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9. Angel Episode Tag 2x19 "Belonging"

Wesley was a bit apprehensive at what he was going to do. Who wouldn't be nervous about calling their father to wish him a happy birthday? Well, maybe sons who felt like they have disappointed their fathers.

"Hello?"

"Rick?" Wesley was both relieved and worried as to why his brother was the one who answered the phone. He was sure he dialed his parents' household number and not his brother's.

"Wesley!" came his brother's very enthusiastic reply. "Everything alright?" And just like that, his brother was on his overly protective mode and Wesley had to roll his eyes. "I can sense your smirk all the way from here, brother."

Wesley laughed. "Sorry, Rick. And yet you call me paranoid."

"Either you start talking or I'm hanging up."

"Is Father there?" asked Wesley and he heard his brother sigh.

"Really, Wesley?"

"It's his birthday Rick." said Wesley, his voice like that of a student trying to explain his actions to the headmaster.

"Yeah but he never cared for such things as I would recall and besides he never cared when it was ours or even mum's birthday," argued Rick.

"Why are you there then?" asked Wesley but before Rick could reply Wesley heard a commotion on the other line and an elderly female voice answered.

"Oh Wesley, I've missed you so much!" came the voice of Wrenna Wyndam-Pryce. "You should really call more often. I hear more often from Rupert than you."

"Why does Rupert call you?" asked Wesley but he knew that it was her who would be calling his mentor non-stop.

"Why do you think?" came his brother's voice in the back ground.

"Be quiet, Rick!" reprimanded his mother and Wesley smiled. He was sure that mother relished the idea of disciplining her eldest child after being so far away from each other all these years. Wesley knew that Rick had occasionally written to mother and had addressed it to the bookshop his mother had inherited from her family as to not let father find out.

The mother side of his family were more on intellectual pursuers. They had watcher blood but would prefer being researchers than active slayers. They had made a living in supplying books and knowledge to everyone. Explains why Wesley and his family lived in an enormous house, which was rightfully his mother's and not his father's.

"Are you alright? Everything fine? Are you eating right? Have your wounds healed? Any other injuries?" came the downpour of questions about his well-being and Wesley had to be on alert to answer everything lest he worry his own mother.

"Everything's fine and quite alright, mother. Yes I am eating right." began Wesley. "My gunshot has fully healed, I promise. Rick even checked it before he left and no I have no new injuries to report."

"That's very good," said Wrenna with a smile that Rick couldn't help but copy on his face. "Oh Wesley how I wish I could make time to visit you there or you come visit us here."

"I wish the same mother," said Wesley. "But I'm sure as Rick has already told you…"

"Yes, the head of the agency must be there," said Wrenna. "You should really stop following my footsteps, Wesley. When I told you that I couldn't leave the shop just because I was in-charge doesn't mean you should be a good leader and do that as well."

Wesley had to laugh at his mother's antics. "If it's any reassurance mother, you've taught me well."

"Too well that it's starting to become annoying," came his brother's voice again. "I mean he's setting up the bar of a perfect son. What am I? Left-overs?"

"More or less," came Wrenna's reply which made Wesley laugh again. "Rick—"

As Wrenna began to say what Rick was like as a child an elderly man walked past the hall to look at them. Wrenna gave him a challenging look, basically daring him to say anything or to ask who was calling. The man just stared at his wife then glared at his eldest son and walked on.

"Is something wrong?" came Wesley's worried voice on the other end.

Wrenna looked at Rick who was shaking his head as to say 'Don't!' but Wrenna couldn't lie to Wesley. The boy was like a lie-detector when it came to his mother.

"Just someone," said Wrenna.

"You mean father," said Wesley, his voice losing that bit of joy and laughter that Wrenna was accustomed to hearing every time he phoned.

"Let's forget about him, Wesley," began Wrenna.

"I actually phoned to greet him," said Wesley. "I mean if he's there…"

"Wesley…" began Wrenna. "You know it won't make a difference."

"You sound just like Rick," said Wesley. "So you also haven't even mentioned or gave him a greeting of sorts?"

"He wouldn't care," spat Wrenna. "You would just be wasting your breathe, my dear."

"I would still love to try," said Wesley and when Wrenna heard that voice, she just couldn't refuse. Wrenna sighed and Rick threw his arms in surrender. Wrenna placed the receiver down for a while and walked to the hall where she knew he was eavesdropping.

"Make it quick," said Wrenna as she saw Roger in the hall, trying to act like he had just arrived and was polishing his glasses. Roger followed her into the room as Wrenna spoke to the phone again.

"Would it make a difference if I said that he left?" asked Wrenna.

"Mother…"

"Oh alright, he's here. Just," Wrenna broke off as she glared at Roger. "Make it quick."

"Yes, mother," said Wesley, as he believed that last statement was directed at him. "Yes, well, put him on."

Wrenna offered Roger the phone. He took it and Wrenna walked over to Rick and crossed her arms. Rick also had a glare for the man.

"Wesley."

"Hello, father." began Wesley, his voice cheery Roger knew it was a feeble attempt. "Happy Birthday."

"Hadn't noticed the date." Came the reply and both his wife and son's glare couldn't have intensified more.

"Oh, well," stuttered Wesley. "Um, how are you?"

"Alright."

"Good." replied Wesley.

"You finally got to your senses about working for that vampire then?" said Roger before Wesley could speak once again. Wrenna and Rick both wished they could grab the phone from the man's hand.

"No! It's going quite well actually." replied Wesley, his tone raising slightly which happened every time he spoke to his father…or rather defended something to his father. "I've been elected as the leader of our group, actually…"

"Really?" asked Roger, not bothering to mask his surprise. "I'm sure it's not permanent."

"No, it's a permanent position. Well as permanent as these things..."

"Well if you are fired then at least you can say you've reached the highest post," said Roger.

"No, I certainly won't be fired." answered Wesley.

"Being an active Watcher was as permanent as things can get and looked what happened." said Roger. "You got fired."

"Ah." began Wesley, at a loss for words, the smile fading from his face. "Well, yes, I was that one time, yes."

"And yet you think you won't get fired this time," pointed out Roger.

"Again..." began Wesley but Roger didn't let him put a word in.

"I'm pretty sure Angelus would like the reigns back and you should exercise your leadership skills if you actually have any to remain in that position."

"No, you're right." answered Wesley, his voice above a whisper. "I see how..."

"How are your powers then?" asked Roger, not bothering to let his son finish. "I'm sure everything's in order and as well as being the current slayer's watcher, which I haven't heard about from you as an achievement."

"Yes, I'd forgotten, thank you." replied Wesley.

"When did you last see your mentor? Have you been training?"

"Ah, just recently." replied Wesley, his voice of no interest to the conversation. "Uhm, it's going quite well so far."

"Well it should," said Roger. "The last time the Gem didn't do his duties properly and almost annihilated the world."

"No, I think this time..." began Wesley. "I hope it will be different."

"It doesn't do anyone well to be idealistic Wesley," reprimanded Roger.

"No, you're right." said Wesley. But Roger didn't hear what his son said after because the phone was grabbed from his hand and he looked up to see his eldest son glaring at him as his wife took the phone.

"Yes happy birthday Roger," said Wrenna to both him and the phone. "Now to more important things Wesley…"

Roger just watched his wife smile at whatever Wesley said and then he turned to Rick who was still glaring daggers at him.

"He wanted to talk to me," said Roger. "And I obliged."

"I'm only being civil because it's what Wesley asked of me before I left LA," said Rick. "But don't think you can get away with what you just did. Wesley is by far the better man, will always be a better man than you. Even Travers recognized it."

Roger made to retort but was cut short.

"You take care, my dear." said Wrenna, as she eyed the father and son to be quiet. "I love you, Wesley."

"I love you too mother," replied Wesley, a smile on his face. "You take care too."

With that Wrenna ended the call and glared at Roger. "I'm only being civilized to you today because Wesley asked me too…but if you had done that on any other occasion you would be packing your bags."

Roger remained quiet. "If you have any common sense left in you, understand this. You have made the childhood of your youngest child a living hell and yet on your birthday he had the decency to call you wish you a happy birthday and ask how you were. The man is considered the most important watcher in existence and yet you still treat him like rubbish!" It took a lot of self-control for Wrenna not to slap her husband across the face. "And yet you couldn't even act civilized…I honestly…" She sighed glared at husband then walked out of the room.

"I hope you know that you're not actually welcomed here," said Rick. "But Wesley asked mother to let you stay…and she's only tolerating you for Wesley. I suggest you know your place." With that Rick followed his mother and left Roger Wyndam-Pryce alone.

Wesley hanged up as Gunn entered his office, eating some chips.

"You talking to someone?" asked Gunn.

"Just my family," said Wesley, with a small smile. "Rick, mother…my father."

"English Senior," said Gunn trying to lighten the mood. "How is he?"

"Well, it's his birthday," said Wesley closing the open file on his desk. "He sends his greetings to everyone in Tinsel Town."

"Wes…" began Gunn but Wesley stopped him from saying anything further by raising his hand.

"No need, Charles…" said Wesley walking around his desk. "I'm fine."


"Are you sure you're alright?" asked Angel for the umpteenth time as they got out of the car and into the hotel. "You turned a funny color and kinda zoned out on us."

"Fine," said Wesley as he dabbed his handkerchief over his brow. "Has it—?"

"Stopped bleeding? Yeah." said Angel, no interest as he saw Cordelia inside the lobby.

"Cordelia." said Wesley, stunned to see her.

"Hi." offered Angel.

Cordelia looked at them then back at the floor. Angel takes a reluctant step closer.

"Look, I just wanna say - if I was out of line today..." began Angel.

"'If' you were out of line? If?" Cordelia stands up and advances towards them. "You're comfortable with your use of the word 'if' here, are you?"

Angel threw a look at Wesley then turned around as Cordy walked past him.

"I'm sorry I embarrassed you." began Angel.

Crodelia sighed. "Who am I kidding? I embarrassed myself!"

"I just wanted to act, that's all. For them to like me because I was good." She continued. "I never wanted to feel like this." She looked up at them and realized that they were only two of them. "I thought Gunn was with you guys?"

"He was. After the fight he had to go home to take care of some vampire business." said Wesley.

"How was the big fight?" asked Cordelia. "All big and - fighty?"

"We managed to kill the Haklar just as it was about to devour a group of power walkers." explained Wesley as he kept the weapon he was holding.

"Horrible." added Angel.

"I know. I saw it in my stupid vision, remember?"

"No, not the Haklar, the power walkers." said Angel. "I mean, walking I get, but power walking? Why not just run for a shorter time? Weird. Plus one of them hit him." He motioned to Wesley.

"A power walker did that?" asked Cordelia in concern.

"Apparently she felt that I disrespected the Haklar's culture by killing it." said Wesley as though it wasn't a big deal.

"But like I told you," began Angel. "You kind of zoned out on us. What happened?"

"You zoned out? In the middle of a fight?" asked Cordelia, concern clearly written over her face. "Are we talking about magic, green things here?"

"I'm sure it was nothing," said Wesley. "This city just has a lot of demonic activity and well magical workings that one tends to get distracted by things."

Angel wasn't convinced but Cordelia was. "This town sucks."

Before Angel could retort the doors to the hotel opened and the host comes in.

"Am I happy to see you. You're still a knight for hire, yeah?" asked the Host as he walked in. "Well, I'm hiring. I need you to kill something. I suppose you want the particulars, so here they are: it's called a Drokken."

"Drokken?" asked Wesley as he turned to look for any of his books.

"Ah, you won't find it in your books. It's not from any world you ever heard of." said the Host quickly.

"How did it get here?" asked Angel, crossing his arms in front of him.

"Portal. Right in the middle of my Steve Wonder tune." replied the Host as Angel, Cordelia both turned to Wesley. "Totally threw me off, and you know how I hate to disappoint an audience. But I digress."

"How long ago was this?" asked Cordelia.

"I don't know," said the Host, clearly stressed about the situation. "Twenty minutes ago? What-what's important is that you kill this Drokken, and-and this part I can't stress enough: kill it you must."

"Where is it?" asked Angel.

"No idea. But I imagine it's getting pretty hungry by now." said the Host.

"That's all you got for us?" said Angel. Wesley had taken out his notebook and tried to list down whatever information they had gotten from the host. He sat with Cordelia.

"What is it doing here? What does it want? What is it capable of?" he asked the Host.

"Who cares? It trashed my club, my clientele." replied the Host.

"I thought violence wasn't possible in Caritas. Isn't it supposed to be a sanctuary?" began Angel.

"I didn't say the Drokken killed anyone." said the Host. "I mean, knocked over a couple of my regulars." He turned from Wesley and Angel. "There were a couple of angry glances. I sensed some bad intentions. Not a nice fellow. Bad, bad beast. Did I mention the teeth?"

"You mentioned the teeth." said Angel, clearly getting annoyed.

"Are you gonna help me or do I have to break out my champion rolodex?" said the Host.

"Okay. We can start at Caritas, do a circular search, say one mile in diameter, keep moving out and hope we get lucky, huh?" said Angel as he turned towards the Hotel doors.

"Angel…" began Cordelia and Angel turned to her as she motioned with her head towards Wesley.

"Sorry." Began Angel as he looked at Wesley. "I didn't mean to step on your toes, Wesley."

"Quite alright." said Wesley with a small smile.

"Wesley is kind of our new leader now." said Cordelia to the Host with a big smile.

"Well, it's been a long time coming. Might have been what I sensed a few days ago. Congrats." The Host said to Wesley. He then turned to Angel. "And kudos to you. Nice choice of conductor to lead your symphony. So, what do we do now?" He addressed the last part to Wesley.

"Well, ah... - Angel's right." began Wesley as he stood. "Barring more promising leads a circular search pattern for the beast seems best."

"I like it." said the Host.

Angel and Wesley start to head out. The host noticed that Cordelia looked a bit ill and had place her head in her hands.

"Hey. What's with her?" asked the Host, catching the attention of the other two.

Cordelia doubled over and groaned.

"Food poisoning." explained Wesley.

"From a very expensive appetizer." added Angel, remembering how much they had spent on dinner the previous night.

Cordelia suddenly straightened up, still a hand on her head and Angel and Wesly rush towards her.

"Or possibly a vision." said Angel. "You're okay?"

"Why does everyone always ask me that?" hissed Cordelia as the pain slowly receeded. "Do I look okay?!"

"What did you see?" asked Wesley, notebook and pen at the ready.

"A woman. She was at the public library. I think she works there. She was reading a book." started Cordelia.

"A-as scary as that sounds... Crazed, rabid Drokken on the loose here? Kind of in first position." said the Host and Angel glared at him to shut up.

"There was an opening behind her." said Cordelia. She turned from Angel to Wesley. "Something magical…a portal."

Angel turned to Wesley as the man's eyes widened.

"A portal?" asked the Host, a hint of fear in his voice.

"Like the one from which this Drokken beast materialized in Caritas?" began Wesley as he stood. It was more like a statement rather than a question.

"We-we don't know that for a fact." began the Host.

"There is our connection." said Wesley as he looked at his watch. "We better get to the library. They'll be closing soon."

"Right." said Angel but deep down he was worried. If a portals were starting appear in Los Angeles…Angel feared what it meant for his friend's life.

"How fortunate that the Powers That Be haven taken an interest in my... I mean, in the problem I brought to your... Ah, it's really quite a break." said the Host, something lining his voice.

"You coming?" asked Angel as he walked past him.

"Right." said the Host. "I thought you'd never ask." He hesitated then follows them out of the hotel.


Cordelia tried to read what was written on the book but it did not make any sense. "Yeah, Pat, I'd like to buy a vowel." She turned to them but her face dropped. "Wesley, are you alright?"

Angel turned to see Wesley, a hand on one side of his head. It looked like he was fighting a headache. Before Angel could ask if he was alright the Host screamed as a bright white light suddenly whipped around them. Angel grabbed hold of Cordelia and Wesley and shielded them as the Host eyed the growing portal, still screaming.


The introduction of Landok wasn't as much as a surprise as finding out that the Host's real name is Lorne. With Landok's help they had manaed to track down the Drokken to its latest kill. Angel and Lorne talked as Landok tried to sense where the Drokken could be. Wesley was trying to contact Gunn as Cordelia skimmed through the book that had opened the portal.

"Why isn't Gunn answering our pages?" said Wesley as he pocketed his phone. "What if he's in some kind of trouble?"

"Or maybe he's in the middle of his stake-o-rama." said Cordelia as she flipped through the book. "Besides, last time we went chasing after him on a hunt you got shot. Remember?"

"Point taken." said Wesley. "What are you doing?"

"I don't know. We're missing something here, Wesley." began Cordelia, looking up at him.

"When we get back to the office I'll see what I can do about deciphering it." replied Wesley.

"I mean something bigger." said Cordelia, more urgently.

"Like what?" asked Wesley.

"I don't know. I just feel like we're chasing after this monster, which is good and all, but - we're missing something." said Cordelia and then dropped her voice into a whisper. "This book opened a portal. A portal, Wesley. Maybe this has something to do with oh you know—"

"I know Cordelia," cut Wesley as he turned to Lorne and Landok. "A portal opened, demons came out. I'm not exactly dismissing that there is a connection to you-know-what. But let's deal with one problem at a time."

"You felt faint just as the portal in Caritas appeared," said Cordelia. "Don't even deny it Wesley. And then we have the one back in the library. You felt off again just as I was reading from this book."

"Maybe it's part of it," sighed Wesley. "I can feel portals opening and closing…it is part of the name."

"I opened a portal just by reading what was on this book," whispered Cordelia. "Here I thought opening a portal was a challenge."

"I actually don't know," began Wesley. "I haven't really tried that kind of magic yet." He turned to Lorne then to Landok. "I don't think it's a hell dimension…just another world altogether. Some worlds are easy enough to get to than others."

"But what is the coincidence that we find this book," began Cordelia. "You know…just as we find out about you-know-what."

"I don't know," began Wesley. "All I know is that we need to stop that Drokken before it kills anybody else."

xXx

The Drokken was dead but not before it had poisoned Landok. Cordelia, based from her vision, saw that Landok could only be saved by opening the same portal and sending him back. They had driven to Caritas and Landok began to read from the book.

Cordelia turned to Wesley, as she saw him fighting what looked like a headache. She guessed that whenever portals were concerned, it would have this effect on Wesley. Or maybe until he could figure out his powers. Just as she was about to ask him if he was alright, she felt herself getting pulled through the portal and then everything went black.

"You alright?" asked Angel as he turned to Wesley who Angel assumed was fighting back a headache.

Wesley nodded, rubbing a hand over his forehead.

"Wha-what's say we all forget this ever happened." began the Host

"I'm down with that." agreed Angel. He turned to Wesley. "Wesley?"

"Fine with me. Cordy?" Wesley turned to where he last saw Cordelia but she was nowhere in sight.

"Cordelia!?"

They all looked around. Cordelia was gone.

"Cordy!" shouted Angel. "Cordelia!"