Fandom: "Angel"

Spoilers: Let's say everything, shall we? Basically, if you haven't seen the second half of season Five, you will be spoiled.

Principal Characters: Spike, Illyria, Lindsey (this chapter). Later on, those three will be joined by Connor, Nina-the-werewolf, Eve and maybe some characters from BtVS.

Summary: It's the aftermath of the battle in "Not Fade Away". Spike and Illyria are holed up at the hotel, Angel's M.I.A, and things do not look good for the non-demonic population of LA. And the Powers That Be have plans for our favourite evil-handed morally ambiguous lawyer, Lindsey McDonald.

Also: I haven't read the Season 6 comics, so this is probably highly AU. It'll also be AU for the BtVS season 8 comics.

Rating: T, for violence and swearing, and mention of character death.

A Final Note: So, this is my first Angel fanfic. I like constructive criticism, and reviews are great. Please be nice!

Edited for misspelling Lindsey's name. Oops.

Survivors

Prologue

The pain fades with his vision, and all is dark and silent. Then there is a light, and a voice, talking to him.

Poor child.

"Excuse me?"

Your life ended before it was supposed to. Your destiny incomplete.

"What?" The voice is soft, gentle… it sounds like it should belong to someone's mother, it's kind and caring and infinitely patient. "Where am I?"
You passed over.

"Right, I died. The green guy shot me, I know that. What is this? Who are you?"

He reflects that asking who he was talking to might not have been wise… he can't even see who he's talking to. And, he notices, he doesn't exactly have a body at the moment, so communication must be more like telepathy than speech.

We are the Powers That Be, Lindsey McDonald. And We have chosen you as Our Emissary.

"You what? The Powers that be?"
Yes. The Voice now sounds faintly exasperated, like a parent with a troublesome child.

"So… what do you want with me?"
You shall be Our emissary in the mortal world. You will pass on warnings and portents when We send them to you.

"Pass them on to who?"
You will see.

"Okay, don't tell me. Why me? Are you sure you're talking to the right person here?"

We know all, Lindsey McDonald. We see everything. We know everything you have ever done, and everything you feel in the deepest corners of your heart.

"So… why me?"
Many of your actions on earth, in the service of the Wolf, the Ram and the Hart, could be considered evil, this is true. But you have the spark of potential in you.

"Potential to what?"

The potential to be a great man. A great hero. To redeem yourself.

"Wait… are you talking about Champions? Are you sure you shouldn't be talking to Angel right now? Or Spike even? Because I really don't think I'm Champion material."

The Powers do not make mistakes. You have the potential to be a Champion, though your future is unclear.

"Great. So I'm a potential champion. I'm also dead."

This did not escape Our notice. Your mortal body shall be healed and restored to life, that you might act for Us on earth.

"What's the catch?"

Catch?

"You're just going to send me back to "act for you"… what aren't you telling me?"

You will receive Visions of the future. We have had other Emissaries who have received such Visions. They passed on the information they saw to the Champion, Angel. It is Our intention that you do the same.

"Angel survived the fight?"

This is unclear. He is hidden from Our sight. If it is revealed that he did not survive, you will find the Champion known as Spike, and assist him in Angel's place.

"Well this just gets better and better. When does this start?"

Now.

He doesn't get the chance to say anything else. He's pulled away from wherever-the-hell-he-was, and his eyes fly open as he gasps for air, filling his lungs again.

When he's regained some kind of composure, he looks around. He's still in the room where he died. His sword lies on the ground nearby, where he dropped it. He picks it up and wipes the blade clean. It's light now… broad daylight actually. He guesses it's somewhere around midday. Seeing as it was early evening when he died, he guesses that it has been at least a day, and probably a couple of days, since then. He wonders how many of the others survived.

He remembers that he was shot, and looks down at his shirt… sure enough, two bloody holes in the fabric mark the places where he was hit, but there are no wounds underneath them. He shrugs. New clothes can always be found later. Right now he's got work to do.

Taking his sword, he tooks one last look at the place where he was killed – and by a flunky, no less. It's a decidedly unimpressive room. Next time, he decides, he'll try and make sure he dies somewhere better. Hell, the Powers seem to think he's a champion… maybe the next time he dies he'll be doing something big and honourable, saving the world from some demon or other. Part of him thinks that maybe that wouldn't be such a bad way to go.

-(spacespacespace)-

Forty-eight hours earlier

Angel stands in an alleyway in the rain, the last of his friends – Gunn, Spike, Illyria – beside him, and a whole army of demons and monsters in front of them.

He raises his sword. Eyes the army one more time. Knows that this might be the day he dies.

"Let's go to work."

Twenty-four hours later

Most of the real fighting has stopped by now. They killed more demons than they'd hoped to. Those that remain fight amongst themselves and stalk the streets of Los Angeles, terrorising the humans who didn't have the sense to leave town.

Spike runs. Dodging ferocious demons and making his way back towards the hotel, having decided that the W&H offices are probably not a safe place to be right now. Granted, the whole of L.A. falls into the category of "not safe" right now, but the offices are right at the top of his mental "bad places to be" list.

He makes it to the alley behind the hotel. The same alley where they'd started this, twenty-four hours earlier. He stops – to catch his breath, if he had any, but he doesn't. He stops because he's been running and fighting for hours and he's using this moment of apparent peace to just stand still again.

Spike never really appreciated standing still until today. He leans against the wall – another activity that is now a luxury – and wonders what happened to the others. Gunn was the first to fall, he knows that. At first he and Angel and Illyria tried to stick together, watching each other's backs, and it lasted for a while.

A good thirty minutes, at least. Then they were split up. In the hours since then, he caught only glimpses of Illyria's hair (can't miss that blue anywhere) or Angel's duster as they fought. He hopes that they made it too, for admittedly selfish reasons. He figures that the next few days – maybe even weeks or months – are going to be pretty crap, and he doesn't want to face it alone. Things like this are always better when you've got a friend around to watch your back.

"Spike."

He looks up. Illyria stands at the opening of the alley, where it joins the road. She's a mess. She's bleeding from several wounds on her arms and thighs and abdomen, and that long, brown-and-blue hair is tangled and filthy and matted with blood in places. She still holds her sword – the blade drips with demon blood. She walks over to him. He's not sure, but she seems to walk more carefully that before – probably trying not to aggravate her injuries.

"You made it then, Blue."

"Yes. I survived. I vanquished many foes."
"Don't s'pose you've seen Angel, have you?"

She shakes her head. "No. Not since I last saw you. I thought you might be together."

"Nah, I ain't seen 'im for hours."

"Oh. This is not good, is it?"

"No, love, it ain't. But right now we need to find somewhere to hole up, patch ourselves up and figure out what to do next."

"That plan is acceptable to me."

"Good. This hotel place…" he gestures at the building behind them "…it was their base, before they took over Wolfram & Hart. I reckon there might be some stuff left, things we can get ourselves patched up with. An' it used to be a hotel, so at least there oughta be beds and whatever. An' I for one could really use a shower."

"We shall check the hotel then."

They look around warily, checking that the area remains safe, then quickly run around the building and enter through the main doors. It's still empty, still just the way that Angel and his friends left it. Illyria looks around, curious. She's never been here before, but she retains some of Fred's memories of this place. She walks to what used to be the reception desk, and searches underneath it, soon finding an old first-aid kit.

"Spike. Here. I found medical supplies."

He looks over. "How did you know where… oh." He looks at her. "Fred's memories, yeah?"

"Correct. Winifred Burkle knew that the supplies were there. I retain much of her memory."

"Right. Well, thanks for finding it, anyway."

They spend the next hour or so cleaning up and binding their wounds. Spike has to explain the concept of a shower to Illyria… back when she had all of her powers, she didn't get dirty. She cottons on pretty quickly (after all, a stupid god-king doesn't get to be god-king for very long, and Illyria was around for a long time), and while she's washing he goes looking for clothes she can wear – her leather outfit is badly damaged, and they have nothing to repair it with. In the end he finds a plain, white shirt, a pair of old denim jeans, a few t-shirts, a short skirt and an old pair of trainers, in a room that looks like it was once a locker-room for the hotel's staff. He takes it all, not knowing what she'll want.

In the end she chooses the jeans, the trainers and a plain black t-shirt. He thinks (too late) about underwear, but doesn't fancy having to explain the concept of a bra as well, so he lets it go. He helps her bind her wounds, then has a shower of his own.

When they're both clean and bandaged, they set up camp in the seating area of the hotel lobby. Illyria finds some tins of food that got left in the kitchens (not that either of them is hungry), and candles for light, and Spike raids the mini-bars of several rooms until he's collected a generous armful of miniatures. He doesn't like the tiny bottles they put in mini-bars, but this is the best he can get, so he's grateful anyway.

They wait. Wait for someone, anyone, to arrive. Wait for Angel to get there. Spike thinks that Angel would have the same idea as he did… that the W&H offices are too dangerous, so the hotel is safer. Illyria is not certain. His reasoning seems faulty, but she does not mention that. She is learning that sometimes it is acceptable to lie, to make people feel better. Allowing Spike to think that Angel would have the same idea as him is a form of lie. She herself thinks that it is unlikely that Angel still exists at all. If he did, he would have come looking for them by now. But she keeps this to herself.

They pass the time in their own ways. They don't have a great deal to talk about. Spike drinks, emptying one miniature bottle at a time, and occasionally going off looking for more alcohol when he runs out. He offers some to Illyria, but she won't touch the poison that he likes to consume so much of. She passes her time in sitting, and pacing, and thinking.

She thinks of Wesley a lot of the time. She still feels the grief, pouring out of her. She wonders… when she was resurrected, is this how he felt over the loss of Winifred Burkle? Illyria thinks that perhaps it is, to a lesser extent. She has come to the conclusion that she does not care for grief. Over her time in this strange new world, she has experienced some things that she could be said to like.

Wesley Wyndham-Pryce was one of those. She did not understand him… he grieved, and her presence, her very existence, seemed to pain him, yet he remained near her regardless. And she… at first she had seen him as just another insolent human. But then she came to almost like him. She's not used to liking humans. In her day, humans were prey, playthings to be used and discarded. Now they ruled the planet.

She finds that Wesley was not the only human she had affection (of sorts) for. She feels the grief for Charles Gunn, also. He was wounded when they met in the alley. She saw him fall in battle – even wounded, he slew many demons before he fell.

She cares for the half-breeds, the vampires Angel and Spike, also (If someone had told her, in her days as ruler of all, that she would come to care for a couple of half-breeds, she would have laughed, and then destroyed the insolent person who told her so). She found herself worrying about Angel's state of being… though she knew that logically, he was most likely to be dead. And afterwards, she found Spike still alive and they took shelter here in the hotel together. He told her about showers, and gave her clothes to replace her leather suit, and bound her injuries.

It's late – around midnight – when she hears someone approach. She looks at Spike. "Get up. Someone's here."

He pulls himself to his feet, and reaches for his discarded weapon before turning to the doors.

They watch as the doors open, and a solitary figure enters. They both entertain the thought that Angel has found them, but they are disappointed when the figure steps close enough for the candle-light to show his face. It isn't Angel. This person is far too young, still only a boy really. He wears a long, dark-coloured jacket and carries a rucksack, and he is armed. He looks from Illyria to Spike and back again.

"Where's Angel?"