Eventually he was tired. His feet had carried him into a part of town he wasn't familiar with, and now they were protesting the too-tight shoes he had worn to the ballet. Damn the ballet! He loved Giselle, and it wasn't even a good performance. Right now, though, he knew how Hilarion, the gamekeeper, felt. He loved Giselle and lost her to Count Albrecht, just as he had loved Fred and lost her to Gunn. Well, at least Fred wouldn't go mad and die.

A brightly lit neon sign caught his eye. Lachrymosa. Tears. A funny name for a bar, but just the place to drown one's sorrows. And he had a lot of sorrows to drown. Entering the bar, he was about to sit down on a stool when he saw a familiar face in the back booth. He walked back. "Lindsey?"

Lindsey McDonald looked up from the Tanqueray and tonic that sat untouched in front of him. "Wes? What brings you here? Join me? Misery loves company."

Wes sat and ordered a single-malt Scotch. "I thought Angel told you not to come back."

"He did. But I had nowhere else to go. I've lived here for the last eleven years, ever since I left Oklahoma to go to UCLA, except for the three years in San Francisco while I was at Hastin's. It's home now. There was nothin' for me in Oklahoma but a row of tombstones, Daddy, Mama, the twins." The Oklahoma twang was starting to creep back into Lindsey's voice.

"That's two. You told us that there were six of you kids. Where are the other three?"

"Elaine is dead. Childbirth. Nobody dies in childbirth anymore, but she did. And the baby died. And her husband, my best friend, died in a car accident a week later. Maybe suicide, maybe just too sad to drive. I don't know. They're buried here in L.A."

"I'm so sorry, Lindsey. I didn't know."

"Joey is in the Oklahoma State Prison, in the hospital wing. Burglary. About a week after he got there, he was raped. He's even prettier than I am." Lindsey laughed wryly. "Mom used to call him Angel Face. Anyway, the guy who raped him had AIDS. Joey's dyin'."

"My God, Lindsey. I am so very sorry. What can I say? I thought I had problems."

"I tracked down my last sister, Winnie. But she's gone. She was adopted and her new family moved to Texas. Then she came to L.A. to go to school. UCLA, too, just like me. But she disappeared. She's been missin' for five years."

Wes had downed his drink and ordered another while Lindsey was talking. Something Lindsey said was important, but he couldn't quite focus on what it was.

"So tell me about all of you. You still datin' that rich girl?"

"Virginia? No. She dumped me. Cordelia dumped me. Actually that's not quite right. We never were really past the stage of a flirtation. And now I've lost Fred as well."

Fred? Is Wes gay? Funny, I never thought that of him. "I gather Angel is still workin' for the redemption of everyone except evil lawyers."

"That and taking care of his baby."

"Baby! Angel has a baby! That's impossible. He's dead, or I should say undead."

"I can't explain it. No one can. Darla just showed up at the Hyperion one day hugely pregnant, calling Angel Daddy."

"Darla," Lindsey barely breathed. Unbelievable. Darla with a baby. It was unreal.

"Wes, this is the drink talkin', right? You're just upset about your boyfriend dumpin' you. Darla is a vampire. Angel is a vampire. No way in hell could they have a kid."

"It's true. Darla was in labor but she couldn't deliver the child. We couldn't cut it out of her because some kind of force was protecting her. So she staked herself. She turned to dust and the baby was left."

"Darla, dusted?" He shook his head. "No, it can't be. Darla was amazin'. She was a survivor."

"It's true, Lindsey. She came to love her baby enough to sacrifice herself for him."

"Him? A boy?" Thoughts came to Lindsey. Himself, Darla, a golden haired child that looked like her. He had dreamed that, but, hell, he knew it would never have come true. She had taken everything from him and given him nothing. He'd never made love to her, only kissed her the one time. But she had killed herself for Angel's child. Damn her! Damn Angel!

"And, by the way, Lindsey, Fred isn't a guy. Fred is a girl."

"Funny name for a girl."

"It's short for Winifred. Winifred Burkle. We found her in Pylea where she had been for the last five years and brought her back."

Lindsey dropped the drink he had been raising to his mouth. Liquid splashed all over him, but he didn't notice. "Winifred? Winifred Burkle? Wes, why are you doin' this to me?"

"What do you mean, Lindsey? Doing what to you?"

"People named Burkle adopted my sister Winnie. Your Fred is my sister Winnie."

Wes looked, really looked, at Lindsey. Yes, there was a genuine resemblance. It could be. "You said they moved to Texas. That's where she's from. And she had been studying physics at UCLA before she fell through a gateway into Pylea. She just might be your sister at that."

"And where is she now, Wes?"

"At the Hyperion with her boyfriend, Gunn."

"She chose him over you? She must be crazy."

"I waited too long to let her know how I felt."

"Gunn took my sister away from you. Angel took my Darla, the woman I gave my heart to, away from me, and he didn't even care that much about her. Wes, we have a lot of gettin' even to do." Lindsey motioned to the bartender. "One more for each of us. We got some plannin' to do!"

Continue to Part 2: SECOND THOUGHT