No One Stays Dead Forever
By: Lesera128
Rated: M
Disclaimer: Here the normal rigmarole is posited. No, unfortunately I don't own anything from Bones or Angel... or anything else. Yup, I'm back, baby…and I'm wrecking havoc as needed to tell the most awesome and epic Angel-Bones crossover ever conceived. However, since it's only for the purposes of creative enjoyment and amusing distraction, I think we're okay. Are there any other questions? No? ::blinks:: Good. Then, moving on―
Summary: All Dr. Temperance Brennan and FBI Agent Seeley Booth ever wanted was to be together in the same time and the same place to live in peace and raise their family. Unfortunately, the past has a nasty way of coming back to haunt you as Brennan and (Angel)Booth find out. Rated M. Very AU. BonesxAngel Xover.
A/N: In case the frequency of the chapter postings hasn't cued anyone in, like I said, most of this stuff was written years ago. Sharing it now. For those still with me. Enjoy!
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Chapter 2: Checking in with Team Angel
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Although, from a chronological perspective, he was only nine years old, the much older Connor Reilly was seated at what had once been his father's desk in the Hyperion Hotel in Los Angeles. A stay in an alternate dimension to which he'd been kidnapped from his father Angel's care as an infant by the erstwhile vampire slayer named Holtz had aged the young man up. Now, by most accounts, he was in his mid-20s. He sat, his feet propped up on the desk, reclining in a chair as he stared at a small square black leather folio that he balanced on his knees. His bright blue eyes, those of his mother Darla, stared at the object with a certain type of reverence. As he'd grown older, now at twenty-three, Connor had taken to displaying an odd mixture of both his mother and father's genetics. From his father, he had brown hair and his height. But, from his mother, he'd gained his wide eyes, a rather snarky sense of humor, and high cheekbones. The roundness of his face, and his wiry build, were, however, his own. In that moment, though, the brooding air which he'd exerted tended to remind everyone around him of who his father was more than any other defining physical or personality characteristic.
Moving his tongue inside his mouth, after a minute, he sighed heavily before he said, "Do you think he'd be proud of me, Gunn?"
The one-time vampire gang leader turned supernaturally enhanced would-be lawyer, and the closest thing that he had to a surrogate father, friend, and mentor since Angel's disappearance almost six years before, shrugged. "Sure, kid," Charles Gunn said. "A college degree isn't anything to turn your nose up at."
"You know," he said, his voice morose. "I'd hoped. Even when I walked in May, and we still hadn't found him, I thought, maybe...by the time the actual degree came in the mail, that somehow we might've found a way to find him, find out what happened to him? Then, I know it's stupid, but I'd hoped he might be here the day it came so I could finally show him what I'd done."
Gunn set down the ax blade he'd been sharpening before he said, "I know you don't trust Spike, but he knows your father's...well, he knows Angel's long-term patterns better than anyone else that I can think of. So, if he says he's working on it, then I gotta believe him when he says he's working on it."
"Perhaps," a new voice, highly cultured and extremely precise in its diction, interjected, "Spike's efforts have been waylaid once again by the supernatural human known as the erstwhile Slayer, who's always enthralled him so." A tall woman with striking blue eyes, brown hair tinted the same color blue as her eyes, pale skin, and dressed in a dark red leather body suit, walked towards the pair. The clicks of her boot heels reverberated on the old floors of the one-time hotel's lobby. She made a face as her mouth twisted in clear displeasure as the Old One named Illyria added, "He has an unusual fascination with the one known as Buffy. I don't like how he tarries overlong in her presence. So, it's quite conceivable, as Connor postulates, that Spike's attentions have been diverted from his current mission."
"Now, come on," Gunn said, as he set down the ax and his brown eyes darted back and forth between the pair. "We know that Spike comes and goes as he wants, just like Angel. If he said he's working on it, we gotta accept it...at least until we find a good reason that we should be doing something different."
"Six years, Gunn," Connor said. "He's been gone almost six years."
Gunn opened his mouth to speak, but Illyria was the one who actually opened her mouth first and answered, "True. For corporeal mortals like yourselves, such a time period may seem unusually long. But, as you've awaited your progenitor's return, you've behaved quite admirably, both in your leadership of this team and in completing your studies."
"Maybe," Connor said, nodding at Illyria as he flipped open the leather degree cover and saw the logo for Stanford University emblazoned on the piece of paper that bore his name. "But, if he'd been here, I think he still would've bitched about me taking the Victimology concentration for my Sociology major."
"Why?" Gunn asked. "It's not like they have a Demon-Killing minor or anything at Stanford."
"True," Connor said. He was then quiet for another minute as he said, "I think...I'm gonna call Spike, and if I don't like what I hear, I'm gonna do a little poking around myself to see what he's been up to." Connor looked from Illyria to Gunn and back again for a reaction to his plan.
For the second time, the immortal goddess spoke first. "You must do as you see fit, of course. But, it would be foolish not to remember that for each action there are always consequences...both intended and unintended."
"She's got a point there, J.B.," Gunn said.
At the use of the nickname―one that Connor had first been annoyed when Spike kept using around him, but one that he'd eventually grown used to over time―he nodded solemnly. "I know. I'll be careful. But, one way or another, I gotta know what happened to him. I need to know what happened to my father."
This time, as they considered Connor's words, neither Gunn nor Illyria had any comments and so silence was the only response that greeted the young man's statements.
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TBC
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A/N2: Cue the ominous music. I mean, is anyone really surprised that a few of the more upstanding types, as Spike would say, might be thinking of Angel and where he's gone off to? Certainly the Slayer wasn't the only one even if, again, Spike can't figure out why everyone thinks the ponce is all that and a bag of crisps. Anyhoo, questions are being asked. And you know what the means...raaa roooh! Coming up next, back from LA to DC to see how Bren is handling that second unexpected pregnancy. And just so I know I'm not talking to myself, I'd love to hear what you think if you're so inclined to review. Until next time, ta!