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Future Imperfect by Lilachigh
 
Chp 15 One to Go
 
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Future Imperfect

Chp 15 One to go



Billy, who’d happily realised you could bounce off the sides of the invisible bubble like a trampoline, skidded to a halt and stared at his twin.

“You reckon you can bring everyone out here? Inside the bubbly thingy with us? Okaaay. But what for?”

Joyce nodded. “I want Mom. I want to tell her I didn’t mean to stay out this long and annoy everyone. I can’t get us out of the bubble but I can bring them inside it.”

Billy shrugged: he knew just how much Joyce irritated their mother. He didn’t need to read her mind to see that. But wow, he could just picture his mom’s face if she arrived and discovered she was trapped too.

Joyce glanced sideways at him; she could sense he wanted to say something. “I mean, she can’t be that cross with me, can she?”

“She can’t ground us, but she might make us go home if we ever get out of here and don’t staaarrrvvve toooo deeaattthhh. Do you want to leave Granny and Grandad?”

Eyes shut tight, Joyce considered. Home was nice and she missed Daddy and Mommy, even if she was always in trouble there. But here – here was sort of exciting in a way she hadn’t experienced before. Here – she knew was where something was waiting for her. She had no idea who or what, but deep down she was certain that she had to stay here to find out. It was important.

She peered over her shoulder at the dark wet trees at the end of granny’s yard. The dark skinned woman with the painted face wasn’t there, but Joyce had a funny feeling that she hadn’t gone far.

“Okay, p’raps I’ll talk to Mommy a bit later.”

Billy nodded, wondering why she hadn’t felt the push he’d given her inside his head to make that decision. “Can you get the dark-haired man out here?”

Joyce looked at him curiously. “The Angel man. Yes, I reckon so. Why him? You said earlier that he wanted to take us away!”

“Not take us away. Not quite that. But it was something to do with us. That’s why they’re all arguing. I don’t know. I just feel that something’s going on that we don’t understand and I might find out from him.”

His twin rolled her eyes at him. “OK, boy detective, but it’ll only be stupid grown-up stuff. Nothing exciting.”

* * * * * *

There was silence inside the house following Angel’s confession to Shanny that his son was the twins’ father. Buffy reached out blindly towards Spike and found his hand there waiting; cold, strong, comforting.

She wanted to say something, anything, to wipe that stunned look from her daughter’s face. Well, first she wanted to hit Angel over the head several times with the biggest, heaviest stone she could find, but that could wait.

But what could she say to Shanny? Don’t worry, you weren’t made pregnant by some young American guy from a good family, oh no, you slept with the son of two vampires who between them laid waste to half of Europe and Asia! Obviously a real prince.

Spike was fighting with every bone in his body not to vamp out and sink his fangs into Angel’s throat. They’d pleaded with him not to tell her – but oh no, whatever Angel wanted to do, he did, regardless of the consequences. Some things in life never changed.

Having part of the Shanshu obviously hadn’t given him any more understanding of human feelings. Oh he had the fine car, great clothes – Spike would have killed for the dark blue leather jacket – money and the ability to walk in the sun. But he was still bottom of the league when it came to other people’s feelings.

What was worse, Spike could sense Liam’s bewilderment. After all these years, the link between them – even if it was worn thin as a silken thread – still remained. Liam had no frickin’ idea of the damage he had just done. No, he was sitting there, all hurt and brooding and emotional, surveying the fall-out of his earth-shattering statement, wondering why everyone had gone so quiet.

But Spike refused to feel sorry for him. He had a son, okay, big deal. Spike had a daughter and Angel had caused the stunned, bereft expression that had crossed her face before the usual bored look took over once more.

Shanny Summers-Green realised that the silence was making her ears hurt. Which was odd, because usually she liked things to be quiet and calm.

She couldn’t look at her parents: just talking about the whole getting pregnant when fifteen scenario freaked her out. She could sense the anger coming off her dad in great waves and her mom had that tight-lipped, white-faced expression which meant she was furious, desperate to batter something into dust. Shanny had no doubts that the object of Buffy’s anger was her. It usually was.

Instead she looked at Angel, the vampire detective, searched his face for any small resemblance to the twins. But there was none. Except – she almost laughed - his bottom lip was stuck out and when Joyce sulked, hers did, too.

“Connor?” she said carefully. “That’s nice. I never knew his name. Where is he now?”

“Sweetheart – you don’t need to talk about this!” Spike was on his feet, prowling around the room. “David is the twins’ father. Not this ponce’s bastard.”

Angel leapt to his feet, his chair crashing to the floor behind him. “Don’t call him names! Darla and I were together for more years than most married couples and she died so he could live.”

“Darla! Oh yes, why didn’t I think of her. Mad psychopathic Darla. The twins would have enjoyed having her as their grandmother! Pity she’s not still with us – she could give them lessons on how to torture a victim for three days so that every minute is full of pain! And I expect her son is just like her. Rotten to the core.”

With a roar, Angel flung himself at Spike, vamping out, the two bodies crashing to the ground in a flurry of growls and flying fists and feet.

“Mom! Stop them. What the heck is Dad doing?” Shanny shouted.

“Exactly what I feel like doing,” Buffy snapped.

“Mom, please. I can’t stand it,” Shanny yelled over the noise, skipping to one side as a table vanished under their bodies in a shower of splinters.

“And that is plain stupid!” Buffy said and leapt forward to grab Spike and pull him away, clear of the murderous wooden shafts.
“Calm down. You might have some of the Shanshu, but you’re not invincible to pointy stakes. Not like Angel.”

Spike’s golden eyes glared at her as he struggled in her grasp, but slowly the fire died and he shimmered back into human face.

“Dad, please stop fighting. I don’t care about this Darla. All I want to know about is Connor. I want to understand why the twins are as they are.”

“They’re - ! ” But the sentence was left hanging in empty air as, without a sound or warning, Angel vanished.

“ – my grandchildren!” he finished and realised to his astonishment he had landed in a heap in the yard, that a storm was raging but where he was sprawling the ground was quite dry and two small blond figures were peering down at him.

“Oh, have you got grandkids, too?” Joyce asked. “Do they live round here? Perhaps they could come over and play sometime. Ouch!”

She winced as Billy kicked her mentally. ‘How stoopid can you be?’ his voice hissed inside her head. ‘Last kids who came and played, you scared so silly they had to go to a special head doctor!’

“Hi,” Angel said feebly, struggling to sit up. “Did you bring me out here?”

Joyce nodded. “I can’t get twin and me back indoors,” she confided. “Is our mom very cross?”

“Shanny? Er, no, not so much. Everyone’s worried because they can’t find you.”

“We’re invisible,” Billy said. “And now you are, too.”

Angel put a hand to his head. He felt weird, as if someone was walking around inside his brain. He got to his feet, put out a hand, then pulled it back as he felt something he couldn’t see bend beneath the pressure.

“We’re in a bubble.”

Billy wondered if this guy was as smart as he seemed to be. Of course they were in a bubble. Otherwise they’d be getting soaked in the rain that was still falling.

“It’s just a Joyce thingy,” he explained slowly. “She’ll work out how to get rid of it soon, I ’spect. Don’t be frightened.”

Angel bit his lip and slid down the invisible wall to sit, looking at the twins. Frightened? That didn’t even begin to describe how he felt. Terrified witless was a better description.

His grandchildren! These were his flesh and blood. Connor’s kids. It was unbelievable – as if the Powers that Be had handed him down an enormous gift, casually, almost as if it didn’t matter.

Connor’s children. He said it again under his breath. The girl – well, he wouldn’t have known. She wasn’t particularly pretty, and okay, blonde hair and green eyes, but she didn’t look like Buffy or Connor or even Shanny, her own mother. If anything the tilt of her shoulders and the way she was standing reminded him of Spike. No, he would never have thought she was kin.

But the boy, Billy. Angel swallowed hard as he stared once more at a young version of a face that had haunted his dreams for centuries. Apart from the blue eyes, which he’d inherited from Spike, there was Darla looking back at him. That slight curve to the mouth – was he smiling or just thinking something wicked? Oh god, if he had seen Billy in the middle of a hundred children, he would have known.

He winced and rubbed at his forehead. There was that odd sensation again.

“Who’s Connor?” Billy asked casually. “Oh, he’s one of your grandkids?” He paused, a fleeting look of puzzlement in his eyes. “No, he’s your own boy, isn’t he?”

“How did you know about – “ He stopped abruptly, remembering something being said about Billy being able to read minds. But that was ridiculous. He was only nine. Angel had been defending his mind against magic and demons for years. It wasn’t likely that a mere child could have read his thoughts.

No, he reckoned that the twins had heard one or two words from the argument inside the house. Lord knows it had been loud enough. And he blamed Spike for that.

He glanced across to Joyce who seemed completely disinterested in the conversation. She looked weird, as if she was leaning into thin air, but he knew she was balanced against the barrier, staring out at the end of the yard where the tree branches shook in the wind and the shrubs bent to the earth as the rain hissed down.


This was his chance to tell them the truth, while they were alone with him. He had the feeling she was about to bring someone else here. Should he tell them?

Angel gazed hungrily at the two small people who, in some way, belonged to him. Why should he be denied the chance of them loving him? Was Spike to have everything? He’d got Buffy, had a daughter – and lost her, if what Shanny had told him was true - and now he had grandchildren. All he had himself was a son he never saw. The Shanshu had been shared. So why shouldn’t the rewards be shared as well?

* * * * * *


Inside the house, Buffy stood outside her bedroom door, hesitating, which was ridiculous because the man she loved was inside and why on earth should she be worried about speaking to him?

After Angel had vanished, Shanny had just shrugged, as if this was what she had been expecting. She’d said, “Joyce! God. That kid!” in exasperated tones.

Buffy knew she had to explain as briefly as possible how they all knew each other. Spike didn’t say a word as she talked, which raised her sense of unease to red alert status.

Shanny had said nothing; she just started to clear up the mess the vampires’ fight had made. Buffy watched, suddenly remembering with a sad little tremor, a small girl trying to wipe demon blood off her story books when a fight had exploded into the room where she’d been trying to learn to read.

“Leave that for now.”

“Mom, you can’t leave a mess like this. Don’t look so worried. This is just Joyce playing games.”

“But why did she take Angel? Why not you or me or your Dad?”

Shanny sighed: physically and emotionally exhausted, she wished David were here. Her quiet, ordinary husband. No special powers, but nevertheless he gave her strength. He had an inner calm, an ability to make problems seem small and insignificant before he dealt with them.

In all their ten years together, she’d never seen him lose his temper, fight, smash up a room or try to kill someone who was, apparently, one of his oldest friends. Goodness, what a dull life her parents must think they lived!

“You realise Angel might tell the twins about his son being their real father,” Buffy said.

Shanny glanced at her sharply. Her mom seemed different, sharper, more alert, ready for action. As if the patina of happiness, of quiet living, had been stripped away and there was the Slayer of Shanny’s childhood.

“Surely he wouldn’t do that without my permission. I know he was a vampire, but you’ve already explained that he has a soul. I get that he was given the other half of the Shanshu prophecy. So he isn’t a monster, Mom, whatever history you and Dad have with him. And thank heavens he isn’t, as it appears he is the twins’ grandfather!”

Spike flinched as if one of the wooden shards from the broken table had pierced his chest. He turned, walked up the stairs and they heard the bedroom door slam behind him.

“Why is Dad so upset?” Shanny asked as she swept up the last piece of broken wood. “I suppose it’s because of me sleeping with Connor, not knowing him and all that.”

Buffy tensed. There was so much she could have said, shouted to her daughter. She wondered if Shanny would have remained so calm if she’d known her mother had killed Angel once, sent him to Hell? Or that he’d been her first lover, indeed, her first love? She wondered if she could ever explain Angelus

“Jealous vampire crap.”

Shanny looked up, horrified. “Jealous – you don’t mean you and Angel. Mom!!!”

Buffy tried to stop her lips twitching. Finally she’d broken through Shanny’s barrier of reserve, although perhaps not quite as she’d hoped. Obviously like all children, the thought of her parents “doing it” and “doing it with someone else” was alive and well and flourishing.

Now she pushed open the bedroom door and went in. It was very dark. The window was wide open and the wind and rain lashed in, soaking the carpet.

Spike was sitting on the window seat, gazing out into the yard where trees and bushes danced in the storm. He didn’t look up as she came in.

Buffy put her hand on his shoulder. His T-shirt was soaked; rainwater was running down his face. She shook him. “Spike? What’s the matter? Talk to me?”

“Nothing to say, pet.”

“Jeez, what the hell does that mean?”

He turned slightly and the expression she could see in his eyes made her heart freeze. He looked – empty – lost.

“You can’t surely still be jealous of Angel. I won’t believe it. Sorry, we haven’t got time for this nonsense. After all we’ve been through together, you know I love you and not him!”

Spike reached out and gently traced the contours of her cross face. “You think you do, sweetheart. But now, tonight, I’m not so sure. I think I’m losing you, Buffy. And perhaps, in the end, that won’t be such a bad thing for you, Shanny or the twins.”

tbc




 
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