Rating: PG-13
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Disclaimer: I don't own them, never will, and make no money.
A/N: Italics indicate Bill's thoughts.
People who kill themselves like this are crazy, Bill thought as he plummeted towards the ground that was so close yet so far away. What's the point of leaving the world if you leave in a state of screaming terror? The blonde tried to remind him that it was only a dream, but he couldn't help remembering all the other times he'd been hurt while in this strange dream world.
The ground was growing far too close, the building was far too big, the descent was too long, and still he fell. The wind whipped past him and stole the breath from his lungs. It seemed like ground was rushing up to meet him just as he was rushing down towards it. He could see the leaves in the trees. He could read the street signs. He could see the cracks in the sidewalk. It's not the fall that kills you, Bill thought hysterically, insanely. It's hitting the ground. And unfortunately for Bill, it was in the next second that he hit the ground.
The blonde man heard his bones crack and break, felt his ribs puncture his lungs, experienced the agony of having his skull shattered and his brains literally splattered across the concrete. For perhaps the blink of an eye, Bill felt himself die.
The sheets were so sweat-soaked that it looked like a pitcher of water had been poured over them. Bill struggled hard for a moment, until he realized that the only enemy holding him down was the sweaty blankets. He managed to cross the room in four long, frantic steps and flipped the bathroom lights on, thankful for their blinding ways. The blonde man had never, ever been so happy to be alive as he was now. He was ecstatic to the point that he actually did a dance. A sort of spastic cross between the Chicken Dance and hip-hop.
"I'm not a pancake, I'm not dead, I kiss the sweet ground and still have my head," Bill sang, rhyming badly and not caring. He gave the finger to some point in the air above him, pretending it was Hamilton. "Thought you had me, didn't ya?" The dancing commenced until Bill realized that, unlike himself, Angelus hadn't survived the encounter with Hamilton. It was time to see Angel. Now.
His door, for the first time in five days, was unlocked. Bill marveled at this for a moment, enjoying the freedom of being able to step out of his room any time he wanted. Amazing how things got taken for granted. Apparently, his grudging compliance had meant that he was finally allowed to be free. Sort of. Bill was halfway down the hall before he realized that he had no idea where Angel was.
Bill contemplated walking up and down the halls, calling Angel's name, but that would be too pathetic for words. Instead, he remembered what Andrew had said about Illyria always being in the training rooms and tried to go in their general direction. She might be able to help him. Eventually, he found what he was looking for.
Angel and Illyria were sparring, although it really looked more like dancing. Very few, if any, blows were landing, and there was a lot of whirling and kicking involved. It was powerful and intricate; Bill couldn't help but be impressed by these warriors. I could have been like that once. Holy crap.
Illyria was blue. Bill realized that this must be her 'true form', and understood why she couldn't pass for human. She looked like the Blue Man Group meets dominatrix by way of supermodel photo shoot. The only word Bill could find for it was 'cool', but that was a pathetic way of describing an ancient demon. As for Angel who was shoeless and shirtless…well, Bill wasn't into men, but he suddenly understood what he might have seen, back in the day. The blonde man took a deep breath and stepped inside the room.
Angel and Illyria both whirled, looking lithe and powerful, like tigers. They looked surprised to see him. "Bill," Angel said politely. "We heard you decided to join the team."
"Yeah," Bill muttered, eyeing Illyria. She was even stranger up close. Her eyes were definitely not normal.
"Does this form displease you?" the blue demon asked, cocking her head to the side, which Bill realized she did every time something confused her.
"No, it's just," the blonde struggled for words, "wow. You have a kick-ass Halloween costume."
Illyria squinted. "Halloween?"
"Mortal children dress up in costumes and pretend to be other things," Angel explained, crossing his arms. "Why are you here Bill?"
There was really no good way to say it. "There's really no good way to say this," Bill began, preparing himself, "so I'm just gonna come out and say it and you can react. Have you been feeling weird since I've been here, like something was wrong or missing, but now you don't feel weird anymore?"
Bill was rather tired of painful jolts, so when Angel pinned him to a wall by his neck, the blonde had had just about enough. He growled and struggled, but Angel simply tightened his grip on Bill's neck, making him gasp and go limp. "You have eight seconds to explain how you know about this before I start hitting," the vampire said coldly.
"And you have eight seconds to let go of me before I decide that you don't deserve an explanation, you fuzzy-headed Neanderthal," Bill spat, digging his short nails into Angel's wrist. Had he not been a nervous nail-biter, this mode of attack probably would have been more successful.
Angel considered the mortal's threat for seven of the eight seconds, and then suddenly relaxed his grip. Bill leaned against the wall, rubbing his neck and glaring at Angel while muttering, "They have classes for people like you."
"Classes for half-breeds?" Illyria asked, one corner of her lips raising about a millimeter. Since the ancient demon showed all of the expression of a petrified oak tree, the lip twitching was probably the Illyria-equivalent of a grin.
"Anger management classes," Bill snapped, straightening his T-shirt. "And now I don't really think I should tell you anything." Angel silently raised a fist. "Or, y'know, I could share. Sharing is good." And share Bill did. The story came tumbling from his lips and he felt relieved because of it. Finally, someone would know just what had been going on inside of his head. He wasn't so alone anymore.
As Bill finally wrapped up, telling about his jump from the Wolfram and Hart building, Angel was totally expressionless, not really staring at Bill, but past him, into some other place and time. Bill, uncomfortable with the blankness on the vampire's face, asked, "So, do you think, um, that it really was, er, him?"
"I think if the Powers That Be wanted to, they could take him out of my head and put him into yours," Angel agreed, still unreadable.
"But to be able to take him out without seriously screwing you up, you'd have to have some kind of weird split personali-" The dark-haired vampire raised an eyebrow. "Oh. So, you do have a-"
"Yes," Angel answered shortly. "And we've fought before. But you say he was trying to help you?"
"Does that mean it wasn't Angelus?"
Angel shrugged. "If he was bored enough, which he tends to get, he could help us out. He's a little bit saner in my head." The vampire shook his head. "Hamilton. God damn it, I hate that guy." He seemed to consider things for another moment, and walked towards the door. "Let's go."
"Where are we going?" Bill asked as he followed the large vampire through the halls, Illyria trailing behind them silently.
"To Giles," Angel explained, his sentences short, as usual. "If Wolfram and Hart hacked into your head, then that means they know you're here and all hell is about to break loose."
"Oh…that kind of sucks," muttered Bill. Angel looked down at him, amused.
"Yes. Yes it does." The rest of the walk was silent, although it wasn't as uncomfortable as it could have been. Bill did, however, get a shock when Angel stopped halfway up a staircase and cocked his head to the side, listening. He was on the Voice Step.
"You-" Bill shook his head for a moment, mind boggled, "you know about the Voice Step?"
The vampire smirked. "Is that why you suddenly decided to try and go AWOL? You heard us talking that day." Bill nodded. "Yes, I know about this step. It came in handy for eavesdropping while Buffy and the others were discussing whether or not they could trust me and whether it was safe to have Illyria around. It's amazing what people say when they never think it'll get back to you."
"You said it would be okay to kill me," the blonde accused.
Angel didn't try to deny it. "I'm sorry for that. But after a while, when your entire life revolves around the mission, you stop asking about what part of a personality defines who someone is. That's for Psych 101. I never went and Buffy slept through that class, apparently."
Bill snorted. "You have a weird sense of humor."
Angel smiled, a rare real smile, and got off the step. "There's no one in the conference room. Giles is probably in the library."
"There's a library?"
Turns out there was a library, and a huge one at that. Bill's jaw dropped and his eyes grew wide. There were more books in here than someone could read in a century. Two centuries even. Rows and rows of books, thick ones, thin ones, leather-bound or new. Some books had English words along the spines, some had German or Chinese or Latin, and some were in languages Bill had never even seen before A person could get lost in the library and never return. "How does all this fit in one building?" the blonde man asked, almost drooling. He loved books, not that he would ever admit that. It made him seem less manly.
"It doesn't," Angel responded, grinning at Bill's reaction to the library. "We're in the building next door. They have underground tunnels."
"And you gave me a TV," Bill muttered. He glanced around, making sure Angel and Illyria were the only ones nearby. "So, do they have more than just demon books here? Do they have other things like, oh, I dunno, poetry, for example?" Hell would freeze over and become the location for the next Winter Olympics before the blonde admitted that he liked poetry. In high school, any boy who actually, gasp! enjoyed reading poetry was instantly labeled as gay, so Bill had learned to keep quiet about his reading preferences. The question, however, would seem perfectly innocent to any outside observer.
Angel actually laughed, a nice, amused, normal laugh. "I'll show you the poetry section later, Bill."
How did he know that? Oh my God, he's reading my mind! He's in my head! "How?! How did you know?" Bill asked sharply.
"You were a poet the first time you were human," explained the vampire, looking almost wistful.
"I enjoy this place," Illyria said suddenly, looking around in curiosity. She still hadn't switched back to human. "It speaks of knowledge."
The trio continued through the library, Angel seeming to know exactly where he was going. Bill wished he had that sense of direction. Maybe it's a vampire thing. Finally, in what seemed to be the center of the building, long rows of tables were set up for reading or studying. Giles, Willow, Xander, and Buffy sat at one table, looking over a large stack of books.
"The Scooby Gang in action," Angel muttered, so quietly that Bill barely heard him. The vampire had a strange look of heartache on his eternally young face, and the blonde suddenly understood a small fraction of what immortality was. It wasn't living forever. It was staying in place while everything else changed. It was remembering what once was and having to face the reality of how things were now.
"Hey," Bill greeted, breaking the silence abruptly. All four heads shot up and took in Angel, Bill, and the still-blue Illyria.
"Deadboy, Fangless, and the Blue Wonder," Xander commented. "Goody."
"Is there something wrong?" Giles asked, taking off his glasses.
"Yeah, there is." Angel repeated Bill's story to the Scooby Gang. Bill, for his part, stood quietly the entire time, uncomfortable with the way he was being scrutinized. Illyria looked around, seeming to stare for long periods of time at nothing.
"What're you doing?" Bill finally whispered to her as the dark-haired vampire reached the part about Hamilton. "Counting the air molecules or something?"
"Yes," Illyria answered. "How did you know?"
"So, you've had Angelus in your head for over a week, and never told us?" Willow asked, looking confused.
"Well, you kept me tied to a bed," Bill explained. "I was feeling angry."
"If Marcus Hamilton was in your head, then the Senior Partners know we have him," Giles said, agreeing with Angel's assumption. "And they'll come for him."
"How much time are we looking at?" Buffy questioned, suddenly looking less like a little blonde woman and more like a warrior.
"A day," Angel answered unexpectedly. "They like to get things done as quickly as possible, and as quietly. They'll get together some of their soldiers and come down on us, hard and silent. It would take about a day, maybe less, if they haven't undergone any drastic changes since I was CEO."
"So what's the plan? We run and hide until Wills can cook up a spell to get Spike back in action?" Xander suggested.
"No." Angel's voice was inflexible and he looked strangely angry, though not at Xander. "No running. No hiding."
"Why is that?" Buffy asked, stepping close to Angel.
"Because we'll get to them first."
"I speak for nearly everyone when I say 'Huh?'," Xander said after a moment.
"We take the fight to them. They have to have a headquarters somewhere nearby, where they would take Bill if they got a hold of him. That means all the things we'd need to make him remember are waiting for us, if we just went and got them. The Senior Partners would never see it coming." Bill suddenly recognized the look on the dark-haired vampire's face. Vengeance. Angel wanted vengeance. He wanted the chance to once again stick it to the Senior Partners. This made Bill feel strangely nauseous.
"They're headquarters would be easy to find," Willow told them, voice excited. "All I'd have to do was find the center of some extremely dark mojo. That's where they'd be."
"What about me?" Bill asked, feeling like in all the excitement about his memories, he himself had been forgotten. "What the hell am I supposed to do?"
Giles looked at him, considering. "Don't fall asleep." Great. That helps.