Series: Two Out of Four
Series: Two Out of Four
"Okay, let's just calm down."
"You calm down!" Cordelia yelled. "You're not the one being manhandled by the vampire."
"Not at the moment anyway," Spike chimed in.
"Shut up Spike," Angel warned. "Darla, I think we better just sit down and..."
"And what, Angelus?" Darla sneered, lifting her shirt enough to show the pale scars encircling her abdomen. "I know you had something to do with this and you are going to pay."
"I did not do that. We haven't...There's no way I did that."
"Well nobody else did it."
"Not even Lindsey?" Angel asked, a hint of a growl vibrating his voice.
"Not me what?" Lindsey asked as he and Wesley entered the boardroom. "Darla. Drusilla."
"Hello, Lindsey." Darla said, her voice showing none of the menace she had used only a moment before. "We've missed you."
"Yes, very much." Drusilla echoed, stepping away from Spike to join Darla at Lindsey's side. "It was very kind of you to bring us back together. Wasn't it sweet, daddy?"
Angel was momentarily befuddled. He gazed around the room, mouth partially agape as he tried to figure out just what side the players were on. He was almost certain that Spike, Fred and Lorne were still with him; Gunn was, if nothing else, more loyal to him than Wesley, he hoped, but suddenly where Wesley's loyalties lay became the gray area. He also figured Cordelia to be on the side of good, but she and Darla had apparently shared similar mystical fates.
"Angel?" Gunn asked. He was now standing next to Angel, nudging him in the ribs. When he received no answer but a confused stare he continued. "How we gonna play this? Should I call for back-up?"
"Not yet. We're going to calmly try to figure this all out."
"I hope by *this* you mean *this*." Cordelia said firmly as she pointed at her abdomen.
"Yes." Angel said with a slow nod. "Darla, Drusilla. Are you really willing to help us find out what's happening?"
"It's like a puzzle isn't it? Blue bonnets and shiny prisms, white light and stakes of stone."
"I think what Dru is trying to say is yes." Darla answered. She moved to Drusilla's side and took one of her hands into her own, caressing over the palm. "Our girl knows more than she shares, and I think you know more than you're telling us. I know that I know more than I'm telling you, so I guess the only way is for us to work together."
"Won't that be a hoot." Spike chimed in.
"She's right, it's the only way." Angel agreed with a sigh. "Okay, everybody out."
"Angel, I don't think that's..." Wesley began, but he was cut off by a squeeze from Lindsey. Wesley shot him a confused look but knew he would get no explanation as long as they were in front of the others.
"You heard him," Spike said as he pushed Cordelia and Fred towards the door, "time to get out the big white board and start the tally."
The girls started to protest as they were unceremoniously tossed through the doors. Cordelia looked prepared to swing at Spike when Lorne grabbed her shoulder. "Fredikins, don't you think it's time we took Cordy up to the lab and ran some tests?"
"Um, yeah. Maybe we should take a closer look at your stretch marks."
"It was just a joke." Cordelia said to herself running a hand over her stomach. "It was just..."
"I know hon." Lorne said in his most comforting voice.
Just before Gunn reached the door Angel pulled him aside. "Make sure those two," he said with a nod towards Lindsey and Wesley, "don't leave the building. I want you to draw up a timeline, how long they've known Darla and Dru were alive, exactly how they found them. Everything."
"Sure thing, boss." Gunn passed a tired hand over his brow and headed for his office after making sure the other men were following him.
"Alone at last." Darla taunted as she leaned against the table.
"I wouldn't be so excited about that if I were you." Angel picked the stake he had abandoned earlier back off the chair and placed it inside his coat.
Darla laughed at what they all knew was nothing more than bravado. Angel wouldn't kill her until he had answers about Cordelia, and if that meant figuring out what had brought Darla and Dru back, he would.
"So, I guess I'll start." Spike announced after several moments of silence. "I died saving the world last summer."
"Poor Spike," Drusilla whispered to herself, "trapped in a box, unlocked by a kiss just like a fairy tale."
"How long has she been like this?" Spike asked Darla with real concern. "I don't think she's had a moment of lucidity since you came back."
"She's always like this. She had a vision a few months ago and now almost everything out of her mouth is about you two, or babies, or stones, or half a dozen other things that only she knows about. Do you have any idea how trying it is to spend day and night with someone who can only think about you two idiots?"
"Right. So I was trapped in an amulet, and when I was released I started having the dreams." Drusilla tensed at Spike's words but remained silent. "That's right. Dreams of fire and death, thought I was just reliving my adventure in the Hellmouth, but then I saw you."
"We both did." Angel interjected
"Fire licking, dead and gone." Drusilla said, eyes opening wider as if she could see the dream even while awake.
"Darla, what happened after the fire?"
"We died."
"But you're here."
"Do you think I don't know that? Why do you think we agreed to come back. We've spent two years wandering this horrid continent, trying to heal. Do you have any idea what it's like to be burned to the point you should be dead? You can't imagine that pain." Darla hissed.
"I spent a few hundred years in hell, I think I can."
"No. Burned beyond the point where you are dead. We were dead, or should have been, but we lived. I don't know how, but we did."
"It hurt." Drusilla echoed.
"This isn't making any sense." Angel ran that night over in his mind for the thousandth time, trying to relive the sensation of Darla's death, knowing he had felt it. "Obviously you survived the night, but how?"
"Lindsey found us."
"And you actually remember it?"
"No, I remember waking up in his apartment two weeks later so burned I could barely open my eyes, feeling mats of hair and charred flesh. He forced blood down our throats night and day until we could sit up and take it willingly. It took weeks before we could even stand, let alone walk."
"Where did you go after you left Lindsey?"
"I don't know."
"Don't need zip codes Darla, just a general idea." Spike pressed.
"I mean I don't know!" She yelled. "It's all a fog, I only have flashes, like in a dream."
"Flashes of what?" Angel asked, beginning to pace the room.
"It doesn't make sense. I see broken glass and chinese lanterns. I smell leather and hear bells ringing. Then I see mountains and rain. After that nothing. Nothing until we arrived in Montreal. Angel, I don't remember going to Montreal. I mean, why would we go there? I just remember walking down the boardwalk and then seeing Lindsey."
"Sounds more like one of Dru's visions than a dream." Spike said.
"Not a vision." Drusilla said, coming to rest in a chair nearer the other vampires. "Oh Spike, don't you remember dancing?" She ran her fingers over her neck as she spoke. "Stairs up to dinner and down to goodbye. Miss Edith had a lovely train ride and the Slayer locked the door."
"Sorry love, don't remember." The urge to comfort her, even now, was strong. It took Angel's steady gaze to hold him back.
"Just a second." Angel said, taking a step out of the room and returning with a box of files. "We need to look at this from another angle. These are the files Wolfram and Hart kept on all of us. Spike went through and picked out events he didn't remember happening. We're gonna have to go through them one by one and see if we can piece them together."
"The holes in our memories aren't all in the same places. Between the four of us we have to be able to find some answers." Spike agreed, grabbing a few files from the top.
"So where do we start?" Darla asked, reluctantly taking a folder from the box and leafing through it.
"The three things we seem to be having the most confusion about are Holtz, Penn, and the Zahran prophecy." Angel said. "I think the prophecy should be the first on our list." He handed Darla the translations Wesley had made so far. "This is what I could remember."
"It's missing quite a bit." Darla said as she studied the symbols.
"Add in what you remember and hopefully it'll be enough to get us somewhere."
"Alright." She took a pencil from the desk and started writing while Angel and Spike quietly compared notes.
"Don't I get to look?" Drusilla asked.
"Sorry Dru, rude of us to exclude you." Spike handed her the file marked Penn, and then sat down beside her.
"Oh!" She exclaimed with glee. "I remember this bedtime story. Tell it to me now, Angelus." She closed her eyes and held her hands over the paper as if she could read its contents by osmosis. "Sun shines on the girl as daddy cries, big brother stabs and shuts his eyes. Will you tell it?" Her eyes slowly opened again and she stared at Angel expectantly.
"So, you know who Penn is then?" He asked.
"I remember everything. Truth and lies kept in jars."
"Translator would be handy just about now." Spike said in Angel's direction.
"Good luck." Darla laughed.
"What we need is a way to see what she sees."
"Orpheus?" Spike suggested, cringing at his own words.
"Too dangerous."
"There's got to be a way."
"Vulcan mind-meld?"
"Spike, not helping."
"He may not be that far off." Darla said. "There's bound to be some spell that could...Never mind, I don't really want you three seeing into my mind."
"Trust me Darla," Spike said, "we aren't looking for your naughty secrets. We just want to find out how you two got here."
"So do we call Wesley or Fred? Mystical or medical?"
"Maybe a combination of the two." Spike suggested. "Who's up for a trip to the lab? If we're lucky we might make it there in time to see Cordy's examination." He laughed, alone.
"Angel, what you are asking is both dangerous and not necessary." Wesley said with an exasperated wave of his arm.
"It's the only way."
"It most certainly is not. We just need to map out the..."
"We've mapped. We've plotted, compared and discussed." Angel handed Wesley a large pile of notes covered with three sets of handwriting and the occasional doodle dotting their corners. "The four of us can't make head or tail of this because the files are full of half-truths and things we just plain don't remember. Now if Drusilla has the keys locked away in her head we are going to bring them out."
"Fine. Agreed, but that doesn't mean that all of you have to go under. How do we know it isn't part of their plan?"
"You would know, right? Since you're in on the plan," Angel challenged.
"This is not a conspiracy!" Wesley shouted. He took a step toward Angel, laying his hand firmly on his shoulder, nodding towards the three vampires silently watching their conversation through the half-drawn blinds. "This is your life, and my life, and their lives. Do you honestly think you're the only one being affected by this?" He released his grasp on the other man and flung the papers across his desk, quickly turning his attention back to Angel. "You are not alone in this." He said in a calmer voice.
"I realize that." Angel agreed. "It's just that there are holes in here," he tapped his head, "decade wide holes where I have no idea what I was doing. You can't imagine what that's like."
"Can't I?" Wesley asked, taking a step closer to the man before him. "How did Lilah die?"
"What?"
"It's a simple enough question don't you think? Lilah Morgan, how did she die?"
"She...there was an attack on Wolfram and Hart and...she was bitten by a vampire." Angel stammered.
"Really? Which vampire?"
"I don't know. Why is that important?"
"It's important because every time I've fallen asleep since we took over this firm I have had the same, completely vivid, dream, of walking through the halls of the hotel, seeing you holding Lilah's dead body and feeding from her. The next thing I see is Lilah's head lying at my feet. But," he closed his eyes briefly before continuing, "do you know the part that kills me every time?" Angel shook his head. "As soon as her head hits my foot, my own neck starts to bleed. The scar opens up, blood drenches me and I wake up with one word in my mind. Angel." He turned away with a shudder.
"How many times have you had this dream?" Angel asked quietly.
"I told you. Every night for months."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I wasn't sure how to breach the subject tactfully. Good morning Angel, how's the blood, by the way did you happen to turn evil and kill my girlfriend?"
"So instead you called Lindsey?" Angel said with more than a hint of anger in his voice.
"No, he called me." Wesley said, finally composed enough to face Angel again. "Six weeks ago. He said he'd heard about Lilah and wanted to find out what had happened. When the details I had shared didn't mesh with what he'd heard through the grapevine I became concerned. When I told him it was a vampire he asked if it was Darla. You can imagine my surprise."
"So he knew they were alive."
"No, he said he was dreaming of them and that they had been alive after the fire. As much as you'd like to think we're all plotting against you, we aren't. I'm concerned that you are letting your past with Darla and Drusilla cloud your judgment. We cannot just rush into the lab and start regression therapy without having a very clear idea of what we're looking for. Right now we don't have a way to know what is truth and what isn't."
"Right now, my theory is that everything in these files is fake. I don't remember everything, but I know enough that I don't trust any of that." Angel motioned to the notes covering the desk. "It doesn't make sense that the one person among us who is completely senseless would remember everything while the rest of us are going mad."
"Unless that was the intention." Wesley said, a glimmer of revelation in his eyes. "I mean, what if the holes in our memories, the dreams, what if it were all designed to make us lose our grip on reality?"
"Then the question would be, who would benefit from us losing Wolfram and Hart?"
"The Senior Partners?"
"Possible, but then why give it to us in the first place?" They shared a moment of silence. Each man trying to gauge the other's loyalties and motives. "We need to figure out why the pieces missing are, well, missing. Once we know why those events are important we can figure out who's behind it. We're going under."
"I wish you would reconsider. Let just Drusilla try, maybe she'll..."
"You know she can't. We can't decipher what comes out of her mouth, it's all riddles. We need to actually see it with our own eyes. Wherever she's going, she's taking us with her."
"Alright. I'll work with Fred to come up with a plan."
"And I'll tell the kids to pack a bag. The family's taking a trip."
*****
TBC