Transcript from 7-17-06
ANGEL: I sighed into the phone with evident relief - even if I don't breath, sometimes I catch myself acting as if I do - when the injured girl stirred. "She's -- alive," I murmured into the emergency operator's ear as she began dispatching an ambulance to the scene. "Her heart beat is steady, but ... weak. I -- we have her hooked to an IV and a bag of type o blood plasma found at the scene. She...she has multiple bite wounds. Maybe animal attack." The emergency operator didn't seem inclined to ask for any further details, and I didn't feel the need to answer them. It was Chicago -- how infrequent could an attack like this be? I clipped the phone closed and handed it over to the young woman beside me and sat back on my heels, watching the injured victim. "Ambulance is on its way," I told the concious woman, "Should be here soon. Thank you for what you did."
SAMANTHA: I run my hand through my hair, sitting back and watching the girl struggle for breath again. It's wierd to watch, and I find myself a little transfixed for a moment. He thanks me and I shrug a little, looking at him. "I was right here anyway...lucky for you, what with the-" I cough. "-bird flu and all."
ANGEL: "Ahhh, yeah," I managed awkwardly, glancing away. My eye catches sight of the injured girl's wrist, and I frown, taking hold of the girl's pale, almost white fingers and rotating the arm. A crude, still-red brand is scorched into the girl's flesh, a design I've never seen before. I sat back for a moment, thinking, and then got to my feet. "Uhm," I said to the dark haired girl next to me, "I ... forgot," I said, gesturing back at the collapsing rail-station, "to... umm... food. Cause, I need... I'll be right back." I turned and dashed back into the dark structure.
SAMANTHA: She gets up and looks at him like he's completely lost his mind. "You can't go in there, the wole building is coming down!" Of course he doesn't listen, and she rolls her eyes, looking at the two girls and then going to the door of the building, deliberating. "Oh holy shit..." She runs in, looking around.
ANGEL: Angel ducked his head through the doorway and flinched as a peice of heavy concrete came down right in front of him, followed by a sheet of thick white dust that would have choked a human. The floor was shaking, but there was still a way through the rubble, and Angel took it, weaving through cracked support beams and bits of falling ceiling to reach the wall where the injured girl had been shackled. A small coat of dust was on the wall, but he brushed it free and frowned. On the wall there was another symbol - identical to the one on the girl's wrist, but larger, hidden under the dust and by her back when she hung here. "This was ritual," he whispered aloud to no one in particular. "Damnit. I hate it when they do rituals."
SAMANTHA: Samantha sets her hands on her hips, dodging a falling chunk of cement. "What are you doing?? Do you want to get squished?" She sees the flashing lights outside and looks at the roof that's crumbling above them and making all kinds of noise.
ANGEL: Angel whirled at the sound of the girl's voice. "Hey!" He shouted, dashing back across the building, wrapping his arms around the girl and trying to shove her outside with him. "It's not safe in here! Move!"
SAMANTHA: He grabs her and she stiffens, grabbing his shoulder. "Jesus, that was my point!"
ANGEL: "Aahh," He winces at her touch, and a trickle of blood ozes down her fingers from where she grabbed him. "That... " He pulled her hand off of his shoulder and pushed it down to her side, rolling his shoulder one and taking a deep breath. "Leave that ... shoulder... alone." He frowned at her, watching the flashing lights of the ambulances coming closer and closer, and moved down the steps to be near the two rescued women. "You're stronger than you look," he said, bending down to check the unconcious woman's vitals again. "Let me guess. Slayer."
SAMANTHA: She turns her hand over and looks at the blood on her palm. "well don't grab me...." She straightens her shirt a little and looks a little nervous, ready to run off.
"Yeah, what're you, like a good samaritan vampire?"
ANGEL: He turned his head and stared up at her with a tired expression, shaking his head a little, and pointed at the building. "...do you remember where I saved two people from a nest of vampires?" He sighed bent down, picking up the unconcious woman in his arms as the ambulance got closer.
SAMANTHA: "ONE person, actually." Okay it was splitting hairs, but she was a bit irritated by his tone.
ANGEL: "Oh, because you were being such a great help to them, standing on the street corner and waiting for the vampires to come outside and play." The ambulance schreeched to a halt, and almost instantly two EMTs jumped out of the back, pulling out a stretcher and waving Angel over. The vampire carried the injured girl to the stretcher and laid her down, carefully, handing the IV bag and cord to one of the techs. Then he waved at the uninjured girl sitting on the ground behind him and said "She was in there too, I don't think she's hurt but..." he let the EMTs see for themselves. The girl was clearly broken, terrified and sobbing. If she had family, or any place to go, at that moment, she didn't seem to care. The EMTs glanced at her and nodded at Angel. "We'll take it from here. Thank you." They handed him his trenchcoat and pushed the stretcher into the ambulance. Angel stepped back,
ANGEL: sparing the Slayer a look as he shrugged into his coat and watched the EMTs collect the terrified, yet uninjured victim and trundle her into the ambulence as well. The doors were shut, the ambulence pulled away, and the lights and sirens died off into the distance. Angel glanced at the Slayer again and sighed. "...look, thank you. For what you did. She would have died, if you hadn't been here."
SAMANTHA: The second the ambulence pulls up she ducks into the darkness, watching as everyone goes about their business, staying out of the way and out of sight. When the ambulence finally pulls away she steps out of the alleyway and leans on the wall a little. "hope she's happier for it, I hate to rescue unhappy people." His face doesn't even twitch and she lifts her eyebrows. "joke."
ANGEL: He deadpans: "Funny." Then turns and begins to walk back up the stairs into the trashed rail station.
SAMANTHA: She rolls her eyes and pokes her head into the building, curiosity about him overwhelming her need to run off. "um, BYE!"
ANGEL: "You know, being a Slayer and everything," Angel turned around inside the building, bending down to retrieve his sword and thrusting it towards the markings on the wall, "You might try to make yourself useful. Have you ever seen that before?"
SAMANTHA: "You might try using the word please when making a suggestion. You get more flies with honey and all that." She steps inside and gives the symbol a look over.
ANGEL: "I've never seen this symbol before," Angel was saying, snatching a peice of paper off of the ground and fishing around inside the room for a pencil. He came up with one, buried under some trash, and scribbled the symbol on the wall down on it. "But this isn't the first ritual symbol I've seen in a vampire lair since I came to Chicago. There were two others, both on the south side, both like this one, each u--" he stopped, and blinked, glancing at the girl for real for the first time. "...flies and honey?"
SamanthaMulder13: She looks over the symbol for quite a while. "Looks sortof familiar, but I have no idea where I've seen it." She walks in a little circle near the symbol when he intterrupts her thoughts. "....more flies with honey than vinegar."
OctoberRomantic: He thought about that for a moment. "...who wanted flies?" He shook his head and stepped forward, offering her the scribbled-on peice of paper. "Here, take it. Maybe your Watcher can look it up."
SamanthaMulder13: She sighs and shakes her head. "Nevermind." She looks at the piece of paper in his hand and pauses before looking up at him. "Don't waste your time, I don't have one."
OctoberRomantic: He glanced down at the peice of paper in his hand and frowned. "You... what? What happenned to your Watcher?"
SamanthaMulder13: "He was fired."
OctoberRomantic: He stared at her for a minute, then half chuckled, half snorted. "I'm... guessing you did the firing."
SamanthaMulder13: She nods, folding her arms over her chest and smirking. "He was incompetant."
OctoberRomantic: He actually sympathized on that point. He half snorted, half laughed this time. "Well, in my experience, most of them are." The smile died, and he took in the nature of her clothing, her general appearance. "Friends, family?"
SamanthaMulder13: She smirks and drops her arms. "Just me right now, after the watcher, and since the last boyfriend and all."
OctoberRomantic: He sized her up. She was an attractive, very attractive girl, and from the look of her hair, she had at one point put a lot of effort into making herself look nice. But now... well, the words was grunge. And grunge, with no Watcher, no family, no friends, meant no money, and probably, nothing nice by way of places to stay. "...where are you living?" He asked her, softly, his frustration with her suddenly abandoned.
SamanthaMulder13: Samantha watched him look her over and narrowed her eyes slightly, cocking her head. Her mind ran along and connected the dots. "I've got a place, not all that far from here."
OctoberRomantic: He raised his hands slowly, trying to put up arms - no pun intended - and breach the wall between them. "Would... that ...place look ... about the same as this did before the walls came down?"
SamanthaMulder13: She raises an eyebrow and pauses, not sure how exactly she wants to paint her situation. "No, my place has curtains."
OctoberRomantic: He looked down, grimacing slightly. "...Why don't you come back to my place, then, for ... a little while," He said, softly. "I have books. Not ... as many as a Watcher I know would have had, but... maybe we can find out what these symbols mean, and ... who is putting them here, and why. Also, it'll give you a chance to ... clean up." He looked up at her, feeling awkard and uncomfortable. He didn't usually open up to people - or invite them into his home. But she was a Slayer. Maybe she could help. "Maybe we can help each other," he said out loud, echoing his own thoughts. "My name is Angel."
SAMANTHA: She watches him out of one eye while he speaks, looking for any pretense or second meaning in his words. Something about the way he spoke was absolutely earnest, which made her immedeatley assume he was of the worst kind. No one was honestly earnest in Samantha's opinion. But her price had gone down a little since poverty hit her. "you have a tub at your place?"
ANGEL: He smiled at that, finally, a real smile. "And running water, too. And shampoo and soap and bubb---umm... mousse, and... oh, and ...no food. But, I can remedy that. I live right below a pizza parlor. I'll just eat the delivery driver." He walked past her for a moment, then turned and winked at her. "Joke. Are you coming?"
ANGEL: He smiles and at his words she quickly returns it, her face lighting up at the prospect of a bath and a square meal. She turns to follow him and stops for a moment till he clears up that he's joking. She smirks and catches up with him, walking along by his side. She'd worry about what exactly he wanted from her later on. "Then I think we can, I'm Samantha."
ANGEL: "Welcome to Chicago, Samantha," Angel said, leading her out of the subway station. "Welcome to Windy City."
SKIPPING AHEAD
ANGEL: Angel walked through the hallway of his underground tenement and knocked on the closed bathroom door, balancing a box of pizza in his right hand. "Samantha? I...I brought some food. Come on out ...um, whenever you're hungry." He set the pizza on the dining room table, and then looked at the table for a minute, confused. It seemed to be missing something. It wasn't that he ever sat there to eat, so... oh! Chairs! He went into the study and retrieved an 18th century wooden chair and lifted it, gently moving to set it down on the floor next to the table. Then he went back into the office, retrieved three books from his couch - two opened, one not, and three sheets of scritched and scribbled on paper and went back into the dining room, where he set the books on the table and began to thumb through them.
SAMANTHA: Samantha hadn't been so very content in a long time, since she'd drawn that very thin line in the sand of her life bettween carefree teenager and responsible adult. She had the unfortunate experience of remebering a time when things in her life could be done for entirely selfish reasons, and laying in the tub giving herself a good scrub down gave her a moment of that time back.
SAMANTHA: She emergd from the bathroom almost transformed. All the makeup was gone and half wet hair hung around her shoulders. She'd shed a few layers because it was plenty warm in the apartment and now she just wore a snug pair of jeans and a worn tanktop, the phony jewelry removed from her nose.
ANGEL: Angel looked up as she entered, a pleasant smile on his face. "Oh, hey. I think, maybe... I" he glanced down at the book, paused for a moment, blinked, and glanced back up at her, and this time his smile was a hint warmer. "You look very nice. Refreshed?"
SAMANTHA: She grins and plops down in the chair set out. "Very. Who'd have thought there was a perfectly normal looking girl under all that, huh?" She picks up a slice of pizza. "Well- maybe not normal."
ANGEL: Angel smiled and leaned against the kitchen countertop, setting a book down in front of her. "There. The symbol from the rail station." He leaned over her, laying the scribbled peice of paper down on the pages, comparing the book's version of the six-pointed tentactle against the one Angel had copied down. "It's a triggering spell for a summoning ritual. Requires a mass feeding."
SAMANTHA: She leans toward the book, very relieved she doesn't have to do any searching in books or figuring out, she seems to have completely missed that part. No need to embarass herself too deeply on that front just now. "what were they summoning? Something bigger and scarier?" Wasn't that always the case?
ANGEL: "Ahh... apparently, some of the Vampires in the city thought that it would be a good idea to resurrect the Master, bring forth his spirit out of the blood of the dying and," he read further into the book, 'craft him in the flesh of the sheep, a god among men.' They plan to give him his body back again." Angel leaned over Samantha and retrieved a second book, flipping the pages over to reach a bookmark in the center. "This ritual is ... also for the Master, but it's a different variety. Apparently the vampires are quibbling over whether to bring him back as a vampire or a demon or a human." As Angel pulled the book closer to them, he caught the scent of of the Slayer's skin, the heat of her body, and he coughed, straightening and stepping back a pace. "...sorry. The ... concept of personal space escapes me sometimes."
SAMANTHA: She tilts her head up toward him so she can keep one eye on him as he spoke, not liking the sound of of vampires trying to resurrect the master of anything. "I'm putting a vote in for human, I mean yeah it's sort of lazy, but I'm guessing nobody wants to meet this guy with super strength." He gets closer, presumably to read what's on the pages of the book, and she briefly wonders if he wears cologne or actually just smells that good. If he's planning on taking advantage of the situation, she's finding herself minding less and less. "I don't mind."
ANGEL: Angel glanced up, looking at the back of her head, and blinked. "Umm.. well, the Master. ... Have you, do you know about the Master? He was... a few years before you became a slayer."
SAMANTHA: She gives a wince that last about half a second and leans on her hand. "Gotta be honest, I've never been a dedicated student. I don't really organize this stuff, or read the history, or wonder why vampires are writing crazy symbols on walls..."
ANGEL: He smiled at her, not that she could see him, and moved around the room to stand in front of her. "The Master is... uh... was, a very old vampire. Not as old as some of the vampires I've known but... he had a - ahh -- a certain power over them. He could order them to do his bidding, and he was ... immensely powerful. Not ... not physically, really, but in other ways. He almost killed the Slayer."
SAMANTHA: She nods a little. "So he's like a vampire celebrity who's going to inspire his hundreds of little groupies to bgger and better evil when and if he comes back?" By Angel's tone Samantha knew she should be impressed by this guy nearly killing off a slayer, but the way she figured, that wasn't a hard thing to do, all depending on the slayer, of course.
ANGEL: "We-- well, yeah," Angel grinned slightly and shrugged his shoulders. "Buffy didn't think he was all that much either. I don't know why, maybe it's the Vampire in me, but I've always been afraid of him. Well, except for when I was.. umm..." he opened the pizza box, took out a slice, and stuck it in his mouth.
SAMANTHA: Now Buffy she'd heard of. History didn't interest Samantha, but gossip did, and though slayers weren't exactly talked about on the street, it was hard to ignore news about other slayers. She personally found it irritating that she wasn't all so unique as she'd thought. She wondered if him saying, "The Vampire in me" meant there were non-vampire parts of him. It wasn't as if he could be partly dead or something. She smirks a little, knowing that a subject he's wanting to avoid has to be interesting. "except for when you were what, dating his sister?"
ANGEL: Angel smiled and pointedly ignored that particular topic. He checked the clock and saw that the sun was going to be up soon. "Well, at any rate, they wont be resurrecting the Master tonight. They'll have to wait until tomorrow." He stood up and walked around behind Samantha, turning on the light for the living room. "I have a couch in here, I'll make up the bed for you..." He glanced back, over his shoulder. "... I mean, you're welcome to, ah... stay. The place you're living doesn't... sound very... nice."
SAMANTHA: She'd been thinking about what to do since she'd seen how comfortable he was living. The little crappy apartment she lived in was crappy, but it meant independence. Then again, she figured, the front door wasn't locked as far as she knew and if she really wanted to desert she could always do so during daylight. She'd come around to a "wait and see" type plan. "Really? That's it?"
ANGEL: "Well," Angel shrugged his shoulders, slipping his hands into his pockets. "I thought that, we ... I could call the ... Giles, and Buffy, and see about having a Watcher sent here for you, and maybe a... umm... a fund, or a line so you could get a nice place of your own."
SAMANTHA: And as if he'd been walking a thin line on which her pride was precariously balanced, Angel stepped right in it, and her hand went to her bag. "Oh I'm really not interested in trying the whole watcher deal again, and I'm doing alright on my own, thanks."
ANGEL: "Is that why you enjoyed your bath so much?" Angel just let the question lie there, but there it was, once out in the open, it was like a dead weight. "Come on, Samantha, why don't tell me what happenned with your Watcher. With your family. Why are you out here... all alone?"
SAMANTHA: Her arms crossed over her chest again. She barely even knew this guy and he was asking the most personal questions she could think of. It made her angry. Why did everyone presume to get so involved and take control of her life? Couldn't she screw it up just fine on her own? "Jesus, I just thought you were going to make a pass, I wasn't in the market for a psychiatrist."
ANGEL: "Hey..." Angel held up his hands to deflect the defensive. "I'm not... I'm not trying to head shrink you. I'm... really not." He sighed. "I am, well.. trying to help you. That's what we do... help people. I'm not going to take advantage of you, I'm not going to tell you what to do with your life. But I am trying to help you have more hot baths. ... is that a bad thing?"
SAMANTHA: He wasn't responding to her best attempt to start a fight, so she forced a hand through her hair, which was revealing a soft wave as it dried. "I don't want them involved, I don't want anything to do with them."
ANGEL: Angel thought about it for a moment, and then he nodded, acquiesced. "Alright. I wont call them. But you have to let me ... try to help you. For one thing... you smell so much better now." He went for a charming smile, trying to catch her eye.
SAMANTHA: Her grip on her bag releases and she chuckles a bit in spite of herself, because it was probably true. "I do love to practice good hygiene."
ANGEL: "And we can help each other," Angel added, his face more serious now. "Without a Watcher... there's so much about your gifts that you don't know yet. And... I can't be in every place at once. Especially during the day time. If ... we're going to be effective here, each of us on our own, fighting evil, we're going to need help. And... we're not likely to find better help within the limits of the city."
SAMANTHA: I run my hand through my hair, sitting back and watching the girl struggle for breath again. It's wierd to watch, and I find myself a little transfixed for a moment. He thanks me and I shrug a little, looking at him. "I was right here anyway...lucky for you, what with the-" I cough. "-bird flu and all."
ANGEL: "Ahhh, yeah," I managed awkwardly, glancing away. My eye catches sight of the injured girl's wrist, and I frown, taking hold of the girl's pale, almost white fingers and rotating the arm. A crude, still-red brand is scorched into the girl's flesh, a design I've never seen before. I sat back for a moment, thinking, and then got to my feet. "Uhm," I said to the dark haired girl next to me, "I ... forgot," I said, gesturing back at the collapsing rail-station, "to... umm... food. Cause, I need... I'll be right back." I turned and dashed back into the dark structure.
SAMANTHA: She gets up and looks at him like he's completely lost his mind. "You can't go in there, the wole building is coming down!" Of course he doesn't listen, and she rolls her eyes, looking at the two girls and then going to the door of the building, deliberating. "Oh holy shit..." She runs in, looking around.
ANGEL: Angel ducked his head through the doorway and flinched as a peice of heavy concrete came down right in front of him, followed by a sheet of thick white dust that would have choked a human. The floor was shaking, but there was still a way through the rubble, and Angel took it, weaving through cracked support beams and bits of falling ceiling to reach the wall where the injured girl had been shackled. A small coat of dust was on the wall, but he brushed it free and frowned. On the wall there was another symbol - identical to the one on the girl's wrist, but larger, hidden under the dust and by her back when she hung here. "This was ritual," he whispered aloud to no one in particular. "Damnit. I hate it when they do rituals."
SAMANTHA: Samantha sets her hands on her hips, dodging a falling chunk of cement. "What are you doing?? Do you want to get squished?" She sees the flashing lights outside and looks at the roof that's crumbling above them and making all kinds of noise.
ANGEL: Angel whirled at the sound of the girl's voice. "Hey!" He shouted, dashing back across the building, wrapping his arms around the girl and trying to shove her outside with him. "It's not safe in here! Move!"
SAMANTHA: He grabs her and she stiffens, grabbing his shoulder. "Jesus, that was my point!"
ANGEL: "Aahh," He winces at her touch, and a trickle of blood ozes down her fingers from where she grabbed him. "That... " He pulled her hand off of his shoulder and pushed it down to her side, rolling his shoulder one and taking a deep breath. "Leave that ... shoulder... alone." He frowned at her, watching the flashing lights of the ambulances coming closer and closer, and moved down the steps to be near the two rescued women. "You're stronger than you look," he said, bending down to check the unconcious woman's vitals again. "Let me guess. Slayer."
SAMANTHA: She turns her hand over and looks at the blood on her palm. "well don't grab me...." She straightens her shirt a little and looks a little nervous, ready to run off.
"Yeah, what're you, like a good samaritan vampire?"
ANGEL: He turned his head and stared up at her with a tired expression, shaking his head a little, and pointed at the building. "...do you remember where I saved two people from a nest of vampires?" He sighed bent down, picking up the unconcious woman in his arms as the ambulance got closer.
SAMANTHA: "ONE person, actually." Okay it was splitting hairs, but she was a bit irritated by his tone.
ANGEL: "Oh, because you were being such a great help to them, standing on the street corner and waiting for the vampires to come outside and play." The ambulance schreeched to a halt, and almost instantly two EMTs jumped out of the back, pulling out a stretcher and waving Angel over. The vampire carried the injured girl to the stretcher and laid her down, carefully, handing the IV bag and cord to one of the techs. Then he waved at the uninjured girl sitting on the ground behind him and said "She was in there too, I don't think she's hurt but..." he let the EMTs see for themselves. The girl was clearly broken, terrified and sobbing. If she had family, or any place to go, at that moment, she didn't seem to care. The EMTs glanced at her and nodded at Angel. "We'll take it from here. Thank you." They handed him his trenchcoat and pushed the stretcher into the ambulance. Angel stepped back,
ANGEL: sparing the Slayer a look as he shrugged into his coat and watched the EMTs collect the terrified, yet uninjured victim and trundle her into the ambulence as well. The doors were shut, the ambulence pulled away, and the lights and sirens died off into the distance. Angel glanced at the Slayer again and sighed. "...look, thank you. For what you did. She would have died, if you hadn't been here."
SAMANTHA: The second the ambulence pulls up she ducks into the darkness, watching as everyone goes about their business, staying out of the way and out of sight. When the ambulence finally pulls away she steps out of the alleyway and leans on the wall a little. "hope she's happier for it, I hate to rescue unhappy people." His face doesn't even twitch and she lifts her eyebrows. "joke."
ANGEL: He deadpans: "Funny." Then turns and begins to walk back up the stairs into the trashed rail station.
SAMANTHA: She rolls her eyes and pokes her head into the building, curiosity about him overwhelming her need to run off. "um, BYE!"
ANGEL: "You know, being a Slayer and everything," Angel turned around inside the building, bending down to retrieve his sword and thrusting it towards the markings on the wall, "You might try to make yourself useful. Have you ever seen that before?"
SAMANTHA: "You might try using the word please when making a suggestion. You get more flies with honey and all that." She steps inside and gives the symbol a look over.
ANGEL: "I've never seen this symbol before," Angel was saying, snatching a peice of paper off of the ground and fishing around inside the room for a pencil. He came up with one, buried under some trash, and scribbled the symbol on the wall down on it. "But this isn't the first ritual symbol I've seen in a vampire lair since I came to Chicago. There were two others, both on the south side, both like this one, each u--" he stopped, and blinked, glancing at the girl for real for the first time. "...flies and honey?"
SamanthaMulder13: She looks over the symbol for quite a while. "Looks sortof familiar, but I have no idea where I've seen it." She walks in a little circle near the symbol when he intterrupts her thoughts. "....more flies with honey than vinegar."
OctoberRomantic: He thought about that for a moment. "...who wanted flies?" He shook his head and stepped forward, offering her the scribbled-on peice of paper. "Here, take it. Maybe your Watcher can look it up."
SamanthaMulder13: She sighs and shakes her head. "Nevermind." She looks at the piece of paper in his hand and pauses before looking up at him. "Don't waste your time, I don't have one."
OctoberRomantic: He glanced down at the peice of paper in his hand and frowned. "You... what? What happenned to your Watcher?"
SamanthaMulder13: "He was fired."
OctoberRomantic: He stared at her for a minute, then half chuckled, half snorted. "I'm... guessing you did the firing."
SamanthaMulder13: She nods, folding her arms over her chest and smirking. "He was incompetant."
OctoberRomantic: He actually sympathized on that point. He half snorted, half laughed this time. "Well, in my experience, most of them are." The smile died, and he took in the nature of her clothing, her general appearance. "Friends, family?"
SamanthaMulder13: She smirks and drops her arms. "Just me right now, after the watcher, and since the last boyfriend and all."
OctoberRomantic: He sized her up. She was an attractive, very attractive girl, and from the look of her hair, she had at one point put a lot of effort into making herself look nice. But now... well, the words was grunge. And grunge, with no Watcher, no family, no friends, meant no money, and probably, nothing nice by way of places to stay. "...where are you living?" He asked her, softly, his frustration with her suddenly abandoned.
SamanthaMulder13: Samantha watched him look her over and narrowed her eyes slightly, cocking her head. Her mind ran along and connected the dots. "I've got a place, not all that far from here."
OctoberRomantic: He raised his hands slowly, trying to put up arms - no pun intended - and breach the wall between them. "Would... that ...place look ... about the same as this did before the walls came down?"
SamanthaMulder13: She raises an eyebrow and pauses, not sure how exactly she wants to paint her situation. "No, my place has curtains."
OctoberRomantic: He looked down, grimacing slightly. "...Why don't you come back to my place, then, for ... a little while," He said, softly. "I have books. Not ... as many as a Watcher I know would have had, but... maybe we can find out what these symbols mean, and ... who is putting them here, and why. Also, it'll give you a chance to ... clean up." He looked up at her, feeling awkard and uncomfortable. He didn't usually open up to people - or invite them into his home. But she was a Slayer. Maybe she could help. "Maybe we can help each other," he said out loud, echoing his own thoughts. "My name is Angel."
SAMANTHA: She watches him out of one eye while he speaks, looking for any pretense or second meaning in his words. Something about the way he spoke was absolutely earnest, which made her immedeatley assume he was of the worst kind. No one was honestly earnest in Samantha's opinion. But her price had gone down a little since poverty hit her. "you have a tub at your place?"
ANGEL: He smiled at that, finally, a real smile. "And running water, too. And shampoo and soap and bubb---umm... mousse, and... oh, and ...no food. But, I can remedy that. I live right below a pizza parlor. I'll just eat the delivery driver." He walked past her for a moment, then turned and winked at her. "Joke. Are you coming?"
ANGEL: He smiles and at his words she quickly returns it, her face lighting up at the prospect of a bath and a square meal. She turns to follow him and stops for a moment till he clears up that he's joking. She smirks and catches up with him, walking along by his side. She'd worry about what exactly he wanted from her later on. "Then I think we can, I'm Samantha."
ANGEL: "Welcome to Chicago, Samantha," Angel said, leading her out of the subway station. "Welcome to Windy City."
SKIPPING AHEAD
ANGEL: Angel walked through the hallway of his underground tenement and knocked on the closed bathroom door, balancing a box of pizza in his right hand. "Samantha? I...I brought some food. Come on out ...um, whenever you're hungry." He set the pizza on the dining room table, and then looked at the table for a minute, confused. It seemed to be missing something. It wasn't that he ever sat there to eat, so... oh! Chairs! He went into the study and retrieved an 18th century wooden chair and lifted it, gently moving to set it down on the floor next to the table. Then he went back into the office, retrieved three books from his couch - two opened, one not, and three sheets of scritched and scribbled on paper and went back into the dining room, where he set the books on the table and began to thumb through them.
SAMANTHA: Samantha hadn't been so very content in a long time, since she'd drawn that very thin line in the sand of her life bettween carefree teenager and responsible adult. She had the unfortunate experience of remebering a time when things in her life could be done for entirely selfish reasons, and laying in the tub giving herself a good scrub down gave her a moment of that time back.
SAMANTHA: She emergd from the bathroom almost transformed. All the makeup was gone and half wet hair hung around her shoulders. She'd shed a few layers because it was plenty warm in the apartment and now she just wore a snug pair of jeans and a worn tanktop, the phony jewelry removed from her nose.
ANGEL: Angel looked up as she entered, a pleasant smile on his face. "Oh, hey. I think, maybe... I" he glanced down at the book, paused for a moment, blinked, and glanced back up at her, and this time his smile was a hint warmer. "You look very nice. Refreshed?"
SAMANTHA: She grins and plops down in the chair set out. "Very. Who'd have thought there was a perfectly normal looking girl under all that, huh?" She picks up a slice of pizza. "Well- maybe not normal."
ANGEL: Angel smiled and leaned against the kitchen countertop, setting a book down in front of her. "There. The symbol from the rail station." He leaned over her, laying the scribbled peice of paper down on the pages, comparing the book's version of the six-pointed tentactle against the one Angel had copied down. "It's a triggering spell for a summoning ritual. Requires a mass feeding."
SAMANTHA: She leans toward the book, very relieved she doesn't have to do any searching in books or figuring out, she seems to have completely missed that part. No need to embarass herself too deeply on that front just now. "what were they summoning? Something bigger and scarier?" Wasn't that always the case?
ANGEL: "Ahh... apparently, some of the Vampires in the city thought that it would be a good idea to resurrect the Master, bring forth his spirit out of the blood of the dying and," he read further into the book, 'craft him in the flesh of the sheep, a god among men.' They plan to give him his body back again." Angel leaned over Samantha and retrieved a second book, flipping the pages over to reach a bookmark in the center. "This ritual is ... also for the Master, but it's a different variety. Apparently the vampires are quibbling over whether to bring him back as a vampire or a demon or a human." As Angel pulled the book closer to them, he caught the scent of of the Slayer's skin, the heat of her body, and he coughed, straightening and stepping back a pace. "...sorry. The ... concept of personal space escapes me sometimes."
SAMANTHA: She tilts her head up toward him so she can keep one eye on him as he spoke, not liking the sound of of vampires trying to resurrect the master of anything. "I'm putting a vote in for human, I mean yeah it's sort of lazy, but I'm guessing nobody wants to meet this guy with super strength." He gets closer, presumably to read what's on the pages of the book, and she briefly wonders if he wears cologne or actually just smells that good. If he's planning on taking advantage of the situation, she's finding herself minding less and less. "I don't mind."
ANGEL: Angel glanced up, looking at the back of her head, and blinked. "Umm.. well, the Master. ... Have you, do you know about the Master? He was... a few years before you became a slayer."
SAMANTHA: She gives a wince that last about half a second and leans on her hand. "Gotta be honest, I've never been a dedicated student. I don't really organize this stuff, or read the history, or wonder why vampires are writing crazy symbols on walls..."
ANGEL: He smiled at her, not that she could see him, and moved around the room to stand in front of her. "The Master is... uh... was, a very old vampire. Not as old as some of the vampires I've known but... he had a - ahh -- a certain power over them. He could order them to do his bidding, and he was ... immensely powerful. Not ... not physically, really, but in other ways. He almost killed the Slayer."
SAMANTHA: She nods a little. "So he's like a vampire celebrity who's going to inspire his hundreds of little groupies to bgger and better evil when and if he comes back?" By Angel's tone Samantha knew she should be impressed by this guy nearly killing off a slayer, but the way she figured, that wasn't a hard thing to do, all depending on the slayer, of course.
ANGEL: "We-- well, yeah," Angel grinned slightly and shrugged his shoulders. "Buffy didn't think he was all that much either. I don't know why, maybe it's the Vampire in me, but I've always been afraid of him. Well, except for when I was.. umm..." he opened the pizza box, took out a slice, and stuck it in his mouth.
SAMANTHA: Now Buffy she'd heard of. History didn't interest Samantha, but gossip did, and though slayers weren't exactly talked about on the street, it was hard to ignore news about other slayers. She personally found it irritating that she wasn't all so unique as she'd thought. She wondered if him saying, "The Vampire in me" meant there were non-vampire parts of him. It wasn't as if he could be partly dead or something. She smirks a little, knowing that a subject he's wanting to avoid has to be interesting. "except for when you were what, dating his sister?"
ANGEL: Angel smiled and pointedly ignored that particular topic. He checked the clock and saw that the sun was going to be up soon. "Well, at any rate, they wont be resurrecting the Master tonight. They'll have to wait until tomorrow." He stood up and walked around behind Samantha, turning on the light for the living room. "I have a couch in here, I'll make up the bed for you..." He glanced back, over his shoulder. "... I mean, you're welcome to, ah... stay. The place you're living doesn't... sound very... nice."
SAMANTHA: She'd been thinking about what to do since she'd seen how comfortable he was living. The little crappy apartment she lived in was crappy, but it meant independence. Then again, she figured, the front door wasn't locked as far as she knew and if she really wanted to desert she could always do so during daylight. She'd come around to a "wait and see" type plan. "Really? That's it?"
ANGEL: "Well," Angel shrugged his shoulders, slipping his hands into his pockets. "I thought that, we ... I could call the ... Giles, and Buffy, and see about having a Watcher sent here for you, and maybe a... umm... a fund, or a line so you could get a nice place of your own."
SAMANTHA: And as if he'd been walking a thin line on which her pride was precariously balanced, Angel stepped right in it, and her hand went to her bag. "Oh I'm really not interested in trying the whole watcher deal again, and I'm doing alright on my own, thanks."
ANGEL: "Is that why you enjoyed your bath so much?" Angel just let the question lie there, but there it was, once out in the open, it was like a dead weight. "Come on, Samantha, why don't tell me what happenned with your Watcher. With your family. Why are you out here... all alone?"
SAMANTHA: Her arms crossed over her chest again. She barely even knew this guy and he was asking the most personal questions she could think of. It made her angry. Why did everyone presume to get so involved and take control of her life? Couldn't she screw it up just fine on her own? "Jesus, I just thought you were going to make a pass, I wasn't in the market for a psychiatrist."
ANGEL: "Hey..." Angel held up his hands to deflect the defensive. "I'm not... I'm not trying to head shrink you. I'm... really not." He sighed. "I am, well.. trying to help you. That's what we do... help people. I'm not going to take advantage of you, I'm not going to tell you what to do with your life. But I am trying to help you have more hot baths. ... is that a bad thing?"
SAMANTHA: He wasn't responding to her best attempt to start a fight, so she forced a hand through her hair, which was revealing a soft wave as it dried. "I don't want them involved, I don't want anything to do with them."
ANGEL: Angel thought about it for a moment, and then he nodded, acquiesced. "Alright. I wont call them. But you have to let me ... try to help you. For one thing... you smell so much better now." He went for a charming smile, trying to catch her eye.
SAMANTHA: Her grip on her bag releases and she chuckles a bit in spite of herself, because it was probably true. "I do love to practice good hygiene."
ANGEL: "And we can help each other," Angel added, his face more serious now. "Without a Watcher... there's so much about your gifts that you don't know yet. And... I can't be in every place at once. Especially during the day time. If ... we're going to be effective here, each of us on our own, fighting evil, we're going to need help. And... we're not likely to find better help within the limits of the city."