He was doing it again. Watching the night sky as if there was something there, something other than stars and blackness. Fred wondered what he looked for, wondered what he needed to find that had him standing outside in the fragrant courtyard night after night.
He didn’t talk to anyone, not really. Once in a while he commented on their conversations, on what Wes said, or on Gunn’s antics, and Cordelia’s visions, but otherwise, not much. When Cordelia forced him to talk, he did so, but everyone knew it was a reluctant, forced motion.
Angel was as quiet now as he had been in the cave they shared in Pylea. Where Fred wanted him to continue there with her, where she wanted him to stay so she could have him to herself, free from the cows and their masters, free from the harshness of labor she’d escaped. The cave where she fell in love with him, where he hid while trying to save Cordelia.
Cordelia.
Maybe that was it. Maybe he thought of Cordelia? But no, if he thought of her, then why not speak to her? Fred didn’t understand, but then she didn’t understand a lot of things. Didn’t understand why Angel brought her back if he didn’t care for her. Why Angel hid away during the day – okay, vampire – but the night, too? What did he do all the time that took him away from his friends? His family? Where did he go that they couldn’t, too?
“Angel,” Cordelia called softly from beside him, both seemingly oblivious to Fred’s presence. “What are you doing?” There was no answer. “What are you looking for?”
Slowly turning to her, Angel stared at the seer as if noticing her for the first time. He slowly blinked as if coming out of a trance and stared at her for a long moment. Frowning, he leaned closer to her; lifted fingers to touch her hair, gently caressing the shorn strands, brining a lock to his face. He took a deep breath, smiled faintly. Without another word, he returned to staring at the night sky.
Confused, Cordelia gazed at him for a few moments, but Angel did nothing else. He didn’t look at her, didn’t talk to her, nothing. Shrugging, she backed away, still frowning. “Remember you promised to teach me hand to hand?”
Angel nodded, but continued to stare at the sky. “I’ll be there shortly.” Cordelia, still frowning, went inside.
Fred followed, leaving Angel to his stargazing, equally confused. Maybe, she thought as she went to find Lorne, maybe Angel wanting Cordelia wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Maybe he just felt guilty because that girl was dead? The one with the funny name. Maybe that was it, and he did want Cordelia. With one last look at her savior, she left him to watch the night.
Cordelia smelled like Her…it’d taken a moment for him to realize that, realize the scent wasn’t entirely in his mind…or in his heart. Staring up at the night, his senses focused on finding Her, he never noticed Fred, never noticed anything other than the sense of Her that was and was not there, but that he searched for every moment of every day.
~~~~~~~~~~
Later that night, when Fred went to test her theory, she found them in the basement of the hotel, practicing.
She couldn’t have known that the only reason Angel agreed to help Cordelia was because of the way she asked, with innocence and hope – like Buffy – and that she smelled like Buffy now, too. The same shampoo, the same lotion, even some of the same clothes – shirts, pants, the sneakers and workout clothes Cordelia now wore instead of the heels and skirts.
No, Fred could have no way of knowing that the only reason Angel agreed to anything Cordelia suggested was because the scent of his seer reminded him of his lost love. And that in his grief-clouded mind, with the demon equally so, he agreed to things he normally wouldn’t have because of sense memory. And sense hope.
“Okay,” he said, nodding at her progress, limited as it was, “That’s probably enough for today.”
“Yeah, well, we could do more of it, but then I’d have to ice every muscle in my body,” she shook her head and began to limp towards the stairs. “See you,” she waved absently to Angel, and to Fred she nodded, “Hey, Fred.”
“Hey! Kye-rumption!” Fred chirped, and knew she was right. Look at that, just look. And Lorne agreed with her. Oh, she hadn’t told him her theory on Kye-rumption, specifically, but he did agree that there was something between Cordy and Angel. Everyone could see that.
“Well, right. And back at you.” Shaking her head with a frown-smile Fred couldn’t understnad, Cordelia disappeared up the stairs.
“What did you say?” Angel asked absently as he cleaned up from their sparing. If it could be called that. No wonder he spent so much time down here, working out alone – there was no one who could match him.
“She could,” Angelus said, another needless reminder of their lost love.
“I know.”
“Kye-rumption,” Fred repeated, returning Angel’s attention to her. She walked down another step, but was still afraid to enter Angel’s space. He scared her as much as he fascinated her. She still wanted him – who wouldn’t? He was brave, smart, heroic, sexy as all get out with that half-smile, and those piercing brown eyes – and she still loved him. But he wasn’t interested in her. Angel – and Cordelia – made that perfectly clear.
So if he wasn’t going to love her, then he could love her friend! It all worked. And maybe that’s what Cordelia was secretly, subconsciously, trying to do when the seer warned Fred away from Angel – citing lost Buffy love. Maybe she wanted him for herself!
“It’s the one nice word I remember from the Pylean hell dimension,” she explained, excited over these revelations.
“What’s it mean?”
“Dice and slice seer?” Angel was silent to Angelus’ taunts, so the demon tried again. “Filet and marinated? Bar-b-qued?”
“Shut up, you’re not helping,” Angel grumbled, and tried to remember what Fred was talking about.
“…Two great heroes meet on the field of battle, and recognize their mutual fate,” Fred was explaining, obviously excited to be doing so. “It’s also,” she admitted with a shrug, “A kind of grog made out of the ox dung but that’s archaic.”
“Oh, ah, that’s interesting,” he allowed, and to Angelus asked, “What?”
“No idea – I told you we should have left her there, but you never listen to me.”
Neither added that at the time, neither listened to the other at all. They happily ignored each other to the very best of their ability, hating the other, denying the other. That was their life. But that was Before…
“When I see you and Cordelia sparring, Kye-rumption always comes to mind.”
Angel stared at the human, confused. “Me and Cordelia?” Huh? Okay, sometimes he was slow, he admitted that, but that was because the basic everyday bores of the humans he worked with just didn’t interest him. Now with Her, even the trivial matters of school fascinated him.
“I know!” Fred nodded, enthused and not realizing that Angel was less than so. “She’s such a hero, with the visions and the courage.”
“Are we talking about the same girl?” Angelus demanded.
“It’s only natural,” Fred continued, obviously oblivious to Angelus’ questions. “That you and she would be drawn to one another. Oh!” She spotted the vase with the fake flowers Cordelia had put there earlier, and lifted them to smell, even though they lacked a scent. “Plastic flowers! My favorite! They never fade, you know.”
“Unlike your intelligence,” Angelus grumbled. “What the hell? Those damn flowers are about as real as Cordelia, so what the fuck is she babbling on about?”
“Flowers? Cordelia?” Angel shrugged, “I have no idea – I wasn’t paying attention.”
Angelus snorted, not that he blamed the soul one bit. “She was cooing over you and Cordelia’s true love.”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Angel grumbled. Was that possible for a vampire? Well, whether it was or wasn’t possible, he was – he could feel the bile rise in his throat and forcibly swallowed it down. “Oh, whoa, wait a minute. There’s nothing going on between me and Cordelia.”
“Damn straight – the horror!” Angelus shuddered.
“Nothing but Moira.”
“Who’s Moira?” And then to Angelus, “Mohra was the demon of eternity, the one who turned us human. How does Fred know about him?”
But Fred was already gushing. “Moira is the gut physical attraction between two larger than life souls.”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Angelus grumbled, and tried to find a place to hide within Angel where he didn’t have to hear any more of Fred’s words. It was, unfortunately, impossible.
“Ha. No,” the very idea made him want to cower and hide himself. “There is no attraction. Cordelia is a friend. Someone I work with. That’s all.”
Fred grinned at him, looking sappy-eyed. “See? You’re being all chivalrous,” she actually sighed the words; it was nauseating. “It’s because you’re a hero, just like her. You’ve got Kye-rumption!”
“Ah!” Angel shouted, truly aghast at the concept. “Stop using that word! The only Kye-rumption around here-”
“What’s going on down here?” Wes interrupted before Angel had a chance to finish his sentence. ‘-was with Her. No one else. Not some fake blonde seer, not some wacko ex-slave he’d mistakenly rescued. Her.’
“Nothing,” Angel shouted instead, to Angelus’ laugh. “Shut up, buddy-boy. I’m sure she meant you loved Cordelia, too. They have no idea what we truly are, so I’m sure she thinks demon and soul. They don’t understand what we are.”
Angel smirked as Angelus howled in pain.
“I believe Fred’s been through enough recently without people shouting at her,” Wes remarked in that tone that suggested Angel better calm his tone before they thought he was Angelus. Again. Honestly. If he lost his soul as many times as his team thought he did, it’d be worse than a yo-yo.
No concept. None at all.
“I think Wesley wants you,” Angel said, relieved to get her the hell out of his sight. What on earth was she babbling on about? Grog? Love? Well, when one was drunk, one was often in love with the world – maybe she was mistaken on that.
God, he hoped so. The alternative was just too painful to contemplate. He and Cordelia – not even in the worst of the Hell Dimensions was that a possibility.
~~~~~~~~~~
Angel continued his search.
She was out there, somewhere, and he had to find Her. Oh, he had no idea where to begin, but knew Wolfram & Hart had something to do with Her disappearance. The demons in Sunnydale had all but confirmed that, even if the law firm’s name hadn’t been directly mentioned. They hadn’t needed to, he knew. They knew.
No, She was taken by them, Her body desecrated by their misguided desire to somehow use Her to get to him. They were going to be sorry, Angel thought as he scented something else in the night sky. They would make whoever took Her sorry. The question was, where? In the building downtown? But it was huge, and they’d be caught long before they found her, and that was unacceptable.
“Start with that whore Lilah,” Angelus suggested, all conversations with Fred effectively blocked from his mind. It was the only way to go. “I’m sure she knows something more than she’s telling us. She knows everything they try with us, even if she’s not directly involved in it.”
“Yes,” Angel agreed absently, trying to pinpoint that feeling. It wasn’t Her no; he’d know that feeling anywhere. The electrical feeling that raced over him, sharp and alive as She came nearer. This wasn’t that, but…something long forgotten and familiar.
“What’s she doing here?” Angel muttered to his demon. He didn’t find it odd he and Angelus talked to each other now, when they hadn’t in years. Centuries. Ever. He didn’t find it odd that the more they talked, the more they merged memories, love, and desires; the more they, themselves, merged.
“Come for some more punishment?” Angelus laughed, evil and low as he thought of just what sorts of punishment he’d inflict.
Angel turned and walked into the lobby. His team was sitting around, discussing the latest influx of vampires and demons into the city, but he paid them no mind.
“And I’m not sure on the translation,” Wesley admitted, “Ruination may in fact mean purification.”
“Purification?” Gunn sighed in relief. He was so tired of these every other week apocalypses. Apocalypi? What was the plural here? “So this Tro-clan is a good thing?”
“Oh, I doubt that,” Wes shook his head. “But it’s purification in Aramaic, ruination in ancient Greek, and in the lost Ga-shundi language it means both.”
“And you don’t want to make the same mistake twice, now would you,” Cordy snarked, ignoring Wes’ look as she continued to flip through her magazine.
“No,” Wes shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t.”
Shaking his head – this wasn’t the first time Wes was wrong with a translation – Angel ignored them. Ah, what he wouldn’t give for Rupert’s expertise. He headed for the front door, where, inexplicably, Darla stood.
“Hello, lover,” she purred, and then, hands moving to her belly “Or should I say hello, daddy?”
“Darla,” Angel sneered, Angelus flashing a hint of fang at his sire.
“Expecting someone else, my dear boy?” she laughed. But her eyes were anything but humorous, and the tone was hollow and angry. And then the situation sunk in and he was silent and slightly panicked.
“I thought vampires couldn’t have children?” Angelus asked, somewhat frantically, though he knew the answer as well as Angel did. They couldn’t.
‘I wouldn’t know…I don’t…. You know I can’t have children,’ he told her. ‘There were all sorts of things vampires couldn’t do. You know, like work for the telephone company, or volunteer for the Red Cross, or…have little vampires…’
“What is she doing here?” Cordelia demanded, then stopped, her eyes riveted on Darla’s protruding belly. “Holy shit, what is that?”
“Why don’t you ask your fearless leader?” Darla hissed, walking as gracefully as she could down the few steps to the main lobby. Considering the weight she carried in her belly, it was very gracefully – must be from all those years in heavy woolen dresses.
“Who’s Darla?” Fred whispered to Gunn.
“Angel’s old flame from way back.”
“Not the one that died?” There was more than one? Or was this the same one? She was so confused, like she came into the middle of a TV show, and had no idea what the plot arc was.
“Yeah,” Gunn nodded, then, “No,” he shook his head, “Not that one. The other one; she died and came back to life. She’s a vampire.”
“Y’all have a chart or something?”
Gunn laughed, though he didn’t point the crossbow away from the vampiress. “In the files; I’ll get it for you later.”
“Angel?” Cordelia asked, then Wesley, and finally Gunn asked in that same tone. As if he hadn’t heard the first time. As if he had a damn answer as to why – how – Darla was pregnant.
“I didn’t think vampires could have kids,” Gunn ventured, still aiming the crossbow at Darla – a very pregnant Darla. He’d grabbed it instantly, but hadn’t shot, as he probably should have. No, the big belly on the scary vampire had him pausing. Maybe he should have shot, he thought now, and saved them all the trouble.
“They can’t,” Angel insisted, and shook his head when Angelus howled in laughter at his inane statement. “Shut up, you’re not helping.”
“Obviously, boy-o, they can. I don’t think that’s a pillow under her dress.” He snickered again. “And please don’t ask me how, either, I’m sure you remember well enough what happened.”
“Shut up,” Angel said, but he said it aloud, not just to his demon, and everyone looked at him strangely. He didn’t notice.
“Darla, mind explaining?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Cordelia interrupted.
Angel shook his head, “No, this is impossible!”
Angelus still laughed, and Angel snarled at him. “My genes are yours, buddy. The kid’s mine, the kid’s yours.”
Angelus stopped laughing, and snarled right back at him.
“You slept with her?” Cordelia was incredulous. “You lied to me? You told me that you didn’t!” She huffed again, “You lied to me?”
“Vampires can’t have children. Wesley?” And he sounded desperate to his own ears.
“Ah, no, he’s right. It’s not possible.” Wesley couldn’t tear his eyes away from Darla’s belly as he said that. Wow. “Procreating vampires…fascinating,” he murmured, much to the annoyance of everyone else.
“That’s not what I asked,” Cordelia hissed from Angel’s side.
He was momentarily distracted by the scent of her, and She came to mind once more. “She’d be angry,” Angel thought with a pang of remorse, grief, and anger, “That we have a child by someone else.”
“She’d kick our ass, true,” Angelus nodded, “But is the brat ours?”
“You know we can’t,” Darla was saying, “I know we can’t. But, lover, we did.”
“I wonder if this might not be that bad thing we were expecting.” Fred looked at her calculations again, but they yielded no more information this time than they did five minutes ago.
“What did you do to me?” Darla demanded, and hit Angel.
~~~~~~~~~~
Connor. His name was Connor. And he was human. A healthy human boy with bright intelligent eyes, and an adorable smile who loved his father. Cordelia tried to tell him that babies didn’t smile that young, but Angel didn’t listen to her. He didn’t care what she said. Connor smiled at him.
He was loved.
“Maybe She wouldn’t have kicked our ass,” Angel said, rocking Connor on his balcony. Father and son stared out at the night sky, silent and content.
“Hmm,” Angelus wasn’t as convinced. “Maybe not. I’m still not convinced he’s ours.” Though the kid did smell like them. And while Darla was a liar, she wouldn’t lie about this. Well, okay, neither would put it past her, but there was no reason to. Not for something like this.
Not when she killed herself, sacrificed herself for the baby.
Angel said nothing, but continued to look at the sky. He still couldn’t feel Her, not really. Not like he used to be able to. But there was something there. Something tingling on the edge of his senses, taunting him with Her closeness.
“She would have loved you, Connor,” Angel whispered, one long finger running down his son’s cheek. “She would have adored you. And you,” he smiled softly, “Would have loved Her. Everyone did, it was impossible not to.”
~~~~~~~~~~
“Hear a rumor today, luv,” Spike said as he joined Faith for patrol that night.
“Yeah?”
“Angel’s got a kid.” He smirked at the look on Faith’s face. First confusion, as if Spike meant Angel had created another childe, then confusion, then…
“Huh?” she demanded. “What? He…how? With who…how?” She shook her head. “How?”
“The old fashioned way,” Spike laughed, lighting a cigarette.
Faith opened her mouth, closed it, took a deep breath of cool fall air, and tried again. “And he…how?” She’d already asked that, several times now, and was tired of that being the only question she could ask. “Who’s the mother?”
“Darla,” Spike chuckled.
“Who?”
“His sire, died a few years ago,” he held up a hand here to forestall her many questions from that comment. “Was resurrected by an evil law firm in LA, you might have heard of them: Wolfram & Hart?” Faith flinched, but said nothing. “Brought her back from ashes and hell, to drive Angel wacko.”
“And she did?” Obviously she did if he’d slept with her.
“Didn’t he know that he could lose his soul?”
Spike let out a puff of smoke on a laugh. “You’re all the same you people. The blind Scoobs, Angel’s stupid LA team, hell, even Wolfram & Hart.” he shook his head. “It’s not sex that frees Angelus, luv,” he said in a conceding tone that had Faith scowling. But Spike didn’t care. If the woman before him thought that Angel could achieve that elusive one moment of perfect happiness any damn time, then she needed to be set straight.
For Buffy’s sake if nothing else.
“It’s Buffy. She sets him free. Her love and acceptance set Angelus free, Faith,” and that tone was still there. “Not sex.”
“So why bring Darla back…and don’t get off topic!” she shouted. “What’s this about Angel’s child?”
“Obviously, he banged Darla. I’m sure,” he goaded, “You understand how that works.” Faith hit him then, but Spike expected that. It wasn’t nearly as strong as Buffy’s punches, but then this wasn’t the ‘real’ slayer. Buffy was…was. She was. But now that she was dead, Spike supposed, as he stood from the soft ground, that Faith was the real slayer. Shame.
“What is it with the poof?” he wondered. “That has everyone after him? Tell me, luv. Did you get the chance to get in Angel’s leathers? Bet Buffy loved you for that.”
Another punch, and Spike knew he was right. “Don’t talk about Angel that way,” Faith raged, and hit him again, secure in the knowledge that she was stronger – she was the slayer – and he was weaker – he was chipped. “And don’t talk about Buffy, either,” she added.
“Why not?” he laughed. “Afraid she’ll hear you? Afraid she’ll strike you down from on high?”
Throwing him against the side of a mausoleum, Faith stalked towards the chipped blonde aggravation. “Why this sudden change in tune, Spike? Why all of a sudden are you anti-Angel? And just how the hell can vampires have children?”
She was still stuck on that one, had no idea how that was possible, or if. Or, if it was, how often it happened, or any of those answers. According to Hollywood, it was possible, but then Hollywood often got things like this wrong. And with Giles gone, Faith had no one to ask. Oh, she supposed she could ask Wesley, but ha, no. Or Willow, Ms. Super-Freak Researcher, but again. Not in this lifetime.
“Just spreading the gossip, luv,” Spike promised, raising his hands to signal his surrender.
They both knew he didn’t, surrender that was. But the next step in the fight wouldn’t be played out in the cemetery, no. Not where people could see them, not where Faith took her calling with a renewed seriousness. Not where there were all kinds of potential hazards – Scoobies, demons, vamps.
No, the next stage in their argument – where Faith still didn’t find her answers – was at the mansion. Where vampire and slayer took out their anger and sorrow on each other, and later, after it was all over, where they found whatever comfort this world had to offer two such as them, in each other’s arms.
“Spike?” Faith asked as the sun threatened to rise on another day.
“What is it, Faith?” Spike asked, not nearly as asleep as he pretended to be. Shifting to look at her, Spike resisted the compelling urge to wrap his arms around her lush body and hold her close. But that kind of comfort came only in sleep, when they couldn’t consciously shy away from each other.
“Darla – what happened to her?”
“Dusted herself to save the brat,” Spike related.
“And Angel? How’s he taking this?”
Spike wanted to say that the poof was fine. That with a son in the picture, an Angel-dream had been realized. He wanted to say that all was well in LA-land, and that whatever Faith was thinking wasn’t true. Instead, he said, “He still misses her, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
And it was. Faith nodded. “B woulda loved seeing his kid,” Faith sighed, moving back a little to where his cool body beckoned. “Even if it wasn’t hers.”
~~~~~~~~~~
“This is taking too long,” Lilah said, her voice carrying over the boardroom despite the quiet tone. “I was promised that the subject would be fully reanimated within a month. And her soul transferred shortly thereafter. It’s been way over that, and our costs are escalating with no results.”
“Ma’am,” the lead shaman stood, hoping his fear of the human didn’t show itself to her. “There are strong magicks blocking us. The power we used to bring her back was only enough to sustain her long enough to transfer her from the grave to your tank.”
“I gave you everything we had,” Lilah hissed, her eyes cold and dead. Demanding perfection in this, and expecting it – even if the beings before her could reduce her to ash with a few muttered words.
“You were told of the portal, of the energies Glorificus unleashed when the Key unlocked. You were told of the Slayer’s pathetic sacrifice into the expanding portal. What is the problem?”
“Her body,” a second shaman said, his German accent heavy on his tired English. “Has suffered a trauma that is unprecedented in our learning. She has already died, and from that her Fate sealed. In addition, she has been Marked by a Vampyre, and that, too, interferes with the process.”
His colleague, the one still standing, nodded. “Instead of using the Revivication Process as originally planned, we’ve had to do this the old fashioned way. Through slow regeneration of skin and bone, muscle, nerves, and blood. She is now fully alive, her body pumps blood, her heart beats, she has sensory input, and her brain functions. Until the restoration of her soul, however, we will not know whether her higher brain functions work.”
“And with her soul,” Lilah asked, marveling at the wonders of ancient magick, even as she seethed that it wasn’t working to her timetable. “She’ll be alive again? With her memories, her feelings, her desires? Everything she was when she jumped, she’ll be again?”
“Yes,” the German nodded, pleased with such a quick pupil. “But the soul,” he shrugged here. “It is in flux.”
“And just what the hell does that mean?”
“It means,” the second shaman said, “That someone else is trying to bring her back, as well. Whenever we try, when the stars align, when the moon is right, so, too, does this other.”
“I think,” Lilah said, tapping a perfectly manicured finger against painted lips, “That I know who this other is. We’ll let her try for us,” she nodded. “Let her think she did it. In the end, the little witch’s powers may work in our favor.” Looking at the two men, she dismissed them with a wave.
Neither shaman told Lilah the one tiny flaw they detected in the process. The one they had no control over, the one Ms. Summers came with all on her own.
She was immortal now.
Lilah watched them leave before following them out. She was on her way to the tank that held Buffy Summers. It was part of her daily ritual now, to go there, to speak with the woman who was and was not alive. It was something she’d started not long after Buffy ‘arrived’ in her holding tank.
She couldn’t have said why she did it, but it was something she felt compelled to do. Maybe boredom, Gavin certainly wasn’t helping her, maybe talking with an inanimate person would? Or maybe she was losing it, what with this project taking so long. Yes, Lilah thought as her heels clicked along the hallway. That was probably it.
~~~~~~~~~~
November 13
“Shh,” Angel said, desperate to get his son to sleep. Please, just an hour – just enough time for him to sleep as well.
“It’s okay, Connor,” he promised, though he wasn’t sure it was.
There was something in the air, something that made their skin prickle with unease and awareness. Magick was always heavy anymore, and Angel didn’t know why. They had suspicions, ideas, concerns, but no one to share them with, well, except each other – soul and demon – and Spike. Soul and demon they could handle, Spike they weren’t so sure about for the simple fact that Spike wasn’t them.
But the magick worried them. Was it because those who wanted to worship – and sacrifice – their son were still after him? Was it something else? Something to do with Her?
“If you don’t want your bottle, and you don’t need to be changed, then what do you need?” Angel demanded, at his wits end with his screaming son.
“Ear plugs?” Angelus offered, closer to the surface now, or maybe just more a part of things.
“Shut up,” Angel replied aloud, then to Connor, “Not you, son. But please, just quiet down a little bit?”
“Maybe he wants something,” Angelus offered, just as desperate as Angel to get the kid to quiet. Maybe more so. They had sensitive hearing, after all, and Connor’s cries were deafening.
“Like?”
“Uh…a toy?” Angel grabbed Connor’s favorite bear, but the screams didn’t abate. ‘Try a noisy thing; what did the slut call them…’ Angel growled at his demon over Angelus’ continued penchant for calling Cordelia a variety of insulting names, but that was the extent of his defense of her.
Still, he grabbed the rattle – nothing. Tried the pacifier – still nothing. His finger? Connor clamped down on the digit with surprising strength in his gums, causing Angel to wince.
“Try our vamp face,” Angelus suggested in desperation, truly out of options now.
Shrugging, Angel showed their true face to their son, and, much to both the soul’s and demon’s surprise, Connor quieted. His small hands flailed up, batting the ridges of his father’s face with a squeal of delight.
“That’s my boy,” Angelus laughed, reveling in the peaceful silence. For someone who claimed to enjoy the sounds of torture, of his victim’s agonizing screams, he was quick to want silence when it was a baby screaming.
Taking Connor to the sliding doors of his room, Angel remained in vampire face and continued with his story. It’d become a nightly habit to tell Connor of Her, to share with the only person in the world – who wasn’t currently residing in his body – about their love for Her, Her passion for live, and for them.
“She’d be so happy with you,” Angel said absently, looking out at the night sky. “Okay, She’d be a little angry over your mother, but…” he looked down at Connor. “She’d still love you.”
Angelus was quiet as Angel went on about Her, listening to things he already knew, but didn’t mind hearing again. Whenever She was brought up, he listened. He loved Her just as much as Angel did, though convincing the soul of that had been a long difficult chore. Until She…died. Stiffening at that, at the pain that shot through his non-corporeal body, he forced the thought away, controlling his emotions with difficulty.
‘God, I miss You, baby,’ Angelus thought, unaware that Angel could hear him.
‘I know,’ the soul agreed, tears shinning in his eyes. ‘I do, too.’
Startled, both soul and demon realized something as Connor slept in their arms. With the memory of Her heavy around them, with Connor so innocent in their lives, and the baby the only one they could speak to of their Lover, they’d somehow managed to…meld. Not completely, there was a definite line separating soul and demon, but they were closer now.
When one talked, the other actually listened. What one felt, so, too, did the other. When one cried out in pain over the loss of Her, they both did – and now, they understood the depth of emotion each had.
~~~~~~~~~~
November 20
“I’m really worried about her,” Tara told Anya as the two of them watched the Magick Shop.
It’d been weeks since the aborted ritual to bring Buffy back, and since then Willow had withdrawn more and more into herself. Worse, she’d turned to magick more than she turned to her lover. It hurt, but more, it was frightening.
“Willow?” Anya asked as they sipped coffee during the slow pre-lunch time. “She’s still trying to bring Buffy back?”
Again, Tara nodded, and again, that shiver of fear – true unadulterated fear – swept down her spine, chilling her in the warm shop. “I’m pretty sure, yes. She doesn’t say so, not anymore, but that’s the only thing I can come up with. I think she’s become obsessed over it.”
Anya just nodded. “She is. I’ve seen it happen before. It’s not a pretty sight, and I speak from a thousand years demon experience. Sometimes it was useful, but it never worked out in the end. No matter the intent of the sorcerer or sorceress, once you let the magicks take over, nothing can stop them.”
“Don’t you mean her?”
“No,” Anya said seriously. “I mean them. You don’t control the magicks anymore, they control you. No one is strong enough to control the uncontrollable. I heard, once, that Merlin was, but then it was often speculated that he wasn’t human. He was a demon. Eventually, the magicks overwhelmed him, too. The power is addicting, and Willow is just as addicted to it as that homeless guy behind the shop, Tabby, is to alcohol.”
“No,” but there wasn’t much conviction in Tara’s voice. “She’s not. Sh-she she just…she just wants Buffy back.”
“Maybe Buffy doesn’t want to be brought back.”
“How can you say that?” Tara gasped. “How can you leave her in that…”
The door opened and Faith walked in, cocky attitude and power to the fore. “Hey,” she said warily looking around the room. It was only the two of them, so she breathed a sigh of relief, not in the mood for the Bobbsey Twins. Willow held a grudge, and while Faith could appreciate that, she wasn’t the one who killed Buffy. And that, the slayer often thought, was the real reason Willow hated her.
“What’s going on?”
Tara remained quiet, still unsure about this new slayer. Faith was so very different from Buffy. Not just in appearance, but in attitude; where Buffy was silent in her feelings, Faith acted on them. Where Buffy never complained, Faith wasn’t afraid to say what bothered her. Crazy, Tara wanted to say, but didn’t dare. Oh, she’d taken to her renewed slaying duties just fine, but that wasn’t what bothered her.
No, it was the fact that her aura was fractured.
It wasn’t entirely hers, as if something pulled and tugged at her, trying to take her apart yet at the same time trying to put her back together. Trying to make her whole. It didn’t make sense to Tara, Buffy was never like this, so she didn’t know what the problem was. What forces were at work in the slayer to make her like this?
“We’re talking about Willow’s magick addiction,” Anya said, offering Faith a cup of coffee. The slayer accepted gratefully, and Anya wondered just what it was about her now, that differed so much from the Faith of a couple years ago that wanted to kill and destroy. Maybe a person really could change. But then wasn’t she living proof of that?
“Thanks,” the slayer said absently, looking at the two curiously. “What’s Red doing that makes you think she’s addicted to magick?”
“She’s trying to bring Buffy back.”
Faith choked on her coffee. “What?”
“Anya,” Tara hissed, red faced now. Was it from shame that she’d had a part in it? Or embarrassment that they’d been found out before completing the ritual?
“I don’t care what Willow and Xander say,” Anya insisted, eyes flashing with anger. “You know it’s wrong, too, Tara. That’s why we stopped helping.”
“But you didn’t stop them,” Faith noted, anger bubbling within her. And for the first time in a long time, it wasn’t over herself. No, it was over another human, righteous anger over desecrating Buffy’s life and death. “You let them continue.”
“We-we don’t know where Buffy is,” Tara said in a small voice, and even she realized the stupidity of that statement. “Willow just wants to bring her back from Glory’s hell dimension before Glory can either return and complete the ritual, or kill her, if Glory did make it back home.”
“How stupid are you people?” Faith demanded, slamming her mug of coffee on the counter, hard enough to shatter it. The dark liquid spread quickly, but they ignored the mess.
“Buffy isn’t in hell. How could she be? She’s in heaven. All good slayers go to heaven,” Faith said somewhat sadly. “She died saving the world. You really think God would let her endure a thousand years of torture in Hell?”
“I said that,” Anya insisted, moving now to mop the mess. “No one listened. Willow insisted that Buffy’s death through the portal leading to Glory’s hell world meant she was in hell, too.”
“We have a body,” Tara said, the first time she’d said that aloud since Willow hatched the crazy scheme to resurrect the slayer. When the other two women looked at her, she drew on all her strength, all her knowledge, and said what she’d thought all along.
This was a mistake.
“If Buffy really did go to Glory’s dimension through the portal, then her body would have disappeared, too. But it didn’t; only her soul disappeared. She’s dead, not trapped.”
Silence crashed hard into the store a moment before Faith exploded. “Why didn’t you say something before? Why didn’t you tell Willow that, make her see reason? Now she’s trying to yank B outta heaven to what? Resume her slayer duties here?” Her eyes narrowed. She was breathing heavily, furious. No one did this to Buffy. No one. Sure, she and B had their problems, but that was in the past. They were the Chosen 2, sister slayers. And no one messed with a slayer. “Or is it something more?”
“Willow can’t live without Buffy.”
“What?” Tara asked Anya, shaking now that she’d voiced her concerns. Her fears.
“Willow was nothing before Buffy came around. She was the outcast, the smart one everyone turned to for school help, but no one wanted to hang out with. Xander did, but he was as big a loser as she was. When Buffy came to Sunnydale, she befriended her.”
“And when they found out about the slaying,” Faith added, understanding so much more now, understanding all those dynamics she hadn’t when she’d first arrived in Sunnydale. Why Willow was so hateful, why Buffy always tried to placate them. God, she’d been blind. Worse, Buffy had been as well. “She had a purpose. She had something to do that helped others, something that no one else knew about, but she did. A secret to lord over the rest of them.”
“Exactly,” Anya nodded. “She was special, just as much the outcast as before, only now she had a ‘greater purpose’. She was the slayer’s friend; she helped saved the world on a weekly basis. She discovered magicks, and there was another reason to help. Another way she could.”
Tara closed her eyes, a single tear leaking past her control. “Since she was only human, couldn’t fight like Buffy, then she thought by helping with her magick ability, she’d make herself indispensable to Buffy.”
“Exactly,” Anya said again. “But with Buffy gone, Willow has no purpose. And Willow with no purpose is dangerous.”
“I’m not telling Angel.” Faith said abruptly. When they looked at her, she repeated. “I’m not telling him. If he found out what Willow was up to, he’d kill her. Nothing in this world would be able to stop him, and I’m not certain I’d want to be the one to try. I’m not telling Spike, either.”
“Why would you tell Spike?” Tara asked.
Anya laughed at the blonde’s naïve question. “She’s sleeping with him. Probably the only one who can keep up with slayer stamina.” At Faith and Tara’s look, she shrugged. “No one ever appreciates my insights. Still, if Spike knows, he’ll tell Angelus. And Faith’s right. If Buffy’s mate knows, then we’re all dead.”
“But it didn’t work!” Tara insisted. “We didn’t bring her
back.”
“Doesn’t matter, Tara,” Faith said, anger still simmering just beneath the surface. She sat back down, accepting the second mug of coffee Anya placed in front of her. These two women were misguided and often annoying. But they were friendly to her. And, maybe, might one day be helpful. But right now, they were the only ones that could help Faith stop Willow from destroying not only Buffy, but Angel and Spike, too.
Without Willow’s death. Because Faith didn’t want another human death on her hands, no matter the justification.
“You didn’t try to stop Red, Tara, and I don’t think Angel will see the difference.”
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