Regan listened to her dad speak, wondering what it would be like to go to the Watcher’s Council. She’d heard him discussing it a few times with her mom, and other people. Plus, she’d met a cyborg version of her grandfather and he had told her about the Council. Just thinking about the whole cyborg incident made her shudder. She had been on the roof when Wesley had shot the thing he thought was his father.
She shook her head, not wanting to remember that night. Regan couldn’t remember seeing her father so lost before. Looking at him, she smiled when he tugged her over to him and hugged her. She wrapped her arms around him and laughed. “As long as I get to make the noodles. You burnt them the last time,” she said as she stepped back. She leaned up and softly kissed his cheek. “Love you, daddy.”
The dinner preparation went smoothly. After all, mac and cheese was a staple in their house. Once it was finished, and her dad had his disgusting marmite, Regan scooped some up in a bowl and carried it out to the patio. After wiping the water from the seats, she sat down and started to fork up some of the noodles.
“We should go to England soon and see Giles and Faith,” Regan commented before taking a bite of her food. Giles was one of her father’s closest friends, but she didn’t think he liked Faith a lot. Regan never understood why and never asked. Sure, Faith swore a lot but it wasn’t like she’d never heard the words before. Unknown to some, Lorne swore a lot when he didn’t think anyone was listening.
“I wonder where Lorne is. Spike said he left after he did his part in that battle they had. I wish he would call. He promised to give me voice lessons.”
When Regan offered to cook the macaroni, Wesley couldn't help but chuckle softly. He certainly hadn't meant to burn the noodles the last time - he had just got distracted. It was probably better that she did cook them, though. She seemed to be better at it than him. Somtimes he wondered if the demons who had raised her had taught her how to cook too.
"I love you too," he said softly before following her into the kitchen.
Once the food was cooked and Regan had her bowl, Wesley spooned some marmite into his portion, stirring it in until it had mixed with the cheese and noodles. Regan was definitely her mother's daughter when it came to marmite - Fred hadn't liked it either when he had let her try a bit one time. Picking up his bowl, he joined Regan on the patio. This was the first break he had taken all day, and he wanted to enjoy it, especially considering what he would be doing later that evening.
"Giles has been asking for a while when we were going to come visit," Wesley said when she mentioned that they should go visit their friends in England. He just wasn't sure if he was ready to go back quite yet. Being here, in a place that had no connection to his life before in anyway, was sometimes the only thing that kept him together. "We'll see. Perhaps I'll call him sometimes in the next few weeks."
When his daughter mentioned Lorne, however, Wesley shook his head and sighed. "I wish I knew." Lorne had meant the world to Fred and, if he was honest, to him too. He had been the first of all of them to meet him. "Jacob e-mailed me and said that he's still looking for him, though."
Taking a few bites of his macaroni, he chewed thoughtfully for a moment. "I was thinking. I need to go to Boston soon to pick up some things from my contact for one of my freelance projects. Would you like to come with me? We could spend some time there. Maybe take in a few sights?"
Regan tried hard not to look disappointed. She'd brought England up before, back when they were thinking of a good place to move, but her dad had picked New Haven instead. And she knew that 'We'll see' was a grownup way of saying no. With a soft sigh, she forked more food up and shoved it into her mouth. Maybe she could go there by herself and see all of them.
She merely nodded her head when her dad told her about Lorne and how Jacob was still looking for him. Regan didn't think Lorne wanted to be found. When she'd spoken to Spike a few nights before (when her dad was out, of course), he'd told her Lorne didn't want anyone finding him. But still, Regan missed him and the way he could make her laugh.
Suddenly, though, her dad mentioned Boston and Regan perked up. "Boston?" she asked, her eyes wide. "Oh! I wanna go! I want to go to Harvard and Harvard Square! Do you know Harvard has a library and it has so many books that the stacks reach all the way to the ceiling? I wonder how long it'd take to read all of them? And I wonder how many of the books I've read already?"
She gave her dad a grin and bounced excitedly in her chair. Long forgotten was rule number one of her training: Extreme emotions caused her power to intensify. Before Regan could stop it, the table started to shake. Luckily she caught it in time before the bowls slipped off.
"Sorry," she muttered as the shaking stopped. She gave her dad a sheepish look and slouched in her chair.
At his daughter's reaction to the possibility of going to Boston, Wesley couldn't help but smile. It was probably the most excited he had seen her since before Fred had died. And it was actually rather nice to see that smile on her face again. It had been too long since he'd seen it.
"You're definitely my daughter," he said with a grin when she talked about the Harvard Library. "We can certainly go there. Although knowing you, you'd probably make your way through all the books in there in about...oh...two weeks?"
He was so caught up in Regan's happiness that he didn't realize the table was starting to shake until it became so strong that the bowls fell off and onto the patio, shattering on the stone. He grabbed the table just before it stopped and looked at Regan as she apologized, obviously upset that she had forgot her control. Sighing, he reached out and pulled her out of her chair to sit on his knee, careful that she didn't step in the remains of the bowl.
"Regan, I know how hard this can be for you," he told her softly. "God, no eleven-year-old should have what you have on your shoulders." No eleven-year-old should have what even he had on his shoulders, in fact, but what Regan had to deal with was far more difficult. Sometimes, he wondered what would have happened to her had she had the relatively normal life of growing up here with them. "We'll keep working on it, okay?"
Hugging her and giving her a kiss on her forehead, he helped her clean up the bowls and take everything inside, throwing them in the rubbish bin. By the time they were done, Wesley looked at the time and sighed. He was going to have to go soon.
"Kelly will be here soon, so I need to get ready," he told his daughter. Reaching over he rested his hands on her shoulders as he looked down at her. "Are you going to be all right tonight?"
Regan was glad her dad wasn't upset. There were times when she could control her powers, but there were also times when she forgot she had them and things would break. It made her feel like a freak because she didn't think she would ever be a normal kid, that went to school with other kids. "Okay," she quietly said. Maybe she would work on it while he was gone.
After the mess was cleaned up, Regan followed him inside, her stomach turning at the thought of him going out alone. "I'll be fine. I have some videos I want to edit onto my laptop plus I have that new games to play plus some books to read," she said, giving him a smile. "Go and make us some money. I still want that mp3 player!"
Leaning up, she gave a kiss on the cheek. "I'll clean up the kitchen and put the dishes in the dishwasher," she said.
Once he'd disappeared into his bedroom, Regan started cleaning up. She spotted the half-sword that was still sitting on the table and walked over to it. Her eyes scanned the page about the demon again. It looked easy to kill. All you had to do was avoid its poisonous talons. She knew she could kill it and she was going to prove it to her dad.
Just then, the doorbell rang and Regan jumped a little. She had wanted to put the sword away but couldn't now. Hopefully her dad would forget it was there. Going to the door, she smiled when she saw it was Kelly. "Hey," she said as she let the babysitter in. "Dad! Kelly's here!"
"We'll talk about it," Wesley told his daughter when she asked for the mp3 player yet again. He had actually been planning to get one for her for her birthday in November, but of course, he didn't want to tell her that and ruin the surprise.
He reached out and squeezed her shoulder after she kissed his cheek, glad that they had managed to get to this point without another fight about her coming with him. He just wasn't ready for that. Not with everything that had happened and not when she still had problems with control. He wasn't going to let his little girl be harmed because he didn't protect her. He'd already allowed that to happen once.
Going into his bedroom, he quickly changed out of the tan slacks and light shirt he was wearing into a black jumper and dark jeans. Once he had laced up his boots, he strapped the stake shooter and sword holder he had designed after Regan had been taken from them to his wrist, then grabbed his jacket and slipped it on, making sure that his stakes were secured inside. As an afterthough, he put his gun in his waistband at the small of his back.
He had just opened the door when Regan yelled that Kelly had arrived. "Good timing," he said as he stepped into the foyer, giving the young woman a smile. "Sorry for the last minute call, but some business came up tonight."
"No problem, Mister Pryce," Kelly said.
"I'll be home in about four hours or so," he told them before leaning over and giving his daughter a hug and kiss. "Be good, love. I'll see you when I get back."
With a wave, he headed out the door and got into his Jeep to go meet the others for the hunt.
Regan stood in the living room and watched her dad pull out of the driveway and drive off. She turned toward Kelly and gave her a small smile. "I told my dad I'd clean up the kitchen table and get my homework done before he gets home. I should probably start with that," she said before inching toward her room.
"Okay," Kelly said as she plopped down on the couch to watch the television.
Regan picked up the books, notes and sword up from the kitchen table and carried the stuff to her bedroom. She dumped the things on her bed and picked up her dad's notes. There was an address of the warehouse district of town. It wasn't that far away and Regan knew she could ride her bike there.
Once she had her sneakers on, she put on a sweatshirt and placed the half-sword in her book bag. She went over to her window, glad she was on the first floor, and climbed out it. And once she had her bike, she was on her way to the warehouse.
When she got there, she saw her dad's Jeep parked in an alley so she hid her bike behind a dumpster and started to look for the demon, while trying not to be caught. A few moments later, she stepped into a warehouse and was greeted by the demon her father was hunting.
"Huh. You're a lot smaller in the book," she murmured as she looked up at the demon.
It growled at her and took a swipe at her but Regan jumped out of the way, and tripped over her own feet. She fell to the floor of the warehouse and the demon lunged at her. Regan closed her eyes and held up the sword, sure the demon was going to fall on her. And when it didn't happen, she opened her eyes.
The demon had impaled itself on the sword and was now dead, and it suspended, in midair, above her. Regan's body started to shake as she used her powers to lift the demon up with the sword. The windows in the warehouse started to shake, and the alarm on her dad's Jeep went off. But, Regan couldn't think about those things at the moment. All she could think about was stopping the demon from falling on, and killing her.
Driving to the warehouse district, Wesley pulled up at the meeting place to find the others waiting. They all looked at him as he got out of the jeep and jogged over to them.
"Were wondering if you'd make it," Chris said.
He raised an eyebrow at that. "When have I missed a hunt?" he asked. "I simply had some things to deal with at home."
"Doesn't matter anyway since he's here," Jonathan said. "So what did you find out."
"It's an Io'ic demon, which was believed to be extinct but obviously isn't since it's been terrorizing this area," Wesley told them. He then went on to explain the demon's characteristics and the way to kill it. "Be careful, though. It likes to corner its prey alone."
Once everyone understood what they were going after, they headed into the nearby warehouse to begin their search. When the first warehouse turned out to be empty, they moved on to the next one. Chris seemed a bit restless, evidently wanting them to find this demon immediately. He was fairly new, so he didn't really understand what it was like to really deal with demons. Wesley shook his head - he remembered when he had been so green. Of course, he had been less restless and more by the book. But he still hadn't realized the reality of the situation until he had worked with the Scoobies and Giles. Chris would soon understand as well.
They were coming out of the second warehouse when a rumble suddenly moved through the area. Wesley heard his Jeep alarm going off. Looking across the alley, they saw the warehouse they were heading to shaking, the windows rattling into their frames.
"What the hell is that?" Chris asked.
Wesley felt his heart constrict, immediately recognizing what it had to be. Without stopping to explain to the others, he took off running. The door to the warehouse stood open, and he charged in, looking around. "Regan!" he yelled.
Turning his head, he saw two shadowed figures nearby, a smaller one on the floor with another over it. His throat tightened and his heart began pounding in his chest as he hurried over. His daughter was there, just as he feared, the Io'ic demon over her. But it wasn't moving. It took him a moment to realize that Regan had killed it and was now using her powers to keep it from falling on her.
"Regan, it's me. Love, when I say so, let go and crawl away," he told her, taking up position next to the demon and pushing against it so it would fall away from her when she released it. "Now!"
A moment later, he found himself falling with the dead demon toward the floor. Tucking up, he managed to roll away.
"Regan, are you all right?" he asked, searching for his daughter in the darkness.
The more Regan used her powers to keep the demon up, the more it hurt. She'd never used her powers to long before and it was becoming more difficult to keep them going. She needed to figure out a way to get the demon away from her so she could release. Hopefully, her dad would know something was wrong and come to find her.
She suddenly heard the warehouse door open, followed by footsteps. Regan didn't dare look to see who it was, afraid it'd break her connection. But, when she heard her dad's voice, she smiled a little, knowing he would help her. And when he gave her his instructions, she followed them and broke the connection when he told her too.
Regan watched as her dad, and the demon, toppled over and he landed on the hard floor of the warehouse. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she stared at him in the dark, waiting for him to get up. It seemed like an eternity before he finally said something. "Daddy?" she whispered as she sat up and looked at him.
When he moved toward her, Regan quickly stood and shook her head. "Oh god, I almost killed you too just because I wasn't listening again. I-I'm sorry. Please don't be mad at me," she cried. There were voices behind her so Regan turned her head. Members of her dad's crew were standing there, and seeing them made her want to run so she did.
Running out of the warehouse door, she ran out into the alley and to her dad's Jeep. The doors were locked so she squinted at them and soon the locks popped. She quickly opened up the back door and curled herself up in a ball.
She shook her head, not wanting to remember that night. Regan couldn’t remember seeing her father so lost before. Looking at him, she smiled when he tugged her over to him and hugged her. She wrapped her arms around him and laughed. “As long as I get to make the noodles. You burnt them the last time,” she said as she stepped back. She leaned up and softly kissed his cheek. “Love you, daddy.”
The dinner preparation went smoothly. After all, mac and cheese was a staple in their house. Once it was finished, and her dad had his disgusting marmite, Regan scooped some up in a bowl and carried it out to the patio. After wiping the water from the seats, she sat down and started to fork up some of the noodles.
“We should go to England soon and see Giles and Faith,” Regan commented before taking a bite of her food. Giles was one of her father’s closest friends, but she didn’t think he liked Faith a lot. Regan never understood why and never asked. Sure, Faith swore a lot but it wasn’t like she’d never heard the words before. Unknown to some, Lorne swore a lot when he didn’t think anyone was listening.
“I wonder where Lorne is. Spike said he left after he did his part in that battle they had. I wish he would call. He promised to give me voice lessons.”
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"I love you too," he said softly before following her into the kitchen.
Once the food was cooked and Regan had her bowl, Wesley spooned some marmite into his portion, stirring it in until it had mixed with the cheese and noodles. Regan was definitely her mother's daughter when it came to marmite - Fred hadn't liked it either when he had let her try a bit one time. Picking up his bowl, he joined Regan on the patio. This was the first break he had taken all day, and he wanted to enjoy it, especially considering what he would be doing later that evening.
"Giles has been asking for a while when we were going to come visit," Wesley said when she mentioned that they should go visit their friends in England. He just wasn't sure if he was ready to go back quite yet. Being here, in a place that had no connection to his life before in anyway, was sometimes the only thing that kept him together. "We'll see. Perhaps I'll call him sometimes in the next few weeks."
When his daughter mentioned Lorne, however, Wesley shook his head and sighed. "I wish I knew." Lorne had meant the world to Fred and, if he was honest, to him too. He had been the first of all of them to meet him. "Jacob e-mailed me and said that he's still looking for him, though."
Taking a few bites of his macaroni, he chewed thoughtfully for a moment. "I was thinking. I need to go to Boston soon to pick up some things from my contact for one of my freelance projects. Would you like to come with me? We could spend some time there. Maybe take in a few sights?"
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She merely nodded her head when her dad told her about Lorne and how Jacob was still looking for him. Regan didn't think Lorne wanted to be found. When she'd spoken to Spike a few nights before (when her dad was out, of course), he'd told her Lorne didn't want anyone finding him. But still, Regan missed him and the way he could make her laugh.
Suddenly, though, her dad mentioned Boston and Regan perked up. "Boston?" she asked, her eyes wide. "Oh! I wanna go! I want to go to Harvard and Harvard Square! Do you know Harvard has a library and it has so many books that the stacks reach all the way to the ceiling? I wonder how long it'd take to read all of them? And I wonder how many of the books I've read already?"
She gave her dad a grin and bounced excitedly in her chair. Long forgotten was rule number one of her training: Extreme emotions caused her power to intensify. Before Regan could stop it, the table started to shake. Luckily she caught it in time before the bowls slipped off.
"Sorry," she muttered as the shaking stopped. She gave her dad a sheepish look and slouched in her chair.
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"You're definitely my daughter," he said with a grin when she talked about the Harvard Library. "We can certainly go there. Although knowing you, you'd probably make your way through all the books in there in about...oh...two weeks?"
He was so caught up in Regan's happiness that he didn't realize the table was starting to shake until it became so strong that the bowls fell off and onto the patio, shattering on the stone. He grabbed the table just before it stopped and looked at Regan as she apologized, obviously upset that she had forgot her control. Sighing, he reached out and pulled her out of her chair to sit on his knee, careful that she didn't step in the remains of the bowl.
"Regan, I know how hard this can be for you," he told her softly. "God, no eleven-year-old should have what you have on your shoulders." No eleven-year-old should have what even he had on his shoulders, in fact, but what Regan had to deal with was far more difficult. Sometimes, he wondered what would have happened to her had she had the relatively normal life of growing up here with them. "We'll keep working on it, okay?"
Hugging her and giving her a kiss on her forehead, he helped her clean up the bowls and take everything inside, throwing them in the rubbish bin. By the time they were done, Wesley looked at the time and sighed. He was going to have to go soon.
"Kelly will be here soon, so I need to get ready," he told his daughter. Reaching over he rested his hands on her shoulders as he looked down at her. "Are you going to be all right tonight?"
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After the mess was cleaned up, Regan followed him inside, her stomach turning at the thought of him going out alone. "I'll be fine. I have some videos I want to edit onto my laptop plus I have that new games to play plus some books to read," she said, giving him a smile. "Go and make us some money. I still want that mp3 player!"
Leaning up, she gave a kiss on the cheek. "I'll clean up the kitchen and put the dishes in the dishwasher," she said.
Once he'd disappeared into his bedroom, Regan started cleaning up. She spotted the half-sword that was still sitting on the table and walked over to it. Her eyes scanned the page about the demon again. It looked easy to kill. All you had to do was avoid its poisonous talons. She knew she could kill it and she was going to prove it to her dad.
Just then, the doorbell rang and Regan jumped a little. She had wanted to put the sword away but couldn't now. Hopefully her dad would forget it was there. Going to the door, she smiled when she saw it was Kelly. "Hey," she said as she let the babysitter in. "Dad! Kelly's here!"
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He reached out and squeezed her shoulder after she kissed his cheek, glad that they had managed to get to this point without another fight about her coming with him. He just wasn't ready for that. Not with everything that had happened and not when she still had problems with control. He wasn't going to let his little girl be harmed because he didn't protect her. He'd already allowed that to happen once.
Going into his bedroom, he quickly changed out of the tan slacks and light shirt he was wearing into a black jumper and dark jeans. Once he had laced up his boots, he strapped the stake shooter and sword holder he had designed after Regan had been taken from them to his wrist, then grabbed his jacket and slipped it on, making sure that his stakes were secured inside. As an afterthough, he put his gun in his waistband at the small of his back.
He had just opened the door when Regan yelled that Kelly had arrived. "Good timing," he said as he stepped into the foyer, giving the young woman a smile. "Sorry for the last minute call, but some business came up tonight."
"No problem, Mister Pryce," Kelly said.
"I'll be home in about four hours or so," he told them before leaning over and giving his daughter a hug and kiss. "Be good, love. I'll see you when I get back."
With a wave, he headed out the door and got into his Jeep to go meet the others for the hunt.
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"Okay," Kelly said as she plopped down on the couch to watch the television.
Regan picked up the books, notes and sword up from the kitchen table and carried the stuff to her bedroom. She dumped the things on her bed and picked up her dad's notes. There was an address of the warehouse district of town. It wasn't that far away and Regan knew she could ride her bike there.
Once she had her sneakers on, she put on a sweatshirt and placed the half-sword in her book bag. She went over to her window, glad she was on the first floor, and climbed out it. And once she had her bike, she was on her way to the warehouse.
When she got there, she saw her dad's Jeep parked in an alley so she hid her bike behind a dumpster and started to look for the demon, while trying not to be caught. A few moments later, she stepped into a warehouse and was greeted by the demon her father was hunting.
"Huh. You're a lot smaller in the book," she murmured as she looked up at the demon.
It growled at her and took a swipe at her but Regan jumped out of the way, and tripped over her own feet. She fell to the floor of the warehouse and the demon lunged at her. Regan closed her eyes and held up the sword, sure the demon was going to fall on her. And when it didn't happen, she opened her eyes.
The demon had impaled itself on the sword and was now dead, and it suspended, in midair, above her. Regan's body started to shake as she used her powers to lift the demon up with the sword. The windows in the warehouse started to shake, and the alarm on her dad's Jeep went off. But, Regan couldn't think about those things at the moment. All she could think about was stopping the demon from falling on, and killing her.
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"Were wondering if you'd make it," Chris said.
He raised an eyebrow at that. "When have I missed a hunt?" he asked. "I simply had some things to deal with at home."
"Doesn't matter anyway since he's here," Jonathan said. "So what did you find out."
"It's an Io'ic demon, which was believed to be extinct but obviously isn't since it's been terrorizing this area," Wesley told them. He then went on to explain the demon's characteristics and the way to kill it. "Be careful, though. It likes to corner its prey alone."
Once everyone understood what they were going after, they headed into the nearby warehouse to begin their search. When the first warehouse turned out to be empty, they moved on to the next one. Chris seemed a bit restless, evidently wanting them to find this demon immediately. He was fairly new, so he didn't really understand what it was like to really deal with demons. Wesley shook his head - he remembered when he had been so green. Of course, he had been less restless and more by the book. But he still hadn't realized the reality of the situation until he had worked with the Scoobies and Giles. Chris would soon understand as well.
They were coming out of the second warehouse when a rumble suddenly moved through the area. Wesley heard his Jeep alarm going off. Looking across the alley, they saw the warehouse they were heading to shaking, the windows rattling into their frames.
"What the hell is that?" Chris asked.
Wesley felt his heart constrict, immediately recognizing what it had to be. Without stopping to explain to the others, he took off running. The door to the warehouse stood open, and he charged in, looking around. "Regan!" he yelled.
Turning his head, he saw two shadowed figures nearby, a smaller one on the floor with another over it. His throat tightened and his heart began pounding in his chest as he hurried over. His daughter was there, just as he feared, the Io'ic demon over her. But it wasn't moving. It took him a moment to realize that Regan had killed it and was now using her powers to keep it from falling on her.
"Regan, it's me. Love, when I say so, let go and crawl away," he told her, taking up position next to the demon and pushing against it so it would fall away from her when she released it. "Now!"
A moment later, he found himself falling with the dead demon toward the floor. Tucking up, he managed to roll away.
"Regan, are you all right?" he asked, searching for his daughter in the darkness.
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She suddenly heard the warehouse door open, followed by footsteps. Regan didn't dare look to see who it was, afraid it'd break her connection. But, when she heard her dad's voice, she smiled a little, knowing he would help her. And when he gave her his instructions, she followed them and broke the connection when he told her too.
Regan watched as her dad, and the demon, toppled over and he landed on the hard floor of the warehouse. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she stared at him in the dark, waiting for him to get up. It seemed like an eternity before he finally said something. "Daddy?" she whispered as she sat up and looked at him.
When he moved toward her, Regan quickly stood and shook her head. "Oh god, I almost killed you too just because I wasn't listening again. I-I'm sorry. Please don't be mad at me," she cried. There were voices behind her so Regan turned her head. Members of her dad's crew were standing there, and seeing them made her want to run so she did.
Running out of the warehouse door, she ran out into the alley and to her dad's Jeep. The doors were locked so she squinted at them and soon the locks popped. She quickly opened up the back door and curled herself up in a ball.
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