DISCLAIMER: Joss owns them, along with a lot of other folks at FOX, various production companies and a network or two. Joss has publicly stated that BtVS was always intended as a show that would inspire fanfiction. Fanfiction he wanted, fanfiction he’s got. No infringement intended.

RATING: NC-17, eventually. This part R for possibly disturbing images

SPOILERS: Everything through the first five seasons of BtVS, the first two of Ats.

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Storming Heaven  part 3a

Despite the exhaustion of their travels, the emotional drain caused by Willow’s news, and the exertion of doing the research demanded by Angel, neither the Fang Gang nor Willow made any attempt to go to sleep after Angel left them to seek out The Powers That Be. Instead, they gathered in the lobby of the Hyperion, with the unspoken understanding that they would stay there until Angel returned. All of them believed he was going to need their support, very, very badly, and all of them wanted to make sure he had it.

"He should be back soon," Cordy told the others. Gunn looked at her, clearly dubious. The others were regarding her with curiosity, as well. Cordy realized she’d have to explain, and started to do so. "The times he visited the Oracles, it always only lasted a second of real time, even when Angel thought he had been with them for hours. Kind of like the time he spent with them didn’t matter."

"He’s still gotta get to the airport and back," Gunn pointed out. "So, we’re apt to be here a while. I’m thinking I should put on a pot of coffee."

"Caffeine would be of the good, right now," Willow yawned. "Need a hand?"

"Nah. Got it covered," Gunn assured her as he headed off. Willow gave him a weak smile, and pulled one of the oversized pillows decorating the couch she was sitting on closer, curling herself around it.

The group fell silent, as they waited for Angel to return.

The first pot of coffee went quickly. Gunn was about to make a second, when Cordy surprised him by insisting on doing it herself. He shrugged and sat down again.

Cordy needed something to occupy her thoughts, and if the simple routine of cleaning up after the old pot and preparing a new one was all she could get, she’d take it. The truth was, despite her brave words, she had begun to worry about Angel’s return almost from the moment he left.

As the hours wore on toward daybreak, with no sign of the ensouled vampire, nagging worry gave way to rising panic.

"Chill," Gunn advised her, tired of watching her pace the lobby, as she’d been doing for the past hour. He was seated not on a chair, but on the landing at the bottom of the stairs, having moved from a chair, to a couch, to a decorative ledge, back to a chair and finally the landing over the course of the night. "If Angel was in trouble? You’d be needing painkillers for your painkillers, about now."

"I’m sure The Powers That Be have everything under control," Wesley seconded with a yawn, from his seat in one of the large chairs a few feet away from Gunn.

"Like they did with Buffy?" Willow asked dryly. She was still curled around the pillow on the couch. Her remark banished Wesley’s exhaustion as effectively as if a glass of ice water had been thrown in his face.

"Surely you understand the difference?" Wesley said, not unkindly, as he sat forward in his chair. "Buffy was a warrior in their service, true, but she died in a battle with the enemy. Her life was always at risk in such situations. Indeed, all of us are at some risk, though clearly Buffy and Angel bear--or, bore--the brunt of it. Angel has approached those to whom he owes fealty. There’s no enemy, hence, no danger.

"You sure about that, English?" Gunn chimed in. "’Cause that piece of cutlery hanging from Angel’s belt? Didn’t look like no peace offering to me." Wesley frowned at the younger man. Gunn threw his hands up in the air. "Hey, I’m just saying!"

"The gim is a sacred weapon," Wesley reminded them. "The Powers That Be created it themselves. I’m sure if it ended up in Angel’s hands, there’s a reason."

"Yeah, but is it a reason we’ll like?" Cordy asked. "Face it, Wes, we don’t know why they let him have that sword, or what they are planning to have him do with it. If they let Buffy die. . ."

"Angel won’t die," Wesley assured her. "Remember the Prophecy of Aberjian? He’s prophesied to survive a number of coming battles until the final one, when he’ll Shan-shu."

"Shan- what?" Willow asked.

"Shan-shu," Wesley said. "Become human." He recounted the story of Angel’s obtaining the Scroll of Aberjian, and Wesley’s own translation of it, taking time over the details which he hoped would calm the two distraught young women, and remind Gunn why things were under control, as well. That in the process, Wesley was bolstering his own confidence that things would work out was an added bonus. Cordy did seem easier, as he went on, and Willow was listening attentively, so Wes was feeling rather pleased with himself as he brought his recitation to an end.

"And this prophecy mentions Angel by name?" Willow asked.

"Specifically?" Wes chuckled. "Not as such, no. Not the way prophecies work, really. But, it clearly speaks of ‘The Vampire with a Soul’ so there can hardly be a mistake."

Willow nodded. "I kinda noticed the part where prophecies tend not to be specific. With Buffy. . ." she paused, swallowing back the tears that still threatened, as memories of the many prophecies Buffy had always managed to find a way around, came back to her. Even at the end, she had found a way around things. Why the hell couldn’t it have been a way that spared Dawn, saved the world, and still managed to leave her standing? Willow thrust the thought aside, trying to concentrate on Angel, as she knew Buffy would have wanted her to do. "Giles got all prophetic every other week, she went on more strongly. "But we never knew exactly what they meant until they began to unfold. So, the question is," Willow took a deep breath and uncurled herself from the pillows, "how can you be sure this prophecy is about Angel?"

"What?" Cordy said, stricken. Wesley sent her a reassuring smile.

"I’m as sure as it is possible to be," he told Willow. "The Watcher’s records are not merely extensive, they’re-- well, the Council has existed in one form or another, from the times of primitive man. Their records predate civilization itself. In ten thousand years, I assure you, there has never been a vampire with a soul, other than Angel."

"Well, no, there hasn’t," Willow agreed, and Wesley breathed a sigh of relief. Prematurely. "That you know of anyway," she added, much to his consternation. "I mean, Angel had a soul for nearly a hundred years, but when Giles checked the Watcher records, he couldn’t find out why Angel gave up killing, only that he had. And, that was in modern times, when there were phones, telegraphs, planes--instant communication around the world. That hasn’t exactly been true for most of the past ten thousand years Wesley."

"Well, yes, but--"

"But? There’s no ‘but’ here. The Watcher’s Council mainly watches the Slayer, not every single demon, vampire, sorcerer, whatever . . .and, in times when letters could take months to get from one country to another, you aren’t going to tell me that records didn’t go astray."

"Perhaps, although--"

"Oh! The Orb of Thesulah!" Willow was working herself up into a state, and she abandoned the couch to pace as Cordy had been doing. "That wasn’t something the Gypsies invented just for Angel. I read Miss Calendar’s notes. The Orb was used to hold a soul during the rituals of the undead. Rituals, Wesley. As in, more than one. Then there’s the voodoo trick of catching a soul in a bottle. I mean, who knows what other spells have been done with the souls of the dead? You don’t really know how many vampires there are, or who they are, so, how would you know if maybe one or ten or a thousand of them have been quietly living for centuries with their souls intact, someplace where the Council doesn’t have anyone around?"

"She’s right, Wes," Cordy said softly. "You can’t really know."

"I can’t really know," Wesley admitted, "but I can have damned good reason to believe. I won’t deny that attempting to maintain the integrity of records that span millennia is a daunting, and nigh impossible task. Every library in the world is trying to copy old books and manuscripts before the paper they’re written on disintegrates, and the writings are irretrievably lost. That was why Giles had you scanning the text that unloosed Moloch, the Corruptor, as I recall." Willow nodded. "Nor will I try to tell you that in the course of millennia, earthquake, fire, flood, war and conquest, don’t also interfere with orderly record-keeping. The sacking of Rome, the destruction of the Library at Alexandria, the Great Fire of London--oh yes, there have been many threats to the Council’s collected store of knowledge."

"See? Even you--"

"Which is why," he returned the favor of rolling right over Willow’s objections, "from earliest times, the Council has not stopped at entrusting its records to books or scrolls or tablets, alone. They’ve used magic, as well. Magic for defense, magic for preservation. And, magic to reunite lost parts of a whole. Those letters that might have gone missing in a correspondence between, say, Constantinople and Londinium? Could the Watcher’s Council have prevented a band of raiders--Gauls, Huns, Visigoths, --from attacking the courier, and scattering or destroying whatever letters or journals he carried? No. But, they could make those letters particularly hard to destroy. Resistant to fire, for example. And they could use binding spells so that if the letters were separated, or even torn to bits, the bits would be, um, inclined to find each other."

"And that worked every time?" Gunn asked skeptically. He trusted Wesley, but the redhead was making some good points.

"Nothing works every time," Wes shook his head. "I’m not trying to say that the Watcher’s Council knows every possible thing there is to know. I think we’ve all had adequate demonstration, over the past two years, that there are areas in which they can be, well, short sighted." Willow snorted at the understatement. "But, during the brief time when I was Buffy’s Watcher, it was considered imperative, given that we knew the vampire Angelus had allied himself with her, that I have all the information available about his situation. It was very clear that his was the only case of an ensouled vampire that was known. If the Council’s extensive records have no mention of something--if none of their operatives has picked up the rumor of a hint of a whisper about it--then it is vanishingly unlikely that such a thing exists." His gaze met Willow’s as he finished. "You’re right: they didn’t know Angel had a soul. But, within a very few years of his getting one, they *id record that he was behaving, well, oddly for a vampire. There’s nothing else like that, in any of their records. Believe me, Giles or I would have known." Willow looked back at him steadily for a few minutes, while she considered his words. Finally, she nodded, and spoke.

"So, likelihood approaching zero?"

"Approaching zero?" Cordy asked.

"That’s the best we can hope for. Wes is right," Willow said. "We can’t know. We’ll never be completely completely sure, until it actually happens. But, if the Watcher’s Council has been as thorough and as careful as Wes claims, and if there’s no record that there’s ever been a vampire who’s voluntarily stopped killing people, then it’s pretty unlikely that the prophecy refers to anyone but Angel." She shook her head, as the implications sank in. "No wonder he’s in so much pain."

"Well, yeah, with Buffy dead," Cordy began.

"I meant, not only did he give up being human, so that Buffy would live, only she didn’t, but he’s still around, and someday, he’s going to be alive. He’ll be able to live, marry, have children, grow old, die . . .and the one woman he wanted to do all that with, won’t be there to share it with him."

"Yeah, well, life is full of loss," Gunn said, not unsympathetically.

"Oh, yeah," Willow sighed. "But there aren’t that many of us who lose the *only* person we have ever loved in 243 years."

They fell silent, and as the first cool light of dawn began to filter through the windows of the hotel lobby, Cordy resumed her restless pacing, as Willow once more curled around her pillow on the couch.

Over the course of the next few hours, the small group in the lobby of the Hyperion grew smaller, as, one by one, they gave in to exhaustion and sought their beds. By ten a.m., even Cordy had to give up hope that Angel was simply going to walk in through the sewer access. Wherever he was, he was staying put until dark. She could only hope he wouldn’t be any later.

Like Gunn and Wes, although she had her own living space, she also had a room to crash in at the Hyperion, for those times when fighting the forces of evil went on until unreasonable hours of the night, and they were too exhausted to drive to their respective homes. Which seemed to happen at least once a week. Cordy headed upstairs, wondering if exhaustion would be enough, this time. When she tumbled into her bed, would she be able to find rest? Or would the anger prickling along her skin keep her wakeful?

Because, she was angry: angry at Angel for leaving; angry at The Powers That Be for not protecting Buffy, or, it seemed, living up to their promise to Angel; angry that her own body wasn’t really built to sustain the grueling visions with which The Powers That Be had saddled her; angry that she’d had to leave Groo to his destiny, so that she could pursue hers; angry that now, the destiny she’d thought she had, might have been derailed. Sure, she, Wes and Gunn could continue to fight the forces of evil, and they could do a lot of good. But, Angel had been a serious weapon in their arsenal, and, the person who was intended to be the recipient of those visions. She had never told the others, but when Angel fired them, she secretly feared that her visions would come to an end, now that she couldn’t pass them on to Angel. Of course that hadn’t happened, but she always suspected that this was only because The Powers That Be knew Angel would eventually reunite with them, and her visions would be needed once more.

In Pylea, she had been deeply tempted to stay with Groo. Everything she’d ever wanted was being offered to her--status, wealth, popularity that amounted to outright adoration and a handsome, heroic and devoted mate--along with the chance to turn over her painful visions to someone who would continue to do good with them, but who was, indeed, built to handle them. She had turned her back on it all, because she wasn’t willing to give up her visions, believing that she still had a purpose to fulfill in her own dimension.

With Angel’s actions, she was beginning to second-guess her choice. If Angel’s destiny was to confront The Powers That Be, and to find himself reunited with his beloved Buffy, though not in life . . .if Angel were no longer around to fight on behalf of The Powers That Be, would They still have any reason to continue sending the visions that directed the course of his battles? The prophecies in Pylea had Cordy marrying Groo, and passing her visions on to him. Was that because Angel wouldn’t be needing them any more? If Willow were right, if the scroll of Aberjian concerned some other vampire who had been or would be ensouled . . .maybe Cordy had turned her back on the destiny intended for her.

It was a bitter thought, one not conducive to restful slumber. The sun was past its zenith before Cordy finally fell asleep.

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To be continued in Chapter 3b.

FEMFIC      PART2       PART 3b      FEEDBACK

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