A/N:
Also, side-note. I HAVE NOT SEEN season five. I saw the end of four, Lilah featured even after she was dead-ed, so I thought she was in five. She is in my world, which explains the office-thing.
"Hero Brynna Angel!'
Startled, Bryn awoke, and blinked a couple of times, before crawling out from underneath Lilah's polished desk, a guilty expression in her big brown eyes, as she knuckled the sleepy dust out from under them. Wesley stared from the vividly painted wall, with its cheerful picture of a big square, and lots of little blobs - Wesley had never had to learn how to read children's paintings - to the little girl, whose messy hair, and denim overalls were spattered with the same primary coloured paint. Bryn thought hard.
"The wall did it," she suggested, yawning delicately, her little lips pursing with disapproval at the pesky wall. The wall no longer gleamed impatiently at her. It gave her a sad, and accusing look, from underneath the paint dribbles.
"I don't think that quite cuts it, Brynna," Wesley stated firmly, his eyebrows raising. Bryn clambered to her feet, figuring that at three foot, she stood a better chance of arguing if she was her full three foot, rather than one and a half that she was sitting on the floor. As she stood up, she looked down. On the soft blue carpet, there were now two Bryn-sized swirly- coloured footmarks. Uh oh.
She raised her eyes slowly from the floor to Wesley's face. If it was Gunn, she could grin, and he'd 'splain it away to Daddy, and tell her she was a mini-Lana. Bryn didn't know what a mini-Lana was, but it got her out of trouble, and it sounded a bit like an airplane, or maybe a banana. She liked bananas. They were smooshy if you stamped on them. Daddy got mad when she did that.
But it wasn't the Gunn-man. It was Wesley, whose eyes could go as 'grr-y' as Daddy's, when he was mad at her. Fred could yell, but didn't a lot. Lorne didn't care, he just told her she was an 'itty bitty slice of sugar sweet Angel pie'. The blonde lady, who Daddy also yelled at a lot, just laughed most of the time. Wesley and Daddy got mean.
"It told me to," she said, her lower lip jutting out, as she looked up at him under her eyelashes, her big hazel eyes pleading. Wesley didn't answer. She scuffed the side of her sneaker along the carpet.
"Brynna," he said again, his voice slow as he considered things over. Brynna. He wasn't as mad mad as he had been, if he called her Brynna. Brynna was really really close to Bryn, and really really far away from 'Hero Brynna Angel'.
He sighed. "I'm tempted to turn you over my knee." He gave her his best 'disapproving' looks. He looked to see if it had worked. Bryn frowned.
"What's putting over my knee?" she asked, puzzled, her nose wrinkling. Wesley resisted a smile. God damn it, he was resisting!
"I would spank your little bottom," he said firmly. Bryn shook her head.
"Daddy wouldn't let you," she answered back, confidently. Wesley thought about it a moment. The child was right. Angel, having fallen for his little girl, now visibly tightened if anyone came near her.
He was saved from answering by the timely appearance of Angel himself.
"There you are, Wes. I need you to go over the-" Angel broke off, frowning. "What are you doing here?"
Wordlessly, Wesley pushed the door further open, so Angel could see the splashy, messy painting Bryn had done all along Lilah's pristine white walls. Angel's eyes widened, and he stepped forward. Bryn shot an accusing glare at Wesley.
"Tattle tale!" she hissed, folding her arms across her chest, with a matching disapproving look to his own.
"It's us," Angel said, in surprise, examining the wall. He looked back at Bryn, and felt a grin break out on his face. "See, Wes, there's the hotel, and there's you, and Lorne, and me, and Fred, and Gunn, and Bryn-" Wesley stared at him in disbelief.
"You don't mean you're going to let her get away with it?' Wesley demanded, glancing at Bryn. Bryn's own eyes widened. If Daddy wasn't going to punish her, Wesley shouldn't make him!
"But it's so pretty," Angel said weakly, the goofy smile still lingering on his lips. He sighed, his shoulders slumping. "I'm going to have to punish her, aren't I?"
"Darn right you do!" Cordelia yelled in exasperation at him, from her plane. Spike chuckled.
"It is a sweet picture, Cordelia," he reasoned, looking from the little girl to the wall painting. "Ow!" he exclaimed, nursing his upper arm where she'd just swatted him. The ex-cheerleader gave him a haughty look.
"If he doesn't tell her off now, she'll walk all over him. She's a kid, she needs ground rules," Cordy explained, with a grudging expression. "Now shut it, so I can find out what he does. Boy, does he need help."
Angel sighed again. A little niggling voice in his ear told him that Bryn had to be punished this time. Last time, she'd broken into the weapons chest, and used Harmony for target practise with the crossbow. He'd come back from a meeting to find his secretary running around the room, screaming, pursued by his own mini-Destroyer, watched by a non-corporeal vampire laughing himself sick. The time before that, she'd built herself a den in the white room. Quite how she'd gotten in, they didn't know.
"Bryn," he began. He heard his faint, pleading voice, and pulled himself up. He was the Scourge of Europe, and a far badder-ass than Spike had ever been. He, Angel had been one before he'd been a vampire. He was not going to become a doormat for his four-year-old child. He tried again.
"Brynna. Don't tell me you don't know it isn't allowed to paint on walls," he said, firmly. This was better. He was almost on a roll. "I've told you, and Wes has told you to stay out of the offices."
"Yeah," Bryn admitted, fixing her eyes on the floor, fiddling with the strap of her overalls.
"You know what this means, Bryn," he said, trying to meet her eyes with his own, in a meaningful look. She glared defiantly at him. "I'm putting you in a time-out. In my office. Now."
With a great huff, Bryn stalked out, her sneakers squishing on the floor as she went down the corridor to his office.
"Was I okay?" Angel looked towards Wesley, a worried expression on his face, as he did so. Wesley patted his arm reassuringly.
"I suggest you get an interior decorator in here, before Lilah decides that your punishment is insufficient."
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
* ~
Bryn kicked the table leg. It didn't do anything. She kicked it harder. The table leg buckled under the table, and a whole bunch of old manuscripts slid to the floor.
"Don't care," Bryn told herself firmly. "Daddy's mean. Daddy's lots mean."
She wasn't going to stay here, in a boring time-out. Time-out was for babies, not for Bryns. With an impish expression crossing her face, Bryn curled up next to a filing cabinet, and closed her eyes, opening the teeny door in her mind that opened up onto the astral field.
Stars blew towards her, her hair flew back in the wind, Bryn's hazel eyes opened, and a thousand tiny lights reflected in her eyes as she rushed forwards, along the paths. Bryn's smile was ages old as she crossed the planes, her Star Child soul moving a hundred times the speed of a mortal.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
"Wow," Buffy muttered in disbelief as they stepped over the threshold, into the lobby of the huge glass building. "It's big." She looked towards Willow, one eyebrow raised in a questioning expression.
"Yup," Willow agreed in a cheerful voice, her eyes filled with worry. "It's big."
"Where's Dead Boy then?" Xander mumbled, staring in suspicion at a yellow, and very spiny guard, who was giving him an equally suspicious look. "Some of his employees don't seem to be very- non evil."
"That's good," Dawn nodded, considering it. "Equal opportunities. Guess there aren't many jobs open to the multi-coloured and squishy." She shot Buffy a little grin.
"Can I help you?" a woman, in her early thirties, with shoulder length auburn hair and sharp green eyes stopped in front of them, her tone clipped, and cool.
"Uh, I guess so," Buffy shrugged her shoulders, looking from Willow to Xander uncertainly. "We're here to see Angel."
The lawyer-y type placed her hands together, and smiled tightly. "Angel. Do you have an appointment?"
Buffy's face creased in puzzlement. "Uh, no, he just told us to come-" she began, her eyes widening meaningfully at Willow. The redhead shrugged.
"In that case, you'll need to see his secretary," the woman said, her smile getting a little bit stranger. "I'll just get someone who can take you up."
She hurried away, her smart and classy black heels clacking on the polished floor. She huddled in with another suited lawyer, and then a younger man joined them, dressed in a more casual jacket and tie. They glanced back every so often at the group.
"Wow. Get the feeling we're a little unprecedented?" Willow offered weakly, her green eyes wide. Buffy nodded thoughtfully.
The casually dressed man, his dark brown hair flopping in his eyes walked towards them.
"Good afternoon," he began, with a polite smile, 'And welcome to the L.A branch of Wolfram and Hart. This division is headed by Angel, the only vampire in existence with a soul. I am to conduct you to the office of his secretary, right this way please." He turned around, and stepped forward briskly.
Buffy raised her eyebrows at the gang, but silently, they followed the lackey up a flight of stairs, and along corridors, to Angel's mysterious secretary.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ A/N: And that's enough for one chapter. Next time, Buffy and co finally meet Bryn, and a leetle bit of a familiar surprise in the form of Harmony .
Also, side-note. I HAVE NOT SEEN season five. I saw the end of four, Lilah featured even after she was dead-ed, so I thought she was in five. She is in my world, which explains the office-thing.
"Hero Brynna Angel!'
Startled, Bryn awoke, and blinked a couple of times, before crawling out from underneath Lilah's polished desk, a guilty expression in her big brown eyes, as she knuckled the sleepy dust out from under them. Wesley stared from the vividly painted wall, with its cheerful picture of a big square, and lots of little blobs - Wesley had never had to learn how to read children's paintings - to the little girl, whose messy hair, and denim overalls were spattered with the same primary coloured paint. Bryn thought hard.
"The wall did it," she suggested, yawning delicately, her little lips pursing with disapproval at the pesky wall. The wall no longer gleamed impatiently at her. It gave her a sad, and accusing look, from underneath the paint dribbles.
"I don't think that quite cuts it, Brynna," Wesley stated firmly, his eyebrows raising. Bryn clambered to her feet, figuring that at three foot, she stood a better chance of arguing if she was her full three foot, rather than one and a half that she was sitting on the floor. As she stood up, she looked down. On the soft blue carpet, there were now two Bryn-sized swirly- coloured footmarks. Uh oh.
She raised her eyes slowly from the floor to Wesley's face. If it was Gunn, she could grin, and he'd 'splain it away to Daddy, and tell her she was a mini-Lana. Bryn didn't know what a mini-Lana was, but it got her out of trouble, and it sounded a bit like an airplane, or maybe a banana. She liked bananas. They were smooshy if you stamped on them. Daddy got mad when she did that.
But it wasn't the Gunn-man. It was Wesley, whose eyes could go as 'grr-y' as Daddy's, when he was mad at her. Fred could yell, but didn't a lot. Lorne didn't care, he just told her she was an 'itty bitty slice of sugar sweet Angel pie'. The blonde lady, who Daddy also yelled at a lot, just laughed most of the time. Wesley and Daddy got mean.
"It told me to," she said, her lower lip jutting out, as she looked up at him under her eyelashes, her big hazel eyes pleading. Wesley didn't answer. She scuffed the side of her sneaker along the carpet.
"Brynna," he said again, his voice slow as he considered things over. Brynna. He wasn't as mad mad as he had been, if he called her Brynna. Brynna was really really close to Bryn, and really really far away from 'Hero Brynna Angel'.
He sighed. "I'm tempted to turn you over my knee." He gave her his best 'disapproving' looks. He looked to see if it had worked. Bryn frowned.
"What's putting over my knee?" she asked, puzzled, her nose wrinkling. Wesley resisted a smile. God damn it, he was resisting!
"I would spank your little bottom," he said firmly. Bryn shook her head.
"Daddy wouldn't let you," she answered back, confidently. Wesley thought about it a moment. The child was right. Angel, having fallen for his little girl, now visibly tightened if anyone came near her.
He was saved from answering by the timely appearance of Angel himself.
"There you are, Wes. I need you to go over the-" Angel broke off, frowning. "What are you doing here?"
Wordlessly, Wesley pushed the door further open, so Angel could see the splashy, messy painting Bryn had done all along Lilah's pristine white walls. Angel's eyes widened, and he stepped forward. Bryn shot an accusing glare at Wesley.
"Tattle tale!" she hissed, folding her arms across her chest, with a matching disapproving look to his own.
"It's us," Angel said, in surprise, examining the wall. He looked back at Bryn, and felt a grin break out on his face. "See, Wes, there's the hotel, and there's you, and Lorne, and me, and Fred, and Gunn, and Bryn-" Wesley stared at him in disbelief.
"You don't mean you're going to let her get away with it?' Wesley demanded, glancing at Bryn. Bryn's own eyes widened. If Daddy wasn't going to punish her, Wesley shouldn't make him!
"But it's so pretty," Angel said weakly, the goofy smile still lingering on his lips. He sighed, his shoulders slumping. "I'm going to have to punish her, aren't I?"
"Darn right you do!" Cordelia yelled in exasperation at him, from her plane. Spike chuckled.
"It is a sweet picture, Cordelia," he reasoned, looking from the little girl to the wall painting. "Ow!" he exclaimed, nursing his upper arm where she'd just swatted him. The ex-cheerleader gave him a haughty look.
"If he doesn't tell her off now, she'll walk all over him. She's a kid, she needs ground rules," Cordy explained, with a grudging expression. "Now shut it, so I can find out what he does. Boy, does he need help."
Angel sighed again. A little niggling voice in his ear told him that Bryn had to be punished this time. Last time, she'd broken into the weapons chest, and used Harmony for target practise with the crossbow. He'd come back from a meeting to find his secretary running around the room, screaming, pursued by his own mini-Destroyer, watched by a non-corporeal vampire laughing himself sick. The time before that, she'd built herself a den in the white room. Quite how she'd gotten in, they didn't know.
"Bryn," he began. He heard his faint, pleading voice, and pulled himself up. He was the Scourge of Europe, and a far badder-ass than Spike had ever been. He, Angel had been one before he'd been a vampire. He was not going to become a doormat for his four-year-old child. He tried again.
"Brynna. Don't tell me you don't know it isn't allowed to paint on walls," he said, firmly. This was better. He was almost on a roll. "I've told you, and Wes has told you to stay out of the offices."
"Yeah," Bryn admitted, fixing her eyes on the floor, fiddling with the strap of her overalls.
"You know what this means, Bryn," he said, trying to meet her eyes with his own, in a meaningful look. She glared defiantly at him. "I'm putting you in a time-out. In my office. Now."
With a great huff, Bryn stalked out, her sneakers squishing on the floor as she went down the corridor to his office.
"Was I okay?" Angel looked towards Wesley, a worried expression on his face, as he did so. Wesley patted his arm reassuringly.
"I suggest you get an interior decorator in here, before Lilah decides that your punishment is insufficient."
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
* ~
Bryn kicked the table leg. It didn't do anything. She kicked it harder. The table leg buckled under the table, and a whole bunch of old manuscripts slid to the floor.
"Don't care," Bryn told herself firmly. "Daddy's mean. Daddy's lots mean."
She wasn't going to stay here, in a boring time-out. Time-out was for babies, not for Bryns. With an impish expression crossing her face, Bryn curled up next to a filing cabinet, and closed her eyes, opening the teeny door in her mind that opened up onto the astral field.
Stars blew towards her, her hair flew back in the wind, Bryn's hazel eyes opened, and a thousand tiny lights reflected in her eyes as she rushed forwards, along the paths. Bryn's smile was ages old as she crossed the planes, her Star Child soul moving a hundred times the speed of a mortal.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
"Wow," Buffy muttered in disbelief as they stepped over the threshold, into the lobby of the huge glass building. "It's big." She looked towards Willow, one eyebrow raised in a questioning expression.
"Yup," Willow agreed in a cheerful voice, her eyes filled with worry. "It's big."
"Where's Dead Boy then?" Xander mumbled, staring in suspicion at a yellow, and very spiny guard, who was giving him an equally suspicious look. "Some of his employees don't seem to be very- non evil."
"That's good," Dawn nodded, considering it. "Equal opportunities. Guess there aren't many jobs open to the multi-coloured and squishy." She shot Buffy a little grin.
"Can I help you?" a woman, in her early thirties, with shoulder length auburn hair and sharp green eyes stopped in front of them, her tone clipped, and cool.
"Uh, I guess so," Buffy shrugged her shoulders, looking from Willow to Xander uncertainly. "We're here to see Angel."
The lawyer-y type placed her hands together, and smiled tightly. "Angel. Do you have an appointment?"
Buffy's face creased in puzzlement. "Uh, no, he just told us to come-" she began, her eyes widening meaningfully at Willow. The redhead shrugged.
"In that case, you'll need to see his secretary," the woman said, her smile getting a little bit stranger. "I'll just get someone who can take you up."
She hurried away, her smart and classy black heels clacking on the polished floor. She huddled in with another suited lawyer, and then a younger man joined them, dressed in a more casual jacket and tie. They glanced back every so often at the group.
"Wow. Get the feeling we're a little unprecedented?" Willow offered weakly, her green eyes wide. Buffy nodded thoughtfully.
The casually dressed man, his dark brown hair flopping in his eyes walked towards them.
"Good afternoon," he began, with a polite smile, 'And welcome to the L.A branch of Wolfram and Hart. This division is headed by Angel, the only vampire in existence with a soul. I am to conduct you to the office of his secretary, right this way please." He turned around, and stepped forward briskly.
Buffy raised her eyebrows at the gang, but silently, they followed the lackey up a flight of stairs, and along corridors, to Angel's mysterious secretary.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ A/N: And that's enough for one chapter. Next time, Buffy and co finally meet Bryn, and a leetle bit of a familiar surprise in the form of Harmony .