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Author's Chapter Notes:
Sorry all, school holidays had me a little distracted. Now on with the story.
Thanks go out to Jill, as always.
And don't forget to review!
Doyle had barely left the alleys safety to follow Angelus, when out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of light.

Very much aware of just who he was shadowing, he quickly flattened himself against the nearest building before looking for the source.

As soon as he detected the faint signature of what he privately liked to refer to as ‘orbing’, emanating from the shop that Angelus had so recently vacated, he knew that there was only one person it could be.


For a moment, he considered ignoring Cordelia’s presence in favor of following Angelus, but he knew that he could pick up his trail easily and finding out what Angelus wanted in Tain’s was probably the smarter idea. Besides which, Cordelia would have a better idea why the vampire might have sought out Tain in the first place.

At least then he’d have some sort of clue as to what was going on in his head… well other than his normal rampaging desire to kill everything he ran across.


He waited another minute or two just to make sure Angelus had left the area and then he crossed the street to the shop.


Pushing the door open slowly he peered into the darkness of the shop looking for Cordelia. As his eyes adjusted to the murky gloom of the darkened interior, he saw her standing a few feet away, a dark crumpled shape at her feet.

Entering the shop fully, Doyle had a very bad feeling that what he was about to see was not something that was gonna improve his day in any way, shape or form.

Moving forward he reached out to touch Cordelia’s arm to get her attention, and that’s when his day went from bad to truly terrible.



Cordelia felt the presence behind her seconds before it connected.

Cursing herself for her stupidity at not paying attention, especially with Angelus’ victim lying dead at her feet, she dropped and swiveled. Shooting her leg out in an upward trajectory, she grunted with satisfaction as it connected with a suspiciously soft and squishy part of her attacker’s anatomy. Moments later a high-pitched shriek let her know that her targeting skills had not atrophied with lack of use.


Darting to the left, she pinpointed her attacker’s position and moved in for the kill.

She’d barely taken two steps when her intended prey let out another yelp, this time in the form of her name.

Frowning she paused. Allrighty then. That had better not be who I think it is.


“Doyle?” she growled questioningly.



When all she got was a grunt in reply she muttered under her breath and moved towards the wheezing figure. Leaning over she conjured a small light that wouldn’t be seen from the street.


“Oh for the love of…” she exclaimed, her expletive trailing off as she got a good look her attacker.

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing… you idiot.”

Straightening up she crossed her arms and glared at Doyle, who was still rolling on the floor in obvious pain.


“No don’t answer that, I can see for myself. For god sake, you were supposed to be following Angel not sneaking up on me. Where the hell is he and why aren’t you with him?”


When Doyle failed to answer her Cordelia reached down and hauled him roughly to his feet.

“God, get up you big baby. It’s not like I broke anything… At least not anything you’re gonna be using this century.” She added, smirking at the glare he shot in her direction.
.


“Well excuse me.” He rasped out, the pain in his throbbing balls making it hard for him to think up a witty rejoinder to her usual bitchy comments.


She sniggered.


“C’mon Cordy give us a break, I’ve been on his tail all evenin’.” He groaned. “Its not like I’m gonna lose him. And I thought findin’ out what he was doing in Tain’s was more important. Hell darling’, we both know he’ll be headin’ back to the Hyperion anyhow, so what’s the big deal.”

Wincing, he shot her another glare as he attempted to stand upright.


Cordelia was just about to open her mouth and give him a piece of her mind when an icy shiver ran up her spine.



“Well, well, well, fancy meeting you two here.” a coldly amused voice drawled.



Cordelia whirled, heart leaping into her throat; she took an involuntary step backwards. In the process very nearly tripping over Doyle, who was still attempting to stand.


Leaning casually in the doorway, his bulk blocking out what little light there was from the street, Angelus suddenly seemed much larger than Cordelia remembered.


“What’s the matter Cordy?” he drawled insincerely. “You act like you’re not pleased to see me. Tsk tsk tsk, women” he sighed, directing his next words at the now standing Doyle, “such fickle creatures… don’t you agree my lad? One minute they’re kissin’ a man like he’s the hansom prince an’ the next they’re acting like your some sort of ogre.” He shook his head his tone sardonic.


“C’mon lover… you did such a good job of makin’ me happy earlier, it’d be very ungentlemanly of me not to come a callin’ t’ thank you in person. An’ since you didn’t exactly leave a forwardin’ address…”


There was a blur of motion, Doyle went flying, and Cordelia found herself caught up against the hard body of a game faced Angelus. Her back to his chest, she couldn’t help the shudder that ran through her when his lips brushed her ear as he spoke, his voice low and threatening.


“Well let’s just say… I’ve never been one to leave a lady waitin’. And Cordelia… I’ve been waitin’ for this for a very long time.”


************




Dawn advanced on the trembling form of Andrew. She was doing her best to project her most deadly Spike like vibes, but as she got closer to her intended prey, she was finding it hard not to remember the way he’d always cry at the end of Return of the Jedi.


“So Andrew what’s it gonna be.” She demanded, her tone confrontational. “You going to tell me the rest… or am I gonna start cutting?”


Standing over him watching him quiver in fear, for a second Dawn had a very clear flash of what it must be like to be her sister.


This was what Buffy had to deal with every time she went looking for information. Whether demon, or human like the mayor and Faith, her sister did what she had to do because she was the only one that could.

Even with demons, this kind of thing required a measure of coldness that most normal humans couldn’t have pulled off. Buffy was the slayer, empathy and pity were things that ultimately, would only get her killed.

And so, yeah. Not a slayer, I’m still a Summers and Summers women protect people they love… no matter who the bad guy is.


If she could get information out of Andrew before her sister got back, then as far as she was concerned it would be only of the good. Coz truth spell aside, no one was sure just how strong Andrew’s little friends were, or how far there magic capabilities stretched.

If he could fool all of us for all these months then who’s to say that a truth spell will even work? she rationalized. Even if it does, it’s only gonna be as effective as the questions we ask… and if we don’t ask the right ones….



Gritting her teeth in what she hoped was a menacing smile she reminded herself again that Andrew Wells was the reason her sister had spent the last year in mourning and that he was indirectly responsible for the deaths of at least six other people, three of which were slayers. And she, more than anyone, should know that he was capable of a lot worse.

Huh… what the hell? Dawn frowned. Where the heck did that come from? Startled, she turned the thought over in her mind, trying desperately to pin down the accompanying feeling.

Andrew… something about Andrew. Something I’ve forgotten… from where... from when?

C’mon Dawn think. Why would I think Andrew was capable of doing worse than what he’s already done?


Scrunching her brow the former key stared hard at the pathetic shape huddled against the wall. And all of a sudden it was like a light switched on in her brain.

A light that gave her one hell of a headache and in the process swept the last of the magic generated darkness from her memory.

Dawn blinked once and when her eyes refocused on the form of Andrew Wells, she finally remembered everything.



****************




Doyle grunted in pain as he hit the side of Tain’s counter. Winded and half dazed he watched in horror as Angelus grabbed Cordelia.


With his arms around her and her wrists retrained, she didn’t have any chance to fight as the vampire pulled her against his chest.



At his words, Cordelia went rigid in his grasp. Facing in the direction she was, his words a mocking parody of Angel’s earlier sentiment, she felt herself slump in defeat. She’d done this… turned the man she loved into the creature he hated above anything else. And she had absolutely no way to fix it.


For a second Cordelia forgot who and what she was. How far she’d traveled, from spoilt little rich girl to brave woman and now chosen emissary of the powers that be. In the arms of the man she’d unwittingly damned, Cordelia Chase forgot how much more than just a girl she actually was.


As she felt the prick of his fangs against her throat her eyes fluttered shut, all the odds stacked against them washing over her as her blood spilled into his mouth.


Seconds later her eyes flew open, as Angelus bellowed in pain.



Doyle had watched wide eyed as Angelus sank his fangs into Cordelia’s throat. Tensing, he waited for his chance. When it came barely a heartbeat later, Doyle used the vampires pained distraction to make his move.

Throwing himself at the couple, he managed to wrench Cordelia from Angelus’ grasp and did what she’d been too shocked to do… With Cordelia in tow… he got the hell out of there.


*****************



By the time Dawn arrived in front of Andrew only seconds later, she’d easily managed to push any empathy she might have had for him to the back of her mind.


She knew Andrew better than anyone did. He had gone to a lot of trouble for reasons of his own, and there was no way she could see him cooperating completely, not with magic the only motivator. The others might think he was a joke, but Dawn had seen a side to him that the others hadn’t.


Andrew could be loyal, brave… and cunning beyond belief. He’d told her a lot about his time as part of Warren Mears little gang, a whole lot more than he realized.

As a result, Dawn knew that Andrew, unlike his poor dead friend Jonathon, had the inner hardness of a feral dog. The dog might run, it might even cower, but if you backed it into a corner and it couldn’t see a way past you it would attack, and far more viciously than the meanest junkyard cur. And just like a dog, Andrew would protect the one he thought of as master.

Especially if the master was someone he loved.



Andrew might have lied to himself and others about the first evil tricking him into killing Jonathon by using Warren’s image, but Dawn knew differently. She’d seen the look in his eyes when he’d told her about killing his friend.

There had been a part of Andrew that didn’t care that it wasn’t Warren, it had looked like Warren and said the things that he wanted to hear. And for Andrew that had been more than enough. The First had made him feel important, made him feel powerful and more importantly, it made him feel like he belonged.


Once upon a time she’d really liked him, had felt sorry for him. But unbeknownst to anybody else, the night before the final battle, all that had changed.


The night in question, everybody at Revello Drive had been off doing the things people do, right before they think they’re gonna die. Most of them paired off, and that had left her, Andrew, and the potentials. All of who annoyed her even more than he did.


The girls were scared and antsy and since Buffy and the others were not around to intervene in the pre battle squabbles, by the time she’d broken up the fifth fight of the night Dawn had had enough.

She’d gone out to sit on the back porch intending to get both some air and a side order of peace and quiet, but the porch had already been occupied.


Even now knowing what she knew, there was still a part of her that wished she hadn’t chosen to sit with him that last night, but she had and after that everything had changed.



He’d been seated on the stairs staring at something in his hands and the look on his face had been so sad and strange that Dawn had immediately asked him what was wrong.

It had been a very bad decision.


The photo he’d shown her was one of Warren, Jonathon and himself, taken at the Sci Fi convention where they’d first met. She’d made some lame comment about how happy they had all looked and handed it back to him expecting to hear the usual fanboy geek babble about how cool the day had been. But instead of talking about the convention Andrew had opened his mouth and changed Dawn’s world forever.



Until that night, Andrew had seemed like a mostly harmless more dorky version of Xander. She’d kinda figured from the way he acted around Spike and the whole Orlando thing he had going on, that he was also kinda gay, but just hadn’t realized it yet.
And they’d had that whole younger sibling syndrome thing in common so she thought that maybe she got him in a way that the others didn’t. Turns out… not so much.


By the time Dawn had realized how wrong she’d been it was far too late.


Leaving him sitting on the porch, after making some stupid excuse about getting some rest before the impending death, she’d fled to the bathroom upstairs. Once she had finished throwing up the meager dinner she’d eaten earlier, she’d slumped against the wall in a state of mild shock for at least an hour.

It seemed that Andrew Well’s thought there was a very good chance he was gonna die the next day. So like a prisoner on death row he’d decided that confessing his sins to someone as harmless as Dawn would be the right thing to do.


It wasn’t so much his words that had brought on Dawns state of shock, rather the tone and expression on his face as he spilled them. Up until then she’d thought he was just like her. Boy… she couldn’t have been more wrong.


For the first time in her short life, Dawn had looked into the face of someone she knew and seen pure evil staring back at her. And the worse thing about it was that she wasn’t completely wrong. She and Andrew weren’t all that different, at least not to start with.

For Dawn it was like looking in a mirror. True, a horribly warped and distorted mirror but a mirror nonetheless.

Every horrible petty crime, every wish, envy or thought, all were ones that Dawn herself had entertained at some point in her life. His jealousy, greed and indifference to anyone else’s pain were all things she’d seen in her self, right down to his deep-seated need to be seen… at any cost.


But where Dawn fought against the basest part of her human nature, Andrew had done just the opposite.


Yeah, he felt bad, but not because he was sorry, but because his actions hadn’t gotten him what he’d wanted.

Where Dawn had been disgusted with herself for even having those sort of thoughts, Andrew not only didn’t see anything wrong with how he was, but was actually pretty proud of himself.


Oh he’d tried to come off as sorry, pretended like he was ashamed and guilt ridden, but the expression on his face as he talked about Warren and Jonathon told a different story.

He’d told her every last horrible thing he’d ever done. And when he’d finished, she’d looked into his sweetly remorseful face and known exactly how the child molester or serial killer next door managed to live without ever being discovered.

No one ever suspects the wolf… not all dressed up in sheep’s clothing.


And the most horrible thing of all… Well, if Andrew wasn’t quiet there yet, the potential certainly was.



Dawn had somehow come through the battle and so had Andrew, but a good deal of her innocence had been lost that night on the back steps of her house. She’d learned there were far worse things in the world than vampires and demons, and sometimes they even wore the face of a friend.




Now as she bent down and tilted his chin up with the tip of the knife, all Dawn could think of was the look he couldn’t quiet hide that night on her porch. The satisfaction and pride in his eyes when he’d told her about his best friends death at his own hands. And the way it had made her feel dirty just listening to him. Even worse was his false remorse as he tried to convince Dawn that he was sorry.


After Sunnydale she’d spent months avoiding him, sickened by the thought of ever having called him a friend. Then one day shortly before they’d moved to Florida, Andrew came over and Dawn found herself wondering why they didn’t hang out anymore. From that day on when ever she thought of him it was with mild annoyance and at times, a faint lingering sense of distaste… but that was about it.

Buffy had even commented, more than once, how it was good that Dawn had got over that weird thing she’d had going on with Andrew. But somehow the conversation always seemed to drift to something else.

And now she knew why.



The knife in Dawn’s hand quivered and for a moment she could actually see it plunging into his throat.


He’d done what Tara had once accused Willow of all those years ago, he’d raped their minds, taken their memories and denied them the right to free will. And unlike Willow he wasn’t in the least bit sorry.




Andrew’s heart plummeted in his chest. He’d felt the moment the last of the protective magic broke and looking into the eyes of the girl holding the knife at his throat, Andrew was sure he was going to die.


It was at that moment that Willow came down the stairs.





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