Things Unseen

By Gidgetgirl

Chapter Four

Angel was lying on Hopie’s bed, completely exhausted. Playing tea party and dressup in one afternoon was hard work. He let his eyes close for a minute. So much for resilience and super strength, all it took was one four year old, albeit one also gifted with super stamina, to bring him to exhaustion.

Connor and Gunn had made their ways to their respective corners of the hotel, Connor to call Dawn on his cell phone, and Gunn to thank his lucky stars that he hadn’t had to be the princess this time. Hopie, the tiara still on her head, looked at her daddy with a goofy smile.

Cordelia watched the two of them silently from the doorway, fingering the ring she wore on a necklace around her neck. Someday she would be ready, ready for family, real family. Ready for Angel.

Hopie noticed her momma. “Daddy’s sleeping, Momma,” she said, drawing out the word sleeping like she had seen Michelle do on Full House.

“Yes,” Cordy said, her lips twitching, “he is.” Hopie carefully took off her tiara, placed it on Angel’s head, and curled up next to him, burrowing into his chest. Cordelia, unable to resist, climbed onto the other side of the bed, and, resting her head on the same pillow as Angel, wrapped her arms around him.

They made an interesting picture, crammed onto a twin bed with a lavender striped comforter under a canopy. For all of her warrior tendency, Hopie had a weakness for frills.

Hopie, curled into a small ball in front of Angel, closed her eyes and tried, like her neat friend told her, not to think of the horrible thing that had happened.

A horrible thing was happening. Anni couldn’t move. She just couldn’t take another step. Her heart was pounding, her stomach was making with the butterflies, and she could practically feel herself blush.

This is ridiculous, she told herself. I’ve looked pure evil in the face and turned it into good. I’ve escaped from hell, not literally, of course, but close, and I can’t walk over there and talk to a boy?

She took the final steps. “Hey Jordy,” she said shyly.

“Hey Anni,” he said.

In the spat of silence that followed, Oz looked at them both carefully. “Hey,” he said finally.

“Anni’s from England,” Jordy said finally. “She’s British.”

“Funny thing about English people,” Oz said. “They’re usually British.”

“Some are more British than others,” Anni commented. Oz gave the closest thing to an Oz smile, which amounted to a slight opening of the eyes.

“This is Oz,” Jordy said finally.

“Hey,” Oz said, not wanting to break with the established tradition.

“Hey,” Anni replied.

Jordy was wearing a fairly tight sweater. He was older than she was by almost a year, and taller by several inches. His hair, unlike his cousin’s, was dark and a little too long, so that it fell and covered his blue eyes just a little bit.

“You look good,” Anni said, daringly placing a hand on Jordy’s chest like she’d seen Buffy do with Spike. She could feel his heart beat beneath her hand, and she almost pulled it back. Then Jordy smiled.

He brought his hand up to hers. “Cool,” he said.

“Cool,” she said.

“You wanna?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said. They looked at Oz.

“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t speak Fragment, but I have to go set up to play now, so I’m just gonna go.”

Oz left and Anni’s hand wandered back to her side as she and Jordy got a table.

Neither of them had much money, so they ordered one soda, two straws. Anni, having recently seen Lady and the Tramp with Hopie, had a brief spaghetti fantasy. She sighed. This was great.

Great, Dawn thought, just great. Covering for Anni hadn’t been particularly easy since dinner. She jumped when she heard a knock on the door.

“Who is it?” she called. “I’m on the phone and Anni’s asleep.”

Wes opened the door. Dawn tried her best not to look guilty. The pillows she’d expertly stuffed under Anni’s comforter did look roughly the same size and shape.

Wes smiled at the bed softly. “All right,” he said. He’d been in to see if Anni had wanted to go get some ice cream with him and Willow. He didn’t want the girl to feel left out as the relationship developed. Poor Anni had been through enough. Little did he know that “poor Anni” was not underneath the covers.

“All right,” he said. “Willow and I are going out, and I think Buffy and Spike are coming with us. Anya, Xander, and Giles are downstairs.”

Dawn breathed a sigh of relief when Wes closed the door.

“Connor,” she said. “Anni has a Jordy.”

Maddy was deep in thought. None of the other girls had noticed that her normal chatter had stopped, that a slight cloud hung over her normally impish face.

Travers, Maddy had decided, was not a nice man.

Somebody had hurt Chance, and that meant that someone might be hurting the rest of them too. We’ll just see about that, she thought.

“Hey brat,” Kendall said suddenly. Maddy looked up.

“Yeah?” she said, taking great pleasure in not answering with the proper yes.

“You trounced Nicolaa yet today?” Kendall asked with a wicked grin.

Maddy shook her head. Nicolaa groaned. Kendall laughed.

“I can’t trounce Nicolaa,” Maddy admitted candidly. “She’s too fast and too strong.”

“Thanks a lot,” Joscelyn grumbled.

“You can’t trounce me either,” Kendall pointed out.

“Can so,” Maddy argued, poking the older girl in the ribs. Kendall giggled. She reached out and tickled Maddy, and the young girl burst into gay laughter.

“Kendall,” Mr. Travers said, disliking the sight in front of him.

Kendall straightened up, wishing she knew how to say “screw you” subtly in body language. Oh well, she thought, I’ll just have to improvise.

Maddy’s green eyes flashed. “Is there a problem, Mr. Travers?” she asked, taking a step towards him and looking him boldly in the eye. Her left foot was itching to give him a good kick, but she suspected that if she did and he happened to report her to her family, her uncle or one of her older cousins or whoever visited next might very well give her a well intentioned thrashing. Maddy had always been mischievous, her family always kind in their discipline, and as a result, she had grown up unspoiled, high spirited, and well loved. She couldn’t stand the thought of someone hurting the other girls. She had the distinct feeling that when Travers had the girls beaten, he wasn’t kind and fair, didn’t console them afterwards, and certainly wasn’t at all upset over what he’d had to do.

“No, Lady Madeline,” Travers said finally. “There’s not a problem.” Darn that girl, he thought. Kendall needed discipline, she needed structure, she needed to be obedient.

Kendall thought for a millionth time that Travers seriously needed his ass kicked. If only she could be the one to do it.

“Kendall and I were going to spar,” Maddy said, grabbing Kendall’s wrist and literally pulling her out of the room. Kendall spared a last look at Nicolaa, and satisfied that Nicolaa would take care of Chance, she left the room.

“You know,” Kendall said to Maddy.

“Yes,” Maddy said, “and I’m pissed.” She thoroughly relished the cuss word. Kendall laughed and tapped Maddy’s mouth lightly.

“Watch your mouth,” she said, half jokingly, half not.

Maddy groaned. “As if having four older brothers, nine older cousins who are like brothers, and a bushel of female inlaws isn’t enough,” she grumbled, “now you’re telling me I can’t say pi-“

Kendall slapped her hand over the younger girl’s mouth.

Maddy pushed it off. “Next time I’ll say it to Travers,” Maddy said. “See if I don’t.”

Kendall’s eyes widened in mock horror. At least Maddy was safe, she thought. No matter what, Maddy was safe.

The two began to spar, and Maddy got a very questionable expression on her face. Then she smiled. Kendall looked at her warily.

“Tonight,” she said. “I’m going to find some dirt on our Mr. Travers, other than the obvious of course.” Kendall didn’t reply, but she knew if Maddy left the barracks, she would follow. There were many places in the building that were dangerous, even to the untouchable Potential.

Hopie dreamed about her neat friend and Anni’s new neat friend. Then she dreamed that Anni was making fluffy eyes at a boy. Then she dreamed that Uncle Wes and Aunt Willow and Mr. Spike and Buffy were there. Then she woke up and went in search of a cookie.

Angel woke seconds later to the pleasant feeling of having Cordy’s arms wrapped around his waste. He turned around and kissed her lightly on the lips. Halfway through the kiss, she smiled. Then she gently removed the tiara from his head and placed it on her own.

“If one of us is a queen,” she said teasingly, “it’s definitely me.”

“Princess,” Angel corrected seriously. Cordy burst out laughing, and continued to laugh until Angel, embarrassed, shut her up with a kiss.

Lindsey walked back to the Hyperion slowly, passing along the way a tuxedo rental store. He couldn’t help himself. Feeling a bit self-conscious, he paused and looked at them, trying to picture himself wearing one on his wedding day. Sure, he’d worn them many a time during his service at Wolfram and Hart, but marrying them while married to Faith, that was a different thing.

When his thoughts turned back to Lilah and the missing baby, his stomach churned. A child was precious, no less so to the father than to the mother, and it wasn’t any more right that Wes didn’t know than it was that someone, a very powerful someone with access to some high magical whatsits, had taken the baby from Lilah.

First he’d tell the others back at the hotel. Then they’d figure out a way to tell Wes. Then they’d get the baby back. Then he’d let Cordy kick Lilah’s ass for calling Hopie a thing. On second thought, he’d let Hopie kick Lilah’s butt. It seemed just somehow.

He knew one thing for sure. They were all going to Sunnydale, and soon.

When the little foursome arrived at the Bronze, everyone was met with a shock. Wes was shocked that Anni was there and not sound asleep at home. Buffy was shocked that Dawn had actually covered for the younger girl. Spike was shocked that some hormonal time bomb was actually gazing at his little non-slayery bit of a girl that way, and Willow… Willow’s eyes were locked on the stage.

TBC… more Maddie, Kendall, Chance, and co. escapades at Council headquarters, a nice little Wes/Anni confrontation, Willow remeets Oz, and the Fang Gang comes to Sunnydale. PLEASE REVIEW if you’d like a timely update.

OH, AND IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT… I’m working on a Connor and Spike centric series fic with Pyro Bear, Lian, and Ivorycat. I’m getting ready to post chapter three, which I wrote, so please go check it out. It’s written under the name The Four. Here’s a little preview of chapter three.

(Spike and Connor leave a warehouse after fighting vamps, only to find a tiny girl of no more than twelve or thirteen stealing the tires off of Spike’s car)

The girl spared Spike a glance, and he realized with a start that she was older than he had thought her. Twelve, maybe thirteen, with bright blue eyes currently narrowed in concentration, the dark black eyelashes shooting off at conflicting angles and giving her otherwise plain face a remarkable look. “What’s it to you?” she asked, turning her attention back to the car. Spike sputtered a bit, and Connor’s smile grew.

“It’s my car,” he growled, forgetting to soften his voice, despite the fact that the girl was barely big enough for a vamp appetizer. Drat, he thought, in the old days, I more likely than not would have eaten her in between meals to cleanse the palate. Then, realizing the word “drat” had just entered his thoughts, he thanked his lucky stars that Connor wasn’t a telepath. Realizing he had just thanked his lucky stars, Spike growled again and turned back to the business at hand.

The girl stood, proving to be as short as Spike had thought she was, and wiped her hand, sullied by grease from his car, onto her fraying jeans. “That’s unfortunate,” she said, casually tucking a strand of her dark hair behind her left ear. In this light, Spike couldn’t tell if it was dark brown or black. At the moment, he didn’t care.

“Unfortunate?” he asked, sputtering a bit. The girl placed her hands on her hips at his threatening look, and then her expression melted into one of pure innocence.

“Can I ask you a question?” she said sweetly. Spike agreed. The girl batted those long, black eyelashes at the two men, both twice her size, standing in front of her. “Why did you buy a car that only had one tire?”

 

 

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