My Destiny is You

Ch. 8 ~ 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon

As the shock wore off from finding Lorne's severed finger in the box that Clem brought, Angel and Spike explained who Lorne was to everyone else. They all agreed not to say a word about it to Fred. When asked why, Angel explained that Fred was as close to Lorne as Dawn was to Clem and she couldn't bear the thought of her good friend at the hands of some maniacal hell beasts doing lord knows what to him. Plus, Lorne didn't have a clue that Fred was resurrected. He took her death at the hands of Illyria especially hard. So now, they had to figure out what to do next. Buffy came up with an idea.

"I think we need to pay Anne Steel a visit and get her to tell us what she knows. This has to be done during daylight so the tinted van will be taken. Angel, Spike, Connor, and Gunn will come with. The more people this Anne knows are around her, the more likely she'll feel more secure to open up." The others nodded.

They called Gunn and using the tunnels, went to where the vans were located. They took one of the refueled ones and with a last heads up to Faith that she was in charge, took off towards LA. They arrived at Anne Steel's new location at 11am; Connor had guided them to it. There was an overhang that both Spike and Angel could use as they jumped out of the van to avoid sizzling. Connor and Gunn led the way inside. Anne was sitting at a table and she jumped up out of her seat when she saw Gunn and ran around the desk to give him a big hug. She hugged Connor as well but her eyes grew wide when she realized they weren't alone.

Angel kind of hung back as their last meeting from a few years before wasn't all that pleasant. She was very stunned to see Buffy as was Buffy who started putting pieces together. Anne stared at Buffy and vice versa and finally the first spoke.

"You told me I could be Anne. I hope I have made you proud." She said quietly as Buffy's eyes filled with tears as she remembered. Meanwhile, everyone else was very confused.

"Wait a minute, you two know each other?" Spike who had been standing behind Buffy asked. When Anne saw him, she shrieked in fright.

"It's ok Anne, that's just Spike, he's part of our team." Connor explained.

"I will never forget that hair. He nearly killed me and my friends." Anne shuddered as everyone looked really confused.

"What the bloody hell are you talking about? I've never even seen you before. And what's wrong with my hair?" Spike said frustrated and a tad self-conscious while touching his head.

"I wouldn't expect you to remember."

"Why don't you start at the beginning? Because clearly everyone is confused." Gunn said. Anne took a deep breath and began to tell her story.

"I'm from Sunnydale too. The first and only time I ever saw Spike was when my friends and I were part of a vampire worship group and I went by the name of Chantrelle. We thought vampires were the lonely ones so we wanted to join them. What we realized was that most were savage beasts that deserved to be put down. When Spike came to attack my friends, Buffy was there to save us after a friend of hers locked us in an underground bunker. She jumped onto the balcony and held a stake to some creepy looking vampire chick in a long white dress. She looked like she never left the 19th century. Only with that threat were we all let go."

"Drusilla! I remember that now!" Spike said stunned as the others listened and Anne continued.

"A little while later I left Sunnydale to try and reinvent myself yet again and ended up here in LA. I named myself Lily after the flower. That's how I met my now deceased boyfriend Ricky. One day, Ricky and I were at a diner trying to get breakfast when I recognized Buffy working there under the name of Anne. I found her a few evenings later when Ricky went missing. She seemed broken but she never told me what had happened that made her leave Sunnydale." Anne grew silent as everyone looked at Buffy who was gazing down.