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A phone call later that evening told them Willow would not be making it until the following morning and more than that she said she had no idea how to fix the situation and might need to take Angel with her.
Cordelia was not pleased with the idea and for that matter neither were any of the others. "Hey we already told him a crappy lie about being family friends." Gunn said. "We send him off to some place else he's gonna think we kidnapped him or something."
"I don't like the idea either." Wesley said, watching Angel eat a ham sandwich from across the room. So far the boy had shown plenty of energy but remained fairly quiet, only popping the occasional odd question to Cordelia. Questions he was full of. Where in Ireland were they? What day was is? Where had Fred gone? Near Dublin. It was the only city she knew. Wednesday.Fred Went to put put the bread away. He was intensely curious about everything and it was a little overwhelming.
At the same time she thought he might be holding back. He sometimes would open his mouth and then shut it, other times he would teeter like he wanted to ask a question but was stopping himself. She found it a little odd but at the same time didn't push it. She didn't have all the answers and the sooner they could get him back to normal the better.
They spent the rest of the day taking turns occupying him. Wesley had said that he shouldn't be alone in the hotel and the others had agreed. There were too many ways he could get lost or hurt and there was still the threat that something could attack.
For the most part Angel behaved. He wasn't particularly wild or loud and that was a plus, they set him up in the lobby with paper and crayons which seemed to delight him and kept him out of trouble. Occasionally one of them would run by to check on him but for now Wesley was pouring over spell books and Gunn had gone to see Lorne.
Despite Fred's best efforts, Angel seemed prefer Cordelia. He was fairly warm to Fred but out of all of them he went out of his way to get Cordelia's attention, showing her his drawings and asking her questions. "That's really good." Cordelia said, taking Angel's drawing of a horse. It was decent by six year old standards and she smiled.
"You really like it?" He asked.
She smiled. "Of course. Do you like horses?"
"Mmhm and drawing. Father says it's a wast of time though." He looked at his picture for a moment, frowning.
She watched the way his face fell and patted his shoulder. He looked surprised at this. "It's not a wast of time. Lots of people draw."
He nodded and after a second's consideration gave her a shy smile. "You can keep it, if you want it."
She smiled brightly. "I'll hang it up in my room. You know I loved horses as a little girl."
He smiled at her. "My favorite is named Ciaran."
"You have horses?" She asked interestedly.
He nodded seriously. "A couple."
"I'm jealous." She said.
He smiled, looking very pleased with himself. "I can draw you Ciaran, that's just a horse."
"I'd love to see him." She said.
Looking quite happy to be given the task he returned to drawing, face screwed up in concentration.
"What's he making?" Fred asked, leaning over an arm chair.
"He's drawing me his horse." Cordelia said.
Fred smiled her skittish smile. "That's neat. What's his name?"
"Ciaran." Angel said without looking up. "You can have this one since I gave Miss Cordelia the other one."
Fred smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners and took the first drawing to look at it more closely. "I- I can't wait!" She said.
They watched him draw for a moment before Gunn came hurriedly back in. "I talked to Lorne and he gave me a spell."
"Did he say for sure it would work?" Wesley asked, coming into the room.
"He said it would probably work. . ."
From across the room Angel had gone very still. "what do you mean a spell?" He asked quietly, his voice a little high pitched.
"Oh, nothing, nothing." Wesley assured him.
The boy looked worried and Fred tried to distract him. "That's a really pretty horse." She said, giggling a little. He reluctantly returned his attention to his paper, studying it before handing it to her.
She smiled and Cordelia gave the two men a furious look. They back away into the office to discuss further magic.
"Are they gonna put a spell on me?" Angel asked as soon as they were gone.
Cordelia and Fred exchanged looks. That was the general idea. "No, no. Angel he was joking. They don't know how to do magic."
"But-"
"No magic, promise." Fred said, trying to sound convincing.
He looked troubled but he dropped it.
That night they ate Chinese take out. It was odd to have Angel eat with them, he usually stuck to blood and then preferred to do so in private. The boy however after some prompting was eating his rice rather messily and seemed to be enjoying it.
"Liam," Cordelia said, getting his attention. "Tomorrow a lady's gonna come. She's a friend of mine and she's gonna play with you a bit."
He swallowed and looked up. "What's her name?"
"Willow. She's really nice so no matter what we have to be nice to her." In truth she was worried how me might react if he thought magic was involved.
He chewed another bite thoughtfully. "I'll be good." He said.
She smiled widely. "I believe it."
This if anything made him smile brightly. Another unusual happening for the grown up Angel and she wished she had a camera. It occurred to her that there would be no pictures anywhere of Angel as a child. It was a strange thought but he was simply too old. She made a note to grab one if she got the chance.
They talked for a little more, Angel staying mostly silent and the others fining talk a little difficult when it didn't involve vampires and demons. Because what else were you supposed to talk about when your life revolved around the supernatural?
Angel for his part was feeling much more relaxed. He liked Cordelia immensly. She was kind and pretty and so nice to him. All she seemed to do was give him complements and praise which he found a little odd but not unwelcome. His family did not tend towards over praise. He liked Fred too, she was a little odd but very nice and he was even warming up to Welsey and Gunn, the latter of whom no longer laughed when he spoke.
Truth be told he had not known what to make of Gunn when he'd first seen him, he'd been unsure of the man's position, servant or slave but he appeared to be neither so a free man he guessed. Either way he seemed like a nice person. At least he wasn't grinning every time he spoke like he was some kind of joke. Now he was making jokes and making him laugh.
As for Wesley, he was different. So far the man had come across much as he had originally guessed, serious and distant. He was a little intimidating to be honest and he kept shooting him looks as though he was waiting for Angel to do something bad.
After dinner Cordelia let him play in the garden again until the sun was completely gone. It occurred to her that Angel had spent the entire day in the sun for the first time in God knew how long. Just free to come and go and run about. She wondered if he would remember anything when he was turned back and she hoped he would.
She watched as he darted about collecting rocks and setting aside the smoothest ones. Whatever game he was playing made sense only to himself. She smiled a little, even of Willow managed to turn him back the next day she was glad she had gotten to see this side of Angel. The idea however that Willow might have to take him back to Sunnydale irked her. A selfish part of her wanted to keep him with her.
She frowned as she thought about it but decided that she wouldn't make a big deal out of it if it happened and if it did she would make sure she was kept up to date. She was good at that and after all, when she wanted someone's attention, it was impossible to ignore her.
After a while of running too and fro Angel began to wined down and she lead him inside. "I think you should take a bath." She said. Truth be told he was a little dirty.
He made a face. "I took one last week."
She made her own face. "Ew, you're definitely taking a bath then."
He made a sour face but did as he was told, letting her set up the tub and run the hot water. "Now," Se said, hands on her hips. "You can take one yourself, right?" He nodded and stood still, waiting for her to leave. "I'll be in the other room, if you need anything let me know." He nodded a second time and she shut the door, leaving him be.
He paused once she was gone and wondered if it was really necessary. He didn't like taking baths and he wondered if she would believe him if he just dunked his head. Still, she had been so nice and she wanted him to do this so he complied, slowly testing the water before getting in. It wasn't that bad, the water was warm and after a bit he began scrubbing at his arms and legs., eventually cheering up to the situation and splashing around. a bit.
From the other room Cordelia could hear him splash and even laugh a few times and smiled. It was so odd to think of dark, brooding Angel splashing in a bath tub. After a while however she decided it had been long enough and rapped on the door, telling him to hurry up. Ten minutes later he was out and dressed in pajamas. To him, it was a little odd to sleep in long pants, no one he knew did so but they were what she had given him so he wouldn't complain. She smiled when she saw him dressed and went and retrieved a comb from the bathroom. "Come here." She said, sitting down on the bed. His hair was not terribly long but still needed some combing. She played with it, making it mirror the adult Angel's preference for sticking it straight up.
He sat still and let her comb it, liking the attention. His mother sometimes played with his baby sister's hair and he liked to as well because it always made her giggle.
"So," Cordelia said, lying down on her stomach beside him in a comical fashion. He copied her, feeling it was the thing to do and they lay there, staring over the end of the bed. It felt a little strange to be back in the room he had woken up in. So many things had happen over the course of the day that he had forgotten his distress of being away from home and in some ways it was an adventure because he had never been away from his parents' house. He cast a side long glance at her and smiled. She smiled back.
"Could you tell me a story?" He asked, hoping that if she did so she would stay a while longer.
She rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, thinking hard. "Okay, once there was a knight, a lady knight and she was the best knight in all the land and there was a witch too, a good one except she didn't dress very well and she had no fashion sense and there was a princess. . . no! A queen and the queen told the knight that she had seen a monster hanging around the Bronze which was a castle. . . made of bronze. . . from there she went on to describe how the group had saved the day and how the queen had played no small part in that feat. Afterward she found him mostly asleep and with some quick repositioning got him under the covers.
Before he drifted off, Angel had the brief thought that he liked it here. Everyone was so nice and even though there were a lot of strange things like the carriages without horses and other small things he really liked it.
Willow shows up in the next chapter!
Also quick I was thinking that the reason he said he took a bath last week was that people didn't take baths very often way back when, I mean Queen ElizabethI only took one once a month so I thought I might factor something like that in. Also about the pajamas, people used to just sleep on night shirts and not pants so I thought he'd find that a little odd. I guess I was just trying to put in some historical accuracies.
Oh well, thanks for reading!
