Fred watched Cordelia cleaning her knife in the rear view mirror and finally worked up the courage to speak
“Cordy, are y’all ok?”
The seer glanced up and met the other girl’s eyes in the mirror and flashed a brief smile
“Sure, just killed two demons and put their human puppet master in ICU. What’s not to love, right?”
Fred smiled uncertainly back
“Ok then.”
Cordelia sighed and placed her knife on the back seat beside her and winced as she leaned forward to stick her head in between Fred and Willow in the front seats
“Fred, I’m fine. A little smooshed and a little sore but nothing an uncomfortable night in a badly sprung and unhygienic motel bed won’t cure.”
Willow giggled as she peered through the front windscreen and into the driving rain
“Congratulations, you’ve hit the jackpot!”
Cordelia followed her gaze and groaned
“Bates Hotel anyone?”
Fred looked nervously out from her position behind the wheel
“Y’all don’t think it is do you? Cos I saw that movie and it did not end well.”
Her friends rolled their eyes and Willow shifted uncomfortably in her seat flexing her sore shoulders
“I don’t care if the grand poobahs of Hell are holding their annual convention there tonight, if I don’t get out of this truck in the next minute I’m gonna go crazy.”
Cordelia nodded
“Right there with you Will. Fred, pull this goddamn piece of crap over.”
The Texan girl nodded and eased the truck over on the road in preparation for the turn
“Ok, but if we all end up psycho meat in the shower don’t blame me.”
Cordelia and Willow exchanged indulgent glances and then Cordy winked and said guilelessly
“You know, I bet this place does tacos.”
“Really? Y’all think they might?”
The truck swung off the road and screeched to a halt in front of the motel and Fred was out of the door almost before the engine died
“Cm’on, you guys! I’m starved!”
~~~*~~~
LA
Lorne stared in disbelief at the men grouped before him and swept an incredulous glance along the slightly embarrassed row
“Let me get this straight. Cordelia and Fred up and leave on the same night, with no warning whatsoever and give totally different reasons and not one of you thought there was anything at all suspicious about that?”
Connor slowly raised a hand and Lorne rolled his eyes
“You don’t count sweetie, apart from obviously being the only person in the room with any brains at all! Angelcakes, we’re talking about the love of your undead life here, your reason for being and you thought it was perfectly normal to wake up one morning to an ice cold note and a lack of people of the feminine persuasion about the place?”
Angel glared at the demon
“Actually, yes. This is Cordelia we’re talking about. Who knows why she does anything? And not exactly the first time she’s run out on me.”
Lorne cocked his head to one side and said mockingly
“Oh, poor baby. How you must have suffered. Boo Hoo. You’d think when the wizard gave you a soul he would have thrown in a brain and an instruction manual while he was at it!”
He placed his hands on his hips and snapped
“For a two hundred and chump change vampire, and I don’t use the word chump lightly here, you can be the most childish being I’ve ever met. This is Cordelia. She gave up her life, her dreams, her species for you and you think she’s gonna walk out on you on a whim? Grow up Pinocchio and be a real boy.”
Angel’s head snapped up at Lorne’s furious tone but the demon had already moved on to Gunn
“And you, Shaft Jr, what the hell were you thinking? That little girl worshipped you and you believed all that was an act and she was confused about her feelings for Wesley? Are you really that dumb? Because I’m thinking if you are, that such an obviously special boy should be somewhere where he can be properly looked after. Like the state mental institution!”
“Hey!”
Lorne’s eyes narrowed and he snapped
“Don’t even think about trying to weasel out of this, you sorry waste of air. What the hell were you thinking?”
He gestured sharply as Gunn and Angel both opened their mouths to begin outraged defences and continued
“I’ll tell you what you were thinking. Nothing, absolutely nothing. You let bruised ego and pride take over where cool heads and some fast planning was in order and the Powers alone know what damage has been done.”
Angel got to his feet and scowled fiercely
“Now hold on just a damn minute! Even if there is more to this then meets the eye, it still doesn’t change the fact that they ran out on us without trusting themselves or us to tell us what the hell was going on. Whatever way you paint it they lied to us and ran.”
Lorne glared right back
“Oh when you put it like that…you’re even more of an idiot than I thought! They lied, two of the most relentlessly, painfully, honest women I’ve ever met, lied. Let’s take a minute to think why shall we?”
He held up one hand and began ticking points of on his fingers
“1. Obviously they’re in some kind of huge trouble
2.They’re obviously trying to shield and/or protect you in someway
3. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that all of you are being held over their heads in some way for bargaining chips
4. Cordelia would never take Fred with her and lead her into danger without a very good, or pressing, reason
5. When Cordelia felt me watching her she threw me back quicker than fake silk undies on Valentine’s day. Me.”
He lowered his hand and stared at the floor for a moment and then met Angel’s eyes levelly
“They’re scared and desperate like you wouldn’t believe, and not just because they were fighting of a pack of inbred, check shirted fools. It’s under their skin and dictating their every move. They need us.”
He adjusted the lapels of his electric blue suit and briefly met Connor’s eyes. The little chicklet looked torn between amazement that his father could be spoken to so impatiently and relief that finally someone was doing something. Lorne winked at him and flashed a reassuring grin and continued
“Did you find out who the other girl is?”
Angel scowled again and said sullenly
“Yes. Her name is Willow and she’s a girl Cordelia and I knew a few years ago.”
“And?”
Angel hesitated and then heaved a resentful sigh
“She’s the Slayer’s best friend. Buffy says she left the night before Cordelia and Fred and they received a note a few days later saying she needed to be on her own and not to look for her.”
Lorne opened and shut his mouth a few times and then managed to splutter
“Do you people ever talk to each to other?”
Angel slanted a glance at Connor
“It’s been difficult. Things have changed.”
“Well, duh! Half the women of your acquaintance have disappeared without a trace for a start.”
Angel stepped forward
“Now hold on just a damn minute here…”
Lorne took two steps forward and went eyeball to eyeball with the vampire spitting furiously
“Or what? You’ll go and lock yourself in your room and sulk away the next hundred years? Cordelia and Fred, your family, left and instead of believing and trusting in the people you knew, you decide that a couple of days looking half-heartedly behind doors and under the beds is sufficient and then disappear up your own ass on yet another ‘poor me’ trip.”
“I was hurt!”
Lorne snorted
“Well, excuse me for repeating myself but, Boo Hoo. What the hell makes you think you even deserve to get that girl back after this? You had her for three years and did you do anything about your feelings for her?”
Angel flinched and his eyes roved restlessly around the room, Lorne’s mouth twisted and he abruptly lost patience and slammed two hands flat into Angel’s chest shoving him back fiercely
“Did you?”
“Yes!”
Angel’s eyes flashed yellow and his face flickered between his human face and his demon as the tight hold he kept on his temper snapped
“Yes, I did something. I went to the Powers and I gave up my chance of redemption for her. I begged and I pleaded and finally I threatened and then they gave me what I asked for.”
He clenched and unclenched his hands at his side and his chest heaved with long held in emotion
“I gave up my shot at humanity and in return they anchored my soul to me and took away the curse.”
His arm shot out and pointed at Connor who flinched slightly
“I gave up the one chance my son had to have a normal father someday because I loved her and then she walked out on me without a word. Well, excuse me for not dealing too well with that.”
There was a long silence in the room after his outburst and then Lorne said quietly
“Did you tell her?”
All the fight went out of Angel and he sank down besides Gunn again and raked his fingers through his hair saying almost inaudibly
“It never seemed to be the right time. After I did it I thought, what if I’ve made a mistake? What if it was all just a big stupid misunderstanding and she laughs in my face? Or worse, feels she has to be with after what I did?”
He gave a short bitter laugh and looked up at Lorne with tortured eyes
“Joke’s on me, huh?”
Lorne gave a sympathetic smile
“Ain’t that the truth.”
He moved to sit beside Connor and leaned back wearily staring up at the high ceiling
“Well, we know now that something ain’t right. The question is are you going to do anything about it?”
Gunn and Angel met each other’s eyes and exchanged a long silent look. Connor waited and held his breath staring at the floor terrified to look up
“Hell, yeah, we’re gonna do something about it.”
Lorne grinned at the firm resolution in Gunn’s voice and raised his head
“Well, let’s get started. What happened when you spoke to the Slayer?”
~~~*~~~
Sunnydale, the previous evening.
Buffy stared in disbelief at the laptop screen before her
“She’s what now?”
Angel moved impatiently on the screen and his voice came through the speakers harsh with irritation and fear as he repeated himself
“She’s with Cordelia and Fred and they’re in danger.”
Buffy glanced around the table and met the Scoobie’s eyes silently. Although they’d been worried when Willow left they had respected her wishes to be left alone to deal with her issues herself. A month had gone by without a word and they had grown increasingly concerned but felt unable to do anything as they had agreed to respect their friend’s wishes and, more importantly, it was Willow. Ok, she’d tried to end the world and kill them all but at the end of the day she was still Willow and they relied on the fact that out of all of them she was the one most centered and grounded and most likely to know what she was doing.
Dawn leaned forward ignoring the hollow thump and accompanying groan as Xander’s head hit the table
“Hi, Angel.”
“Hey, Dawn.”
The youngest, and most recent member of the Scoobs, pushed her newly cut and lightened hair back and said calmly
“How do we know she’s definitely in danger? She could be just, you know, having like a road trip deal or something and decided to get some slayage in with Cordy for old times sake.”
Buffy glanced at her younger sister and felt a tug of pride at the cool way the younger girl was handling the latest crisis and then her eyes fell on Xander who was nose to wood with the polished table top
“Xander, sit up.”
The male Scooby sat up and pushed his dark hair back from his eyes scowling at the screen
“Hey Deadboy, what ya do to tick Cordy off this time?”
Angel scowled back
“Don’t call me that. We had some problems a few months ago, not our fault, but there was nothing recently that could have caused this.”
Except for the whole unrequited love and unbearable sexual tension every time they were within a hundred yards of each other of course.
He continued
with his eyes skipping guiltily away from the screen at the thought
“And it’s definitely not a vacation. When they left they made
damn sure we couldn’t, and wouldn’t, look for them and when our associate
saw them he’d been asked to trace them because they were prey.”
Giles moved forward into the camera’s line of sight
“Angel, this associate of yours, could he perhaps try to see them again?
Pinpoint their exact location?”
Angel shook his head
“He saw them by using the psychic readings from another being and when
Cordelia felt his presence she forced him back and blocked him.”
Giles raised his eyebrows
“Good Lord.”
Anya leaned forward pushing Giles out of the way
“Hi! I don’t know whether you remember me? I’m Anya.”
Angel gave a small smile
“Hi, sure. You’re Xander’s girlfriend, right?”
Anya snorted
“I was until he left me wailing at the altar, now we just have uncomplicated
sex.”
Xander’s head hit the table again with a thump
“If your friend found them through reading a complete stranger why didn’t
you use him to locate them when they ran out on you? I mean, that’s
gotta be easier than just brooding and glowering about it, right?”
Angel stared open mouthed at the matter of fact way the pretty brown
haired girl spoke and Gunn jumped in
“We thought about it, but a lot happened here and Lorne left town and
we had a business to run and they said they’d left us for good. What
was the point?”
And we were too busy feeling sorry for ourselves and hating them to
think that there might be somethin’ more to it.
He and Angel exchanged a quick embarrassed glance at the way they had
moped around, drinking far too much and killing anything with fangs.
Damn, it was a shame about that dog. That was one good-looking
hound!
Buffy frowned as a young boy poked his head over Angel’s shoulder and
peered inquisitively at the screen
“Who’s your friend?”
Angel and Gunn started and both turned to peer at Connor and then Gunn
shrugged and leaned back making it clear Angel was very much on his own.
The vampire swallowed uneasily and visibly braced himself before looking
into the camera
“Buffy this is my son, Connor. Connor, this is Buffy. The Vampire
Slayer.”
Connor frowned and tilted his head to one side clearly puzzled by the
people he could see on the screen. His father and the others had
spent a long time explaining to him that the people he could see on the
television weren’t real and now they were calmly sitting around talking
to them like they were there in the room. He gave a slight mental
shrug
Oh well
“Hello.”
In Sunnydale the atmosphere was electric as the Scoobs stared dumbstruck
at the screen. Buffy felt unable to move as she absorbed Angel’s
words and her skin tingled as it alternately went from hot to cold
“Yo…your son?”
Angel nodded clearly uncomfortable
“Yes. My son.”
Dawn looked at her older sister and took in her white complexion and
the fine tremors that shook her body she leaned forward again drawing Angel’s
attention
“Like, your adopted son right? You found him and took him home.
Like a puppy, huh?”
Angel shook his head
“No, my real son.”
Slience again until finally Giles broke it with a soft
“Good Lord!”
Anya rolled her eyes and turned to him
“Does that actually help at all when you say that? I have to tell
you I, personally, find it very irritating.”
Angel reached a hand towards the screen and said
“Buffy, I…”
The Slayer shook her head
“Angel, it’s ok, you don’t have to explain. The important thing
now is that we find Willow and the others. What do you want to do?”
The vampire hesitated for a moment and then nodded
“Lorne’s heading back on the first flight he can get. He wouldn’t
tell me where they are just that he’s sent someone he trusts to find them
and help them if he can. When he gets here we’ll contact you again.
Can we count on you?”
Buffy nodded sharply suddenly all business
“Absolutely, whatever you need. If Willow’s in danger we don’t
stop until we find her.”
Connor looked worried and spoke hesitantly
“And Cordelia and Fred. We’ll find them too, right?”
Buffy opened her mouth to reply and then shut it again and looked, really
looked, at the young boy on the screen. He looked so young and so
lost and a lot like Dawn when their mother had died. Her hand crept
out and she closed her fingers around Dawn’s squeezing lightly as she looked
solemnly into Connor’s eyes
“Connor, I will do whatever it takes to bring them home alive and well.
All of them.”
~~~*~~~
Vermont
Lindsey scowled through his windscreen and glanced irritably at the
map beside him. He’d touched down four hours before and had immediately
made his way to the girl’s last known location.
Of course they were nowhere to be found but he was able to find out
what had happened to the men they had fought when Lorne had stumbled on
them and had managed to finangle his way into the local goal to speak with
one of them. According to the man with the black eye and broken arm,
he and his six friends had been minding their own business in the deserted
motel car park when three slim women had come out of nowhere and brutally
attacked them.
Lindsey had stood and listened for nearly ten minutes as the would be
kidnapper spouted enough BS to fertilise three large fields and then had
asked the supervising guard for a glass of water. As soon as the
door had started to close behind him Lindsey had leaned across the table
and clasped the man around the back of the head and sharply brought his
head forward to smack into the table. Ignoring the cry of pain from
his prey he had leaned in close and snarled
“Listen to me, you son of a bitch. I don’t care what stupid ass
story you’ve fed Cletus the slack jawed yokel there but I’m not buying
it. Now tell me what happened, why you want them and who’s paying
you.”
He lifted the man’s head by his hair and smashed it into the table again
for good measure
“Let go of me!”
Lindsey sighed and, with one eye on the door, bounced the man’s head
again. The crack was louder this time and he winced as he saw a trickle
of blood seep out from under the man’s face
So much for doing this subtly
“Not going to happen.
Tell me.”
He pressed down and smiled coldly at the groan of pain as he ground
the man’s face into the scarred wood
“Tell me.”
The man began to babble and Lindsey listened and when the guard came
back into the room he was standing by the door wiping his hands on the
seat of his jeans. He winked and took the grubby glass of water from
the guard as he stared open mouthed at the bleeding prisoner huddled on
the chair
“I think he’s hurt worse than you thought. Kept having fits and
banging his head on the table. Might need a CAT scan.”
He lifted the guards arm and wrapped his loose fingers around the glass
“Well, I have to go now. Thanks for your help.”
He edged round the guard and strode briskly down the hall his mind racing
with what he’d learnt. He sent a brief smile to the over weight,
bubble popper behind the front desk as he hit the lobby and hit the front
door running. He had to find Cordelia and the others, fast!
~~~*~~~
LA
Lorne grinned into the web cam on top of the desk and waved cheerily
“The Slayer, and so much less butch than your rep suggests. Gotta
say, hon, the fragile Miss Muffet look is so working for you.”
Buffy eyed the green skinned demon warily
“Um, thank you. Lorne is it?”
Lorne nodded affably
“The one and only. Now, what say you and I have a little pow-wow
about the mess our girls are in?”
Buffy nodded
“Where are they?”
The demon rolled his eyes
“Now, sweetie, if I knew exactly where they were I would have just called
Angelcakes and sent him to get them. It’s not that simple. That’s
the trouble with you destiny types; all smite ‘n’ justice and no planning.
The question isn’t where are they, it’s why are they?”
Buffy frowned and said warily
“This isn’t a Zen thing is it? ‘Cos I’ve never been that great with
those.”
Lorne laughed and leaned forward
“No, sweetie. I mean that we need to find out why they took off
and why they didn’t tell their loved ones all about the ‘Thelma and Louise’
thing they got going on. Have you got someone on your team with some
basics in the magic arts?”
Buffy nodded
“Yeah, but…”
Lorne held up a hand
“Go get ‘em. Tell them to bring the ingredients for a revealing
spell. We got a little bibbity, bobbity, boo to do.”
Connor took a deep breath and compared the number on the door to the
slip of paper in his hand. He nodded to himself and raised his hand
and gave a brief knock glancing uneasily over his shoulder as he did so.
If his father knew he was here he would kill him. He was about
to raise his hand to knock again when he heard the sound of a bolt being
released on the other side of the door and then he was staring into a haunted
face with bitter brown eyes. He let his gaze drift to the angry red
scar at the man’s throat and then lifted his eyes to meet the man’s again
“Wesley Wyndham-Price? My name is Connor. I need your help.”
Wesley stared at him for a moment and then stepped back to let him pass.
With a last glance behind him Connor stepped through the door and it closed
with a soft click behind him.