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Lost and Found, Part Eight


“What are you doing?”

Wesley spun around and found Cordelia standing in his bedroom doorway. “Cordelia, I could have been naked.”

“Seen you naked, no biggie,” she shrugged, coming forward.

“Please be sure to say that in front of any women I might want to impress, won’t you?”

“Just because you can stand upright more or less unaided doesn’t mean you can start getting snippy. Why are you wearing that?”

Wesley looked down at himself in confusion. “It’s my best suit.”

“You are not wearing a suit and tie just because Giles is coming. You’ll just sit there fiddling with your tie and adjusting your cuffs and looking like a schoolboy who has to see the principal.” She thrust a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a shirt at him. “The underwear you can choose yourself. But this is what’s going on top. Giles is not the boss of you and just because he’s British and can use sarcasm as a lethal weapon that doesn’t mean you have to go all Watcher-retard on us.”

“I like this suit.” He did, too, very much.

“Tough.” Cordelia unknotted his tie. “It comes off now. No party manners for Giles.”

“But, Cordelia…”

“The suit is coming off, contusion boy, either with me in the room tugging at it or you being allowed five minutes of privacy to wriggle out of it into these clothes before I tell Fred you were asking for her and she should step right on in without bothering to knock.”

Wesley felt a little awestruck by the depths of her evil sometimes. “It’s the demon in you, isn’t it?”

She pulled off his tie and tossed it onto the bed. “No, sweetie, the demon part is the good half of me. Now, do I have to go all glowy on your ass or are you going to do as the nice lady who saved your life tells you?”

“I could scream,” he pointed out. “Tell Gunn you’re undressing me against my will.”

“Do it,” she invited. “He can help me get you out of the dorkarama clothes into something that makes you look just a tiny bit cool.”

“What’s wrong with this suit?” He looked at the cuffs, which were impeccably stitched. “It’s a good suit. And this is a good shirt.”

“It looks like a school uniform, dorkus.”

“What’s a dorkus?”

“It’s what happens when a dork and a doofus breed. You know I could just cut you out of that suit. I’m sure I left some scissors around here somewhere…”

“No!” He held up a hand. “I’ll do what you say but only under protest.”

She shoved the jeans, t-shirt and shirt into his arms. “Protest all you like, just make sure you’re wearing these clothes when you come downstairs.”

Then she was gone and Wesley was left sighing and having to laboriously unbutton his shirt and painfully get himself back out of the clothes he had just pulled all those muscles and bruises getting into. All those years of complaining at him that he didn’t own a proper suit and needed to stop wearing cargo pants and corduroy and now she wasn’t letting him wear the one really good suit he owned. Sometimes, he had to admit, he thought Cordelia was the most unreasonable woman on the planet.


Cordelia had cleaned very thoroughly the evening before; after vacuuming up every speck of the vampire Gunn and the Angelus from the other dimension, she had moved onto vacuuming and dusting the rest of the lobby. Angel, Groo and Gunn had been press-ganged into helping her – Groo willingly, Angel and Gunn a great deal less willingly. Lorne, Fred, and Wesley had all been sent to bed as soon as the tacos had been eaten to sleep off their headaches and bruises. No one quite liked to stand up to Cordelia when she was in this mood. Groo had said fondly that he believed her ability to give orders and expect them to be obeyed without question proved that she was indeed a natural born monarch. Gunn and Angel had muttered things under their breath which they had not been unwise enough to repeat when Cordelia had asked them to.

With her willing and not-so-willing helpers’ assistance Cordelia had turned the lobby into a place of shining cleanliness; she had even dusted the books in the office and found a glazier who would come in at short notice and repair the doors of the weapons cabinet.

Angel couldn’t get very excited about Giles and Willow paying a visit. Not that he wasn’t fond of Willow, but he was sure they had ever intention of trying to persuade Wesley to leave with them and he knew now that he really didn’t want that to happen. It wasn’t that his pain at losing Connor was any less. He still missed him all the time, still thought he heard him sometimes, automatically making for the stairs until he realized that it couldn’t have been a baby he heard because his baby was lost to a hell dimension. He just didn’t find himself wanting to blame Wesley for it any more. The loss of Connor had subtly evolved in his mind from something that Wesley had traitorously done to him to something that fate and false prophecies and the machinations of lying demons and wronged men had done to both of them. He had already lost his son and nearly lost his friend as well. Enough time had passed and events that had brought it home to him how little he liked the prospect of losing Wesley for good, that he knew he wanted the man to be their researcher again; needed to move onto a place where they could start rebuilding the friendship they had so nearly lost forever. But he couldn’t do that if Giles turned up and dragged Wesley back to England with him.

Perhaps because of Cordelia’s maniacal cleaning, Fred was acting as if Giles and Willow were from Social Services, with the power to take Wesley away from them if they couldn’t prove they were keeping him in a safe and sanitary environment. She had bought bunches of flowers and arranged them around the lobby, while also burning scented candles – that made Angel’s enhanced senses twitch uncomfortably – presumably to overpower the scent of tacos from the night before.

Angel had put up with it until she had started trying to arrange drapes tastefully across the weapons cabinet, whereupon he had gently but firmly removed the material from her hand.

“Giles and Willow know what we do for a living, Fred. Giles is a Watcher. Willow is a witch. The whole demon slaying thing is not going to come as a shock to them.”

She grimaced. “I was just thinking maybe we should…accentuate the non-demony-killing parts of Wesley’s life. Point out what a nice hotel this is. Show them the real marble and the nice carvings. It’s a pity you blew up the elevator because that was all art deco and very impressive.”

Angel looked at her in bewilderment. “Why?”

“I just don’t want them thinking that we don’t know how to take care of Wesley properly.” As Angel rolled his eyes, she explained: “I was thinking of the arguments they might have – about how when Wesley was in Sunnydale he didn’t get hurt at all but since he’s been working with – well, you – he’s been tortured and blown up and shot and had his throat slashed and nearly got lost in another dimension and all.”

“He’s fighting the forces of evil. And anyway he did end up in hospital in Sunnydale.”

“He did?” Fred lit up in relief and then made another face. “Sorry, that came out wrong. I was just thinking we could use that as a counter-argument.”

“Along with the one about us having the better interior design?” Angel loved Fred, he really did, but there were times when he couldn’t help wishing her brain moved in a way that was at least approaching linear.

“I was working on some others as well,” she countered. “You just got me all flustered. How about we tell them the area outside Caritas is an area of mystical convergence so we need a researcher more than they do?”

“Fred, Giles used to live in Sunnydale – he can see your area of mystical convergence and raise you a Hellmouth.”

“So – why don’t we say that we only have an area of mystical convergence that isn’t all that dangerous as long as you don’t open any portals by reading aloud out of interesting-looking books you might find, so Wesley’s much safer here than he would be if they took him back to Sunnydale and their nasty old Hellmouth?”

“Wesley’s not a child. They can’t get a court order to repossess him like…lost luggage…” Angel realized he was coming perilously close to floundering in a morass of mixed metaphors and mentally blamed Fred for that too. He wondered in passing if reality would start bending in an effort to get away from itself if she and Willow were left alone for too long. “He’ll go or he’ll stay. It’s up to him – not Giles.”

“Okay.” Fred edged away. “I’ll just…tidy some more. Not because of… Just because it’s polite when you have callers to make everything as nice as you can.”

As Fred slipped back into the office and started placing yet more vases in front of the odd stains on the walls and trying to train a new pot of ivy around a dent in the bookcase, Gunn appeared at Angel’s side, shaking his head. “You gotta tell me – how many centuries does it take before women start to make sense?”

“I’ll let you know when I do.”

“So, this Giles…? Scary guy?”

Angel shrugged. “Just – British. You know. All quiet and tweedy and sipping his tea but inside they still think they ought to be running the world.”

Gunn looked at him sideways. “You gotta history?”

“You could say that.” Angel looked up. “Wait – you don’t mean...? You’re not asking if we dated, are you?”

“You dated?”

“No! I was just – checking you weren’t asking that.”

“I was so not asking that. And can we just establish right now if there's anyone out there you dated that I wouldn’t want to know about, I don’t ever need to hear about it, okay? And that goes double for Wesley.”

“Are you asking me if I dated Wesley? Or just saying you don’t want to know who Wesley dated either?”

Gunn rubbed his brow. “Okay, let’s start this conversation again. So, you and this Giles guy – do you and him have some kind of history of maybe arguing or not getting along too well from your time in Sunnydale – details of which I really don’t need to know about? Clear enough?”

“I lost my soul in Sunnydale over the whole…”

“Nothing about you achieving perfect happiness is something I need to know about.”

“I was just going to point out that it was with Buffy and not – anyone else. I wasn’t going to give you details.”

“Still thinking about you doing things I don’t want to think about you doing right now. So – can we move on from the perfect happiness thing?”

“I lost my soul. When I was…Angelus, I killed Giles’s girlfriend and tortured him for information. Then I tried to destroy the world.”

“That Angelus – quite the party guy, isn’t he?” Gunn sighed. “So – you and this Giles guy are you cool about what you – about what Angelus did?”

“We…live around it. There are some things you can’t apologize for. Can’t undo.”

“How true.”

They looked around to see Wesley carefully negotiating the stairs, holding on tightly to the banister, but certainly looking stronger than even the day before. Gunn darted up the stairs to give him a hand, putting an arm around his waist to assist him.

Angel and Wesley exchanged a long look, regret in Wesley’s blue eyes at what had happened undisguised. Angel couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t be too much of a simplification of his feelings, but he could and did take Wesley’s arm to help him over to the banquette.

“Oh! Wesley!”

Wesley jumped guiltily at Fred’s exclamation. “Yes?”

“I need to get you some tea.” She sped away to where the kettle was while Wesley looked after her in confusion then turned to Gunn for an explanation.

The man waved a hand. “Don’t ask. We have no clue.”

Angel noticed Wesley’s clothes. “Weren’t you going to wear your suit?”

“Cordelia wouldn’t let me.”

“That woman has delusions of grandeur.” Gunn shook his head. “Couple of days as princess of Pylea and she thinks she rules the… Hi, Cordy. My, you’re looking…”

“Like someone who just heard everything you said?”

Gunn said hastily, “I should help Fred with the tea.”

As he sped off, Wesley looked to Angel for an explanation and the vampire shrugged. “Something in the tacos? Contagious insanity? Willow did a spell on them from long distance?”

“Doesn’t he look nice?” Cordelia tugged at Wesley’s shirt to make it fall at a slightly different angle while looking expectantly at Angel. She scrunched Wesley’s hair with her fingers while he flinched in anticipation. “Stop flinching. I’m not hurting you. Angel? Don’t you think Wesley looks nice not wearing his dork suit and wearing the clothes I specially picked out for him?”

“Gunn and I are having a moratorium on noticing how Wesley looks for the next decade or so.”

“Trying to sidestep the pervert factor,” Gunn explained coming out with a cup of tea which he handed to Wesley.

Cordelia was still scrunching Wesley’s hair with her fingers. “Sheesh, you let the least little thing affect you, don’t you? Where’s your hair gel, Angel?”

“I don’t want my hair to look like Angel’s,” Wesley said desperately.

“And I don’t want to share my hair gel with Wesley,” Angel added.

“I’m not going to make it look like you stuck your finger in a light socket, I just want to…” She marched off in search of product and they all heaved a sigh of relief.

Fred hurried out of the office with a cardboard box in her hands. Wesley opened his mouth to offer to carry it for her until he evidently realized that he couldn’t and closed it again sadly. Angel stepped forward to intercept her. Looking inside he saw several magical artefacts, some of the rarer volumes and a few ancient pamphlets on demonic rituals.

“I really don’t think Giles and Willow are going to steal from us, Fred,” he said patiently.

“No, it’s just…” Fred opened one of the books, revealing an engraving depicting people having an orgiastic ritual to the greater glory of Lucifer. “These are the…dirtiest. I don’t want them thinking…”

Angel gazed at the very phallic looking Nirvalan weather lance and raised an eyebrow. “I get your point.”

She lowered her voice: “All of us living here, like this, not married and all… They might… you know…”

Before Angel could come up with a reasonable argument for why Fred should not be hiding all the most pornographic things they possessed under her bed, she had scurried upstairs.

Gunn and Wesley both looked at him for an explanation. Angel shrugged helplessly. “She’s trying to give the hotel a PG rating. In case Giles assumes we’re having evil orgiastic demon-raising Tupperware parties or something...”

“I didn’t know you could use Tupperware for that,” Wesley admitted, sipping his tea –before sloshing into his saucer after uttering a barely stifled yelp when Cordelia stuck her gel-covered fingers into his hair without warning. “Cordelia, you can’t just…”

Angel watched in fascination as Cordelia got Wesley’s new trendy hair style to do presumably newer and even trendier things with the aid of the hair gel, including making various bits of it stick up at the back and criss cross on the top. “Wax would be better but I’m used to working miracles with anything that comes to hand.” She beamed at them triumphantly. “How does he look now?”

Gunn put his head on one side. “With the hair and the designer stubble and the clothes? Like a male model who got mugged on his way to the photo shoot.”

Angel sighed. “Cordelia, what Gunn is trying to point out is that no one is going to be looking at Wesley’s hair when he very obviously got thrown head first into a weapon’s cabinet yesterday.”

Cordelia’s eyes lit up. “Of course! Make up!” She headed off purposefully.

Wesley turned to Angel and Gunn with something approaching desperation in his eyes. “Please. Make her stop.”

“I don’t think we can,” Gunn admitted. “Want to make a run for it?”

“You’re not going anywhere!” Cordelia shouted over her shoulder.

“Is that a demon thing?” Angel asked curiously.

Gunn shook his head. “She could always do that.”

Angel did however put his foot down when Cordelia came back with her make-up compact in her hand. Catching her wrist and saying quietly but firmly, “No.”

“You want him to look he like got thrown head first into a weapons’ cabinet?”

“Not particularly but as he did I can’t see the point in trying to cover it up. They know the work we do here is dangerous.”

“I could say I walked into a door,” Wesley offered. As they all looked at him in disbelief, he blinked. “Well, that does give you a black eye sometimes. I was always walking into doors at school until they realized I was near sighted.”

“Oh yes, do tell them that.” Cordelia rolled her eyes. “That’ll just put their minds at rest in an instant.”

“Put their minds at rest about what?” he asked in confusion.

They all exchanged looks. Angel sighed. “About the beating and starving and locking in closets of you that we all do.”

“What?”

“That they think we do. Think I do anyway.”

Wesley’s confusion showed no signs of abating. “Why did you tell Giles you beat me and starved me and locked me in cupboards?”

“I didn’t. He just…assumed.”

“Why would he assume that?”

“Because I’m the big bad vampire who tried to smother you in the hospital.”

There was an awkward silence in which Cordelia and Gunn both grimaced at one another and Angel and Wesley exchanged another of those long looks that always made Angel feel as if they’d had a three-hour conversation.

Quietly, Wesley said, “I see. And has Giles somehow forgotten that you’re also the big bad vampire who after I stole your son still took me in when I turned up bleeding on your doorstep?”

They exchanged another look. Angel realized how much he would have missed those. Wesley was the only person he’d ever been able to communicate with through something that approximated to telepathy, but they definitely needed eye contact to make it work. Transatlantic phone calls would not have been the same. “What are you going to tell Giles?”

“We already…” Wesley broke off as the doors opened to admit Giles, looking unexpectedly non-tweedy – in fact wearing jeans, a soft mauve sweater and a very nice suede jacket, and Willow looking tired but very pretty in something red and pink and vaguely tasselled that should have clashed with her hair but didn’t.

“See…” Cordelia nudged Wesley in the back. “You didn’t need to wear a suit.”

Willow beamed at Angel, which wrong-footed him more than any glare of disapproval would have done. She came forward and gave him a hug which confused him even more. He’d almost forgotten in his anxiety over this meeting that he and Willow had none of the issues that he and Giles did. She stood back to look him over. “You’re looking very…dark avengery.”

He couldn’t help smiling at her. “And you’re looking very…Willowy.”

She came over to the others, smiling at them all cheerfully, “Hi, Cordy, you’re looking really…great, and Wesley you’re looking really…” She grimaced. “Um…kind of like someone threw you through a window.”

“It was the weapons cabinet,” Fred said, hastily amending. “Not really through it – because it’s up against the wall but sort of into it. But – that hardly ever happens here. It was definitely a one-off.” Seeing Willow’s gently encouraging expression she shot out a hand. “I’m Fred. Short for Winifred. Burkle. I live here, along with Angel – but not with Angel like that because that would just be… Although I did have a crush for a while but I’m so over that now, it was really just a reaction to not living in a cave any more. I live with Charles now. That’s Charles.”

Gunn gave himself a little shake. A common experience Angel had noticed when Fred was allowed to get into full spate. He held out a hand. “Charles Gunn.”

Angel could hear the introductions continuing behind him as Giles came over to him. “Angel.”

“Giles.”

There was a pause before Giles said, “Buffy and Dawn send their regards.”

Angel raised an eyebrow. “What, no hug from Xander?” He became aware of Wesley shifting uncomfortably and knew Wesley was watching his interaction with Giles anxiously. Sighing, Angel decided to play nice to save Wesley’s shattered nerves. He glanced over at him and gave him a reassuring look but Wesley still looked as if only years of being whacked over the knuckles with a ruler by implacable teachers was stopping him from biting his nails right now. Although come to think of it they probably didn’t do that any more. It was almost more scary to think Wesley had grown up the way he had in an era of no corporal punishment than one with the knuckle-rappings and canings of the past.

Wesley tugged at Fred’s sleeve and murmured something to her and she sprang up like someone had run a thousand volts through her, making everyone around her jolt anxiously too. “Tea! I’ll make tea.” She looked at Giles. “You’d like tea, yes?”

Giles looked at her in some perplexity. “Yes, thank you, a cup of tea would be very…” But she had darted into the office.

“She spent five years in a cave,” Gunn explained.

“In my home dimension.” Lorne took a strengthening sip of his sea breeze just at the thought of it. “Pylea isn’t exactly friendly to the humankind.”

“Groo’s from Pylea.” Cordelia pulled him forward proudly, Groo having tried to modestly hang back. “I was made Princess.”

“A life’s ambition realized…” Giles murmured.

Cordelia looked at him narrowly. “So, Giles – are those mid-life crisis clothes or are you just trying really hard to get laid?”

Willow said hastily, “So – has there been any activity that suggests the gateway to the other dimension is still open…?”

Angel decided to leave that explanation to everyone else, moving a little apart to try to calm his jangled nerves. One day he probably would be able to hear the name ‘Buffy’ without it resonating through him like an electric shock. It seemed a little unfair that he was currently suffering from jealousy over Cordelia’s preference for Groo and still feeling like someone had stuck a kopek in his guts and twisted it every time Buffy was mentioned.

Willow was listening wide-eyed to the saga of the visiting Angelus and demon Gunn, while Giles was frowning and taking notes.

“You have a videotape of it? Them coming here? Does it show the portal activity?”

Wesley turned to Gunn with a begging look that no one could possibly have misinterpreted, and Gunn said quickly, “No. Sorry – it – static – interference. Couldn’t really see or hear anything.” Adding sotto voce: ‘Wes, stop with the eyes…’

“The point is they’re dead.” Cordelia took one of the cups from the tray Fred brought out while Giles thanked her gravely for his. “So, the portal going swirly or whooshy or just crackle-a-lot doesn’t really matter any more because they won’t be coming through it. And you’ve got the spell, right? The one that Brain of Britain here decided to use to get himself there. So, can you close it or not?”

“Yes,” Willow said decisively. “I’m sure we can. It’s just a pity about the videotape because it would have been easier if we could have seen if it was kind of whooshy or crackly. Maybe I could run it through my computer and see if I can clean up the images.”

Wesley once again whammied Gunn with the full-on angst eyes and the taller man said hastily, “Tossed it. Sorry. We weren’t sure if it was – carrying different dimension germs or something so we threw it in the incinerator.”

“We did?” Fred looked at him in surprise. Gunn nudged her and jerked his head at Wesley’s angsty face and she hastily amended: “Oh yes, we did. Burned it right up.”

Giles looked around the hotel. “And you people run a detective agency, yes?”

Fred nodded. “We help the helpless and investigate paranormal and demonic happenings.” She held out a fan of cards from the front desk.

“Lot of undercover work is there in your line of business?” Giles enquired dryly, taking the cards. He looked through them all. “Angel, Cordelia Chase, Charles Gunn, Winifred Burkle.”

Cordelia said without a flicker of shame at the falsehood, “Wesley’s are being reprinted – they usually try to put extra ‘h’s in his name but this time they just spelt Pryce with an ‘i’. He hates it when they do that. Worse than when they forget his hyphen. You should see the sulking. And Groo and Lorne aren’t actually on the payroll. Groo’s kind of a freelance champion and Lorne is really a houseguest – on account of us making him homeless by getting his nightclub destroyed.”

“Three times.” Lorne took another sip of his drink. “That’s the point where I decided I could take a hint from the Powers That Whatever You. And, you know – Krevlorneswath of the Deathwok Clan – doesn’t fit so well on a business card– although I’ve always thought it would really look really good picked out in lights.”

Giles handed back the cards to Fred while still looking at Wesley. “So – Wesley…?”

“We’ve already been through this.” Cordelia folded her arms in her best ‘none shall pass’ manner. “Wesley doesn’t want to go back to Sunnydale in this dimension or any other dimension. And I don’t get why people keep trying to take him back there anyway. It’s not like anyone even gave him the time of day when he was there except for me.”

Wesley murmured, “Giles was very patient.”

“I went to see him in the hospital,” Willow protested. “And I made him a get well soon card too. It had a little cricket bat on it and everything.”

Fred beamed at Willow. “That was so sweet.”

“I’m not in Sunnydale any more, Cordelia,” Giles said quietly. “I live in England now. I was only wondering if…”

Angel found he couldn’t stay silent any longer. “Well, Wesley doesn’t want to go there either. And like Cordelia said, why the sudden interest? None of you gave a damn about him when the Council fired him and he had nowhere to go and no money to get there. That six months he was rogue demon hunting his way into a place where he had no food, no sleep, nowhere to stay and a very good chance of getting himself killed, how many times did you try to find him? Or even spare him a thought?”

Giles glared at him. “You have no idea how many thoughts I’ve spared Wesley over the years or how many times I’ve wondered if he knows what a risk he’s taking…”

“I know. Working for the big bad vampire! Once a Council guy, always a Council guy, right, Giles? Well, I’m getting a little sick of everyone looking at me and seeing baby-eating rapist murderer vampire just because in another dimension… Did everyone start edging away from Willow after that vampire version of her turned up in Sunnydale?”

Cordelia said, “Well, let’s be honest, Angel, ordinary Willow wears fluffy pink sweaters, it was a bit of a stretch to start seeing her as evil Willow, mistress of bondage, just because she wriggled her way into a clinging costume for a few hours and pretended to be her evil twin. I mean, Wesley got into those leather pants just fine but that didn’t make him a member of the Village People, did it?”

Wesley blinked. “I thought they – didn’t they make me look sort of rugged and dangerous?”

Cordelia glanced at him. “We weren’t going to tell you but, no, Wes, they made you look like you should have been working Santa Monica Boulevard. Did you really wear those from Sunnydale to Los Angeles without getting your ass pinched?”

Angel nudged her. “Cordy…”

She grimaced. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to…”

“And I see tact is still a strong point.” Willow took a deep breath. “Can we stop with the shouting and the accusing and the general bad vibeyness?”

Lorne nodded. “Thank you for saying it, sweetpea. After yesterday’s bad vibeathon I really don’t need any more hollering and recriminating.”

Angel rolled his eyes. “I’m just sick of people turning up here who don’t even know Wesley the way we do and thinking that they know what’s best for him and that he’s going to be better off with them. Why would he be?”

“Perhaps because we don’t try to smother him with pillows?” Giles suggested.

Angel glowered at him. “You undermined his self esteem. If you’d been nicer to him in Sunnydale…”

“Can we please not do this?” Wesley looked up at them and at the sight of his various cuts and bruises everyone winced again. “I don’t want to go to England. I don’t want to go to Sunnydale. But I will go absolutely anywhere right now if it means people will stop talking about me as if I’m not here.”

Angel grimaced. “Sorry – we could go outside and talk about you if you like?”

“I’m not here to take Wesley back to England.” Giles glared at Angel. “He and I spoke about this yesterday and he’s already told me he wants to stay here – although why I really can’t imagine.”

“Oh.” Angel looked at Wesley. “I didn’t know you’d spoken to Giles.”

“It was just before Angelus and the other Gunn turned up…” Wesley grimaced. “Sorry.”

Angel turned back to Giles awkwardly. “It’s just – the other Giles was all gung-ho about taking Wesley back with them to their dimension too.”

“Didn’t they have one there?” Willow asked in concern.

“There’s was a bit…dented. They had a Willow, though, and a Xander, and Buffy, and Faith. Just none of…” he gestured awkwardly at his companions, “…us. Faith said she wanted our Wesley for her Watcher but I think she was just hoping he could help out with therapy for their Wesley – and I think it would have traumatized the other Wesley anyway. Seeing another version of yourself – not a nice experience.”

Willow nodded emphatically. “You can say that again. Especially when they’re skanky and evil.”

“I’m not particularly skanky or evil,” Wesley pointed out.

“The other Gunn and Angelus were beyond skanky and evil,” Fred told Willow. “They were the skankiest evillest vampires to ever walk the earth. I really didn’t like them.”

“It’s so good you and Cordy dusted them.”

“I dusted the other me,” Gunn protested.

“Only because we distracted him for you,” Cordelia insisted.

“Wesley saved me.” Fred looked at Wesley so fondly that Angel wondered not for the first time if she was actually dating the right guy or if some inconvenient light bulb was going to go off at her head at a later date where she suddenly realized Wesley was the one for her. It would probably help if Wesley stopped with the enigmatic broody angsty whumped guy thing and stopped gazing at her with the big blue puppy dog eyes too. As someone who had used the enigmatic broody angsty whumped vampire thing and the big brown puppy dog eyes on more than one occasion himself; he knew how effective a combination they could be. Fred was blissfully unaware of any such thoughts and beamed at Willow. “He was so brave. He stalled them while Lorne helped get me to safety. And then when we got down the fire escape Angel and the others were just coming back. So we made our cunning plan to rescue Wesley and totally dusted the evil bad guys.”

Gunn looked at Lorne. “Still think you should have let me piss on their dust.”

Fred nudged him, saying hastily, “No, we would never do that, because that would just be unsanitary.”

Angel looked at her. “Fred, you do know that Giles and Willow aren’t from the public health department or social services and even if we had rats in the basement they still couldn’t take Wesley out of here without his consent?”

Fred shifted uncomfortably. “I know. I was just… I know.”

Giles drained his tea, looked at Willow and said, “Shall we close that inter-dimensional tear then, Willow?”

“Love to.” She put her teacup back on the tray Fred was still holding, smiled at her, patted her tentatively on the shoulder, said, “Well, it was really nice talking to you all but I really think we need to…go and do witchy portally-closing things now.”

Fred looked at her hopefully. “Will you stay for lunch because we were thinking…?”

“Sorry,” Giles said hastily. “Not this time. On the next visit, perhaps. This way to the basement is it, Angel?”

“I’ll show you.” Realizing that he had been so defensive about them taking Wesley away that he had not exactly been the perfect host, Angel hurried to make amends, sprinting across to hold open the door, then putting on the light, taking Willow’s bag from her and carrying it down into the basement. “It was… Actually, I don’t know where it was. Wesley would probably. Do you want me to…?”

“It’s okay.” Willow held up her hands. “It’s pretty clear where it was. The air’s still fizzing. Why don’t you go and…”

“Let us get on with it,” Giles suggested.

Angel nodded and backed away awkwardly, relieved to sprint back up the stairs and close the door on them. He leant against it and saw everyone was looking equally relieved.

“That could have gone better…” Wesley said faintly.

“I think I liked the other Giles more,” Fred murmured to Gunn. “This one is kind of scary. Is that how Watchers get in this dimension when they get to that age?”

Everyone looked speculatively at Wesley for a moment. Cordelia said, “How many years older than you is Giles, Wesley?”

“About twelve I think.” Wesley looked up at her in confusion. “Why?”

“Just checking.”

“Maybe it’s living on a Hellmouth?” Gunn suggested.

Angel sighed. He knew he’d behaved badly to Giles. He knew Wesley knew it too. He was going to have to make sure those two got some time together before Giles and Willow headed back so Wesley could talk to Giles in peace and without fear of being overheard. Something he would have arranged this time if he hadn’t been feeling so defensive about his actions, their recent history, and the behaviour of the Angelus from the other dimension. He walked over to where the others were still sitting on the banquette and said quietly: “Maybe it’s being responsible for a group of reckless vulnerable teenagers, having your girlfriend murdered by someone you used to trust, being tortured, fired, almost killed about once a month, and then having to watch your Slayer die right in front of you.”

Angel noticed that everyone was staring fixedly behind him with deer-in-headlights expressions and sighed, closing his eyes. Yes, this was definitely not going to be a good day.

“I need to borrow a receptacle of some kind…”

He turned around to find Giles standing there looking grave and thoughtful. Angel nodded. “There are a few things in the kitchen. Come with me and see if there’s anything that would work.”

They walked to the kitchen in silence. When they reached it at the thought of the long walk back also in silence, Angel said, “Willow looks tired.”

Giles looked at him in surprise. “Yes. She’s had a difficult time recently. She was trying to avoid all magic but this was too important to ignore. Wesley is aware that what he did was extraordinarily irresponsible and dangerous, isn’t he?”

“You’ve seen what he looks like and that’s after weeks of healing. He’s never going to try that again. He knows he could have got Fred and Cordy killed. If those two vampires had followed him straight back when his suicide nut kicked in we wouldn’t have been ready for them. He knows that.”

“Are you certain?”

“He’s a smart guy. If I’m capable of working it out, he certainly is, and he would never do anything to risk Cordelia or Fred’s lives. He was prepared to get dragged back to that hellhole basement in the other dimension and go through it all again to save Fred. He knows it would have done worse than kill him. He knows he would have ended up as insane as that other Wesley. But he was still prepared to do it. Wes does the wrong thing sometimes, it’s true, but he doesn’t usually do it for the wrong reasons.”

Giles ran a hand through his hair. “It still makes me extremely nervous to think that he is dabbling in spells as dark and powerful as that one, and I’m not just being paranoid. Willow has been…on the brink of becoming an addict for some time now. I blame myself for not being here, but I felt Buffy needed a chance to reconnect with Dawn, with life, with herself.”

“Has she?”

Giles sighed. “Not yet. So far she’s reconnected with a lot of self-loathing and repressed anger. She’s suffered too many blows in too short a time to keep bouncing back with no emotional scar tissue.”

Angel closed his eyes, thinking of that vibrant innocent girl he’d first seen. “I didn’t exactly help that situation.”

“No, you didn’t. But it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know about the fine print of your curse, you certainly aren’t responsible for the actions of Angelus – in this dimension or any other – and you had nothing to do with Joyce’s death or Buffy’s. She was ripped out of paradise by people who love her and whom she can’t therefore hate for what they did to her. She can’t finish college. She’s trying to take care of a sister with a number of problems of her own, and her taste in boyfriends actually appears to be getting worse.”

“Is she seeing someone?”

“Angel, trust me on this, you really don’t want to know.”

Angel picked up a saucepan and realized that Giles was right – he didn’t. It hurt too much and always would hurt too much to know that Buffy had someone in her life who wasn’t him. “You’re probably right. What are you doing about Willow?”

“Taking her back to England with me. That was partly why I was hoping Wesley…”

“He doesn’t need to go to Spellcasters Anonymous, Giles, I swear. Magic to Wesley is a means to an end. He doesn’t get off on the power kick. He just knows how to say the words to make the spell happen. He was trying to fix something he’d done that turned out wrong. He thought about the consequences first. He swallowed that nut even though it might kill him because he wanted to be sure there was a failsafe. Wesley isn’t reckless and the only thing he possibly needs an intervention about is his antiquarian book buying habit. But Willow sounds as if she definitely needs to go with you.”

“There’s a chance Tara will accompany her. I’ve been having lunch with Tara for the past week or so and she still cares for Willow very much. I know a coven in England that might be able to help Willow to find a way to use her powers that isn’t destructive. They have more knowledge than I do and could help her find the necessary balance within herself to deal with her undoubted magical abilities. I don’t want her to have to act like an alcoholic who can never touch another drink. Without being brutal, she is too useful a tool in the fight against evil. But I’m worried that if she falls back into her previous abuse of magic it could end up possessing her entirely. Dark magic has a will of its own sometimes.”

Angel thought of Buffy alone in Sunnydale without Giles or Willow. “What about Buffy?”

“I’m afraid Buffy is too overwhelmed by her own problems at the moment to be able to help Willow or anyone else.”

“No, I mean – how will she manage without you both?”

“I have every confidence in Buffy’s ability to realize for herself that she needs to reconnect with the people around her.”

“But if you’re not there…”

“You’re not there either.” Giles’ expression was surprisingly gentle. “And for a good reason.” He examined the saucepan dubiously. “I was hoping for something with a closer resemblance to a cauldron.”

“There may be a cooking pot.” Angel opened cupboards and began to search. Over his shoulder, he said, “I can’t imagine you ever – not being good for Buffy.”

“I can assure you that I was not being good for her at all. When you have people on the cusp of childhood and adulthood, forced to shoulder responsibilities and sorrows that would crush someone with many years more experience, it can sometimes be all too easy for them to hang onto some of the behaviour that reassures them they are still children, after all. That probably sounds like a contradiction, but…”

“No, I understand.” Angel looked at Giles with new comprehension, thinking of Wesley and Cordelia with their arms folded in a thoroughly childish fit of indignation about him taking time off from being their surrogate parent to indulge his own emotional immaturity. “I really do. I was kind of a single parent for a while back there.”

“I know.” Giles looked at him compassionately. “I know you lost your child, Angel, and just because I don’t approve of your reaction to that loss does not in any way mean that I don’t appreciate the depth of your grief over…”

“No, I didn’t mean Connor. For once.” He managed a wan smile. “I meant Wes and Cordy. They were sort of my child substitutes for a while. Wes was particularly clingy, needy and in need of therapy but Cordy was as bad as he was about assuming I had nothing better to do than take care of them twenty-four-seven. I’ll never get Wesley to admit it but the best thing I ever did for him – after taking him in and trying to fix his shattered self esteem – was going all darkside on them, firing them, and forcing him to stand on his own two feet. I’m not saying they enjoyed the experience or that there was anything justifiable about my behaviour during that time – but it was what they needed to grow up.”

Giles inclined his head. “They certainly seem grown up now.”

“Cordy knows she has a place in the world. She knows she has something unique that gives her a way to contribute. I know what people see when they look at her – ex-cheerleader, wannabe actress. That’s not even scratching the surface of who she is now. She’s someone who went on carrying the incredibly painful visions from the Powers That Be even though she knew they were killing her because she could save some more lives before her head exploded. She let them make her part demon so she could go on doing good. She may still dress and sound like the biggest bitch in Sunnydale but her actions really do speak louder than her words.”

“What about Wesley?” Giles asked curiously.

“Wesley’s a…work in progress. We have some trust issues to work through but we’re doing that.” Angel sighed. “Giles, if I really thought that he was better off in England…”

Giles held up a hand. “I know. I talked to Wesley. He was very clear about only being able to work through his redemption here. He’s acutely conscious of the wrong he did you and he wants to make amends. And – I do believe that you have all in the past provided him with something that he never knew until he came here.”

Angel frowned. “What’s that?”

“A loving family.” Giles turned away. “I’ve met Wesley’s father. Quite recently. He took my mentioning that I knew his son as a veiled insult. I suspect one needs look no further for Wesley’s self-esteem issues than there.”

“He used to lock him under the stairs.” Angel had always thought he would carry that piece of information to the dust heap with him, but he felt the need to make it clear that they weren’t just being unreasonable; weren’t keeping Wesley from better care than they could provide. “Was always telling him he wasn’t good enough. I don’t think he ever showed him any affection or gave him any praise. Wesley used to get tears in his eyes if Cordy or I said anything kind to him. That isn’t normal in a guy of his age. He’d just – never experienced it before.”

“Well…” Giles half-smiled. “He is English, you know.”

“We make allowances.”

Giles looked at him curiously for a moment. “You don’t sound like someone who hates Wesley.”

Angel wondered what conversation they had just been having where that could still be an issue. “Of course I… You think I hate him?”

“Wesley said you took him in and trusted him and he betrayed you. He said you hated him now. He seemed to think that was no more than he deserved.”

Angel felt his guts twist. “It wasn’t like that. He – was just trying to do the right thing. He was trying to protect the people he cared about. I can’t ever think he made the right choice but he didn’t do it for any reason except to try to save my son and save me from the guilt of having murdered him. I know that. On some level, perhaps I’ve always known it, but you don’t know how it felt, Giles… I worked so hard to keep Connor safe. There was danger all around him and Wesley picks him up and carries him straight into the worst of it. Connor had never known anything except people who loved him and I have to see him carried into a hell dimension by my worst enemy – all because of Wesley. I wanted to hurt Wesley as much as he’d hurt me but I don’t hate him. The person I tried to kill in the hospital – that wasn’t Wesley, that was someone I had to tell myself deserved to pay for all the misery I was feeling; the only person left to make pay for it. I called him ‘Pryce’ for a reason when I was trying to smother him.”

Giles picked up another cooking pot and examined it. “He said some woman called Lilah something likened him to Judas Iscariot. He seemed to think that was a fair comparison as well.”

Angel winced. “She really is a first class bitch. And she had a vested interest in convincing him there was no point in trying to mend fences with us because she wanted to recruit him to Wolfram & Hart.”

“Angel, I have no influence over Wesley and no say in this at all but I do have reservations about him being here on some kind of sufferance – treated like a second-class citizen while he has to Uriah Heep his way around the hotel being grateful for scraps of diluted friendship from people who are never going to fully trust him again. You both seem to think that he betrayed you. If that’s the case then how well are you going to be able to work together?”

Angel leaned against the counter top, looking up at the various pots and pans hanging from their hooks. “I don’t know. But I’d like to give working together again a try and see how it turns out. We have a lot of history and most of it’s good. Same with him and Gunn, him and Cordy, him and Fred, him and Lorne. We’ve been through a lot together. Maybe this is just something else we have to ride out. I used to rip people’s throats out for fun. He doesn’t let that sit between us and fester. I’ll try to do the same about the fact my son is dead because of him.”

“Well, it’s your decision, but I think Wesley is at the end of his rope. After what happened with Connor and then in that other dimension, I think he may be very close to snapping.”

Angel gazed intently into Giles’s face. “What did he say to you?”

“I don’t like betraying his confidence but…people like Wesley and myself, we’re not – terribly well equipped to deal with our emotions. We were brought up to repress them and consequently never found a way to articulate them. To be honest he and I hardly know one another. We spent a few months working together in an atmosphere of mutual irritation, very loosely bound together by a common cause. But he…”

“What?” Angel was seriously concerned now and Giles’s hesitation made his anxiety worse.

Giles took a deep breath. “He broke down, Angel. If he can start crying on the end of the phone to me, I have to think he’s pretty close to the edge. You said it yourself – he hadn’t known a lot of kindness before he came to LA. I think you and Cordelia may have shown him almost too much. Certainly more than he can easily bear to lose. If you really can’t accept him back into the – bosom of your dysfunctional family I think it would be kinder of you to separate the ties between you and…”

“Giles, Angelus and the other Gunn...” Angel broke off not knowing how to proceed. “It was – bad, what they did to him.”

Giles gave him a straight look. “I know what being tortured by Angelus entails, Angel.”

“It was worse than what I did to you.” Angel held his gaze. “Much worse.”

Giles’s eyes widened. “Is Wesley…intact?”

“They didn’t castrate him. They...” Emasculated him by other means. Angel grimaced. No way was he saying that aloud. He picked his words carefully: “You’ve read the file, you know the fun things Angelus used to do to the ones he kept alive. That’s what those two did to him – Angelus and the vampire Gunn from the other dimension. Rinse and repeat. For six days. The fact he’s sane at all is the real miracle here. I’m not surprised he broke down on the phone to you. I’m just amazed he’s coping as well as he is.”

“Good Lord.” Giles removed his glasses and began to clean them, gazing fixedly at the presumably blurry pots and pans as he did so. “I had no idea…”

“Those two weren’t just soulless bloodsuckers, they were sadistic evil monsters who majored in causing pain and degradation and I can never undo what they did to him. I can’t make it go away. I can’t make it not have happened. Any more than I can make what happened to Connor go away, or make what happened in the hospital go away. Everything is new between us because I don’t even know who this version of Wesley is. I’m not sure he does either and the dust hasn’t even settled yet. There are some things you can’t walk away from and be the same person you were before. I can’t be who I was before I lost my son and neither can Wesley. But I know what Angelus is capable of better than anyone else in this dimension. And I’m the person who holds the key to his redemption, because I’m the only person who can tell him that I forgive him.”

“Do you think you ever could?” Giles pressed.

“I think I already have.” Angel tried to shift through his own confusion of emotions. “I think I just needed to find a way to do that which didn’t feel as if it was a betrayal of my son.” He gazed at Giles intently. “Don’t tell anyone else – about Wesley – will you?”

“Certainly not.” Giles looked horrified. “I wouldn’t dream of… I just wish… What a bloody awful mess.”

“Yes.” Angel saw no point in denying it.

“Is he going to have some kind of…therapy?”

Angel shrugged. “We’re his therapy. We took him in. We took care of him. We killed the people who hurt him. Right now, I think that’s probably the best therapy anyone can give him. That and helping him to do normal things. Well…normal by our standards, which means he gets to research gut-ripping demons with six claws and two horns until he’s well enough to get out there and help us fight them again.”

“You don’t think a change of scenery…?”

“I think if he’s left alone he could still fragment. What those two did to him…”

“With all due respect, Angel, I think what those two did to him still doesn’t compare for traumatic value with what you did to him in the hospital.”

Angel only nodded. “I think you’re right. But I don’t think getting away from me is the answer.”

“I suspect you’re probably right. Are you capable of…” Giles cast around for the right words. “I suppose I mean – showing him affection? Can you bring yourself to…? Can you ever treat him like a friend?”

“He is my friend.” Angel sighed. “He’s my friend who stole my son. Just as I’m his friend who tried to kill him. We can’t go back to being who we were before. We have to go forward.” He looked up at Giles and gave him a smile and shrug. “You want to know how this is going to pan out between us, Giles? Well, I’ll tell you when I know myself, because Wesley and I – we’re still learning a bunch of whole new steps…”