Chapter Ten

William and Calder nearly crashed into Angel on their way to the front door. He had been going upstairs when they ran around the corner on their way down and stumbled to a halt just two steps above Angel. The girl who had been outside Angel's door the night before—Judy—stood just a step or two behind, nervously glancing around the lobby as though each pair of eyes were spotlights searching for her.

"Angel!" Calder cried before either of the adults' surprised expressions could turn into annoyance. He glanced quickly at Judy, lowered his voice, and said through heavy breaths, "Angel, there's something here! In the hotel!"

Angel turned back to Judy. "I'll see you later," he said.

She nodded with slight puzzlement and continued up to her room.

Angel turned back to the boys. "I know," he said.

"Oh good," William said, and then frowned. "How?"

"I heard it," Angel said. "Something's…whispering."

"We'll do you one better," Calder said. "We just saw it."

"Where?"

"In our room."

Angel glanced between the two of them. "Show me."

The boys turned instantly and led the way back to their room, which in their haste they hadn't even locked. They let Angel enter first.

"In the bathroom," William pointed, and Angel cautiously approached the doorway. He stared into the darkness for a few moments, then stepped forward and turned on the light.

He looked back at the boys. "It's gone," he said, and William and Calder relaxed.

"Where'd it go?" Calder wondered rhetorically as he made his way to the bathroom entrance and peered in.

Angel shrugged.

"You can track it, right?" William asked, looking over Calder's shoulder into the brightly-lit room, and hoping in a weird way that he hadn't just imagined what he saw.

Angel was silent for a moment, staring at the two boys.

William glanced up and caught Angel's stare. He shifted uncomfortably. "What?" he asked.

Calder turned, too.

Angel glanced briefly between them, and then said, "I should figure out what it is first."

"It's a paranoia demon," William said.

Angel frowned at him skeptically. "How…?"

"We're from the future," William said. "We told you. Just trust us: It's a paranoia demon."

"What kind?" Angel said slowly.

William and Calder looked at each other and they shrugged.

"There's more than one kind?" Calder asked.

Angel slowly started walking toward the door. "I need to figure out which kind it is," he said.

"We'll help," William offered.

Angel stopped and turned his head to glance at each of them again, and then turned to leave the room. The boys looked at each other, silently agreed that it wasn't a no, and followed after him.

"So what do we do now?" Judith asked, replacing the cream jar on the coffee table and swirling the caramel-colored tea in her cup with a spoon. She congratulated herself on how steady she'd kept her voice. She'd been wanting to ask this all evening but had held back to give Cordelia some space. Though she'd already given up hope that Cordelia had a complete solution—she would have said something by now if she had—Judith still held tightly onto the hope that Cordelia might have had at least a small breakthrough.

"Well," Cordelia said, and Judith noticed that Cordelia was uncharacteristically not meeting her eyes. "Honestly…I'm not sure."

Judith pursed her lips to hold back the bitter disappointment. "Hm," she said, and took a sip of tea to give Cordelia a chance to further explain what she meant—and herself a chance to remain calm.

"In missions like this, it usually it goes something like this," Cordy said. "I get a vision, I go to that dimension, pick up all the pieces I find, and I put them together in a nice big puzzle. Easy as pie on a Sunday afternoon. If the pieces don't fit, the Powers give me something to fill in the gaps. They did send me a vision this afternoon—"

Judith's head jerked up. "And you're just now telling me?"

Cordelia gave her a patient look. "They sent me a vision, but it makes absolutely no sense. I've been trying to figure it out, believe me, but I don't think they've ever sent me one this vague—including the one about the Ugly Grey Blobby Thing."

Judith frowned. "What was it? Today's vision, not the… Grey… Blobby… Whatever."

Cordy's gaze became distant as she tried to recall the vision. "Just lots of emotions and feelings—and some sound, but not much. It's like they only sent me half the vision; like they got some wires crossed in the transmission and the video didn't come through."

Judith only vaguely understood the metaphor, but she didn't really need to understand it. "And what do you make of it?"

Cordy took a sip of her tea. "Mostly…that the PTB are still on our side. They want us to find William and Calder just as much as we do. And that helps."

"In a sense," Judith agreed. "But that's not concrete enough for me. There must be something else we can do. We could go back to the Lauchley's to look for more clues, or use a… I don't know, a knowledge spell or something. What other divining powers do you have?"

"That's it. I've used all the tools I have. I just have to go over everything I know until I figure it out." Cordy sighed and muttered quietly, "This would be so much easier if…"

Judith pressed her lips together even tighter and took a deep breath. "One would think that the Powers That Be would give their agents better tools to work with. If they're so powerful and all-knowing, why can't they just give you all the information and abilities you need? William and Calder could have been home by now."

Cordelia gave Judith a knowing smile. "Believe me, I've been there. And those are the same questions Angel's been asking since everything with Connor happened. But if I've learned anything over the past 500 years working with the Powers, it's that they do know more than we do, and if they're not telling us something, it's for a good reason. There are other forces to be reckoned with and other paths to be crossed before this is all over. Timing is everything. It might just be that giving us a hard puzzle to figure out gives the other factors a chance to catch up."

"And what do I do in the meantime?" Judith asked. Cordelia glanced up. "You must understand that I cannot just sit here and wait. I can't even sit here and puzzle over the pieces, Cordelia, my son is missing. What did Angel do when Connor went missing?"

Cordelia gave a slight nod of understanding. "Went crazy," she replied. "He used dark magic to find Connor that nearly killed us all."

"And do you understand," Judith said as evenly as she could. "That I am quite ready to do exactly the same thing? Give me the words, Cordelia, give me ritual, and I will do it."

"Yeah, I get it, Judith, I do. I'm working on—"

The bracelet on Judith's wrist buzzed and she jumped slightly, startling Cordelia, too. Judith held her palm up and double-tapped the bracelet. The message read,

Los Angeles. 1952.

The sender was Angel.

"What?" Judith asked, showing Cordelia her palm. "What does he mean?"

Cordelia leaned forward to read it and then slowly straightened again, thinking. Judith could hardly stand the suspense.

"Cordelia?" Judith asked again.

"I don't know," Cordy replied, lost in thought. "Angel was there in the 1952; he had me research the Hyperion Hotel once, where he was living. But it can't still be there."

"Most likely not," Judith agreed.

They fell into a long, contemplative, and, for Judith, edgy silence. A slight anger burned in her gut that Angel hadn't given them more to go on—and had given it electronically rather than in person. Clearly, he thought they were supposed to understand the message as he gave it to them, but once again Judith found herself without any of the proper information to figure out what he meant.

But then again, he had sent the message to her, not Cordelia. Was the answer really as simple as "Los Angeles. 1952"?

Hesitantly, Judith spoke. "Cordelia… You don't suppose that William is… That they're…in 1952 Los Angeles. Do you?"

Cordy frowned. "They could be…" she conceded. "I mean, it's possible." Her face brightened slightly in realization. "Hey, the lackeys said that they hadn't opened a portal to another dimension, but they didn't say anything about another time. Oh…oh…" Cordelia held up a hand and Judith waited with a pounding heart for the pieces to finish clicking into place in Cordelia's mind.

Finally, Cordelia looked up at Judith and smiled. "They fell off their path," she said simply.

Judith wrinkled her brow. "What?"

"You know how some people—who shall remain Angel—tend to fall off their path metaphorically? I think that William and Calder fell off theirs literally."

"Is that possible?"

"If it can be metaphorical, it can be literal."

Judith frowned in confusion. She was usually quite good at grasping abstract and philosophical topics, but this was crossing the line into the physical, which was a line that she had, until now, thought quite solid. "I don't understand. How do you physically fall off your metaphorical life path?"

"You don't," Cordelia replied. "Usually, you're pushed."

That didn't help Judith in the slightest. "By what?"

Cordelia gave Judith a significant look. "By someone who really doesn't like where you're heading in life. Especially if you grow up to, oh I don't know, become a Champion and battle the forces of darkness… Perhaps defeat some great Big Bad that really doesn't want to be defeated, and who, say, might have been forewarned about the coming of said Champion. Prophecies happen."

Judith swallowed. "The person that hired the Three."

"Exactly."

Judith took a minute to organize her thoughts. "So they were pushed off their path and landed in 1952 Los Angeles? Why there? Why then?"

Cordelia shifted in her seat as she thought about how to explain it. "Think of it this way," she said finally. "When you're pushed and you lose your balance, you grab onto something to try and stop the fall, right? Something prominent, something strong, something you know will never fail you or let you go… Judith, what is the one thing that 1952 L.A. and 2214 Galway have in common?"

Judith nodded. "Angel. They reached out for Angel."

"Who wouldn't?" Cordy said.

"And would the Angel of 1952 help them? That wasn't long, relatively speaking, after he was cursed."

Cordelia was quiet for a moment. "I didn't know Angel back then, but he kind of had a mopey, emo, I-hate-the-world-'cause-the-world-hates-me attitude, so I'm guessing…no."

"Well, then," Judith said, "we need to go help them."

"We do," Cordy agreed. "But we also need more info."

"Like what?"

"Like confirmation. This whole being-pushed-off-their-paths thing is still in theory stage, and time travel is hugely restricted; we're hardly even allowed to wistfully daydream about it without damn good reason. Angel's message didn't even say 'They're in 1952 Los Angeles,' so his practically marital commitment to vagueness means that we have to do some extra digging and, unfortunately for him, it means that the digging has to be done around him." Cordy stood up. "Let's go."

"To Angel's?" Judith asked, standing also.

"Of course," Cordy replied. "He can't expect to give us information without an explanation behind it; not with all this PTB-hating, moral-dilemma, no-one-can-know-I-care crap he's given us." She yanked open the apartment door a little harder than she meant to, Judith following closely behind. "He's not that stupid."

Angel sat, as usual, in the dark. The dark helped him slip into denial much more effectively than light, and denial was the last thing he had to hold onto. The deepest part of him knew that pressing send would not be the end of it; that in less than an hour Cordelia and Judith would be standing in front of him, demanding answers.

But luckily, the deepest part was often the easiest to ignore, and Angel contented himself with thinking that he'd given them plenty to go on, and they would be researching ways to pull someone out of the past at that very moment, too busy to give a thought to how he knew where William and Calder were. It would be best that way. He had only partially broken his vow against the Powers. If it were possible to send the message anonymously, he would have done it, and kept himself even farther from crossing the line of working on their side.

The pounding on the door and Cordelia's insistent voice that he open it were therefore not entirely unexpected, even if it did startle him. He ignored it, knowing that she would come in on her own and wondering why he hadn't thought to lock the door. It opened, and the lights flooded on. Angel shut his eyes against it and two sets of feet marched with equal fervor across the hardwood floor to position themselves intimidatingly in front of him. Why did they both have to come?

He cracked his eyes open at their towering figures. Cordelia held up her hand, which was somehow smeared with his blood. Had he remembered to wipe off the doorknob? Not that he really cared at that moment, but the neighbors would start to wonder eventually… He opened his eyes a bit wider as they got used to the light.

"You wanna answer some questions, Angel?" Cordy said. Of course he didn't, but it wasn't like he could say so. "Starting with whose blood is on the doorknob and why it's there, and ending with a full explanation of the message you sent us. Complete sentences are required."

"I would say the other way around," Judith interrupted. "Being as I really don't care whose blood is on the doorknob. Do you know where my son is?"

Angel glanced at her. "Yes," he replied. "And now you do, too." He stood up, partly to close the door block any curious ears, and partly to regain some semblance of power in the group. He used his knuckles to push the door shut, as he'd not bothered to pull the glass out of his palms, rather liking the distraction of physical pain.

"How do you know?" Judith pressed, following him to the door. "How are you sure?"

"I just am," Angel replied. "It's probably best if we just leave it at that."

"Wrong," Cordy said, flanking Judith and cornering Angel against the wall. "Try again."

Angel glanced between the two of them, the silence dragging. There was a brief unspoken battle of wills, which Angel quickly realized he was not going to win. He sighed and finally said, "I had a vision."

Cordelia's jaw dropped slightly, but Judith's frown only deepened.

"You get visions?" Judith asked in a tone that was a little more seething and incensed than Angel thought the situation warranted.

"I used to," Angel said. "I thought the Powers took them away after… After I wouldn't save the people I saw in them anymore."

"Apparently not," Judith said coldly.

"No," Angel agreed. "Apparently not."

"What did you see?" Cordy asked.

Angel swallowed. "The Hyperion, William and Calder, me. Mid-twentieth century cars." He shrugged. "They're in 1952—Los Angeles. I don't know why, I don't know how."

Judith scrutinized him. "You're sure it's 1952?" she asked.

"Positive," he replied. "It was a memorable year."

There was a brief pause. "And the blood?" Cordy asked, holding up her palm again.

Angel looked at his own torn palms, and Cordy and Judith gasped. "Fell on some glass when the vision hit," he said.

"And you just forgot to take the glass out?" Cordy said, tentatively drawing one of his hands closer with a slight touch of her fingertips so that she could look at it more carefully. After a moment's glance, she seemed to realize that there were other things she needed to focus on, and suddenly let his hand go.

"So how are we getting my son back?" Judith asked.

Cordelia looked over at her. "We go back in time," she said.

"There aren't any spells to do that," Angel said. "You can change memories, create alternate realities, but there are only a few beings that have the ability to bend time."

"And I'm one of them," Cordy said.

Angel stared at her.

"Not that I've ever done it before, but I've been on board with the PTB long enough to earn certain privileges. It's like their idea of a pay raise." She rolled her eyes slightly at the thought.

"And you can just…jump back in time?" Angel said, a small fist of excitement gripping his stomach. "Whenever you want?"

Cordelia narrowed her eyes at him. "Privilege," she repeated slowly, an edge of finality in her voice. "As in: for business, not pleasure." The fist let go reluctantly.

"Then let's go," Judith said, turning to Cordelia to follow her lead. But Cordelia stayed where she was, still looking at Angel.

"I'm going to give you one more chance," she said, her voice beginning to harden again. "You don't deserve it, but—God only knows why—I'm giving it to you anyway. Are you coming with us?"

Angel hesitated, a little too long. He could feel their combined anger build against him again, feeding on each other. "There are things you don't understand," he said.

"So make us," Cordy replied with an eerie quiet.

Angel swallowed; his fists clenched around the glass shards and they cut satisfyingly deeper into his palm. "It's too painful," he said simply.

"And we couldn't possibly understand pain," Cordelia said, her voice trembling with effort to keep control.

"Not like this," Angel replied.

"Hello!" Cordelia cried. "I died because I gave birth to a fully grown woman. I went temporarily insane because Wolfram and Hart sent a demon to give me never-ending visions that made me feel the pain of countless victims over and over again! I have been impaled, had my heart broken—multiple times—and I watched Doyle die in front of my own eyes, completely powerless to stop it. Don't you dare pull the King of Pain card on me now! What the hell kind of vengeance did you swear on the PTB, Angel? 'Cause even I can't hold a cold shoulder for 200 years!"

"I told you already!" Angel snapped, and glanced at Judith, who was directing such a cold stare at him that it briefly threw him off some of his anger. "I told both of you," he said.

"Oh don't you give me that, Mister!" Cordy said, and Angel turned back to her, heat rising again. "I know when something else is going on, and—"

"Connor." Judith interrupted suddenly, icily. The room fell dead silent. Angel stared at her in shock; a boulder landed in his gut, and he found that he was unable to look away from her frozen gaze; her stormy blue-grey eyes sparkling like lightning. He was trapped there, and suddenly, he felt a little bit terrified.

"It's always about our children, isn't it Angel?" Judith said with a calm so forced her voice shook to keep it down. A lump rose in Angel's throat and he couldn't swallow it away. "We do what we must to protect them, no matter how irrational or who else gets hurt in the process. I know that. So Angel…put yourself in my shoes for just a minute. Ask yourself: right now, is your son's need greater than my son's?"

Judith took several steps forward. "If it is," she continued, "then I understand. I really do." The gaze softened briefly enough to let Angel glance at the floor.

"But when I get my son back," the ice in her voice returned instantly and Angel felt forced to look at her again, "I can't be sure I'd trust you to see him anymore."

Angel did not move for several seconds; then he nodded once in understanding. He paused, and glared accusingly at Cordelia.

"Hey," she said, raising her hands, "Connor came up in normal conversation. You can't blame me for doing something you should have done years ago."

"How much did you tell her?" he asked quietly.

"The basics. I think I narrowed everything I knew down to five sentences. Maybe six. I was pretty impressed with myself."

Angel was, too, but he didn't say it. He swallowed and looked at the floor. He felt oddly empty, even though his mind was so full his head hurt. He listened to the argument again in his thoughts, and at last, he made a decision. He spoke, "Then I have something to tell you. Both of you. But it's kind of a long story; you might want to sit down."

Nobody moved for several seconds; eventually Cordy turned and sat down slowly on the couch, staring at him with the look of a stern judge that said that his story better be worth it. Judith remained standing rigidly in front of Angel.

"William is fine for now," Angel said. "They're not in much danger." Yet.

Judith blinked once, then reluctantly sat down on an armchair, her back still stiff and jaw still set with anger.

"The story takes place over a year after Cordy died," Angel began. "I was angry at the Powers for everything that happened already. But that's not what made me turn against them." Silence fell as Angel tried to decide how to start his story.

"What did?" Cordy finally prompted, her voice still hard.

Angel looked at her. "They tried to kill Connor," he said, then pulled in a breath and looked at Judith. "And then they did something a whole lot worse."