Escape
Chapter Six: Googly Eyes
"Sorry about the mess," Xander said, not looking at Buffy as he rubbed his neck and gazed across the wreckage of his room.
"Looks homey," she smiled, sitting on the bed, shifting for a second to pull a pizza box from underneath her.
"Hey, I had good news," he said, turning around to face her, a fake smile on his face. "I went for a check up yesterday and apparently in a few months, I get to have a fake eye."
"Really? So… no more eye patch?"
"Nope. But I think I might miss looking like I'm in Halloween costume everyday, I might have set a trend. But it'd be a conversation starter, right?" for some reason, the pitch of his voice climbed suddenly until he sucked in a breath and let it out with a shudder. "Sorry. I'm just…"
"I understand," she said softly, taking his hand. "I'm so sorry."
"S'not your fault," he mumbled, sniffing hard, forcing himself not to cry. "So, uh, you miss Spike?"
"What?" she asked, jumping a little.
"Well, he died. Again. You had feelings for him though. Might be missing an eye, but I've still got my good one," he turned to face her, a determined and happy to help expression on his face. "Or is this Angel?"
"Am I that transparent?" she asked, sighing a little. "Even Willow worked it out and she's awash in the land of Kennedy kissage."
"So what's wrong? Or is this just your general seeing the man you love again-ness?"
"You know what, it's not important," Buffy sighed. "It's way too familiar to be that big a deal," she quickly changed the subject with, "Dawn told me Willow called from the airport. They'll be back sooner than they thought. Will said that most of the girls wanted to go to the airport and the rest only lived a few hours away. They're gonna see the last few girls onto their planes and then we don't have to worry about Slayers or finding them until after our break."
"Heard from Faith or the strangely good looking Principal?"
Buffy gave him an odd look, looking pointedly around the room he had barely left since they arrived in LA.
"Fred mentioned it," he said, offering her a weak grin. "She came up to ask if I was hungry. She was telling me everything that was going on and I felt like Cordy, listening to gossip back in High School," he smiled a sad smile and Buffy lowered her head.
"You heard about Cordelia then?" she asked softly.
"Yeah. Wesley told me. That's gotta be a record, right? Two girls I loved dying within hours of each other?"
"Xander…"
"Hey, have you seen Wesley?" Xander cut in, desperately forcing the pitch of his voice down as he changed the subject. "I know Willow said he was different, but wow. I want what he's having."
He chuckled, sounding slightly hysterical as he paced the room.
"Hey," Buffy stood up and stepped in front of them, grabbing hold of him to force him to a halt. She stared up at one of her closest friends for a moment before wrapping her arms around him and hugging him. He stood, unmoving for a few seconds, before reaching around her, lowered his head onto her shoulder and hugged her back.
"I was thinking about ordering a pizza," she said in a low voice. "With ice cream."
"Banoffee?"
"Of course."
Angel was drumming a pen on the side of the desk, glowering into the distance. Everyone had been avoiding him, even the over eager spiky haired blonde boy who hung around with Dawn, who seemed to want to get to know absolutely everyone.
"How ya doin', Angel-cakes? Still moping?" Lorne sauntered into the office and pulled off his sunglasses as he sat down. "Y'know, if you weren't immortal and eternally young, with all your frowning, you'd need a truck load of Botox to smooth out that heroic brow of yours. Boy, am I ever jealous."
Angel shifted in his seat, taking in the sunglasses and melancholy expression on Lorne's face.
"What's with the sunglasses?" he asked after a moment.
"Oh, it's my way of living what will never be," Lorne sighed dramatically. He rolled his eyes at Angel's clueless expression. "They were offering me the entire entertainment department! Sure, it was an evil entertainment department, but it meant I could wear sunglasses inside and not look like a complete wannabe! But, as Wes said, evil place, evil talent. I can't work there, you never know if they're the ones that sent Elvis off with the aliens."
"You didn't have to give it up, Lorne," Angel said. "Wes is just having a hard time accepting his spur of the moment decision."
"Well, that makes four of us," Lorne shrugged. "Four of us who are willing to give up everything that was offered to us because the hand that feeds us might just be the one that bites us on the ass as well. What about you? You regretting it?"
"Yes," Angel answered. "And no. I got stuff out of that contract that I'm grateful for. But the thought of working with Wolfram and Hart doesn't exactly thrill me. I don't do entourages."
"Well, if you're willing to give up the limousines and the plush apartment, then I guess I can cope. We should be out of it soon enough. Wes and Fred are working on it as we speak."
"Yeah, I know. Wes asked if he could look at my contract -" he stopped and it seemed to Lorne that Angel did the impossible for a vampire as it seemed he paled all the way to the roots of his overly gelled hair.
"Something wrong?"
Angel leapt up from his seat, grabbed his duster and raced out of the office, leaving Lorne to sigh once more and slide his sunglasses back on.
"Woah."
Angel screeched to a halt as Buffy stepped into his path.
"Buffy, I need to go somewhere important."
"Yeah? Well, I need to say something important. How do you know that boy?"
"I don't have time for this!" Angel answered, starting forward, but the Slayer placed a steady hand on his chest to stop him.
"How?" she pressed. "This is important."
"Yes, it is important. But it's nothing to do with you!"
"It is when it's got you this worked up!" her voice rose angrily and she glanced around the empty lobby before lowering her voice to an urgent whisper. "How do you know him? Who is he?"
"You really wanna know?"
"That's why I'm asking."
"Ok," Angel also glanced around, his voice a low hiss through clenched teeth. "He was my son. He is my son."
Buffy blinked and took a step back. Angel took advantage of her shock to walk past her, duster snapping as he thrust both doors into the hotel open and strode out into the dark.
Buffy stood, shaking slightly before lowering herself onto the steps leading down into the lobby. The doors swung open behind her again and Buffy turned quickly, hoping Angel had come to explain this incomprehensible occurrence.
But it was only Giles, Willow and Kennedy who she had forgotton were on their way back.
"Was that Angel I just saw leave?" Giles asked Buffy. "Where's he off to?"
Fred giggled, pushing her mug away from her. Wesley smiled at her, then done at the busy amount of paperwork before him. A pile of paper covered in the scrawlings of noughts and crosses, hangman and cartoons of everyone from Angel to Andrew.
"I think you've had too much caffeine," Wesley said. "And I think we've done far too little work for this many hours."
"Oh, I don't think Angel will notice," Fred replied, waving a hand, bending over a new doodle of Angel in lurve. "He's too busy making googly eyes at Buffy."
"That wouldn't be Buffy Summers, would it? Slayer extraordinaire?"
Wes looked up and Fred abandoned her drawing to turn in her seat to see an elegantly attired woman lounging in the doorway. The woman's gaze skimmed over Fred and settled contentedly on Wes as she ran her fingers over a silk scarf around her work.
"Can I help you?" Wesley asked politely.
An odd look flashed across the woman's face and her expression hardened a little as she sauntered into the office.
"Lilah Morgan, ex-lawyer of Wolfram and Hart, but I still work for them."
"That doesn't matter any sense," Fred said, wrinkling her nose and smiling, caffiene still buzzing in her veins.
"It does if I'm dead," Lilah replied and Fred recoiled at her tone, her caffeine haze clearing rapidly. There was something about this woman that Fred found familiar. Familiar in a bad, bad way.
"What do you want?" Wes asked, voice harder this time and it successfully caught Lilah's attention.
She leaned across the desk, reaching out to run a finger along his forearm that rested on a notepad. It was a flirtatious gesture that made Wes wonder why she was doing this when he only vaguely remembered meeting her a couple of time a couple of years ago. But though he didn't respond, he didn't push her away.
"I've got a message for you," she said in a low husky voice.
"I'm, uh, gonna see where the PA got to with those cookies," Fred said nervously, getting up and backing away from Lilah and Wesley who barely heard her.
"And what's this message, Ms Morgan?" Wes asked, grabbing her wrist and yanking her hand away from his arm, suddenly tired of whatever game she was playing.
"Not to bother," she said, smiling at the tight grip on her wrist. "You'll never find a get-out clause. Those contracts are water-tight, air-tight, and Wesley Wyndham-Pryce and Winifred Burkle-tight."
"We'll see," he answered, lowering his head over his work. When she didn't move, he looked up. "Was there something else?"
She smirked, before running a finger along his jawbone, closing her fingers around his chin and pulling him close to kiss him. He was startled and started to pull away, but she slipped her fingers into his hair to prevent his escape.
And Fred watched frozen from the doorway.