She heard the stool next to her creak and glanced up, startled. The man who had been sitting two stools down was easing himself onto it, carefully folding his long legs under the bar. He glanced at her with a little half-smile. �Don�t mind me,� he said quietly. �I was trying to help you out...you were talking to yourself a little loudly, so I thought I�d pretend you were talking to me so the bartender wouldn�t get too nervous.� He glanced down the bar at the man in question, who was scowling at them and refilling dishes of pretzels. �He was starting to glare.� He looked back at her and smiled that charming half-smile again. She found herself smiling back and quickly returned her gaze to her drink. �So go ahead and get back to your thoughts, don�t worry about me. We�re in this together, a little alliance to fool the Man.�
She could hear the capital letter in his voice and glanced back at him again. He knew how to use vocal emphasis. Not so unusual in LA. �You�re an actor?�
He shook his head and sipped at his drink. �Nah.�
She tilted her head to the side, a habit she knew gave her an unhappy resemblance to a cocker spaniel but couldn�t seem to break. �You use your voice like an instrument and there�s a line of foundation on your neck.�
His hand went up automatically, wiping at his jawline. �Damn...thought I got it all.� He chuckled and nodded thanks as she handed him a napkin. �I�m on television, yeah, but not an actor exactly. Sports.� He shrugged and arched an eyebrow at her. �What do you do?�
He had a steady gaze. He looked at you when you were talking, like you were the most important person in the room. It made her nervous, but in a good way. Like when Spike complimented her shoes or Wesley asked her to come along on a mission...well, best not to remember that incident right now. �I�m a scientist.� She rolled her nearly-empty glass between her palms. �Research scientist.�
�Wow.� He sounded legitimately impressed. �As ever, I bump into women who are far, far more intelligent than I. What field?�
�Umm...various stuff.� She finished off the last sip of rum and Coke and made a face. �Experimental stuff, on the fringes.�
He nodded. �Cool. Let me buy you another?�
She studied his face for a minute. It was a nice face, an open, honest face. He had large, warm brown eyes that reminded her of golden retrievers and children�s ponies and Angel. She liked this man. She would let him buy her a drink. �Sure.�
He signaled the bartender. �Where do you work?�
Even after these few years back in reality, she found the cadences of human conversation awkward. He was making small talk and it made her want to climb the walls or hide under the bar. Clearly, she needed the additional drink. And possibly a few more after that. �Wolfram and Hart.�
He blinked. �That�s a law firm, isn�t it? I think you�ve represented a few athletes.�
The bartender handed them each a full glass and she sipped at hers, restraining the urge to gulp at it. Talking to a human male who wasn�t Knox or Wesley or Gunn. This was what normal people did. She could do this. �Yup.�
He cocked his head to the side, and she wanted to giggle. He looked like a spaniel too! She wasn�t the only one! �Why would a law firm support experimental, fringe-y scientific research?�
She sighed and gave up and took the gulp. �It�s a very long story.�
He shrugged and smiled at her again. It was broader this time. She liked it even more. Oh, yes, she would have another drink after this. And perhaps another. She wanted to keep talking to this man in this bar. Just like a normal girl. �The night is young.�
�What�s your name?� she asked. �I don�t follow sports, sorry.�
�Don�t worry about it,� he said with a dismissive wave. �I learned long ago not to expect women to recognize me. Now, with men I still have certain expectations, but in LA even those are risky...huh, sorry, I digress.� He held out a hand. �I�m Dan Rydell.�
She took his hand and shook it firmly, like Wesley had taught her after they brought her back from Pylea and she had to learn these things again. �Winifred Burkel...Fred, call me Fred.�
�Fred,� he nodded, holding up his glass in a slight toast. �And you, if you so desire, may call me Danny.�
She grinned happily and toasted him back. �So, Danny, tell me about sports.�
***
They stumbled through the front lobby of Wolfram and Hart, laughing like idiots and catching themselves on the expensive statuary. �So you know what an offensive lineman is?�
�Nooo,� she giggled, squinting up at him.
�A free safety?�
�Nope.� She pushed the button to call the elevator and tapped the nose of her reflection on the shiny doors.
�A tight end?� The fit of giggles that sent her into touched off one of his own, and they leaned against each other for support until it passed. He breathlessly continued, �Do you know what the quarterback does?�
�Ah! Yes, I do know that,� she said triumphantly as they got into the elevator. �I did grow up in Texas, after all!�
�Well, that�s what I thought you said, so I assumed you knew the basics.� He leaned back against the wall and stuffed his hands in his pockets. �Why did we come here again?�
�We�re going to my office to use my whiteboard,� she said, punching the button for the lab level. �You will use it to explain football to me, and I will explain quantum theory to you.�
He nodded complacently. �We will both come out of this night far smarter than we entered it. If we can remember a damn thing in the morning.�
�I�m not optimistic,� she giggled.
�Me neither.� The door opened, they stepped out, and Fred promptly was shocked into horrified sobriety as Angel and Spike walked by, mid-argument, snarling at each other in vampface.
�Listen, you sodding idiot,� Spike growled, flashing fangs in the dim office light, �if I- Fred!� He stopped and stared at the two figures by the elevator, quickly switching his face back to human. Angel followed suit, running a hand through his hair and eyeing Dan anxiously.
�Fred, love, what are you doin� back �ere now?�
�I thought you were going out tonight.� Angel�s voice was soft and cautious, his attention still on Dan.
�I did...I met...this is Dan,� she stuttered lamely, cursing her luck and her life. Never going to be a normal girl.
�Hi, Dan,� Angel said after a beat of silence. Fred wrung her hands and wondered if sports anchors could move as fast as vampires in a dead sprint for the police station.
�Hi,� Dan said, and his voice was so calm and even that she turned and stared at him. He was studying Angel and Spike with frank interest, but not a bit of fear. �Vampires, huh?� He glanced at Fred and shrugged. �Cool.�
***
�...and this is Wesley, Wesley Wyndham-Price, and he�s Gunn. Charles.� Fred finished the introductions with a distracted flutter of hands. They�d all pulled up stools around a table in the lab, and Gunn had produced a six-pack from the Powers knew where, so the humans had the tactile comfort of beer bottles. Spike and Angel had been denied the privilege on the grounds that providing weapons could make Gunn an accessory to assault. �My friends.�
�Nice to meet you,� Dan said, offering that pleasant smile all around the table and taking a sip of his beer. �Any friends of Fred�s, etcetera...�
�So, Dan,� said Angel, �maybe you could tell us how you know about vampires.�
�Yet don�t panic when you see two of them in a law firm hallway,� Wes said in that slow, predatory voice he�d acquired in Los Angeles.
Fred wondered why it was that her co-workers always had these filters up against normal conversation. Dan�s mild dissembling just bounced right off. No wonder she had a hard time in the bar. She hadn�t been practicing human conversation at all these last few years. She wondered why it mattered to her so much that they were being rude to Danny.
He shrugged. He was so damn calm. She found it impressive, even attractive, but she could tell that the vamps and Wes found it threatening. She didn�t know what Charles thought. She couldn�t read him anymore, since the procedure. That bothered her, sometimes. Tonight. �Not too complicated.� He took another sip, and she wondered if she�d have a chance to stop Spike before he launched himself at Dan�s throat in sheer frustration. They all needed lessons in social etiquette. She�d talk to Lorne about it in the morning. �I had a thing with a Slayer in college.� His brow furrowed. �Or what�s the grammar there? A Slayer? The Slayer? She was the Slayer at the time, but there�s probably been five or six or ten since then...�
�Hundreds, all the ones in the world, but that�s not the point,� said Wesley. �What exactly do you mean by a �thing�?�
Dan chuckled. �Hmm, what would the Britticism be...a tete-a-tete? No, that�s French. A sexual liaison? Also French. Damn.� He heard the low growl starting in Angel�s throat and blinked, losing a shred of his cool for the first time. �Ah, not the point, of course. Not a complicated story, like I said. My roommate, my junior year, decided that he was Darth Vader or Sauron or some other damned thing with a direct connection to the dark side. He opened some kind of portal to hell in our closet. Turns out portals to hell are vampire magnets, which he learned the hard way by getting chewed on one night. Another one showed up and was coming at me when this girl came flying through our window.� He smiled at the memory, glancing around the table for someone who might understand and eventually settling on Gunn as the best of bad options. �Now, at the time, quite a few of my boyish fantasies started that way, but generally I wasn�t being menaced by a guy in need of massive dental work in those, you know?� He took another sip and squinted up at the ceiling. �Anyway. She took them both out, determined that my roommate was still breathing, and promptly jumped me right there on the spot, which at least put me right back on the fantasy track. Apparently slaying gets all a girl�s appetites going, because afterwards she ate all of my Ramen and my roommate�s Twinkies and polished off a two-liter of Mountain Dew all by herself.� He shook his head and glanced around the table again. �She was something else.�
�And she told you about the vampires?� Wes never did let himself get distracted. Fred wondered, suddenly- if he relaxed for even a minute, would he come completely unwound and end up in a little puddle of Wesley-juice on the floor?
�She came back a few times. Seemed to find me amusing. I�ve been told I can be charming.� He seemed perfectly aware that that wasn�t going to play with this particular crowd, and continued on. �She liked me. I liked her. She told me all about what was really going on in the world, which made more sense than the usual explanations anyway. Only lasted a few weeks, then her Watcher found out and got mad and took her off to the city. Said playtime was over. I guess New Hampshire doesn�t have the population density to really give the Slayer a workout.�
�Not really, no,� Angel said with a faint sneer.
�Oh, and that Sunnydale place was just so cosmopolitan,� Gunn snorted. �Ease up, Angel.�
�Hello, Hellmouth? Anyone remember that part?� Angel sniped, glaring at the moisture ring Wesley�s beer was leaving on the table.
�I sure as bloody Hell do,� growled Spike.
Gunn ignored them both and grinned at Dan. �I gotta tell you, man, I watched you on CSC back in the day. SportsNight, with Casey McCall, right? Great show.�
�Thanks.� Dan grinned and saluted him with his beer. �Always nice to find someone who watched it. Too bad you didn�t get all these guys watching it, we might not have been cancelled.�
�Ah, these fools don�t know nothing about sports.�
�I�ll have you know I was the top fencer at the Academy,� Wes said haughtily.
�I said sports, Wes.�
�It�s an ancient and noble tradition.�
�Yes. Not a sport.�
�I like hockey,� Angel offered lamely.
�Also not much of a sport, dude,� Dan said kindly, �but you�re doing better.�
Fred wondered if the whole world had gone insane, or if she was just drunk. Against all odds, the mood in the room was thawing, and she thought it was just possible that Dan�s charm was working even on her psycho colleagues. It just was too absurd to be real. Normality, the real world, had wandered into Wolfram and Hart in the shoes of a mildly inebriated sportscaster. She wasn�t sure if any of them had ever really met normality before.
�What was that Slayer�s name?� Wes asked suddenly, breaking Fred�s reverie.
�Elizabeth,� Dan said promptly. �She was incredible, just beautiful. Long dark hair, big eyes.�
Wes nodded. �It�s a side effect of the calling spell, they�re all really quite alluring. Every girl who�s ever been called looks like she should have her own TV show on a second-tier network.�
Dan looked at him solemnly. �Nothing wrong with that in the world, my young friend. Nothing at all.�
There was a general murmured consensus around the table. Fred rolled her eyes.
�As for not freaking at the gentlemen�s faces...well, I figured if they knew Fred, they must somehow be a good brand of vampire I wasn�t familiar with.� He grinned. �Plus I was too drunk to run.�
�Well, well, well, what do we have here?� Eve sauntered into the room, typically wearing something too tight and bright for the setting. The woman made Fred�s teeth itch. She made Gunn sit up straighter and scowl, Wesley�s shoulders tighten, Spike growl, and Angel develop a distinct twitch in his left eye.
Dan looked at her like he was seeing an old foe, one who had beaten him and been beaten in turn. A worthy opponent, but not an invincible one. �And this would be...?�
She held out a hand and smiled her pearly fake smile. �I�m Eve.�
�Dan Rydell.� He shook her hand and studied her face carefully.
�I�m Mr. Angel�s personal representative from the Senior Partners,� she explained, still showing off all her dimples.
�That must be very exciting for you.� He sipped his beer and looked away, the apparent recognition having been evaluated and dismissed as mistaken. This wasn�t the foe he�d expected. Her smile faded a few degrees and she glanced at Angel.
�I just wanted to let you know that the representative from the D�algress dimension is here for your meeting.�
�I�ll be up in a minute.� Angel didn�t look Eve in the eye anymore. Fred wondered when that had happened, when Eve got the upper hand.
�He�s here now.�
�He�s early. I�ll be up when it�s on time.� His voice got colder, and she backed down and sauntered back out of the room, throwing a glance at Dan over her shoulder.
He looked at the empty doorway. �She reminds me of someone.�
�Who,� said Gunn heavily, �Satan?�
Dan shook his head, a thoughtful tilt to his jaw. �No...could be two different people. A woman I used to work with, who I suspect may have been inhuman because she was just too physically perfect and mentally calculating. Or my best friend�s ex-wife, Lisa.�
�What was wrong with Lisa?� Wes asked, reaching for another beer.
Dan shrugged and snagged the last remaining bottle from the case. �She was just pure evil. I was always tempted to stake her just to see what would happen. Or maybe set her on fire.�
Angel nodded. �I�ve done that.�
Dan looked at him, eyebrows lifting in surprise. �Yeah? How�d it go?�
�Don�t try it without a Dustbuster handy. Setting women on fire, messier than you might think.�
Fred sighed and polished off her own drink, unnoticed by her men. Nope. Still not normal. And never gonna be.
Feedback is like oxygen.
Return to the main page.