You know what pisses me off? Power outages. They suck. I lost two pages of work on this chapter because of them. Erg. Back to the story then.
"Well?" Bethany asked. Her eyes glowed dangerously.
Angel circled his desk. "This is going to take a while, isn't it?" she asked him.
"Only a little while," Angel said. Standing in front of her, keeping his hands in perfect view so as to not arouse suspicion, Angel related the events of the last year.
When he was done, Bethany observed him closely. "And why should I believe that? It sounds incredibly far fetched."
"Sort of like a girl with TK who can blow up buildings with her mind?" Angel asked. Bethany didn't seem amused.
"I told you to convince me. Not insult me. Angel knew better than to insult me."
"I know you have a sense of humor, Bethany," Angel said. "I wanted to try and reach it."
Bethany took a moment to consider. "I want to believe that you're Angel," she said. "I really do. But where Wolfram and Hart are concerned..."
Angel smiled at her. "Never believe a word they say."
"You were the one who taught me that, as I recall," she said. Finally, she smiled.
Angel sighed inwardly with relief. "So, you're not going to destroy my building?"
Bethany shook her head. "You're building...creepy."
"You don't know the half of it," Angel said. "I spent four years trying my very hardest to bring Wolfram and Hart down, and now I run it."
Bethany smiled. "In a strange way, you've done pretty good for yourself."
Angel admired her traveling cloak. "So have you," he observed.
"Okay," she said, taking a seat as Angel did the same. They had reverted to their old friendship now that Bethany was no longer threatening to destroy Wolfram and Hart.
Angel was still a bit concerned. "Who told you I'd lost my soul?" he asked.
Bethany shrugged. "Just the word on the street," she said. "I was looking for information on a demon I'd been tracking, and one piece of information lead to another, and then...well, once I put it all together and realized what is meant, I came straight here."
Angel nodded. Word on the street...notoriously unreliable, of course. He'd relied on it for too long to not know that. Something else jumped out at him though.
"You were hunting a demon?" he asked.
"Yeah," Bethany said, casually. Seeing the look on Angel's face, she continued. "What? What did you think I was going to do with my powers?"
Angel smiled at her. "Good for you," he said. He was about to say something else when a Wesley and Gunn came barging in. Both were armed.
"Angel! Where's the intruder....?" Wesley asked. Bethany turned to face him. Recognition sprang immediately into Wesley's face, but Gunn, who had never seen her before, chose to shoot first. Angel lunged, attempting to put himself between Bethany and the bullet, but he froze in midair, not capable of moving. So, too, froze the bullet, right in front of Bethany. She looked down at it in amusement, and it exploded into tiny fragments of lead that showered impressively down into the carpet.
Gunn was about to take another shot when Wesley put a hand on his shoulder. "Its all right," he said. "She's not an intruder."
"Just a girl with a hell of a good mind for violence," she supplied, and laughed. Gunn eyed her with undisguised suspicion.
"Who is she?" he asked, ignoring her and addressing Wesley.
"Telekinetic we helped a few years ago," Wesley supplied. "How have you been, Bethany?"
"Well enough," she replied. "I'm not working out of a multimillion dollar law firm, but I'm getting by."
Wesley smiled. "It's good to see you again."
Angel broke in. "Would you mind letting me down? I'm getting air sick."
Bethany let Angel down, slowly, righting him in the process. He landed gingerly on his feet. "Thank you," he said. "I should have learned a long time ago that you could take care of yourself."
"I appreciate the gesture," she allowed.
"So...who's hungry?" Wesley asked.
"Let the feast begin," Dumbledore said, melodrama showing through despite his attempts to mask it.
It took a moment before everyone recovered from the shock of their new Defense teacher. Then, everyone began talking and eating like crazy.
Everyone except Ron. The red-headed boy sat stoically in his seat and refuse to look anywhere but straight ahead at the blank stone wall.
Ginny shot Harry a look. Neither wanted to be the one to try to bring Ron out of it; it was likely that yelling would ensue quickly in this instance. But one of them had to; if Hermione tried to, then it would be worse by several hundred times.
Eventually, Harry surrendered to Ginny's pleading expression. "Is there something wrong with your food, Ron?"
"No," he said, without changing his expression.
"Then why aren't you eating it?" Ginny asked, backing Harry, for which he was quite grateful.
"No," Ron said again, without hearing.
Ginny raised an eyebrow. Her brother was shutting everything out. Obviously, the arrival of Krum had effected him worse than Harry had anticipated.
He whispered in Ginny's ear, "Maybe I should have forewarned him."
"He would have still taken it badly," she whispered back. "Come on, we have to find some way of snapping him out of it."
"Ron, Dobby is shredding up beets and pouring it in your hair," Harry said. Ginny gave him a stern look, and Ron continued to stare.
Hermione, for her part, was eating quietly. Perhaps she realized that anything she said would probably touch off an argument.
Thus went dinner; after five minutes more, Harry and Ginny gave up trying to get Ron to eat. It was hopeless.
When they'd finished, Hermione told them the new password to Gryffindor Tower (Harry already knew it, of course), and left. Shortly thereafter, Ron left too.
As soon as he walked out the hall, hard stare firmly in place, Hermione ambushed him. She didn't say anything; she simply kissed him. At first, he didn't know that it was her. Then, he finally snapped out his funk.
When she pulled back, people were staring. Hermione blushed, but she looked determinately at Ron. "Good night," she said, and departed.
He stared after her, and a smile crept up his face almost without his knowledge. He, too, left for the Tower.
Meanwhile, Harry and Ginny were just finishing and getting up to leave the hall. As they excited the door, hand in hand, they too were ambushed.
It was Malfoy. He made a quick note of the proximity of Harry to Ginny before designing his first jab of the year. "Looks like Wee Weasley's little dreams have finally come true," he said. "What kind of potion did you give him, Wee Weasley?"
Harry started towards Malfoy, but Ginny put up a hand. "I can take care of Malfoy," she said. She turned to the Slytherin boy. "How's daddy, Malfoy?" she asked.
He turned quickly red, and then all the color drained from his face. "Why, you little..."
Harry stepped forward. "Go away, Malfoy," he said. Seeing the step as a challenge, Crab and Goyle also stepped up to assert their presence. Harry laughed at them. "And you can call off your flunkies," he continued. "If dear old daddy couldn't manage to do me in, and all his friends couldn't do me in, and his...employer...couldn't do me in, then you're brain deficient thugs don't scare me in the least."
Crab and Goyle weren't used to being laughed at. They looked to Malfoy for instructions. He, too, was thrown by Harry's cool view of the situation. "Lets go," he said, grumpy. But he turned for once last jab. "Soon," he said. "Soon, you and your little bitch are going to be very deeply unhappy."
Harry and Ginny stood for a moment. Now that Malfoy was almost undoubtedly working for Lord Voldemort, they had to start taking his threats seriously. That one was vague, so they decided not to bother with it.
"I'm not very tired," Harry said, truthfully, as they eyed the staircase.
"Neither am I," Ginny said.
"I have an idea," Harry said, smiling at her.
Faith was hitting a punching bag, hard. That was the general idea, anyway, but she always went the extra mile to try and bruise the punching bag. Call it a special relationship, if you will, but Faith believed, somewhat childishly, that a punching bag couldn't achieve full punching bag happiness unless someone really wailed on it once and a while.
Perhaps that was just her wild excuse for anger. Hitting was therapy for Faith; even after all the therapy and rehabilitation, some good violence still did wonders for her disposition.
She was in a great mood, then, after punching the stuffing out of the bag for two hours. So it was that she was duly happy to see Harry walk into the training room.
"Hello, Harry," she greeted the boy, who she'd come to consider her protŽgŽ. Then she noticed Ginny. "Who's the girl?"
"Faith, this is Ginny," Harry said. "Ginny, Faith."
Faith nodded at Ginny. "You're one of the new Slayers, aren't you?"
Ginny nodded. "Yes, I am," she said.
"Good to have you with us," Faith said. Then she checked her watch. "It's nearly nine at night - shouldn't you two be in bed?"
Harry shrugged. "We're a bit restless," he said. "We thought we might just use up some unwanted energy."
Faith considered that. There was only one thing she did besides fight to relieve unnecessary energy at night...but she certainly wasn't going to suggest that to the two teenagers.
"Sure thing," she said. "Just don't hurt each other too bad."
She left.
Harry eyed Ginny. He stepped into the fighters circle and reached inside his cloak, withdrawing the Hunga Munga which he kept with him at all times. "Coming, dear?" he asked.
Ginny plucked a short sword off the wall. "Coming," she said. They met and their weapons sparked. Time seemed to fade away as they circled and thrust. Neither seemed afraid of hurting the other; their trust in each other was, somehow, complete. None of that entered their minds. They started sweating quickly, panting with the effort they made, even though neither was really trying to hurt the other.
After an hour, they both collapsed against each other, spent. They breathed heavily and evenly. They were asleep.
Craig walked through the enormous, dark room, expectantly. He knew that she would be here - she had to be here. This dance was so important to her, that she wouldn't miss it for the world.
He knew that he shouldn't be there. He knew, and yet he still went. He had to; he couldn't disappoint Skye like that. Not after all she'd done for him...He wouldn't disappoint her like that. He just wouldn't.
Then...then, there she was. She was radiant. Her dress flowed down around her, shimmering darkly. She'd always had a thing for dark garments. The sight of her took Craig's breath away.
He stopped just in front of her, looking down into her eyes. They shined as well, the blue there seeming to capture him and not let him go. She laughed when words failed him. Instead of trying to put into words what he felt, he reached out and slowly, gently, brushed her face with his hand. Skye let her breath out slowly.
"You're beautiful," Craig said. His voice shook; he didn't know whether he'd ever meant anything with the same forcefulness that he'd meant that sentence.
"And you're too kind," Skye replied.
"May I have a dance?" Craig asked.
"I think that could be arranged," she said, smiling.
Craig took her hand and lead her out onto the dance floor. They danced. And they danced. And when the music began to quiet, as they started to leave, as he was helping her with her coat and preparing to walk her home...he whispered in her ear. "I love you."
She didn't look back. She didn't have to. "I love you too."
Craig awoke from the dream with tears in his eyes. The emotional vacuum he usually felt when thinking about anyone dead had gone to hell in a hand basket, though the hand basket seemed too cheerful for this particular memory.
Craig tried and failed to collect himself. It was the first time since leaving America that he'd dreamt about Skye; he hadn't expected it in the slightest. It shocked and nauseated him so much that his branch wobbled and he nearly fell off.
As he had before when dreaming of Skye, Craig quickly sorted through the voices. But she wasn't there. In the months since her death, Craig had never heard Skye.
Not once.
She wasn't there now. He cursed silently. He'd never particularly wanted to hear any of the voices; to the best of his knowledge, until Skye, no one he truly cared about had ever died. But now that someone he'd had feelings for...someone he'd loved...was dead, he couldn't hear a thing from that person. It was nearly as maddening as the din that had for so long tried to subvert his mind to its madness.
He still searched for Skye, more calmly now that the immediate shock of the memory had worn off. No, she definitely was not there. He cursed again, something that he very rarely did.
He would have given anything in the world to hear her voice one more time. To be able to tell her one more time how much he'd loved her. How much she'd meant to him. How she'd saved him...and how guilty he'd felt when he had failed to save her...
Craig drifted off into sleep with a bitter taste in his mouth.
Has this been a long time coming? Yes, sorry, pardon me please, for I have other things to attend to. Like not failing chemistry. Maybe I'll write another chapter. Until then...see you around. Oh, and if anyone is interested in being a beta, or just helping me work out some plot idea's that I have kicking around, I'm on AIM all the time. Screen name is vyo476. Peace out, children.
"Well?" Bethany asked. Her eyes glowed dangerously.
Angel circled his desk. "This is going to take a while, isn't it?" she asked him.
"Only a little while," Angel said. Standing in front of her, keeping his hands in perfect view so as to not arouse suspicion, Angel related the events of the last year.
When he was done, Bethany observed him closely. "And why should I believe that? It sounds incredibly far fetched."
"Sort of like a girl with TK who can blow up buildings with her mind?" Angel asked. Bethany didn't seem amused.
"I told you to convince me. Not insult me. Angel knew better than to insult me."
"I know you have a sense of humor, Bethany," Angel said. "I wanted to try and reach it."
Bethany took a moment to consider. "I want to believe that you're Angel," she said. "I really do. But where Wolfram and Hart are concerned..."
Angel smiled at her. "Never believe a word they say."
"You were the one who taught me that, as I recall," she said. Finally, she smiled.
Angel sighed inwardly with relief. "So, you're not going to destroy my building?"
Bethany shook her head. "You're building...creepy."
"You don't know the half of it," Angel said. "I spent four years trying my very hardest to bring Wolfram and Hart down, and now I run it."
Bethany smiled. "In a strange way, you've done pretty good for yourself."
Angel admired her traveling cloak. "So have you," he observed.
"Okay," she said, taking a seat as Angel did the same. They had reverted to their old friendship now that Bethany was no longer threatening to destroy Wolfram and Hart.
Angel was still a bit concerned. "Who told you I'd lost my soul?" he asked.
Bethany shrugged. "Just the word on the street," she said. "I was looking for information on a demon I'd been tracking, and one piece of information lead to another, and then...well, once I put it all together and realized what is meant, I came straight here."
Angel nodded. Word on the street...notoriously unreliable, of course. He'd relied on it for too long to not know that. Something else jumped out at him though.
"You were hunting a demon?" he asked.
"Yeah," Bethany said, casually. Seeing the look on Angel's face, she continued. "What? What did you think I was going to do with my powers?"
Angel smiled at her. "Good for you," he said. He was about to say something else when a Wesley and Gunn came barging in. Both were armed.
"Angel! Where's the intruder....?" Wesley asked. Bethany turned to face him. Recognition sprang immediately into Wesley's face, but Gunn, who had never seen her before, chose to shoot first. Angel lunged, attempting to put himself between Bethany and the bullet, but he froze in midair, not capable of moving. So, too, froze the bullet, right in front of Bethany. She looked down at it in amusement, and it exploded into tiny fragments of lead that showered impressively down into the carpet.
Gunn was about to take another shot when Wesley put a hand on his shoulder. "Its all right," he said. "She's not an intruder."
"Just a girl with a hell of a good mind for violence," she supplied, and laughed. Gunn eyed her with undisguised suspicion.
"Who is she?" he asked, ignoring her and addressing Wesley.
"Telekinetic we helped a few years ago," Wesley supplied. "How have you been, Bethany?"
"Well enough," she replied. "I'm not working out of a multimillion dollar law firm, but I'm getting by."
Wesley smiled. "It's good to see you again."
Angel broke in. "Would you mind letting me down? I'm getting air sick."
Bethany let Angel down, slowly, righting him in the process. He landed gingerly on his feet. "Thank you," he said. "I should have learned a long time ago that you could take care of yourself."
"I appreciate the gesture," she allowed.
"So...who's hungry?" Wesley asked.
"Let the feast begin," Dumbledore said, melodrama showing through despite his attempts to mask it.
It took a moment before everyone recovered from the shock of their new Defense teacher. Then, everyone began talking and eating like crazy.
Everyone except Ron. The red-headed boy sat stoically in his seat and refuse to look anywhere but straight ahead at the blank stone wall.
Ginny shot Harry a look. Neither wanted to be the one to try to bring Ron out of it; it was likely that yelling would ensue quickly in this instance. But one of them had to; if Hermione tried to, then it would be worse by several hundred times.
Eventually, Harry surrendered to Ginny's pleading expression. "Is there something wrong with your food, Ron?"
"No," he said, without changing his expression.
"Then why aren't you eating it?" Ginny asked, backing Harry, for which he was quite grateful.
"No," Ron said again, without hearing.
Ginny raised an eyebrow. Her brother was shutting everything out. Obviously, the arrival of Krum had effected him worse than Harry had anticipated.
He whispered in Ginny's ear, "Maybe I should have forewarned him."
"He would have still taken it badly," she whispered back. "Come on, we have to find some way of snapping him out of it."
"Ron, Dobby is shredding up beets and pouring it in your hair," Harry said. Ginny gave him a stern look, and Ron continued to stare.
Hermione, for her part, was eating quietly. Perhaps she realized that anything she said would probably touch off an argument.
Thus went dinner; after five minutes more, Harry and Ginny gave up trying to get Ron to eat. It was hopeless.
When they'd finished, Hermione told them the new password to Gryffindor Tower (Harry already knew it, of course), and left. Shortly thereafter, Ron left too.
As soon as he walked out the hall, hard stare firmly in place, Hermione ambushed him. She didn't say anything; she simply kissed him. At first, he didn't know that it was her. Then, he finally snapped out his funk.
When she pulled back, people were staring. Hermione blushed, but she looked determinately at Ron. "Good night," she said, and departed.
He stared after her, and a smile crept up his face almost without his knowledge. He, too, left for the Tower.
Meanwhile, Harry and Ginny were just finishing and getting up to leave the hall. As they excited the door, hand in hand, they too were ambushed.
It was Malfoy. He made a quick note of the proximity of Harry to Ginny before designing his first jab of the year. "Looks like Wee Weasley's little dreams have finally come true," he said. "What kind of potion did you give him, Wee Weasley?"
Harry started towards Malfoy, but Ginny put up a hand. "I can take care of Malfoy," she said. She turned to the Slytherin boy. "How's daddy, Malfoy?" she asked.
He turned quickly red, and then all the color drained from his face. "Why, you little..."
Harry stepped forward. "Go away, Malfoy," he said. Seeing the step as a challenge, Crab and Goyle also stepped up to assert their presence. Harry laughed at them. "And you can call off your flunkies," he continued. "If dear old daddy couldn't manage to do me in, and all his friends couldn't do me in, and his...employer...couldn't do me in, then you're brain deficient thugs don't scare me in the least."
Crab and Goyle weren't used to being laughed at. They looked to Malfoy for instructions. He, too, was thrown by Harry's cool view of the situation. "Lets go," he said, grumpy. But he turned for once last jab. "Soon," he said. "Soon, you and your little bitch are going to be very deeply unhappy."
Harry and Ginny stood for a moment. Now that Malfoy was almost undoubtedly working for Lord Voldemort, they had to start taking his threats seriously. That one was vague, so they decided not to bother with it.
"I'm not very tired," Harry said, truthfully, as they eyed the staircase.
"Neither am I," Ginny said.
"I have an idea," Harry said, smiling at her.
Faith was hitting a punching bag, hard. That was the general idea, anyway, but she always went the extra mile to try and bruise the punching bag. Call it a special relationship, if you will, but Faith believed, somewhat childishly, that a punching bag couldn't achieve full punching bag happiness unless someone really wailed on it once and a while.
Perhaps that was just her wild excuse for anger. Hitting was therapy for Faith; even after all the therapy and rehabilitation, some good violence still did wonders for her disposition.
She was in a great mood, then, after punching the stuffing out of the bag for two hours. So it was that she was duly happy to see Harry walk into the training room.
"Hello, Harry," she greeted the boy, who she'd come to consider her protŽgŽ. Then she noticed Ginny. "Who's the girl?"
"Faith, this is Ginny," Harry said. "Ginny, Faith."
Faith nodded at Ginny. "You're one of the new Slayers, aren't you?"
Ginny nodded. "Yes, I am," she said.
"Good to have you with us," Faith said. Then she checked her watch. "It's nearly nine at night - shouldn't you two be in bed?"
Harry shrugged. "We're a bit restless," he said. "We thought we might just use up some unwanted energy."
Faith considered that. There was only one thing she did besides fight to relieve unnecessary energy at night...but she certainly wasn't going to suggest that to the two teenagers.
"Sure thing," she said. "Just don't hurt each other too bad."
She left.
Harry eyed Ginny. He stepped into the fighters circle and reached inside his cloak, withdrawing the Hunga Munga which he kept with him at all times. "Coming, dear?" he asked.
Ginny plucked a short sword off the wall. "Coming," she said. They met and their weapons sparked. Time seemed to fade away as they circled and thrust. Neither seemed afraid of hurting the other; their trust in each other was, somehow, complete. None of that entered their minds. They started sweating quickly, panting with the effort they made, even though neither was really trying to hurt the other.
After an hour, they both collapsed against each other, spent. They breathed heavily and evenly. They were asleep.
Craig walked through the enormous, dark room, expectantly. He knew that she would be here - she had to be here. This dance was so important to her, that she wouldn't miss it for the world.
He knew that he shouldn't be there. He knew, and yet he still went. He had to; he couldn't disappoint Skye like that. Not after all she'd done for him...He wouldn't disappoint her like that. He just wouldn't.
Then...then, there she was. She was radiant. Her dress flowed down around her, shimmering darkly. She'd always had a thing for dark garments. The sight of her took Craig's breath away.
He stopped just in front of her, looking down into her eyes. They shined as well, the blue there seeming to capture him and not let him go. She laughed when words failed him. Instead of trying to put into words what he felt, he reached out and slowly, gently, brushed her face with his hand. Skye let her breath out slowly.
"You're beautiful," Craig said. His voice shook; he didn't know whether he'd ever meant anything with the same forcefulness that he'd meant that sentence.
"And you're too kind," Skye replied.
"May I have a dance?" Craig asked.
"I think that could be arranged," she said, smiling.
Craig took her hand and lead her out onto the dance floor. They danced. And they danced. And when the music began to quiet, as they started to leave, as he was helping her with her coat and preparing to walk her home...he whispered in her ear. "I love you."
She didn't look back. She didn't have to. "I love you too."
Craig awoke from the dream with tears in his eyes. The emotional vacuum he usually felt when thinking about anyone dead had gone to hell in a hand basket, though the hand basket seemed too cheerful for this particular memory.
Craig tried and failed to collect himself. It was the first time since leaving America that he'd dreamt about Skye; he hadn't expected it in the slightest. It shocked and nauseated him so much that his branch wobbled and he nearly fell off.
As he had before when dreaming of Skye, Craig quickly sorted through the voices. But she wasn't there. In the months since her death, Craig had never heard Skye.
Not once.
She wasn't there now. He cursed silently. He'd never particularly wanted to hear any of the voices; to the best of his knowledge, until Skye, no one he truly cared about had ever died. But now that someone he'd had feelings for...someone he'd loved...was dead, he couldn't hear a thing from that person. It was nearly as maddening as the din that had for so long tried to subvert his mind to its madness.
He still searched for Skye, more calmly now that the immediate shock of the memory had worn off. No, she definitely was not there. He cursed again, something that he very rarely did.
He would have given anything in the world to hear her voice one more time. To be able to tell her one more time how much he'd loved her. How much she'd meant to him. How she'd saved him...and how guilty he'd felt when he had failed to save her...
Craig drifted off into sleep with a bitter taste in his mouth.
Has this been a long time coming? Yes, sorry, pardon me please, for I have other things to attend to. Like not failing chemistry. Maybe I'll write another chapter. Until then...see you around. Oh, and if anyone is interested in being a beta, or just helping me work out some plot idea's that I have kicking around, I'm on AIM all the time. Screen name is vyo476. Peace out, children.