Disclaimer: Since my name is not Joss Whedon, 'Angel' and all the characters associated with the show belong to someone who isn't me. I also don't own the storyline - that's taken from gidgetgirl's 'Twice The Trouble' Challenge, posted on the Chocolate Covered Strawberries Challenge Archive.

'Twice The Trouble' Challenge

A Fred Throwback. In season five of Angel, Illyria's attempt to takeover Fred's body is thwarted by the Powers that Be, and the result is that, when Illyria enters Fred's body, the body splits in half: into two identical little girls, save one has blue hair. The Angel gang has to keep little Illyria (if that's her name...) from taking over the world, and take care of little Fred. You take it from there.

Requirements:
The evil one must have blue hair.
Harmony must make an appearance in the fic.
Both Gunn and Wes must babysit... one of the girls must like each of them better than the other.

Dedication: I'd like to dedicate this chapter to my new beta, Botticelli's Venus.

Author's Note: To gidgetgirl – Thanks for the taco tip. Don't worry, the longer Illyria is in little girl form, the more childlike she will become.

Words in / / = Thoughts.

Chapter 2.

Half an hour later, Angel's Office

"Man, this place must be the grandmother of all rumour mills!" Lorne, in one of his typically colourful ensembles, strode into Angel's office where the rest of the gang were waiting. "So far, I've talked to at least twenty different people and I've heard twenty different versions of what happened. So what 's the . . .?" He trailed off as he caught sight of the two little girls. "Oh."

"That's about accurate." Wesley commented dryly.

Little Fred, who had been sitting on the couch next to her counterpart while Illyria studied the small red dot on her arm, a reminder of her first experience of bleeding, fascinated, slipped over to where Wesley stood, tugging on his shirt, her brown eyes wide with fright.

"He's a monster!" Wesley could barely hear her hissed whisper. "Is he going to hurt us?" She ducked behind the former Watcher as a rather hurt Lorne looked over at her.

Wesley patted her head, giving her a reassuring smile. "This is Lorne. He's our friend. He's not going to hurt you."

She peeked out shyly from behind Wesley's leg. "Why is he green? Is he an alien?"

"Lorne's uh . . ." Wesley racked his brains, trying to think of an appropriate cover story, one that would satisfy the four year old without completely traumatizing her. "Lorne's a goblin." He announced at last, ignoring the amused looks Lorne, Angel and Gunn were exchanging. "A good goblin." /Thank heaven for fairytales! / "You see," he soldiered on with his story, making full use of the fairytale angle to answer her previous questions. "Someone cast a magic spell that brought you here to us and made another little girl that looked like you." He nodded towards little Illyria.

"But she's not me, is she?" Fred interrupted, wanting to clarify that point.

"No, of course not." Wesley assured her. "You just look alike. My friends and I are going to try to undo the spell, but until then, you have to stay with us, okay?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Wesley saw Illyria roll her eyes, clearly not one whit impressed by his rather lame cover story, but to his relief, she made no attempt to contradict him.

Little Fred, devotee of fairytales that she was, accepted his story without a murmur, offering Lorne a shy smile before trotting back to the couch and the comic Harmony had donated.

Illyria sat next to her, staring off into space.

Wesley did not want to know what was going through her mind.

"So, what are we supposed to do with them now?" Angel asked, keeping his voice low as he and his friends moved away from the two girls.

"Doublemint commercial?" Lorne threw up his hands in a gesture of mock surrender. "Kidding."

"This is no laughing matter." Wesley's tone was snappish. "This is serious!"

"Face it, guys," Gunn sounded glum. "You could fit our combined knowledge of taking care of little girls on the head of a pin and we know even less about raising little goddesses."

"We don't have any clothes for them, we don't have any toys, we don't have a room to put them in." Angel ticked the items off on his fingers. "I don't even know what to feed them – what do little girls eat anyway?"

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Gunn couldn't keep from laughing at that question. "Come on, man, this is Fred we're talking about – just order in some tacos."

Lorne regarded the two small figures on the couch warily. "They are housebroken, right?" Human children were not one of his specialities.

"She's not a puppy!" Wesley snapped, irritated. "You are talking about one of our closest friends!"

Lorne laid a gentle hand on Wesley's shoulder, his expression one of sympathy and understanding. "We'll get her back, champ." He gave his friends a small smile. "In the mean time, how bad can these two be?"

* * *

An hour and a half later.

The Angel Investigations team had learned a valuable lesson.

Large tacos in small hands were not the best idea, especially when one pair of hands was completely unaccustomed to eating.

The area around the two children was thoroughly littered with shards of lettuce, scraps of meat and globules of spicy sauce.

Angel visibly winced every time another dollop of food landed on his previously clean carpet.

The cleaners would not be happy when they came in the following morning.

Fred and Illyria, needless to say, were not in any better a condition than their surroundings.

Their hands, faces, matching yellow sundresses and even their hair were all liberally coated in the parts of their meal that hadn't quite made it to their mouths.

Illyria had added the final touch to the mess by spilling her drink, flooding Angel's conference table in a river of cherry cola.

Angel glared over at Lorne. "'How much trouble can they be?'" He scowled. "I hate you sometimes."

The small blue haired deity, looking less than divine in the remains of her meal, took a napkin and dabbed futilely at her sundress, giving up in disgust when her cleaning attempts were met with a total lack of success.

She yawned widely, frowning at the new sensation. "What is happening?" Since awakening in her human form, she had been prey to a wide variety of new sensations and she wasn't sure if she enjoyed any of them.

"You're tired." Fred told her knowledgeably. "It's probably past your bedtime."

Illyria drew herself up to her full height. "I do not have a bedtime." She announced in a dignified tone.

"Lucky!" Fred whispered enviously.

"Bedtime sounds good." Angel interrupted hastily, wanting to get the two girls packed off to bed before they could do any more damage. /I knew that Illyria would be a handful but Fred . . . /

"Uh, I think that we'll need to clean them up some before we do anything." Spike pointed out logically.

The five men exchanged an uncomfortable look, none of them thinking it appropriate for them to undertake the task of bathing the two girls.

After a few moments, Angel finally broke the silence.

"HARMONY!"

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Angel's suite.

"I am so asking for a raise." Harmony grumbled as she rinsed the shampoo suds out of little Fred's hair, being careful not to splash her eyes. "This was not in my job description."

The blonde vampire's pink top was already wringing wet and she had made the colossal error of bathing the two little girls together, meaning that Angel's bathroom was flooded by their combined splashing.

"Okay," She lifted Fred out of the tub and dried her off before tackling her long brown curls with a comb, being as gentle as she could.

"It hurts!" Fred wailed tearfully as Harmony teased out the tangles.

"Beauty is pain." Harmony told her, setting down the comb and starting to wind the four year old's hair into a long braid. "There." She released the young girl as soon as she was done. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

Little Fred did not even dignify that with a response.

Sighing deeply, feeling as though she was the most tortured vampire in existence, harmony turned her attention to Illyria, eyeing the blue streaks in the little goddess's hair doubtfully.

"Maybe I should dye it." She mused aloud. "That way you'll fit in better."

"No need." Illyria smiled devilishly as her head was enveloped in an ethereal glow.

Little Fred's eyes were wide with admiration. "That is so cool!"

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Angel's office.

"You owe me." Harmony announced, stepping into Angel's office, holding the two little girls by the hand. "Big time."

"Thanks." Angel shot her a grateful look.

"We appreciate it." Wesley added sincerely.

"They wanted to say goodnight." Harmony told the assembled men, nodding towards the little girls, whom she had dressed in long black T-shirts purloined from Angel's wardrobe. "At least," She amended. "Fred did."

Wesley's smile faltered as he looked down at the girls.

Two little brunettes, identical down to the hairs on their heads, grinned back up at him.

"Isn't it cool!" Harmony enthused. "Illyria did it."

Wesley barely suppressed a groan.

/Great! / He thought unhappily. /How are we supposed to take care of them if we don't know which is which? /

TBC.