Note: Thanks to my beta t_geyer for her unending patience, perseverance and support.

SECTION 1 - HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO

I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure
And it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life

((Jim Steinman wrote it, I think, even though the site where I found the lyrics says it's Bonnie Tyler) - Bonnie Tyler




Chapter 1.11
Saturday, May 25th, 2002


"Give us a few minutes, will you, Ang?" Spike looked over at the taller vampire, who was once more dressed in a suit and tie.

"Sure. I'll see if I can bring the others up to speed." Angel left the room and closed the door gently behind him.

"What? If you think we're going to do what we're meant to be doing for real, just so I look mussed up for the waiters, you can think again."

"No, love, though I think maybe some mussing up might be in order. There's, well, there's something I thought you should know, you and Bit, really but... Look, we had that thing an' it meant we could find people in other planes. I, well, I thought there was someone you might want me to check on."

"Mom?" Buffy almost didn't dare to ask, but the fact that he had indicated the person might also be close to her sister gave her hope.

Spike gave a small nod. "She was happy, pet. She looked about the age you are now, hair all down her back and she was on a beach. There was a man with her, about the same age, light brown hair, too tall and thin to be Hank."

"Could he have been related? Mom had an older brother who was killed in a car crash when she was about Dawn's age."

Spike thought back. "It could have been... either that or maybe her high school sweetheart or... well, I don't know how these things work, but whoever he was, she looked happy with him. Didn't really have time for more than a quick squint in case the guards came 'round. I wish you and Bitty could have seen her."

"Says the man who came up with the whole periscopes idea, just to stop me going with you..." Buffy's voice bore no malice, instead she teased the vampire. She knew that he had done what he had out of concern for her and for Dawn, and she was touched that he had thought to check up on her mother. Even second hand confirmation that her mother was in whatever passed for her own heaven was welcome.

"It wasn't just you... It was Wes as well. Rosa would kill me if I got her new dad locked up. An' you've seen CSI. You know they can track you down from the stupidest little thing. And it was a damn sight easier than trying to get into the security room and record loops of tape and it meant when the guard was doing his rounds they could see him."

"Yeah, yeah... but still not why you thought of it."

"No, but I wish you could have seen her just the same."

"Share it with me... tonight." Buffy slipped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his.

"If I can, I will," Spike promised, knowing that while they could at times direct their shared dreams, at others one or other of their subconscious minds took charge.

With a grin, in an abrupt change of mood, Buffy pushed her fingers through his gelled locks and wriggled them until every last trace was gone and his hair sat in short curls.

In response, Spike ducked his head to administer a searing kiss to Buffy's lips that left them swollen and her lipstick smeared. With one finger he lightly traced the edge of the high collar of her dress where it partially covered his bite. Buffy's heart was racing and her pupils were dilated by the time she pulled away, gasping for breath.

Spike drew the back of his hand over his mouth, wiping off the make-up that coated his lips. "Think we might pass muster now, pet. We better make a move... before I give in to temptation. The night's not over, yet. Gramps has got a demon to beat up. Maybe if you ask nice, he'll let you do it instead."

"As if." She shrugged. "...But he might let us help."

 

---

 

"We ready to roll?" Spike asked, looking around the hotel's reception, dressed once more in his normal combination of denim and leather.

Angel led the way through the portal that formed when Wes set the two parts of the key spinning into motion like a top, the vampire's face grim. Connor was at his side, Spike and Buffy at his back, all of them wearing the same look of determination. It was almost enough to make a person feel sorry for the demon they were going to find, if he hadn't been responsible for abducting Cordelia.

The portal closed behind the quartet and Wes set to work preparing the things he needed to keep Skip imprisoned on this plane when the others brought him back, as well as some which might entice him to communicate more freely.

 

---

 

With one punch, Angel knocked the sword-wielding demon across the room, and then stooped as he went past its limp form to pick up the weapon with barely a pause in his stride.

"Having fun yet, gramps?" Spike asked as he watched.

Angel's mouth remained set in a firm horizontal line. "I'm not here to have fun, Spike. I'm here to find out what happened to Cordelia."

"And you haven't heard of multi-tasking?" Buffy asked before Spike could.

"Angel?" Skip almost bumped into the group as he appeared from a side tunnel. "Jeez, what d'you do? Arrange a family discount?"

"Skip?" Angel tried to keep his voice light and conversational. The more information he could get out of the grey demon before the fight started, the easier things would go. "I was expecting you to be further in."

Skip shrugged and bowed toward Buffy. "Powerful demon Skip at your service. It's only you dead guys that don't need to use the can every now and then. Come on in. I got a few beers and there's a Nicolas Cage film starting in ten."

"We're not here to socialise," Angel told him. "We're trying to find Cordelia."

"Who?"

Spike's impatience got the better of him. "Cor-de-li-a. You were her guide when she became half-nightlight, so Caveman Brow says. Great big scary lookin' fairy godmother schtick? Ring any bells, now?"

"Ah..." the grey demon looked at Angel. "She told you that, huh?" The demon looked uncomfortable for a second. "Look, I wanted to tell you, but the Powers... You know how they're all need to know..."

"And just how much did you need to know?" the vampire asked.

"Look, I know it's going to be really hard to accept but Cordelia has ascended to a higher plane."

Spike tossed aside his cigarette butt. "We know that. Just tell us how to get her on the 'Down' escalator."

"You want to bring her back? Look, nobody comes back from paradise... Okay, a slayer, once-."

"I got bored." Buffy gave Skip a faux-sweet smile and stepped out from beneath Spike's arm. "From what I hear, she's bored, too. So why don't you tell us about how you sent her there?"

"You brought a slayer along? That's hardly friendly... You planning to sick her on me?"

"Actually, we promised that if it turned out you weren't taken for as much of a ride as everyone else in this whole thing, that we'd just watch," Buffy told him. "So, Cordelia's ascension, how did it go down?"

"What do you mean if I wasn't taken for a ride?"

Angel moved up to stand between Buffy and the large demon. "Well, in a way, it was Wolfram & Hart that sent me here the first time, and you just happened to be here. Then, someone, either them or The Powers That Be, sent you to do this whole turn back time spiel for Cordy and got her agree to become part demon and then you are the one who was responsible for her ascension to a higher plane that she can't wait to get out of. So either you were just as big a dupe as the rest of us or you know exactly what's going on."

"Angel, buddy, whatever's going on, I'm telling you true..." The demon raised his arm, flexing it so that a foot-long sword-like bone projection stuck out over the back of the demon's hand. "...Not a dupe. If the rest of you guys want to take a number, I'll get to you all in a few minutes."

Angel raised his borrowed sword to parry. Skip seemed faster and Angel barely met the larger demon's thrusts and slashes. Angel's sword was knocked from his hand and Spike was forced to sidestep out of its way as it sailed the breadth if the corridor. "Come on, grandpa. Try hitting back now and again."

Skip grabbed Angel by the neck and held him up, so that his feet didn't touch the ground. "Not like the last time, is it, monkey boy?" He hurled Angel about ten yards along the corridor toward the chamber where the demon had held Billy prisoner. The vampire landed on the floor like a limp dish rag and a few seconds passed before he began to pick himself back off the floor.

"Yes!" Spike's excited cry earned him a baleful glare from the other vampire as he made it to his knees.

"You're supposed to be on my side."

"Nope, you made us promise not to help you. You didn't say we couldn't cheer on the other guy."

"D'you mind?" Skip asked sarcastically as he gripped Angel by the throat again. "You know the worst part about signing on for this gig was having to take a dive when you rescued that runt Billy from his box of fire." This time he threw Angel into the room where Billy had been held. The vampire hit the far wall and then sagged into a heap. "I mean, come on. Do you really think a guy built like this would be so easy to drop? This time we'll do it for real, champion. This time... you lose."

The grey demon continued to pick Angel up, slamming him into one wall or another at will and every time he did Angel took just a little longer to get back up, but still he kept going.

"Well, now..." the larger demon pointed out. "This is just embarrassing."

"You're telling me," Spike retorted. "I'm embarrassed just to be related to him... But then, that's nothing new."

Skip turned around and glared at the blond. "Just what are you doing here?"

Spike raised his hands as if to surrender. "Me? I'm just here to gloat... and collect on a bet. See, when gramps, there, told me what sort of demon you were, I bet him that you let him win the last time..."

Angel took advantage of Skip's distraction with a weak shoulder charge at kidney height. Spike side-stepped, pulling Buffy with him, but the blow only made Skip take a single steadying step forward.

"Tell me... what happened... to Cordelia."

"Or what? You'll lie on the floor and pant at me some more? Must say I thought there would be a bit more blood by now."

"Use your pointy arm thing more," Spike pointed out helpfully before being nudged in the ribs by Buffy.

Angel seemed to struggle to his feet and landed a few ineffectual punches on Skip's solar plexus, while the armour-skinned demon simply looked down in disdain as the blows landed.

"You know, I've always wondered how many chunks you gotta hack off a vampire before he goes all dustbunny."

Spike raised his hand. "That'd be one, provided you start with the head. Go on. Tell him what an idiot he was and how he's been taken for a ride all along. Tell him what's going to happen to his princess when he doesn't get her out of there."

"Nah, not a Bond fan. I prefer to send him back to his grave, wondering just why the woman he loves is where she is and never knowing what's going to happen to her."

Angel effortlessly straightened up and punched Skip in the face. The grey demon winced in pain and then blinked as if wondering what had changed. "In that case, I guess I get to beat the crap out of you until you talk, instead." Angel reached out with both hands, his right hand grasping the top of the scythe-like protrusion on the left side of Skip's head and the heel of his left hand driving the demon's chin back as he pulled down with his right as if he were pulling the handle on a slot machine. The horn snapped off where it joined the demon's skull and Skip screamed in pain, trying to cover the resulting hole with one hand to prevent the green slime which seemed to act as a substitute for blood from oozing out.

"Oooh! Told ya they didn't like it if you pulled those bits off," Spike gloated even as Angel bludgeoned the stunned demon into unconsciousness with one more punch.

"And I told you that he wouldn't tell us anything unless we beat it out of him."

"Yeah... but it was fun watching him throw you around like a rag doll... and I was right about you needing the orbs."

"I'd have managed, somehow," Angel said as he put the two pieces of the key back together again, turning them with a flick of his wrist as he dropped them to the floor.

"You'd have managed to look like a two hundred an' fifty pound lump of tenderised beef." Spike let his arm drop from around Buffy's waist and moved forward to pick up one of Skip's arms and pass it around his neck, even as Angel did the same at the other side.

"I could have taken him... and I'm not two hundred and fifty pounds."

"Like you've looked in a mirror lately... an' I didn't say you couldn't. Just said you would have looked like hamburger by the time you did."

Buffy and Connor watched them carry the demon through the portal with a combination of bickering and instinctive co-operation that you only get with family.

 

---

 

"He is not fat. He might be big boned. I mean you don't get to be six foot whatever without being big-boned. It's not his fault. Okay, so he probably wouldn't fit into his leather Angelus pants any more... unfortunately..." Cordy paused for a minute or two to remember how fine he had looked that night in the Sunnydale mall before Buffy had blown The Judge apart with a rocket launcher. "So, maybe if I ever find out when his birthday is, I buy him a gym membership... No big deal.

The man... is a bona fide hero. He kicked Skippy's monochrome butt. What did you do? Apart from cheer for the other guy, well, and loaning him those orb thingies, which I guess helped a bit."