Author: Ann of Midnight
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the shows I borrowed characters from… blablabla
Rating: PG-15
Feedback: I live for it.
“Look, this is ridiculous. While we’re waiting here Methos could be hurt or worse. We have no idea where the heck he is. I mean some English guy says wait here and WE DO? What are we doing Amanda?” Duncan asked, pacing nervously around the Hyperion lobby.
“Following a lead,” his lady friend answered. “Look, sweetie, it’s only been forty minutes. We’ll give it another 10, then we’ll go interrogate our ‘pal’ and if that doesn’t work we’ll get out of here. Alright?” She was lounging on one of the sofa chairs quite comfortably and looked like she had no intention of moving.
“Yeah, I guess. I just worry about him.”
“I know. You’re a great friend.”
“Thanks.”
“A bit over-zealous maybe-“
“Amanda!”
“But I appreciate it, for one, and if Methos doesn’t, well he’ll understand, he knows how you are.”
“How ‘bout we make ourselves useful and go through this office area right here?” The man changed the subject. “I don’t think anybody’s watching us.”
Amanda, never one to pass up a snooping opportunity, went to work.
“Oh, look, they’ve got cute little business cards here,” Amanda said, after finding a pile of them in a drawer.
“What do they say?” the immortal questioned, trying to find a way to get the locked desk drawers opened without too much damage.
“There’s a graphic of a… of a ghost, I think, and the card says ANGEL INVESTIGATIONS; we help the hopeless.”
The Scot came to take a look and was himself puzzled by the graphic. “You know what, Amanda? I think it’s an owl.”
“Maybe, but why- I thought it was a ghost, like maybe they investigate hauntings?”
“Or angels?”
“Oh, it’s an angel,” she said, smacking her forehead.
“Right, of course it is,” Duncan said, laughing.
“Yes it is, look. Because of their name,” she explained. She brought the card back up to his face. “See?”
“ANGEL INVESTIGATIONS,” he read aloud.
“Right,” she said, pensive.
“What?”
“I think I may have met the owner today.”
“Really; coincidence?”
“I don’t know. The only thing I do know is that he was dead.”
“Dead?”
“Cold hands, pale face, pain in the ass.”
“Well that’s a heck of a way to talk about dead people.”
“He had freaky hair too. You didn’t meet him, and even though he might have done me a favor, doesn’t mean I have to like him.”
“Okay,” the immortal accepted, making more noise as he used a letter opener to pry the desk open.
“What part of keeping nattering down do you not understand? Bloody hell people!”
“Go Fish.”
‘Damn!’ I curse (in my head). I’m not going to let her see me get flustered. “Do you have a nine?”
“Go fish.”
“Shouldn’t we be playing poker or something?” I ask her, trying to keep the pleading tone out of my voice. Quite frankly Angelus would have started torturing her by now.
“I don’t know how to play,” she tells me, pouting a little. “We could play crazy eights,” she offers, like that would be any better.
“Crazy eights?” I have to repeat, trying to get her to see the total ludicrousness of playing a child’s card game with a master vampire.
“Yeah. What’s wrong, do you not know how to play?” She asks, and she’s serious.
“Just deal the cards. I know how to play,” I tell the young blond. If she caught that the last phrase came out predatorily she isn’t saying anything. She’s seen a lot in her life. She’s probably looking around for something to use as a steak anyway. I’m pretty sure she won’t find anything, but I should probably sweep the place before they turn the lights off. If I died by her hand, it would be really humiliating.
“2 of diamonds; pick up two.”
Damn!
“Look, I want Lindsay McDonald found, okay? I don’t care if he’s in Mexico, Canada or he’s moved to Guam. Get someone to do a spell or something.”
“Yes miss Lilah.”
She gestured to the mirror, beyond which Anne and Angel were playing cards. “He’s going to toy with her for awhile is my feeling; it’s time to get the boy involved.”
“I’ll get his trackers to give me an exact location.”
“Good. I want a portable television unit, something I can show him on the spot, because he is definitely not going to follow me anywhere.”
“Right, so you want the montage of some of the good deeds Angel has done, then Holtz jumping through the portal to finish with Justine killing Holtz or do you want to start with that killing?”
“Start with the Angel crap, I’ll talk to him during that time if he doesn’t want to watch, I’m sure once he sees Holtz’s face he’ll be captivated. I want him wracked with guilt, remorse, confusion. I want him to ask for help to get Angel out of the water. Once his little mission fails and he gets all ‘woe is me’ we hit him with the fact that we’ve found daddy dearest and Angel’s bad again all because of him. He’ll be ours for the taking because we will be the only ones who haven’t lied, and we can use him.”
“You’ve already said all that ma’am. Should I go now?”
“Get out,” she told the insolent anonymous worker.
Lilah liked the sound of her plan the more she repeated it. Even if something went wrong the situation would be to her advantage and who wouldn’t be happy about that? Now if only Wesley would tell her about the girl in his closet, she’d know that the other side of her life was also on the right track.
“We’re sorry.”
“No you’re not. You’ve been making a infernal ruckus for 20 minutes,” I tell the gits. The man shaped one replies.
“Nattering implies talking and we were-“
“Talking! And snooping about the place with all the stealth of Xander Harris,” I interrupt as I rub my head.
“Who?”
“A really, really, really unstealthy guy,” I explain. Why am I explaining?
“Okay, okay, you caught us. We just wanted to know a little more about you,” this time it’s the lady with the superior air that’s wasting my time.
“Gods, you’re like two-year-olds. The Doc is coming back any minute and I have to have a plan by then. Right now the only thing I can think of is to throw the both of you at our opponents and that would hurt me a lot.”
“What?”
“I’m saying shut your gaping pie-holes. I can’t take hearing you and the voices in my head at the same bloody time. So please, please shut the hell up,” and I’m pleading but they can bite me as long as they shut it.
“That’s it. We’re leaving Amanda,” the Scot declares taking his companion by the hand and dragging her towards the exit.
“Good bloody riddance!” I yell, and I mean it too. Infuriating couple they are.
Doc could be right pissed. Then again I tried. Oh well.
I fell like I’m hungry, and there’s no way that can be true. She’s a nice girl, but not the type I want to spend any kind of time with. Luckily, I’ve convinced her to get herself a shower before they turn off the lights, question of killing time. She agreed, possibly because her scalp’s been itching. It’s been driving me slowly insane watching her scratch and seeing the small white flakes fall onto her t-shirt in slow motion. Guess she never spent part of that million dollars on good shampoo.
I hear the shower turning on and she’s moaning. Um. I guess it’s the awesome force the three speed massaging showerhead…
I‘m going to lie out and polish some torture instruments just to keep up the charade. I don’t want to use them though. Maybe if Methos and I get…
“Where?” The brown-haired lawyer beamed into her phone, “oh that’s rich! Have him transported here as soon as possible. As for the boy, he didn’t react as strongly as I hoped, but have the trackers keep me posted on his next moves.”
Mac is still there; I can feel him as I walk to the door.
I hear William shouting “Good bloody riddance!” This might be fun, but I’ll reserve judgment.
“Hello,” I tell the group, as I slide off the duster and throw it to it’s owner. I have my own duster and sword in my incredibly large backpack.
“Adam,” MacLeod says and pauses. He hasn’t moved and he looks totally surprised. He swallows. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I ask, and it’s a legitimate question. Even though I happen to have been kidnapped, doesn’t mean I can’t take care of myself.
“Look Doc, I tried, I really did but these two kept talking and talking yak yak yak and my head ain’t right right now and I got nothing.”
“S’okay Will. I’ve figured it out,” I wave the blond off and he sighs like the weight of the world’s been lifted. I guess the vampire really does care and that’s practically heartwarming.
“I don’t understand Adam. Why did you disappear like that? Without saying goodbye?” Now this, this catches me completely off guard. ‘Without saying goodbye?’
“Are you serious, Mac?” I turn back to look at him and have to scrunch my eyes. Has he fallen on his head recently? He sounds like one of my wives.
“Yeah, I’m serious, I thought we were friends.”
“Sure, we were. We are,” I placate him. He seems to feel a little foolish at how he’s sounding and I’m not going to make him feel bad about it, yet. “Look, Paris is too dangerous right now, and I’m due for about 100 years of peace, calm, and laying low. Simple really: it was past time to go, and I went.”
“You can’t,” he croaks.
“No, you can’t. I do it all the time.”
“But-”
“You’ve been going around the world on Faith’s every whim, haven’t you? How’d you even know I was gone?”
“Amanda called me, and is that why you left? ‘Cause we weren’t seeing each other?”
“Mac, you’re important to the game, you’re important to me, but I’ve had enough of your life right now.”
“So you come to L.A. for peace and quiet? You die someplace while you’re researching?”
“What?”
“He wasn’t working, he was kidnapped you git,” William supplies, annoyed.
“Kidnapped?” Duncan immediately asks in that cracking and deeply worried voice I’ve heard a hundred times. I feel like he’s going to go for his sword or something, like it was happening this second. Good thing he didn't realize what he had just been called.
“Oh, bloody hell MacLeod. Are you so blind that you don’t see me in front of you? Are you that delusional that you think I’m one of your bloody women.”
“No, no, no…” the Highlander sputters.
“Well you seem to treat me like one of them, helpless as you think they are,” I say, taking steps towards him to where I’m invading his personal space, as I’ve grown fond of doing.
“No, Meth… I really-”
“The worst is that I get none of the perks they do,” I say and smile my most innocent smile, looking him up and down for effect. He’ll probably brush it off, thick as he can be, but I had to say it.
Will is sitting on the stairs, plugging his ears and rocking back and forth. Movements aren’t that obvious, but he is clearly having internal issues. If we don’t get Angelus soon, we’ll either lose the vampire to madness, or he’ll be confined here because of daylight. I guess it isn’t a good idea to be dancing around feelings and pushing boundaries this very second.
“How did you find me?” I ask the immortals, stepping back.
“I’ll tell you, assuming you weren’t counting me in with his ‘helpless women’.” She says, eying me. I fight the urge to say she isn’t helpless at all, but it would sound contrived. The girl knows she gets herself in spectacularly big messes, which require her knight in shining armor to rescue her anyway. She’s continued… “we didn’t have much to go on so we asked around, we tried the area around the airport first and then judging from your last Paris digs, we went to the most expensive hotels. Some fake cops ended up picking us up; brought us to the underground place where we met some unpleasant people, a piranha and a vampire, if you must know. I even got killed,” she whispers. “So MacLeod saw you getting into a taxi. We hopped into the car, called the cab company and tracked you down that way.” She takes a breath, puts her hand on her thin waist and gestures “it was that easy.”
“Good.”
“I thought you didn’t need help?”
“I don’t, but I’ll take it. Will, get over here please.”
To my mild annoyance I have to go over to him and physically stand him up, holding his face level with mine.
“Will, come on now, I’ve got a plan.”
“Doc? Right. Oh right yeah, you got a plan. Good. Sorry.”
“Amanda? Did you bring any gear that would come in handy if one were say, breaking and entering?”
“You have to ask?”
“I need you to show William how to use them.”
“The name’s Spike,” he tells me, but it sounds like an adolescent’s whining.
“Amanda; pleasure” she replies sarcastically.
She’s wondering what I’m up, but I don’t care, as long as I can pull this off.
“Duncan, what happened to you there?”
“Nothing, this woman tried to seduce me, mostly, though I’m not clear on what she wanted. I got out when there was some commotion; I’m betting it was when Amanda... We got separated.”
“Okay, so we’ll use you and William.”
“For what?”
“I need you to rescue someone for me.”
“What?”
“He helped me get out and now he’s stuck there. If they had found out who and what they were holding it could have had more than disastrous consequences, so I owe him.”
“So why send me and the blond guy? Do you know him?”
“Yes, I do, unfortunately.”
“He looks a little unbalanced to me, Methos.”
“Would you stop calling me that?! My name is still Adam Pierson; now bite your tongue.” If I have to remind him one more time… What was the question again? Oh yeah, unbalanced. “Yes, he’s going through a very tough time emotionally right now, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be useful.” Duncan gives me this look like I’m the one that’s crazy, but he’s been confused since I walked in. “William?” I call the vampire.
“Yah mate?” he calls out to me from across the room.
“Where are the weapons?”
“I found some while you were away. What do you need? Crossbows? Battle axes? Swords?”
“Take whatever you want and hide the rest. If they decide to follow us back here and give us a fight, I want to have things handy, but not anywhere they could use them against us.”
“I can’t bring weapons, I can’t fight humans, remember?”
“Right, okay.” I acquiesce. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem except now Amanda’s asking: “Humans?” and touching his arm.
“You’re a vampire? Methos, we’re helping a vampire?” She squeals at me.
“He’s helping me, actually.”
“And who are we rescuing? Angel, the vampire with a soul?” She asks arms crossed.
“How do you know?”
“He’s the one who killed me.”
“To save you,” William interjects defensively, but with a small hint of disgust in his voice. “And he really does have a soul…”
I have a soul, I have a soul, I have a soul…
“Come on Angel, pick up four,” she smiles a slightly tired smile good-naturedly.
“I’m not playing anymore.” I tell her firmly, and if she tells me I’m a sore loser I might accidentally rip out her throat. Strategy games give me no problem, but ones that rely on dumb luck I can’t get behind.
“I need a shower.” I manage through gritted teeth.
