"Angel Investigations, we help the hopeless." Cordelia said brightly into the phone. Listening to what the person on the other line was telling her, she sighed and pulled a notepad towards her. "I see. Uh huh. No problem. Where exactly are you? Uh huh? Okay, we'll be right there." She hung up and grabbed her coat. "Angel, saddle up! We've gotta go collect Darcy." She called.
Angel stuck his head around the basement door. "I'm busy, can't Gunn go?"
"Gunn's picking up the Chinese. Besides, you're her next of kin." Cordelia waved her notepad at him. "Guess where she is."
Angel rolled his eyes. "Not again."
Wesley came out of his office, coat on. "We should take Willow too."
Angel disappeared back down into the basement to tell Willow that they were going to have to break off their training session.
"I'll just tell Gunn where we've gone." Cordelia said, crossing back the the reception area and scribbling down a note.
Angel and Willow emerged from the basement and the small group left the hotel.
Angel, Cordelia, Wesley and Willow approached the lone security guard on detail at the morgue.
"Wonder how many of them they've gone through this month." Cordelia muttered to Willow with a nod at the guard. Willow smothered a grin.
"Hi, I'm A-" Angel scowled at Wesley and rubbed his ribs where he had elbowed him. That was going to bruise.
"I'm Geraldo Angel." Willow said stepping forward. "You called me earlier about my sister, Darcy Regan?"
Cordelia smiled encouragingly at Willow. The impromptu coaching she'd given her in the car on the way over was paying off, Willow had their cover story down pat.
The guard visibly relaxed and actually went so far as to smile at them. "Yeah, you here to collect her dog?"
Willow nodded briefly. "I'd actually like to collect the... the body if I could. I'd prefer it if Darcy were to remain at home until her funeral." Willow ducked her head, pulling herself together.
Cordelia was impressed. Back in high school, Willow had been unable to tell a lie without blushing furiously. Then again, vampire physiology wasn't exactly geared towards blushing.
"No problem." The guard said, and pushed some paperwork towards them. "You just gotta fill these forms out."
Willow picked up a pen and pulled the top sheet towards her. She frowned and scratched her head.
Sensing a problem, Angel spoke up. "Would you be able to get Swift for us?"
"Swift?" The guard seemed puzzled. "Oh, the dog, right? I'll go get him."
As soon as the guard had left the room, Angel moved to stand next to Willow and helped her with the forms. They almost had the last one finished when Willow looked up, head cocked slightly to one side.
"He's coming back." She whispered to him.
Quickly, Angel pulled the forms towards him, grabbed the pen and signed each one.
"Finished." Willow said as the guard came back into the room and handed the paperwork to him.
A small black and white border collie slunk over to her side and looked up at her, whining. Willow crouched down beside him.
"Hey fella." She said, rubbing his ears.
"Don't make a fuss of him." Angel told her. Willow looked up at him, surprised. "He's done something wrong and he knows it."
The security guard cleared his throat. "I sorted out the body for you, I'll just get someone to give you a hand to your car."
"That's okay." Willow said, standing up and glaring briefly at Angel. "I'll carry her."
The guard nodded and motioned for Willow to follow him. She did.
"What was it this time?" Angel asked Swift.
Swift looked up at him and then turned to Cordelia. "Who is this person?" The small dog asked.
"That's Angel." Cordelia enlightened him.
The dog looked at the door that Willow had gone through. "Then who was that?"
"That was Willow." Cordelia told him. "Stop stalling and tell us what happened."
Swift yawned and stretched. He'd told them before that it was the dog equivalent of a shrug. "There was a cat. I'm a dog. It's my duty to chase cats." He defended himself.
"You live with a cat." Cordelia pointed out. "Why would you want to chase one?"
"Basil is different. He's intelligent. Don't tell him I said that!" Swift sniffed Angel curiously.
Angel gently pushed him away with a foot. "So you chased a cat. Then what happened?"
Swift got as low to the ground as possible. What he wouldn't give to be able to express his emotions as well as humans. "The cat went under a lilac bush." He whimpered.
Cordelia rolled her eyes.
"I hope Gunn's prepared the rooms." Angel said as he held the door open for Willow to pass through.
Willow frowned and shifted Darcy slightly, trying to get a better grip on her. "Huh?"
"We have a standard procedure for these events." Wesley explained. "There are certain rooms that we use whenever Darcy is incapacitated. For example, we use the Lilac Suite whenever she suffers from toxin inhalation. It's a series of three interconnecting rooms. One of the is the contaminated room, another is the decontamination room and the third is the recovery room. We use each room only for it's specified purpose. Otherwise we risk cross-contamination."
Willow was stunned. "Wow. You've really put a lot of thought into this, haven't you?" She said, following Cordelia up the staircase.
"Angel felt that with all of the problems Darcy's had to overcome, she should have one place where she was always going to be safe." Cordelia explained, leading the way into a room.
Putting Darcy down onto a small bed Willow took a long look around the room. It was decorated in dark shades of lilac and the outside of the door Cordelia still held open was painted a bright red. Willow supposed that this was meant as a warning for Darcy, in case she inadvertently went to open the door.
Fred scooted past the door, having been fully briefed by Wesley downstairs.
"Where's Fred going?" Willow asked, surprised that she wasn't going to give them a hand.
Cordelia closed the door. "She'll be in the other room, getting some fresh clothes out for Darcy." She moved over to the bed. "Help me get her clothes off."
Between the two of them they quickly stripped the tiny dhampir and Cordelia bundled up the clothes Darcy had been wearing.
"I'm going to go put these in the washing machine and take a shower. You take Darcy into the bathroom and give her a cold shower. When you're done, shower down the room and give Fred a quick knock on the other door and go take a shower yourself. If you leave those clothes outside the bathroom door, one of the boys will make sure they're gone by the time you come out." Cordelia instructed the bemused Willow.
Willow did as she had been told. When she had showered, she stood in front of the bathroom mirror, entranced by her lack of a reflection. She kinda wished she did have a reflection, it would be fun to see Angel naked. Not that she couldn't see him naked, she mused, after all she had to do was drop the towel.
Willow didn't drop the towel. She walked away and got dressed, trying her hardest not to look at the thing nestled between her legs.
When she was dressed, she stood in the middle of Angel's room, unsure of what to do next. Slowly, her thoughts pulled her away from her current predicament, which was why she jumped at the knock on her door.
"Willow?" Angel called from the other side of the door. "Are you dressed?" He administered another mental slap to himself. What did it matter if she was or wasn't dressed? It was his body damn it!
Despite the late hour, Lilah Morgan was still working. The detective Wolfram and Hart owned had reported back to her just as she had been about to go home and now she was desperately trying to figure out who the two women who had gone into the Hyperion Hotel were and whether or not they were new players. To make matters worse, the detective had called her three hours later to report that the redhead had gone out with Angel and two of the others and they had returned with an unconscious Darcy Regan.
At the thought of the diminutive dhampir, Lilah allowed a small smirk to play on her lips. The last time the two of them had tangled, Darcy had reportedly been dead for the rest of the day. Nowadays, whenever Darcy sought legal representation, she went to one of the underlings, rather than one of Lilah's opposites. Lilac perfume was better than mace any day.
The smirk slipped when Lilah recalled that she didn't know who the two girls were, never mind their connection to Darcy Regan. She sighed. It looked like she was going to be taking another trip down to Files and Records.
