A Gentle Reminder
Title: Come Undone -- Part 2 A Gentle Reminder
Description: Angel decides to act on his feelings, meanwhile his past life is rearing it's ugly head.
Disclaimer: In the first Chapter
A/N: So, a little embarrassed here. I promised a week, I've taken, well, a lot longer. Blah blah blah, cockroaches, illness, moving, stupid Russian internet. But here it is. And it's about to get interesting. Oh, and I've used an edited drabble of mine as a plot device here.- - - - -
Angel breezed into the office holding his morning coffee and whistling a jaunty tune.
He’d made a decision that the world could, in fact, be a good place.
He’d made the decision to embrace his unlife. To lessen the brood. And to ask his favourite forensic anthropologist over for an entirely friendly not-date.
Because they simply would not be dating. A friendly meal between friends doesn’t mean anything more.
He winced inwardly, hearing Cordelia’s voice ringing through his head. ‘Mister you are swimming with crocodiles and icky mosquitoes in Egypt. Y’know?’
He straightened up and headed for Temperance’s office; shaking off the, not entirely unwelcome, ghosts of his past.
When he walked in the room, mentally preparing himself for a flimsy excuse, or a flat-out rejection.
She didn’t even look up from her computer screen.
‘It could be a bad sign, or,’ he thought, ‘it could be just her being her.’
Which was what he liked most about her. Angel took the opportunity to take her in.
Nobody since Buf-
Nobody since that time not so long ago had he felt butterflies in his cold, dead stomach, could he almost feel his non-existent pulse race, could almost feel his heart beat…
“So, erm Bones, I-“
“Don’t call me Bones.”
He exhaled sharply, “Right, but, do you wanna come over for some take-out or something this evening? We could get it here, or maybe you could..?”
The phone started to ring. Dr. Brennan gave him an apologetic look, and took the phone call. Angel wished he could have bashed his head against the door.
- - - - -
“Did you tell them that I don’t deal with the newly dead?”
Camille shimmied past Brennan, away from the bodies in front of her, “I tried, but they wanted the best. This is top priority.”
“Great,” Temperance shook her head and began to examine the four fresh corpses in front of her.
She moved closer and looked in mild shock, “Erm…they’re frozen?”
Hogins was fast in on the scene, “Apparently they came in like that. We’ve not been told anything about their whereabouts, or anything else,” he added, before swiftly leaving.
She shook her head again, “Great.”
Angel looked in disgust as he walked into the enclosed area where the bodies were laid out, “Thought I’d give you a heads up. You got another one coming in.”
Temperance, too involved, didn’t look up from her work, “Do you know anything about these bodies?”
He sighed, “I wish I could say I did Bones.”
He looked at the perfectly preserved corpses, from a murder that seemed to be impossible to the human world, and demonic to Angel’s.
The first body was frozen. And reddish brown.
“Interesting,” mused Dr. Brennan, “I can’t see any lesions at all.”
That’s because it was magic; magical torture. But Temperance, awkward, curious, brilliant Temperance would never ever know. Angel hoped she’d never be brought into his world.
The second, third, fourth were all like the first. Encased in icy blood that didn’t melt even as the forensic anthropologists hands swept over the corpses, trying, in vain, to find a cause.
However, then came the fifth.
The fifth was different. Unfinished.
As she swept her hands over the fifth that sticky red blood covered her gloves.
That sweet, coppery smell filled the room.
Angel couldn’t take his eyes off them.
And all of it came flooding back. The reasons he’d so carelessly forgotten; why he’d never be able to be with her, why it was selfish to play along with the banter and guarded flirting.
That smell of blood was tantalising beyond belief.
So was she.
He did the only thing he could do – muttered a flimsy excuse and left.
