

For weeks he'd been avoiding her, avoiding even thinking about her. He'd expected their meeting to go horribly. He'd expected more anger, more of her throwing their love in his face. He'd expected her to reiterate how much she hated him, how much of a huge mistake loving him had been. But that hadn't happened. It hadn't started off great, but it had definitely ended on a positive note. 

For the first time in literally decades, Angel allowed himself to admit how much he missed her, how much he physically ached for her presence. It was glorious. It made him feel human in a way that actually being human had never reached. 

So what if she had some hot young boyfriend. Angel knew he'd always have a claim on her no one else could touch. For years he'd avoided dwelling on that fact, abiding by her wishes that he leave her alone. Not now. He was going to do anything and everything he could to get back in her heart and her bed. Possibly in that order. 

On to Renewal