Disclaimer: see pervious chap

a/n: Hullo..first, thanks go out to the one person who reviewed (makes me feel loved, y'all). Anyway, sorry that this took so long to get up. I've been real busy with school and crap like that, and this chap is a bit longer than the last (by, like, 1000 words or so...not that much of a difference...) and my computer was being gay (as it does...a lot) anyway, enough of my excuses. Enjoi

Felicity sat up, drenched in a cold sweat, gasping for air. She looked over at the alarm clock. The bright red numbers that read 6:03 AM jarred her out of the after-shock of the nightmare. For the past week, memories such as that one had been plaguing her normally dreamless sleep. She got up and walked over to her medicine cabinet. Advil. that's what she needed. The phantom images often brought along with them a phantom headache. Just yesterday she woke up screaming with the man in the apartment across the hall banging on the door, thinking that someone was killing her or something.

She still had about two hours before she had to be anywhere, but she knew she wouldn't be able to get back to sleep. Running was the only thing she could think of doing, it would help her sort her thoughts. Felicity had always been under the impression that running, or exercising in general, was one of the most calming things you could do, seeing as how you don't need to put any great thought into what you were doing.

The air outside was crisp and cool...or rather as crisp and cool as the air could get in the middle of L.A. She thought back to the dream she had just had. She knew what had triggered the long-suppressed memories, even if she didn't want to admit it. Midnight. Felicity had belonged to midnight for most of her life; 213 years to be exact. Midnight had been headquarters for the reigning vampiric community through the 17th, 18th, and beginning of the 19th centuries. Jeshickah and her sister had founded Midnight in the mid-1500's and steadily gained power until they had control of the majority of the vampiric community in the early 1600's. The backbone of the entire empire was the very prosperous human slave trade.

Felicity entered the trade when she was 12 in 1622 and had belonged to Gabriel until Midnight was destroyed by an opposing group of older vamps (most of them from Silver's line) around 1835. It came to her attention some 50 years later that the vampires who destroyed Midnight abolished the slave trade, as well, claiming they didn't believe in caged prey. For the first time in ages Felicity had been able to live without the constant anxiety of Gabriel coming back to claim her. Until just recently, that is.

About a week before, Felicity had been sitting in Karatas,(as she often did) talking to two vampires. The two were brothers (twins, actually) and had known Felicity since the 1930's. Both of the were strong and extremely loyal to those they consider a friend. They made good conversation (most of the time), that added to the fact that they were both hot, made them good company. They had been sitting at the table for awhile, making decent (I wouldn't call it pleasant) conversation, when Kristopher (the older of the two) had suddenly remembered something and turned the conversation completely.

'Oh, have you heard, Felicity?' he said brightly.

'Heard what?' she replies with a smile.

'About Midnight. I mean, Nikolas and I are too young to have been around for the original Midnight, but we thought maybe you were old enough–'

'Wait,' she said sharply, cutting him off. 'Did you say Midnight?'

'Yeah,' Kristopher said slowly. 'I take it you were around for the original Midnight, then.'

'Yeah,' she said coldly. 'Yeah, I was. So what have you heard about it?'

'It's been rebuilt,' Nikolas spoke this time. He elaborated in response to the look on Felicity's face. 'One of the slave trainers decided to rebuild it. I'm not sure which one, though. All I know is that Jeshickah has no part in it yet. Consequently, its not as strong as it once was.'

Felicity struggled for words for a moment, but finally managed to spit out:'Who...who told you?' She hoped that it had been some unreliable source, that maybe the twins sources were wrong for once. But, of course, she wasn't that lucky.

'Kendra,' Nikolas supplied, naming the first vampire in his line. 'She told me at a bash the other night.'

'She got the news from one of her fledglings by the name of Daryl. he was a part of the original Midnight, apparently,' Kristopher finished for his brother.

'The new Midnight...does it include the slave trade?' she asked, trying desperately to mask her fear.

'I believe so,' Nikolas said, taking a sip from a glass filled with a red liquid that Felicity had no desire to identify. At that moment, her heart sank and bother vampires decided to change the conversation again, upon seeing the obvious distress their friend was in.

Felicity had replayed the conversation in her mind over and over again, hoping that she had heard something wrong. Alas, it was not so. Just as the twins had said, Midnight was back. Simply the thought of Midnight was enough to bring back the painful memories of her past with Gabriel.

Felicity returned home, showered, dressed, and headed off to the theatre, making a pit stop at Starbucks for breakfast. At work a couple people asked her if she was feeling alright, saying she looked rather ill. She said she hadn't been sleeping well. Her fellow cast members than spent the better part of an hour suggesting ways to help her sleep better. The favorite idea was calling the tech director and have him lecture her on the importance of floor mics, a lecture they had long since memorized. After rehearsal, Felicity went and ate a quiet lunch at Wendy's (mmmm...fast food) before heading over to the dance studio where she studies jazz, tap, ballet, lyrical, and some acro and swing.. She had always enjoyed dancing, and she had a distinct talent for it.

After dance and dinner, she headed over to Karatas to listen to some horrible karaoke, drink some rootbeer, and perhaps have a chat with Lorne. It was 9 o'clock before anything even remotely noteworthy happened. She was sitting at the table, watching the current singer. The man (vampire, actually) lacked talent in singing, but oh was he nice to look at. He stood at about 6'1" and was well built. He has a sort of casually spiked hairstyle that made you want to run your hand through his hair. his child-like shyness on the stage accented his already angelic features. though he wasn't really Felicity's type, she knew many girls who would kill to go out with him. In particular, her co-worker, Carmen.

The thought of Carmen started a completely new train of thoughts that eventually led to her performance on Friday. It was the closing performance, and family/ close friends of the cast got in free. She had asked Lorne to come, but he was busy that night (or so he said). She hated not having anyone she knew come to her shows. It reminded her how alone she really was in the world.

The man singing at the moment finished and stepped down to where Lorne was standing with some four other people. Probably the singers friends; Lorne would never discuss a client in front of them otherwise. She was about to get up and leave 9she was tired; lack of sleep and a busy day will do that to you), when Lorne called her over to the table.

'Felicity, I think you might be able to help,' he called. 'Would you come over here for a bit?'

Puzzled, she obliged as Lorne explained to the people he was talking to. 'She's blood-bonded to a vampire, though she won't tell me who, and knows a lot about the vampiric community outside L.A. She'll most likely be able to help.'

'What's up, Lorne?' she asked as she approached.

'Felicity, this is Angel Investigations.' She blinked...the name had no meaning to her whatsoever. 'Anyway, they're a detective agency...all about helping the helpless. They've got a potential case, but they're stuck. I thought maybe you could help.'

'Help how?'

'Information,' said the man who would later be introduced as Angel. 'We don't have very many courses outside of California, and we think that what's coming is a lot bigger than California.'

She pulled up a chair and sat down. "I'll help under one condition,' she said, an idea suddenly coming to her.

'And what would that be?'

'You come to my show on Friday,' she said with a smile.

There was a unanimous 'Huh?' across the table.

'Felicity is an actress,' Lorne explained. 'This Friday is their closing show; Family and friends get in free, However, she has no one to come see here, and it makes her feel like a loner.'

She laughed. He knew her all too well. "What he said,' was her reply. Everyone agreed to her terms, saying that it'd it be nice to have a Friday off. They spent the next ten minutes casually talking about the play before Felicity remembered the purpose of the conversation.

'Okay,' she said. 'What do you want to know?'

'There's something starting to happen among the greater vampiric community,' Wesley said (introductions had been made during the afore mentioned conversation.) "The only thing is we don't know what.'

'We think it's some sort of revolution. A shift in power,' Angel continued. 'We know a lot, but not enough to know what's coming.'

Felicity did. If Midnight was back, as Nikolas and Kristopher had said, then it was possible, even probable, that they were trying to overthrow Silver's line in New Mayhem. She sighed. "I think I may know what's going on,' she started. She wanted to make sure that her past didn't come up in this, so she had to chose her words carefully. 'About 300 years ago, there was an empire that was ruled by the reigning line of vampires at the time. In 1835, it was destroyed by an opposing line, and they've ruled the lunar(see bottom on this one, mates) vampiric community since. It's come to my attention, however, that some are trying to reconstruct the empire. I'm not positive, but it's likely they're trying to regain some of their old power.'

'This empire,' Gunn said. 'How powerful was it?'

'Really powerful. They had control over practically everything.'

'Was this a good type of powerful?' Fred asked. 'I mean, what would happen if they did get more power?'

'Has there ever been a good type of powerful?' Felicity responded. 'If they had power like they used to, the effects would be devastating.'

'Then we should have someone in this empire, shouldn't we?' Angel asked, thinking strategically, as always. 'We should have someone check it out, to get information.'

Felicity nearly laughed. Send one of the four humans into Midnight? If they were lucky, they would simply be killed. If they weren't, well, the other options weren't all that enticing. 'Angel, if anyone but you goes into this place, they won't come out. It's not typically a place were you would send humans that you care about.'

'It's that bad, eh?' Gunn commented.

'It's that bad and worse.'

'So how do we stop it?'

'You don't. Sooner or later, Silver's line out in New Mayhem is going to catch wind of this and stop it. There aren't enough of you to stop this by yourselves.'

'But we need to do something,'Cordelia argues. 'We can't just sit around and–'

Felicity cut her off. 'I know the people who work in that empire, alright? I know what they're capable of, and I know they will have no hesitation in mercilessly torturing you all to death if you interfere with their plans. these people have no heart to speak of; they have fetish in killing innocent people. If you go in there, you'll die, if you're lucky. If you try and stop them, then kiss your arse goodbye. you my be strong, but four humans and a vampire won't be strong enough.' She stopped to catch her breath and regain her composure. She hade just given her speech without taking a single breath; she was sincere about her cause. She alone knew what would happen to them if they decided to be idiots. They had all seemed nice enough, and she didn't want to see them die. She sighed, and added, 'It's getting late, and I have work in the morning.' She jotted her cell phone number down on a napkin. 'Call me if there anything more I can do. Sorry I couldn't be more of a help.'

With those words, felicity stood up and walked out before anyone else could get in another word.

note: ok...bout this whole lunar vampire thing, becasue I know you think that I'm on crack right now. Ok, awhile back, I found this super awesome Atwater-Rhodes fansite, with all thins info that you don't get in the books. And anyway, it mentioned that Amelia has two types of vampires (lunar and solar) but has only written about lunar vamps as of yet. So, by simply claiming that Angel is a solar vamp, I can easliy explain all the differences betweens Amelia's vamps (Gabriel, Nikolas, Kristopher, ect.) and Joss Whendon's vamps (Angel).

a/n: so, did you like it? love it? or hate it? If you did hate, don't tell me...I perfer to live in my world of denial...please review peeps. Oh, and btw, I knew there is discrepency in the math. It's supposed to be like that, so please coughwormtailcough don't mention it in your review...