Episode 6.5
Only Time Will Tell
by Karen
She huddled under her cardboard roof, waiting out the rain. It was light yet, but she couldn't afford to get wet. If she got wet, then she'd get chilled. If the got chilled, she'd get sick. And if she was sick, she couldn't help Luke.
She pulled her knees closer to her chest, hoping the rain wouldn't last long. If it lasted too long, then she'd be temped to go out and play in it. It had been days since she'd had a shower. Twelve to be exact. Twelve days since she had been a regular kid. Well, it had been a whole lot longer than that, but…
She remembered the day like it was yesterday. She had skipped school to see Luke's graduation. It wasn't every day, after all that he graduated from kindergarten. Sister Laura was there, sitting in the front row, but she had snuck in the back, and watched, misty eyed.
Then, after school, she had met up with Dan, and he had taken her to a monster movie. Then they had gone back to his place. She had left his place at half past ten to get back by curfew, but the orphanage she had lived in for the past ten years wasn't there. There had been noises out in the street while she had been with Dan, but they'd been too busy to take notice. Car alarms going off and stuff. Nothing big. But now, what could demolish a whole building? All that was there was rubble. She had crawled her way through to the back of the building where Luke's room was, on the third floor, right next to her own room, but he wasn't there. The only thing she could find was his teddy bear. He wouldn't go anywhere without his teddy bear. He even dragged it to school with him, tucked at the very bottom of his bag.
She hugged the bear to her, now dirtier than he had ever allowed it to get, trying not to cry. Luke was all she had left. He was everything to her. She had taken care of him all these years, and now he was missing. He was somewhere, out in this messed up world that wasn't like anything she had ever seen before. Or worse…No, she couldn't think about worse.
She heard footsteps in the alley, rather close to her, and she sucked in her breath, holding it as the footsteps drew nearer. She moved farther into her refrigerator box, hoping whatever was out there would go away, and leave her alone. She had seen some messed up things these past eleven days. Things out of monster movies and stuff. She had to find Luke.
A figure stopped at the entrance to her box, and she bit her lip in fear. She saw the figure move a bit away, and she thought she was safe, but then the thing bent down and looked into the box.
Running on fear alone, she pushed on the rip in the box she had made before huddling inside, and the wet bottom ripped. She pushed out and was running before she had her balance.
"HEY! WAIT!" the figure yelled, and she heard feet pounding behind her, but she just kept on running, Luke's bear clutched to her chest. Her breathing was ragged, but she had to get away, she had to find Luke.
The pounding feet were right behind her, and she tried to put on more speed, but she hadn't eaten in a couple days, and she wasn't feeling well. The pounding was right behind her, and then something knocked her over, and she was down on the ground. She landed on her hands, and pain shot up towards her elbows, but she kicked out blindly at whatever was on top of her.
"OW!" the thing yelled, and she flung out with her arms and legs, trying to catch the thing, trying to get away. "Hey, HEY!" the figure yelled, and she found herself on her back, with the figure lying on top of her, with her arms pinned at her sides.
"Get off me!" she yelled, looking up at the boy, who couldn't be more than eighteen or nineteen, with longish hair that was soaked, and was dripping water in her face as he leaned his body weight on her, keeping her from lashing out.
"Do you promise not to run?" he asked.
"No."
"I think we can help each other out," he said, moving so he was sitting on her hips; she could move her legs, but not enough to kick out at him. He still had her arms pinned.
"I'm not that kind of girl. I may play around every once in a while, but I've got a boyfriend-"
"Not like that," he said, a hint of a smile on his face, "I've been watching you. You're looking for someone, whomever belongs to this," he leaned over and lifted up the bear from a puddle, "and I'm searching for someone, too. It's not safe to be out and about on your own."
"I'm doing just fine! I don't need your help!"
"Maybe not mine, but I know someone who can help you find your brother."
"How-"
"Like I said," he got off her, stood, holding out his hand to help her up, "I've been watching you." She took his hand warily. He sighed, "The truth is, I used to help out at the orphanage back when you and your brother were brought in. I just took a chance," he shrugged.
"I'm Jade," she said softly.
"I know."
---
"So, how are they?" Faith asked. She was sitting at the table as Angel came into the small apartment they had found.
"Good," he said absently, "Where are the two slayers?"
"They had jet lag or something," she shrugged, "They crashed on the couch." He nodded, "Is something up?"
"N-No," he said a little too quickly. She gave him a look, and he sighed, sitting down, "I guess you're going to get an explanation sooner or later. You don't remember Connor, but Darla tried to seduce me, and she became pregnant. I signed on to Wolfram and Hart to give him a normal life-"
"Because you couldn't," Faith nodded.
He nodded, "But his memories came back," he explained, "I can't help but hope he's okay."
"We'll help find him," Briana said from the doorway. Both Angel and Faith jumped.
"That's really not necessary," Angel hastened to add.
"No, you've taken us in, it's the least I can do," Briana said.
"We did not take you in, you chose to stay," Angel stressed.
"Can I help anyway?" Briana asked, "How old is your son?"
"About eighteen."
"We could go do a sweep of the city-" Briana started.
"No," Angel said a bit harsher than he had meant to, "You guys are here to help us clean up this mess, and to stay safe. You are not going to help me find my son."
"Angel," Faith started.
"No."
---
"You wanted to see me?" the blonde popped her head into the room after knocking once.
"Yeah," the red head said, sitting Indian style on the floor, her hands palm up on her knees. "How many girls did you send to LA?"
"Two. Why?"
"Well, there are three there. I can sense the other one. I can't tell if she's in danger or not, though. I don't know why I couldn't sense her before," she sounded frustrated.
"Can you take care of it?" she asked, biting her lip.
"Sure," she said, hearing the conflict in her friend's voice, "I'll leave in fifteen."
"Thanks."
---
"Where are we going?" Jade asked as she followed him down the street.
"I know this place that'll be safe for the night."
"Will you really help me find my brother?" she asked, trying to keep up, but his legs were longer than hers.
"I said I would, didn't I?" he sighed, "I'm sorry, that was uncalled for. I just really need to find my family."
"Do you think they're safe?" she asked, fear in her voice.
"I hope so."
All of a sudden, she stopped. Her eyes went wide, and she wrapped her arms around her stomach. She gulped a few times, trying to fight the sensation building in her stomach. "No, no," she murmured. Her eyes went even wider, she clapped a hand over her mouth, and she rushed over behind an abandoned car. He stopped, wondering why the hell she had stopped until he heard the sound of her throwing up.
About two minutes later, she came back, "Sorry," she murmured, making sure she didn't have anything stuck to her face, "I haven't been feeling well for awhile."
"Do you feel well enough that we can-"
"Oh, definitely," she nodded vigorously, "Lead on."
They started off. After about a block, she asked, "So, we're looking for your family?"
"Kinda. I had…a hunch that this was going to happen, so I convinced my parents to take the girls up to the lake for the weekend. Impromptu family togetherness crap my Mom lives. But my Dad, my real Dad, is still here somewhere. I just know it."
"You're real Dad?" she asked, confused and a bit curious.
"My real Mom died when I was just a baby, I never knew her-"
"I'm sorry," she said, looking down at the ground, sad that she'd pressed him.
"Don't be. Anyway, my Dad tried raising me, but it didn't work out, so my Dad gave me to the people I call Mom and Dad. Most of the time it feels like I was born into the family I grew up with. Memories with my sisters superimposed over other memories…"
"So even though you haven't seen him in ages, you wanna make sure he's safe."
"Yeah." He was silent a moment, the he started down a side alley, "Be careful, now," he said softly, sliding along the wall. They quickly passed by another opening and along another building. They crept out into the street, and he darted into a fenced in garden area. He pressed her up against the fence with his arm, checking to make sure no one saw them, before leading her around a ruined center piece, and through a glass door that was smashed.
It was nice enough, much better than the alleys she had been sleeping in, but damage was everywhere. The upholstery on the circular couch was ruined, the desk and the two pillar is once stood between were demolished. A door to the side hung off it's hinges. A cabinet stood against one wall, but the glass doors were ripped off and shattered. Glass and plaster lay about the floor.
"It's…nice," she said at last.
"It's not the Ritz, or the Hilton, but it's nice enough. It's a roof over your head," he shrugged. "Most of the rooms upstairs are still habitable, but the stairs are tricky. I don't know exactly what happened, but it seems that the demons came through here with a score to settle. Either that, or they were in quite a rage-"
"Demons?" she asked, her eyebrows raised.
He stopped, "Yeah. That's what happened, Jade. There's been this plan to end the world that's been in the works for hundreds of years. Eleven nights ago, it went south. I don't know much more, but my father fought on the side of good."
She didn't know what to say.
"What's why, when I saw you, I wanted to help you. You're young, and pretty. You shouldn't be out there all alone, I bet you don't know how to protect yourself."
"We did two weeks of self defense in gym," she said, defending herself. What a jerk, she thought.
"But that's not enough, Jade. Until we get you out of this city, you need to be able to defend yourself against anything that comes your way," he said, now pacing. She looked at him like he was crazy. He nodded, as if convincing himself, "Throw a punch at me."
"What? No way, just because you-"
"Throw a punch at me," he said again.
"But-" Without warning, he threw a punch at her, and she ducked, without even thinking about it. She brought her leg up as if to kick him in the balls, and when he blocked it, she turned it over as she had learned in gym class, and kicked him in the head. He stumbled back, holding his ear. "Oh my God!" she cried, "I'm so, incredibly sorry!" she looked like she was about to burst into tears.
"It's nothing," he hastened to get in, "You just surprised me a bit. That was one hell of a kick. I didn't expect you to have that much power."
"I-I've never hit anyone before, well, not with the intention of hurting them. You just made me so mad, and I wasn't thinking."
"No, this isn't right. A girl your age, with your height, build and training, you couldn't pack that much power into a kick without help. You're parents weren't-"
"You have no right to even think about my parents!" she yelled at him.
"Okay, okay," he held up his hands, "But there's something different about you. I'ts physically impossible for a child of your size to-"
"What do you mean, a child like me?" she said, getting up in his face, "I may be young, but I'm not a child! I-I have been taking care of the younger kids at the orphanage since I was taken there! I changed Luke's diapers, and when Annie had a problem with bullies stealing her lunch, I took care of it! When Grace didn't want to go to kindergarten, it wasn't Sister Laura that got her to go, it was me!"
"I don't doubt it, Jade, but you're fifteen. You're what, a freshman in high school? Well, until the high school got destroyed. You haven't seen what I've seen, you have no way of knowing what I've seen."
"But you've always had that loving family, haven't you? You don't know what it's like to lose your parents, to be in the car, and watch them die!" she screamed, tears running down her face, "You don't know what it's like to know you should have died, but didn't, and to have no clue why you were spared, while the two people you loved most in the world weren't."
He tried to take her into his arms, to comfort her somehow, but she hit him in the chest again and again, trying to fight him off. "NO, NO, NO!" she screamed at him over and over again. She hadn't cried since the day it happened, no matter how many therapy sessions she had been forced to sit through. It was none of that damn therapist's business how she felt. It was her business, and hers to decide what she did with her grief.
He seemed to sense this. Though he was trying to hold her in his arms, which he had no right to do whatsoever, she had a boyfriend, it was still comforting, knowing that someone seemed to care.
---
"I'm going for a walk," he said, standing up suddenly.
"Can I-" Briana started.
"Yes," Angel said, "Sarah can come too. Faith," he turned to her, "If you're feeling up to it…" he left the sentence hanging, "I want to do some recon, see how much damage has been done, whether or not it's concentrated, or if it's spread into the suburbs. I want to get a feel for what we're dealing with."
Spike and Gunn, who had heard Angel from the other room, came in, holding a gun or two they had found under one of the beds.
"No guns, no weapons," Angel said, "we're not going out there to fight. Time will come to fight. Right now I just want to see what we're up against."
"But what if we meet something-" Sarah started to protest.
"Then you run," he said to her. "if you can't follow my instructions, then you will stay here. Got that?" he asked her, staring her down.
"Fine," she spat, averting her gaze, though she didn't seem happy about it.
"We'll split up. Sarah, you go with Gunn and Spike. Faith, Briana you're with me. We'll head north, you head south. Let's meet back here in…four hours?"
Gunn and Spike nodded, "Sounds good."
Angel was the last to leave the apartment. He watched as everyone filed out past him; Gun and Spike were already set on the task ahead, knowing that they were probably going to run into something; Sarah wouldn't meet his gaze; Briana practically skipped out the door; Faith cracked her knuckles as she followed Briana out, shaking her head at the girl's antics.
Angel had taken the north half of the city on purpose, he wanted to go by the Hyperion again and see just how much damage had been done. Maybe the hotel was salvageable, and with a little work, they could move back in, and things would almost be back to normal, even with most of the gang gone.
As they walked down the street leading to the hotel, the street was deserted, but he thought he heard someone crying. He stopped, looking over at Faith, who looked like she was listening too.
"Do you?" she asked.
"Yeah," he whispered.
"What?" Briana asked, but Angel shushed her.
"Where is it coming from?" Faith asked.
"The hotel, I think." Angel crept through the courtyard and peered in through the broken doors. He saw a petite girl that couldn't be older than sixteen, with blonde hair, crying in the arms of a familiar boy.
"What is it?" Briana whispered, standing behind him. He didn't answer her, stepping out into the open, ducking to get underneath the overhanging rubble.
Finally the fight had gone out of her, and Jade had allowed him to hug her, rubbing her back soothingly. It was odd, being comforted by a virtual stranger, even though he said he knew her. Just as she was calming down, she felt him stiffen. She pulled away, looking up at him, before turning around to see the man standing just inside the open area.
Before anyone could say anything, a red headed woman pushed through the door, past Faith and Briana; Faith let her through with a bit of shock at seeing her, and Briana smiled at seeing her. "Angel," she said, nodding to her.
"Willow," he said back, shocked.
She turned to Jade, "Hi, I'm Willow. Could I talk to you a moment, privately?" she asked, looking from Angel to Briana to Connor to Faith.
"She isn't, is she?" Briana asked, with barely contained excitement.
"Uh, sure," Jade said, wiping her tears from her cheeks. Willow put an arm around her and led her away from the others.
"Connor," Angel said, nodding to his son.
"Dad." They stood there awkwardly for a moment, before Connor reached out and hugged Angel.
"I thought I told you to leave?" Angel said, after Connor had let him go. The hug had been more than awkward, but comforting nonetheless.
"I was worried about you," Connor said, meeting his gaze.
"So, this is like, your son? Awesome! We weren't even really looking for you and we found you!" Briana said, "Unless you only gave us that crud about doing surveillance so you could go out and look for him," she said, turning to Angel.
"I had a feeling we'd find him sooner or later," Angel said to Briana, humoring her. "Connor, this is Briana and Faith, both are slayers."
"Nice to meet you, Briana," he said, then turned to Faith, "You probably don't remember me, but I'm still thankful for what you did."
"No big," Faith said.
"NO!" This came from Jade, and everyone's attention was drawn to her and Willow, "I can't leave! I have to find Luke! There is no way I'm leaving this place until I find him!"
"But it would be best if you went back with me and went through the training program," Willow said gently, no longer trying to keep her voice down.
"We can train her," Briana said, jumping in, "We're not the best fighters, but Sarah and I did learn form the best. We can train her, and help her find this Luke, and then she can go to England for more training later."
"I can help train her," Connor said, not quite sure what was going on. Though having two slayers in the same room, and mention of another girl he guessed must be a slayer, as well as Jade's strength was all starting to click in his brain, "I've known her for awhile, and as annoying as she is, she's grown on me," he gave Jade a smile, "Besides, I promised, and I'm not about to back down now."
"Thanks," Jade said softly.
"Well…" Willow thought about it a moment, "Do you promise to come to England after you find Luke?" she asked Jade.
"No-" she started.
"I don't see why Luke can't come with you, if you're so attached to him," Willow put in.
Jade deflated, "Fine. But I really don't understand what this slayer thing is."
Briana went up to her, throwing an arm around her shoulder, "Don't worry, Sarah and I have the drill down pat," she grinned.
"Yeah," Connor said, joining them as Briana led Jade out, "and with me teaching you, you'll be able to hold your own in no time."
"Is this okay with you, Angel?" Willow asked, walking up to him.
He sighed, "It's not like I have a choice. We'll take care of her, don't worry, Willow," he said, giving her a brief smile, "So, uh, how are things?"
"Buffy's fine," she said, interrupting his flustered reply, "I know that's not what you said, but it's what you meant," she looked at her watch, "Well, if you've got her, then I need to get back to headquarters. If you have any problems with any of them, don't hesitate to let us know."
"Thanks, Will."
"Oh, and if you can get anything on her, like background info, let us know, we need to start a file on her. And don't be surprised if someone calls every once and awhile, we need to keep tabs in them, make sure they're progressing as they should, keeping on the straight and narrow so to speak, now that they don't have watchers."
Angel nodded, "Okay."
"It was great seeing you again. See you around, Faith," Willow said, leaving. Angel turned to watch her go.
"Well, the numbers just keep going up. I don't see why they're trusting us with these young, impressionable girls," Faith said, moving to stand next him.
"Yeah, but we weren't around to take care of the others, Faith. And these three will be different, I know it. We've seen a lot, we know the signs. They won't go down the path you did, we won't let them."
"You can't be so sure that they won't," she countered.
He sighed, "No I can't. I guess only time will tell what happens to them."
.END.