Title: Doing a Remake
Author: Nodakskip
Rating: R
Beta by: Theo
Category: AU
Disclaimer: All things Joss belong to him and CW, Fox, Kazui, Sandollar, etc. etc. Those parts of the story taken directly from the episodes belong to the writers in question. Only the plot belongs to me, and even that is negotiable. :)
Summary: Angel makes more then one deal with W&H.
--
Jackson's Sporting Goods, Los Angeles, California
May 27th, 2003
2:32 pm
The vampire with a soul named Angel was feeling, quite frankly, absolutely terrified.
It hadn't been long since an outcast former Power That Be that had called herself 'Jasmine' had tried to take over the world, and Angel and his friends had finally stopped her evil plans. But Angel's human son Connor had gone completely off the deep end after killing Jasmine, his so-called 'daughter'. Less than half an hour ago, he had taken hostages in this store and rigged them all with makeshift explosive devices.
"Okay, look, let me just say this. I love you, son," Angel said gently, noticing how Connor had wired himself up with explosives as well.
"That's a lie," the miracle child said simply.
"No it's not," said his father desperately.
Connor hung his head in weary defeat. "Yes it is. It's always a lie." He thought briefly of Darla who had appeared in a vision a few weeks ago, pleading with him not to kill an innocent. "Even my own mother couldn't love me."
Angel said firmly, "You're wrong. She did love you-"
"No," Connor shook his head. "No. Mom knew she couldn't. She didn't have a soul."
The male vampire inched forward and said, "Darla chose to give up her immortal existence for you, just because she loved you. I was there, Connor, I saw her do it."
The young man stared at the creature before him. He had been taught to hate Angel by Daniel Holtz, the demon hunter from the 18th century, who had abducted Connor as a baby and raised him in a hell dimension named Quor-toth. "You tried to love me. At least, I think you did," he said to his father.
"I still do, son."
Connor's expression changed. "But not enough to hang on, Dad." He started to glare at Angel, "You let him take me. You let him raise me. You let Holtz make me into who I am today!"
"I know," Angel said, the guilt eating away at him like acidic holy water. "I know. Connor, I want so much to give you everything, to give you the life you should have had. I want to take back the mistakes, help you start over."
"We can't start over," Connor said simply, as he started to reach down to blow up the entire store. "Goodbye, Dad-"
Angel instantly punched him in the chin, sending Connor's head back as he yanked out the detonator wire. Connor and Angel start to fight as the male teen hit his father right in the face, but Angel grabbed him and threw his son across the room into a wall. The boy fell to the floor as Angel started to untie the hostages and unwire them.
"Run. Hurry. All of you, go," Angel said, and the terrified people lost no time in leaving. All of them, except the comatose Cordelia Chase. The young woman who had given birth to 'Jasmine', and whose body had paid the ultimate price for that.
As Connor and Angel started fighting again, the ensouled vampire made a silent vow to himself that he would find a way to save Cordelia as well as his prodigal son.
--
Paramount Studios Lot, Hollywood, Los Angeles
November 12th, 2004
3:45 pm
"Oh my God, Angel!" Cordelia squealed as she ran over and hugged her former boss. "I didn't know you were coming..." she trailed off. "Hey, it's still daylight?"
"The limo has necro-tempered glass," Angel replied as the woman let him go. "Thought I'd stop by after I heard you'd be here. Looks like things are going well for you these days."
"I know!" Cordelia gushed. "It's just amazing. Not only did I get this film role so darn quick, we're even in talks for this year's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition." She adjusted her white robe. "Oh! And get this...they're already talking about me being on the front cover of Playboy around the time the movie comes out!"
"Playboy?" the ensouled vampire asked, worried. "Cordy, uh, isn't that kind of the wrong way to go?"
"Well, no," the brunette woman told him frankly. "'Cause this is Playboy we're talking about, not Hustler."
"What does the boyfriend think of that?" Angel asked carefully.
"Oh, hey, Xander's all for it," Cordelia replied with a grin. "But of course he's a guy, so that's pretty much a given."
"Ah, Cordelia?" a makeup lady called.
"Oh!" Ms. Chase dragged Angel over to the makeup area. "We can talk while they do a touch-up on my hair. These Forties styles look so good on me, don't you think?"
"Yeah, I'd say so," Angel said with a brief flashback to the 1940s. "So. I've heard you've got to fly out to New Zealand to start filming in a few days."
"Oh yeah, yeah," Cordelia replied as the hairdresser started work. "And thank God Xander's going to be back from England tomorrow, before we leave. Buffy wanted him in London for that big meeting..." She resisted the urge to shake her head. "I swear, they are just way too protective of him still. Even after the surgery last month."
"So they've finally fixed Xander's eye?" the vampire asked, even though he already knew the answer.
"Darn skippy," Cordelia said eagerly. "Who would have thought that doctor at Oxford would be working on just what was needed?"
"Just good timing, I guess," Angel lied again. "So, uh, no one told me what this movie was about."
"God, Angel! You still only watch those black and white movies, don't you?" Cordelia laughed. "Time to come into the 21st century, pal. And for you I mean that literally."
"It's a war epic, right?"
"Kinda. World War Two, anyway," Cordelia informed him. "It's about the crew of a B-17 bomber that goes to Germany and gets shot down, then the crew has to hide from the Nazis."
Now THAT was enough to bring back memories of that damn sub from 1943, and that equally damned demon research initiative. Focusing, Angel picked up several large photos of various women in skimpy outfits. "And how does a movie like that need you to do a photo shoot like this?"
"I wish I could show you the script, but I can't," his former seer told him. "Basically I'm the girlfriend of the pilot, so he paints a version of me on the nose of his plane. They showed me this big History channel thing about it. Every crew named their plane and painted something on it." She indicated the pictures. "Plus, since back then not many women were in the military, they used pics of hot women in uniform to get guys to enlist."
At that moment the photographer came over. "Ah, Cordelia honey, we're all set up for the shot. Tick-tock?"
"Okay, okay," Cordelia said as she stood up and removed her robe. Angel's hidden feelings for her quickly surfaced when he saw the 'outfit' she had on underneath. An olive-grey short skirt and blouse that was wide open to show a lot of cleavage from a red, white and blue bikini top. "How do I look?" she asked.
"Like a million bucks, honey!" the photographer replied. "Hey, who's got the officer's cap?"
"Right here," an intern ran up with the grey cap.
"Perfect!" the photographer said as he handed it to Cordelia. "Now my dear, let's get you set up." He briefly glanced at Angel. "Call me, I'll get my assistant to give you the number."
Angel would have turned green if he could have. "Uh, Cordy?"
"You'd make a cute couple, but I heard he's seeing someone else," Cordelia replied to the photographer before she turned back to her old friend with a smirk. "Gotta go, Angel."
"Okay," the vampire replied in relief. "We'll have dinner before you leave the country?"
"Sure, that sounds great..." Cordy said as she walked away. "I'll call you!"
--
Photography set
About twenty minutes later
Cordelia was fully into her photo shoot, posing for pictures to be used in the film and for the movie poster. Angel's little visit was no longer on her mind, as she started joking with the photographer and his assistants.
But without her knowing, the vampire had by no means left the building. The CEO of Wolfram & Hart's LA branch was now watching the photo shoot from the catwalk above the stage.
The memories suddenly flowed into his brain. Angel remembered how Cordelia had somehow come out of her coma the next day after that fight with Connor, and how she'd almost ended up a vegetable from remembering all the things that Jasmine had done during the body-snatch. And the worst thing for her was knowing that she'd been a willing dupe, Cordelia had understood that none of it would have ever happened if she hadn't been dumb enough to fall for Skip's little song and dance act.
Wesley, Gunn, Fred and Lorne had been sure that she'd snap out of it soon, but their hopes for the return of 'Saint Cordelia' hadn't exactly panned out. Add that to the fact that Connor had gone completely nuts, and Angel had known there was no other choice but to make a deal with the Devil.
He had agreed to work for the Senior Partners of Wolfram & Hart, abandoning the whole Champion thing. His crew as well; Angel had accepted the offered deal on behalf of the group, without even consulting them. In return Cyvus Vail had been paid a freaking fortune and done his greatest work ever in altering reality. When the memory spell was over and the magicks in place, Connor was firmly ensconced within the Reilly family and Cordelia...
She had been placed with Alexander LaVelle Harris, a fellow native of Sunnydale.
Nowadays, as far as the Scooby gang and even Cordelia herself knew...the former higher being had come back to Earth with some fragments of memory during the latter half of 2002, instead of complete amnesia. Angel had subsequently summoned Harris to the City of Angels, since he'd wanted as many people who knew her to help Cordelia get all her memories back, despite his personal feelings about the guy.
Supposedly Cordy had recalled enough about dating Xander during high school to decide to go back home with him later on. Then she'd slowly gotten back her identity and had been in Sunnydale when the First Evil had gone on the warpath, ending up together with Harris in the romantic sense of the word.
Then after Sunnydale fell, Xander and Cordy had stayed in LA and the Chase woman had gotten a surprise modeling job...and then another, and then another...which had culminated in this movie role, courtesy of the firm's entertainment division.
Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, Winifred Burkle and the anagogic demon named Lorne hadn't liked what had been done to Cordelia and all those others, not one bit. But they had known that Cordy would otherwise go mad from the guilt and be on suicide watch at some hospital for the rest of her life, so they had reluctantly agreed to the plan. Charles Gunn had strongly objected to the whole thing and refused to give it his blessing, but unfortunately he'd been outvoted on the matter and Angel Investigations had moved into the employ of Wolfram & Hart.
"Now isn't this just sweet," a female voice said from next to Angel. "If a little creepy."
Angel scowled at the woman. "What do you want, Eve?"
"World peace?" the Senior Partners' liaison to the LA branch of the law firm said with a grin. "Oh wait, you already ended that."
"That wasn't peace," Angel told her for the umpteenth time. "And we're done having that conversation. I repeat: what do you want here?"
The vampire just continued scowling at her until Eve sighed in annoyance. "How many times do you have to check up on her, anyway?"
"I was just visiting a friend," Angel replied, stone-faced.
"No you weren't," Eve said with a sudden smirk, as her memories were also unchanged due to her being a creation of the Senior Partners. "You were stalking your poor little lost Cordelia. You still think the Senior Partners are going to kill her when you're not looking, don't you?"
"I kinda doubt they're that stupid. You, on the other hand..."
"Which would be worse for the girl, do you think?" Eve asked him, ignoring the slur against her intelligence. "Cordelia remembering being possessed and murdering all those people, boinking your son, and then having her baby girl munch on a few hundred people...or that the vampire she thought she was in love with had us rewrite her life for the last two years?"
"Both Connor and Cordy deserved a normal...by which I mean happy life," Angel said calmly, keeping any hints of anger at bay. "Something I couldn't give them."
Eve looked back down as Cordelia gave a sexy pout to the camera. "Oh, but you did. Connor has a track star girlfriend now, and he's getting solid B's in his classes at Stanford. And Cordelia here is back with her ex-boyfriend, living the life of a model that's just gotten her big break with a major upcoming film role."
She grinned. "I mean, the way her career is being fast-tracked...you'd think someone had planned it all." After a moment, Eve turned back to face Angel. "Doesn't it feel good, using the power of the firm to help someone you care about? Here you are, making sure she has the life that almost 99 percent of girls off the bus would sell their souls for. Well, the ones who are stupid enough to accept such an offer from the firm's entertainment division. I mean, you think Renée Zellweger really can act?"
"I won't be seduced by the power of Wolfram & Hart," Angel told her defiantly.
"Oh, please!" Eve laughed back at him. "You've craved power all your undead life. The moment after you crawled out of your grave and Darla was there, what else did you ever really want?"
"I've got a meeting to get to," Angel growled as he took one last look at Cordelia below before he stalked away towards the stairs.
--
Wolfram & Hart building, Los Angeles, California
Half an hour later
"Boss? Boss!" the vampiress known as Harmony Kendall shouted, as soon as she saw Angel stride into the building. "Boss, where have you been all day? There's been a million and one things to deal with-"
"Not now," Angel told his undead secretary with a slight snarl. "Call Gunn, Wes, Lorne and Fred, I want to talk to them all together as soon as possible."
"But you haven't even heard what I..." Harmony quickly trailed off when she saw the expression on Angel's face. "Interdepartmental meeting, I'm on it!" She quickly raced away.
"So hard to get good help these days, isn't it?"
Angel turned around and saw a dead woman walking. Her name was Lilah Morgan, a female attorney who had been killed nearly two years ago, and she was standing there with an amused expression on her face. It had been nearly 18 months since he'd last seen her, back in the earliest days of taking over this branch of the firm. "What are you doing here?"
"Why, Angel, hello to you too. And don't worry, I won't be staying long – I just dropped by to give you some good news," Lilah said with a smirk. "The Senior Partners have finally been able to set up that meeting you wanted with a certain Miss Anya Jenkins."
If Angel's heart had been working, no doubt it would have started racing at hearing this news. The woman in question had died back when Sunnydale had collapsed into the earth, and since her soul was a blessed one it had been beyond the reach of Evil Inc. Until now, apparently. "When and where?"
"Right now, and in the White Room."
Angel left Lilah behind without another word and headed over to the elevator. Once inside, he started pressing the floor buttons in a precise sequence until a big white button appeared out of nowhere. Without hesitation, the CEO pushed it; and his entire world dissolved into white.
When he could see again Angel was rather startled to gaze upon the conduit that connected Wolfram & Hart to all the various different dimensions, in the shape of a large black panther, who was staring at him with what looked like an angry expression. "Uh, been a while," Angel said uncertainly, before he straightened up and glared at the pseudo-feline. "I'm here to see someone."
"Yeah, I'm standing right here."
Angel didn't notice the panther vanish as he turned around to stare at Anya's furious face. Before he could do anything to prevent it, the former vengeance demon slapped him, hard, across the face. "You BASTARD!"
Angel instantly knew this meeting was not going to go well. "Look, I'm sorry if you're upset about...whatever it is you're upset about, but I-"
"You're what? Don't tell me you actually regret what you've done, ever since you sold out that way? What you did to your own people, and what you did to Xander's memories of me?!" Anya shouted. "Sure, you fixed his eye trouble, and for that I'm grateful enough to come here and speak to you. But as for the rest of it...your friend Gunn was absolutely right about you, vampire! You do what you want to get what you want, and to hell with everything else! If I was still a demon, y'know, I'd make you eat your own entrails!"
"It wasn't like that," Angel tried to defend himself. "I was just trying to help and protect someone very important to me-"
"So you got Wolfram & Hart to rework Cordelia's memories," Anya sneered. "Not to mention everyone else's. Which would have included mine, had I lived after that day. You selfish, self-centered, egotistical...male!"
Angel was getting tired of the insults. "You were fated to die during the final battle against the First, I've checked to make sure with a number of sources. The only difference would have been Xander ending up alone, and spending the rest of his life mourning your loss."
"So now, instead, he thinks he made up with his ex-girlfriend back then," Anya said venomously. "Xander doesn't even remember both times we made love, before I died...oh, the hell with it. What do you want from me?"
"You were a demon for over a thousand years," Angel said simply. "So you know all about Wolfram & Hart, right? The tricks they can pull. Plus, you know Xander better than anyone. I wanted to ask your advice-"
"Stop right there. Because I have only one thing to say to you," Anya said, divining what Angel's intentions really were. "Deals with the Devil always backfire in the end. If you think any different, then you're an even bigger fool than I thought you were."
This was not what Angel wanted to hear. "Do you think the Senior Partners can be trusted not to go after Cordelia while I work for them, or not?"
"You're not listening to me. Typical," Anya spat out. "All right, let me put it like this. Both Xander and that shrew you set him up with, leave them alone from now on. You're just drawing unnecessary attention to them from the Wolf, Ram and Hart, understand? You decided to get into bed with those three assholes, that's your business. But if Xander ever gets hurt thanks to you or your bosses, there is no place in this or any other dimension you'll be able to hide from me or my vengeance on you! I still have friends in the business who owe me favors, and I'll always be watching over Xander. As well as any children he may have in the future, with that bitchy ex-client of mine. Keep that in mind."
Anya vanished and Angel exhaled loudly. "Swell..."
--
Angel's private office
A short while later
Angel was still in a bit of a bad mood, as he strode into the room and saw all of the Fang Gang present and accounted for. "Good, you're all here..."
"You went to see Cordelia again, didn't you Angel?" Wesley asked point-blank. Personally, Pryce thought it was completely unhealthy the way Angel kept watching over her like that. He'd agreed to putting her in that life in order to help his female friend, not stalk her.
"Wesley, please," Fred interjected as Angel's expression went stony. "We have more important things to deal with right now."
"Yeah. Like how we're finally going to tell Cordy the truth," Gunn had a determined look on his face. He had decided that enough was enough, and that he wasn't going to be party to this charade any longer.
"Not this again," Fred sighed. "Charles, do you actually remember what she was like back then? Cordelia was practically still a vegetable, and totally suicidal as well!" The physicist had talked to Harris a few times on the phone and seen pictures in Cordelia's apartment, thus she knew who he was. "Now that Cordy's happy with Xander, you want to take that away from her?"
"Damn right I do. 'Cause it's better to live in the real world than some pathetic fantasy like that," Gunn briefly glared at Angel.
"But it's not just make-believe anymore, they really have been together for nearly a year and a half! Spell or not, I'm sure she loves him as much as he loves her. And besides, in this case ignorance really is bliss! I mean, how would YOU like to personally remember everything that happened to Cordelia?" Fred pleaded with him passionately. "You want her to remember killing Lilah, the Svea Priestesses, that Manny guy, the virgin sacrifice girl...not to mention however many others there were that we don't know about?"
Ms. Burkle suddenly turned to the others. "What do you guys think?"
"Don't look at me, sweetie, I'm totally staying out of this one," Lorne declared.
Wesley looked troubled. "I can understand both sides of the argument, Fred. There are plenty of things I'd prefer to forget, but at the same time I wouldn't be the person I am today without the memories." He shrugged. "It's not my judgment call..."
"Because it's mine. After all, I'M the one who made the deal with the Senior Partners in order to give Cordy her life back," Angel declared. "So that being said, we're not telling her anything. End of discussion."
"Like hell," the former gang leader growled. "She's my friend-"
"And she's the woman I love," Angel said back to him coldly. "You think it was easy for me to let her go, and send her off to Xander Harris of all people? Well, then I've got news for you, it wasn't. But just so you and everyone else knows, I'm done with all that now. Someone a lot older and wiser told me to leave her and Xander alone, so that's what's going to be happening from now on."
The black man stalked out of the office, silently seething as he did so. Charles knew perfectly well he had just been checkmated; no one else would support him now in telling Cordelia the truth, Angel had done an end run around him with his latest proclamation.
"I better go talk to him," Fred said worriedly, before she left the office and started to chase after her ex-boyfriend.
"Well, I'm sure I have lots of the firm's clients to talk to in Hollywood," Lorne said uncomfortably before he left as well. "Later, Angel."
Wesley just stared at the ensouled vampire he had once considered his best friend. "I will admit, I still don't like this at all. Yes, I can understand the reasons for it, and in your shoes I probably would have done the exact same thing...but for some reason, it still feels wrong to me."
"Wesley..." Angel said impatiently. The undead CEO suspected the British man's unease was due to the mental block about Connor, as no one remembered the miracle child anymore except for him and Eve. However, this was no time to get into that. The vampire just gave his chief lieutenant orders to keep an eye on Gunn for a while in case the black lawyer decided to do something stupid, before Wes left the room.
Once he was alone Angel just collapsed into the form-fitting chair behind his desk, wondering just what else could go wrong around here.
"Hullo, Peaches," Spike's accented voice said with an unmistakable hint of glee, as the British ghost materialized in the office. "Been 'aving a busy day, haven't you?"
Angel groaned in pure misery. "Spike, what do you want?"
William the Bloody decided to tease his grandsire a little bit. "Nothing much, ya big poofter. And I can't help wondering what they'd say if they knew how you screwed with their heads, besides what happened to the cheerleader?" Off Angel's look he added, "I'm a ghost, mate, you bloody well can't erase MY memories..."
--
9211 Vicente Street, Los Angeles, California
November 13th, 2004
7:33 pm
Xander entered the restaurant as fast as he could, quickly spoke to the maitre'd and headed over to join his movie star girlfriend at the table she'd reserved. He knew Cordelia was going to verbally rip him to shreds for being late tonight, and the longer he was absent the worse it was going to be.
The so-called 'vital meeting' he'd been summoned for was, in Xander's view, something he may as well have not attended. He was like the fourth highest member of the group, the head Watcher in charge of California, but the only thing Buffy had wanted from him was to try to recruit more Slayers for the new Council while Cordelia was shooting her war movie in New Zealand. Something that could just as easily have been relayed via email or a phone call.
Frankly, Harris was beginning to suspect Buffy Summers just didn't know how to run an organization like the Watchers Council. He knew that Ms. Summers still thought that if he had never met her, somehow he would have had a normal life and nothing bad would have ever happened to him. Xander just couldn't make his former hero understand that Sunnydale had been his town long before it had ever been hers, and that if he had never met her both Willow and himself would have become vampires a long time ago; the Summers woman seemed determined to wallow in guilt where he was concerned, and that was quite simply that.
Anyway, the meeting was over now and Xander was back in sunny California at last. "Hey. Sorry I'm late," Harris apologized to his girlfriend as he took off his Saville Row jacket and sat down at the table.
"What took you so long?" Cordelia raised an elegantly sculpted eyebrow. "Not that I'm complaining, I barely got here five minutes ago myself: the shooting schedule for the movie was seriously screwed up today. But still, what gives?"
"Traffic was murder," Xander was very relieved to hear the tongue-lashing wouldn't be taking place now. "Plus the plane was delayed. Oh, and Willow and Buffy really didn't want me to come back here."
"And yet, here you are," Miss Chase said with a slight smirk. "They really are way too protective of you. Or else they think that we're doomed as a couple, maybe?"
Xander smirked as he suddenly remembered the first time he and Cordelia had made love, and pledged themselves to one another. The he focused and said, "I'm pretty sure that's not it, on account of Dawn's in our corner and she's made sure they know what a great person you are nowadays. Plus, Willow actually likes you now...hey, should I be worried?"
"Ha, ha," Cordelia stuck her tongue out at him playfully. "Just for the lesbo wisecrack, mister, you can forget about the Kara Zor-El fantasy role-play." She then reconsidered, "At least 'til after we get back from New Zealand, all right?"
"Of course." The man smiled as he leaned over across the table and kissed his beloved. "I am so lucky to have you in my life, Cordy. I honestly don't know what I'd do without you, not anymore."
"Well, that's obvious to everyone within the sighted community." Cordelia smiled back at her boyfriend to take the sting out of her words. "And I love you too, you big dork." They started kissing again.
That was why neither Xander nor Cordelia spotted Gunn staring at them from not far away. The lawyer had overheard the entire conversation thanks to one of Wolfram & Hart's magical listening devices; even though he'd been outflanked about restoring Cordy's memories, he still wanted to see with his own eyes that Xander would be good to his friend.
"They make a rather decent-looking young couple, don't they?" a male English voice said. "They seem to fit together much better than they did during high school, anyway."
Gunn turned around and saw Wesley and Fred right behind him. "What are you two doing here?"
"Do I really need to dignify that with an answer?" Wes asked rather sardonically.
"Charles, please, let's go. As in somewhere else. Anywhere else! This, this is bordering on stalking Cordelia," Winifred looked very uncomfortable about being here.
Gunn didn't let that affect him. "How can you two just go along with this, huh? I mean, what if one day Angel decides to do something like that to US? We end up just puppets to whatever thoughts that guy decides to put inside our heads?"
"But Angel wouldn't do something like that!" Fred said loyally. "This was a special case, gosh darn it! He did it to SAVE Cordelia, not to harm her! Why can't you understand that, Charles?"
"Because it's an immoral violation of one's free will," Wesley answered, as both Fred and Gunn looked at him in surprise. "As I said during the meeting yesterday, I can see both sides of the argument. But the bottom line is, it was the right thing to do – otherwise, Cordelia would have eventually killed herself. She's a strong woman, I know, but there are limits to anyone's strength. And I'd rather live with the lie than mourn her loss at some cemetery or another."
"But..." Charles tried to think of an answer to that, however he couldn't. Unfortunately, he knew that Wesley was right about that part of it. Gunn could remember the shattered brunette attempting to slash her wrists within her room at the Hyperion, after they'd gone on that guided tour of Wolfram & Hart's refurbished building. So he gave up for now and said, "Fine, let's get outta here. This whole thing has really left a sour taste in my mouth, I swear."
"I know," Fred said sympathetically. "But it's all for the best, I'm sure of it."
"You're both welcome to come back to my place. We'll grab some Chinese or Korean food along the way," Wesley offered, and his work colleagues quickly accepted.
As they left, the three members of Angel's Avengers never noticed the balance demon staring at them, before he turned his attention back to the young couple eating dinner and occasionally making out.
Whistler shrugged to himself before he disappeared, and then reappeared on the roof of the building. He couldn't help seeing a GIANT billboard, with the smiling image of Cordelia Chase as a Maybelline makeup model. He looked up at her and grumbled, "I hate it when wild cards get in the way."
"It is annoying," another balance demon named Wayfarer replied, who looked like Whistler's twin brother right down to the clothes. "Especially with regard to what your former protégé did. I hear the Powers honestly don't know what to do now, with the vampire on Wolfram and Hart's side."
"It's always the girl's fault," Whistler grumbled some more. "If they're not threatening to wear your rib cage as a hat, they're giving birth to a demon and forcing my boy to join Team Evil that way. It sucks, I swear to the Big Guy!"
"The problem is, that former seer's now under the protection of the Slayer army," Wayfarer said thoughtfully. "And the Powers don't want to interfere with them for the moment. Hmm, perhaps we should consider sending the one called Doyle to try to bail the Champion out of his current predicament?"
"Yeah, that might work." Whistler said. "But whatever we do, it should be done fast. The longer he's playing with the Lawyers… the harder its going to be."
The End