Birth Right

By Alecca

Spike flamb

Sunnydale
2003

"Necro-tinted clothes?" Angel tried and Buffy rose her eyebrows questioningly.

"What?" she asked confused, but before Angel had a chance to explain himself further, she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him inside the house. "Just in case your necro-what-you-ma-call- it suddenly stops working. I'm pretty sure a pile of ashes can't give me a good enough explanation for being here. Then again, I'm not sure you can either. "

"You really wanna fight?" Angel asked with a small smile playing on his lips. It had been ages since he had seen this young Buffy and standing in front of her now, he wondered if Spike hadn't been right all along and he would wind up acting like a school boy with a crush as well.

"Don't you use that smile on me," Buffy warned him. A few curious heads popped out from the kitchen watching the new arrival with curiosity.

"I talked to my people in LA, in case something goes wrong, they'll be prepared," Angel assured her.

"Your people?" Buffy asked amused. "LA's really getting to you."

"Yeah...," he cursed himself for being too used to the position of CEO of Wolfram & Hart to realize that to a normal person he might sound formal and too business-like.

"Just couldn't imagine missing out on a fight like this, huh?" she asked smiling.

"Well, I do have a pretty big bone to pick with this thing," he answered returning her smile. Focus, he told himself trying to somehow stay away from the pool of emotions she stirred up. He had to be professional. This wasn't a courtesy visit, it was mission - one that could prove highly dangerous.

"Angel!" he heard a voice yell and before he knew what was happening, Dawn was hugging him. He couldn't help but laugh.

Los Angeles
Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc.
2051

Lonny hit the floor of the office hard, banging her chin on the floor and crushing her arm in an unnatural position. She groaned as she got up, blood dripping down her chin. Her arm was broken as she painstakingly felt when she tried to open the door to the office with it. With an unneeded sigh she twisted her arm back into place. It would heal soon enough.

Where was she? She easily recognized the hallways of Wolfram & Hart. They never really changed much. The people often did, but the building itself rarely. She walked down the hallways wondering if she had actually had the luck of landing back in her own time. Reaching the elevators, she quickly realized she didn't. Before her stood the old elevators of Wolfram & Hart, a model introduced just after her father's retirement, but in her time they no longer existed. They would be blown to pieces in the Rebellion of the Watcher's Armed Forces in 2058. She remembered the incident well enough as she herself had taken part in it. The Watcher's Armed Forces had been an elite group of mercenaries hired by the SA to handle more brutal situations where they felt slayers should not be involved. In other words they handled the dirty work. The rebellion had taken place because of the SA's decision to tolerate Angel's involvement in a feud between demon clans and implicitly the harboring of a demon mass- murderer. When said demon went on a rampage in downtown Los Angeles and killed over a hundred people and Angel still refused to hand him over to the proper authorities, it was the last straw for the Watcher's Armed Forces. They sent Angel a peaceful warning five minutes before beginning a big scale attack on Wolfram & Hart.

Thinking back to it, Lonny knew Angel hadn't had another option. That demon had been the only one who could mediate the peace between the two clans. Luckily for Angel, the peace was signed by the devouring of the mediator of the argument. The significance of the gesture being that by eating the mediator they gained his capacity to understand both clans and the respect he had for them.

Looking back at the elevators, she assumed she was somewhere before 2058, but after 2034 - the year her father had retired. Finding out the date would be easy, all she needed to find was a paper or a calendar. As the elevator doors opened she decided she could always go to Angel's office.

Harmony's desk was suspiciously empty of her ever present unicorns and the picture of the first vampire actor Lucius Bloodvine - signed "To my sexy blond seductress of the night. Love, Lucius" - usually covered in different shades of lipstick and that, as far as she knew, had never left her desk for 50 years. Harmony had had a crush on him ever since he made his first movie.

Lonny wondered if she had been fired or was on a vacation. People were walking down the hallways not really minding her. She headed for Angel's office, but at the very moment she reached for the doorknob the door opened abruptly and a full vamped Spike stormed out - she quickly got out of his way - yelling:

"You just bloody try it! Your whole fucking routine, see if it works!" he stalked off down the hallway and Lonny heard his growls and a woman screaming as she was being violently shoved out of his way. She peaked inside the office without making her presence known. Angel was standing, vamped out as well over his fallen desk, papers laying everywhere on the floor. He looked very pissed. Lonny was startled by the sound of elevator doors opening. She heard footsteps inside the office and the stupefied voice of a girl asking:

"What did you do?" As soon as she spotted the figure, Lonny closed her eyes and let out:

"Oh, crap!" she knew exactly the year she was in and she knew exactly who that girl was.

Sunnydale
2003

Mina was staring at the wall in front of her. She could hear Spike's footsteps behind her as he descended the last stairs into the basement. She sighed. This wasn't going to be easy, she didn't have much of a plan, just a little idea.

"Well?" she heard the vampire's impatient voice.

"How did they call you?" she asked turning towards him. "Ah, yes...William the Bloody. I heard it was because of bad poetry, not your killings. Kinda silly for a vampire. I myself always preferred the scourge of Europe, but..."

"Skip over the small talk, luv," Spike instructed her while lighting a cigarette.

"What do you want to hear, Spike?" she neared him, a dangerous light shining in her eyes. "Who exactly am I suppose to be? The First?" she touched his arm. "Nope. A bringer?" she pointed towards her eyes. "Still got 'em. Vampire? Demon? I'm pretty sure you could've smelled it," she chuckled. "Bad human? What the hell would I have to gain from demons taking over the world? Become a permanent snack?"

"If you got nothing to hide, why are you lying?" he asked and Mina began pacing around the basement, trying to find something that might come in handy.

"Those yours?" Mina asked rising her eyebrows when she came across the shackles hanging from the wall.

"You're avoiding the question," he said impatiently.

"So are you," she smiled. "Is there a reason people might think you're still dangerous? I know about the soul, but it still makes me wonder..."

"There was a reason, but that's not the case anymore," Spike answered nearing her. He thought intimidation was the best way to go with her. She was just a teenager after all, even if she was a particularly strong one. He had forgotten that Buffy had been only a teenager when she had defeated him more than a couple of times.

"So what, you keep them around for fun?" she smirked touching one of the shackles. "Kinky."

"I'm getting really tired of all this nonsense," he grabbed her by the arm, but before he even had a chance to react she had shoved him in the wall and quickly closed one of the shackles around his left wrist. She didn't have a chance to close the other shackle around his right wrist as he hit her across the face hard, sending her flying a few feet away from him.

"I tried it the easy way, now it's time for the hard way," he said angrily as he struggled to free himself from the shackle.

"If the slayer didn't want you to get free of those, I don't think you will," Mina said as she got up from the floor. "Good hit," she added wiping away the blood trickling down from her nose.

"What the bloody hell do you want?" he asked as he pulled harder and harder by the chains. "Did I kill your mom too? Is that it?"

"Oh, please, don't think of yourself so highly, Spike," Mina said as she picked up something Spike couldn't see. "You're simply getting in the way," she explained as she turned back towards him holding a shovel in her hands.

"You're gonna stake me?" he asked staring at the wooden handle of the shovel undisturbed.

"Hell no," she neared him. "You gotta save the world...luv. I can't afford to kill you. However," she came as close as she could to him, without being in his reach. "For the moment being, I have to take you out of the game. But don't worry, you'll be up and running before the big battle." With that said she rose the shovel and hit Spike across the face with the metallic end. The vampire winced in pain, but managed to grab the shovel before it hit him a second time.

"You think a bruise or two is going to hurt me?" he asked mockingly.

"One or two? Probably not. But a hundred, a thousand? I've got all day. How about we find out?" she yanked the shovel from his hand and hit him over the legs with it, knowing he was expecting another blow to the head. He let out a cry of pain. She frowned, having him screaming in the basement wasn't very wise. She faked a second blow to the legs, but instead hit his hand as it was preparing to intercept the shovel again.

"Buf..." he began yelling, but she quickly hit him over the face before he had a chance to finish his cry of help. Taking advantage of his momentary wince of pain, she hit him hard twice in the head, knocking him out. She moved quickly to restrain his free arm in the other shackle. His hand suddenly grabbed her by the neck, but the hold was weak - she could feel it, but she was startled nonetheless. She looked at him and saw his eyes were half-open like those of a man trying to stay awake.

"Who...are...," he mumbled before his hand fell limp on her chest and slid down her body, smudging the ring of Batt-Hura with his blood. He was out cold.

"Oh, crap," she let out pulling away from the passed out vampire and wiping away the blood from the ring still hanging from her belt. She looked at him and picking up the shovel she began furiously hitting him over and over again. When she was finished, she was breathing hard and Spike was just a bloody mass laying limp on equally bloody sheets. She let the deformed shovel slide down from her hands. "Sorry, old boy," she told the unconscious Spike. She just hoped he'd come to for Sunnydale's big finale. Buffy would probably look for him soon enough - he was one of the few persons who she'd probably realize was missing even at a time like this. And this, she looked around herself, was the first place she'd look. She had to hide Spike.

Sunnydale
2003

Spike entered the house through the back door, careful so no one could see him. He had decided to screw Angel's plan and just go in the house, to at least see Buffy one more time. He wasn't going to stay long, just a few minutes, enough to not run into his past self or - he guessed - a very pissed Angel and just enough, he smiled, to steal a kiss.

"There you are," Buffy said entering the kitchen. "Look, I know this is going to bother you a lot, but A..." she didn't have a chance to finish her words as Spike pulled her in his arms and kissed her. She pulled away and breathlessly muttered:

"Angel's here."

Spike looked up from her face towards the entrance of the kitchen and noticed Angel was standing in the doorway. He looked a little annoyed, but not particularly bothered to have witnessed the kiss. Thinking back, Spike wondered how anyone could confuse him with the Angel of this time. The Angel of 2003's blood would've been boiling and the first thing that would've come out of his mouth would have been an insult, instead of a semi-friendly:

"Hello, Spike."

The blond vampire suddenly realized that Angel had no idea it was him and not his past self. He smiled.

"What the bloody hell is he doing here?!" he let go of the slayer - only he knew how hard it had been, but he was aware of the need to act as he normally would have in this time - and then stared at her and Angel. "I thought he was gone. Off to built the second front and all that nonsense he filled your head with so you wouldn't know just how big a coward he is."

"Stop it," Buffy gave him a cross look.

"Leaving the ship before it sinks, wasn't that your motto?" he continued to stare at Angel.

"Trying to be just like me, wasn't that yours?" Angel replied and Spike looked at him incredulously.

"I don't...," he protested.

"Oh, please, a soul, playing the hero in Sunnydale, Buffy...," Angel stated .

"Hey!" Buffy tried to interrupt them.

"Bollocks! Why would I try to copy you? God knows the world doesn't need another sexually frustrated brooding vampire with a head too big for his own body," Spike didn't take into consideration Buffy's interference.

"But I suppose it needs a cocky two bit vampire with a fake accent and an overused duster?" Angel said angrily.

"Would you two stop acting like a couple of two year olds?!" the slayer yelled silencing them both. "I told him to go back to LA, but unfortunately his superhearing doesn't seems to work anymore," she told Spike and Angel smiled smugly. "And you," she turned towards Angel: "I don't appreciate being treated like an object you pass around from one person to another. This is a very hard time for me, a huge battle is waiting for us and I just might not make it out alive..."

"Yes, you will," both vampires said at the same time.

"And I might lose a lot of people I love," she ignored their words, thinking of them as attempts of comforting her, not a fact known by both of them. "I'm tired and I don't feel like all this possessive vampire bullshit. So, if you two could just deal with each other for 24 hours, I'd seriously appreciate it," she paused and then added, smiling: "And then if we survive this thing, maybe we could arrange for a little oil one-on-one wrestling," she headed out of the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway and turning back towards them, she said: "And another thing, if one of you two even mentions anything about the way I smell I'm going to beat the hell out of both of you, okay?" She marched out of the kitchen leaving the two stunned vampires behind. They stood in silence for a moment.

"Poofer!" Spike let out before exiting the kitchen.

"Captain peroxide!" Angel replied.

Los Angeles
2051
Wolfram & Hart Demon Hunting Inc.

It took her some time to realize that she was at Wolfram & Hart. Unlike Lonny, she didn't know the building very well and could have easily mistaken it for a random office building. As she walked down the hallways she noticed some people were looking at her strangely. Probably because of her resemblance with her great-grandmother. She wondered if she had landed at a time when the original Fred was still alive. She hoped so. She made her way instinctually towards Angel's office.

Harmony's desk was empty, but, unlike Lonny she couldn't tell whether that was strange or not and she didn't dare enter Angel's office without being announced. It just wasn't polite. She decided to try and find the employees' break room - maybe Harmony was out for lunch. When she turned on her heels, she let out a small scream coming face to face with the person she was looking for, but looking slightly different from the one she had met. With black hair, black clothes, dark make-up, black pretty much everything, Harmony looked annoyed.

"What do you want?" she snapped at her.

"I...," Fred 2 couldn't find her words.

"Can't you talk straight?" Harmony looked exasperated.

"Angel, I need to see Angel," she said quickly.

"Whatever," she grabbed her by the arm and practically dragged her to the door of Angel's office and opening it pushed her inside yelling for Angel to hear: "The brat said she wants to see you."

Fred 2 stumbled inside the office. Angel looked at her curiously. He was sitting in his chair, seeming oblivious to the state his office was in: the desk was turned over and papers were scattered on the floor. In a chair with a broken back, was a teenage girl Fred 2 didn't recognize. She had gotten up from her chair the moment Fred 2 had entered the room. She was tall, pretty, with dark hair and eyes to match it. She had - as much as Fred 2 could guess by her features - some Amerindian blood in her. Several strands of her hair - colored in vivid colors - were tied around a beautiful feather. Something seemed very familiar about her, like she had seen her or someone who looked like her in somebody else's pictures.

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to...," Fred 2 began apologizing.

"Are you Annie?" Angel asked interrupting her.

"Yes...I'm-I'm Annie, " Fred 2 smiled. Annie was her mother.

"I'm Angel and this," she gestured towards the girl standing opposite him: "Is my niece, Kalee."

Sunnydale
2003

Mina looked at the moldy old rug with a satisfied grin on her face. She had buried Spike under it, wrapped in the dirty sheets and had placed the rug there so the obvious shoveling couldn't be noticed. She had flipped the mattress on the other side, cleaned herself up as good as she could - a little useful spell she had learnt had helped her a lot - and now, complimenting herself on a job well done, she headed upstairs. She accidentally hit someone with the door and she hurried to apologize:

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...," she let out a small scream when she saw who exactly she had hit. It was Spike. Conscious. Clean, without a bruise, without a cut, and definitely not lying a foot underground in the basement.

"Calm down, luv," Spike said cheerfully. He didn't recognize the girl, but assumed she was a potential, she didn't really recall them all.

"But how...," Mina stared back towards the basement.

"Vampire stealth. Didn't mean to scare you," he said before, under Mina's horrified gaze, he headed downstairs. She felt his arm brushing against hers on his way down. He was real. But how? She closed the door to the basement and headed for the living room. She noticed all the potentials were gathered there. She rolled her eyes, it was probably another speech. She was too tired to even fake an interest in it.

"And that," she heard Buffy saying and saw her gesturing towards her. "Is our latest addition, Mina. She's a good fighter. Mina, this is Angel," she introduced her to the vampire.

"Is it just me or have we met before?" Angel asked smiling.

"I don't think so," Mina's mouth was dry. This couldn't be Angel because in the slayer history - she knew! - Angel wasn't there. That could mean only one thing: someone, namely Angel, had come to stop her. Well, she told herself, she wasn't going to go down without a fight.

In the basement, Spike immediately smelled the blood - his blood - and the stench of rattled earth. He also noticed the rug that hadn't been there before. The rug, he remembered very well had been stuffed somewhere in a corner of the basement. He lifted the rug and smiled when he saw he had been right: the ground had been shoveled. Finding the deformed shovel - that, he didn't find strange at all, many tools in Buffy's house were in that state being used more than once as weapons - he began digging. When he came across the bloody sheets, he pulled them aside and was disturbed to see himself, in very bad shape. He was still alive, but it would take some time for his body to heal the damage. He smiled as he began covering the sheets with earth again. His past self was out of the game. He assumed the girl that had exited the basement had done that to him - he chuckled, no wonder she had been so shocked to see him - so it was only safe to assume that had been Mina Parker.

He had two choices now: he either told Angel about this and that would be a good enough reason for Buffy to throw Mina out or - and this was a far better option - he could continue to act like the Spike of the past and spend as much time as he could with Buffy until Angel managed to convince the slayer of Mina's bad intentions. He didn't even have to think about it twice. His choice was made. He put the rug back in its place and threw himself in his old bed and smiled. Maybe she could even help Mina a bit out. Not to complete her plan of course - he grimaced remembering the pain the Hur'dha could inflict upon him through his amulet - but at least to delay his departure back into the future.

The Hollow Crossroads
Absolutely nowhen

"I think I finally got it right," Wes 2 announced a very bored Harmony. He had discovered that if he wrote on his clothes, the writing didn't disappear. He figured it was because he belonged to a certain time which couldn't be said about anything in that place.

"We can go home?" Harmony asked full of hope.

"Yeah, though there might be a small error in the equations, I can't really do calculus with ten decimals in my mind," he explained.

"Who cares! I'm going anywhere but here," she said getting up from the ground where she had been sulking. "Just point the way, little man."

"That way," he gestured towards a crossroad. "It's better if you grab my hand, we won't get separated that way."

"Okay, but I don't date anyone living," she warned him while they headed towards the crossroad.

"Don't worry, I don't date the undead," he assured her and Harmony pouted.

"What, I'm not attractive enough for you?" she asked feeling somehow insulted.

"It's not that, I just...don't like to date someone who might think of me as lunch," he explained before, holding hands, they disappeared from the crossroad, into the past. Just as they vanished, the Hur'dha materialized himself. Sighing - a most unnatural gesture for him - he mumbled:

"This just isn't my day."

 

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