Title: And A Blonde Shall Lead Them Author: kindred Disclaimer: The characters from BtVS and AtS are the property of Joss Whedon. Rating: PG-13 Feedback: Always welcomed Spoilers/Summary: AtS S5 Post "Smile Time" and then I scamper away from strict canon astride my valiant battle bunny. A mysterious entity shakes things up at Wolfram and Hart, fashionable anarchy ensues. Oh, and don't judge a hero by her choice in footwear. 3. Life was good to Harmony Kendall. She grew up with all the pampered perks that southern California and two divorced parents could provide: quality orthodontics, Feng Shui camp and a glittering childhood bedroom complete with a canopied castle bed, a hand painted wall mural of a herd of majestic unicorns and an illuminated runway just like the ones the big name designers used. The only serious glitch on Harmony's road to fame and celebrity was her gruesome and untimely death. After that Harmony had to grow up fast. It was all pretty bewildering, starting with not even properly meeting the vampire who sired her. Harmony caught the briefest glimpse before the big chomp and then it was all over but the shrieking. Sideburns and some serious stubble proved that he was a guy and that knowledge alone held some cold comfort. At least Harmony wasn't left in the lurch by a dusted female sire and the nagging question of whether or not she had given off any lesbian vibes because she went a little conservative on her make-up that fateful day. That's the kind of uncertainty that would have bothered Harmony for centuries. At the time the sire-go-poof thing was a disturbing blot on her otherwise spotless curriculum vitae but Harmony grew to accept this blip in her journey as part of the bigger picture. College aspirations faded in the wake of her unexpected transformation. The whole prom queen nomination deadline debacle of senior year was a disappointment to be sure but it shrank to infinitesimal proportions weighed against the seductive kiss of immortality. Once upon a time Harmony thought she was destined to be some pampered housewife, spending her days ordering around domestic staff while being waxed biweekly by a tall, muscular Norwegian esthetician slash personal trainer named Thor who knew his way around a pot of melted bikini wax and other organic lubricants. These girlish fantasies had carried her safely through countless algebra and P.E. classes. Destiny, however, had other plans for Harmony Kendall. Becoming Angel's secretary was a terrific opportunity Harmony wasn't about to let pass her by. Adapting to the needs of a surly boss became her raison d'être. She did her best to be cheery, positive and the very model of efficiency but steering her tiny dinghy of secretarial success through the stormy seas of upper management often proved perilous. Angel's powers of communication were cryptic at best and Harmony struggled to decipher annoyed grunts from homicidal grunts. It was an adjustment for both of them. Harmony happily took advantage of all the services available to a valued employee at Wolfram and Hart. She visited an in-house therapist for psychological evaluation as per the fine print in her employment contract and enjoyed it so much she decided to make it part of her weekly routine. Therapy, she soon realized, is not for scaredy cats. Every Tuesday morning she found herself in the office of a Wolfram and Hart therapist named Dave, an elderly demon with a whiskered snout and discolored teeth but surprisingly fresh and minty breath. He started Harmony on the rocky road to self-esteem. They examined her past in microscopic detail while Harmony fearlessly gripped a spongy yellow happy face pillow for courage. Invariably, tears flowed. "I see," Dave often nodded with reassuring emphasis as Harmony neared yet another breakthrough. He had a penchant for patterned sweaters and corduroy trousers that camouflaged his coarse fur and cloven hooves. "They were...HUSKY jeans!" Harmony squealed, recounting a suddenly monumental horror from her past. "And from the boy's department, too!" Her voice strangled in an agonized rasp. "My mom said to bedazzle them and no one would know. But I knew! I knew!" "That must have been difficult for you." He held out a box of tissues. Harmony pulled out several in quick succession and blew her nose in a thunderous honk. "It w-a-s!" Harmony's face buckled again as she began to blubber pitifully. A small timer chimed beside her and her tears instantly ceased. With a satisfied sigh Harmony's face cleared and she slapped on a brilliant smile. "So, next week, same time?" The demon nodded and scratched down a few notes. Harmony wiped away the teary remnants of her distress, fluffed up the strangled pillow and returned it to the sofa. "This is the greatest, you know? I used to think therapy was only for loser celebrities, but I feel so empowered after our sessions." She stood and smoothed her skirt before leaving the office with a friendly wave. Harmony hadn't consciously thought about her former pudgy grade school days in years. All she needed was to sit on that sofa and embrace the comforting happy face pillow and all the flotsam of her pampered pre-vampire past came pouring out like so much emotional lava. Confronting those dark issues had an unexpected boon to her typing speed and in the corporate rat race every little bit helped. Under the tutelage of Dave, Harmony began to see her path not as a haphazard shuffle from one disaster to another but as a steady climb to the upper echelons of personal success. His set of audio and video tapes were also extremely helpful, affordable and came in a bright red vinyl storage case. Harmony learned that, contrary to some people's opinions, she was a natural leader. It was as simple as that. Even in high school others had looked to her and her impeccable wardrobe for inspiration. After the momentous events of graduation, Harmony set upon a path toward excellence. The path was a bit twisty in places, but Harmony never gave up. She discovered that her Sunnydale debut as the leader of a gang of ne'er do wells wasn't the horrible failure she'd always been told it was. Evil scheming just wasn't her thing and there wasn't anything wrong with admitting that and moving on. Besides, too much thinking interfered with the important things in unlife, like trying on sexy clothes. Successful demons looked to the future with their priorities in order. One issue, however, that remained contentious was Harmony's brief dalliance with Spike. It took many sessions of hard slogging before Harmony realized that she didn't need a boyfriend to define her. She could be an alpha female without the annoying ties to an alpha male who was a total meanie even before he staked her. In retrospect, the stake-me-like-you-mean-it bondage games Spike favored with Harmony dressed up in a too tight sweater set seemed extremely suspicious. All those multiple orgasms she enjoyed were now forever tainted by the knowledge that Spike was thinking about the Slayer every time he wrinkled the sheets with Harmony. Those disturbing kinks were a little too hard core for Harmony to reconcile, so she left while she still had two crumbs of self worth to rub together. Rejecting Spike's macho crud was the liberating impetus that brought Harmony to Los Angeles. From there, it was just a hop, skip and a wiggle into the steno pool at Wolfram and Hart where she excelled in the secretarial arts. That was where Wesley Wyndam-Pryce found her and saw her potential. Her naturally sunny personality made her the perfect people pleasing P.A. and that's precisely what Angel needed. Everyday Harmony practiced the mental script of positive self talk to reinforce her personal growth as a demon. Everyday the words came easier and easier. Spike was wrong. She wasn't a screw up or a punch line. She was very important in the scheme of things. Harmony Kendall was the lubricant that kept the empire of Wolfram and Hart humming. She was the power behind the power. And that was something. * Angel looked up from his desk at the sound of the door opening. "Yes, Harmony?" "Just an update, boss: the Archduke's, um, beverage buddy--if that's the P.C. term--was spotted near accounting. One of the maintenance guys saw him before he scrambled back into an open air duct." Angel sighed and ground the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. After a long pause he looked up to see Harmony standing in the doorway. "What?" "Well, I was thinking maybe those radioactive ferrets could come in handy and flush him out. You could track them with one of Fred's beeping do-hickeys." It was no surprise when Angel ignored her suggestion. Wesley stirred in a wide leather chair. "It wouldn't be above the Archduke to surreptitiously leave behind an associate for some covert information gathering." "Covert ops?" Gunn looked up from the brief he was reading. "That little scabby guy? Um, are we sure he's even sentient?" Undeterred, Harmony offered her plan B. "We could open a vent, put down a plate of curly fries and angle a fan. I noticed when he wasn't a couple of knuckles into his own nose he was scarfing down the carbs something fierce." Harmony leaned back on her hip against the doorknob. She loved mixing it up with the big wigs. Brainstorming was a challenge she embraced even though her ideas were routinely ignored. Still, if you're not in the conference room you can't even offer an opinion to be ignored and Harmony was on the inside now, even if it was just leaning against the door. Being part of the team stimulated her creative juices like little else had in the past. What did it matter that her brainstorming frequently sidetracked to certain scenarios of the naked variety? Wolfram and Hart was chock full of potential paramours of all stripes and she had eyes, didn't she? Despite his bookish exterior, Wesley had bone structure to spare and he filled a pair of denims to the brim, which was always a plus. And Gunn? So easy on the eyes. That millimeter of hair certainly fueled a number of Harmony's sexual fantasies. The only thing odd about her current naughty thoughts was that they all hovered around 98.6 degrees. Humans weren't her preferred kink but the ongoing famine that was her love life was taking a sobering toll. No wonder she began fantasizing a little tepid strange between the sheets. Angel looked up and noticed that Harmony was still present. "Oh Harmony, you're still here. Good." "Yeah, boss?" "Order some food. Any preferences, gentlemen?" Food ordering was a delicate business but Harmony Kendall, executive secretary and all around capable gal Friday, was up to the task. Lately, Wesley had a delicate stomach so spicy was out for him. Gunn liked anything of the down home variety as long as it was hot and plentiful and barbecued. For Angel it was strictly otter served in Irish crystal. No doubt Fred and Lorne would happen by for the after hours bull session; that meant tofu wraps with alfalfa sprouts and Cajun chicken with couscous and cantaloupe. At last she had found her calling. Navigating the turbulent eddies of the corporate stream was what Harmony excelled at. Her mind whizzed with a roll-o-deck of random and seemingly vacuous ephemera. She knew where the bodies were buried because she'd invoiced their remains and double filed their particulars. Juggling warring demon clients and Sandeep from the Tandoori Fusion Experience down the block was part and parcel of an average day for Harmony. Angel was a good but often distracted boss who on more than a few occasions was so out of it that all he could do was doodle on a friendly yellow legal pad and watch reruns of "What Not to Wear" on the plasma screen. Harmony juggled cutthroat Angel as deftly as she did slug mode Angel and never once resorted to doodling on a legal pad. With dilemmas sprouting like weeds and all manner of unsavory clients to finesse and sometimes hose down, Wolfram and Hart was never boring. Harmony wasn't above trading growls, tackling a miffed client or tap dancing around some delicate bits of protocol to help Angel close a deal. It was practically her job description--facilitate the negotiations and then step aside as Angel and his blinding smile stepped forward to clinch the deal. Once, when there was a cranky lowland yak to be sheared for a ritual tea ceremony, Harmony took it upon herself to google the particulars and brew up a kick-ass cup of hairy tea that both impressed and honored the clients. Corporate life teemed with these kinds of exciting learning opportunities and Harmony rose to each and every challenge. After all these years it turned out that Harmony's mom was right. When you find your thing learning is really cool. Angel's office needed to be fumigated after the hairy hullabaloo but the clients signed on the bottom line. Because of Harmony. tbc...