~*-*~

The young lad frowned with confusion. This new information made no sense to him. He puzzled over it again and again, still foundering at the root of the problem.

"No, see... it's because a rock blunts scissors."

Connor stared at Fred for a moment before speaking.

"I still say it's a stupid game."

Fred sighed and decided to give up on 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' and decided to head over to the office for some paper. Her recent obsession seemed to be filling Connor in on all he had been missing whilst he was in the Quortoth, and now she was moving on to the classics: Hangman. She returned with some papers and pens only to drop them when she saw who was coming through the door.

"Oh my God..."

Her face lit up with delight.

"Lorne!"

The green skinned and unusually tamely-dressed... well for him anyway... demon dropped his suitcase and turned to Fred, almost skipping down the steps to grab her in a hug.

"Freddikins baby, hey!"

"Oh, I am so glad to see you!"

Fred was bouncing with glee, an unusual sight as she'd been quite sombre the past few days.

"Yeah I can tell."

Fred stopped bouncing and looked puzzled, so Lorne explained.

"Aura."

"Oh right! I forgot."

Lorne tilted his head and looked straight at her.

"But that's not all I can see. You upset about something?"

"Oh it's nothing!"

Lorne could see straight through Fred's façade and gave her a coaxing smile.

"Fred..."

Fred's smile slowly faded before she spoke.

"I'm fine, it's just that... Gunn and I broke up last week. But I'm okay really. Things are just complicated is all."

Lorne knew she was still hurting, you didn't need empathic powers to see that. But he let it slide, as she clearly didn't want to talk about it.

"Things sure have changed around here haven't they buttercup?"

As Fred nodded Connor, who had been there the entire time and had heard everything, got up and came over.

"You don't know the half of it."

The demon was confused.

"Why are you talking to me?"

"Well, that's a bit rude..."

"Sorry Con, but all the times I've seen you past your dribbling and gurgling phase? You've wanted my head as a trophy on your wall."

Connor sighed and smiled. He should have seen this coming. After the events last Spring, he did owe Lorne an apology for his behaviour.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about before. But you've done nothing to me, so I don't want you dead."

Lorne definitely saw this as some good news, surprising but pleasant.

"Wow. I guess things really *have* changed around here!"

"Yeah. I'm not going to toss you into the ocean wearing a pair of cement shoes!"

Connor and Fred laughed, as did Lorne... not that he got the joke.

"Okay, now I do feel like an outsider since I'm already out of private jokes. What are you talking about?"

A realisation came to Fred and she frowned.

"You really have missed a lot haven't you? In fact you were already gone by the time Cordy went missing."

"Woah! Hold it right there peach pie, Cordy went missing?"

Connor nodded.

"Disappeared, just like that."

An extra click of his fingers to accentuate Cordelia's disappearance, not that Cordelia did leave that quickly. However Connor hardly knew as he was busy with the illegal dumping of vampire off the coast. Lorne was still confused.

"What? Did she become invisible again?"

Connor frowned.

"Again?!!"

Lorne just waved him off with a 'Don't Worry About It' gesture and Fred shook her head.

"No, she totally disappeared off the face of the planet."

This did little to remove Lorne's confusion.

"What? Did she go to Neptune again?"

Connor frowned... again.

"Again?!!"

Then it was Fred's turn to be confused and she frowned.

"What?!"

She stared at the blank faces of Connor and Lorne before deciding to straighten everything out.

"No! See, Cordelia was called by the higher powers to become one of them. A higher being. She ascended, and is no longer part of our dimension. That's what we mean by disappeared."

Lorne's wide red eyes widened still.

"Well, that's something. How's Tall, Dark And Brooding coping?"

Fred and Connor rolled their eyes together and walked towards the main desk.

"He was a little quiet about it for a while, but it's been quite some time since she went and he's come to terms with it now I think. Emphasis however on the 'think', you know how good Angel is at sharing his feelings."

"I hear you sister. So tell me, has anything else changed that I should be, you know, clued in to?"

At this point the office door opened and Gunn walked out carrying a file folder, clearly having heard a large proportion of the conversation.

"No, I don't think so. Fred and Connor covered the most of it. What's up Lorne? Good to see you back."

Lorne didn't have time to respond in a normal manner as he watched an apple fly out of the open door and into Gunn's hand. Gunn took a bite into it and stared at the new arrival doing double takes.

"I see what you mean by 'most'. What, did Dennis move in with Cordelia gone?"

Gunn furrowed his brow in confusion before realising the oddity that Lorne noticed.

"Oh right, the apple. That's just Wesley."

"Wesley's dead?!!"

The supposed deceased took this opportunity to let himself be seen, much surprising Lorne who was fully prepared to begin mourning.

"I'm here. Alive and well. Well... dead tired if you must know. I can't sleep as well as *some* dead people around here..."

"Oh my God."

Everyone turned to look at Fred who had a look of horror on her face.

"What's the matter Fred?"

"Dennis! We... we haven't told Dennis! He doesn't know that Cordelia's safe and he's probably worried sick!"

The group seemed to understand Fred's worry, apart from Connor.

"Fred? Why so worried? It's just a ghost."

"Ghosts have feelings too Connor. It's those emotions that partly differentiate ghosts from poltergeists."

Fred nodded at Wesley's comment, and she became increasingly animated.

"Yeah! And Dennis is really nice too. He doesn't mean any harm to anyone, and he's always so helpful if you go round there. You've never met him have you?"

Connor shook his head, slightly frightened by Fred's excitement due to a dead spirit.

"Oh! You have to go meet him! Now in fact, since I'm going over there to tell him about Cordy. Come on! Get your coat! You're going to love Dennis..."

Wesley shook his head in amusement and left up the stairs whilst Gunn and Lorne watched as Fred left with Connor, all the while discussing the great deeds of Phantom Dennis. Lorne paid more attention to Gunn, watching his mood as he watched her. Gunn was clearly just a sombre as Fred was, neither of them quite over the break up yet.

"How long has it been?"

"Four days."

"You miss her don't you?"

"You have no idea how much."

"You still love her."

"Undoubtedly. Maybe even too much."

Gunn took the chance to clarify.

"We didn't break up because the love was gone. We still love each other. It just wasn't working, you know?"

Lorne nodded with understanding.

"Doesn't stop it hurting though does it?"

Gunn didn't answer. He didn't need to. The two would have remained in silence together, reflecting on the pain of loving, but Wesley reappeared from upstairs, toting a large pile of books.

"Wow English, you must have worked out to lift all those."

"Yeah... what are you carting all those around for?"

Wesley put them down in the office before coming back to explain his plan.

"It's simple really. We use these books for research all the time, but we waste precious time whenever something new comes up decrypting all those proto-demon languages. I figure that using this spare time on our hands to copy the major passages into English and filing them away will save us time in the future. We can research from all these texts, and skip the exhaustive translation process."

Lorne winced.

"Good idea. Just don't get me involved, please. Only so many books I can handle, and I've already read one this year."

Wesley gave a short laugh and returned to the office.

"Lorne?"

Lorne turned around.

"Why is that my very own vampire with a soul? Hey there buddy!"

Angel smiled and walked over from the stairs.

"Long time Angel-hair, and can I say that you never looked so... moist."

Lorne paused, awaiting an explanation.

"Oh yeah, I was talking to Bianca and Katherina."

Lorne paused yet again, awaiting an explanation.

"The mermaids."

"We have mermaids?!"

Gunn just smiled, as their new developments continued to confuse Lorne. The look of shock and disbelief had never left his face since he arrived.

"Chill man, Angel just brought back some overgrown fish after his sabbatical at the bottom of the ocean. Voyage thanks to Connor."

Connor's comment about sinking finally made some sense to Lorne. The comment did anyway, as the thought of Connor sinking Angel to the bottom of the ocean couldn't possibly make sense. Lorne really did think he missed a lot. And he had.

"I can't believe you have mermaids. I miss all the fun stuff."

Angel smiled, knowing full well that what Lorne considered fun was actually painful to live through, for every party involved.

"It wasn't as fun as it may sound. So anyway, what brings you back from Las Vegas?"

Lorne grimaced.

"Well, therein lies a long and agonising story..."

He walked off the stage of the latest show, clearly to some rapturous applause. After a short break involving the sipping of a margarita, it wasn't long before the space in front of the stage door was filled with fans wanting autographs. Lorne could barely leave his dressing room, but by now he was used to it. This was no rare occurrence.

"Things were fine for a while. Popular and people really did enjoy the shows."

Lorne wandered up the stairs, looking rather worried at the visit to the casino manager. He wasn't invited up often, and he had a feeling this would be a firing. He wandered into the room, the mahogany desk adorned with cash. And in the chair sat the main man, Mr O'Donnell himself. He had a look of satisfaction on his face, which could only mean that the upcoming fun of dismissing an employee. Lorne sat down in the chair opposite awaiting the bad news. But it wasn't bad news. Mr O'Donnell stood up and turned the screen of his laptop towards Lorne, the spreadsheet indicating profits of the past month. A smile crept across Lorne's face.

"I made a lot of healthy and gorgeous cash. And cash gets you anywhere in that town. I would hang out at all the celeb bashes. C and D list of course, but still pretty nice. All your normal kind of stuff."

It was the same every night, not that anyone admitted being bored with it. The same drinks, the same mindless conversation, just different faces. Lorne was getting accustomed to it. He'd walk around and chat in groups of people who had clearly never heard of him, but would keep talking just to keep up the image. Occasionally he'd find those that had seen his shows, and at those parties he'd often be asked to sing. And he did. Lorne would sing, and they would clap. Those were the good parties. After he'd sing, there would always be people in awe. And some of them would be sexy too...

"So why did it all turn bad? The usual. A girl."

She stood out from the others as watched Lorne sing, probably because her hair colour didn't come from a bottle. After he'd finished and taken a mock bow, she'd clapped and walked away. It wasn't until later that she caught up with him. They'd chat a while, and he'd crack a joke. She'd laugh heartily as she tossed her flowing brown hair over to one side. She was an actress, only in town for a few weeks with a touring stage production. But all the same, she and Lorne would always bump into one another at those same repetitive showbiz parties. Eventually they exchanged details, she read the name "Lorne Green" off his calling card and scrunched up her cute little nose that was coated in freckles. Lorne only ever received her number, and honestly never caught her name. He merely called her "Showbiz Gal" and she didn't even seem to mind.

"I met her at a party and she was a pleasant girl. We became friends talked a lot. Except one night she decided to turn up and surprise me before a show."

It was a few hours before another show, but that didn't stop Lorne from already being in his dressing room. He was in the bathroom checking his hair, completely unaware that his showbiz gal was preparing to surprise him. Lorne had little on besides a towel that afternoon, and why should he wear more? After all, it was his dressing room. Deciding that he had hours to get dressed, Lorne wandered leisurely back into his room, preparing to lie back and relax before the upcoming show. Unfortunately, She was there. She may have been there to surprise Lorne, but she ended up being surprised herself...

"Once she found out I was green all over..."

Showbiz Gal didn't say anything at all. She bowed her head and stumbled over a coffee table before running out of the room. Lorne sighed, but was quite worn out anyway. He decided to lie down and catch some sleep so he was fully refreshed before his performance. Whilst he slept however, Showbiz Gal ran through the halls screaming about the perversion of the man with completely green skin.

Later, Lorne awoke. He dressed himself in green and red with shiny sequins to set off the suit, looking much like an alternate version of Santa Claus. Quickly running a comb through his hair and then spraying it for a healthy shine, he opened his door, fully prepared to make his way towards the stage door. Unfortunately there were people waiting for him outside in the hallway. All the set workers, all the caterers, all the stage managers and even Mr O'Donnell. They were all standing there, wielding all sorts of weapons they could find. Some stood there with an evil glare in their eyes, preparing to ambush the freak that was Lorne. They even had flaming torches. This was the Las Vegas mob, and not the nicer Mafia kind. Lorne gulped.

"She told people I was a freak and they ran me out of town."

Gunn let out a whistle.

"That's harsh."

Lorne had no choice but to nod in agreement.

"Tell me about it bub. Strange how with all the liberalism in that town, the Las Vegas starlets don't seem to gel with the green pigment."

Angel sighed at the story of Lorne's exile.

"That's so outdated. I haven't been chased out of a town like that since the nineteenth century."

"Yes, but you weren't losing out on a massive record deal were you?"

He couldn't deny that. Lots of tasty fresh virgins yes, record deal no.

"Well Lorne, their loss is LA's gain. They've no longer got a great performer and we've got Caritas back."

Lorne scoffed.

"You think I'm reopening the club just to have you blow it up again?"

"Not my fault Lorne. It's the demon in me. Likes to see things explode."

Gunn smirked.

"Yes. Plus, fire is pretty."

"Yeah Gunn. I've always liked fire you know, good old combustible me."

The sarcasm in Angel's tone made Lorne smile. He'd noticed something else that had changed somewhat: Angel's sense of humour. It was refreshing.

"Besides, I wasn't much into the fire of exploding buildings, it was more the carnage. The ecstasy of watching people fleeing for their lives, the joy gained from watching the pain on people's face as they watched loved ones burn to death. That's where the fun was."

Angel didn't realise until it was too late that he'd gone too far. He saw the shocked faces staring back at him, they were positively sickened. They had almost forgotten what Angel used to be, what he still was.

"Guys, I'm sorry."

He thought back a moment.

"No wait. I'm not sorry. You have to learn that I'm not like you. I may act human most of the time but I'm not. I have evil urges and impulses that I do best to control, but that doesn't stop them from being there. Don't ever forget what I really am."

One person who knew that truth well after the last few months was Wesley, and he returned from the office yet again. He noticed the sombre mood of those around him, and he'd heard the conversation. Wesley turned his attention to Lorne as he was yet to greet him properly.

"I just reached a pause point in my project. So Lorne, are you keeping up all right?"

Lorne thought back over all the information he'd received over the past hour. It made sense. A sort of weird supernatural sense, but sense nonetheless.

"I'm getting the hang of it. It's enough to baffle me just a bit, but not enough to make me dazed and confused then leave me in a state of catatonia or anything."

At this point, the second vampire of the household entered the room. He looked slightly dishevelled and had clearly just woken up. And this was late and lazy of him, even as a vampire. Lorne caught sight of Spike as he stumbled down the stairs yawning as he went and gasped.

"Holy jumping catfish! There's two of them!"

"And we're in to catatonia..."

Wes grinned as did Gunn, and they quickly grabbed Lorne's suitcases and decided to go upstairs and sort out his room. From the look of shock on his face, Lorne was going to need to lie down for a while. Lorne did a double take.

"Spike?"

"Krevlornswath!"

Angel merely raised an eyebrow.

"What the..."

Spike stepped slowly off the steps, still clearly drowsy, and came over to give Lorne a hug. They smiled at one another, much to Angel's mystification at the situation.

"How do you two know each other?"

Lorne laughed as he looked to the sky, trying to recall when he first met Spike.

"It was a few years back, and your boy here stumbled into Caritas completely smashed. My God, was he miserable! He sang, and I read him. We got to the talking afterwards, the rest is history."

Angel nodded with understanding.

"Why was he miserable and drunk, again?"

"Oh, he was just having trouble with his girl..."

Lorne watched as Spike repeatedly made a cutting throat action behind Angel's back.

"...dle."

"What?"

"Girl...dle. Girdle."

Angel blinked a few times, trying to allow his brain to register what he'd heard from Lorne's desperate mouth.

"Spike was miserable and drunk... because he was having trouble with his *girdle*?"

If looks could kill, Spike would have murdered Lorne right then and there. That said, he still needed to diffuse the situation.

"Yeah, I was having girdle trouble. I thought I wanted to be a woman. I was confused."

Spike watched as Angel's eyes slightly glazed over.

"But I'm fine now."

Angel looked at Spike, then Lorne, then Spike again.

"So you're telling me that you read Spike a few years ago and he was miserable because he had gender issues?"

"Yeah."

Lorne and Spike glanced between one another, wondering if Angel bought it.

"I don't buy that."

Oops.

"I don't know what you're up to, but I can tell you two are keeping something from me. Still, I have to go. I have somebody to interrogate and terrify, and I like to look my best when I'm doing it. It's great to have you back Lorne."

As Angel left, Spike decided to follow him up the stairs giving Lorne a scowl for the previous misstep.

"You're a nonce you know. Getting ready now when I *know* you don't have to be there for another two hours. You're worse than a bloody woman."

"I'm not the one wearing girdles Spike."

That earned Lorne a second glare from the stairs.

"Oh yeah? Well at least I don't wear make up, Angel."

"At least *I* don't spend hours in front of the mirror when I don't even have a reflection, Spike."

That shut him up.

"Touché."

Lorne smiled as he watched the two vampires argue over their vanity and walked into the centre of the lobby as he was now alone. He took the silence as a friend to his clogged mind, and he tried to make sense of what he'd learnt.

When he'd left, Fred and Gunn seemed so happy together. He could see the love between them, literally. He still could when he saw them together today, but it was clouded with misery and splashes of darkness. Lorne couldn't understand what must have happened while he was away to split up a pairing that had such promise. That wasn't all he couldn't understand. Angel's son, ironically a demon-hating machine, was suddenly tolerant and almost caring. Still not quite perfect from the Dad-dumping stories obviously, but willing to visit a ghost just to keep Fred happy. And Lorne noticed the uncanny similarities between Angel, Spike and Connor's dress sense. He assumed that the general black theme must run in the blood. Lorne thought about Wesley, and the strange fact that he was here. Although he and Angel clearly weren't all about smooches and daffodils, there was no hatred between them. Lorne couldn't feel it. What he could feel was the residual sadness from Angel. He was hiding it well, as Angel always did, but he was missing Cordelia. Now that was something Lorne was going to have to think about. Ascension? Becoming a higher power? Freaky. He knew that the glowing and the floating were weird enough, but still. Moving to heavenly planes was not often done. Lorne wandered over to the fridge, hoping for a drink but finding a large supply of fish and blood. He assumed that the fish were for the mermaids and the blood was for the vampires, understandably. The mermaids. Called Katherina and Bianca. Lorne couldn't wait to meet them, or rather just Bianca if the names were anything to go by. He sighed and closed the door on all the blood, thinking about Angel and Spike. Lorne saw a change in Angel, some of which he attributed to the feeling of connection. Maybe with another vampire in the hotel, and a souled one at that, Angel didn't feel quite as alone as he used to. And then there was Spike. Seeing Spike coming down the stairs with a soul in his aura really knocked Lorne for six. Why? Because this soul came out of the blue. Lorne had read Spike and seen nothing to do with a soul in his future. Something must have disturbed the fates to make Spike travel down a path that would give him a soul, and although things seemed safe at the moment, Lorne knew this could only mean something bad was just around the corner.

Where is tequila when you need it?

Lorne wandered around the room, staring at the walls and ceilings, reflecting as he went.

"I have come back from Las Vegas to the place I call home. That home has a vampire with a soul who is currently mourning the loss of a woman who, after glowing intermittently for a few months, disappeared to a higher dimension. I also live with his son, who himself is an oddity of nature by being born to two vampires. Not only that but he was only born ten months ago, and he's already sixteen. There are two human men here, one used to belong to the age old English society of slayer training, the other has lived in Los Angeles his entire life, fighting demons on the street. The only remaining female in this house has an insanely high IQ and spent 5 years trapped as a slave in the hell dimension I came from."

He sighed.

"There really is no place like home."

Suddenly, being green didn't seem so weird anymore.

~*-*~


Author's Note: Now you *know* I had to bring Lorne home... Life's no fun without him!

So, my exams are over! Yay! There's one more chapter of this episode, and then an epilogue, and it's over. However, I've started work on the sequel, and considering that I've left school and have no plans for like the rest of my life (well, not until University anyway) then that story shouldn't take so long to finish.

But still, cheer! A-Levels are OVER!

x: you make a good point. After I was about half way through writing this I realised that it would probably be better off in the AtS section. But then I considered the large Spike focus, who isn't on AtS. But now *that's* all changed and... *sigh*. So I just left it in BtVS. Hmm... do you guys think I should move it?