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Whose Shanshu?	By : QueenB Category: AtS/BtVS Crossovers > Het - Male/Female > Angel(us)/Buffy > Angel(us)/Buffy Views: 3387 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BtVS), nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
- 7
Angel and Gunn were sparring in the gymnasium. Angel had to admit that Wolfram & Hart certainly kept their facility well equipped. There was every conceivable kind of weapon in their storerooms. Many he had seen but there was an even greater amount that he hadn’t.
But right now the weapons weren’t really his first concern. It was Gunn. The former gangbanger had never had much in the way of finesse with weapons. His method was to charge in swinging and hack and slash until his opponent was down. He liked special weapons but he wasn’t picky about them. He also didn’t have a particular beef against vampires. Gunn detested them and other demons but he’d learned to make distinctions and hatred usually was never a motivating factor when he fought.
Now he fought with a slinky grace and barely controlled viciousness that hadn’t been there previously. He was watching for openings and his fight lacked the usual genial banter he brought to it. If Angel didn’t know better, he’d swear that Gunn was actually trying to kill him.
After one particularly close swing, the vampire backed up and threw up one hand. “Hey, fella! Take it easy. Time out, okay?”
“What’s the matter, Angel? Want to stop because I’m kicking your pale ass?” The quip sounded jocular but there was a subtle edge underneath it that Angel didn’t miss. Gunn spun the sword he was holding and Angel noted the deceptively casual arc of the weapon. It stopped abruptly, pointed at the vampire, and Angel tensed.
He eyed the black man narrowly. “What’s happened to you, Gunn?”
“Whachu talkin’ about?”
“You’ve changed since we took Wolfram & Hart up on their offer.”
“I haven’t changed. Still the same old smokin’ Gunn.” The man grinned at his own joke but the vampire didn’t smile in return.
“No, you’re not. Your scent’s changed. It’s different from what it was before.”
The black man shrugged. “You tryin’ to tell me I smell? ‘Cause after the workout we’ve had, that’s kind of a given.”
The vampire shook his head, wondering if the man was being deliberately obtuse. “No. It’s no longer a merely human smell like Wesley’s. It’s--off somehow.”
The black man frowned. “You sayin’ I ain’t human no more?”
“Not entirely. It’s a basic human smell but it also smells like magic and something else I can’t put my finger on. All I know is that it’s not the same. You’re not the same. You fight differently, move differently. What happened when you went off with that Lacey Shepherd?”
“I told you. She showed me around, said they got grander plans for me. But I never saw those plans. She never told me anything.”
Angel kept his eyes fastened on the man. Gunn was starting to pace up and down and the change in his movements was even more marked than it had been. He was like an animal brought to bay, one that might turn and strike at any moment.
“Something else must have happened, Gunn. Lilah gave me an amulet to help Buffy. That was the bait she used to win me over. Fred is giddy over her new lab and all the shiny toys that go with it. Lorne is thrilled at the idea that he might actually get to meet Tony Bennett and Wesley’s been practically living in the vaults since he came on board. But you haven’t said one word about what it is Wolfram & Hart gave to make you cave in.”
“I didn’t cave in, Angel. I just saw what a great opportunity it is for me here.”
Angel pretended to sneer. “Doing what? You’re just the muscle. They can hire demons stronger than you any day of the week.”
“Yeah, well, you’re just muscle, too. Never seen you demonstrate much in the way of brains, Angel. You knew Cordy the longest out of any of us and you took months to figure out that something else was living in her skin. I been in the demon-fighting gig a helluva lot longer than you and Wes together and yet they made you boss and then him. From what I’m seeing, I don’t know what made the two of you more qualified than me to be leader. Now I got the chance to be more than I was and you can’t handle it. What’s the matter? ‘Fraid I’ll outshine you?”
The man was getting angrier by the moment and Angel knew the breaking point was near. “What chance? How are you more than what you were? What did they do to you, Gunn? They change you like those vampires changed Alanna?”
It was a deliberate taunt and Gunn rose to the bait.
“Fuck you, asshole!” Gunn’s words erupted in a snarl and he launched himself at Angel again. But the vampire anticipated this and he disarmed Gunn in a few deft moves. He was still stronger than any human and he pinned Gunn to the mat and twisted his arm behind him.
“Gunn! Stop it! This isn’t you!”
Gunn yelled, “The hell it isn’t! Let me up, you vampire bastard!”
There was more than mere rage behind the statement and Angel twisted harder. Gunn’s otherworldly smell was increasing with his anger and he was bucking up and down harder than he should have been able to given his position. “Did they do something to Fred?”
“Fred?” The man relaxed fractionally but Angel didn’t ease up on his grip.
“She smelled different when she came back from being with Knox Webster. It could have been just the chemicals from that lab she was in but maybe they altered her, too.”
“No, they wouldn’t have done that to Fred. They need her just like she is.” In spite of his certainty, Angel could hear a trace of doubt in the big man’s voice.
“What are you talking about, Gunn? They gave Lindsey a hand they took from one of their old employees. They brought Lilah and Holland Manners back from the dead just so they could keep them on the payroll. You think they’d keep their mitts off Fred if they thought they could make her better somehow?”
“They wouldn’t…Fred would have said…I would have known. If she was different, I would have known it!” The big man began struggling again and Angel bent his arm up even farther. A normal human would have been howling in pain by now. But he sensed no pain in the former street thug and there should have been.
“How would you have known it, Gunn? Tell me. If what they did to you was so harmless, you wouldn’t be scared to tell me about it.”
The man under him shuddered and then mumbled, “I don’t know.”
“There must have been something.”
The silence dragged on for painful moments. Then Gunn whispered, “There was a cat.”
Angel prompted him when there nothing more seemed forthcoming. “A cat? What kind of cat?”
“A big ole jungle cat. A black panther which is kinda obvious when you think about it. Lacey took me to the white room. I didn’t know that’s where she was taking me, I swear! I said I wasn’t ready, that they had the wrong guy, and I tried to hit the other buttons to take me down. The last thing I wanted was to meet whatever replaced that scary demony girl in the mary janes.”
Angel released Gunn at last and let him sit up. He watched warily as the other man sighed and rubbed his face wearily.
“The elevator faded and that Lacey bitch disappeared. Then I was in the white room and I thought I was alone at first. Then I heard this mean growling that was coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. If I still had hair on my head, it would have been standing straight up.”
He leapt up and began pacing again as he tried to explain what happened next. “Then this panther comes out of nowhere and I think I’ve been literally thrown to the lions. But it just crouched on the floor and stared at me. Then…” He shook his head as he tried to get a handle on the experience.
“What? What happened?”
“I--that’s the freaky thing! I don’t know! I could feel the thing pushing at my mind. Not like it was reading it but trying to get inside it. And suddenly I was seeing myself from the panther’s view like we’d switched places, ya know? I could hear my own heartbeat loud in my ears and a rushing sound like water only I knew it wasn’t. Then the panther disappeared and I was alone. But, man, I’m tellin’ you, Angel, that doesn’t begin to cover it. It’s like I got no words for what really went down in there. I’m not even sure myself what happened.”
The look on the other man’s face was a conflict of terror and primal desire. “I know I was changed and that I liked it--maybe too much. But I didn’t feel all demony inside. I didn’t have this urge to go out and start ripping out people’s throats or nothing. When I came out of the elevator, everything was sharper, brighter, louder but in a good way like these hidden veils in the world had been torn away. I could see everything clear for the first time in my life. I was waiting for someone to say I looked different. But all Fred said was that I looked taller.”
He glanced down at Angel who hadn’t moved from the mat since he’d held Gunn down there. “You say I’m different. So all I’m asking is--is this a good thing or a bad thing?”
“It’s a Wolfram & Hart thing. Lindsey decided to get out while he could and the worst he got was another man’s hand.” Angel’s eyes narrowed. He sensed someone approaching. A familiar presence, one he was getting too well reacquainted with in the last few days, was getting closer…
“Maybe we should get in touch with him, see how that evil hand thing is working out for him then. ‘Cause I’m thinking I got a lot more than a human body part running around inside me.”
“That’s a picture I so don’t want to touch.” Buffy’s amused voice came from the gymnasium door and Gunn smiled. He looked at Buffy with an appraising glance, his head slightly tilted to the side. Buffy noticed his intense stare and raised her eyebrows in inquiry. “Something I said?”
“Naw. You looking good in that blue dress, is all. If you weren’t Angel’s girl, I might think about making a play.”
“I’m not Angel’s--”
“She’s not my--”
Buffy and Angel spoke simultaneously. They traded glances and then almost as quickly looked away.
“Well, I’m gonna go check up on Wesley and the others. I wanna see if I can pry his nose outta those books for two minutes. The man needs to relax. He keeps mumbling on about Angel’s Shan--”
“Gunn.” The warning was unmistakable and Gunn stopped, confused, as his gaze swung between the tense vampire and the suddenly watchful Slayer paused in the doorway. He sensed the situation had become volatile and decided it would be a good idea to vamoose before the shit hit the fan.
Buffy closed the door and locked it. “What was that he was saying about you? Shan what?”
“Nothing.” He came to his feet in one smooth, graceful movement, far too fluid for any human to manage, and walked over to the bench, scooping up his shirt. He was hyper-aware of Buffy’s gaze trained between his shoulderblades and he wanted to give himself a moment to regroup.
He was wearing a thin wife-beater that clung to his back and his usual black slacks. He’d chosen to fight barefoot and Buffy unconsciously licked her lips as she eyed the griffin faintly visible under his shirt. [It’s almost too bad he doesn’t sweat. I wouldn’t mind seeing the water dripping off his…]
She jerked her mind away from those thoughts. She was being bad Buffy again and she desperately summoned in her mind the cookie speech she’d given him. Suddenly she realized that sunlight was pouring through the windows set high in the walls and Angel had carelessly walked through a patch of it to reach the bench. “Angel! The sun!”
“What?” He glanced up at the windows. “Oh yeah. I can’t believe I’ve gotten used to it so quickly.”
“Used to it? Are--are you…?” She walked closer to him. No, there was the often-felt tightness in her gut that heralded a demon’s presence. He was still a vampire. But how could he be standing in the sun?
“The windows have been specially treated. I can stand in sunlight without being burned. And they’re 30% more efficient in circulating heat or some such thing,” he concluded, shrugging.
“Oh.” She couldn’t believe it. Angel standing in the sun--in a wide room practically bare except for a few scattered weapons that he put away into their stands. The picture was so much like her dream that she stood transfixed, assailed by a dizzying sense of familiarity.
“What are you doing here, Buffy?” The words came coolly from the vampire and she refocused on him to see his shirt was now carefully buttoned up. She took deep breaths as she tried to maintain her composure.
She smoothed her hand down her dress. “I wanted to thank you for the clothes. And you left your coat at the hotel. I thought you’d like to have it back before I left.”
He stood and took it from her outstretched arms, managing not to touch her as he did so. “Thanks.” Then he asked, “How’s Faith? She didn’t look the worse for wear last night but I just wanted to make sure.”
“Faith? She’s okay. You know Faith. You can stab her, put her in a coma, throw her in jail--somehow she always comes out of the corner swinging.”
“Yeah. She’s a tough little Slayer.” There was more than a hint of fondness and pride in his voice and Buffy was subtly hurt. He hadn’t asked about her condition although he’d certainly fussed enough over her when she was laid up on that couch.
“She’s tough all right.” There was an awkward pause. “Speaking of tough gals, how’s Cordelia?”
“The same.” There was nothing more forthcoming and his voice revealed nothing, love, hate nor indifference, and Buffy suddenly wanted to scream at him. She had mentioned she was leaving and he had made no comment other than to ask after Faith. Didn’t he care about her at all? Had her business with Spike actually made him hate her?
She marveled at the calmness in her own voice when she spoke again. “Willow told me…about the demon pregnancy. Guess it wasn’t the future Cordelia planned for herself.”
“No, it wasn’t.” There was a trace of hoarseness in his voice and she could see the guilt in his eyes deepen. For some reason he felt responsible for what had happened to Cordelia and the implications were disturbing.
All at once she remembered the other matter that had brought her and she blurted out, “Who’s Connor?”
The reaction was more than she could have expected. His pale face got even more ashen and his eyes darkened until they were almost black. “Connor?”
“Is there an echo in here? Connor. Who is he?”
“There’s no one called Connor.” The mask was back in place but she wasn’t fooled. His last comment had been leading to say the least.
“But there was a Connor, I’m betting. Who was he? What did he have to do with this?” She dug into her purse and brought up the blue rattle. She held it in front of Angel’s eyes and waited for a response.
The vampire stared at the toy and he reached out to touch it with one finger. “Where did you find this?” he said in a near whisper. “And how did you hear that name?”
“In your room. I’m thinking it was your room judging by the black-on-black motif on the shreds of clothing I found. I also had a dream--make that two dreams. You remember my dreams, don’t you, Angel? The wacky ones with the SurroundSound, memories of things past and previews of things to come. They’ve made a comeback in a big way and you were starring in both of them. That’s when you mentioned Connor.”
“I-I thought it was all gone, every bit of it.” He continued to stare at the rattle as if mesmerized. She held it out to him and he took it mutely, handling it with exquisite care, his large hands dwarfing the tiny toy.
“What was all gone? Is this…?” She could hardly get the words out and she swallowed hard. “Was Connor Cordelia’s baby, too?”
The shock on his face was almost comical. “Cordelia’s baby? No! Her baby--well, Willow and Xander must have told you all about hers.” The sadness was back in his voice and his fists clenched at the memory of his seer’s pain.
“Yeah. But I’m asking about this one.”
The silence was long as Angel stared into space. Just when she thought he wasn’t going to answer her question, he gave a long drawn-out sigh. “He was Darla’s baby.”
“Darla? Darla, your Sire? That Darla? But you staked her almost six years ago. Not the sorta thing I’d forget, Angel, seeing as I was there.”
“She--the people of Wolfram & Hart brought her back…as a human. It was done to torment me, drive me over the edge.” His eyes darkened almost imperceptibly with remembered grief and anger. “She was dying from the disease that had been killing her over 500 years ago and they expected me to turn her to keep her alive. I couldn’t do it, Buffy. It would have been a betrayal of everything I’d been trying to achieve with my existence. But they wouldn’t leave her alone. One of them--a bastard called Lindsey McDonald--got Drusilla to turn her. She did it in front of me.” The last sentence emerged as a dry whisper.
“Oh god. Angel, I’m so sorry. That must have been awful.” When had this happened? Why hadn’t he come to her? “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
He shrugged wearily and then got up and started to pace, unconsciously mimicking Gunn’s earlier movement. “I left you to pursue your own life, Buffy. That meant I didn’t want to unload my problems on you. Your mother was ill then and I didn’t want to burden you with difficulties you couldn’t fix.”
“You knew Mom was ill? I thought you only knew after she died.”
“Willow…she kept in touch with me. She told me about some of the things that were going on in your life. Evidently she didn’t tell me everything,” he muttered and she knew he was thinking about Spike. She decided to steer clear of that topic for the moment.
“About the baby…you said it was Darla’s. Did she have it when she was human?”
“Well, this is where the story turns kinda weird.”
“Like it was normal before now?”
He grinned faintly but with no humor behind it. “Darla became a vampire and went on a rampage. I went even farther off the edge and when Darla came to me, I lost it completely. I attacked her and--we had sex.” The word didn’t even begin to describe the wild and vicious couplings they’d engaged in that night. He’d had deep scratches all over his body for several minutes afterwards and Darla hadn’t fared much better. It may not have quite equaled the ferocity of the sex they’d had when he was soulless but it had come close.
“You had sex--with Darla. Angel, did you…I mean, your soul! How could you take that kind of a risk?”
“I was cold, so cold inside. It was complete and utter despair, worse than anything I’d ever felt. I’d fired my crew because I could feel myself spinning out of control and I was terrified about what I’d do to them when I finally snapped. Without them, I completely lost my connection to humanity. So, yes, sex with Darla seemed like a very appealing notion.”
His voice was bitter with a fine edge of sarcasm she rarely heard in it. Well, who was she to throw stones? She could definitely relate, what with her vile, twisted deal with Spike last year. She grimaced at the thought and patted the bench beside her. “Angel. Please. Sit down. I’m thinking long story, lots of time. Take a load off.”
He stopped and approached the bench and sat down. She noted he kept his distance but decided not to let it bother her. Now was not the time for her personal angst. “So what happened? Darla gave you a happy and Angelus…”
“--didn’t show. Darla was understandably upset about that,” he commented with a wry smile. Upset didn’t really cover it. She’d been shocked to the core and he could almost laugh when he recalled the disappointment in her eyes that sex with her hadn’t achieved what it did with Buffy.
“Oh. So the sex really didn’t…no happy then?” Her voice was meek, wondering and just a little prideful.
He heard the unstated question. “Sex alone doesn’t make people happy, Buffy. You know that.”
Was he talking about Spike again? Maybe not; he had to have known about her mortal boyfriends after his departure. And he was right: she knew better than anyone how much sex a person could have and still feel like crap afterwards.
“Been there, got that. So what happened after the make-out with Darla?”
He pulled himself together and told her. After the Darla debacle, the rest of the story was surprisingly easy to relate: Darla’s angry return, miraculously pregnant; the baby; Holtz; Wesley’s betrayal; his son’s reappearance as a bitter, hostile, murderous teenager; his many attempts to reach the boy, always resulting in failure and defeat; the final agonizing decision to Con Connor go forever.
“Buffy, I know parents have to let their children go sometime. But I thought I’d see his childhood, his first steps, his first baby tooth and send him into college. Instead all I had were a few precious moments of infancy and now I can never see him again. Wolfram & Hart performed magic to erase all knowledge of him from our lives and ours from his. Nobody remembers him except me and that Lilah.”
He thought of seeing Connor in the bosom of his perfect new family. “He’s got a whole new existence. He’s happy and I know I should be happy for him. He has everything I ever wanted for him and all I had to do was sacrifice my place in his life.”
His voice choked off in a sob and he buried his face in his hands. Buffy leaned on him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. She struggled hard against her own tears; this was Angel’s grief not her own. He wept silently and she let his pain wash through her, making meaningless noises of comfort.
He had lost so much more than she ever realized. She had lost loved ones, too. But she could always go to her friends to help ease her pain. Angel didn’t have that option. “Have you talked to the others about this?”
“I tried. I just got tired of seeing those blank looks on their faces and hearing ‘Who’s Connor?’ whenever I did. Wesley doesn’t even remember that he got that scar on his throat because of Justine. He thinks it was in fight with a Grelnik.”
He raised his head and sat clutching his hands together as he remembered his bitter confrontation with Wesley in the hospital. He whispered, “Maybe they’re better off not remembering. Connor wasn’t what you’d called a model kid. He made a lot of bad moves and some of those mistakes really hurt my people.”
“I think that’s what you’d call being a teenager, Angel. Goodness knows my Mom and Dad wouldn’t give me Daughter of the Year Award.”
“That’s not true, Buffy. Your mother loved you. She wanted the best for you.” Angel recalled Joyce’s last meeting with him before he left Sunnydale and Buffy for good. He’d never told Buffy about that; she would never have understood Joyce’s noble intentions and she would have hated her mother for it. He didn’t want that, not for his Slayer.
“I guess. But when she learned I was the Slayer--let’s say she was not of the understanding about it.”
“I can relate. I certainly was less than understanding when Connor slept with Cordelia.” He delivered the bombshell as calmly as if discussing the stock report and her head shot up.
“What? Cordelia and Connor? How could she…I mean, didn’t you tell me she was changing his diapers? Angel, that was ewwww. Major ewwww!”
He smiled grimly; goodness knows he hadn’t felt like smiling when he’d seen it. “He knew that. But he was lonely, hormonal, and male--that all adds up to a lot of stupidity. Maybe it runs in the family.”
“Okay, I get why he did it. But why did Cordelia do it? Was she lonely, too? And even if she was, that’s still kinda sick.”
“Cordelia wasn’t lonely. She was…well, she wasn’t quite Cordelia. She was evil.”
“No news there. I could have told you that in high school.”
This time he managed a dry chuckle and she was absurdly pleased that she could make him laugh. She had lived for the times when she could lighten his habitual gloom back in Sunnydale.
“No, that’s not what I meant. I’m talking about true evil. When she came back from wherever she had been, something hitched a ride in her body. It was an entity called the Master and it was controlling the Beast. It led to having the sun go out over Los Angeles.”
“It called itself the Master? These evil types aren’t much for the original, are they? The First, the Master…I’m surprised they don’t use names like the Boss or something.”
“I think Bruce Springsteen’s taken that one.”
A swift smile flashed across her face and then she sobered. “So this Master took over Cordelia’s body and made her sleep with Connor?” Then something clicked. “Oh my god. He was the father of her baby!”
He nodded. “That’s why I lied to Willow and Xander and said I didn’t know who it was. They didn’t know about Connor any more than anyone else did and…I couldn’t bring myself to tell them. If I can’t discuss it with my people, how could I tell folks I’d barely spoken with for years?”
“D-didn’t Willow know about Connor?”
“No. That was between me and my people in Los Angeles. I didn’t want her to tell you about him and I wasn’t sure she could keep that kind of a secret. In any case, Connor was special. His birth was miraculous, foretold in prophecies. But to me, he was just my baby boy and I wanted to keep him to myself. It was selfish, I know, but that’s how I felt.”
“I understand.” And she did, she really did. But part of her felt cheated. Angel had left her with the notion of giving her a normal life and here he had everything she didn’t--a home, a job in fancy offices probably with a real high paycheck to go with it. He’d even had a child! What did she have? A busload of wannabe-Slayers, a bratty teenaged sister, a cool weapon and a town collapsed into a crater. The only other possessions she had now were the ones Angel gave her.
Gee, Buffy, self-involved much? Her thoughts were derailed when Angel brought up her chin and gazed into her eyes. “It’s your turn.”
“M-my turn?” She knew what he wanted; she was just wasn’t sure if she could come clean.
“You’ve got things you need to tell me, Buffy. I’d very much like to hear them. You’re leaving soon. What’s the harm?”
That was true. She was going to be leaving and yet she never felt less like doing so. She chewed her lip and sighed. “You remember when you heard I was back among the living?” He nodded silently. “Well, when I met you, there was more to it than that. I-I’d been in heaven.”
“Heaven? Willow told me…”
“She was wrong.” Even now, after all this time, there was a tinge of bitterness whenever she thought of her lost paradise. “She didn’t check it out; none of them did. Big demerits for the wiccan.”
He’d known it, too. “I knew something was different about you. Your scent had changed.” It wasn’t just her altered scent. She’d also looked haggard and worn as if she weren’t sleeping nor eating well.
She drew back to look at him uncertainly. “Really? That vampire smelly thing again? Still not liking that, Angel.”
She continued in a thoughtful voice. “It wasn’t even news to me--the wrongness, you know? I’d felt it all along. It’s part of the reason I slept with Spike. It made the pain go away at least for a bit. H-he said I came back wrong ‘cause he was able to hit me without his chip baking his brain. He started hitting me, one thing led to another…” She trailed off. He didn’t need to know the rest. It was an eerie counterpart to his session with Darla.
“Why didn’t you say something when I saw you?”
“It was the look in your eyes. You pitied me like I was one of your cases and all of a sudden I hated you. I wanted love. I wanted you to stay because you cared about me not because I was some magical basket case. I wanted to have the one person I loved more than anything in the world be with me and you couldn’t give me anything but pity. I couldn’t stand that.”
There was a long pause. “You’re right. I did feel pity. But more than anything else I wanted to take you in my arms and never let you go. But there was always the old problem--”
“I know. Closeness brings smoochies and, before you know it, there’s soul lossage and much badness. I wasn’t asking for that. I’d given up on that when Riley left. Not sex per se; I’m not saying I was sworn to celibacy. I-I just wanted Angel cuddles.”
“I remember some cuddling that night,” Angel replied. Indeed. They had been engaged in some hot and heavy clinches before common sense had erected its unwelcome head. He’d gotten away from her as quickly as he could while there was still time. He had cut it rather close to dawn, all the same.
“Could--would it be okay if I got some now?” Her voice was small and timid as if she thought the idea would repel him. He didn’t speak. He only wrapped her in his arms and held her close.
Angel closed his eyes, reveling in the sensory symphony that was his Slayer. Her unique scent of vanilla, now with an otherworldly tang beneath it. Her hazel eyes that shifted color with her every mood. The flush of her skin highlighted by the dress he’d bought for her. The soft sea-swell murmur of her heartbeat. He could spend eternity listing the ways and glory that were Buffy Summers and finally he understood what James had been rambling on about in Marseilles over two centuries ago.
All right, she wasn’t his any more but he could dream, couldn’t he? He wondered if he should tell her what Willow had said about his soul being bound. No, there was no point. Soon she would depart for the wilds of Cleveland in order to be cookies or some such nonsense. When she talked like that, it made the speech he gave in Sunnydale about moving on seem lofty and poetic by comparison.
Buffy didn’t want this moment to end. Too often in the past, impending doom, disasters and patrolling had cut their time with each other short. Now she had leisure and he had a building full of people to handle his dirty work. At last they had time for themselves--and she had to go to be cookies. Damn, those might have been the last words she’d ever said to him and she couldn’t come up with something better than baked goods?
His gentle voice interrupted her musings. “What else was there? I’m sure there’s a whole other story between your return from Heaven and…Spike. What about the rest of your friends? And I’d love to hear about these other girls.”
She sighed. “Like I said, the world was too much and there was the stupidity with Spike. Willow was overdoing it with the magicks. Things got really bad for her…”
__________
It was a long story, all right. It took all his self-control not to interrupt especially when she touched on Spike and his spanking new soul. She tried to remain offhanded in her narration but he heard the underlying confusion and affection in her voice whenever she spoke of his grandchilde. She brushed over parts of the tale with him and he was certain many embarrassing moments were being deliberately omitted. He didn’t know whether it was because she didn’t care for Spike or because she was once again sparing his feelings.
Buffy wound down from her recitation with a feeling of almost physical exhaustion and genuine relief. It felt good to talk about her recent past with Angel. She knew he was upset about Spike but he had manfully refrained from any cutting comments about him and for that she was grateful.
She lifted her head with a sigh and abruptly recalled their surroundings. She narrowed her eyes and decided there was a problem that needed to be addressed. “Now that we’re all caught up, could you tell me what you’re doing here?”
“Hmmm, what?” He was still recovering from her closeness and the question didn’t immediately register.
“I want to know what you’re doing here at Wolfram & Hart. These people have been nothing but trouble for you and here you are getting into bed with them which isn’t the analogy I was going for but I’m thinking it fits because sooner or later they’re gonna wind up screwing you.”
“You’re right. It’s just…they gave Connor his new life.”
“And you’re afraid if you bail, they’ll take it from him,” she prompted.
“Well, I hadn’t considered that. It’s just that now I owe them.”
“Screw that,” she stated. He was startled by her bluntness but she had to let him know just what he was in for. “Angel, when Giles and I went to Sri Lanka yesterday…”
“You went to Sri Lanka?”
“Yes. Didn’t that creepy Lilah tell you?”
“No. She failed to mention it.” Wait, now that he thought about it, Lilah had said something about Buffy but he’d been so caught up in worry over Cordelia he hadn’t wanted to listen. He wasn’t certain how to tell this to Buffy however. They had established a newfound tenderness and he was loath to break it with discussing his feelings for his seer.
“Huh. I’d thought Giles would have scared her into it. Anyway, we went to Sri Lanka to help these girls who’d gotten put on a demon hit list on account of being made Slayers overnight. We saved them but, when we used this teleporty spell to get back, we wound up in this dump.” She swung her arm indicating the W&H building.
The implication was too clear for Angel to ignore. “You’re saying Wolfram & Hart brought you here instead of the hotel. Why?”
“Giles’s guess is that they wanted to get their hooks into some fresh Slayer meat. Lilah was expecting him to bring the girls back with us. But we had Willow remove all the Slayer mojo from all the other girls in the world. So we left them where we found them.”
“So there are no more Slayers except you and Faith?”
“And the ones at the hotel. They’re gonna go back home and I’m hoping we can keep them safe from the Wolfram & Hart goons though I don’t know how we’re gonna manage it. Some come from way across the globe and watching them after that--kinda tricky. Especially with no more Watchers.”
“All the more reason for me to stay at the helm of Wolfram & Hart. If I leave they’ll be able to find these girls and I won’t know about it. But if I stay…”
“Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, that sort of thing. Good plan. But they’re keeping you close, too, Angel. It’s not going to work out for you and your friends, not in the long run. Lie down with dogs, wake up with ringworm. Even if these people aren’t evil evil, they’re lawyers. What are you going to do with them anyway? Draw up briefs?”
Trust Buffy to get to the heart of his inner turmoil. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t asked himself these questions. But hearing them out loud made his new attachment to these people even more ridiculous. “You’re right. They need to get out of here.”
She blinked. Well, she hadn’t expected him to give in so quickly. “I’m right? Well, sure, I’m right. Uh, but now that I think about it, what’s the alternative?”
He smiled and she was surprised to see a sign of enthusiasm in his eyes. “Your girls need Watchers. We’ve got one. Maybe Wesley can get it right starting from scratch with these girls. He’s certainly learned a lot in the years he’s been gone from Sunnydale.”
“He can’t teach them all if some of them are hitting the road.” She was going along with him, prodding him for answers.
He didn’t disappoint. “There’s another Watcher in Wolfram & Hart. He defected before the Watchers Council was destroyed. If he managed to escape…”
“…then there must be others,” she concluded. “Do you think Wesley’ll be able to find them?”
“He can try. He can always use magic if need be.”
“Willow will definitely be on board with that. What about the rest of your crew?”
“Gunn has…special abilities. He’ll be an excellent guardian for some of the girls if he doesn’t mind travelling. Fred has a great future in physics. I know Wolfram & Hart held out a sweet deal for her. But I’m thinking with her brains she could get work anywhere.”
“Do you think she’d mind teaching in Cleveland?” Buffy replied. Then she realized what she’d said. “I’m sorry, Angel. That just slipped out. Of course, your people might not want to go to Cleveland. Fred certainly wasn’t of the happy that we might be bringing trouble onto your doorstep. They might not want to have anything to do with us at all.”
“You’re right.” He slumped. He remembered how easily everyone on his team had rolled over and joined the W&H sharks. Lorne thought this a terrific opportunity to meet celebrities. He wasn’t that vital a member of the team, being a bit of a lightweight in the fighting department. But Angel thought of him as a friend nonetheless and leaving him with the law firm didn’t sit right. Would the others even consider leaving with so many enticing goodies offered to them especially since they came in the appealing form of surrender from a supposedly beaten enemy?
Buffy hadn’t overlooked Angel’s earlier statement. “Angel. You said the others needed to get out of here. What about you? These lawyers have wanted you from the beginning, one way or the other. Don’t you think you should get out from under before it’s too late?”
He closed his eyes, unable to meet hers. “I-I can’t, Buffy.”
“Is it because of Cordelia? Willow said…I overheard her talking and she said you and Cordelia have a thing.” She couldn’t bring herself to say “love”. He might confirm it and she didn’t really want to know.
“I do. But it’s not… Things got confused and I’m not sure what she really feels for me and I have to resolve that.”
“I can understand the confusion, what with her being evil and all. But are you saying you’ll wait around until she finishes playing Snow White and gives you her answer? Angel, that could be years!”
“I’ve got the time,” he pointed out gently.
Of course. He did indeed have the time and she could just picture it now: Angel and Cordelia locked together in a little room while the years passed them by, neither changing, neither moving. Just the watcher and the watchee. God, the image sucked.
Then she remembered. “Angel. It might not take that long.”
He gazed at her in puzzlement. “What do you mean?”
__________
Damn damn damn damn damn. She’d come in here just to get Cordelia. All she’d had to do with Buffy was follow a retread of Life’s Greatest Hits and hadn’t that become boring after awhile as she watched Buffy reliving the moment Dawn was brought home, Buffy stepping over inappropriately placed graves, Buffy pillowing Dawn to death. Yawn.
But she’d take that any day over the roller coaster ride Cordelia was putting her through. Since Willow had lost her at the school, she’d had to chase Cordelia through endless malls, the Bronze, the school cafeteria and, disgustingly enough, through the backseats of several cars where Queen C had made out with various boys. I never knew she was involved with Larry. Did she know he was gay?
And always on their tail was the Beast. Every time Cordelia got too comfortable, Willow would try to shake her out of it. Then the Beast would appear to frighten Cordelia away. The wiccan was sick of it.
She caught Cordelia’s sleeve. She didn’t just grab it; she tore it off the shoulder. Cordelia stared at the ruined sleeve in shock before before hissing, “Willow Rosenberg, you are going to pay for that! That shirt was Prada!”
“I keep telling you, that shirt isn’t real. It’s a damn phony and I will prove it if I have to rip up every scrap of clothing you’ve got! In fact, I think that’s just what I’ll do!” She turned to march off towards Cordelia’s home. She didn’t really know where it was. But every time Cordelia had wanted to shift, the mental landscape had adapted itself to her desires. If she wanted to keep Willow from touching her things, she’d have to put herself in that picture to stop her.
Sure enough, they found themselves at Cordelia’s house as she ran to the stairs and yelled, “Daddy!”
A tall man with a silver streak artfully waved through his hair came sauntering down the stairs. He was tastefully dressed from head to toe and he was giving off the “handsome older man” vibes Willow had once gotten from Giles. But there was no accompanying warmth and personal interest with Mr. Chase. He was all poise, attitude and glamour. He was like the male version of Cordelia. And wasn’t that an icky thought?
“Daddy! Call the police! This, this, lunatic is going to slash my clothes!”
“It’s all right, pumpkin. I’ll take care of it. You go upstairs and count your shoes, okay?” Cordelia smiled gratefully at him and, with one last glare at Willow, skipped upstairs.
Pumpkin? He calls her pumpkin? And counting shoes…what kind of lame activity is that?
The idle musings distracted Willow from the man standing before her. Then Mr. Chase pivoted towards her. One leg shot out and kicked her hard in the ribs. Willow let out a choked scream and she heard--no, make that felt--her ribs break. She fell to the ground, coughing for breath, as she clutched her side.
“I knew she’d come back here sooner or later. Where else would the great Queen C feel more comfortable than in the bosom of her family? Granted, Daddy dearest wasn’t home a lot and he gave her more things than love. But we both know Cordelia Chase never cared as much for people as she did for herself--and her possessions, of course.”
Willow gasped,”Y-you’re lying. Cordelia’s changed. Angel said…so. He couldn’t keep…working with her if she…hadn’t.”
“Angel said so. Angel said so,” the creature replied mockingly. “Angel doesn’t care for Cordelia. He used her for her visions then tried to kill her when she became pregnant. He even turned on her just because she slept with his son!”
“W-what?” Angel had a son? And Cordelia had slept with him? Was this some bizarre lie the creature was concocting to trick her? It didn’t make any sense; surely a lie should have been a hell of a lot more believable than this malarkey she was being handed.
She struggled to rise and the monster backhanded her into an expensive glass table. The impact caused it to shatter into a million pieces and Willow fell onto the broken shards, screaming as one punctured her hand.
“Daddy? What’s going on? What’s all the--oh my god! Daddy, what are you doing!?” Cordelia stood on the stairs, shock and confusion on her face, as she witnessed the bizarre tableau.
“It’s all right, princess. Go back upstairs. Daddy’s handling this.”
“Okay, I know I wanted to kick Rosenberg’s ass but this is crazy!”
“I said I’d handle this! Now go back upstairs!” The creature snarled. The Mr. Chase-façade was flickering with its anger; Willow didn’t think it could hold on to the pretense for much longer. Maybe it wouldn’t have to. If it killed her, she’d vanish and Cordelia would go back to her sleep-giving little Fantasy Island she’d built up in her head.
These weren’t real injuries; she was almost certain of that. But it was hard to convince her mind when the agony was so great. How had the creature gotten so strong? The last time it had attacked Willow physically, she’d been able to shake it off. Now she could barely breathe from the wrenching pain.
The thing must have read her confusion. He leaned down closer to her and whispered, “You’re getting weaker, witch. All the time you’ve spent futilely chasing the pom pom girl here has tired you. You can’t convince her when she doesn’t want to be convinced. This is the world she wants. Give it up or I will kill you.”
Willow gritted her teeth as she pulled the splinter of glass from her hand. She tried to speak, a difficult task given the tearing pain in her ribs. “Cord…elia! Listen…to me! This thing is keeping you prisoner! It’s got you trapped. If you let it…you’ll never wake up! You’ll never go back to the people who love you!”
“Don’t listen to her, pumpkin! I’m your father. I love you! I don’t want you to leave me!”
Cordelia gaped at him and then set her arms akimbo on her hips. “You don’t want me to leave? Well, that’s a switch! Most of the time, Mom and I never see you, you’re so busy jetting across the world on one business trip or other. And why do you need to take so many trips, anyway? Hello? Ever hear of e-mail and conference calls?”
She came down off the stairs and stared between him and the redhead lying among the shards of glass. “You’re not my father,” she stated in a flat voice.
“Pumpkin…”
“Don’t call me that!” she spat. “You’re not my father and, even if you were, you didn’t give me love. I got that elsewhere. No thanks to you. So I’m not going to stand here and watch you make a punching bag of my friend.”
Friend? Cordelia thinks I’m a friend? Willow blinked as Cordelia walked calmly over to her. Before he could reach the wiccan, the thing grabbed her by the hair and tugged hard, hissing, “Don’t touch her or I’ll rip your head right off your shoulders!”
Cordelia’s eyes widened and then her hand shot out and smacked the creature across its face. The monster staggered back as Queen C rose to her full height. “Do. Not. Touch. The. Hair.”
The monster must have realized its mistake because it cringed. “I’m sorry, princess. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Cordelia lifted one high-heeled shoe and kicked the creature squarely between the legs. “DO. NOT. TOUCH. THE HAIR!”
The monster bawled and doubled over, clutching at its private parts. “I was only trying to help. That creature is a dangerous witch! She wants to hurt you!” Willow could have sworn she heard tears in its voice.
“She hasn’t hurt me. She’s ripped one of my clothes but she hasn’t hurt me. You, on the other hand, have messed with my hair and nobody touches the do except me and my stylist. If you were my real father, you’d know that.”
She swiveled on her heel, paying the creature no further mind, and knelt beside Willow. “Gee, those cuts look awful. Are you going to be okay?”
“I-I think so. If we can get out of here…in time,” Willow wheezed.
“What do I have to do?”
“J-just hold…on.” She stretched out one bloody hand and Cordelia stared at it in trepidation.
“Ewww. You’re really bleeding and I just had my nails done.”
“Cordelia!”
“Sorry. I’m only kidding.”
The monster roared and rolled to its feet again. “No! You can’t leave. Even if you do, I’ll still be here, Cordelia, lodged in your mind like a cancer, just waiting for another chance to get free and when I do…”
“Spare me.” Cordelia gave a disgusted sigh and picked up a Henry Moore statuette from amongst the scattered shards of glass. She raised it and brought it down with one decisive blow on the creature’s head. It slumped to the floor and didn’t move.
Cordelia didn’t stop, however. She repeatedly and methodically bludgeoned the monster until its brains were nothing but a messy pulp on the floor.
Willow gulped. She didn’t think she’d ever seen such a deliberate act of violence in her life. Of course, she’d cold-bloodedly murdered Warren but there was something clinical and detached in the way Cordelia dispatched this monster. It was almost as if she was squishing a bug.
The monster shimmered and then vanished leaving not so much as a smear. The former May queen tossed the bronze statuette aside and turned back to Willow. The wiccan was puzzled to see there was no blood on her clothes.
Cordelia followed her glance downwards. “Oh, like I’m going to get blood on my Donna Karan top.” She knelt down and grasped Willow by the hand.
Willow blinked and straightened up in her chair. She automatically looked down and checked herself. There were no cuts on her hands. She took an experimental breath, almost expecting to feel pain lancing through her sides. Nothing.
There was a low moan and then a cough from the bed and she got up, wobbling slightly, and made her way to the prone figure. “Cordelia?”
The brunette woman in the bed coughed again and then began to gag. Too late, Willow realized that she hadn’t allowed for what might happen when Cordelia woke up with a tube stuffed down her throat. The machines near her began to beep alarmingly as her heartrate sped up.
“Cordelia. It’s okay! Just relax.” The woman on the bed began to thrash and Willow was worried she would hurt herself. She concentrated and focused her will in forcing the other woman to lie still. Then she began, as gingerly as possible, to disconnect Cordelia from the various IV drips and tubes running in and out of her body.
Finally, Willow managed to remove all the medical apparatus. She glanced at the camera she had tampered with earlier. Surely disconnecting the life support machines would set off alarms somewhere inside the building and Willow wasn’t sure how to maintain the illusion of their continued function. The camera had been simple enough; these weren’t. She had to get Cordelia up and moving as quickly as possible. “Cordelia, I know it must hurt to talk. But you have to try. Are you okay?”
Cordelia coughed a few more times and croaked, “No, I’m not okay. I woke up with a tube down my throat. Hey! Will you stop that? What did I say about not touching the hair?”
Willow had grasped her head and was staring her deeply in the eyes. That final pummeling of the Not-Cordelia had been very convincing but she had to make sure it wasn’t another trick scenario the creature had set up to make her think she had succeeded.
Cordelia shoved at the redhead. To say she was pissed would be describing her state of mind lightly. First Willow was chasing her. Then she was attacked by a hair-pulling monster running around in her mind. Now she was apparently playing the role of a marionette. God, life could suck sometimes.
Satisfied, the wiccan let go and watched as the woman struggled to sit up. Cordelia swayed, her muscles weak from her long bed confinement, and Willow put her arm around her shoulders.
“Thanks, Willow,” Cordelia murmured. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. No damage. I am hunky and dory. How about you?”
Cordelia felt her hair and then sniffed her fingers. “Mmm. They got my brand of shampoo right, so that’s a plus.” Then she looked down at what she was wearing. “Oh my god! What’s with the goth wear? This is what they stick a sick woman in?”
Willow sighed with relief. This was the woman she knew and remembered from high school. “Welcome back, Cordelia.”
The other woman’s outraged glance softened. “Thanks for bringing me back.”
The door came open and Buffy and Angel walked in. “Buffy, what’s so important that you couldn’t tell me…” He halted, stunned at the tableau that greeted him. “Cordelia?”
“Angel. Hi. Wanna fill me in on what’s going on and why I’m wearing Madonna’s old wardrobe?”

TBC
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