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Lost and Found, Part Nine

Giles and Willow did stay to lunch, and supper, and, it was decided, would be staying overnight. They strengthened the weakened walls between the two dimensions with a spell of – according to Lorne – considerable power. Lorne did a reading for Willow, and Angel’s hearing was good enough to pick up the anagogic demon telling her that she was at a crossroads and he couldn’t make the decision for her, but he saw good things in green fields for her and a certain someone who was so very much in her thoughts, and by the end of the day Willow had told everyone that she was going back to England with Giles to stay at the coven and try to work on gaining control of her magical abilities.

Fred ordered in enough food to feed twenty people at least and they ate together in the dining room. Giles was quiet but subtly different with all of them than before. With Wesley he was extremely gentle and kind. He said nothing to him about the irresponsibility of his actions in attempting such a spell and spent a quiet hour with him examining his books, recommending some other titles that he might find of use, and showing enthusiastic interest in some of his rare volumes. Over supper, he soothed Cordelia’s ruffled feathers by asking her about her visions and her new ‘demonisation’. However, on hearing more of the visions and her recent dalliance with a coma, he became concerned and went into the whole nature of the visions in more depth than any of them had ever done. Angel knew that he had been as guilty as everyone else of simply accepting them as part of the package of his redemption, but now Giles dealt with them as the invasive mind-and-body-altering trauma that they were. He asked Cordelia gravely if she was sure that the Powers were benevolent in their intentions and talked about the Old Ones at considerable length. Wesley fetched the books Giles asked for and they all went through the references together, Giles making a powerful case for the possibility that the Old Ones referenced in so many books and the unseen Powers could be one and the same.

Cordelia had started off a little scornful and defensive but by the end of Giles’ quietly determined exposition was looking seriously concerned. She was proud of the visions and her role in carrying them. From cheerleader to seer was a step of which anyone would be proud. But now for the first time they all looked at Cordelia and found themselves wondering if the people behind the visions were entirely benevolent.

“Perhaps I’m being overly cynical,” Giles explained. “Or it could be my classical education. But Powers – plural – suggests god-like creatures, a pan dimensional pantheon which may have their own weaknesses and rivalries. Glory was a god and her intentions were not benevolent although her power was terrifying. You’re all being very trusting that these creatures do have a clearer view than your own – that they are higher and better than you are because they are clearly creatures of great power. But so were the Old Ones, and they bore a more than passing resemblance to the gods of Mount Olympus – quarrelling fallible deities who liked to use the lowly mortals as pieces on a human chess board.”

“We got you,” Gunn nodded. “We’ve all seen Jason and the Argonauts.”

Fred looked anxious. “But what does that mean? Does it mean the good guys are really bad guys or what…?”

“It means that there were once beings who walked this dimension of great and terrible power and who, for whatever reason, decided to move onto a different or higher plane but who may still take an interest in the happenings of the world, and whose interest may be benevolent or not. Looking at these scrolls Wesley has translated, it seems apparent that Angel has long been of interest to these Powers. That begs the question – how long? Benevolent powers might take pity upon a creature with a great desire to atone for past sins and want to help him in that endeavour.”

“That’s what they’re doing,” Cordelia insisted. “Helping Angel on the path to his redemption – because he’s unique, because he’s the vampire with the soul that is written about in Wesley’s musty old scrolls.”

“But Angel’s existence – the fact that there is a vampire with a soul currently walking the earth able to carry out the apparently benevolent wishes of these mysterious powers – is entirely dependent upon a set of circumstances that came as a result of many cruel deaths – the first of which was Angel’s own. If the Powers have always intended Angel to be their champion in this time and this world, then they must also have been at the very least content to let a history play out in which countless hundreds died terrifying deaths and Angel himself was cursed to carry an appalling burden of guilt just so that he would be prepared to work through his redemption by doing their wishes.”

“Okay,” Gunn nodded. “Now I’m moving on from Ray Harryhausen and I’m thinking ‘Trust No One’.”

Giles sighed. “I don’t wish to undermine the fabric of your belief system or, Angel, to deny you the hope that you will one day find redemption, but I’ve learned to mistrust systems of absolute authority, that hand out orders without explanations and demand sacrifice without justification. Both my grandfathers died in the First World War as the result of questionable military decisions made by men who were safe in their chambers in London at the time men were choking to death on mustard gas and drowning in the mud of Flanders. You are the front line. Cordelia has already allowed these people to alter her for no other purpose than to make it possible for her to continue to carry the burden of visions which, although are undoubtedly helping to avert a number of deaths, could be a smokescreen for a different plan entirely.”

Cordelia looked wretched. “I don’t understand why you think that.”

Giles looked into her eyes. “How many people have these visions saved so far? A hundred?”

“We don’t know,” Wesley explained. “We don’t know how many people would have died if the various demons we’ve destroyed had been permitted to carry out their individual killing sprees. It could be thousands. It could be considerably less.”

Giles looked across at Angel. “And how many did Angelus kill? If these Powers are ageless and omniscient enough to be able to foretell when a demon is going to arise that can kill a dozen or so misguided worshippers, why didn’t they send whoever was their seer or the champion allied with their seer in the eighteenth century to prevent Darla from ever turning you in the first place or at least to stop your killing spree once it was in full spate? That’s a great deal of demon-fuelled misery they didn’t avert right there.”

Angel looked across at Cordelia and felt exactly as she evidently did – as if someone was trying to take his security blanket away – but he couldn’t deny the truth of Giles’ words. “You may have a point.”

Giles took a deep breath. “I hope you’ll forgive me for being so outspoken but you both have your share of arrogance. You’re important, Angel. These Powers tell you so. You’re of such significance that you feature in prophecies, a pan-dimensional law firm with an investment in the apocalypse is trying to control you, and mysterious higher beings have claimed you as their champion. And, Cordelia, you’re not just an ex-cheerleader any more; you’re the carrier of the visions, the woman who tells Angel what the Powers want him to do next. I don’t think it takes a genius to work out that your genuine desires to do good – your willingness to sacrifice yourselves for the greater good and your belief that the greater good in this case involves you passing onto Angel the wisdom of these mysterious Powers and him carrying out their wishes, could be horribly exploited by a being of sufficient power and ambition. You mentioned that Cordelia’s visions were once hijacked by malevolent humans for their own ends. I would like some assurance from someone that the ‘true’ visions come from a source that is indisputably disinterested in anything but the greater good of the human race.”

Evidently seeing he had thoroughly worried them all, Giles grimaced and sat back in his chair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

“Complete undermine our belief in everything we hold dear?” Cordelia demanded. “God, Giles, do they hire you out to speak at religious gatherings, too? Do you give pep talks to Catholics about how their god has to really suck or else the Inquisition wouldn’t have happened?”

“I did try that once,” the man deadpanned. “But for some reason they never invited me back.”

Wesley was gazing at the scroll on which the Shanshu prophecy was inscribed with dismay. “But – this is a sacred scroll. It’s cross-referenced in many works. It…” He sighed. “It says things I want to hear. It tells me things I need to believe in. Just like Cordelia with her visions.”

“We have to believe in something.” Angel gazed at Giles, trying to shake off a deep feeling of unease that the man had planted in his breast. “Otherwise – why even bother? Why not just give up now?”

“I suggest you believe in what you’re doing and each other. You are doing good, yes? Keep doing it. Just be sure that what you’re doing is good and that you’re doing it for the right reasons and not as the puppets of someone who has their own reason for wanting to have influence over you.”

“I don’t believe the Powers are evil,” Cordelia said stolidly.

“I’m not saying they are, but I can’t help asking, why, as they could send you a vision when you were in another dimension they couldn’t send you one when you were sunning yourself on a beach in this one? They could have saved Connor from Quor’toth, but they didn’t. I have to wonder why.”

Cordelia opened her mouth to answer and then stopped. “That’s a good point. If they’d shown me Holtz taking him into Quor’toth I could have called Wesley; stopped him getting his throat slit, stopped Justine…”

Angel saw that get through to Cordelia in a way that nothing else had. She had been stubbornly resistant to any suggestion that the Powers could be at fault but this was something she felt deeply – that Connor should have been saved. She turned to Wesley. “Remember when I said that if I ever met them I’d like to punch them in the nose? I’m feeling like that again.”

“Gotta say I’m wondering if Giles has a point,” Gunn observed.

Fred frowned. “I’m wondering why Cordy needs to be part demon. If it is some… If we’re the chess pieces and we’re being moved into position, why does Cordy have to be part demon? Of course, I may as well tell you all – I’m a conspiracy theorist from way back. I find it easier to believe in a Higher Power that’s plotting and laying traps for us than I do in some big glowy omniscient Father Christmas on a cloud.”

“The visions of my princess have saved many lives,” Groo said quietly.

“Maybe the Powers are as fallible as we are.” Wesley was still looking at the scroll he was holding, Angel noticed. He wondered if he ought to ease it out of his hands but Wesley didn’t seem to want to put it down even for an instant. “Maybe they’re trying to help. Maybe they have a plan. Maybe it’s just not a very good plan.” He looked directly at Angel and Angel found himself thinking how men were supposed to fashion their gods in their own images, or that of their authority figures at least. He’d seen it in Ireland, women so in awe of their priest he was more real to them than the god he was supposed to represent, until probably no god could have competed with him for power, for glamour. And how sons were supposed to see the reflection of god in their fathers. Now Wesley was looking at him curiously as he if was measuring him up for something or measuring something up against him.

“Maybe they want to do good,” Wesley continued thoughtfully. “Want it more than anything else, but aren’t…strategists. Or are strategists but the planning has become so important they’ve forgotten the human cost involved. Or…”

Willow said gently, “I think we should get some sleep.”

Angel noticed Willow looking at Wesley and saw what she was seeing, that they had almost become used to – how wrecked he looked, unshaven and with those shadows under his eyes and the cuts and bruises on his face, how he had to wear his watch above his wrist bone because his arms were so painfully thin it would slide halfway to his elbow if the bone didn’t anchor it in place. He glanced across at Cordelia and saw her running a hand through her hair, not caring that it wasn’t tidy, looking as if she had lost her balance somewhere and was trying to find it. When a woman was that beautiful there was a danger of only seeing her beauty; not noticing the shadows under those big brown eyes, or the exhaustion etched on that lovely face. He thought of them the way they had been before Vocah, before the explosion, before the Hyperion, and wondered if it was he or the Powers who had done this to them.

He got to his feet. “Yes, it’s been a long day.”

Gunn was also looking between Cordelia and Wesley. Cordelia said, “But…how can they be…? Why wouldn’t they save Connor…?”

Groo gently put an arm around her and said, “You need to sleep, princess. Would you like me to recite to you the poetry of the Book of Eshermon? I have always found that such verses soothe me after a battle.”

She glanced up at him and said, “I think I just want… He was so small… Why wouldn’t they save a baby from being taken into hell…?”

Giles winced apologetically as she walked away from the table and then turned to Angel who found himself thinking that it would be a huge cosmic joke upon him if the Powers were as fallible as the mythological gods of Mount Olympus; if the model for all those squabbling pantheons were the same Powers he had been blindly following since he arrived in Los Angeles. The ones who had let Doyle go to his death. Who had told Cordelia the back of her skull would blow out if she didn’t give up the visions then showed her a world where although she was famous it was at the expense of Angel’s sanity and Wesley’s left arm. She was only twenty-two still. Doing good was still new to her; still as shiny and bright as it had once been to him, before a hundred years in a hell dimension had knocked some of that conviction out of him; made him realize the true reality of one step forward and fourteen back that seemed to be the dance steps for his life. Not so difficult to manipulate even a smart girl like Cordelia by appealing to her newly-awakened sense of self-sacrifice.

They had all been swift enough to condemn Wesley for allowing himself to be fooled by a fake prophecy but what if Giles was right and they’d all been fooled? If not only the Nyazian scrolls but that other precious roll of parchment Wesley was currently clinging onto so hard was just another lie as well? And Connor? What was Connor? Had he been a reward or a punishment? Or had he been a chance and life was random chaos and Angel had no purpose in the world except to be someone who had killed more people than he could ever atone for and yet had to spend his eternity trying anyway?

Giles said, “I’m terribly sorry. I was really just thinking aloud.”

Angel looked up and then looked around the table. Cordelia had gone while he’d been thinking. Gunn had his arm around Fred who was looking pale and shocked, Wesley was still clinging onto that damned scroll. Angel wanted to reach across and yank it out of his hand and throw it across the room, but there was no way to do it that wouldn’t make it look as if it was about him being angry with Wesley when it was all to do with being angry with himself.

Angel got up. “Let’s go to bed. Wes – do you need a hand?” As Wesley continued to look at him blankly, he crossed over to where he was sitting, pulled him to his feet, took the scroll from him and placed it firmly on the table. “You need to sleep.” He pulled Wesley away from the scroll and it was a little like when Wesley had first turned up outside the Hyperion wrapped in that blanket, he was yielding and resistant at the same time, spiky and brittle and bewildered. “You’re tired,” Angel added firmly. “Your legs are like spaghetti.”

Wesley gazed up at him. “But the prophecy…”

“Not now, Wes.” He tightened his grip on him. “Just stop thinking about it, take some painkillers, and get some sleep.” He looked over his shoulder at Giles. “You’ve raised some good points. We can talk about it some more tomorrow. See if we can make some sense of it. Gunn – can you show Giles and Willow to their rooms?” Then he hauled Wesley up the stairs, with him still looking back over his shoulder at the scroll and saying, “But Angel…” while he said, as gently as he could, “Not now, Wes, okay? Not now.”

***

It was ironic that when he’d come to LA full of thoughts of Wesley, when there was that soft tapping on his door in the middle of the night, Giles immediately assumed it was Angel. He didn’t blame the vampire for waking him even though it was – he checked the florescent hands of his watch – three in the morning. Giles had casually tossed a spanner into the works of his cosmic redemption. It was no wonder Angel wanted to talk things over without traumatizing his co-workers.

Except when he opened the door it was Wesley standing there in his pyjamas and his dressing gown, or rather leaning against the wall, holding the scroll and with a pile of books on the floor, looking at Giles anxiously, not the anxious look of someone who had woken someone else up at three in the morning, but of a student with a paper that had to be handed in that wasn’t going well.

Giles said, “Wesley, it’s three in the morning.”

Wesley said, “Will you look at this with me?”

Giles could tell at once that the whole ‘three in the morning’ thing just wasn’t happening for Wesley in this conversation. Sighing, he stepped back and held the door open, letting Wesley carry the scroll over to the bed and place it on the coverlet reverentially before heading back to get the books. Giles held up a hand. “I’ll get them.”

As he carried in the books and placed them on the bed he had been so unwilling to vacate he realized how right Angel had been to tell him some of the details of what had been done to Wesley in that other dimension. There was a terrible danger that if Angel hadn’t told him then Giles would have said something regrettable about Wesley’s behaviour in waking him. As things were he did need to call on his patience but at least there was a great deal more patience to draw upon.

“I was thinking about what you said.” Wesley unrolled the scroll and held it out where Giles could see it. “Did Angel tell you about the other prophecy? The Nyazian scrolls? The one that was a lie? Not just the scrolls but all the commentaries on the scrolls as well. They all confirmed it. They all said the father would kill the son. And it was a lie.”

“Yes, I know.” He’d been told about Sahjahn and his time travelling tricks. Sighing, Giles took the scroll and dutifully began to read it and then shook his head. “Wesley, this is written in several different languages, some of which I don’t recognize. I didn’t do linguistics, remember? I did archaeology.”

“These are the prophecies of Aberjian.” Wesley sat on the bed next to him and pointed to the first line as if that was one at least was easy.

Giles looked at it and turned to Wesley in what he was trying very hard to stop developing into exasperation. “Don’t you have a translation?”

“But I need you to check it for me,” Wesley said as if it were obvious. “And the books.” He pushed a book at Giles. “If Sahjahn could change the commentaries on the Nyazian scrolls then can we trust the books?”

“Is there any evidence that he changed the commentaries? If he changed the original scrolls wouldn’t the time line have adjusted itself?” He thought that might be comforting, that it might in some way preserve the sanctity of the books, but Wesley only looked more anxious.

“So, a demon or Wolfram & Hart would only need to alter the original prophecy and everything else would be falsified?”

“I’m too tired to deal with this now. Can’t we talk about it in the morning?”

Wesley gave him a begging look. “Couldn’t you just look at this part? It’s in Geshundi.” He said ‘Geshundi’ like another scholar might have said ‘French’ to a student of modern languages.

Giles sighed for a lifetime spent with dead languages that had evidently still not been enough. Hurrian he could read, Geshundi he could not. “Isn’t any of it in…Hebrew? Aramaic? Some form of cuneiform?”

“Akkadian.” Wesley’s eyes lit up. “And this line is proto-Tocharian.”

Giles took the scroll from him and examined the lines to which Wesley pointed. “I don’t have my reference books here but it seems to be talking about something that is neither dead nor living undergoing some kind of transformation as a consequence of many battles.”

“Do you think it’s true? Do you think we can trust the books still?” Wesley lowered his voice to a whisper as if he thought they might overhear him. Giles couldn’t decide if Wesley thought his beloved volumes might be planning a coup d’état or was just concerned about hurting their feelings.

“The effort involved in altering the time line as that demon did must have been colossal. I find it hard to believe that would happen too often.” Giles rubbed his temples, feeling a headache begin to throb and having to remind himself firmly as he did so that Wesley was probably a very traumatized young man right now for whom every allowance should be made.

“Perhaps we could check some of the references together?” Wesley opened one and held it out to Giles. There was something exasperating about the trusting way he did that, as if no one could not be pleased to have an ancient volume shoved at them in the wee small hours so that one might get on with the exciting work of cross-referencing.

“You really were an appalling little swot at the Academy, weren’t you, Wesley?” Giles sighed.

Wesley was too busy picking a book for himself to be listening to Giles. He selected a chapter on the habits of phalangoid demons written in Aramaic and invited Giles to cross-reference from an illuminated manuscript written in a form of bastardised Latin-French.

They were halfway through the passage when Giles was saved by, if not the bell, or indeed the cup of tea he was currently gasping for, but at least by an anxious vampire.

“Giles, are you…?” Angel broke off as he saw Wesley sitting on Giles’s bed in his dressing gown. “Wesley…?”

Wesley looked up guiltily. “Oh. We were just… I was thinking about…” As Angel came over Wesley tried to shove the scroll in between two books where it would be less obvious.

Watching them, Giles had to admit that he wasn’t seeing bullying vampire with person he had recently tried to kill, more like child caught reading under the covers by a parent who had already told him twice that he couldn’t stay up any later on a school-night.

Angel plucked the scroll from its not very concealing hiding place and held it up in mild accusation. “Wesley…? Did you wake up Giles to talk about the Shanshu prophecy?”

As Wesley gazed up at Angel guiltily, Giles felt as if he were stuck back in his schooldays, covering for some hapless younger boy who was going to dissolve into a puddle of wet tissue paper if a prefect raised his voice to him. “I wasn’t asleep. It really doesn’t matter.”

Angel sighed. “Wes, you need your sleep and I’m sure Giles does too.”

For the first time it seemed to occur to Wesley that he had been perhaps a little less than considerate in knocking on Giles’s door. “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t stop thinking about the Prophecies of Aberjian.”

“Well, who hasn’t had that problem?” Giles observed. “Ancient prophecies being the page turners that they are. Personally, I can never take the suspense. Always have to peek at the last prophecy first – see how it ends.”

His humour was entirely wasted on his current audience. Wesley was trying to read one of the open books upside down, head tilting more and more onto one side. Angel tugged absently at Wesley’s dressing gown to cover his chest and the edge of that healing burn Giles could see, re-belting it as if he’d done it a hundred times before. “Let’s get you back to bed, Wes. Let Giles get some sleep.”

“But…” Wesley gazed at the scroll as if were a favourite Famous Five novel and he would now never know if Julian, George, Anne and Timmy managed to rescue Dick from another bunch of dastardly kidnappers.

Angel gently eased Wesley to his feet while giving Giles a begging look. “Perhaps Giles and Willow would be able to stay for an extra day. Do some cross-referencing with you…?”

Giles sighed and capitulated. It seemed to be the only way he was likely to get any sleep tonight. “Gladly.”

Wesley lit up. “Oh, thank you. That would be super.”

“Absolutely – super,” Angel echoed, moving Wesley gently but firmly towards the door while apologetically mouthing the word ‘painkillers’ at Giles as he steered Wesley away.

“Oh, my books…” Wesley gazed at them longingly and Angel tightened his grip on them.

“I’m sure they’ll be safe with Giles.”

“But, perhaps I should just…”

But thankfully, Angel had urged Wesley out of the door and closed the door behind them.

Sighing, Giles belted his own dressing gown more securely in case of wandering females and went downstairs in search of a cup of a tea. He had feared he might find some of the others down there, but the hotel was thankfully quiet and still. He found some Twinings teabags, made himself a cup of hot strong tea, and then made his way back to bed. Shoving the books onto the floor, he climbed under the covers, closed his eyes and hoped he dreamt of something far removed from Sunnydale or the Hyperion.


The next knock on the door was imperious and a great deal less tentative. Giles unwillingly opened his eyes, finding it hard to believe that it was morning already. He still felt washed out and exhausted. Groping for the bedside lamp he switched it on and took a proper look at his watch. Six a.m. Groaning, he got to his feet, pulled on his robe and belted it in exasperation as he crossed to the door.

“Wesley, I really do need more than three hours of sleep before I can tackle ancient cuneiform…” Giles blinked in confusion as he found Cordelia standing outside his door, hands on her hips and a look of grim determination on her face. “Cordelia? Is everything all right?”

“Well, thanks to you coming up here and telling us our lives are a pointless charade, not so much.”

“At no point did I say that your lives were a…”

Cordelia effortlessly overwhelmed him. “I’ve been thinking and I need to go through all our cases. Show them to you. Make you see how much good we’re doing here and if you still think the Powers That Be are the bad guys.”

“I didn’t say the Powers That Be are ‘bad guys’, I just said that you had no actual proof that they were…good guys…” But she had already marched off, evidently expecting him to follow without further delay.

Realizing that any further hope of sleep was now lost, Giles wearily, set about washing, shaving and dressing.

Willow had been allowed to sleep in until nine am when she had been given breakfast by Fred and a pile of folders to examine by Cordelia. Although, in answer to Angel’s enquiry, Cordelia has insisted that Giles’ and Willow’s participation was entirely voluntary, Giles couldn’t say it had felt that way to him and he doubted it felt that way to Willow either.

Giles spent the morning and half of the afternoon going through files with Cordelia. He had heard several references to her chaotic filing system but, as with her SATs, when she had a point she wanted to make she evidently had a mind like a steel trap. Giles wearily read his way through case after case, the folders spreading out from the office to the lobby and the front desk, until they were covering every available surface and sucking everyone in to reading them. Wesley made notes avidly trying to discern a pattern in the people that the Powers chose to save or not to save, and then decided he wanted to do more research about the Old Ones Giles had mentioned and disappeared into his reference books for four hours straight until Gunn physically tugged him back to the banquette and put food into his hand.

“One day, Wes, I’m going to get you to grasp that tea isn’t a food group.”

Wesley gave him a look of disbelief. “Don’t be ridiculous. Next you’ll be telling Fred that tacos aren’t a food group.”

He and Gunn grinned at one another and Giles had his first sense of a tangible connection between these two; the realization that Wesley was not a victim of the force of Angel’s sometimes overwhelming personality and tragic history but had forged friendships with every person in the hotel. Something confirmed a moment later when Fred hugged Wesley from behind, resting her cheek against his, her skin looking pale and smooth against his bruises and stubble. “Now, that’s just crazy talk.” She put her head on one side as she looked at his new hair style and then began to try to get it to stick up in strange ways. “Where’s the hair gel?”

“For the last time, Wesley isn’t borrowing any more of my hair gel,” Angel protested. “He doesn’t even care what he looks like.”

“I know. I’ve seen how he dresses. That’s why he needed an intervention.” Cordelia handed a jar of product to Fred.

Angel said to Wesley, “You’ve been an invalid for way too long. Cordy and Fred are getting institutionalised.”

Gunn watched Fred critically as she basically played with Wesley’s hair. Giles personally wouldn’t have stood a moment of it, but Wesley seemed incapable of standing up to either Cordelia or Fred with any conviction. With Cordelia, she just seemed to overwhelm him by superior force of personality, and when there was any interaction with Fred he just got a hopelessly goopy look on his face and let her do anything she liked. Gunn said, “So, if I grew my hair would you be doing that thing with the hair gel to me? Because I’m thinking if so I’m always going to be bald.”

Cordelia looked up in surprise. “I thought you were bald.”

“Through choice,” Gunn protested. “Wes, don’t let them do that to you if you don’t like it.”

“How would you advise me to stop them?” he enquired reasonably.

“It’s my hair style,” Cordelia insisted. “It just happens to be placed on Wesley’s head but it’s my creation and I have a right to maintain it how I like.”

“Well, buy your own hair gel then,” Angel retorted.

“You’ve got about a year’s supply up there. If you had that much blood in the refrigerator this hotel would have to be re-classified as an abattoir.”

“You went into my room?”

“So what if I did? What are you hiding up there?”

“Nothing.”

“So, what’s the big deal?”

Giles looked across at Willow who was watching Angel and Cordelia as if they were a tennis match. “Are you missing Sunnydale as much as me?”

Mentioning Sunnydale was a mistake, Willow at once looking as sad as he felt. He thought of Buffy, still so cut off from the people around her, unable to connect with Dawn or with life, trudging off to her dead end job, trying not to blame the people who had dragged her out of heaven and yet not able to accept that this was her life again, this was her existence, as the Slayer, alive, with a pulse, and in this world. It felt as if she were counting time until she could die again, and yet he knew that in there somewhere was still the vibrant, witty, focused girl he loved as a daughter. Dawn was taking Buffy’s sense of disconnection as a personal rejection, a consequence of her own birth out of nowhere, just a cosmic tricked played upon them all. That was still how she tended to see herself. And Willow was missing Tara like a physical pain. Willow rallied after a moment though and gave him a faint smile.

“I’m looking forward to seeing England.” She looked across at Wesley. “Is it pretty?”

Wesley had clearly never considered his home country in those terms but after a slight pause for readjustment to that idea, he said, “Yes, some of it is very pretty indeed. It’s small which means you’re never too far from the sea. I can never understand how people in this country can live in the middle without dehydrating to death in a few weeks. I really know Hampshire best – the New Forest is beautiful, especially if you can ride. The woods feel as if they’ve always been like this. And Danebury, of course, and Beacon Hill. There are red kites back around Oxford, so I hear. I’d like to see that. They were only in Wales when I left. And there are castles. I find it odd that there aren’t any castles here. I used to find myself looking out for them and wondering if you’d just misplaced them. I know the Normans never came here, of course, but still…it seems so odd. And no hill forts. No standing stones. It will probably seem very crowded to you and with a very poorly designed traffic system. I don’t miss roundabouts – or trying to negotiate the M25. I miss village cricket matches. I miss how quiet they are, and how civilized. And I miss the way the grass smells after the rain.” He became aware that everyone was looking at him and gave a rather embarrassed shrug. “Sorry, I was…distracted. I think I need to get off the painkillers.”

“Do you want to go with Giles?” Angel asked abruptly. “Just for a visit? See…a cricket match? Eat some…marmite.”

Wesley shook his head. “No, Angel. I want to stay here.”

“I could bring you back some marmite,” Willow told him kindly. “And a cricket ball, if you like.”

“Thank you.” He smiled at her. “I’d like that.”

“We could paint a baseball red for you if you like?” Fred offered.

“Yeah, and put some shoe polish in a jar and tell you it’s marmite,” Gunn added.

“Did the Council ever investigate that claim that the M25 was actually a demonic sigil?” Wesley asked Giles.

“I think they had to declare an open verdict on that, despite all the confirmatory evidence.” Giles saw that Fred was still playing with Wesley’s hair – no doubt she considered it styling, but she just seemed to be squishing her fingers through it to see what that made it do. He had to admit that he had not expected them to be so comfortable with his erstwhile colleague or he with them. Angel had been positively parental when coaxing him back to bed, and Fred and Gunn seemed to treat Wesley like their eccentric older brother; Cordelia like he was her wayward twin. Lorne was gentle with everyone, good natured and indulgent, and it was probably very good for someone like Wesley to be given pet names on such a regular basis by a kind-hearted demon. Groo just appeared to be one of the universe’s natural gentlemen. This was certainly not the scenario Giles had expected to find awaiting him in regard to Wesley when he had contemplated this trip to LA.

Wesley remembered his researching and took the pen from behind his ear, bending back over his notes. Fred did a last few deft squidging motions with her fingers then looked to Cordelia for confirmation she had done it right. Cordelia came over, looked at it critically, and then squished her fingers through it in a way that seemed to undo everything Fred had done completely. However she said, “Yes, Fred, that’s great.”

“Just who are you glamming Wes up for?” Gunn demanded. “Especially when he’s still looking like someone threw him headfirst into the weapons cabinet? Miss Whiplash?”

“I’m practising for when he doesn’t look as if someone threw him into the weapons cabinet,” Cordelia explained.

Wesley looked up from his notes in some alarm. “You can’t make me date.”

“Hey, I’m part demon these days, I can make you do anything.”

“Is that part of the new powers package?”

“Forcing people to go on blind dates? Absolutely. Comes with the glowing and the floating.” She turned to Willow. “So, are Xander and Anya definitely not a couple any more?”

“He’s not dating a vengeance demon.” Angel didn’t even look up from the folder he was reading. “They’re way too flaky. And besides, it’s dangerous.”

“She’s an ex vengeance demon and she co-owns a magic shop that stocks all the very expensive ingredients we use all the time.”

“Don’t we know anyone who owns an axe shop?” Gunn looked up with more interest.

Fred looked thoughtful. “A book shop would be better for Wesley.”

“Ballet dancer!” Gunn sat up straighter. “They’re always pretty and Wes could get us all free tickets to every performance.”

Giles looked at Gunn in surprise and saw that he did not seem to be mocking ballet in any way. Bemused he turned back to Wesley. “Are you sure you don’t want to accompany Willow and I to England, Wesley?”

“We’re just kidding around,” Fred assured Giles hastily. “We wouldn’t really make Wesley date anyone he didn’t want to just to get free stuff or a discount. Well…” She looked at Cordelia in some apprehension. “Charles and I are just kidding around.”

“I don’t want to date anyone. Angel…?”

“You don’t have to date anyone,” Angel assured him, still reading the folder. “Not even if Cordy tells you that you do.”

Wesley gave Cordelia a smug look that was entirely fraternal. She snorted. “Fine. Be Mister Stay At Home. Just don’t start whining to me about your lonely empty life.”

Fred put her arm through Wesley’s and said conspiratorially, “You can always triple date with me and Charles.”

Gunn and Wesley exchanged an awkward look and Gunn said to Giles: “She’s not really saying what it sounds like she’s saying because we don’t…do that here.”

Fred’s eyes widened. “No! We don’t… We definitely don’t. That would just be…” Then she got a far away look in her eyes and said, “Actually, that would be kind of… just from a mathematical viewpoint … and, of course, the I Ching – trying to calculate the permutations and combinations. It would increase the variability factor by a ratio of…”

“Fred…” Gunn gave her a slightly forced smile. “You could stop talking any time now. And before Wes and I die of manly embarrassment would probably be good.”

Cordelia’s smile to Willow was beaming. “See? Never a dull moment here.”


Going through all their files revealed that they had indeed saved a number of lives and that the Powers did seem to be benevolent on the whole although somewhat eccentric in their choice of who was to be saved and who lost. Giles tried to crick his neck back into position as he sat on the floor, looking around at the humans and demons and mixture of the two currently occupying the banquette and the floor in various attitudes that suggested aching limbs and tired eyes. Angel was on the floor with a pile of files next to him, a towering stack of past acts of heroism, innocent victims saved. Giles found it difficult not to try to calculate how high the stack of folders would reach that contained the victims Angelus had killed in the past and was forced to conclude that those Angel had saved still did not even remotely compare in quantity to those that he had murdered.

These ‘Powers’ had warned Cordelia about the Skilosh too late to be of any use to her, but not about Vocah, and, while they had helped Fred out twice, bringing her to Cordelia’s attention five years after her trip to Pylea and again when she was in danger of being decapitated, they had sent Cordelia no warning about Wesley getting blown up, shot, or having his throat slashed.

“Maybe they don’t like me?” Wesley sighed. “Or maybe I’m just not important enough to save.”

“No, you have a very significant role to play in the…” Lorne broke off and then as everyone looked at him, said, “I can’t… I don’t read and tell.”

“I don’t mind.” Wesley gazed at him curiously.

“It could be important.” Angel tossed the folder he’d been reading onto the floor. “If Wesley is just another foot soldier in the battle against good and evil then perhaps the Powers aren’t prepared to intervene, but if as Lorne says he has some very important role to play and they’re not helping him…”

“But he didn’t die,” Cordelia pointed out. “Something else intervened. You or Gunn or something that stopped him dying. Maybe the Powers didn’t need to intervene because they knew none of those attacks on Wesley were going to be fatal.”

Lorne inclined his head. “That makes sense, although we are talking ten minutes to final countdown in the case of that last little brush with the reaper.”

Fred looked around at the scattered files and folders. “Maybe they’re just really disorganized. Maybe saving Wesley was sitting on someone’s desk as a memo but they were out sick that day so no one got around to it. Maybe that’s why it took them five years to get me out of Pylea. Not that I’m complaining or anything but you’ve got to wonder how much of a backlog do these people have?”

“I don’t think I’m important.” Wesley frowned in concentration. “But Connor was. He was mentioned in the Nyazian scrolls, and Sahjahn only admitted to changing the part of the prophecy that said Angel would kill Connor rather than that Connor would kill Sahjahn, that means that the confluence of events that led to Connor’s birth, the birth itself – which happened exactly as was foretold – were all significant events, worthy of being the subject of important prophecies. It makes no sense that Connor should have been born and then just be…lost.” He looked across at Angel. “Like you said, you don’t get half a miracle.”

Angel sighed. “I’ve been thinking about that too, Wes, and maybe the truth was that Connor was evil. Maybe in every dimension he was evil and would have brought great evil on the world. Remember what Gunn said – that maybe stopping the baby being born was the Powers finally stepping up to the plate and doing something? Maybe getting rid of Connor was something they had to do for the good of mankind and they made you their instrument. Maybe the important role you played in the apocalypse was when you averted it by helping to remove Connor from this dimension.”

“No, Angel.” Wesley had been sitting on the banquette but he immediately sank down to his knees beside him. “Connor was good. We know he was good. His soul was strong enough to affect Darla to the point where she could feel love.”

Angel looked very weary. “Maybe it was just a means to get born. Maybe you saved the world from…”

“No.” Wesley spun around to look at the anagogic demon. “Lorne, Connor was good, wasn’t he?”

“Sugar, I didn’t actually ‘read’ Connor on account of him not really being up to giving me a chorus at his age.”

“But you’re empathic – you must have sensed that he was good?”

“Yes, I did.” Lorne nodded. “I loved that little baby, Angel, and I never got anything on my psychic radar suggesting he was anything other than…lovable.”

“You can love something that’s evil. Maybe Connor had the ability to make people love him without actually being good.”

“Cordelia…” Wesley gave her a begging look. “Tell Angel.”

She looked stricken. “I don’t know. I was so sure but… Why didn’t the Powers save him? I keep thinking about it. They only needed to send me one lousy vision and none of this needed to happen, so why didn’t they?”

“Well, I know,” Wesley insisted. “Connor was good. He was born for a purpose. He was meant to do good. That’s why he was given to you. That’s why Darla killed herself so that he could live.”

Angel took Wesley by the shoulders and squeezed them gently. “Wes, I’m trying to tell you that you may have saved the world.”

“I didn’t. Connor was good. He had a purpose here. He was supposed to fulfil some destiny that would have made the world a better place.”

“Why do you believe that? So you can beat yourself up some more about what happened?”

“Because he was your son.” Wesley gazed at him as if he could will Angel to believe him just by not breaking eye contact. “And when I held him I knew it was true. He wasn’t your punishment, Angel. He was meant to be your reward. I’m sure of it.”

Angel sighed. “You don’t know it. And neither do I. All we know is that the Powers didn’t save him. And, Wes, what you keep missing is that no one the planet thinks I deserve a reward except you and Cordelia – and – okay – Fred because she’s soft-hearted.”

“You didn’t kill those people. Angelus did. You’re having to carry the burden for his crimes. Why shouldn’t you get a reward?”

“They’re my crimes.”

“No, they’re not. They never were. I told Holtz that but he was as stubborn as…you are. I could sing for Lorne. He could read me and see if the part I was supposed to play in averting the apocalypse had already…” Apparently noticing for the first time that day the painful rasping of his throat, Wesley put a hand up to his scar self-consciously. “Perhaps I could hum?”

“Perhaps it’s better we don’t know.” Gunn looked up. “I don’t want to think that Angel’s son was evil, and I don’t want to think that Wesley robbed the world of the new Messiah or something. Seems to me there’s no answer to that question that isn’t lose-lose for those of us who are left. Whatever Connor was or was meant to do here he’s gone now. We need to move on.”

Cordelia shrugged. “Out of the mouths of bald men with axes…”

“I know this is none of my business,” Giles put in quietly, “but I have to agree with Gunn. Whatever you choose to believe is going to hurt someone in this room. As to your mysterious Powers, I have to say that although their process of inflicting the visions upon their chosen seer seems to me to be arbitrary, arrogant and dangerous, the visions themselves seem to have saved a number of lives. Just be careful.”

“Careful of what?” Cordelia pressed. “You keep making these vague warnings and head shakings and giving me a migraine and making Wesley go all squirrelly over his musty old scrolls again and you’re about as useful as a mouldy fortune cookie about giving us some specifics!”

Giles took a deep breath. “Letting them give you some aspect of a demon – their choice and without any input from you into the matter except for your consent – and a consent obtained it seems to me after the most blatant and manipulative emotional blackmail I’ve ever encountered – is a step further than I would have advised you to take. If they can send you the visions, I find it hard to believe they couldn’t find a way to control the impact they had upon the subject. Instead they created a situation where you were suffering actual neurological damage and told that you could only survive if you gave up the visions, but instead of just taking them away from you before they killed you, they chose to show you a dystopia where Angel was insane and Wesley was maimed, while giving you the illusion of choice in the matter. I’m not denying that your actions were selfless, Cordelia, and indeed heroic, but I’m still concerned that…”

Cordelia clasped her hands to her head and clearly only with great difficulty resisted the urge to rock. “What. Are. You. Saying. And I mean in ten words or less, Giles!”

“They manipulated you into a situation where you agreed to let them ‘demonise’ you.”

Cordelia glared at him. “That’s fourteen words.”

“Just be certain that you being made part demon is really a method to help you bear the burden of the visions rather than the visions being a method by which to get you to consent to being demonised.”

“You think I’m dangerous?” she demanded.

“I think you have no idea what they did to you or why. And I wouldn’t accept the next gift horse they give you without taking a damned good look in its mouth.” Giles looked around at them all. “These visions from the Powers – I know they give you a means to help people and they’re certainly useful, but you could do good without them. You have the resources and the intelligence and the fighting skills to find out where there are dangerous demons at work and do your part in defeating them even if you never get another direct message from the Powers That Be.”

Cordelia sighed and looked across at Fred. “You wouldn’t know it from the tweedy thing he used to have going but Giles actually has a big problem with authority figures. He went way off the rails when he was rebelling.”

Giles rolled his eyes. “Fine. Be like that. Let these mysterious Powers put you in and out of comas and give you horns and a tail, Cordelia. It’s entirely your decision.”

“Watchers rebel?” Fred looked at Wesley in surprise. “I didn’t know that.”

“Neither did I,” Wesley assured her. “The Council omitted to tell me it was an option and I omitted to do it. I think I still have it pencilled in for a later date. Buy milk. Learn jujitsu. Have teenage rebellion.”

Fred giggled at him while Wesley grinned back at her and Giles thought again that there was definitely trouble ahead for those two unless the males in that girl’s life could get sufficiently inebriated to embrace her threesome idea.

Gunn leant across to press his fist against Wesley’s. “Soon as you’re better again, English, we’ll take you out and do something about that rebelling thing.”

“Oh, can I do my Marlon Brando impression?”

“Not in public. But you can wear your leather jacket as long as you don’t wear the leather pants.”

Cordelia nodded sagely and mouthed: ‘Santa Monica Boulevard’ at Willow.

“Can I go on the back of Wesley’s motorbike?” Fred brightened at the idea.

“Only if you’re not going to find it more of a turn-on than my truck,” Gunn insisted.

Cordelia looked at Fred sideways. “You find Gunn’s truck sexy?”

“You don’t?” Fred countered innocently.

“No way. Angel’s convertible maybe because at least it has a back seat but… Are you telling me that you and Gunn – in the front seat of his truck…? Because…ewww!”

Angel and Wesley exchanged a look to match Cordelia’s ‘ewww’. “From now on we take my car or your bike,” Angel assured the Englishman.

Giles rose to his feet. “Well, not that this visit hasn’t been very…educational, but I really think Willow and I need to be heading back now.”

Wesley looked up at him reproachfully. “But I thought we were going to research the Old Ones some more?”

“We’ll do that with you, Wesley,” Fred reassured him.

“Oh yeah – let me at those research books,” Gunn groaned.

Giles drew on the last of his patience. “I’ll email you all the references I have to them and we can discuss it over the phone in more detail in a week or so when Willow and I are in England. I’ll see what references I can find at the Council headquarters. Cordelia, I’ll ask for photocopies of all the reference material they have on seers and visionaries as well and send it to Wesley as long with the information on the Old Ones.”

“That would be wonderful.” Wesley brightened considerably, proceeding to give Giles the email address of everyone in the company so there could be no danger of him forgetting to send the information.

Giles was surprised that Wesley took a moment to talk to Willow by herself, taking her hands in his at one point and finishing with her standing on tiptoe to kiss him on the forehead. Then Lorne whisked her to one side and wrapped his arms around her in what looked like a slow waltz to some music he was humming to her. He whispered in her ear urgently and she smiled in relief. Giles heard her say:

“Are you sure?”

“Just get on that plane, sugar. Sometimes a place that used to be good for us, there comes a time when it’s not where we need to be. And you know – Hellmouths, they take a toll, especially on those of us attuned to the astral plane.”

“I feel so bad about leaving Buffy and Dawn and Xander. They’re all so unhappy.”

“And I’m sorry for that, sweetie, but you need to trust me on this, Sunnydale is really not where you need to be right now.”

“What about Tara?” Willow matched her steps to Lorne’s as he continued to dance music that only they seemed able to hear.

“Haven’t read her. Can’t tell you. But I can see happiness for a certain red-headed witch who’s not a million miles away from me right now as long as she gets on that plane with Giles.”

Giles shook Angel gravely by the hand and said again quietly how sorry he was for the loss of his son. Angel nodded. “Thank you. And thank you for your help, Giles. I appreciate you and Willow coming up here.” He glanced over at Wesley. “We’ll take care of him, I promise. Just – don’t tell his father…anything.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Giles assured him. “And I’ll be discreet in all the research I do. I see from your files that Cordelia’s link to the Powers have already made her a target for kidnap once. I’ll be careful not to mention her name to anyone in the Council.”

“Thank you.” Angel looked at him for a moment longer. “You’ll tell Buffy…? Tell her I was thinking of her.”

“I’ll tell her. Cordelia, always a pleasure to see you again. Take care of yourself.” He nodded to Gunn, Fred, Lorne and Groo. “It was…fascinating to meet you all. Thank you so much for the tea, Winifred.”

Fred bounced up a little anxiously. “So, you think Wesley’s okay here with us?”

Giles almost smiled but her eyes were so serious that he restricted himself to a grave nod. “I can think of no place where he would be better off.”

Fred turned around with a beaming smile of triumph to Gunn and Cordelia. Giles wondered if she had still not quite grasped that he didn’t actually have any power to remove Wesley from their care. The report he had received from Lorne when he had heard about what had happened with Connor and Wesley being in the hospital had given him the impression that not only was Wesley persona non grata at the Hyperion, he had become such a non-person that it was not even permitted to mention his name in Angel’s hearing. And these same people who were now clearly so genuinely fond of his ex-colleague had, at the time, seemed to feel that hell would have frozen over before any of them wanted to see him again. Clearly life moved fast in Los Angeles. Thinking of the terrible things that had evidently been done to Wesley in that other dimension he had to sigh inside at the thought that Wesley would probably think even that had been worth it just to be accepted back into the bosom of his adopted family. It was pathetic and borderline tragic, but Giles couldn’t exactly blame him. He did, however, blame Wesley’s father and just hoped he didn’t run into him in the Council library in London or the urge to tell him what he thought of his child-rearing abilities might be impossible to suppress.

“Goodbye, Giles.” He turned to find Wesley proffering a hand.

He shook it warmly. “Goodbye, Wesley. Take care of yourself, won’t you?”

“And you.” Wesley half-smiled. “Sorry about – waking you last night. And – thank you – especially for not giving me the lecture burning a hole in your tongue.”

Giles also smiled. “I’m glad my heroic self-restraint didn’t go unnoticed. I’ll do some research in London and send you what I have. And you might want to think about visiting that coven I mentioned, at some point. It’s a fascinating place. Very restful, and as you evidently couldn’t have cast such a spell without considerable inherent magical ability you might want to work on that some more in the future – in controlled circumstances, of course.”

Wesley smiled at that ‘controlled circumstances’ and nodded. “We don’t get those here either. But, I’ll think about it. Thank you again, Giles. Please give my best wishes to everyone in Sunnydale. I really do appreciate them not actually killing me when I was there, despite grave provocation.”

Giles patted him very gently on the shoulder and made to pick up Willow’s bag but Gunn was already holding it up. “I got it.” Willow disentangled herself from hugs with Cordelia and Fred, then Angel and Lorne, and finally it was time to go.

Gunn held open the doors for them and walked them to the Giles’s car. “Wes better or worse than you were expecting?” he asked quietly.

“A great deal better,” Giles reassured him. “Bruises heal. Being cast out by all the people who love you…a very different kettle of fish. I didn’t expect him to have been taken back by you all so…wholeheartedly.”

“Probably wouldn’t have happened so fast if he hadn’t pulled that dumb stunt with the spell but as he did…” Gunn shrugged. “There ain’t anyone left here who doesn’t think he paid way more than enough for what he did. Anyway, we’re all screw-ups here. Or crazy. Or both. All got our mistakes to atone for. That’s why we do what we do. Let’s face it – would anyone sane live like this?”

Giles thought about his own life for the past few years, then inclined his head in acknowledgement. “Absolutely. Nothing odd about it at all. Take care, Gunn. I’ll be in touch. Perhaps you could persuade Wesley not to mix his painkillers with whatever it is he’s mixing them with, and…” He didn’t know how to warn him about the possible problem that might lie ahead of them if Fred’s subconscious feelings for Wesley became known to her or to Gunn. “Forgive him any other stupid things he may do.”

Gunn shrugged. “Saved him from bleeding to death twice. Can’t do that and not feel like cutting a guy a little slack.”

“Here.” Giles turned to find Cordelia proffering a fan of business cards. “You can hand them out to people if you hear of any work we can do. I’ll send you one of Wesley’s as soon as…”

Giles held up the one of Wesley’s that he and Willow had found on the floor of the basement. “You must have dropped a couple when throwing them into the incinerator, Cordelia.”

She acknowledged it with a grimace. “Okay, you got me.” She met Giles’s gaze for a moment and then said, “I’m only going to say this once, but I’ll think about what you said about the Powers. You’re probably wrong – being a Watcher and a librarian and all, not to mention – British, but there’s just a slight chance you may be right so I’ll – think about it.”

He nodded. “That’s all I want you to do, Cordelia.”

“I’m grateful to you for taking an interest.” She gritted her teeth. “But tell anyone I said that and I’ll tell the world you and Ethan Rayne used to do the nasty in the back of your Reliant Robin.”

Giles recoiled in horror. “I have never owned, driven or so much as been a passenger in a Reliant Robin. A brief flirtation with a Morris Traveller, perhaps, but, really, even I have some standards.”

“Well, don’t think I wouldn’t do it. I have a rep to maintain.” She turned to kiss Willow again, saying quietly, “I hope it works out for you with the mojo controlling thing but if it doesn’t you’ll just have to move in here with us, okay? We’ll take anyone.”

“That’s actually…comforting,” Willow admitted.

“Email me from London,” Cordelia told her firmly. “Let me know you got there okay. And don’t forget to mention the weather. I’ve bet Wesley ten bucks it will be raining as the plane touches down.”

Giles got into the car, switched on the ignition and looked past Gunn to see Angel standing in the shadows watching him, looking noble and subtly tragic, but his arm was around Wesley, steadying him, Fred had her hand on Wesley’s other arm, standing on tip toe to give them a last beaming smile, and the green horned demon was waving to them, red eyes kind as they looked at Willow, the other Pylean, Groo, nodding to them with a gesture of respect from one warrior to another.

When he had walked into the lobby of the Hyperion, Giles thought he had never seen a more unlikely group of misfits, but now they just looked like a…family. A family of which Wesley seemed to be a valuable member.

“He’ll be fine.” Gunn bent down to speak to Giles through the open window.

“Yes.” Giles nodded to them all one last time before he pulled out into the traffic. “I really think he will.”

***