~Chapter One~
AN: No! There will be no Bangel! Blech! *runs off to puke* Oh, and some bits from Life of the Party this time. Don't worry, she'll probably become corporeal in the next chapter and Spike will arrive soon after.
The whole crew was sitting around a park bench after dark in a park across town from the Wolfram and Hart offices. They had to wait for dark so that Angel could leave the offices and across town because, as they explained to Buffy, they weren't so naive to think that just because Angel was in charge of the evil law firm didn't mean things were going to be sunshine and rainbows. They wanted to meet where they could talk without fear of being spied on. So, they used the excuse for a small friendly picnic now and then. They snuck out in ones and twos, were careful to make sure they weren't followed, and Fred usually scanned them for any tracking or spying devices. Buffy watched them pass around the Chinese take-out and nibbled her lower lip, wishing she could eat one of her favourite foods with them.
Being a ghost these many weeks had been so dreary and boring. All she was able to do was wander about the building and watch the others doing things that she couldn't anymore. Not to mention, their camaraderie made her hurt at times as she missed that with her friends. She shoved the memories aside as she usually did, trying to avoid the pain she hadn't wanted to deal with since Angel first told her that everyone had given their lives to stop the first back in Sunnydale. It's not like they weren't all aware of the possibility going into the battle... but apparently part of her had thought someone would have gotten out alive... she sighed and glanced away with a frown. She wasn't going to turn into a bigger brooding freak than Angel...
She reached out and concentrated, grabbing a noodle from Fred's chopsticks and surprising the girl. She floated it along back towards her perch at the end of the bench, but almost there she suddenly disappeared again and the noodle dropped onto Angel's hair. He looked up, thinking she had done it on purpose but noticed she wasn't there.
"She disappeared again hasn't she?" he asked the others, who nodded and he heaved a deep sigh. "She's been doing that a lot lately... more and more and for longer periods. This can't be a good sign." He looked at Fred while picking the noodle out of his hair. "Have you found ANYTHING yet?"
Fred handed him a napkin and shrugged, "I think I've got some good leads... and I'm working very hard... which isn't making her corporeal, I know... but I'm doing my best, I really am."
Wes leaned forward and looked up at Angel with stern eyes. "I'm not caring for the lies you told her. For all we know, that's why she's fading away! Haven't you ever heard of people dying of a broken heart... letting themselves fade away after the death of loved ones? And even if she's fading for some other reason, she most likely won't want to fight it very hard if she thinks that she'd be joining her friends if she passed on finally."
"I understand... which is why we must give her a reason to stay her. Make her understand how much we want her to stay here. How much we could use her help," Angel told him and wiped the duck sauce off his forehead.
"Or we could just tell her the truth. Its been what... a couple months since she showed up... that's better than her finding out a year or more down the road!" Wes started to get up, tossing down his chopsticks.
Angel's hand shot out and grabbed his shirt, tugging him back down. "Listen to this, I'm in charge here and what I say goes. If you don't like it, then you can leave... leave your posh apartment and the big bucks you're making with us. Your nice office with all its resources and your company car. Not to mention, leaving would mean that you wouldn't be able to continue helping Fred with getting Buffy back to normal." He hissed and leaned in close.
"Boys boys..." Lorne laid a hand on Angel's arm. "Let's play nicely. We need to be united to keep the evil baddies at bay." He looked at Wes, "Just do your best with Fred to get Buffy back to normal as soon as possible and once she's solid again we can see about getting Angel to fess up."
"Fine," Wes tugged his shirt free and got up, motioning to Fred to come with him. "But I'm still worried it won't do much good if she's letting herself fade away because of the lie he told." He turned and walked back towards the law firm with Fred hurrying to catch up.
Angel's eyes went to Gunn. "Keep an eye on him when you can. Make sure he doesn't try anything."
Buffy was doing her usual wandering around the offices, trying to alleviate her usual boredom and avoid the bad maudlin thoughts that plagued her when she was alone and her brain was idle. She found herself in Lorne's office with him bent over something scribbling furiously. He was kind of nice and she liked him somewhat. So she bent to glance over his shoulder curiously.
"What're you up to there?" she asked.
"Oh, honeybuff, you need to stop startling a poor demon." He chuckled as he looked up.
"Well, you would've noticed me if you weren't so preoccupied with whatever you've got there. What's so interesting?" She sat on the corner of his desk and smoothed her skirt over her knees. "Something to keep a poor ghosty from being bored?"
"Oh, of course! I'm in charge of planning the annual Halloween Party here this year. It's going to be spectacular! I hope you'll attend. You can lift your spirits for a bit..." he paused and chuckled. "Sorry, figure of speech there... but I guess I'm hoping to lift one spirit." He reached up and made a motion to chuck her chin, pretending he could touch her.
"I don' know. Though, Halloween always was like my big day off cause all the monsters took the night off as well." She shrugged and then chuckled lightly, "No offense about the monster comment. But yeah, and when I did go out on Halloween it usually ended badly. I think I might just huddle in some dark corner somewhere and hope nothing bad happens..." She looked down at the floor.
"Sweetycakes... you should come! You'll even be my special guest for the night!" He smiled and dipped his head to get into her line of vision. "You just need to forget about everything for at least one night and let go, have fun!"
She smiled faintly. "I'll try. Best I can give you."
"That's good enough for me. But if you're not there, I'm coming after you." He laughed and motioned for her to go. "Now let me finish with all this last minute stuff and get all dolled up for tonight with your concentrating thing."
Lorne looked around the party with a frown. No one was dancing... except for Harmony... He went through the crowd, trying to get people to dance. He briefly ran into Wes and Fred, disappointed with the two wallflowers huddling in the corner and commented that they needed to get some alcohol in them to loosen them up a bit. He turned from them and bumped into the ever-brooding leader, this time over some advances that Eve seemed to be trying to make. Honestly, was Lorne the only one who was able to see sense. He gave tall-dark-and-brooding a pep talk then went to go find Buffy. She hadn't shown yet and he had threatened just this. He paused as he was leaving, smelling some rank by the champagne fountain.
He found Buffy wondering down the hall with a confused look, dressed like a faerie princess. She had gauzy, glittery faerie wings and a flowing pearly ball gown with little glass slippers that peeked out as she walked. Her hair was very long again and glittery, topped with a tiara. She had glitter across her face and cleavage. She froze when she spotted Lorne and let out a frightened squeak.
"Yeah, I know," he looked down at himself, misinterpreting the squeak. "Been so busy with planning the party and seeing that everything went smoothly that I wasn't able to get myself a killer costume." He looked up at her and smiled widely, holding out his arms, "But you! Buffykins, you look amazing!"
When he "advanced" on her, she turned and ran down the hall squealing in fright.
Lorne was left there blinking confused. "I don't look THAT bad..." He straightened his jacket and turned to head back to the party, hoping she'd come back in a little while or to send one of the others after her. But, when he got in there he caught the others acting just as odd or odder, so he gathered them up in hopes of figuring out what was going on. He needed to go find Angel.
Buffy kept running down the hall as fast as her feet could take her away from that green thing. He had seemed to know her, though... which was more than she could say for herself at the moment. She had no idea where she was, who all these people were, or who the hell she was. He had called her Buffykins... that so better not be her name. She glanced behind her to see if he was following and then looked ahead again, squealing when she saw she was about to run into a wall and bracing for impact. The next thing she knew, though, she was inside the room on the other side. She frowned and patted herself in confusion.
Okay, things were just getting weirder and weirder around here...
She heard some grunting and moaning coming from the other side of the room and her brows drew together. She got curious and crept over to that corner of the room. It was coming from behind the couch and she silently crawl onto the couch, and bracing her hands on the back peeked over to see what was going on.
Eve was the first to see the blonde peering at them with a confused expression and screamed, causing Buffy to scream. This brought Angel's head up with a jerk and he started yelling in surprise as well. Eventually all the screaming had the others running into the office to see why Angel was screaming, worried since they were slowly seeing there was something up at the office.
"What's all the screaming about?" Lorne asked and then saw Buffy. "Buffykins, there you are. Why did you run off like that?"
"Do I know you?" she blinked at him.
"Ew, Angel... you and Eve were..." Fred wrinkled her nose, swaying on her feet slightly so she leaned against Wes.
"Erm, that's none of your business... anyways... why is Buffy asking if she knows Lorne?" He searched around for his pants and pulled them on before stepping around the couch. "And are you two drunk?" he motioned to Fred and Wes.
"It appears so," Wes smirked and Fred started giggling again. "And I don't recall ever having a drink. Do you?" Fred shook her head.
"Oh good, my name's Buffy? I almost thought it was Buffykins and was worried... well Buffy isn't the best name either. I sound like either a stripper or something..." She rolled her eyes and then paused. "I'm not like... a stripper hired for the party am I?" She tugged at her skirt to see if it was tear away, but it stayed and she was slightly relieved.
"Okay then, when did you both start feeling drunk then?" Angel asked, trying to keep a straight face while Eve was nibbling on his ear.
"It was some time ago... but a little bit after we spoke with Lorne." Wes said thoughtfully.
Fred giggled. "He got onto us for being wallflowers and told us we should drink something to loosen up. Guess that was lucky."
"Wait... you're right... he did tell us we should be drunk and then we were..." Wes shook his head slowly, trying to clear it as he put two and two together. He glanced over and spotted Gunn urinating on the corner of Angel's desk. "So it's been you who's been pissing all over the office all night!"
"Yeah... sorry..." Gunn turned away and shoved himself back inside his pants quickly.
"Ewww...." Buffy pinched her nose and started gagging.
"Did Lorne tell you to piss all over the place?" Angel asked him with irritation, making a mental note to get a new desk.
"God, I sure hope so..." Gunn looked down at his feet.
"Look, this all just has to be coincidence... I haven't been going around do this stuff to you guys. I wouldn't even know how to." Lorne held out his hands pleadingly.
"Aren't you just an empath demon?" Eve finally looked up from Angel's neck to blink at him. "So, how could he be telling people what to do?"
"You had your sleep removed," Gunn pointed at Lorne. "I remember you telling me that and unless you remember anything else out of the ordinary happening to you lately, I'd bet that's got something to do with it."
"Maybe I had my memory removed...." Buffy blinked in confusion. "Though, I must not really like you guys if I did that... or maybe I saw them doing that before and didn't want to remember seeing his pasty ass waving around like that." She made her blegh face.
"An empath with his sleep removed... you're right, that's not good," Wes shook his head. "I'll take Fred and we'll get his sleep back." He started for the door and Fred wobbled after him, so he just tossed her over his shoulder before disappearing out the door.
"Territory! You told me to mark my territory! That's it!" Gunn looked relieved that Lorne was behind his urinating all over.
"And he did say something to me about the sexual tension between me and Eve..." Angel tried to move away from Eve so he could think more clearly. "So what did you say to Buffy to make her like this?"
Lorne searched his thoughts since he knew Buffy didn't remember. "Oh lord, I think I do remember. I told her to forget about everything for one night when I was trying to get her to come to the party." He looked at her. "I'm sorry, Buffykins." He then looked at the others, "But someone needs to go make sure the party continues smoothly."
"Not you. You need to stay put and try not to say anything that could lead to more mayhem." Angel turned and motioned Gunn. "You go, and try to not piss on anything." Gunn left he turned to Eve, resuming making out with her and leaning over so they both toppled over the back of the couch.
Buffy made the blegh face again and turned to Lorne. "Is he always that gross?"
After some time, Wes and Fred came stumbling into the office in a panic. Fred was fumbling with a gun it seemed and Buffy blinked. That seemed a bit extreme, shooting Lorne. He seemed very nice. Angel and Eve popped up again like prairie dogs at the sound of people entering again.
"We've found it and also found out something alarming. The projecting is just the beginning. His subconscious will manifest if this continues," Wes told them and turned to help Fred with the gun.
Gunn rushed in right behind them at that moment, bumping into Wes who in turn bumped into Fred and caused the gun to go flying across the room. Wes helped Fred straighten and turned to glare at the other man.
"Sorry, but bad news... this thing... it looks like uuber Lorne and its rampaging in the party. It killed a couple people and I did my best to lure it away before it killed anyone else," he panted.
"Lured it? You mean it's following-" Buffy was cut off as she screamed in fright when Gunn went flying because a meaty green fist swatted him like a fly.
"See, that's what I was warning you about," Wes said and tried to close the doors on the thing, but it was a loosing battle.
Fred was across the room, trying to reach the gun with Lorne's sleep in it. It was wedged behind the weapons case just out of reach, then it hit her and she turned around to shout, "Buffy! I need you're ghosty help over here!"
Buffy turned and ran over to kneel beside her.
"Just reach through that wall there. You told me if you can concentrate and really want something you can grab it. So grab it and move it out from behind the wall for me, please," Fred pleaded.
Buffy nodded and stuck her hand through the wall. She glanced over her shoulder at the other struggling with the thing that looked eerily like the Hulk and knew this was important. Gunn had said this thing had killed people and it could kill the people that were obviously her friends if she didn't do this. So yeah, the wanting was there and she just needed to concentrate really good. She closed her eyes and wrinkled her nose as she concentrated, after a moment feeling the gun. She smiled and grabbed it, moving it to where Fred could reach it.
"Got it!" Fred said excitedly and sat back.
"Well shoot him! Now!" Angel called as he struggled with the hulking thing.
Fred nodded nervously and stood, aiming the gun with a wobbly hand. Buffy made an impatient sound and grabbed it, aiming it quickly because she wasn't sure how long she could do the solid thing. She shot Lorne in the neck as he was turning to look at her. He swayed for a moment and then passed out. The hulking version of him disappeared in a puff of smoke and Angel, who had been on its back, flailed in mid-air for a moment before landing face first on the floor.
Buffy came back into Angel's office after a little while, going off to mope somewhere for a little while after the memories came rushing back and along with them all the bad emotions they evoked. But, now she was composed again and ready to help with the aftermath. She saw they had tucked Lorne in on the couch with a big comfy blanket to get some Zs. Wes and Gunn were sort of debriefing Angel like normal. Eve was nowhere to be seen, which was just fine with her. There was something about the other women she never really cared for. And now, she would forever be scarred with the sight of that woman naked and boinking Angel.
She so wasn't jealous. At all. She knew now that the one for her had been right in front of her all that time, with his snarky comments and his eagerness to do right by her, even if she made it damn hard for him. She sighed, which brought attention to her and she winced.
"Buffy... are you okay?" Angel asked with concern.
"Oh well, as okay as I was before all this," she forced a chuckle and lifted a shoulder.
Fred came in and stood beside Buffy. "I'll get you corporeal again. I'm sure of it, don't worry." She gave the blonde a soft smile. "And thanks for your help before."
"It was nothing. I wouldn't have wanted anything to happen to Lorne or any of you," Buffy bit her bottom lip and let the added like my other friends go unsaid. She looked down and scuffed her shoe on the carpet instead.
"Well, I didn't get a chance to tell you how lovely you looked tonight in your costume," Angel said, trying to cheer her up a bit in vain.
Fred looked over at her and nodded, as did the others.
"At least I didn't disappear at the wrong-"
Angel growled lowly as ironically she did disappear at that moment. He looked at Fred and Wes, "You too better be VERY close to finding something to do about her. I would hate to have a second chance with her fall right into my lap only to have it slip away because my staff was incompetent!"
Fred flinched and Wes's face tightened. He still didn't like this scheme of Angel's one bit and was even angrier that he had just snapped at Fred. Wes could take it by now, but Fred was a little too tender hearted for such treatment. He fought the urge to growl right back, knowing that would just make the situation worse. So instead he turned to drag Fred out of there.
Angel glared after them and turned to go sit behind his desk. Gunn smirked and left as well just before there was a cry of outrage from Angel's office.
tbc...