A/N: Like I said, faces make a return in this chapter. And there will be
lil' bits of fluff in there. Plus, I made a decision on one of the 'ships,
so it's in there.
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The old van was hot, although all the windows were rolled down. The brilliant sunshine was beating down, as green palm trees flashed past, as he trundled along the highway. Absently, he beat out a rhythm against the battered steering wheel, and hummed an old tune.
Oz yawned sleepily, raking his fingers through the soft red spikes of his hair. He glanced at his watch. He was making good time, he would reach L.A before sundown. Although his experiences now made himself confident he could control himself, on a full moon he still liked to be inside.
[Last time I saw Angel, Cordelia, was three years ago. Ring thing. Willow.]
The string of thought had, inevitably, brought him back to Willow. Oz sighed as he recalled the last occasion he'd seen her. He'd come back, so sure he could now be with her, and-
Since Willow, he'd had a few girlfriends. Where he was studying, up in the mountains, there were other students, also cursed with lycanthropy. His lips quirked in a small, Oz-like smile as he remembered Amy, the Australian werewolf he'd met there.
Still, sex and love were entirely different. With Willow, it had been very different.
Sitting back in his seat, Daniel Osborne settled in for a few more hours driving.
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"Sorry to disappoint, Wes, but no evil schemes," Lilah Morgan smiled slowly, as she pulled the covers up over herself, and lay back, staring at the ceiling. The ex Watcher had his hands folded behind his head.
"I didn't ask, Lilah," he reminded her.
"Oh, but I can see that you so desperately wanted to know," she drawled lazily. "What's up, Wes? The lamb still trying to buy its way back into the fold?"
"Quite the contrary, Lilah," he answered, with a small smile of his own. She rolled over to face him, propping her head up on her elbow, surrounded by the burgundy sheets.
"So what is it? Normally when you come around to get down and dirty-" she let the sentence hang, then smiled, a little more cruelly. "Well. Not that it isn't *always* dirty. But then, today was particularly-"
"Shut up," Wesley snapped, cutting her off. She laughed throatily, tossing back her head in mirth.
"Oh Wesley, Wesley," she shook her head, "*Now* it gets under your skin? Just so happens that's where I'd like to be," she mused, tracing a swirling pattern across his chest. He caught her hand, and she looked up, big brown eyes blinking through the sooty lashes, a mock innocent look. Lilah Morgan hadn't been innocent for a very long time.
'If you must know," he said, over his shoulder, as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and began to tug on his clothes, "It was an escape. Too many people at the hotel." He allowed himself a smirk. "Besides. You always were good at what you do best."
Outraged, the lawyer sat up, wrapping the dark sheet around her breasts, her hair tumbling across her shoulders, as she glared at him.
"So you've scratched your itch, is that it?"
"Precisely," he answered calmly, fastening his belt buckle.
"And you're just going to walk out? You called me out of a very important meeting you know," she began angrily, sounding flustered.
He shrugged, and opened the door.
"Isn't that what you do to me?" he asked simply, closing it behind himself.
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Jane walked back and forth across the carpet of the abandoned office, her skinny arms folded.
"Why do I have to do it?' she demanded.
"Because you're the youngest," Jess told her bossily. "And Faye is a Potential. We need the practise."
"Fine. But I get to be the Slayer next time," Jane grouched. She led the way into the deserted lobby, except for the teenaged Destroyer, making various cuts in the air, with a sword.
"Go on!" Jess hissed. Jane took a deep breath, and then, snarling, the little girl launched herself at the boy with a yell. Connor spun around, off balance, as he was knocked over by 60 pounds of skinny eight-year-old, growling fiercely.
"That just proves my point," Jess muttered under her breath, as she led the other two into attack.
"Hey vampire," she yelled. Jane looked up from her apparent savagement of Connor's neck.
"You're in trouble," Jess folded her arms, lifting her chin. "Because I'm the Slayer."
"So what are we, chopped liver?" Faye mumbled from behind her.
Jane stood up slowly, frowning.
"What are you doing?" Jess asked, bemused.
"Vampy face," Jane explained as if it was obvious.
"Oh. Right." Jess resumed her fighting stance, stake clutched tight.
"Die, evil vampire!" she yelled, running at Jane. The little girl shrieked, and ran for the stairs, laughing.
"I'm gonna slay you!" Jess promised, chasing after her, Gabby and Faye in hot pursuit.
"Guess I really have been out of the slaying game," a drawling voice commented. Jess got to her feet, hauling Gabby up, as Faye picked herself up.
"You gotta be careful with that," Faith nodded in the direction of the stake. "Hurt someone, if you don't know what you're doing. " she considered her statement a moment, and then laughed sadly. "Hell, even if you know what you're doing."
"Faith, right?" Jess folded her arms, a hostile expression crossing her face.
The brunette Slayer gave the girl a quick appraising look.
"Either B's dead, and you're really short for your age, or you're not a Slayer. So don't run around with these things," she lifted a lip, plucking the stake out of Jess's hands.
"Faith?" Faith turned at the familiar voice, her hazel eyes focusing on his face, her brown hair swinging out behind her as she pivoted.
"Angel?" The vampire's steady gaze told her nothing.
"Look, we need to talk," she began, and stopped, looking around at the younger girls. "Somewhere without Santa's elves?"
Angel nodded slightly. "You hungry?"
"Yeah," she replied shortly. He walked out of the room, and she followed.
"Faith. Guess she'd know about stake safety," Jess muttered, sneering at the departing rogue Slayer.
"Shut up, Jessamy," Gabby suddenly spoke up, turning around, and walking off. Jess stared after her, and then glared at Faye, who shrugged.
"Don't look at me."
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"So," Angel began casually, as he used the spatula to shift the French toast from the pan to the plate. "Why are you out?"
"See, that's why I'm here," Faith cut herself a piece off the toast, and forked it up. "I don't know."
Angel's eyebrows lifted, and he seated himself at the table, watching the famished Slayer eat.
"Fee like elaborating on that?" he questioned. She swallowed.
"I'm in jail, right? An' every morning, they do this drill, like, they let everyone out into the yard, then they let me out. Same time. Every day. So I'm waitin' for them to show, do their thing, y'know. And then outta nowhere, I get hit. Black out. Then last night, I woke up. It was way weird. Hospital. Anderson general, if you want to check. Even had a needle in my arm, and everything. Heard people talkin' outside my room, sayin' I was dangerous, and something about a blood sample. Decided I wanted the hell out of there, so came to you." She finished, and lifted another forkful of food to her mouth.
"Blood sample?" he repeated, thinking. She nodded.
'Shway freaksh," she said, through a mouthful. She gulped. "Way freakish. They have my blood on record at the Penitary. So why do they need more of it? Why get me out of jail to do it?"
"Unless they're not connected with the jail," he filled in. She smiled.
"Always knew you were quick, Angel. S'why I'm here. I coulda gone back there, I s'pose, but I thought, if they, whoever the hell wanted my blood, could get me out of jail, me going back there wouldn't solve anything. They'd have had to sort records 'cause otherwise, my escape would be on the news seein' as I'm a convicted murderer. But there's no news. Nothing. So I'm out, somehow."
"Angel, why is she sitting in our kitchen?" Cordelia's voice was icy from the doorway, as she stood there, her arms folded. Angel hurriedly stood, Faith taking a last bite of the French toast before she stood as well.
"Hey Cor. Nice hair," Faith commented, with a smile. Cordelia lifted an eyebrow, and turned to Angel.
"Much as I appreciate our manifesto, help the helpless, Faith isn't helpess. We've tried this before, remember? And she tortured people. Wesley is part of the team, Angel. And why the hell you've broken a felon out of jail, I really don't know."
"You've never gotten over me screwing Xander first, have you?" Faith mused, breaking into the tension. Cordelia glared at her. Faith smirked.
"Look, Cor, as far as you and Angel goes, great, I'm happy for you. But Angel didn't bust me out of jail, I was sprung by someone with a thing for my blood. I'm here because there's nowhere else to go, alright?"
"Blood?" the seer repeated.
"Yeah. Blood taken out of me in the-" Faith answered, but Cordelia suddenly saw the vision flash in front of her eyes, a memory of the thick smell of blood thrown on a fire, and the slick, red coating a pair of spidery hands. She closed her eyes, trying to hold down her stomach.
"Uh, Angel, Gwen has gone home, she'll be back tomorrow. Wants to look up stuff about this Tool thingie. Jane and the Potentials are in the lobby, Wesley's disappeared, Gunn is out, and Fred is with him. Connor's being pulverised by four little girls," she finished. She moved toward the door, then stopped, and looked straight at Faith. "If you hurt anyone I love, I will kill you."
"Looks like the cheerleader got rocks," Faith commented. Angel looked at her.
"You can stay here. I'll show you a room."
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Faye erased the line, and looked again at the doorframe. Sighing, the tip of her tongue between her teeth, she carefully drew it in again.
"Careful with that. Never know, might bite it off." A quiet voice near her ear made her jump.
"I won't," she answered. Oz gave a little Oz-shrug.
"Okay. But teeth can hurt," he warned.
"Yeah. One day I slipped, and I bit my tongue," she smiled shyly. "It hurt a lot."
"See, biting tongues does that. Not if you bite your elbow though. Or knee."
"Have you bitten your knee?" she asked curiously. Oz shrugged again.
"No. But it's true."
"Sometimes I think drawing is so fun to do, it's easy. And then, there's one line that completely screws it up, and it's hard," she admitted, dropping her eyes to the page.
"I get that. Some chords, guitar," he explained, "are easy. Sound good pretty quick. And then there's some chords, diminished ninth, man's chords. Takes practise. So does drawing."
"I guess so," she replied softly.
"Oz."
The man stood up from his crouch, and nodded almost imperceptibly at Angel.
"Angel."
"You in L.A for a while?"
"No. Looking for a book."
"Which one?"
"Ching's daemona."
"Think we've got it."
"Yeah."
"I can get it."
"Please."
Faye watched them, her head moving back and forth like a tennis viewer.
"You don't talk much, do you?" she asked. Oz shook his head.
"Neither do you," he pointed out. Faye shrugged, and Oz smiled.
"It's late. Do you want to stay?" Angel asked. Oz nodded.
"Full moon."
"It's not dangerous?"
"No. Just a precaution. Fetching Jordy."
"Ah. Show you upstairs. This is Faye, by the way." The vampire gestured to the young girl. Oz raised a hand.
"Hi."
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Starr gingerly let the meat drop into the pan, and heard it begin to sizzle.
"Hello?" Hearing the call, she wiped her greasy hands on the front of her jeans, and walked out, into the lobby. Her eyes widened.
"Starr!"
The young woman's face went pale.
"Sullivan?"
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A/N: Yes, there is *another* original character. But . Sullivan will make his way back to England eventually. Next chapter! The vision begins to unfold, Jess and Faith face off, and (possibly) the return of Lindsey
Review please!
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The old van was hot, although all the windows were rolled down. The brilliant sunshine was beating down, as green palm trees flashed past, as he trundled along the highway. Absently, he beat out a rhythm against the battered steering wheel, and hummed an old tune.
Oz yawned sleepily, raking his fingers through the soft red spikes of his hair. He glanced at his watch. He was making good time, he would reach L.A before sundown. Although his experiences now made himself confident he could control himself, on a full moon he still liked to be inside.
[Last time I saw Angel, Cordelia, was three years ago. Ring thing. Willow.]
The string of thought had, inevitably, brought him back to Willow. Oz sighed as he recalled the last occasion he'd seen her. He'd come back, so sure he could now be with her, and-
Since Willow, he'd had a few girlfriends. Where he was studying, up in the mountains, there were other students, also cursed with lycanthropy. His lips quirked in a small, Oz-like smile as he remembered Amy, the Australian werewolf he'd met there.
Still, sex and love were entirely different. With Willow, it had been very different.
Sitting back in his seat, Daniel Osborne settled in for a few more hours driving.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ` *
"Sorry to disappoint, Wes, but no evil schemes," Lilah Morgan smiled slowly, as she pulled the covers up over herself, and lay back, staring at the ceiling. The ex Watcher had his hands folded behind his head.
"I didn't ask, Lilah," he reminded her.
"Oh, but I can see that you so desperately wanted to know," she drawled lazily. "What's up, Wes? The lamb still trying to buy its way back into the fold?"
"Quite the contrary, Lilah," he answered, with a small smile of his own. She rolled over to face him, propping her head up on her elbow, surrounded by the burgundy sheets.
"So what is it? Normally when you come around to get down and dirty-" she let the sentence hang, then smiled, a little more cruelly. "Well. Not that it isn't *always* dirty. But then, today was particularly-"
"Shut up," Wesley snapped, cutting her off. She laughed throatily, tossing back her head in mirth.
"Oh Wesley, Wesley," she shook her head, "*Now* it gets under your skin? Just so happens that's where I'd like to be," she mused, tracing a swirling pattern across his chest. He caught her hand, and she looked up, big brown eyes blinking through the sooty lashes, a mock innocent look. Lilah Morgan hadn't been innocent for a very long time.
'If you must know," he said, over his shoulder, as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and began to tug on his clothes, "It was an escape. Too many people at the hotel." He allowed himself a smirk. "Besides. You always were good at what you do best."
Outraged, the lawyer sat up, wrapping the dark sheet around her breasts, her hair tumbling across her shoulders, as she glared at him.
"So you've scratched your itch, is that it?"
"Precisely," he answered calmly, fastening his belt buckle.
"And you're just going to walk out? You called me out of a very important meeting you know," she began angrily, sounding flustered.
He shrugged, and opened the door.
"Isn't that what you do to me?" he asked simply, closing it behind himself.
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Jane walked back and forth across the carpet of the abandoned office, her skinny arms folded.
"Why do I have to do it?' she demanded.
"Because you're the youngest," Jess told her bossily. "And Faye is a Potential. We need the practise."
"Fine. But I get to be the Slayer next time," Jane grouched. She led the way into the deserted lobby, except for the teenaged Destroyer, making various cuts in the air, with a sword.
"Go on!" Jess hissed. Jane took a deep breath, and then, snarling, the little girl launched herself at the boy with a yell. Connor spun around, off balance, as he was knocked over by 60 pounds of skinny eight-year-old, growling fiercely.
"That just proves my point," Jess muttered under her breath, as she led the other two into attack.
"Hey vampire," she yelled. Jane looked up from her apparent savagement of Connor's neck.
"You're in trouble," Jess folded her arms, lifting her chin. "Because I'm the Slayer."
"So what are we, chopped liver?" Faye mumbled from behind her.
Jane stood up slowly, frowning.
"What are you doing?" Jess asked, bemused.
"Vampy face," Jane explained as if it was obvious.
"Oh. Right." Jess resumed her fighting stance, stake clutched tight.
"Die, evil vampire!" she yelled, running at Jane. The little girl shrieked, and ran for the stairs, laughing.
"I'm gonna slay you!" Jess promised, chasing after her, Gabby and Faye in hot pursuit.
"Guess I really have been out of the slaying game," a drawling voice commented. Jess got to her feet, hauling Gabby up, as Faye picked herself up.
"You gotta be careful with that," Faith nodded in the direction of the stake. "Hurt someone, if you don't know what you're doing. " she considered her statement a moment, and then laughed sadly. "Hell, even if you know what you're doing."
"Faith, right?" Jess folded her arms, a hostile expression crossing her face.
The brunette Slayer gave the girl a quick appraising look.
"Either B's dead, and you're really short for your age, or you're not a Slayer. So don't run around with these things," she lifted a lip, plucking the stake out of Jess's hands.
"Faith?" Faith turned at the familiar voice, her hazel eyes focusing on his face, her brown hair swinging out behind her as she pivoted.
"Angel?" The vampire's steady gaze told her nothing.
"Look, we need to talk," she began, and stopped, looking around at the younger girls. "Somewhere without Santa's elves?"
Angel nodded slightly. "You hungry?"
"Yeah," she replied shortly. He walked out of the room, and she followed.
"Faith. Guess she'd know about stake safety," Jess muttered, sneering at the departing rogue Slayer.
"Shut up, Jessamy," Gabby suddenly spoke up, turning around, and walking off. Jess stared after her, and then glared at Faye, who shrugged.
"Don't look at me."
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
"So," Angel began casually, as he used the spatula to shift the French toast from the pan to the plate. "Why are you out?"
"See, that's why I'm here," Faith cut herself a piece off the toast, and forked it up. "I don't know."
Angel's eyebrows lifted, and he seated himself at the table, watching the famished Slayer eat.
"Fee like elaborating on that?" he questioned. She swallowed.
"I'm in jail, right? An' every morning, they do this drill, like, they let everyone out into the yard, then they let me out. Same time. Every day. So I'm waitin' for them to show, do their thing, y'know. And then outta nowhere, I get hit. Black out. Then last night, I woke up. It was way weird. Hospital. Anderson general, if you want to check. Even had a needle in my arm, and everything. Heard people talkin' outside my room, sayin' I was dangerous, and something about a blood sample. Decided I wanted the hell out of there, so came to you." She finished, and lifted another forkful of food to her mouth.
"Blood sample?" he repeated, thinking. She nodded.
'Shway freaksh," she said, through a mouthful. She gulped. "Way freakish. They have my blood on record at the Penitary. So why do they need more of it? Why get me out of jail to do it?"
"Unless they're not connected with the jail," he filled in. She smiled.
"Always knew you were quick, Angel. S'why I'm here. I coulda gone back there, I s'pose, but I thought, if they, whoever the hell wanted my blood, could get me out of jail, me going back there wouldn't solve anything. They'd have had to sort records 'cause otherwise, my escape would be on the news seein' as I'm a convicted murderer. But there's no news. Nothing. So I'm out, somehow."
"Angel, why is she sitting in our kitchen?" Cordelia's voice was icy from the doorway, as she stood there, her arms folded. Angel hurriedly stood, Faith taking a last bite of the French toast before she stood as well.
"Hey Cor. Nice hair," Faith commented, with a smile. Cordelia lifted an eyebrow, and turned to Angel.
"Much as I appreciate our manifesto, help the helpless, Faith isn't helpess. We've tried this before, remember? And she tortured people. Wesley is part of the team, Angel. And why the hell you've broken a felon out of jail, I really don't know."
"You've never gotten over me screwing Xander first, have you?" Faith mused, breaking into the tension. Cordelia glared at her. Faith smirked.
"Look, Cor, as far as you and Angel goes, great, I'm happy for you. But Angel didn't bust me out of jail, I was sprung by someone with a thing for my blood. I'm here because there's nowhere else to go, alright?"
"Blood?" the seer repeated.
"Yeah. Blood taken out of me in the-" Faith answered, but Cordelia suddenly saw the vision flash in front of her eyes, a memory of the thick smell of blood thrown on a fire, and the slick, red coating a pair of spidery hands. She closed her eyes, trying to hold down her stomach.
"Uh, Angel, Gwen has gone home, she'll be back tomorrow. Wants to look up stuff about this Tool thingie. Jane and the Potentials are in the lobby, Wesley's disappeared, Gunn is out, and Fred is with him. Connor's being pulverised by four little girls," she finished. She moved toward the door, then stopped, and looked straight at Faith. "If you hurt anyone I love, I will kill you."
"Looks like the cheerleader got rocks," Faith commented. Angel looked at her.
"You can stay here. I'll show you a room."
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Faye erased the line, and looked again at the doorframe. Sighing, the tip of her tongue between her teeth, she carefully drew it in again.
"Careful with that. Never know, might bite it off." A quiet voice near her ear made her jump.
"I won't," she answered. Oz gave a little Oz-shrug.
"Okay. But teeth can hurt," he warned.
"Yeah. One day I slipped, and I bit my tongue," she smiled shyly. "It hurt a lot."
"See, biting tongues does that. Not if you bite your elbow though. Or knee."
"Have you bitten your knee?" she asked curiously. Oz shrugged again.
"No. But it's true."
"Sometimes I think drawing is so fun to do, it's easy. And then, there's one line that completely screws it up, and it's hard," she admitted, dropping her eyes to the page.
"I get that. Some chords, guitar," he explained, "are easy. Sound good pretty quick. And then there's some chords, diminished ninth, man's chords. Takes practise. So does drawing."
"I guess so," she replied softly.
"Oz."
The man stood up from his crouch, and nodded almost imperceptibly at Angel.
"Angel."
"You in L.A for a while?"
"No. Looking for a book."
"Which one?"
"Ching's daemona."
"Think we've got it."
"Yeah."
"I can get it."
"Please."
Faye watched them, her head moving back and forth like a tennis viewer.
"You don't talk much, do you?" she asked. Oz shook his head.
"Neither do you," he pointed out. Faye shrugged, and Oz smiled.
"It's late. Do you want to stay?" Angel asked. Oz nodded.
"Full moon."
"It's not dangerous?"
"No. Just a precaution. Fetching Jordy."
"Ah. Show you upstairs. This is Faye, by the way." The vampire gestured to the young girl. Oz raised a hand.
"Hi."
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Starr gingerly let the meat drop into the pan, and heard it begin to sizzle.
"Hello?" Hearing the call, she wiped her greasy hands on the front of her jeans, and walked out, into the lobby. Her eyes widened.
"Starr!"
The young woman's face went pale.
"Sullivan?"
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A/N: Yes, there is *another* original character. But . Sullivan will make his way back to England eventually. Next chapter! The vision begins to unfold, Jess and Faith face off, and (possibly) the return of Lindsey
Review please!