Angel heard the scream before he felt the human throat in his hands. As he blinked hard, he let go of -

--Jenny Calendar, who stumbled back, half-paralyzed by mortal terror. He'd jumped back into the split second before he'd broken her neck.

"Whoa!" Angel backed as far from her as he could go, which unfortunately was just a few steps until he was up against the staircase wall. "Sorry! Didn't mean to - I mean - whoa."

Panting, Jenny lifted a trembling hand to her chest. Her dark eyes were wide, but she couldn't even run. Sometimes humans got like that, just before the end.

"I'm sorry. I realize I - I just scared you - and you were right to be scared! Don't get me wrong. But I - Miss Calendar, I -"

"You -" Her voice broke, and she swallowed hard before she spoke again. "You regained your soul."

"How could you tell?" Angel always wondered if there were lights or sounds or something. Though it wouldn't have shown up this time, would it?

"I'm not dead."

"That's kind of a giveaway, huh?" There was absolutely no place to go with this conversation, Angel decided, and he started backing down the stairs. "Well, Sorry about the whole, uh, killing thing. Faux pas. Definitely. But I'm fine now, and you're fine now and - you know, I think I might've left some champagne chilling back at Giles' place. Drink in good health."

Jenny took one step toward him, then froze, as if unable to believe her own trust in Angel's transformation. "How did you - who did this?"

"You know, everybody and his Uncle Mike has an Orb of Thessula these days." Angel kept moving away from her. "Could've been a drive-by."

"A drive-by resouling?"

"Lots of gang activity in Sunnydale. Heaps." Then it hit him - really hit him - this was Jenny Calendar. The murder that had hurt Buffy and her friends the most, especially Giles, had been prevented. Angel felt a strange, sickening twist of guilt and relief that dizzied him, and he braced himself against one wall. "Oh, God. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

"You have your soul," she whispered, apparently unable to get any further than that. He saw tears start to trickle down her cheeks, and it seemed as though the only kind thing for him to do was turn away.

So many murders - so much devastation - all he could remember from this time was pain and misery and blood, none of it his own until after the worst. Nothing waited but death and hell.

As he tried to get a handle on his own extreme discomfiture, Angel decided to get the first and most important messages out first. "Listen, tell Giles I've got my soul back. I'm not going to hurt anyone, least of all Buffy. And -" He said the next almost before he thought it. "-I'll leave town immediately. Before dawn tomorrow, if I can manage."

"I - yes. Yes, go." She was agreeing only out of terror; though Angel could tell she believed that he had his soul, Jenny could not look at him now with anything but dread.

"I'm so sorry," he repeated, not to this Jenny but the one from the other timeline, the one who couldn't have heard.  Poor Jenny just slumped back against the far wall, evidently too weak to argue, complain or do anything else. Slightly dazed himself, Angel wondered if he should offer to walk her home - then realized that this would be certifiably insane.

"Goodbye," he said, then got the hell out of Sunnydale High.

**

There was no place left for him in this entire town.

He could have gone back to the mansion - had he found the mansion yet? Angel wasn't sure - but then he just would've had Spike Classic and Dru waiting for him, which he could do as well without. Maybe he should've gone to the apartment he'd abandoned upon the loss of his soul; still, it was possible Buffy had the place under some kind of surveillance, waiting for his return. On the long nights when he'd stalked her as Angelus, he had seen her nearby sometimes, looking up at his darkened window as if waiting for a light to come on.

Out of the question. He wasn't going to fight Buffy, not even if he could be certain of surviving it - which, of course, he couldn't.

This precluded his going anyplace public, including the Bronze. He couldn't even go for a drink at Willy's; Buffy already knew the place, and she might stop by looking for information.

Best to get the car and drive out of town before sunrise. He could get a hotel room a few miles out of town, then really make tracks tomorrow night. If Jenny delivered her message, and he felt certain that she would, Angel didn't think it was likely that Buffy or anyone else would come after him.

Fortunately, this time he remembered where he'd parked.

Just after the loss of his soul, Angelus had determined that the car would provide too simple a means for Buffy to track him. So he'd put it in storage, waiting for the night after he'd murdered her, at which point he had planned to take it out for a long, leisurely drive. The storage unit's management automatically debited one of the bank accounts he kept, and it had continued to do so for all his months as Angelus - not to mention the four months / several centuries he'd spent in hell.

Modern technology, Angel thought. Maybe this time around, he ought to work harder at it. Buy a computer or something.

The Plymouth eased out of the storage area, and behind the wheel Angel felt at least the illusion of being in control. It made for a nice change. Now that his mind was clear enough to think, he idled on the driveway that led to the road and tried to think where to go from here.

Well, Los Angeles, eventually. He knew that the fragile chain of events that had resulted in Connor's birth would be nearly impossible to duplicate at this point - but Angel still intended to try. Less literally, there were other elements to consider.

Without his raid on the library, Kendra stood every chance of surviving past the time when she'd died. In fact, given that he would no longer be terrorizing Sunnydale, Kendra might not return at all. That meant Faith would probably never be called as a Slayer.

Was that good or bad for her? Angel could never know, but he smiled grimly as he reflected that it was definitely bad news for the Mayor.

Then again, it was through Faith that they'd learned much of what the Mayor was up to. How would Buffy find out what she needed to stop him this time? Angel wondered if a postcard would be well-received. Better wait a few months. At least. And mail it from a postmark he'd never visited before nor intended to see again.

Without his return, Buffy's subsequent deception and Faith's volatility, the Watchers' Council would be unlikely to consider replacing Giles. So Wesley would never even arrive in the States. Would he ever be assigned to a Slayer? Ever escape the oppressive disapproval of his father? Ever learn to trust in his own abilities?

That would be up to Wesley.

Cordelia's father would still cheat on his taxes; that meant Cordelia would probably still go to L.A. in pursuit of her acting dreams. No chance of a cozy chat about Manhattan this time, Angel realized. Note to self: Pencil in one trip to kick Russell Winters' butt, in about, oh, eighteen months.

Could Lindsey's soul be saved this time? What would become of Doyle? Should he try to find a way to warn or protect Gunn's sister, Alonna? And Fred -

--Fred wouldn't be in Pylea yet. And she wouldn't have any reason to be afraid of him; she was still innocent of the very existence of vampires.

Angel closed his eyes for a moment, knowing his first task. This was something he could do, something good, something hard to screw up, even for him.

He put one hand on the gear shift to take the Plymouth out of park - then heard a thump in the back seat and turned to see Drusilla.

"Are we going for a ride, Daddy?" She giggled, pushing down her lacy black skirts from the flounces in which they'd landed. "Vroom VROOM, ride me, Daddy. Get your kicks on Route 66."

"Dru." He should stake her right now. Of course, he'd had this idea virtually every time he'd encountered Drusilla in recent years; this time, though, he thought he could carry it out.

She frowned, her pale lips pursing into a pout as her senses told her the bad news. "Hanging on you like cobwebs. Nasty guilt. Nasty, stinking soul."

Was there a stake in this car? He seemed to remember keeping one in the glove compartment - bingo. "Funny how that happens."

He turned on her, ready to do what needed to be done, and ready for a fight. But Drusilla was curled into a sullen ball, pulling out strands of her hair, as if a tantrum might fix everything. "You're a very mean Daddy," she said.

"I'm sorry. You'll never know how much. You can't know -

Then it hit him.

Why not give Drusilla back her soul?

Angel hesitated, stake in hand, staring at her as he tried to do the calculations in his head. Receiving a soul again wasn't easy; who could tell what the impact would be on Drusilla, given the weight of her madness. But then, maybe her madness could protect her. Maybe her many crimes would only seem like nightmares. Once she had a soul, perhaps she could be treated - made whole again -

By whom? And how? The hopelessness of it hit him, but he couldn't bring himself to throw the idea away immediately. After all, Jenny Calendar was still alive, and she'd believe him if nobody else would. Liking him was another matter, but Angel didn't require that. They could find another Orb of Thessula easily enough, and then - and then -

"Mustn't cry over spilled milk," Drusilla crooned, easing herself out of the back seat and onto the trunk. "Can't put that milk back in the bottle, no, no. We'll be waiting until the cows come home, but the cows aren't coming home. No milk for Baby."

Wearily, Angel tried to page through his mental Drusilla Thesaurus. The spilled milk was certainly the soul; he understood that much. But the cow - something that gave milk, therefore something with the capability of giving a soul -

--something alive-

"Drusilla, what did you do?"

She laughed, that same unhinged laugh that sounded like a screen door swinging in the wind. "You went to find the gypsy girl, just like the last time, the time I only see in dreams. I followed you so that this time I could see. But Daddy didn't have a drink. He left all the treats for Baby."

Angel remembered Jenny Calendar's relief as she realized he wouldn't kill her - her slow, slow acceptance of the fact that she would survive. But he had only taunted her with false hope. Had Drusilla even given her another five minutes? He doubted it.

And he'd wondered whether or not he should see Jenny home -

He tucked the stake back in his coat, feeling around for the device. Saving Jenny Calendar hadn't been a task he'd set for himself; her very survival created more variables than he knew what to do with. But at this moment, surrounded by the death and insanity his soulless self had created, Angel only knew that if he were ever going to be able to begin again, he wouldn't be able to do it here.

"You've got a ticket to ride," Drusilla said. "But you don't care."

Angel stared at her. "You know what this is. What it does."

"Zoom, zoom, zoom." She folded her hands beneath her chin. "Back and back, Angel goes. Where he stops, no one knows."

"So tell me, Dru," he said, getting the device ready for the next turn. "How far back am I going to end up? The 1940s? World War I? Just tell me it's not the American Civil War again, because I don't feel like shooting Stonewall Jackson twice."

"Back and back," Drusilla repeated. "But forward again, before the end."

"Wait - what? This thing can take me forward in time, too?"

"It's pretty. Very pretty. A bauble for the Christmas tree. We shall hang it next to the brightest candle of all, and if the branch catches fire, the gold shan't burn." She tensed, and he could tell she was ready to pounce - and to steal the device for herself.

His hand made the twist a moment just as she jumped at him, and Angel took pleasure in watching her dissolve in a rain of gold.

**

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