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TITLE: Mockingbird, Part 3
AUTHOR: Tesla and dessert_first
RATING:
SPOILERS:
CHARACTERS: Angel/Anya, Xander/Cordelia, Fred/Gunn/Wesley, Spike/Buffy, Tara/Willow, Gwen/Lilah, Lindsey/Darla
DISCLAIMERS:
SUMMARY:
NOTES: Set in Anya!World.Very AU. In this universe, Darla wasn't re-vamped, Anya got the visions in our previous episodes.
-----
"I just don't get it," Xander frowned.
Wesley looked up from his notes. "Well, portals are notoriously unstable, more an art than a science, really. Anya has an interesting theory involving shrimp that--"
"No, I mean, just what were you doing in Manchester, sixteen years ago?"
"That's not helping, Xander," Angel said, just as Anya threw her hands up.
"Look, I told you the shrimp thing was an example!" She frowned. "And all of you pacing out here is making me carsick."
Gunn said, "Well, Connor says there wasn't any shrimp in Quor'toth. Hey, we'll order some Chinese with shrimp eggrolls for him."
"It's not about the shrimp--"
Lindsey sprawled at his ease in one of the lobby chairs, one foot on an end table, speaking into his cell phone. "Hey, Mama? You doin' all right? Good, I'm glad you liked 'em. Listen, you ever hear what happened to Charlene? Or Patty? Or Mary Jo? Any of 'em maybe head to LA for a few months, back in the eighties? No? Okay. Tell Aunt Sonja an' them hey for me." He clicked off. "Not me," he said cheerfully.
Anya checked off something on her pink clipboard.
Xander stopped pacing to look over her shoulder. "Why didn't you write my name?"
She didn't look up. "I suppose I could put in a prison visit to Faith, but I think all of your lovers are accounted for." She wrinkled her nose. "Is Fred sure that portal is closed? I keep hearing a humming noise."
"Yeah," Gunn said. "We, uh, remembered to close it. After a while."
"Fred's got to think before she does these things," Anya said, her eyebrows coming together. "Anyone could have come through here. What if that awful Groosalug had hopped through?"
She was widely ignored, however. Wesley, Lindsey, and Gunn were on the telephones, and Angel was prowling an irregular track that took him down the hall to hear what the kid was saying to Fred. He back-pedalled rapidly, as the kitchen doors swung open, and took up a stance beside Anya's chair.
"Stephen wants to ask something," Fred said, walking out with the kid.
The kid looked around at all the males. "I just want to know which one of you is Angel. Because I'm thinking it's that tall man without a heartbeat."
"That's right." Anya stood up, stepping in front of Angel.
"What?" Angel said, as the others stared at her. Then, they all saw what Anya had seen first, that the kid was aiming his stake-thingy directly at Angel's heart.
"I'm just after him," the kid said. "He's the killer."
"No, he's not," Fred said. "Well, not now."
"Anya," Angel said, his voice edged.
"No, I'm not moving," Anya said. "I know what vengeance smells like. It makes people act before they think."
The kid didn't lower his weapon. "I don't want to hurt any one. I just kill demons. Maybe you know me by my birth name--Connor."
They all stared at him.
"Sorry," Gunn said. "Stephen Connor, are you?"
"No! Stephen Holtz! Angel killed a man's family, and that man took me and raised me so I could kill Angel!"
"Yes, but Angel's good," Fred said earnestly. "He has a soul now, and we all kill demons, too."
"Bad demons," Anya muttered, still backed against Angel, her arms stretched behind her, holding him back.
"Honey," Angel said, his hands resting on her shoulders. "I don't have a son. It's not possible." He patted her. "But the name, Holtz--"
The kid glared at him. "The man who raised me, my real father, told me that you're the one." He had his fist aimed rock-steady at Anya's throat, not blinking.
Anya didn't blink, either. "You should let Fred open a portal for you and leave. This isn't the Angel you're after. You're in the wrong place."
"Really, Stephen," Wesley said. "You saw our weapons. You saw that none of us tried to hurt you, and we could have. You said you track evil by smell; do you smell any evil here?"
Finally, the kid lowered his arm. "Okay. Can I have some more water?"
Fred nodded, and led the way back to the kitchen.
"Anya," Angel said gently, "let go now."
::
"What do you mean, could I have had a kid with Angel?" Cordelia said, over Xander's cell phone. "Are you demented? Like I'd ever get involved with him in any shrimp-world!"
"Well, it's not Buffy," Xander argued. "Because he'd have eaten the kid."
Angel raised his head from his hands and gave Xander an extremely Angelus-like stare.
"Or it could be Anya's," Xander hurriedly said, making a little mark on the new column he'd started on Anya's clipboard. "Just get here, 'kay, Cordy?"
Wesley scratched his chin. "I don't suppose, Anya, that you used a time mage--?"
"Oh, sure," Anya said. "I got the Mage to take me back to Ireland so I could have sex with Angel before he was turned; then I went forward in time and secretly had the baby and then arranged for him to be taken to a hell dimension sixteen years ago. Why would I do that?"
"I have no idea how the feminine mind works at any time," Wesley said.
Angel said, "I would remember it if I'd slept with Anya, back in the day. Believe me. And what are the odds of the two of us hooking up in any other universe?"
Anya opened her mouth, then closed it.
Gunn came back from checking on Fred. "Kate Lockley?"
"No," Angel said. "Cripes."
"Who's Kate Lockley?" Anya asked, her eyes narrowing.
"Police detective who used to come around, when we were in the old building," Wesley said. "I think she finished night law school and became a prosecutor."
Xander made another note on the clipboard he'd appropriated. "Well, I guess that leaves Fred--"
Gunn and Wesley turned simultaneous glares on him.
"Or not."
"I thought this was an emergency?" Darla drawled, walking in with a capped Starbucks cup in one hand and a loaded crossbow in the other. "Life or death, visions? And you even have my lawyer. Cordelia was tied up, so she sent me instead."
"Hey, baby," Lindsey held up his hands in the "don't look at me" gesture as he went over to kiss her. "This isn't anything my office is up to. And Wolfram and Hart thinks Angel is probably suffering enough, living under Anya's--" he caught himself.
"Thumb," Angel finished.
Anya ignored them. "But I asked Cordelia to come over ages ago," she told Darla.
"Oh, my dear, the traffic! And you really didn't expect me to race across town like a maniac, did you? I could have hit a bus or something."
Anya glared at Angel. "Good point."
Angel said, "I'm going to talk to him."
::
In the kitchen, Angel carefully took a chair at the long steel table. "So, uh, Stephen, why have you sworn to kill me? Or your-world-me?"
Stephen put down the enchilada. "So, in this world, you're a vampire, but you have a soul? You kill other vampires, like Gunn and Fred told me?"
"Yeah, that's pretty much it. Slime demons, zombies, handle threats to the world by averting apocalypses, the usual hero-type stuff. So the Angel you're thinking of couldn't possibly be me."
Stephen looked interested. "So you were never evil?"
"Oh. Well, yeah, actually, I was pretty--that was a long time ago."
"But you didn't slaughter my father's family and turn his only daughter into a vampire?"
"Well, uh, there may be some similarities between our universes," Angel said. "But I've had a soul for about a hundred years. I'm not the same soulless demon that killed people. I help the helpless. That's what we all do." He raised his head. "Guys? You can come in, instead of lurking outside the door."
"We were just worried about you," Fred said.
"So the name 'Connor' doesn't mean anything to you?" Stephen asked.
"'The Rifleman'," Angel said. "C'mon, Chuck Connors? Back me up here, Xander."
"Aside from the fact that I never do that, I'm not into old westerns," Xander said.
Lindsey held the door open for Darla, who slipped in under his arm and stopped short. She and Stephen locked eyes, staring at each other.
He stood up, knocking enchiladas and empty Coke cans to the floor. "Who are you?" he rasped, looking frightened for the first time.
Darla just stood there, clasping Lindsey's arm. "Henry?"
Part 4
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