A/N: Nate stuff, an explanation, and you'll see some neat stuff next
chapter.. including Izzy's birth mom. Not telling any more. Also, I refuse
to update unless I get reviews. Tough though it is, chapters have been
getting more distant as they're harder to write. You want more, tell me.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
"What are you looking for?" he asked, as he opened the door. Izzy shrugged, trying to look nonchalant.
"Um, the Gatekeeper. Of a hellmouth."
He nodded. "Right. Okay. Which one?"
"Huh?" she said, confused.
"Hellmouth. Which one?"
"Um, uh, it's in Cleveland. A big hellmouth-y Cleveland. Where demons are. Not that I know. Because I'm not, from-there, uh, yeah. Cleveland. The hellmouth is in Cleveland."
He raised an eyebrow and walked over to a low table, on which the standard computer sat, to begin typing.
"There's a search engine?" Izzy exclaimed. He looked up.
"If you know the password."
"Oh." She fell silent again.
"There's a list. Have fun," he said, his hand on the door knob. She glanced at him.
"You're going?" she asked, trying not to sound like it mattered.He shrugged.
"I don't do desk work."
He left, cute butt and all. Izzy sighed. Crazy mixed up feelings for her best friend led to immense cravings for eye candy.
She scanned the page he'd left up. "Epginian scrolls. Vol 782. References in the Tarka prophecies, Daryan and Hanthros chronicles. Great. Just a little light reading," she murmured.
She looked around the room for the books that matched the reference. There were a lot. The prophecy room was big. Ceiling to floor shelving, containing stacks of books. A large ornamental moose's head hung on the wall.
"All night," she added.
Pretty soon, she came to the conclusion that someone had been researching the same idea. All the references to the Gatekeeper were not in the library. The only one left was-
"Hanthros," Izzy said out loud her hand closing on the book. She flipped it open to the page reference on the search engine, and scanned the page. "Bingo," she whispered, reading the prophecy out loud.
'For the one who is chosen, and holds the keys
The inferno boils
The doe purchasing souls and succubi
And he who sees in the shadows, and waits
They came together in darkness,
Untouched flesh, mewling
Crazy children jangling the gates
She is coming'
"Okay. Does it ever come in non-cryptic?" Izzy muttered. "And I have to work it out. Without Giles. This is gonna take me a while."
'One who is chosen and holds the keys' sounded like a gatekeeper to her. 'The inferno', fancy way of saying hell, she dismissed.
The doe, though. What was a doe? There was a niggling feeling like she knew what it was. And why was 'Raindrops on roses, and whiskers on kittens' playing through her head?
"This is Wolfram and Hart's new security system," she said in disbelief. "Running Julie Andrews re-runs through my head. It's gonna drive me mad."
"Doe, a deer, a female deer, ray, a drop of golden sun," she sang, absently. 'Doe a deer, a female deer.'
"Just out of interest, are my thought patterns weird and random to you, or is this just me?" she addressed a moose hanging on the wall.
"So I have a doe. A doe is a deer. A weird deer, buying souls and succubi. Ewww, big on the yuck with the succubi. And I have 'he who sees in the shadows'. Why is he a shadows guy? And what does he see?"
She tossed down the manuscript in frustration.
"I need Giles," she moaned. Giles didn't magically appear in a puff of smoke, so she figured Izzy's wish-day wasn't up, or that Anya had gone demon-y, and picked up the prophecy.
"Came together in darkness, untouched flesh," she read aloud, wrinkling her nose. "This is beginning to read like a film noir sex scene. Either that, or Anne Rice."
She looked at the moose again. It was a friendly moose, she decided.
"Is this a kinky prophecy?" she asked plaintively. The moose didn't answer.
"So the deer and the guy waiting get it together in the dark. I can understand that, no one wants to see kinky deer sex, but what does it have to do with the Gatekeeper?" she complained.
She glanced up at the moose again, and read the Wolfram and Hart logo beneath it. Instead of the uber-stylish and elegant 'Wolfram and Hart' in gold block letters, this one was all latin-y and shield-y. There was a little wolf, and a goat with horns, and a little dog-like thing that was really skinny, over the company motto,and-
She looked again, closer. She hadn't realized Wolfram and Hart was exactly that. Wolf, Ram and Hart. What was a Hart?
"A deer," she realized. She looked down at the prophecy. 'The doe purchasing souls and succubi' became a Wolfram and Hart lawyer, dealing in demons and icky clients. A female lawyer.
"Oh God, my real mom worked here," Izzy's eyes widened. She read the prophecy again, feverishly.
"He who sees in the shadows, and waits. What's this guy waiting for? Why does he see? Seeing, waiting, what's he looking at? Shadows?" She looked over it again. What was this guy watching?
"Watching. Watching. Someone who sees, is watching. He's a Watcher. The lawyer and a watcher-"
She followed her thoughts through to their logical conclusion, and bolted from the room. She knew who her birth parents were.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
They strode through the door determinedly, prepared to do battle to release the girl they were looking for. Angel's coat billowed in that billow-y way it had, Lin shouldered his battle axe, the alarms blared, the guard rose to protest, and-
"Mr Angel!" a woman stepped forward, smiling warmly. "It's nice to see you, sir. Is there something you want?"
Angel looked at Lin. Lin looked at Angel.
"No battle then, huh?" Lin asked wistfully.
"There's a girl, she would have broken in-" Angel began. The smile on the woman's face didn't change.
"Yes. She left about fifteen minutes ago," she said brightly. Angel frowned.
"She couldn't have done- What happened to the firm's anti-intruders policy?" he demanded.
"The alarms didn't go off. We only noticed her presence when she left," the woman shrugged. She beamed again.
"Actually, sir, we've been needing you to come into the office for a while now. There are some papers, requiring authorization-"
Lin sighed. So much for 'damsels in distress'.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Izzy knocked on the front door, shivering a little. Part nerves, part being soaked with rain, she waited for the door to open.
Lilah pulled open the door to see a skinny teenager, clothes plastered to her body, standing in front of her apartment.
"What do you want?" Lilah asked, eyebrows raised questioningly.
"Can I come in?" Izzy asked, a little uncertainly. Lilah nodded.
"Good luck," she said, walking into the apartment. Izzy frowned. What did that mean?
She stopped thinking when an incredibly familiar guy sauntered into the room, one she recognised.
"Nate," Izzy said in surprise. He stopped, face freezing in confusion.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, folding his arms.
"Same question," she shot back.
"I live here," he raised an eyebrow. "That's my mother."
His mother?
Izzy looked back at Lilah, and then at Nate, and it began to slot into place. Wesley's dark hair, Lilah's eyes, and the only question left was why?
"It's not me," she whispered. "It's him."
"What?" Nate asked, leaning against the door. Izzy looked at Lilah, and saw panic on the woman's face.
"You knew," she realised, looking at the woman. Lilah shot her an angry look.
"Is anyone going to tell me what you both know that I don't?" Nate drawled.
"The Gatekeeper, the prophecy I was looking for. I thought it was me, but it wasn't. It was- It's you. You're the Gatekeeper," Izzy blurted out. Nate half-smiled.
"I don't think so."
"Look," she said, shoving the book at him. "The doe, it's her. Part of Wolfram and Hart. And your father is a Watcher. Wesley, he slept with Lilah way back then. They were together. You're Lilah's son, she's never had a daughter, and your father is-"
Comprehension dawned on Nate's face, then anger.
"You knew," he said softly, facing his mother. Lilah's face remained cold, no emotion crossing it.
"Yes," she said slowly. He nodded, his face even. She, the girl, whose name he didn't even know, had said this hellmouth was in Cleveland. Cleveland. He'd been to three different dimensions on Wolfram and Hart errands, but he'd never been to Cleveland. Now he was a 'Gatekeeper' of it. He'd thought she was pretty, and a little bit weird. In a good way. Now, he felt numb.
"A while," she said almost helplessly.
"And Dad? Does he know?"
She shook her head.
Izzy stood there, frozen to the spot. Mom had said they'd searched for the gatekeeper for training, that there was a 'role' to play. Nate hadn't been trained. He'd been kept from it.
"So how did you know about this?' Nate turned on her.
"My mom, she searched for the Gatekeeper. When I was a baby. She must have thought I was it, because she adopted me. We live on it, the hellmouth. My family," she said, uncomfortably.
"The witch," Lilah said quietly, understanding. The redhead. And the vampire, hunting through the prophecies. Her mind flicked to the parchment on her desk, and the hours spent searching for something about her son.
"You could come back with us. My friend and I, we're staying with Angel, but we're gonna go home. Soon. If you want a ride to see what you're the guardian of-" Izzy broke off.
He nodded, his face blank. "Yeah."
He walked down the corridor, and disappeared from view, then came back, tucking keys into his pocket. He put a hand on the door, and yanked it open violently, then walked straight through it. Izzy glanced back, before following him.
Lilah stood fixed to the spot, still where she'd been. She didn't move. Izzy silently closed the door behind her.
Lilah Morgan didn't generally show affection. It wasn't a very evil-lawyer thing to do, and let the people at the top of the firm know she was a woman. Being an ancient force on the side of evil tended to date a firm, and it had leanings on the side of chauvinism.
But as her son walked out the door, not even looking at her, she picked up the phone, and dialled the law firm, prepared to find anything to help her boy.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
They sat in the taxi in silence. She could see his knuckles were white, his hands were knotted together in his lap, and he stared out of the window at the dawning sun, unseeing.
"Do you want me to tell you about it?" she said softly. He shrugged.
"I kinda know how you feel," she said quietly. "The weirdness. And the lying. It hurts. And I know. I went through it." She took a deep breath. "And they'll help. My mom, Buffy, Xander, Dawn, Anya, all of them. They'll help, I promise."
"Right," he said, and fell silent again.
"Well, my mom is Willow. Willow Rosenberg. And I'm Izzy, by the way. Isara." She shook her head. "Weird name, long story. Buffy is- you know who she is. Xander and Mom were her best friends. Xander married Anya, and they have two kids, Lin, who is my friend, and Libby, his little sister. Dawn is Buffy's sister, and she has three kids." She tailed off, as they approached the Hyperion. She'd been babbling. And he was silent. Not so good.
She paid the taxi guy, and opened the door, stepping into the street.
They walked through the glass doors, and into the hotel's lobby. Lin rushed towards her, flinging his arms around her, nearly knocking Izzy off her feet. She laughed, and hugged him back.
"Lin, this is Nate. Nate, this is Lin," she said, still smiling. Nate nodded.
"So you found something," Lin stated. "At Wolfram and Hart." He saw the look Izzy had when she looked at Nate, and felt his stomach drop. He'd seen the look before. All Izzy puppy-eyes.
"Yeah. I found out that," she paused. "Where's Angel?"
"Here," said the vampire, walking in. "Izzy, I told you about-"
"Big evil firm, yadayada," Izzy interrupted. "I handled it." Nate looked at her.
"Okay, Nate helped," Izzy said defensively. "I have news. I read a prophecy in there, and it either predicted kinky deer sex, or Nate's the Gatekeeper, not me."
"What?" Willow said, from the steps above her.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
A/N: Review!
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
"What are you looking for?" he asked, as he opened the door. Izzy shrugged, trying to look nonchalant.
"Um, the Gatekeeper. Of a hellmouth."
He nodded. "Right. Okay. Which one?"
"Huh?" she said, confused.
"Hellmouth. Which one?"
"Um, uh, it's in Cleveland. A big hellmouth-y Cleveland. Where demons are. Not that I know. Because I'm not, from-there, uh, yeah. Cleveland. The hellmouth is in Cleveland."
He raised an eyebrow and walked over to a low table, on which the standard computer sat, to begin typing.
"There's a search engine?" Izzy exclaimed. He looked up.
"If you know the password."
"Oh." She fell silent again.
"There's a list. Have fun," he said, his hand on the door knob. She glanced at him.
"You're going?" she asked, trying not to sound like it mattered.He shrugged.
"I don't do desk work."
He left, cute butt and all. Izzy sighed. Crazy mixed up feelings for her best friend led to immense cravings for eye candy.
She scanned the page he'd left up. "Epginian scrolls. Vol 782. References in the Tarka prophecies, Daryan and Hanthros chronicles. Great. Just a little light reading," she murmured.
She looked around the room for the books that matched the reference. There were a lot. The prophecy room was big. Ceiling to floor shelving, containing stacks of books. A large ornamental moose's head hung on the wall.
"All night," she added.
Pretty soon, she came to the conclusion that someone had been researching the same idea. All the references to the Gatekeeper were not in the library. The only one left was-
"Hanthros," Izzy said out loud her hand closing on the book. She flipped it open to the page reference on the search engine, and scanned the page. "Bingo," she whispered, reading the prophecy out loud.
'For the one who is chosen, and holds the keys
The inferno boils
The doe purchasing souls and succubi
And he who sees in the shadows, and waits
They came together in darkness,
Untouched flesh, mewling
Crazy children jangling the gates
She is coming'
"Okay. Does it ever come in non-cryptic?" Izzy muttered. "And I have to work it out. Without Giles. This is gonna take me a while."
'One who is chosen and holds the keys' sounded like a gatekeeper to her. 'The inferno', fancy way of saying hell, she dismissed.
The doe, though. What was a doe? There was a niggling feeling like she knew what it was. And why was 'Raindrops on roses, and whiskers on kittens' playing through her head?
"This is Wolfram and Hart's new security system," she said in disbelief. "Running Julie Andrews re-runs through my head. It's gonna drive me mad."
"Doe, a deer, a female deer, ray, a drop of golden sun," she sang, absently. 'Doe a deer, a female deer.'
"Just out of interest, are my thought patterns weird and random to you, or is this just me?" she addressed a moose hanging on the wall.
"So I have a doe. A doe is a deer. A weird deer, buying souls and succubi. Ewww, big on the yuck with the succubi. And I have 'he who sees in the shadows'. Why is he a shadows guy? And what does he see?"
She tossed down the manuscript in frustration.
"I need Giles," she moaned. Giles didn't magically appear in a puff of smoke, so she figured Izzy's wish-day wasn't up, or that Anya had gone demon-y, and picked up the prophecy.
"Came together in darkness, untouched flesh," she read aloud, wrinkling her nose. "This is beginning to read like a film noir sex scene. Either that, or Anne Rice."
She looked at the moose again. It was a friendly moose, she decided.
"Is this a kinky prophecy?" she asked plaintively. The moose didn't answer.
"So the deer and the guy waiting get it together in the dark. I can understand that, no one wants to see kinky deer sex, but what does it have to do with the Gatekeeper?" she complained.
She glanced up at the moose again, and read the Wolfram and Hart logo beneath it. Instead of the uber-stylish and elegant 'Wolfram and Hart' in gold block letters, this one was all latin-y and shield-y. There was a little wolf, and a goat with horns, and a little dog-like thing that was really skinny, over the company motto,and-
She looked again, closer. She hadn't realized Wolfram and Hart was exactly that. Wolf, Ram and Hart. What was a Hart?
"A deer," she realized. She looked down at the prophecy. 'The doe purchasing souls and succubi' became a Wolfram and Hart lawyer, dealing in demons and icky clients. A female lawyer.
"Oh God, my real mom worked here," Izzy's eyes widened. She read the prophecy again, feverishly.
"He who sees in the shadows, and waits. What's this guy waiting for? Why does he see? Seeing, waiting, what's he looking at? Shadows?" She looked over it again. What was this guy watching?
"Watching. Watching. Someone who sees, is watching. He's a Watcher. The lawyer and a watcher-"
She followed her thoughts through to their logical conclusion, and bolted from the room. She knew who her birth parents were.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
They strode through the door determinedly, prepared to do battle to release the girl they were looking for. Angel's coat billowed in that billow-y way it had, Lin shouldered his battle axe, the alarms blared, the guard rose to protest, and-
"Mr Angel!" a woman stepped forward, smiling warmly. "It's nice to see you, sir. Is there something you want?"
Angel looked at Lin. Lin looked at Angel.
"No battle then, huh?" Lin asked wistfully.
"There's a girl, she would have broken in-" Angel began. The smile on the woman's face didn't change.
"Yes. She left about fifteen minutes ago," she said brightly. Angel frowned.
"She couldn't have done- What happened to the firm's anti-intruders policy?" he demanded.
"The alarms didn't go off. We only noticed her presence when she left," the woman shrugged. She beamed again.
"Actually, sir, we've been needing you to come into the office for a while now. There are some papers, requiring authorization-"
Lin sighed. So much for 'damsels in distress'.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Izzy knocked on the front door, shivering a little. Part nerves, part being soaked with rain, she waited for the door to open.
Lilah pulled open the door to see a skinny teenager, clothes plastered to her body, standing in front of her apartment.
"What do you want?" Lilah asked, eyebrows raised questioningly.
"Can I come in?" Izzy asked, a little uncertainly. Lilah nodded.
"Good luck," she said, walking into the apartment. Izzy frowned. What did that mean?
She stopped thinking when an incredibly familiar guy sauntered into the room, one she recognised.
"Nate," Izzy said in surprise. He stopped, face freezing in confusion.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, folding his arms.
"Same question," she shot back.
"I live here," he raised an eyebrow. "That's my mother."
His mother?
Izzy looked back at Lilah, and then at Nate, and it began to slot into place. Wesley's dark hair, Lilah's eyes, and the only question left was why?
"It's not me," she whispered. "It's him."
"What?" Nate asked, leaning against the door. Izzy looked at Lilah, and saw panic on the woman's face.
"You knew," she realised, looking at the woman. Lilah shot her an angry look.
"Is anyone going to tell me what you both know that I don't?" Nate drawled.
"The Gatekeeper, the prophecy I was looking for. I thought it was me, but it wasn't. It was- It's you. You're the Gatekeeper," Izzy blurted out. Nate half-smiled.
"I don't think so."
"Look," she said, shoving the book at him. "The doe, it's her. Part of Wolfram and Hart. And your father is a Watcher. Wesley, he slept with Lilah way back then. They were together. You're Lilah's son, she's never had a daughter, and your father is-"
Comprehension dawned on Nate's face, then anger.
"You knew," he said softly, facing his mother. Lilah's face remained cold, no emotion crossing it.
"Yes," she said slowly. He nodded, his face even. She, the girl, whose name he didn't even know, had said this hellmouth was in Cleveland. Cleveland. He'd been to three different dimensions on Wolfram and Hart errands, but he'd never been to Cleveland. Now he was a 'Gatekeeper' of it. He'd thought she was pretty, and a little bit weird. In a good way. Now, he felt numb.
"A while," she said almost helplessly.
"And Dad? Does he know?"
She shook her head.
Izzy stood there, frozen to the spot. Mom had said they'd searched for the gatekeeper for training, that there was a 'role' to play. Nate hadn't been trained. He'd been kept from it.
"So how did you know about this?' Nate turned on her.
"My mom, she searched for the Gatekeeper. When I was a baby. She must have thought I was it, because she adopted me. We live on it, the hellmouth. My family," she said, uncomfortably.
"The witch," Lilah said quietly, understanding. The redhead. And the vampire, hunting through the prophecies. Her mind flicked to the parchment on her desk, and the hours spent searching for something about her son.
"You could come back with us. My friend and I, we're staying with Angel, but we're gonna go home. Soon. If you want a ride to see what you're the guardian of-" Izzy broke off.
He nodded, his face blank. "Yeah."
He walked down the corridor, and disappeared from view, then came back, tucking keys into his pocket. He put a hand on the door, and yanked it open violently, then walked straight through it. Izzy glanced back, before following him.
Lilah stood fixed to the spot, still where she'd been. She didn't move. Izzy silently closed the door behind her.
Lilah Morgan didn't generally show affection. It wasn't a very evil-lawyer thing to do, and let the people at the top of the firm know she was a woman. Being an ancient force on the side of evil tended to date a firm, and it had leanings on the side of chauvinism.
But as her son walked out the door, not even looking at her, she picked up the phone, and dialled the law firm, prepared to find anything to help her boy.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
They sat in the taxi in silence. She could see his knuckles were white, his hands were knotted together in his lap, and he stared out of the window at the dawning sun, unseeing.
"Do you want me to tell you about it?" she said softly. He shrugged.
"I kinda know how you feel," she said quietly. "The weirdness. And the lying. It hurts. And I know. I went through it." She took a deep breath. "And they'll help. My mom, Buffy, Xander, Dawn, Anya, all of them. They'll help, I promise."
"Right," he said, and fell silent again.
"Well, my mom is Willow. Willow Rosenberg. And I'm Izzy, by the way. Isara." She shook her head. "Weird name, long story. Buffy is- you know who she is. Xander and Mom were her best friends. Xander married Anya, and they have two kids, Lin, who is my friend, and Libby, his little sister. Dawn is Buffy's sister, and she has three kids." She tailed off, as they approached the Hyperion. She'd been babbling. And he was silent. Not so good.
She paid the taxi guy, and opened the door, stepping into the street.
They walked through the glass doors, and into the hotel's lobby. Lin rushed towards her, flinging his arms around her, nearly knocking Izzy off her feet. She laughed, and hugged him back.
"Lin, this is Nate. Nate, this is Lin," she said, still smiling. Nate nodded.
"So you found something," Lin stated. "At Wolfram and Hart." He saw the look Izzy had when she looked at Nate, and felt his stomach drop. He'd seen the look before. All Izzy puppy-eyes.
"Yeah. I found out that," she paused. "Where's Angel?"
"Here," said the vampire, walking in. "Izzy, I told you about-"
"Big evil firm, yadayada," Izzy interrupted. "I handled it." Nate looked at her.
"Okay, Nate helped," Izzy said defensively. "I have news. I read a prophecy in there, and it either predicted kinky deer sex, or Nate's the Gatekeeper, not me."
"What?" Willow said, from the steps above her.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
A/N: Review!