Disclaimer: Roses are red, violets are blue. I don't own this, and neither do you.
Wesley sat in his apartment, a bottle of whiskey in front of him. Esther had been acting odd the whole day. Then she had told him about the dream. The details weren't all there, she was holding something back, he was sure of it. But it was odd; Esther never had prophetic dreams before. At least ones she had admitted to, but she told him that she always had a bit of intuition.
Taking a gulp of the whiskey he mentally told himself he shouldn't be doing this. Working with a hangover was always a pain and he wasn't really setting a very good example. For whom, he did not know. Wesley was alone in his apartment; he took a swig from the whiskey bottle. There, that was better.
By the time he stumbled into his room, Wesley had finished the whiskey and was a bit more unstable than he should have been. Flopping down on the bed, Wesley kicked off his shoes and threw off his glasses before rolling over to pass out.
"Wesley!" Kieran walked into the room, a little boy clinging onto her neck. "This is yours. I'm not a coat rack, and expect to get paid for babysitting. Here you go!" she unloaded the little boy into Wesley's arms and walked away. "Now to go fix the axe before Connor finds out," she muttered to herself.
The British man looked at the little boy in his arms.
"Daddy," the boy grinned at him.
"Err…Yes?" Wesley stammered. He was about to tell the child he had no clue what he was talking about, but Wesley didn't want to traumatize the poor thing. The kid could be in therapy for years just because Wesley said he wasn't the child's father.
"Hey Daddy, you know how you to told me to never use magic to invoke the wrath of Kav-ash" Noah asked, grinning charmingly up at his father, an innocent expression in his brown eyes.
"Yes," Wesley replied slowly, Kav-ash demons were not to be messed with.
Noah looked around for a moment and then shrugged. "Never mind," he said. He was quiet for a moment before asking, "Do you think a cactus gets lonely?" Before Wesley had a chance to reply, he asked another question and then another. Finally he asked, "Where do babies come from?" the child cocked his head to the side, giving the startled Brit, a wide and toothy grin.
"Noah, you aren't bothering your father with your questions are you?" Esther walked into the room, a little girl of about 18 months, in her arms. Esther was pregnant. It was all Wesley could do from not dropping the child in his arms and run out of there.
"No, he was a perfect little angel," Wesley said haltingly. A perfect little Angelus is more like it, he thought to himself. Esther gave Wesley a dazzling smile before motioning for Noah to follow her. Slowly leaning down, Wesley let the little boy go.
"Come on Noah," She grabbed his hand, "We should let Daddy get back to work."
Wesley watched them go. Yes, you should let Daddy get back to work, he thought to himself as he walked back into his office.
Wesley rolled over and opened his eyes. "Blasted thing," Wesley said, talking about the beeping clock, as he sat up. "Who set it so early?" he thought about his last statement before shutting off the alarm and stumbling towards the bathroom.
He needed a shower. And time to think. Funny how those two things always seemed to coincide.
Kieran walked through the park, a chocolate ice cream cone in her hand. For the first time in her life, she actually liked summer. In Oklahoma, or at least where she lived in Oklahoma, summer always meant dusty dirt. It would get everywhere, on your clothes, in your hair, in your teeth. There was no escaping it. But in LA, everything was neat and manicured, at least in the park.
Taking a lick of her ice cream, she grinned. Ice cream rocked her world to no end, and it was chocolate ice cream, making it even better. Sitting on one of the swings, Kieran gently swung back and forth as she licked her ice cream, enjoying the sun.
"Come here often?" Jay's voice interrupted Kieran's mental romp through the clouds.
Her eyes flickered over to his smiling face. "Maybe," she answered loftily as she smiled back at him. Jay just did something to her. It made her insides feel all goopy. When she thought about him she got a goofy look on her face, making her look a lot like Angel when he smiled. She hated loving every moment of it.
"I would offer you ice cream, but I see you already got your own," Jay noted.
Kieran smiled happily, "Yup, but I'll take a rain check."
"Is chocolate your favorite flavor?" Jay asked causally.
Kieran shrugged, still swinging back and forth. "Not really, I was just in a chocolate mood today."
Jay blinked, slightly confused. "You can have moods for ice cream?" he asked.
Kieran nodded happily. "Of course. Chocolate is the universal pick me up, although it's just good in general. Strawberry is if you're in a somewhat innocent mood. Chocolate and strawberry together is usually considered sexy. Peanut butter is if you're feeling childish. Vanilla is if your feeling bored. I don't like vanilla all that much."
"I must be boring then," Jay remarked dryly, as he looked down to see the vanilla cone in his hand.
Kieran looked at him. "This is coming from someone in a white jumpsuit," she remarked. "Why are you dressed like that? I know some guys have horrible fashion sense, but you seemed almost normal when we first met."
"Only almost?" Jay inquired, laughing. "This isn't what I usually where, I just have fencing over near the basketball courts. I saw you and thought I would pop over to say hello."
"Only to say hello?" she imitated Jay, earning another laugh.
"We discussed ice cream," he offered as he stood. "But now I must go. Until next time milady," he bowed with a flourish before lifting her hand and kissing it.
"You're a dork," Kieran said while laughing, but she didn't mean it.
He just grinned before walking off, leaving Kieran to her thoughts once more.
JP sat in his room, looking into space. He blinked, as if trying to clear something from his vision, but nothing worked. Slowly his eyes began to cloud over until they were white, and he saw nothing but his vision.
They were coming.
Mercedes didn't really mind Angel's son all that much. Although he did have that resemblance to a prairie dog, he wasn't half bad. At least he wasn't when he kept his mouth shut. Unfortunately, that rarely happened. So maybe the prairie dog was all bad.
But that didn't phase her one bit. Dawn was still in LA, she had convince the little entourage that included one Watcher, one witch, and one vampire that a change of scenery would be good for her. Since nothing was happening in Sunnydale, they decided to let her make a vacation of it.
Spike had protested of course, but after he was voted down, he just kept to himself and sulked for a couple hours. Sometimes Mercedes would hear him muttering to himself about peaches, lifts, poofs, and some other nonsense. Mercedes chose not to listen as she passed him in the hall.
"You always did enjoy the parks," Lindsey said softly as he crept up behind his little sister.
She spun around, tossing her almost finished ice cream cone towards him. He avoided it by stepping out of the way.
"Now that wasn't very nice," he remarked smoothly as he sat down on a swing next to hers.
She rolled her eyes as she sat back down on her own swing. "You're not very nice. You now owe me a chocolate strawberry double," Kieran pouted slightly as she watched her chocolate ice cream melt into the ground.
Lindsey looked at his little sister. Chocolate and strawberry? He knew about her little classifications about ice cream. So who was her latest crush? "You're not crushing on Angel are you?" he asked slowly.
She gave him a crossed out look. "Can you say eww? He's like my what, fifteen times my age. Can you say jail bait?"
Lindsey shrugged, "He had a relationship with a slayer when she was only fifteen. I believe they slept together on her sixteenth birthday."
"Actually it was the seventeenth," she informed him before a grossed out look crossed her face. "Eww. Can we get off this subject now? It's almost as bad as seeing Connor in all of his prairie dog nakedness." She squeezed her eyes shut tightly. "I just went to that scary visual place."
Lindsey looked up alarmed once he remembered whom exactly Connor was. "You've seen Angel's offspring naked?" his voice nearly squeaked in annoyance.
Kieran sighed. "He was singing, loudly. It was Britney Spears. If I'm going deaf I'm not doing it by listening to her with him singing. He needs to know the meaning of singing on key, locking the door, and clothes. Besides Jay is much better to look at."
"Jay is?" Lindsey asked.
"None of your business," Kieran said, "Now why are you in LA?"
Lindsey stood, "Now that is none of your business," he countered. "Don't tell anyone I'm here," he started walking away, past the line of trees where his car was parked.
Kieran watched him go. "Whom am I going to tell?" she asked herself softly. "Who am I going to call, Ghostbusters? I don't think they've opened the LA branch yet." Standing, she made her way to the basketball courts. She wanted to see Jay again.
"You have an hour," General Harding reported to the three special operatives. They all saluted like the soldiers they were. "There are civilians in there. Try to ignore them, but if they get in your way, you have orders to subdued them."
The one in the middle, tall and brown haired looked at him. "Which options do we have to subdued them sir?"
General Harding looked at him, "Anything you feel is necessary. You three are special operatives, I trust your judgment."
"What are we looking for exactly?" the one at the end, shorter than the one in the middle, he had sandier hair.
"Three escaped hostiles. We want them alive, and we want all three of them together. Do not seriously harm them. The three of them are very valuable," the General told them what they needed to know.
"Is there any priority between the three?" the last operative asked. He was black and bald.
General Harding nodded, "The seer, the only male. The blonde girl is next. Her blood is powerful. The dark haired girl is needed for tests, but the two others are vital to this project. Do you understand? They are to be harmed as little as possible. It is your career if any of them end up dead. If you encounter any demons or half breeds you may neutralize them anyway you see fit."
"Yes sir," the three of them barked at the same time, as they saluted.
General Harding nodded each of them individually before walking out. Leaving the three of them to decide on the best course of action.
Angel looked that the group that was assembled in the lobby of the Hyperion Hotel. Oz was gone, again, probably off on what JP called slunky fun time. Tara and Spike were gone too, most likely together. Lorne was off with a client of his own, and Esther went home to her uncle at four-thirty like she did every day. Austin was still in Europe, but now in Germany instead of England. Giles was back in Sunnydale for the time being. "So who's staying?" he asked finally.
Mercedes, Dawn, Kieran, and Connor were staying, as well as Skye and JP. Cordelia, Wesley, Fred, and Gunn were going with him to take care of a particularly nasty infestation of Oshkna demons, slug like things that had a taste for socks and light bulbs. They usually weren't hard to kill or get rid of, but with an infestation this large, it would be easier getting rid of them another way. A way that had a rather complicated procedure, which made the demons go into a gray area, an area in between dimensions. The more people to help, the better.
JP sat in corner silently, whimpering ever so often. They were coming.
Okay, much with the sorries about not updating. I had this finished last Friday, but Jen didn't get to it until Sunday night. Then I was lazy. But in other news, please thank Jen, because this story would not be as good with out her. And that's bad, very bad. So thanks for reading and please review (if I get 8 more, I'll have 100…*hint**hint*. Oh and a plug for myself, please read some of my other stories.