Disclaimer: I don't own Angel or Charmed. Shamu is property of Sea World and Busch Gardens.
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Connor yawned and felt his jaw pop in response. After all the excitement of the day before, he'd been afraid he wouldn't be able to sleep, but he'd been out before his head had hit the pillow. Maybe it was something about the hotel. This was where he'd lived for the first couple weeks of his life—he felt safe here despite the fact that he could still see the remains of the portal spell his father had drawn on the floor in an attempt to find him after he'd been taken to Quortoth. He dragged his hand along the wall as he bounded down the steps, the antique wallpaper feeling thin and flaky.
His Higher Power was already awake and sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the lobby, her butt resting on part of the half-erased spell. A 16-inch TV was sitting in front of her, tuned to CNN, and a bowl of half-eaten cereal rested beside her knee, the Cheerios quickly going soggy as she scanned the news ticker at the bottom of the screen. "It's almost noon," she said to him as he came up behind her. "You slept way late."
"So, am I a wanted man?" he asked as he settled down next to and a little behind her and folded his legs in front of him. The doors to the inner courtyard were open, allowing some fresh air into the Hyperion before the day got unbearably hot. It had to be ninety degrees already—sweat was slowly trickling down his bare back and even the light-weight cotton of his pajama pants felt too heavy for LA in June.
"You just missed it," she said, pointing absently to the news ticker. "The headlines in the newspaper match the article I was given too. I wouldn't recommend going outside today."
"Did you get a chance to talk to that lawyer?"
Cass snorted. "No, he was a little busy planning a prison riot."
"The lawyer you were planning on going to for legal aid is in jail?" Connor asked, disbelief coloring his voice. Not for the first time in the past twenty-four hours, he wondered if his heavenly guide was completely competent…or sane.
The Oracle turned to look back at him as the news switched over to tracking Tropical Storm Alberto. "He's in there voluntarily."
"You mean he turned himself in?"
Her forehead wrinkled. "Well, no…but he's still a good lawyer, law-wise. It's the ethics thing we need to work on. Anyway, it's a moot point since he's going to be very busy for the next couple of days." She forced a weak smile that didn't quite hide the worry in her green eyes. "How're you feeling?"
"Fine—I'm not the one who ended up with a lamp sticking out of my back last night. If your lawyer friend is going to be tied up for a while, then what are we going to do about me? It's not going to take them long to trace me back here." It was something he'd thought about at the movies the night before. The real life connection between him and Angel was slender—Connor and his parents had just been one-time clients—which would be fine if it were just the human authorities after him. Unfortunately, Wolfram & Hart was in the game too, and they knew just what his true relation to Angel was. It wouldn't take much effort for them to tip off the cops. And this is going to be the first place they look for my dad, he thought, looking around the lobby of the Hyperion. Maybe coming back here hadn't been the brightest move on his dad's part. Though, after a couple hundred years, you probably start to get nostalgic.
The door to the office banged open, and Angel came storming out. "…call a cab to take me to the airport to meet them," he was saying over his shoulder. He paused, though, at the sight of Cass sitting on the floor. "What's she still doing here?"
"'Morning to you too," the Oracle said without tearing her eyes away from CNN. "And, if you want to get technical, I left and came back."
"She's my Higher Power, Dad," Connor added defensively, "I imagine that means we're going to be seeing a lot of her."
Angel didn't say anything, but he didn't have to—the disapproving look on his face pretty much said it all.
"…makes no sense taking a cab to the airport just to take one back." Cordy emerged from the office as well, stopping by the desk and folding her arms over her stomach. In deference to the heat, she was wearing a floaty dark purple skirt and plain white sleeveless shirt. "Is something wrong with the air conditioning?"
"It was off when I got back," Cass answered, ignoring the glare Angel was giving her. "What's wrong?"
Cordy waved the question off. "Nothing—nothing's wrong except it's like a million degrees in here." She crossed to the courtyard doors and slammed them closed, her heels clicking on the marble floor. "Los Angeles in the summer, people—windows stay shut or we're all going to roast to death. Either that or choke on the smog."
"Buffy and Dawn are flying in this afternoon," Angel said quietly to Connor.
The first name sounded familiar to part of him, the second didn't. Juggling two sets of memories was getting old. There was so much stuff he felt that he should know, but it escaped him. "The Slayer?"
"She and her little sister are coming all the way from Rome to help with Spike," Angel explained quickly before Cordy could answer for him. "Have you seen Illyria? Either of you?"
Cass pointed over her shoulder in the general direction of the staircase as Cordy answered, "Third floor hallway."
Angel looked from one Higher Power to the other. "Are you reading each other's minds?"
Cordy shook her head as the Oracle went back to focusing on the news. "Illyria leaves a pretty big energy signature wherever she goes, and we can both sense it."
"How big an energy signature?" his father asked.
"Well, if you and I were both…tuna, then she'd be Shamu." Cordelia shrugged. "They don't make demons like her anymore."
Angel's heavy brow wrinkled in confusion. "Shamu?"
"Big whale… Sea World mascot…" Connor explained.
The former vampire still looked confused.
"Sea World's a big theme park, like Disneyland. Come on, Dad, get with the 21st century." He couldn't help but smile.
"Did you ever go?" Angel asked.
He nodded. "Mom and Dad took me and Rachel to the one in San Diego when I was fourteen…" But had they really? His mom had kept a picture of the four of them outside the whale show arena taped to the fridge back home—Rachel had been going through her 'I want to be a marine biologist' phase. But he'd spent his fourteenth year in Quortoth. That was the year his father—Holtz—had allowed him to hunt alone for food and to clear the area near their small home of dangerous predators. How many people had really posed for that picture when the park employee took it? Three or four?
Connor smacked a hand to his forehead, trying to joggle his memories into some kind of sense. Everything was over-lapping, contradicting, making it hard to figure out what was real except what was happening right now. The Hyperion had to be real…so did Cass and the TV and Cordy and his father and the bowl of mushy cereal. All of that had to be real; because if it wasn't, he was going to crack.
He slide down the front of the reception desk until he was seated on the cool marble next to the Oracle's little television. Angel smiled and ruffled his hair as Cordy gave him a curious look as the two of them continued on out the front door, resuming their argument right where they'd left off.
Cass looked up from CNN as soon as she heard the front door shut behind them. Locking eyes with him over the top of the television, she said very simply, "Your dad isn't human."
"What do you mean? Of course he's human—what else could he be?" Connor shot back.
She shrugged. "I dunno; I just know he's not human. To borrow Cordy's metaphor, if she and I are tunas…tunae…whatever, then he should be an anchovy or something little like that on the power scale. But, he's not—he's a tuna too, just like you and me." She paused and cocked her head to the side. "These fish metaphors are getting a bit ridiculous."
"You could say that."
"I just did."
"Point taken. So what do we do then?"
The Oracle picked up her bowl and stirred the Cheerios aimlessly. "About Angel? Nothing unless you think he's an imposter or something."
Connor shook his head. "Oh, no, that's Angel all right. Only a two hundred or so year old ex-vampire could not know who Shamu is."
"I think we've got bigger things to worry about right now." She thumbed the TV off and stood up, stretching her free arm far back over her shoulder.
"Like me being wanted by the police," he murmured.
"And us being sitting ducks with Illyria and so many…ok, I'll use the fish metaphor one more time. With so many tuna in the same place at the same time, particularly since the entire world knows Angel used to live here. It's time to move, Connor."
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A/N: Big thank you to YOUPIN, gopie, Polaris, jka1, and –J for the reviews. :hands –J the cookie for a correct answer:
I don't know when this flurry of updates will stop. I have 12 hours of driving tonight, and it's a round trip, not 12 hours to get to a certain destination. I don't know which is worse…probably the round trip, since I get to see all the scenery (what can be seen in the dark) twice in one day.