Distribution, disclaimer, and summary can be found in the first chapter.
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Grunts and heavy breathing accompanied the shuffling of feet. Gunn awkwardly clung to Angel's upper torso while Spike held Angel's legs by their ankles.
Between gasps, Gunn tried to huff a complaint, "So why…did I…ugh…get volunteered…to carry most of the dead weight?"
Spike shrugged his shoulders with relative ease, jostling Angel and threatening Gunn's balance. "Figure I gotta be ready in case we get jumped. I'm quicker—vamp moves 'n' all."
"You're also…stronger. Vamp strength…'n' all."
"Yea, but if we get attacked, I could just drop his feet and start swingin'. But hey, I got no problem droppin' his head instead. Wanna trade?"
Sore ribs, ugly-ass-lookin' arm, starving…yea, let's add concussion to Angel's injury list. Gunn dismissed the proposal and continued to lumber along. "So why…couldn't Connor help?"
"Oi, don't you start in on the kid. He's scoutin' out the tunnels for us. He can't carry the unconscious champion and look out for demon armies."
Reluctantly, Gunn accepted the fact that he was stuck with the lifting.
"Look Charlie, if you wanna stop and sprawl on the sewer grounds for a tick, we'll catch a breather." Spike dropped Angel's feet with a thud.
"You don't breathe." Gunn gently propped Angel against a wall and sat next to him, in effort to keep him from falling face first into the sewer's filth. "How far ahead is Connor?"
Spike sniffed the air for Connor's scent and looked toward the surface, "He should be underneath the hotel by now. We're only a couple o' blocks away."
"Wish Illyria was here. She'd have our backs. And she could carry Angel with one hand," Gunn mumbled. "Wonder where she is right now."
"She was on the east coast last I heard," Spike said as he sat on Angel's other side. "She paid a few shamans to send me a vision. I was drinkin' for days after that pain."
"What's on the east coast?"
"Nothin' apparently. She's just followin' leads, chasin' the bad guys…or the good guys. Whatever."
"The good guys?"
"She ran into Giles diggin' up dirt in Cleveland."
"That name supposed ta mean somethin' to me?"
"He, uh, he was Buffy's watcher. The one she had before Wes." Spike quickly rambled on, trying to avoid a conversation over his lost love. "Giles followed some coven info to New York and met up with some guy in a bookstore."
"What was he looking for?"
"Prophecies on Angel. History on Angel. How Angel found Buffy. Backstory between Angel and Wolfram & Hart. Anything. Everything he could find."
"What did he find?"
"Don't know. That's what big blue's after."
They sat in silence for a moment and had a brood session. Gunn realized that—were Angel awake—it was what Angel would be doing. He would be sitting on the cold cement with them, trying to think of a way out of the mess that Wolfram and Hart chased them into. No, not just Wolfram and Hart anymore. Both old and new sectors of the Watcher's Council had staked their claim in Angel's legacy as well. Good and evil were after Angel, though Gunn and Spike weren't sure which organization fell into which of the two categories. Angel was apparently the one man that evil couldn't beat down, and his fight had become an instant legend in the eyes of the future warriors for the Powers. He and his friends had been devastated in their battle, yet they were still standing.
"We should've died in that fight." Gunn bluntly stated, letting the bitter sound of the sentence hang in the moist air.
Spike tried to laugh it off. "Really? Think things woulda been better off, do ya?"
Gunn nodded in agreement. "We wouldn't be running like mice in one of those runny-wheel thingies. Angel would've found his redemption. Illyria would've been able to find her own place in the world, whatever that is. Connor would've been able to put his past with Angel—and us—behind him and lead a normal life..."
"We're all supposed to be here, Charlie, otherwise the Powers woulda just let us get sliced up into tiny, tiny pieces."
"So you're okay with still being here?"
"What's the alternative?"
"You wouldn't have to worry about the Powers thinking you're a champion, 'cause you would've died one."
"Oh." Spike thought over how good that actually sounded, "Well, point of fact—that could be a half-decent alternative." Spike looked into Gunn's wistful eyes and knew he was thinking of his own demise. "And you, Charlie boy? What would you get out of the deal?"
"Me…well, I was kinda hoping Alonna and I could talk for a while without goin' out to fight vamps every night."
"Alonna?"
"My sister. She was turned right around the time I met Angel. She was the first vamp I staked when I started slayin' with the group."
"So she's why you do this?"
"No. Not really. My parents died cause of vamps; a lot of my friends died cause of vamps. It was just what I had to do. Cause I could. Wonder where my truck is?" Spike looked at him in uncertainty, wondering if Gunn had finally caved under the pressure of running, but Gunn only smiled. "She was the ultimate ride—stake launcher in the back, massive pikes comin' out the front. She could take out twenty vamps on a good night."
"What happed to it?"
"Her, Spike. Her."
"Fine, what happened to 'er?"
"When we joined Wolfram & Hart, I gave her to the group I used to fight with back home. I bet they're takin' decent care of her."
Spike envied the simplicity of Gunn's love for his truck. It was something he could cling to, fondly remember. Spike had few things like that. Well, few things that didn't involve mile-wide massacres, anyway.
"Spike, you got a truck?"
"Had a De Soto once."
"No," Gunn laughed, "I mean, you got anything that you always look back on?"
Spike's eyes glittered, "There was this girl once…"
"We're not talking about Buffy."
Spike looked at him in shock. "I wasn't even gonna say her."
"Right."
Suddenly, Connor raced around the corner, startling them both to their feet as they took protective stances over Angel's body.
"Get Dad. We have to go."
After taking a closer look, Gunn noticed a slight slump in Connor's posture. A glimmer of light reflected off of the nearby sewer water, illuminating a gash on his temple. Drops of blood trickled from the still-open wound and merged with the filth as they hit the sewer bottom.
Gunn lifted Connor's hairline to get a closer look and winced at the sight. "How did this happen?"
"How else? Demons." Connor reached to pull Angel off of the ground, but expectantly looked up when neither Gunn nor Spike moved. "You guys gonna stay here and die or help me carry him the rest of the way? We don't really have a lot of time here."
Spike shrugged, "I'm in."
Rolling his eyes, Gunn picked up a pipe leaning against a wall and hefted it over his shoulder, testing its weight. "So, what we fightin'?"
Connor managed to lift Angel into a fireman's carry and picked up the pace, "Come on. We just have to get to the Hyperion."
"How 'bout you tell us now, and I'll decide whether I need to find another pipe for Spike," Gunn retorted, while he and Spike lagged behind.
"I ran into some demons beneath the hotel. They thought they were going to be able to ambush us all at once, but I managed to kill the ones that I found there. I got a little information out of one of them: there are about a hundred demons coming behind us—fast. The plan wasn't just the diversion from the front; they were going to try to trap us from the back too."
"So even if we get into the Hyperion," Gunn began to rationalize, "how do we stay alive when we can't escape?"
--
Yorkshire 1880
"Excellent, William. You've done it again."
William raced down the sewer with a confident air, chin raised in selfish pride, while Darla continued to scold her great-grandchilde to no avail. She was tired, hungry, and fed up with running from mob scenes. Trying to keep her dress off of the dank sewer ground was becoming a chore as she hurried with only one shoe on; she carried the other in her hand after its heel broke off in the chase.
"How you've managed to attract two mobs in a matter of mere days astounds me. Angelus and I relish in our own messes and massacres, but this—leaving people behind to scurry and band together against us…it's nothing close to anything resembling intellect, William."
"Drucilla left something behind," William replied, "something important to her. And my Dru's not happy when she doesn't have things her way, is she?"
Pouting, Drucilla bowed her head and softly mewled. "All my pretty things are gone. I shall miss them so." She looked up at Angelus, pleading with her eyes. "What shall I do without all my gifts from Daddy?"
Angelus broke the firm glare that he held on the two love birds, always unable to resist Drucilla's pouting, and tucked a reassuring finger under Drucilla's chin. "Don't worry, my dark girl. Daddy will always have new surprises."
Slowly reaching underneath his jacket, Angelus gently cradled a porcelain doll and offered it to Drucilla.
Wide-eyed, Darla peered at it in awe. "Oh, Angelus, it's perfect for her. It's absolutely beautiful."
Hair, blacker than obsidian, adorned the dolls' head, providing stunning contrast to the fair, milky-white of its skin. Drucilla drew her hands over the doll and pulled it into a tender embrace, uncharacteristic for a creature so deadly as she. She marveled at the realistic touches—the velvety lace of the dress that subtly led to the tiny black shoes, the delicate pinks and reds that lighted on the cheeks and lips, the flecks of gold that shone in the olive colored eyes…
"No! I take offense to her eyes! She watches me! I hear her mocking joy for such a dead thing. We are all the same to her. All brothers and sisters in her unbeating heart!"
Angelus tore a small piece of cloth from his shirt cuff and wrapped it around the doll's head, blindfolding it with the black material. "There now, it can't see with that on, now can it?"
Smiling, Drucilla held it in front of her and inspected it once more. "Oh, it's perfect now, Daddy! I'll keep it forever. She looks like a little girl I ate once. Her name was Edith."
The group began moving along in the sewers again, with Drucilla still fawning over her new present, while William remained behind, mumbling desperate attempts to vie for his sire's attention. "Drucilla, love, if you think that doll's special, just wait—I'll buy you dozens of dolls…hundreds. You'll have any doll you want, every doll…"
From only a few yards back, the sounds of an angry mobs' footsteps crept closer. Torches faintly lit the confined tunnels, and pitchforks glinted sharply in the golden crackles of light. The townspeople bitterly grinned, hungry with the prospect that they grew closer to the vampires—creatures that they began referring to as prey.
