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Out of Africa

by spikeNdru

Genre: Gen; Action/Adventure

Pairings: Xander and Ensemble; no pairings yet.

Rating: PG-13

Timeline: Two years post-Chosen

 

Disclaimers: The characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and 20th Century Fox; they aren't currently using

them so I'm borrowing them for awhile.

 

Chapter   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25

26   27   28   29   30

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Chapter Eight

 

“Have we met? And how do you know about Faith? We only found out yesterday that she was coming—how did you know? Oh! Do you talk to dead people, too? Or . . . are you a friend of Faith's? Are you involved in like prison outreach or something? Have you talked to her? Did she tell you she was coming? But that doesn't explain how you knew who I was—”

Connor burst out laughing at the sheer volume of Willow-babble. “Whoa! Sorry. I forgot about the mind wipe for a minute there.”

Willow's face turned ashen. “The mind wipe? Lethe's Bramble, you mean? How did you know about that? Faith couldn't have told you because she wasn't around when I was making with the bad magic, and I'd never . . . Who are you?”

Connor put both hands up in a 'stop' gesture. All three of the Scoobies were looking at him strangely.

“It's a long story, and I really am starving,” he said, “so let's go get something to eat and I'll tell you about it later, okay? And we'd better do something about getting these girls home before we get into anything, right?”

Connor led the group to a coffee shop he knew a few blocks away. No Starbucks, this—it was a tiny, dingy mom-and-pop enterprise that catered to the warehouse workers, but was perfect for their current needs. Willow ordered strong, sweet tea for the rescued girls.

“Giles always swore by sweetened tea as a remedy for shock,” she explained. “Well . . . that or Scotch whiskey, but neither of these girls looks old enough to drink, and I think they've had enough weird experiences for one night!”

Xander added a few slightly stale donuts to the order. Dawn gently convinced them to provide their home phone numbers and called their parents. She returned to the booth to inform them that Jen's dad was coming to pick them up.

“Ohmigod! What do we tell our parents?” Courtney asked frantically. Jen still seemed a bit numb and out of it.

With a glance at Willow and Xander, Dawn said quietly, “If I were you, I'd tell them I accidentally got on the wrong bus and ended up here. This area wasn't familiar, and I was scared, so instead of wandering around trying to find my way, I thought it was better to call for a ride. They might still be pissed that you're not wherever you're supposed to be, but they'll probably figure you handled the situation responsibly.”

“But . . . but those . . . things . . . monsters. What do we tell them about—”

“That's up to you,” Dawn began.

Xander interrupted. “Yep. Vampires are real. And they're not at all like Anne Rice characters. It's pretty hard to convince people who've never seen one, though. Your call, if you want to tell your folks, but I'd stick with the wrong bus story, and for gawd's sake, don't go anywhere with people you don't know in the future, 'K? They might not always be 'people', and even if they are, there are some really nasty people out there, too.”

“Vampires! Those things were really vampires?” Courtney was amazed.

Jen finally spoke. “Vampires aren't real. Are you all crazy?”

Willow and Xander exchanged a knowing look. “Or, you could go with the old standby: gangs on PCP.”

“That must have been it,” Jen agreed. “They seemed kind of drug-crazed.”

Courtney rolled her eyes. “If your dad thinks we left the mall with guys on drugs, we'll be grounded until we're, like, 30!”

“You're right. So what do we tell them?”

“Um . . . we accidentally got on the wrong bus?”

“Good idea, Court! I don't know why we ever went with them in the first place. Those two guys weren't even that cute! The next guy that asks me to a party, I'm gonna demand to see a drug test first!”

A Subaru pulled up outside the coffee shop and Courtney urged Jen to her feet. She gave Dawn a quick hug and said, “Thanks, guys—for everything. I won't forget.”

Courtney helped her friend out to the car and waved before getting in herself. As the car pulled away, the Scoobies saw her hands making broad gestures as she 'explained' to Jen's father.

“How about that hamburger now?” Connor reminded.

“You wanna pick some stuff up and go back to our place?” Xander asked.

“Sure,” Connor agreed.

They walked to the parking garage, piled into Xander's car, and headed for the nearest drive-through.

~*~*~*~*~*~

“So. You're actually Angel's son. Angel's son. Two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old vampire we all know and . . . know. How? What? How? And your mom's Darla, huh? Also a vampire, that was staked like what? Eight or nine years ago? By Angel, I might add. So, your dad killed your mom and you—what—ended up in foster care or something? Jerry Springer should be calling any day now.”

“Xander!” Willow mercifully interrupted. “We're all having a problem . . . not believing, exactly, because of course we believe you, Connor—maybe 'processing' would be a better word?” She turned to Xander. “So could you save the rant until Connor's finished? Please?”

“Our lives are not like other peoples'—I knew that, Willow, but this is beyond weird, even for us! I didn't think vampires could, you know, procreate? At least not in the normal way and—”

“Guys!” Dawn broke in. “You're treating Connor like a lab specimen or something. Knock it off! Sorry, Connor. My friends don't mean to be rude, and if it makes you feel any better, I used to be a mystical ball of green energy until the monks made me human, stuck me in a family, and changed everyone's memories so they'd think I'd always been there. Go on. We're listening.”

Connor looked at Dawn with fascination. “Wow. And I thought my life was weird! What are the odds that two people who were, like, adopted and everyone's memories restructured would be here talking to each other? Really, really high, I bet! Or, possibly low. I never could figure out how that 'odds' thing works. It's probably a good thing that I've never had the burning desire to be a gambler, huh?”

This time it was Xander who interrupted. “Could we get back to the part where you're Angel's son? 'Cause I'm still having trouble wrapping my lobes around that part.”

“Dude, you think you're having trouble?” Connor laughed. “But I'm okay with it now. It's cool. But I definitely want to hear your story later, Dawn.”

Xander frowned. Connor thought it was because of his digression and smiled apologetically.

“Okay, here's the condensed version. There was an ancient prophecy—”

“There's always an ancient prophecy,” Willow said with a grin.

“Guys!” Dawn reminded again.

Connor laughed. “The story in a nutshell is: Darla was brought back from the dead by Wolfram and Hart. She and Angel got together, she got pregnant with me and Drusilla turned her back into a vampire. I'm not sure if that happened before or after she got pregnant. Darla sacrificed herself for me . . .” Connor's voice softened. “I never thanked her for that—there was too much other stuff going on and I didn't understand at the time . . . I didn't believe her . . .'

Xander and Dawn looked confused, but Willow covered Connor's hand with her own. “I'm sure she knows,” she said gently.

“Thanks. I hope so. Anyway, I was kidnapped as a baby, grew up in a hell dimension—came back really fucked up. I had a lot of issues with Angel—”

“Who didn't?” Xander muttered.

“Too much stuff happened to go into now, but Angel's team thought Angelus might have information they needed to stop the apocalypse, so they had a shaman remove his soul, he escaped, Wesley broke Faith out of jail because he figured if anyone could bring Angelus in without killing him, it'd be Faith. That's when Fred called you, Willow, to come and re-ensoul him, then you and Faith took off for Sunnydale. Angel made a deal with Wolfram and Hart to take over the LA branch and his price was a new life for me.” Connor took a deep breath. “He gave me a happy childhood, a stable family, and everyone who knew me had their memories wiped so they wouldn't remember me, while everyone in my new life had memories implanted that I'd always been there.”

Dawn nodded. “Boy, I can definitely relate to that! But how did you find out that what you thought was real, wasn't?”

“There's a thing called an Orlon Window that the sorcerer used to create the memory spell. If it breaks, anyone in the vicinity gets the original memories back so they have two sets—which is kind of disconcerting at first, by the way. Anybody not within range just keeps the new memories. Angel always had both sets, but Wesley, Illyria and I were there when it broke, so we four knew the truth. Thankfully, my parents weren't there. I'll always be grateful for that. So that's how I knew you, Willow. We met when you came to re-ensoul Angel, but you don't remember me.”

“Wow!” Willow said. “Just . . . wow! That's one majorly intricate spell. Much more sophisticated than the one the monks used with Dawn. But then, that just involved creating memories of Dawn—there wasn't any removal of selected aspects of past memories needed. I'd love to know how he crafted that—”

“Off track, Will!” Xander warned. He felt uncomfortable and sort of creepy talking about Dawn like that when she was standing right here. He'd stopped thinking about her as the Key and most of the time now, he forgot she hadn't always been a real girl.

Connor continued. “So I went back to my family and my regular life, but then one day Angel came to see me—just to hang, y'know? Of course, I knew something was up, so I followed him when he left. I'm a damn good tracker.” A brief hint of pain and bitterness showed in Connor's eyes. “He didn't know I was following him. It seems he was tired of letting the bad guys call the shots, so he decided to bring the apocalypse to them.”

Willow and Xander exchanged a look. Dawn laughed. “I guess he and my sister attended the same school of battle strategy. We did the same thing with our apocalypse.”

“My dad and I took on this huge, really powerful dude and wiped the floor with him!” Connor's eyes sparkled at the memory. “But then Angel sent me home—he said no matter what happened afterwards he could never be defeated as long as I was still alive. I never heard any more from any of them, so I figured they were all . . . dead.” Connor's voice broke on the last word. He cleared his throat. “I finished up my finals, came home for the summer, and I thought that if Angel gave his life protecting the people of LA, it was a job worth doing. For some reason, I was given special skills, so I decided to use them, and that's what I was doing when you found me.”

“Connor . . .” Willow spoke, but all three of the Scoobies were grinning at him. “Angel may not be dead. We have information that they may have been caught in a portal backlash and flung into another dimension. We're not sure exactly where they are, but Cordy said you could find them. Do you wanna team up with us to get them back?”

Connor's already pale skin turned bone-white. “Cordy said I could find them?”

All three nodded.

Connor shuddered. “Quor-Toth. I think they're in Quor-Toth.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

“What's Quor-Toth?” Xander asked.

“It's the hell dimension where I grew up. There used to be no way into it, except to tear reality to get to it. But I tore my way back, so maybe the walls have weakened if the portal backlash sent them there. I think I could rip my way back in, but I don't think I could hold the way open for all of you.”

“No, but maybe I could,” Dawn suggested. “You know that ball of green energy I used to be that I mentioned? It was originally created to open dimensions. Cordy did say 'Connor can find them and Dawn is the Key'.”

Connor nodded. “That could be workable.” He looked searchingly at each of them in turn. “One thing you need to know, though. Time runs differently in Quor-Toth. We won't have much time to find them and get them out before we're too old to accomplish anything. It's probably already too late for Gunn. Spike and Angel will be okay, if nothing's managed to kill them yet, but I don't have a clue about Illyria. I'm not sure exactly what she is.” Connor glanced at them again, then his eyes focused on the clock on the wall. “Oh, geez—look at the time! I better go. My parents'll be worried. I'll come over tomorrow, if that's okay with you guys, and we can make further plans then.”

“Sure,” Dawn said.

“Faith's coming out to help, too,” Willow informed him. “She should be here within the next few days. Do you want me to fill her in on the mind wipe spell?”

“Okay.” Connor grinned. “It'll be . . . interesting to see Faith again. Maybe this time I'll make a better impression on her. She wasn't exactly thrilled with my attitude the last time we met.”

“You know,” Dawn said thoughtfully. “We're sort of using this place as Command Central. You're welcome to stay here while we work out the game plan—it'll save you the commute back and forth from your house. If you want to, that is.”

“I'll see what I can do,” Connor replied. “I don't want to worry my parents, and I don't like to lie to them, so I'll have to see what I can work out. See you tomorrow. It was nice meeting all of you.”

Connor stood up to leave, and then, suddenly, he was just gone. They all turned to stare at the closing door.

“How does he do that?” Xander wondered. “He's like The Flash. One minute he's standing here talking to you, and then Zip! He's gone. It's pretty disconcerting.”

Willow laughed. “But he seems like a nice guy and he's bringing a lot to the table. So, how about it, Dawn? Any sparkage?”

Xander glared. “Angel's son!” he reiterated. “Do you think Buffy knows?”

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Continue to  Chapter Nine

 

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