Story: The Catalyst : Known Then

["Femvamp " <femvamp000@xxxxxxxxx>]

TITLE: The Catalyst: Known Then
AUTHOR: Femvamp
E-MAIL: femvamp000@xxxxxxxxx
FEEDBACK: I love feedback. It makes me want to write more. 
DISTRIBUTION: You want it? It's yours. Just tell me where and how 
to get there.
SPOILERS: Ok I'll tell you. This Chapter Spoilers for Band Candy
DISCLAIMER: Joss Wheadon and many others own the characters of BtVS. 
If I owned them I'd do things a little differently, but only a little.

The Catalyst: Known Then

Cordelia has spent the remainder of then night and most of the next 
day explaining things to Angel. She had even introduced him to Kate. 
She had been very unsure of that. She knew the less Angel knew about 
the future the better it would be for him. She didn't know much about 
this sort of thing but she had watched enough Star Trek with Xander to 
know about Paradoxes and the last thing she wanted to do was create 
another one. Her presence in the past was bad enough.

"So Kate and you are....lovers?" Angel asked.

"She wasn't always a vampire." Cordelia said simply.

Angel just nodded.

"Kate was a cop." Kate said sing-song-like.

"A police officer?" Angel smiled.

Cordelia smiled awkwardly, "Yeah well...."

"I like it, Cordy." Angel smiled, "When did you meet?"

Cordelia paled for a moment. She had already told Angel too much. 
Any more and she would have to explain everything. How they met in 
Los Angeles, how she came to work for him, Doyle, she would have to 
explain.......everything. Cordelia wasn't ready for that.

"It doesn't matter." Cordelia said finally.

Angel nodded again, "You can't tell me."

"Me being here is already changing the future....I think. If I tell 
you what will happen in your life....."

"I understand Cordy." Angel smiled, "Just tell me what I need to 
know."

Cordelia heard a door open and close behind her. She saw Kate run out 
the door. Cordelia turned back to Angel and frowned.

"Just that there is something going to happen soon, and I have to stop 
it."

"Aren't you going to go after her?" 

"It won't do any good."

"Why?"

"She wasn't like this when she was....alive. Something happened to 
her. Sometimes she disappears on me. When she comes back things are 
better for awhile."

Angel just nodded.

"She did things as a vampire. She killed people."

"Like who?" Angel asked kindly knowing that Cordelia needed to talk.

Cordelia paused for a moment, "You."

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After talking for a little while Angel and Cordelia decided to go 
search for Kate. Cordelia had told Angel a few things about the 
future. He hoped she didn't tell him enough to change it too much. 
One of her worst fears was that Angel would do something, 
unintentionally that would change his, and her, future with Kate. 
Cordelia loved Kate too much to let that happen.

"It wasn't her fault, or yours." Angel said after a long silence 
between them.

"I know. It's just that....." Cordelia let her sentence drift.

"You blame yourself anyway."

"Kate had a normal life before she ran into us. Suddenly it changed 
and she began living a very un-normal life. She lost her 
friends....her family......"

"Alot like you." 

"Yeah. Alot like me."

Angel was about to say something when he heard a noise in the 
distance. Angel and Cordelia ran toward the noise and soon saw 
something they would never forget.

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Giles and Joyce Summers were walking down the street of Sunnydale. 
Giles was looking very un-Giles like. Instead of his usual tweed 
attire he was wearing jeans and white shirt. There was no tweed in 
sight. Joyce also looked different then Cordelia remembered her. 

Cordelia and Angel continued to watch the scene in front of them. 
They managed to get close enough to here what the two were saying but 
stay out of their field of vision. Neither wanted to let their 
existence be known.

"You fancy it?" Giles said as he looked in a mirror of a clothing 
boutique.

"Yeah, but the store's closed." Joyce responded.

Giles took a drag from the cigarette he was holding and then through 
it aside. He grabbed a garbage can and swung it toward the display 
window. Cordelia and Angel stared in horror as the glass shattered. 
They continued to watch from the distance as Giles jumped through the 
window, ignoring the alarm, and grabbed the clothes off the mannequin 
as well as a hat, for himself. 

Cordelia tried to remember, when this could have happened. Events 
started to come back into her mind. She just couldn't place them. 
She was thrown out of her reveille when she heard a policeman.

" Ooo... Copper's got a gun!" Giles responded to the cop taunting him 
the whole time. " You'll never use it, though, man."

"Will so." The cop said.

" Ripper, be careful!" 

"Ripper?" Cordelia said to herself. 

Cordelia and Angel watched on as Giles managed to take the gun away 
from the cop. Cordelia smiled a bit at that. 

" Told him he'd never use it." Giles smiled.

"You are sooo cool. You're like Burt Reynolds." Joyce laughed.

Cordelia continued to smile as Giles put his arm around Joyce's neck.

"Uhh. Angel. I think we should be going."

"Why?" Angel continued to look at the scene. "Oh." He said after a 
minute.

"Come on, let them have their fun."

"Shouldn't we stop them?"

"Why?" Cordelia smiled, "This is meant to happen. It changes their 
relationship. Or at least it would have."

"Oh." 

Angel and Cordelia walk away from the scene, pretending not to hear 
the screams of ecstasy coming from behind them.

"Besides I think I know what the catalyst is now."

TBC

Note- Just for legal reasons I used actual lines from the episode 
Band Candy.