Fighting Back, sequel to Not At All and Making Do
Title: Fighting Back
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Angel, Cordelia, the McAllister twins, Connor, Lucas, the Scoobies
Pairings: Angel/Cordelia with residual Buffy/Angel, Willow/Kennedy, Xander/Dawn, and mentions of Buffy/Spike
Summary: Sixteen years after “You’re Welcome”, six after Not At All and Making Do, Angel’s new family returns to Scotland.
Disclaimer: Most of the characters (sans Bella and Henry McAllister, Lucas Jacob Reilly, and a few select Slayers) aren't mine, but the situation is.
Author’s Note: Lengthy threequel to continue the series started in Not At All, which (along with Part 2, Making Do) should probably be read before reading this (not for plot reasons, but at least for, who the frak are these people? reasons.) Again, continuing the quest for A/C without Buffy bashing.
Chapter One: A Weakness For Blonde Slayers
Lucas Jacob Reilly is the grandson of Angel, the vampire with a soul, formerly Angelus, the Scourge of Europe. He is the grandson of Angelus’s sire, Darla, feared for 400 years on several continents. He is the son of the Destroyer-turned-accountant Connor Reilly, to whom demons bowed in fear and for whom history was rewritten. But you wouldn’t know that to look at him. At six, he is a tiny, purely human child, slight and thin, fragile and silent. A soft dusting of pale blond hair, from his mother and paternal grandmother, falls into deep brown eyes from his paternal grandfather.
Like his father before him, he has no recollection of his biological mother, and though, like the twins he considers siblings, he does not use the label “mother” for one Cordelia Chase, she is the one who raised him, just as would have been for his father had not fate intervened. He has none of the strength of his grandfather, father, and Slayer-sister, none of the supernatural powers of his surrogate brother and mother. His body betrays him, and the only skill he’s mastered over the past six years is hiding.
“Hey there, bubba,” a warm voice from beside him greets. “Bella and Henry brought some food from the café car. Here’s a sandwich.”
Face pressed to the cold glass of the night train, watching the moors trickle by as they’re soaked by a rainstorm, Lucas flicks his eyes briefly to his Cordy, even granting her a smile as he takes the warm sandwich from her.
“Little man. Juice?”
Lucas nods to Henry as the older boy slides into the seat across from his, handing off a bottle of apple juice.
“Are we close, Cordy?” Bella asks, plopping down beside her twin brother. Her blonde hair, light like Lucas’s, is pulled back in a loose ponytail as usual. Though there is no biological connection, Lucas could very easily pass as the twins’ actual little brother. “I don’t remember from last time.”
“That’s ‘cause you were unconscious, Bella-bear,” Henry grins, winking at Lucas as Bella’s hand traces the bite scare at her neck. “Where’re Angel and Connor?”
“Doing a sweep of the train,” Cordy answers, looking nervously out the window. “We’ll be there soon.”
***
“Whoa there, little princess. TJ, slow down!” Xander calls, his voice echoing down the stone hallway. His three-year-old daughter pretends not to hear him and continues hell-bent in search of Aunt Buffy. “TJ, I’m serious. Get back here!”
The dark-haired little girl glances back over her shoulder at him and continues running.
“Tara Joyce,” he sighs. His next reproach is cut off by the blaring of the breach alarms, and TJ turns wide, terrified green eyes to him as she freezes in fear. He’s by her side in a few long strides and scoops her up with ease.
The toddler sticks her fingers in her ears and squeezes her eyes shut, tears escaping.
“Don’t worry, princess. You’re safe with Daddy,” he assures her, hurrying to meet up with the rest of the inner circle. As he bursts into their ready room, TJ cries out for her mother and leaps into Dawn’s arms.
“What’s the deal?” Xander asks after placing a reassuring kiss on his daughter’s temple. He studies the screens surrounding the room, full of Slayers on full alert… and no one to fight them.
“Definite breaches. Six,” Willow tells him from her place at the computer station.
“But the sentries report no visual confirmation. They say they’re alone,” Kennedy fills him in.
“And the alarm system has never gone off for no reason,” Willow reiterates.
“There’s nothing out there,” Buffy announces, ax in hand, as she bursts into the room, frustrated.
“Which means it’s already inside,” Giles notes, voice as calm as ever.
“I’m not picking anything up inside,” Willow reports.
“Looking for us?” a new voice interjects. The voice is vaguely familiar, as is the blonde teenage girl who drops from the ceiling in between Willow and Xander. She lands with an extraordinary grace that is all-too-familiar: a Slayer.
“You’ve really got to work on the security here,” another, even more familiar voice adds, dropping on the other side of Xander.
“Angel?!” Buffy and Xander exclaim in unison.
“Far too easy, really,” another, vaguely accented voice joins them, landing to complete the triangle. This new arrival is a thirty-something man, as deadly graceful as a Slayer.
“If I had known it was this easy, I wouldn’t’ve knocked last time.” The last figure doesn’t drop as much as float in like the Higher Being she is.
“Cordelia?” Giles questions. He swings around to the blonde girl. “So this must be…”
“The McAlister twins, at your service,” Henry finishes for him, landing beside his sister, a young boy perched on his back. “Giles, right?”
“Henry?” Kennedy smiles.
The teen boy grins in return and embraces the Slayer. “Hey, Kennedy. How’ve you been?”
Willow gets up to hug the boy as well.
“And who’s this?” she questions, looking to the kid Henry has lowered to the floor. At the attention, Lucas runs over to Cordy and buries his face in her middle.
“Oh, hey, it’s okay, Luke,” Bella calls over to him. “These guys are good guys.”
With a smile most of the former Scoobies would deem uncharacteristic, Angel grabs the little boy in his arms.
“This is my grandson, Lucas,” he announces proudly. “Wave hello, buddy.”
Head tucked shyly on Angel’s shoulder, Lucas waves to the room, nerves obvious in the deep brown eyes he’s inherited from Angel.
“You must be Connor,” Buffy says, turning her attention to the other unfamiliar face in the room.
Connor nods affirmative. Buffy marvels at the traces of Angel in his face, though he now looks more older brother than son. Angel and Cordelia, immortal, and undead, as they are, look no more than twenty-five. She notes that the man has yet to even look at his son.
“What are you guys doing here?” Xander asks Cordelia as she, Angel, and the twins greet their friends.
“We don’t need to talk about that right now,” Cordy smiles, enveloping him in a hug. Smile still in place, she asks: “Is that pretty little girl yours?”
“She is,” Xander beams. “TJ, princess, come here.”
Hesitant in the face of strangers, the girl cautiously makes her way over.
“Hello,” she says, fingers in her mouth.
“Hello, TJ. I’m Cordy. Your daddy’s friend.”
Wrapped around Xander’s leg, TJ waves and offers a tentative smile.
Across the room, Angel is surprised at how not awkward his reunion with Buffy is.
“How old are you, Lucas?” Buffy asks the boy in Angel’s arms, much better with kids now that she’s an aunt.
“He’s six,” Angel answers for him.
“Oh, wow. So not long after…”
“No, not long after.”
“So, you’ve been well?”
“We’ve been surviving,” Angel answers honestly. “It gets rough, and it’s not the ideal life I’d like for Lucas or the twins, but they’re doing well. The twins especially. They get stronger every day.” Lucas squirms against him, interrupting Angel’s train of thought. “All right, buddy, go get your Cordy.”
Lucas complies, eagerly hurrying to Cordelia’s side and slipping his hand in hers.
“He’s shy,” Buffy notes.
“A little.”
“He hasn’t said a word since he got here.”
“He doesn’t,” Angel says, eyes getting troubled. “Speak, I mean. Never has.”
“Oh.”
“We’ve adapted. He’s not dumb. He just… doesn’t speak.”
“And his mom?”
A cloud passes over Angel’s face. “Killed by Wolfram and Hart. When he was a week old.”
“Hey, Angel,” Henry interrupts with a hand on Angel’s shoulder and an apologetic half-smile at Buffy. To the Slayer’s ears, it sounds more like “Hey, Dad.”
Henry, at sixteen, has grown into a handsome young man with a charming smile and short, messy hair a strange mixture between red and blond.
“What’s up, Henry?”
“I was wondering if we could impose on our hosts for a hot meal, warm showers, and clean beds,” he says, suddenly looking very tired.
“Of course,” Buffy finds herself smiling in return. “Let’s get you settled.”
“I’ll round up the troops.”
As Henry goes about, earning a barely visible grin from Connor, a laugh from his pretty sister, and a million-watt smile from Cordelia, Angel turns his attention to Buffy.
“We just need a place to crash for a while. Henry’s been getting some cryptic dreams, which is strange for him. They’re usually pretty straight forward. All he can tell so far is that something big is about to happen. Cordy and I figured we’d like to be here when it happens.”
“What about everyone who’s after the twins?”
“That’s begun to taper off.”
Off Buffy’s puzzled look, Angel elaborates, “They can fight back.”
***
“South and east are all clear,” Connor reports, appearing over the top of the castle wall and landing next to Angel. Knowing Connor, he probably scaled the wall to get there. Angel takes a moment to study his son.
His hair is kept short and out of his eyes, the most physical proof that he’s no longer the troubled, brooding teenager who punched a portal from Quor’toth and stared angrily out from underneath stringy bangs. His lean, deadly frame has filled out with age, but he still moves silently and sinisterly. Sometimes Angel pines for the angst-filled, homicidal boy of yore, because at least that Connor had some sort of emotion.
“North and west clear, too,” Bella reports, dropping from the balustrade above to land at Angel’s other side.
Unlike most Slayers, the fatal grace of her destined powers infused her body in utero, grew with her through childhood and adolescence. She’s never known what it is to be a normal girl. With her usually sweet manner, the death and destruction she can easily create are quite the juxtaposition.
“You know, we’ve got it under control,” Xander adds hesitantly behind them, eying the trio. He’s never really seen Angel in this General-mode, hasn’t seen in action the strange hybrid of family and battle squad forged by six years of war on the run.
Angel ignores the other man, focusing instead on his son and the girl who’s become his daughter.
“Nothing suspicious?”
“Everything in order,” Bella nods. “Their Slayers are keeping watch.”
“We got past them,” Connor notes, accusingly.
“We had an inside man,” Bella counters. “Angel knew the defenses. We’ll be fine.”
“I’d like to take another loop of the moor,” Connor announces, earning an eye-roll from Bella.
“You just want to avoid being social.”
They bicker like crazy, but Bella is the only one Connor comes close to opening up to. Whether it’s their kindred inner demons or growing up unlike normal children, Angel is unsure, but he is nevertheless grateful for their relationship.
“Be careful,” Angel calls after Connor as he drops from the wall.
“Whoa,” Xander says, getting odd looks in freakish unison from Bella and Angel. “Sorry, not used to guys being able to do stuff like that.”
Bella smiles kindly.
“He’s a boy Slayer,” she says, referencing the frequent teasing the twins give Connor.
“Something like that,” Angel laughs, slinging an arm around Bella and pulling her close. “Let’s get you to bed, young lady.”
“Whatever, old man.”
Still teasing, they disappear into the castle after a perfunctory, “’Night, Xander.”
Looking out over the nightscape, Xander calls, “Hello, Buffy.”
The original Slayer of this generation slips down from her perch on the tower above.
“Developing extra senses?”
“Just know you.”
“He’s different.”
“He’s happy.”
“He loves that girl.”
That earns a smile from Xander. “He’s always had a weakness for blonde Slayers.”
“I didn’t expect them to come back. Have you talked to Cordelia at all?”
“No, not much. She’s been looking after Lucas a lot. Can you believe Angel’s got a grandkid?”
“I still can’t believe he has a kid. I mean, I knew about Connor, but…”
“Looks older than all of them,” Xander notes with half a chuckle.
“Immortality’s a bitch.”
“How are you holding up with him back?”
“I knew why he was leaving, Xan’. I’m glad he’s happy. He really loves her.”
“He really loved you.”
“Emphasis on the tense,” Buffy offers with a soft grin. “Don’t worry about it, brother-in-law. Shouldn’t you be tucking my niece in?”
Xander checks his watch. “Crap! See ya later, Buff’.”
Xander’s phone rings and on the other end Buffy hears, “Daddy, you’re late!”
***
Angel slips into the room he’s sharing with Cordelia and is pleased to see no one else seems to be sleeping there, as is often frequently the case. He strips to his boxers and climbs under the covers already warm from her body temperature. He likes to complain that she gets to be powerful and immortal without any of the limitations of vampirism. The complaint is usually met with a signature eye-roll the twins have learned to copy and a playful admonishment to stop whining.
“Where’s Lucas?” he questions after pressing a kiss to her neck. Though he is glad they don’t have to share their space with his grandson, he is concerned as to his whereabouts.
“With Henry. They’re having a boy sleep-over,” Cordelia answers sleepily, turning over to greet him. “Bella and Connor?”
“Bella’s going to bed. Connor’s doing another round of the perimeter.”
“Being anti-social.”
“According to Bella, yes.”
“This place is so much comfier than that place in London,” she luxuriates, stretching and then settling her head on his shoulder, her body molded to the side of his.
“We have our own room,” Angel notes.
“Yeah, thank god. Your grandson is a kicker. I think I have bruises,” she yawns.
“Aren’t you practically invincible?”
“Well, if you wanna get all technical about it…”
Angel smiles and lets her drift off to sleep, arm wrapped tight around her. He can’t imagine how he went two and a half centuries falling asleep without her.
***
TBC