Well, no excuses, just got out of writing for a while. New job, new promotion and very little time to myself. But then some people favorited this story recently and it guilt tripped me into writing a new chapter. So here it is and sorry it was so long in coming.

I don't own Gargoyles, but Ember is mine. That's good enough.

Goliath's wing muscles ached as he landed in the courtyard. It had been a long night, and it wasn't even half over. It was like all the drivers in the city had gone mad, crashing their vehicles into each other and anything else that didn't get out of the way. Elisa swore it was some kind of mass hysteria. Every crash victim she had talked to had babbled something about a giant gargoyle flying overhead. Goliath had to admit he was pretty perplexed about that. Most of the residents of New York knew what they all looked like by now, and many didn't even bat an eye anymore as the clan went about its business. Well, some. Not enough to cause the kind of pandemonium he had seen tonight.

He glanced around the castle. Looks like he was the first one back. Elisa had told him he might as well head home, as she would be stuck doing paperwork for the rest of the night. Whatever phenomenon had been causing the record number of "fender benders" seems to have stopped.

As he was turning to head inside, Hudson came gliding in from the north, dropping down and depositing Bronx to the flagstones. "Bronx, I'm getting too old to lug your heavy carcass around all over the city. And that's a fact."

Goliath grinned at his old friend's muttering. They heard the same complaint all the time, every time the old warrior took Bronx anywhere. And the next night, Hudson would scoop Bronx up in his arms to go patrol, and the complaining would start all over again.

"Anything to report?" Goliath asked as Hudson's muttering wound down.

"You mean besides everyone forgetting how to steer their crazy contraptions. No. Any thoughts as to what might be causing all the noise?"

"The few Elisa interviewed claimed to have seen a giant gargoyle."

"Giant? What exactly counts as "giant" to humans?"

"I'm sure I have no idea."

"I think the people in this town have finally lost their minds. What little they had left after breathing in the fumes, that is."

Goliath chuckled. He really couldn't disagree on that. They were interrupted by Bronx barking over the battlements. "Eh? What is it you great brute? It's just the lads returning. Wait. Who's that with them?"

Goliath could see the distinct figures of Brooklyn and Lexington, but as for the third he didn't recognize. As they got closer he began to think maybe Delilah was with them, but the coloring was wrong. His mind had only come up with "female" before an orange missile plowed into him, sending him off his feet and skidding across the flagstones on his tail.

As he was recovering the breath that had been knocked out of him, he became aware of the gargess sitting on his chest beaming down at him. It was her merry green eyes that brimmed with good humor that sparked a memory in him, though the rest of her was unfamiliar. He knew those eyes. He saw them whenever he thought of his slain clan, and the one special member who had died trying to protect them. "Ember?" he whispered." But it can't be. We were told you had died."

The young gargess grinned toothily down at him. "Could a ghost knock you on your bum, Goliath? I could make myself a lot heavier to prove it, you know."

It was the sheer amount of cheek in her familiar voice that convinced him.

Giddy excitement rushed through him as he rose and clasped her in his arms, spinning her around as he laughed. "Ember! My Firescale!" He set her down and studied her as she laughed with him. Now that he was looking at her properly, he could see the resemblance to Ash's gargoyle form. Two graceful horns swept back from her brows to meet at the back of her head, framing her black hair. Her bright green eyes were enhanced by the dark green cloth of her tunic. She was surprisingly petite, a few inches shorter than Angela, though her wing span was nearly as wide as his own. Ash had had the same feature. It must be a peculiarity of dragons.

But that mattered little now in his joy. "How could this be? Where have you been all this time?"

"It's a really long story, how's about I tell everyone when we're all together," she said breathlessly, trying to put her clothes to rights.

She beamed as Hudson was the next to embrace her, Bronx next to him trying to jump up on her. "It's good to see you, lass. Things just weren't the same without you."

"Likewise, old man." She quirked her eyebrow up at him from where she was kneeling to greet the exuberant Bronx. "Or Hudson rather."

Hudson scowled at her in mock annoyance. "And how did you know that, pray tell?"

Ember threw back her head and laughed. "Are you kidding? You guys are famous. I read your names in the newspaper."

"It's true," said Brooklyn. "She already knew me and Lex's."

"Wait, you have a newspaper delivered to a cave?"

Ember smirked at Lexington. "Who says I live in a cave?"

"I thought all dragons lived in caves."

"Then how would I get my internet?"

"Oh, that makes sen…, wait, what?"

Goliath felt a deep contentment as he watched Ember wind Lexington up as if they had never been apart. He had so many questions for her. He wanted to hear her story, to know what had been happening to her. He stepped aside and pulled his radio out of its pouch. "Broadway, Angela?"

His daughter's voice came to him a moment later. "Father? What's up? It's a little crazy out here right now. Something has the people acting all nutty."

"I am aware, but the two of you should come back to the castle now. Something has happened."

"Is everything all right?"

He hurried to reassure the worry in her voice. "Everything is fine, but we have received a surprise tonight. A good surprise."

"Oh, okay. We're on our way. Over and out."

Now he just needed to get Elisa here somehow. As a member of the clan, she deserved to know everything that was going on, and he couldn't wait for her to meet Ember. He had always thought the two of them would have gotten on well.

While the rest were still talking, he ducked into one of the small alcoves Xanatos had built into the walls of the castle to hold weapons and communication devices in case of emergency. He picked up a phone specially designed for gargoyle claws and pressed a button that speed dialed a number. After a few rings, someone picked up.

*You have reached the office of Bluestone and Maza. We can't come to the phone right now due to our having lost it in a pile of paperwork, but if you leave your name and phone number we will try to get back to you sometime in the next century. Thank you and have a better night than we are having.*

Then the voice went *BEEEP*

"Bluestone-"

"Oh! Hey Goliath. Sorry about that, thought you were the Chief. Let me get Elisa." There was a clunk, a muffled curse, the sound of many pieces of paper sliding, then a beloved voice apparently yelling at her partner for messing up her desk, a piece of furniture Goliath knew Elisa to be extremely territorial of.

She eventually got tired of that and came on the line. "Hi Goliath, sorry about the wait. Is everything alright?

"Everything is fine. Better than fine, in fact. How soon can you get away and come to the castle?"

She snorted. "How's next week sound? The Chief has got us doing all the write ups on the traffic accidents 'cause we don't have any cases going right now and all the street cops are still on mop up. Why, is it something important? Because if it is, I can just leave it all to Matt."

Mournful noises in the background told Goliath what Elisa's partner thought about that.

"Then don't dump half of your pile on my desk while I'm in the bathroom and think I'm not going to notice!" Elisa's voice became muffled, like she had her hand covering part of her mouth. "Please tell me it's an emergency and get me out of here."

Goliath shook his head. His friend and her partner fought like the trio sometimes.

"I would then consider it very important clan business and your presence is immediately requested."

"Great, that's all I need! I'll be there as soon as I can." Her voice faded as she began to set down the phone, but he still heard her parting shot of" See you on Monday, Partner" before the line clicked off.

Goliath was still chuckling as he stepped back out into the courtyard just in time to see Angela and Broadway land. He received a shock a moment later when Angela gave a squeal as she spied Ember and raced over to throw her arms around the slightly shorter dragon. "Ember! What are you doing here?"

Ember seemed as shocked as he was as she hugged back automatically. "Angela? How did you get here? Why aren't you on Avalon?"

The rest of the clan was goggling at both of them. Broadway got over his shock and with a shout picked Ember up and twirled her around as Goliath had. "Ember! I can't believe it's really you."

Ember laughed and hugged her rookery brother back. "Believe it, big guy."

Goliath could not contain his questions any longer. "Ember, please tell us how you and Angela are acquainted. And how you could visit Avalon."

Ember sighed and ran a claw through her hair. "Well, because I used to go to Avalon to check on the eggs. As to the other, I'm a dragon. We can go wherever we want. Like Oberon can stop us."

Angela laughed. "She used to come all the time and play with us. Sometime she was in her other form, which was really fun." She squinted sideways at the dragon." But she never told us she knew our clan. She just said she was a friend."

Ember smiled sheepishly." I didn't want to have to be the one to tell you guys what had happened that day. I left that to the princess, but told her to leave me out of the tale." Her emeralds eyes darkened with memory." At the time, it was still a sore subject."

Lexington had his thinking face on again. "How come you didn't know about Angela being here if you knew about us?"

"She wasn't mentioned in the few articles I read. They said there were seven of you, but I didn't know who the extra was." Ember looked strangely troubled by this. "I should have known. It's been so busy back home, I haven't been to Avalon in a few years. And here I was supposed to be looking after the clan." She shook her head moodily.

Angela grabbed her hand, jarring her out of her melancholy, and began to tow her to a sheltered place in the courtyard with benches scattered about, a little whimsy of Xanatos's redecorating of the castle. "Then let's all go sit down. I want to hear everything about how you knew the clan and where you've been and everything."

Goliath smiled at his daughter's exuberance. "Angela, we still have to wait for one more."

"Oh, is Elisa coming? How long until she gets here?"

Ember's brows crinkled. "Elisa? Who's that?"

Brooklyn, who had been hanging back, watching the activity with a very contented smile on his face, laughed. "Well, we figured we had a dragon in the clan, why not a human too. We kinda adopted each other soon after we woke up. Don't worry, you'll love her."

Broadway laughed. "There are a lot of people in this city who don't find her so loveable."

"Only the wrong kind of people." Brooklyn smirked at Embers confused look. "She's a cop."

He was amused to see this information didn't faze Ember a bit. She just shook her head sadly at him. "And just how long were you awake before you got in trouble with the police?"

He grinned at his best friend." Hey, it wasn't just me, and a few hours after we stole a motorcycle."

Ember laughed when Lexington and Broadway both groaned. "I can't wait to hear that story."

Brooklyn threw his arm over her shoulders. It was weird to have her a couple of inches shorter than him, as the last time he had seen her she was nearly fifteen feet long. He wondered how big she really was now. But having her like this was oddly natural. "Oh trust me; we have better stories than that."

Ember looked at him affectionately. "So do I. And mine are a thousand years in the making."

Next time all the history comes out.