Uncursed

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 6 & Angel Season 3 A.U.

Author's Note: I'm glad you guys/gals like this. So . . . what should Angel have known? Hmm....Oh...and just for the fun of it, lets say that Fred's still not 'all there' at this point. 'Kay? You'll see why. And yes, Buffy will wake up soon.

Chapter Five:

Lilah flipped through the Slayer's file once again. Thick as it was, there was nothing to tell her how to get and keep Buffy and the child in Wolfram & Hart's grasp. No matter how many times she went over every tape they had from the brief times Buffy was in their custody and the file and the Slayer's history and weaknesses, no matter how many times they drugged her—both mystically and otherwise, no matter how many times they beat and bludgeoned her so she would stay unconscious . . . Buffy Summers always found a way to escape from them.

Not only was it pissing Lilah off . . . it was making her bosses particulary cross with her.

The sooner the Slayer and her brat were dead the better—for all parties involved. That is, if Lilah or her staff could ever find the Slayer and her brat. Lilah wasn't all that clear on what the Senior Partner's plan for the mother/daughter was. Not that she cared, however. As long as she delivered them . . . it was all good.

"Guess what?"

Lilah jumped as the door to her office blew open and the other pain in her ass—besides the Slayer—strolled up behind her desk and pulled her head back. She could feel the cool, sharpness of a blade against the hollow of her throat. Her body tensed up as she was held back against her chair by her shoulders. As always, though, she kept her cool. "Angel, what a nice surprise." The vampire pressed a little harder on the knife. She stayed calm. It was her style, after all."To what do I owe this pleasant visit?"

"Drop the act, Lilah," Angel let go of her, pushing her backward as he leaned against her desk. The knife was still his hand.

"I haven't touched Connor," Lilah's voice was short.

Angel's hand slammed on the top of her desk. Lilah jumped, but not enough for Angel to notice. Or so she thought. "Don't start, Lilah. We both know exactly why I'm here."

"Do you?"

"What does Wolfram & Hart want with the Slayer?" Angel

"I was wondering how long it would take for you to figure out," Lilah took a deep breath. "No matter how many times they torturd her she never talked about you." Angel just stared at her. "That's how we know how important you were to you. The important things she never talked about but frivolous things . . . we'd go on and on about shoes for days."

"As stimulating as this conversation is, I'm going to need a little bit more information than if pumps are in or out this season," Angel started pacing around the room.

"There's that sense of humor again. Every once and awhile it just creeps in between the death threats and interrogations," Lilah mused. Her face became serious. "Is that how you white hats get through the day? 'We lost today . . . but boy weren't those some great jokes we cracked while losing!' Great stuff." She laughed. "Maybe if you actually worked toward something you might win the war one of these times."

Angel looked around the room, "This what you call winning? A cozy little office you spend all your time in? An expensive apartment you're never in? A closet full of shoes? A spot on the Senior Partner's Christmas list? An empty life surrounded by evil. Seems so . . . fulfilling." Angel opened the door, talking with his back facing the lawyer. "I win every time I spoil your employers' plans. Just as I'm going to do this time."

Without another word, the vampire with a soul was gone.

~*~

Fred poked her head into Angel's room, checking to make sure there was no one in there. There wasn't so she wandered in the room, sitting in a sort of cradle position on a an upholstered chair a few feet away from the bed. Buffy still lay asleep on the bed. After Wesley had done his spell, Buffy had calmed down a little but not much. She was still restrained to the bed and occasionally yelled out things they didn't understand. Though understanding was a relative term considering they knew the words being said but not the meaning behind them . . .

Ever since Buffy had arrived Fred had been intrigued by her. The Slayer. She'd never really heard the term before except when Wesley and Cordelia were acting out Buffy and Angel's history—though Fred suspected they'd exaggerated and left all sorts of things out. She'd have to ask Buffy if—when she woke up. Maybe. She wasn't really one for socializing with new people . . . or at all.

Five years in a cave in a dimension where you're called a cow and enslaved to hideous demons would de-socialize any person. Even after you're saved by a handsome man on horse.

Fred suddenly wondered how many times Angel saved Buffy. Do slayers need saving? No one had really given her the definition of a slayer yet. From what she could figure out so far slayers were girls with some kind of superpowers . . . kinda like Wonder Woman she surmised. Or maybe not.

Just another question she'd have to add to list list she might ask Buffy if she woke up.

"Lexie . . ."

Buffy's sudden but quiet speech made Fred jump. (Yet another side effect of five years in a cave in a dimension where you're called a cow and enslaved to hideous demons). She looked up from her chair. Buffy was pulling at her ropes and mumbling things. Dreaming again. Probably nightmares.

Fred had those quite often. Horrible, terrifying nightmares she woke up from drenched in sweat and having fallen on the floor.

She coudn't really understand the things Buffy was mumbling so she crawled over to the bed and sat on the floor next to it. Now she could sort of hear . . . but it was all jumbles:

"Leave . . . alone . . . away . . . baby . . . no . . . Lexi . . . will get away again . . ."

Fred kinked her eyebrow. Oddly enough all that made sense to her. Whoever it was that was giving Buffy so much trouble kidnaped her more than once and Buffy kept escaping. The only question was why did they want her so much?

Buffy started mumbling again: "Can't have . . . mine . . . won't let . . . just a baby . . . no . . ."

Oh . . . so they want Lexi Fred thought . . . It must have something to do with the Slayer thing. Fred wondered why they wanted the baby though. What good is a baby? All they do is eat, sleep, and make waste. They do grow into adults though . . .

"What are you doing in here?"

Fred jumped again and turned. She saw a pair of legs . . . legs wearing black pants and black shoes. She looked up. It was Angel—and he had a pad of paper and a pencil in his hand. "A-Angel . . . I-I wa-as just . . ."

Angel sighed, "You don't have to explain . . . I shouldn't have scared you like that." He took her arms and helped her up. He was always such a gentleman like that.

"I'll just go . . ." Fred started to leave.

"No, you don't have to go," Angel said.

Her face wrinkled in confusion. He just asked her why she was in here, implying that she shouldn't be in here but now he said she does't have to leave . . .

"Stay. Sit. I was just checking on her," Angel.

Fred nodded, going back to the chair she was sitting in before, doing what she was told. She liked to do what she was told. She knew what to expect if she did what she was expected to do.

Angel sat in the chair that was directly next to the bed. He started drawing, though of what Fred couldn't see. She proposed the picture was of Buffy, though. She'd was looking for Angel in his office one day and instead of Angel she found a whole drawer full of sketches of a girl that wasn't anyone she knew. She supposed them to be Buffy . . . and after seeing Buffy now she knew she was right.

Fred drew her knees up and rested her chin on top of her knees. She liked to watch Angel draw or Cordelia practicing her acting or Wesley with his books or Charles cleaning his weapons. She liked observing people in their natural habit. It helped her to understand a person better. She wondered what Buffy's natural habit was. Slaying . . . maybe. She wasn't sure.

She really didn't want to bother Angel while he was drawing . . . but she had so many questions. He was really focused right now. He stared intently at the sketch pad, barely even looking up. Fred supposed he'd done this so many times he knew what Buffy's facial features were without even looking at them. Yet another clue that all those sketches she'd found were of Buffy. He looked up and stared at the wall for a few moments. Fred found her window. "Angel?"

"Yes, Fred?"
"What's a Slayer?" She asked. "I've been hearing everyone talk about it but I still don't understand what it is."

Angel nodded, setting the sketch pad and pencil down on the nightstand between the bed and his chair. "A Slayer is a she, always has and always will be."
"That part I sorta worked out on my own," Fred told him.

"Yeah," Angel said. "Thousands of years ago these men needed someone to fight the demons . . ." Fred stared intently as a child at storytime. "So they took this girl and they put the essence of a demon in her . . . and she became the Slayer. She now had more strength, more agility, and she healed faster than other humans did. She fought the demons and other things to protect the people."

"Like we do?" Fred asked.

"Exactly . . . except for the money part," Angel smirked. Fred giggled. "And when the first Slayer died . . . someone else was called. It's been like ever since. Buffy became the Slayer four years ago."

"So if Buffy dies, someone else will be the Slayer?" Fred tried to work all of this out in her head.

"Right . . . but Buffy already died," Angel said. Fred kinked her eyebrow. How does that work? "About three and a half years ago . . . Buffy was fighting this very old and dangerous vampire called the Master. He drown her . . . took off, but Buffy's friend Xander and I found her and he brought her back. But even though she was only dead for a minute or two, it still called another Slayer. Kendra. She came to town a couple of months later and we had to figure it all out. She left and a couple more months later . . . she came back and was killed by Drusilla—an insane and deadly vampire." There was something in Angel's eyes then that Fred noticed. The broody stare was deeper, filled with guilt. Fred wondered what this Drusilla was to him. Oh well . . . story for another time. "When Kendra died, Faith was called."

"Where's Faith now?" Fred cocked her head to the side.

"Currently she's in prison," Angel said. "She hit a dark path and killed a few people . . . but she's paying for her crimes. She knows what she's done is wrong and she wants to stay in prison to repent. If she truly wanted to, she wouldn't stay there."

"Wow," Fred's Texan accent twanged, "Do you think she's really good now?"

Angel chuckled, "If you knew Faith you wouldn't ask me that question. But yeah, for all intended purposes she's not killing anymore."

Over on the bed, Buffy was stirring again. Her head shook from side to side and she was mumbling again. "Will she ever wake up?"

"We're doing everything we can," Angel picked up his sketchbook and started drawing again. Fred decided to go to her room to contemplate all that Angel had just told her and what she'd heard from Buffy. She left quietly—but not as quiet as Angel—and closed her door behind her.

~*~

Back in his room, Angel worked dillegently on his sketch. He was still trying to work through what little he'd learned from Lilah. He knew that Wolfram & Hart had taken Buffy several times . . . he didn't know why though. Did it have something to do with Lexie? As far as memory served no Slayer had ever had a child. Well, except for that one Spike killed in New York but she'd had her kid before she became a Slayer.

Or maybe it had nothing to do with Lexie. Maybe the baby was just an added bonus to having the oldest-known Slayer in their hands. Whatever. Angel didn't really care what their purpose was or why they wanted Buffy and Lexie. He was going to do everything in his power to make sure the Senior Partners didn't lay another ethereal finger on either one of them.

It was suddenly Connor all over again . . . he could see the cages marked 'Mother' and 'Baby' all over again . . . all the medical tools. Even after avoiding it, he'd essentially lost both Darla and Connor.

He wouldn't make the same mistake with Buffy and Lexie. He'd protect them, he'd shield them, he'd make sure Buffy didn't lose Lexie, and he'd ensure Lexie the childhood she was supposed to have.

Whether Buffy liked it or not, he was in her and Lexie's lives. For good.

To Be Continued . . .

A.N. Whoa...say hello to PapaBear Angel!!! He's not even Lexie's Dad and he's still taking responsibility for her and Buffy. Hmm...when has Buffy ever liked being controlled by a guy. Ought to make for an interesting read . . . tune in for more! And hey, how do you wanna see Buffy wake up? Questions, comments?