JUST ANOTHER CATACLYSMIC DAY
by Evan Como
part two

-0-

Holtz sang to himself while strolling past the row of cardboard boxes. Printed with the lettering 'Do Not Drop', each had become a makeshift bassinette. The five sleeping infants had not a care in the world. They were pink and plump, healthy by all standards. Pink and plump and healthy, as had been his son.

"Do you recognize the tune? I learned it long ago. I used to serenade my wife --

" -- who looked nothing like you." The vampire hunter paused at infant four to recollect the young woman vehemently objecting to her bindings and gag. Her youthful, round face had been marked into thirds by the deep marionette lines framing her mouth. Dark, damp hair curled about her cheekbones, rising Medusa-like in the areas it was dry. An advertisement he'd seen that morning for some type of hair preparation would have kept her frizzes -- or frizzles? No matter>> -- under control.

Stepping to the fourth, Holtz carried the appearance of a man in good spirits. At his arrival, the infant's cupid's bow lips formed a precious 'o'. "So innocent," he sang, bayoneting the guinea fowl sized breast with a forefinger.

In comparison, Holtz tapped his own breastbone. Far from hollow, far from soft. Yet, he'd been soft for his Caroline. Caroline's benevolent face had been his constant. The ivory threading her hairline and glinting near the quilled rims of her eyes had only enhanced her grace. She'd never lost her beauty --

Was never allowed the chance to wither. Frizzed>> he mourned. With her death, the lines on his own face had scored that more deeply -- hash marks for all of the terrors he'd observed.

And perpetuated.

Providing reveille for his memories, another storm drummed against the wire-filigreed windowpane. The song in his throat, in his heart, in his head, was a foreign threnody he'd learned while picking through Angelus' and Darla's carnal debris. Cultures may not share languages, but they understand loss, separation. And so it was that long months and single-mindedness kept Holtz from his beloved. How infrequently he'd reveled in her fragrance. And the last time he'd known her... Mouthing such a song against her lovely flesh while an empyrean drizzle danced upon their roof.

How he had doomed them, bringing such dearth into their bed!

"What do you want, Sahjhan," he spoke into his fingertips, aloof to the four blissful smiles.

"What have you done!" The demon's opposition was as tempestuous as his entry. At an anxious, muffled noise, his attention slid from the nursery scene and he greeted the woman by shedding his demonic physiognomy.

"Ever courteous?" Holtz mused.

"Now who's being sarcastic? And out of line!" Every one of Sahjhan's ageless years went into the reprimand. "Unless Angelus has divided himself, this is unacceptable."

Holtz kept council with his musings. "I prefer 'unorthodox'," he replied a minute later.

"You're..." Usually the expert with foibley humans, Sahjhan found his ally indecipherable. Unless... He smiled broadly, well-pleased. He clapped. "Drawing him out. Of course! Angelus will have to seek you out to save the rest!"

Holtz negated the assumption with his head. "Angelus won't save these children."

"Then I can't allow you to do this."

Squinting, as if studying the being for the very first time, Holtz reminded him, "Yet, you are quick to command me: 'Show no mercy.'"

"They're innocents," Sahjhan pointed out. Four times.

"They're identical," Holtz dispensed with visible disgust. "This isn't natural."

Hands balled at his waist, Sahjhan roiled with rage. "Look, guy. I didn't Zemeckis you into the future to imprint your morality on new age society. You saw this on TV -- Modern Medical Science. Does that *ring* any bells? Should have come up somewhere around transplants!"

Nonplussed, Holtz snorted. "Life as a piecemeal commodity."

Sahjhan stormed through a chair and two tables. "Obviously someone won't be signing the donor card on the back of their driver's license."

Wrists crossed at the small of his back, Holtz strolled the length of the room. He paused at the window -- merely as a gesture, since the torrent made it impossible to see beyond the concrete wash below. "You would condone all this God-tasking."

Eyes rolling into the top of his head, Sahjhan conceded, "Granted, it does prolong human suffering. And, with the potential for overpopulation? Shhhuh! Ya betcha!"

"Now who needs a moralist?" Holtz poked. Summoning a few facial muscles from dormancy, he implemented a grin.

Sahjhan's self-congratulatory exuberance spluttered. He summoned one of the more oafish Grapplars standing by the door, scowled and ordered, "You'll find another way."

With that damnable tune trilling between his ears, Holtz was inured to Sahjhan's rant. "If you had seen the way Angelus carried that child -- He was awed. Absolutely dumbed by an emotion he will never be able to name."

He met Sahjhan's sour face with his own. "No, he will not rescue these children, Sahjhan, but he will lament their deaths. He will feel responsible. Guilt is a merciless tool."

Powerless to react with the imprisonment of dimension weighing upon him, despite his continuing role with Holtz, Sahjhan despised his bystander's position. He knew the future's outcome, had memorized the names of all the players, yet wild cards of independence kept diverting the final outcome. Hadn't The Powers That Be lost their active turn by pointing Angelus to The Slayer? The First had done no better -- returning the vampire to the playing field. No ointment in the universe was strong enough to cure that blister of defeat! And The Home Office --

Well, they kept having problems with team attrition.

"My prey, Sahjhan," the righteous British voice intoned. "My methods."

And now it had come to pass that Sahjhan's game boy had started positioning himself.

The odds were recalculated and distributed across phases. Griping, The Few behind Sahjhan made their wagers accordingly. There was nothing to do but spectate while the current set-up played out.

The future, after all, was well established.

The way it got there, however, was not.

-0-

Fred padded across the loft as quietly as she'd done several times prior when carrying armfuls of yarn. Now nervously unraveling her shawl's fringes, she met Angel's silent inquiry with her usual reply -- she smiled like a dope. Just as usually, he smiled like he hadn't notice. Settled on top of the multi-hued fluff he seemed as vulnerable as the infant in his arms. She had to remind herself that was just how he'd been made -- cute and huggly. Only 'looking' that way, though, because he was way too dangerous to play with.

"It's still roasty as a pig on a spit," she drawled. While overlooking the bin she produced two chips from her back pockets. Using them like tongs, she rearranged the cindering mound and scraped all the ash to the edges. Satisfied the burn was at its most efficient, she tucked the two new pieces of fuel under either side, slid her fingertips down her skirt's seams, and scuffed away.

"I was worried that, with the drafts and everything, the temperature might not stay hot enough, but..." She marveled at the baby's pert button nose -- exactly like mama's. "Hey! If you wanna come downstairs, I got one of the old knitting machines fired up."

A few strands of variegated yarn wormed over Angel's kneecaps as he unpretzled his legs and flip-flopped them. He frowned. "You're really determined to make us all sweaters."

Fred air-shoved his shoulder. "Angel, you silly! Not to knit with; I turned it into a big ol', kinda pot-bellied stove!"

He nodded as if he understood, but Fred wasn't sure that he did. Angel fooled her a lot of times. One day, he'd be an Einstein -- well, maybe not with theoretical matters or such, but Angel could be a wiz at solid common sense. Other times it seemed like the physical world was too much for him to wrap his brain around.

One of those times like the present.

"He deserves better," Angel said.

Fred chomped down on her bottom lip and swooped next to them. Fanny touching her calves, she hugged her shins and beamed at the half-day old. "He's alive, Angel. And his daddy loves him. What more could he deserve?"

Angel found Fred's expectant face just beyond his shirtsleeve.

"It's a different love, Angel, but love all the same. You've got this Hyperion of a heart with plenty of empty space to fill..."

The baby cooed.

The rookie father's attention returned lapward. "He's been doing that a lot. And sleeping. I think he sleeps too much. And he doesn't cry. Why isn't he crying?"

"That's what Cordy asked -- "

"Cordy -- "

"He's fine!" Tucking her chin, Fred flapped her eyebrows and wrinkled her face for the baby's entertainment. Angel's dark eyes felt like twin coals burning through her scalp. "Truly, Angel, if you think about it -- that whole getting birthed process was exhausting for him. Like when you were in my cave on Pylea -- remember how it was quiet there? And peaceful? Until you had to leave."

She risked a hopeful peek into Angel's face, but whatever he remembered was hidden behind his surveillance of the other tenant. Ignoring them, the scrawny cat skulked towards her litter with a corpulent rat hanging by the scruff of its broken neck from her jaws.

"You look really happy," Fred said, without actually meaning to.

He lost control of wrangling his wriggly face. "Really? Because I'd swear this feels more like overwhelmed." Lashes fluttering and flurrying against the crescents of his high cheeks, Angel struggled, unprepared for the commotion on the ladder.

Footing the charge, the unstable top brackets brayed inharmoniously with the clanging weight.

"I wanna see the baby!" Javi announced before arriving. He vaulted over the edge, kneed across, and insinuated himself in between Angel and Fred.

Angel lipped, 'who's he?' above the fascinated pre-teen's head, but before Fred could make the introduction, the attack had begun.

Javi socked Angel in the arm. "Your baby's kinda cute!"

Risking an examination from a couple different angles, Angel shrugged. "I guess. You really think so?"

"Yes." Fred shook her exasperated head and ambled onto her feet. "C'mon, *Javi*. And you too, Angel. The owners of the building just nabbed us for cowbirding."

"But we don't wanna move," Angel whined. Nonetheless, notching heels under thighs, the vampire's spinal column realigned his center of gravity until both shoulders were directly above his butterflied knees. Crossed ankles as his axis, he scaffolded onto his feet as though erected by an invisible crane.

Mimicking his son, equally clueless about how effortlessly they'd escalated, Angel wobbled his lower lip. "Hear him?" he marveled.

In between footfall, the baby fell utterly silent, plunging Angel into suspension. Rain above them stopped ticking; water hurtling to the floor postponed descent. Angel steadfastly retained the breath he hadn't realized he'd taken before the baby had a chance to grab it first.

Life and death and alleys and dust and to dust and it always came down to taking the innocent and damn the unfairness and --

NO!>>

Angel waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited to die. Again.

no... pleeeeease?>>

An aspiration -- so subtle it might have been missed if not so impotently hoped for. Itsy fingers curled, bitty lips quivered, newborn-blue eyes blinked the delivery of two tears.

The rain knocked on the roof and tumbled onto the floor. All, goodness. All for the want of hypnotic syncopation to set the universe in motion again...

"See, you guys? The baby likes this!" Javi exclaimed, proudly rat-a-tatting two Blo-Pops on the floor.

The infant's mouth shaped a smile.

Fred ruffled Javi's hair before giving into the happy rhythm. Marching to the ladder, long curls bounced against her spine. She tossed her head. "C'mon Angel!" she saluted, toeing for the first rung.

Poking his nose into the blanket, Angel inserted a kiss. Cautiously bobbing his chin in cadence, he embraced his cherished parcel and toddled to the edge.

The driver grunted and swerved his waistband. "And now a baby, to boot?"

The elder smacked his troubled forehead. "I should have stayed in Escondido."

The younger was magnetized to the parent. After visual permission, he peered into the blanket. "I'm Joe Weiss. Saul and Rube-the-old-guy, my brothers, are over there. We were d.b.a. Egyptian Knitting Mills."

Angel nodded politely. "Angel. And, uh ..."

"Googie, googie, goo -- " Joe's eyelids flitted up and down. "We've met all of your friends already. And the kid with the animals -- Nice car. Adorable baby."

Caught off-guard by the compliments, Angel grinned dufusly. "We're sorry to trespass," he said.

Escorting Cordelia to Angel's side, Wesley supplemented, "And we'll vacate immediately."

"Good!" Rube hawked and spit. "Then we'll only be a shelter for homeless animals!"

"You must be deaf, old man." Gunn pinkied the car keys out of his coin pocket. "Like I already told you, we ain't homeless!"

"Ech!" Rube flicked both wrists and limped away.

"Don't mind him," Joe exhaled patiently. "Will the baby be safe if you leave?"

Taking his turn at disgruntlement, Saul scuffled towards his brother. "Joe, Joe. What are you, nuts? We don't need to be involved with vagrants."

Dramatically, Gunn opened the car door. "Look, we're going! Aw'ight?" He hopped in, turned on the ignition and cuffed the dashboard.

The convertible top droned into action.

"Saul, it's Noah's flooding out there. Not to mention the meshugener baby-killer -- " Joe appealed, agitated.

"Baby killer?" Angel echoed.

Cordy's high heels clicked off the span of her purposeful gait. "Look, Saul. We wouldn't ask otherwise, because seriously, we'd rather be in a five-star hotel."

Eyebrows hiked with esteem, Angel shadowed Cordelia, intimating, "Although, I wouldn't go *that* far. Maybe before what I did to the lobby and if you don't count the condemned wing, that would make it a fourish, four and a halfish -- "

Fists on her hips, Cordelia angled her head one way; her lips slid another.

"Don't dis my son's home," Angel said, insulted.

Saul stuffed both hands into his pants pockets, pulled them out, yanked his pants to just under his chest and shoved his hands away again. "Fine. Fine. You all look hungry, though. Joe, grab the Honeybaked from out of the trunk, but *you're* explaining this to Carla and the girls."

The Plymouth roof stopped, mid-convert. "So, we stayin' or goin'?" Gunn asked.

As he hustled past, Joe swept an inviting arm and, using the button on his keyring, popped the Caddy's trunk. "Turkey and most of the Trimmings. And -- "

Fred couldn't wait for the kraft paper bag. "Eggnog!" she exclaimed, giddy. After unveling the cylindrical metal can, she grimaced. "Formula."

Saul tapped the brand name. "There was a Rite-Aid next to the Honeybaked store. It's not everyday you can get such a deal on this stuff."

Joe passed Cordelia a plastic bag -- the store logo framed by a holly wreath. "Saul's a great-great grampa in-waiting," he proclaimed.

"Pardon me -- "

The throng leaned around to find Wesley, blatantly queasy.

"Figures -- A skin and bones like him would be a nudge about a free meal." Saul returned to foraging. "Sonny, if you don't like turkey, just pick at the sides!"

Eyes flooding, Cordelia clapped one hand over her mouth and hastened away.

"Cordy!" Angel called out, his impulse to follow hedged by the grip Gunn had on his shirt. "What's going on?"

Gunn scowled. "Seems there's a couple little things someone musta forgotten to tell you about."

Angel located Cordelia in a very dank area. The air was clotted with a moldy scent -- from matter that had been decomposing in the concrete floor's cracks long before the present rainstorm and not, mercifully, the animal odor pervading the majority of the building. He doubted the candle wattage generated by a streetlamp, meagerly imparting an amber blush through the random scratches in a painted window, was decent enough for anyone unendowed with supernatural vision to distinguish the assorted relics -- a tipped sewing machine, the concave desk, a passel of broken cams.

Protecting his son, he backed through the sphere of heat being generated by Fred's raging knitting machine. While maneuvering their turn Angel got blasted by Cordelia's uncontained hopelessness -- an unbecoming mantle she'd taken to over-wearing. She smiled less frequently than he did; the furrow between her brows could officially be considered permanent. Once had been too many times for her mind to be tapped, her body violated and, now that they'd begun venturing into the realm of 'countless', Cordelia's effervescent spirit -- what made her uniquely Cordelia -- visibly dwindled beyond Angel's scope of retrieval.

Hyperion of a heart, HA!>> he mused cynically. A dead heart that had been so unwelcoming over the years its 'no vacancy' imperative had informed the dearest person in his life: there's no place better for solace than someplace else!

"Here," Angel said, wheeling the plate beneath her nose.

Eyes straight ahead and unfixed on any one object, Cordelia reared away. "You just can't bring keep bringing food, expecting me to dish out more complete visions, Angel."

He closed his eyes to the hollowness in her voice, claimed a corner of the crate she sat on. "You need to eat," he replied as impassively, setting the plate on her knees.

Not only did Cordy sound beat, she looked it. The vibrancy in her hazel eyes had drained into their sooty shores. Wearily, she scraped the lackluster hair away from her sallow cheeks, hooked the ends behind her ears almost as an afterthought. She sat still -- much too still, except for the stray movement of dredging her thumbnails along her fingertips. That compulsion was either something new or something Angel had been failing to notice.

Thunder clapped against the city's ceiling. The baby keened sharply and constricted.

"I've looked. And I've looked again and again. AND, I CAN'T SEE ANYTHING MORE!" she gnashed, too hysterical to sob.

Angel bounced the infant on his bicep and said softly, "I wasn't asking for more details, Cordelia. I'm asking you to eat. Wesley and Gunn have gone to see if Lorne can pick up the details."

The young woman wilted. Only the plate's aroma kept her from falling into her own lap. "Because I couldn't help the helpless, Angel."

"Because *you* weren't meant to," he spoke across her nape. "So, take a really deep breath, curse out the Powers That Be, and then have a bite to eat."

Suspicious, Cordy watched him straighten and stand. "Advice that's supposed to make me feel better?" she questioned huskily.

Enveloping his restive son, Angel checked the wobbly head with his cheek and lost Cordelia in a blur. "Other than the deep breathing part, it's been working for me."

-0-

"It's getting very difficult not to give into the notion that someone is out to deter us." Wesley waited behind yet another intersection's limit line. They'd driven six blocks in a deserted area and been stopped by as many traffic lights.

The tinny radio failed to provide a break in the silence that hung between him and his tight-lipped passenger. "They've repeated the same information so many times, it doesn't even make sense anymore," he complained. His hand waved erratically, hinged along the top of the steering wheel by its heel.

The windshield flared vivid green. Gunn hacked through the air with a directorial palm.

The tire whine climbed into a higher register as Wesley accelerated cautiously. Swiping his cuff across the window to clear a view of the side mirror was a waste of effort; leather didn't absorb, it bleared.

He raised his right foot in anticipation, a mille-instant before the next light blared 'you just as well stop'. Left leg bent at a right angle, Wesley seized his knee and straightened his elbow. "My God! We *just* heard them repeat the count a minute ago! Why don't they go back to babbling on about the rain?"

The cross-traffic light held yellow... Blinked red. An eternity passed before Wesley received the permission to go. The windshield wiper blades, like broken wings in a tornado, flailed uselessly against rain that had begun falling harder and layering the thoroughfare in blankets.

Gunn inhaled. Gunn exhaled and shifted uneasily against the vinyl.

The Plymouth lurched; it swerved. Its roof, glass, hood and trunk were pummeled by hail. Granular bits plinked and dissipated. Sports ball-sized pieces walloped the vinyl roof and, after abusing it like a trampoline, bounced onto the asphalt to fragment and pellet the undercarriage.

Frigidly, Gunn slapped the interior air unit to "Defrost", flicked the fan to "Hi". "If fire bolts zing from the sky, English -- " he began, hunkering into his seat.

He raised his retracting left hand, oath-making style. "And *that's* all I'm sayin'."

-0-

"Hey. You asleep?"

Seated cross-legged upon the skeins of yarn, Angel rearranged the blanket around his beautiful son's face. While he tucked it under the bump of a chin, the infant's eyelids strained to open, eventually settling closed.

"That's OK. You don't have to wake up. You've probably still got a lot of sleeping to do." Clenching his fist, Angel resisted the urge to test for the baby's temperature. "Rain'll do that to you. Makes you drowsy..."

Terse laughter tumbled from his throat. "Although, now that I think about it, that's usually not what rain does for me." He tipped one ear to the vent in the common wall, listened to the latest downpour's rhythmic pitter-patter. "But, that'll become our sign, right? If it's raining, you'll know: Daddy must be up to something!"

One of the baby's arms escaped the covers. Hand floating across his face, four fingers wriggled under the tip of his nose while his thumb nestled between his rosy lips.

Asleep, he was tranquility incarnate.

"Smells like Pylea," Angel hummed. "I think this is the stuff they burned -- " Icy white around the edges, the ebony briquettes glowed red at their centers. Heat rose in vertical ribbons, distorting the air.

His brows twitched and his mouth wrenched, disgusted. " -- except they had a different breed of cow."

Shallow breaths caressed his fingertips while he worried the blanket about the baby's plump cheeks. "I'll tell you all about Pylea one day. Or probably -- " self-amusement broke its containment, " -- I'll tell you about Pylea too many times until you'll be sick of hearing about it. Cause that's what Dad's do, huh? Tell the same old boring stories over and over until you're too embarrassed to bring your friends over the house and --"

Angel inhaled, reining in the run-away conversation. "Fergeddabout me. You'll have to worry more about your Aunt Cordy and Kate, Auntie Fred, Uncle Wesley and Gunn because *they're* the talkers. Especially Cordy. She's got the best heart on earth, but you'll have to learn to duck when she starts throwing words around. Man! And *really* watch out for her 'cause it's not just her honesty that can pack a punch."

Stretching his shoulders was painful; he'd been hunched since his son's arrival. He felt an itch to get active, but, as instinctively, put it out of his mind.

"One day I'll have to tell you about your Mom," he heard. Angel leaned back and checked beyond the temporary wall, fully expecting to find a ventriloquist.

"Our Mom," he corrected, closing his eyes.

"It's this whole vampire thing I've got going on?" he exhaled, feeling his features pinch. "I know, I know. It's already a weird enough family situation to bring otherworldly into the mix, but it'll be cool. I've spent a lot of time around High Schoolers and they all think their parents are freaks. If you think about it, this way, I'm saving you the lie."

He nosed the baby's wispy hairline. "Because I don't want you to have to lie. You know... We can talk. We will. Even if I might not understand you. OK?"

The sleepy head lolled to one shoulder, so affably.

"Just like -- Like you were talking so great to your Mom. Darla tried to resist, but you made her understand, didn't you? What it's like -- To feel. And that way, she could let go -- You helped set her free. Because -- She really got the message, everything you'd been teaching her. You inspired her to kindness, you know. For the first time since I'd known her."

He reclined and, balancing the baby on his chest, snaked closer to the fire bin. The blanket was fuzzy beneath his chin. "One day -- She was pretty. Your Mom was pretty. And she had this killer smile -- Or not. A nice smile. She had a real nice smile when she wasn't being a hardcase."

Wistful, he smoothed his cheek slowly atop the baby's skull. "Let's hope you don't wind up with her stubborn streak," he whispered preventatively.

Even if Angel couldn't make it out, he knew there was a secure roof above their heads. And that mattered, more than it ever had in the past. "You helped it out work that Darla would never be alone again. That was the promise I made to her and I blew it for a while. I mean well, but I can get a little flaky about promises. Threats? No big. But promises...

"Anyway, you were there for your Mom most of that time when I wasn't and you -- " Angel sat up abruptly. Toes wriggling inside his boots, he cleaved the baby to his chest. The bundle stirred. While grasping for collar, four teensy fingernails scratched Angel's throat.

"That just proves how good you are! That you don't even know what responsibility is yet but you were handling it just like a pro. I'm supposed to be a professional, but I'm still having problems getting with the program the majority of the time."

He thumbed his tear off the baby's cheek and was dazzled by the newborn's skin. How incredible! He'd never known anyone softer. A hummingbird pulse and a blossom of warmth bountiful enough to share -- to bestow the semblance of a life, the way Angel remembered owning it for one lost day, long ago.

"But you're not responsible for these other babies, OK? Bad things happen and I know I'm supposed to stop them, but I can't all the time. Most of the time I don't make a fu - freakin' dent. And that's not your responsibility either."

Angel caught himself breathing and desisted.

"Because you're normal." He blinked. "And I'm not.

"I'm not of your world, but I'm going to try especially hard to live in it with you the way you'll need me to. And it's -- It's going to hurt to stay attached because I'm going to have to watch my friends fade while you grow up. But you're going to grow up. And be strong, and be healthy and be -- God --

" -- be good." Angel snarfed, skimmed both eyes across his sleeve. "What -- Whoever was protecting you -- They had to have made sure that evil plus evil cancelled out. Because you *have* to equal good."

Five fingers secured the delicate skull as Angel hobbled onto both knees. "Don't worry, Baby. I've got you right here," Angel he reassured, sitting back on his heels.

A miniature heart palpitated joyously, radiating trust while the heavens showered blessings.

Rearranging the blanket, Angel beheld the enormity of an impossibility. Asleep in his arms.

"Please," he whispered. His lashes dusted the twinge of discomfort crimping the baby's eyebrows before he sowed a kiss. "Please. God, please. Don't let my boy be evil."

-0-