Disclaimer: Joss, Joss, whatever…
Notes: A/C shippers shall be prosecuted. No joke. (And Spike 'n Dru do the prosecuting…)
I know, I know. It seems excessive. All these threats to A/C fans in every part. But you have to understand just how truly STUPID these people are. You gotta smack them fifty, sixty times before they remember to say Ow. Look who their idol is.
Thanks, Andrea, as always. DBD for invaluable advice. And everyone who keeps sending such lovely reviews. That's it. ( These just get shorter every time.
Distribution: I'm easy. Ask and I'll say yes.
1
2 Inheritance
By Myopic
2.1 Part IV: Heredity
The bell rang for lunch.
"Conner?" Dale asked, waving a hand in front of his face.
"Conn." She tugged impatiently on his arm.
"CON-NER DONAVAN, WAKE THE HELL UP!"
"Huh?" Conner turned dazed eyes on her. "Oh, Dale." He blinked. "I wasn't sleeping."
"Could've fooled me." She looked closer at him. "Are you feeling okay? You've been acting weird all day."
"Weird, what do you mean? I feel…wonderful." With that absent reply, he prepared to float back to more pleasant speculations.
"I mean, like chilling in that chair after old Henderson herself went off to lunch." She felt his forehead with real concern.
"Mmmmmmm? Lunch. Sure….." Suddenly his head shot up. "Lunch!"
Dale watched in amazement as he flew out the door. "That kid just keeps getting weirder," she sighed, grabbing his books and hers and heading for the cafeteria.
Summer gripped her tray a little harder. The flocks of strange faces just seemed to fly by so fast, she had no time to register any. She looked took a tentative step forward from the lunch line, scanning the huge, large- windowed cafeteria. Her eyes passed from table to table, but they were all occupied by foreign cliques, old jokes and best friends.
There's nothing like starting a new school to put your ego in perspective, she thought cynically. If they could only see the queen of St. Boniface's now. A laughing couple pushed past her, knocking her Jell-o off her tray and onto her shoes. So much for lunch. That looked like the only edible part. She threw the rest of her food into the nearest garbage can and headed past the screaming masses towards the nearest exit. These are eighty dollar shoes. I gotta find a bathroom or Mom'll kill me. She pounded the metal door open with more force than necessary.
THUD.
"Ow," said a small, mewling voice.
"Oh my God!" Summer cried, hastily pulling the door back to reveal the tall handsome boy who had gotten detention in her Biology class. "Are you okay? I'm so sorry!"
"Will you look where you… Summer!" Conner sputtered, pulling his hand down from his examination of the new bump on his head and standing up straight. "Yeah, I'm… uh…"
"Hey, Conn, are you okay?!" Dale sprinted down the hallway, interrupting his unusually inarticulate speech.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he insisted, two spots of red forming on his upper cheeks as his friend stood on tip-toes to check out his forehead. "Quit it, Dale!" he added under his breath.
She ignored him, and Summer looked on, half amused and half awkward at yet another display of familiarity she was left out of. She tossed her silky blonde hair over her shoulder.
"I'm really sorry." She said again. "I guess I should probably…"
"Go?" Conner said dumbly, pausing with Dale's wrists in his hands.
Summer winced slightly and turned around.
"Huh? Conner, what's the matter with you!" Dale scolded, breaking free. "God, you have the manners of a cocker spaniel. I'm Dale," she said to Summer, holding out her hand. "And that is Conner. Did you eat yet? You can sit with us. It'd be nice not to be outnumbered by y-chromosomes for once."
Summer flushed, giving her mother's shoes a last, flickering thought. "I'd like that." She smiled. They were ruined by now, anyway.
The girls headed back into the cafeteria, Dale in the lead, chatting up a storm. Neither one noticed the dopey smile Conner wore as he followed them in, or the fact that he ran right into a pillar, earning his third lump of the day.
"Alright, wring out the hankies, Gunn has finally returned," announced that radiantly smiling man as he practically skipped down the steps that led to the Hyperion Hotel's lobby. His thin, pretty wife followed him, almost timidly. As if it were a strange place she was entering, rather than her former home.
"Angel? Cordy?" she called, just as Wesley emerged from the inner office.
"Wes! My man!" Gunn scooped his British friend off his feet in an enthusiastic hug. Wesley backed off, nonplussed, as soon as he regained his footing.
"Gunn…Fred. You're looking…well," he stammered awkwardly, concentrating on pulling off his glasses and wiping them vigorously.
The newlyweds exchanged a look.
"I thought you were in England," Fred said carefully, tilting her head.
"Yes, well, something came up…" The importance of the reason for his return speedily replaced his uncomfortable thoughts about what had driven him away. "Something quite urgent, actually." He turned and headed for his office. "This could take a while, come in and sit down, we were just doing some research."
They followed him to the doorway, but stopped before crossing the threshold.
"I don't believe either of you have met Mr. Giles," he added at the couple's curious looks.
This announcement, of course, sparked even curiouser looks. They didn't even hear Wesley introduce them as Charles and Fred Gunn, a pairing of names that would have pleased them, as it was the first time they had been introduced since their marriage.
"Wait. Giles? As in Sunnydale Giles?" Gunn wondered as Fred gaped at the older man. "When you say urgent, you mean it, man."
Wesley nodded and gestured them to the only two chairs that weren't covered with stacks of ancient tomes.
They sat down heavily, ready to be embroiled in the complicated world of Angel Investigators and resume their everyday lives. The honeymoon was over.
Angel tapped his fingers on the hard marble of the deserted Caritas' bar.
"Back so soon?" Lorne asked, a glitzy smile on his green face as he strolled out from the back room, brushing invisible dust from his impeccable suit. "I never figured you for a morning drinker, Pal. Never figured you for a morning ANYTHING, really."
Angel stopped tapping, curling his fingers gently into a loose fist.
"I told you last night, I don't know anything about a Slayer in L.A." Lorne said, nervously. He scrunched his forehead, hurt. "I'm not Willy the Snitch, you know. I don't lie to my friends."
"I know. I didn't… I wasn't….." Angel sighed. "Do you think it's possible?"
Lorne looked him for a moment. Without a word he crossed behind the bar and pulled out a long, amber bottle and two shot glasses.
"Yes." He said, filling one to the very brim and sliding it carefully in front of the vampire. "I think it's possible."
Angel gripped his fist tighter, ignoring the drink. "So do I," he whispered. "God help me."
Lorne poured himself a drink. "Isn't that a good thing? Love of your life returning from the dead…. Hmmm. Forgive me if I don't see how you need divine protection from that one."
Angel was silent, so Lorne went on. "I mean, When I think of how you were when she died…" Angel winced. "Look, you still can't even hear the words without flinching. When you left for Sri Lanka, the only thing on your mind was finding a way to get her back. Yes, I know about that. The others may have bought your 'I must grieve alone' line, but I've been around the block. The demon monks of Shan Chi are legendary for their research on life and death. "
Angel opened his mouth to explain.
Lorne held up a well-manicured hand. "Not blaming you. But if you wanted her back desperately enough to trek halfway around the world and spend three months with a gang of militant monks who don't believe in deodorant, I don't see why you're not jumping for joy right now. You still want her back, don't you?"
"Of course!" Angel yelled, standing up. He paced along the waxed floor. "Of course I want her back! I can safely say that there is nothing in this life that I want more than to have her back in it. Even if it's only back in China or Rio or Sunnydale where I can never see her…. or touch her. Even if she comes back hating me! Even if she comes back, walks right up to me and sticks a stake in my heart; I want her to be alive I would give anything. ANYTHING—
"But there's so many questions. HOW, after all these years of pain and missing her and trying to find a way to get through the day without her, how can she just be back? Who brought her back? How long has she BEEN back? WHERE has she been? Where is she now? Is she alright? Is she the same? Does she remember…. Why hasn't she tried to contact anyone? Why are we finding out NOW? What does it mean? What price will we have to—"
Lorne downed his drink. "Whoa! Slow down! Jeez man, when you open up, you really open up.
"I can't answer all those questions. First of all, we don't KNOW that she's back. I said I believe it's possible for her to be back. So we may never have to worry about some of those issues. But I think your main questions— the ones you left out with all your Who's and How's and Why's— are One: Will she love you? and Two: Will she forgive you?"
Angel closed his eyes and slouched back onto a stool, halfway across the bar. "Will she?"
Lorne slid Angel's drink down to him. "Would you love and forgive her, if things were reversed?"
Angel lifted the shot glass and gave Lorne a scornful look. "Of course."
Conner floated up the steps of the Hyperion at five o'clock.
His father and 'aunts' and 'uncles' and Mr. Giles all turned to greet him.
"Conner! We've got pizza! Conner?"
The teenager strolled by, oblivious to Gunn, and swept up the stairs to his bedroom. Humming.
The adults exchanged a look.
"Possession?" Fred suggested.
"Amateur witchcraft gone terribly wrong." Cordelia corrected, decisively.
"Drugs?" Gunn wriggled under the slew of skeptical gazes. "What? It has to be something freaky?"
"I think I know what it is." All eyes turned to Angel. "It looks like love to me."
No one argued with him. If anyone knew what love looked like, it was Angel.
To Be Continued…..
Notes: AH. That took a long time. I have NOT abandoned this fic. I DO know where I'm going with it. There WILL be a villain in the next part. Or two….. Please send feedback to thetendodojo@aol.com. Please?
Notes: A/C shippers shall be prosecuted. No joke. (And Spike 'n Dru do the prosecuting…)
I know, I know. It seems excessive. All these threats to A/C fans in every part. But you have to understand just how truly STUPID these people are. You gotta smack them fifty, sixty times before they remember to say Ow. Look who their idol is.
Thanks, Andrea, as always. DBD for invaluable advice. And everyone who keeps sending such lovely reviews. That's it. ( These just get shorter every time.
Distribution: I'm easy. Ask and I'll say yes.
1
2 Inheritance
By Myopic
2.1 Part IV: Heredity
The bell rang for lunch.
"Conner?" Dale asked, waving a hand in front of his face.
"Conn." She tugged impatiently on his arm.
"CON-NER DONAVAN, WAKE THE HELL UP!"
"Huh?" Conner turned dazed eyes on her. "Oh, Dale." He blinked. "I wasn't sleeping."
"Could've fooled me." She looked closer at him. "Are you feeling okay? You've been acting weird all day."
"Weird, what do you mean? I feel…wonderful." With that absent reply, he prepared to float back to more pleasant speculations.
"I mean, like chilling in that chair after old Henderson herself went off to lunch." She felt his forehead with real concern.
"Mmmmmmm? Lunch. Sure….." Suddenly his head shot up. "Lunch!"
Dale watched in amazement as he flew out the door. "That kid just keeps getting weirder," she sighed, grabbing his books and hers and heading for the cafeteria.
Summer gripped her tray a little harder. The flocks of strange faces just seemed to fly by so fast, she had no time to register any. She looked took a tentative step forward from the lunch line, scanning the huge, large- windowed cafeteria. Her eyes passed from table to table, but they were all occupied by foreign cliques, old jokes and best friends.
There's nothing like starting a new school to put your ego in perspective, she thought cynically. If they could only see the queen of St. Boniface's now. A laughing couple pushed past her, knocking her Jell-o off her tray and onto her shoes. So much for lunch. That looked like the only edible part. She threw the rest of her food into the nearest garbage can and headed past the screaming masses towards the nearest exit. These are eighty dollar shoes. I gotta find a bathroom or Mom'll kill me. She pounded the metal door open with more force than necessary.
THUD.
"Ow," said a small, mewling voice.
"Oh my God!" Summer cried, hastily pulling the door back to reveal the tall handsome boy who had gotten detention in her Biology class. "Are you okay? I'm so sorry!"
"Will you look where you… Summer!" Conner sputtered, pulling his hand down from his examination of the new bump on his head and standing up straight. "Yeah, I'm… uh…"
"Hey, Conn, are you okay?!" Dale sprinted down the hallway, interrupting his unusually inarticulate speech.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he insisted, two spots of red forming on his upper cheeks as his friend stood on tip-toes to check out his forehead. "Quit it, Dale!" he added under his breath.
She ignored him, and Summer looked on, half amused and half awkward at yet another display of familiarity she was left out of. She tossed her silky blonde hair over her shoulder.
"I'm really sorry." She said again. "I guess I should probably…"
"Go?" Conner said dumbly, pausing with Dale's wrists in his hands.
Summer winced slightly and turned around.
"Huh? Conner, what's the matter with you!" Dale scolded, breaking free. "God, you have the manners of a cocker spaniel. I'm Dale," she said to Summer, holding out her hand. "And that is Conner. Did you eat yet? You can sit with us. It'd be nice not to be outnumbered by y-chromosomes for once."
Summer flushed, giving her mother's shoes a last, flickering thought. "I'd like that." She smiled. They were ruined by now, anyway.
The girls headed back into the cafeteria, Dale in the lead, chatting up a storm. Neither one noticed the dopey smile Conner wore as he followed them in, or the fact that he ran right into a pillar, earning his third lump of the day.
"Alright, wring out the hankies, Gunn has finally returned," announced that radiantly smiling man as he practically skipped down the steps that led to the Hyperion Hotel's lobby. His thin, pretty wife followed him, almost timidly. As if it were a strange place she was entering, rather than her former home.
"Angel? Cordy?" she called, just as Wesley emerged from the inner office.
"Wes! My man!" Gunn scooped his British friend off his feet in an enthusiastic hug. Wesley backed off, nonplussed, as soon as he regained his footing.
"Gunn…Fred. You're looking…well," he stammered awkwardly, concentrating on pulling off his glasses and wiping them vigorously.
The newlyweds exchanged a look.
"I thought you were in England," Fred said carefully, tilting her head.
"Yes, well, something came up…" The importance of the reason for his return speedily replaced his uncomfortable thoughts about what had driven him away. "Something quite urgent, actually." He turned and headed for his office. "This could take a while, come in and sit down, we were just doing some research."
They followed him to the doorway, but stopped before crossing the threshold.
"I don't believe either of you have met Mr. Giles," he added at the couple's curious looks.
This announcement, of course, sparked even curiouser looks. They didn't even hear Wesley introduce them as Charles and Fred Gunn, a pairing of names that would have pleased them, as it was the first time they had been introduced since their marriage.
"Wait. Giles? As in Sunnydale Giles?" Gunn wondered as Fred gaped at the older man. "When you say urgent, you mean it, man."
Wesley nodded and gestured them to the only two chairs that weren't covered with stacks of ancient tomes.
They sat down heavily, ready to be embroiled in the complicated world of Angel Investigators and resume their everyday lives. The honeymoon was over.
Angel tapped his fingers on the hard marble of the deserted Caritas' bar.
"Back so soon?" Lorne asked, a glitzy smile on his green face as he strolled out from the back room, brushing invisible dust from his impeccable suit. "I never figured you for a morning drinker, Pal. Never figured you for a morning ANYTHING, really."
Angel stopped tapping, curling his fingers gently into a loose fist.
"I told you last night, I don't know anything about a Slayer in L.A." Lorne said, nervously. He scrunched his forehead, hurt. "I'm not Willy the Snitch, you know. I don't lie to my friends."
"I know. I didn't… I wasn't….." Angel sighed. "Do you think it's possible?"
Lorne looked him for a moment. Without a word he crossed behind the bar and pulled out a long, amber bottle and two shot glasses.
"Yes." He said, filling one to the very brim and sliding it carefully in front of the vampire. "I think it's possible."
Angel gripped his fist tighter, ignoring the drink. "So do I," he whispered. "God help me."
Lorne poured himself a drink. "Isn't that a good thing? Love of your life returning from the dead…. Hmmm. Forgive me if I don't see how you need divine protection from that one."
Angel was silent, so Lorne went on. "I mean, When I think of how you were when she died…" Angel winced. "Look, you still can't even hear the words without flinching. When you left for Sri Lanka, the only thing on your mind was finding a way to get her back. Yes, I know about that. The others may have bought your 'I must grieve alone' line, but I've been around the block. The demon monks of Shan Chi are legendary for their research on life and death. "
Angel opened his mouth to explain.
Lorne held up a well-manicured hand. "Not blaming you. But if you wanted her back desperately enough to trek halfway around the world and spend three months with a gang of militant monks who don't believe in deodorant, I don't see why you're not jumping for joy right now. You still want her back, don't you?"
"Of course!" Angel yelled, standing up. He paced along the waxed floor. "Of course I want her back! I can safely say that there is nothing in this life that I want more than to have her back in it. Even if it's only back in China or Rio or Sunnydale where I can never see her…. or touch her. Even if she comes back hating me! Even if she comes back, walks right up to me and sticks a stake in my heart; I want her to be alive I would give anything. ANYTHING—
"But there's so many questions. HOW, after all these years of pain and missing her and trying to find a way to get through the day without her, how can she just be back? Who brought her back? How long has she BEEN back? WHERE has she been? Where is she now? Is she alright? Is she the same? Does she remember…. Why hasn't she tried to contact anyone? Why are we finding out NOW? What does it mean? What price will we have to—"
Lorne downed his drink. "Whoa! Slow down! Jeez man, when you open up, you really open up.
"I can't answer all those questions. First of all, we don't KNOW that she's back. I said I believe it's possible for her to be back. So we may never have to worry about some of those issues. But I think your main questions— the ones you left out with all your Who's and How's and Why's— are One: Will she love you? and Two: Will she forgive you?"
Angel closed his eyes and slouched back onto a stool, halfway across the bar. "Will she?"
Lorne slid Angel's drink down to him. "Would you love and forgive her, if things were reversed?"
Angel lifted the shot glass and gave Lorne a scornful look. "Of course."
Conner floated up the steps of the Hyperion at five o'clock.
His father and 'aunts' and 'uncles' and Mr. Giles all turned to greet him.
"Conner! We've got pizza! Conner?"
The teenager strolled by, oblivious to Gunn, and swept up the stairs to his bedroom. Humming.
The adults exchanged a look.
"Possession?" Fred suggested.
"Amateur witchcraft gone terribly wrong." Cordelia corrected, decisively.
"Drugs?" Gunn wriggled under the slew of skeptical gazes. "What? It has to be something freaky?"
"I think I know what it is." All eyes turned to Angel. "It looks like love to me."
No one argued with him. If anyone knew what love looked like, it was Angel.
To Be Continued…..
Notes: AH. That took a long time. I have NOT abandoned this fic. I DO know where I'm going with it. There WILL be a villain in the next part. Or two….. Please send feedback to thetendodojo@aol.com. Please?