The Boy

By The Shadower

Prologue

AN: This is really the first in the Napier saga, but for some reason I'm writing it after the second, already posted. If you've read the second, though, (titled The Dog), you should still be able to enjoy this. A portable word processing machine I had most of this on accidentally deleted it, but I had most of it on backup here.

Even so, new updates are going to be coming less frequently than my updates on The Dog, because I didn't even have all this written and I lost part of what I did have. I should, however, be posting chapter one soon.

This is not written in the epistolary style like my previous story, but rather shifting between third person and first person. The prologue is in first person.

Dedication: Well, I haven't decided yet and I don't usually put dedications in first chapters or prologues anyway, but I can tell you that this fic is **NOT!!** I repeat, is **NOT!!** dedicated to Jordan Levin or any other WB personnel with the possible exception of Josh Whedon, (who I have nothing against and I might dedicate this fic to.)

The WB have cancelled Angel, one of the best shows ever to grace television airwaves, for stupid reasons that will result in a boycott that will destroy the WB!! So now that we're done with the non-dedications, let's move on with the fic.

Prolog

FIVE YEARS LATER

I was asleep when the phone rang. It wasn't that I hadn't had anything better to do than sleep, simply that forty-two hours without sleep had finally caught up to me.

I picked up the phone, still drowsy and thinking it must be inspector Briggs, telling me there was still no progress and had I made any?

"No," I said harshly into the phone, "I haven't heard from him." But it wasn't Briggs's voice I heard on the phone, but one even sharper and more intelligent.

"Ben," it said, and a dry laugh escaped it. I was now fully alert, in shocked silence.

"Ben," he said again, "It's good to hear your voice. Did you think it was going to be Briggs AGAIN? Remember what I used to tell you, it's best not to assume. Never assume, Ben."

"Jim," I said, "Jim please, what's best for you now is"

He interrupted sharply. "Don't insult my intelligence with that 'give yourself up' crap. We both know, if I put my mind to it, they'll never find me." I had to admit, in my own mind, that he was probably right.

"You may as well admit I'm right," he said, using his empathy again, that creepy way he had of almost reading my mind.

"Jim," I said, "Why?"

He said carefully, "You know why, Ben. You know everything. That was what made you so special. You /knew/. You /understood/. So don't insult my intelligence by asking questions to which you already know the answers."

"Jim," I said, wanting to point out that I knew next to nothing, but he cut me off.

"You know that's not my name." His tone was cold, deliberate, but closer to sharp than he had been throughout the conversation, as though he were chiding an ignorant child.

"Jack," I breathed into the phone. There was only silence, but I could almost se him nodding on the other end.

"That's right," he rasped into the phone, and the line went dead.

AN: Please review and tell me how you liked it. I think chapter one should be up within the week, but it does include descriptions of child abuse, though only of the emotional type.