To angry to form words, Angel got off of the floor and headed over to the phone. He dialed the number and waited for the familiar voice to say hello. “Hey Kate, I need a favor.”
“I’m listening.”
“I need everything you can find on a girl named Buffy Anne Winters.” He gave her a brief recap of Buffy’s life and her current profession. “She’s not looking for trouble but it’s going to come looking for her.”
“Well you’re in luck, it’s a slow day and I have a friend who owes me a few favors. I’ll see what I can dig up, it’s shouldn’t take long.” Kate said, certain that a girl who had been a hooker since she was sixteen would have a record of some kind.
He thanked her briefly before hanging up to look at the others. “We could have handled things with Buffy a little better, don‘t you?”
“Angel…I’m sorry for what I said, it was out of line.” Cordy said taking the seat across from him. “But that doesn’t mean I think we should get involved with her. Faith was always a little bitchy but that girl is brittle. You saw how easily she switched from normal to slut girl in the blink of an eye and that is not normal. She is seriously deranged and since she is a slayer that makes her a ticking time bomb. Trust me when I say, we don’t want to be the ones to set her off. She’s seems happy with her life as it is, so let’s just leave her to it.”
“Cordelia, how did you feel the day your family lost everything?” Angel said switching tactics hoping to make her understand where Buffy was coming from.
“We we’re broke Angel but I didn’t start selling myself, so I’m not seeing your point.”
“Before that day you had it pretty good, plenty to eat, nice clothes to wear and then suddenly it was all gone. That was the worst day of your life and you were strong enough to come out here to chase after your dreams. Well everyday of her life, has been like your single worst day and she never had a single reason to hope that it would get better. I know what it’s like to live on the streets without a single shred of hope in your heart. I had given up and I had done things that I shouldn’t and then out of nowhere Whistler came and offered me a chance at something more. Buffy hasn’t given up, she’s doing what it takes to survive. She has lived through the kinds of things that would break most people but she is still fighting.” Angel said thinking back to the man he had been then. He had been dirty, living off of rats waiting for it all to end and to tired to keep fighting the pain inside him.
He had been conquered, crippled by his own emotional turmoil from thing that had happened more than a century ago but Buffy refused to be conquered by things that had happened a few years ago. “All she had was herself and can you imagine how hard it must be for her to sell that each night, just to make it to the next one? You saw her completely surrender her body the second the money changed hands but you never saw her surrender herself. Not everyone out there, living on the streets has the strength to do that. Not giving in is hard and that is why she is worth fighting for.”
“The Powers choose their Champions for a reason Cordy,” Doyle said softly, seeing Angel’s point. “Angel and I were chosen because we had something to atone for but she isn’t the reason her life has turned out this way. She was born into it, and now we’re trying to convince her to believe she was chosen to fight for others when no-one has ever been willing to fight for her. She has ever right and reason to say no to her calling but when Angel was in trouble, she stepped in here to save him from us. That’s what a real Champion does, fight for others when they have nothing to gain from it, their selfless.”
Cordelia was still far from being sold on the idea but they we’re right she deserved a chance atleast. “So what’s the plan? I mean how do you save someone who doesn‘t want to be saved?”
“You show them how to save themselves,” Angel told her with a smile, knowing that Cordy would come around. She was a good person and she had come along way from the Queen C he had known in Sunnydale, he thought with admiration for her blossoming in his chest. In a way it was funny that the girl who knew every line of her body and knew how to display it at its best had missed the fact that her giving and kind heart was her best asset and feature. She couldn’t see the changes in herself, the kind of changes that made her a better person than he had believed possible. For the first time, he could see why Doyle had fallen in love with her.
When the phone rang Angel seemed lost to his usually deep thoughts so Cordelia answered. “Angel Investigations we help the helpless.” She listened for a few moments and then passed the phone over to Angel. “It’s Kate.”
Snapping out of his thoughts of Cordelia, Angel took the receiver. “That was fast.”
“Don’t thank me yet, there wasn’t much I could find on her and what I did isn’t exactly pleasant. She doesn’t have an record, so she’s never been arrested for solicitation or prostitution but she has a file with County Services. Her mother lost custody after her eighteenth arrest and Buffy was handed over to a foster family in the valley. They pulled her out after a year when another girl in his care accused him of molestation and assault. Turns out he had been abusing Buffy and the other girl but because the file had been sealed I couldn’t find out all the details about that case. They bounced her around through several more homes. When she disappeared at sixteen, they wrote her off and closed the file. I did a little more digging to fill the gap between then and now and uncovered the fact that she had earned her GED at seventeen. I called the night school and they gave me her residence at the time and it matches the one on her drivers license but the place doesn‘t exist.”
“She told me she was at a motel, so that not a surprise. I’ll go back to where I found her and check the ones in the area. I appreciate this Kate.”
“She hasn’t had it easy, so if you need some help with this, you can count me in.”
“I can’t get you involved in this any deeper, given her job. If anyone knew you were helping her it would go badly for you”
“She’s a victim of the system Angel, a system that was designed to protect her. I’m part of that, so I figure I owe her one.”
Since he knew exactly what Buffy thought of being called a victim, he didn’t think bringing in Kate would be a good idea. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t hold her offer in reserve. “I don’t know how she’d feel about me sending cops after her, even friendly ones. But if I can’t find her on my own, I’ll give you all call.”
Three days later after scouring the city for her every night Angel was about to take Kate up on her offer when Buffy came to him. They were knee deep in demons and his team was spread thin so her timing couldn‘t have been more perfect. She was dressed in a pair of black leather pants with a black tank top and to his surprise she wasn‘t alone. In her arms she held a small child with a mop of shaggy brown hair that couldn‘t be older than four or five.
“Are you still in the business of saving people?”
“It’s what I do.” Angel said getting up from behind the desk to walk over to her. “Whose this little guy?”
“His name is Kraken and he’s half demon. I came across a bunch of uglies in uniforms after they had just killed an alley full of people. Most of them looked human but some of the others were clearly not. After I took the bad guys down, I found this little guy hiding behind a dumpster…his parent’s didn’t make it. His grandparents are in town looking for some place called Sanctuary, but he doesn’t know where.”
“I do, Doyle is waiting with some others looking for the same thing. The guys in uniform are pure bred demons called the Scourge and they hunt down and kill all half breeds. I’m working on getting them safe passage out of the city.”
She walked over and sat Kraken on the sofa. “Okay so when the are safe, we go after the demons.”
“No, you can’t fight them, there is simply to many.”
“If you want my help, then we have to atleast try,” she glanced down at the child happily playing on the sofa. “For him.”
“Let’s get him to the others and if you still want to fight after we talk to Doyle, then we will fight.” Angel told her, knowing that Doyle had been right about her. She was selfless and now even Cordy would be able to understand that.
She and Kraken and followed Angel down to the sewer entrance. After nearly an hour they entered the rundown building that Doyle’s earlier vision had led them to where the Lister demons were hiding. Recognizing a familiar face, Kraken pulled her over to where his grandfather was standing. “Grandpop this is Buffy. She saved me from the bad men.”
“I was to late to save the others.” Buffy admitted to him sadly, when she saw gratitude mixed with hope blossom in his eyes.
The Elder Lister picked up his grandson and held him close. “You saved him and that is what is important in times like these. He will find the life his parents wished for him and that is because of you and your friends. We of the Lister clan are in your debt.”
To stunned to say anything, Buffy looked at Angel, unaware that her eyes were begging him to make the sure that happened.
Angel had noticed and his next words were enough to put her at ease. “Another friend of ours is out getting a truck and we will take you to the ship that will get you out of the country.”
He was about to say more but Doyle grabbed his head as a vision overtook him. When it was over Doyle looked at him oddly as if he wasn‘t sure he should what to say. “What did you see?”
“It’s Faith…she’s in trouble.” Doyle confessed miserably. Angel had only confided in him that morning about the day he had given away. He could tell from the talk that they had, that Angel had just made peace with that aspect of his life but now fate had decided to heap on the pain again. “I saw her and her friends fighting against an army of demons and it looks like she needs some help.”
“I’m needed here, I’m the only one who can secure their safe passage. Faith is strong and she has people fighting with her but these people need me. I can‘t just abandon them.” Angel said feeling trapped between the proverbial rock and a hard place. His first instinct was to run to her and help but his brain was telling him that he was needed more here.
“The message might have not been intended for you.” Doyle said sending a sideways glance towards Buffy.
“I can’t ask that and neither can the Powers, it‘s too soon.”
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on and Buffy was hardly an idiot. “You don’t have to ask.”
“You’d go to Sunnydale and help them?” Angel asked feeling like his world was spiraling more out of control with each passing second. She had said she was through with them and had been avoiding him ever since but now she was willing to help. He couldn’t understand what had changed.
“I’m not signing on to play hero full time, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Buffy told him, unable to read the look in his eyes. She didn’t want to get involved. She had a very firm policy about minding her own business but since she had already broke it once by helping the kid, she figured she might as well finish the job she had started. “I would have never found this place without your help. You did me a favor and now I‘m offering to pay you back. I’ll go help out your ex and you’ll help out the kid and we’ll be even. I won’t owe you anything and you won’t owe me anything and we can both get back to our lives.”
At the time, it sounded like a good plan…reasonable even. Buffy wasn’t someone who wanted to be in anyone’s debt and she was in the business of selling her body to pay those debts. Sure the situation called for fighting instead of fucking but that was just semantics. To her it was just another business transaction only instead of getting paid she was bringing the ledger out of the red and back into the black. Once it was done she would get back to her life and nothing would change. She believed that but then again she had no idea that everything would change the moment she arrived in Sunnydale.
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