A/N Full disclosure: I have never read the Angel comics and, from what I hear about what happens in them … I don't ever want to. Title aside, any similarities with the comics (should they happen - I wouldn't know) are entirely coincidental. This is not a rewrite of the comics, it is a full imagining of what season 6 of AtS would have looked like if it had ever been made as a live action show … but with Doyle and Cordelia still alive, as I have spent a long long time carving them back into the story in my season by season rewrites.

This season follows on directly from my season by season 'Doyle lives' rewritten fics, but I have tried to strike a balance of explaining the changes to canon in this story so it makes sense to any newbies who have no interest in reading rewrites, but doesn't cover too much old ground for the old hats. Though if anyone wants a quick breakdown of what happened in s1-5 to get them up to speed, the wonderful 'Garfieldodie' wrote a T.V Tropes page for the whole series which can be found at T.V Tropes/fanfic/What you do Afterwards which sums up most of the main events via the tropes involved.

The structure is the same as always - 22 episodes have been planned for the season, and each episode is split into four parts following the 4 act structure of the show. I don't know how long it will take to post or how regularly the episodes will come - but, just like in the rewrites, each episode will be posted a chapter a day, Friday to Monday. As always, it remains an ensemble story; every character is given page time and every POV is explored. Whilst Doyle is the reason I started writing these fics, every main character is equally important - so there should be something for every 'Angel' fan in this story.

I'm not Joss Whedon, I don't own ... yada yada yada … hope you enjoy!


"Bottom Line is, even if you see 'em coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we? Helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are."

-Whistler, Becoming Part One


What You Do Afterwards: The Fall

Fallen

Part One

Darkness began to fade, the first fringes of light began to bleed into the skies, tuning them grey: the very first signs of dawn. The apocalyptic rainstorm continued to hammer down on the city, though - and it seemed like the sun would not be putting in a proper appearance this morning.

Angel's sword fell from his hand, clattering and clanging against the hard floor of the Hyperion's lobby. They had been forced back, during the fight, taking refuge inside the hotel - though still the demon army of The Senior Partners had crashed against its walls.

Angel was exhausted, he could feel the sweat and blood mixing together and trickling down his brow. He looked around at his friends, seeing the same exhaustion in their eyes. 'What's the damage?'

'Looks like we made it,' Gunn said. He slumped down on the round sofa in the middle of the lobby, his hand was still clutched across his midsection. He had been bleeding heavily for many hours - nothing but grit and determination spurring him on. 'Man, I don't know how we made it.'

'Not all of us did,' Lorne's voice was heavy. Somehow he already had a drink in his hand - had abandoned his weapons at the first sign of the army pulling back and gone to raid Wes' old liquor cabinet.

'Yeah - Doyle died,' Spike said, looking down at the body lying on the floor, its eyes staring and glassy. 'Poor bastard.' He caught sight of everyone looking at him, horror or confusion on their faces. He shook his head and raised his hands. 'Sorry - I mean Lindsey. Lindsey died.' He looked down at the man who had brought him back from the dead, recorporealised him and then pretended to be the half demon - and Angel's best friend, turned against him - in order to put Spike on a path of heroics and cheat Angel out of the Shanshu prophecy. 'He didn't have to be here.'

'He chose to be here,' Angel said, 'same as the rest of us. And now we're two soldiers down…' everyone looked down, their faces troubled with grief as they took a moment - after all this madness - to remember that Wesley was gone as well. He had not even made it as far as Lindsey had. Had never even made it to the alleyway.

Angel rubbed his forehead. 'And we'll all be next. This isn't over. They might have pulled back but they won't stop until every last one of us is vaporised. We took from The Senior Partners tonight and they are gonna grind us into the dirt in revenge. And unless we wanna join Wesley and Lindsey, we need to figure out a plan.'

Everyone just stared at their feet, glumly - exhausted and defeated. 'I don't know where you went to rousing speech school, mate,' Spike said to his grandsire, 'but that's not how you rally the troops.'

'I just wanna sleep,' Fred said. She placed the jewel, pried from Illyria's sarcophagus, down on the counter and, as soon as she was parted from it, her eyes turned brown again. 'After last night I could sleep for a bazillion years.'

'Sleep when you're dead,' Spike said to her.

'Well - I soon will be.'

'Talking of being dead... I don't wanna complain or nothing, but I think I need some serious medical attention,' Gunn groaned from over on the sofa.

With a worried glance back in his direction, Fred hurried off into the bathroom - hoping that, even after all this time, Cordy's medical supplies would still be in there. She came back with her arms laden and sat down beside him. 'Here, let me see.' Gently, she lifted up his sweater and examined the wound beneath, then - hoping she could do this one fifth as well as Cordy would have - she began to clean it and dress it, applying some sticky sutures and then wrapping him in bandages. Then she pressed aspirin and iron tablets on him - not mentioning they were past their expiration date. She was hoping for a placebo effect.

When she was done, she looked over at Angel. 'Charles needs to rest,' she told him, 'the rest of us - we can prepare - but he needs to take some time, replenish his blood supply.'

Angel paused for a moment - and then nodded. 'Alright. Gunn - focus on getting better. The rest of us, we got work to do.'

Lorne took a sip of his drink. 'You really think they're gonna come back for us tonight?' he asked.

The vampire nodded. 'I really do.'


The light's were still on in Angel's office - though he would never return there now. Lilah had worked through the night, trying to ignore the apocalypse happening just outside the window. The rain had started up hours ago and - even as the sun rose on a new day- it still beat against the necro tempered glass.

A clicking of heels told her Harmony was returning to the room. She looked up as a coffee mug was placed down beside her. 'Thanks.'

'No problem - I got some fresh reports.'

'What did they say?' She snatched them from the vampire's hand and began to peruse them, her brow furrowing as she read, her lips moving a little. 'Up in Hollywood...'

'Uhuh,' Harmony nodded. She sat on the edge of the desk and took a sip from her unicorn stickered mug of blood. 'Whatever went down, it was all going on between Santa Monica and Sunset Boulevards.'

'They went back to the Hyperion,' Lilah muttered, throwing the report down and leaning back in Angel's big swivel chair.

'How's that?'

'The Hyperion - it's the name of the crumbling down old hotel Angel's team of whitehats used to squat in. Looks like when the chips were down, the rats scurried back to their old bolt hole. Do we know anything else?'

Harmony shrugged, and took another swig of her pig's blood. She had been up all night, her and Lilah had been sequestered in the office trying to get a handle on what the hell was happening out there. Because from the looks of it, well - hell had happened out there. And it was all down to Angel, and they had been kept out of the loop. 'It seems to have gone quiet since it got light out.'

Lilah had clasped her hands together, bringing them up to near her face. her fingers were laced together and her teeth worried at the skin of one of her knuckles as she thought things through. 'Their powers are greater at night,' she said to herself slowly.

'Whose isn't?' Harmony said.

Lilah ignored her. 'They're throwing their all at Wonder Bread - but they don't want to bring the apocalypse forward … they hate to reschedule. They want to try and sort this out without burning everything down.' She looked up at Harmony, 'but if that's what it takes - they will. Is there any word on how many of them were at the hotel? How many of them lived through the night?' She fought to keep the fear out of her voice, she already knew - in her heart - who wouldn't be there.

'There's no word on that,' Harmony told her, with another shrug.

'Then find out,' she snapped. 'Get someone on it.'

'OK! OK!' the vampire gave her a look, like she was being unreasonable. But she didn't pay any attention, she just carried on worrying the skin of her knuckle with her teeth - and stared blankly into space, until the clicking sound told her Harmony had walked away.

She was fretting. There was a lot to fret about. An apocalypse. Angry Senior Partners, destruction in the city, how much all this would be blamed on her … and Wesley. Mostly she was worrying about Wesley.

As she sat in silence, worrying, the door to Angel's private elevator slid open and the bell rang - all by itself. She turned her head to look at it. She wasn't so green she didn't know what that meant. This was The Senior Partners, telling her to get in that elevator. They wanted to speak with her.


It was late afternoon when the taxi pulled up outside the small, terraced house in Finglas. The sky was leaden grey overhead, even though it was early summer, and it made the whole place seem dismal and dreary. 'Yep,' Doyle sighed, peering out of the window, 'just like I remembered it … no wonder I left.'

'That'll be 12 euro,' the driver said from the front seat.

'Right … right.' He pulled out his wallet and took out some of the notes. They'd had to stop at a cash machine to get some Irish money before they got in the cab - having no time to exchange their dollars before they fled the country last night. He frowned down at the unfamiliar notes, trying to work out which was which - the last time he had been home, the currency had still been punts.

Once he paid, he got out of the car - Cordelia passed Connor out to him and then she scrambled out herself. The driver got out to get their suitcases from the car boot. He seemed reluctant to pass the cases to Cordelia, looking like he thought Doyle should be the one to take them. They were too tired to argue, so Cordy took Connor from her husband and he took the suitcases from the driver - and then he led the way up the tarmacked courtyard outside his mam's house and up to the red painted front door.

He tried not to imagine what Cordelia was thinking, as she looked around at the grey skies and the cramped little houses and the rusty cars parked on the driveways and the washing lines with their laundry flapping about wildly in the breeze. She had grown up a world away from a place like this, in the kind of big house that came with the rich parents she had had. And whilst she had been poor for many years in L.A … everything looked better with blue skies and palm trees. She would never have seen anything as dreary as this before.

As it happened, Cordelia was far too exhausted to care less what anything looked like. She had only got married two days before and yet that now seemed like eleven life times ago; she'd been through two apocalypses, lost her husband and fled the country of her birth since then. The fact that the paintwork was peeling on Doyle's childhood home didn't really register on the Richter scale of her priorities right now. Besides, she was long past caring about appearances when it came to Doyle. He was poor. She got it. She didn't care.

Doyle knocked on the door and then just pushed it open. It was unlocked - he knew it would be. 'Mam!' he called out, as he stepped inside, gesturing for Cordy to follow him. 'Mam, you home?'

The front door led straight into the kitchen. He put his suitcases down and looked around. It was exactly how he remembered: the striped wallpaper; the clock with the hands shaped like knives and forks on the wall, just above where the phone sat on the kitchen counter; the dining table pushed against the wall and the door beside it, leading into the living room. 'Mam!'

A short woman, with Doyle's prominent nose and dyed blonde hair, appeared in the doorway to the living room. His face lit up when he saw her, she too looked just like he had remembered. 'Mam!'

She just stared at him, like she was seeing a ghost, then her right hand came up and she crossed herself, 'Jesus, Mary and Joseph.'

'Uh - yeah …' his smile faltered. 'Sorry to just drop in on y' but … was kind of an emergency.' He suddenly remembered the people lurking uncomfortably behind him and rushed to introduce them. 'Oh - this is Cordelia, mam, my wife,' he couldn't help the proud smile that slid across his face when he called Cordelia that. 'And this is Connor,' he indicated the little boy in his wife's arms. 'He isn't actually ours,' he added hastily, thinking his mam would get the wooden spoon out if she thought he'd given her a grandchild and forgotten to mention it. 'We're just lookin' after him.' He looked back at his Ma. She still hadn't said anything, was still staring at him like he was some eldritch apparition standing in her kitchen. 'Mam?'

'Francis?' she finally took a step forward, still looking shell shocked. 'Is it really you?'

'Uh - yeah.' As he got closer, he could see that there were the track marks of dried tears streaked down her face. 'What's…?'

She suddenly flung her arms around him and - finding him to be solid - cried out, 'it is really you! I thought you were dead!'

He wrapped his arms around her slowly, returning the hug. 'Why did you think I was dead?'

'It's been all over the news. They put it on RTE. I checked all the other channels. I even checked the BBC. They said the same.'

'The BBC said I was dead?' he asked in confusion.

'No - it was … Los Angeles,' she pulled back and looked up into his confused face. 'You don't know do you?'

'Know what … exactly?'

'Here,' she dropped her arms from around him, but took his hand, pulling him into the living room. He glanced behind himself at Cordelia, bemused, and she followed along after him, looking equally puzzled. The t.v was on. 'It's been on every channel - all over,' his mam said, nodding at the news report. 'I tried to call and when I couldn't get you on the phone…'

The T.V was showing images of L.A. It was on fire. The whole of it - it seemed - burning away, the streets were cracked open - there had been reports of earthquakes, and storms and things that didn't make sense. Vicious attacks, destruction, bloodshed … the whole city was like hell had come to town.

The newly married couple sank down on the sofa and stared at the news in open mouthed horror. 'We just got out in time,' Cordelia breathed. She brought her hand up to her mouth, to stifle a sob. 'And the others are still all trapped there.'


The team had got down to business, making ready for the coming evening. Lorne had called up the Transuding Furies and, after a brief telephone conversation with them, there had been a sudden flash of light throughout the hotel.

'Is that it?' Fred, asked him from where she was working.

'That's it, moon pie, those gorgeous gals put a barrier right around our hotel. Nothing's getting in or out - unless they use our trusty backdoor in the basement.'

'The sewer access again?'

'Bring your own clothes peg,' he smiled, 'password's still the Pylean word for hedgehog.'

Fred giggled. Lorne left her to it - and went to find Angel to give him the good news.

...

Spike and Angel had moved Lindsey from down in the lobby. Between them they had carried him up to the first flight of stairs and down to one of the rooms. Despite the hotel having been abandoned this past year, the bed still had bedding on it - though the cleanliness of the sheets, after all this time, was doubtful.

They laid the lawyer down and closed his staring eyes. Lorne appeared in the doorway. The smile slid from his green face when he saw what they were doing. 'This room was a good choice,' he said sadly. The two vampires looked confused. 'Cordelia's old room,' he told them. 'It's where we laid out Katie after … well, after we thought Angelus had killed her. Lindsey sat beside her all night, to make sure she didn't rise again. It feels right … to lay him out here, where she was.'

'Did you get a hold of the Furies?' Angel asked him.

Lorne nodded. 'I promised them a big bouquet of flowers but I think this is a debt they would prefer to see you pay off personally, crumbcake.'

Angel shuffled awkwardly. 'They're very demanding … you know, of my time.'

Lorne smirked and raised an eyebrow. 'Well, that's one way of putting it.'

'So - are we just gonna leave him here?' Spike gestured to Lindsey. 'Shouldn't we - I dunno - say something? Feels like - he died in our battle - someone should mark his passing, feels like - as long - as there's some bugger left alive, then every passing should be marked.'

'You boys go on and get on with the next job,' Lorne said. He looked down at the dead man, sadly. 'I'll stay with him a while. Light some candles.'

Once the vampires were gone, Lorne was as good as he word. There were still plenty of candles scattered around the room from the year before, when Jasmine had come to town and this very room had become a shrine to the comatose holy mother. He chose the least burned down of the bunch, stood them up straight and then took out a lighter. Once the flames were burning away - giving the place the sacred feeling of a church, Lorne began to sing. 'There's a light at the end of the darkness, and it shines for all the world to see. It will shine on your heart if you just let it…'

When his song was finished, he sighed deeply and blew out the candles. 'Rest in Peace, Lindsey McDonald,' he said softly, 'I hope your soul has winged its way to your Detective Lockley.'


Fred frowned, her nose was wrinkled up and her tongue was stuck out between her teeth. Her face was pressed as close to the wall as she could get it - and she had unearthed an old pair of glasses in her long abandoned bedroom and put them on, so she could see better. She was daubing the walls with symbols. Every wall in the lobby had already been done, plus the old office and even the bathroom. Now she was working her way around enough bedrooms for the whole team. But she would have to do the hallways and maybe the kitchens. She hoped someone else would finish one of their jobs soon and come and give her a hand - because this was a lot of work.

The symbols were mystical runes. Angel had sketched them onto a piece of paper for her to copy. He had a photographic memory and had had cause to pay special attention to these particular markings.

They were the protection runes that prevented anybody within them from being surveyed remotely … like by higher powers. Or Senior Partners. Angel had painted these all over Connor's skin before handing the little boy over to Doyle and Cordelia to take away, and given Cordy a copy of the same runes Fred was now painting on the walls to paint inside their home.

As long as the team stayed in the rooms she had painted these symbols in, The Senior Partners wouldn't be able to find them. Add that to the mystical barrier - and their protection mojo wasn't bad. They might just make it through this next night. Though it was the one after that and the one after that they needed to worry about.

She finished painting the downward flourish on one of the runes, and moved her brush over to the spiral that needed painting right next to it. As she did, she felt a sudden cold draught behind her, a breeze on the back of her neck and the merest hint of a whisper. She shuddered and glanced around, but there was nothing there. She knew there wouldn't be. This had been happening for a while now - in every room - a sudden cold and creeping feeling of unease - the sense of a presence… and then nothing.

She supposed it was just because the hotel had been left abandoned and empty for so long. It just had that air of a place deserted. The cobwebs and dust and creaking floorboards all combining with the cold damp of the unlived in rooms, to play tricks on an over-imaginative mind. But it still sent shudders down her spine.

She shook it off, turning back to her work and choosing to ignore it. There were enough actual big scaries that went bump in the night currently attempting to squish her like a bug, without her creating some more ghosties and ghouls to spook herself with. Humming 'Wide Open Spaces' to herself, she went back to her painting.

She was just finishing off the large curling line - adding dots either side of it, when the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood up and she felt that prickle once again. The floorboards creaked behind her. Slowly she turned around, her eyes wide, but still expecting to see nothing. But this time, a shadow loomed in the doorway, she squealed in panic.

'Jeez, girl - what you hollering for?' Gunn asked her, walking into the room.

'Oh - God - Charles! It was just you,' she brought her hand to her chest and clutched at her heart, her breathing was rapid and raggedy. 'I thought …' she shook her head, 'doesn't matter.'

'You OK?'

'Sure … what about you? You're meant to be on bed-rest.'

He grinned, 'those tablets you gave me must have done the job! I woke up feeling a new man. I'm ready to get stuck in.'

'But your wounds…'

'I'll live.'

'Maybe not for long,' she joked.

He smiled. 'I hear that's where your new passion for interior decorating comes in,' he said, nodding at the symbols.

She glanced back at her handiwork. 'Oh - yeah - as long as we're inside the symbols, nothin' big and scary out there can see us.'

'Sounds useful - you want a hand?'

A grateful smile spread across her face. 'That would be great.'


After they had had their fill of the news, all they could bear to look at it, Mrs. Doyle had made them copious cups of tea and bacon sandwiches - which Doyle had wolfed down ravenously, as if he had been a starving man ever since he moved to America, and Cordelia nibbled and sipped at politely - trying to look like she didn't think the tea was gross and the sauce in the sandwiches was majorly weird. Even the bacon wasn't right … though she'd had this discussion with Doyle before, back when they had visited London. It seemed like foreigners just didn't know how to slice up a pig properly, and they refused to listen to the good sense of the Americans.

Mrs. Doyle was delighted to have her boy back at home, and thrilled that he had come accompanied by a beautiful and exotic wife and a little boy. Even if Connor wasn't actually her grandson, she was already treating him as if he were, and Connor - happy go lucky child that he was - seemed to adore her right back. He was also far more enthusiastic than Cordy about the tea and the bacon sandwiches.

'Should Connor be drinking hot tea?' Cordelia asked, watching him hold the mug in both his tiny hands and take sips.

'Ah - I put lots of milk in it, he'll be grand.'

'But doesn't tea have caffeine in it? It might stunt his growth.'

Mrs. Doyle and her son exchanged a look. 'She's American, mam,' he said apologetically, through a mouthful of bacon sandwich. 'Their ways are not our ways.'

...

After they were done eating, the two of them took Connor upstairs to put him to bed, planning on turning in themselves - as their body clocks were all out of sync. They had had an exhausting few days, even if they hadn't just taken a ten hour flight.

They put Connor in Doyle's old bedroom, the tiny boxroom he had vacated when he left Ireland as a nineteen year old looking for adventure. Now that he was a thirty year old who would quite happily never have another adventure again, it was weird to be back and find everything exactly as he had left it. Even down to the crack in the ceiling.

'I feel like maybe that isn't supposed to be there,' Cordelia said anxiously, looking up at it, as she wrestled Connor into his pajamas. He wasn't cooperating.

'Ah - it only ever fell down on me the once. Connor'll be fine … he'll probably be fine.' He was sitting on the end of the bed, taking and folding every discarded item of the little boy's clothes as Cordelia handed them to him.

'Well he probably won't be able to sleep anyways - all that tea will have left him wired.'

'I feel like maybe you've never drunk tea before, Cordelia … no one, in the history of the world, has ever been unable to sleep after a nice, soothin' cup o' tea.'

'I drink tea,' she said, defensively, still wrestling with getting the squirming Connor into his PJs. 'just -'

'Those gross fruity ones?' Doyle suggested, 'and the ones that taste like peppermint, I hate to break it to y', Cordy, but they're not real tea.'

She rolled his eyes. 'You sound like Wesley.'

He bit his lip and didn't say anything, though his stomach lurched painfully. He still hadn't told her he had had a vision of the final fight … and how Wesley was missing from it.

Once Connor was dressed for sleep and tucked under the covers, Cordy read him a story and Doyle sang him a song and then they kissed him good night, switched the light off and slipped out of the room. 'So who was the lady?' Cordelia asked.

Doyle immediately felt guilty, though he didn't know why - because he didn't know which lady she was referring to. 'Who?'

'The one plastered all over your bedroom walls.'

'Oh,' he looked surprised. His old bedroom had been covered in posters - mostly black and white - of the same woman, posing, sometimes singing into a microphone. 'That was Dolores.'

'Dolores?' she raised an eyebrow.

'From The Cranberries. She was my first love.' He wrapped his arm around his wife and squeezed her, 'but now I have you - and that's better. Well - technically, Lady Penelope was my first love, when I was a lad. You know I have a real weakness for Princessy, rich girls. But she was only a puppet - so I had to move on.'

'You were a puppet, once,' Cordelia reminded him.

'And I missed my chance with her - damn!' They both laughed as they walked down the short landing to reach the guest room.

...

The guest room was only small, barely bigger than Doyle's box room - and the bed was actually a sofa bed, which filled the whole space, leaving them just room to squeeze down the gaps at the side in order to get in. Fortunately, Mrs. Doyle had gone up there to make it up for them whilst they were eating their bacon sandwiches - so it was ready to just crawl into.

Whereas they had observed the niceties of getting Connor ready for bed properly, they were both so exhausted themselves that they just stripped down to their underwear and then tumbled into the bed. Though once she was lying down, Cordelia found she couldn't sleep and she just stared at the ceiling. See - she was totally right - the tea had left her wired!

Doyle was already snoring beside her. She nudged him awake. He grunted and looked annoyed. 'What y' do that for?'

'I can't sleep.'

He yawned, massively. 'Well I can. You're on your own, Princess.'

'No…' she tapped him on the chest, 'stay with me, little, Irish man.'

'You know, technically,' he yawned, 'we're in Ireland…' he yawned again, 'so it's just "little man",' he yawned again and stretched out under the covers. 'The "Irish" is superfluous here.'

'Well if you wanna be called "little man" that's up to you. Not the nickname I'd go for but…'

'OK OK, beautiful, American girl. I get your point.'

'I was intimating you had a small penis.'

'I got that - thanks.'

They went quiet. Doyle was just starting to snore again, when Cordelia spoke once more. 'What do you think is happening? Back home?' her voice was small.

He pried an eye open. 'I don't know, love.'

'Do you think there's a chance any of them are still alive?'

He hesitated - thinking of Wesley. '... I'm sure of it.'

They heard the phone start to ring, downstairs. For all they were in bed with the lights switched off, it was not actually that late. Their bodies just had no idea what time it was. They heard Mrs. Doyle answer it. 'Judy,' her voice floated up the stairs, 'I was just about to call y'.'

''S my Aunt Judy,' Doyle mumbled to Cordelia, by way of explanation. His eyes were shut again, they felt like the lids had been glued down.

'Well you'll never guess what's happened,' Mrs. Doyle was saying, 'himself's only come home - Francis. Turned up out of the blue - no word, not even a phone call. There he is standing in my kitchen like he owns the place. And he's brought himself along a brand new wife. An American.'

'Are you sure she's OK with us being here?' Cordelia asked, frowning up at the ceiling as she heard her mother in law talk about them.

'She's really, really happy we're here,' Doyle mumbled. He'd rolled over and was now face down in the pillow.

'She doesn't sound that happy.'

'She's happy.'

'Oh you should see her,' Mrs. Doyle was saying. 'Such a beautiful thing - so glamorous - like something out of the movies.'

'See?' Doyle grunted.

'Never seen anything quite like her in my life,' his mother told his aunt.

He snorted into his pillow. 'You - uh - you might wanna get used to that, Princess,' he told her. 'People here are gonna be beyond excited to have a bona fide American in the neighbourhood. You're gonna be a celebrity.'

'At last! My long sought out, well deserved fame.'


Having hung up the phone, Judy had gone outside to bring her washing in - the sun was going down and she didn't want her smalls getting darked on. Her neighbour, Anne, was out in her own yard, taking in her own washing. 'How's yourself, Anne?' Judy asked her over the fence.

'Grand - you?'

'Can't complain - you'll never guess what happened to our Eileen. Her boy came home from America today. With a brand new wife. An American.'

'Is that Francis, you mean?' Anne asked, 'He went to school with Oisín.'

'He's a good lad.'

'What brings him home, then? He's been there a long time.'

'Well - you know - he lived in Los Angeles. Hollywood. He only just got out before… well, I'm sure you saw the news.'

'Aye - that was lucky.'

'Lucky my eye - Eileen reckons him and the American girl knew it was coming and made a run for it. They even brought a wean along with them. Not theirs, mind you.'

As the two women continued taking the washing down from their lines, Oisín came out of the house, zipping up his jacket. 'Did you hear that, Oisín?' his mam asked him, 'Francis Doyle has just escaped out of Hollywood with a wife and a wean. Came back here before all the disasters kicked off, so he did.'

'I'll be late for work, mam,' Oisín said to her - not sounding remotely interested in what some lad he'd gone to school with was up to. He stalked off down the road to the bus stop. The two women smiled at each other, shook their heads and went inside.

...

Oisín checked his watch, as he hurried down the road. He was late - again - the bus had been late, his boss would be mad - again. The street was busy. Temple Bar was always busy, packed with lairy stag dos, and hen parties with their L plates and inflatable willies. Plus a million other tourists all packed in looking for that authentic taste of Ireland … despite the fact no self respecting Irishman would ever set foot in Temple Bar. Unless he happened to work there. Which Oisín did.

The street was too busy to move in at any speed, and he decided to head down a side road, hopefully it would be quieter, he'd cut through the back and then join the busy thoroughfare again closer to work.

As soon as he was off the main road it was quieter and darker. His footsteps rang out as his shoes slapped against the pavement, he was getting a bit out of breath from the hurrying.

A dark shape suddenly detached itself from where it had been lurking in the shadow of a building across the road. Oisín ignored it. There were always a lot of homeless people in the centre of Dublin - like any capital city, it had a lot of problems.

But then the shape was joined by another and then another, until there were four or five of them - and they were headed right for Oisín. He started to feel uneasy, trying to pick up his pace. But they circled around him, surrounding him and he was forced to a stop.

Grand - just what he needed. A mugging on top of being late. He should have kept pushing his way down the main road. He reached into his jacket for his wallet - he wasn't going to be a hero, they could have it - and he'd go on to work. Call the Garda from there - not that they'd do anything.

'Here,' he said, proffering the wallet, 'take it.'

'We don't want your wallet, boyo,' one of them said, stepping forward. The light from the lamp post shone down onto the dark figure, and Oisín just had time to register that there was something wrong with it's face - it was all bumpy and hideous - messed up around the forehead, before the dark figure grabbed him and bit down hard on his neck.