Disclaimer: I don't own Angel, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, or Prison Break. Cass is my own, so ask before borrowing (though heaven only knows why you would).

A/N: And we're back to Lorne and Anya and Fernando. You didn't think I'd forgotten them, did you? (Oh, and Bob the CO is an actual character from Prison Break. 'Bob' is apparently short for Tyler Robert Hudson…I'm not making this up.)

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"Ooh…is there a file on me? There should be a file on me. Should be a nice, thick one too since I've been around for about a thousand years. Where's my file?"

Lorne glanced back over the rows of filing cabinets to where the Files & Records lady was flipping through Home and Garden. She didn't seem to have heard Anya, thank his lucky stars. "Can you try and keep it down, lady bug? We're here to look for files on that Burrows fellow, not you."

"Ah-ha!" Anya held up a file labeled 'Anyanka'. Quickly, she flipped to the back. "Hey, there's nothing in here about me dying saving Andrew! There's just a note 'See also Sunnydale Hellmouth and Buffy Anne Summers, cabinets 1-144'. I can't believe this! There's nothing in here about me saving Andrew—that was my finest moment! That and starting the Russian Revolution, but still!"

Lorne patted her sympathetically on the shoulder. "Focus, crumbcake," he said, taking the file from her and hastily stuffing it back in the drawer. "We're looking for the Bs."

She gave a snort of disgust and moved on down the line of cabinets, still muttering under her breath about the injustice of it all. He didn't blame her…really. Even he'd been tempted to sneak a peek at what Wolfram & Hart had on him until he remembered he'd worked for them for a year and they'd have plenty. Including things he didn't particularly want to remember. Having his sleep removed and then trashing the Halloween Party? Yeah, fun times compared to some of the others.

"Found it!" Anya exclaimed as she yanked out a drawer. "Hey, he's the only one in here."

Lorne peered over her shoulder. "Why is there a folder labeled 'Prophecies'?"

She handed that to him and then started rooting around in drawer. "Copy of his birth certificate, arrest record…"

Lorne shut out the sound of her voice (a talent he seemed to be improving upon the longer he was around the effervescent blond) and started reading. Seems Mr. Burrows was descended from a long line of potential power players in the Apocalypse. There also a three page Xerox of a scroll written in some language he couldn't even identify. Glancing over his shoulder at the Files & Records room lady—she turned a page in her magazine, paying them absolutely no mind—he slipped the copy of the scroll into his jacket. The Oracle had to know someone who'd be able to translate. Someone sufficiently Wes-like when it came to language and ancient prophecies.

"Found it!" Anya whisper-yelled into his ear as she pulled a VHS tape out of a folder at the back of the cabinet. "Ooh, look, here's a contract to have someone muck with it."

Lorne took the tape from her and read the label. There was a smudge of what looked like peanut butter next to the scribbled date and time. It seemed to be the original tape from the security camera in the parking garage where the vice president's brother had been shot. Taking Anya by the arm and bumping Burrows' draw shut, he headed back up to the Files & Records desk. "Excuse me, but is there some place we can view this tape?" he asked the clerk.

She glanced up from an article about slipcovers and looked at him, her rather plain face expressionless. "There is a viewing room, one floor up, on your right when you exit the elevator."

"Thank you, sugarloaf," he said, giving her his best smile (or at least, the smile that was his best when he wasn't in disguise. He wasn't quite sure if what looked dazzling on Krevlorneswath of the Deathwok Clan worked for Carson Lulling). "We'll only borrow it for a moment." Hopefully, Cass wasn't lurking somewhere, making black Xs in her notebook every time he lied.

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In an alley next to the law firm offices, Fernando paced. He wasn't sure if it counted as real pacing since nobody could see him, and therefore there was nobody to yell at him to knock it off. Pacing just wasn't the same without his Mama or an auntie screeching at him to sit down—he was driving them up the wall. No Scofield to give him that exasperated look that clearly said Sucre was breaking his concentration.

Still, there was nothing else to do. Occasionally, he'd walk through the side of one of the dumpsters that lined the alley and yelp. No matter how many times he did it, he still couldn't get used to the sight of his leg passing through the rusted metal. He was a ghost, no matter what that Oracle girl said. She'd promised he'd get his body back, but his gut didn't believe it. No, he was stuck in some sort of limbo between life and afterlife—was this Purgatory? He never should have robbed that convenience store.

Lorne and Anya had left a cell phone for him, sitting on the top of a discarded cardboard box. Not that he could use it since his hand passed right through it like it passed through everything else. Lorne had suggested that maybe he should try concentrating on trying to affect solid reality. The green demon seemed to think if he thought hard enough at an object, he might be able to touch it. So far, thinking hard had only given him a headache.

Which meant he was fucked if someone should happen to notice him. These lawyer-people—Lorne said they had ghost detectors. What if one of them should happen to bring a detector (he was unsure whether these were machines like the metal detectors at the court house or people) out into the alley? He didn't know why anyone would, but there was always the possibility. His luck was shitty like that.

Anya had set it up so all he had to do was push 'Send', and it would call her phone. That woman scared him more than he'd like to admit, but still…she at least looked human. And she wasn't the one responsible from yanking him out of his own body and sending him something like two thousand miles across the country.

Ok, he didn't have to come, but he'd figured it was better than being stuck by himself in those creepy white offices.

There was a roar in his ears, like standing under the El when a train went by, and Fernando staggered, catching himself on the lip of one of the dumpsters. The world swirled violently, and it took him a minute to realize he was holding on to the dumpster, not falling through it. Experimentally, he kicked the it. His boot hit the metal with a clang that echoed up and down the alleyway. He was solid again!

"Yes!" he shouted, thrusting both fists into the air.

The phone started ringing. Snatching it off the dumpster, he held it to his ear. "Hello?"

"Get to the rental car, amigo—Anya and I are coming out fast!" the demon panted. There was a crash and something that sounded like a gunshot and Lorne was saying something into the phone that was in another language but definitely sounded like cussing. Then the connection was cut, filling his ear with static.

Time to go, he figured as he set off for the parking garage where they'd left the rental at a jog. They'd picked up the black Impala four-door at the airport and driven straight to the law firm. Somehow, he'd managed to ride in the backseat without falling through the floorboards and onto the high way. Lorne had said something about "subconscious control", but then traffic had gotten absolutely loco, and the green demon to focus all his attention on the road and not dying. Houston people drove like maniacs.

Fernando was the first to the car, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his prison blues and bouncing impatiently. He didn't have long to wait—the others came rushing out of the elevator like el Diablo himself was on their heels, Anya in the lead. She'd lost her shoes somewhere, and her hose hung in tatters from the bottom of her feet.

Holding out her keys, she pressed the key fob, making the Impala beep behind him as the doors automatically unlocked. "Give me the keys," he ordered as she came to a crashing halt right into front of him.

Her brown eyes went wide as he took the key ring from her. "You're…you're corporeal!" She let out a squeal and threw her arms around his neck.

Sucre choked a bit, trying to free himself from the virtual chokehold.

"Buttercup, let him go!" the green demon pleaded as he yanked open the passenger door and dove in. The disguise spell was gone, and the look in his burning red eyes was one of sheer panic.

Shouts announced a security team as they came pouring out of the stairwell. They looked more like SWAT than building security in their black Kevlar vests and helmets. He was pretty sure the assault rifles they were carrying weren't legal in most of the lower forty-eight.

"Time's a-wasting," Lorne muttered and slammed his door shut.

Anya let him go, and Sucre scrambled around to the driver's door. The rental's engine purred to life, and he backed it out of the parking space with a squeal of tires. The security team was, of course, between him and the exit, but he plowed ahead anyway, trusting that they'd get out of his way.

One guard had taken a knee and managed to squeeze off a burst of rapid auto-fire before being forced to roll away to avoid being squished by the Impala. Sucre floored it, and the car sailed past the toll tooth, snapping off the little arm blocking its path, and screeched off down the street in the direction of the highway.

It wasn't until they pulled off the entrance ramp and into the flow of mid-afternoon traffic that he let himself relax. Next to him, Lorne let out a great sigh of relief and turned to look back at Anya. "Do you still have the tape, sugar toes?" the demon asked.

In the view of the rearview mirror, the blond woman held up a VHS tape. "Safe and sound."

"What happened in there?" Fernando demanded, paying more attention to the woman in the backseat than he should. A horn blared and a green Lincoln cut him off, zipping across three lanes of traffic before coming to stop in the far left lane. All that could be seen of the driver was a puff of blue-gray hair barely reaching to the top of the steering wheel. He swore under his breath in Spanish and turned all of his attention to the road. Loco. Absolutely loco.

Lorne sighed again. "Apparently, Wolfram & Hart has anti-theft tags installed on all their evidence needed for criminal affairs. We set off the alarm when we got in the elevator and headed down instead of taking the tape back up to Files & Records." He shuddered a little at the memory. "It's only thanks to some fast-thinking on her part that we got out."

"I hit the first guard with a ficus," Anya explained, obviously pleased with herself.

"So, you got something that'll clear Burrows. Now what?"

"Now, we call Cass and get the hell out of Dodge."

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But it wasn't the Oracle who responded to their page. They turned the rental in at the airport and wandered out to a small side road that ran parallel to the runways, just on the other side of the chain link fence. "Calling the Oracle! Come in Oracle!" Lorne shouted into thin air.

For a long time, nothing.

Then, just as they were about ready to give up and find some other way of getting back to the Hall, there was a shimmer of light and a man appeared. He looked to be in his late thirties, dressed in white slacks and a white button-down shirt untucked. Higher Power, Lorne's brain supplied for him. You didn't need to empathic abilities to tell who this fellow represented.

"You're charges of the Oracle?" the man asked, looking from one face to the other. Concern creased his face, making the laugh lines in the corners of his eyes deeper.

They all nodded.

"My name's Leo," he continued. "Were you successful in your errand?"

Sucre's eyes narrowed in suspicion, and Anya moved the tape so it was completely obscured by her skirt. "Where's Cass?" Lorne asked, voicing the question they were all thinking.

Leo swallowed and allowed a hint of nervousness to show through his mostly serene façade. "There's been a problem."