BackWater - Chapter 1

Author’s note: I wrote out the plan for this story long before the death of Angel’s leading ladies so Cordy and Fred will both be in this...Also thanks to Brandi for beta-ing for me I appreciate it a ton!

“All right, so what else is needs to be covered?” Angel asks staring up and down the long meeting table his gaze finally settling on Fred, “Fred?”
Fred opens her mouth to speak but is cut off by Harmony’s sudden appearance, “sorry bossy.” Harmony states glancing around the crowded meeting room.
“Can it wait Harmony?” Angel asks annoyance touching his voice and features.
“It really can’t boss.”
“Then what is it?”
“I got a call from teleportation receiving, two beings appeared there and they were wondering if you could take care of it.” Harmony responds.
“Fine,” Angel sighs and faces the man sitting on his right, “finish the rest of the meeting for me, Fred, Wes, Gunn you come with me to check these things out.”
Walking into the area that usually received people teleporting in Angel turned to the attendants, “what’s going on?”
“They appeared out of no where, we had no idea they were coming...” The attendant stutters.
Angel turns to look through the two-way mirror that separate them from the new arrivals, “they’re teenagers, you called me from a meeting for teenagers?”
“They’re not from this world,” the other attendant, more confident, states, “and from the readings we are getting from them they aren’t from the same one.”
“We’ll go talk to them.” Angel states leading the group through the door and into the receiving area where the two girls in their young teens stand glaring at each other from across the room. Neither one has noticed their entrance so Angel takes advantage of this sizing up both girls, the one on the far right has a red bandana tied around her light brown hair and she wears a pair of tight red jeans and an equally tight black shirt that has chains adoring both. The girl on the opposite side has blonde hair and wears a simple pair of jeans and a black shirt that covers half of her stomach. Picking up only on the scent of fear Angel clears his throat and questions, “can I help you?”
The girl in red turns ashen when she sees the group, mutters “Daddy” and then proceeds to slump into the chair she had been sitting in, in a dead faint.
Angel easily lifts the girl into his arms her into his arms as Fred suggests “we can take them both to the lab, run some tests.”
While Fred moves around the lab pressing buttons and using machines no one else understands Wesley wonders, “who was she calling father?”
“Well,” the second girl speaks up this time, “considering she looks a lot like him,” the girl points at Angel, “and she was looking right at him when she said it that would lead a person to believe that she was his child, but you know, that’s just me.”
The girl’s eyes flutter open then revealing that they are the exact shade of Angel’s and she jumps off of the bed and her entire body stiffens pulling her hands into fists and taking a fighting stance.
“Hey Fred, I was...” Spike wanders in then and noticing all the people his eyes settle on the blonde girl sitting in the chair just next to him, “lil’ bit what are you doing here? And when did you dye your hair, you look to much like Buffy now.” The girl immediately bursts into tears and launches herself at Spike, sobbing into his chest.
“She’s a Summers.” Spike states as the group, minus the two young teens, sit in Angel’s office discussing who they could be. “Look at her and tell me she’s not a Summers, I don’t have a bleeding idea who the other girl is but the blonde looks just like Buffy and Dawn, she’s got Joyce in her too.”
“She thinks Angel is her father.” Wesley adds.
“Well I want to know what the bloody hell is going on,” Spike stands up then and leads the way to the small meeting room they had told the girls to wait in with Harmony. “Your mothers, who are they?”
“Buffy Summers.” Both girls state simultaneously, causing both to cast glares at the other.
Cordelia is the one to break the shocked silence that has covered the group, she walks into the meeting room and states, “I had a vision, I need to talk to the girls alone.”
“Cordy...” Angel begins, not willing to leave until they have gotten to the bottom of this.
“Angel, you can interrogate them later.” Cordelia states, “but now I have to talk to them.” Once everyone his filed out of the meeting room reluctantly Cordelia turns to face the girls and asks bluntly, “are your mothers dead?”
The girl who had called Angel father nods, “when I was seven.”
The second girl nods her eyes filling with tears, “last week.”
Cordelia points at the girl who had been motherless for years, “so that makes you Nerice Kaiya Summers,” and motioning at the other girl adds, “and you Jerica Joyce Summers.”
“J.J.” Jerica insists and then adds, “but how did you know?”
“That’s my job, to just know these things.” Cordelia responds, “and it doesn’t matter either way. Basically you’ve both lived in two completely different universes and now something it about to happen and you both stand at a place where every choice you make matters. In all reality you have two futures here and both of them are bleak, what you have to do is change the future.”
“Change the future? Impossible.” J.J. scoffs.
“Sounds like black magic, and I refuse to have anything to do with the magics.” Nerice adds.
“It’s not impossible and it’s not black magic.” Cordelia responds.
“You want us to change the future, how do we know what we rare changing it to?” Nerice questions.
“That’s the thing, nothing is guaranteed when you mess with the time line.”
J.J. shakes her head, “uh-huh, Giles always used to say that you shouldn’t mess with time.”
Cordelia takes a deep breath, “the powers that be say that Buffy is important to the future and in both of your worlds Buffy doesn’t survive, this is important.”
Both girls fall completely silent and this and become lost in their own worlds for several minutes. Finally Nerice breaks the silence, “what are we supposed to do?”
“Right now you just have to go with the flow,” Cordelia states, “I’m going to go back into Angel’s office and tell them what they are allowed to know, that you are from different universes and that you are theirs and Buffy’s daughters. But this is important all right, you can’t tell them anything else, unless I say so.” Both girls nod and Cordelia adds, “good, you guys can get to know each other.”
“Cry much?” Nerice asks once Cordelia has vacated the room.
J.J. glares at her, “my father died two months ago, besides you fainted when you saw your ‘father’.”
Nerice looks slightly defeated at J.J.’s words, “my Dad went away when I was seven and he didn’t come back, Aunt Dawn told me that he was killed by a gang of vampires.”
A weird expression crosses J.J.’s face and she asks, “is Dawn alive in your world?”
Nerice nods, “yes. Isn’t she in yours?”
J.J. shakes her head slowly, “she died six years ago.” Her voice softens as she seems to murmur more to herself than to Nerice, “everyone is dead. Faith, Willow, Xander, Giles...everyone.”
“Don’t go crying again,” Nerice orders and then her voice softens as she recounts the death toll in her world, “Giles is dead in my world too, Fred, Gunn, Andrew, Wood and Cordelia too. Xander and Willow are alive in my world, at least I guess they’re still alive, I haven’t seen them since my mother died.”
“I’ve only met Fred and Gunn twice, when we went to Wesley and then Lorne’s funereal, I was to young to really remember them though.”
Both girls fall silent again and finally J.J. asks, “do you think when can change the future? Do you think maybe so many people won’t die?”
Nerice thinks for a second and then shrugs, “I hope so.”

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