Annnnd it's the final chapter of this story. What happens next? I'm glad you asked. Seeley keeps telling me, ask and you shall receive. Well, I don't think you're asking, but I am. So here's this last chappie, then we move onto the next rung! Yay! Once again, I love reviews. All things recognizeable, I pretty much don't own, and I'm most definitely not making any money off of. Le sigh, so sad.
Three weeks after Seeley had come home, Anden got the call that her century old third cousin was dead. Anden and Seeley packed to go to Florida, where Anden the Elder lived. Andy's parents were invited to watch the children, and they readily agreed. Seeley and Andy were on the plane less than three hours later, sitting in coach seats and trying to keep the grief away with their childish antics. The flight didn't take long, about another three hours. Once at the Tampa airport, Seeley rented a car and began driving up the 19 towards New Port Richey. They pulled up at Anden's home in Timber Oaks, a retirement community in the large town. Another car occupied the driveway, and the garage door was wide open, full of boxes. Seeley admired the workbenches and the racks on the wall, each tool having an outlined place on the wall. Andy went up and rang the doorbell, pulling Seeley by his sleeve over. The door was answered by a girl in her early twenties, her long waist length hair tossed into a messy ponytail, balancing the boy that Anden had had with her on her hip. She gaped for a moment at Seeley, then opened the screen door to the house. Anden watched the girl regain her composure, then she offered a hand between the two.
"Uh, hello there. I'm Natalie, Anden's granddaughter. And this is Fox." Natalie introduced herself to the Angel-look alike and the redheaded woman. Angel's could be twin looked a few years older and had… an actual tan. The woman was short, very short even by Natalie's standards. Compared to Anden, Natalie felt like an Amazon. Fox seemed to know the two, and held his arms out to the Angel-twin.
"Seeley! Seeley Hi!" Fox crowed as Seeley took the toddler and tossed him a bit into the air before catching him.
"I'm Anden, and this is Seeley my husband." Anden stepped in as Natalie invited them in. Seeley tugged Fox up onto his shoulders and went inside. Natalie swept a hand around the house, which was in a state of disarray since she had currently been cleaning out decades worth of… well crap.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, I'm sure. My husband is around somewhere… I don't know where. He's blonde, looks like Billy Idol, don't be afraid. My brother I think is in Granddaddy's bedroom, over there. So you guys can take Anden's room." Natalie pointed to the left of the house, where Anden had slept after her own husband Emmett died nearly ten years ago. Anden nodded.
"So Anden was watching your son or something?" Seeley asked as he let Fox down. Fox grabbed up a stuffed…thing and ran into the bedroom on the other side of the house. It was only a two bedroom, but it worked.
"I don't have a…Oh, you mean Fox?" Natalie said as she wandered into the kitchen. Anden and Seeley followed her, looking around. The house certainly hadn't changed.
"Anden had him at our place almost a month ago. Was she watching him?" Seeley asked as Anden disappeared into a room on the other side of the kitchen.
"Fox's parents were killed almost a month ago. About two weeks ago, she brought him to me in California, and we adopted him." Natalie explained. "So this is the kitchen. You guys are free to do whatever in the house." Natalie said. Seeley smiled at her as she went off into the blue bedroom. Seeley began to explore the small house. He soon saw that it was laid out in a sort of circular layout. Everything was joined by hallways. There was a sitting room/dining room as the entrance. Off to the left of that was the kitchen, and to the right was the blue bedroom. If you went into the kitchen, you would go into the living room, and taking a left there would find you at the yellow bedroom, Anden's room. Past that was a bathroom, and back to the garage and the front door. Several toys were scattered about, and Seeley soon saw Natalie scooping the toys into a toy box in the foyer.
"When's the funeral?" Seeley looked at the young girl, who paused in her picking up toys to look at him. Her eyes were green like his Anden's but they were so different. Red haired and green eyed, but the two were so different in stature and builds. This girl had some definite warrior status, she moved as if she knew every inch of muscle and what it could do.
"Coupla days." Natalie answered before standing. "Three, actually." Natalie nodded to herself as she patted herself off. Seeley vaguely heard the phone ringing, and Natalie went off to answer it. Seeley sat, picked up a photo album. As he opened it, the front door slammed open and a Billy Idol look alike came in, followed closely by a tall boy with light brown hair and brown eyes, and another tall girl with dark black hair and brown eyes. The bleach blonde stopped short and both teens slammed into his back.
"God, Spike. You could really warn a girl when you're gonna stop." Amanda whined before reaching around Chris to shove Spike's shoulder. Spike stepped aside and Amanda stepped through. She too stopped up short as she stared at Seeley on the couch, who lifted a hand and waved.
"It's just Angel. Why are we stopping? Pizza should be here soon." Chris grumbled and pushed Amanda aside gently before going into the kitchen.
"That's not peaches." Spike growled slightly before following Chris. Amanda looked at Seeley, lifting a brow.
"I'm Seeley. Who are you?" Seeley stood and offered the dark haired girl his hand. Amanda snorted and turned around.
"Obviously someone who needs her eyes checked." Amanda went into the blue bedroom. Natalie darted through from the kitchen, looking at Seeley in a panic, then disappeared into the blue bedroom as well.
"Well something's going on here, isn't it?" Seeley grumbled.
Natalie slammed the door behind her and leaned against it. Angel was on the bed, changing Fox's diaper. Amanda sat at the desk, staring at Angel.
"We've got trouble." Natalie said softly. Angel finished Fox's diaper and began to settle the toddler's pants before looking up.
"What kind of trouble?" Angel looked up.
"The kind where my brother has some kind of double and obviously forgot to tell me?" Natalie glared at her brother. Angel paled and stood, pushing Natalie out of the way to peer out the door. Seeley stood in the kitchen, diving into a pizza box with Chris.
"I would say that's trouble. He looks just like me." Angel shut the door and leaned against it.
"What are we going to do?" Natalie asked, lifting Fox up and burying her face in his comforting baby smell. Fox wriggled and squirmed, begging to get down. Natalie set him down and motioned for Angel to let him out.
"Why don't we just… show him Angel?" Amanda suggested. Natalie immediately opened her mouth to reject the idea, then rethought it.
"That's actually a really good idea. I mean, there are enough differences. Meanwhile, we should figure out why." Natalie said. Angel nodded. They heard Seeley shouting then.
"Anden! Come and eat pizza!" Seeley hollered before sitting in the living room with a plate. Natalie and Amanda trooped out into the kitchen, meeting Anden from the other side. After a moment, Angel came into the living room with a plate of pizza and sat at the small table in front of the TV. Seeley choked and spit out his pizza onto the plate.
"Christ…almighty." Seeley breathed as he stared at his twin. He set the plate on the couch and rubbed his palms across his eyes before looking back to Angel. Fox ran between him and Angel, Spike chasing after the young boy, and still the vision didn't disappear. His twin turned and smiled slightly at Seeley.
"My name is Angel." Angel introduced himself, though just as shell shocked as Seeley. Both swallowed, almost a mirror image of one another.
Less than an hour later found Anden and Seeley in their room. Natalie sat at the small table, smoking a cigarette and laying out photos of the victims they had found in the state park. All the victims were exsanguinated, a process that drained the blood from the body. The body was then opened up, the organs removed and burned with the blood in a bowl. Angel had recovered the ashes of the organs. Natalie stared at the pictures as she inhaled, then flicked the ash of her cigarette into the ashtray.
"Those are some pictures, Miss Natalie." Seeley said as he looked at the table. Natalie jumped, trying to gather the pictures close to her. Seeley just held up a hand, stopping her. "It's alright, it's nothing I haven't seen before."
"These pictures are very personal to my clients, Seeley." Natalie admonished as she stubbed out the cigarette and gathered the pictures.
"I understand. If you need my help, please give me a call." Seeley scrawled a couple of numbers on the back of the card, then handed Natalie a business card. Natalie read the card, then looked up to Seeley.
"You're an FBI agent?" Natalie tilted her head to look at the fairly battered man. He just shrugged and so she took out a business card of her own. Rummaging through the clutter on the table, she found a pen and scrawled an email address.
"You can call us, any of us except for Chris and Amanda, on a daily basis at this number." Natalie handed the card to Seeley.
"Angel Investigations?" Seeley asked.
"Yep, we help the helpless." Natalie agreed and stood up.
They spent a week together, the two different sides of the family, and they decided they actually liked one another. It was still strange seeing two of the Angel/Seeley's and Spike never let Natalie forget it. Anden and Natalie kept in touch with one another, and Seeley even picked up the phone to Natalie and Fox every once in a while. Angel spoke to Anden often, and Seeley and Angel spoke. The only one who didn't really talk to the DC'ers was Spike, who only got on the phone under coercion, so it didn't really surprise them.
After talking with Seeley for a while, Natalie began to understand that he worked with cases almost like A.I.'s, except… more human. Natalie and Seeley were able to bounce ideas off one another quite often, and that was nice for both of them. Until one day when she got a very strange call from Seeley.
"Angel Investigations, we help the helpless."