Things Unseen

By Gidgetgirl

Chapter Two

When Cordy heard the commotion downstairs, she ran into the room, hoping to find that Hopie had singed off someone’s eyebrows or colored on the walls with markers. Somehow, she knew deep down that something was wrong.

Hopie was lying in the center of the room, the bunny sitting on her chest.

Cordelia’s voice faltered. “Is that Hopie playing with Leo Bunny, or is that Leo Bunny resting on Hopie’s chest because healing her made him tired?”

“Um, both,” Angel said, not wanting to upset Cordy. The seer peered closer at her little girl, and saw the blood stains on her shirt, small slashing lines all over the girl’s clothing.

Cordelia walked calmly over to Hopie and picked the little girl up, careful not to dislodge Leo, and set them both in her lap. She smoothed Hopie’s dark black tresses away from the girl’s face. “Hopie, baby, look at Momma,” Cordy said, gently stroking Hopie’s face. Hopie obliged.

“What’s wrong with my baby?” Cordy asked calmly.

“Leo helped,” Hopie sniffled. “Something bad happened. Something real bad. My friend says I’ll be okay. The bad thing wasn’t after me.”

“Your friend?” Angel asked.

“Don’t you see him?” Hopie asked, sitting up and putting her hands on her hip in a stubborn position. “He’s standing right there.”

Hopie gestured impatiently to thin air.

“Oh, that friend,” Gunn said. Fred and Lorne entered the room.

“I’m guessing the red on the little bundle of heroic joy’s shirt isn’t a fashion statement,” Lorne whispered to Fred.

“What friend?” Fred asked, not voicing the question that was really on her mind. What had happened to Hopie?

Hopie sighed a very adult, very aggrieved sigh. “He’s standing right there. He says he won’t let anything bad near me.”

Angel nodded, finally understanding, on some level at least, what his daughter was going through. Something had attacked Hopie: something invisible and something powerful. If her way of coping with it was to invent an imaginary protector, he could deal with the shot to his ego that she didn’t believe he could protect her.

“What hurt you?” Cordelia tried again.

“Crossbow couldn’t hurt it,” Hopie said. She refused to say anything else.

Maddy was laying on her bed, feeling very put out that she had been left out of all of the fun. She never got to do anything with the other Potentials. It wasn’t her fault that she had overprotective parents who had perhaps threatened the Watcher’s Council a bit too often. It certainly wasn’t her fault that she was titled.

“Lady Madeline,” she said out loud with disgust. “A heaping load of good that’s done me.”

Her parents had been very explicit on their instructions to the Council. They would allow her to go the training facility, but she was not to be put in any danger. The Council knew, quite simply, that her parents and their very royal relatives wouldn’t stand for it.

Maddy sat up when the other girls entered the room. “Hey guys,” she said glumly. “Do you have any idea how bored I’ve been? Tell me what I missed because my parents keep me on such a short leash. What kind of daring training was I left out of today?”

The girls knew quite well they weren’t supposed to tell Maddy anything. It was one of the rules, and though nothing would happen to the Lady Madeline if she broke the rules, the other girls knew much better how powerful the Council, especially Mr. Travers, could be.

“Trust me, Maddy,” the little blonde named Chance said. “You didn’t miss out on anything fun.” Chance’s side was aching from the blood all five girls had been forced to shed.

“You always say that,” Maddy grumbled. “Nicolaa?” Nic was the oldest among the girls at sixteen, Maddy the youngest at eleven. Nicolaa shrugged.

“Not feeling particularly like talking, Madeline,” she said, always careful to abide by the no nickname rule, even though the girls were allowed to call the youngest Maddy. Her parents had insisted.

Maddy shrugged. “So,” she said smiling. “Who wants to spar?” Maddy enjoyed her training with a vigor the other girls had long lost.

Nicolaa shrugged, willing to take the younger girl under her wing, but one of the others stepped forward.

“I’m up for it,” Joscelyn said.

“Brilliant,” Maddy said, her English accent more pronounced that ever. “And after I flounce Joss, the rest of you can have a turn.”

Chance’s hand went unknowingly to her injured side. Nicolaa shook her head slightly at the girl. The last two occupants of the room covered Chance’s mistake.

“Yes, milady,” Colette said, making Maddy roll her eyes. Some people never got past the title.

“Sure, brat,” Kendall replied. “No problemo.” Kendall had no respect for protocol, and for that reason alone, Maddy loved her.

Maddy hummed to herself as she and Joss walked toward the training room. She loved training. You see, Maddy was quite sure she was going to be a slayer someday, she just knew it. She’d have all kinds of special powers, and when she did, no one would keep her from having fun ever again.

“I don’t care what kind of special powers you have,” Dawn said with a laugh. “There’s no way that Wes, or Buffy or Wills for that matter, are going to let you go out after dark on a school night without telling them where you’re going and who you’re going with.”

Anni flopped down on her bed in the room she shared with Dawn. She’d long since started looking on the older girl as a friend, and more than a friend, as a sister, not in a Wes-is-my-brother-you-are-my-sister kind of way, but in more of a you’re-getting-your-driver’s-license-soon-and-you-know-you’ll-have-to-chauffer-me-around kind of way. Dawn was slowly developing the annoying habit of being right all of the time.

Anni groaned out loud. “Well,” she said. “I can’t very well tell Willow that I have a date, because she’ll be so excited that I know Wes will pick it right out of her mind. It’s hard enough to keep from saying a secret out loud, with the psychic connection freak show thing going on between those two, I’d be busted in a minute.”

“Can’t you just tell Wes you’re meeting a boy at the bronze?” Dawn asked reasonably, liking the fact that more often than not now, she was the older voice of wisdom and reason.

“Sure,” Anni said with a sarcastic bite in her British voice. “I can just see it now, ‘Oh Wes, dear, even though you don’t want me to date until I’m thirty, or at least sixteen, would you mind terribly if I just went to a high school hangout tonight because the boy I have a yen for might be there listening to his cousin’s band playing?” Anni snorted a very indelicate snort. “I’m sure that would go over well.”

Dawn wrinkled her forehead in thought. “You’re right, of course,” she said, picturing Wes going into former stuffy Wes mode the moment Anni mentioned boys. He still pictured the little non-slayer as the four year old girl he had left behind when he went to the academy, not as the almost-teenager she currently was.

“I’m going,” Anni said, and Dawn recognized the stubborn tone in her voice.

“You’re going to get busted, you know that, right?” Dawn said.

Anni nodded. “Quite possibly, yes,” she said, “but maybe not if you help me. Cover for me, Dawnie, please? You know I won’t be in any danger. There isn’t any big mystical whosit after me now, I’m almost as strong as Buffy, and I’ll take a stake.”

Dawn, seeing the eager look on the younger girl’s face, shrugged. “Sure,” she said. Secretly, she thought it would be a good idea for Anni to get a boy before she became old enough for Connor to be interested. The younger girl’s crush on Dawn’s boyfriend was cute at twelve, but at fourteen or fifteen, it probably wouldn’t be nearly as cute.

Anni, smiling ear to ear, gave Dawn a huge hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she said.

“Now,” Dawn said. “Onto the important question. What are you going to wear?”

Lindsey moved closer to Faith as the others tried to cajole Hopie into telling them what had happened. He put his arm on her shoulder. She was shaking, not visibly, but he could feel her quivering with emotion underneath his hand.

“She’s all right,” he whispered, knowing that Faith had loved the little Shanshu before she had ever loved anything or anyone else in this life.

“She’s just a little kid,” Faith said, trying to push the memories out of her head. “No one should hurt a little kid.” For about the thousandth time, Faith wondered if she knew what she was doing in her relationship with Lindsey. The things she’d done, the person she’d been, even where and with what she had grown up with, they all screamed at her that she didn’t deserve this, didn’t deserve him.

Lindsey kissed her forehead softly. “No one will hurt her or you. I promise.” A hard look settled over Lindsey’s face, and Faith started to realize what a dangerous man he had the potential to be.

“Lindsey,” Angel said, breaking the moment between the two of them.

“On it,” Lindsey said, giving Faith a quick kiss before he headed out to see what he could find out about Wolfram and Hart’s involvement in Hopie’s injury.

Hopie, in the manner of little children, bounced back from the trauma, but Cordy wondered if her baby could possibly be over it so quickly.

“Come on, Daddy, Uncle Gunn,” Hopie said. “I’ll go get Connor, and we can play tea party. My new friend wants to play too.”

Gunn and Angel cast envious looks at Lindsey. He always managed to avoid playing tea party.

Hopie squatted down on the floor. “Do you want to play, Leo Bunny?” she asked. The bunnies eyes looked at Hopie’s face, and Fred could have sworn that the tiny rabbit nodded.

“Bring Claude and Crossbow,” Hopie yelled over her shoulder. “And rubber ducky.” Gunn snickered. Angel glared at him, and the two of them, thoroughly wrapped around the four year old’s little finger, went to do her bidding.

The phone at the Hyperion rang a little later, and Cordelia, banished from Hopie’s room by the boys, who were in her belief, walking the careful line between ridiculous and adorable, answered it with a smile in her voice. “Angel Investigations,” she said. “We help the helpless.”

“Is Lorne there?” a muffled voice asked. Cordelia raised her eyebrows, recognizing the voice quite well. She smiled a little, wondering what kind of mischief the little non-slayer was up to. She loved the way Anni, always caught between good manners and an inner fire, kept Wesley in line.

“Sure, Anni, hold on just a second,” Cordy said. Anni groaned audibly over the phone. So much for remaining secretive.

Lorne came to the phone a minute later. “Well, hello there, Princess, what can I do you for?” he asked, pleasantly. After having met the girl a couple of times, Lorne felt a pull towards her. She was smart, sassy, and she had a singing voice to die for.

Lorne nodded carefully at Anni’s reply and went over to the computer. “Okay,” he said. “I’m getting online. You just send those pictures right on –zip- over to me, and I’ll let you know my professional opinion.” Lorne raised what would have passed for eyebrows if he had been human when he said the word “professional.” Cordelia rolled her eyes. What in the world were those two talking about?

Back in Sunnydale, Dawn was introducing Anni to the wonders of the digital age, courtesy of her new digital camera. Anni took off the third outfit, put on the fourth, and after Dawn took the picture, they uploaded them to the computer and sent them to Lorne.

Dawn huffed a bit. “I can’t believe you’re asking a green demon for help,” she said. “I already told you I like the second one the best.”

“I need another opinion,” Anni said, “and I can’t ask anyone here. Besides, everyone knows that slightly effeminate karaoke demons have impeccable fashion taste.”

“Did you even see what he was wearing the last time we went to visit?” Dawn asked.

“No,” Anni said, “and neither did you. In fact, I’d be willing to wager that you saw nothing but Connor at all.” Anni couldn’t keep the longing entirely out of her voice, but thinking of Jordy helped.

Lorne ignored the assassination of his fashion sense by the younger Summers girl. She’s pretty close to tone deaf, Lorne thought, a little vindictively.

Lorne opened the email with the pictures and thought carefully. He spoke his thoughts into the phone. “Skirt number two- that pretty little jean number with the white stitching- with shirt number three and the earrings Dawn wore the last time you were here,” Lorne said, barely pausing a moment.

“You’re amazing, Lorne,” Anni said.

“Yes, I rather am,” Lorne said. “And Anni-pie, you’ll tell me how the date goes?”

“It’s not a date,” Anni said, “but yeah, I’ll call and give you all the gory details.”

“Date gory details are the only kind of gory details I like,” Lorne commented.

“Anni has a date?” Cordelia couldn’t help but ask.

Lorne, without needing to be told, turned to Cordelia, “I’m thinking it’s a secret, seer-of-my-heart.”

Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Isn’t your heart in your butt?” she asked, wrinkling her nose. Lorne nodded.

“In that house,” Cordy said after a moment of silence. “It won’t be a secret for long.”

Just then, a little dark haired whirlwind came flying into the room. “I wanna talk to Bella,” Hopie said.

Lorne handed her the phone. “Hi Bella. I have a new friend. He’s neat. Your new friend is neat too. Is he going to be your special friend?”

“No,” Cordelia, Lorne, Fred, and Faith said all at once. Anni was altogether too young to be having special friends. They were all a bit protective of the girl.

“Bella,” Hopie said, her voice shaking a little. “Something bad happened today, and it’s gonna hurt.” Cordelia’s eyes widened. Hopie had refused to say a word to the rest of them. All of a sudden, the little girl’s demeanor changed. “My friend says he has a neat friend and that his neat friend can be your friend too. I’m going to go play dress up with Claude and Daddy and Gunn and Connor now, only Connor gets to be the Princess this time, because Daddy always gets to be the princess, and that’s not fair.” Then the little girl, master of the run on sentence, left to return to what was sure to be an invigorating game of dress up with three of her favorite males, and her favorite flame thrower.

Lilah Morgan slammed the phone down and raged at the minions in front of her. “Someone stole my baby,” she said, “and do I need to remind you that he was pledged to this company? I want him found, and I want him found now.” Lilah put the heel of her hand on her head. “And will someone get me a friggin aspirin. These hormones are playing a vicious game with my head.”

Somebody tossed an aspirin on the desk. Lilah looked up and saw Lindsey staring at her.

“I suppose congratulations are in order,” he said, “or at least they were. Why don’t we have a little chat about some invisible friends of yours that spent this afternoon beating up on a four-year-old child.”

Lilah snorted. “That thing is not a child,” she said, causing the hair on the back of Lindsey’s neck to raise at the very inhumanness of it all. “And I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Lindsey looked at her with disgust and hated what he saw there: the truth.

Quentin Travers watched from afar as Lady Madeline took down Joscelyn, four years her senior. Travers sighed. Maddy was such a thorn in his side, with her exuberance, her friendliness, and her capability of making the older girls love her. They weren’t supposed to love each other. They weren’t even supposed to be more than passably friendly. Competition and fear of reprisal were the two things that kept the Potentials going.

Travers couldn’t put that fear in Maddy. There were some lines that even he dared not cross, and Maddy’s parents had some very powerful friends.

“Did you remember to collect samples from the blood shed offering?” Travers asked the man standing to his left. “We mustn’t be wasteful, and we can do the preliminary tests on those as well.”

The man nodded, and after one last parting glare at Maddy, Travers followed the man into the laboratory. The research was going well under the circumstances. It wouldn’t be long until they found what they were looking for: the slayer gene.

 

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