It had been hours and Judith's lower back hurt.
She had tried to stay as still as Angel, who was as frozen in his body as Connor, but as the only living thing in that room, she had needed to adjust, occasionally stand, and once go find the ladies room.
Angel made no indication that he noticed her presence at all, simply staring at Connor with Connor's hand clasped between Angel's, like the longer he stared the more likely Connor was to move. As time moved on, though, one thing did subtly shift: the almost palpable aura around him that had kept her at the edge of the room started to shrink. When Judith came back from the restroom, she felt able to move the chair about a meter closer to him, and did so before she sat back down. And waited.
A few hours after that, she got up and moved the chair a little closer again. Only an hour later, she did it again. When she came back from getting something to eat for lunch, she moved the chair all the way to the halfway point across the room. By dinnertime, she was a mere two meters away from Connor's feet.
All the while, she kept the various employees at bay as they came to check on them, likely having never had someone take advantage of their 'take all the time you need' platitude. Judith was well-practiced at this. It was her job.
She had also never had a person quite like Angel to comfort and advocate for in the face of tragedy, but all the same principles applied. Patience. Observation. Listening. Respect. Every time she got up to talk to a doctor or nurse who needed something (or simply wanted to get back to work) and returned to her chair having preserved Angel's quiet and solitude, she found that she was allowed to sit a little closer to him. Every time she was gone for a longer period of time (to find food or something), his wall retreated to let her take up her post again.
Eventually by mid-evening Judith made it within touching distance of Angel. Less than an hour later, she moved half the distance closer. And it only took another 30 minutes or so before she reached out a hand and placed it on his back.
Like touching the most delicate glass, the final wall shattered under her touch and Angel's grief broke through.
And that was where the hard work began.
William swallowed nervously. This was exactly why he was supposed to be the level-headed one and caution Calder to discuss their breaking-and-entering plans privately.
The girl (William was going to assume for the sake of caution that she was a Slayer - and a fully-trained one at that, again for the sake of caution) glared at them impatiently, waiting for their response, but William was coming up short. He nudged Calder in the ribs.
"Uh, right," Calder nodded. He shrugged. "Always gotta see what's behind a locked door, right?"
The girl looked unimpressed.
"I mean seriously, in a place like this?" Calder added. "Whatever's behind a locked door has to be good."
The girl cracked her neck and then shifted her attention to William. "You want to try?" she asked.
Not really. William cleared his throat. The way he saw it, they had the option of honesty (his mother's favorite, so it was always on the table for William even when it wasn't for anyone else), or they had the option of the perfect lie: the tale spun of easy half-truths that would explain their presence, their plans, their hopes and dreams in a humanizing, sympathetic way that would set them free and perhaps gain an ally in the process.
William was very bad at those kinds of lies. Probably because growing up under his mother's roof, he was taught that honesty would get him the same thing half the time, only more authentically and morally.
So William took the route of honesty. "We...kinda think that the Council's up to something shady," he said. "And we're here to...rescue...people… If they need it."
Next to him, Calder sighed.
But at least the girl had a different reaction this time. Her eyebrows lifted in surprise and then furrowed again in suspicion. "You came with Angel, right? The vampire with a soul?" Her accent was mixed; like an American who had been living in England for a few years and was picking up the cadence.
"Yeah," both William and Calder said together. William had no idea if this boded well for them or not. Angel might have an in with the Council, but that didn't mean the Council liked him.
The girl glanced around and finally straightened up from the doorway, dropping her arms. "Let's walk," she said.
They had little choice but to follow. She led them down the hall toward the foyer, and William worried that they might be heading for one of the locked rooms off the entrance (at least one of which he was going to guess led to the office of Head Watcher Markle), but she took them past all the doors, both known and unknown, and led them outside.
They went down the front steps, the morning sunshine warm and promising on their faces. At the end of the walk, the girl turned and led them along the inside hedge that lined the fence of the property, positioning herself so that William and Calder were flanked between her and the hedge. Now as far away from the house as they could get, the girl finally spoke. "Tell me what you know."
William and Calder glanced briefly at each other, but Calder said, "First tell us what you know."
The girl shook her head. "You're not in any position to be making demands. Tell me what you know."
Not one to easily tolerate being pushed around, Calder said, "At least tell us your name."
The girl looked over at them, frowning with displeasure. Nevertheless, she replied curtly, "Gabrielle."
"Gabrielle," Calder nodded. "That's pretty."
"Tell me what you know," Gabrielle practically growled.
Since the honesty had been his choice, William replied, "Not much, concretely. Angel's our Seer; he had a vision of this place and something dark happening here. In the sublevel, he thought. It seemed like someone needed rescuing. And to go home." He added to Calder, "He said that seemed important, right?"
Calder nodded while Gabrielle took that in. "Angel didn't stay," she observed.
"An emergency came up," William replied. "Which we're actually pretty concerned about, so we'd like to just get to the rescuing part of this mission so we can go home and help," he added. Maybe that was what the vision meant by the strong sense of needing to return home. Maybe it was telling them to not bother sticking around after the rescue, even if there were more things to do. That Angel was going to need them back in Galway.
Gabrielle huffed out a breath that might have been laughter or derision. It was hard to tell. "What else do you know?" she asked.
They came to a tree in the corner of the property with low-hanging branches, and instead of leading them around it, Gabrielle ducked under the leaves. Following her lead, William replied as he and Calder ducked, too, "Honestly, that's all we know for sure. There are definitely some strange things about this place, but I mean, it's a secret establishment. Secrets are kind of built in."
"Secrets that we honestly don't care about," Calder added, straightening up when he could. They were in a small clearing between the low branches in the corner of the property, and with the leaves and the hedges they were mostly hidden from view on all sides. "We just want to help whoever's in trouble and get the hell out of here."
Gabrielle crossed her arms, surveying them for a long moment like she could read their honesty. "That's it?" she said. "You want to help someone in trouble and leave?"
"That's it," William said, while Calder nodded.
"What's in it for you?"
William shrugged and shook his head to indicate that there was nothing in it for them, but Calder replied with a slight question in his tone, "Danger and honor?"
Gabrielle's expression said that she didn't believe either of them, but instead of pressing for a different answer, she asked, "And you're here to 'rescue someone,' not take down the Council, right?"
Both William and Calder frowned. "No…" William said slowly. "Should we?"
Gabrielle didn't answer. Instead she said, "There is something going on here, of course. The vampire's vision was right. It's something I...don't like. But the consequences could be…" She swallowed. "I'm just a Slayer," she said. (William felt a little jolt of triumph at being right in his cautionary assumption.) "I only get told so much."
"Why?" Calder interrupted. "Slayers have all the power, right? I thought Slayers were supposed to run the show after Willow Rosenberg's spell. Like a middle finger to the patriarchal BS of the Council, yeah?"
The corner of Gabrielle's mouth twitched in a smile. "In your research of our public files," she said slowly, "what did you find about Head Watcher Markle's transition to power?"
So she'd been watching them the night before. That felt uneasy.
William replied, "A lot of redacted stuff."
Gabrielle nodded. "I wasn't here at the time," she said. "But as I understand it, the Council was facing a crisis."
When she didn't continue, William asked, "What kind of crisis?"
Gabrielle glanced around, like she was worried someone might be listening from the other side of the fence. She leaned, looking around the trunk of the tree and through the branches toward the house. When she seemed satisfied that they were alone, she asked, "Who are you working for? Really?"
"The Powers That Be," Calder replied immediately.
"Not Angel?" Gabrielle asked.
William shook his head. "Angel's working for the Powers That Be, too."
Gabrielle looked like this might actually mean something to her, the way her eyes squinted briefly. But if it did, she didn't say how. "And you trust them?" she asked. "These Powers?"
Both William and Calder nodded.
"Yeah," Calder replied. "They've only ever given us missions for good. We help tip the scales in our favor - the side of Good, I mean."
Actually, according to Angel, the Powers were a balancing force. If the scales ever actually tipped in the side of Good, their Evil Champions would be brought in to even them out. But William didn't think that was a necessary clarification to make at this point.
Gabrielle took that in, still scrutinizing them. Finally, she sighed. "The crisis the Council was facing eight years ago," she said slowly, "was that the Slayer pool was drying up."
William and Calder frowned, waiting for her to continue, though she needed some time to carefully choose her words.
"When one Slayer dies, another is called," she said. "Well, after Willow Rosenberg called all of the Slayers, there weren't any more Potentials to replace the ones that died. The pool dwindled sharply over the next decade, and more slowly over the decade after that."
William nodded, understanding. "But wouldn't that even out eventually? The pool of Potential Slayers would replenish and the Council has the axe-thing to call more."
Gabrielle inclined her head toward him. "It's a little less simple than that, but yes. They could call more, but they came into the same problem: when you activate all of the Potentials, you eliminate the next generation of Potentials. Not to mention the ethics of knowingly awakening the call in young children and infants."
"Ohhh shit, yeah," Calder said, catching on.
"After some time," Gabrielle continued, "they learned how to modify the activation; to restrict it to a smaller sphere of influence. But they still couldn't simply whisk away all of the world's Potentials to be trained and activated. Some were still trained like in the old ways: located and raised by Watchers to prepare for activation. But still, the number of Slayers dwindled and were outnumbered by the Watchers. About 50 years ago, there was a drought of Potentials. No new Slayers were activated between 2171 and 2203. Our numbers were dangerously low and the political power shifted back to the Watchers."
"Bastards," Calder murmured, which made Gabrielle almost smile again.
"So…" William said, putting the pieces together, "Head Watcher Markle had an idea to replenish the Slayer pool and moved up the ranks, huh?"
Gabrielle nodded. "I don't believe she is a bad person," she said cautiously. "Only...ambitious and missing a crucial dose of empathy."
"What did she do?" William asked.
Gabrielle leaned around the branches again, checking the security of their hiding place. Once satisfied, she looked back at William and Calder and replied, "I can get you into the sublevel; you can find out for yourself."
"I need to tell Cordy."
Angel's voice was tired and thick, his throat raspy from his racking sobs. He'd refused an offer of water and Judith wasn't ready to push it quite yet.
She nodded, understanding. She knew that Cordelia and Angel had a long and complicated history, which had been revived and made more complicated nine years ago when it turned out that Cordelia was still living, immortal, and an interdimensional Seer/Champion for the Powers That Be. The other obvious complication currently was that, as an interdimensional Champion, Cordelia lived in another dimension. "Do you know how to do that?"
Angel shook his head. His tears were drying on his cheeks and his eyes were rimmed red. He was breathing, unusually. Judith had seen him take a breath before speaking (presumably because he needed the air to make his voice work), and his racking sobs had seemed to require air, but that phase was over now. He had calmed down, but he was still breathing.
"I will help you figure it out," Judith told him. "You're both Seers for the Powers That Be; that's a place to start."
Angel nodded numbly. He still gripped Connor's hand in both of his. "I have books. Lots of books. There's gotta be something in one of them for transdimensional communication."
Judith nodded. "We'll look in all of the books," she said.
"If that doesn't work, I can ask around at Decade," he said. "One of the Fae upstairs has to have the connections."
Judith liked this idea much less. Her last experience at the vampire nightclub/Fae bar/multi-species sex dungeon had involved the traumatic experience of near-body-mutilation. Nevertheless, she called on her bravery and said, "I'll go with you."
Angel didn't argue.
Which didn't mean he was consenting so much as thinking about it.
Judith's hand still rested on his back, unmoving.
After a moment, Angel continued, "And I know a guy. I might even still have his number. He has this ship that's a blue box-"
"Angel," Judith interrupted gently. "There is plenty of time to distract ourselves later with other important details. Be here now with Connor while you still can."
The muscles of Angel's back tensed under Judith's hand and a moment later another sob escaped. Judith moved her chair next to his stool and let her entire arm drape across his back. It was hard not to put herself in his position while he wept; hard not to identify with the fear and pain of losing a child. Though she had never lost a child herself, as a parent it was all too easy to imagine.
It was always easy for her to imagine the suffering of grief, though. She had lost others close to her throughout her life. Part of why she had decided that sitting around in hospitals comforting frightened and grieving families was an appealing career choice was that it was something she felt both knowledgeable in and the ongoing need to heal from. She was getting better about divorcing her clients' emotions from her own; remaining empathetic without absorbing their fear and sorrow.
But still, a few tears of her own fell down her cheeks as she sat vigil and Angel wept.
They made quick plans with Gabrielle to break and enter the sublevels that night, and then Gabrielle recommended they make themselves scarce for the rest of the day to keep off the Council's radar. She left them behind the tree briskly with hardly even a See you later, and - not having much of an option - a moment later William and Calder left, too; but in the opposite direction toward the front gates.
After they exited the grounds, William said, "Let's buy our train tickets for first thing tomorrow. I want to be able to get out of town quickly if we have to, and if we don't find what we're supposed to find down there, we're probably not staying another day anyway." They still didn't have nearly enough information to be at all confident about what exactly they were looking for in the sublevel, but the vision said that someone needed to be rescued: if they failed in that it would be because they'd been caught, not because they'd failed to get to the sublevel. William had the sense that Gabrielle was testing them; that if they succeeded in their mission then they would get to know what the hell was going on behind closed Council doors.
"Unless they catch us and hold us hostage or kill us," Calder pointed out.
"Unless either of those two things," William agreed. "But I'm willing to bet on ourselves."
"Oh, me too," Calder agreed quickly. "I was just being a realist."
"That's new," William teased, nudging Calder with his elbow.
Calder laughed, nudging him back. "So what do you want to do with our free day in London?" he asked. "Sightsee? Pub crawl? I bet there's world class stripper bars here."
"As classy as that does sound," William replied dryly, "I think Keiko would object. And being drunk going into a rescue plan just sounds stupid, so I vote for sightseeing."
"That's so grown up of you," Calder said, draping his arm across William's shoulders. He lifted his left hand to his mouth, tapping on his Palm ring. "Call an autocab," he said. "Current location."
There was a beep of confirmation and they stopped on the sidewalk to wait for the cab, arms around each other's shoulders. Several moments later, Calder asked, "How do you think Angel's doing?"
"I was just wondering," William admitted. "Probably not too well."
Calder nodded. "Hopefully he let your mum stay around."
"Hopefully," William agreed. After another few moments, he added, "I wonder what he's going to do now. Connor was kind of...keeping him here."
Calder shifted. "We're keeping him here now," he said. "He's our Seer. He can't leave."
"I guess not," William agreed.
"Plus, he's got other friends," Calder added. "And he plays kitten poker every week, he loves that."
"Yeah," William said softly. But did he love it enough? Was it worth staying in the town his son had died in? William knew that Angel was dramatic and intense about his decisions, but he didn't know if Angel was the kind of person to up and leave a place where there were too many painful memories. It seemed like something he would do. But Angel was also a devoted type: maybe his Seer duties would be enough to keep him around.
"And, obviously," Calder continued over William's thoughts, "we're, like, his best friends. Practically his sons."
"Connor was his son," William pointed out.
"I said practically," Calder repeated. "I'm not saying it won't take some time, but he'll be okay. We'll help him be okay. That's what we're here for."
"We're here, in London," William replied with a slight edge to his voice, "because it's our destiny. We're not there for him at all."
Calder held up his free hand. "Hey mate, I'd rather be home with him, too. But your mum is there and we will be too, soon enough. Tomorrow, hopefully. Let's get our tickets."
Reaching into his back pocket, Calder pulled out his Palm and started the process of buying tickets. William did the same, and they were arguing about which departure time to aim for when the autocab showed up to take them into the city.