By Cedar
Disclaimer: These Characters do not belong to me. They are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, WB Network, and whoever else has the rights to BTVS.
Jenny opened her eyes and sat back in her chair, breathing heavily. "Wow, that just never gets any less exhausting, does it?"
"Not really. Worth it, though." Doyle smiled and handed her a glass of juice.
"Absolutely worth it." Jenny thanked him with a smile and sipped.
"So who called for ya?"
"Willow. I gave her an Oz update and some tips on casting with on-line covens."
"And is she bein’ careful these days?"
"Not so much as I’d like. But at least she asks for help sometimes, and that’s a plus."
"Yeah. Nice to be needed."
Jenny looked worried. "Actually, it’s not really a good idea for them to need us. Good as it feels…sometimes I think we’re just making it harder. I mean…Giles…"
Doyle sunk down in the chair next to her. "Has a whole lot of free time these days, too much of which he’s spendin’ with ya. And Cordelia. I should be helpin’ her get on with her life and instead I’m just fallin’ further in love with her."
"And she’s returning the favor."
Doyle’s face lit up. "Do ya really think so?" Then he sighed. "Which is exactly the opposite of helpful." He looked beseechingly at Jenny. "I’m not good with avoidin’ temptation."
Jenny shook her head. "It’s not your fault, really. She was starting to care about you, then you pull a hero and end up as her guardian angel. How’s a girl supposed to resist?"
"She’s supposed to have someone who can hold her when she’s upset. And stand between her and the evil when it comes after her."
Jenny shrugged helplessly. "She’s happy. You’re happy. She lives with a ghost and works for a vampire. Maybe this is as normal as her dating life can get right now. I wish I believed the Powers would come after us if we screwed up."
Doyle was startled out of his reply by a white-draped woman materializing in the room. "Gominee?"
"Wow." Jenny muttered. "Fastest response I ever got from the Powers."
"I come with a request." Gominee intoned. She raised a graceful hand to point at Doyle. "Leave."
"Me mum used to give me requests in a voice like that." Doyle reminisced. "Always sounded like orders to me."
Gominee shook her head. "It must be your decision. But the Powers that ask you to walk through the door to your next existence."
"Why?" Jenny stood to face the goddess. "He’s barely been here three months. Whereas I…"
"In your next existence, time is of little consequence. You may go when you will." Gominee once again turned stern eyes on Doyle. "You are needed in your next time. Now."
"What if I’m not ready to forget my last life and move on? What if I’m in love with a girl down there, and I have a vampire who asks me to identify LA geography, and my mum still needs help with her tax forms? Where am I so much more vital than I am now?"
Gominee just shook her head. "I could not tell you that, even if I knew. I am only a messenger. But I can tell you this. Every day you delay puts them in greater danger."
"Puts who in greater danger?"
"Those you cared about in your last life. Their peril grows by the hour."
"How do you know?" Doyle demanded.
"I have been told. Now you have. We cannot force you to go. We cannot tell you what will come after. We can only give you the warning, and the request. Leave." After the last word, Gominee shimmered, and was gone.
Jenny dropped her face into her hands. "Be careful what you wish for, for you may surely get it."
"I’m puttin’ them in danger." Doyle began pacing the room. "I need to leave them to keep them safe." He looked at Jenny with anguished eyes. "Didn’t I already go through this bit?"
She moved to him, put her hands on his shoulders, held his eyes. "You did. Like a hero. Wasn’t it worth it?"
"Yeah." He swallowed. "Every hour I stay puts them in more danger, huh?"
"That’s what the Goddess said."
"Then I guess I better just…" he looked at his wall, ran through the pictures, sound off. His mother was napping, Harry was teaching an anthropology class, and Cordelia was lecturing an amused Angel about something. Doyle turned his eyes back to Jenny. "Tell them goodbye for me? All of them, when Angel calls… And Cordelia…"
She gave him a swift, hard hug. "Don’t worry. I’ll tell them why. I’ll tell them you were a hero. Again."
Doyle returned the hug. "Thank you."
"No problem."
"I mean, for everythin’, in the past coupla months…"
"I know." Jenny let go and smiled at him. "It’s been a pleasure having a fellow educator around."
He gave her a half grin, squared his shoulders, and walked to the low arched door. He opened it and then was gone.
Jenny collapsed back into her chair, gazed around the room, then spoke out to the sudden emptiness. "I’ll miss you, Doyle, damn your valiant hide."
Arthur heard the knock on his office door but did not look up from his laptop. "Come in?" The door opened.
"Oh, hello Alice." The deceptively grandmotherly-looking woman was officially his secretary. She was unofficially his legal assistant, link to the world outside the courtroom, and probably his closest friend. Not that he had overly many of those.
"Your lunch came." She placed a few boxes on his desk. "The usual salad, bread and juice, plus an order of corned beef hash?" She smiled at him quizzically. "Your tastebuds longing for your homeland?"
"Somethin’ like that." He smiled back, exaggerating his lilt. "Any interestin’ calls, darlin’?"
"Eight more potential clients, begging you to take their cases."
"And?"
"And I told them that the illustrious Mr. Arthur Ferris Doyle is not taking any new clients in the foreseeable future, because he has decided to devote all his considerable talents to a single case." She raised her eyebrows. "About which no one, including his loyal secretary, has any information."
"You’re safer knowin’ as little as possible, Alice."
"I received death threats during both the Brightman and the Hertzheimer cases. You’ll recall I was nearly run down two years ago during the Andros fiasco. Working for the man who exposes and prosecutes the country’s most corrupt lawyers and law firms carries a risk." She grinned at him. "You know what a rush it gives me."
Arthur rolled his eyes. "You look like your biggest thrill should be creatin’ a new kind of lemon bar, but you thrive on death threats." He leaned back in his chair, staring at the tiny grey-haired woman as if measuring her, then nodded, decision made. "I will tell you Alice, and soon. But not today. This case is… different. I have to get my thoughts straight."
She nodded briskly. "Fair enough. But make it soon. I’m getting bored. Do you know how much time I spent on the ‘net yesterday?"
Arthur smiled again. "Sounds torturous. Sorry to put you through that. Go home, Alice. Take the rest of the day off. You can use it to invent a new lemon bar."
"Hah! I’ll attend the early tae-bo class before my self-defense students arrive, you mean." Alice turned back to him just before she shut the door behind her and waved an admonishing finger. "Now eat your hash before it gets cold."
Arthur ate his lunch as he listened to Alice leave. Gazing out the window, he watched her walk away from the building, and closed the curtains.
Then he pushed his other face to the surface. Now a blue-green, spine-headed creature, he used the demon strength to lift one of his file cabinets and pull a file from a shallow well underneath. Replacing the cabinet, he returned to his narrow-featured and dark-haired human visage, opened the curtains and sat in a shaft of sunlight, examining the file marked "Wolfram and Hart."
"Today’s goal" he murmured, "Identify the girl." A few months ago an auction had been held, and an associate at Wolfram had been the high bidder on one ‘seer.’ His sources indicated she had escaped their clutches. Arthur needed to know how. And if she had learned anything about her purchasers in the process.
He found the blurred photo he’d received. As he gazed at it, he heard a voice, his voice, say "But tha’s Cordelia!"
And suddenly in a torrent, in a moment’s vicious cascade, came the memories.
Then he passed out.
He clawed his way back to consciousness, and sat in his chair a moment, breathing heavily. Then, under the force of a habit the new part of his brain mocked, he pulled his laptop to him and began recording details.
Alan Francis Doyle, called Francis, born August 8th, 1973 in Wexford, Ireland. Raised by his mother in an impressive bit of single parenting. A friendly, happy child though always a bit controlling and old for his age. Excelled in school, skipping a year and beginning at the University College, Dublin at age 16 on a full scholarship. Acquired teaching certification at age 19, began instructing 10 year olds in Galway. While there he met Jane Harriston, called Harry, an anthropology student from California on a foreign exchange program. They were married at 20 and moved to Santa Cruz, CA so Harry could finish her last year of college.
August 8, 1992, at the age of 21, the demon manifested for the first time. Mother, horrified, confirmed that Francis’ previously unknown father was indeed a Brakken Demon. Francis began drinking heavily and violent mood swings became common. Harry and Francis remained together for most of another year, but finally she gave up and left.
At 23, Francis, now called Doyle, moved to LA. It was in this year that he first met another Brakken Demon, who requested his assistance in escaping from the Scourge. He refused and only days afterwards received his first vision. The next four years were devoted to drinking, gambling and learning all the ins and outs of the seedier, more demonic side of life. Lack of ability to help those in his visions only contributed to his downward spiral. Sanity occasionally in question.
August 8th, 1999 Doyle received both a vision and a command from the Powers the Be. A warrior had come. He was to find him and use his visions to find those in need. For four months he helped the warrior – Angel - with both his visions and knowledge of the city, and fell in love for the second time, with a teenager named Cordelia. November 30, 1999 Doyle died saving Angel, Cordelia and a boatload of half-demons from the Scourge.
"That’s quite a life you had, Alan Francis," Arthur muttered to the new part of his brain.
"Yeah? Well let’s just get yours down on paper, Arthur Ferris" it replied.
Arthur Ferris Doyle, born August 8th 1973 in Wexford, Ireland. Raised by his mother in an impressive bit of single parenting, considering that the child manifested as a demon on his first birthday. Arthur learned to control and hide his demon before he turned four. A teacher described him as brilliant, just, honest, obsessive and ruthless – he was 7 years old. He spent his early teens leap-frogging grades and searching for his father. Having found him, Arthur spent the year of 1986 on the Outer Hebrides with members of his father’s clan.
At 16 he entered the University of Edinburgh, planning to take a degree in archeology and pre-history. The fall of his second year at University his mother was struck and killed by a drunk driver while visiting relatives in California. The driver, a wealthy and politically connected man with excellent legal staff, was sentenced to under a year of prison time. Arthur switched his degree program to the legal field, finished his degree and went to Stanford Law School, his new ambition to ferret out corrupt lawyers and bring them down.
August 8th, 1992 Arthur moved to LA to intern with a prominent firm. By the end of the year, theirs was the first he’d exposed for corruption. He spent the next five years building a practice that earned him the respect, fear, and usually, hatred, of everyone else in his profession. He worked, as Alice said, like a demon and Arthur laughed at the irony. She remains the only person he trusts, but is currently unaware of his demon half. November 30th, 1999 Arthur began refusing all new clients in order to concentrate on what he considered would be his biggest case, one for which he was uniquely suited. He plans to destroy the firm of Wolfram & Hart.
Allan/Arthur shoved the chair away from the desk and ran his hands over his face. "Lovely. Now on top of the half-man/half-demon business I’ve a dual personality as well." He took several deep breaths. The two sets of memories were both a part of him, and they were…meshing. He could feel the ease with which he was becoming a single person with two lives, and both Allan and Arthur were howling in with the terror of finding their unique identity slipping into another’s.
"The Powers." Allan/Arthur bolted from the chair. "Damn them. They did this. I may have been just a messenger, but by the Gods, they’ll give me answers." Wrenching open a drawer, he grabbed his keys, then paused and removed a small wooden box. "A gift…" he flipped the box open, gazed at the ancient coin inside. "A Goddess for their thoughts." He snapped the box closed and headed for the Post Office.
A flash of energy, a burst of light, and he was hurled inside.
"We speak only to warriors." The male’s voice was cold and bored.
"Yeah? Well I’m feelin’ like a fight just, now, so tha’s okay then." Allan/Arthur pulled himself to his feet.
The female silenced them both with a wave of her hand. "You are expected, mortal."
"Really? Well, since you’re so polite an all, I’ve a bit of a hostess gift for ya." He tossed the box to her.
She caught it, twisting the box gracefully before opening it. "Pallas Athene" She smiled, lifting the coin, gazing at the image imprinted in the ancient metal. "Goddess of wisdom and justice. A valuable friend, and a dangerous enemy." She caught the blue-green eyes of the man in front of her. "As you are."
"Thanks, but which one of us, huh?"
"Fool." The male passed his hand in front of the coin, and it vanished. "You are one."
"Yeah, I’m in one body, I get that bit. How?"
"But you are not one body. You are ONE."
"Okay, still not clear on that point."
The male sighed. "Of course you’re not. Mortals. You are one soul. From two dimensions. The only difference between you is the date of your first manifestation. One soul, two lives. We have merely rejoined them."
"Why?"
The female smiled slightly. "You were needed."
"Oh yeah? In which dimension?"
"In both. In all." It was the female’s turn to sigh. "It is so dull explaining to mortals."
"Well, I apologize for the tedium of it all, I’m sure. But whose damn dimension am I in now?"
"We combined them."
"You COMBINED them?"
The male snorted. "As if it were difficult. They differed only in you. Once you were dead in one, the task was all but complete."
"Wait. Wait just a damn minute. Once I was dead? You arranged that? You killed me off so you could do some freakin’ dimensional shiftin’ for your own amusement?"
The female’s voice was death cold. "You were given a chance to atone for you weakness. You died a hero. And now you are returned. Yet you complain?"
The male was simply sarcastic. "You think we find it amusing? The prosaic twists of your tiny lives? There is an imbalance. Unsurprisingly, it will take the small knowledges of both your lives to bring equilibrium. Go, messenger."
First the light blast this time, then the energy. Allan Arthur Francis Ferris Doyle was slammed out the portal into a wall and lost consciousness for the second time that day.
"One soul, two lives" That was the phrase that returned him from the comfortable oblivion. Alan Francis was gone. So was Arthur Ferris. Only Doyle remained. One soul with the memories of two lives. Two minds now merged into one. And that mind had a splitting headache.
"Cause the bloody Powers couldn’t just ask a fella to leave polite-like." Doyle grimaced and hauled himself to his feet. He gazed around the dim room beneath the Post Office building and wished he had remembered his briefcase – there was aspirin in the side pocket.
Wincing, Doyle started up the stairs to his car. As he settled himself behind the wheel it occurred to him that being the Doyle of mixed dimensions had its advantages. He had a safe, sensible car. He could remember a happy, undemon-haunted childhood. He had a secure, spacious apartment. He had insider knowledge of every club, bar, gambler’s haunt or magic shop, demon haunted or otherwise, in the LA area. He had a thriving law practice. He had a mother who was still alive. He had enough savings to live and run his business off of for at least three years. And he had friends who cared about him.
Or they had cared about him, three months ago. Doyle suddenly realized that what he didn’t have was any memory of what Alan Francis had done with himself in those three months. He stepped on the accelerator.
"I’m going out to get more rosemary." Cordelia pulled open the desk drawer that held her purse.
Wesley turned away from the file cabinet he had been reorganizing. "Cordelia, perhaps you ought to wait just a bit?"
"Forget it."
"Cordelia…" Angel leaned in the doorway of his office, his eyes worried.
"What Angel? You want me to pick you up something?"
"Cordelia, its only been a couple of hours."
"Angel, I’ve tried three times, and Doyle hasn’t answered. I’m going to get more rosemary, then you can try Ms. Calendar and find out why." She grabbed the sweater on the table near his office door.
"Maybe he’s just…busy?"
"Of course. Recall the time his mother injured her foot?" Wesley offered helpfully.
Cordelia shook her head. "I remember. And it was because I got a little worried that time…"
"Worried?" Wesley raised an eyebrow. "You threw a tantrum of cataclysmic proportions."
Cordelia ignored him and continued. "Doyle and I decided that I’d try him every day at 11:30 am and if he couldn’t talk, then I’d call back later. If that didn’t work you would leave a message with Ms. Calendar."
"Cordelia, it’s a tenuous communication with the beyond, not a local telephone call."
"Well, duh, Angel. And I can usually remember not to burn stinky herbs when I use my cell phone. Now…"
Once again she was interrupted by Wesley. "Hush! I believe we may have a customer."
Cordelia glanced out at the car that had pulled up in front of the agency, then shrugged dismissively. "No way. That guy’s headed to Dr. Folger’s office."
"However do you know that?"
She rolled her eyes. "Wesley, that’s a late-model black Volvo. The safest, most boring car made. In it will be a man looking for a periodontist, not a supernatural private eye." She turned her back on the door, looking at Angel with a mix of bossiness and pleading. "I need to talk to Doyle."
"I’m here, Princess."
Cordelia’s eyes snapped shut. "About time you answered! Where have you been?"
There was a startled pause. "Well…dead."
"Well, duh. Wait just a minute." She opened her eyes, beamed at Angel. "He called."
But Angel was staring past her. He took her by the shoulders, gently turning her to face the man who had walked in the door. "No. He didn’t."
"Doyle?" Cordelia’s voice came out whispery. "Since when are you visible?"
"Visible?"
"And since when do you wear Hugo Boss suits?" she added, with an increase in both volume and astonishment.
"You might say it’s a new side of my personality."
"Oh. Well. You look good. I mean, as ghosts go."
"He’s not a ghost." Angel’s voice held both certainty and pained confusion. All eyes turned to him. "The living blood pumps through his veins. Demon and human mixed. I can smell it."
"Okay, ewww." Cordelia wrinkled her nose at him, then turned away as realization set in. "Doyle?" She walked slowly across the room to him, reached out a tentative hand. "You’re really…"
"Alive?" He took her hand gently, then swiftly, awkwardly, kissed it. "Yeah."
She flung herself into his arms and stayed there, both of them oblivious to all else until Wesley cleared his throat uncomfortably. Cordelia pulled back slightly and Doyle glared at him. "Who in hell are you?"
Cordelia stared at Doyle. "That’s Wesley. You know that. Oww!" Cordelia recoiled as Angel hauled her away from Doyle, stood between them.
"Who are you?" Angel was nearly growling with anger and grief.
"Angel, man, it’s me. Doyle." He reached to put a hand on the vampire’s shoulder.
"Doyle’s dead." Angel grabbed the smaller man’s arm, turned it to expose Doyle’s hand. "And he didn’t have a Brakken initiation mark on his palm. And he knew Wesley because he’s been watching us, all day every day, for the last three months, sitting in some supernatural sports bar with Jenny Calendar."
Doyle looked up at his friend. "A bar huh? And wit’ company? Sounds like my kind of afterlife." His green eyes went even softer than normal. "I don’t remember bein’ dead Angel. I remember the night of the Scourge. And then there’s just a blank. Next I know I’m wakin’ up sharin’ a body with myself from another dimension.
Cordelia shoved Angel over slightly, staring at Doyle, eye to eye with him in her heeled shoes. "That makes a kind of sense that…doesn’t."
"Most operations of the Powers follow that principle."
"The Powers sent you back?" Angel wanted to believe, hated himself for looking into the eyes of a friend with suspicion.
"Yeah. The little I understood of what they told me is that they needed two of my lifetimes, from different dimensions, combined in order to settle some kind of imbalance in the world. So they killed me off in one timeline, merged the dimensions and popped both sets of memories into the body left alive."
"The higher powers altered two dimensions for you?" Wesley was stunned. "This is…this is unheard of."
"I think I’m still confused." Cordelia shrugged, caught Doyle’s eyes, held them. "I think I don’t care. You’re alive again? And you’re in a body that looks like you, except better dressed? And you still…want to ask me out to dinner?
"If you’ll do me the honor." Doyle smiled at her, looked to Angel. "The Powers had a purpose for me, so they sent me back from the afterlife to finish what I started. Any of this sound familiar?"
Slowly, softly, the vampire smiled. "I think I can relate." He placed a hand on Doyle’s shoulder. "Welcome back home."
The three old friends stood in the office in perfect contentment. Until Wesley cleared his throat again. They all glared at him. "Excuse me. Mr. erhmm…Doyle. What is your actual identity, in this new, created dimension?"
"Professionally, I guess I’m Arthur Ferris Doyle, attorney at law." He shrugged. "I’m also the reincarnation of Alan Francis Doyle, visionary and assistant demon hunter. Mostly, I’m just Doyle."
"I’m the visionary, these days." Cordelia poked him. "Not that I’m not going to do my best to give you that fun gift right back."
Angel gave a sarcastic grimace. "Just don’t make me watch you trying."
"And I’m the assistant demon hunter" Wesley added, "but, an attorney, named Arthur…"
"My God. I’ve heard of Arthur Ferris Doyle. He’s practically a celebrity." Cordelia looked at Doyle with dawning respect. "He goes around taking on like, evil law firms, and grinding their bones to make his bread. That’s you?"
"Yeah. It’s less fun than this job was, I’ll tell you that." Suddenly he stopped, considered, then slapped a hand to his forehead. "By the Powers, I’m an idjit."
"What did you do now?" Cordelia’s voice held a tone of resignation that made him chuckle.
"Arthur Ferris Doyle is gatherin’ evidence with which to destroy the firm of Wolfram and Hart."
There was a moment of silence, then Angel smiled again, and this time his grin was feral. "Were you really?" He glanced at Wesley. "Lock up, will you? And Cordelia, set the answering machine. We’re all going downstairs to talk. I think we’ve found Doyle’s Power-given destiny."
Somewhere, in a place out of time, Jenny Calendar raised a glass of wine in salute as she watched them, smiling through her tears.
Late that night Doyle and Cordelia sat on the soft leather couch in his apartment, looking over the skyline. A not-quite-comfortable silence had settled in the room. Doyle was the first to break it. "So princess, ya didn’t forget me entirely when I was gone?"
"No." She threw him a look of not-quite-mock annoyance. "But I had two months of conversations with you which your mind seems to have misplaced."
He grimaced. "I imagine the Powers don’t want me rememberin’ what the afterlife is like and blabbin’ about it to everyone alive."
"Well, they never let you tell me much about where you were when you were…wherever you were. If that makes any sense. So you’re probably right."
"You plannin’ to fill me in on what did we discuss?"
Cordelia shrugged uncomfortably. "Lots of things."
"Such as?"
"You inflicting the visions on me. How they got me kidnapped and nearly blinded. How hard Angel was to work with when you were gone. How annoying Wesley can be." She paused, "how much I missed you."
Lacking the words to answer Doyle shifted closer to her, lifted a hand, ran it gently through her hair.
"Well?"
"Well what, Princess?"
"Did you miss me too?"
"Cordelia, darlin’ as far as I remember I was only away from you for about four hours."
"Oh."
"Which is much too long, if ya ask me."
"Really?" Cordelia’s smile glowed out at him. She glanced around the meticulously neat art deco apartment. "Does the Arthur-type Doyle have a, a girlfriend or anything?"
"All told, Doyle has one mother, one ex-wife, one adored grandmotherly secretary, and one male friend who happens to be a vampire. He is also totally crazy about a gorgeous aspiring actress." He smiled at her. "And that’s about it."
"Well, good." There was a not-quite-comfortable pause. Then she continued. "Three months ago Doyle gave the actress their first kiss. She’s about ready for their second."
Doyle swallowed, hard, then nodded. He framed her face with his hands, covered her lips with his own. The warm silence that filled the room this time was entirely comfortable.
THE END
©copyright 2000 Cedar
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