Part 7 - Interludes
Prologue 1—Sunnydale, 1997
Entering the Bronze through the back door, Angel paused for a moment in the
comfort of the shadows. Thanks to his vampiric senses, he easily made out
through the subdued lighting the forms of the young humans dancing and sitting
and talking amongst themselves. His lips turning upwards into a slight smile, he
remembered what this place was like the last time he was here, thirty years ago
almost to the day. He recalled the miniskirt wearing women dancing with men
wearing Nehru jackets with chains and beads hanging around their necks, or gaily
dressed in outfits that reminded the two hundred plus year old vampire of the
Regency bucks that he had encountered in the 1820s and ‘30s.
Now, as then, he was looking for someone—someone special—someone unique. As
his eyes searched for this unique individual, his keen hearing picked up through
the din a voice that was hauntingly familiar—a voice from thirty years ago…
“Hello salty goodness! Someone call 911 cause that boy’s gonna need
oxygen…”
It was her! He then remembered that she told him that she would be here—but
she wouldn’t be the person that he knew. She said that she wouldn’t know
him—that he probably wouldn’t like her anyway—at least not now. And that
she couldn’t tell him any more; that he would figure it all out in the future.
Glancing at her through his peripheral vision and sniffing her with his sharp
vampiric sense of smell, he understood. The winning smile, dancing eyes, and
merry laughter were as he remembered them to be, but the rest of the package was
different. She was younger—about Buffy’s age, and her hair, instead of the
chin length blonde highlighted hair that he dimly recalled from long ago was
long, luxurious, and brown. She was also all human—no trace of demon within
her.
Then, he saw her—sitting with her friends, laughing and talking. As he gazed
into the lovely blue eyes of the blonde Slayer, all thoughts of thirty years ago
disappeared from his mind as he totally ignored his past and future in favor of
the present.
***************************
Prologue 2—Sunnydale, 1999
“Any luck, Willow?” Oz, the lead guitarist for the rock band "Dingoes
Ate My Baby" and recently reunited boyfriend to the red headed high school
student currently scanning the microfilm reader, asked as he quietly stood
behind his girl, kneading her shoulders with his firm hands.
“Yeah, if you count nothing as luck, then all sorts of luck.” The young
computer nerd and beginning witch, closing her eyes, sighed in relief as her
boyfriend’s skillful fingers massaged away all the tension. Tilting her head
back, she looked up at the soulful eyes of her young musician and smiled warmly.
“The Sunnydale Herald only has from 1980 up online, so I’m digging through
microfilms.”
“Where are you now?” Oz asked as he continued his massage, now working the
young redhead’s upper arms as well as shoulder blades.
“1967.” Willow chuckled. “War protests, bra burnings, and all that
stuff,” She added as her laughter proved infectious as witnessed by her
boyfriend’s chuckles. Then, she came to a headline in large bold print,
ANTI-WAR PROTEST AT UCSD LEAVES ONE DEAD, THREE INJURED, 50 ARRESTED.
“What’s this?” Oz, the headline immediately catching his interest, asked
as he stopped his massage and leaned forward in order to read better.
“There was a protest in front of the ROTC building,” Willow paraphrased as
she read the text, “They called in the National Guard, and I guess someone got
scared or something because they started shooting…” She then scanned to the
photo of a young woman with shoulder length hair and wearing a miniskirt
kneeling next to a man lying on the ground, looking up plaintively at whoever
snapped the picture.
Seeing something familiar in the young woman’s face, the young musician,
pointing at the kneeling woman, asked his girlfriend, “Hey Willow…can you
zoom in on that woman there?”
“Sure.” The redhead, also sensing something vaguely recognizable in the
features of the distraught figure in the photograph, magnified the image, and
then, as the face of the woman in question became clearly visible, the couple
gasped in surprise as they said in unison, “Cordelia?”
************************************
“That woman looks like Cordelia!” Willow said in a hushed voice as she
pointed at the crying woman.
“Can’t be.” Oz replied in an equally soft voice. “If that were her,
that’d make her…”
“Kinda old…” Willow whispered as she finished her boyfriend’s thoughts.
“Yeah.” The guitarist said, agreeing with his girlfriend. Then, a slight
smile crossing his face, he exclaimed, “I think I know…she’s a
relative…right?”
“Uh Huh.” The computer expert shook her head definitely. “Cordelia’s
family doesn’t come from here…her mom and dad came here just before she was
born—not like my dad or Xander’s…” Then, reading further, the young
redhead gasped once again as she pointed out a paragraph, before whispering in
amazement and disbelief, barely able to get the words out, “It says here that
her name is…C…C…Cordelia…Chase…and that she’s an…” The youthful
witch then gulped as she looked into the eyes of her boyfriend, “…assistant
librarian at…Sunnydale High??? Here???”
“One way to find out.” Oz declared, his voice reflecting his usual quiet
confidence, as he went to the bookcase and took out a book. “1967 yearbook.”
He explained as he saw his girlfriend’s questioning expression. Setting the
book down, he thumbed through the pages until he found it—a black and white
picture of that same woman standing before an older version of the familiar
circulation desk, wearing a miniskirt and white thigh high go-go boots. Then,
seeing the name, the young couple looked at each other in disbelief as they said
in unison, “Assistant Librarian—Cordelia Chase.”
“Oh…my…God…” Willow gasped as her hand went to her mouth. “Can’t
be—can it? I mean…it’s her?! My Dad…he used to tell me that there was a
woman who used to be the assistant librarian when he went to school here and
that she was always really nice to him, but that she left at the end of the
semester and never came back cause she was involved in some protest movements
and other stuff.” The young redhead shook her head in disbelief, “I never
got a chance to look at his yearbook or anything like that because he lost it
sometime when he was in college and he just forgot her name…”
“Cordelia…nice to your dad?” Oz said in disbelief as he cracked an ironic
grin.
“Yeah…impossible.” Willow agreed sarcastically, a note of bitterness in
her voice towards the young woman who had been such a thorn in her side for so
long.
“So…what do we do?” The guitarist asked as he gazed once again at the
picture of his fellow classmate who apparently was also the assistant librarian
in 1967.
“I think we need to tell Giles.” Willow said in a soft voice as she stood
up.
****************************
As the couple entered the office of the librarian and Watcher, he looked up from
the massive tome that he was currently engrossed in. “Willow? Oz? Have you
found something of interest?”
“You could say that.” Willow sighed as she handed the Englishman the
photocopy of the newspaper article and the 1967 yearbook, opened to the page
with Cordelia's photo.
“I see…” The librarian said in a low voice as he took off his glasses and
cleaned them. Then, after taking a book out of a locked desk drawer, he went to
his office door, and, after closing it and locking it, motioned for the young
couple standing in front of his desk to sit down. “Although I was hoping that
you wouldn’t come upon this, I knew that the odds were that someone would
sooner or later. Thankfully…” He sighed in relief. “The two of you were
the ones to have found out about this first. I shudder to think what would have
happened had Xander been the one.” ‘Or Buffy…’ He left unsaid. Looking
down at his two comrades in the coming struggle, he admonished. “I cannot
stress this to you two enough. Anything…and I do mean anything…that you see,
hear, or read regarding this matter must stay strictly amongst us for reasons
that shall soon be made abundantly clear to you.”
“Ok, Giles.” Willow, a look of bemusement on her face, agreed as her
boyfriend also nodded his head, indicating his acceptance of the terms set by
the Watcher.
“We’ll keep it quiet, Giles.”
Nodding his head in grateful acknowledgment, The English Watcher, after sitting
down, handed the book that he had just taken to the young redhead sitting across
from him.
Taking the book and opening it to the first page, the bookish young woman read
aloud, “Watcher’s Journal of Edmund R. Giles—1967.”
As the shy redhead looked up in inquiry, Giles nodded his head. “My father.”
Then, glancing at the book, he said softly, “Continue.”
“February, 12, 1967. I received a most interesting phone call today from a
young woman saying that she came from the town of Sunnydale in the United
States. Her name is…” The shy redhead then paused momentarily, her face
reflecting her disbelief. Then, seeing the librarian nod his head, she continued
in a hushed tone, “Cordelia Chase…”
TBC...