(no subject)

[elgrey]

Shadows, Part Two

Giles knew he wasn’t feeling very happy with Wesley for suggesting such a thing but he also had to admit that he could understand why he’d done so. He just wished he hadn’t.

Willow was the one who broke the silence. “She nearly killed Xander.”

Wesley continued to gaze at Buffy, his gaze half apologetic, half questioning. “I know.”

Dawn protested: “She tried to steal Buffy’s life. She slept with her boyfriend.”

“I know.”

Willow added: “She betrayed all of us. Betrayed everything she was supposed to be fighting for just because – actually I don’t even know ‘just because’. I don’t even know if Faith knows ‘just because’.”

Wesley sighed and looked across at Willow. “Angel thinks that she is genuinely remorseful. That she is truly on a path of...redemption. And if it’s a case of the end of the world or burying the hatchet...”

“I know where I’d like to bury the hatchet,” Dawn muttered.

Buffy said quietly, “What about you?”

Wesley seemed surprised about the question. “I haven’t seen her since she gave herself up. I can only go by Angel’s considered opinion but I know he believes…”

“No, I mean what about you having to deal with her again after what she did…” The look Wesley gave Buffy clearly begged her not to finish that sentence and she faltered and then ad-libbed quickly: “I mean, you were her Watcher, you must have an opinion.”

He shrugged. “I think we need all the super strength we can get. These demons represent quite a challenge and although individuals can be killed, the combination of their size and ferocity do make them a formidable enemy.”

Giles knew he must have missed something but he decided to ignore it for now. If Wesley and Faith had even more of a history than he knew about it was up to Wesley to decide how that impacted on the current situation. He was more concerned for Buffy. “Are you sure?” he pressed.

Buffy said quietly, “I really don’t think Wesley would suggest it if he didn’t think it was necessary.”

“Well, I do.” Xander looked up. “Not wanting to be the bad guy here but are we sure that Wesley isn’t deciding Faith is the lesser of the two evils, here? Because he doesn’t want to face Angel?”

“We’re going to need Angel too.” Wesley looked incredibly weary and there was still a long way to go. “We’re going to need all the help we can get. These demons are… They’re certainly more than ordinary mortals can deal with.”

“You killed three,” Giles reminded him.

“I was lucky. And I didn’t walk away exactly unscathed. If they come in numbers, I think at least some of us are going to die unless we have some…superhuman assistance. I think Lilah may be able to get Faith out on parole. Should I make the call or not?” He looked at Buffy who, looked around at the others. Dawn grimaced at her and Buffy gave her a pleading look, at which Dawn shrugged. “Fine, do it. No one listens to me anyway.” Willow sighed and shrugged, Xander made a face but then also shrugged. Tara nodded.

Buffy said, “Make the call.”

Wesley did so in his most clipped tone and Giles only half-listened to him while trying to strategize. Wesley was in no fit state to travel, particularly as he had discovered this morning that Wesley’s mode of travel had been a large dangerous motorbike, the weight of which must have been tugging at that wound all the way down to Sunnydale. With those demons on the way, they needed Buffy here, that was obvious. And yet it had to be someone responsible who could put his personal feelings aside when going up to collect the once-renegade Slayer. So, he was going to have to go and fetch Faith, and, if he were really honest, fetch Angel and his band of supernatural detectives as well.

“…perhaps we can talk about payment afterwards, Lilah? We are attempting to save a world which you also happen to inhabit, after all. Just prove to me your big bad law firm is as big and bad as you like to pretend by arranging Faith’s parole.” He paused as she spoke to him then grimaced. “Thank you. That’s something about Judge Harker I could have lived very happily not knowing…” There was a purr from the end of the line that sounded maddeningly smug and sultry and Giles saw Wesley grit his teeth before saying coolly: “No, not that it’s any of your business, but that isn’t a function I ever performed for Angel, although I seem to remember that you almost did once when his body was inhabited by a morally bankrupt septuagenarian.” There was another purr which made Wesley grit his teeth even harder but he said crisply: “Do it or don’t. We’re in the habit of trying to save the world without your assistance so I’m sure we’ll manage it one way or another…” Another murmur of response which made him roll his eyes. “Actually, Lilah, apparently unlike you – and thank you for sharing, by the way – I am wearing my underwear at the moment. I just don’t have any patience left for people who waste my time. Phone me if and when you manage to arrange Faith’s parole.” He hung up and turned to Buffy. “Lilah says they can do it and she seems to think it can be done quickly. Apparently they have blackmail material on half the judiciary in Los Angeles. Which would certainly explain the way their clients keep getting let off by the courts. Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

Buffy nodded. “Like you say, we need all the help we can get.”

Wesley turned to Giles. “In the meantime, I really need to get on with this research. Are these all the books you have?”

“There are more at the Magic Box.”

“I think we should go there anyway.” Buffy was already on her feet. “It’s a better place to defend than here or my house.”

Wesley looked around at Dawn’s pale face and Willow’s anxious one as she gazed at Tara, then at Xander and sighed. “I’m sorry I brought this one you all. I didn’t want to endanger you, I just didn’t know where else to go.”

“You did the right thing,” Buffy told him. “I’m the Slayer. This is what I do. I save the world.”

As she turned away, picking up a box of books and carrying them out to the car, Giles realized that she had said it without irony, and without resentment. He looked at Wesley and saw what Buffy was seeing, a guy who had lost the will to live but was still fighting the battle because he felt that he should. No wonder Buffy was seeing Wesley as such a soulmate at present; not only someone else who had lost everything yet had to go on living, but also someone else who had been chewed up and spat out by the mystical machinery of Angel’s tortured destiny.

***

Anya was uncharacteristically subdued when the situation was explained to her. She had rallied enough to point out that there was no revenue loss associated with closing down Giles’s house, and that Buffy’s house had been trashed so often would one more time really matter? But her heart wasn’t in it. It was clear that the break up with Xander had hit her very hard when she could only make such a weak defence of the sanctity of commerce. Giles had offered to buy her out in case of damage to the shop and Buffy had actually seen the moment when Anya had looked around the shop and realized that without this she really didn’t have anything, no connection to them or to Xander. She reminded her of Cordelia in that moment; and wondered for the first time if Cordelia’s decision to fall for Wesley at first sight had been motivated as much by a desire to go on hanging around with them as it was because of the rebound condition her heart was in after the break up with Xander. They might not be that endearing as individuals to someone with Anya or Cordelia’s personality, but they were familiar and familial also.

Looking at Wesley, she saw someone who had lost that – the familiar and the familial. He didn’t really know any of them and she imagined that most of his memories of Sunnydale were bad ones. He was walking culture shock. She knew there was something about him now that made her sympathize with him and like him that either hadn’t been a part of who he was before or that she hadn’t been able to recognize. He had a job to do and he was doing it even though all the joy had gone out of the job and being alive, and she knew exactly how that felt. She knew it was curable too, but she didn’t think he was ready to hear or believe that now.

Buffy helped Wesley to get comfortable in the Magic Box around the big table at which they had so often done their research, and Tara and Willow both fetched him likely-looking books. It was odd to see him sitting in Giles’ place, all serious and British, but with that scar at his throat and those bruises on his face. He looked deathly, but there was no one else who could translate the amulet so rest wasn’t an option. Willow kept making him cups of tea; she seemed to think that would help, and bizarrely enough it seemed to be working. Every time she quietly refilled his cup and put it down for him, he said, “Thank you” and almost smiled. But then after about three hours, he was so caught up in the translation that he said ‘Thank you, Cordelia’ without looking up and then flinched as if someone had hit him, hard, and there was a horribly awkward silence until Tara said, “You should have biscuits with that.” She said ‘biscuits’ in a very proper very British voice and Wesley looked up at her in surprise and then smiled; not an almost-smile; a real smile. Buffy had never seen him smile before and it made him look absurdly young and…pretty; as did Tara when she smiled back. Buffy would have sworn afterwards on a stack of bibles, that everyone in the room felt it in that moment, a positive ‘click’ of connection.

Wesley kept looking at her and said, “You don’t have biscuits. You’re Americans. You have cookies.”

“We can get biscuits. They’re the ones that taste of cardboard, that no one really likes.”

It was strange to see Tara being confident with someone who was practically a stranger, but Buffy remembered how the core of Tara, underneath the shyness and the anxiety about making a fool of herself, was warmth and compassion before all else. How she’d mothered Dawn when Buffy was too stressed to do the job properly; how she’d given Buffy advice without judgement. How she could make you feel as if as long as the world had people like Tara in it, it really couldn’t be too bad a place.

“Good point.” Wesley picked up his teacup and took a grateful sip. “Morning coffee biscuits are the worst. They were the ones we were allowed at school. Digestives would have been far too luxurious.”

Dawn said, “What about triple chocolate & hazelnut chip?”

Wesley put on a mock-shocked face. “Hedonism of the worst kind. Self indulgence like that could only lead to sodomy and blindness – at least. You don’t happen to have any around, do you?”

Dawn rose to her feet. “I’m buying you a shopping cart full of them, right now.”

Wesley laughed; surprised and actually touched. Buffy wondered how long it was since he’d interacted with other human beings. How long he’d been in his apartment with his thoughts and his guilt and the phone that didn’t ring and the door on which no one ever knocked. She suspected they all had their own guilt, Dawn included, for the way Wesley had been treated by them in the past. Looking back, she still thought that man had been annoying, but looking at this man she presumed everyone was realizing they had never tried to even scratch the surface of who Wesley Wyndam-Pryce really was. This serious damaged heroic man must have been buried there somewhere under the pompous cowardly little jerk. He had evidently always been someone of great sensitivity, great vulnerability, and had a strong need to do good, and the way they had treated him had pretty much trampled all over those characteristics.

As it was daylight outside, there was no reason for Dawn to be anything but safe on her shopping expedition, but Xander went with her anyway, while Willow and Tara helped Wesley with his research and Tara teased him gently about being British in a way she never had with Giles. Buffy realized that Tara wasn’t frightened of Wesley and Wesley didn’t feel defensive or awkward around Tara, which made sense, of course, because she was the only one of them here who had never known him before, in his previous embarrassing incarnation.

Anya had said rather awkwardly, “So, are we liking Wesley now?” and there had been another pained silence until Buffy cleared her throat and said that yes, they were liking Wesley now.

Anya shrugged. “Just checking.”

Buffy turned back to him in some embarrassment and found Wesley watching her. She cleared her throat. “So, what can I do?”

“Try not to touch the amulet. That goes for everyone. I suspect that the greater the exposure to it, the more likely it is that the Hukkarish can track you as someone who has had contact with it. But if you could memorize its appearance without touching it and then try to find any illustrations that match it, that would be of invaluable assistance.”

“Boring research,” she said brightly. “We can do that.”

“We rock at that,” Willow assured him. “We’re like the boring research specialists.”

“Sometimes we can do it while playing footsie at the same time,” Tara added bravely.

Wesley gave her a quick amused glance. “Can you do it without talking?”

“If we must,” Buffy sighed. “You Watchers are all pretty much the same under the skin, aren’t you?”

Wesley shrugged. “I’m afraid they actually knock us out on an assembly line in Sheffield. We’re not meant to talk about it.”

Anya said to no one in particular: “Despite his emaciated and unkempt appearance, he seems much more handsome now. And much less effeminate and irritating.”

Everyone looked at her in disbelief and then looked back at Wesley who kept his eyes on the page of his book, only murmuring in that deceptively mild way that Giles had so mastered: “And everyone would be researching now…?”

Buffy grabbed the first big dusty book she could find while Willow and Tara hastily opened the one in front of them and looked studious. Buffy suspected they might already be doing the footsie thing though, the imminent end of the world sometimes had that effect on people. It occurred to her that it was tough luck it was having that effect on her right now as there was no one for her to play footsie with.

“We really need to save the world,” she said aloud.

Wesley looked at her in mild confusion. “That was the idea.”

“No, but I’m single. It’s not even like I can put the run up to any good use.”

He gazed at her a little longer before looking back at his book, murmuring in a way she just knew was mildly mocking but which she also rather liked: “Well, I wasn’t sure it was worth the effort but if you’re not even going to get any sex out of it, obviously we definitely need to save the world…”


Buffy could see that Wesley was far from well. He was cold all the time, for one thing, bundled up in layers of clothing borrowed from Giles and Xander, and yet still winter pale and shivering. After a few hours of watching him, she said she thought it was chilly and lit a fire in the grate. Everyone looked at her in surprise – and then looked at Wesley and said nothing. He gratefully moved his chair closer to the warm hearth and after a little while even took off one of the two sweaters he was wearing. He didn’t exactly have colour as yet but he certainly looked a little less pasty. Tara had taken the chair next to his and was making diligent notes of all the information she could find about ways of destroying sacred amulets, copying out the names with great precision. Her hair looked amber in the firelight, while Willow, who sat next to her, was glorious in the reflected flames; her autumn hair a blaze of vibrant colour. When Xander pretended to warm his hands on it, even Wesley smiled.

Dawn kept pushing cookies in Wesley’s direction and he ate them absently in between murmuring things in strange languages as he made notes and translated obscure passages. Buffy wondered why it was that the man who had fitted in so badly last time felt so much like one of them this time around; he had been an outcast on both occasions, of course, but last time they had thought he was someone with authority, someone with power, and unearned power at that, and authority they didn’t want to recognize as it was given to him by the same council stupid enough to fire Giles. This time there was no disguising the vulnerability of his situation, but even though this time he came to them as someone cast out by the Watchers’ Council and the vampire she still loved – would always love, she feared, Angel like some infection that could never be entirely cleared out of the system – Wesley felt as if he deserved to be treated as someone with authority now.

Buffy noticed him wincing again, hand absently straying to his side and cushioning it as he wrote. She cleared her throat. “I think we need a proper tea break. Wes, that means you have to take your head out of the book and sit in a way that doesn’t make your insides try to climb back out.”

He sighed and sat up. “Buffy, there really isn’t a great deal of…”

“…Time and the demons are coming and we’re all going to die and end of the world, yadda, yadda, yadda. Do as you’re told and drink your tea.”

He looked at his empty cup in confusion. “What tea?”

“The tea I’m now making.” She picked up his cup and all the others that were immediately thrust at her and went into the kitchen at the back of the store. When she came back out, Tara was saying to Wesley with mock seriousness:

“…No, it’s true. We’re paid up members. We have cards and everything.”

Wesley gazed at Tara for a moment across the book-strewn table. “Of the Lesbian Witches Society?”

“Absolutely.”

“Shouldn’t that be a coven?”

Tara didn’t even blink. “Too stereotypical and inclined to lack soft furnishings.”

“You have a club house, do you? Is there a smoking room?”

Tara grimaced. “It’s really more of a hexing room.”

“Well, I hope they provide somewhere for you to keep your broomsticks?”

“Oh yes, we have a special stand.”

Buffy put the tray down on the table as Wesley and Tara exchanged another silly grin. Noticing Buffy there, Wesley bent back to his research, murmuring, “Do I need to remind you that not only is the world about to end but Buffy isn’t getting any pre-Apocalyptic sex?”

“Glad we’re concentrating on what’s important here,” Xander muttered.

Which was when the door and window of the Magic Box crashed open under the weight of snarling eight-foot demons.

Buffy threw herself at the first one, snatching up a sword en route. They had put weapons ready, of course, knowing these demons were on their way, but she was sure she hadn’t been the only one hoping that Faith and Angel would be in Sunnydale before the Hukkarish arrived. She ducked a slash of claws, trying to get a feel for how these things fought, what their strengths and weaknesses were. They were covered in dark fur, upright, on two powerful back legs, front legs tipped with claws like curving razor blades; there were also the enormous fangs, the glowing red eyes and the horns to tip her off that they weren’t the Easter Bunny and were unlikely to be selling girl scout cookies.

She suspected that if they got in a good swipe you wouldn’t even feel it until you turned around and found your guts on the other side of the room. She sliced with the sword and found that the Hukkarish was frighteningly fast, avoiding the blade and back-handing her away. She hit the bookcase hard and it teetered above her. Gazing up at a towering bookcase she had a sickening sensation of being imminently crushed and then saw Xander grabbing one side of the shelves while Dawn got the other. Buffy snatched a breath, nodded her thanks, and threw herself back into the fray.

Wesley was holding off a second demon with a sword in each hand, one long and straight the other short bladed and curving, needing both to ward off those deadly claws. He was fighting with the concentrated focus of an expert; but she suspected he was going to tire quickly with that wound in his side still sapping his strength. He ducked a slash and drove a sword into the creature’s midriff at the same time, then yanked it out fast and jerked backwards – a sensible move as it snarled and thrashed, and its raking claws would have ripped him open if he’d still been within range. As it made to lunge at him, he cut off its head cleanly and then ducked the attack of another.

Buffy had her hands full with two other demons, both of which were trying to get to the amulet. At least she presumed that was what they were after, as they seemed focused on reaching the table where she had last seen it. She drove her sword into what she hoped was the heart of one and ducked a lunge from the second. As it came at her, she had no choice but to dive in close and try to wind it. For a moment they were wrestling, its fur in her mouth. The Hukkarish stank of wet dog, and with its jackal-like head reminded her of a cross between a bipedal hyaena and the kind of werewolf even Oz would not have wanted to meet on a dark night. She punched it hard and it did at least give, not like hitting concrete as it could be when duelling with something with scales instead of skin and fur. Then she was ducking low and driving up fast, blade in its belly, impale and twist, then a spring away that sliced it open and left its entrails hitting the floor a half a second before it did. She was nothing but relieved that it was dead before it got there.

Wesley was battling a fourth demon; Xander and Dawn were trapped over by the cash register and she guessed by the way Xander was shoving Dawn behind the counter that he had already sent Anya there. He had a sword in his hand and was swinging it bravely, but as one of the demons threw itself towards him, Willow was there in a flash of red hair, shouting an invocation and throwing some kind of red dust at the creature that made its fur catch alight. It shrieked and bolted, furious and frightened, and Buffy looked across at the fire in the grate, wondering if she could use their fear of fire in some way. Tara had taken shelter behind the table they had been working at, and Buffy saw that she had been tugging the books from the table and pushing them under the chairs to keep them safe, but as Buffy looked she saw with horror that another of the demons was hurling itself at Tara, jaws open.

Willow screamed: “Tara!” and Wesley jerked his head round, saw Tara’s danger and simply dived between her and the demon, jerking up his left sword as he did so to intercept its slashing claws. There was a crash of humans colliding, furniture splintering, the snarl of a furious Hukkarish, the rip of rent cloth, while skin tore silently; then the dull music of claws against steel as Wesley parried desperately with his left hand while trying to roll over and get enough purchase to rise to his feet. That was solved for him as the wounded Hukkarish, maddened by another slice of his blade, dugs its claws through his sweater, shirt, t-shirt and – Buffy very much feared – shoulder and yanked him bodily away from its chosen prey, hurling him against the bookcase. Buffy flung herself forward, and as the Hukkarish wheeled around, jaws open to close over Tara’s head sliced off its own, somersaulted onto the back of a chair which tilted obligingly to wedge itself against the wavering bookcase and stop it from crashing down on Wesley.

Xander said, “Okay, do that again with a back flip and I’ll buy you all the ice cream you can eat.”

Buffy turned to tell him what she thought of him for being such a smartass in the middle of a demon attack when anyone knew that was her job, and realized that the demon attack was officially over due to a shortage of demons that weren’t…dead.

Wesley was pouring blood from at least two new wounds and, Buffy very much feared, the violent re-opening of his old one, but he flung himself to his feet and then into the corner where Tara was groggily emerging from the wreckage of the table so fast that he was there at the same instant as Willow.

“Tara…?” he demanded breathlessly. “Tara, are you hurt? Can you talk? Are you concussed?”

She blinked and put a hand up to the back of her head, then clearly got him in focus, saying gently, “Wesley, why are you panicking over me when you’re the only one of us that’s bleeding?”

He snatched a breath. “You’re sure?” As she nodded, he looked around anxiously. “Is everyone okay? Willow? Buffy? Dawn? Anya? Xander?”

“Bruised and frightened,” Xander said, “but otherwise unharmed.”

Willow was hugging Tara, smoothing out her tangled hair and saying through a mixture of smiles and tears, “I thought I’d lost you. I thought you were…”

“But I wasn’t.” Tara looked up at Wesley. “Wesley saved me.”

“And me,” Buffy pointed out. “I saved you too. And you have to admit my save was way more stylish. I didn’t even break any furniture.”

“I don’t know, Buff,” Xander shrugged. “Wesley gets points for the two-handed sword fighting.”

“Yeah, that was cool.” Dawn was helping up a shaken-looking Anya; clothes a little ripped and both of them with cobwebs in their hair, but otherwise no more than bruised.

“Oh, come on!” Buffy protested. “You don’t think my somersault onto that chair was more stylish than Wesley waving his big pointies around?” When she turned to him, he was still looking at Tara anxiously, blue eyes still raw with it, the fear of losing anyone else he cared for. She winced from how much it mattered to him; how much he needed to have people to love; to protect; to do his research for; to help keep safe; some connection to the rest of humanity that wasn’t just abstract and theoretical. She reached out and lifted up the corner of his rent sweater. He flinched and then realized what she was doing.

“It’s not too bad.”

She lifted up the wool, and two layers of cotton, and grimaced at the sight of those frayed stitches and the re-opened wound oozing blood. The shirt borrowed from Giles was already badly stained. “It needs stitching.”

Dawn said quietly, “I think his arm does too. And his shoulder.”

Xander said, “You’re supposed to block with the swords, not your skin, Wes.”

“Thank you,” the man returned, not without amusement. “I’ll try to bear that in mind in future.” When he turned back to Tara, whom Willow was only now gently releasing from a hug, his eyes were soft and full of concern. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

She looked ruefully at the ruined chair. “I’m not saying I won’t be pulling splinters out of awkward places for a while but other than that… You’re the one who needs a doctor.”

“I’ll fetch that friend of Giles’…” Buffy began.

Wesley caught her arm. “It’s dark and there could be more of those things out there. Wait until morning.”

“I’m the Slayer, remember?”

“And we’re not, remember?” Wesley countered evenly. “They’ll come to where the amulet is.”

“Then I’ll call him.” She picked up the phone, realized she would have to find the envelope on which the number was scribbled first, and went to look for it. When she came back with it in her hand, she found that Xander had propped up the bookcase and Anya was making unhelpful comments about how much damage had been done to the shop and how Wesley’s wounds reminded her of a particularly grisly fate wished upon an unfaithful shepherd by one of her wronged women clients. Dawn had very sensibly put the kettle on and Willow and Tara were helping Wesley out of his ripped and blood-stained clothes. Wesley, although making obliging wriggling movements with his frighteningly narrow body to assist them, was focused on hooking something out of the flames with the poker.

“What is that?” Buffy asked.

Wesley skilfully hooked the glowing object out of the fire and onto the tiles to cool down. “The amulet. I read in one of these books that some mystical amulets can’t be sensed when in fire even by demons who have been bound to them. There was another mention of Hukkarish being vulnerable to fire so it seemed worth a try. When the Hukkarish broke down the door I threw the amulet onto the fire and hoped for the best.”

“Smart and incredibly prone to being ripped apart by razor sharp talons,” Buffy observed, picking up the phone. “What’s not to love?” The phone rang and she mentally rehearsed what she was going to say: Hi, you don’t know me, but I’m a friend of Giles. You know that other friend of Giles? The one covered in the kind of scar tissue that would usually involve you contacting Amnesty International? Well, he’s just popped his stitches and acquired some new wounds so would you mind just coming over here and not being suspicious or insisting on calling the police at all…? Except it just kept ringing without anyone picking it up. After twenty-one rings, she put it down and looked at the address. The apartment was very close by. Quietly but firmly, she said, “Dawn, get everyone into the training room and barricade the door from the inside. I’ll be ten minutes and when I get back, I’ll knock. If you hear bloodthirsty snarling – assume it isn’t me.”

“What’s wrong?” Xander asked at once.

“Probably nothing.” She tried to find a smile as she looked around at them, all bruised and torn and spaced-out-looking from too much research and too many end of the world scenarios. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” And then she was heading for the darkness outside as Dawn obediently herded the others to what Buffy hoped was at least a temporary safety. The training room was difficult to penetrate; the soundproofing of the walls making it extra thick. Even those talons would have trouble penetrating so much dry walling and insulation. Xander was helping Wesley, she noticed, Willow assisting Tara, who, for all her protestations, was limping badly. When Anya tentatively patted Willow on the arm in acknowledgement of her almost seeing the person she loved killed in front of her twice, Buffy realized that their situation had gone past ‘normal and all fucked up’ to ‘even more fucked up than our normal state of fucked-upness’. She picked up a sword as she walked through the battered door frame, avoiding the glass from the shattered window and stepping over the corpse of the dead Hukkarish, and said crisply and out loud: “My life sucks”. But even so she had to admit she wanted to keep it; even this life, knee deep in demon entrails as it so often was, it was hers and she wanted to keep it. If the world ended in a week or a month or not for another million years, in this moment, at least, she had the fire back. She just hoped she could pass the flame of it to Wesley somehow, an Olympic torch of being back in love with life…

***

Faith looked a lot smaller than Giles remembered. She was sitting there waiting for him, wearing denim and nervously playing with the ends of her dark hair. She looked up as he came in, searching his face for his reaction to her, steeling herself for hostility and coldness and apparently ready for it, nothing defensive, just accepting, and yet so vulnerable with it. He suddenly felt very old and she looked very young.

“Hello, Faith.”

“Giles.” She looked past him wistfully. “I guess I was crazy to expect B. to be here, but I thought Angel…”

“Angel doesn’t know yet, and Buffy wanted to come, but she needed to protect the others. We need your help rather badly.”

Faith shrugged as she got to her feet. “Kinda figured that as I can’t see you all clamouring to get me out of here unless it was something big.”

He looked around at the institution, the guards with their guns, the bars beyond, the reinforced glass and air that tasted recycled and already flavoured with other people’s sweat, and was reminded that she had chosen this, chosen to stay in jail when she could have gone on the run, but had instead elected to atone.

“It is something big. Can we talk about it outside? Are you free to go?”

“Yeah.”

The doors opened, guards murmured quite affectionate words to her, saying they didn’t want to see her back again and she nodded to them as if they were old friends. Giles thought how odd that was, that people who were there to keep her inside a prison, by force if necessary, she could accept as friends and equals, whereas they, who had tried so hard to help her, had been dismissed as enemies. Angel seemed to have made the right call where Faith was concerned, but after all she had done to Buffy, Giles personally needed a little more proof that once on the outside world she wouldn’t reveal herself to be a recidivist.

As they re-entered the evening world outside, Faith snatched draughts of air and then said, “So, what’s going on? How come I’m free when I still have twenty years of my sentence left to run?”

“Wolfram & Hart pulled some strings.”

“What?” She stopped dead. “The same Wolfram & Hart that paid me to kill Angel and a demon to kill me? The same Wolfram & Hart that you should definitely not be even speaking to?”

“The very same. But as the world is about to end in a way they didn’t plan for, they need our help, and we need your help, so they’re helping.”

Faith nodded and began walking again. “That makes sense. Kind of. So, what’s the next step?”

Giles snatched a breath. “Now, we go and fetch Angel. Who may not want to be fetched.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re working with Wesley, whom Angel now wants to kill.”

Faith stopped dead again. “What?”

“Long story.” Giles held open the car door for her. “I’ll explain on the way.”


Angel hadn’t expected Giles to be quite so…angry. He wasn’t quite sure what he had been expecting – crisp, matter-of-factness, and that was certainly all present and correct, but the underlying anger, that put that extra edge in his voice, that had surprised him.

So far they had danced around the subject of Wesley. Giles had been crisply and matter-of-factly filling them in on the situation he had sketched out for Angel on the phone a few days earlier, and Angel realized with growing dismay that ‘Buffy can handle it – she’s saved the world before’ was not going to cut it, because if there was any way on earth that that would be enough, Giles wouldn’t be here.

He had suspected originally that Giles was using this particular imminent apocalypse as a way to push for a reconciliation; an excuse to try to get them all to forgive Wesley, motivated by loyalty to the old school tie; and had been inclined to dismiss that Giles was telling him on that account. But Giles being here in person was serious, and Giles having agreed to Faith being let out by dubious blackmail tactics used by Wolfram & Hart had to mean the end of the world really was nigh.

Faith was looking small and quiet, not her usual self at all. Not having seen Buffy yet was definitely subduing her. Angel guessed that was still the forgiveness she was looking for and never expected to receive.

Cordelia was the one who said, “So, what do you want us to do?”

“Come down to Sunnydale with me and assist Buffy and the rest of us to hold off whatever demonic forces Venturi will send to take the amulet while we find a way to destroy it.”

“The ‘rest of you’ including Wesley?”

Giles looked at her with a coldness in his gaze that Angel had not seen for a long time. “Yes.”

Cordelia took a deep breath, glancing across at Angel and clearly wanting to spare him. “Giles, I know you want to do what’s right, and so do all of us, but I don’t think you know what you’re asking Angel to do…”

“Working with Wesley not really an option after what went down with Connor,” Gunn put in quietly.

Giles scanned them all. “And that goes for all of you?” As they nodded or gazed back at him stonily, he turned to Cordelia. “I thought you were Wesley’s friend?”

She folded her arms. “I am. I mean…I was. But what he did was… It was wrong and I had to choose a side. And I’ve chosen Angel’s side.”

“Well, he’s so much more glamorous than Wesley, isn’t he? Wesley doesn’t have the exciting death toll on his c.v., of course, but then he doesn’t have that sexy mythic destiny either, does he?”

Cordelia looked deeply hurt. “That’s not what this is about.”

“Are you sure? Wesley risked his life to save that baby from being killed by a vampire. For no other reason than to try and protect the rest of you, he went to see a man he thought would kill him. He gambled everything he had to try to preserve the life of a child and got his throat slit for his pains. And his reward from his former employer and loyal friends is to be treated like he’s a cross between Typhoid Mary and Jack the Ripper.”

“Look, whatever Wesley told you to justify himself…”

“He just thought one of you might be interested in hearing his side of events, that’s all. I don’t think Angel trying to kill him was that much of a shock. I think he always expected that. But losing the baby to Holtz and Holtz carrying him into Quor-toth – that he is never going to get over. That’s right up there with him discovering that all the friendships he thought he’d forged over here meant nothing in the end.”

“None of us are ever going to get over what Wesley did either,” Cordelia retorted. “You never saw Connor, Giles. He’s just a name to you. But we held him, we fed him, we…loved him. And Wesley lost him. And whatever his intentions were, that doesn’t alter the fact that he lied to some of us and betrayed some of us, and because of him none of us are ever going to see Connor take his first steps or hear him say his first word…” She was crying and hastily wiped her eyes. “He had so many other choices and that’s the one he took. Is it really such a miracle that we think he ought to lie on the bed he made for himself?”

Giles gazed at her levelly. “Thank god you’ve never done anything that hurt anyone else. Never drove a girl to become invisible by your relentless cruelty and indifference to the feelings of others, for instance. Although I imagine that if you were carrying the burden of say – bullying others for years for no other reason than that you thought it would score popularity points with your equally vapid, selfish, and fashion-obsessed friends – that you might have a little more compassion for someone who made an honest mistake.”

“Don’t take it out on Cordelia because you’re angry with me,” Angel put in.

“Don’t interrupt me when I’m talking,” Giles flashed back dangerously. He turned back to Cordelia. “Because I do think intentions are sometimes more important than consequences, Cordelia. That’s why I don’t blame Angel for his cold-blooded murder of the woman I loved, because he didn’t mean to lose his soul again, but that doesn’t alter the fact that his sleeping with Buffy had catastrophic consequences for all of us around him at the time. It’s very easy with hindsight to say that Angel had no business risking his soul in the first place, that he shouldn’t have ever allowed Buffy to become involved with him so completely as, even without the gypsy curse, he knew he was more than two centuries older than her and lacking a heartbeat. But Angel didn’t know what the consequences would be, neither did Buffy, just as Wesley didn’t know what else to do to save Connor without endangering any of the other people who mattered to him or that the choice he made would lead to the child being lost forever. I’m not defending his choices, I’m just pointing out that he isn’t exactly the only person to ever make a decision that had a negative impact on the life of someone else.”

There was the suggestion of dripping contempt in Giles’ voice that made Angel want to grit his teeth, but he was determined to hang onto his temper however unreasonable Giles became. “There’s a bottom line here, Giles, and this is it: I want to help but you’re asking me to join forces with the man who stole my son and I can’t do that.”

“Mea culpa. I was forgetting that you’ve never made a mistake in your entire life, Angel or done anything that ever led to the death of an innocent. Oh wait, actually you made one mistake that led to you getting turned into a vampire, the death of everyone who’d ever known you, and decades of you torturing, raping, maiming and murdering for fun, followed by a wasted century of you doing absolutely sod all to make amends for what you’d done after the return of your soul, followed by a very brief period of do-gooding before you lost your soul again, murdered Jenny, tried to destroy the world, and gave Buffy what came perilously close to a nervous breakdown when she had to send you to hell. Or was that some other Angel, and you really are someone with a right to take the moral high ground about Wesley’s failed attempt to save your son?”

“That isn’t what happened,” Cordelia put in.

Giles glared at her. “Isn’t it? I thought that was a pretty accurate summary of Angel’s life to date. I didn’t mention the nailing puppies to walls, of course, or all his other nasty little crimes of spite and sadism, because if I started on that we’d be here all night, but I thought I’d covered most of the edited highlights.”

“Angel didn’t have a soul when he did those things.”

“So what?” Giles countered crisply. “I don’t care if Angelus is the demon who borrowed his body or the dark side of his psyche his conscience won’t allow out unless there’s an ‘r’ in the month. They’re still his crimes, and he supposedly believes in redemption and atonement. He was quick enough to demand that Buffy assisted him to help Faith escape from the people who were trying to kill her despite the fact that the last time Buffy had seen Faith, Faith stole her body, slept with her boyfriend, and did her utmost to ruin her life. I was certainly expected to work with Angel again for the common good despite the fact he tortured me for hours. Is everyone else supposed to overcome his own grievances but Angel isn’t? On what grounds?”

Cordelia snatched a breath, it clearly hurting her to talk about these things, but still trying to shield Angel. “I don’t think you’re being very fair, Giles. This is still very…raw for us. We all loved Connor. We all…”

“And you were all so fair to Wesley when you cast him out without a chance to explain himself?”

The thin girl in the corner said, “No one is happy about what happened but Wesley is the one who… No one made him do what he did and what he did killed Angel’s son. It doesn’t mean he’s not still a good person at heart but…”

“He betrayed me,” Angel found the words at last. “And because of him Connor is either dead now or lost to me forever. I trusted him and he used my trust to steal my son. I can’t forgive him for that.”

“And how many men’s sons have you killed, Angel? How many babies did you lift out of cradles not because you were willing to give up everything that mattered to you to try to save them, no matter what it cost you, but because killing people’s first borns was just so much fun…?”

“That was Angelus,” Cordelia said quickly.

“I don’t care if it was the blue bird of happiness, the point is – ” Giles broke off as his phone rang and automatically said “Excuse me” to Cordelia as he plucked it out of his jacket.

Angel heard the murmur of Buffy’s voice on the other end of the phone and saw Faith straighten up as well. She had winced when Giles mentioned her, but looked as if she was going to put up with whatever anyone said; she was like something prematurely hatched; not ready to be in the outside world just yet.

“Buffy, slow down…” Giles murmured. “Is everyone all right?”

Angel heard the name ‘Wesley’ and grimaced; body automatically tensing at it.

Giles said testily: “I’m not interrupting you. And, no, I’m not sitting down. What are you not telling me?”

Angel couldn’t hear Buffy’s words but he saw Giles pale and then grit his teeth before finding his voice. “No, nothing you could have done, Buffy. We couldn’t know they would follow the amulet scent to Roger’s house… Don’t let Dawn blame herself. I was careless about handling it as well. I’ll notify Roger’s family tomorrow.” Another murmur from Buffy and Angel took a step closer, wanting to hear her voice more clearly.

“Well, how bad is it…?” Giles said anxiously. “If you think he needs stitches, take him to a hospital.”

“Wesley won’t go. He says he’s been sleeping with the amulet in his jacket for days and if the Hukkarish followed its scent to the hospital there would be carnage. He says he’s fine, but he’s not – that wound is open again and he’s got two more…”

“Can’t you stitch it yourself? Sterilize some thread and…”

“Xander says we can use superglue. He says soldiers do it in the field. He says the inner stitches are still okay and if we glue the outer edges of the wound together they should hold. Doesn’t that sound kind of…nuts to you?”

Giles sighed. “Actually, Buffy, under the circumstances, that sounds like the best option. Just sterilize everything that touches that wound, glue it closed, dress it as well as you can, and then for god’s sake get him to lie down for a few hours – and make him a cup of tea, obviously, he’ll need to replenish the liquid he’s lost bleeding all over my very expensive floor. Are you sure everyone else is okay? Was anyone else with you when you…found Roger?”

“No, it’s okay, it was just me.”

“Not so okay for you to go through that by yourself.”

Angel could imagine her shrug as she murmured: “Joys of living on a Hellmouth. You’d think after a while the mutilated corpses would start to look the same, but they really don’t.”

“No,” Giles said quietly, “they really don’t. Try to get some sleep. I doubt they’ll attack again tonight and by the time they regroup for tomorrow evening’s assault, you should have reinforcements.”

“How is that going anyway?”

“I’ll let you know.” Giles said his goodbye and switched off the phone.

“Is someone hurt?” Cordelia asked at once.

Giles put away his phone. “The Hukkarish have killed an innocent bystander I was unwise enough to allow to handle the amulet, and Wesley’s had his stitches opened up again. It sounds as if they were lucky there weren’t a lot more casualties than that.” He looked across at Angel. “There aren’t that many hours left before daylight so if you’re going to help, you need to decide now. The question is, are you?”

Angel looked around at the others. Gunn looked grim, Fred unhappy, Lorne and Groo had both been keeping to the background of this discussion. Cordelia had her arms folded defiantly but looked close to tears and had clearly been a great deal more upset by Giles’s words that she was willing to admit. Angel looked a question at all of them and one by one they all sighed and nodded, even Cordelia. He turned back to Giles. The man must know he had a winning hand. Wesley or no Wesley, Angel had heard Buffy’s voice now and he couldn’t turn his back on her. “Yes, we want to help.”

Giles nodded and for a brief moment Angel thought he might even be softening, but then he turned to him and said crisply: “One more thing. You’re useful, but we do have Buffy and Faith to supply the brute strength and killing ability. Wesley, on the other hand, as the only person who can translate that scroll and therefore the only thing standing between the world and total immolation, is irreplaceable. Therefore, if you touch a hair on his head, I’ll stake you first and sweep up the ashes later. Clear?”

Angel was a little taken aback by the complete lack of any warmth in Giles’s eyes. The man wasn’t giving him an inch or a fraction of an inch, but although he felt a flash of irritation at the man’s attitude, he nodded. “Clear.”

“Good, then, let’s go. I take it you have transport of some kind?”

“Actually, we don’t.” Cordelia stepped forward again. “Not enough for all of us. Gunn’s truck had a disagreement with a nest of Nesta Demons and is still having its axle straightened out.”

“I can take four of us…” Angel began.

Giles nodded to Gunn and Fred. “Fine. You two can come with Faith and me. Are you packed?”

“We need a minute,” Gunn protested, but Fred was already scampering up the stairs to fill a suitcase. Giles had clearly scared her into obedience.

“I’m not packed,” Cordelia said with emphasis. “And I don’t keep my toothbrush in the Hyperion. We’ll follow you down. We can collect up the weapons as well.”

“And the vodka,” Lorne put in quietly. “I’m definitely going to need a lot of that on this trip.”

“Fine.” Giles turned on his heel. “Faith and I will be outside. Try not to be too long. Time is rather of the essence.”

He walked out of the hotel and everyone visibly rocked back on their heels.

“Scary British guy,” Gunn breathed.

Groo turned to Cordelia wide-eyed. “Is this man a leader of your people?”

“He’s a Watcher,” she retorted. “They’re good for making tea and wearing tweed – and I can’t believe I have to go back to Sunnydale and take any more of his and Buffy’s crap.”

“Sweetpea, there is the small matter of saving the world,” Lorne reminded her. “I think that may outweigh even your old high school rivalries.”

“The world always needs saving.” Cordelia picked up a sword and handed it to Groo. “How about just for once it got off the damned railway tracks and saved itself?” She picked up a lighter sword and swung it experimentally. “Okay, huge hairy demons with big teeth and claws – watch out.”

Angel collected up weapons on automatic pilot, aware of Groo helping him, aware of Gunn and Fred grabbing possessions and crossbows and axes in a flutter of anxiety, all the time thinking that within a few hours he was going to come face to face, once again, with the man he had tried to smother with a pillow, the man he still wanted to kill for his betrayal, while all the while Giles’ words ran through his head over and over like a broken record.

And how many men’s sons have you killed, Angel?

***