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Deja Vu - the updates
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AtS AU/AR › Slash - Male/Male › Angel(us)/Spike(William)
Rating:
Adult ++
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52
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4,090
Reviews:
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Category:
AtS AU/AR › Slash - Male/Male › Angel(us)/Spike(William)
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
52
Views:
4,090
Reviews:
2
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Angel: The Series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Chapter 63
Deja Vu
Pairing: Angel/Spike
Rating: NC17
Author: Jane Alexander
Disclaimer: No infringement of copyright is intended. The characters belong to Joss. I’m just borrowing them. I’ll try and return them undamaged, honest!
Document version: 18 November 2004
Feedback: janealexanderxxx@hotmail.com
Archived at: http://www.foreverfandom.net/viewstory.php?sid=4394
This story is AU and is a sequel to The Guy in Question.
Warning: includes character death.
Chapter 63
Angel’s apartment - same time, same place
*******************
“Angel, what’s going on?” Wesley asked. “Are we… are we all… dead?”
Angel laughed.
“Just me,” he replied.
Wesley slowly pushed his glasses back into place and frowned.
“Then where…”
“Not where,” Angel said. “When.”
“Oh!” Wesley exclaimed. “Oh, my goodness. Of course!”
Spike had said it wouldn’t take Wesley long to work it out.
“The explosion… Yes, I think I understand… We’ve been thrown back in time?”
Angel nodded.
“How far?”
“To December the first, nineteen ninety nine,” Angel said. “Spike arrived six weeks ago.”
“And yourself?”
Now that was interesting! Wesley didn’t seem surprised they hadn’t all arrived together.
Angel shook his head.
“It’s just the two of you…”
Wesley had clearly expected all three of them to have travelled back in time although not necessarily together.
“Then you’re not…”
“No, I’m not,” Angel said. “Come on. Let’s go downstairs….”
“But, we were all standing together…”
“So Spike keeps telling me. I think he’s hoping you’ll be able to solve the mystery.”
******************
After his initial excitement at finding he wasn’t the only one to have been *misplaced in time*, as Wesley had put it, Spike had become quiet and withdrawn during dinner. Of course Cordelia and Doyle had made up for it with a barrage of questions, hardly giving Wesley any opportunity to eat.
It was obvious to Angel that Spike’s thoughts lay elsewhere. Of course, it didn’t take much effort to guess where… or, rather, who they lay with. He was clearly mourning the loss of his lover. Angel wondered if he would ever be able to match up to the future version of himself Spike had come to know. Although it had been a long time since he’d been with Spike he could never forget what they’d once meant to one another. Could their future relationship really ever come close to what they’d shared in the past? Angel hoped so. He could never imagine feeling that way about anyone else… not even Buffy.
“Get away!” Angel heard Cordelia say as their conversation began to register once more. He realised he’d missed most of what they’d been saying while he was reminiscing.
“I’m perfectly serious,” Wesley assured her.
Cordelia’s eyes widened. Angel smiled to himself. She was evidently surprised to discover that most of what Spike had been telling her these past few weeks was actually true. Whatever the weaknesses in Wesley’s character… former character?… lying wasn’t one of them.
“Believe me now, do you, Pet?” Spike asked.
“I never said I didn’t believe you before,” Cordelia protested.
“You didn’t have to.”
“This is really good,” Wesley said between mouthfuls of turkey. “I had no idea you could cook, Spike… I hope you didn’t go to all this trouble just for me.”
“Wasn’t any bother, Pet,” Spike said, smiling at Wesley.
Their affection for one another was clear. Angel was more than a little surprised. Spike didn’t suffer fools gladly. There had to be much more to Wesley than met the eye although Angel found it hard to believe he could ever come to think of him as a close friend and confidante. Of course, now that Spike was here he wouldn’t have the same need as he’d evidently had before. He began to wonder just how differently the next four years might turn out…
“More wine, Wes?” Doyle said, topping up Wesley’s glass before he had a chance to refuse.
“I don’t know what to say,” Wesley said. “Thank you, Spike. Thank you… all of you…”
“You’re welcome, Pet.”
“… and I must say what a pleasure it is to have the opportunity to meet you, Doyle,” Wesley continued. “Angel has told me so much about you… I can’t tell you how glad I am to learn that it is, in fact, possible to change the course of history…”
“Me too… on both counts,” Doyle said, raising his glass. “How about a toast?”
They all picked up their glasses.
“To absent friends,” Doyle said.
“Absent friends,” Spike echoed.
“Absent friends,” Angel and Cordelia chorused.
“Yes, absent friends,” Wesley said. “May we all be reunited one day.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Spike said.
Curiously Spike didn’t drink but just stared into his glass, evidently lost in thought. No one spoke for several minutes, concentrating on eating instead. Angel didn’t know what to say. It was hard to mourn people he’d never even met or those he knew but had never lost. The only person he’d ever lost who mattered was Spike and he was here with him now…
It was Wesley who eventually broke the silence.
“Er, Angel?” he began. “There’s one thing I don’t understand… Well, actually, there are a great many things I don’t understand about what’s happened tonight… but… you were expecting me this evening, weren’t you?”
Angel nodded.
“And you knew when I would arrive?”
Angel smiled and opened his mouth to explain only to have Spike beat him to it.
“Ah, well, Pet,” Spike said. “This is the second time we’ve experienced this day.”
“I don’t believe so,” Wesley said, frowning. “I can’t recall the exact date but the first time I was here was much closer to Christmas….”
“Nah, I didn’t mean that time, Pet.”
“Then, I’m afraid you’ve lost me…”
“We’re reliving yesterday,” Spike said. “’Cept it’s a bit different to before.”
“No we’re not,” Cordelia protested.
Angel smiled as he watched Cordelia glance back and forth between himself and Spike, to Doyle, to Wesley and back to Doyle again.
“Are we?” she asked, confused.
Doyle shrugged and put his arm around her.
“Search me, Darlin’.”
“Why wasn’t I told?” Cordelia added.
“Sssh, Princess. I think Spike is about to explain.”
“Hah!” Spike scoffed. “Not sure I can.”
Spike picked up his glass and downed the contents.
They all stared at him waiting for an explanation.
“You first arrived yesterday,” he eventually said, addressing Wesley. “About the same time as today. Only difference that time was when you turned up on our doorstep you’d already come back from the future, so to speak.”
Cordelia giggled.
“Sorry,” she said. “Go on…”
“First time round you returned end of last week. Wesley Mark One had been staying in some cheap motel in Alamogordo. Apparently you replaced him as he was taking a shower. By all accounts you got dressed, got on your bike and headed straight here. Got as far as Phoenix before passing out in the bog at some gas station. When you came to you got back on the bike and kept going until you got here. You were exhausted by the time you made it to LA. Angel cooked scrambled eggs for you and Doyle offered you somewhere to kip for the night. You went back to his place and then he had one of his bloody visions…”
Spike reached for the bottle and refilled his glass before continuing.
“You both went haring off into the night…”
“And?” Wesley prompted.
Spike drained the glass.
“Let’s just say it didn’t end well…”
“One of us was injured?” Wesley asked.
“But, I don’t remember any of this,” Cordelia said. “Surely, we’d…”
“Let me finish, Pet,” Spike said. “It was Wes… You got yourself shot… Ended up in a coma.”
“Oh! Dear Lord!”
“It gets worse,” Spike added.
“There’s more?” Wesley said, his eyes widening in astonishment.
“We had a visit from a Mohra demon,” Spike began, pausing to let the news sink in.
“Ah!” Wesley said in understanding, nodding to himself. “So, this is the day when Buffy came to call…”
Wesley hesitated. Angel surmised it was not because he didn’t know what happened next but rather it was because he did. He wondered just how much his future self had confided in this man… and why.
“Yeah, got it in one, Luv,” Spike said.
“What?” Cordelia said. “Will someone please explain what you’re talking about.”
Spike nodded at Wesley to continue.
“Angel became mortal for a day,” Wesley said.
As Angel suspected, his future self had confided in Wesley although he found it hard to imagine ever trusting the naïve and inept Watcher he’d known in Sunnydale enough to want to reveal his innermost thoughts. Doyle perhaps but not Wesley…
“The demon’s blood…” Doyle mumbled, nodding to himself.
“Oh, right! That’s the demon Spike told us about? The one that was supposed to arrive the day after you got back from Sunnydale,” Cordelia said.
Spike nodded.
“Yeah, Luv, but it turns out he was tracking Buffy not Angel.”
“So that’s why he turned up when she did? But… why is Angel a vampire again now?” Cordelia asked, glancing over her shoulder to check whether Angel had any reflection in the glass cabinet he was facing.
“He didn’t make it,” Spike said.
“Huh?”
“He was killed?” Doyle said.
Spike nodded.
“How?” Cordelia asked.
“Doesn’t matter, Luv,” Spike said. “Point is that he was dead and Wesley’s future wasn’t looking none too rosy either… So, we went to see the Oracles…”
“The Oracles?” Cordelia said. “Who or what…?”
“I’ll explain later, Princess.”
“And they folded time so it was as if the day had never happened,” Wesley said. “Yes, of course!”
“That’s right,” Spike said. “Weren’t sure whether you knew the full story…”
“Yes, Angel and I got to talking over a glass or two of whisky late one evening. I believe it was after I’d been looking after Connor all day… Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…”
“’S okay, Pet. I’ve told ’em all about Connor.”
“But why would the Oracles want to help me…?” Wesley began. “I can understand Angel but not me…”
“Let me get this straight,” Cordelia interrupted. “You mean this morning… that wasn’t the first visit from Buffy?”
“That’s right, Luv.”
“Why didn’t you tell us what was going to happen?” she asked.
“There wasn’t time,” Spike said. “Remember when I bumped into you and sent you flying in the hall? I only had seconds to get upstairs before the demon came bursting through the window… If I hadn’t killed it then we’d have had to hunt the bleedin’ thing down just like last time…”
“And how come you can remember everything when the rest of us can’t?”
“Ah, well…” Spike said with a sigh. “The Oracles let me keep the memory so we wouldn’t make all the same mistakes again.”
“And, apart from the demon, everything’s happening exactly as it did before?” Cordelia asked. “Except for Wesley being the other Wesley this time.”
“Nah, not everything,” Spike said. “Little things have changed.”
“Like what?”
“That blue shirt of mine.”
“Blue shirt?”
“Couldn’t find it this morning. It was in the wardrobe yesterday but there was no sign of it this morning. That’s all. Nothing important…”
“But if the… Oracles… made it like the day had never happened then why wasn’t everything just as you’d left it the day before?” Cordelia asked.
“Dunno, Luv. Bit puzzled about that meself.”
“I think I may be able to explain it,” Wesley began. “When the Oracles rewound the day their actions would have momentarily disturbed the flow of time. It’s possible the passage I was travelling through… in time… intersected with… or, more probably, collided with the ripple they had caused, thereby diverting my path…”
“A blip in the space time continuum created a fork in the road?” Spike said.
“Hmm, yes, I suppose that’s as good a description as any,” Wesley replied with a smile.
“What about the vision I had?” Doyle asked. “Will I get the same one again? Heck, is the same someone out there waiting for our help?” He got to his feet. “Shouldn’t we be getting going?”
“No need, Pet. ’S already sorted. The boys… or rather, girls… in blue are gonna take care of it.”
Angel wondered if he should give Kate a ring to make sure she hadn’t forgotten.
Doyle sat down again.
“Wow!” Cordelia said, pouring herself another glass of wine. “Human for a day… So, what did you do, Angel?”
“Er…” Angel mumbled. “You’ll have to ask Spike. He’s the only one who has any memory of the events… Remember?”
She turned to look at Spike.
“Oh, the usual human stuff, Luv. Eating… staring at himself in the mirror… Nothing that’d interest you…”
Angel exchanged a glance with Spike and hoped he’d be able to keep a straight face.
“What?” Cordelia said.
Ooops! She’d noticed the glance.
“Bugger!” Spike suddenly exclaimed. “Bet I know summat else that bleedin’ blip has buggered up.”
He reached into his back pocket.
“You’re gonna have to get a telly, Luv,” he said, glaring at Angel. “Here, Mate, you check it for me when you get back to your place,” he added, pulling out a piece of paper and tossing it on the table in Doyle’s direction.
Cordelia leaned forward and picked up the white slip.
“You bought a lottery ticket? Way to go, Spike!” she shrieked. “We’re all going to be rich!”
***************
Pairing: Angel/Spike
Rating: NC17
Author: Jane Alexander
Disclaimer: No infringement of copyright is intended. The characters belong to Joss. I’m just borrowing them. I’ll try and return them undamaged, honest!
Document version: 18 November 2004
Feedback: janealexanderxxx@hotmail.com
Archived at: http://www.foreverfandom.net/viewstory.php?sid=4394
This story is AU and is a sequel to The Guy in Question.
Warning: includes character death.
Chapter 63
Angel’s apartment - same time, same place
*******************
“Angel, what’s going on?” Wesley asked. “Are we… are we all… dead?”
Angel laughed.
“Just me,” he replied.
Wesley slowly pushed his glasses back into place and frowned.
“Then where…”
“Not where,” Angel said. “When.”
“Oh!” Wesley exclaimed. “Oh, my goodness. Of course!”
Spike had said it wouldn’t take Wesley long to work it out.
“The explosion… Yes, I think I understand… We’ve been thrown back in time?”
Angel nodded.
“How far?”
“To December the first, nineteen ninety nine,” Angel said. “Spike arrived six weeks ago.”
“And yourself?”
Now that was interesting! Wesley didn’t seem surprised they hadn’t all arrived together.
Angel shook his head.
“It’s just the two of you…”
Wesley had clearly expected all three of them to have travelled back in time although not necessarily together.
“Then you’re not…”
“No, I’m not,” Angel said. “Come on. Let’s go downstairs….”
“But, we were all standing together…”
“So Spike keeps telling me. I think he’s hoping you’ll be able to solve the mystery.”
******************
After his initial excitement at finding he wasn’t the only one to have been *misplaced in time*, as Wesley had put it, Spike had become quiet and withdrawn during dinner. Of course Cordelia and Doyle had made up for it with a barrage of questions, hardly giving Wesley any opportunity to eat.
It was obvious to Angel that Spike’s thoughts lay elsewhere. Of course, it didn’t take much effort to guess where… or, rather, who they lay with. He was clearly mourning the loss of his lover. Angel wondered if he would ever be able to match up to the future version of himself Spike had come to know. Although it had been a long time since he’d been with Spike he could never forget what they’d once meant to one another. Could their future relationship really ever come close to what they’d shared in the past? Angel hoped so. He could never imagine feeling that way about anyone else… not even Buffy.
“Get away!” Angel heard Cordelia say as their conversation began to register once more. He realised he’d missed most of what they’d been saying while he was reminiscing.
“I’m perfectly serious,” Wesley assured her.
Cordelia’s eyes widened. Angel smiled to himself. She was evidently surprised to discover that most of what Spike had been telling her these past few weeks was actually true. Whatever the weaknesses in Wesley’s character… former character?… lying wasn’t one of them.
“Believe me now, do you, Pet?” Spike asked.
“I never said I didn’t believe you before,” Cordelia protested.
“You didn’t have to.”
“This is really good,” Wesley said between mouthfuls of turkey. “I had no idea you could cook, Spike… I hope you didn’t go to all this trouble just for me.”
“Wasn’t any bother, Pet,” Spike said, smiling at Wesley.
Their affection for one another was clear. Angel was more than a little surprised. Spike didn’t suffer fools gladly. There had to be much more to Wesley than met the eye although Angel found it hard to believe he could ever come to think of him as a close friend and confidante. Of course, now that Spike was here he wouldn’t have the same need as he’d evidently had before. He began to wonder just how differently the next four years might turn out…
“More wine, Wes?” Doyle said, topping up Wesley’s glass before he had a chance to refuse.
“I don’t know what to say,” Wesley said. “Thank you, Spike. Thank you… all of you…”
“You’re welcome, Pet.”
“… and I must say what a pleasure it is to have the opportunity to meet you, Doyle,” Wesley continued. “Angel has told me so much about you… I can’t tell you how glad I am to learn that it is, in fact, possible to change the course of history…”
“Me too… on both counts,” Doyle said, raising his glass. “How about a toast?”
They all picked up their glasses.
“To absent friends,” Doyle said.
“Absent friends,” Spike echoed.
“Absent friends,” Angel and Cordelia chorused.
“Yes, absent friends,” Wesley said. “May we all be reunited one day.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Spike said.
Curiously Spike didn’t drink but just stared into his glass, evidently lost in thought. No one spoke for several minutes, concentrating on eating instead. Angel didn’t know what to say. It was hard to mourn people he’d never even met or those he knew but had never lost. The only person he’d ever lost who mattered was Spike and he was here with him now…
It was Wesley who eventually broke the silence.
“Er, Angel?” he began. “There’s one thing I don’t understand… Well, actually, there are a great many things I don’t understand about what’s happened tonight… but… you were expecting me this evening, weren’t you?”
Angel nodded.
“And you knew when I would arrive?”
Angel smiled and opened his mouth to explain only to have Spike beat him to it.
“Ah, well, Pet,” Spike said. “This is the second time we’ve experienced this day.”
“I don’t believe so,” Wesley said, frowning. “I can’t recall the exact date but the first time I was here was much closer to Christmas….”
“Nah, I didn’t mean that time, Pet.”
“Then, I’m afraid you’ve lost me…”
“We’re reliving yesterday,” Spike said. “’Cept it’s a bit different to before.”
“No we’re not,” Cordelia protested.
Angel smiled as he watched Cordelia glance back and forth between himself and Spike, to Doyle, to Wesley and back to Doyle again.
“Are we?” she asked, confused.
Doyle shrugged and put his arm around her.
“Search me, Darlin’.”
“Why wasn’t I told?” Cordelia added.
“Sssh, Princess. I think Spike is about to explain.”
“Hah!” Spike scoffed. “Not sure I can.”
Spike picked up his glass and downed the contents.
They all stared at him waiting for an explanation.
“You first arrived yesterday,” he eventually said, addressing Wesley. “About the same time as today. Only difference that time was when you turned up on our doorstep you’d already come back from the future, so to speak.”
Cordelia giggled.
“Sorry,” she said. “Go on…”
“First time round you returned end of last week. Wesley Mark One had been staying in some cheap motel in Alamogordo. Apparently you replaced him as he was taking a shower. By all accounts you got dressed, got on your bike and headed straight here. Got as far as Phoenix before passing out in the bog at some gas station. When you came to you got back on the bike and kept going until you got here. You were exhausted by the time you made it to LA. Angel cooked scrambled eggs for you and Doyle offered you somewhere to kip for the night. You went back to his place and then he had one of his bloody visions…”
Spike reached for the bottle and refilled his glass before continuing.
“You both went haring off into the night…”
“And?” Wesley prompted.
Spike drained the glass.
“Let’s just say it didn’t end well…”
“One of us was injured?” Wesley asked.
“But, I don’t remember any of this,” Cordelia said. “Surely, we’d…”
“Let me finish, Pet,” Spike said. “It was Wes… You got yourself shot… Ended up in a coma.”
“Oh! Dear Lord!”
“It gets worse,” Spike added.
“There’s more?” Wesley said, his eyes widening in astonishment.
“We had a visit from a Mohra demon,” Spike began, pausing to let the news sink in.
“Ah!” Wesley said in understanding, nodding to himself. “So, this is the day when Buffy came to call…”
Wesley hesitated. Angel surmised it was not because he didn’t know what happened next but rather it was because he did. He wondered just how much his future self had confided in this man… and why.
“Yeah, got it in one, Luv,” Spike said.
“What?” Cordelia said. “Will someone please explain what you’re talking about.”
Spike nodded at Wesley to continue.
“Angel became mortal for a day,” Wesley said.
As Angel suspected, his future self had confided in Wesley although he found it hard to imagine ever trusting the naïve and inept Watcher he’d known in Sunnydale enough to want to reveal his innermost thoughts. Doyle perhaps but not Wesley…
“The demon’s blood…” Doyle mumbled, nodding to himself.
“Oh, right! That’s the demon Spike told us about? The one that was supposed to arrive the day after you got back from Sunnydale,” Cordelia said.
Spike nodded.
“Yeah, Luv, but it turns out he was tracking Buffy not Angel.”
“So that’s why he turned up when she did? But… why is Angel a vampire again now?” Cordelia asked, glancing over her shoulder to check whether Angel had any reflection in the glass cabinet he was facing.
“He didn’t make it,” Spike said.
“Huh?”
“He was killed?” Doyle said.
Spike nodded.
“How?” Cordelia asked.
“Doesn’t matter, Luv,” Spike said. “Point is that he was dead and Wesley’s future wasn’t looking none too rosy either… So, we went to see the Oracles…”
“The Oracles?” Cordelia said. “Who or what…?”
“I’ll explain later, Princess.”
“And they folded time so it was as if the day had never happened,” Wesley said. “Yes, of course!”
“That’s right,” Spike said. “Weren’t sure whether you knew the full story…”
“Yes, Angel and I got to talking over a glass or two of whisky late one evening. I believe it was after I’d been looking after Connor all day… Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…”
“’S okay, Pet. I’ve told ’em all about Connor.”
“But why would the Oracles want to help me…?” Wesley began. “I can understand Angel but not me…”
“Let me get this straight,” Cordelia interrupted. “You mean this morning… that wasn’t the first visit from Buffy?”
“That’s right, Luv.”
“Why didn’t you tell us what was going to happen?” she asked.
“There wasn’t time,” Spike said. “Remember when I bumped into you and sent you flying in the hall? I only had seconds to get upstairs before the demon came bursting through the window… If I hadn’t killed it then we’d have had to hunt the bleedin’ thing down just like last time…”
“And how come you can remember everything when the rest of us can’t?”
“Ah, well…” Spike said with a sigh. “The Oracles let me keep the memory so we wouldn’t make all the same mistakes again.”
“And, apart from the demon, everything’s happening exactly as it did before?” Cordelia asked. “Except for Wesley being the other Wesley this time.”
“Nah, not everything,” Spike said. “Little things have changed.”
“Like what?”
“That blue shirt of mine.”
“Blue shirt?”
“Couldn’t find it this morning. It was in the wardrobe yesterday but there was no sign of it this morning. That’s all. Nothing important…”
“But if the… Oracles… made it like the day had never happened then why wasn’t everything just as you’d left it the day before?” Cordelia asked.
“Dunno, Luv. Bit puzzled about that meself.”
“I think I may be able to explain it,” Wesley began. “When the Oracles rewound the day their actions would have momentarily disturbed the flow of time. It’s possible the passage I was travelling through… in time… intersected with… or, more probably, collided with the ripple they had caused, thereby diverting my path…”
“A blip in the space time continuum created a fork in the road?” Spike said.
“Hmm, yes, I suppose that’s as good a description as any,” Wesley replied with a smile.
“What about the vision I had?” Doyle asked. “Will I get the same one again? Heck, is the same someone out there waiting for our help?” He got to his feet. “Shouldn’t we be getting going?”
“No need, Pet. ’S already sorted. The boys… or rather, girls… in blue are gonna take care of it.”
Angel wondered if he should give Kate a ring to make sure she hadn’t forgotten.
Doyle sat down again.
“Wow!” Cordelia said, pouring herself another glass of wine. “Human for a day… So, what did you do, Angel?”
“Er…” Angel mumbled. “You’ll have to ask Spike. He’s the only one who has any memory of the events… Remember?”
She turned to look at Spike.
“Oh, the usual human stuff, Luv. Eating… staring at himself in the mirror… Nothing that’d interest you…”
Angel exchanged a glance with Spike and hoped he’d be able to keep a straight face.
“What?” Cordelia said.
Ooops! She’d noticed the glance.
“Bugger!” Spike suddenly exclaimed. “Bet I know summat else that bleedin’ blip has buggered up.”
He reached into his back pocket.
“You’re gonna have to get a telly, Luv,” he said, glaring at Angel. “Here, Mate, you check it for me when you get back to your place,” he added, pulling out a piece of paper and tossing it on the table in Doyle’s direction.
Cordelia leaned forward and picked up the white slip.
“You bought a lottery ticket? Way to go, Spike!” she shrieked. “We’re all going to be rich!”
***************