21. Offspring, Part II
"When are you picking up your tux?" Cordelia asked the man who'd just perched himself on the corner of her desk, letting the heel of his shoe bang lightly against one of the wooden legs.
Doyle was focused on the dartboard hanging across the room. He had just relinquished the handful of colorful pointy darts over to his opponent, who was thankfully Gunn, rather than Wesley. Playing with Wesley was no fun, since he always won. With Gunn, Doyle at least had a shot.
He slowly turned his head toward Cordelia, her question drawing a rather large blank. "Ya changing the dress code around here, darlin'?"
"For Kelly and Ben's wedding on Saturday." She reminded him, lacking amusement over his forgetfulness. "The one you insisted we go to and that my friend is now expecting us to attend. Don't tell me you forgot."
"I wouldn't say I forgot." Doyle fibbed unconvincingly. "I just hadn't realized it was this Saturday."
He had forgotten. Of course, he had. But, he couldn't actually admit that, not after he'd made such a big deal about them going out and enjoying themselves. After all, it wasn't like the currently pending apocalypse was a new thing. They'd known it was coming for a while. And the Nyazian scroll was merely a harbinger—a glorified guidebook, really. It didn't actually cause the end of time—at least, Doyle didn't think it did.
Maybe he should have thought a little longer and harder about that whole necessary good versus necessary evil thing…
"Last February!" Fred announced from her corner of the reception area, where she was hunched over her laptop. "No, wait. That's not right… maybe it was more like March."
"Never mind. You're off the hook." Cordelia quipped, waving a disinterested hand in the air. "The world's already ended."
Fwap!
One of Gunn's darts hit the soft cork of the target. "Wouldn't we know if we were standing in the middle of the apocalypse?"
"Not necessarily." Wesley piped in, pacing through the doorway of his office to better pontificate in the spaciousness of the reception area. "The text predicts the arrival or arising of the Tro-Clon, the person or being that brings about the ruination of mankind—or, purification, depending on the translation."
"Or both. Like that whole Shanshu bit, yeah?" Doyle suggested, giving Wesley a pointed glance. "What's it say 'bout how the thing is born? A ritual or whatnot?"
"It's not an instruction manual, Doyle." Wesley chided, pausing momentarily in his pacing and then picking it right back up. "And I don't think 'born' is quite the right word. This entity could already exist without having yet caused the probable destruction that has been prophesied."
Doyle frowned at Wesley's dismissal, once again having to consider both the necessity and the true nature of the ancient scroll in his coworker's hands. Perhaps it had been better off in that locked safe back in Brentwood.
"You know how there's some questions you don't really wanna know the answer to." Gunn replied with a frown.
"Rhetorical questions are probably the only ones we can answer right now." Fred supplied, shooting Gunn a quick smile. "These calculations are still very preliminary. I'll have to run the numbers again to be sure."
Cordelia used the pencil in her hand to direct Doyle's attention to the front doors. "Looks like you aren't saved by the end of the world after all. I suggest you at least order the tux today; I shutter to think what you have in your closet as a substitute." With that, she slid her rolling chair away from her desk, half-twirled it around and popped out of it in one fluid motion. She strutted away from the reception area, heading toward the main staircase with an unknown purpose.
Gunn offered Doyle the handful of darts he'd just retrieved from the board, but Doyle waved them away. Hopping off the edge of Cordelia's desk, he followed hastily in her trail.
"Hey, Cordy. Wait up." He called, scuttling along behind her and catching her around the waist, right before she began to ascend the staircase. He spun her around and was met with a quizzical gaze. "I, ah… I'm sorry for letting the wedding thing slip my mind."
"I'm not mad about that." She said, although there was something decidedly lukewarm about her demeanor; something he'd felt ever since he'd come back to the office… when he'd found her training in the basement with Angel. "Honestly, I'm not even surprised. I am, however, wondering how I ever let you talk me into it in the first place—told you it was a bad idea."
"That's where you're wrong, Princess. It's gonna be a great!" He assured her, sliding his arms snuggly around her waist and leaning into her. "Ya shouldn't take my forgetfulness as a sign o' disinterest—there's nothing more I want than a romantic evening with you. A moment to just be us without anything else getting in our way. And in case I haven't said it enough lately—I love you, Cordy. More than anything."
He nearly held his breath as he waited to gauge her reaction. Relief poured through him as her steely gaze softened. "You're really scared, huh?"
"Ah…" Doyle was taken aback, wondering how she could have possibly picked up on his fear—a fear she knew nothing about. A fear he was having trouble even acknowledging for himself. He tilted his head from one side to the other as he weighed his answer. "Doesn't make what I said any less true."
"All this gushy stuff is about the prophecy, right?" She surmised, narrowing her eyes with curiosity. "And not anything else—like, say, you owing money to the wrong demon bookie?"
Okay, so maybe she wasn't picking up on his fears, after all. His forehead wrinkled involuntarily, as he absorbed her unexpected question. "Are we talking about my fears or yours, darlin'?"
A puff of breath escaped her lips as she seemed to reconsider whatever minor argument she'd been drumming up inside her head. "We're… not talking. About anything. Just forget it, okay."
"Hey, hey, wait a minute—maybe I wanna talk." He urged, trying to disperse the final layer of tension that hovered between them. He brought a thumb to her cheek, and tenderly caressed the apple of color visible there. "I don't want us falling into old destructive patterns. Last thing we need is distance between us at a time like this. So, if there's something on your mind, Princess—get to the sayin' bit, yeah?"
The hint of a smile played across her lips as she relaxed into his arms, sliding her hands up toward his shoulders and then winding them around the back of his neck. "As a matter of fact, there is something on my mind… when you say you love me more than anything, what does that mean exactly? Would you say you love me more than, oh, I dunno… Ireland?
"I do." He agreed without hesitation, a broad grin spreading across his lips. "I love ya more than the whole world. Losing you scares me way more than any apocalypse ever could."
Cordelia had already softened, but now she melted like butter against him, letting their noses connect as she whispered her own reply. "I love you, too." Her words danced feather light over his lips. "More than the solar system."
"Just hadda one-up me, yeah?" He chuckled, even as their lips met, effectively concluding their conversation. For a few delicious moments they got lost in each other, letting the Hyperion lobby and the possibly gawking coworkers slip away. Nothing mattered but the particles of air they shared between passionate kisses.
"You can order the tux later." Cordelia mumbled against his lips, her fingers pawing against the soft polyester of his shirt. "Right now, you need to take me upstairs and one-up me."
"Yeah?" He responded, with pleasant surprise. It'd been a while since they'd had a midday dalliance in the hotel or any other kind of dalliance for that matter. Not that he could blame it all on the visions—If it wasn't vision of a demon killing the mood, then an actual demon usually stepped in to complete the task.
"If the world's about to end, we should be closer." Cordelia purred into his ear, tugging him up the steps.
He nibbled on the soft flesh below her jaw, intoxicated by her scent. Finally, he released her so they could make a mad dash to the upper floors. But the dashing didn't happen. Instead, as they separated, Doyle became aware of a different scent—far less sensual, and much more haunting. Then he saw her—the petite blonde cloaked in red fabric who had just entered through the front door.
His heart nearly stopped inside his chest.
Cordelia, who had been holding his hand, found herself anchored in place rather than moving up the stairs. She turned toward him, confused as to why he was now standing there, staring blankly across the room; she continued to turn, following the line of his gaze and that's when she, too, saw their new visitor… and her jaw dropped open accordingly.
Standing there on the front landing was Darla. And despite being a vampire, she was extremely pregnant.
"Hope you use protection, sweeties." Darla sneered in their direction, placing her hands over her protruding belly. "Or you could end up like me."
Darla stood in the middle of the circle of shocked faces—some more shocked than others. Doyle was certainly the least shocked. While Darla's sudden appearance had taken him by surprise, the sight of her very pregnant belly did not. First came the scroll, then came the baby. He may not have known the two packages would arrive so close together, but he had certainly known they were both on their way.
Beside him, Cordelia remained silently agape, nothing short of horrified by the unnatural site. She was still clutching his hand and her grip had gotten increasingly tighter until Doyle's hand began to throb. He could only imagine what was going through her head at this particular moment.
"This is impossible." It was Angel who broke the awed silence. He had appeared only seconds after Darla's arrival, probably sensing her from wherever he had been lurking.
"Tell me about it, daddy." Darla taunted in reply, placing her hands on her lower back as if to ease the aching—judging by the size of her, Doyle couldn't imagine there was any part of her that didn't ache.
Fred's nervous eyes continued to bounce from one silent observer to another as she tried to understand the current narrative. Gunn had made a brief mumbled attempt to catch her up, but quickly abandoned his explanation in favor of a chart they kept on hand for just such occasions—the fact that they needed such a thing said a lot about their line of work.
Wesley stood by guardedly, unsure whether he should be assisting their pregnant guest, or preparing to slay her.
"You slept with her?!" Cordelia's scratchy voice echoed throughout the lobby as she turned her pair of wounded eyes toward Angel. The accusation, loaded down by betrayal, sounded as if it was coming from a jilted lover.
"Vampires can't have children." Angel argued, cheating an uncertain glance to the only member of the group who may be able to debunk that theory. "Wesley?"
"No, no. He's right." Wesley stammered, gulping loudly as he focused on the curious state of Darla's abdomen. "This isn't possible."
"That's not what I asked." Cordelia corrected with an edge of warning. Her hand clenched so hard around Doyle's fingers that he expected his knuckles to crack under the pressure.
"I know that, and you know that…" Darla replied, placing an index finger over her belly button. "Tell it that?"
Fred wrung her hands anxiously and gestured to the pile of paper and the laptop she'd abandoned on the counter. "Um… do y'all think this might be the bad thing we were expecting?"
Wesley's expression indicated that he'd been thinking very much the same thing, and in a way, he and Fred were right. Doyle suspected that young Connor was the Tro-Clon from the prophecy, or at least, part of it—his untimely birth would lead to a series of events, which would rain down destruction on Los Angeles. Although the details were murky, Doyle had seen glimpses of the literal apocalypse. He'd felt the other Cordelia's pain and torment as the world unraveled around her. And in the middle of all of that, he'd seen Angel's son, playing an integral role in it all.
Connor's birth was a dangerous fork in the road. It could lead to so much death, destruction and darkness. It could lead to the literal end of the world. But, Doyle knew there was another path, one that had previously been untaken. A path where Connor's life would bring joy rather than pain. Where the boy would grow up to be a savior rather than an annihilator. And it was Doyle's job to make sure they followed that alternate path this time around.
This was the most important thing Doyle had ever done or ever would do.
No matter the cost, Connor must be protected.
"It's not a bad thing." Doyle permeated the dense silence with his simple words. Multiple pairs of dubious eyes shifted in his direction, including those of Darla herself. "It's a miracle."
"I've been to every shaman and seer in the Western Hemisphere." The undead mother-to-be growled at Doyle, looking wholly unconvinced that his label was an appropriate one. "What do you know about it? What did Angel do to me?!"
Doyle felt the loss of contact with Cordelia's hand as she swiftly ripped it away from him. The color had drained from her face as she took a disbelieving step away from him, looking as if she'd been punched in the gut—or shot in it. "Something bad that leads to something miraculous." She mumbled under her breath—the vague words of warning he'd shared with her long ago.
"Yeah." He answered, tossing a nervous glance over his shoulder at the others.
None of the humans present could hear Cordelia's words, but they could certainly read her body language. They could see the silent accusations in her eyes. Moments like this were difficult to navigate—moments when Doyle had to reveal his knowledge of things to come, while remaining coy about how he knew them. It had been considerably easier when he was in possession of the visions. No one else knew exactly how his connection to the Powers worked and took for granted that they spoke through—and to—Doyle. Now, visionless as he was, Doyle just looked like a guy who'd known the truth for ages and had said nothing about it to his friends.
The offense written across Wesley's face overshadowed his curiosity; it was the only reaction that came close to rivaling Cordelia's. That wasn't a surprise. Even before he was "the boss" Wesley had always resented Doyle's withholding of need-to-know information. And this was a pretty big piece of information to be found withholding.
"I didn't do anything." Angel objected, too focused on his own role in the ordeal to be observing the silent communications between his teammates. "I mean, I did… but this shouldn't have happened."
There were probably a lot of things Cordelia wanted to say in that moment, as evidenced by the variety of emotions that flickered across her face, but she settled on the one indictment that would raise the least amount of red flags amongst the clueless onlookers. Pointing a shaky finger at Darla, she raised her volume so the others could hear. "You knew he slept with her."
He could hear the unspoken subtext of her words. You wanted him to do it.
Doyle blew out a long breath and nodded his head, relieved by her small token of mercy. He knew Cordelia had a lot more to say on the matter and that he'd be in for a lengthy and heated discussion when they were alone, but for now, his girlfriend managed to temper her tsunami of feelings so as not to raise the suspicions of the others.
Turning his back on his quietly fuming girlfriend, Doyle addressed the rest of the group. He was obligated to shed some light on what was happening, not to mention, express the importance of this situation. Protecting Connor wasn't just a job for Doyle, it was a job for the entire team. He needed them all on board.
"It's not what Angel did to Darla—it's what he did for 'er." Doyle explained as his eyes roamed over each member of the circle. "Last year, Angel fought—and won—a trial to save Darla's life, but she couldn't be saved. She'd already gotten her second chance, there are no thirds. Still… he earned a life and it was granted. Albeit, in an unconventional way."
Darla stared down at her pregnant belly with wonder and began rubbing it gently. If one didn't know she was a creature of evil, she would've looked like any other expectant mother, marveling at the miracle of life.
"Well, it makes a lot more sense than most things do around here." Gunn admitted with a shrug.
"What kind of life?" Wesley wondered, eyes still narrowed with trepidation. "Is it…?"
"Human." Doyle confirmed, his eyes wandering to that of his best friend as he finished the revelation. "It's not some evil thing. It's a baby... with a soul."