TITLE:
Darkest Before Dawn 24 "Hearsay"
AUTHOR: Nmissi
PART:24/?
DISCLAIMER: I own Nothing and No one.
Especially not Spike. If I did,
what makes you think I'd share him with you?
DISTRIBUTION: Want it? Take it. Just let me know where it's going.
Feedback:
Please. Nmissi@aol.com
SUMMARY: The way the world would work if I wrote the Buffyverse.
" Would you just look at this!"
Cordelia waggled the statement at Gunn.
"Three hundred dollars at "the fashionable male". Six
hundred dollars at the shoeshop. And this is the last straw…
a fifty dollar tip to the
hairstylist."
"He looks good, but not THAT good."
Gunn nodded at her, before making his pronouncement.
"I think Dude's got himself a Woman."
Cordy and Wesley looked at each other, disbelieving.
"I don't know-" began Cordelia.
"I think that's very unlikely." Scoffed Wesley.
"Think about it for a minute." Gunn continued,
"He's spending money all over town, running up credit
card bills at swanky hotels and theatres. He's went out and bought himself a
new wardrobe. He's leaving the hotel at weird times, bein' all secretive and
shit. You can't get hold of him half the time, and when you're talking to him
sometimes dude's just not THERE, you know?"
"I'll grant you Angel's been a bit distracted, lately,
but-"
Gunn cut Wesley off midsentence.
"It's gotta be a woman. Ain't nothing messes with Angel's
head like the fillies."
Cordy wrinkled her nose, shuffling mail angrily about on
her desk.
"I think he's right, Wes. Prob'ly some empty headed
little blonde thing."
She rolled her eyes.
"At least he's consistent."
She shot Wes a hard look.
"When's the last time you saw that lady police officer?"
He could hear his child puttering around the apartment,
putting stuff into boxes and bags. Something crashed, and he heard low
laughter. He followed it into the bedroom, where Lindsay stood over a broken
lamp.
"Always hated this thing anyway."
He chucked it over his shoulder and it clattered to the
floor.
Angel lounged in the doorway, bemused.
"She really didn't leave you very much, did she?"
Lindsay shook his head, as he collected a photo album
from the nightstand.
"No, she didn't."
Angel sighed quietly.
"That's her way. I remember in Paris once… She and I got
into a tiff over Drusilla, some stupid thing."
He shrugged.
"I came back to the hotel room, found she'd cleaned me
out. Nothing left in our stash, no money, no jewelry."
He smiled, bitter in remembrance.
"She even took my clothes."
Lindsay bent his head to look back at him, his liquid gaze
inscrutable.
"What'd she do with them?"
Angel stepped away from the door, into the room. He
folded up one of the silk shirts in the pile.
"I guess she sold them. Why do you want to keep these,
anyway? I bought you better."
Lindsay smiled at him then, and responded.
"Because they're mine. I paid for them."
Angel shrugged.
"Whatever. It's just-"
He held one offending garment up accusingly.
"I'd think you might want to be free of reminders of
Wolfram and Hart."
Lindsay's gaze hardened.
"No, Angel. I don't want to forget them. I don't ever
want to forget them."
There was something in his voice, something hard and sad
and ugly. Quickly Angel tried to steer him away from the subject. He wanted to
avoid the depression that Lindsay seemed to fall into with regularity.
Something would be said, and suddenly Lindsay's conscience would kick him. He'd
retreat into silence, refusing to eat or speak, failing to respond to violence
or affection. Angel himself knew the depths to which one could sink in such straits;
he'd been there himself for decades after his soul returned. But he had had no
one to help him, no one to pull him up from the depths. No one until Buffy. His
love for her had given him purpose.
And Lindsay would have purpose too. He need not spend a
century lamenting his evils; he could undertake RIGHT NOW to redeem himself.
And his sire was there to help him through it.
For who else in all the world could understand Lindsay
like Angel? They were two of a kind, unique, a new species of monster.
Angel wished desperately to confide in someone. Wesley or
Giles, either one might have insight into the situation. Angel had such
questions to ask, ideas to debate. Had Lindsay retrieved his soul because of
Angel's curse? That was most likely the case. But his was an unusual situation.
He'd been a soulless human; would a normal human made in the blood be ensouled?
Or was Lindsay the result of a combination of factors; his soulless state, and
Angel's curse.
In the years since he regained a soul, he'd not once made
a child. What might have been the result if he had?
Could it happen again?
Lindsay had moved on to the kitchen at this point. Angel
followed him.
He watched as his child selected two champagne glasses
from the cabinet; good crystal, by the looks of them. Then he took down a shot
glass with a horse on it. These three items he wrapped carefully in a kitchen
towel, and placed into the box he'd carried from the bedroom.
He turned around and smiled warmly at his maker.
"I think I'm all done here now. "
Angel hefted a couple of boxes.
"Let's go."