77

Piece by Piece

Lorne slunk through the building quietly, keeping out of sight as much as possible for fear someone would speak to him, thereby causing his head to explode. His heart was aching almost as badly as his head. But this time it was in sympathy rather than self-pity. He would have been ready to swear by just about anything that he'd never seen a couple as devoted to each other as Spike and Rose. Something was terribly wrong here, and he intended to get to the bottom of it. After all, like Fred had said, they were family.

&&&&&&

Fred wasn't too surprised when Rose didn't make it to lunch. Having spent the better part of the weekend with Wesley, she knew what was going on as much as anyone. And was as curious and puzzled as anyone else as well. This was the only part of the scenario Fred really understood so far. If she'd done to Wesley what Rose had done to Spike, she'd hole up in her lab without coming up for air the rest of the century.

&&&&&

"She's here, but she's.., asleep." Alaric was attempting to clarify things for Oz.

"You can read her mind again," Oz said, as he worked his way through the explanations. "But she's turned off her feelings?"

Ariel nodded in agreement. "'Cept at night," she added sadly. "When she goes to bed she cries."

"Do you have any idea where your dad is?" Oz asked. The problem that had seemed relatively small last week, at least to him, had now taken on epic proportions.

"He's staying with Uncle Lorne," Alaric answered.

His twin blinked at him in surprise, then, her eyes unfocused for a moment as she concentrated. Suddenly, both children bolted for the door.

Oz got up and followed them and opened the door to see a rather ragged-edged looking version of Lorne.

"Thank heaven for little blessings." Lorne bent down and picked up the twins, cuddling them. Oz noticed that the Pylean was barely speaking above a whisper. "I was still trying to decide whether the doorbell or knocking would hurt more."

"Hangover?" Oz guessed. His normally quiet voice dropped too. The empath was obviously suffering and not from an attack of empathy.

"I'll mend," Lorne allowed. "I hate to be rude, Oz, but could I talk you into letting me have a private confab with the munchkins?"

&&&&&&

Spike carefully cracked his eyes open. The room was as dark as heavy drapes (which Lorne had made sure were closed) could make it, but it still seemed to be way too bright. The light hurt his eyes. He closed them again. No, that wasn't it, he was still in pain. Maybe it wasn't his eyes after all. Come to think of it, it seemed to be his entire head, which felt like it was a hell of a lot bigger than it ought to be. He felt the cool glass bottle cradled in his arm and that told him why he was in the shape he was in. He'd obviously been drinking, and drinking quite a bit. He wondered what time it was, and come to that, where he was. He couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten this drunk. Certainly not since he'd met Rose. He far preferred her to getting drunk. Then, the alcoholic amnesia passed, and everything came crashing down on him again. He tilted the bottle to his lips and started chugging the whiskey down in a manner that could have killed a human.

&&&&&&

Wesley walked into Gunn's office with his eyes still riveted on the book in his hands. "Gunn, does Wolfram and Hart keep tabs on which practitioners are capable of certain spells?"

"Once more, with clarity," Gunn suggested. "I speak American, lawyer, and a few demon languages. Watcher isn't on the list."

Wes finally looked up from his book. "Suppose I wanted a spell for a particular purpose," he explained. "Would there be a file on who in the area was able to cast that particular spell?"

Gunn shook his head. "We've got a list of the big players," he replied. "But with the Wicca craze and all, keeping track of everyone who could cast some kind of spell got to be more than even our resources could handle."

"This spell would take considerable talent and knowledge," the Watcher said. "It's a love spell, but not one of the simpler ones. A mere dabbler wouldn't be able to handle it."

"Love spell?" Gunn looked flabbergasted. "You mean there really is such a thing? I thought that was all just a crock."

"Oh, they're real enough," Wesley said darkly. "But even the best of them can be unstable and unpredictable. Disastrously so."

Gunn looked at him thoughtfully, then pulled out his keyboard. "Tell me what you're looking for, and I'll tell you if we've got it," he directed.

&&&&&

Oz had retreated a discreet distance, but he wondered why they'd even bothered, since Lorne and the twins held almost their entire conversation non-verbally. Suddenly, the twins broke out into song, and Oz felt a smile trying to emerge when they sang 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star', the much scorned 'baby song'. Lorne listened as intently as he would to anyone else, then the mental communication commenced again for a while. Finally, Lorne sighed, kissed the children and set them back down.

Oz looked at him questioningly.

Lorne shook his head. "No answers yet," he replied to the unspoken question. "Just a few more pieces to the puzzle." He reached down and ruffled the twins' hair, then a look of consternation crossed his face, and he began patting his pockets frantically. "Where did I put that candy?"

Alaric and Ariel looked at each other and put their hands behind their backs.

"No candy," Alaric said firmly.

"Daddy says we're not 'lowed," Ariel explained.

The werewolf and the demon both blinked and looked at each other.

&&&&&&&

Angel sat at his desk, sketchpad in hand, working on the drawing of Rose and Spike. He fixed and fussed and altered, trying to make it perfect. It was almost like it was some kind of penance for him. Remembering those deliriously happy moments with Rose and then drawing things as they should be, having the reminder staring him in the face. That Rose belonged with Spike. He wondered vaguely how Rose was coping with the situation, but the fact that he couldn't bear the thought of facing her just yet kept him from finding out.

&&&&&&

Rose was doing exactly what Alaric and Ariel had told Oz she was doing. Functioning, but with all emotions turned off. An efficient automaton. The keys on her keyboard clicked in an almost hypnotic rhythm as she filled out the forms and made the evaluations. Sometimes she stopped in the middle of a sentence and looked up with an expression on her face that suggested she was wondering why she was even going through the motions. Then, her eyes turned toward the pictures that were on her desk. One was of the children. That was the one she allowed her eyes to rest on. Why she was holding it together, no matter how tenuously. Because her children needed her. The other picture she took great pains to avert her gaze from. The picture of the entire, happy, smiling family. One look at that would be all she needed to send her over the edge.

&&&&&&&

Lorne tried the door, and frowned. He'd never known Rose to lock her office door during working hours before. He knocked gently, and the sound went through his head like a knife. After a minute or two with no answer, he was trying to gear himself up to do it again when the door opened a crack, just enough for him to see a pair of dark-rimmed, bloodshot, gray eyes. The door opened fully.

Lorne stepped inside, and Rose closed the door behind him. He debated how to start. When Spike had first shown up, he'd been ready to chew his favorite songbird up one side and down the other. But now, with a few bits and pieces of information, and the fact that Rose looked so forlorn, he couldn't bring himself to do it. He could tell that she was missing Spike terribly, he didn't need her to sing for him to know that. And it was probably eating away at her that she didn't even know where he was. Well, Spike hadn't said anything about him not telling her, and telling her wasn't offering an open invitation. It was just giving her one little scrap to ease a small portion of her suffering. "He's at my place, sugarplum," he said softly.

Rose looked at Lorne for a long moment, then turned away, battling the fresh onslaught of tears. If she worked really hard at it, she could keep them under control until she crawled into her lonely, overly large bed. Funny, the bed hadn't felt like it was too big when Spike had been sharing it with her. "Did he tell you?" she asked in a hard, tight voice, that barely managed not to squeak.

Lorne nodded, then realized that with her back to him, she couldn't see it. "He did," he admitted. The pain was coming off her in waves, every bit as bad as Spike. What had happened to the two of them? And was it repairable? "Sing for me, doll-baby," he suggested gently. When the twins had sung for him, all he'd gotten was an image of a dark haired female. One tiny piece of the puzzle. He needed more to build a coherent picture.

"I can't," Rose choked out. Her self-control was faltering now, and she was losing the battle against the tears.

Lorne wanted to comfort her, but he knew that the only thing that would really help would be the mending of the rift between her and the love of her life, and he couldn't do that by himself. He wasn't sure it could even be done. "Would you like to send him a message?" he asked.

Rose sniffled and grabbed a tissue and swiped at her eyes and blew her nose. "Tell him that the children are well, but that they miss him," she mumbled.

"Don't you want to send him anything from you, blossom?" Lorne queried, surprised that she hadn't immediately done so.

Rose shook her head sadly. "The one thing I want to tell him is the one thing he'll never believe," she replied miserably. "He probably hates me now, and I can't really say that I blame him, because I do too."

&&&&&&&

"Got three hits," Gunn said. He printed out the addresses. "Am I just the do-it guy, or am I allowed to ask what in hell is going on and why someone who can cast a love spell is so important?"

Wesley looked a little chagrined. He'd been in the center of things, almost, and it hadn't occurred to him that Gunn didn't have a clue as to what was going on. "It began with the change in stories I told you about, and ever since then Rose and Angel have been acting a little.., odd," he began. "Evidently Spike caught them in a compromising position, how compromising, I don't know, and don't wish to. But the upshot is that Spike has left Rose. And in light of everything that's happened, I think that a love spell is the only reasonable explanation."

Gunn was glad that he was already sitting down, because that way, he didn't have to worry about whether or not he'd hit the chair when his knees gave out. "Spike left Rose?" he repeated incredulously. "Spike, who thinks the sun sets on her, left her?"

"I don't find that nearly so extraordinary as the fact that Rose would even look at another man in a romantic context," Wes replied. "I knew that they were both acting a bit out of character, but I didn't look into it at the time. Maybe if I had, I could have prevented it."

"Wes, you can't take responsibility for everything that goes wrong," Gunn reminded him. "And the chances are good that without more of a clue, you wouldn't have hit the right thing in time anyway." He stared off into space for a moment, still having trouble dealing with the concept. "Blondie Bear left Rose?"

&&&&&&

Lorne strode up to Angel's office door. The headache seemed to be abating somewhat. That, he suspected would be a very temporary thing. He was sure it would come back upon him in all its glory when Angel started to sing. And Lorne fully intended to camp out in his office until the boss man did sing.

Harmony jumped up to block his path, as she had done with Wesley. "You can't go in there, Lorne," she warned. "He told me to keep everyone out."

"Harmonica, baby, I love you to death," Lorne said. "But if you don't get out of my way, I'm going to cold-cock you. This is serious stuff, and the big guy is right in the middle of it."

"Lorne," Harmony pleaded. "He said he'd stake me if I let anyone in."

"I'll deal with him, sugarpie," Lorne promised. He looked at the time and was mildly surprised to find that it was only eleven o'clock. He felt like he'd put in a full day's work already. "Why don't you toddle off to an early lunch? Then, if he asks, you can say that you didn't see me go into his office."

Harmony took a minute to work it out. "Make sure I'm gone before you go in," she said sternly. She kept her eyes glued on him while she retrieved her purse from under her desk and started away. Lorne stood and watched her go and made sure that she was completely out of sight before he tried the door.

And found that it was locked just as Rose's had been. Evidently Angel hadn't trusted Harmony to be able to keep everyone out and had taken steps on his own.

Lorne hammered on the door with his fist, wincing at the pain in his hand, which rivaled the pain in his head. He figured he could keep this up all day, and if Angel didn't want to open the door, he wouldn't. He tried another tack.

"I know you're in there, Angelcakes," he shouted through the keyhole. "If you don't let me in, I'll tell security that I think something's wrong and have them break the door down."

The door swung open to reveal a stony-faced Angel. He glared at Lorne, although if the truth be told, he was angrier with himself than he could possibly be with anyone else now. He stood aside and motioned the empath inside and shut the door behind him.

&&&&&&

It was a small store front on a side street whose sign proclaimed it to be a fortune-teller's establishment. Wesley looked at it questioningly, then at the address on the sheet of paper in his hand, and went in.