Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Choices
It had been a long time since I had done this. A long time since I had felt the danger, that sensation, those dull, heavy beats pounding deep in my chest. I was supposed to stay quiet. Out of trouble. To behave. That’s what was officially implied when I signed this new contract three years ago. Well, I suppose peace and calm had never really been an option for me.
My fingers tightened around my sword as I felt adrenaline surging through my veins. The humid Florida air clung to my skin. It was a strange feeling, somewhere between apprehension and excitement.
I took a few steps forward into the night, alert and cautious. All around me, the trees swayed, rustling their leaves in an unsettling whisper. That was new for me: my old playground was obviously more urban. On guard, I kept moving through the forest, going deeper and deeper until the path began to disappear.
As a ray of moonlight illuminated an oddly shaped tree stump, I was seized by one of those stupid doubts that creep in at moments like these, and I turned around abruptly: I would be able to find my way back to my truck, right?
But I didn’t have time to think more about it before a scream pierced the night. Instinct took over and I rushed toward the sound. My feet pounded against the ground. I had only gone barely ten yards when I saw her. She was tied to some kind of stele, and in front of her, a horned Kethran demon was holding up the amulet while others circled her, chanting. The ritual had already begun. Without thinking, I lunged forward, sword raised.
---
Soft music played in Angel’s office. Even three years after his departure, Lorne continued to send them regular updates and, of course, songs. Gathered around the conference table, Angel, Fred, and Wesley were, however, working on a case that was anything but soft… Indeed, even though the Senior Partners had apparently withdrawn from Earth’s territory, vampires, werewolves, and other demons were far from being on vacation…
Fortunately, they could rely on Cordelia’s powers. Since waking from her coma, her visions had resumed and, to her great relief, they no longer seemed to have any painful effects on her health, aside from extreme fatigue that often forced her to take long naps. But while they now appeared harmless, her visions had become more frequent and increasingly complex, or concerned distant locations.
Angel had therefore had to expand his field of operations to cover the whole of California and even the neighboring states, as Cordelia regularly had visions of attacks occurring in San Francisco, Las Vegas, or Phoenix. Some were even farther away and inevitably forced Angel and his team to make choices. Even though they had recruited trustworthy personnel over the years and were now numerous, an intervention on the other side of the US remained costly in terms of time and money, not to mention the risks for agents operating on unfamiliar ground…
Cordelia’s vision from the previous week of demons attacking a little girl in some unknown forest had thus been abandoned in favor of a more precise one: that of a vampire nest planning an assault during a student party, which the team had quickly been able to locate exactly. It was a constant stream of choices. Hard choices. Necessary, but hard.
The case they were working on today—a demon, a former client of Wolfram & Hart, who had gone on a rampage after returning to Los Angeles—was close to being resolved.
— "Our recon team has located him in this area," Fred said, pointing to the spot on the map spread out on the desk. "And it matches Cordelia’s vision perfectly."
She glanced toward the adjoining room they had converted into a small soundproof lounge, ideal for their seer to rest peacefully.
— "Perfect. You’ll take command of Bravo Team to handle it, Wes?" Angel asked, scanning the documents Fred had provided.
After more than five years at the helm of Wolfram & Hart Los Angeles, the vampire had managed to implement a certain amount of reforms: several teams, composed of operatives trained in combat as well as basic medical and scientific skills, now handled the supernatural interventions under the leadership of one of the main team members. Legal affairs, originally the foundation of Wolfram & Hart, had been relegated to the background, although a significant group of lawyers and legal experts continued to operate under the firm’s name, if only to keep up appearances for ordinary mortals. However, they limited themselves to purely human cases and avoided representing vampires or demons, except in rare instances involving peaceful beings.
— "Call on line two, boss," Harmony’s voice suddenly rang out.
— "We’re in a meeting!" Angel protested loudly. "How many times have I said I don’t want to be disturbed during briefings?!"
— "I think it’s important…" Harmony insisted.
— "Take that call, Angel. We’ll wait and start working on a plan of action," Wesley suggested.
Frowning but nodding in agreement, Angel headed to his desk to pick up the phone, while Wesley began reviewing the best ways to take down the demon: a weakness in the neck, meaning decapitation or possibly strangulation.
— "We’ll need at least a team of six, I think… Close combat seems most effective, but I’d prefer three people providing cover with crossbows, bows, or firearms," he said, analyzing the photos of the demon’s hideout taken by Fred’s experimental drone.
— "Maybe I could be one of those three? Staying at a distance…" she suggested hopefully.
Wesley stared at her for almost thirty seconds as if she were insane.
— "That’s out of the question."
— "But I can still shoot a crossbow!" she protested.
Wesley shook his head, unyielding.
— "No. Absolutely not. Not in your condition," he said firmly but in a low voice.
The young woman frowned. She understood, of course, but it wasn’t as if she were sick or disabled! She was perfectly capable of serving as backup.
— "If I stop participating in fights, Angel is going to think something’s wrong," she muttered, slightly offended.
— "We’ll tell him then…"
— "It’s about time… Because… well, it’s going to start showing…" she remarked in a whisper, placing a hand on her belly. "And I can’t wear loose clothes all the time and keep making excuses to run to the bathroom…"
— "I know, I know…" Wesley murmured quickly, still trying to stay discreet even though Angel seemed fully absorbed in his phone call. "It’s just… I still haven’t wrapped my head around the idea that I’m going to be a dad!"
Fred looked at him with a smile in her eyes. To tell the truth, she didn’t quite feel ready to be a mom either. She gave him a half-nervous, half-excited smile, which he returned.
— "We tell him," Wesley decided, turning toward Angel who was coming back to them after hanging up.
But he suddenly changed his mind when he saw the vampire’s face.
— "What’s going on?" Fred asked immediately, concerned.
Angel looked up at her. He seemed both shocked and furious.
— "The call was from a hospital, in Orlando," he announced, clenching his fists. "Lindsey is there, currently between life and death."
Immediately, Fred brought her hand to her mouth, absorbing the news. Since his departure three years ago, they had received occasional updates from Lindsey, but nothing substantial, just mundane details: I found a nice apartment downtown. The food is good. It’s hot and the ocean temperature is perfect for swimming. Just little messages, like you’d send on brief postcards.
A sharp crash echoed as Angel violently smashed the crystal ball from their previous investigation that had been sitting on a shelf, and Fred jumped.
— "Why? I mean, what’s going on? What happened to him?" she asked, firing off questions anxiously.
But Angel didn’t even seem to hear her. He stared at the shards of glass on the floor as if his gaze alone could pulverize them.
— "I’m going to kill them. All of them. They’re going to pay for this…" he growled, his voice trembling with rage.
— "Angel…" Wesley began, instinctively moving closer to Fred, who had gone pale at the sight of the vampire’s unusual fury.
— "We had a deal with them, Wes!" Angel interrupted angrily. "The Senior Partners signed that deal! Lindsey was supposed to be safe!"
Kicking at the remains of the crystal ball, he began pacing back and forth.
— "I’m going up there right now… That damn panther will be the first to pay if she doesn’t lead me to them. I need weapons… No, I need a plan… Wesley, you need to research this, go back to the beginning, find out how to kill those Senior Partners… Fred, they might be immune to magic but vulnerable to science… That’s it, I’m sure of it! We’ll dig through the archives, study the reports, everything. There has to be something that works!"
— "Angel…" Wesley repeated softly.
— "Stop calling me ‘Angel’ like that!!!"
The vampire had spun around abruptly, fists clenched, anger and fear mingling on his face. A few seconds passed during which no one dared to say a word.
— "He’s between life and death, Wes…" Angel finally whispered in a broken voice. "They tried to kill him and they’ll probably try again… I can’t abandon him, I…"
— "Are you sure about that?" Wesley asked gently. "That they tried to kill him, I mean. Is there proof?"
Angel frowned and didn’t answer.
— "Because there are many reasons why a human might end up in the hospital, you know…" Wesley added in the same understanding tone. "A car crash, a heart attack, or even a sudden illness… These things happen. What did the hospital staff say?"
— "I… I think it was just a medical secretary. She didn’t want to give details over the phone…"
— "So we don’t actually know anything yet…"
— "Yeah…" Angel admitted, feeling a dull anxiety replace his anger.
He would have liked to find a culprit right away. It would have allowed him to unleash his fury, to have someone to hit, or something to destroy that wasn’t a useless crystal ball…
A hand on his arm made him look up, and he saw Fred watching him with a mix of understanding and concern. She hadn’t said anything since the announcement, but her eyes spoke for her, and Angel felt the weight in his chest ease slightly in the face of that silent yet unwavering support.
— "Well, I’m going," he declared firmly. "Will you be okay with the demon?"
Fred and Wesley barely had time to nod before Angel hurried out of the room, leaving them both standing there without continuing the briefing that had seemed so important just a few minutes earlier.
The door slammed, and Fred and Wesley looked at each other, uncertain.
— "That means he’s going to see Lindsey, right? Not the Senior Partners?" Fred asked hesitantly.
— "Yes, I think... At least, I hope so…" Wesley replied.
After an awkward moment of silence during which they both wondered what to do next, they redirected their attention to the documents spread across the table. They would have to come up with a plan on their own. Oh, they were used to situations like this by now, but it was still rare for Angel not to be involved.
— "Did they date?" Fred suddenly asked. "Before I met all of you, I mean?"
— "Dating?" Wesley repeated, surprised. "Oh no! Fighting, yes… But, well, I think they’ve always had a thing for each other, even if they would never have admitted it back then. They were on opposite sides, so nothing could have been possible."
— "Well, they are now," Fred pointed out. "On the same side."
Wesley shrugged slightly.
— "Yes. Then we’ll see."
— "Well, he is cute," Fred added.
— "You think Lindsey is cute?" Wesley exclaimed, a hint of jealousy in his voice as he put down the document he was holding a little too abruptly.
— "No!" Fred protested. "Angel is. All worried and ready to fight the world for him."
Wesley chuckled.
— "Yes, he is cute," he admitted, picking up the paper again. "And I promise we’ll tell him about your pregnancy soon. We’ll tell everyone, actually."