Faithfully Dangerous- Chapter 17
On we go...
Previous parts can be found here.
Chapter 17
Angel hadn’t seen Fred in days, or maybe it was weeks-certainly not since she had informed him that she was leaving Wolfram & Hart. She looked good, though, in her faded jeans and t-shirt; the tension that had been in her face the last time he’d seen her was gone.
Gunn, on the other hand, was a different story.
“Come on in,” Fred said, waving them to a seat on her couch. Gunn was slumped on one of the chairs from Fred’s tiny kitchen table, his head in his hands. “Cordy.”
Angel stepped back to allow the two women to embrace, holding one another tightly. “It’s good to see you, Fred.” Angel’s sharp ears caught Cordelia’s murmured words.
“How are you feeling?”
“Good,” Cordy said. “Hey, Gunn.”
The dark-skinned man roused himself enough to rise and give her a brief, hard hug. “How’s it goin’?”
“I feel like I should be asking you that question,” she replied, giving him a searching look. “We should sit.”
There was a moment of silence as they all got settled, and Angel waited for one of the others to speak first.
“When is Wesley going to be back?” Cordelia was the one to ask the question, probably because at some point in the last day or so they had come up with a plan. One that would likely get them all killed, but it was a plan, and they would likely take a few of the bad guys out with them.
Fred shook her head. “I don’t know. I tried calling Faith, but no one is answering the phone.”
Angel hesitated. “Maybe we should wait to do this until he gets back. I don’t want to have to go over this more than once.”
“We’ve got another problem,” Gunn said in a hollow voice. “I’m losin’ what they gave me.”
“I don’t understand.”
The man finally met Angel’s eyes. “I’m not going to be of any use to you. Turns out that the upgrade they gave me wasn’t permanent. All the legal knowledge-it’s fading.”
Angel glanced at Cordelia. There was naked compassion on her face, and she rose, going over to him and pulling him into a hug. He watched as she whispered into his ear, and he could just make out what she said. “It doesn’t matter. We need you.”
That much was true, Angel had to admit; they did need him. He wouldn’t go so far as to admit that it didn’t matter, but there was no way he would say that out loud. Cordelia would kill him.
“It might be for the best.” Angel cleared his throat. “We think that the strike needs to be made now.”
“Strike?” Fred echoed. “What do you mean?”
He glanced at Cordy, who nodded, indicating that he should continue. “The Black Thorn is the group that essentially represents the physical arm of the Senior Partners,” Angel explained. “They want an apocalypse, and if we wait too much longer, they’ll be too strong for us to stop.”
“So what do we do?” Gunn asked.
“We take them out, all at the same time.” Angel took a deep breath. This is where things got sticky. “I know who a few of them are, but not all of them. In order to find out, I need to get in.”
Fred’s eyes widened in alarm. “How?”
“By channeling Angelus.” Cordelia looked at him wryly. “Which is why you guys needed to know-so you wouldn’t stake him.”
Angel watched as Fred and Gunn exchanged looks. He could see the apprehension there, and he understood. “What do you want us to do?”
Fred was the one to ask, and Angel could see the determination on her face; she looked much the same as she had when she had given him the speech about standing up to the inevitable. It appeared that she still had faith in him, even after everything.
They all knew the truth about Connor now, and the truth really had set them free.
“Nothing for right now,” Angel replied. “We need to talk with Wes and Faith, as well as the other Slayers. I don’t want to set this in motion until everybody is on board, because once I play my hand, there will be no going back.”
Fred and Gunn both murmured an agreement.
“Take some time off,” Angel said to Gunn. “Call in sick. There’s no point in leaving until we know for sure that staying would be fruitless.”
Gunn sighed. “Yeah, okay.”
Angel glanced at Cordelia, who was watching the entire scene with an expression he couldn’t quite read. This was the end of the road for both of them he thought. Unless a miracle happened, this would be their last fight.
~~~~~
“Here.” Faith handed Connor a cup of coffee. “I can’t promise that it’s any good; I haven’t tried it yet.”
“That’s fine.”
His eyes were hollow and dark with pain. Faith sat down next to him on the couch in the office. “I’m sorry about your folks.”
“Yeah.”
“Look, I don’t know if you have relatives or somebody to stay with in the area, but you’re welcome here. There’s plenty of room.”
Connor looked up at her. “I want to know how you knew me. You recognized me.”
Faith had wanted to wait for Wesley to get back before getting into this. How the hell was she supposed to explain this to the poor kid? She owed him an explanation, though. He’d been pretty patient through the whole thing-from calling the police to the trip down to the station to give their statements.
Faith hadn’t bothered trying to explain the bodies of the dead demons to the cops. She’d simply told the officers that they were a girls’ lacrosse team headed home from practice when they’d stumbled onto the scene of the attack. She didn’t much care how much of that story they believed as long as they didn’t arrest any of them.
The cops apparently decided not to ask a lot of questions, and the trip to the station was a quick one. Connor backed up their tale, and they let them all go.
And now they were back at the hotel, and Faith had no excuses for not telling the kid what he wanted to know.
“Look, it’s not that I don’t want to tell you, it’s that I don’t think you’re going to believe me.”
“I wouldn’t believe you?” Connor asked incredulously, the anger rising in his voice. “My parents were killed by demons and I found out that I’m practically indestructible. What could you possibly tell me that I wouldn’t believe after all of that?”
Faith had to acknowledge that he had a point. “Yeah. Okay. We met last year.”
“That’s impossible,” he said flatly. “I think I’d remember.”
“You would, except that your memories were altered. Ours were too, but we did a spell that put them back.”
Connor shook his head. “I don’t believe you. You’re lying.”
“Why the hell would I do that?” Faith demanded. “I told you that you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Perhaps I can help.” Ellen spoke from the doorway, her voice gentle.
“Go for it,” Faith replied, standing up. She felt for the kid, but she had no idea how to prove that what she was saying was true. He’d been fucked up before Angel arranged to give him a new life, and she didn’t think it was going to get much better.
Ellen sat down next to Connor on the couch. “Give me your hand.”
He did so warily, and Faith wondered what Ellen was up to, although she wasn’t surprised that Connor seemed to trust her. Ellen had that vibe about her. You knew she wasn’t going to mince words, but she’d deliver the truth with kindness.
“Faith?”
Faith raised her eyebrows. She knew what the witch was planning; Wesley had told her about his experience with Dana. “You sure about this?”
“Give me your hand,” Ellen repeated patiently.
Faith did so, closing her eyes against what she knew was about to come. She found herself inside her memories of hunting Angelus down, Connor alternately helping and getting in her way. Faith remembered both her frustration and her sympathy.
No one knew fucked up like she did.
When it passed, and she opened her eyes, she saw Connor looking at Ellen, bewilderment writ large across his face. “My parents-”
“Weren’t your biological parents,” Ellen confirmed.
“My dad?”
“He’s around,” Faith said. “Do you want to see him?”
Connor shook his head. “I don’t know. I mean, he’s a vampire, right?”
“He’s a good guy.” Faith smirked. “A pain in the ass sometimes, but a good guy. He saved my life a time or two.”
He put his head in his hands. “I don’t understand any of this.”
Ellen looked up at her. “Call Angel. They’re going to need one another.”
Faith didn’t question the order. She’d much rather let Angel deal with his own kid.
~~~~~
Wesley would probably have balked at using blackmail once upon a time, but at this point he was a little more practical. He couldn’t very well remove Abby from the state without her parents’ permission, but from what she had told him, they might not be willing to let her go.
He’d discovered that abusive parents were odd like that. While they might not have the capacity to care for their children, they didn’t want anybody else doing it either.
In this case, he could easily notify the police about her father and step-mother, but instead he was offering to take her off their hands. The Council had discovered that the words “boarding school” smoothed over any number of concerns, particularly for parents who had no idea what to do with a daughter who had suddenly developed startling strength-among other abilities.
Abby hadn’t wanted to go back, but Wesley had promised that she could stay in the car if she wanted, and that no matter what her father said, she wouldn’t have to live with him again.
While it might not be wise to take an underage girl out of the state without her parents’ permission, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t in an emergency.
The man who met him at the door certainly didn’t look like he was inclined to be helpful.
“My name is Wesley Wyndam-Pryce,” he began.
“I know who you are.” The man took a swig from the can he was holding. “Tasha told me.”
“I found Abby. I’d like your permission to take her to California.”
The man stared at him out of watery eyes. “She’s my kid. She ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
“Let me put it this way,” Wesley said in a low voice. “You either give permission, or I call the cops and report you for child abuse. Those are your options.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t like your tone, mister.”
Wesley smiled thinly. “I don’t like men who abuse their children. It’s an imperfect world.”
They were at an impasse, and one of them was going to have to back down; it wasn’t going to be Wesley.
“Fine.” Abby’s father was the one to speak. “You tell that little bitch that if she leaves, she can’t come back.”
Wesley barely resisted the urge to pull out the gun he was wearing and shoot him. It would be satisfying, but would bring more trouble than he was worth. “I’ll pass the message along,” he replied through clenched teeth. “I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear it.”
Pulling out the release form that Giles had arranged to have drawn up for any underage Slayer, Wesley handed it and a pen to the man. There was a moment’s hesitation before Abby’s father signed, but he did, and Wesley hid his sigh of relief.
He turned to leave and saw Abby standing next to the car, keeping one wary eye on him and her father while she spoke to Lindsay. Wesley had rented the hotel room next to his the night before, to allow her to get cleaned up and sleep. The plan was to drive back to Atlanta and fly to L.A. that night.
Wesley reluctantly turned his back on her father, knowing that he was just the type to attack from behind, and headed for the rental car. “Are you ready, Abby?”
“You’re really going?” Lindsay asked, sounding a little plaintive.
Abby nodded. “It’ll be cool. Maybe you can come visit.”
“Maybe.”
Wesley could hear the truth in their voices; they would likely never see one another again, and they both knew it.
“Will you write?”
“I promise.” Abby gave her a hug, and Wesley turned away, wanting to give the girls a little privacy.
He caught sight of Liz standing the doorway of her house with a sad little smile on her face. She nodded at him, and he nodded in return, swallowing hard.
It was another responsibility to add, but it was one he didn’t mind.
~~~~~
Angel rushed into the hotel, his head spinning. He’d given Connor up to keep him safe, and this happened?
“Where is he?” he demanded of Faith as soon as he saw her.
“Good to see you, too,” she responded. “He’s sleeping on the couch. I think Ellen did something to him.”
“What?”
“To help him sleep.” Faith smirked. “Come on, he’s your kid. Do you really think I wouldn’t take care of him?”
Angel shook his head. “What happened?”
She explained briefly. “After we got him back here, he asked how I knew him. I explained, he didn’t believe me, and Ellen convinced him by doing some of her magic mind-meld stuff.”
“What next?” he muttered. “I wanted him out of this, Faith.”
“He’s in it now,” she said philosophically. “His parents were just killed. I doubt he’s going to walk away from it.”
Angel started pacing. “This isn’t a good time.”
Faith sighed audibly. “What would be a good time? We know we’ve got an apocalypse coming, but we’ve always got one of those on the horizon.”
“Not like this.”
“There something you want to tell me?”
“I wanted to wait for Wesley to get back.”
“Give it a few more hours and he will be. He should be here about six.”
Angel glanced at the clock. “It can wait that long.”
Faith gave him a searching look. “How bad are we talking?”
“This is the last stop for me, Faith.” He found that he could say the words out loud to a Slayer, to someone who had been inches from death twice-both times in connection to him. He knew that she would understand.
Faith frowned, and for a moment he could have sworn that she had tears in her eyes. “Could be the last stop for all of us,” she managed.
“Maybe.” He sat down on the couch. “So, tell me about these Slayers of yours.”
He needed the time to collect himself, to remember that Connor wasn’t his anymore. And to figure out what he was going to do now.
Previous parts can be found here.
Chapter 17
Angel hadn’t seen Fred in days, or maybe it was weeks-certainly not since she had informed him that she was leaving Wolfram & Hart. She looked good, though, in her faded jeans and t-shirt; the tension that had been in her face the last time he’d seen her was gone.
Gunn, on the other hand, was a different story.
“Come on in,” Fred said, waving them to a seat on her couch. Gunn was slumped on one of the chairs from Fred’s tiny kitchen table, his head in his hands. “Cordy.”
Angel stepped back to allow the two women to embrace, holding one another tightly. “It’s good to see you, Fred.” Angel’s sharp ears caught Cordelia’s murmured words.
“How are you feeling?”
“Good,” Cordy said. “Hey, Gunn.”
The dark-skinned man roused himself enough to rise and give her a brief, hard hug. “How’s it goin’?”
“I feel like I should be asking you that question,” she replied, giving him a searching look. “We should sit.”
There was a moment of silence as they all got settled, and Angel waited for one of the others to speak first.
“When is Wesley going to be back?” Cordelia was the one to ask the question, probably because at some point in the last day or so they had come up with a plan. One that would likely get them all killed, but it was a plan, and they would likely take a few of the bad guys out with them.
Fred shook her head. “I don’t know. I tried calling Faith, but no one is answering the phone.”
Angel hesitated. “Maybe we should wait to do this until he gets back. I don’t want to have to go over this more than once.”
“We’ve got another problem,” Gunn said in a hollow voice. “I’m losin’ what they gave me.”
“I don’t understand.”
The man finally met Angel’s eyes. “I’m not going to be of any use to you. Turns out that the upgrade they gave me wasn’t permanent. All the legal knowledge-it’s fading.”
Angel glanced at Cordelia. There was naked compassion on her face, and she rose, going over to him and pulling him into a hug. He watched as she whispered into his ear, and he could just make out what she said. “It doesn’t matter. We need you.”
That much was true, Angel had to admit; they did need him. He wouldn’t go so far as to admit that it didn’t matter, but there was no way he would say that out loud. Cordelia would kill him.
“It might be for the best.” Angel cleared his throat. “We think that the strike needs to be made now.”
“Strike?” Fred echoed. “What do you mean?”
He glanced at Cordy, who nodded, indicating that he should continue. “The Black Thorn is the group that essentially represents the physical arm of the Senior Partners,” Angel explained. “They want an apocalypse, and if we wait too much longer, they’ll be too strong for us to stop.”
“So what do we do?” Gunn asked.
“We take them out, all at the same time.” Angel took a deep breath. This is where things got sticky. “I know who a few of them are, but not all of them. In order to find out, I need to get in.”
Fred’s eyes widened in alarm. “How?”
“By channeling Angelus.” Cordelia looked at him wryly. “Which is why you guys needed to know-so you wouldn’t stake him.”
Angel watched as Fred and Gunn exchanged looks. He could see the apprehension there, and he understood. “What do you want us to do?”
Fred was the one to ask, and Angel could see the determination on her face; she looked much the same as she had when she had given him the speech about standing up to the inevitable. It appeared that she still had faith in him, even after everything.
They all knew the truth about Connor now, and the truth really had set them free.
“Nothing for right now,” Angel replied. “We need to talk with Wes and Faith, as well as the other Slayers. I don’t want to set this in motion until everybody is on board, because once I play my hand, there will be no going back.”
Fred and Gunn both murmured an agreement.
“Take some time off,” Angel said to Gunn. “Call in sick. There’s no point in leaving until we know for sure that staying would be fruitless.”
Gunn sighed. “Yeah, okay.”
Angel glanced at Cordelia, who was watching the entire scene with an expression he couldn’t quite read. This was the end of the road for both of them he thought. Unless a miracle happened, this would be their last fight.
~~~~~
“Here.” Faith handed Connor a cup of coffee. “I can’t promise that it’s any good; I haven’t tried it yet.”
“That’s fine.”
His eyes were hollow and dark with pain. Faith sat down next to him on the couch in the office. “I’m sorry about your folks.”
“Yeah.”
“Look, I don’t know if you have relatives or somebody to stay with in the area, but you’re welcome here. There’s plenty of room.”
Connor looked up at her. “I want to know how you knew me. You recognized me.”
Faith had wanted to wait for Wesley to get back before getting into this. How the hell was she supposed to explain this to the poor kid? She owed him an explanation, though. He’d been pretty patient through the whole thing-from calling the police to the trip down to the station to give their statements.
Faith hadn’t bothered trying to explain the bodies of the dead demons to the cops. She’d simply told the officers that they were a girls’ lacrosse team headed home from practice when they’d stumbled onto the scene of the attack. She didn’t much care how much of that story they believed as long as they didn’t arrest any of them.
The cops apparently decided not to ask a lot of questions, and the trip to the station was a quick one. Connor backed up their tale, and they let them all go.
And now they were back at the hotel, and Faith had no excuses for not telling the kid what he wanted to know.
“Look, it’s not that I don’t want to tell you, it’s that I don’t think you’re going to believe me.”
“I wouldn’t believe you?” Connor asked incredulously, the anger rising in his voice. “My parents were killed by demons and I found out that I’m practically indestructible. What could you possibly tell me that I wouldn’t believe after all of that?”
Faith had to acknowledge that he had a point. “Yeah. Okay. We met last year.”
“That’s impossible,” he said flatly. “I think I’d remember.”
“You would, except that your memories were altered. Ours were too, but we did a spell that put them back.”
Connor shook his head. “I don’t believe you. You’re lying.”
“Why the hell would I do that?” Faith demanded. “I told you that you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Perhaps I can help.” Ellen spoke from the doorway, her voice gentle.
“Go for it,” Faith replied, standing up. She felt for the kid, but she had no idea how to prove that what she was saying was true. He’d been fucked up before Angel arranged to give him a new life, and she didn’t think it was going to get much better.
Ellen sat down next to Connor on the couch. “Give me your hand.”
He did so warily, and Faith wondered what Ellen was up to, although she wasn’t surprised that Connor seemed to trust her. Ellen had that vibe about her. You knew she wasn’t going to mince words, but she’d deliver the truth with kindness.
“Faith?”
Faith raised her eyebrows. She knew what the witch was planning; Wesley had told her about his experience with Dana. “You sure about this?”
“Give me your hand,” Ellen repeated patiently.
Faith did so, closing her eyes against what she knew was about to come. She found herself inside her memories of hunting Angelus down, Connor alternately helping and getting in her way. Faith remembered both her frustration and her sympathy.
No one knew fucked up like she did.
When it passed, and she opened her eyes, she saw Connor looking at Ellen, bewilderment writ large across his face. “My parents-”
“Weren’t your biological parents,” Ellen confirmed.
“My dad?”
“He’s around,” Faith said. “Do you want to see him?”
Connor shook his head. “I don’t know. I mean, he’s a vampire, right?”
“He’s a good guy.” Faith smirked. “A pain in the ass sometimes, but a good guy. He saved my life a time or two.”
He put his head in his hands. “I don’t understand any of this.”
Ellen looked up at her. “Call Angel. They’re going to need one another.”
Faith didn’t question the order. She’d much rather let Angel deal with his own kid.
~~~~~
Wesley would probably have balked at using blackmail once upon a time, but at this point he was a little more practical. He couldn’t very well remove Abby from the state without her parents’ permission, but from what she had told him, they might not be willing to let her go.
He’d discovered that abusive parents were odd like that. While they might not have the capacity to care for their children, they didn’t want anybody else doing it either.
In this case, he could easily notify the police about her father and step-mother, but instead he was offering to take her off their hands. The Council had discovered that the words “boarding school” smoothed over any number of concerns, particularly for parents who had no idea what to do with a daughter who had suddenly developed startling strength-among other abilities.
Abby hadn’t wanted to go back, but Wesley had promised that she could stay in the car if she wanted, and that no matter what her father said, she wouldn’t have to live with him again.
While it might not be wise to take an underage girl out of the state without her parents’ permission, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t in an emergency.
The man who met him at the door certainly didn’t look like he was inclined to be helpful.
“My name is Wesley Wyndam-Pryce,” he began.
“I know who you are.” The man took a swig from the can he was holding. “Tasha told me.”
“I found Abby. I’d like your permission to take her to California.”
The man stared at him out of watery eyes. “She’s my kid. She ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
“Let me put it this way,” Wesley said in a low voice. “You either give permission, or I call the cops and report you for child abuse. Those are your options.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t like your tone, mister.”
Wesley smiled thinly. “I don’t like men who abuse their children. It’s an imperfect world.”
They were at an impasse, and one of them was going to have to back down; it wasn’t going to be Wesley.
“Fine.” Abby’s father was the one to speak. “You tell that little bitch that if she leaves, she can’t come back.”
Wesley barely resisted the urge to pull out the gun he was wearing and shoot him. It would be satisfying, but would bring more trouble than he was worth. “I’ll pass the message along,” he replied through clenched teeth. “I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear it.”
Pulling out the release form that Giles had arranged to have drawn up for any underage Slayer, Wesley handed it and a pen to the man. There was a moment’s hesitation before Abby’s father signed, but he did, and Wesley hid his sigh of relief.
He turned to leave and saw Abby standing next to the car, keeping one wary eye on him and her father while she spoke to Lindsay. Wesley had rented the hotel room next to his the night before, to allow her to get cleaned up and sleep. The plan was to drive back to Atlanta and fly to L.A. that night.
Wesley reluctantly turned his back on her father, knowing that he was just the type to attack from behind, and headed for the rental car. “Are you ready, Abby?”
“You’re really going?” Lindsay asked, sounding a little plaintive.
Abby nodded. “It’ll be cool. Maybe you can come visit.”
“Maybe.”
Wesley could hear the truth in their voices; they would likely never see one another again, and they both knew it.
“Will you write?”
“I promise.” Abby gave her a hug, and Wesley turned away, wanting to give the girls a little privacy.
He caught sight of Liz standing the doorway of her house with a sad little smile on her face. She nodded at him, and he nodded in return, swallowing hard.
It was another responsibility to add, but it was one he didn’t mind.
~~~~~
Angel rushed into the hotel, his head spinning. He’d given Connor up to keep him safe, and this happened?
“Where is he?” he demanded of Faith as soon as he saw her.
“Good to see you, too,” she responded. “He’s sleeping on the couch. I think Ellen did something to him.”
“What?”
“To help him sleep.” Faith smirked. “Come on, he’s your kid. Do you really think I wouldn’t take care of him?”
Angel shook his head. “What happened?”
She explained briefly. “After we got him back here, he asked how I knew him. I explained, he didn’t believe me, and Ellen convinced him by doing some of her magic mind-meld stuff.”
“What next?” he muttered. “I wanted him out of this, Faith.”
“He’s in it now,” she said philosophically. “His parents were just killed. I doubt he’s going to walk away from it.”
Angel started pacing. “This isn’t a good time.”
Faith sighed audibly. “What would be a good time? We know we’ve got an apocalypse coming, but we’ve always got one of those on the horizon.”
“Not like this.”
“There something you want to tell me?”
“I wanted to wait for Wesley to get back.”
“Give it a few more hours and he will be. He should be here about six.”
Angel glanced at the clock. “It can wait that long.”
Faith gave him a searching look. “How bad are we talking?”
“This is the last stop for me, Faith.” He found that he could say the words out loud to a Slayer, to someone who had been inches from death twice-both times in connection to him. He knew that she would understand.
Faith frowned, and for a moment he could have sworn that she had tears in her eyes. “Could be the last stop for all of us,” she managed.
“Maybe.” He sat down on the couch. “So, tell me about these Slayers of yours.”
He needed the time to collect himself, to remember that Connor wasn’t his anymore. And to figure out what he was going to do now.