They were making way too much noise, Angel thought. He sat in one of the upholstered chairs in the lobby, trying to ignore them as they made their last-minute checks and phone calls, grabbed things they thought they'd need, and whined about carrying the suitcase full of stolen towels, whatever the point of that was.

He hadn't moved from the chair he'd sunk into when they all jumped into action, and none of them had stopped to try convincing him again, which was perfectly fine with Angel. He might not be able to convince Cordelia to give it up -- and he'd long since given up believing she'd take a direct order from him -- but he didn't have to participate in the madness.

He could sit here and... That was the problem, of course. He could sit here and do nothing. Except think. Brood. And no one was going to paint his toenails to snap him out of it, now.

No one. 'No one' might never do that again, since it had been 'no one's' idea in the first place, and Gunn had gone along with it because it was fun. Angel resisted the urge to take his shoes off and stare at the chipped Purple Passion on his feet right now.

"You're very silly," a low voice commented. It was feminine, oddly musical, and he'd known it for over a century. Angel opened his eyes, and looked up to see Drusilla standing in front of him, holding the small travel Piranha tank in her arms.

"They're not taking the fish, are they?" he asked, blinking.

"No, silly Daddy. I'm watching the babies." She frowned. "I know what you're thinking, and you are. You're *very* silly."

Angel stretched, limbs stiff from sitting still and trying to pretend he wasn't paying attention to the bustle that had been going on round him. Then he settled back and closed his eyes again. "Dru, if you know what I'm thinking, you've got one up on me."

There was no answer, except a laugh. When he opened his eyes again -- since a laugh from Dru could mean anything from 'That's a lovely Christmas card' to 'The building is on fire' -- she was gone. There was a reason to go to England, right there. He could avoid spending the next few days alone with Dru. Not that he would ever tell *her* that...since she probably already knew. But to be locked up with her and Spike and Xander's insane pet fish was a very good argument for going.

But he wasn't going. Wesley had *asked* them not to. Told them, in fact, straight out. 'Don't come'.

It wasn't that he thought Wesley was *right*, really. Deep down Angel thought Wesley belonged here, no matter what was wrong with his parents. But what Angel wanted wasn't necessarily what Wesley wanted. If Wesley wanted to come home, all he had to do was say so. Angel would be the first one on the plane, if Wesley asked them to come get him. But Wesley had asked that he not come. So he wasn't. And why was he the only one who was respecting Wesley's wishes?

Angel frowned, and listened as Gunn called out something to Xander, something which Angel wasn't listening to because he didn't care if anyone had an extra set of keys and if they should hire a taxi or take Angel's car. Wait, take *his* car?

*His* car? Okay, true, Xander's car was too small for four people *and* their luggage, and Gunn's truck was out of the question. Cordy didn't drive if she could help it in case she got a vision behind the wheel, so his was the most logical choice. But it was *his* car!

He was *not* listening. He could *not* hear them bumping suitcases down the hall towards the garage, or Spike calling back last good byes to the fish. He didn't care if they took his car and left it sitting at the airport. He could always hotwire Gunn's truck, pick up his own car, and leave the truck to be impounded at LAX. Would serve him right.

Angel was glad he hadn't said any of that out loud, or he'd be flicking his little newty tail right now. Especially for the last part; Gunn just wanted Wes back, as much as Angel did. More, maybe. No, not more. But...maybe Gunn thought he knew Wes better than Angel did. That this was like Wesley's little 'show me you love me' head games during sex. Hell, maybe it was, but Wes had *said* straight out -- don't come here. That wasn't the same as "No, really, it's okay, I don't need to have my legs held apart held forcefully and be rimmed until my eyeballs roll back in my head."

No matter how many secret handshakes he and Gunn had, or Laker games they'd been to while Angel was living in Darla-inspired la-la land, there was a part of Wes that sometimes only Angel saw -- a part against which you didn't press, because it was too stiff. Too hard, too brittle. Times that you had to take him at his word, because if you pushed him on it, you'd break something. What if this was one of those times, and with or without Angel there, they pushed, and something shattered?

Angel could trust Gunn to try to put him back together, and Cordelia and -- god help him -- even Spike could help pick up whatever pieces of Wesley they broke. If he were *there*, though, Angel could stop them from hurting Wes in the first place.

He realized he was standing, before he realized he'd decided to go. He frowned, and sat back down. He was worrying for nothing. They weren't going to hurt Wes. They were just going to go talk him out of the decision he'd made. The decision that the intelligent, self-reflective man had come to after at least two weeks to think about it. Angel noticed he was standing again. He stepped back to the chair and sat down. He wasn't going.

He could maybe go down to the garage and yell at them not to hurt Wes, though. Warn them not to argue with him or push him or do anything more than just ask him if he really wanted to stay.

Angel noticed he was several steps towards the parking garage. How the hell had he skipped standing up again? He wasn't going with them, he told himself sternly. He was just going to tell them they'd better be nice to Wesley, or he'd.... Well, yell when they got back. Although if he *did* go, he could yell at them right away...

Fuck it. Angel ran towards the garage, hoping they hadn't left yet.

When he got there, he found Cordelia leaning casually against the driver's side door, holding out the keys. Everyone else was already packed into the back seat.

"I'm not--" Newt. Spike laughing at him. The whole six-month quarantine for pets, in England... "I still don't think you're right," Angel explained as he took the keys.

"Uh-huh."

"I'm only going along to make sure you guys don't screw things up."

"Uh-huh."

Angel frowned. "I mean it. I'm *not* going to enjoy myself."

"Whatever." Cordelia had already slid into the front passenger seat, and was slamming the door behind her.

Angel got in, and turned the key in the ignition. "I'm doing this under protest."

"Gonna be doing it under water if you don't shut up," Spike observed. "Princess'll chuck you out the plane window into the ocean."

Angel turned to Cordelia as he started the car's engine. "Can we make Spike fly cargo? Please?"

There was a sniff from the back seat. "Hmmph. See if you get any pressies."

Cordelia's eyes lit up. Angel groaned.

"Besides, who's providing this plane, anyhow?" Spike demanded. Angel glanced over his shoulder as he backed out of the parking spot.

"David," Angel told him.

"Er, yeah, but if it weren't for Xander's ability to eat two pounds of gummy worms at one sitting, David wouldn't have lost his pl--" He stopped as Xander elbowed him. It looked like Xander had put a lot of force behind it, too. "He wouldn't have lent us the plane in the first place. So you better be nice to me, or we won't let you go."

Angel didn't bother trying to follow any of the more insane threads of Spike-logic in that claim. "I don't want to go," he reminded them, instead. No one looked like they believed him. "I mean it," he reiterated. Could they not *see* that he hadn't turned into a lizard? Well, those of them who knew he was under the spell, which would be Cordy and Gunn. He hadn't been about to let Spike know he couldn't lie, even if it *was* part of his childe's wedding gift.

There was smug silence, and Angel headed towards the garage exit. He heard Xander start to say "Um", but he was apparently stifled. Angel was trying to think of a way to explain, again, that he was only going to protect Wesley, without insulting anyone -- say, Gunn -- enough that he'd be in real trouble.

"Er, Ang--" Cordelia started, then cut off and turned around to glare into the backseat. Angel ignored her -- they were all obviously trying to distract him, or convince him that he was going in order to bring Wes home.

"You gonna--" Gunn began. Angel heard someone thump him, then Gunn was demanding, "What the fuck was that for? You're gonna turn to ash too, moron."

Angel slammed on the brakes, twenty feet away from the garage exit, so he could put the top up before driving out into the sun. "I hate...arrgh. I have extreme dislike for all of you," he muttered.

"Ow!" he heard Spike say. Then, sullenly, "Just wanted to see how close he'd get."

"I didn't marry you just so you could get yourself killed the day we get back from the honeymoon," Xander informed him.

"I'd've ducked under you," Spike protested.

If this lasted all the way to the airport, Angel might just decide to put the top down again, he thought. Why did his two blissful weeks of no Spike have to be combined with two unhappy weeks with no Wes? The only reason it *didn't* last all the way to the airport was that Cordelia distracted them again by asking about presents -- which were packed away in one of the suitcases in the trunk, so they all had to make do with Spike and Xander's disturbing hints about what they might have brought home with them.

Especially the 'remembrances' from the other universe's version of Dru. Imagining what *those* might consist of did a good enough job of distracting Angel that before he knew it, they were pulling into the underground long-term parking garage in the private business section of LAX. Then there was yammering about who was going to carry the suitcases, and where were they supposed to meet the pilot, and did everyone have his passport, and Spike wanting to buy a Tom Clancy novel that he wasn't going to read, just to say he'd had a proper airport experience, since this would be the first time he hadn't flown cargo.

Before he knew it, Angel was sitting in the window seat of the flight he hadn't intended to take, staring out at the sky through polarized glass, wondering what, if anything, he should say to Gunn. His lover had been avoiding him -- sometimes subtly, sometimes rather pointedly, but, there was no doubt, avoiding him. He wasn't sure if Gunn was mad at him, or not. Angel could think of some good reasons for it, starting with him implying that Gunn was going to England to do something, even accidentally, to hurt Wesley.

But Gunn wasn't the sort that had to be followed around and talked into telling you what you'd done wrong. Sooner or later he'd get his own back on Angel, either by pissing Angel off or giving him a good thump or being attacked by slimy demons and deciding to let bygones be bygones.

Unlike Wesley. Angel closed his eyes and pretended to be concentrating on not thinking about the fact that he was on an airplane. He'd never been on an airplane before, a fact he wasn't sure anyone else knew. But really, he was thinking about Wesley, and how you had to trick him into telling you what was bothering him, or how you had to listen to what he was saying and put it together with what he wasn't saying and.... Angel was starting to get a headache.

The plane was moving forward, now. Spike was jabbering about something, to Cordelia -- something about England, and a shopping trip. He didn't want to listen. Spike and Cordelia bonding? He *really* didn't want to listen.

He could read, of course. There was Spike's Clancy novel, discarded on the seat across the aisle from him, as Angel had known it would be. Not that Spike didn't read; you just had to get him in the right mood. Either extremely relaxed, or extremely bored. So bored that bouncing around and annoying people lost its appeal. Angel suspected Spike wouldn't be picking up a book in the near future.

The prospect didn't appeal much to Angel, either, though; spy thrillers didn't do much for him. He could stand up and walk around as soon as David's private stewardess made the announcement that it was safe to get up and move about now. But if he did, there was a good chance everyone would notice how worried he was. After all, where was there to go? Only over to sit with someone else, or the restroom, and he'd definitely be looked on suspiciously if he headed that way.

Angel shook his head, and found, to his surprise, that a shake was turning into a nod. Well, it *had* been a long, argument-filled morning. A quick nap wouldn't do any harm, and might get rid of the ache in his skull. He'd likely wake up when the plane lifted off anyway, whereupon he could...return to thinking about things that gave him headaches. He closed his eyes lightly, still half braced for the pressure he was expecting when the plane began to pick up speed. He opened them a few seconds later, to hear the stewardess saying, "Would you like O negative, or AB?" in his ear.

"Huh?" He blinked, and looked up to see the stewardess standing beside the row of seats. She was smiling brightly at him, which would have made her pretty if it weren't for the third and fourth eyes and the tusks. "O?" Angel told her, not completely sure what she was asking. He'd barely -- Angel caught sight of the window beyond her, and saw clouds.

"I'll be right back!" the stewardess was saying, in a perky voice. Angel leaned closer to the window, and looked down.

Clouds. Fleecy white clouds.

He leaned back, fast, and wondered how long he'd been asleep and whether he could manage to sleep for the next however many hours it would take to get to England.

"What's the matter, Deadboy? Afraid of heights?" Xander plopped down in the seat beside him, looking entirely too nonchalant. Angel reminded himself that Xander traveled rather a great deal, on business. He'd usually only be gone for a day or two, but he flew at least twice a month.

"Nah, heights are fine." Angel didn't look out the window again. Maybe talking to Xander would distract him from flying, *and* from other headache inducing things.

"How often have you flown?"

"Oh, you know...never."

Xander blinked at him. "Never? Oh, you mean like Spike -- you've always had to be stuffed in a box in cargo, before."

"No, I mean never."

"You're two hundred and fifty something, and you've never flown in a plane before? How'd you get to the States in the first place?"

"Boat." Yes, this was distracting him from flying. Too bad he *couldn't* have lied, to shut off this line of inquiry. "They float on water. Kind of like rubber ducks, but bigger."

Xander was wide-eyed, now, though grinning lightly. "Whoa -- Angel makes with the attempts-to-be-funny. You *must* be nervous."

"I'm not nervous," Angel answered. He wasn't. He was too worried, to be nervous. Not worried about flying, not really. At least not more than the dozen other things he was worried about. He just *seemed* more concerned about flying than anything else, because it was happening, right now. He was flying, and people weren't supposed to do that. Not even dead people. Bats were supposed to fly, and if he suddenly developed the Drac-u-lesque ability to turn into one, he wouldn't mind flying at all.

"You know nothing'll happen to you, right? I mean, even if the plane crashed over the ocean, you'd be fine. The humans would drown, but you'd just be stuck inside the plane, underwater. With Spike."

"Thank you. That's... not exactly comforting."

"You could always stake him, so I'd have company," Xander added.

Angel peered at him, but declined to respond. Xander gave him a grin, and said nothing more. They sat in silence for a while -- it was almost companionable, and Angel was beginning to get paranoid. He was just turning his head to demand Xander get on with it, when Xander spoke.

"So, uh."

Angel waited. When there was nothing more immediately forthcoming, he decided that if nothing else, talking to Xander would work off a bit of his Go To Hell, Go Directly to Hell points. "Yes, Xander?"

The man sitting beside him shifted in his seat, a worried look on his face that made him look exactly like the sixteen year old boy Angel had first met. He could understand why Spike was insisting on waiting until Xander looked older, before turning him. Angel thought he'd probably have to wait til Xander was about 35.

He couldn't imagine what Xander would have to talk to him about, unless something had happened in the other England. They *had* met their counterparts, but Spike had gleefully explained at some point on the drive over, how the other Spike and other Angel had spent the entire week having sex. The look on Xander's face when Spike had told them, let Angel know there was nothing about *that* which bothered Xander. If anything, he looked a little too interested.

Angel wasn't about to tell him that it was physically impossible for vampires to have sex for a week...without stopping at least twice a day. Not that Angel *knew*, but it was what he'd heard. Yeah. What he'd heard. He just hoped nobody asked him about it before Wes took the truth spell off.

"Um..." Xander said again. Awkwardly. It suddenly clicked in Angel's head, and he only escaped his urge to groan because the stewardess chose to show up at that moment, handing him a warm mug of O neg, complete with a drip-proof saucer. Angel gritted his teeth as he took it, because he had an idea of what was going on, now. Xander had been sent as the goodwill ambassador. The person he'd be most likely to talk to, because Gunn wasn't *ready* to talk to him, Cordelia was sick of arguing with him, and they all knew he was moments away from wringing Spike's neck on a *good* day, which this wasn't.

He leaned back, took a sip, and looked at Xander again. Sighed. "I'd have thought you'd understand where I'm coming from, better than anybody. Or was that why they sent you over?'

Xander looked puzzled, as well as awkward, now. "Sent me? Nobody sent me. Can't a guy come over to harass his father-in-law of his own free will?"

Father-in-law? Angel was suddenly grateful for both his drip-proof saucer and the fact that vampires didn't have to breathe, so couldn't technically choke. "I'm not your father-in-law." Not legally, anyway. "Cordy says she found Spike under a cabbage leaf."

"They why'd you give him away at our wedding?"

"Because Cordelia couldn't get the cabbage leaf to do it."

"She could have. Cordelia? Oh, she could have. But nobody wanted to invite it. Come on, Angel, confess -- you did it because you wanted a good seat."

"I did it because Wes and Gunn would have guilted me for a year if I'd said no." True, among other reasons. "I have enough guilt already, thanks."

"So why do you think I'd know where you're coming from?" Xander asked. "Where you're coming from about what?"

Angel hoped Xander wasn't trying to be subtle. He didn't have the strength to deal with subtle, at the moment. Purposely dim, he could handle, but not subtle. "About Wes. About taking off after him when that's exactly what he said he didn't want us to do."

"Oh. That." Xander looked... less comfortable. Not *un*comfortable, exactly; just not as easy as he'd seemed when he first sat down. "You know, Gunn's just trying to--"

Angel shook his head, then nodded, then, since he apparently couldn't decide what to do with his head, simply put up a hand. "I know what Gunn's trying to do. You think I *don't* want to go stomping into his father's house, throw Wes over my shoulder, and... what was that Cordy said?"

"Beat your chest like the hairy man-thing you are," Xander supplied helpfully. He grinned. "I don't think you're hairy. Really."

"Thank you. I appreciate your support." Angel took another sip of his blood. "But I don't know what's going on, and I don't know what Wes wants, and I don't want to be the guy to screw everything up by treating him like some kind of damsel in distress, or a kid who can't think for himself. He's a grown man; I have to respect what he says he wants, even if I hate it. Even if I'm not sure he really wants it." He looked at Xander, who was nodding, slowly -- though Angel couldn't tell if that meant he was agreeing, or just looking over Angel's shoulder at a gremlin on the wing. "I thought out of everybody, you'd get that."

"Oh." Now Xander was definitely nodding. Then frowning. "Um, even though I kinda do, why did you think I would?"

"Because of Spike." Angel could hear him, a few seats back, telling Cordelia something about inviting his mother to visit. His *mother*? Spike's mother? Angel shuddered -- subtly, he hoped. "When he took off for L.A., you let him go. Let him figure out what he wanted to do."

Xander blinked at him, then smiled. Almost shyly, which made Angel blink back. Xander hadn't been shy with anyone in the inner family circle in years. "Ah, yes. The 'if you love something, let it go -- if it doesn't come back, it probably took up with a creepy pole-dancer who never pays for dates and comes on to everything on less than five legs' approach."

"Um, yeah." Angel tried to remember if that was a fair assessment of Marc, or if there was something to Xander's past he didn't want to know about. All right, something *else*.

Xander was still wriggling in his seat as if he couldn't tell if a bug had crawled into his underwear, or if he'd just sat on a magazine. "Normally I would say, yes, that's right, I feel your anguish," Xander finally said. "But , um -- and you can't tell him this, OK?"

Angel felt his eyebrow crawl up his forehead. He didn't know if he were more surprised that Xander was keeping secrets from Spike, or that Xander was going to tell *Angel*. "Sure." There was no way he could say no -- he'd die from curiosity.

Xander turned towards him, and kept his voice low. "I didn't."

Angel stared at him. He waited. When Xander kept acting like *that* was the revelation, he demanded, "Didn't what?"

"Didn't let him go." Xander looked more uncomfortable than ever. "I mean, I *told* him, sure, do what you want, if you feel like you've gotta get out of Sunnydale, fine. If you think this thing between us is all 'cause the Hellmouth is making you crazy, fine. Go live in LA and see what you see. You don't have to wait for me, I don't have to wait for you. If you want me, you know where I am."

Angel nodded. "Yeah, that's pretty much what he told me."

"And it's true. Um, except for the part about him knowing where I was. Since I waited all of an hour before I hopped on a Greyhound and followed him."

Angel felt his other eyebrow crawling up to join its mate. "You were in L.A.?"

Xander nodded. "Yeah -- I moved into that little roach-motel apartment about two days after I got here. I just didn't tell Spike I was here, until he called back to Sunnydale, to say he wanted me to come try life in the big city." Xander grinned, a bit shiftily. "Willow hacked into the phone system and got my Sunnydale number transferred to her second line, and forwarded all the calls to me in L.A. -- so every time Spike thought he was calling back to tell me everything was okay, and he was doing fine, I was about five miles away, and I knew *exactly* how fine he wasn't doing."

Angel found himself suddenly gaining a new respect for Xander. True, he'd seen the obnoxious young man grow up over the last few years -- he'd even had one very embarrassing, never to be mentioned again, bonding session with Giles one night about how much Xander had matured since moving to L.A. But he'd never suspected that he could be so...devious. "You followed him?" he repeated. "You *spied* on him?" he asked, quietly.

Xander grinned. "Oh, hell yeah. I wasn't about to let him go -- but I had to let him make his own decision about not being let go." Despite Xander's satisfied grin, his tone was exactly why Angel had agreed to walk Spike down the aisle and hand him over to Xander. It wasn't *just* to get rid of Spike, officially, once and for all.

Then Angel realized what the logical conclusion of Xander's revelation was, and looked away. Out the window -- bad move. Clouds. He stared at the back of the seat in front of him, instead. "So I'm supposed to go after Wesley, and hang around until he changes his mind?"

"Well, there's more to it than that," Xander admitted. "But it probably wouldn't work for you, because Wes would probably notice. Since he helped me with my surveillance, and all. Gave me a lot of good ideas about getting rid of Marc, too."

"He-- Wes knew you were here?" Angel looked back at Xander.

"Yeah. He's the one who helped me find the apartment. Wes even helped me move my stuff out, so Spike could help me move back in, when I 'officially' came to L.A. You know, for the month that he let me stay in that dump, before he dragged me over to the Hyperion."

Angel stared at him.

Xander shrugged. "What, I was gonna tell you, and assume Spike couldn't worm it out of you? And Cordy would just have bapped Spike upside the head and told him to go see me. Didn't really know Gunn back then, so Wes was the obvious choice. Spike cried all over his shoulder about how much life sucked while they were out getting sozzled on imported beer, and Wes passed that info on. At least some of it, if Spike didn't specifically tell him not to tell anybody."

"I didn't know." That sounded stupid. Of course he hadn't known; that was Xander's point. "I mean, Wes never told me. Later."

"I guess--" Xander shrugged. "Actually, I have no idea. It might just have been that it was part of his life BT -- Before Trio. When you and Gunn were makin' with the relationship, and he was hanging with Spike. That wasn't exactly a banner couple of years for Wes."

"So you're saying you snuck around behind Spike's back, spied on him, and made sure he didn't manage to successfully date anyone else?"

"Yep. Basically. Hey, I didn't do anything to make him decide he wanted me. I just...made sure I wouldn't have to."

"If he'd started having a grand time being a single vampire, again, you'd have shown up and chopped off parts of his anatomy?"

Xander shifted in his seat again. "Well, at that point in my life, I might've just...no, I would've. You're right. Since he could've grown 'em right back anyhow...."

"So I should go to England and storm the castle and throw Wes over my shoulder like the hairy beast I am?"

Xander looked thoughtful for a moment. "I think...you should let Gunn storm the castle. I doubt Wes' folks have a standing invitation for their son's vampiric lovers. Then maybe the two of you can swap out shoulder-slinging duties." Xander gave him a half-smile. "This isn't about forcing Wesley to do something he doesn't want to do, Angel. It's about making sure he's doing what he *wants* to do. Sometimes even smart guys like Wesley and Spike need someone to show them what they want."

"Just because they have the same accent doesn't mean Spike's intell--" Angel stopped, and looked down at the pencil aimed at his chest. "Xander?"

"I'm morally obligated to prevent anyone but me insulting my husband. Except Cordelia, because she's scary. Be nice."

"To Spike?" That was gonna take all the fun out of his unlife.

Xander shrugged. "Nah. But I have to threaten you once in a while. Otherwise he thinks I'm not earning my keep."

Angel was beginning to get that old familiar feeling of losing control of a conversation with Xander Harris Bloody Wyndham-Price whatever Giles. He was surprised it took this long, actually. He eyed the pencil, then gave Xander his best guilt-inducing kicked-puppy look. "You'd point a deadly piece of office equipment at your own father-in-law?"

Xander looked down at the pencil, grinned, and withdrew it. "You think that's deadly, you've obviously never seen what Spike can do when he visits my office. There are random people in Singapore who have faxes of his ass hanging on their walls."

"There are random people all over the world who would much rather have his *head* hanging on their wall," Angel responded, though he couldn't resist a shudder-chuckle at the thought of what else his deranged childe could get up to in a high-tech publishing office.

"True." Xander nodded. "But he's only allowed to give *me* head. Unless prior arrangements have been made."

"Thank you so much for the gratuitous imagery." Angel tried to remind himself that he *wanted* a picture in his head to take the place of being trapped underwater in a sealed airplane with Spike. Not that this was the picture he would have chosen. He leaned back and studied the depths of his blood mug for a second, then finally spoke. "I'll think about it. Not that I *wasn't* thinking about it, but I'll think about it."

"Spike giving me head? You can come watch, if you like. Cordy made the mistake of explaining the Mile High Club to him, and now he wants to see just exactly how many positions are possible in an airplane bathroom."

Angel gritted his teeth, which had the effect of reminding him that he *still* had a headache. "No, what you said about Wes. You can report back to the others that you've done your duty, and Angel's not being an anti-social bastard, he's just tired."

Xander gave him a frown, which made him look eerily like an adult. "No one sent me over here, you know. Not that they wouldn't have, because, yeah, everyone still worries about you even though you pretend they don't. But I was just--" Xander shrugged, and looked uncomfortable. Then he sighed. "That's not why I came over here, though," he admitted, quietly.

Angel opened his eyes and looked over. "If you came over to ask for souvenir money, the answer's no. If you need extra cash, sell Spike."

Xander laughed nervously. "No, I'm good, thanks." Then he was silent again. Angel was this close to asking him to spit or swallow -- or at least digging for a politer version of the same phrase -- when Xander said, "I wanted to ask -- that is, it's not any big secret, but I think he's gonna stall about it and --"

"Oi -- you'd rather chat with a bloke who can't remember he drives a convertible, than have sex in the loo with me?" Spike's voice was loud in Angel's ears, and meshed nicely with the little headache-demon on his shoulder. "Or did you get him to agree to hold the door?" Spike leaned over the seatbacks from the row behind them, and said cheerfully to Angel, "I think position number three is gonna end up with us sprawled on the floor outside the bathroom, unless we can barricade it closed."

Angel closed his eyes again, and thought of Wesley. Thought of Wesley, at his parents' home, being pissed off at Angel for coming to his rescue. It really *was* a better image than Spike and Xander having sex. "Why don't you ask *Gunn* to hold the door for you," he suggested.

"I did. He said he would, but only if he got to flush me down the bog, after." Spike chuckled. "Might be worth it. Can you imagine some poor housewife in Idaho, gettin' hit on the head by a giant blue vampsicle fallin' out of the sky?"

"If you take him away now," Angel said in Xander's general direction, without opening his eyes, "I'll let you use the hot tub when we get home. Free-of-newt."

Xander, ever the businessman even with that odd nervousness still in his voice, said, "Hot tub *and* you have to come to Page's Bar on Trekkie Night with us, if we have time while we're in London."

"Done. Sold. Go." He could just walk in the door of this place, and walk out again, right? Or make damn sure they *didn't* have time.

"In costume," Spike added gleefully.

"No. Leave, before I tell Gunn you're taking him up on his flushing offer." Angel thanked Wesley silently for realizing -- or not -- that an implied lie isn't the same as a direct one.

"You're no fun," Spike complained. Like this was new? Well, for a guy with a vampire's life expectancy, it was sort of new. Angel found himself thinking about the sorts of things Spike had always thought *were* fun, when it came to Angel and Spike being anywhere in the same town together. Back when he'd been Angelus, soulless, and out to dismember anything he could.

Angel flinched as he was whapped on the back on the head. "Don't make me borrow nail polish from Cordelia," Gunn said.

"Oh, I've got some," Spike piped up in a helpful tone. "Black, though, might not suit your purpose."

"Don't you still have some of that blue sparkly stuff?" Xander asked.

"I wasn't--" Angel tried to protest. He shut his mouth in time. Okay, he had been, but he *might* have been thinking about all the grand times they'd spent having sex. Spike had always enjoyed anything that involved getting his end away -- except for the one time a couple of squirrels had got into the boat with them.

Gunn was staring at him, eyes narrowed. "Uh-huh. Legs?"

"Arms and heads, act--" Angel replied reflexively, then caught himself. He tried to glare at Gunn, but it had no effect. Angel pouted. "I wasn't *trying* to think about dismembering people."

"Oo! Why not?" Spike asked, cheerfully. Angel heard the sound of Spike's head being struck by Xander's hand. He could almost hear the echo, too.

Angel peered out the window. Nothing but ocean and clouds. "How long until we get there?" When he heard the answer, he decided his next mug of blood was going to have brandy in it, Or possibly horse tranquilizers.

*****