Fred stared at Lorne. “How is that not ‘totally so?’”
“Well…it’s like this--”
“No,” she cut him off. “You said it’s a little badder than we think, but not totally so. They don’t remember anything from the past three years! How is that not totally so?”
He winced. “Okay, Freddie, you’re getting to that octave where only dogs can hear you now. And…it’s not exactly three years…”
Fred smacked his arm and turned to face Gunn. “Charles. You and I are a couple. We’re…boyfriend and girlfriend. For about a year now. We work with Angel and Cordelia and Lorne and solve cases and save people.”
Gunn watched her with serious eyes for about a minute before the grin cracked across his stern face and he began to chuckle. “Sweetie…you and me?” he asked, laughing.
She glared at him and whirled to face Cordelia. “Cordy…you and Angel have been friends for years.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” the brunette snapped.
“It’s true,” Fred insisted. “You came here to LA and met up with Angel and you’ve been a team ever since.”
Cordelia nodded, eyes wide with mock-agreement. “Of course, weird girl.” She patted the top of Fred’s head. “For a whole year now. You’re right. We’ve been friends for a year.”
Fred ducked from under Cordy’s condescending head pats. “Three years!”
“Cordy and I knew each other in Sunnydale,” Angel broke in, coming to Cordelia’s rescue. “But I wouldn’t say we were friends…exactly…”
Fred sighed and turned to Lorne. “You try. I’m getting nowhere,” she huffed and flopped down on a couch.
“Okay, kiddo,” Lorne said, swaggering up to Angel and putting an arm around his shoulders. Angel glanced up warily at the large, green demon. “Let’s see then…according to you…you just left Sunnydale a year ago or so, right? After whats-her-poo graduated from high school. So you’ve been living here…fighting the good fight or however you put it, with Cordelia and Wesley.”
“And Doyle,” Cordelia added quietly.
“Right. So you don’t remember meeting me…or your fight with Wesley that broke up the tribe…or trying to end it all and go evil again by snogging Darla…or, for that matter…you don’t remember…”
“Connor,” Fred whispered and turned a circle looking for Angel’s son. “Where—where did he go?”
“Who?” Gunn asked. “Another boyfriend?”
“Connor…Angel’s…your son,” she told the vampire. “He was here…oh God…he’s gone, Lorne.”
Angel’s mouth dropped open and Lorne gently pushed it up with his finger.
Cordelia snorted and shared a knowing glance with Gunn. “Okay, now I know not to believe all this. Hel-lo? Angel’s a vampire. He can’t have little vampires. Besides! The last time he got lucky ended with a bloodbath and the pointy end of a sword, not diapers and stuffed animals. And that was two years ago, not one.”
Lorne studied Angel for a moment, making a small clucking sound in the back of his throat as his eyes narrowed. “No…even that part’s not true, is it?” he murmured low. Angel’s eyes darted to Lorne’s and he saw the knowledge there. “Regretting the decision to keep that day all to yourself?”
Without waiting for an answer the demon turned to the rest of the group. “Anyway. Fact is, kids, Angel here’s a daddy. Connor is his son, and quite the terror, in the dishing-it-out sense, but Angel’s offspring nonetheless.”
“Who—who’s the…?” Angel stuttered, weaving his way to a chair and sinking into it, his eyes never moving off Lorne.
“Darla,” Fred answered.
Cordelia laughed. “Darla’s dead. She’s been dead, as in dusty, for four years now.”
“Look,” Gunn broke in, stomping across the room. “The time-line game’s getting old. I got places to be.” He walked to the front door but before he could open it, Lorne stopped him.
“If you’re going to try and meet up with your old friends…I’d take a weapon.”
Gunn stopped and turned to him, eyes blazing. “Why’s that?”
“You…you sorta chose to work with us over them,” Fred replied nervously. “There was a thing…Lorne’s club got all destroyed…”
“They may not be the welcoming-you-back-with-open-arms sort of people where you’re concerned,” Lorne finished for her.
Gunn’s jaw set and his body went rigid. “No. No way. You aren’t going to tell me that I hooked up with him, a vampire, and you…whatever the hell you are,” he snarled at Lorne, “and dissed my crew to hang out with skinny-ass,” he pointed at Fred, “and the queen of all bitches.” His eyes ticked to Cordelia, who rolled hers in response.
“’Fraid so,” Lorne said simply.
Fred wiped at a stray tear on her cheek and turned away, walking behind the counter and into the back.
There was complete silence in the massive lobby for several minutes before Gunn let out a disgruntled sigh and stomped his way down the steps and took a seat on the last one. Cordelia and Angel followed suit, banding together on the stairs.
“So…three years of your lives, gone. Who’s got questions?” Lorne asked brightly.
*~*~*
Buffy lay behind the high school, unconscious and bleeding from a deep gash in the back of her head. Her head leaned awkwardly against the curb, her body sprawled in the street and hidden behind some trashcans. In the dark crevices of her mind, a dream began to form.
*~*~*
Alberta, Canada
The figure pulled the jacket hood down further over their eyes and headed out of the movie theater and down the street, neglecting the crowded sidewalk for the puddle-filled street. There would be snow tonight…sometime after midnight. The air was already freezing and the light jacket was no match for the wind that whipped around. A decidedly female hand sneaked up and pulled the hood of her parka down further around her face.
The girl ducked down a small alley then made a quick turn onto another street, a shortcut she’d been using all her life and had no doubt about using now. The streets were dark, but familiar, and the walk was short. Shorter with the freezing wind and the threat of icy rain urging her on.
There was no time to fight, no time to call out, to scream, to struggle. From the dark the stalkers came, one after the one, three in all, shielded in robes. They came up behind the girl, silently, until she was surrounded. Sensing something wrong she whirled, too late. The three continued toward her and she back-pedaled, glancing around, fear rising in her throat. Her back hit something solid…something warm.
An arm snaked around her chest as the other appeared to her right, knife in hand. Before she could even scream it cut through her throat, drowning the sound as blood poured from the wound. Her eyes wide with pain and shock, she slid wordlessly to the ground and onto her back.
*~*~*
On the street corner, Buffy let out a soft moan of protest as the girl’s body sunk to the wet pavement. The figures in robes milled around her, watching as the blood oozed from her throat. As she fell her head lolled to the side and her hood hitched down spilling out locks of dark, wavy hair.
In her cell, Faith tossed and turned on her bunk. The girl’s body hit the pavement and Faith was filled with an indefinable sense of fear as the dead woman’s head smacked the concrete and the hood hitched down to spill out long blonde hair.
In her sleep, Buffy’s hand formed a fist and she let out a soft whimper. In slow motion she watched as the girl’s head completed its turn towards her. Dark eyes…so familiar…stared at her.
Faith watched as the woman’s wide-eyed gaze came to rest on her own horrified stare. Hazel-green eyes…eyes that had long ago looked upon her with affection, and eventually hatred, gazed glassy-eyed back at her.
In freeze-frame the horror raced through Buffy’s body as the hood fell away from the girl’s face, revealing more than just familiar brown eyes and dark hair. Stubborn brow, full lips painted in crimson…The girl was Faith.
In her cell, Faith woke up screaming. “Buffy!” she shrieked, images of the dead Slayer burned into her brain.
On the street corner, Buffy’s eyes shot open.
*~*~*
Lilah Morgan delicately took a seat on the folding chair, crossed her legs, and clasped her hands together as she observed her latest acquisition. Spike, formally known as William the Bloody, hung limp from chains at the wrists and ankles. A manacle clamped around his waist and secured to the concrete wall would prevent further struggle. And if it didn’t, many interesting tools lined the walls of the inner chamber deep in the bowels of Wolfram and Hart that could be very persuasive.
It was all Lilah could do to not dance a frickin’ jig in front of the unconscious vampire.
She crossed and recrossed her legs, waiting impatiently for Spike to wake. She wouldn’t leave his side until he did. Gavin would have no opportunity to discover this, the Holy Grail of vampires, until she was good and ready for him to know about it. And before that could happen, she had to know exactly what she was dealing with.
The door behind her opened and closed and Katrina, her secretary, presented her with a cup of coffee. Lilah murmured her thanks and the two women sat in companionable silence, observing the half-naked, and quite strung-up, vampire before them.
“Quite a sight, isn’t it?” Lilah remarked.
Katrina murmured her agreement. “The research on the subject is here. Would you like me to bring it in?”
Lilah nodded. “It’ll give me something to do until he wakes up.”
“Vampires sleep like the dead,” Katrina smirked and left the room, returning a moment later with a cart of papers, files and books about the newest member of the Wolfram and Hart team…or potential member, anyway.
“This is the first load,” Katrina informed her, beginning to stack books on the desk Lilah had moved to. “Just buzz me on the intercom when you’d like more.” She moved to the door, hesitating as Lilah dug hungrily into the work before her. “You’re sure you don’t want me to stay and assist?”
Lilah’s eyes never left the pages they were scanning. “No,” she said, dismissing Katrina with a wave of her hand. “I’m in charge now, but that doesn’t mean Gavin isn’t going to continue sniffing around. You need to be up at your desk, guarding my office more importantly, and if anyone asks, I’m seeing about a new relic. You know the drill.”
Katrina gave a knowing nod and exited the room, leaving Lilah practically salivating over the material.
*~*~*
Angel brewed another cup of coffee, decaf this time, and quietly stirred in some creamer, grateful for a few minutes away from the chatterbox demon and the others. He had the sneaking suspicion that Lorne and the girl, Fred, were telling the truth…that in trying to help Cordelia recover her memory of the past three months they had inadvertently erased the memories of he, Cordy and Charles Gunn…for the past three years. Give or take.
What he couldn’t believe were the changes that Lorne and Fred were working so hard to convince him had taken place. He owned this hotel…a place he’d never wanted to lay eyes on after the events that had occurred there more than fifty years earlier. He lived there…worked there. Cordelia was half-demon now, a choice she made in order to keep the visions that were so desperately important to her, and, if he admitted it, to their team. Gunn was a full-time member of the partnership, having left behind his friends in favor of fighting the good fight with Angel.
And Connor…the mythical son Angel had laid eyes on and dismissed so quickly, not knowing who the boy really was. And now Connor was gone. He’d snuck out sometime in the confusion without a word.
He had a son.
With Darla.
And Darla was dead,again, this time by her own hand.
Questions raced through his mind, played on his tongue and yet he held back, not sure he wanted to know what else might have happened since that day he, Wesley and Cordelia had learned of the prophecy of the vampire with a soul. The prophecy that said someday he would live and the demon would die.
Wesley.
With a shake of his head, Angel took a sip of the coffee, burning his tongue. Wesley had turned against him, against the entire team, with what he supposed the Englishman had thought were honorable intentions at the time. He’d stolen Angel’s son and turned him over to the enemy. Holtz.
Unable to wrap his mind around the idea that his old enemy had been resurrected and brought to Los Angeles with nothing but vengeance in mind was only one of the many things he couldn’t contemplate at the moment and was simply taking on faith…from two people he’d never laid eyes on before now.
The demon, Lorne, obviously had some sort of psychic powers. His red eyes had penetrated Angel’s thoughts and he seen Angel’s memory of his day with…
Shaking that off, and the million other questions that followed it, he added a cube of sugar to the coffee and turned to face the lobby, watching as Cordelia ran a hand through her shorn locks with distaste. A small smile played on his lips at her expression—he too preferred her as a brunette, with the long, curly hair she’d sported the last time he remembered seeing her. Whatever had possessed the modern Cordelia to cut, much less color her hair, he couldn’t fathom.
Gunn sat, begrudgingly, next to his female coworker and avoided the nervous brown eyes of Fred. Angel could almost sense her pain at Gunn’s distrust, and almost instant disinterest, of the young woman. How he’d come to work with such a motley crew of people he’d never know.
Turning to refill his coffee he felt the presence of someone else and glanced behind him to see Lorne waiting to pour himself a cup.
“Cordelia didn’t make that, did she?” Lorne asked warily.
Angel almost smiled. Some things didn’t change. “I did.”
Lorne performed the sign of the cross and dumped cream and sugar into the steaming mug. “So…not that I need to ask as you’re sending off tidal waves of confusion over there…but how ya doin’?”
Angel grunted and leaned back against a desk. “Fine.”
“Oh, obviously,” the demon rolled his eyes. “You’re dying to ask me a million things. Now that you’re taking this whole thing a little more seriously, you’re starting to wonder. Perfectly natural.”
“I’m just wondering how we’re going to get the spell reversed,” Angel practically growled and started to move past Lorne when the demon caught him by the shoulder and stopped him. Angel reluctantly met his gaze.
“What?” he snapped, almost fearful at what the demon could see now.
“I’m just a little amazed. Almost wish I’d known you three years ago…don’t see emotion like this in you now. Why, Angel…you’ve got fuzzy, bunny feelings housed up in that dead heart,” he murmured.
Angel waited.
“You have the most interesting stuff buzzing around up there, don’t you?” Lorne asked him quietly, glancing at the group in the lobby before returning blood-red eyes to hard brown ones. “You’re wondering about her.”
Angel’s eyes hardened even further. “I don’t--”
“You know exactly who I’m talking about. In your heart it’s only been a matter of weeks since you saw her…but your mind is taking in the possibility that it’s really three years later…and you’re wondering about her.”
The vampire wanted to deny it, but couldn’t, and so he waited, agonizing.
Lorne was entranced and his eyes narrowed pensively as the energy flowed off Angel and moved over him like a warm blanket. “Did it hurt her as much as it still hurts you?” He paused, then, “It must have.”
Angel’s gaze slipped down to his feet and he fought for control before biting out, “But it’s three years later.” He left Lorne alone with his thoughts and coffee.
*~*~*
J.T. Hammish liked nothing more than when one of the girls gave him trouble. Particularly girls like Faith who looked upon him as if he were swine, beneath them. When Faith woke that night, screaming that her friend was in trouble, it brought a cracked smile to his heavy-jowled face to restrain her. When she kicked and screamed he came back at her with the violence girls like her deserved to have brought down on them.
She’d screamed, and struggled, of course, but in the end, and after two tranquilizers, she’d fallen into a deep sleep, locked securely in the medical ward. And restrained heavily.
“What happened?” one of the guards had asked Cindy, poking her in the back.
Cindy shrugged and rolled over to face him, avoiding Hammer’s malicious glare. “Bad dream, I guess. She’s been having them.”
“Every night?” the doctor asked her.
Again she shrugged, a half-tic of her right shoulder. “On and off. Been telling people she’s gotta make a phone call, gotta warn somebody. Guess it was that girl she was shoutin’ about.”
The doctor looked to the guard. “Buffy,” the guard supplied. “Means nothing to any of us.”
The doctor had made a note on his pad of paper and left the cell, leaving Hammer and his cohorts to get the block quiet again.
“Doc,” Hammer called after the man, stepping out of Faith’s cell momentarily. He jogged a bit to catch up with the physician. “You make sure you have a few men on her. She’s stronger than she looks…and she’s mean.”
An image of the sleeping girl flashed into the doctor’s head. She looked completely peaceful and very young. He nodded. “Will do,” he replied and spun on his heel, walking silently out of the wing.
When Faith woke the next day she found herself tied to a bed and dressed in a hospital gown. She looked around the room, groggily, noted the mint-green painted walls and realized with horror that she was in the medical ward. And apparently being watched as not more than a minute later the door to her room swung open and in walked an orderly.
“Feeling better?” he smiled at her, perfect teeth showing.
She regarded him warily. “I need to make a phone call.”
“Maybe after breakfast.”
Faith lifted herself halfway off the bed. “Really?” she asked, stunned.
He turned back to her and gave a look that said, clearly, no, not really. Her shoulders slumped and she fell back onto the stiff hospital mattress. At least the room had a window.
The orderly stepped in front of her, blocking her view of the yard. “Doc’ll be in in a minute. And your vitals look good. Looks like the sedatives wearing off nicely.”
Faith didn’t answer him.
“Hammer’s chomping at the bit to get in here and interrogate you,” the orderly said conversationally.
Her eyes snapped to his. “But don’t worry…doc’s not a fan of Hammer’s any more than you are. Consider it a reprieve. Though I wouldn’t start pulling this nightmare thing just to get a few days away from the ogre.” He smiled at her.
She couldn’t smile back at him. “Please,” she instead implored. “It’s important that I make a phone call. Just one. Five minutes, I swear. You can listen the whole time, I don’t care. The whole place can get on the party line, whatever. I just need to tell someone about this. A girl’s life is in danger.”
He regarded her cautiously before giving her a sympathetic smile. “Really…wish I could. Maybe talk to the doc…though he probably won’t be too agreeable to that either. Rules are rules.”
Faith closed her eyes and rolled back to the window, ignoring him.
“But I’m sure the doc can tell the warden…maybe if you give him the info he can pass it on to someone,” he added helpfully.
There was no response.
