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Shadows, Part Three

They had been driving in silence for half an hour. Gunn and Fred had needed no discussion at all to choose the back seat. Even if Faith had already been sitting there, they would have squeezed in next to her rather than sit next to Rupert Giles in his current temper, but, luckily for them, Giles had wordlessly held open the passenger door for Faith and she had taken the place next to him, leaving them free to scamper into the back.

Gunn was mentally pitching When Good Watchers Go Bad to a TV exec, featuring a snarling Giles and that unrelentingly grim Wesley he’d so briefly encountered in search of a cure for Fred.

“Is Wesley okay?” Fred asked tentatively.

Giles glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “He was clawed by one of the Hukkarish when he was in LA. A friend of mine stitched up the worst wound but apparently it was ripped open again in the latest Hukkarish attack.”

Gunn had thought he was dead to all feeling where Wesley was concerned but that immediate spasm of anxiety felt awfully like concern. “How did he get from LA to where you are?”

“To Sunnydale? On his motorbike, apparently.”

Gunn knew Giles was doing this on purpose. Giving them nothing. Not telling them that Wesley was okay or was going to be okay or that it hadn’t been incredibly painful for him to manage that big heavy bike with a wound tearing every time he turned a corner. He wanted them to sit here and stew and feel guilty. And shouldn’t just knowing that was what Giles wanted be enough to stop it working? But somehow it wasn’t.

“No one made Wes do what he did,” he put in quietly. “It was his choice. We didn’t tell him not to confide in us. We didn’t tell him to make that decision alone. We didn’t tell him to club Lorne unconscious, steal Angel’s kid, get his throat slit by Justine, and make Angel hate him. That was all his own idea.”

He suspected Giles would have burst into a spirited rebuttal but Faith spoke for the first time: “Does Wesley know I’m coming? Did he agree to this?”

“It was his idea.”

Faith’s jaw dropped. “What?”

Giles shrugged. “He suggested it. He thought you would be invaluable. He made the call to Lilah and asked her to get you parole.”

She put a hand up to her hair. “I never got him and obviously I’m never going to. Why the hell does he think putting me in the mix is going to make things better? Sounds like he already has enough problems, what with going from being Angel’s best boy to his worst enemy.”

“I doubt there’s anything Angel could do that would make Wesley consider him an enemy.” Giles fiddled with the heating in the car as he spoke. “Listening to Cordelia back there was like listening to Wesley Mk 2 – and no less sickening on a second hearing.”

Faith nodded. “Wes still big with the hero worship? I guess that figures. I kind of got the impression Angel was the first guy to ever give him the time of day. But, Giles, I need to know Buffy and Wesley are really okay with me being there. After what I did to them…”

“I know what you did to Buffy and she was certainly my main area of concern. I asked her and Wesley asked her, and I imagine Willow and Xander also asked her, repeatedly, and she still thinks bringing you to Sunnydale is a good idea. Why should Wesley have a problem with you? You hit him pretty hard back in Sunnydale and he was happy enough to train with you the next day.”

“Yeah, because the Council told him to and back then he always did what the Council told him. But what I did to him in LA was way worse than that.”

Gunn leaned forward. “What did you do to him in LA?”

Faith looked over the car seat at him in mild contempt. “I thought you were his friend before all this business with Angel’s kid – which, for future reference, I’m not getting in the middle of – he didn’t tell you?”

“Yes, I was his friend. No, he didn’t tell me – so, why don’t you?”

Faith shrugged. “Don’t know why he didn’t. It’s not like he had anything to be ashamed of. Okay, what I did to Wesley… Well, for starters, I knocked out Cordelia in front of him, which really pissed him off. He got in a pretty good right hook actually, although – also for future reference, never hit a Slayer with a short fuse, especially not when they’re borderline psychotic and already a murderer…”

“What did you do to him?” Fred sat up straighter, and there was definite accusation in her voice. Gunn would have minded more if that hadn’t been exactly what a voice in his head had also said.

Faith looked over the seat at them again, challenge in her dark eyes. “First I kicked him across the room, knocking him out cold. Then I kidnapped him, shoved him in the trunk of Angel’s car, drove him to an apartment whose keys I’d gotten from a guy I’d prepared earlier. When we got there, I tied Wesley to a chair, beat him in and out of consciousness for an hour or so and then when he got me really pissed by refusing to do any of the things he was meant to do, I sliced him up with a piece of broken glass.” She had been throwing the words at them in accusation, but at that moment a look of nausea washed over her face and she turned back round. “I was threatening to burn his face off when Angel turned up and saved the day.”

“Why?” said Giles. “Why Wesley?”

“I wanted Angel to kill me. Figured killing Wes would probably get the job done. And I had an itch I needed to scratch. A place I had to get to. Torturing Wes was supposed to be my express elevator to hell. He was supposed to be that line that you cross and once you cross it everything is simple again. It’s all black and white because you’re evil and there’s no hope for you, but also because it was his fault, the Council’s fault; someone’s fault, and he was there and hurtable and making him bleed was supposed to make me feel better.”

“And did it?” Giles pressed.

Faith looked out at the night road for a moment and then swallowed. “It made us both someone else. I dropped the glass and walked back in and I felt like I’d been made to drink a bucket of blood. There was this sickness inside me and I looked at him and he’d gone to a different place; I’d sent him to a different place and I couldn’t undo it. I couldn’t ever make him who he was before I’d done that to him. That was when I thought it would be better if he were just…dead. If neither of us ever had to wake up tomorrow and remember what I’d done to him. That’s when you’re in so deep you know you can’t ever climb back out again so the only way left is to dig down even deeper. But Angel wouldn’t let me. Wouldn’t let me kill Wes. Wouldn’t let me die. So, now I have to do the waking up every morning and living with it thing. Son of a bitch, I think he just wanted the company there in permanent guilt land.”

She was smiling as she said it, but Gunn was thinking about the Wesley he’d first met tied to a chair being cut up slowly by a girl with super-strength and a piece of broken glass in her hand. A deranged girl with so many issues you couldn’t fit them all in a Bible by the sound of it. Wes must have been so scared; must have been wondering if she was going to cut off his balls, put out his eyes. He wondered how he’d deal with that situation himself. Being tied up by a girl and not being able to get free. Not sure if it was better or worse or just the same it being a girl. Worse maybe, because you’d start thinking about all the things guys had done to girls over the years in those newspaper headlines and wondering if she’d read them too; wondering if maybe she was one of them, and she was looking to get even; ready to make you pay for some other guy’s crimes.

“What did Wes say?” That wasn’t what he meant; not words – everything. How did he look? How did he take it? What was it like for him? How did he handle it? Who was he when the chips were down? Because I used to think I knew him and now I know I don’t, so maybe you do, maybe you know something I don’t.

“To me?” Faith looked almost proud. “Told me I was a piece of shit and I’d never hear him scream. Kind of what you’d expect from an Englishman, I guess – really dumb but when there was nothing left to lose because he knew he was going to die a slow horrible death, really brave. The stupid thing was I think he could have stopped me if he’d said something nice. I was reachable – you know. But he was more worried about acting like a coward again than trying to save his life. Wes and I always had a serious communication problem.”

“I had no idea.” Giles looked thoughtful. “So – Angel took you in and protected you from the Watchers’ Council after you’d kidnapped and tortured Wesley?”

“Yes.”

“How did Wesley feel about that?”

Faith shrugged. “I don’t know. He didn’t say much. He helped out. Warned us about the council goons coming to get me. Did his bit to stop them, I guess, the same as Buffy. I didn’t think about it at the time – too busy with all the craziness in my head but I thought about it a lot later – in my cell. Wondering what he did that night after we dropped him off at his place. He had those cuts and he had to be all over bruises but no one said anything about it, you know? We didn’t talk about it. Or if they did I didn’t hear them. I got the impression Angel couldn’t do much wrong as far as Wesley was concerned. Looked at him like Angel had all the answers.”

Gunn had a sudden memory of Wesley cozying up to Angel like he was ten years old, so threatened by Gunn it was almost funny, because, unlike the middle class spoilt little boarding school boy, Gunn wasn’t looking for a Daddy substitute, but Wesley clearly was and wasn’t ready to share. Needing reassurances from Angel all the time that Gunn turning up wasn’t going to mean Wesley wasn’t still the favorite son. At least he’d grown out of that when Angel had gone apeshit on them all and run off on his Darla revenge kick. He’d finally turned into an adult then.

“Angel was always the best and the worst thing that ever happened to Wes.” He’d said it out loud before he remembered that he didn’t care about any of this any more. Wasn’t going to waste any more time trying to analyse the inside of his friend’s heads, because in the end you didn’t know them, however hard you tried to, and however much you thought you did, and you never would.

“More best than worst, I’d say.” Faith shrugged. “He was a clueless jerk in Sunnydale. Angel was the one that turned him into something that wasn’t a joke.”

“Yeah, but a guy can’t be about trying to make up for having a father who never gave you the time of day, whatever you did to make him proud of you. It has to be about what’s right.”

“What’s right isn’t always as obvious as it should be,” Giles countered. “Sometimes there are only different kinds of wrong.”

“Is that what Wesley said?” Fred put in, leaning forward to hear above the sound of the car engine.

Giles nodded. “He said there was no right answer. He was just trying to do what seemed the least wrong.”

“Well, he didn’t choose right,” Gunn said at once.

Fred said quietly, “He hadn’t slept, Charles. Remember? We were talking about how ill he looked. I tried to get him to go for a walk. I tried to get him to call Aubrey. That’s ironic. No wonder he was angry with me. He’s already worked out she’s one of Holtz’s people and I’m suggesting he should date her. Maybe he just thought we were too stupid to talk to about Connor as nothing we suggested was going to work.”

She’d just said out loud what he had been resenting all along and he grimaced. “Maybe he did, but whatever we came up with I don’t think it could have been any worse than the plan he went with, do you? Maybe I don’t have lots of fancy book learning and can’t speak seventeen different languages, but I was good enough to be his friend before I started dating the girl he thought was too good for me and just right for him.”

Fred looked at him in shock. “Is that what you think? That Wesley didn’t tell you about Connor because he was angry you were dating me?”

“Wes and I were tight. We faced all kinds of shit together when Angel was away and I was always good enough to have his back then. If the thing with Connor had come up then no way would have left me out of the loop.”

“He was trying to protect you,” Giles said crisply. “Holtz had already targeted the two of you once. Wesley was trying to make him see that you weren’t guilty by association. He had a paramilitary organisation breathing down his neck, a group of people he felt responsible for who had already almost been killed once, and a prophecy telling him that Angel was going to murder an innocent child. He went to see the Loa, for God’s sake, it’s not as if he didn’t try to refute it by every means possible. As far as I could tell, he did his damnedest to get himself killed to avoid having to make that decision. No one who wasn’t prepared to die would ever summon the Loa.”

“I’m guessing that’s some supernatural big scary?” Faith enquired.

Giles nodded. “They don’t come much bigger and scarier in their original form, but they tend to use some kind of statuary through which to communicate with mankind in this plane, presumably to stop us wetting our collective knickers and falling over in fear. They’re very unpredictable, but they are supposed to be able to see all possible futures of all possible worlds. If you want to prove or disprove a prophecy, they’re a good choice – as long as you’re prepared to have your entrails ripped out and wound around your neck if you catch them in a bad mood.”

“We found out that he’d been to the mystical oracles, but as the prophecy was a lie I don’t know how it could have confirmed it. What did this Loa say?” Fred asked in a small voice.

“ ‘That the vampire will devour his child is certain’ and then gave Wesley three portents to look for: earthquake, fire, and blood. All of which hit a few hours later when he was in Angel’s bedroom.”

“Angel’s bedroom?” Faith looked around in surprise. “Hell, I knew Wes wasn’t the manliest guy in Sunnydale but I never figured Angel for…”

“They were talking,” Giles stressed wearily. “Then there was an earthquake which caused the gas fire to blow up and Angel to bleed all over Connor. At which point Wesley felt that he didn’t have much choice but to take the child as he’d now been given an ultimatum by both Holtz and the Loa that if he didn’t take Connor Very Bad Things were going to happen.”

“But Angel was already ‘devouring’ his child,” Fred pointed out. “Wolfram & Hart were feeding him Connor’s blood. That’s why he was so aggressive and irrational and why Connor was smelling like food to him.”

“What?” The car wavered dangerously as Giles momentarily lost his concentration. Faith leant across to wrench the wheel over and get the car back into the right lane, and they were buffeted by a blast of indignant horns from other traffic. “Well, what are you all doing on the damned freeway at this time of night anyway?” Giles demanded. He looked over his shoulder at them. “Angel told you that Connor was smelling like food to you? You admit that he was aggressive and irrational through Wolfram & Hart spiking his blood and you still don’t understand why Wesley did what he did?”

“The prophecy was a lie,” Fred retorted. “Angel was never going to kill Connor. It was something a demon called Sahjahn wrote to hide the fact that Connor was meant to kill him. What Wesley did ruined everything and it was all for nothing.”

“And you told him that?” Giles enquired.

“Yes.” Fred dropped her gaze. “I took him his belongings in the hospital and warned him not to come back and I told him the prophecy wasn’t true.”

Giles pointedly looked at the road, to avoid looking at them, Gunn suspected. His tone was mild but there was an underlying tartness to it, sharp as a whiplash. “Suddenly, his being willing to come back to a place where no one liked him or ever treated him with any respect makes so much more sense.”

Gunn saw tears shine in Fred’s eyes before she lowered her head to hide them, and felt a childish urge to kick the back of Giles’s seat. He controlled it with an effort and gazed stonily out of the window instead. What Giles didn’t get was that this was what Wesley had done; he hadn’t just stolen Angel’s son and broken his heart; he’d ruined everything; the whole family they’d built up; the way they all stuck together against the common enemies out there. He’d even stopped them being able to do good – as no one even seemed to have the heart for it any more. It was like they’d all got lost along with Connor, and he wasn’t sure he was ever going to be able to forgive Wesley for that.

***

Stepping into the Magic Box felt like stepping back in time. Angel hung back, behind Giles, not ready for this, seeing Buffy, seeing her friends, seeing Wesley; too many memories of the library in the High School, of visits there as a good guy and as an unsouled demon. The others hung back with him, not even Cordelia wanting to go forward, meaning that Giles entered the place alone.

Buffy looked…beautiful, and, as always, in light while he hovered in the dark. Tired and with a cut on her arm and a bruise on her cheekbone, blonde hair unstyled, no make-up. As beautiful as he had ever seen her. As beautiful as she had been at the Prom. Willow looked no different. Like a little girl still, while, ironically, in Dawn there were now signs of the woman she was soon going to be. The other girl was pretty, too, sweet-faced. Tara, he remembered – Willow’s girlfriend. The one who had come after Oz. Willow moving from werewolf to witch, while he had been exchanging slayer for seer. Except he hadn’t; of course; whatever his feelings were for Cordelia – and they were still confused – his feelings for Buffy were the same as ever. Like an open wound that simply refused to heal.

He could smell blood. Demon guts and singed fur, and human blood, Wesley’s blood. Wesley. His whole body prickled in expectation of reaction; waiting for the anger to light and flare, like a match dropped on a gunpowder trail. But when he saw him his reaction was a confusion of things. Nothing as clear and bright as that need to hurt him and kill him he had felt in the hospital. That had been simple; painless in its way. This was different.

Wesley was talking to Tara, face animated in the firelight, examining an entry she seemed to have found and smiling and nodding. When Wesley looked at her it was with that so-familiar bony face lit up with relief, but when he turned his head, Angel saw the shadows under his eyes, the bruises around his eye and cheekbone, saw the white bandage already stained with a patch of red around his left arm, the ripped clothing which, when he turned, revealed another patch of white dressing wrapped around his left side. There were rents in the left shoulder of his shirt as well and a glimpse of more bandaging beneath it. Angel supposed Wesley must always have been that thin, but it was a shock to see him like this, to see him as half a stranger, someone tall and so painfully narrow, yet with that boyish enthusiasm still something to be glimpsed under the exhaustion and pallor.

Wesley looked up and saw Giles, smiling in relief. “Giles, thank goodness, you’re back safely. I was afraid the Hukkarish might find you in LA.”

“No, the journey was relatively uneventful.” Giles looked around the shop. “Not that I don’t appreciate the redecorating, but I’m not sure that the Beirut after the bombing look was exactly what Anya and I were going for…”

“You should thank Xander.” Wesley waved an arm in the boy’s direction. “He made an excellent job of boarding up that window and door. I wish I’d had him around after the Skilosh attacked my apartment. And look here – ” He thrust a heavy old book under Giles’s nose, holding it with difficulty in his injured arm.

“Let me.” Buffy took it from him and held it out. “Wesley is very excited because Dawn found this. Which is apparently a stinky herb recipe that could be useful.”

“It’s a wonderful find,” Wesley insisted. “This is an ancient recipe used by druids to confuse ‘night demons in pursuit of gold’. So clever of her to follow the clues in this Scandinavian text and to realize that the root was actually Celtic, and that ‘gold’ in this instance isn’t a specific at all, but rather a representative of ‘thing of power or value’. Dawn is a true credit to your teaching, Giles, and she has a real facility for languages. I’ve been searching for something like this for days now without success and as soon as I explained to her what I wanted, she found it in a couple of hours.”

Angel watched Dawn light up and Wesley look expectantly at Giles, face so open in that instant, so caught up in the moment of waiting for Giles to give Dawn praise, and so wanting it for her, that Angel felt something hurt inside. Too many occasions when Wesley had produced information for him and looked at him like that. His allegiance was apparently transferred to Giles now; he was the new giver or withholder of praise.

Giles put on his glasses and examined the entry for a moment then nodded, looking a little awkward with so much attention focused on him. He patted Dawn on the shoulder. “Yes, very well done.”

Wesley smiled in relief and he and Dawn exchanged a grin of mutual recognition of the importance of approving words.

Wesley immediately darted over to the table, limping badly, Angel saw, and holding his side quite unselfconsciously. “And look what Willow and Tara just found – reference to a ritual for the destruction of triadic amulets. It talks of the ritual being performed successfully and a rent in the earth being closed. I think there’s a code hidden in this alchemical illustration that could lead us to the actual incantation. It also ties in with what I have managed to translate from the scroll that seems to be suggesting the ‘object of power’ in which the amulet needs to be ‘immersed’ may lie in a demon dimension. So, we’re searching for any word that might suggest instructions on how to find a ‘gateway’ or ‘doorway’. I’ve written out what those words would look like in all of the various languages used in the scroll and Tara and Willow are searching for it now. For the first time I really feel as if I’m making some headway, thanks to their help. They really have worked extraordinarily hard.” Once again Wesley looked at Giles expectantly.

Giles sighed. “I’m sure they have. And they seem to have done sterling work. Wesley, have you slept at all?”

Wesley’s face fell and he looked at Willow and Tara and then back at Giles with a pleading expression.

Buffy stepped forward. “Wes, when Giles isn’t yelling at us we assume we’re doing it right. It’s his system.”

Willow nodded ruefully. “It’s a British thing.”

“Oh.” Wesley’s face fell and then he looked up at Buffy. “You told me he gave you cookies.”

“I lied.”

“Well, I think Tara and Willow both deserve a reward.” Wesley offered them the plate from the table. They took one each and looked up at Giles smugly.

“We like Wesley,” Willow explained. “He praises us and gives us cookies.”

“And saves our lives.” Tara broke her cookie in half and gave half back to Wesley with a fond smile. “For which we’re grateful.”

“Very grateful,” Willow gazed up at Wesley with a softness in her eyes that Angel had only seen when she looked at Xander in the past. Wesley clearly appreciated the depth of her gratitude as he gently touched her shoulder in response.

“We’re sidestepping the sleeping question, are we?” Giles demanded.

“We were busy,” Wesley returned. “Giles, I don’t think you quite appreciate the enormity of what these young people have achieved. A few hours ago things looked hopeless and now I really think there may be some light at the end of this tunnel.”

“Wes…” Xander limped forward to slap the ex-Watcher gently on his uninjured shoulder. “Giles is English. You may not know this, but trying to get pats on the head out of an English guy – never going to happen without thumbscrews. If he’s not telling us we suck – we know we’re ahead on points.”

“I praise you,” Giles insisted. “I distinctly remember saying numerous heartfelt ‘well done’s on several occasions. And I’m delighted that you’ve all survived this latest demon attack and apparently managed some research breakthroughs as well, but I’m also a little concerned by the fact that the only one amongst us who can understand the symbols on the amulet or translate the scroll looks like he was dragged through a hedge backwards then run over by a truck.”

Wesley looked down at himself in mild hurt. “I actually feel quite well.”

“You’re bleeding in three places and the only reason I don’t have your intestines all over the floor of my shop right now is because Xander superglued them back into your body! What part of ‘try not get killed?’ was so difficult for you to understand? And where’s Anya? Is she hurt?”

Xander lowered his voice: “She’s getting some sleep. She was pretty shaken up. And I don’t think it’s fair to bawl out Wesley just because the Hukkarish keep trying to use him for a chew toy. As far as the demon dogs are concerned, he’s Amulet Central – of course they’re going to make a beeline for him.”

Wesley looked both touched and surprised by the boy’s defence. “Thank you, Xander.”

“You’re welcome.”

Angel’s emotions were so conflicted that trying to sort them into an orderly pattern would have been like trying to comb through grains of sand. Seeing Buffy was always painful, reminding him of that white flare of passionate connection they had always shared; the only flame that had been stronger than the one he’d shared with Darla. What he had with Cordelia was…confusing. And also painful. She was his dear friend and he had come to admire her so much, and she was forbidden to him, because of his curse, and he suspected that if it hadn’t been for the curse she might have returned his feelings; but there was also the suspicion that because she was unattainable and familiar and comforting he might be building up his feelings for her to some great tragic romance when it was not in fact the case. Perhaps great tragic romance was what he had come to be comfortable with and he was dragging Cordelia into a drama in which there was no hope of a happy ending just out of habit, or perhaps he was just so sick of it that the every day nature of his relationship with Cordelia was a welcome relief. That he loved her was undeniable - life without her now was unthinkable - that he was good for her, was something he was questioning more and more. He had let Buffy go and her life had not blossomed in the way he hoped; he had tried to be selfless where Cordelia was concerned and had to stand back and watch her grooming another man to take his place, when it seemed as if what she truly wanted was him. Either way, he felt that in another life they could have loved one another without all these complications, but fate had stuck them with this life, and in this life she was with Groo and he was with no one.

And then there was…Wesley; a Wesley who seemed to have forgotten him; wasn’t looking around anxiously to see if he was there or still angry; too busy being relieved because Giles was back safely and all these people had survived the last demon attack. Wesley was looking at Willow and Tara the way he’d used to look at Cordelia and Fred; women he cared for deeply and so wanted to keep safe. This was like a Wesley who had taken a different path; stayed in Sunnydale, become Giles’s right hand man, Buffy’s second favourite Watcher, was an established part of this family of mismatched Scoobies.

“Are we just going to stand out here all night?” Cordelia hissed.

Angel said, “They’ve forgotten Giles came to LA to find us. They’re so relieved he’s back they’ve forgotten why he left in the first place.”

Which was when Buffy and Wesley both looked up. He had spoken too low for them to hear him, but they must have sensed him anyway, become aware of him in the same instant, and both turned. Wesley paled and immediately the openness of his face was gone, he was shuttered and closed off now, and Buffy – stepped in front of Wesley. They looked nothing at all like people about to greet old friends, and everything like people about to face an ordeal. So, that was what he was to them now – something to be endured. Presumably until he was gone again and they could breathe a sigh of relief and have their comfortable Angel-free lives back again. And yet both of them had once lit up when they saw him – as if his arrival alone was enough to signal the end to all their problems.

Giles turned around and coughed. “Oh, where are my manners? Sorry, Angel, I invite you in. And that goes for the rest of you as well, of course.”

They both knew it was a shop, a public place that Angel could enter anyway, but it covered the awkward moment well enough. Giles was giving a covering fire of murmurs as he made the introductions.

“You know everyone, I think, Angel, and the same goes for you, Cordelia…”

Beside him, Angel felt Faith wince and hesitate. She said, “Wow, all the people I wronged the most that are still breathing collected together under one roof. Won’t that be special?”

Angel looked from the Giles he had tortured to the Xander he had hit, to the Willow whose life he had threatened and fish he’d killed to the Buffy he’d hurt so many times, to Wesley whom he had last seen lying in that hospital bed unable to speak or fight back as Angel tried to smother him. “Know the feeling.”

Giles was making perfunctory introductions between what was feeling increasingly like opposing parties while Wesley murmured little addendums and corrections to him.

“Everyone, this is Gunn, who is a…”

“…vampire hunter of many years experience…”

“Really? Do they have vampire-killing kindergartens in Los Angeles? Practise stakes with stabilizers?”

“Giles…”

“Fine, Charles Gunn, a vampire hunter of many years experience. And Fred – is that short for Frederica or…?”

“Winifred Burkle. She’s a physicist.”

“She is? Well, what is she doing as part of a demon-killing detective agency then?”

“We don’t – I mean, they don’t just kill demons, they also investigate all areas of paranormal and supernatural disturbance.”

“Well, wouldn’t a para-psychologist be more useful than a physicist then?”

“Giles…”

Angel remembered Wesley making those pleading looks at him while his body did that apologetic squirmy thing because his chosen champion was revealing his lack of social skills in public again. It made him feel more than a little strange to see Giles in that role and Wesley as his faithful adjutant, providing information about friend and foe alike and covering for any social missteps as and when it became necessary.

The introductions continued with more of Wesley’s little murmurs: “…he’s also anagogic… Groo was the chosen champion of his people on Pylea…” Then Wesley fell back so that people could shake other people’s hands without the members of Angel’s group having to get too near to him. Fred, of course, marched over without too much trouble, smiling and sticking out her hand, voice more Texan than usual as her accent proved the barometer of her nerves. Gunn murmured a subdued ‘yo’ and stuck his hands firmly in his pockets so there was no need for him to have to shake anyone else’s or get any closer to Wesley.

Cordelia looked at the new boarding up at the window and said, “I see some things never change around here.”

Buffy said awkwardly, “It’s good of you to help us out, Cordelia. That goes for all of you, of course.”

There were a chorus of murmured agreements from the rest of Giles’ people and a series of mutters from his own that the others were welcome. Wesley said nothing; doing his best to look as much like a piece of furniture as possible but everyone kept darting looks at him. Angel could smell the blood still. It was still oozing from his arm and his shoulder through the disinfectant.

“Well, it’s not like the end of the world doesn’t affect us too,” Fred said brightly. “It’s not as if one gets a localized apocalypse the way one gets a localized earthquake or something, is it?” She looked around hopefully and Angel saw Wesley murmur something to Tara who promptly proffered the cookie plate. Fred lit up at the sight of food. “Oh, thank you. It’s hungry work, isn’t it? Killing demons. Not that I’ve done any of that tonight but I see you’ve all been…” Her gaze strayed to Wesley and stopped there, her expression a mixture of apology and anxiety. Wesley looked away.

Angel decided to cut to the chase. The Wesley problem was something they were all going to have to work around. The imminent end of the world problem was something else. “This is a bad place for a last stand and those demons have already penetrated it once. Your defences are weakened and I don’t like the number of exit and entrance points.”

Giles looked as if he would have liked to say something cutting but Wesley and Buffy both put their hands on his arm at the same moment and he swallowed it. Angel felt another tingle of irritation at the way they all ran around after Giles, bearing with his moods and heading him off from conflicts, all for the promise of a cookie and a pat on the head, presumably, on the rare occasions he acknowledged that they’d done something right. And what the hell was it with Wesley and male authority figures anyway? He was supposed to have been setting up on his own, and instead he was down here running around being Giles’ research assistant and general factotum, what was that about? With an effort he got his mind back on track:

“If Dawn really has found a way to obscure the scent of the amulet and slow up the Hukkarish finding it again, I think we need to perform that ritual as soon as possible and then move out to the mansion. I know it better than I know here and I know we can defend it. Staying in place where they know where you are and have already penetrated your perimeter once is looking for trouble.”

Xander nodded. “Hate to say it but I agree with Dead– with Angel.”

Giles turned to Buffy. “Buffy?”

She also nodded. “Sounds like a good plan to me, and at the very least it’s a place the Hukkarish haven’t had a chance to scope out and where there’s more room for all of us to sleep.”

Wesley looked at his watch. “There’s only an hour or so left before the sun comes up. We need to hurry.”

Angel automatically went to allocate tasks while Wesley and Buffy anticipated him doing exactly that and gave Giles pleading looks that asked him not to get bad tempered about it when Angel stepped on his toes. Giles gave them looks back suggesting that he not only reserved the right to get bad tempered but would exercise that right with gusto. Angel bit off the beginning of the sentence he’d started and looked at Giles. Giles said that he didn’t know the area of special skills that Angel’s people possessed but perhaps some of them could help Buffy to collect up the weapons and magical equipment while he and Wesley attended to the books they would need. Angel nodded and people began to move with something approaching purpose although there was still a sense of two dance parties meeting up who had learned slightly different steps.

Angel was looking at Gunn when Wesley went to pick up the book on the table, so he couldn’t see Wesley himself, just saw Gunn open his mouth to voice a protest and spun around in time to see Xander saying: “No!” very firmly and snatching the book up before Wesley could.

Wesley gaped at him. “Xander, we need that book. It’s of vital importance.”

“Fine. So point at it, and someone else who doesn’t have a gut wound held together with superglue can do the actually picking up part.”

Wesley sighed. “That will take forever.”

“No, it won’t. I’m right here, so is Dawn. Point and we’ll pack. Remember that we’re young, fit and able-bodied and you’re a weedy wounded Watcher.”

“I can’t say I appreciate the sentiment,” Wesley told him, nevertheless obediently pointing, “but I’m glad to see you’ve mastered the art of alliteration.”


It was surprising how fast everything could be packed up by two different groups of people, neither of whom wanted much contact with the other – or in Fred’s case probably did want some contact with the other but was defeated by the way no one was making eye contact with her – and both of whom wanted to show the other that they were more efficient than them.

They made it to the mansion just before the sun came up; Willow and Wesley fast-tracking some hocus pocus to conceal the amulet while boxes were packed all around them. Weapons, magical ingredients, and every book in The Magic Box, were all boxed up and removed. Xander and Buffy had also seen about fetching blankets, duvets and sleeping bags, and Dawn had quietly gone about the business of making up beds on the floor of the main room in the mansion, the one where a fire could be lit. She had made up two sets of sleeping quarters, one for Angel’s people, and another for Buffy’s. Wesley, of course, was now one of Buffy’s people, something that was irking Angel more and more. There was a time when he had been one of Buffy’s people and Wesley was the interloper nobody wanted, but ever since Wesley had arrived in LA, Wesley had very emphatically been one of his, Angel’s, people. More, in fact, than anyone else. Cordelia’s loyalties had been originally been divided between her acting career and her role as his link to the Powers, and although she had born the visions uncomplainingly for his sake, risking her life for that cause, latterly there had been Groo there to hold her attention as well. Gunn had always had his own crew, and Fred had intended to go home to her parents. Lorne was with them because Caritas had been destroyed and they owed him lodging and he had nowhere else to go. But Wesley had been a hundred percent loyal to Angel and only to Angel. That was what he had thought. Right up until Lorne had told him that Wesley was taking his son away and wasn’t coming back.

As he watched, Giles plucked a book out of Wesley’s hands and pointed at the duvet Dawn had put for him near the fire in the mansion grate. “You don’t have to sleep if you really can’t, but you do have to stop working. If you remember, Roger advised at least three days of bed rest, and that was before you had that wound opened up again.”

Wesley sighed but reluctantly pulled the duvet over his legs, clearly trying not to put pressure on his side or his arm as he did so. Although the moment Giles walked away to talk to Dawn, he fished a notebook out of his pocket and continued to work by the firelight. Willow and Tara took the sleeping bags next to him, all of them pulling big cushions behind them, cushions which Angel recognized as coming from Buffy’s couch, so they could sit up and talk.

“Let me see your shoulder,” Tara said.

“Not now,” Wesley murmured, still writing.

Tara said firmly, “Yes, now.”

Wesley sighed again. “I’m beginning to see why they burnt witches.”

Tara said, “Do you really think that’s a sensible thing to say to a woman with iodine in her hand?”

He gave her a smile that Angel hadn’t seen in a long time, one he couldn’t seem to repress, the one that lit up his face and made him look about seventeen. “If I say something nice about the way Willow’s hair looks in the firelight, will you let me go on working?”

“Why would you think hitting on my girlfriend is going to make me nice to you?” Tara was already easing his shirt away from his shoulder.

Willow inclined her head. “Tara can be very fierce. You’d probably better do as you’re told. Or we may have to go all Good Witch, Bad Witch on you. You can still say something nice about my hair if you like though.”

“I was going to say that it looks like molten copper in the reflected glow of the firelight but obviously I won’t if it’s going to make Tara unleash her inner bad witch.” Wesley obligingly held out his arm and Tara unwound the bandage, her gentle fingers completely belying her earlier threat, while Willow preened at the compliment and Tara gave her a loving look that certainly did not look at all angry or jealous.

Angel smelt the blood as the bandage came off. The wound was still bleeding then. A deep bite. Willow murmured something that sounded more than a little like a spell and sprinkled some powder onto the wound which then flared and singed the air purple.

“Neosporin also works,” Cordelia muttered. “You don’t actually need all that Glinda hocus pocus.”

Angel noticed that everyone was watching Wesley having his shoulder bandaged. Fred looked wistful, Gunn miserable, and Cordelia downright pissed.

Wesley was still trying to read his notebook by the firelight as Willow examined his shoulder. He held the page out to Tara. “Does this look like Alef to you?”

“Why do you think I know ancient Hebrew?”

“Don’t witches have to know it for spells?”

“They have translations on the Internet.”

Wesley looked mildly surprised. “They do? So, you and Willow just…?”

“Babelfish it,” Willow explained.

“That’s cheating,” he protested.

Buffy, who was passing, said, “You are such a teacher’s pet, Wesley. I bet you used to ask for extra homework.”

He blinked at her in mock innocence. “You mean you didn’t?”

“I could hurt you,” she reminded him, then winced at the sight of the wound on his arm that Tara was now unbandaging. “Except the Hukkarish have already done it for me. Doesn’t that sting?”

“Yes,” he assured her.

Tara held out a hand for the bottle of purple powder and then sprinkled some carefully on the wound.

“So, what is their beef with Neosporin?” Cordelia demanded, not particularly sotto voce. “I’ve been using Neosporin on Wesley’s demon bite wounds for three years now and none of his arms or legs have fallen off, have they? So, why the magic pixie dust?”

“I don’t think they’re criticizing your doctoring, Cordelia,” Fred whispered back. “They’re probably just counteracting something…mystical.”

“Counteracting my ass. They’re just showing off. Willow always used to do that whole cutesie-wutsie ‘look at me and my red hair and my wrinkly little nose and I’m just so sweet and adorable and excuse me while I make out with your boyfriend’ act…”

Angel and Gunn exchanged a hunted look. Angel thought about trying to explain that the last time they’d been in Sunnydale Wesley had only had eyes for Cordelia and she was probably feeling a little irritated by the contrast, but decided to save his words. They all knew it was a lot more complicated than that.

Wesley was watching Willow’s spell-casting in fascination, his head close to Tara’s. “Did you really find a reference to Hukkarish saliva being toxic?”

“No,” Willow admitted. “We just wanted to try out this spell and we didn’t think you’d let us unless we told you that.”

“It is a really cool spell though, isn’t it?” Tara offered.

Willow made another pass over the bite wound on his arm and the air sizzled purple again.

“Very…cool.” Wesley put his head on one side. “Does it come in any other colours?”

“We were hoping, in future spellcasting, for a sort of midnight blue with sparkly silver lights,” Willow said airily. “Possibly some mauve in there too.”

“I think a rainbow effect would be nice.” Tara picked out a new bandage.

“And as a side effect it could even guard against infection,” Buffy put in. “Wesley isn’t going to turn into one of those things, is he?”

“No, we tested for that,” Willow said smugly.

“You did?” Wesley looked surprised.

“When Giles told you he needed that blood sample earlier? That was what we were doing…” Willow lowered her voice confidentially. “But, don’t worry, you’re still human.”

“That’s nice to know.” Wesley went to lie back down and Willow caught his arm.

“No, you don’t. We need to look at the other wound.”

“It’s fine.”

Xander paused by the fire to say, “Wesley, don’t make them undress you. None of us want to see that.”

“I know a spell for that,” Willow observed to no one in particular. She waggled her fingers reflectively. “Want to see it?”

“No,” Wesley said hastily. He edged out of the sleeping bag and lifted up his t-shirt. “There you are. Satisfied?”

“You’re going to have to undo your pants, Wes,” Buffy told him. “That Hukkarish was not respecting your personal space when it got its claws out.”

Wesley reluctantly unbelted, unbuttoned and unzipped, easing his jeans down a fraction to reveal the full extent of the wound. Tara gentle peeled off the pad over the wound so they could look at it and there was a general intake of breath.

Angel watched them all peering at Wesley’s wound together. He couldn’t see it but he could smell it; heated blood under the surface of thin still-oozing scabs. Gunn was craning his neck to get a glimpse.

“Looks like the bookend for his gunshot wound location-wise,” Gunn murmured and then exchanged a glance with Cordelia. Angel knew they were remembering it – Wesley getting shot and almost dying right in front of them.

“Is it hot?” Xander put a hand on Wesley’s abdomen to feel for heat.

Gunn murmured to Angel quietly, “Is this Xander putting the moves on Wesley?”

“I doubt it,” Angel murmured back, but he kept watching as Xander continued to feel around the wound. “But I could be wrong…” He saw the wound at last, clearly a claw mark, four claws that had raked the skin, the middle claw rake so deep it had evidently sliced the skin like a razor blade, the two edges of skin glued back together over the internal stitches.

Tara and Willow made air being sucked between their teeth noises as they looked at it and Wesley looked down anxiously. “What’s wrong? Is it infected? It doesn’t feel infected.”

“It just looks really crappy,” Buffy reassured him.

“My gluing is pretty damned good.” Xander was still probing around the wound. “Look at those edges.”

Buffy said drily, “Xander, I think you either need to move your hand up a little or buy Wesley some flowers.” She put her head on one side. “Actually, I think you’re beyond flowers. A ring is now seeming more appropriate. At the very least dinner…”

Xander snatched his hand away quickly. “Okay, very embarrassed now. Wes, you know I…”

“Just admiring your handiwork, I know. Don’t worry, I’m familiar with proud amateur doctor syndrome. Cordelia has been known to make Gunn and I drop our pants in public so she can show off her bandaging.”

“That is such a lie,” Cordelia hissed indignantly while Faith raised an expressive eyebrow but heroically forbore from comment. At a look from Gunn, Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Okay, maybe not a lie, but it was just that one time. And it was a really good piece of bandaging...”