Title: New Friends, Old Places

Disclaimer: See prologue.

Rating: PG-13

Author: Supergurl15

Author's Note: Sorry it took me a long time to update. School stuff, work stuff, volunteer stuff, college stuff, driving lessons. I got my license! And then the whole fact that my computer ERASED MY ENTIRE FIC!!! It sucked because, well, this whole chapter was basically done. Ready for posting and everything!!!! And I didn't have a backup copy, yeah… I'm just pretty dumb like that. So I had to try and remember what I wrote for Chapter 7 and retype it again. Normally I keep all of my stuff in a notebook, but I dunno why I didn't for this chapter. I really wanted to cry. But no, I didn't abandon you guys. Oh and thanks for the reviews. Glad to see that this fic is bringing a warm ray of sunshine to your corner of the world. Sorry, but I had this urge to say something corny.

Enjoy!

Just as a reminder, I own nothing... just the plot idea.

Takes place around season two of Angel.

Thoughts and sometimes titles are in italics.

Chapter 7

Two hours and some odd minutes later Chloe still had the dark red throw pillow pressed against her head. Towards the beginning of the movie she had decided that it would make a good ally in her constant battle to keep the endless stream of questions and comments from pouring out of Angel's mouth.

Some help you were. She thought as she threw the pillow back on the chair. During the course of the movie she had used the pillow to hit, throw, punch, and scream into, to no avail.

He asks more questions than my dad does when we're watching The Simpsons. Which is one thing I'll never understand, how can you question a comedy?! Drama, and action is understandable, but a comedy?

"How can you watch this?"

Chloe looked up from the pillow on the chair to her questioner.

"First of all, NO ONE bashes the glory that is Anne Rice. And two, what do you mean 'how can I watch this?' I couldn't watch anything with you commenting on every aspect of the movie."

"It couldn't be helped. Who still sleeps in a coffin?"

"That's the beauty of modern pop culture. Some things are just better off unquestioned."

"Of course there had to be a vampire that could read minds." Angel said, as if Chloe just hadn't spoken a second earlier.

"Remind me to never watch another movie with you as long as I live."

"And how did they have reflections?!"

"Yep. No DVDs, VHS, trips to the movie theater, web videos, presentations, basically any type of visual media."

A consistent trio of knocking stopped their conflicting argument and diverted their attention to the front door.

Chloe smirked, as she realized who was knocking, or who she thought was knocking at the hotel door. Her suspicions were answered when Angel flung the door open and three people nearly tripped over the threshold, of course the bags and boxes were the first to fall to the floor.

"Warn us next time you do that. It's not like I didn't already HAVE a headache courtesy of the Powers that Be." Cordelia put a hand to her already aching head. "Thanks for making it worse, and another thank you for scattering my precious NEW belongings all over the ground… again."

Angel sighed softly, before helping Cordelia up and going to pick up some of the fallen boxes. "Cordy, are you…"

"Before any of you start up the whole nurse routine. I'M FINE! I just need about a bottle of aspirin… and maybe some morphine and I'm fine."

"Shopping?" Angel said, diverting his attention from Cordelia as he went to retrieve a fallen bag. "What happened to seeing 'the other half of America'?"

"That's what we'd like to know." Wesley said, carrying three boxes in his arms as he went to grab a fourth.

"I couldn't help it… I had to have those cute black pumps in the window, and then there were the flip flops, and you guys saw that tank top? Even you guys would have to admit that you would try it on in a heartbeat."

"The hell we wouldn't." Stacking the boxes he had collected on a chair in the room, Gunn seemed to stop mid stride when she asked about the tank top.

"What I'm trying to say is that," Rolling her eyes at Gunn's comment, she continued. "I guess I got a little carried away."

"A little she says." Wesley said, reaching for another box.

"How are you paying for this?" Chloe asked, stacking two of the boxes on an adjacent chair.

"Oh. I'm not." Cordelia held up a gold plastic card.

Chloe walked over to Cordelia and examined the card closely. "Angel, I didn't know you had a visa?"

"What? That's my-?" Cordelia smiled somewhat proudly as she handed the card back to its speechless owner.

"Nicely done." Chloe said, before she stepped outside of the room to pick up the last fallen bag and reassure the other residents on their floor that her friends had been knocking at the door and she hadn't heard them because she had her headphones on.

After a few proclamations of "Kids, today", agitated sighs, and one, "My puppy just went to sleep," from the woman to the left of the hotel room who constantly eyed Angel like a piece of meat, Chloe returned to the room pulling the door shut with one hand and carrying a bright yellow flyer in the other. She leaned against the door for a brief moment before walking over to the oak table where the four other, erm people… well, three people and a vampire, were seated.

"Wow. In the mist of utter chaos that only a hotel building can provide, you somehow manage to come back with a huge amused grin on your face and a flyer. You're almost as spontaneous as… them." Cordelia made a grand gesture with her hand that was directed at Gunn and Angel. "Just don't start coming up with any kind of stupid foolhardy plans and you should be fine."

"My guys aren't spontaneous." Chloe paused for a dramatic effect, standing behind Angel and Gunn so she could drape an arm over each's shoulders, the fluttering flyer still present in one hand. "They're just… new weapon happy."

"Couldn't have said it any better." Gunn agreed.

"Wait, who has dumb plans?" Seeing how Angel had been eyeing the bright piece of paper that was fluttering over his right shoulder, it didn't come as too much of a shock that he had just now caught the end of Cordelia's statement.

"So, what's the back story on our little friend here?" Ignoring Angel, the canary colored flyer expressed the importance of each word as Chloe spoke.

"Chloe, can you-?" Angel reached above his head and snatched the still flapping flyer from Chloe's hand before anyone could answer her question.

"Hey! How do you know I didn't want to go to the One Hundredth Annual Smallville Corn Festival?" Chloe said, reading directly from the flyer, as she smiled to herself. This was so Smallvillan it wasn't even funny. "Maybe I want to be crowned the 'Queen of the Crop'."

"They weren't lying about the creamed corn capital of the world thing." Cordelia piped after a few brief moments of silence that could only be accomplished when one is truly disturbed.

And the meteors, because there's no way we could forget those. Seeing that she could no longer annoy Angel with the flyer, Chloe walked around the back of both chairs, and took a seat to the left of Gunn.

"Anyway, the demon. What did it look like?" Angel said, trying to get to the point as quickly as possible. He wanted to do something other than sit in a stuffy hotel room all day and watch movies about how humans thought Vampires lived their lives.

"Blond hair, blue eyes, but not peroxide blond… if that's what anyone's thinking."

Not noticing Gunn and Chloe's practically uncertain looks, she continued. "Anyway, it was dark, and the moon was out. So I'm guessing it was pretty late. There was this girl, umm, she was standing in a barn… a red barn, there was a field… and a windmill. The place looked pretty deserted."

A field with a windmill? Chloe's head shot up instantly, her eyes wandering back and forth contemplatively. But it couldn't be… what are the odds that…?

"You'd think the Powers would be a lot more specific when it came to the people that they want us to save. There's probably a hundred fields with red barns and windmills in this town."

God, there was only one abandoned field with a windmill in this town. Chandler's Field. Chloe's eyes went wide and fell. Why was everything that could happen, happening to her in just this one week? Maybe she was over thinking and they had to go and save a girl in some other small town with a windmill. Yeah. Because what were the odds, right?

"Where's a small town native when you need one?" Cordelia continued.

Chandler's Field. She didn't want to remember. Not after she had tried so hard to put that behind her. While she was living in Smallville she led everyone to think that the whole concept of being kidnapped and buried alive hadn't bothered her. She had been in a few bad scenarios during the four years that she lived here, a hostage at Luthor Corp, thrown from the Luthor mansion window, nearly burned to death in a fire in the Torch office, attacked by more than a few meteor freaks, infected by a parasite, rejected numerous times, beaten up by Lana, was almost ran over by Clark, and there was even this point where she could have sworn that she died. Not particularly in that order. And that wasn't even the gist of it, but of all of the events that had happened to her or people that she knew, the being buried alive thing was still the one that was the most traumatizing. There was just something about being six feet under, still alive in a coffin. It was worse than almost becoming some vampire's hors d' oeuvre.

"It could take us weeks to find that particular field without a guide." Wesley added.

"And by that time." Chloe could hear Gunn say from her right.

"We'll be too late." Angel said sadly, finishing the short game of round robin.

"It shouldn't be that hard to find." Chloe said more to herself than anyone else in the room. This keeping stuff from people track was really hard, and a guilt trip in itself. But she couldn't just out and tell them everything she knew about Smallville, especially now since she hadn't said anything about it before the trip. Somehow she had to get them to go to Chandler's Field without telling them about Chandler's Field. It wouldn't be too hard, Chandler's Field was basically a historic area in this town, the Chandler family once inhabited that particular plot of land since the 1800s. "Ask a few people, find a couple of maps. We'll find her." And if we don't, before the sun starts to rise... I'll just cave and tell them where the field is.

"Yeah." Cordelia added, showing that she also agreed with Chloe's way of thinking. "And you guys just wanted to sit there and mope."

"So when exactly did we all agree that my plans were stupid? Because that's not something I remember us taking a vote on."

"We should split up; we'll cover more ground that way." Wesley said, ignoring Angel's random side comments.

"No. I didn't-" Chloe tried to speak up and correct their little error. Splitting up was not a good thing...

"Then what are we waiting for? It's not like the demon's gonna shove a sword through its head and kill itself." Gunn said getting up from the chair and walking towards a medium sized black trunk that they had brought to store their various weapons in. He grabbed a throwing axe and slowly began walking to the door.

"But that's not what I…"

"I couldn't agree more." Cordelia picked up an axe and a stake out of the trunk before following Gunn out of the door.

Wesley also went to the trunk to select a weapon with Chloe tailing not far behind. Seemingly content with a crossbow and dagger he started for the door.

Chloe sighed, and just like the others headed towards the trunk, briefly scanning the remaining weapons. She then reached to grab a small sword from the disorganized pile.

It was kind of weird, in Smallville she would have never dreamed of learning to wield a sword, and up until two years ago she couldn't even pick up one of these. Let alone actually accomplish anything with it. But now with a little (a lot) of training, she know knew that the sword was a friend and it had gotten her out of more than a fair share of hopeless predicaments. She was far from being as good as Gunn or Angel, but she knew a few things. Shifting the sword to her right hand she too walked in the direction of the door. Why did she have the feeling that this wasn't going to turn out very well.

"You know we've gotten out of some pretty tough-" The end of the sentence lingered once Angel realized that there was no one left in the room. "Wasn't there a time when employees actually listened to their employers?"

"Um… I think this is it." The Plymouth screeched then halted as it came to rest across the street from the vacant field.

Surprisingly enough they had managed to find a map of the entire town within five minutes and after calling the other three members of their team, were already windmill searching.

Angel shook his head, disagreeing as he started the car again. There was nothing here but open plains for miles. "Chloe, I don't think this is it."

"Angel, just look at this place. It's a field and, look, there's a windmill."

"There's no barn."

He was right. There wasn't a barn. So the Powers were working in her favor. She was so happy, she felt like dancing, signing, something. But if she did that she was sure to get a 'what the hell?' look from Angel.

Dialing the number to Cordelia's cell, to tell them that coming to Chandler's Field would be a lost cause it hit her, if Chandler's Field wasn't the right field, what was?

Lurking in the shadows of the yellow farm house, a man watched as a dark haired girl rang the door bell.

He smiled to himself. He knew she would end up here, lucky for him no one was home. This would be too easy.

The man ran a hand through his dark blond hair as he began to follow the girl to the barn.

Bad mistake girlie.

Lana wrapped the fleece throw that she had gotten from the couch tighter around her shoulders. She had come to the farm looking for Clark but no one was home. So now she waited in the loft for him to return.

So many things had happened during the past few days, and she hadn't exactly come to grips with any of it yet. Melody's death, Chloe having some grudge against her. She only wished she knew what that grudge was. She had a feeling that it wasn't something that was going to go away without hours of talking, especially after Chloe had stormed out of the diner that morning. She had already come to the conclusion that part of the problem lied with this Lindsey McDonald character, who was supposedly Chloe's cute, yet jealous, self righteous ex and still wanted to rip Chloe away from her current boyfriend, Angel. Lindsey and Angel? They didn't exactly sound like names of guys who Chloe would go out with. In high school she would constantly comment on the fact that Whitney's name was in fact a girl's name and should never be given to a guy 'regardless of the circumstances'.

She could only guess that the other half of the problem had to do with her, Clark, and now Pete.

Footsteps ascending up the loft stairs brought her back from her thoughts.

"Clark?" She turned away from the window, waiting for a friendly 'hi' from Clark. But the man who appeared at the top of the steps was far from being Clark Kent. It was only when she caught herself openly staring at him did she realize that he looked vaguely familiar.

The man that was sitting in the Talon. What is he doing here?

"I think you've got me confused with someone else."

"So you're positive this is the right place?"

She couldn't believe that she had forgotten that the Kent Farm had a windmill, a field and a red barn. How could she have forgotten? This had to be the worst week ever, somebody up there had to hate her, a lot.

Chloe glanced around the farm for any signs that the family was home. The lights were off and the truck wasn't in the driveway, it didn't look like anyone was home. Or maybe Clark was home and his parents were just away. Her heartbeat sped up at the very thought of the idea.

Angel shrugged and leapt over the side of the car, not even bothering to use the door. Chloe shook her head as she opened the car door; she was still trying to calm her heart's racing tempo before the vampire picked up on it. Sometimes being mortal really sucked.

"Has anyone ever told you you're the world's biggest drama queen?" Okay, just try to act normal, uncaring even. A distraction might work.

"Once, in…" Angel glared at the blond before ringing the door bell. "I can't just be a moron with dumb plans I have to be a drama queen too?"

"What do we tell the people if someone's home?" Chloe said, wanting nothing more than to bolt down the steps to the car and forget about this whole savior thing. "I just don't think 'Hi, we think there might be a demon in your barn. Can we come in so we can kill it?' sounds like the sane answer."

"It doesn't look like anyone's home." Angel said, beginning to walk away from the farmhouse door.

No one's home. That's good. We can just kill the demon and leave without having to talk to Clark. Chloe nodded thoughtfully before following Angel down the porch steps and toward the red barn.

"Did you hear that?" Angel said, stopping just as almost as suddenly as he had begun walking.

"Hear?" Chloe stood perfectly still, trying to listen for whatever Angel had heard, which basically proved useless when you didn't have the hearing of a dog or a bat.

"I don't hear…" An ear piercing shriek shattered the quiet still cloak of night. "That?"

They both turned to look at each other, then raced off in the direction of the barn.

Angel reached the barn a full minute or two before Chloe did. He brandished a sword expertly, as he climbed the stairs to the loft.

The blond haired, blue eyed wonder from Cordy's vision was placing a raven haired girl on a couch in the open room. He pushed a few wisps of hair away from her face, reached for something around her neck, then turned away from the girl.

Under the light Angel could see that one side of the girl's face was bruised and her arm was bent in an odd angle.

"Vampire." The man whispered threateningly, which kind of came out as more of a snarl as he moved further away from the girl. "Find your own human. This one's mine."

"Oh. You think…" Angel said more to Chloe, who had just now reached the top of the stairs, than the other guy in the room. "He thinks I want to kill her."

"You don't have to worry about that…" Angel smirked mockingly, "I'm here to kill you."

It had taken Chloe a while to reach the loft. Partly because she had to call Gunn, Wesley, and Cordelia on her cell phone and tell them that they had found the 'thing' and partly because she didn't think she could bear being in the little loft. There were so many memories here, memories that she wanted to forget. Walking further into the room she couldn't almost believe who she saw lying deathly still on the couch. "Lana." It was a whisper that went unnoticed by the two men, demons, practically trying to kill the other.

This really wasn't her day.

She looked over at the fighting demons. Now wasn't the time to reminisce about the past, not when Angel needed her help.

She watched as Angel cleaved the sword into the thing's side. Whatever it was it didn't look fully human now. Not with it's prehensile tail and almost ape-like features. Chloe saw the demon's tail whip and bend wildly. Its hand clenching and unclenching behind the creature's back.

"Angel! Look out for its…!" Chloe yelled, but not before the monkey demon picked up Angel with the hand on its tail, throwing him into the barn wall shattering it. "…tail."

The demon reflexively jumped into the air and landed on the ceiling. It crawled over to where Angel was currently surrounded by smashed barn boards.

"Looks like the monkey knows a few tricks."

"Amused? Well you won't be." The monkey demon thing used its tail to try to grab the vampire but Angel sliced at it once again.

Chloe and Angel couldn't help the shocked expressions that conquered both their faces when the demon's wound disappeared a moment later.

Taking advantage of the situation, the demon grabbed its opponent with its tail, crushing the vampire into the wall.

Chloe fumbled with the crossbow, her only weapon since she had given Angel the sword before they had left the car. There was no way she could shoot that thing without getting Angel. She had to make a decision and quickly, but judging by the way it had just healed itself before, she doubted that an arrow would really leave a lasting impression.

"Think twice before challenging a god." Unknown to Chloe and Angel, a gold chained cross was pressed tightly in the demon's hand. Before either Chloe or Angel could blink, the creature had pressed the cross against the side of Angel's face while stabbing him in the stomach with his own sword. The cross burned into Angel's flesh emitting a low cry from the vampire before he vamped out.

"I heard the zoo is looking for a few more monkeys for its exhibit." The demon took a step back from the wounded vampire and snickered at the human girl. It was completely caught off guard when an arrow flew through its heart.

Unlike when it had been stabbed with the sword, the demon monkey guy made a sort of screeching sound and clutched the arrow piercing its heart violently. Chloe shot at it again with the crossbow in the same spot, producing another pitiful cry from the demon.

Before she could shoot it a third time, the demon bolted through the loft window.

The forgotten crossbow clattered to the wooden floor as she ran over to Angel who was still seated on the floor. Deep crimson blood began to soak through the front of his shirt.

She knelt down so she was sitting almost eye level with him. It was only then did he slip the human façade back into place.

It was stupid getting so worried over a vampire who would probably be as back to his old broody self by tomorrow morning, but it was sort of like an instinct. A friend gets hurt; and your natural response is to worry about them.

She gingerly placed a hand over the burn that the cross had left on the right side of his face. You would think that something as simple as a cross or holy water wouldn't have any effect on something as powerful as the undead. It didn't make any sense. She then let her hand drop to her side when she saw his eyes close. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Where'd it go?" Angel said, as he slowly got up from the floor, pulling the sword out of his impaled stomach as he did so.

"Through the window."

"What about… the girl?" He winced slightly as he stood all the way up.

"Uh, she's still unconscious." Chloe said, trying not to look back at where Lana was currently knocked out. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Chloe…" Angel started, but trailed off when he heard a smaller, softer voice also say Chloe's name. They both turned to the source of the voice and Angel could see the raven haired girl sitting up painfully on the couch. A puzzled look lit up her face.

"Chloe?"