(no subject)
Oct. 29th, 2005 04:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elgreyAll parts linked to from Story Notes
Temps Perdu, Part Twelve
Willow exchanged a glance with Giles. They had both been trying not to meet Wesley’s eye as Angel and Illyria had their all-too-audible argument in the dining room. Wesley had looked extremely uncomfortable and tried to drown it out by making small talk with Mr and Mrs Patterson. They, however, had moved far too far from their normal comfort zone to be able to converse rationally, particularly with an Englishman. Willow had been impressed by how tactful and patient Wesley was with them; especially as tact and patience were not characteristics she remembered the Wesley who had first come to Sunnydale displaying to any notable degree. He had tried to keep them concentrating on everyday things like the children’s hobbies and what sports they enjoyed. Giles had eyed the children warily, as if he was unsure as to whether or not they might actually bite, and taken refuge in the spell books they had brought in with them.
Willow suspected she was not the only one who believed the Skilosh would break through somehow, and she had a spell all ready for them. Wesley had seemed to be of the same mind as he had been careful to position the chairs for the Pattersons in a circle and had kept them distracted while Willow spread some twice blessed sage and hemlock around them, dropping some used horseshoe nails at intervals around the circle. She wished that some of the spellbook ingredients would get an upgrade to used spark plugs or the like but until they did used horseshoe nails it was. She had given the little girl, Julie, in whose head the Skilosh spawn has originally been laid, the focusing crystal to hold and as it was a pretty crystal and Julie a very conscientious little girl, Willow hoped that she would remain the centre of the spell if it became necessary to use it. Willow smiled at her now in a way that she hoped was reassuring, but they could all hear the sound of battle raging. All that slicing and splattering. The doors had round windows in them and although they were bolted closed there was nothing to be done to stop the sounds coming through them or to prevent the Pattersons from seeing the green blood spattering across the windows.
“So, baseball? I’ve never really understood how Little League works…” Wesley darted a glance at the doors as they bulged with the impact of something solid.
“Oh, yeah? Want a piece of me you ugly three-eyed son of a…” The end of Spike’s sentence was muffled by the splatting sound of something fleshy impacting with something sharp and metallic.
Wesley grimaced. “And – perhaps we should…” Seeing Patterson’s face, he sighed, “Drop the charade and admit there are a horde of angry demons just outside the door. However, I can assure that our colleagues out there are trained demon fighters with many years experience in protecting the…helpless from harm.”
“I work in advertising,” Patterson observed.
“That’s all right.” Giles looked up from the book he was reading. “We still think you and your family have a right to be protected from vengeful demons.”
Wesley nodded earnestly. “Yes, we don’t judge.”
Patterson looked at them in confusion and Giles and Wesley both realized a moment too late that the man hadn’t been making them an apology after all, just the beginning of a pronouncement.
“That’s interesting,” said Willow quickly. “All those…products, and nifty little…jingles.”
There was an uncomfortable silence before Patterson said again, “I work in advertising.”
This time they just nodded politely as he’d evidently expected them to do the first time. He continued: “And I have to tell you that your ‘help the helpless’ byline – it’s not a winner. What you’re doing right there is disempowering the potential client. You’re placing a barrier between the product you’re offering – your assistance – and the client’s desire to accept it. What you’re doing with that is you’re saying ‘only the helpless need our help’ thereby designating potential clients self-assessed ‘helpless’. Well, that’s not going to fly with your average breadwinner. He’s proud of his abilities. He doesn’t regard himself as helpless. You see where I’m going with this?”
Wesley and Giles exchanged a glance and Willow thought again how cute they looked together and what a pity it was they couldn’t just set up home together and be happy doing Watcher things and synchronising cleaning their glasses – not that Wesley seemed to have glasses any more, but although he didn’t need them he seemed to miss them. She was sure she’d seen him looking longingly at Giles’s a few times as if he missed the comfort of looking over them at people and taking them off and putting them on again when he didn’t want to make eye contact.
“Well…” Wesley murmured. “I suppose I… Perhaps not.”
Patterson rolled his eyes. “I didn’t even want to come to you guys because of it. It was only Sally here who persuaded me.”
“The back of your daughter’s head was blinking and you were worried that obtaining assistance in the matter might somehow impugn your masculinity?” Wesley enquired.
Patterson nodded emphatically. “You see how off-putting that kind of a by-line can be?”
Wesley looked across at Giles in a ‘words fail me’ way that Willow thought was really very cute.
Giles lied glibly, “Well, you see, Mr Patterson, we actually obtained the help of a trained psychiatrist in coming up with that ‘help the helpless’ tag for the very good reason that we can only help those people who are capable of overcoming those kind of prejudices. Our work is so complicated and dangerous that if people aren’t prepared to put themselves entirely in our hands then it’s very difficult for us to assist them. People who can admit that they are in need of help are the only people we can help. You see?”
Wesley gave Giles a look that was so entirely admiring that Willow wondered if perhaps there was still hope of them eloping together to somewhere nice in England where it didn’t perhaps rain as much as the other places, and where there was better food as well as the inevitable cricket, tea, and umbrellas. Apparently fibbing fluently was admirable when other Watchers did it.
Wesley recovered his voice and said, “Yes, absolutely. Trained psychiatrist.”
“Well, I have to tell you, buddy, that I think you’re losing a lot of potential clients. Now, my firm, we’d be pleased to take a look at your needs and see if we couldn’t come up with something for you that has a bit more zip to it. I could give you a special rate. And then there’s your logo. What does a diseased lobster have to do with being paranormal detectives anyway?”
“It’s an Angel.” Wesley looked down at the card the man held out to him. “Designed exclusively for us by a late associate of ours.”
“It doesn’t look like an angel.”
Willow had to admit its resemblance to an angel seemed to her to be only passing as well but she wasn’t allowing Cordelia’s artwork to be dissed. “It’s surrealist,” she said loftily. “All the best logos are these days.”
“The artist used Jungian mandala symbolism,” Giles added. “It’s proven to have a soothing effect on anyone who looks at it.” As Mr Patterson gazed at the card again with a frown of confusion, Willow had a terrible suspicion that Giles might be starting to enjoy himself.
“Why does that woman have blue hair?” the little boy asked. They all looked up to see Ilyria visible through the round windows holding a Skilosh aloft by the throat. It was abruptly tossed out of sight as she strode out of their field of vision with a murderous look on her perfect face. A second later there was a squishing sound of Skilosh being skewered by something long and pointy.
“She’s in a band,” Wesley said. “God-Kings of the Primordium.”
“Giles is in it too,” Willow said quickly. “He plays the guitar. And sings.”
Wesley looked at Giles in surprise. “You do? I mean – of course, you do.” He turned back to Mr Patterson. “Spike, of course, is the drummer.”
Giles and Wesley smirked at one another again and Willow realized they were definitely enjoying this far too much.
That was when a loud thumping sound, much too close, and on the other side of the kitchen from the dining room, made them exchange a very different kind of look. Giles said, “Willow, why don’t you…?”
She was already chanting the incantation while Wesley said rapidly to the Pattersons, “Just for your extra protection, Willow is going to erect a spell barrier between you and the…”
A part of the wall that had seemed entirely solid was jerked up to reveal a dozen angry Skilosh, slightly soot-streaked in appearance, clambering out of the space with weapons in hand.
“…crazed vengeful demons who managed to find the old coal chute that the rest of us missed.” Wesley turned to her urgently. “Willow…”
She finished the chant just in time, throwing up her hands as the circle shimmered and then held. Something proven as the lead Skilosh rushed at Julie and was repelled. Willow began to back up, glad that Giles and Wesley were with here but also feeling that perhaps a slayer or vampire might not have been a bad idea either.
“And there was a particular reason why you placed us outside the protective circle?” Giles murmured.
Willow glanced up at him. “You can’t use magic from inside it and I thought I might need some.”
Wesley stepped in front of her a second after Giles, both of them snatching up swords as they did so. “Good idea,” Wesley said brightly. “Perhaps some Skilosh killing magic would be in order, round about…” As one rushed him and he brought up his sword, “Now!”
As Willow opened her mouth to chant a rapid disorientation spell, the second Skilosh threw a bottle of liquid at her. She put up her hands to ward it off, afraid it was vitriol, but it only splashed, apparently harmlessly, onto her skin. It was only as she once again tried to cast a spell that she realized her voice was gone. She put a hand to her throat and gestured frantically at Giles, who pushed her further behind him and thrust his sword at the Skilosh who had stolen her voice.
“Keep behind us, Willow,” Wesley told her, unnecessarily, she thought, as if he imagined for one minute she had any intention of rushing a bunch of angry Skilosh with no magic to aid her and no weapon to hand except the old frying pan she’d just snatched up, he had another think coming.
Wesley surprised her by skewering one Skilosh with a sword and snatching the weapon from its hand as he did so, using it to block another attack while fending off a third with his first blade. His fighting seemed to be instinctive and fuelled by a fear of imminent death, not to mention imminent failure, but so far at least he was holding his own. Giles was fighting with a dogged and rather graceful precision that on another occasion she might have enjoyed watching, but the danger to herself and two people she cared about was severely restricting her pleasure in Giles’s agility and strength.
As Giles turned his head to see if Willow was still safe, a Skilosh swung a vicious serrated blade at him. Willow threw herself at the Skilosh’s arm, just managing to grab it in time, only to find herself gazing into angry Skilosh eyes before the demon flung her contemptuously at the doors to the dining room.
“Willow!” Wesley swung around in anxiety for her, dropping his guard and Giles only just yanked him out of the way of a potentially killing blow.
The Skilosh were trying without success to break through the protective barrier around the Pattersons, but the children were both clinging to one another and screaming in fear. Willow hammered on the dining room doors, having to stand on tiptoe to reach the top bolt. She didn’t know if there were fourteen or forty Skilosh on the other side of this door, but there were now a dozen in here and she didn’t see how Giles and Wesley could hold them for much longer. Wesley was still fighting doggedly, but he didn’t seem to know how to fight dirty, much too Marquess of Queensbury to do as Giles was doing and elbow Skilosh hard in the head or use his knee in their groins. He parried and thrust and blocked and stabbed with movements that looked as if they had been taught in fencing class but although he was showing a lot of courage in standing up to the Skilosh he was barely holding his ground. The look Giles darted her over his shoulder told her that he also knew they couldn’t keep them off for much longer and she yanked open the dining room door, banging her frying pan against it to gain the attention of the people in the room.
The floor was slippery with green gloop and Skilosh corpses and she averted her eyes instinctively from the gory mess.
Buffy said, “Giles!” just as Angel said, “Wes!” And then they were both charging towards the kitchen to lend assistance.
Angel grabbed Wesley by the shoulder and yanked him out of the way of a Skilosh axe, shoving him behind him while Buffy moved shoulder to shoulder with Giles, kicking off one Skilosh, and then as another rushed at them, snatching up a knife from the counter and hurling it at it with the speed, strength and accuracy to nail it between the eyes.
“Willow!” Xander pulled her out of the way of an advancing Skilosh, which Spike leapt in front of her to deal with it. “Are you okay?”
She pointed to her mouth plaintively, and he pulled her behind him, blocking an attack from a Skilosh as he said. “Well, you’re either hungry or you’ve lost your voice.”
She pinched him indignantly and he grinned at her, his handsome face endearingly piratical behind the eye patch. “Not hungry then? Because I have a chocolate in my pocket.”
Illyria sliced the head off a Skilosh that was making for them purposefully, barely pausing in her stride before she marched to where Wesley was and started killing everything that looked as if it might possibly threaten him. Looking around at the dining room, Willow saw that Gunn was defending Lorne who was bravely at least making slashing motions with a elegantly curved sword that Willow just knew Buffy and Angel were going to fight over the possession of the second the fight was over.
Buffy had that determined look on her face that meant none of the bad people was going home alive tonight. Willow thought of it as her No one threatens my Watcher and lives expression, and noticed that Angel was wearing the same look while slicing up Skilosh with unscientific brutality. Illyria was an unstoppable force and Spike was – well, having way too much fun with all the slicing and dicing and squishing and splattering he was getting to do. As the Skilosh began to realize the odds were against them, Wesley said breathlessly, “It may be unsporting to attack an enemy in retreat but we can’t guarantee the Pattersons’ safety unless…” Before the words were fully out of his mouth, Spike and Illyria had already charged after the fleeing Skilosh; Illyria slamming the coal chute entrance closed a second before they reached it and turning on them with her extra creepy showing-some-expression-and-all-of-it-malevolent face. Willow averted her eyes as lots of chopping and squishing noises sounded, and hoped that Julie and her little brother were doing the same thing.
Willow looked over her shoulder to see Gunn punch one Skilosh in the face to send it reeling, before hacking off another’s head with an axe. He did move with astonishing grace and strength for a human, she couldn’t help thinking. The one he’d punched reeled close to Xander who decapitated it with a swing of his own axe that, if lacking some of Gunn’s power and elegance, did nevertheless send its head in one direction and its body in the other.
Illyria strode back into the dining room and surveyed it in disappointment. “Are there no more of this enemy left to fight?”
Angel stabbed the last one and withdrew his sword. “We’re done.”
Buffy also surveyed the battlefield. “Well, that was…”
“Bracing?” Wesley offered. He was lightly splattered in green goop but seemed quite cheerful about it. “Is everyone okay?”
Willow pointed plaintively to her mouth.
“She doesn’t appear to be hungry,” Xander explained.
Giles and Wesley converged on her at once, both inspecting the stains on her clothing with every sign of interest, and hardly noticing the Skilosh corpses they automatically stepped over en route to her. Giles sniffed while Wesley tentatively tasted.
“Saffron, mandrake and…” Wesley turned to Giles for confirmation. “Is it horehound?”
“Monkshood, I think. And, yes, I definitely detect some fennel. Perhaps a pinch of locust.”
“They also do blind tastings,” Buffy explained to Gunn. “Put them on Name That Stew and they always win the microwave.”
As Giles and Wesley both gave her a withering look, she looked across at Willow. “Do you think they teach that expression in Watcher School?”
“Of course they do, Buffy,” Xander wiped his sword on his coat. “Snooty Expressions class comes right after the Tea Brewing and Wearing Tweed classes.”
“Are you okay?” Angel looked at Wesley anxiously before glancing around at the others. “Is everyone okay?”
“No.” Lorne grimaced as he stepped over a dead Skilosh. “This is so not my idea of a good evening in. And look at my jacket. Do you know how much this fabric costs a yard? And that’s without even going into the emotional trauma I’ve suffered at having to witness so much violence. Lover not a fighter, remember?”
Angel sighed. “Does anyone have any real injuries that aren’t related to clothing or emotional trauma?”
Willow pointed plaintively at her mouth. Angel gave her a sympathetic look but said, “I’d still rather they stole your voice than chopped off your head, Willow.”
“And so say all of us.” Buffy hugged her, gaze flickering around her people to assess their condition as she did so. “Xander, are you hurt?”
“Just a scratch,” he told her. “I was being all heroic and silent about it, but it’s actually really starting to sting now.”
“Gunn’s bleeding.” Spike glanced across at him.
“Just nicked me, I’m good,” he assured them.
“Okay, Giles, can you patch up Gunn and Xander? Buffy, Spike, can you help me drag these corpses down to the basement so we can dismember them and stick them in the incinerator?”
Spike shrugged. “Who knew you were such a fun date?”
Buffy nodded. “Yep. What girl can refuse an offer like that?”
“Excuse me…”
They all looked around guiltily as Patterson’s voice reached them. Willow pointed frantically to her mouth and Giles and Wesley exchanged a look.
“Can you…?” Angel enquired. “Willow, Lorne, can you patch up Xander and Gunn while Giles and Wes rescue the Pattersons from their – protection spell?”
“I’m sure we’ll figure it out eventually.” Giles looked a lot less confident than he was trying to sound.
Wesley’s smile was also a little sickly. “Yes, how hard can it be?”
Rolling her eyes, Willow walked into the kitchen, picked up the spell book, turned to the right page and put it in Giles’s hands, pointing to the spell so there could be no chance of mistake.
“Right.” Wesley looked over Giles’s shoulder. “Oh. It can be incanted in Latin or Geshundi. I wonder if that means the same spell evolved independently in two completely different cultures or if the Geshundi version is actually the root of…”
“Paying customers trapped behind a magical force field, Wes.” Gunn patted him gently on the shoulder. “Maybe you want to save the evening class for later? Especially as, if I’m not very much mistaken, that little kid really needs to barf.”
Wesley darted an anxious look at the small boy who did indeed look a little green around the gills and said to Giles, “Right, Latin version it is then? Would you like to…?”
“Absolutely.” Giles looked under his glasses, murmured a few words under his breath, said, “Well, it seems straightforward enough…” and then advanced towards the Pattersons rather in the manner of Xander about to take an exam for which he hadn’t studied.
“And when you’ve done that you need to work out how to give Willow her voice back,” Xander called after them.
Willow nodded emphatically. Xander put an arm around her shoulders and murmured in her ear, “Given the way we’re entirely surrounded by fearless demon hunters, I’d kind of like to be out of earshot of everyone else when I blub like a girly over the fact that I really really hurt.”
Willow tightened her grip on him sympathetically, mouthed the word ‘ice cream’ at him and he nodded. “You have the best ideas,” he told her. “First bandages, then painkillers, then, I think unfathomably large cartons of ice cream.”
They followed Gunn out into the corridor, where he also leant back against the wall, checked that there were no vampires, Slayers or Old Ones looking his way and then wrapped his arms around his ribs. “Damn! That hurt.”
Xander, still supported by Willow, reached out and they touched knuckles. “Kind of sucks to be human around here somedays, huh?”
“Damned straight.”
Lorne offered Gunn his arm, saying, “And getting out of the limousine now is the famous entertainer Krevlorneswath of the Deathwok clan, he of the golden tonsils, squired for the evening by his handsome escort, Charles Gunn, attorney at law.” As they all looked at him, he shrugged, “You cling to your Skilosh-gloop spattered reality and I’ll enjoy mine.”
Sighing, Gunn leaned on Lorne, allowing the demon to help him limp back towards the lobby. “I hate Skilosh. Every time one of them sticks their nasty pointy tongues out, the back of my skull starts itching.”
Lorne looked across at Willow. “I know you can’t answer me in words, sweetpea, but a nod or a shake of the head will suffice. Did Wesley handle himself in there like a wet behind the ears new Watcher or a guy who’s been fighting demons for the past six years?”
Willow pulled a face which she hoped indicated something in between, steadying a slightly staggery Xander as she did so.
Lorne sighed. “I was afraid of that.”
“Afraid of what?” Gunn clasped a hand to his aching ribs. “Wes can handle himself. Hell, he was still fighting from a wheelchair, and one thing you can say for post traumatic stress disorder – it teaches a guy good self defence.”
“Wesley could handle himself – and I so wish you hadn’t phrased it like that – before he had his memory wiped. But fighting isn’t just instinct, sugarplum, it’s learned responses, learned from being in the same situation in the past. Situations Wesley now doesn’t remember. Maybe he’s not falling over at the first punch these days, but that’s because he’s amongst friends and he’s not so worried about making an impression he can’t remember what he learned at Watcher school. But any way you look at it that’s still five years of hard won knowledge tossed away because Angel can’t deal with his part in driving Wesley crazy.”
“It’s Wesley’s decision.” Gunn shrugged.
“Yeah, well it’s the wrong decision, and it would be nice if some of you fearless demon hunters got off your fearless demon hunter tushes and told him that.”
“But, Fred…”
“Isn’t someone the Wesley I knew would ever want to forget. I don’t care how much pain it cost him to lose her, he still wouldn’t want to have her wiped out of his mind. Or Cordelia either. Tell me the truth, Gunn, would you want it to be as if Alonna never happened?”
Gunn opened his mouth, closed it again, sighed and then said, “No.”
“So, are you going to tell Wesley that or just let Angel go on having the good intentions that take us all to hell?”
“Right now I’m kind of busy trying to decide whether to pass out or throw up. Can it wait?”
“Sure. Why not? It’s only Wesley’s life we’re talking about here.” Lorne looked at Xander and Willow. “Why aren’t you two backing me up?”
Willow hurriedly pointed to her mouth and Xander said, “We’re with you in spirit, Lorne, just not in an actual – talking to Angel about what an asshole he’s being way.”
“I miss Cordelia,” Lorne sighed. “She would have had this situation sorted out in a heartbeat. Angel and Wesley were way more scared of her than they are of me. I need to work on that.” Willow nodded at his horns encouragingly and he conceded the point. “I know. You’d kind of think they’d give me the edge over a cheerleader when it came to scaring the nijinksy out someone, wouldn’t you?”
“I blame Connor.” Gunn winced and Willow noticed that the hand he had clasped to his ribs was stained with blood. “If he’d punched Angel on the nose the first day he got his memories back instead of going around being the poster child for therapy-through-amnesia, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“Good point.” Lorne looked thoughtful. “Very good point indeed, my lamb.”
Gunn glanced at him. “Why is that not reassuring me?”
“Because you’re still thinking we just staggered out of a demon fight where we barely managed to keep our soft tissue inside our skins. If you’d just accept that we’re attending the premier of something wonderful – like, I don’t know, a Star Wars film that actually has a script, or say, my about to break all box office records starring debut on Broadway, think how much happier you’d be feeling right now.”
“You promising me you’re not going to have any contact with Connor, on account of Angel probably killing you if you even think about it, that would reassure me.”
Willow looked at Lorne’s face and wondered if a pacifist anagogic demon had ever looked so inscrutably determined before. He said: “If there is a purpose and a pattern in life – and I’ve kind of spent every waking minute since I first arrived in this miraculously music-filled world assuming that’s the case – then I was sent here for a reason and that reason was to do with helping people find their path. Something it’s been a lot harder for me to do since you gumballs got my club destroyed and first Jasmine and then Angel messed with my empathy vibe. But if getting out of Wolfram & Hart has given us anything, I like to think it’s a second chance to get back to what we’re meant to be. And in my case that means I help people find their path. I don’t stand back and drink too many cocktails while their well-meaning friends shove them off that path and then padlock all the gates so they can’t get back onto it again. Capeesh?”
Gunn sighed. “Tell me one thing to do with Connor that ever ended well?”
“But nothing’s ended yet, cinnamon roll, that’s kind of the point. This is a story that’s still unfolding.” Lorne looked at Willow compassionately and she realized in that moment that he knew so much more about her than she’d ever realized; how it had felt to lose Tara and how the guilt was always with her for what she’d done to Warren, to Giles, to the world. “We’ve all reached those ‘stop’ signs that make us think we’ve hit an ending but human lives aren’t a three minute pop number that never made the hit parade; they’re all grand opera, even the quiet lives, and let’s face it, who does grand opera better than us?”
Xander looked at him closely. “You’re saying Angel is acting like we’re on the third act when for all we know…”
“We’re barely out of the overture.” Lorne nodded. “There’s way more of this to play, my sweets. And meanwhile everyone’s acting like Wesley’s life up to now doesn’t count for anything. That it’s something better discarded. How would you feel if your closest friends preferred it if you didn’t remember them?”
“Under the circumstances, I think I’d understand that they were acting out of love,” Xander said quietly.
“But wouldn’t it make you feel kind of empty inside?”
“In the end I suppose it would.”
“Well, I’ve done empty inside. We did a long cold year of it in Wolfram & Hart. I’m way past wanting to go there again. I had to go back to Pylea to know it wasn’t a place I ever needed to visit again, and maybe that’s all Wesley needs from his memories, to move on from them as fast as possible, but they’re his and he has a right to them, and with your help or without it, I’m going to find a way to get them back. Angel’s so in love with self-sacrifice he’s giving up his closest friend just because it’s what hurts the most. But Wesley isn’t some crucifix he needs to hold onto so he can feel it burn his skin. Right now, he’s so afraid of hurting the people around him any more that he’s hurting the one who trusted him the most. I know I’m right.”
“What if it makes him crazy again?” Gunn pressed.
Lorne shrugged. “We take care of him until he’s through it but at least when he comes through it he’ll be Wesley again. The real Wesley not this Wesley-lite version.”
“I don’t know…” Gunn shook his head. “He’s okay. He’s…happy. He’s functioning. He’s…”
“Going to die never remembering the voice of the woman who loved him.”
Gunn conceded defeat. “I’ll do anything except agree to contacting Connor.”
“Good.” Lorne nodded decisively. “Because the first thing we need to do is contact Connor…”
***
Wesley hated this. He felt he should go in there and break it up, have his say; but he didn’t really have a say. Despite everyone saying that it was his decision, his was the least informed opinion in the hotel.
He looked across at the office and it was just the same: Angel sitting behind that desk looking like a stag at bay and everyone else throwing accusations or opinions. Giles was speaking quietly every now and then; reasonable interjections; but Lorne was passionate, Illyria was cutting, and Spike was heated. All debating his – Wesley’s – sanity or lack thereof, past, present and future. And yes, he knew his current life was a lie, but if the truth would undo him what else was there for him? Sanity and a lie or insanity and the truth; those seemed to be his only two choices. And he didn’t want to be crazy. He didn’t want to lose control again. It sounded as if he’d driven off the mental health road more than once in the past: bludgeoned Lorne into unconsciousness when he cracked up with the strain of his self-imposed mission to kidnap Connor; climbed into a whisky bottle and an enemy’s bed after the others had exiled him; fallen apart when Fred was dying so completely that he’d kneecapped one man, fatally shot another, and then stabbed a third.
He didn’t see how they could blame Angel for doing what in the circumstances seemed to be the decent thing – protecting his friend from dangerous knowledge that might unhinge him in the present as it had unhinged him in the past. Wesley felt panic-stricken whenever he thought about those other memories coming back. He didn’t want them and he didn’t need them. He was fine like this. Why couldn’t everyone else see that he was fine like this? At the same time he knew he was probably behaving like a coward, but he could make as good an argument for how little use he was insane as he could for how reduced his usefulness was by his impaired memory. If he didn’t know as much as the Wesley they had known then he would do more research, study those languages he had mastered in the past five years and learn them again. If his fighting skills weren’t as honed as they had apparently been in the past, well, then he could study those too. Illyria or Spike or Angel or Gunn could train him. Perhaps he wasn’t the most coordinated person in the world, but he was a quick study. He would work hard. Get better. But he didn’t want to lose himself; didn’t want to be the crazy Wesley he saw reflected in their eyes sometime. The one who had snuggled up in bed naked with a vampire and seen nothing odd about it.
Glancing across at Angel again, he felt his heart twist in sympathy as he saw how beleaguered he looked. Trying to defend himself against accusations of high-handedness, arrogance, being a bad friend.
For Christ’s sake, the man followed me into a hell dimension!
Wesley winced internally. He didn’t want to feel this passionate about his friendship with a vampire. He didn’t want to hate it when Angel looked like that; feel like ants were walking on his skin when people criticised him. Didn’t want to feel empty inside because there was so much sorrow in Angel’s eyes, that dogged persistence that he only wanted the best for his friend; the friend he had already cost so much.
“This isn’t about your guilt, Angelcakes. This is about Wesley being everything he can be.”
“I just want him to be sane. Why is that so much to ask? Don’t you remember the way he was before?”
“Sure I do. Jittering about in his office like a bug on a hot plate obsessing over every thing he could find on her blueness over there. No shoes. No shower. Not much in the way of shaving and wearing clothes that I swear had been at the bottom of his closet for half a decade. But he was still Wesley.”
“He was crazy!”
“So crazy he managed to work out a way to draw off all that unstable power from Illyria without upsetting the fabric of this world or damaging her. So crazy he managed to find a way to close that opening to a demon dimension without it costing a single human life except his own. He still functioned better than most people do at the top of their game.”
“He was in despair. He had nothing left to live for. He got up and kept breathing because he thought committing suicide was the coward’s way out but that was the only reason he hadn’t tried a paracetamol chaser for all that Laphroaig he was glugging down. I can’t watch him go through all that grief again.”
“It was Lagavulin.” That was Spike, looking up from lighting a cigarette.
“Who cares?” Angel demanded testily. “The point is he was practically bathing in the stuff.”
Wesley winced, hunching his shoulders against the beat of all that emotion, only separated from him by a much too thin wall of glass; a flimsy wooden door. So much for him not being a dipsomaniac. A drunken murderous madman who tip-toed about through piles of research notes in his stockinged feet, listening obsessively to the tick-tocking of his watch, forgetting to sleep or to eat or drink anything that hadn’t been matured in a peat-stained barrel for twelve years. What was so wrong with the way he was now that they wanted to return him to that?
“I miss my friend.”
He jerked his head up in surprise, thinking Gunn was talking to him until he realized the man was gazing at Angel.
“I miss him and I want him back. But if I really thought this was best for him, I’d agree with you in a heartbeat. The fact is, I don’t. I’ve thought about it over and over and I don’t think that if Wesley was able to make this decision this is the decision he would make.”
“He is able to make it and he has made it.” Angel sat up straighter. “Cordelia accused me of raping the memories of friends who trusted me, and she was right. That’s what I did. I signed in blood to say it was okay for Wolfram & Hart to let Cyrus Vail and a host of other warlocks change all your memories. I did it and I’m not even sorry I did it as it meant my son got to grow up with what he’d always wanted – a family. It meant Connor got to go to Stanford instead of dying in a shower of other people’s exploded body parts. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know that what I did was wrong. That I had no right to do it. That I don’t acknowledge that it did you all harm. I know I played a part in ripping the equilibrium out of his world. For the first time in a long time Wesley has found a place of balance. He’s stable. I’m not going to be the person to mess with that again.”
“The point is you don’t have the right to make that decision for him.”
“I didn’t. He made it himself.”
“He made the decision based on information you’d given him, Angel.” That was Buffy.
“I told him the truth.”
“But there are so many truths,” Giles said quietly.
Wesley decided he couldn’t take any more of this. Couldn’t take being discussed like this or seeing Angel look so harassed and unhappy, so angry and defensive and so unbearably sad. He picked up his coat and walked out. He wasn’t sure exactly where he was going, he just knew he needed to be outside of the hotel.
Temps Perdu, Part Twelve
Willow exchanged a glance with Giles. They had both been trying not to meet Wesley’s eye as Angel and Illyria had their all-too-audible argument in the dining room. Wesley had looked extremely uncomfortable and tried to drown it out by making small talk with Mr and Mrs Patterson. They, however, had moved far too far from their normal comfort zone to be able to converse rationally, particularly with an Englishman. Willow had been impressed by how tactful and patient Wesley was with them; especially as tact and patience were not characteristics she remembered the Wesley who had first come to Sunnydale displaying to any notable degree. He had tried to keep them concentrating on everyday things like the children’s hobbies and what sports they enjoyed. Giles had eyed the children warily, as if he was unsure as to whether or not they might actually bite, and taken refuge in the spell books they had brought in with them.
Willow suspected she was not the only one who believed the Skilosh would break through somehow, and she had a spell all ready for them. Wesley had seemed to be of the same mind as he had been careful to position the chairs for the Pattersons in a circle and had kept them distracted while Willow spread some twice blessed sage and hemlock around them, dropping some used horseshoe nails at intervals around the circle. She wished that some of the spellbook ingredients would get an upgrade to used spark plugs or the like but until they did used horseshoe nails it was. She had given the little girl, Julie, in whose head the Skilosh spawn has originally been laid, the focusing crystal to hold and as it was a pretty crystal and Julie a very conscientious little girl, Willow hoped that she would remain the centre of the spell if it became necessary to use it. Willow smiled at her now in a way that she hoped was reassuring, but they could all hear the sound of battle raging. All that slicing and splattering. The doors had round windows in them and although they were bolted closed there was nothing to be done to stop the sounds coming through them or to prevent the Pattersons from seeing the green blood spattering across the windows.
“So, baseball? I’ve never really understood how Little League works…” Wesley darted a glance at the doors as they bulged with the impact of something solid.
“Oh, yeah? Want a piece of me you ugly three-eyed son of a…” The end of Spike’s sentence was muffled by the splatting sound of something fleshy impacting with something sharp and metallic.
Wesley grimaced. “And – perhaps we should…” Seeing Patterson’s face, he sighed, “Drop the charade and admit there are a horde of angry demons just outside the door. However, I can assure that our colleagues out there are trained demon fighters with many years experience in protecting the…helpless from harm.”
“I work in advertising,” Patterson observed.
“That’s all right.” Giles looked up from the book he was reading. “We still think you and your family have a right to be protected from vengeful demons.”
Wesley nodded earnestly. “Yes, we don’t judge.”
Patterson looked at them in confusion and Giles and Wesley both realized a moment too late that the man hadn’t been making them an apology after all, just the beginning of a pronouncement.
“That’s interesting,” said Willow quickly. “All those…products, and nifty little…jingles.”
There was an uncomfortable silence before Patterson said again, “I work in advertising.”
This time they just nodded politely as he’d evidently expected them to do the first time. He continued: “And I have to tell you that your ‘help the helpless’ byline – it’s not a winner. What you’re doing right there is disempowering the potential client. You’re placing a barrier between the product you’re offering – your assistance – and the client’s desire to accept it. What you’re doing with that is you’re saying ‘only the helpless need our help’ thereby designating potential clients self-assessed ‘helpless’. Well, that’s not going to fly with your average breadwinner. He’s proud of his abilities. He doesn’t regard himself as helpless. You see where I’m going with this?”
Wesley and Giles exchanged a glance and Willow thought again how cute they looked together and what a pity it was they couldn’t just set up home together and be happy doing Watcher things and synchronising cleaning their glasses – not that Wesley seemed to have glasses any more, but although he didn’t need them he seemed to miss them. She was sure she’d seen him looking longingly at Giles’s a few times as if he missed the comfort of looking over them at people and taking them off and putting them on again when he didn’t want to make eye contact.
“Well…” Wesley murmured. “I suppose I… Perhaps not.”
Patterson rolled his eyes. “I didn’t even want to come to you guys because of it. It was only Sally here who persuaded me.”
“The back of your daughter’s head was blinking and you were worried that obtaining assistance in the matter might somehow impugn your masculinity?” Wesley enquired.
Patterson nodded emphatically. “You see how off-putting that kind of a by-line can be?”
Wesley looked across at Giles in a ‘words fail me’ way that Willow thought was really very cute.
Giles lied glibly, “Well, you see, Mr Patterson, we actually obtained the help of a trained psychiatrist in coming up with that ‘help the helpless’ tag for the very good reason that we can only help those people who are capable of overcoming those kind of prejudices. Our work is so complicated and dangerous that if people aren’t prepared to put themselves entirely in our hands then it’s very difficult for us to assist them. People who can admit that they are in need of help are the only people we can help. You see?”
Wesley gave Giles a look that was so entirely admiring that Willow wondered if perhaps there was still hope of them eloping together to somewhere nice in England where it didn’t perhaps rain as much as the other places, and where there was better food as well as the inevitable cricket, tea, and umbrellas. Apparently fibbing fluently was admirable when other Watchers did it.
Wesley recovered his voice and said, “Yes, absolutely. Trained psychiatrist.”
“Well, I have to tell you, buddy, that I think you’re losing a lot of potential clients. Now, my firm, we’d be pleased to take a look at your needs and see if we couldn’t come up with something for you that has a bit more zip to it. I could give you a special rate. And then there’s your logo. What does a diseased lobster have to do with being paranormal detectives anyway?”
“It’s an Angel.” Wesley looked down at the card the man held out to him. “Designed exclusively for us by a late associate of ours.”
“It doesn’t look like an angel.”
Willow had to admit its resemblance to an angel seemed to her to be only passing as well but she wasn’t allowing Cordelia’s artwork to be dissed. “It’s surrealist,” she said loftily. “All the best logos are these days.”
“The artist used Jungian mandala symbolism,” Giles added. “It’s proven to have a soothing effect on anyone who looks at it.” As Mr Patterson gazed at the card again with a frown of confusion, Willow had a terrible suspicion that Giles might be starting to enjoy himself.
“Why does that woman have blue hair?” the little boy asked. They all looked up to see Ilyria visible through the round windows holding a Skilosh aloft by the throat. It was abruptly tossed out of sight as she strode out of their field of vision with a murderous look on her perfect face. A second later there was a squishing sound of Skilosh being skewered by something long and pointy.
“She’s in a band,” Wesley said. “God-Kings of the Primordium.”
“Giles is in it too,” Willow said quickly. “He plays the guitar. And sings.”
Wesley looked at Giles in surprise. “You do? I mean – of course, you do.” He turned back to Mr Patterson. “Spike, of course, is the drummer.”
Giles and Wesley smirked at one another again and Willow realized they were definitely enjoying this far too much.
That was when a loud thumping sound, much too close, and on the other side of the kitchen from the dining room, made them exchange a very different kind of look. Giles said, “Willow, why don’t you…?”
She was already chanting the incantation while Wesley said rapidly to the Pattersons, “Just for your extra protection, Willow is going to erect a spell barrier between you and the…”
A part of the wall that had seemed entirely solid was jerked up to reveal a dozen angry Skilosh, slightly soot-streaked in appearance, clambering out of the space with weapons in hand.
“…crazed vengeful demons who managed to find the old coal chute that the rest of us missed.” Wesley turned to her urgently. “Willow…”
She finished the chant just in time, throwing up her hands as the circle shimmered and then held. Something proven as the lead Skilosh rushed at Julie and was repelled. Willow began to back up, glad that Giles and Wesley were with here but also feeling that perhaps a slayer or vampire might not have been a bad idea either.
“And there was a particular reason why you placed us outside the protective circle?” Giles murmured.
Willow glanced up at him. “You can’t use magic from inside it and I thought I might need some.”
Wesley stepped in front of her a second after Giles, both of them snatching up swords as they did so. “Good idea,” Wesley said brightly. “Perhaps some Skilosh killing magic would be in order, round about…” As one rushed him and he brought up his sword, “Now!”
As Willow opened her mouth to chant a rapid disorientation spell, the second Skilosh threw a bottle of liquid at her. She put up her hands to ward it off, afraid it was vitriol, but it only splashed, apparently harmlessly, onto her skin. It was only as she once again tried to cast a spell that she realized her voice was gone. She put a hand to her throat and gestured frantically at Giles, who pushed her further behind him and thrust his sword at the Skilosh who had stolen her voice.
“Keep behind us, Willow,” Wesley told her, unnecessarily, she thought, as if he imagined for one minute she had any intention of rushing a bunch of angry Skilosh with no magic to aid her and no weapon to hand except the old frying pan she’d just snatched up, he had another think coming.
Wesley surprised her by skewering one Skilosh with a sword and snatching the weapon from its hand as he did so, using it to block another attack while fending off a third with his first blade. His fighting seemed to be instinctive and fuelled by a fear of imminent death, not to mention imminent failure, but so far at least he was holding his own. Giles was fighting with a dogged and rather graceful precision that on another occasion she might have enjoyed watching, but the danger to herself and two people she cared about was severely restricting her pleasure in Giles’s agility and strength.
As Giles turned his head to see if Willow was still safe, a Skilosh swung a vicious serrated blade at him. Willow threw herself at the Skilosh’s arm, just managing to grab it in time, only to find herself gazing into angry Skilosh eyes before the demon flung her contemptuously at the doors to the dining room.
“Willow!” Wesley swung around in anxiety for her, dropping his guard and Giles only just yanked him out of the way of a potentially killing blow.
The Skilosh were trying without success to break through the protective barrier around the Pattersons, but the children were both clinging to one another and screaming in fear. Willow hammered on the dining room doors, having to stand on tiptoe to reach the top bolt. She didn’t know if there were fourteen or forty Skilosh on the other side of this door, but there were now a dozen in here and she didn’t see how Giles and Wesley could hold them for much longer. Wesley was still fighting doggedly, but he didn’t seem to know how to fight dirty, much too Marquess of Queensbury to do as Giles was doing and elbow Skilosh hard in the head or use his knee in their groins. He parried and thrust and blocked and stabbed with movements that looked as if they had been taught in fencing class but although he was showing a lot of courage in standing up to the Skilosh he was barely holding his ground. The look Giles darted her over his shoulder told her that he also knew they couldn’t keep them off for much longer and she yanked open the dining room door, banging her frying pan against it to gain the attention of the people in the room.
The floor was slippery with green gloop and Skilosh corpses and she averted her eyes instinctively from the gory mess.
Buffy said, “Giles!” just as Angel said, “Wes!” And then they were both charging towards the kitchen to lend assistance.
Angel grabbed Wesley by the shoulder and yanked him out of the way of a Skilosh axe, shoving him behind him while Buffy moved shoulder to shoulder with Giles, kicking off one Skilosh, and then as another rushed at them, snatching up a knife from the counter and hurling it at it with the speed, strength and accuracy to nail it between the eyes.
“Willow!” Xander pulled her out of the way of an advancing Skilosh, which Spike leapt in front of her to deal with it. “Are you okay?”
She pointed to her mouth plaintively, and he pulled her behind him, blocking an attack from a Skilosh as he said. “Well, you’re either hungry or you’ve lost your voice.”
She pinched him indignantly and he grinned at her, his handsome face endearingly piratical behind the eye patch. “Not hungry then? Because I have a chocolate in my pocket.”
Illyria sliced the head off a Skilosh that was making for them purposefully, barely pausing in her stride before she marched to where Wesley was and started killing everything that looked as if it might possibly threaten him. Looking around at the dining room, Willow saw that Gunn was defending Lorne who was bravely at least making slashing motions with a elegantly curved sword that Willow just knew Buffy and Angel were going to fight over the possession of the second the fight was over.
Buffy had that determined look on her face that meant none of the bad people was going home alive tonight. Willow thought of it as her No one threatens my Watcher and lives expression, and noticed that Angel was wearing the same look while slicing up Skilosh with unscientific brutality. Illyria was an unstoppable force and Spike was – well, having way too much fun with all the slicing and dicing and squishing and splattering he was getting to do. As the Skilosh began to realize the odds were against them, Wesley said breathlessly, “It may be unsporting to attack an enemy in retreat but we can’t guarantee the Pattersons’ safety unless…” Before the words were fully out of his mouth, Spike and Illyria had already charged after the fleeing Skilosh; Illyria slamming the coal chute entrance closed a second before they reached it and turning on them with her extra creepy showing-some-expression-and-all-of-it-malevolent face. Willow averted her eyes as lots of chopping and squishing noises sounded, and hoped that Julie and her little brother were doing the same thing.
Willow looked over her shoulder to see Gunn punch one Skilosh in the face to send it reeling, before hacking off another’s head with an axe. He did move with astonishing grace and strength for a human, she couldn’t help thinking. The one he’d punched reeled close to Xander who decapitated it with a swing of his own axe that, if lacking some of Gunn’s power and elegance, did nevertheless send its head in one direction and its body in the other.
Illyria strode back into the dining room and surveyed it in disappointment. “Are there no more of this enemy left to fight?”
Angel stabbed the last one and withdrew his sword. “We’re done.”
Buffy also surveyed the battlefield. “Well, that was…”
“Bracing?” Wesley offered. He was lightly splattered in green goop but seemed quite cheerful about it. “Is everyone okay?”
Willow pointed plaintively to her mouth.
“She doesn’t appear to be hungry,” Xander explained.
Giles and Wesley converged on her at once, both inspecting the stains on her clothing with every sign of interest, and hardly noticing the Skilosh corpses they automatically stepped over en route to her. Giles sniffed while Wesley tentatively tasted.
“Saffron, mandrake and…” Wesley turned to Giles for confirmation. “Is it horehound?”
“Monkshood, I think. And, yes, I definitely detect some fennel. Perhaps a pinch of locust.”
“They also do blind tastings,” Buffy explained to Gunn. “Put them on Name That Stew and they always win the microwave.”
As Giles and Wesley both gave her a withering look, she looked across at Willow. “Do you think they teach that expression in Watcher School?”
“Of course they do, Buffy,” Xander wiped his sword on his coat. “Snooty Expressions class comes right after the Tea Brewing and Wearing Tweed classes.”
“Are you okay?” Angel looked at Wesley anxiously before glancing around at the others. “Is everyone okay?”
“No.” Lorne grimaced as he stepped over a dead Skilosh. “This is so not my idea of a good evening in. And look at my jacket. Do you know how much this fabric costs a yard? And that’s without even going into the emotional trauma I’ve suffered at having to witness so much violence. Lover not a fighter, remember?”
Angel sighed. “Does anyone have any real injuries that aren’t related to clothing or emotional trauma?”
Willow pointed plaintively at her mouth. Angel gave her a sympathetic look but said, “I’d still rather they stole your voice than chopped off your head, Willow.”
“And so say all of us.” Buffy hugged her, gaze flickering around her people to assess their condition as she did so. “Xander, are you hurt?”
“Just a scratch,” he told her. “I was being all heroic and silent about it, but it’s actually really starting to sting now.”
“Gunn’s bleeding.” Spike glanced across at him.
“Just nicked me, I’m good,” he assured them.
“Okay, Giles, can you patch up Gunn and Xander? Buffy, Spike, can you help me drag these corpses down to the basement so we can dismember them and stick them in the incinerator?”
Spike shrugged. “Who knew you were such a fun date?”
Buffy nodded. “Yep. What girl can refuse an offer like that?”
“Excuse me…”
They all looked around guiltily as Patterson’s voice reached them. Willow pointed frantically to her mouth and Giles and Wesley exchanged a look.
“Can you…?” Angel enquired. “Willow, Lorne, can you patch up Xander and Gunn while Giles and Wes rescue the Pattersons from their – protection spell?”
“I’m sure we’ll figure it out eventually.” Giles looked a lot less confident than he was trying to sound.
Wesley’s smile was also a little sickly. “Yes, how hard can it be?”
Rolling her eyes, Willow walked into the kitchen, picked up the spell book, turned to the right page and put it in Giles’s hands, pointing to the spell so there could be no chance of mistake.
“Right.” Wesley looked over Giles’s shoulder. “Oh. It can be incanted in Latin or Geshundi. I wonder if that means the same spell evolved independently in two completely different cultures or if the Geshundi version is actually the root of…”
“Paying customers trapped behind a magical force field, Wes.” Gunn patted him gently on the shoulder. “Maybe you want to save the evening class for later? Especially as, if I’m not very much mistaken, that little kid really needs to barf.”
Wesley darted an anxious look at the small boy who did indeed look a little green around the gills and said to Giles, “Right, Latin version it is then? Would you like to…?”
“Absolutely.” Giles looked under his glasses, murmured a few words under his breath, said, “Well, it seems straightforward enough…” and then advanced towards the Pattersons rather in the manner of Xander about to take an exam for which he hadn’t studied.
“And when you’ve done that you need to work out how to give Willow her voice back,” Xander called after them.
Willow nodded emphatically. Xander put an arm around her shoulders and murmured in her ear, “Given the way we’re entirely surrounded by fearless demon hunters, I’d kind of like to be out of earshot of everyone else when I blub like a girly over the fact that I really really hurt.”
Willow tightened her grip on him sympathetically, mouthed the word ‘ice cream’ at him and he nodded. “You have the best ideas,” he told her. “First bandages, then painkillers, then, I think unfathomably large cartons of ice cream.”
They followed Gunn out into the corridor, where he also leant back against the wall, checked that there were no vampires, Slayers or Old Ones looking his way and then wrapped his arms around his ribs. “Damn! That hurt.”
Xander, still supported by Willow, reached out and they touched knuckles. “Kind of sucks to be human around here somedays, huh?”
“Damned straight.”
Lorne offered Gunn his arm, saying, “And getting out of the limousine now is the famous entertainer Krevlorneswath of the Deathwok clan, he of the golden tonsils, squired for the evening by his handsome escort, Charles Gunn, attorney at law.” As they all looked at him, he shrugged, “You cling to your Skilosh-gloop spattered reality and I’ll enjoy mine.”
Sighing, Gunn leaned on Lorne, allowing the demon to help him limp back towards the lobby. “I hate Skilosh. Every time one of them sticks their nasty pointy tongues out, the back of my skull starts itching.”
Lorne looked across at Willow. “I know you can’t answer me in words, sweetpea, but a nod or a shake of the head will suffice. Did Wesley handle himself in there like a wet behind the ears new Watcher or a guy who’s been fighting demons for the past six years?”
Willow pulled a face which she hoped indicated something in between, steadying a slightly staggery Xander as she did so.
Lorne sighed. “I was afraid of that.”
“Afraid of what?” Gunn clasped a hand to his aching ribs. “Wes can handle himself. Hell, he was still fighting from a wheelchair, and one thing you can say for post traumatic stress disorder – it teaches a guy good self defence.”
“Wesley could handle himself – and I so wish you hadn’t phrased it like that – before he had his memory wiped. But fighting isn’t just instinct, sugarplum, it’s learned responses, learned from being in the same situation in the past. Situations Wesley now doesn’t remember. Maybe he’s not falling over at the first punch these days, but that’s because he’s amongst friends and he’s not so worried about making an impression he can’t remember what he learned at Watcher school. But any way you look at it that’s still five years of hard won knowledge tossed away because Angel can’t deal with his part in driving Wesley crazy.”
“It’s Wesley’s decision.” Gunn shrugged.
“Yeah, well it’s the wrong decision, and it would be nice if some of you fearless demon hunters got off your fearless demon hunter tushes and told him that.”
“But, Fred…”
“Isn’t someone the Wesley I knew would ever want to forget. I don’t care how much pain it cost him to lose her, he still wouldn’t want to have her wiped out of his mind. Or Cordelia either. Tell me the truth, Gunn, would you want it to be as if Alonna never happened?”
Gunn opened his mouth, closed it again, sighed and then said, “No.”
“So, are you going to tell Wesley that or just let Angel go on having the good intentions that take us all to hell?”
“Right now I’m kind of busy trying to decide whether to pass out or throw up. Can it wait?”
“Sure. Why not? It’s only Wesley’s life we’re talking about here.” Lorne looked at Xander and Willow. “Why aren’t you two backing me up?”
Willow hurriedly pointed to her mouth and Xander said, “We’re with you in spirit, Lorne, just not in an actual – talking to Angel about what an asshole he’s being way.”
“I miss Cordelia,” Lorne sighed. “She would have had this situation sorted out in a heartbeat. Angel and Wesley were way more scared of her than they are of me. I need to work on that.” Willow nodded at his horns encouragingly and he conceded the point. “I know. You’d kind of think they’d give me the edge over a cheerleader when it came to scaring the nijinksy out someone, wouldn’t you?”
“I blame Connor.” Gunn winced and Willow noticed that the hand he had clasped to his ribs was stained with blood. “If he’d punched Angel on the nose the first day he got his memories back instead of going around being the poster child for therapy-through-amnesia, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“Good point.” Lorne looked thoughtful. “Very good point indeed, my lamb.”
Gunn glanced at him. “Why is that not reassuring me?”
“Because you’re still thinking we just staggered out of a demon fight where we barely managed to keep our soft tissue inside our skins. If you’d just accept that we’re attending the premier of something wonderful – like, I don’t know, a Star Wars film that actually has a script, or say, my about to break all box office records starring debut on Broadway, think how much happier you’d be feeling right now.”
“You promising me you’re not going to have any contact with Connor, on account of Angel probably killing you if you even think about it, that would reassure me.”
Willow looked at Lorne’s face and wondered if a pacifist anagogic demon had ever looked so inscrutably determined before. He said: “If there is a purpose and a pattern in life – and I’ve kind of spent every waking minute since I first arrived in this miraculously music-filled world assuming that’s the case – then I was sent here for a reason and that reason was to do with helping people find their path. Something it’s been a lot harder for me to do since you gumballs got my club destroyed and first Jasmine and then Angel messed with my empathy vibe. But if getting out of Wolfram & Hart has given us anything, I like to think it’s a second chance to get back to what we’re meant to be. And in my case that means I help people find their path. I don’t stand back and drink too many cocktails while their well-meaning friends shove them off that path and then padlock all the gates so they can’t get back onto it again. Capeesh?”
Gunn sighed. “Tell me one thing to do with Connor that ever ended well?”
“But nothing’s ended yet, cinnamon roll, that’s kind of the point. This is a story that’s still unfolding.” Lorne looked at Willow compassionately and she realized in that moment that he knew so much more about her than she’d ever realized; how it had felt to lose Tara and how the guilt was always with her for what she’d done to Warren, to Giles, to the world. “We’ve all reached those ‘stop’ signs that make us think we’ve hit an ending but human lives aren’t a three minute pop number that never made the hit parade; they’re all grand opera, even the quiet lives, and let’s face it, who does grand opera better than us?”
Xander looked at him closely. “You’re saying Angel is acting like we’re on the third act when for all we know…”
“We’re barely out of the overture.” Lorne nodded. “There’s way more of this to play, my sweets. And meanwhile everyone’s acting like Wesley’s life up to now doesn’t count for anything. That it’s something better discarded. How would you feel if your closest friends preferred it if you didn’t remember them?”
“Under the circumstances, I think I’d understand that they were acting out of love,” Xander said quietly.
“But wouldn’t it make you feel kind of empty inside?”
“In the end I suppose it would.”
“Well, I’ve done empty inside. We did a long cold year of it in Wolfram & Hart. I’m way past wanting to go there again. I had to go back to Pylea to know it wasn’t a place I ever needed to visit again, and maybe that’s all Wesley needs from his memories, to move on from them as fast as possible, but they’re his and he has a right to them, and with your help or without it, I’m going to find a way to get them back. Angel’s so in love with self-sacrifice he’s giving up his closest friend just because it’s what hurts the most. But Wesley isn’t some crucifix he needs to hold onto so he can feel it burn his skin. Right now, he’s so afraid of hurting the people around him any more that he’s hurting the one who trusted him the most. I know I’m right.”
“What if it makes him crazy again?” Gunn pressed.
Lorne shrugged. “We take care of him until he’s through it but at least when he comes through it he’ll be Wesley again. The real Wesley not this Wesley-lite version.”
“I don’t know…” Gunn shook his head. “He’s okay. He’s…happy. He’s functioning. He’s…”
“Going to die never remembering the voice of the woman who loved him.”
Gunn conceded defeat. “I’ll do anything except agree to contacting Connor.”
“Good.” Lorne nodded decisively. “Because the first thing we need to do is contact Connor…”
***
Wesley hated this. He felt he should go in there and break it up, have his say; but he didn’t really have a say. Despite everyone saying that it was his decision, his was the least informed opinion in the hotel.
He looked across at the office and it was just the same: Angel sitting behind that desk looking like a stag at bay and everyone else throwing accusations or opinions. Giles was speaking quietly every now and then; reasonable interjections; but Lorne was passionate, Illyria was cutting, and Spike was heated. All debating his – Wesley’s – sanity or lack thereof, past, present and future. And yes, he knew his current life was a lie, but if the truth would undo him what else was there for him? Sanity and a lie or insanity and the truth; those seemed to be his only two choices. And he didn’t want to be crazy. He didn’t want to lose control again. It sounded as if he’d driven off the mental health road more than once in the past: bludgeoned Lorne into unconsciousness when he cracked up with the strain of his self-imposed mission to kidnap Connor; climbed into a whisky bottle and an enemy’s bed after the others had exiled him; fallen apart when Fred was dying so completely that he’d kneecapped one man, fatally shot another, and then stabbed a third.
He didn’t see how they could blame Angel for doing what in the circumstances seemed to be the decent thing – protecting his friend from dangerous knowledge that might unhinge him in the present as it had unhinged him in the past. Wesley felt panic-stricken whenever he thought about those other memories coming back. He didn’t want them and he didn’t need them. He was fine like this. Why couldn’t everyone else see that he was fine like this? At the same time he knew he was probably behaving like a coward, but he could make as good an argument for how little use he was insane as he could for how reduced his usefulness was by his impaired memory. If he didn’t know as much as the Wesley they had known then he would do more research, study those languages he had mastered in the past five years and learn them again. If his fighting skills weren’t as honed as they had apparently been in the past, well, then he could study those too. Illyria or Spike or Angel or Gunn could train him. Perhaps he wasn’t the most coordinated person in the world, but he was a quick study. He would work hard. Get better. But he didn’t want to lose himself; didn’t want to be the crazy Wesley he saw reflected in their eyes sometime. The one who had snuggled up in bed naked with a vampire and seen nothing odd about it.
Glancing across at Angel again, he felt his heart twist in sympathy as he saw how beleaguered he looked. Trying to defend himself against accusations of high-handedness, arrogance, being a bad friend.
For Christ’s sake, the man followed me into a hell dimension!
Wesley winced internally. He didn’t want to feel this passionate about his friendship with a vampire. He didn’t want to hate it when Angel looked like that; feel like ants were walking on his skin when people criticised him. Didn’t want to feel empty inside because there was so much sorrow in Angel’s eyes, that dogged persistence that he only wanted the best for his friend; the friend he had already cost so much.
“This isn’t about your guilt, Angelcakes. This is about Wesley being everything he can be.”
“I just want him to be sane. Why is that so much to ask? Don’t you remember the way he was before?”
“Sure I do. Jittering about in his office like a bug on a hot plate obsessing over every thing he could find on her blueness over there. No shoes. No shower. Not much in the way of shaving and wearing clothes that I swear had been at the bottom of his closet for half a decade. But he was still Wesley.”
“He was crazy!”
“So crazy he managed to work out a way to draw off all that unstable power from Illyria without upsetting the fabric of this world or damaging her. So crazy he managed to find a way to close that opening to a demon dimension without it costing a single human life except his own. He still functioned better than most people do at the top of their game.”
“He was in despair. He had nothing left to live for. He got up and kept breathing because he thought committing suicide was the coward’s way out but that was the only reason he hadn’t tried a paracetamol chaser for all that Laphroaig he was glugging down. I can’t watch him go through all that grief again.”
“It was Lagavulin.” That was Spike, looking up from lighting a cigarette.
“Who cares?” Angel demanded testily. “The point is he was practically bathing in the stuff.”
Wesley winced, hunching his shoulders against the beat of all that emotion, only separated from him by a much too thin wall of glass; a flimsy wooden door. So much for him not being a dipsomaniac. A drunken murderous madman who tip-toed about through piles of research notes in his stockinged feet, listening obsessively to the tick-tocking of his watch, forgetting to sleep or to eat or drink anything that hadn’t been matured in a peat-stained barrel for twelve years. What was so wrong with the way he was now that they wanted to return him to that?
“I miss my friend.”
He jerked his head up in surprise, thinking Gunn was talking to him until he realized the man was gazing at Angel.
“I miss him and I want him back. But if I really thought this was best for him, I’d agree with you in a heartbeat. The fact is, I don’t. I’ve thought about it over and over and I don’t think that if Wesley was able to make this decision this is the decision he would make.”
“He is able to make it and he has made it.” Angel sat up straighter. “Cordelia accused me of raping the memories of friends who trusted me, and she was right. That’s what I did. I signed in blood to say it was okay for Wolfram & Hart to let Cyrus Vail and a host of other warlocks change all your memories. I did it and I’m not even sorry I did it as it meant my son got to grow up with what he’d always wanted – a family. It meant Connor got to go to Stanford instead of dying in a shower of other people’s exploded body parts. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know that what I did was wrong. That I had no right to do it. That I don’t acknowledge that it did you all harm. I know I played a part in ripping the equilibrium out of his world. For the first time in a long time Wesley has found a place of balance. He’s stable. I’m not going to be the person to mess with that again.”
“The point is you don’t have the right to make that decision for him.”
“I didn’t. He made it himself.”
“He made the decision based on information you’d given him, Angel.” That was Buffy.
“I told him the truth.”
“But there are so many truths,” Giles said quietly.
Wesley decided he couldn’t take any more of this. Couldn’t take being discussed like this or seeing Angel look so harassed and unhappy, so angry and defensive and so unbearably sad. He picked up his coat and walked out. He wasn’t sure exactly where he was going, he just knew he needed to be outside of the hotel.
