Chapter 14

"So," Liam sat back in his seat, rubbing his eyes, "We have three Master Vampires I pissed off personally who we think are still alive, and four former Wolfram & Hart LA clients I stopped from getting their evil on who could be holding a grudge. Does that cover it?"

Wesley yawned, shifting through the papers on the table in front of him. "That's assuming the vampire you met in Atwater Village the other night was the one in charge, and not a lackey."

"If that was a lackey, I wan' no part of its boss." Apple muttered, continuing to flip through a book of vampire lore. Raising her voice slightly she continued, "Any idea how many of these folks might've been able to learn about the prophecy? I didn' think it was a commonly-known thing."

"It's not." Penny walked towards the table, pushing a cart with a tea service and more books. "Other than the Council, I can't even imagine who'd be interested in some of this stuff. Without Council resources, how would anyone have even known the prophecy was coming to pass? The End of the Order of Aurelius isn't exactly a snazzy, big ticket item, you know? It doesn't predict power, or riches, or whatever. Dead vampires. That's it. Why the big fuss?" She sank into her chair and started pouring and distributing tea. "I mean, if you're an Aurelian vampire there may have been fuss, but you're dead now, so you're not bothering us. Who's still fussed about the dead vampires?"

"Their friends and mates from other Orders." Liam groaned. "I can think of three off the top of my head, Aurelians who were mated to vamps from other Orders. Then there's the human servants of the dead vampires, although I'd be surprised if they knew enough vamp lore to put it together, and even more surprised if they'd found us this quickly."

"That's not including the more banal reasons to seek revenge; the business deals An…We stopped from happening at Wolfram & Hart; money or magical tokens which shifted out of this dimension when the Senior Partners left; pride, envy, etc.." Wesley added. "Unfortunately, I don't think anything here is going to tell us…Well, anything about that."

"Hmmm," Penny muttered, her nose in a book from the tea cart. "Wouldn't it be nice if we had a detective around, who could help us research where our suspects are, and what their relationships to Wolfram & Hart might have been?" Wesley arched a skeptical brow in her direction, and was fairly sure she was only pretending not to notice. "Someone licensed as a PI, and also familiar with the supernatural, suuure would be helpful right about now."

Wesley snorted. "Subtle, you're not, Penance."

Liam butted in, "What we did at Angel Investigations worked because we were able to straddle the supernatural world and the everyday world, of courts and the legal system and stuff. It's not like we can search car registrations or property records for vampires. And try putting out an APB on someone dead."

"But, y'all got demon contacts or somethin', right?" Apple interjected. "They might know who's pissed about the dead vampires."

"Also, isn't there a big vacant building downtown where Wolfram & Hart used to keep their records? It's entirely possible they left files when they fled the dimension or whatever they did." Penny wrinkled her nose. "Right, maybe that's not a first resort, p'raps save investigating the office building ruins for somewhere between the 48th and the last resort. Not a good idea to walk in there without a hella lot of backup. Assuming there's anything left. It's still worth taking note of if we get stuck, though."

"We have contacts in the demon world, Apple," Wesley interjected. "And believe me, Penny, we know we may have to exercise our remaining Wolfram & Hart resources in order to figure out who might be targeting Liam. However, many of our contacts and resources were much more amenable to cooperation when we had a centuries-old vampire exerting pressure on them. Who will still speak to us and what information we'll be able to get out of them is very much up in the air at this point. So, we're trying to do as much research as we can before we have to go to the personal contacts." He shuffled through the papers again. "Perhaps some of these vampires would have paper trails we could find in the mundane records. We should start looking there, I suppose."

"I'll add the names of the vampires I can think of with newly-dead mates to our list," Liam sighed, reaching for Wes' legal pad, "And then I'm going to sleep."

"Ugh, what time is it?" Penny frowned, looking around for a clock, and finally pulling her cell phone out of her purse when she couldn't find one. "Oh, only eleven." She looked up at Wesley. "Still good to go?"

Wesley smiled. "Better with the tea, thanks."

Liam snorted at them as he added the last of the names to Wes' list. "I'll see you all at breakfast, enjoy burning the midnight oil."

He walked away from the table, which was in an open area on the second floor where the library would eventually be located, headed towards the elevator up to his room. Liam stopped at the railing overlooking the lobby and glanced down to find Chas on shift at the front desk, waiting for the patrolling Slayers to come home. He felt like he should go down and say something to the Watcher, but he didn't know what, so he decided to skip it. Just as he stepped away to head for the elevator, the door to William's room opened down the hall.

Liam froze, unsure of what to do. He hadn't spoken to Spike in days. He'd taken Connor's advice to heart, perhaps too much, and left him alone in the wake of Drusilla's gifts arriving. Could he start off asking about them, or did he have to ease into it? He desperately wanted all of the details about what had happened to Dru and what she'd sent to Spike. He also wanted to be able to deny that he cared.

While Liam was trying to decide what he felt, Spike had rolled himself out of his room, and close enough to the elevators to spot Liam standing there. "Alo, mate. Haven't seen you about much lately."

"Umm, hi, Spike. How's the wheelchair going?" He winced. "Sorry, I meant…"

"S'alright, mate." Spike shrugged. "T's better than it was last time, since I know eventually I'll be back on my feet, but I can't deny there's some bad memories involved."

Liam winced, remembering some of his more creative taunts during Spike's previous stint in a wheelchair. "Yeah. Umm, so, what are you doing up? I mean, not that you have to tell me, I was just…"

William picked up a little white box from his lap. "Relax, mate, just going up to the roof for a smoke. Come with if you like." And with that he turned back towards the elevators.

Liam froze for a second, unsure if he wanted to follow; he really was tired and Spike had never been his favorite person to spend time with. Then he realized this was likely his best chance to get answers about Drusilla, and he forced his feet to move. As the elevator door opened, the two former vampires entered side by side.

Spike must have done this before; he hit the right button with the chair facing the rear of the elevator, knew how to maneuver himself around the tight corner to the roof stair, and had a method for rolling the chair up the step and propping the door open. Liam reached out once to assist, but he was stopped with a glare and didn't try again. By the time they reached the roof he was kind of impressed.

Rolling away from the open door, Spike headed towards a planter placed against the edge of the roof overlooking the Hollywood Hills. Lighting a cigarette, he handed the pack and his zippo over his shoulder. Liam took them and contemplated them somberly. How long had it been since he'd smoked? Two years, maybe three? "So," Spike's voice was quiet, "I assume you want to know about Drusilla?"

Ah, yes, there was a reason to light up. Liam extracted a smoke. "Yeah, I really would. Starting with, who the hell was the Chaos demon?"

"Ah, Gary. Gary was the bloke Dru and I split over after Acathla. They were together about six months before I went back, kidnapped her, and tried to torture her into loving me again. Didn't last long. Then she cheated on me with a Fungus demon, oddly also named Gary, and I gave up. I just couldn't take it. Ironically, after I left town, she had Fungus Gary take her back to Chaos Gary. They tried to make a go of it as a threesome for a while, but Fungus Gary eventually left, and other than some trips to California to fuck with us over the years, she was in Brazil with Gary until she died."

Liam blinked. That was…"I can't picture her wanting to be with anyone but another vampire. She always said she liked the quiet at home, since it was hard to read other vampires."

Spike shrugged. "Mate, after a century I could still barely decipher what she was thinking at any given moment. And her letters…"

"Letters. She wrote you letters?"

He nodded. "'S mostly what Gary brought me. A few pictures and some gifts I'd given her she thought I'd want back for some reason, but mostly letters." Spike inhaled and tossed the last of his cigarette away. "There are a couple for you. Tried not to read much. Can get them when we go back down. A couple for Darla, too. Eleanor, I mean. No clue what to do with those. One is gibberish, I think. T'other might be something you want to save for the boy, when he's older."

Liam snorted. "I can't imagine Connor wants to know about his mother's life as an evil vampire…"

"Well, not her favorite blood type for a bedtime snack or sexual position she didn't need to breathe for, but he may want to know that Drusilla appreciated her caring when she was at a low point. It'd be nice to know that even your famously-evil parent had a good side to them." Spike frowned up at Liam. "He keeps asking about her, you know? He's hungry to know where he came from, who you and Eleanor were before you were turned, what you were like as vampires, literally anything. No matter which set of memories he focuses on, he has no past, no people, no real roots. Have you asked at all about the Reillys? They've been in California for 50 years, but they aren't sure where in the US they came from, let alone where in Europe before that. Name's Irish, but who knows if that's the original name or spelling or what all. No family history at all, and happy that way. Your boy's not cut from that cloth."

Liam felt his heart pound, and held a hand shakily to his chest, tossing down his unwanted cigarette. He'd forgotten what that felt like, the pulsing of strong emotion through his body, affecting his heartbeat. It wasn't pleasant. "I can't…" He took a slow, deep breath and tried again. "We've talked. I know he wants to know, and I tried to tell him some things, but I'm having enough trouble right now dealing with the memories. I don't feel comfortable talking about all of these things. How do I look my son in the eye and tell him his mother was a prostitute, that she took blood from a vampire because she was dying and convinced she was already damned?"

"Maybe start by telling him about her having to flee England for an arranged marriage in Virginia, and that she became a prostitute after she was widowed because it was either that or marry again for safety instead of love?" Spike frowned, incensed that Liam was so focused on Darla's lesser qualities he hadn't found anything positive to say to Connor.

His eyes flicked to Spike's coldly serious face. "She what?" Liam thought as hard as he could, back over the years, and couldn't recall ever having heard a story like that before. "What makes you say that?"

Spike sighed, shifting around in his chair, rolling back and forth gently. "It's what she told me. I asked her once how she knew she loved you, if she'd ever been in love before. She told me about Michael."

Liam wasn't sure if he wanted to ask about when the conversation had been had or what else had been said, until he realized suddenly that he knew when. "In Paris, before we went to Romania. Right before I got the curse. You and Darla were damn chummy for a while there."

William snorted and rolled his eyes, and started pushing himself back towards the door. "You and Dru were so bloody focused on screwing one another, and keeping both of us out of the way while you did it, 't wasn't much for Eleanor and I to do but spend time together."

"Yeah, I remember those newlyweds." Liam muttered, thinking back on it. At the time he'd felt a vague unease about the night, it hadn't seemed like either of them, but then he'd gone back to Drusilla and forgotten about it, and eventually Darla had come back to him for a few weeks of bliss…Before he'd been cursed and taken from them. Tried to go back, knew she still wanted him, but only if he was a fearsome killer. Remembered her disappointment in him, her anger and disgust.

"Neither here nor there." Spike continued, and Liam was surprised to discover that he'd lingered on the roof behind the other man, who'd somehow got himself back down the single step and was waiting for Liam to join him inside. Which he did in short order, making sure the door was locked behind them. "The only point I was trying to make is, Connor wants to know who he is, and you can tell him. Hell, he wants you to tell him."

Liam's chest felt tight again. "Maybe you can talk to him? I mean, it seems like you know some things that even I…"

"Not raisin' your son for you, Liam." Spike glared at him again. "Got enough to do with Buffy and Dawn, healing myself up, figurin' out what's next for me. Don't have the space to take care of your lot also."

"And what do you think you're going to do with Buffy?" Liam squinted at the other man. "You insisted you had a relationship with her I couldn't possibly understand, but she didn't even stay a week when she came to see you, and now she's back in Rome while you're here recovering alone."

"I'm gonna do what I've always done with Buffy." Spike sighed and punched the elevator button. "Or, at least since I started caring what happens to her. I'm gonna do what she tells me to."

"That's it?" Liam snorted. "Sounds pretty whipped, Spike."

"Not hardly, mate." Spike smiled and glanced up at Liam. "I've spent years being the lieutenant to her general or sommat. Mighta called me a tool she wields, when I was chipped and making-barely-nice with her lot, but that's been past for a while. She doesn't obey anyone, nor should she, but I'm one of those she listens to."

He rolled into the elevator, and Liam followed. "Buffy's the head of a thousand Slayers now, plus she's got Dawn. She may be less tied down than on the Hellmouth, but she'll never have the kind of life where she can pick up and move at a moment's notice. I'd be a shitty lieutenant, never mind a friend or a boyfriend, if I thought it was more important for her to be here waiting on me than out there doin' her duty. She needs me to be strong enough to take care of myself, and let her do what needs doin'. She's been putting the world ahead of her own needs since she was 15. She needs someone to put her first, not be another burden. So, that's what I do. I try to make her life easier and make her happy."

"By taking her orders." Liam was very skeptical of this strategy.

"If that's what needs doing, sure. Why not?" Spike shrugged, unconcerned.

Liam sighed, feeling somewhat better about the Buffy-and-Spike situation. It was obvious that Spike had no clue what to do with a woman like Buffy. He'd be back in the running in no time.