Faith steadied her feet at the edge of the cliff. She took a final large breath, spred her arms wide and leapt into the chasm. Wind whipped through her hair as she fell and the ground rushed up to meet her. She watched the canyon wall in front of her intently until she spied a message crudely painted on the rock. "Now, or Die"
Faith pulled a cord, dangling from a pack strapped to her, and instantly felt pull on her shoulders as a parachute opened up. With in seconds she was gentling floating to the ground after the intense rush of the free-fall. "Go figure, escaped con doing illegal base jumping" she mused to her self.
Moments later, Faith hit the ground. In spite of the parachute, it was still a hard hit due to the short fall, and even shorter time she had the chute open. She sat on the ground in a cloud of dust from the impact and unbuckled the chute from her. She stretched as she stood up feeling sore from the landing. Faith checked her self over looking for any serious injuries. None to be found. Looking up see could make out an obscured figure moving towards her through the dust. Quite determined.
"Slayer!" she heard its voice say. At this point Faith knew it was trouble. She reached back to grab a stake she slid into the back of her pants before the jump. It had fallen out on the way down. The girl readied her self and grumbled, "Great now I have to do this the hard way"
Angel roamed the halls of Wolfram & Hart. He claimed to be checking on the progress of the case, see if any heads where ready to be smashed. In all honesty, he was just avoiding paperwork. Years of literally fighting the good fight, reduced to a desk job.
Entering the science lab, Angel always felt that there should be some kind of Q down here. One person simply dedicated to making new gadgets for him. A disheveled young man walked passed Angel intently reading a clipboard. He stopped a looked around, before commenting, "What's that smell?"
"Blood Coffee," Angel simply said proudly and pointed to the mug, "Wanna to try it? It's oddly addictive."
The man looked like he would be sick and declined. Before he could run off Angel motioned to him.
"Hey Knox, where's Fred? I was going to check to see where she was with out rich demons." Angel inquired
"She went out on a stakeout with Wesley. She said she'd have results for you by the end of the day." Know replied with out almost a thought.
"She what?" Angel let out as he slammed his metal and plastic mug down on the counter. There was a reason why he had no more ceramic ones. "Told Wesley not to take her out into the field!" Angel continued to grumble and complain as he took back his mug and left the lab heading for his office.
Hours pass, and the sun starts to set. Angel's been fuming in his office, now on his fourth cup of the blood coffee. There was a bitter poisoned taste to it, but something about made him want to keep drinking.
"You know, forming a chemical dependency is often a sign of being overwhelmed." spoke a young, put together, professional girl as she strode into Angel's office like she owned the place.
"I am so not in the mood for you, Eve" Angel grumbled turning around on the chair's swivel.
"You can't sit here and avoid paperwork all day." Eve, the lesion between Angel and the higher ups, started to lecture walking up to his desk and rifle through papers. "I'm sure the Senior Partners wouldn't mind seeing mind seeing 'Wish Upon a Star' lose some funding cause you drop the ball, but all of this stuff is still Wolfram & Hart's finances and reputation. And when you slack off, it makes us all look bad."
"And I sure would want to make the evil law firm look bad." Angel sharply shot back, "Besides I did some paperwork."
"Writing death threats to Wesley cause you don't approve of his actions doesn't count. Besides part of being boss is delegating authority, and trusting others." Eve smoothly continued completely unruffled.
"Wesley took Fred, and put her in danger again."
"They were sitting in a car watching a house. She was never in any danger. There are much more dangerous things that could kill Fred in this building, in her lab." Eve slid across the topic.
"If she's here then I can protect her." Angel defended.
"If she's here, you'll be sitting in your office, while something horrible kills her down stairs." Eve tried to be sensitive about it. "Look, I know. You want to protect her, and everyone. I get it. It's cute. But you can't do it."
Eve took a seat on Angel's desk and played with his coffee mug. "See the LA branch has the second highest mortality rate off all the branches, if you don't count that zombification thing from last year." She took a sniff of the contents , made a face and quickly put it back down. "The thing is everyone is in danger working here, you, Fred, that Mexican wrestler mail-guy I haven't seen around for a while. Even I almost got choked to death a couple weeks ago. It's just not a safe place."
"But I can make it safer" Angel contested.
A knock at the door interrupted the debate between them, as Wesley slowly entered the room. "Sorry to interrupt, but there was a note stuck to my door with an 18th century dagger that said you wanted to see me."
Eve turned to look at Angel to see what he was going to do. Angel closed his eyes for a moment then looked up to Wesley, "Becareful with Fred. Would prefer she stays out of the field, but please be careful. You can go."
With that Wesley nodded understanding and headed out, but an other knock followed very closely. Angel sighed, "Wesley I said it was ok. We'll talk later."
Faith waltz into the office. "Sorry chief no Wesley here, just me"
"Faith!" Angel was pleased standing from his chair to meet her. Eve crossed her arms and glared at the new comer with contempt. Angel gave her a hug, "So Spike found you then?"
"Spike? No. I thought he was gone. And you not liking him too much." Faith looked puzzled .
"No, he's back." Angel sighed. "Sent him to find you this morning. I could use your help."
"What I like to hear." Faith smiled, "Was kinda bored after the Slayerthon, so thought I'd come find you, help fight the good fight. Figure you always know where the trouble is. This your secretary?"
Eve huffed and was about to speak before Angel cut her off. "Good, I can get you started right off. Got a..." Angel drifted off for a moment. Gave a pained look that came form no where.
"I got…" Angel stopped and grimaced in pain, before letting out a moan and collapsing on his desk.
Faith paniced and run to him and Eve did her best fouled NBA player impressions and 'innocently' backed away. Faith glared at Eve and took charge of the situation, "Go get help, now!"