In the dark of her room Faith stared blankly at the busy television screen before her. TV had not improved while she was away. What the hell was this crap?
She was restless. Frankly, she was bored. And she was incredibly tired of sitting here doing nothing after the having to be rescued from prison. Time was moving incredibly slow if you asked her. Get a move on with this spell already, bust into the law firm, figure out what’s killing off these girls and call it a day.
Of course, she wasn’t in charge.
Buffy was in charge. That much hadn’t changed either, but at least she hadn’t expected it to. Faith was grateful to her, to all of them, for risking their lives to get her out of jail, she really was. How she’d ever show it was beyond her. Dawn was unapproachable, that was for sure. Willow wasn’t looking much better. She didn’t know Fred or Gunn well, and with Wesley things were just a bit more twitchy. So it was Xander and Angel. That was fine. She’d always liked Xander, even if he was something of a chump. And nothing she could do would ever show Angel how much she appreciated him. Even if their last run-in had forced her to grow up. No one ever likes that.
And now here she was, sitting in her room while the gang that didn’t include her got their act in gear and finally did something about this memory spell. It was like working with snails, in her opinion. Dark had fallen. And she wanted out. It had been way too long since she’d patrolled.
It itched…that wanting to hurt something, to let out all the frustration. She’d thought about asking to use Angel’s training room, but given the looks on Buffy and Angel’s faces when she’d peaked outside a while back, she wasn’t about to interrupt.
And she wasn’t so bad off that she’d ask Cordelia about it. Hell no.
So up here was where she’d sit. Watching “Elimidate.” And being completely pathetic.
When the phone next to her broke out into a shrill ring she leapt about three feet off the bed. Who the hell would be calling her? It rang again and she eyed it suspiciously before picking up the heavy black receiver.
“Hello?”
“There’s my girl!” a cheery voice rang out over the line. “Moping in a hotel room on a night like this. It’s not good for the soul, Faith. No, not good at all.”
Her breath caught in her throat, the muscles constricting tightly. “Wh—who is this?”
“Oh, come now,” the voice admonished brightly. “You can’t say you don’t remember me, Faith. Not after all we went through.”
Her hand began to shake and she almost dropped the receiver, so slick had her palms become. “Who is this?”
The voice on the other end clucked his tongue. “I can see that a few years in jail hasn’t done much for you…you know, you could have used that time to reflect, to get an education. I know you never finished high school…it was one of the few things I ever disapproved of when it came to you, Faith. You can’t ever dismiss an education. It’s the foundation for everything you could become.”
Oh my god, no. Oh my god…no. It couldn’t be him. It couldn’t. He’s dead.
The voice on the other end of the phone was the Mayor’s.
She closed her eyes and gripped the black receiver in her hand more tightly, almost crushing it. It’s just a dream…you’re sleeping. You fell asleep watching tv.
“Now, Faith. I know you have better phone manners than this,” he chastised to the dead air. “And I don’t have a lot of time to chat, being deceased and all.” He laughed then. “We’ve got some things to discuss. Your current situation, for one.”
“What do you want?” she managed to squeak out.
“That’s better. A little rude, perhaps, but…eh. What I want is to talk to you, Faith. I’ve been watching you, I know what’s going on over there at the hotel. Not the place I’d like to have seen you end up, that’s for sure.”
There are immoral liaisons going on there.
Yeah, plus all the screwing.
“You don’t belong there, Faith. You never did.”
Shut up, shut up, shut up! her mind screamed. She closed her eyes tightly, feeling like she might vomit any moment and brought one hand up to grip the nightstand so she wouldn’t just tip forward onto the floor.
“It’s not your fault…I don’t blame you. What could you do? Let those horrible characters in the robes come in there and kill you? No…not my girl. You’re not supposed to go down without a fight. You’re a champ, a real warrior you are, Faith. You’ll go down kicking and screaming.” He let out another laugh and Faith couldn’t help but notice how maniacal he sounded. Had he always sounded like that?
He cleared his throat and his tone turned serious. “But we can’t have you sitting in there with the enemy. I want you to get out of there, Faith. I want you to leave that place and those people…they’re not good for you.”
They’re all I’ve got!
“Now, I know what you’re thinking…I haven’t been around for you these past few years and suddenly I show up and start telling you how to live your life? Ho ho! Who the heckfire do I think I am? Well, I’ll tell you Faith. I’m the guy who was always there for you. And I was. I know you remember that. When you felt like there was no one to turn to, you always had me, even after I was gone. Those people you’re with…they’re not right for you, Faith.”
Faith’s hand began to shake so violently that she dropped the receiver yet somehow she could still hear him clear as day as he continued. “Go, Faith. Run. Get as far from those people as you can, before they cage you again, make you conform to rules that were never meant to apply to you. Before they--”
Using all her strength she slammed the phone back down on the hook and jumped up off the bed.
He was right about one thing…she had to get out of there. Unfortunately, she had no place to go.
*~*~*
“And you’re sure this is where they’re holding Spike?” Giles asked Buffy as they leaned over the table together, Regina and Angel across from them.
She shrugged. “It’s our best guess, according to Wesley, anyway. This law firm has him, we know that for sure. And they want him to fulfill this prophecy.”
Giles shook his head. “It says that the vampire with a soul will help bring in the apocalypse? I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that particular divination.”
“Same here,” Regina told them. “What I’m curious about, though, is what the chances are that Spike will play their game.”
Buffy and Giles exchanged a worried glance. “Spike’s unpredictable,” Buffy told her after a beat. “Better to get him out of there before they have a chance to work on him too much.”
“And you’re convinced that even with a soul he might agree to this,” she countered.
“I don’t know…it’s possible.”
“Very possible. More than likely, even. You don’t have to have to be soulless to be evil,” Angel said softly, eyes on the table. When he looked up Buffy was watching him. “It just makes it easier.”
“Very true,” Giles agreed. “Some of the worst killers of our time, humans, all had souls, Buffy.”
She nodded helplessly. “We have to try.”
“And we will, I just want you to be prepared for the possibility that Spike will willingly go along with whatever they’re offering him. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s switched sides to benefit himself,” Giles reminded her. “And should he choose that path…”
“Spike has it in him,” Buffy told them confidently. “I’ve seen it. There’s good in there, somewhere.”
Angel’s hands fisted themselves into balls at his side. “He’s had a soul for a few weeks. He’s not ready to face this. It’s temptation. It’s the apple from the snake, Buffy. They’re going to give him whatever he wants, whatever will make him play ball.”
“He might surprise you,” she said sternly, glaring at him.
His eyes narrowed and he nodded. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
There was an uncomfortable beat before Giles cleared his throat. “We have a little longer until the spell set-up is complete. I think I’ll see about some tea, perhaps take my luggage upstairs.”
Regina looked from Angel to Buffy, slightly amused at the warriors butting heads. “I’ll join you, Rupert. Tea would be excellent right now. Buffy, Angel? Can I bring you anything?”
Without glancing her way they answered together, “No, thank you.”
As they walked away Giles took a quick look over his shoulder. “I don’t see what’s so amusing.”
Regina gave him a knowing smile and patted his arm as they entered the kitchen.
Buffy turned from Angel and back to the blueprints of the law firm with an angry toss of her hair.
“I think you should consider the idea that Spike will turn again you,” Angel warned her, keeping his voice low to prevent the others in the room from overhearing.
“And I think it’s in your best interest to believe that he won’t. He’ll come through for us, Angel,” she insisted without looking up.
He sighed. This was going no where. “Fine. We agree to disagree, then.”
She nodded to herself. “Fine.”
Tired of talking to the back of her head he crossed to the other side of the table and placed both hands on top. “We need to at least talk about what happened outside, Buffy. We can’t let that go like it didn’t happen.”
She shrugged, eyes still downcast. “What’s there to talk about? You were upset.”
“I shouldn’t have jumped all over you like that.”
With a sigh she looked up at him again. “I’m sorry it bothers you that Spike is a part of my life now. Even if it’s not romantically, he’s still there. And that’s not going to change, Angel.”
He held her gaze for a moment before looking past her to where Willow, Xander, Anya and Dawn sat with his friends, working on the memory spell. “How do your friends feel about him? Do they accept him?”
“Spike helps us, normally, when he’s not being crazy in the school basement. When I was gone…he helped them.”
“How?”
Buffy shrugged again, uncomfortably. “He looked after Dawn. He made sure someone was there for her.”
“Was he in love with you then?”
She started to lie, to deny it, but couldn’t and instead nodded. “We weren’t involved then. It wasn’t like that between us when I died. But yeah…he was.”
He snorted. “You died, and he felt guilty. So he stuck around, made sure Dawn and your friends were okay. And now you’re rewarding him.”
Now she glared. “You’re going to see this any way you want, so I’m not going to argue with you about it. It’s my life, Angel. I’ll do with it what I want. You’re not--”
She stopped, bit her tongue. “I’m not what?” he asked softly, hurt flooding his eyes.
“We’re not, you and I…we aren’t a part of each other’s lives anymore. I can’t make that any clearer. It isn’t something either of us wanted, it’s just the way it turned out.”
He reached out and grabbed her hand in his tightly. “I don’t accept that.”
Sadly she pulled her hand from his. “It’s not for you to accept or not, Angel. It just is. We’re almost set up to do the spell and then things will be better.”
“I don’t want to,” he told her quietly.
She was genuinely confused. “Don’t want to what? Do the spell?”
He gave her a curt shake of the head. “No.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not sure I’m going to like what I return to when my memory comes back.”
Her face reflected complete confusion. “What? What are you talking about? Of course you want your memory back… It’s just complicated right now because you’re having to learn stuff all over again. It only seems like things are--”
“No,” he burst out. Gracefully he swept around the table until they were face to face. “I don’t want to be that person.” His eyes held desperation and pleading in them as they penetrated hers. “In a few minutes we’re going to perform the spell and then everything shifts again. Everything I’m feeling, everything I know will change on me and I can’t accept what I’ve learned. I can’t comprehend that my life is so different now, that I’ve changed so much and done so much damage to the people that I care about.”
“Angel, your life is…”
“You don’t know about my life, remember?” he bit out. “We’re not in each other’s lives anymore. Things aren’t going to change just for me, Buffy, they’re going to change for you, too. When you learn…when you find out what I am now.”
“Angel, look around!” she cried. “You have this fabulous hotel to live in, you have a great group of friends and a job you’re dedicated to.”
“Am I?” He gave a short laugh. “From what I understand I lost my mission a long time ago. I let people die, for my own personal satisfaction, Buffy. I let Darla and Drusilla have at it on a group of humans because I didn’t like them. Does that sound like doing my job?”
“No, but I’m sure--”
Moving in he gripped her arms and looked into her eyes. “I have a son, Buffy.”
Her mouth fell open. “I—you—what?”
“A child, a son. Connor. Connor is my son. Mine and Darla’s.”
Buffy’s heart sunk into her stomach and her knees went weak. Had he not been there she would have fallen to the floor but as it were he held her up, stared at her until her eyes came up to meet his again. “No, that’s not possible. Angel, someone’s lying to you.”
“They’re not. I don’t know how I know it, but I do. He’s mine, he’s my son.”
“Vampires can’t have children,” she whispered, her voice sounding further and further away.
“And vampire’s can’t have souls, either. But that’s turned out to be a myth, hasn’t it? I have a child.”
“Connor…but Connor’s a teenager…how..?”
He took a breath, loosened his grip a bit on her arms. “It’s complicated, but Fred and Lorne told me that Connor was kidnapped as a baby and returned here once he was grown.”
Her head was spinning. “I need to sit down,” she whispered.
He ignored her. “Buffy…he hates me. My own child hates me. He hates what I am, what I’ve become. He tried to kill me. For months I sat in the bottom of the ocean thanks to him. What kind of person must I be now for him to hate me so much that he’d do something like that?”
She had no answers for him, could in fact barely understand anything he was saying at this point, but he plunged ahead. “I’ve come to find out in the past few days that I’m not the person I thought I would become when I left Sunnydale. The last truly happy memories I have are tainted with the hint of what I would become…I can see that now. I don’t know when it started, but somewhere along the line I changed.”
Buffy pushed past the pain that had twisted its ugly self around her heart. “We all change, Angel, everybody changes.”
“Not like this. Not like me. Everything I set out to become…everything you taught me, that you showed me I wanted to be. I’m not that anymore, if I ever was.”
She took a breath, then another, steadying herself. “I’m not the person I used to be, either, Angel. It’s called growing up. Even you’re doing it.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Yes!” With a cry she shook free of his grasp and backed up a step or two. From across the room several heads turned in their direction. “Angel, I’m sorry if your life isn’t what you thought it would be…but whose is? Do you think I dreamed of being the Slayer when I was a little girl? Of having my parents divorce, of having my mom die? Do you think I used to lie awake at night and hope that this is what I would be when I grew up? ‘Cause it’s not! But we do the best we can and you’re just going to have to do the same. If you don’t like it, change it!”
“I can’t change it! I can’t go back and change the past, Buffy!” he roared and now every eye was on them, squared off in the middle of the lobby.
“What do you want me to do about it?” she snapped. “What do you want from me, Angel? To tell you it’s okay? That you’re going to get your memory back and everything’s going to turn out sunshine and roses? Because I don’t know that! I don’t know what’s going to happen. You come in here and you start dropping these bombshells on me about you having a son and I’m expected to know what to do, what to say?”
“Angel has a son?” Willow whispered to no one in particular as the group watched in awe.
“You can’t expect me to just ignore what I’m feeling…even if I want to, Buffy--”
She whirled, her back to him again, then turned around in a flash of anger. “God! I’m so sick of fighting with you! I’m sorry if you don’t like how your life has turned out. And I’m sorry if you’re having all these feelings from the past and it’s confusing you. News flash! You’re confusing me too! But unlike you, Angel, I know that it’s all a lie. I know that what’s going on inside you is nothing more than the feelings you had three years ago. But it’s not three years ago now. And when you get your memory back, you’re going to see that, and you’re going to hurt, Angel. It’s going to hurt you, just like it’s hurting me to start all this up again.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt--”
Her hand shot up, stopping him. “Just don’t.” Turning again she headed to the stairs. “Get me when we’re ready,” she requested of Willow, who nodded, dumbfounded. When her body retreated up the stairs and around the corner in a series of angry stomps and the slamming of her bedroom door, all eyes turned back to Angel’s fuming form in the middle of the lobby.
With a frustrated exhalation of breath he looked away from them and walked outside, back out to the patio.
Cordelia rose to her feet, the first to move or speak since the outburst. “I’ll be right back, okay?”
“We’re almost ready,” Fred reminded her softly.
She nodded and walked the few feet to the door, opening it gently and tentatively took a step outside. “Angel?” she called softly, for once completely unsure about approaching her boss.
“Go away, Cordelia,” came his gruff voice from the dark.
She located him easily as her eyes adjusted to night. “Angel…are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Please, just leave me alone.”
Naturally, she ignored him. He sat on the far side of the patio, his back to her and facing a wall of overgrown ivy. Thinking the wisest choice might be to keep her distance, she chose a bench on the opposite side, keeping perhaps twenty feet between them.
“Angel, what’s going on? You and Buffy…”
“It’s nothing.”
“Obviously.” She watched his back, his head down, his hands balled into tight fists. “It’s the spell, isn’t it? You’re remembering what you felt for her.” When his back tensed and he didn’t answer, she congratulated herself and bit her tongue to tell him ‘I told you so.’ “Angel…talk to me. I’m your friend, right? That still hasn’t changed.”
His head came up but didn’t turn toward her for a moment. When it did she wasn’t sure what expression he held in his eyes. “You’re my friend,” he acknowledged. “That’s what we are, isn’t it Cordelia?”
She rose to her feet, took a step toward him. “Duh. What kind of question is that?”
With a sigh he swung his legs around until he sat facing her. “Lorne and Fred say that you and I might have been more.”
Her brown eyes shot wide. “Very funny.”
“I’m not joking,” he said quietly.
Her mouth formed into a terse frown. “Angel, that’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?”
“Um, let me think…yeah!”
“Are you sure about that? We’re friends…who work closely together…in dangerous situations…things happen sometimes.”
“And sometimes they don’t,” she snarked with a wrinkle of her nose. “Especially when it’s against most of my personal rules, not to mention completely disgusting. First of all, there’s the fact that you’ve got too much emotional baggage for a single person. Then there’s the vampire thing, which, granted, I’ve accepted, but sorry…I just don’t see it. I mean…no perfect happiness… Not to mention that I’m not one for picking up my friend’s ex’s. Especially Buffy’s. No offense.”
He looked away, unsure and slightly embarrassed, not to mention just a bit ticked at her distaste for him. “I know it’s hard to believe. I’m not sure if I believe it myself.”
“Don’t,” she assured him impatiently. “I don’t know why they’d tell you something like that, but honestly. Can you even see the two of us together?” Her voice was lighter now, almost teasing and when he looked up at her again she had a grin on her face. It made him smile back.
“Yeah…that’s what I thought.”
She took a seat next to him. “If we were together you wouldn’t be wearing that,” she said pointedly, looking over the black knit shirt he’d pulled from his closet earlier. “I would have burned it long ago.”
Slightly relieved he chuckled. “No, I guess I wouldn’t.”
They smiled at each other a moment more before the grins faded. “This Buffy thing, Angel… You can’t do this. And I’ll tell you the one reason that might actually get through to you,” she said, cutting him off when he looked ready to object. “If you pursue this, it’s just going to hurt her.” Eyeing him she cocked her head slightly. “Is that what you want?”
He hung his head a bit. “No. I don’t.”
“I know you don’t. I may not be Buffy’s number one fan, but the girl’s been through enough, wouldn’t you say? And she doesn’t even know about that Day. But I’m telling you now…you start something with her, the minute that spell’s complete it’s going to bring nothing but more pain and more heartache. And personally, I’m not really willing to sit through that a second time. Watching what it did to you once was enough for me, thanks.”
He listened to her carefully, eyes down, before nodding to himself and looking back up at her. “You’re right.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Like that was even in question.” Rising to her feet she held out a hand to him. “Now. Let’s get our memories back, could we?”
Taking her hand in his he allowed himself to be pulled to his feet and led inside.
*~*~*
“I think we’re just about ready,” Willow told them as they walked back inside a moment later.
Cordy nodded. “Thank God.”
“How much longer?” Angel asked, glancing at the stairs.
Willow shrugged. “Five minutes, give or take.”
“Just enough time, then,” he murmured. “I’ll be right back.” Before anyone could object he sped up the stairs and rounded the corner to stop in front of Buffy’s door.
His knock was answered a moment later and she stood in the doorway, eyes still hurt and somewhat furious. “I don’t want to talk to you right now, Angel,” she said quietly.
“I’m here to apologize.”
Holding her gaze with his she considered his words for a minute and then another before opening the door to allow him inside. Crossing to the desk she turned and leaned against it, folding her arms over each other, her expression hard.
“I’m sorry, Buffy. For all of it. For yelling at you, for my reaction to the Spike thing…and for bringing my feelings for you out into the open again.”
She waited, saying nothing.
Swallowing uncomfortably he plunged ahead. “I had no right to do that to you, to open up old wounds again, not when it’s under circumstances like this. I know that things aren’t that way between us anymore and I had no right to make judgments on your life…or to confuse you by kissing you.”
Still nothing.
“And I’m sorry I didn’t find a better way, or time, to tell you about Connor.”
Green eyes reflected her pain and Angel’s shoulders slumped even further.
His heart in his throat he looked at her pleadingly. “Would you say something, please?”
She ran a hand through her hair and heaved a big sigh. “I know that things are hard on you right now. I’m not helping anything by being here.”
“No. You have every right to be here. You’re doing your job, Buffy. You’re doing what you always do…fighting. I have no right to interfere in that by clouding the issue with my own problems. Problems that will be corrected soon.”
“Angel, I know that you think that getting your memory back isn’t the most ideal option. But it’s for the best.”
He nodded. “I know. I have to face it sometime.”
“I can't say that I'm processing everything very well...but we don't have time to deal with this right now."
"You mean Connor," he guessed.
She nodded slowly. "Among other things...yeah. That's...huge. And very real. And I can't say it dosn't hurt...I won't lie to you. Not now. I wish you would have told me about him from the beginning--"
"I don't know why I didn't."
"--but we'll have to sort it out later." Even though your heart is breaking at the thought of Angel having a child, even though inside you want to cry because it wasn't with you, even though--
She silenced that voice instantly. "I feel like I should apologize, too," she said instead. "For how I treated you about Faith. That’s old, over. I should be past that now.”
“But you’re not?”
She gave him a lop-sided smile. “I guess not. Like you said…it’s you. I’ll be sixty someday and it will still bother me.”
“Pretty sad,” he agreed ruefully.
“Truce?”
He nodded. “Truce.” They stood for a moment, slightly awkward, before he ticked his head toward the door. “They’re ready for the spell.”
“Good,” she nodded. “I’ll walk down with you.”
*~*~*
“Angel, Gunn, Cordy, stand here,” Willow instructed and the threesome moved together, back to back, in a circle of sand in the middle of the lobby floor. “I’ll recite the incantation and then you’ll crush the crystal in front of you with your shoe. It has to break all the way through or the spell won’t work,” she warned.
“Brought my stomping boots,” Gunn grinned.
“When you’ve broken the crystal you should feel a little sensation go through you, and then…” She smiled. “Better than ginko.”
The trio nodded and waited as she backed up and out of the circle, picking up a large text. Lorne sprinkled some herbs between them and the sand, walking around in a circle as he did so.
When Willow began to speak, a language only Giles and Wesley seemed to understand, the air in the room began to crackle. Purple mist began to swirl around the group, rising up from the sand until no more lie on the carpeted floor.
“Okay, now that happened last time,” Fred whispered to Wesley.
Suddenly Willow’s voice began to boom, louder and louder, echoing throughout the lobby. “Takista feur simpre, alloise carvon!” she cried and looked up. First Gunn, then Cordelia, and finally Angel crushed the crystals before them with mighty blows and as they each did some of the mist swirling around them streaked out and into their mouths. A moment later, it stopped.
Gunn glanced from Angel to Cordelia, then out to the crowd watching them. His eyes lit on Lorne and he looked at the demon curiously. Taking a tentative step toward him he leaned in, fascinated by the green skin and horns. “What are you?” Gunn asked.
The entire group groaned, sagging collectively.
“You don’t know me?” Lorne asked, looking into his eyes.
Suddenly Gunn’s face broke out into a toothy grin. “Kidding. But from now on? Willow does all the magic around here.” He turned to Angel and Cordelia, standing awkwardly next to one another. “Hi guys…good to be home.”
