Part of the Problem

"I know that technically, we shouldn't be here," Oz began.

"Oz," Angel broke in before the tutor could go on. "I trust your judgment. If you and the kids are here against the rules, I'm willing to take it on faith that it's important."

"Thanks, Angel," Oz mumbled to the floor. Then, he looked up and blurted out. "Did you know that Rose has amnesia?"

"What?" Angel's voice rose an octave, and the only thing that kept him from standing up to try to take the news on his feet was that he had Ariel on his lap. He looked at her, then at her brother, who was perched on the desk. "Why didn't you tell us?" he asked, trying to keep his tones even. Reminding himself that when all was said and done, they were just kids.

"We didn't think to, Uncle Angel," Ariel replied. She looked so guilty that Angel felt that he had to give her a reassuring cuddle.

"We thought you knew," Alaric added. "Why else would mummy go with that man?"

Angel exchanged a helpless look with Oz. Before either of them could comment, Lorne came charging in with Wes behind him, trying to see if he could set a speed record on crutches.

"Richard McDaniels has the Rosebud posing as his wife," the Pylean burst out. "He called her Lily, but I never forget a voice. And the voice that was singing on the phone was Rose."

"Did you get a reading on her?" Angel asked.

"Negative, Angelcakes," the empath replied. "It's got to be up close and personal for me to get a handle on things."

"What are the children doing here?" Wesley inquired, voice more than a little disapproving. "I thought the offices were off limits." It didn't stop him from maneuvering his way around the desk for hugs and kisses.

"According to them," Oz put in. "Rose has amnesia."

Lorne grabbed a bottle and a glass and sat down with them. He took in a serious medicinal dose of alcohol before speaking. "So that's why the blossom's going along with it," he muttered into his glass. "I knew something was wrong. Rose would never leave Spike of her own free will."

"Too damn right she wouldn't," came a voice from the doorway as the rest of the fang gang migrated in. "So, somebody cast a spell on her or some such?"

"According to your offspring," Wesley informed him. "Rose went with McDaniels because she doesn't remember you." He looked at the twins. "Could you tell if the amnesia was total? Could she remember anything at all?"

"She almost remembered fussing with people about shopping for clothes," Ariel offered.

"And she thought she might have remembered what color her wedding dress was," Alaric finished. "But that's not very much. She doesn't even remember us." He sounded mightily offended that mummy might not remember him.

Spike, who was about to take Ariel away from Angel, a nearly reflex action, suddenly dropped his arms to his sides and leaned heavily against the wall. "She doesn't remember us?" he inquired in shocked tones.

"And the reason may have been staring us in the face and we didn't realize it," Fred announced. "I blew up some stills I made from the airport security tapes." She pulled out a folder and extracted a photo. "Look here."

Everyone crowded around to see what Fred's dainty forefinger indicated.

"I ought to have blown this up a little more," Fred murmured. "But if you look real close, you can see some discoloration here." She pointed at Rose's forehead. "At first I thought it was defect on the film. Then, I started going through all the pictures, and it's on every one of them. Something must have hit Rose on the head."

Gunn's jaw dropped. "We're sitting in the middle of what used to be evil central," he said in a stunned voice. "Hardly anybody likes us, including our bosses, and then Rose loses her memory from a common garden variety accident?" He thought it over, and still had trouble dealing with the concept. "I think I need to sit down."

"We said it felt like she was hurt," Alaric informed all and sundry, a trifle smugly. But then, he thought about it again. "Poor mummy."

Lorne patted his nephew on the head. "So," he remarked. "We know where the Rosebud is and why, so why aren't we going there to get her?"

"Bloody good question," Spike said approvingly. He came up off the wall and headed for the weapons cabinet.

"Oh no you don't." Angel hurriedly deposited a little girl on his chair then grabbed Spike's arm and held tight. "We can't go charging in there armed to the teeth. Or go charging in there at all." He reflected that if looks could kill, he would be dying a slow, horrible death about now.

"Give me one good reason," Spike growled softly. "Just one reason why I can't go get my wife away from that git."

Angel sighed, but he really couldn't blame Spike for going off the deep end. He'd been with Rose, in one form or another, for the better part of ten years, and the two of them were as devoted to each other now as they had been in the beginning.

"Think about it, Spike," he said gently. "He's already told her that her name is Lily instead of Rose. That she's his wife instead of yours. What else could he have told her? For all we know, he could have her convinced that we're trying to kill her, or something like that. There's no guarantee she'll get her memory back the moment she sees you."

The tableau seemed frozen in time for long silent seconds. Then, Spike broke away and retrieved both of his children and sat in Angel's chair with them cuddled on his lap.

"So what exactly do we do now?" Lorne asked. The sight of Spike and the twins trying to comfort each other over the missing part of their very close-knit family was so sad it was breaking his heart. The emotions were too profound even for tears.

&&&&&&&

"Of course I want you to win the election," she declared. "And I do intend to be as good and supportive a wife as I can possibly be. I just don't think anyone is going to want to hear me sing."

"Lily, there are professionals out there who don't have half your voice," Richard vowed. He had truly been impressed with her singing. "I may not be able to sing myself, but I do have a good ear for it. And when I heard you sing, my first thought was, why on earth didn't she go pro?"

"Now you're getting carried away again," she accused, blushing. "I'm sure a professional singer would find my voice to be quite run of the mill."

Richard sighed resignedly. "I can see that I'm not going to convince you," he commented. "But you will sing, won't you, Lily, darling? For me?"

"I suppose so." She gave in with fairly ill-grace. She didn't feel comfortable with the idea of making a spectacle of herself in front of all those strangers.

"I've even got a special song for you to sing," he said. "I know it's not much notice, my dear, but do you think you can learn this?"

"I'm sure I can," she replied confidently, taking the proffered papers. Her confidence faded. "What language is that?" she asked in a small voice.

"Etruscan," Richard answered. "It's king of a good luck charm for me. Long story. And while I'd like to say that you're all the good luck I could ever need, I'm way too superstitious for that."

She was already studying the music intently, humming snatches of it. She was about to burst into song once, but he forestalled her.

"I know this is a pain," he said apologetically. "But you mustn't sing it until the night of your performance. Memorize the tune and the words, by all means, but please don't sing it out loud."

"More superstitions?" she asked.

"Exactly that," he agreed, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her cheek. "More superstitions."

&&&&&&&&

Come Monday, Richard went off to his job as a lawyer (and why did that seem like it should mean something to her, other than that was what her new husband did for a living?), but he insisted that she take some time to adjust.

"Once you've acclimated, and, hopefully, gotten your memory back," he remarked. "Then you can worry about looking for a job if you really want one." He dug into his pocket and produced a sizable bundle of cash. "If you want to shop or something," he explained to her puzzled look. "You're not a prisoner here, Lily, you're my wife."

She looked embarrassed and a little shy. "I hope I never gave you the impression that I feel like a prisoner, Richard," she mumbled. "But I'm afraid that I don't much feel like a wife, either."

"Give it a little time," he advised. "We haven't been married all that long, anyway. Meanwhile." He thrust the money into her hands. "Why don't you get out a little today? Go to a salon, shop, lunch out, whatever your little heart desires. Just as long as you're here waiting for me when I get home."

&&&&&&&&&

"Spike, I think practicing with live steel right now is probably not a good idea," Angel said, a little nervously. He knew that Spike was wound tighter than a clock spring right now, and he knew that he was the most readily available person for his grandchilde to take his feelings out on.

Spike looked down at the blade in his hand almost lovingly. Then he tossed it aside negligently. So negligently, in fact, that Angel had to move quickly to avoid being skewered by it. "Dammit, Spike! Be careful with that thing."

"Sorry." That Spike's heart wasn't in an apology to Angel was par for the course. But Angel had the feeling that right now, his heart wasn't in much of anything. "Maybe we ought to call today's session off. Don't think I'm much up to it."

Angel knew that Spike was hurting, but he also knew that the younger vampire would only take so much sympathy from him. Practically none, in fact. "We'll get her back, Spike. We always have before, haven't we?"

"That was different," Spike snapped, turning on him. "Suppose the bloody amnesia is permanent? She might never remember me and the kids. And she's with him." He turned away again. "She's never been with anyone but me, before. I guess I was always kind of proud of that. Like she'd never look at another bloke but me."

"You don't know that she has," Angel pointed out. "We do know that Richard McDaniels has her convinced that she's his wife. That doesn't mean that she would have been interested if he hadn't told her that."

"Doesn't change the fact that she's with him instead of here where she belongs," Spike muttered. "And I thought the week she was in England was bad. At least then she could call and e-mail us. We weren't completely cut off from her." He gave his grandsire a helpless and uncharacteristically revealing look. "What if she doesn't want to come back?"

Angel was about to open his mouth to say that Rose would never desert them, but he couldn't really say it with any certainty at the moment. The only guarantee would be with the return of Rose's memory. But what if it didn't return? He wasn't a doctor of any description, and he had no idea what the chances were of the one-time Power recovering her memory. He returned the helpless look, and he and Spike walked out of the practice room.

&&&&&&&&

"I understand that you're concerned about your mom," Oz said. "But you guys are starting to scare me. You can't keep an eye on her thoughts twenty-four seven."

Alaric looked at him thoughtfully. "Sure we can," he averred. "There's two of us. 'Sides, we sleep when she sleeps, so it's only during the day."

Oz wasn't going to keep hitting his head against that one. He'd let Spike deal with it. "What exactly do you expect to accomplish by monitoring her like that?"

"We'll know if she remembers anything," Ariel replied. She looked very serious all of a sudden. Her eyes closed, not in repose, but rather to shut out extraneous stimuli. Her face wore an expression of intense concentration. Alaric took her hands in his, but did nothing else, almost as though he were lending her whatever extra power she needed to accomplish her self-imposed task.

This continued on for several minutes, when it was finally over, the twins exchanged a glance, and Alaric took over monitoring his mother. Ariel located a piece of paper and started writing at a furious pace.

Oz watched silently, knowing that trying to intervene between the children and their beloved mother would not only be futile, but more than a bit cruel as well. He wouldn't try to put a halt to things unless it looked like the kids were about to hurt themselves.

Ariel finished her writing. Oz glanced over her shoulder at it. He'd been looking at their handwriting over their shoulders for more than five years now. But while the handwriting was Ariel's usual neat, careful script, he couldn't read a word of it. Nor, he suspected, could his young charges.

"Do you have any idea what it is?" he asked softly.

"I'm not sure," the little girl admitted. "The man told mummy that the language was Etruscan. It's not one of her better ones." Ariel said the last almost apologetically.

"She just thinks it's a song," Alaric added. When his sister gave him a look, he said, "They're just talking about shopping and stuff. Nothing important."

"I take it you don't think it's a harmless song?" Oz didn't even know why he should bother asking that one.

"We're not really sure," Ariel conceded. "I think we need to show it to Uncle Wes first."