Chapter 3: More Meetings and Hookers
By: Hope
The four made their way up to the 12th floor and into the Summers' room in silence. Once they had gotten inside, Dawn sat down in the desk chair, looking up at her sister who returned a look to Dawn, a look showing that she didn't want her to be a part of the conversation.
"This is my problem as much as it is yours!" Dawn exclaimed, not hiding her anger for once again being treated as a child.
"Fine." Buffy said as she turned away from her sister and closed the door, Fred and Gunn sat down on the couch that was at the end of the room and across from the desk. There wasn't one in there before because Buffy had found that the couch they had in there was broken, so she had requested for them to get a new one. Walking closer to Fred and Gunn, Buffy sat down on the bed closest to the couch and desks.
Finding that both of the Summers girls were staring at the remaining members of the fang gang, they began to tell the whole story of what had happened the past year. Fred noticed a pained look on Buffy's face when they told them about Darla, and how she had slept with Angel the year before. But when Buffy saw that other people noticed her pain, her face instantly turned emotionless. "And the last time that we saw him was when he was going to go meet Cordelia..." Fred said, finishing the long story. "We don't know where though." She added.
Dawn, Fred, and Gunn all turned their eyes to the slayer, who was staring at the floor. "When was the last time you saw Connor?" Buffy asked, looking up. She tried so hard to fight back tears. Buffy may have had lovers since Angel had left Sunnydale but she never expected him to....she knew that he was entitled to move on and that he should, but she never expected it. Especially with his sire, or Cordelia.
"Ummm...." Fred began to think but then opened her mouth as though she was going to object. "No, Angel and Connor patched things up! We saw it! They were - - -"
"He went out about 10 minutes after Angel left." Gunn interrupted, seeing what Buffy was saying and almost agreeing. Fred looked at him like she was disapointed in him for telling, as though it was their job to protect Connor. "Fred, we have to tell her everything we know, besides, it *is* a little wierd that he disapears right after his old man, especially since neither of them have contacted us since." Gunn said.
Fred nodded in agreement and looked at Buffy. Everyone had seemed to forget that Dawn was in the room once they had started their story about a half-hour earlier so the teen was making sure that she remembered everything that they said, she wanted to prove to Buffy that she was able to take care of herself by helping to save Angel.
"Do you have any idea where he may be? Have you checked the hotel where Holtz was staying?" Buffy asked.
"We checked every place that we could think of, for the both of them." Gunn said. "Same with Cordelia, you think this all could've been linked?" Gunn asked the slayer.
"Sounds like it." Buffy replied, now eyeing the bag that she had thrown on her bed when they had entered the room.
Standing up, she walked over to the bag and unzipped it, finding a large battle axe that looked as though it was hand made. She picked it up easily, admiring it. "He made it himself." Gunn said from behind her.
"Well if what you've been saying is true, then this might be handy." She said. "Buffy." Dawn stood up from the chair, reminding everyone that she was there. Buffy turned to look at her sister who was holding her books in her hand. She pointed at her books, trying to make Buffy remember what else they had to do that day.
"Oh!" Buffy said, finally remembering. She turned from Dawn to face Fred and Gunn who were now standing up, getting that they would soon have to leave. "Dawn has this thing for school, the reason why we're hear actually." Buffy explained. "I have to drop her off there in...." She glanced at the alarm clock next to her bed. "Fifteen minutes, after that I could come and meet you two somewhere, maybe a local haunt would know where he was?" Buffy asked, her mind still on the fact that Angel was missing.
"Yea, that'd be good." Fred said as Dawn excused herself and walked into the bathroom to get ready. "Could you meet us at the Hyperion after you drop her off?" She asked.
"Yea, that'd be fine." Buffy said.
Fred and Gunn walked over to the door and the three people exchanged goodbyes and made plans to meet later that day.
"She seemed nice." Fred said, happy about their meeting
with Buffy. She had expected so many things to go wrong, that maybe being a
slayer would make her really mean or that she wouldn't care about finding Angel
again or really anything that Fred had been able to think up.
"Yea, but didn't she seem a little, I mean it sounded like she was a bit - -" "Depressed?" Fred said, finishing Gunn's sentence.
Gunn looked at Fred and smiled as they held hands. "You can finish my thoughts, isn't that only supposed to happen after- -" Gunn noticed that Fred had stopped walking down the sidewalk and saw that she was staring in front of them, with her mouth open.
"Connor!!!" She yelled when she was able to regain her composure. Gunn followed her gaze and there he was, Connor, sitting on a bench across the street, looking like he was trying to decide something. "Connor!!" Fred screamed again as she let go of Gunn's hand and began to run towards Connor, leaving Gunn to follow her.
Connor became aware of their prescense and jumped up, surprised that they had spotted him. I hear this is one of the biggest cities in the world and yet I keep running into people that know my father... he thought as he quickly stood up from the bench and walked into the crowd of people walking on the sidewalk, hoping that if he could get lost in the crowd before Fred and Gunn caught up to him.
"Do you see him?" Fred asked Gunn who had caught up to her. Fred looked all around her but it seemed that Connor had been able to slip into the crowds so that he could leave without him seeing them.
"No." Gunn said, putting his hands on Fred's shoulders, then leading into a hug. "Don't worry, we'll find him when he wants to be found." He added as he pulled Fred away and looked at her face. Tears were beginning to roll down her face. Gunn could tell that almost more than anything, Fred wanted everyone to be together again....it just seemed like no one else wanted that.
- - - - -
Walking down to the main lobby of the Wolfram & Hart
building, Lilah found two people waiting for her, sitting on a bench near the
main door. Lilah instantly recognized both of them. Since she had made her
little discovery about who her new shadow was, she had been researching on both
of them. "Hi." She said, putting on her friendly act as she walked towards the
bench, smiling.
Buffy was the first one to stand up, shaking Lilah's hand. "Hi, I'm Buffy, I'm Dawn's sister." She said, assuming that Lilah didn't know everything about her. Lilah was surprised, she knew every little speck of information about the slayer, but even knowing that and now seeing her, she couldn't believe that a slayer, especially one as powerful as Buffy, could be so tiny.
"Hi Miss Summers." Lilah smiled and looked at Dawn who was now standing up, holding a notebook in her hand.
Before Lilah was able to move her eyes from the notebook, Dawn realized that she had been looking at it. "Oh, I'm supposed to take notes on how things are operated and some of the cases that you might handle." Dawn said, trying to sound as cheerful and innocent as possible.
"Right." Lilah said, turning her attention back to Buffy. "Well Miss Summers, Dawn will be in good hands here until you pick her up at, 4 if I'm correct?" Lilah said, acting as though she cared about anything other than the sister being the vampire slayer.
"Yes. Yea." Buffy said to Lilah, then turning to Dawn she said her goodbyes, promising that she wouldn't be late.
To Dawn's surprise, Buffy then began to walk out of the door, hesitating for a moment when a man bumped into her. She turned to look at him but then turned back around and walked out the door, shrugging off whatever she had felt. "Well, Dawn." Lilah said, looking at the teenager. "Why don't we get started."
- - - - - -
How long had it been now? A day? A week? A month? A year?
Angel hadn't really been able to tell how long he had been under there. Nor did
he even care. It seemed that his brain had stopped functioning altogether, only
thinking about Connor. Why Connor would betray him and how anyone would lead him
to believe that Angel had killed Holtz.
The thing that he loved more than anything in this world, the only thing that he could love unconditionally, his son, hated him. He hated him more than anything in the world and instead of wanting him dead, which would be enough for most people, Connor....or Stephen, whichever name he would decide to go by, would rather see his father suffer for eternity where no one could reach him... Angel closed his eyes and tried to drift into another dreamless sleep. When he had first been put down there he was immobile inside of his water filled tomb, still dumbfounded over the turn of events, almost not wanting to go back into a world where no one wanted him, where he felt that everyone wanted him gone.
Cordelia hadn't shown up, if she had then they would have found his car by now and been able to track him. Connor....Connor refused his identity and wanted him dead.
Who else was there that even cared if he still existed? Who else was there that had ever cared about him....Buffy. The name filled his head with images and memories that he had wanted to forget. The feelings that he once had, that he still had for Buffy were different than any feeling he had ever had towards anyone else. He loved Buffy more than anything in the world, even though he had tried to move on, he knew that she had moved on as well.
By the time that Angel had come to his senses and realized that he had to get out of there, he was already too weak from exhaustion and starvation to even attempt to break the tomb. All he wanted to do now was waste away his immortality and sleep....
- - - - - -
Dawn had made Buffy promise not to embarrass her when they
got to the law firm, and she was pretty proud of herself when she was walking
out, towards the door of the large law office. A large man, wearing a hooded
sweatshirt bumped into Buffy when she had almost made her way out, causing her
slayer senses to go into overdrive. She turned around and looked at the man who
seemed to be hurrying off towards the elevator. She turned back to face the
door, shrugging off whatever she had sensed. It was a law office for god sakes,
why would there be a vampire there?
- - - - - -
Two Days Later...
They hadn't been able to find any word on Angel, Cordelia or Connor. Buffy had even called up Xander in Sunnydale and Giles in England to see if they had heard anything from people over there. But it seemed like the vampire with a soul had just vanished. No one had heard of any new attempts to kidnap him and no one certainly knew that it was his own son that had caused him to disappear. Dawn had been having a great time shadowing Lilah, she thought that Lilah was actually very 'hip' in a sense and that she treated Dawn like an adult, not like a baby, which everyone else still did.
"Buffy, we're not in Sunnydale." Dawn said, almost laughing at her sister. Buffy was still determined to go on a nightly patrol and was now getting ready to go out again.
"We may not be in Sunnydale but I've been in L.A., here, L.A. is where I met my first vampire." Buffy said as she finished putting on her eye makeup and slid a stake up the arm of her sweat shirt.
"Can I come?" Dawn asked.
Buffy sighed, expecting Dawn to ask this sooner or later and since Buffy had been training her every day for the past few weeks she felt that she would be able to take on a vampire or two but..."Dawnie, are you sure there isn't anything on tv that you would rather watch, I could order a movie, you want a movie?"
Buffy hadn't chosen her words that well and saw that her sister was now looking at her with her eyes wide open, her face full of excitement. "Does that mean I can go? No I don't want a movie, I want to be able to go with you!" Dawn almost yelled, really wanting to spend the time with her sister.
"Fine."
- - - - -
Spike made his way down the streets of L.A. with ease. This
wasn't the first time he had been to this town, and here no one knew of the
chip...or his shiney new soul. That alone made him more confident about striding
down the streets. In Sunnydale someone would probably try to pick a fight with
him, almost convinced that he had gone to good to even fight back. But here,
here they still feared the Big Bad.
"Hey Big boy." Spike saw at least three prostitutes standing on a corner that he was passing, they were all staring at him, cooing him to come to them, to use them. "Want some of this?" They asked him, slightly lifting up their already short skirts.
Almost laughing at the desperate state of the women, Spike stopped and looked at them, in his game face. One of them was so stoned that she didn't even notice and began walking over to him where as the other two ran away screaming. Spike carefully held onto the woman's shoulders and turned her around, pointing her towards a bar that was down the block. Without even realizing that he had turned her around, the woman began walking there, losing any memory of Spike whatsoever.
That's when it hit him. Another memory began surging through his head.
"Hey there girls." Spike had said 10 years earlier at that
same corner. High on power, he had walked over to them, leaving his sickly
Drusilla at their current home to play with her dolls.
"Hello Handsome." One of them had said, walking up to him, resting her hand on his shoulder as though she was trying to seduce him.
"Hello luv." He had replied cooly, high on the power. Spike had come to L.A. looking for the next girl that would be called to be a slayer. He didn't know her name or what she looked like, but he knew that she was in L.A., and just knowing that he was so close to a kill like that made him feel extremely powerful.
"You want some of this?" The one that was closest had asked.
Looking at her as though he was considering if he could afford them or not, he smiled. "Actually." He said, putting on his game face. "I would."
Thats when he lunged at her, biting into her neck and draining her dry before she could even let out a scream. Then he went onto the others, feasting on their young blood, leaving two for Drusilla.
"No..." Spike quietly said to himself, trying to stop
himself from sobbing. He sat down on the curb and put his hands on his head as
though he was trying to shake the memory out. "No...." So many
people...everywhere, it seemed that he had killed someone almost everywhere he
turned.
After ten, probably twenty minutes at most of sobbing, Spike gathered himself up and stood up, wiping away the tears.
He quickly made his way to the Hyperion Hotel, he had heard from Willow that thats where Angel was living and working now, after his old building got blown up. Spike stood at the doors and just before opening up, he realized that he didn't smell is grand-sire anywhere near that building.
Following his 'Sire-sense' Spike turned from the doors of the Hyperion and began to head towards Point Dume.