•••

“Did I ever mention how much I like these?” Wil murmured as he toyed with one of Angel’s earrings. “They’re very different. How did Cordelia talk you into it?”

Angel sighed and tried to ignore the feel of Wil’s fingers tracing his ear. He knew it was just a diversionary tactic; Wil was upset about what had happened that night, but he didn’t want to deal with it. “Yes and we’ve already talked about that.”

Wil pouted, even though Angel couldn’t see his face. “But I like the story.”

“You’re stalling,” Angel accused, closing his eyes. He didn’t really want to talk about it, but they needed to, for multiple reasons. “What went wrong tonight, Wil?”

The blonde rolled off Angel and flopped to one side, staring up at the ceiling. He’d been waiting for this, ever since they’d left the scene of the massacre. He’d been avoiding serious talk ever since, even going so far as calling a shower immediately after Fred to keep from having to go over it with Angel. After that he’d commandeered the kitchen, cooking all the food-eaters something to fill their stomachs. One look at the raw bacon in the fridge had sent him to the produce drawer, much to everyone’s relief. For once, no one—not even Gunn, complained about having salad for dinner. He’d managed to gulp down his blood without looking at it or tasting it, and he’d gone and brushed his teeth immediately afterwards.

Now, though, there was no more hiding. The others had retreated into their rooms, doing the same thing that he and Angel were about to do—talk about what they’d caused. The problem was that he really didn’t want to—he’d do almost anything short of staking himself or Angel to keep from having to verbalize what was running through his head. “Do we have to do this?”

Angel grimaced. It wasn’t like he was exactly looking forward to it, but it had to be done. “Yes, we do. Wil, I saw your face. I saw what happened.”

Wil turned over, punching his pillow into shape. “Why didn’t we think of it?”

A long silence answered him. Angel spent several minutes formulating an answer. “I think we did.”

“How so?” Wil asked a bit angrily. “I don’t remember discussing a massacre in our plans. Where was it we mentioned bloodbaths?”

Angel sighed. “We knew it would be violent—we even planned to have the thing happen where there wouldn’t be many humans around to get hurt.”

“What about them?” Wil inquired. “Didn’t we think about them?”

“Honestly? I don’t think we did. I mean, I know I never really considered what might happen to either the Dhois or the werewolves.” It hurt Angel a lot to say that—that he’d never even considered the well-being of those creatures. It reminded him far too much of what he’d done to a roomful of Wolfram & Hart’s lawyers; that is, it called to mind just how inhumane he could be, how easily he could put others outside his moral sphere.

“But why not? They’re beings too; what makes them less worthy of consideration than humans?” Wil questioned furiously. “We even have werewolves in our group—what do they feel? They helped slaughter a pack of their own!”

The dark vampire couldn’t even begin to imagine how Cordelia and Oz felt—having helped destroy so many of their kin. Yes, Angel had dusted hundreds, if not thousands, of vampires, but it was different—with very few exceptions, soulless vampires were uniformly evil. Werewolves, however, were souled creatures, capable of living good lives, like humans. These creatures, they might have been redeemable…even if they weren’t…

“When did we stop thinking about such things?” Wil asked his lover. “Did we ever consider them? Ever?”

“We can’t stop to dissect every single thing,” Angel countered. “We’d never get anything done. We’re supposed to be fighting for good.”

“But how much good are we when we actively instigate death for our own ends? How much better are we than those we fight?” Wil responded. “We probably killed a hundred people—not humans, but people nevertheless, just to gain the attention of a few Watchers.”

“But what will that cause?” Angel asked back. “If those Watchers foment a reform within the Council, many lives—both human and nonhuman—could be saved.”

Wil snorted. “That’s the same excuse that armies use when they kill off civilians and take over countries. It’s the same excuse that doctor-monsters use when they do experiments on prisoners and the mentally ill. ‘For the greater good,’ they say. The problem is, utilitarianism only gets you so far. What’s the line, Angel? When have we crossed from ‘the needs of the many?’”

Angel turned over to stare at the wall. “I don’t know the answer to that. What I do know is that our job would be impossible if we decided that we would never hurt or kill anyone.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Wil said frustratedly. “Yes, we’re going to have to kill—the vamp that’s got his fangs in a little girl’s neck, the Fyarl about to torch a church. Yeah, I get those deaths. But these demons and werewolves, what did they do?”

“They were criminals, organizing illegal activities, using fear and violence for their own gain,” Angel defended. “And they were being supported by an even greater evil.”

This got an even more violent reaction from Wil. “First off, ‘civilized’ governments don’t try to execute members of organized crime syndicates. They lock those people in jail, but they don’t just kill them—that’s what barbaric places do. Second of all, if we used your standards, we could rationalize killing a lot of poor college students, inner city families and the like; after all, they’re all being supported with Wolfram & Hart’s dirty money.”

“But they don’t know it. They aren’t willing, knowledgeable participants in the firm’s activities. They think they’re being given a helping hand by a charitable organization.” Angel turned over to face Wil. “Look, I’m not trying to say what we did was right—“

“Then what are you trying to say?” Wil interrupted. “That what we did was necessary? That we’d exhausted every other option we had before playing war games?”

“I think we did the best we could with the resources we have,” Angel replied calmly. “We don’t have the contacts or political power to effect change without drastic action.”

“Which is the excuse that terrorists use when they go off and kill innocent people,” Wil shot back. “The thing is about terrorists is that regardless of the cause they espouse, they’re bad—evil, to be exact. They could claim to be fighting for god, or for equality, or for a homeland, but in the end they’re evil. They kill people who did nothing to them, just to gain attention and make a point. So tell me, Angel, how are we different? How is it that humans can sneak into a community unseen and be the instigators of mass slaughter and be labeled terrorists, but we can do the same thing and be considered heroes?”

“We’re…” Angel’s voice faded. He knew that they’d done what had to be done…but he also saw where Wil was coming from. “I’m not proud of what we did. And yes, perhaps there was another, less violent, way to do what we wanted done. But in the end, we chose a path. It would do no good for any party in this situation for us to step forward and take the blame. Perhaps your guilt would be assuaged, but what else? If I’m not mistaken, it was you who wrote that what you and I are doing isn’t for our own redemption, but for the ‘good fight,’ so to speak. How would us self-flagellating be beneficial to that cause?”

It was Wil’s turn to be silent for a while. He still felt that they’d taken the wrong path, but he also knew that Angel was right—he was letting his own personal guilt override his better judgment. “But all that blood…its killing me that we didn’t know, that we didn’t let ourselves know.”

“And you think perhaps that I enjoyed it, that everyone else liked what they saw?” Angel accused. “I’d wager that everyone in this apartment is sick to their stomachs. Hells, we can hear their conversations. They’re all horrified, disgusted with themselves and with the forces that demanded this action.”

“But…” Wil thought for a moment. “What have we learned from this?”

“You tell me,” Angel countered. “What did we learn? That we need to change the way we look at our vocation? That we have weak stomachs?”

Will laughed harshly. “That there’s less separating us from our enemies than we’d thought?”

“Perhaps,” Angel said softly. “But I think we both knew that already. You’ve taught me a lot, Wil, since you showed up in my lobby. One of the most important lessons, though, was that everything we do as we walk this path should be selfless—that our own personal redemption isn’t the goal, but merely a footnote. It’s a hard thing to swallow, letting go of something I want so desperately. I know, however, that you’re right.”

“But was what we did completely selfless?” Wil inquired. “Or were we so focused on that goal, on our own desire to reach it, that we forgot something—namely our own sense of mercy?”

“You ask difficult questions,” Angel commented. “I don’t know.” Something Lorne had said to him quite some time ago whispered through his head. The green demon had said once that Angel should be careful not to lose touch with his community—that such a thing would cost him. At one point he was sure the comment had to do with what had happened to Cordelia, Wesley, Xander and Oz…but perhaps it was more than that. “Maybe we’ve lost touch.”

Wil glanced over at Angel. “With what?”

“Everything—the world, our community, our friends. In many ways, we’ve been behaving the way Buffy does, so focused on what we think is ‘right’ that we steamroll everything in our path.”

Wil winced at being compared to the Slayer, but he knew it was accurate. “So what do we do?”

Angel thought silently for a long time. What could they do? There was a distinct possibility that they wouldn’t be able to reconnect with the rest of the world, that they’d spent so long being its protectors that there was no longer any place for them within it. “I don’t—“

“That’s what I thought,” Wil growled. “All talk and no answers.” Angel snarled at the blonde’s tone of voice. “What we do is try. We just try—we go back and we pick a place and we start over. Period. Just start over.”

“But what about Wolfram & Hart? They’re going to keep trying—“

“First of all, I didn’t say that we wouldn’t go back to L.A., or that we’d just drop the law firm. I said we’d start over; picking a place referred to a starting point. But you know, it’s not like we have to go back to Los Angeles at all. It’s odd how we keep thinking about that city as the epicenter of evil, even when we’re sitting in a city that could easily compete for the title. There are places all over this planet with things going on in them like Wolfram & Hart’s operation, and they all seem to be surviving okay. We aren’t the only finger holding the water in, Angel. There are others—there have to be, otherwise this world would be lost. It wants to stay good, and is trying very hard. We’re just one part in that struggle.”

Angel said nothing, so Wil continued. “Really, we’re insignificant—eight or nine people, depending on how you count. Buffy’s just one person and she gets quite a lot done. And you know there are others. What’s more important is that everyone who’s fighting keeps fighting, not that we’re fighting one particular battle. If we just vanished, the world would continue spinning. We’re not that important.”

“So why do we do it?” Angel asked. He wasn’t sure he liked Wil’s take on what they did for a living.

“Because it’s a good thing to do. We do good things. It doesn’t matter if we do the most good or not, or if we’re the ‘best’ warriors or not. We’ve been trying to tackle the biggest and most powerful evil on our own, but why? Because we’re the only ones who will, or because our egos demand that we prove we’re the best at what we do?”

Once again, Angel had nothing to say. “I love what we do—we’re repaying at least a small part of what we took from this world as soulless demons. Moreover, we’re making it a better place for many people, human and nonhuman, to live. I just think that we should think a little more, okay? We’re doing too much by reflex and too little by thought.”

Angel nodded slowly. “I know what you mean, and we should work on it, I agree.” He rolled onto his back again, staring up at the ceiling. “But I do have one other question.”

“What?” Wil asked warily. This conversation was giving him a killer headache.

“Can we have sex now? I haven’t touched you in days.”

“Hmm…” Wil hummed, pretending to think about it. “I have a headache.”

Angel turned over again and reached for Wil. The blonde found himself draped over an amused-looking vampire with an evil-looking smirk on his face. “Headache?”

“I told you I didn’t want to talk about it, but what did you do?” Wil accused, grinning a bit.

Angel put one hand on the back of Wil’s head, brining him down for a slow kiss. “Shut up, would you?” He asked when they finished. “Just when I start to forget how much of a smart ass you are, you have to go off and remind me.”

Wil didn’t reply because he was busy removing their clothing. The whispering slide of skin on skin was the only response Angel got as the blonde settled back on top of him, leaning back down for another kiss. Angel soon forgot about Wil’s headache and his own complaints as their bodies mated and melted together, a meeting of flesh, blood and spirit that never ceased to enthrall and humble him.