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Oct. 29th, 2005 03:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elgreyAll parts linked to from Story Notes
Temps Perdu, Part Six
Wesley woke to an empty bed. The panic flared at once; a spike of fear in his chest; perhaps more like a stake. They’d told him so many times in that hell dimension that Angel was dead. Sometimes they sprinkled dust on him while he snatched one of his fitful hours of sleep; mostly they just smeared blood across the bars of the cage and told him to guess who had lost the last fight. Some of the demons found humans fuckable in that dimension, and told him so in great detail; what they’d do to him the day his protector was dead; as if he’d care if Angel was dead anyway; as if anything would matter then. He’d shrugged at them, making them angry and spiteful; one had grabbed him through the bars and pulled him up against them, clawed hands exploring. Wesley had elbowed it hard in the chest but he’d been weakened by starvation, lack of sleep, and too many beatings, and the blow had only made it grunt and tell him that he liked it when they wriggled. Angel had finished one bout so fast the impatient one had still been groping him through the bars as Angel was marched back to the cage. Angel had snapped the demon’s neck so fast it had never had time to finish its sentence. Angel had been grabbed back by the shocked guards, beaten to the ground, but he’d still been smiling as he licked the demon blood from his fingers, eyes yellow as he gazed at them all with awful promise.
“You’d better make sure I’m dead and dusted before any of you ever even think about touching Wes again....”
But it hadn’t been in a bed with clean sheets, in a room in the Hyperion, so even though Angel wasn’t here, this instant, as he awoke, that didn’t mean he was dead. Wesley snatched some deep breaths, calming his heart rate. Angel was fine. He just wasn’t here. He couldn’t always be here, babysitting his crazy friend, telling him everything was okay, that the world was still round, well – an oblate spheroid – that night still followed day; that they weren’t in a hell dimension any longer. Wesley needed to take on that task himself.
Today he was going to get up unaided and not whimper for Angel. That would be a start.
He didn’t remember the bomb until he was showering. He was halfway through his checklist at the time: Angel – still undead; Cordelia – dead; Gunn – alive; Fred – dead; Lorne – alive; Lilah – dead; Illyria – technically alive, he supposed, although he wasn’t sure if she had a heart that beat, not of her own, it would be Fred’s heart. Fred.... He started crying. It always shocked him how the tears came so hot and fast of their own accord. A quick gush of grief and then they dried to a salt sting on his face. It was better when it happened in the shower; he could wash away the evidence quickly. He snatched a breath and continued doggedly. Spike – undead; Giles – alive; Buffy – that took some thought. Dead? Alive? He was sure he remembered her being dead. Oh, that was right, she’d been resurrected by Willow. Willow who was also alive....
And that was when he remembered the bomb. He put his fingers to his chest and tried to feel it, but there was nothing, no scar where the mark of ownership had been, no pulsing tick of an explosive device. A mystical bomb, of course, but it was still difficult not to imagine it as two sticks of dynamite attached to an alarm clock. To wonder how there was possibly room for it inside of him.
“Wes…? Wes…!”
Panic from Angel. Absurd because he had vampire hearing and could surely hear the shower was running.
“I’m in here.”
“Oh.” Angel yanked back the curtain to look at him sheepishly. “I was scared you’d run out on us – pulled one of those stupid self-sacrificing stunts you’re so full of.”
“I only just remembered the bomb. I haven’t had time to do anything stupid about it yet.” Wesley waited for Angel to apologize for interrupting his shower and then realized he wasn’t going to. That was pretty…typical. “As you’re here could you hand me a towel?”
“Oh – sure.” Angel handed one over, still very comfortable with Wesley being naked. It was a little disturbing to find that it didn’t bother Wesley either. Even though he distinctly remembered being the boy who had gone to all kinds of contortions behind his towel to get into his swimming trunks without anyone else seeing him naked at school. Apparently Angel didn’t count as someone else now; Angel was just an extension of himself.
Wesley frowned. “Does that mean I’m half dead?”
Angel made a little gesture with his finger, the ‘run back the reel’ motion. “I didn’t get the first half of that conversation.”
Wesley wrapped the towel around his waist. “Just thinking that it’s strange we’re so connected.”
“Not really. Most married couples don’t get to go through what we’ve been through together.” Angel said it with a shrug, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Wesley realized he was more than comfortable with their togetherness, he was proud of it.
“You like it.”
Angel handed him another towel for his hair. There was that sheepish look again. “Yeah, well…you ran off.”
“What?”
“With Lilah. Then there was the Fred thing. And Illyria. You started hanging out with Spike more than you did with me.”
“That was me punishing you for stealing my memories,” Wesley pointed out. “You didn’t notice the pursed lips?”
“I did. I hate the pursed lips. You’re my best friend, Wes. I like that you’re my best friend. I don’t like it when you act like someone else is your best friend, or as if you don’t need me.”
Wesley blinked in surprise. “You must love this version of me. Super-Dependent Wesley.”
“Yes.”
He hadn’t expected that level of honesty and gaped at Angel in shock.
Angel sighed. “I hate what was done to you. I hate what that place was like. But I like you needing me.”
Wesley remembered for the first time in perhaps a very long time that Angel was as vulnerable as he was underneath that swift-healing skin. “Angel, I’m not going to be this clingy and needy forever, perhaps not even for very much longer – well, not for longer than a few hours if this bomb goes off – but that won’t mean I don’t need you. The problem has always been how much I need your friendship, not how little.”
“It felt…wrong when we weren’t friends. Like a part of me was missing. I never really had a friend before Doyle. Losing him hurt so much I thought it had to be a mistake. Then you came along – I was so determined not to go down that road again, but you made me care way too much way too fast. And you’re so fragile, you humans, so breakable. I knew it was a bad idea.”
“While, of course, I knew that working for a vampire was the bestest idea ever.”
Angel grinned at him. “Hey, you’re all…snippy – you’re you again.”
They smiled at one another and Wesley felt the skittery feeling in his heart get less. That was always the trouble with Angel, the way he could make everything feel right and safe. He and Cordelia had discussed that problem more than once. How Angel could say something or just look at them sometimes and suddenly everything felt all right again. It was a terrible power. He opened his mouth to tell him that he didn’t regret any of it; not the crazy-making things, the pain and the separation, the losses, because it had been the right road he’d taken after all, when he’d told Angel he was his faithful servant; that for all their betrayals and disagreements, their times of estrangement and anger with one another, they had given each other purpose and direction and a path to follow that led to something meaningful. They had given each other hope when no one else could have done. Perhaps most of all they had given each other the kind of friendship that only came along once or twice in a lifetime and should never be given up without one hell of a fight.
Then he realized he didn’t need to say it because Angel must know it too; how good he’d been for him; how much better Wesley’s life was because of knowing him; the feeling of purpose and accomplishment, not to mention feeling loved by people whose opinions he cared about and respected, but most of all the belonging.
“Willow thinks she can defuse it. The bomb.” Angel nodded awkwardly at his chest. “She’s going to put a protective barrier around the Hotel first. Spike and Illyria are investigating portals.”
“I’m good with portals.” Wesley tossed the towel with which he’d been drying his hair onto the old fashioned radiator and went back into the bedroom. He could dress himself. That was something he hadn’t been able to do a week ago. Feed himself. Knew who he was, where he was. Okay, not first thing after waking up, but within ten minutes or so all the memories were back in pretty much their correct order. “I could help.”
“Illyria says she knows – that she....” Angel broke off awkwardly.
“She has Fred’s memories, of course.” Wesley tried to wrench his face out of that tight hurting expression it was determined to set into. “A powerful god-king with the knowledge of a brilliant physicist. Quite a warrior for the forces of good. How ironic when she was brought back to destroy the world with her legions of doom.”
“She’s only a warrior for the forces of good because of you, Wes. Because of her…feelings for you.”
Wesley pulled on his jeans, liking the feel of them against his bare, slightly wet skin; sensation was still a pleasure, any sensation that wasn’t pain or hunger or being dirty or cold or bruised or branded. He liked the way the denim felt so clean, the way it wanted to cling to his wet legs, the snug way it could be pulled over his ass, buttoned up, making him feel efficient, protected. He noticed the way Angel was looking at him, that pleading look again. He sighed. “I’m not in love with Illyria, Angel. I am in love with Fred. I do have feelings for Illyria, but they’re too complicated for me to understand, let alone explain. She needs me.”
“I need you,” Angel countered at once, sounding petulant and childish, which, for some reason, Wesley found only endearing. “She and Spike have been bonding.”
“We were only away three weeks in their time.”
“They’ve been bonding a lot.” Angel sighed. “She can’t be who she is around you, Wes. You won’t let her be Fred but Fred is who she knows you love and it’s there, in her power to look like the woman you love, sound like her, be the shell of her, and know that you’ll look at her the way you used to look at Fred. When she’s with Spike, she’s Illyria. She can learn to be the Illyria she is now – the one with lessened powers and a human body and these human emotions she can’t really understand.”
“You think she’s better off without me?” Wesley felt hurt by that. He liked to think he’d been good for Illyria, and being with Illyria had made him feel like a Watcher again; someone to guide and teach; someone so powerful, incapable of inflicting such great harm or doing so much good, and him trying to show her why doing good was better.
“No, of course not....” Angel rolled his eyes. “I didn’t mean…Wes, do you remember everything now?”
“Yes. Or rather…” Wesley conceded the point with a shrug. “I don’t know what I’ve forgotten but it feels as if all the pieces are more or less in place.”
“How useful were you, how good was your judgement, when you were in love with Fred and she was dating Gunn? Wasn’t it only when you got over it that you got your clarity back?”
“But I didn’t ‘get over it’, Angel. I just learned to live without hope.” He snatched a breath. “Actually, that’s overly melodramatic. I learned to accept that her friendship was very valuable to me – having lost it, I was grateful to have it back again, to be someone she trusted again. I found comfort in trying to be a good friend.”
“Well, Illyria isn’t at that stage yet. She’s never been in love before. She’s still in the burning fiery furnace of first infatuation and she doesn’t know how it can be that she feels like this when you’re supposed to be an ant she hardly bothers to step on and yet every waking minute is spent thinking about you.”
“It’s not a real feeling,” Wesley pointed out. “She was just…contaminated by human emotions when she stole a human body. She needs to find a way to separate herself from…her body’s previous owner.”
Angel shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think she got whammied by Fred’s emotions, yes, but I also think she’s the pupil with a crush on her teacher and Galatea in love with Pygmalion.”
“I didn’t shape her. Knox did.”
“She got hit by Fred’s neurons at the moment of her…resurrection, didn’t she? Fred was good. Fred cared about right and wrong. I think it’s buried in Illyria now – an unwanted conscience.”
Wesley’s eyes widened. “He said Fred’s soul was destroyed at the moment when she was taken over by Illyria. What if it was absorbed?”
Angel nodded. “I think that’s her problem. She’s been contaminated by humanity. She’s more ancient than anything still walking the earth, and newborn a few months ago. She’s a sweet brilliant good human being and a conscienceless predator who knows we should all bow down before her. Knox was her servant – of no interest to the god-king part, and he betrayed Fred and all humanity to try to suck up to a demon destroyer – not likely to win him too many cool points with what’s left of Fred.”
“There’s nothing left of Fred.” Wesley turned away.
“Wes…? The point I was making is that Knox is nothing. But you – you risked your life to try to stop Illyria and then you showed her kindness because it was the right thing to do. And Fred would be moved by that. The parts of Fred that survived...”
“Angel, nothing of Fred survived. You can’t be half-alive.”
“I am.”
“No, you’re not. Let’s be honest. You’re not Liam. Liam was human. You’re a vampire. You’re not Angelus. Angelus was a soulless killer. You have a soul. You’re only Angel. However much you may remember how it felt to be Liam, how it felt to be Angelus, you’re not those people any more. Fred was what she was, and what she was is gone. There’s only Illyria now, even if Illyria may have some lingering echoes of Fred.”
“I think she’s like Darla was in the hours before she gave birth to Connor – contaminated by a human soul. She’s capable of love. Darla was. And self sacrifice. She’s just confused and bothered by these feelings she has no experience of feeling. You’re the first thing she’s ever loved in her millennia of existence. You’re her first crush.”
“And you think she needs to get over it?”
“I’m not sure she can be who she is until she has. At some point she has to want to do good because it’s the right thing to do, not because it’s what she thinks you want her to do. Otherwise she’s only ever going to be…well, as retarded as Spike.”
Wesley looked at him for a moment. “This wouldn’t be due to you not liking to share your friends and wanting all my attention fixed on you so I’m always there at your beck and call to do your research and bind up your wounds and tell you how wonderful you are, would it?”
Angel licked his lips reflexively. “No. Well, okay – yes, but it’s still sound reasoning.”
Wesley half-laughed and pulled on a t-shirt and then a sweater. They were clothes Gunn had put there for him, he remembered; clean and well pressed, but not new; he remembered this t-shirt, this sweater; he remembered the snagged thread there.... He examined it and was reassured by it. His life was still intact and there had been so many good moments as well as bad ones. He looked up at Angel in surprise. “I can remember Cordelia without it hurting. I remember her smile. Do you remember?”
“I remember.” Angel looked fragile, liable to fragment, voice wistful. “She could light up a room.”
“I remember her drinking tequila and telling me I got the blame. I miss her.” Seeing Angel’s expression he swallowed the rest of what he was thinking. How glad he was that he’d got to know her, even if her time on the earth had been much too short; how much he would have hated to go through life and not know Cordelia Chase. Wesley frowned. “Our lives are…”
“I’m sorry,” Angel said awkwardly. “For what was done to you both. The visions and the pain and…everything.”
“She could have died during the Mayor’s Ascension, Angel,” Wesley reminded him gently. “And never found a purpose.”
“Her purpose got her killed.”
“Perhaps she died contented. Perhaps she’s still doing good work somewhere.” There was so much more he wanted to say but Angel’s attention was straying, his superior hearing evidently picking up sounds of activity downstairs. “Is it time?”
“Time for you to have breakfast.” Angel took him by the elbow. “Do you want eggs?”
Wesley looked at him sideways. “Is this a condemned man thing?”
“No, it’s an ‘I cook great eggs’ thing. So – do you want eggs?”
“Is there toast?”
“There can be. And tea made in the pot. And proper silverware and napkins.”
“Sounds wonderful,” Wesley admitted. He let Angel lead him down to breakfast, thinking as he did so that he really hadn’t managed to convey to Angel at all that he didn’t regret the life he’d had, despite the physical pain and the sanity-crushing misery that had afflicted him at times; the sense of purpose had been there every day except when he’d been cast out from this dysfunctional family of theirs. My friends forsake me like a memory lost. That had been like Sunnydale again, only so much worse, because those people had simply failed to warm to him, they hadn’t loved him once then ceased to care. But as long as he was part of the mission, part of Angel’s mission, he was happy; even when he was miserable there was a part of him that had always felt fulfilled. That was why he’d never nagged Cordelia to try to get rid of the visions, because he understood only too well how one could be in physical pain and yet still feel as if this was the only right and fitting path to follow. He was starting to suspect Angel didn’t really understand that. Well, if they survived Wesley having a bomb removed from his chest, British reserve or no British reserve he was definitely going to have to find a way to tell him. It seemed important that he should know.
***
“Do you understand?”
Willow looked so young, Wesley found himself thinking, intrigued. Amongst this circle of people sitting cross-legged in the lobby of the Hyperion all holding hands, she seemed positively childlike. She certainly looked no older than when he’d seen her in Sunnydale all those years ago, and even then she hadn’t looked even as old as the eighteen-year-old Buffy or Cordelia. He wondered if people like Willow were the reason humans had invented the concept of elves. She had that little upturned nose, and those huge green eyes. He couldn’t see her ears under her hair but he wouldn’t have been surprised to find they were small and pointy. He didn’t know if he was just feeling warm and fuzzy towards all humanity at the moment, due to him probably being about to take his leave of it in a big white flash, or if everything had just come into focus in a way it never had before. Either way her hair really was the most splendid colour.
“Wes, mate? You okay?”
He turned his head to see Spike looking at him curiously. He looked odd sitting there cross-legged, holding Buffy’s hand in one hand and Xander’s in the other, a candle in front of him with a wan flame sputtering a little wax and smoke. The hair dye he could understand – sort of, but why was Spike wearing eyeliner? Did Buffy like it? Surely she was a little young to have witnessed the Glam Rock age?
Angel squeezed his hand gently. “Wesley, did you understand what Willow told you?”
Wesley looked at the vampire on his left. “Willow’s really pretty.”
Xander grimaced. “You know, ordinarily, I’d be right there with you on thinking that was definitely a point worth making, but just at this moment in time…”
“And her hair is really…super.”
Everyone looked at Willow who shifted self-consciously. “Thanks, I think. But, Wesley…”
He nodded in acknowledgement. “I get it. You’re all staying. I can’t make you leave. And if I try to make a run for it I’ll be pulled down like a – what was it again…?”
“Wounded gazelle,” Spike supplied helpfully.
Wesley sighed and looked around at them, wondering as he did so if Angel and Gunn felt as silly holding hands with Lorne as they looked. “But I don’t want you all to die. I checked my To Do list very thoroughly this morning and it definitely doesn’t say ‘get half the world’s champions killed so evil can have free rein’.”
“We’re not going to die.” Buffy leaned forward to gaze intently into his eyes. “We’re going to give Willow enough of our power and know-how so that she can do this without anyone dying – including you.”
“But it doesn’t make any sense.” He wondered why they couldn’t get it when it was so obvious. “There are –” He had to pause to count them: Angel, Gunn, Lorne, Illyria, Spike, Buffy, Giles, Willow, Xander, that made: “Nine of you. And one of me. And I’m not even sane. Giles, tell them.”
Giles sighed wearily. “I agree with them, Wesley.”
Wesley rolled his eyes. “Well, someone who doesn’t agree with them, tell them.” He looked around at them hopefully.
Lorne said gently: “We all agree with them, crumpet. Kind of why we’re all here.”
“But it’s stupid,” he pointed out.
“Hey – ” Willow pointed a finger at him imperiously. “A bit more faith in my super witchy powers, Watcher guy.”
“Sorry.” He gave her an apologetic wince. “It’s not that I don’t think you’re the best witch ever, it’s just that I don’t think it can be done.”
“Still not with the positive thinking,” she protested.
“I noticed your hair,” he offered in mitigation.
“You’ve known her for six years and you just noticed her hair?” Xander enquired.
“I noticed it at Sunnydale. I just – forgot to mention it.”
Gunn looked across at Angel. “I thought you said he was saner today?”
“Do you not like my hair?” Illyria enquired.
“Yes, of course, I do. It’s...very nice. Very...blue.”
Buffy looked at Giles. “So, now I’m the only one whose hair Wesley doesn’t like?”
“I like your hair too,” Wesley protested. “I just…like Willow’s best. Because of the red and the colour and the being that shade.”
“He was pretty sane upstairs.” Angel shrugged. “I think it’s the rest of you who confuse him.”
“Wesley!” said Willow as sharply as she was capable of saying anything.
He sat up straighter at once. “Yes?”
“Do you understand what we’re going to do now?”
“We’re going to hold hands and help make a sanctuary spell to surround the hotel and stop the rest of LA getting destroyed when I go kabloom.”
“No, there will be no kablooming!”
Wesley looked across at Giles. “Remind me again what the current watcher to slayer ratio is before you explain why you think risking your life for a lunatic is a good idea?”
Giles looked smug. “As you’re one of the few fully trained watchers left in the world, Wesley, that just makes for an even stronger argument for saving your life.”
“Gunn…?”
“Save your breath, English. I ain’t going anywhere unless you’re going there too.”
“Sanctuary spell!” Willow said sharply.
Everyone started guiltily.
“You have to concentrate,” she reminded them.
“We’re right there with you on the concentrating,” Buffy assured her.
“Oh, and the candle lighting!” Xander noticed that his was the only one not yet lit and leant across to do so hastily, using Spike’s candle as a match.
“Are you sure Wes doing the mojo isn’t going to set off his inner nitro?” Gunn enquired.
“Pretty sure.” Willow smiled a little wanly. “And we do need his um…mojo.”
Illyria said, “Fred liked to watch Wesley perform magic spells, she found it…what is that emotion humans feel when they become warm throughout all of their body and with heightened awareness of all physical sensations, particularly their proximity to another?”
“Horny.” Spike grimaced at her. “And thanks for sharing but maybe another time with the reminiscences, pet?”
Wesley looked at Illyria in confusion. “Fred – what…?”
Lorne sighed. “Think of the effect it used to have on Gomez when Morticia spoke French, cherry pie, then adapt to Fred watching you do magic.”
“Who’s Gomez?” Wesley asked in bewilderment.
“And we would all be concentrating now, yes?” Willow said frostily.
“Wait, is it a side effect of Wesley doing magic?” Buffy demanded. “I mean is anyone sitting near him going to react like that? Because I have a thing about not being attracted to Watchers – because of the supremely high squick factor.”
“He’s only an ex-Watcher,” Gunn offered.
“Once a Watcher always a Watcher,” Buffy insisted. “I don’t want to be sitting here feeling all…lustified about Wesley.”
Wesley darted a nervous glance in her direction. “I really don’t think that’s likely to be a problem.”
“I’m changing places. I should be holding Willow’s hand anyway. In case she needs Slayer strength.”
“I was lending her magical assistance,” Giles protested.
“Well, lend it to Spike instead.”
“It was a Fred thing, Slayerlicious,” Lorne assured Buffy.
“I also feel it when I witness Wesley performing magical rites,” Illyria observed.
Gunn held up a hand. “I don’t.”
“Me neither.” Spike moved over so that Giles could take Buffy’s place. “And I’d like to go on record on that.”
“A Fred and Illyria thing then.” Lorne rolled his eyes. “Have we finished playing non-musical non-chairs yet?”
“And concentrating would be a good idea around now unless people are particularly eager to be blown into a million billion itsy bitsy pieces!”
Everyone looked sheepishly at Willow and muttered apologies.
Willow took a deep calming breath, told everyone to clear their minds, concentrate, and then repeat after her the following words.
She knew the spell so well it was difficult to remember to wait for them to repeat it after her. Make of us the world within. Make the walls of this building as the walls between the worlds. Let nothing pass between them, no light, nor fire, nor breath, nor sound. Make this a true sanctuary from the world without, and protect the world without from the world within....
She could feel it, the flow of power; not just her own, but the Slayer strength of Buffy, so positive, so free of doubt, the ancient darkness of Illyria with that golden thread twisted within it; that was what she was now; a thing of darkness wrapped around a thread of light, the light bleeding into the darkness more and more. Was that what humanity looked like – a beautiful infection? There was Giles. He had so much strength of purpose. And Wesley – he was powerful; he felt tangled but the power that he was lending her was focused as light through a crystal; oh, that was Angel, demon power, heavy as tar, and Spike, lighter, sort of tinny, but still strong; and Lorne, oh how sweet that his power was green too, or perhaps she was just picturing it that way? Either way she could feel it; a pulse of energy from someone who knew instinctively the ins and outs of magic. And Xander and Gunn, they were sending her human strength, the perfect balance to all this demonic power; warm and unblemished. This was a colossal spell; she could feel it building, its demand building also, sucking in energy greedily as it prepared for that whiplash of light and blue and...
Willow gasped and felt herself enveloped in light, white and searing yet not painful at all; and then the ground shimmered and shuddered and she felt the spell work. She snatched a breath and opened her eyes.
“It’s done.”
They were all gazing at her open mouthed. She blinked. “What?”
“That was awesome,” Gunn said.
Wesley looked at her curiously. “I had no idea you were so powerful.”
Willow inclined her head. “Kind of a side effect of trying to destroy the world – well, of letting all the magic flow into me and it sort of – stuck. Giles can explain it better.”
“You rule,” Buffy told her.
“Does anyone else need a cigarette?” Spike enquired reaching for one.
Looking around the circle, Willow noticed that they all looked a little flushed and breathless. “It was a group spell, not group…other thing.”
“All the same – most fun I’ve had in a while,” Xander admitted. As Spike offered him a drag on the cigarette he said, “I don’t…oh, okay....” He took a deep drag and then offered it to Giles who looked distinctly tempted but shook his head.
“No, thank you, I really have given up.”
“If I’d known we were doing these kind of spells I’d’ve got in some Mary Jane and snacks,” Spike observed.
“Who’s Mary Jane?” Wesley asked.
Gunn sighed. “Not ‘Who?’ ‘What?’ And it’s weed, Wes.”
Wesley blinked in confusion. “Dill? Sage? What?”
Willow looked across at Buffy. “Isn’t that sweet?”
“It’s adorable,” Buffy admitted. “They have like – no life at all at that Watchers’ School place, do they?” Seeing Giles’ expression, she said quickly, “Not that I know what Spike’s talking about either, because I so don’t.”
“None of us do,” Willow assured him. “Because…”
“Because you went to the only university on the planet in which there was no recreational drug-taking of any kind,” said Giles wearily. “Yes, Willow, I know.” He held a hand out to Xander. “I’ve changed my mind about that cigarette.”
“I would like to try human sexual intercourse,” Illyria observed to no one in particular. “It was an experience which Fred regarded as being most pleasurable but I have not yet been able to sample it for myself.”
“Wes still not putting out, love?” Spike accepted the cigarette back from Giles and leaned across to offer it to her. “He can’t help it. He’s English.”
“Given his condition, it wouldn’t exactly be a good idea even if there wasn’t the off the scale weirdass factor,” Gunn pointed out.
Spike shrugged. “That would certainly be going out with a bang anyway.”
“You’re English,” Angel pointed out to Spike. “That’s why you have that horrible accent.” He added quickly to Wesley: “Not that your accent is horrible. It isn’t. It’s...nice. But Spike’s is horrible.”
“Different era though. I’m from the days when being English meant you got to rule the world and oppress the natives, not that you were a tea-drinking nancy boy who didn’t know which way of a girl was up.” Spike glanced across at Giles and Wesley. “No offence. Well, not much.”
Illyria tentatively tried smoking the cigarette, coughed and handed it to Gunn. “I do not care for this pastime.”
“Very wise.” Gunn looked at the cigarette and then shook his head. “I don’t smoke and spells don’t make me horny – although as spells go, that one was pretty tight.”
Angel took it from him. “Well, give it to those of us who do. Smoke, I mean. Or – used to anyway.”
“Do you mind?” Lorne snatched it back. “I still do. And am about to. You can have a cigarette when you’re wearing leather pants and minus a soul, just – not one of mine.”
Willow pointedly waved the smoke away from where she was sitting. “If everyone has finished being all…post-coital we need to do the next spell on account of Wesley exploding if we don’t. Which, in case anyone isn’t really sure on that issue, would not be a good thing.”
“You had me with ‘exploding’,” Gunn assured her.
Wesley shrugged. “I’ve never exploded before. If you think about it, you’re denying me a unique experience.”
“Have you ever been hurt by a really pissed off witch before?”
He looked at Willow’s expression and hastily took Angel and Spike’s hands in his. “And I’m concentrating. And shutting up. I hope you’re noticing the shutting up.”
“Perhaps if you shut up for long enough, I might.” As Wesley opened his mouth to say something else, Willow added: “Remember when I told you about the time I flayed a man alive…?”
Wesley closed his mouth again with an audible click and everyone hastily held hands.
“Now, if I have your attention....”
Willow felt Buffy tighten her grip on her hand; a sympathetic squeeze to let her know that she at least knew how dangerous this was, and how difficult.
“I don’t have a death wish,” Buffy whispered to her. “And I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t know you could do this.”
It was a surprise to feel Illyria also tighten her grip on Willow’s hand a careful fraction. Willow glanced at the blue eyed god-king and the gaze that looked at her was unblinking as ever but by no means emotionless. There was absolutely no fear of death there for herself – himself? itself? She would stick with ‘herself’ as Illyria certainly looked female whatever her essence might be made from. But there was anxiety all the same. Willow squeezed Buffy’s hand back and let it flow into her again, Slayer power, god-king power, then the connection was taken up, and there was Giles, half-Watcher power, half-Witch power from the coven. Xander’s humanity, that was an extra warmth; she almost smiled as she felt it flow into her, and Spike – chilly and still a little tinny but powerful all the same, the strength of a soul and a demon combined. Then Wesley – he really did have some powerful mojo there, enough to tip the balance perhaps; it didn’t matter that his mind was all woolly and fragmented or that he didn’t even seem to much care if he lived or died; inside there was all that strength and power and knowledge – just as well he was on the side of the good guys, really. Then Angel – oh and that was strong – so powerful, that soul of his all dark and treacly and golden, and the demon strength of Angelus buried within him, raw energy; that appealed to her in particular, using evil rocket fuel to jet propel that bomb out of Wesley. Lorne, definitely green, those tendrils of subtle power from him, good to the core; and Gunn, pure humanity again, concentrating so hard on trying to lend her his strength she could feel it flowing from him. And Illyria again, and Buffy, still, and it was flowing into her, power and more power. She had to dismiss her instinctive fear that the power might prove too much, might find a way to corrupt her. This was good magic for a good purpose and she was a good witch and…
There was the bomb. She could see it so clearly now. Even though the air around her was shimmering, within herself everything was still, focused. There was a raindrop poised on the very end of a leaf, the ground was shaking but she was keeping the leaf still; the tree was waving in the breeze but she was balancing the leaf and the raindrop didn’t fall. No need to fight the earthquake or the deep roots of the tree, just to lend a little power to the leaf. This was all she had to do here. The bomb was glowing; silvery white; and there was its delicate heart so perfectly balanced.
It had come to her this morning that she needed to enlist the bomb’s aid in defusing it. Not take it to a place it had never meant to be or try to freeze it while it struggled against its bonds; but to nudge it to remember the way it had been before; like reminding a full grown man holding an armalite that he’d once known the safety of his mother’s womb; play on the yearning of every evolving thing to return to that earlier state of being. The heart of the bomb, the beating, ticking, dangerous heart, could remain still as the tendrils slid back in, just like that, as they had been before; that was all it needed to do to pass from one state of readiness to another earlier one. And now the tendrils were out of Wesley’s body and back inside the bomb and she was holding the heart still so it felt exactly as it had done when the tendrils were connected; she was singing it a mystical lullaby and it was returning now, the heart slowing and then stopping as it became what it had been before; something in readiness, something waiting to be activated; now it was sleeping. It was ready to become what it had briefly dreamed it was. She just needed to nudge it to make it remember that it didn’t belong here; not yet. Not in this form. It needed to remember further back, much further back to what it had been before even this; to a time when it had been incomplete. For a moment everything wavered; she felt the power source from Wesley falter for just an instant and she saw the leaf almost shake, a pre-motion when the raindrop might fall, but then the power flickered back on again, like a light bulb in a thunderstorm, and she had the bomb firmly within her spell. It was whole, it was components, it was the metal and magic from which those components were made. It was atoms. It was the dust of life and death and other matter tossed upon the wind. It was scattered into space....
Willow gasped and fell forward, Buffy and Illyria both catching her. She heard Angel say: “Wes? Wes?” And tried to open her eyes. Unfortunately someone seemed to have cemented them closed at the same time they had bathed her in grey sweat and pulled the bones out of her arms and legs. She slumped against Buffy and smelt her familiar scent, heard her whisper: “I’ve got you, Will, I’ve got you,” and then everything went peacefully dark for a while.
“Is she okay? Is she breathing?”
Giles checked Willow’s pulse and hastened to reassure Xander. “She’s quite well. Just – recharging her batteries.”
“Wes?” Angel was anxiously cradling Wesley and Giles hurried over to check on him too.
The ex-watcher was unconscious and a little clammy, but his heartbeat when Giles listened to it was steady and regular.
“Is it a coma?” Gunn demanded. “Man, I hate comas.”
“I think it’s a deep sleep.” Giles checked Wesley’s pulse and it was a little rapid at first but then slowed to normality. “We’re all a little drained but it would have hit him harder because of his less than tip top physical shape.”
Willow gasped and woke up to find Buffy and Xander gazing at her anxiously. For a spit second she wondered where Oz was, then Tara, then, as she groped her way back to consciousness, Kennedy, before she remembered that she had been needed in Cleveland with Faith and Wood to guard the second Hellmouth and take care of Dawn. “Is Wesley okay?” she said hoarsely.
“He didn’t blow up.” Xander glanced over at him. “Hence the not deadness of us.”
“He’s fine, Willow. He’s asleep.”
Willow looked at him anxiously. “I drained his batteries.”
“They weren’t exactly charged up that high to start off with,” Spike shrugged. “You did it, Red. Got rid of the bomb.”
“I just need to check.” She staggered to her feet, very grateful to find herself being steadied as she swayed. It was a shock to find it was Illyria’s hand on her arm, those unblinking blue eyes gazing into hers intently.
“You have saved Wesley. I am experiencing feelings of gratitude and liking for you,” she said.
Willow managed a wan smile, hoping that as well as inheriting Fred’s crush on Wesley Illyria hadn’t inherited Fred’s brief crush on her because, unlike Buffy, she wasn’t really into making out with the undead. “Oh, you’re welcome. All in a day’s…witching. Can I see?” She tottered over to where Angel was cradling him anxiously.
“Angel, he really is okay,” Giles assured him, with more resignation than impatience.
Willow was grateful for the hand Lorne held out to her. “His aura’s kind of cloudy,” the green demon frowned. “As much as I can tell without him singing for me anyway, but I’m not sensing an about-to-detonate vibe any more, are you?”
Willow concentrated, closing her eyes and feeling her way inside Wesley, searching for anything magical concealed within him. She should have done this before, of course, instead of just assuming those sigils were his only connection to the dimension from which he’d escaped. It had just seemed so…intrusive, and he’d already had to be looked at by everyone when he was naked, and Angel wasn’t really being big on the letting him have personal space issue, and it just seemed important somehow that she didn’t go poking around inside him. She wasn’t making that mistake again. She concentrated harder and found nothing of the bomb remaining; not even a memory. She sighed in relief.
“It’s gone. No more kabloom. He’s safe.” She swayed again and found Lorne holding her upright.
“Easy there, my red hot chilli pepper of witchery. That was quite a spell you cast, and I don’t mean just the one over my heart, although I have to tell you, sweetness, you ever decide to stray towards a wailing for a demon lover place, my ass is yours.”
“That’s sweet,” Willow told him, wondering if all of Angel’s people were just really…sex-starved. “I think. And I didn’t do it. We did it. All of us. And I’m not just saying that to be all modest, I’m saying you should probably go eat a Snickers bar, all of you, or drink blood or eat a nice petrie dish, if that’s your preference, because I think I probably drained you all pretty flat.”
“You may have a point.” Spike tossed aside the cigarette he’d lit. “It’s been a long time since Gunn looked tasty to me.”
“Back off, blondie bear,” Gunn told him witheringly. He bent over Wesley, whom Angel was still cradling. “We need to get him to bed, Angel. Let him sleep it off. Recharge his mojo juice.” Then put a hand to his head and staggered. “And – Willow may have a point about the Snickers bar.”
“If you’re human, sit down,” Lorne suggested. “If you’re possessed of super Slayer strength or demon power – can you get me another Sea Breeze? I’m right out.”
Angel rose to his feet with Wesley clasped in his arms. “I’ll stay with him. Make sure he’s okay.”
“Yeah, because that’s just what he needs right now.” Spike rolled his eyes. “Nothing like a psychotically over-protective blood sucker watching over you when you’ve just had some mystical TNT yanked out of your wotsit.”
Angel didn’t deign to reply, carrying Wesley up the stairs as if he was auditioning for a role in a bad Gothic novel. Gunn looked after them and shook his head. “Angel really needs to get a life.”
“Or a pet,” Buffy suggested brightly. As they all looked down their noses at the suggestion, she pouted. “I wasn’t suggesting a puppy.”
“If you gave Angel a cyber pet he’d break it,” Spike told her.
“You should know,” Xander observed.
“I was never his ‘pet’, all right? Him and Darla – me and Dru. Okay – and him and Dru, and Darla and Dru from time to time, but apart from that never the twain shall – well, except for that one time and I don’t think that counts on account of the…okay, maybe it was more than once but it was never when I was sober and…” Spike noticed them all looking at him expectantly and broke off. “Not a pet.”
“Is Wesley going to be normal now?” Buffy looked at Giles for enlightenment.
“No, he’s just not going to explode,” Giles reassured her.
“Good, because I kind of like him like this. And he seems quite happy. Not maybe too big on the whole sane thing but…happy.”
“He can be happy and sane,” Gunn observed from his place on the floor. “I remember it.”
“When was that then?” Spike enquired. “I think I missed it.”
“He was sane when you first came to Wolfram & Hart,” Gunn protested.
Spike gave him a look of disbelief. “He shot his father nine times at close range. He got drunk on suggestion. And when he wasn’t doing that he was looking at Angel like he was the Second Coming.”
“Oh, he always does that.” Lorne waved a dismissive hand. “And Robopop had had it coming for a long time.”
“What, so you’re saying when he’s normal he still does the ‘oh Angel, you’re like the noblest champion in the whole wide world’ thing?”
“Oh yeah.” Gunn shrugged. “He’s always done that.”
Illyria observed: “Fred regarded Wesley as the sanest person she knew.”
“Well, for a start I think that says more about the kind of people Fred hung around with than Percy’s mental health and…”
Gunn frowned. “Fred did smoke an awful lot of weed growing up.”
Spike tossed his cigarette on the floor and trod on it. “That explains a lot.”
“Now he’s not going to explode we could maybe reintroduce him to society,” Buffy suggested. “Take him out. Show him the sights.”
Giles looked at her down his nose. “You cannot go on a shopping spree on the grounds that it would be good for Wesley’s rehabilitation.”
“You’re planning to take him into every public library and museum.”
“That’s different. Wesley likes libraries and museums.”
“Oh! Rare book stores!” Willow looked around at them with renewed enthusiasm. The exhaustion was still there and she really was going to get some sleep in about five minutes time. But she was also starting to realize that she had actually done it. She really had defused the bomb and Wesley really was safe because of her. “He’d love to go to some magic shops.”
“They were on my list,” Giles said in mild disappointment.
Xander looked across at Gunn. “Porn cinemas and sporting events. That’s what the guy needs. And tacos.”
“Given the fact Angel won’t let him out of his sight even to take a leak, kind of a moot point, isn’t it?” Spike observed.
Illyria gazed up the stairs. “The vampire is unhealthily obsessive and jealous.”
They all looked in the same direction and then Giles sighed. “Never mind. The main objective is accomplished. Wesley is not now likely to explode even if left unattended. His previous ‘owner’ has had his very expensive mystical device banished back into the ether from whence it came and is we sincerely hope sadly out of pocket. Wesley will hopefully wake up soon, none the worse for his experience, and Angel…” He shrugged. “Well, we can worry about that later. For the moment, I really need a cup of tea.”
“Beer.” Xander looked at Gunn.
“Food,” the man countered.
They slapped hands. “We’re on it,” Xander told the others. “Give us money and we will furbish you with tasty and unhealthy food and beverages specifically designed to cause irreparable damage to your internal organs.”
“Don’t forget the booze,” Spike reminded them. “Whisky, not just beer. And some lager wouldn’t go amiss. Angel got any blood in the fridge I can nick?”
“I bought more blood this morning,” Buffy told him. “Seeing as how Angel was too obsessed and you were too lazy.”
“Thanks, pet.” Spike headed off there, swaying a little still.
“Heck of a spell, Will,” Xander told her. “Lucky you’re such a heck of a witch.”
Willow looked up the stairs again. “I just hope he’ll be okay.”
Buffy hugged her. “He’ll be fine. And it’s all because of you and your super wiccan super powers. Now, we just need to sit around and eat ourselves stupid until Wesley wakes up again.”
Willow felt reassured by Buffy’s confidence. It had felt like a normal sleep Wesley had lapsed into, it was true, and not a mystical coma, but after what had happened to Cordelia she really couldn’t bear it if she’d ended up putting Wesley into the same condition, and she thought Angel would go completely insane if he had to go through that again. She managed a smile. “You’re right. Everything’s fine. Wesley’s fine. And we should eat candy.”
“That’s my girl.” Buffy steered a wavering Willow over to the office where Giles and Spike were already arguing about whether or not a man carrying a cup of tea or a vampire carrying a cup of blood had priority passing rights. Gunn and Xander were both searching their jacket pockets for the car keys to Gunn’s truck while insisting the other one had had them last. Illyria had struck an attitude of immobile beauty at the foot of the steps and was gazing up them, presumably waiting to hear if Wesley stirred at all. Lorne was humming a pleasing ditty while mixing himself another Sea Breeze.
“You know what’s really freaky?” Buffy whispered to Willow as she helped her along.
“What?”
“The way this place is starting to seem like home.”
***
Temps Perdu, Part Six
Wesley woke to an empty bed. The panic flared at once; a spike of fear in his chest; perhaps more like a stake. They’d told him so many times in that hell dimension that Angel was dead. Sometimes they sprinkled dust on him while he snatched one of his fitful hours of sleep; mostly they just smeared blood across the bars of the cage and told him to guess who had lost the last fight. Some of the demons found humans fuckable in that dimension, and told him so in great detail; what they’d do to him the day his protector was dead; as if he’d care if Angel was dead anyway; as if anything would matter then. He’d shrugged at them, making them angry and spiteful; one had grabbed him through the bars and pulled him up against them, clawed hands exploring. Wesley had elbowed it hard in the chest but he’d been weakened by starvation, lack of sleep, and too many beatings, and the blow had only made it grunt and tell him that he liked it when they wriggled. Angel had finished one bout so fast the impatient one had still been groping him through the bars as Angel was marched back to the cage. Angel had snapped the demon’s neck so fast it had never had time to finish its sentence. Angel had been grabbed back by the shocked guards, beaten to the ground, but he’d still been smiling as he licked the demon blood from his fingers, eyes yellow as he gazed at them all with awful promise.
“You’d better make sure I’m dead and dusted before any of you ever even think about touching Wes again....”
But it hadn’t been in a bed with clean sheets, in a room in the Hyperion, so even though Angel wasn’t here, this instant, as he awoke, that didn’t mean he was dead. Wesley snatched some deep breaths, calming his heart rate. Angel was fine. He just wasn’t here. He couldn’t always be here, babysitting his crazy friend, telling him everything was okay, that the world was still round, well – an oblate spheroid – that night still followed day; that they weren’t in a hell dimension any longer. Wesley needed to take on that task himself.
Today he was going to get up unaided and not whimper for Angel. That would be a start.
He didn’t remember the bomb until he was showering. He was halfway through his checklist at the time: Angel – still undead; Cordelia – dead; Gunn – alive; Fred – dead; Lorne – alive; Lilah – dead; Illyria – technically alive, he supposed, although he wasn’t sure if she had a heart that beat, not of her own, it would be Fred’s heart. Fred.... He started crying. It always shocked him how the tears came so hot and fast of their own accord. A quick gush of grief and then they dried to a salt sting on his face. It was better when it happened in the shower; he could wash away the evidence quickly. He snatched a breath and continued doggedly. Spike – undead; Giles – alive; Buffy – that took some thought. Dead? Alive? He was sure he remembered her being dead. Oh, that was right, she’d been resurrected by Willow. Willow who was also alive....
And that was when he remembered the bomb. He put his fingers to his chest and tried to feel it, but there was nothing, no scar where the mark of ownership had been, no pulsing tick of an explosive device. A mystical bomb, of course, but it was still difficult not to imagine it as two sticks of dynamite attached to an alarm clock. To wonder how there was possibly room for it inside of him.
“Wes…? Wes…!”
Panic from Angel. Absurd because he had vampire hearing and could surely hear the shower was running.
“I’m in here.”
“Oh.” Angel yanked back the curtain to look at him sheepishly. “I was scared you’d run out on us – pulled one of those stupid self-sacrificing stunts you’re so full of.”
“I only just remembered the bomb. I haven’t had time to do anything stupid about it yet.” Wesley waited for Angel to apologize for interrupting his shower and then realized he wasn’t going to. That was pretty…typical. “As you’re here could you hand me a towel?”
“Oh – sure.” Angel handed one over, still very comfortable with Wesley being naked. It was a little disturbing to find that it didn’t bother Wesley either. Even though he distinctly remembered being the boy who had gone to all kinds of contortions behind his towel to get into his swimming trunks without anyone else seeing him naked at school. Apparently Angel didn’t count as someone else now; Angel was just an extension of himself.
Wesley frowned. “Does that mean I’m half dead?”
Angel made a little gesture with his finger, the ‘run back the reel’ motion. “I didn’t get the first half of that conversation.”
Wesley wrapped the towel around his waist. “Just thinking that it’s strange we’re so connected.”
“Not really. Most married couples don’t get to go through what we’ve been through together.” Angel said it with a shrug, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Wesley realized he was more than comfortable with their togetherness, he was proud of it.
“You like it.”
Angel handed him another towel for his hair. There was that sheepish look again. “Yeah, well…you ran off.”
“What?”
“With Lilah. Then there was the Fred thing. And Illyria. You started hanging out with Spike more than you did with me.”
“That was me punishing you for stealing my memories,” Wesley pointed out. “You didn’t notice the pursed lips?”
“I did. I hate the pursed lips. You’re my best friend, Wes. I like that you’re my best friend. I don’t like it when you act like someone else is your best friend, or as if you don’t need me.”
Wesley blinked in surprise. “You must love this version of me. Super-Dependent Wesley.”
“Yes.”
He hadn’t expected that level of honesty and gaped at Angel in shock.
Angel sighed. “I hate what was done to you. I hate what that place was like. But I like you needing me.”
Wesley remembered for the first time in perhaps a very long time that Angel was as vulnerable as he was underneath that swift-healing skin. “Angel, I’m not going to be this clingy and needy forever, perhaps not even for very much longer – well, not for longer than a few hours if this bomb goes off – but that won’t mean I don’t need you. The problem has always been how much I need your friendship, not how little.”
“It felt…wrong when we weren’t friends. Like a part of me was missing. I never really had a friend before Doyle. Losing him hurt so much I thought it had to be a mistake. Then you came along – I was so determined not to go down that road again, but you made me care way too much way too fast. And you’re so fragile, you humans, so breakable. I knew it was a bad idea.”
“While, of course, I knew that working for a vampire was the bestest idea ever.”
Angel grinned at him. “Hey, you’re all…snippy – you’re you again.”
They smiled at one another and Wesley felt the skittery feeling in his heart get less. That was always the trouble with Angel, the way he could make everything feel right and safe. He and Cordelia had discussed that problem more than once. How Angel could say something or just look at them sometimes and suddenly everything felt all right again. It was a terrible power. He opened his mouth to tell him that he didn’t regret any of it; not the crazy-making things, the pain and the separation, the losses, because it had been the right road he’d taken after all, when he’d told Angel he was his faithful servant; that for all their betrayals and disagreements, their times of estrangement and anger with one another, they had given each other purpose and direction and a path to follow that led to something meaningful. They had given each other hope when no one else could have done. Perhaps most of all they had given each other the kind of friendship that only came along once or twice in a lifetime and should never be given up without one hell of a fight.
Then he realized he didn’t need to say it because Angel must know it too; how good he’d been for him; how much better Wesley’s life was because of knowing him; the feeling of purpose and accomplishment, not to mention feeling loved by people whose opinions he cared about and respected, but most of all the belonging.
“Willow thinks she can defuse it. The bomb.” Angel nodded awkwardly at his chest. “She’s going to put a protective barrier around the Hotel first. Spike and Illyria are investigating portals.”
“I’m good with portals.” Wesley tossed the towel with which he’d been drying his hair onto the old fashioned radiator and went back into the bedroom. He could dress himself. That was something he hadn’t been able to do a week ago. Feed himself. Knew who he was, where he was. Okay, not first thing after waking up, but within ten minutes or so all the memories were back in pretty much their correct order. “I could help.”
“Illyria says she knows – that she....” Angel broke off awkwardly.
“She has Fred’s memories, of course.” Wesley tried to wrench his face out of that tight hurting expression it was determined to set into. “A powerful god-king with the knowledge of a brilliant physicist. Quite a warrior for the forces of good. How ironic when she was brought back to destroy the world with her legions of doom.”
“She’s only a warrior for the forces of good because of you, Wes. Because of her…feelings for you.”
Wesley pulled on his jeans, liking the feel of them against his bare, slightly wet skin; sensation was still a pleasure, any sensation that wasn’t pain or hunger or being dirty or cold or bruised or branded. He liked the way the denim felt so clean, the way it wanted to cling to his wet legs, the snug way it could be pulled over his ass, buttoned up, making him feel efficient, protected. He noticed the way Angel was looking at him, that pleading look again. He sighed. “I’m not in love with Illyria, Angel. I am in love with Fred. I do have feelings for Illyria, but they’re too complicated for me to understand, let alone explain. She needs me.”
“I need you,” Angel countered at once, sounding petulant and childish, which, for some reason, Wesley found only endearing. “She and Spike have been bonding.”
“We were only away three weeks in their time.”
“They’ve been bonding a lot.” Angel sighed. “She can’t be who she is around you, Wes. You won’t let her be Fred but Fred is who she knows you love and it’s there, in her power to look like the woman you love, sound like her, be the shell of her, and know that you’ll look at her the way you used to look at Fred. When she’s with Spike, she’s Illyria. She can learn to be the Illyria she is now – the one with lessened powers and a human body and these human emotions she can’t really understand.”
“You think she’s better off without me?” Wesley felt hurt by that. He liked to think he’d been good for Illyria, and being with Illyria had made him feel like a Watcher again; someone to guide and teach; someone so powerful, incapable of inflicting such great harm or doing so much good, and him trying to show her why doing good was better.
“No, of course not....” Angel rolled his eyes. “I didn’t mean…Wes, do you remember everything now?”
“Yes. Or rather…” Wesley conceded the point with a shrug. “I don’t know what I’ve forgotten but it feels as if all the pieces are more or less in place.”
“How useful were you, how good was your judgement, when you were in love with Fred and she was dating Gunn? Wasn’t it only when you got over it that you got your clarity back?”
“But I didn’t ‘get over it’, Angel. I just learned to live without hope.” He snatched a breath. “Actually, that’s overly melodramatic. I learned to accept that her friendship was very valuable to me – having lost it, I was grateful to have it back again, to be someone she trusted again. I found comfort in trying to be a good friend.”
“Well, Illyria isn’t at that stage yet. She’s never been in love before. She’s still in the burning fiery furnace of first infatuation and she doesn’t know how it can be that she feels like this when you’re supposed to be an ant she hardly bothers to step on and yet every waking minute is spent thinking about you.”
“It’s not a real feeling,” Wesley pointed out. “She was just…contaminated by human emotions when she stole a human body. She needs to find a way to separate herself from…her body’s previous owner.”
Angel shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think she got whammied by Fred’s emotions, yes, but I also think she’s the pupil with a crush on her teacher and Galatea in love with Pygmalion.”
“I didn’t shape her. Knox did.”
“She got hit by Fred’s neurons at the moment of her…resurrection, didn’t she? Fred was good. Fred cared about right and wrong. I think it’s buried in Illyria now – an unwanted conscience.”
Wesley’s eyes widened. “He said Fred’s soul was destroyed at the moment when she was taken over by Illyria. What if it was absorbed?”
Angel nodded. “I think that’s her problem. She’s been contaminated by humanity. She’s more ancient than anything still walking the earth, and newborn a few months ago. She’s a sweet brilliant good human being and a conscienceless predator who knows we should all bow down before her. Knox was her servant – of no interest to the god-king part, and he betrayed Fred and all humanity to try to suck up to a demon destroyer – not likely to win him too many cool points with what’s left of Fred.”
“There’s nothing left of Fred.” Wesley turned away.
“Wes…? The point I was making is that Knox is nothing. But you – you risked your life to try to stop Illyria and then you showed her kindness because it was the right thing to do. And Fred would be moved by that. The parts of Fred that survived...”
“Angel, nothing of Fred survived. You can’t be half-alive.”
“I am.”
“No, you’re not. Let’s be honest. You’re not Liam. Liam was human. You’re a vampire. You’re not Angelus. Angelus was a soulless killer. You have a soul. You’re only Angel. However much you may remember how it felt to be Liam, how it felt to be Angelus, you’re not those people any more. Fred was what she was, and what she was is gone. There’s only Illyria now, even if Illyria may have some lingering echoes of Fred.”
“I think she’s like Darla was in the hours before she gave birth to Connor – contaminated by a human soul. She’s capable of love. Darla was. And self sacrifice. She’s just confused and bothered by these feelings she has no experience of feeling. You’re the first thing she’s ever loved in her millennia of existence. You’re her first crush.”
“And you think she needs to get over it?”
“I’m not sure she can be who she is until she has. At some point she has to want to do good because it’s the right thing to do, not because it’s what she thinks you want her to do. Otherwise she’s only ever going to be…well, as retarded as Spike.”
Wesley looked at him for a moment. “This wouldn’t be due to you not liking to share your friends and wanting all my attention fixed on you so I’m always there at your beck and call to do your research and bind up your wounds and tell you how wonderful you are, would it?”
Angel licked his lips reflexively. “No. Well, okay – yes, but it’s still sound reasoning.”
Wesley half-laughed and pulled on a t-shirt and then a sweater. They were clothes Gunn had put there for him, he remembered; clean and well pressed, but not new; he remembered this t-shirt, this sweater; he remembered the snagged thread there.... He examined it and was reassured by it. His life was still intact and there had been so many good moments as well as bad ones. He looked up at Angel in surprise. “I can remember Cordelia without it hurting. I remember her smile. Do you remember?”
“I remember.” Angel looked fragile, liable to fragment, voice wistful. “She could light up a room.”
“I remember her drinking tequila and telling me I got the blame. I miss her.” Seeing Angel’s expression he swallowed the rest of what he was thinking. How glad he was that he’d got to know her, even if her time on the earth had been much too short; how much he would have hated to go through life and not know Cordelia Chase. Wesley frowned. “Our lives are…”
“I’m sorry,” Angel said awkwardly. “For what was done to you both. The visions and the pain and…everything.”
“She could have died during the Mayor’s Ascension, Angel,” Wesley reminded him gently. “And never found a purpose.”
“Her purpose got her killed.”
“Perhaps she died contented. Perhaps she’s still doing good work somewhere.” There was so much more he wanted to say but Angel’s attention was straying, his superior hearing evidently picking up sounds of activity downstairs. “Is it time?”
“Time for you to have breakfast.” Angel took him by the elbow. “Do you want eggs?”
Wesley looked at him sideways. “Is this a condemned man thing?”
“No, it’s an ‘I cook great eggs’ thing. So – do you want eggs?”
“Is there toast?”
“There can be. And tea made in the pot. And proper silverware and napkins.”
“Sounds wonderful,” Wesley admitted. He let Angel lead him down to breakfast, thinking as he did so that he really hadn’t managed to convey to Angel at all that he didn’t regret the life he’d had, despite the physical pain and the sanity-crushing misery that had afflicted him at times; the sense of purpose had been there every day except when he’d been cast out from this dysfunctional family of theirs. My friends forsake me like a memory lost. That had been like Sunnydale again, only so much worse, because those people had simply failed to warm to him, they hadn’t loved him once then ceased to care. But as long as he was part of the mission, part of Angel’s mission, he was happy; even when he was miserable there was a part of him that had always felt fulfilled. That was why he’d never nagged Cordelia to try to get rid of the visions, because he understood only too well how one could be in physical pain and yet still feel as if this was the only right and fitting path to follow. He was starting to suspect Angel didn’t really understand that. Well, if they survived Wesley having a bomb removed from his chest, British reserve or no British reserve he was definitely going to have to find a way to tell him. It seemed important that he should know.
***
“Do you understand?”
Willow looked so young, Wesley found himself thinking, intrigued. Amongst this circle of people sitting cross-legged in the lobby of the Hyperion all holding hands, she seemed positively childlike. She certainly looked no older than when he’d seen her in Sunnydale all those years ago, and even then she hadn’t looked even as old as the eighteen-year-old Buffy or Cordelia. He wondered if people like Willow were the reason humans had invented the concept of elves. She had that little upturned nose, and those huge green eyes. He couldn’t see her ears under her hair but he wouldn’t have been surprised to find they were small and pointy. He didn’t know if he was just feeling warm and fuzzy towards all humanity at the moment, due to him probably being about to take his leave of it in a big white flash, or if everything had just come into focus in a way it never had before. Either way her hair really was the most splendid colour.
“Wes, mate? You okay?”
He turned his head to see Spike looking at him curiously. He looked odd sitting there cross-legged, holding Buffy’s hand in one hand and Xander’s in the other, a candle in front of him with a wan flame sputtering a little wax and smoke. The hair dye he could understand – sort of, but why was Spike wearing eyeliner? Did Buffy like it? Surely she was a little young to have witnessed the Glam Rock age?
Angel squeezed his hand gently. “Wesley, did you understand what Willow told you?”
Wesley looked at the vampire on his left. “Willow’s really pretty.”
Xander grimaced. “You know, ordinarily, I’d be right there with you on thinking that was definitely a point worth making, but just at this moment in time…”
“And her hair is really…super.”
Everyone looked at Willow who shifted self-consciously. “Thanks, I think. But, Wesley…”
He nodded in acknowledgement. “I get it. You’re all staying. I can’t make you leave. And if I try to make a run for it I’ll be pulled down like a – what was it again…?”
“Wounded gazelle,” Spike supplied helpfully.
Wesley sighed and looked around at them, wondering as he did so if Angel and Gunn felt as silly holding hands with Lorne as they looked. “But I don’t want you all to die. I checked my To Do list very thoroughly this morning and it definitely doesn’t say ‘get half the world’s champions killed so evil can have free rein’.”
“We’re not going to die.” Buffy leaned forward to gaze intently into his eyes. “We’re going to give Willow enough of our power and know-how so that she can do this without anyone dying – including you.”
“But it doesn’t make any sense.” He wondered why they couldn’t get it when it was so obvious. “There are –” He had to pause to count them: Angel, Gunn, Lorne, Illyria, Spike, Buffy, Giles, Willow, Xander, that made: “Nine of you. And one of me. And I’m not even sane. Giles, tell them.”
Giles sighed wearily. “I agree with them, Wesley.”
Wesley rolled his eyes. “Well, someone who doesn’t agree with them, tell them.” He looked around at them hopefully.
Lorne said gently: “We all agree with them, crumpet. Kind of why we’re all here.”
“But it’s stupid,” he pointed out.
“Hey – ” Willow pointed a finger at him imperiously. “A bit more faith in my super witchy powers, Watcher guy.”
“Sorry.” He gave her an apologetic wince. “It’s not that I don’t think you’re the best witch ever, it’s just that I don’t think it can be done.”
“Still not with the positive thinking,” she protested.
“I noticed your hair,” he offered in mitigation.
“You’ve known her for six years and you just noticed her hair?” Xander enquired.
“I noticed it at Sunnydale. I just – forgot to mention it.”
Gunn looked across at Angel. “I thought you said he was saner today?”
“Do you not like my hair?” Illyria enquired.
“Yes, of course, I do. It’s...very nice. Very...blue.”
Buffy looked at Giles. “So, now I’m the only one whose hair Wesley doesn’t like?”
“I like your hair too,” Wesley protested. “I just…like Willow’s best. Because of the red and the colour and the being that shade.”
“He was pretty sane upstairs.” Angel shrugged. “I think it’s the rest of you who confuse him.”
“Wesley!” said Willow as sharply as she was capable of saying anything.
He sat up straighter at once. “Yes?”
“Do you understand what we’re going to do now?”
“We’re going to hold hands and help make a sanctuary spell to surround the hotel and stop the rest of LA getting destroyed when I go kabloom.”
“No, there will be no kablooming!”
Wesley looked across at Giles. “Remind me again what the current watcher to slayer ratio is before you explain why you think risking your life for a lunatic is a good idea?”
Giles looked smug. “As you’re one of the few fully trained watchers left in the world, Wesley, that just makes for an even stronger argument for saving your life.”
“Gunn…?”
“Save your breath, English. I ain’t going anywhere unless you’re going there too.”
“Sanctuary spell!” Willow said sharply.
Everyone started guiltily.
“You have to concentrate,” she reminded them.
“We’re right there with you on the concentrating,” Buffy assured her.
“Oh, and the candle lighting!” Xander noticed that his was the only one not yet lit and leant across to do so hastily, using Spike’s candle as a match.
“Are you sure Wes doing the mojo isn’t going to set off his inner nitro?” Gunn enquired.
“Pretty sure.” Willow smiled a little wanly. “And we do need his um…mojo.”
Illyria said, “Fred liked to watch Wesley perform magic spells, she found it…what is that emotion humans feel when they become warm throughout all of their body and with heightened awareness of all physical sensations, particularly their proximity to another?”
“Horny.” Spike grimaced at her. “And thanks for sharing but maybe another time with the reminiscences, pet?”
Wesley looked at Illyria in confusion. “Fred – what…?”
Lorne sighed. “Think of the effect it used to have on Gomez when Morticia spoke French, cherry pie, then adapt to Fred watching you do magic.”
“Who’s Gomez?” Wesley asked in bewilderment.
“And we would all be concentrating now, yes?” Willow said frostily.
“Wait, is it a side effect of Wesley doing magic?” Buffy demanded. “I mean is anyone sitting near him going to react like that? Because I have a thing about not being attracted to Watchers – because of the supremely high squick factor.”
“He’s only an ex-Watcher,” Gunn offered.
“Once a Watcher always a Watcher,” Buffy insisted. “I don’t want to be sitting here feeling all…lustified about Wesley.”
Wesley darted a nervous glance in her direction. “I really don’t think that’s likely to be a problem.”
“I’m changing places. I should be holding Willow’s hand anyway. In case she needs Slayer strength.”
“I was lending her magical assistance,” Giles protested.
“Well, lend it to Spike instead.”
“It was a Fred thing, Slayerlicious,” Lorne assured Buffy.
“I also feel it when I witness Wesley performing magical rites,” Illyria observed.
Gunn held up a hand. “I don’t.”
“Me neither.” Spike moved over so that Giles could take Buffy’s place. “And I’d like to go on record on that.”
“A Fred and Illyria thing then.” Lorne rolled his eyes. “Have we finished playing non-musical non-chairs yet?”
“And concentrating would be a good idea around now unless people are particularly eager to be blown into a million billion itsy bitsy pieces!”
Everyone looked sheepishly at Willow and muttered apologies.
Willow took a deep calming breath, told everyone to clear their minds, concentrate, and then repeat after her the following words.
She knew the spell so well it was difficult to remember to wait for them to repeat it after her. Make of us the world within. Make the walls of this building as the walls between the worlds. Let nothing pass between them, no light, nor fire, nor breath, nor sound. Make this a true sanctuary from the world without, and protect the world without from the world within....
She could feel it, the flow of power; not just her own, but the Slayer strength of Buffy, so positive, so free of doubt, the ancient darkness of Illyria with that golden thread twisted within it; that was what she was now; a thing of darkness wrapped around a thread of light, the light bleeding into the darkness more and more. Was that what humanity looked like – a beautiful infection? There was Giles. He had so much strength of purpose. And Wesley – he was powerful; he felt tangled but the power that he was lending her was focused as light through a crystal; oh, that was Angel, demon power, heavy as tar, and Spike, lighter, sort of tinny, but still strong; and Lorne, oh how sweet that his power was green too, or perhaps she was just picturing it that way? Either way she could feel it; a pulse of energy from someone who knew instinctively the ins and outs of magic. And Xander and Gunn, they were sending her human strength, the perfect balance to all this demonic power; warm and unblemished. This was a colossal spell; she could feel it building, its demand building also, sucking in energy greedily as it prepared for that whiplash of light and blue and...
Willow gasped and felt herself enveloped in light, white and searing yet not painful at all; and then the ground shimmered and shuddered and she felt the spell work. She snatched a breath and opened her eyes.
“It’s done.”
They were all gazing at her open mouthed. She blinked. “What?”
“That was awesome,” Gunn said.
Wesley looked at her curiously. “I had no idea you were so powerful.”
Willow inclined her head. “Kind of a side effect of trying to destroy the world – well, of letting all the magic flow into me and it sort of – stuck. Giles can explain it better.”
“You rule,” Buffy told her.
“Does anyone else need a cigarette?” Spike enquired reaching for one.
Looking around the circle, Willow noticed that they all looked a little flushed and breathless. “It was a group spell, not group…other thing.”
“All the same – most fun I’ve had in a while,” Xander admitted. As Spike offered him a drag on the cigarette he said, “I don’t…oh, okay....” He took a deep drag and then offered it to Giles who looked distinctly tempted but shook his head.
“No, thank you, I really have given up.”
“If I’d known we were doing these kind of spells I’d’ve got in some Mary Jane and snacks,” Spike observed.
“Who’s Mary Jane?” Wesley asked.
Gunn sighed. “Not ‘Who?’ ‘What?’ And it’s weed, Wes.”
Wesley blinked in confusion. “Dill? Sage? What?”
Willow looked across at Buffy. “Isn’t that sweet?”
“It’s adorable,” Buffy admitted. “They have like – no life at all at that Watchers’ School place, do they?” Seeing Giles’ expression, she said quickly, “Not that I know what Spike’s talking about either, because I so don’t.”
“None of us do,” Willow assured him. “Because…”
“Because you went to the only university on the planet in which there was no recreational drug-taking of any kind,” said Giles wearily. “Yes, Willow, I know.” He held a hand out to Xander. “I’ve changed my mind about that cigarette.”
“I would like to try human sexual intercourse,” Illyria observed to no one in particular. “It was an experience which Fred regarded as being most pleasurable but I have not yet been able to sample it for myself.”
“Wes still not putting out, love?” Spike accepted the cigarette back from Giles and leaned across to offer it to her. “He can’t help it. He’s English.”
“Given his condition, it wouldn’t exactly be a good idea even if there wasn’t the off the scale weirdass factor,” Gunn pointed out.
Spike shrugged. “That would certainly be going out with a bang anyway.”
“You’re English,” Angel pointed out to Spike. “That’s why you have that horrible accent.” He added quickly to Wesley: “Not that your accent is horrible. It isn’t. It’s...nice. But Spike’s is horrible.”
“Different era though. I’m from the days when being English meant you got to rule the world and oppress the natives, not that you were a tea-drinking nancy boy who didn’t know which way of a girl was up.” Spike glanced across at Giles and Wesley. “No offence. Well, not much.”
Illyria tentatively tried smoking the cigarette, coughed and handed it to Gunn. “I do not care for this pastime.”
“Very wise.” Gunn looked at the cigarette and then shook his head. “I don’t smoke and spells don’t make me horny – although as spells go, that one was pretty tight.”
Angel took it from him. “Well, give it to those of us who do. Smoke, I mean. Or – used to anyway.”
“Do you mind?” Lorne snatched it back. “I still do. And am about to. You can have a cigarette when you’re wearing leather pants and minus a soul, just – not one of mine.”
Willow pointedly waved the smoke away from where she was sitting. “If everyone has finished being all…post-coital we need to do the next spell on account of Wesley exploding if we don’t. Which, in case anyone isn’t really sure on that issue, would not be a good thing.”
“You had me with ‘exploding’,” Gunn assured her.
Wesley shrugged. “I’ve never exploded before. If you think about it, you’re denying me a unique experience.”
“Have you ever been hurt by a really pissed off witch before?”
He looked at Willow’s expression and hastily took Angel and Spike’s hands in his. “And I’m concentrating. And shutting up. I hope you’re noticing the shutting up.”
“Perhaps if you shut up for long enough, I might.” As Wesley opened his mouth to say something else, Willow added: “Remember when I told you about the time I flayed a man alive…?”
Wesley closed his mouth again with an audible click and everyone hastily held hands.
“Now, if I have your attention....”
Willow felt Buffy tighten her grip on her hand; a sympathetic squeeze to let her know that she at least knew how dangerous this was, and how difficult.
“I don’t have a death wish,” Buffy whispered to her. “And I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t know you could do this.”
It was a surprise to feel Illyria also tighten her grip on Willow’s hand a careful fraction. Willow glanced at the blue eyed god-king and the gaze that looked at her was unblinking as ever but by no means emotionless. There was absolutely no fear of death there for herself – himself? itself? She would stick with ‘herself’ as Illyria certainly looked female whatever her essence might be made from. But there was anxiety all the same. Willow squeezed Buffy’s hand back and let it flow into her again, Slayer power, god-king power, then the connection was taken up, and there was Giles, half-Watcher power, half-Witch power from the coven. Xander’s humanity, that was an extra warmth; she almost smiled as she felt it flow into her, and Spike – chilly and still a little tinny but powerful all the same, the strength of a soul and a demon combined. Then Wesley – he really did have some powerful mojo there, enough to tip the balance perhaps; it didn’t matter that his mind was all woolly and fragmented or that he didn’t even seem to much care if he lived or died; inside there was all that strength and power and knowledge – just as well he was on the side of the good guys, really. Then Angel – oh and that was strong – so powerful, that soul of his all dark and treacly and golden, and the demon strength of Angelus buried within him, raw energy; that appealed to her in particular, using evil rocket fuel to jet propel that bomb out of Wesley. Lorne, definitely green, those tendrils of subtle power from him, good to the core; and Gunn, pure humanity again, concentrating so hard on trying to lend her his strength she could feel it flowing from him. And Illyria again, and Buffy, still, and it was flowing into her, power and more power. She had to dismiss her instinctive fear that the power might prove too much, might find a way to corrupt her. This was good magic for a good purpose and she was a good witch and…
There was the bomb. She could see it so clearly now. Even though the air around her was shimmering, within herself everything was still, focused. There was a raindrop poised on the very end of a leaf, the ground was shaking but she was keeping the leaf still; the tree was waving in the breeze but she was balancing the leaf and the raindrop didn’t fall. No need to fight the earthquake or the deep roots of the tree, just to lend a little power to the leaf. This was all she had to do here. The bomb was glowing; silvery white; and there was its delicate heart so perfectly balanced.
It had come to her this morning that she needed to enlist the bomb’s aid in defusing it. Not take it to a place it had never meant to be or try to freeze it while it struggled against its bonds; but to nudge it to remember the way it had been before; like reminding a full grown man holding an armalite that he’d once known the safety of his mother’s womb; play on the yearning of every evolving thing to return to that earlier state of being. The heart of the bomb, the beating, ticking, dangerous heart, could remain still as the tendrils slid back in, just like that, as they had been before; that was all it needed to do to pass from one state of readiness to another earlier one. And now the tendrils were out of Wesley’s body and back inside the bomb and she was holding the heart still so it felt exactly as it had done when the tendrils were connected; she was singing it a mystical lullaby and it was returning now, the heart slowing and then stopping as it became what it had been before; something in readiness, something waiting to be activated; now it was sleeping. It was ready to become what it had briefly dreamed it was. She just needed to nudge it to make it remember that it didn’t belong here; not yet. Not in this form. It needed to remember further back, much further back to what it had been before even this; to a time when it had been incomplete. For a moment everything wavered; she felt the power source from Wesley falter for just an instant and she saw the leaf almost shake, a pre-motion when the raindrop might fall, but then the power flickered back on again, like a light bulb in a thunderstorm, and she had the bomb firmly within her spell. It was whole, it was components, it was the metal and magic from which those components were made. It was atoms. It was the dust of life and death and other matter tossed upon the wind. It was scattered into space....
Willow gasped and fell forward, Buffy and Illyria both catching her. She heard Angel say: “Wes? Wes?” And tried to open her eyes. Unfortunately someone seemed to have cemented them closed at the same time they had bathed her in grey sweat and pulled the bones out of her arms and legs. She slumped against Buffy and smelt her familiar scent, heard her whisper: “I’ve got you, Will, I’ve got you,” and then everything went peacefully dark for a while.
“Is she okay? Is she breathing?”
Giles checked Willow’s pulse and hastened to reassure Xander. “She’s quite well. Just – recharging her batteries.”
“Wes?” Angel was anxiously cradling Wesley and Giles hurried over to check on him too.
The ex-watcher was unconscious and a little clammy, but his heartbeat when Giles listened to it was steady and regular.
“Is it a coma?” Gunn demanded. “Man, I hate comas.”
“I think it’s a deep sleep.” Giles checked Wesley’s pulse and it was a little rapid at first but then slowed to normality. “We’re all a little drained but it would have hit him harder because of his less than tip top physical shape.”
Willow gasped and woke up to find Buffy and Xander gazing at her anxiously. For a spit second she wondered where Oz was, then Tara, then, as she groped her way back to consciousness, Kennedy, before she remembered that she had been needed in Cleveland with Faith and Wood to guard the second Hellmouth and take care of Dawn. “Is Wesley okay?” she said hoarsely.
“He didn’t blow up.” Xander glanced over at him. “Hence the not deadness of us.”
“He’s fine, Willow. He’s asleep.”
Willow looked at him anxiously. “I drained his batteries.”
“They weren’t exactly charged up that high to start off with,” Spike shrugged. “You did it, Red. Got rid of the bomb.”
“I just need to check.” She staggered to her feet, very grateful to find herself being steadied as she swayed. It was a shock to find it was Illyria’s hand on her arm, those unblinking blue eyes gazing into hers intently.
“You have saved Wesley. I am experiencing feelings of gratitude and liking for you,” she said.
Willow managed a wan smile, hoping that as well as inheriting Fred’s crush on Wesley Illyria hadn’t inherited Fred’s brief crush on her because, unlike Buffy, she wasn’t really into making out with the undead. “Oh, you’re welcome. All in a day’s…witching. Can I see?” She tottered over to where Angel was cradling him anxiously.
“Angel, he really is okay,” Giles assured him, with more resignation than impatience.
Willow was grateful for the hand Lorne held out to her. “His aura’s kind of cloudy,” the green demon frowned. “As much as I can tell without him singing for me anyway, but I’m not sensing an about-to-detonate vibe any more, are you?”
Willow concentrated, closing her eyes and feeling her way inside Wesley, searching for anything magical concealed within him. She should have done this before, of course, instead of just assuming those sigils were his only connection to the dimension from which he’d escaped. It had just seemed so…intrusive, and he’d already had to be looked at by everyone when he was naked, and Angel wasn’t really being big on the letting him have personal space issue, and it just seemed important somehow that she didn’t go poking around inside him. She wasn’t making that mistake again. She concentrated harder and found nothing of the bomb remaining; not even a memory. She sighed in relief.
“It’s gone. No more kabloom. He’s safe.” She swayed again and found Lorne holding her upright.
“Easy there, my red hot chilli pepper of witchery. That was quite a spell you cast, and I don’t mean just the one over my heart, although I have to tell you, sweetness, you ever decide to stray towards a wailing for a demon lover place, my ass is yours.”
“That’s sweet,” Willow told him, wondering if all of Angel’s people were just really…sex-starved. “I think. And I didn’t do it. We did it. All of us. And I’m not just saying that to be all modest, I’m saying you should probably go eat a Snickers bar, all of you, or drink blood or eat a nice petrie dish, if that’s your preference, because I think I probably drained you all pretty flat.”
“You may have a point.” Spike tossed aside the cigarette he’d lit. “It’s been a long time since Gunn looked tasty to me.”
“Back off, blondie bear,” Gunn told him witheringly. He bent over Wesley, whom Angel was still cradling. “We need to get him to bed, Angel. Let him sleep it off. Recharge his mojo juice.” Then put a hand to his head and staggered. “And – Willow may have a point about the Snickers bar.”
“If you’re human, sit down,” Lorne suggested. “If you’re possessed of super Slayer strength or demon power – can you get me another Sea Breeze? I’m right out.”
Angel rose to his feet with Wesley clasped in his arms. “I’ll stay with him. Make sure he’s okay.”
“Yeah, because that’s just what he needs right now.” Spike rolled his eyes. “Nothing like a psychotically over-protective blood sucker watching over you when you’ve just had some mystical TNT yanked out of your wotsit.”
Angel didn’t deign to reply, carrying Wesley up the stairs as if he was auditioning for a role in a bad Gothic novel. Gunn looked after them and shook his head. “Angel really needs to get a life.”
“Or a pet,” Buffy suggested brightly. As they all looked down their noses at the suggestion, she pouted. “I wasn’t suggesting a puppy.”
“If you gave Angel a cyber pet he’d break it,” Spike told her.
“You should know,” Xander observed.
“I was never his ‘pet’, all right? Him and Darla – me and Dru. Okay – and him and Dru, and Darla and Dru from time to time, but apart from that never the twain shall – well, except for that one time and I don’t think that counts on account of the…okay, maybe it was more than once but it was never when I was sober and…” Spike noticed them all looking at him expectantly and broke off. “Not a pet.”
“Is Wesley going to be normal now?” Buffy looked at Giles for enlightenment.
“No, he’s just not going to explode,” Giles reassured her.
“Good, because I kind of like him like this. And he seems quite happy. Not maybe too big on the whole sane thing but…happy.”
“He can be happy and sane,” Gunn observed from his place on the floor. “I remember it.”
“When was that then?” Spike enquired. “I think I missed it.”
“He was sane when you first came to Wolfram & Hart,” Gunn protested.
Spike gave him a look of disbelief. “He shot his father nine times at close range. He got drunk on suggestion. And when he wasn’t doing that he was looking at Angel like he was the Second Coming.”
“Oh, he always does that.” Lorne waved a dismissive hand. “And Robopop had had it coming for a long time.”
“What, so you’re saying when he’s normal he still does the ‘oh Angel, you’re like the noblest champion in the whole wide world’ thing?”
“Oh yeah.” Gunn shrugged. “He’s always done that.”
Illyria observed: “Fred regarded Wesley as the sanest person she knew.”
“Well, for a start I think that says more about the kind of people Fred hung around with than Percy’s mental health and…”
Gunn frowned. “Fred did smoke an awful lot of weed growing up.”
Spike tossed his cigarette on the floor and trod on it. “That explains a lot.”
“Now he’s not going to explode we could maybe reintroduce him to society,” Buffy suggested. “Take him out. Show him the sights.”
Giles looked at her down his nose. “You cannot go on a shopping spree on the grounds that it would be good for Wesley’s rehabilitation.”
“You’re planning to take him into every public library and museum.”
“That’s different. Wesley likes libraries and museums.”
“Oh! Rare book stores!” Willow looked around at them with renewed enthusiasm. The exhaustion was still there and she really was going to get some sleep in about five minutes time. But she was also starting to realize that she had actually done it. She really had defused the bomb and Wesley really was safe because of her. “He’d love to go to some magic shops.”
“They were on my list,” Giles said in mild disappointment.
Xander looked across at Gunn. “Porn cinemas and sporting events. That’s what the guy needs. And tacos.”
“Given the fact Angel won’t let him out of his sight even to take a leak, kind of a moot point, isn’t it?” Spike observed.
Illyria gazed up the stairs. “The vampire is unhealthily obsessive and jealous.”
They all looked in the same direction and then Giles sighed. “Never mind. The main objective is accomplished. Wesley is not now likely to explode even if left unattended. His previous ‘owner’ has had his very expensive mystical device banished back into the ether from whence it came and is we sincerely hope sadly out of pocket. Wesley will hopefully wake up soon, none the worse for his experience, and Angel…” He shrugged. “Well, we can worry about that later. For the moment, I really need a cup of tea.”
“Beer.” Xander looked at Gunn.
“Food,” the man countered.
They slapped hands. “We’re on it,” Xander told the others. “Give us money and we will furbish you with tasty and unhealthy food and beverages specifically designed to cause irreparable damage to your internal organs.”
“Don’t forget the booze,” Spike reminded them. “Whisky, not just beer. And some lager wouldn’t go amiss. Angel got any blood in the fridge I can nick?”
“I bought more blood this morning,” Buffy told him. “Seeing as how Angel was too obsessed and you were too lazy.”
“Thanks, pet.” Spike headed off there, swaying a little still.
“Heck of a spell, Will,” Xander told her. “Lucky you’re such a heck of a witch.”
Willow looked up the stairs again. “I just hope he’ll be okay.”
Buffy hugged her. “He’ll be fine. And it’s all because of you and your super wiccan super powers. Now, we just need to sit around and eat ourselves stupid until Wesley wakes up again.”
Willow felt reassured by Buffy’s confidence. It had felt like a normal sleep Wesley had lapsed into, it was true, and not a mystical coma, but after what had happened to Cordelia she really couldn’t bear it if she’d ended up putting Wesley into the same condition, and she thought Angel would go completely insane if he had to go through that again. She managed a smile. “You’re right. Everything’s fine. Wesley’s fine. And we should eat candy.”
“That’s my girl.” Buffy steered a wavering Willow over to the office where Giles and Spike were already arguing about whether or not a man carrying a cup of tea or a vampire carrying a cup of blood had priority passing rights. Gunn and Xander were both searching their jacket pockets for the car keys to Gunn’s truck while insisting the other one had had them last. Illyria had struck an attitude of immobile beauty at the foot of the steps and was gazing up them, presumably waiting to hear if Wesley stirred at all. Lorne was humming a pleasing ditty while mixing himself another Sea Breeze.
“You know what’s really freaky?” Buffy whispered to Willow as she helped her along.
“What?”
“The way this place is starting to seem like home.”
***
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Date: 2005-10-29 06:43 am (UTC)I can't imagine what's coming next, given that there are what, 12 more chapters? And they've been through so much already!
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Date: 2005-10-29 01:08 pm (UTC)Thank you! I love him to pieces but find him really hard to write so thank you very much.
I thought Angel was getting a bit too comfortable with things they way they are...