All the usual disclaimers apply. The characters are not mine, I am merely a fan who makes no commercial gain from writing this story.
Sequel to "I, Angel" - if you haven't read that and want to catch up, please click on the link to Soo W above and you'll get there
"...you wanna know the deal? human weakness. it never goes away..."
Faith was finding out what Wesley meant by "gateway of lost souls". It turned out to be a drain covering. Faith stared at it for a moment, and stifled several caustic comments.
"Are you absolutely sure?"
Wesley nodded. "There was one closer, underneath the Post Office, but it was desecrated. We tried it and it's still abandoned. This is the nearest now."
"Yeah, it's not the neighbourhood I object to, Wes, it's the fact that it's a sewer entrance."
"Wouldn't have thought that would bother you!" Gunn put in from behind.
Faith gave him a look. "It doesn't bother me. I just have a hard time believing this is a mystical gateway to higher powers. It looks more like a fast and easy route to smelling bad."
Wesley took the satchel he was carrying from around his neck and started to take herbs from it and lay them on the ground. "We've tried it. It works! You'll see. Just have f... confidence."
Faith sighed and backed away a step to give him some space. "Right. Confidence. In you guys. Except, I still haven't quite got over you sending the new love of Angel's life into my world. I can see it now. She'll be like Buffy, all sweet and trusting and gullible, except without the kicking and punching. They're gonna eat her alive..."
"We've been through this. It's too late to change it now. Cordelia will go and see Fred tomorrow to make sure everything's OK. It's all we can do." Wesley turned back to the drain cover, and said commandingly, "We beseech access to the knowing ones!"
Nothing happened.
"That's funny." Wesley pushed his glasses back onto his nose. "It certainly worked last time. Gunn, is this the right street?"
No answer came. Wesley turned to find Gunn and Faith gone, and a bright light shining from a hole in the road a few yards away. "Very close," thought Wesley. "to this hole and, just as a point of purely academic interest, roughly where Gunn and Faith were standing moments ago."
The light formed a cone above the road surface, like a search beam shining into the darkness. Wesley approached it carefully, and was about to peer down into the brightness when Gunn was forcibly ejected from the hole, and landed on top of him.
"Gunn! How'd you get on? Where's Faith?"
Gunn spluttered. "Threw me out again. Not a warrior. Said if I go back they'll turn me into a frog."
Wesley frowned. "Well... how interesting. I wouldn't take that seriously, Gunn. It just means they're getting touchy! We've clearly got them on the ropes."
"That's one way you could look at it." Gunn choked. "And the other way is they could really be about to turn me into some pond life."
"But they're talking to Faith?"
"It seems so. Although, as I was being firmly and painfully ejected, it seemed there was some difficulty about a gift."
The two man sat on the ground and looked up at the cone of light. After a few minutes it faded, and the drain cover reappeared. Standing on top of it, was Faith.
"You did it!"
"What did they say?"
Faith looked around as if to check that she was back on solid ground again, and then strode over to the car and kicked one of the tyres.
"Those ASSHOLES!"
"Faith?" Wesley rushed over to her, concerned. "What happened?"
"Get this," Faith fumed. "They won't help. They say 'if it happened it was meant to be' and 'what is done cannot be undone.' Can you believe it?"
Gunn shook his head sadly. "I was afraid of this."
"For godsakes," Faith continued, "WHAT is the point of having higher powers on your side if you can't ask favours every now and then?"
Wesley shrugged. "That is a debate most religions have. The answer usually comes out as something like 'our god is an omnipotent god but he (or she) wants us to grow and develop as people and if he (or she) reached out an omnipotent hand and helped us every time we suffered, we'd be like children forever.' Or something similar."
"Bunch of crap." Faith muttered. "AND they took my necklace before they'd answer any questions. It was like visiting a pawn shop."
Gunn patted her on the back "You did your best." He turned to Wesley, "Now what? Do we have a back-up plan?"
Wesley was pacing up and down, eyes on the ground, forehead furrowed.
"Oh Lord," Faith poked Gunn in the ribs to get his attention. "We all know what this means."
"Uh-huh," Gunn nodded. "Here it comes..."
"We're NOT going to take this lying down." Wesley exploded. "The Powers won't aid us? Well, here's another religious maxim for you: 'The Lord helps those that help themselves.' Now I don't believe in god, but I say we can get Angel back, and we will. We've got the brains. We've got the muscle. And, for the next few days at least, we've got a slayer."
Faith cheered, "Right ON! Go Wes!"
"She said it," said Gunn. "So... what's the plan?"
Wesley raised a finger and waved it at them purposefully a few times. "I - I - I..."
"Wes?"
"I haven't quite got it perfected yet."
"Jeez," Faith groaned, "another one of *those* plans." She paced around the two men, scuffing her boots on the road surface. Then she said, "Actually, they did say one thing that might be useful."
"Yes?" Gunn looked hopeful.
"They're going to make it possible for Angel to communicate with one of us. Whoever he most needs to talk with. Sort of a truth and reconciliation thing."
"Interesting," Wesley brightened slightly. "Did they say who that would be?"
Faith shook her head, and, there being nothing left for them to do, the trio returned to the Hyperion.
Prison, Fred mused to herself, wasn't as hard as she thought it would be. Everyone seemed to have a place to be at all times. You could generally find out what you were supposed to be doing by following someone else. The other inmates left you alone, in the main, and there were no exploding-head collars. It was certainly a big improvement on being a cow.
As she settled down for her first night behind bars, she encountered the first major hurdle. The bed was lumpy. After five minutes shifting her weight and curving her spine to try and fit around the lumps, she decided the lumps were going to win.
"It's lucky I'm so tired."
The sound of her own voice echoing off the walls of the cell was strangely disturbing. For a moment, Fred was back in Pylea, sitting on a pile of skins in her cave. Angel was there, in the mouth of the rock fissure, fighting away a legion of priests, and she was desperately chanting, trying to open a portal and spirit them both to LA. She opened her eyes just to drive the image away.
Instead of the walls and ceiling of her cell, she saw nothing; a blackness so total it seemed she might touch it, thick and deep and silken. Except, she couldn't feel anything, not even the lumps in the bed. A familiar voice called her name.
"Fred?"
Thinking she was dreaming, she ignored the voice, but it came back, insistent.
"Fred!"
"Angel?"
"I'm here."
"I can't see you. Am I dreaming?"
"I don't know. I'm not..."
"You're not real."
"No. You... you're alive?"
"Yes. Well, last time I checked..."
"Thank god... I thought you might be..."
"What are you?"
"I'm Angel. Whatever's left, anyway."
"A spirit? A ghost?"
"No. I'm not... I'm just here. And then you came. I - I heard you humming a song."
"Where is here?" Fred asked, and then she frowned, "I was humming a song?"
"You're always humming a song. You've been humming the same song since we got back from Pylea." Angel's voice was soft, indulgent, cloaking her in unspoken affection again. "Here is where I've been, since I... since I left."
"What does it look like?"
"It's dark. Empty. Sensationless."
"You must feel something." Fred wondered she made that statement, since she was utterly devoid of sensations herself. But it was foolish to worry about being consistent when having a conversation with a dead vampire. Consistency had to be the least of her worries. "Are you sitting, standing? What?"
"Neither. It's just like floating in sea of nothing."
"Are you corporeal? Try touching your nose."
"No. I can't. I don't seem to have a face or any fingers to touch it with. I'm just... thoughts."
"Why are you here? Why am I here? How come you can talk to me?"
"I don't know."
"Why did you leave us?"
No reply came.
"Angel?"
But he was gone.