Reprise Revised
Old Lovers
Email: marenfic@yahoo.com
Spoiler Warning: Angel Season 5 up to You’re Welcome—I’ve diverged at YW.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of these characters, and I won’t be profiting off
of them.
Pairing: B/A and
Wes/F
Feedback: Please!! Pretty please??
Author Note: ita>italics
generally indicate thoughts, although if it’s only one word it indicates
emphasis. Also, I realize that I’m
committing a major faux paus here (how many people will catch my
meta-commentary?), but I thought I’d get the cliché over with in my first full
fanfic. Hopefully I’ll do it in an
interesting way.
************************************************************************
Gunn glanced down at his expensive watch to see that the
research meeting had already run extremely late.
and they were still in the conference room, going over the intel they had
gathered and discussing and then discarding plans to draw Angelus out into the
open. He couldn’t wait for Wes to
declare this meeting at an end, not because he was tired, but because his
adrenaline was surging at the thought of the other tasks that were currently on
his plate. Since the move to Wolfram
& Hart he had rarely taken the time to stand in one place and only did so
when it was required—usually when he was in court or meeting with clients.
of frenzied activity and he loved it. He
thrived on it.
Looking around the room, he took a moment to study the face
of each of the people around the room.
had used some of her witchy mojo earlier in the evening to “blink” herself to
so that she could update Giles and the new Watcher’s Council on the Angelus
situation in person. They could have
sent her on a company jet, but
hadn’t wanted to be gone long. Who knew
when she would be needed to perform the resouling spell.
who were currently ensconced in the conference room.
He had always been good at reading people—growing up on the
streets where he had to fight for his life every day had forced him to develop
a strong bullshit-meter. The brain boost
had just given him more confidence, made him feel like he could do more with what
he already had.
Spike was easy to read.
Despite his carefully orchestrated show of aloofness and indifference,
it wasn’t difficult to see was on his mind.
He was lounging in a chair by the far windows, one arm thrown carelessly
across the overstuffed arm of the chair.
A casual observer would think that he was bored with the activity and
itching to leave, but Gunn saw his calculating look and his frequent, surreptitious
glances toward the door as though he was eagerly awaiting the arrival of
someone. Gunn knew that someone was
blonde and deceptively tiny and feminine.
The tiny woman who was actually in the room was seated at the large conference table, a laptop
computer sitting open in front of her. Fred
was currently rechecking the demon conspiracy websites for any info on the
current disturbance in the demon world, but Gunn could tell her task didn’t
have her full attention. She was
absently twirling a strand of her hair with one finger, occasionally glancing
up to look at Wes. Gunn couldn’t control
the frown that crossed his face at her barely disguised look of longing.
still loved the girl and her growing interest in Wes was unsettling.
Wes, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be at all interested
in Fred. The Brit was buried to his
elbows in books and scrolls, as usual.
Even with the self-transcribing texts he had at his disposal, the man
still couldn’t quite give up the tactile sensations involved in handling old,
rare artifacts. His attention was mostly
focused on the scroll he was currently translating.
wall clock and then looked at the door with a frown.
shit!, he thought. For the better
part of three years, Wes had been sniffing around Fred.
interest, Wes was running cold and keeping an eye out for a slayer.
wager that it was the one who had a penchant for black leather and even blacker
eyeliner. She had been bunking up in his
apartment, after all.
Just as Gunn turned his attention to Lorne, the floor beneath
him began to shake and roll.
“Wha. . . what’s going on?” Fred asked, her eyes darting
from person to person.
“I’d wager it’s an earthquake, luv,” Spike drawled,
completely unimpressed. He’d lived
through more than one earthquake in his long life.
Those who were sitting stood up and they all began carefully
making their way toward the door. They
were standing in the hallway when they felt the heat rising from below.
enveloping them. They simply couldn’t
escape it.
***********
As the red-orange mist dissipated around him, Wesley
Wyndam-Pryce thought that he would very likely be sick.
important residing at the edge of his consciousness, of uneasy darkness, made
sense again.
Connor. . .
Angel. Oh my god.
He let out a low moan and buried his head in his hands.
Fred speak.
“What the hell has been happening here?” she demanded.
“You got me, Sweetcheeks.
I’d say this lovely firm we find ourselves working for might have
something to do with it though,” Lorne answered with a grim look on his face.
“Let’s not panic yet,” intctedcted Gunn, and to Wesley, he
sounded like the only calm person in the room save Spike, who wouldn’t have
been affected—he hadn’t known about Connor anyway.
stuff. . . we
don’t know that it had any effect on us at all,” he finished.
“Sure, we get covered in hell-mist in an evil law firm—I’m
sure there won’t be any wonky side effects, you wanker,” Spike said with
intense sarcasm.
“What are you talking about Charles,” Fred asked, ignoring
Spike’s addition to the conversation for the moment.
Connor now, am I?”
Wesley looked up just in time to see the look of surprise
and alarm that crossed Gunn’s face before he masked his expression.
“Nope, he’s back in my memory in Technicolor,” Lorne
answered.
“Yes . . . of course,” Gunn said, with an infinitesimal
pause. Unfortunately, the tiny pause was
enough to verify Wesley’s growing suspicion.
“Anyone care to fill a guy in?” Spike asked the group of
people who were staring at one another in a mixture of horror, confusion, and
in the case of Wesley, distrust.
“It would appear that our memories of the last two years
have been altered and that the time-frame of this alteration coincides with our
decision to join forces with Wolfram & Hart,” Wesley began explaining, but
his eyes didn’t move from Gunn’s face.
“It would also appear that Charles’ memory wasn’t affected . . .
his face.
Gunn sighed heavily and smoothed one large hand across his
brow, as though to ward off a headache.
“Not quite, Wes. My memory was
altered too. About 2 months ago I was
doing some contract work for a client and had to search through the archives.
had Angel’s signature in blood. When I
read that he had made a deal with the firm to place Connor in a home and alter
everyone’s memories so that he never existed, I freaked and went to the
Conduit. That’s when my own memories
were returned.”
“And you didn’t think this information was pertinent to the rest
of us?” Wesley asked, his voice low and dangerous.
“No wonder my readings have been so off lately,” Lorne
murmured to no one in particular.
Gunn looked at each of the people he had been watching just
minutes earlier. The hostility was
palpable—only Spike wasn’t glaring at him.
“Look, I’m sorry guys.
I couldn’t say anything—the Conduit forbid it,” he pleaded, his
golden-brown eyes glowing with sincerity and begging for their
forgiveness.
“The Conduit, Charles?
Don’t you mean the memory-sucking evil being that helped con us into
coming here?” Fred accused.
“The lady has a point,” Lorne said, his red eyes boring into
Gunn.
Wesley stalked over to Gunn u the they were nose to
nose. Gunn refused to back down from the
challenge, and the rest of the group watched as the two powerful men stood in a
stiff silence that spoke volumes in spite of the lack of words.
“I suggest you start backin’ off.
think I’m just gonna stand by and let you get all up in my grill about this,
you’re dead wrong. I was under orders
from the Conduit to keep my mouth shut,” he challenged.
Wesley’s voice was menacing in its silky softness as he
replied, “I’m not certain which is worse, Charles—that Angel saw fit to alter
our memories, that you discovered this information and continued to conceal it
from the rest of us, or that you are trying to make flimsy and ridiculous
excuses for it now that your complicity has been discovered.”
“You know, I’m kinda surprised at your reaction Wes.
kid and then lost him to the enemy would want to forget,” taunted Gunn.
His answer was a hardht hht hook across his jaw, and he
stumbled back from Wesley, momentarily stunned.
In the next instant, however, he was back in the game, trading hard
blows with the other man. Neither
registered Fred’s sharp orders to stop, and when Spike tried to interfere he
was rewarded with a jab that connected sharply with his nose, causing blood to
spray into the air.
“Bugger this!” Spike yelled as he grabbed his nose, and put
distance between himself and the melee.
&:p>
The fight was showing no signs of slowing down.
were seriously injured if they hadn’t been pulled out of the fog of rage that
encased them by the sound of a powerful, pissed off woman who ordered them to
stop.
“Guys, cut out the macho bullshit for a second and help me
with Buffy.” Faith’s hard, commanding
voice cut through the air. Her tone
indicated that she demanded to be obeyed, and both Gunn and Wesley found
themselves turning away from one another and toward the entrance to the
emergency stairwell. The rest of the
group also turned to see Faith carrying Buffy’s unconscious form in her
arms.
Spike was at Faith’s side in an instant, taking Buffy gently
from her arms. “What the hell happened?”
he asked the dark slayer as he stared down at the woman he loved, noticing her
paled and pasty skin.
Faith ran one hand through her hair and lifted her shoulders
into an understated shrug. “I don’t
exactly know. Earthquake hit, misty red
shit came out of the ground, and the next thing I knew she was chucking all
over the lobby. I think she passed out
from pain,” she said. After looking
around at the ragged group, three of whom were bleeding, Faith knew she didn’t
have to ask whether they suddenly remembered Angel’s son too, but she couldn’t
stop her fro from probing Wesley’s.
Even if he hadn’t nodded slightly at her in answer to her questioning
look, Faith would have known he remembered.
She could see the haunted anguish staring back at her.
With a small sigh of resignation, Faith let the innate
leader inside her take over.
“Some major shit just went down and you people need to pull
it together right now.
and figure out what the hell happened to her down there.
between you two, and I don’t fucking care.
You’re gonna have to suck it up and figure out a way to work together on
this mess. We need all orainrain power
to figure out what’s going on and I really
hate to say it, but Green and I don’t have the gray ma to to do it alone.
moving. Something tells me we don’t have
a lot of time here.”
With that, Faith moved to catch up with Fred and Spike, who
had already begun to make their way toward the lab.
Wesley and Gunn exchanged a long, wary look.
his face from a cut on his temple and shook his head in disgust.
room to good use, shall we?” he suggested with a pointed stare at the other
man.
Gunn answered with a terse nod and stalked off, trusting
that Wesley would follow.
Lorne looked around the now-empty hallway.
“I think I need a drink . . . or five,” he muttered, turning
back towards his office and its fully stocked wet bar.
**********************************************************************
Oh god it hurts, make
it stop, make it stop, make it stop, Buffy thought as she regained
consciousness. Every nerve ending in her
body was screaming in agony. It felt
like something was clawing at her, tearing her to pieces from the inside and she
struggled to maintain even the tenuous grasp on reality that she now had.
she had to fight to stay awake, had to battle to push through the pain or she
could very well be lost to the world forever.
Slowly, she opened her eyes to see that she was in Fred’s
lab, lying on a table. Some guy she
thought was Fred’s assistant (Knox??)
was drawing blood from a vein in her arm while Fred was passing some kind of space-age
scanner slowly over her prone form.
Turning her head, she saw that Spike was at her side.
gently stroking herr awr away from her hot face.
planned to say she didn’t know), a tearing pain ripped through her and she
screamed out in anguish.
“What is it, luv?” Spike pleaded, desperate to find out what
was causing her so much pain.
Buffy only tossed her head back and forth on the table, her
long blond hair damp and tangling around her face.
breathe through the agony. She closed
her eyes against the overhead lights, the darkness helping her concentrate on focusing
her energy against the pain. She tuned
out the outside noises that were assaulting her senses and delved into a calm void
that she created inside her mind. For
now it would have to serve as her safe haven, at least until the gang figured
out what the hell was happening to her.
**********
About an hour later, Fred looked up from the printouts she
was reading for the tentme.
wanted desperately to believe she was wrong, but no matter how many times she
evaluated the evidence, the results were always the same.
blood, Spike was still holding Buffy’s hand, and Faith was still sitting in a
chair in the corner, her feet propped up on a nearby desk, carving a stake with
a knife. Fred’s eyes traveled back to
Knox, just as he looked up and over to her.
He nodded, his eyes clouded with worry, and Fred’s stomach lurched.
She stood up off the stool she had been sitting on and
stretched, raising her arms above her and rolling her head in an attempt to
ease the tension in her neck and back.
This was bad and it was coming at a horrible time, but that’s the way it
always seemed to happen. They were
splintered—Angel was gone, Wesley and Gunn were at each other’s throats, not to
mention the fact that they suddenly had to deal with the real memories of what
had happened over the past couple of years.
It was too much. Fred couldn’t
understand how the Powers could be putting them through this—hadn’t they been
tested enough, hadn’t they sacrificed enough for the fight?
Fred moved over to where Buffy was laying.
who hadn’t left her side.
“Her heartbeat is slow, steady for now—and the fear is less,
I can’t smell it as strongly,” he answered.
He had kept constant vigil over her internal state over the last hour
while they were running the tests. The
fluctuations in her physical and mental state had been rapid at first, her heart
rate pounding quickly and erratically and then slowio a o a more normal rate
before speeding up again. The periods of
erratic heartbeat had been accompanied by the sour smell of fear and pain as
well as the sounds of her moaning, and occasional screams.
mastered some control over the fluctuations so that now she was lying in
relative peace, the only indication of her continuing pain the light sheen of
clammy perspiration that covered her skin.
“Is she asleep?” Fred inquired.
“Nah, I don’t think so, pet.
Doesn’t feel like it anyway.
Feels more like she’s in some kinda trance,” he answered.
“Probably some kind of self-imposed meditation to control
the pain—an inner sanctuary of sorts,” a voice said from the door.
shirt untucked and his suit jacket discarded.
He looked a little worse for the wear.
“Where’s Wes and Gunn?” demanded Faith from the corner,
swinging her booted feet down from the desk and speaking for the first time in
an hour.
Lorne opened his mouth to tell her he didn’t know when the
two men entered the room behind him. He
closed it and jerked his head back over his shoulder before sticking one green
hand in the pockets of his pants and taking a drink of the pinkish liquid
inside the highball glass in his hand.
“What’d ya dig up?” asked Faith.
Wesley shot Gunn a look of contempt before answering.
. . again
. . . and the signature was clearly Angel’s.
He agreed to take over as CEO of this branch of Wolfram & Hart in
return for a normal life for Connor. The
stipulation was that Connor would be wiped from our memories.
& Hart was not part of the negotiations.
Our memories are intact in that area.
We were each free to choose and we each chose to follow Angel here.”
self-recrimination as he gazed down at the floor.
partnership with the enemy would not end well.
The resources had been too tempting, and he had been weak in the face of
the opulence.
“The contract also said that if Angel ever left, all bets
were off, contract null and void, all memories returned to everyone—including
Connor,” Gunn continued, choosing to ignore Wesley’s barb.
clause from before,” he said, confusion soaking his voice.
“So when our fearless leader got happy and disappeared. . .”
Lorne started to say. He was interrupted
by Wesley, who finished “. . . he was given a window of opportunity to return
of his own volition before the Senior Partners broke their end of the bargain.”
A strangled cry from Buffy pierced the lab, and the blonde
slayer gained the group’s full attention.
“What of Buffy—do we have any indication as to the origin of
her pain?” Wesley asked Fred. pan>pan>
“Yep”, she said, and then a high-pitched, nervous giggle erupted
from her throat. “She’s pregnant.”
Fred’s words were met with a stunned silence.
Spike was the first to speak, shaking his head in sadness,
his voice barely a whisper. “Bloody
hell,” he said as he reached down to stroke a few stray strands of sweaty hair
off of Buffy’s forehead.
“I’ll second that,” added Faith.
pregnancies, anyway?” She looked down at
her own flat stomach and grimaced.
Fred opened her mouth, intending to defend them, but then
slowly closed it. What could she
say? Faith was right.
Buffy. There did seem to be a certain
lack of originality here.
“Maybe we got our memories back just in time, folks.
produce regular old human offspring,” Lorne said, with a slight, nervous laugh.
“Captain Forehead had a human baby?
more than given you shiny new memories.
Angel—vampire—dead swimmers, if you know what I mean,” Spike said,
looking at them as if they had all grown second heads.
“There isn’t time to explain right now, Spike, but the
Connor we’ve been talking about is, in fact, Angel’s human son—by Darla no
less.” When Spike opened his mouth to
protest, Wesley cut him off, continuing, “We will get to your questions later,
but right now we have more pressing matters that need our attention.”
the question that Lorne’s nervous comment had awoken in him before Spike
interrupted. “How do we know who
impregnated her? She was only with Angel
a week ago, and if it were him it would be too early to tell. . .”
“Nope, not too early—at least not with the kind of testing
we’re capable of here. Buffy’s blood
work indicates that her pregnancy is one-week old,” Knox cut in.
“So it is Angel’s—damn, dude needs some basic safe-sex
education,” exclaimed Gunn.
“Umm, before anyone starts planning a baby shower, you
should know that the electromagnetic obstetrics scans strongly indicate that
whatever is growing inside her isn’t the cute and cuddly type—or at least it
won’t be,” warned Fred as she looked down at the printouts she had been
desperately studying. She raised her
head again, a sad, worried look on her face.
“We aren’t looking at another baby Connor here.”
The announcement was met with silence, and all eyes swung to
take in the sight of Buffy lying on the examination table in visible
discomfort. Her stomach was obviously
still completely flat, but that fact frightened everyone gathered there.
week old and it was already registering off-the-charts evil.
mentally, yet it was already tearing her apart with pain.
“We need
back here immediately. Faith—call
her. Fred, Knox, you should both
continue looking into Buffy’s pregnancy.
We need to know everything possible about what is growing inside her,”
Wesley commanded. He looked at Spike,
who was still hovering protectively over Buffy, before moving his eyes to
Lorne. “Lorne, perhaps you could try to
read her aura. I realize she isn’t in
any condition to sing, but,”
“Little lady doesn’t need to sing—her aura is screaming in
my head. I’ll try to push through the
noise, see what I can find,” he offered, moving toward Buffy.
Wesley flashed Gunn a look of scorn before continuing, “You
can find me in my office. We need to
investigate the texts for some prophecy or sign of what is to arrive before we
run out of time.”
“Oh, but you’ve already run out of time --- lover.”
from behind him.
Wesley turned slowly, not wanting to see the person he was
about to see, but unable to avoid it.
“Lilah,” he said simply, coldly.
“Is that any way to greet the woman you. . . .
smile.
****************
“What the hell are you doing here Lilah—I thought Eve was
our new contact with the Senior Partners,” questioned Gunn, his voice hard and
controlled.
“Eve ran into a little . . . how shall I put it . . . problem.
world for that matter. The Partners
needed someone they could count on for this task, and seeing as they own my
soul, I guess I qualified,” Lilah answered.
“And what task would that be, you evil bitch from hell,”
Lorne asked, before turning to look at Faith and Spike, who had no clue what
was happening. “I can ask that—she
literally is an evil bitch from
hell,” he half-explained.
Lilah laughed. “Is
that supposed to be an insult? I happen
to have developed a certain fondness for the place and I’ve never claimed to be
anything less than an evil bitch, have I Wes?”
He ignored her taunt, and focused on her motive for being
there. “You didn’t answer the question,
Lilah. Why were you sent here?”
She simply smiled at him as several silent seconds ticked
by. When she decided to answer, the
smile disappeared from her face and hers eyes grew cold.
in your services. Without him, you’re no
good to us. You have been terminated,
effective immediately,” Lilah turned to look at Knox.
You can stay.”
Gunn was stunned.
Coming here, becoming a lawyer, earning respect for his mind rather than
for his brawn-- it had been the best time of his life.
what the hell do you mean, no good to you?
I know everything about law, even things you never knew Lilah.
and I sure as hell ain’t going back to crushing heads for a livin’,” he
protested loudly.
“Ain’t? Tsk tsk.
Partners would let you keep your fancy new law knowledge once they put you back
on the streets? Think again, big
guy. Before the hour is up your
enhancements will all be gone. I think
I’d start looking for some heads to crush if I were you,” Lilah chuckled.
With a roar, Gunn launched himself at the woman.
scarred throat. “I think I might start
with you,” he said, his voice low and dangerous.
Lilah let out a nervous, choking chuckle.
work quite so quickly,” she rasped out.
Wesley stepped forward and placed a restraining hand on
Gunn. He didn’t utter a word, but Gunn’s
hand slipped away from Lilah’s throat nonetheless.
Lilah absently rubbed her throat.
back in hell. I suggest you hurry and
gather your things before security escorts you out.
company property—there are severe penalties for that,” she said before walking
out of the lab with a seductive sway of her shapely hips.
Watching her as she sashayed away, Wesley was overwhelmed
with feelings of guilt and shame. She
epitomized how low he had fallen last year.
She was the culmination of his betrayal and a symbol of his most base
desires.
Seeing Wes’s hesitation, Faith decided to once again take
charge. She hadn’t failed to notice the
woman’s “lover” comment, or Wes’s strange reaction to her, but now wasn’t the
time for jealousy or questions. Faith
let her slayer emerge as she pushed aside her own emotions so that she could
take charge of the situation for the second time that night.
“You heard the bitch.
Everybody grab what you need and let’s get out of here before we’re
forced to fight our way out,” Faith directed.
She aimed her next question to Lorne, the only one in the group who
looked like he was in any shape to answer.
“Is the hotel still available?”
“I’m sure it’ll be dusty, but the neon is flashing
‘vacancy’,” he affirmed.
“O.k., then that’s where we’re headed.
************************************************************************