A/N: Sorry about the delay in updating this story, but I have been very busy for many months. But now I'm free to continue this fanfic, I hope you'll like it!
"Speech"
'Thought'
*Text*
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Chapter 38 - Reunions
Sunnydale town limits – Saturday, 6:00 pm
It had been over a week since the Judge had been dealt with. After that near-apocalypse, things had more or less gone back to normal – well, as 'normal' as things got on the Hellmouth, anyway.
His boys had gotten better after that terrible battle as the mall, his relationship with Willow was stronger than ever, Xander and Cordelia hadn't reported anything weird lately – so all in all, Oz was...content.
Not wanting to jinx himself on being anything else. No, sireee.
Paws thudded as Werewolf Oz patrolled the perimeter of their territory. A familiar smell tugged at his memory, and he followed it at speed.
'Jono, we may have another shapeshifter,' he sent to his packmate.
'You mean the smell we've been picking up for the last week, right – want help?' came Jonathan's response.
'Nah. You stick to the Slayer, with Warren and Andy still recovering we need to make sure she's pulling her weight,' Oz replied.
Coming to the territory line on the edge of Sunnydale-Los Angeles border, the werewolf spotted a Grey Wolf disappearing into the night. A whisper of recognition came to him from Jacob Black's memories.
'Leah? Is that YOU?'
A glimmer of shock came from the grey she-wolf, as she sped away from him as fast as she could.
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Los Angeles – 6:45 pm
The body of a young black teen slams into a wall, as a younger black teen saunters up to him. From the game face, it is obvious the young woman was not a girl, but rather a vampire.
"Please Alonna, don't do this!" Charles Gunn cries, trying to deal with the fact that his little sister, his only remaining family, had recently been turned into the thing they'd both hated and fought against.
For once cursing this neighborhood's notoriety, Gunn tried to get himself back under control, knowing help was not coming. Gasping for air, the young vampire hunter looked into the face of what was once his sister.
"Please Alonna, don't do this! Pllleeeaaassseee!" the black vampiress said mockingly. "What, you couldn't come up with anything more original?"
"Who did this to you?" Gunn demands, struggling in her grip.
Laughing demonically, the vampiress tears the left sleeve off his shirt. Grabbing his arm roughly, leaving vivid bruises in her wake.
"Oh yeah, like that's original. You're useless, you know that? You couldn't even save me or the others, could you, Charles?" she snarled.
"Who turned you?!" Gunn demands, still struggling futilely to get loose.
"Oh geez, are you still on that? You're pathetic, big bro. You really are! And to think I once thought you were a leader, a real man. Kinda funny how even your bitch couldn't keep you safe, isn't it?" Alonna growled, throwing Gunn into on to the concrete and breaking his left arm in several places.
Charles crawls on to all fours, whimpering slightly at the pressure on his broken arm, but with a new look in his eye.
"Hell with this! You ain't my sister, bitch. You're just taking up space in her corpse, and if I'm going down I'm taking you with me!" Charles yells, a lone tear trickling down his face as he said goodbye his sibling in his mind.
A growl rents the air as quite unexpectedly - Gunn morphs into a horse sized brown wolf, with black marks around his eyes. With that the vampiress immediately charges the werewolf, pinning him to the floor in one swift move. "You fucking were-!"
But not wasting time on meaningless trivialities, Wolf Gunn bites the female vampire's head off. With a a hiss, a scream of an escaping demon, a momentary glimpse of a skeleton – her body collapses into dust. As the dust falls to the floor, Charles phases back to human form.
Slumping to the floor and cradling his broken arm, Charles brokenly whispers, "G'bye Alonna. I love you, I'm sorry, so sorry."
"Hey, man, you alright?" said a voice from not far away.
Lifting his head, Charles suddenly smells the wolf within the man in front of him. Standing cautiously, Gunn growled – all thought of pain and suffering shoved to the back of his mind to be dealt with later.
"Hey, I'm Daniel Himura. Relax, I come in peace," Daniel said, lifting his hands in a peace gesture.
Relaxing just a little, Charles grimaces as the move caused pain to shoot up his arm. "What are you?" he asks cautiously.
"I already know you can smell what I am, I'm a werewolf like you. But I've never killed anyone; I have friends who make sure of that. You're a newbie, right?" Daniel responds, pointing to Charles's Quileute tattoo. "Guessing it's been a few months since you got that. Halloween, or thereabouts?"
Looking at his arm and the tattoo there, Charles nods. "I'm Gunn, Charles Gunn. You're really not afraid of me, are you?" he asked, glancing cautiously at Himura.
"Nah, man, and the fact you're not attacking tells me you're not thinking I'm a danger to you, either."
Charles started to nod, but the night's events suddenly hit him like a ton of bricks. The man's knees buckled, with his eyes rolling back into his head. Rushing forward, Daniel caught him, hissing at the lightness of the gang leader. Well, former gang leader. The other Lost Boys had summarily ejected him and his sister from the ranks, assuming the worst about Gunn's situation – which had led to Alonna getting turned the other night, with just the two of them on their own in this vamp-infested neighborhood.
"Shit, you must be seriously hurt," Daniel said, examining his new acquaintance. Whipping out his phone, he speed-dialled a number. "Come on, come on..." Daniel said impatiently, while the phone rang at the other end. But eventually, someone picked up on the other end.
"Xander, it's me. I need your help, Giles too please. My place here in Los Angeles. As quick as you can."
Receiving the affirmative response, Daniel quickly made his way home, his cargo secure in his arms bridal style.
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Harris-Chase residence, Sunnydale – a few minutes earlier.
Cordelia Chase heard the phone ring, but she had other things on her mind right now.
The former cheerleader-turned-Cold One, who still looked like Rosalie Hale Cullen thanks to Ethan Rayne's Halloween 'prank', was making love to the guy she loved; Xander Harris, the guy who had been her social enemy nearly all her life, and yet was now both her boyfriend and someone who looked like Emmett Cullen.
The bedroom was in darkness, but that didn't bother the young couple; they could see perfectly well, whatever the ambient lighting. Their bodies melded together, they moved to the ancient rhythm as old as life itself; kissing, sucking, thrusting until Xander swelled inside her, and started pumping his thick, white fluid into her womb.
Gasping, Cordelia held her lover tightly as she too finally reached her peak and was caught up in the little death of orgasm. 'Oh geez,' she thought dazedly, 'to think, we could have been doing this ever since puberty set in? What was wrong with me?'
'Nothing. Nothing at all,' Xander replied telepathically, as he collapsed on top of her. Smiling, he kissed his mate and told her, 'It's just you weren't ready for this – we weren't ready for this. Besides, barely six months ago, we couldn't even stand each other!'
Just then, Cordelia became aware of the phone ringing. "Ugh. Xander, the phone's ringing," she said, attempting to push him off her half-heartedly.
"They can call back," Xander said seductively, not letting her go.
"It might be important. Answer it, dweeb!"
"Your dweeb. Now, and forever," Xander promised her, his eyes changing color and bringing his face closer to hers.
"I know. And I love you for it." Cordelia drew him in for a long, passionate kiss, before rolling Xander onto his back after distracting him enough to do it. "Now answer the damn phone! I'm going to the bathroom." She quick departed from the bedroom, her naked bottom almost making Xander drool.
Shaking his head, Xander grabbed the phone. "Hello? Daniel, hey. My help? And Giles? Well, okay. Where do you wanna meet? Okay, see you soon."
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Himura Specialist Exotic Weaponry, Los Angeles – 9 pm
"Alonna, noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" Gunn screamed, trapped in a nightmare and falling out of bed onto the floor.
Hearing voices not far away, Gunn scrabbled across the floor, backing up against a wall, his broken arm now in a sling.
The door opened, and Gunn raised his good arm up threateningly. A gentle grip pulled it down, as the new arrivals entered the bedroom.
"Take it easy, boy, it's all right," the unknown older guy said soothingly. "We're not here to harm you."
Another male, unknown yet with a hauntingly familiar smell said, "He smells like Jared."
Darkness abruptly hit him once more. As Gunn slumped into unconsciousness, Oz and Jonathan look at each other.
Giles placed Gunn gently on the bed, and covered him up. Giles frowned at the broken arm, but figured that a plaster cast can wait. Watcher and werewolf left the room, entering Daniel's living room.
"You were right to call us, Daniel, that young man is almost...feral," Giles said.
"Is he going to be okay? Word on the street is that his sister was taken by the local head honcho vampire and turned. I heard about it too late to do anything," Daniel replied sadly.
"He dusted his own sister, didn't he?" Jonathan asked softly.
Nodding his head sadly, Daniel explained, "I came round the corner, just as he took her down."
"Man," Oz said, shaking his head mournfully.
"He's as much a Quieulete as we are, like Jared was. Oz, we should take him home with us," Jonathon suggested, feeling the pain of his packmate.
Oz looked at his friend and brother werewolf. "Don't know if he'll want to."
"I suspect, Oz, Jonathan – that, that you need to be prepared for this young man not to see you as, as part of his pack," Giles spoke up gently.
"I know, Giles, I know," Oz whispered, as Jonathan leaned against the wall with a low whine.
Cordelia and Xander came into the room, having just returned from their 'expedition'. And one look at Cordelia's face confirmed everyone's worst fears.
"We found where those homeless kids were living. Emphasis on the 'were'. There was nobody left alive at all, they all either got killed or turned. We staked the undead, and left the dead bodies there for the authorities to find," Xander said sadly. "I called in an anonymous tip to the LAPD."
"You should have seen it. Even the little kids had their throats ripped open, there was blood everywhere," Cordelia said mournfully.
"How young?" Daniel asked, not sure he wanted to know.
"The youngest was around nine years old," Cordelia whispered, burrowing her face into Xander's shoulder.
'It's gonna be okay, babe,' Xander transmitted to her, resting his head on Cordelia's.
'They were just children, damn it. Children!' came the mournful whisper from the young woman who longed to eventually be a mother, yet was trapped in a body that was not a life-giving vessel.
The group sat in silence each in their own thoughts. Waiting for the young man who had been through so much to heal, and join them in the waking world.
A few miles away, on the other side of LA, a teenage girl stepped into her father's home. A mixture of anger and anxiety was in her mind, as the young woman who'd dressed up as Leah Clearwater for Halloween felt unbidden memories (that were not her own) running though her mind.
'I still can't believe this, there are other Quieuletes in this world! Wow. What do I do, I mean – will they even want me? They didn't want me before...well, no, they didn't want Leah before. Anyway, who the hell was that guy who smelled like Jacob? Someone who shouldn't even exist? Damn it, I don't know what to do!'
A tattoo on her left bicep, reminiscent of its brother tattoo on Seth Clearwater's bicep, was easily visible as the young woman vanished from view, and the front door slammed shut.
TBC...
