Chapter 13: So sad Mary... what you got goddamn shame about it
Part One
July 2006
Giles, Dawn and J.C. sat in the Constantine's living room, wondering what Faith and John wanted them for.
John waited till the last of them arrived and had all got drinks.
"Alright," Constantine began, "Eight days ago, a werewolf friend of Faith's came to see us. He told us we smelled the same, as if we were genetically related."
"So we decided to take tests at a DNA lab, the results came back yesterday afternoon. It's a ninety nine percent chance that either I'm Faith's father, or my identical twin brother was."
Everyone looked shocked. Faith bit her lip wanting to go to John for comfort, but not wanting to see disgust on her friends' faces.
"But John can't be my father." Faith cried out to her friends, to the universe. "He was in a mental hospital, when I was conceived."
"So what we are asking for you to do." Constantine said evenly, to the three shocked people in front of him. "Is to go back in time, and find out who or what Faith's father is? Dawn you can create a portal, if Cousin John and Giles come up with the right time spell?"
"I've never done it before." Dawn said slowly. "But I could try."
"What do you hope to achieve by this?" Giles asked sympathetically. "If it's not you Constantine, it will be your brother."
"We just need to know." Faith told them hopefully. "What if it's a mistake, a coincidence?"
"Welcome to the family love, if it's not." J.C. said to her.
Part Two
Dawn looked once more at the photo of Faith's mother. The photo showed Kelly Lehane as a twenty year old mother, with a two year old Faith sitting on her lap. Faith's aunt Clare, Kelly Lehane's sister had sent it over on Faith's request. They weren't sure if the photo would travel through time.
Dawn was opening a portal in a field on the outskirts of London, to go to February the tenth 1980. That would give her, Giles and J.C. enough time to get to Boston and closely monitor Kelly's Lehane's movements till she conceived Faith.
They knew they couldn't influence the past in any way, so it was going to be tricky task.
J.C. would be twenty seven and Giles twenty six in 1980, and both had had a two month gap in their memories during that period. Apparently they had gone to the United States together, but didn't remember much about it. So they all had obviously done this time travelling spell before, somehow.
Dawn was wearing vintage clothes, hoping that they would make it through the time portal in one piece. It had been hard finding shoes.
Constantine and John chanted the time alteration spell, as Dawn opened the portal. John and Faith watched nervously but gratefully, as the three time travellers stepped through it.
Dawn walked out of the portal and into a sheep. She swore, the sheep baaed loudly in fright and dashed off. Dawn saw her clothes looked like they had become brand new, except for her 'vintage skirt' which had disappeared. This was problematic, seeing her panties had been from 2006.
She took off her jacket and wrapped it awkwardly around her waist. A young blonde man who looked like Sting, came towards her.
"Here Dawn love." He said handing her pulling off his woollen sweater. "Use this."
This made a kind of miniskirt, but at least it was decent. Dawn looked in amazement at the blonde man. The guy was a total hottie. "J.C." she stammered.
"Could you stop calling me that nickname? It's fucking annoying." J.C. complained.
"Sorry, it's the only way I can tell you and John apart." Dawn said sweetly and illogically, in a very Summers way. They both looked around for Giles and found him lying flat on his face on the ground, breathing heavily.
"Giles are you alright?" Dawn said worriedly.
"Right as rain," Giles puffed. "Bloody sheep just winded me."
"Wow, you're really good looking too." Dawn said approvingly.
"Thank you so much." Giles replied to his nineteen year old companion. "I feel so much more alive I must admit, sheep winding not withstanding."
"It's the testosterone mate, making the sap rise or somethink. Well let's get money sorted out." J.C. said, clapping his hands with glee. "We all remember the race scores, for tomorrow?"
"We need to go to our flats first, and give notice remember?" Giles reminded him. "I remember it was my short notice, that broke up my relationship."
Giles girlfriend did not take the news he was travelling to America well. "You're so bloody selfish Rupert!" The young woman screamed at him in front of Dawn and J.C. "When are you ever going to grow up and make a commitment?"
"Never Barbara," Giles yelled back at her. "You scare me off permanent relationships, for life!"
Giles grabbed his suit case and a box of possessions. Barbara was still yelling after him like a fishwife, as the time travellers walked down the street.
"Come on," Giles muttered to them. "Let's go to your place Constantine."
"Well there won't be issues there mate. I'm squatting see, so we can all doss down there, tonight." J.C. said carrying one of Giles boxes.
"I can just imagine the hell hole this will be. Tell me you weren't flatting with junkies?" Giles requested.
"I don't think so." J.C. said frowning trying to remember. "My flatmate Dean was a sorcerer."
Dawn put Giles box on the footpath, and pulled out a woman's velvet green skirt she had spotted and put it on in the street. It was tight and she had to leave the zip undone.
"It's my cousin's skirt," Giles said defensively at J.C.'s smirk. "She left it with me the previous weekend, when she came down to London and never forgave me for losing it. Brings it up every bloody Christmas."
It took a week before they had all the money (got through gambling on rote remembered horse races) and documentation they needed. Dawn got her passport, by using a dead girl's birth certificate.
It annoyed the hell out of Dawn on the aeroplane over the Atlantic, that even though she was in the non-smoking section, people's smoke (Giles had restarted smoking again like a train) filtered through into her part of the plane. The past was a different country indeed.
At last they disembarked in New York and took a train to Boston.
South Boston was like a mini Ireland in 1980. Dawn couldn't believe Boston was so segregated. Or the looks of disapproval she was getting from potential landlords, for being an unmarried girl intending to share a house with two men.
"Bitch obviously never watched enough episodes of 'Two's company'." J.C. commented, as an old Irish woman slammed the door in their faces.
Finally the three found the top floor of a decaying building, which was getting knocked down in three months. The Landlord let them have it on a week by week basis.
"What a freakin dump." complained Dawn, who had gone to stay at the London Y.W.C.A. the second she had seen J.C.'s squat. "It doesn't even have a dishwasher!"
"Dear lord, the poverty." Giles laughed and J.C. joined in. The two men found Dawn's reactions to working class 1980 life highly amusing.
"see here Dawn, this 'dump' has power, running water and we can take it in turns to spy on Kelly Lehane." Giles pointed out to a revolted Dawn. "We have a good view of her house in the next street."
"Well when can we start betting in America?" Dawn asked Giles. "I want an electric blanket."
"They haven't been invented yet, sorry Dawn." J.C. said sympathetically. He frowned as he spooted a mouse hole in the corner of the room.
"What you're kidding!" Dawn said anxiously.
"Yes," Laughed J.C. at her. He just loved winding her up. "God, the look on your face love, priceless."
"You are so freakin annoying." Dawn said angrily to him. His constant teasing was really starting to bug her.
"Oh do give it a rest you two!" said Giles sternly. Dawn and J.C.'s bickering reminded him uncomfortably of Buffy and Spike. Whom the younger J.C. rather resembled, you just needed to substitute the olive trenchcoat for the leather duster.
"We can't waste our money on electric blankets" Giles pointed out "We need to get bugging devices."
And so began the surveillance of the Lehane's house. A nice Irish immigrant family, whose peace was constantly shattered by the constant fights with their eldest daughter Kelly.
Kelly worked in a record shop. The three observing her saw Kelly have sex with her boyfriend Brian, in the backseat of his car, every lunch break that first week.
Then on Friday night, Kelly went to a bar and slept with his best friend Kevin. This drunken sexual encounter took place in the back of Kevin's panel van.
"Gets around, doesn't she." J.C. observed as he stood in the bar car park with Giles, observing the van shake rhythmically.
"This makes me feel very sordid." Giles commented uncomfortably. "Game of darts?"
Dawn trailed her the next day. Dawn saw Kelly stop into church, for a quick confession on the way to work. Dawn realised it was difficult to loiter in church so she sat on a bench and pretended to be praying. She noticed Kelly come out of the confessional booth looking furious. Faith did not look much like her mother. Dawn decided, but that look of being pissed off was obviously a Lehane trait.
That Saturday night Kelly stayed in and played cards with her family.
"Guilt," J.C. commented sagely.
The next week Kelly didn't have sex with Brian in his car. All Kelly's spare time was spent on the phone to her friend Anna, planning a trip to New York. They both intended to go to a Clash concert on the Friday night, at the Palladium.
"This is it folks." J.C. said. "If she was ever going to meet a Constantine, it will be on a trip to New York."
"It will be a fantastic opportunity, to see The Clash play live again too." Giles said looking excited.
"Oh pleeze!" Dawn scoffed. "Aren't they punk?'
"Bite your tongue girl!" J.C. said horrified and proceeded to give her a lecture, on why the Clash weren't a true punk band.
"I get it." Dawn said finally. "It's because their band was successful, unlike your band Mucous Membrane. Well with a disgusting name like that, what did you expect?"
"We're going to have to queue closely behind Kelly and her friend, because the seats sold out in ninety minutes if I remember" Giles said.
"How do you know this stuff?" Dawn said in utter disbelief.
"Obviously a misspent life" Giles said offended.
So the trio followed Kelly and Anna's plan down to the letter. They caught the same trains as them to New York, booked into the same cheap motel and followed them into the same bar.
The 3,800 seater Palladium on New York's 14th Street was an old converted theatre, Drug pushers were plying their trade outside and J.C. scored some weed.
"Oh god, must you always?" Giles complained.
"It's not as if it is smack." J.C. said defensively. "It's for after. We might all feel like it. Have a go at Dawn, must she always look like a bloody Sloan Ranger?"
"Huh?" Dawn said puzzled.
"You look too preppy Dawn." Giles translated. "You stand out."
"Well there was no money for clothes shopping remember?" Dawn said annoyed.
"Just buy her a t-shirt from that vendor." J.C. suggested. "Not the one that says 'in case of Rape this way up'."
"Did I mention 1980 just sucks?" Dawn said furious.
At last with a black t-shirt bearing the legend 'Virgin' and more eyeliner applied round her eyes, at J.C. and Giles urging. Dawn was considered suitably attired to attend the concert with them.
They took their seats, near enough to see Kelly and her friend talking to a group of youths.
"I hope she's not going to get gang raped." Dawn said worried. "I don't think I can take my detachment that far."
"Oh shit." J.C. said. "Check out the kid with the long black hair, it's John's twin brother James. Look at the blonde kid's letterman jacket, Hartford West High."
"Look at the blonde kid's tail!" Dawn said startled. She shifted umcomfortably in her seat.
Giles frowned. "Yes, probably urging them on to drink, do drugs, lose their virginity."
"So I didn't notice a demon with a tail whispering in your ear, when you brought that marijuana." Dawn said sniffily to J.C.
"Have you never done drugs?" J.C. said irritated at her. He lit a cigarette.
"It's unhealthy." Dawn said primly. "But occasionally in Italy, I partake of pot."
"You are just so Californian." J.C. said amazed. "Getting stoned would loosen you up."
"Along with a good lay, I suppose?" Dawn retorted.
J.C. laughed rudely, "Well I don't know if my charity extends that far, to the ice key."
The concert started, J.C. and Giles were swept up in it, only Dawn kept a close watch on Kelly. Dawn had to admit it was an amazing concert; she had never been to anything like it before.
A cloud of marijuana and cigarette smoke lay heavily over the audience and Dawn watched as Kelly began to make out with James.
Dawn bit her knuckles in despair. Giles and J.C. were singing along to 'London Calling'.
Kelly and James broke from kissing to join in the chorus. The whole theatre was vibrating with the noise.
Dawn was starting to feel like a pervert, watching Kelly and James petting getting heavier.
J.C. whispered in her ear so she jumped, "Turning you on love?"
Dawn slapped him on the shoulder. "You freakin watch them for a change!"
The concert ended and the three split up in their efforts to track Kelly and James down in the dispersing crowd.
Dawn wondered if it was such a good idea her splitting away from Giles and J.C., there were some very tough types in the crowd.
She wished mobile phones had been invented, how was she going to keep track of the other two?
To her relief she spotted Giles and J.C. again, still successfully trailing Kelly and James. She rejoined them quickly.
Anna, Kelly and James went back to their hotel room and the time travelling trio went back to theirs.
"Well, what now?" Dawn said baffled. "Do we listen against the wall with a glass?"
"I brought a stethoscope." Giles said, "But I don't think it's worth the bother."
"The walls are thin," J.C. pointed out, "Joint time?"
The three sat and passed round a joint. They noted the banging of a bed against the adjoining wall.
"Lucky bastard's shagging both of them." J.C. commented. "Do you two feel inspired to copy their example? What happens on tour stays on tour eh?"
"You are so freakin disgusting." Dawn sneered at J.C.
J.C. laughed. "It's so easy to pull your leg."
"Just don't tell Buffy." Giles said referring to the joint he was passing to Dawn.
"It's bloody frustrating though, innit?" J.C. went on taking the joint from Dawn. "Watching that lovely Irish Rose, bonk for the last bloody fortnight and not getting a shag ourselves."
"Kelly is lovely." Giles commented. "You can see Faith in her, the way she laughs and smiles."
"Don't tell me you fancy the Dark Slayer?" J.C. spluttered, drinking out of his whiskey flask.
"She's become a friend that's all." Giles said drinking his beer..
"Ripper has a crush, I'll be damned." J.C. laughed. "I was just joking mate." He said quickly at Giles exasperated expression.
Dawn snatched J.C.'s whiskey flask from him, and took a swig. J.C. glanced startled at her and raised an eyebrow, seeking an explanation.
"It is so I can be numbed, to your bloody, fucking, stupid, bollocks!" Dawn explained tersely, using the words J.C had been using continuously the last three weeks.
Part Three.
Dawn, J.C. and Giles emerged back in the field in 2006 to Faith and John, only half an hour after they left.
"Who was it?" Faith asked immediately.
"James Constantine." Giles said sadly. "He and your mother met in New York at a concert. I'm sorry Faith."
Constantine nodded. It was what he'd been expecting. "So I'm her uncle." he said to himself out loud, "Knew I wasn't her Dad."
"Well what now?" Faith said in anguish. "I guess I was just hoping… that it was just a big mistake."
"I need to talk to an Archangel." Constantine said. "Michael still hangs out in St Paul's cathedral?"
"Last I heard." J.C. confirmed.