Title: From the Angel File
Author: Maeve Bran
Rating: T
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the worlds are not. I claim nothing but the plot.
Summary: Angel investigates his file at W&H and discovers something... interesting.
Notes: SPOILERS for Angel through season 5. Much love to Jedi Buttercup, my tireless beta and co-writer.
It was 4am on a Sunday morning and the Wolfram and Hart building was deserted by everyone and everything except a lone vampire and his ghostly companion, standing in front of an open file drawer in the Files & Records division. Unlike the Wolfram and Hart of old, people did not work around the clock, so the building's emptiness was not an unusual state of affairs.
The ghost was phasing in and out, but when present he was reading over the vampire's shoulder. "Something wrong?" asked the blond-haired, blue-eyed ex-vampire.
His companion and grandsire, several inches taller than he with dark hair and chocolate eyes, shook his head. "Nothing that concerns you, Spike," Angel answered. Then, because he couldn't believe what he was reading, he blurted out, "Just look at this!"
Spike read and then chuckled. "Alright, Angel. Way to go, mate. You never told me you had a sprog."
Angel shook his head to try to clear it. "I never told you a lot of things, Spike," he said as he looked down to reread the page he was holding. It showed a family tree that started with the names Liam ui Connor and Medb ui Fithil who had had a son, Earc mac Liam, born in 1753. From there, the tree continued through several generations to a Constance MacLiam Giles, grandmother to one Rupert Giles born some forty-odd years ago. Of all the people for him to turn out to be the ancestor of, Rupert Giles was the last one Angel would ever have expected. This news was not going to sit well with the Watcher, but Angel knew he was going to have to call him Las Vegas, and soon.
Spike was still chuckling as he read the list of names, then shouted with laughter when he reached the final entry. "You're Rupert's great, great ancestor? That's priceless. No wonder he always has a stake up his arse."
"Shut it, Spike," growled Angel.
With that, he left the file room and headed to his office, file still in hand, with Spike laughing all the way there behind him. Once there, he sat down and reached for the phone.
Spike winked out as he picked up the receiver. "Thank God for small favors," he muttered under his breath, then dialed the number and waited. It rang half a dozen times before picking up; he was greeted by a voice saying, "You have reached Rupert Giles. I'm not bloody here, so leave a message at the tone."
"Uh, Giles, this is Angel. I know I'm not your favorite person, but I found some information in the Wolfram and Hart files that your new Watchers' Council could-- no, needs-- to know. If you could come to L.A. soon, that would be great. It's not too urgent, but sooner rather than later would be better." With that, Angel hung up the phone.
Two days later, Angel was reading more pages from his file when a knock sounded on his office door. "Come in," he called.
It was Giles. Angel stood and went around his desk to greet the Watcher, then remembered his and Giles' history and realized the other man would probably prefer not to shake his hand. He covered by gesturing to the couches.
"It's good of you to come, Giles," he said. "I know you'd prefer never to see me, but... if you'd care to have a seat?"
Both men sat, each on his own couch. "You said you had some information for me?" Giles asked, after a couple of minutes of uncomfortable silence.
"Yeah. You should look at this before we talk." Angel leaned forward, passing the page with the family tree that he still had in his hand.
Giles took the sheet, scanning it over. Angel knew when he reached the bottom by the sharp intake of breath. "How-- wha--?" he stammered. "What does this have to do with anything? So you have a copy of my family tree. A family tree of Watchers. What's the significance?"
"You noticed the name at the top?" Angel pointed out. At Giles' nod, he continued. "This came from the file the firm had on me. Before I was changed, my name was Liam-- I don't know if you knew that?-- but what isn't common knowledge is that I was from the ui Connor clan in Ireland."
"You mean..."
"Yeah, I mean. I'm your great great several times over grandfather. Kinda puts a new spin on things, doesn't it?" Angel asked.
Giles blinked at him, stunned. The Watchers' diaries definitely had some major gaps in them. One got used to life being on the weird side when one lived on a Hellmouth, but this was so much stranger than most of the things Giles had experienced in the last seven years. It rendered him speechless for a full five minutes.
"Well, it certainly puts a new spin on Angelus' torture of me, to say the least," Giles said when he found words again, bringing up the most painful period in their shared history.
"Among other things, yeah," Angel agreed. "You know, you never let me apologize to you for that."
"I know, I know that as Angel you are sorry for that, but..."
"But that will not make up for the pain," Angel replied. "Still, I've got to say it. I'm sorry for the torture and everything. I'm sorry for all that Angelus did. I'm sorry about Jenny Calendar. I'm sorry about Acathla... and about what I did to Buffy. Most of all, I'm sorry that you have me as an ancestor. It's not a very good legacy for you."
"I think I've finally got to a place where I can hear all of that without wanting to stake you, so I accept your apology," Giles said matter-of-factly. After a beat, he continued, "What legacy do you mean?"
Angel made a face. "I'm sure that either the diaries, or Buffy, mentioned at some point that as a vampire, one of my first acts was to kill my family." At Giles' nod, he continued sadly. "The reason I was so willing to go with Darla, and was on a path of drunken debauchery to begin with, was because I could never live up to my father's expectations. So, I lived down to his worst expectations. I was a bitter disappointment. Then I fathered a child out of wedlock on a tavern wench-- I knew she'd left the village in disgrace and that it was widely supposed that the child was mine, but I never bothered to find out. I never cared enough to find out for sure."
"I daresay I wasn't much better in my youth," Giles said, ruefully. "I was quite rebellious, as I'm sure you know since you were around for the reappearance of Eyghon. However, I did return to my destiny, as you have taken up yours." He paused for a moment, then started to chuckle.
Angel wrinkled his brow at Giles' reaction; he'd been expecting more in the way of shouting and staking. "Care to let me in on the joke?" he asked.
"Oh, just the irony of it," Giles said. "A line of Watchers stemming from the man who became the Scourge of Europe."
"Oh, that." Angel smiled a little, ironically. "That's because Medb came back to the village about a week after Darla and I left. She found all the bodies we'd left behind, puncture wounds and all. After Earc was born, she took him to England and searched for information about what could have done that; after awhile, she tripped over the Watchers' Council and ended up marrying one of their librarians. Earc was raised to be a Watcher, and it has been in the line ever since. Guess that's something else I have to apologize for."
"What do you mean?"
"It's my fault you're a Watcher," Angel grimaced.
"I guess it is," Giles said, still chuckling a little. "How did you know all of that, about Medb's history?"
"It's all in the files," Angel said, gesturing with the papers he still held. "My file alone takes up 35 file cabinets." He frowned, still a little perplexed at what could possibly take up that many drawers full of files.
"Thir-- Thirty-five cabinets?" Giles spluttered. "I suppose you weren't kidding when you said you had some information for me. How am I going to go through that much in a lifetime?"
"I'm having Ms. Files and Records copy it all and send it to you, so you can have Andrew and the others go through it for you," Angel assured him. "She'll also send copies of the files on Spike, Darla, and Drusilla. Spike agreed to let you see his records, Darla's dead again, and between Spike and I we felt we could invade Drusilla's privacy. I can't promise you any more than that, though; most of the other vamps and demons Wolfram & Hart deals with have lawyer-client confidentiality, and the penalties for breaching those contracts are mystically enforced and pretty severe."
Giles made a face at that, then perked up as he realized Angel had referred to Spike in the present tense. "Spike? How did you get his permission? He perished in the collapse of the Hellmouth."
"Since when does death mean the end of anybody around here?" Angel said, wryly. "I received the amulet in the mail a couple of weeks ago, and when I opened the package Spike popped out of it. He's something more than a ghost, but not quite corporeal; he's been quite the pain in my ass."
"I can sympathize," Giles muttered.
Angel snorted in amusement, then continued. "Oh, and before you ask about Darla being dead again, it was another Wolfram and Hart deal; they brought her back human and tried to get me to Sire her. When that didn't work, they brought Drusilla in; it's a long story. There is one other piece of information to do with her return that is in those files, too, that I should probably warn you about-- I'd like you to promise that you won't tell anyone else about it."
"Of course," Giles said, seriously.
"I'll hold you to that," Angel said, relieved at Giles' easy acceptance of his terms. "After she'd been turned again, Darla came to me, and-- well, we had a son together. It was a whole prophecy thing. She had to stake herself for him to be born, so I raised him here his first few months, but he was kidnapped and raised in a hell dimension where time passed much faster. He was eighteen when I got him back a few weeks later, and mad at the whole world. To save him and Cordy, I had to make a deal with Wolfram and Hart to be CEO of their L.A. branch in return for wiping everyone's memory of him and placing him with a loving family. He doesn't know who he really is anymore, and none of my friends do, either."
"Is there anyone else who knows this?" Giles asked, his brow furrowed.
Angel sighed. "Some of the Wolfram and Hart executives do, since they arranged the whole thing. The mage who did the memory spell, I'd guess-- oh, and Buffy. I told her when you all stayed here that night after Sunnydale was destroyed."
Giles didn't react to that last statement, and for that, Angel was grateful. He really didn't want to get into the story of their night together with her only real father figure.
Giles shook his head. "Well. You have been busy these last few years," Giles said. "I begin to wonder how you ever found the time to bring the amulet to Sunnydale," he said sarcastically. Then, more seriously, he said, "I'm sorry about your son, Angel. If you would like, I can assign a Slayer and Watcher team to keep an eye on him and his new family."
Angel was touched by his concern. "Thanks, but that's not necessary. The rest of the story is in the file folder on my desk-- you can take it with you. Also, that large binder with it is the key to my file. You may want that in advance of the whole file-- it serves as an index. The other files, Spike's and the girls', will take up about a dozen cabinets total. They aren't as complete as mine, and don't come with their own keys, but they should provide more information than the Council ever had before."
"I appreciate your generosity," Giles acknowledged, "especially as it was not necessary. I confess, when you took this position I expected that you were well on your way to being Angelus again; I am much relieved to find that that is not the case."
Ah. There was the explanation for Giles' unusually cordial behavior; Angel had wondered. He hastened to further reassure the man. "Anything I can do to help make the Slayers' job easier. I'm more than happy to provide a few files. If you need to know more about any particular enemy in the future, too, you're welcome to ask; I can't promise anything unless they're dead, due to that lawyer-client thing, but maybe there'll be something else I can do."
Giles nodded, then stood and reached out a hand. Angel stood too, shaking it, pleased at the resolution of their meeting. He was almost tempted to hug the man, too, but feared it wouldn't go over well. In the absence of access to Connor, this was his closest living blood family; hopefully, they continue to get along well in the future.
Angel watched as Giles took the file folder and reference key from the desk on his way out, then sat back down in his desk chair when the door closed behind the man. He sat there for a few minutes, running through the conversation again in his mind, until a cough behind him caught his attention.
"Spike!" Angel growled. "How long have you been there?
"Since you told him about me," Spike replied, shrugging.
"So you heard about Connor." Angel sighed. Great. Just what he needed-- Captain Peroxide in possession of one of his deepest secrets.
"Yeah," Spike nodded, grinning. "You are one lucky bastard. Not only did you have a son in life, you got one in your unlife, too."
"But you're not going to tell anyone else, right?" he said sternly.
"No one to tell," Spike said glibly, then frowned. "You really did have it rough, having to give him up for his own good and all. I don't envy you that; it must be hell not to see him, nor talk to anyone else about him-- so no, you don't have to worry about me blabbing."
"I know you, Spike," Angel frowned. "I know you'd do just about anything to hurt me."
"Not about any of the really important stuff, wanker," Spike frowned back. "I thought you knew me better than that." There was more than a trace of William in his last sentence, hurt feelings and all.
He winked out of existence then, leaving Angel to brood alone in the dark.
(fin)