Little Wesley, Part Sixteen (final part)
Oct. 2nd, 2006 12:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elgreyPrevious parts can be found here:
Part One,Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten, Part Eleven, Part Twelve, Part Thirteen, Part Fourteen, Part Fifteen
New All Over, Part Sixteen
Wesley was in a despondent daze from when Giles picked him up until they arrived at the beach, needing to be asked every question twice before he took it in. He was always like this after a visit from his father, reminding him, too late, of how foolish he had been to agree to a social occasion when in this kind of state. It always took a few days for the white hot licks of remembered humiliation to fade from their first painful lash. In time, they did eventually recede, albeit leaving a few more emotional scars in their wake, of course, and by then he might have been fit company even for a group of American schoolchildren.
But as he stepped onto the beach, Wesley realized that he had been here before. He could recall the salt on his tongue, the crunch of sand under his shoes, luring him to take them off and walk barefoot, the cry of the gulls overhead, snatching their last mouthfuls of food from the sea, the sense of the night wrapping itself around him as the sun sank far away on the horizon line. He remembered standing here and thinking that the only thing that could make the night more perfect would be if he saw the arching silhouette of a sea serpent before that sinking sun. And yet he was equally certain that he had never been here before in his life.
“Are you okay?”
He became aware of Buffy gazing at him anxiously. She seemed to do that a lot these days. Everyone was looking at him again, not just Buffy but also Angel, Xander, Willow, Oz and even the lovely Miss Chase, all with the same expression on their faces, as if they expected him to keel over or sprout horns any minute. It was very disconcerting.
“Fine.” He tried to find a smile, but the déjà vu was stronger than ever. Scents, sounds, the breeze ruffling his hair –
I think it was my fault, because I let you go out with wet hair.... We took you to the beach before it was dry....
He collected himself with an effort. That was why then. They had brought him here when he was in a coma. No doubt Giles’s nephew had wanted to come to the beach, and they had brought Wesley along, kind of them, in its own way, not to just leave him behind in his self-inflicted trance, and go and have fun without him. That was why this beach felt so familiar to him.
“Was it Giles’ nephew who wanted to fly a kite at night?” he asked.
There was that look in Xander’s eyes again. “He wanted Deadboy to see it. We painted it with glow-in-the-dark paint.”
“Oh…” And finally it made sense. Not an exercise thought up by Giles to learn awareness of objects in darkness, after all, as he had been assuming, and not just the ‘Scoobies’ being eccentric. They had been acceding to the whims of a younger child.
“Aren’t children generally afraid of vampires?”
And there must be something wrong with the child. Xander was looking so full of regrets as he said: “He was big with the Angel love.”
Wesley glanced around at all their faces and saw the way Oz put an arm around Willow’s shoulders, rubbing her arm gently, while she leaned her head on his shoulder as if seeking comfort. Cordelia turned her head away and he saw her reaching for a handkerchief. Angel looked as if he were brooding even more than usual, the breeze daring to lick at his perfectly gelled hair and making his coat flap in a way that was all too appropriate to a creature of the night. Buffy looked a breath away from crying; even Giles was cleaning his glasses with unnecessary concentration.
“Is he ill…?” Wesley asked breathlessly.
Buffy seemed to get his meaning. “Oh no…well, he had a cold, but he’s getting better now.”
“You all seem so….”
“He had to go away.” Buffy kept gazing at him with too much intensity. “And we miss him.”
Wesley thought of those toys in Giles’ flat; that echo of a child’s laughter that he kept hearing; those taut murmurs from Giles about the over-strictness of the little boy’s home-life. He felt a sudden sense of sadness at another boy having to go through a childhood like his. What would it have been like, in the midst of all those lessons and punishments and lectures, to spend ten days in the warm, chaotic company of these vivid, irreverent teenagers? Even if the home-life of Giles’ nephew was only half as austere as Wesley’s own had been, it must have been like sunlight after rain for that child. “I bet he misses you more,” he said.
“No one could,” Buffy said. Something that sounded very like a sniff came from Willow.
“Here.” Xander put a kite into his hands. It was in the shape of a Chinese dragon, and glowed white with phosphorescent paint. “It’s your turn.”
Wesley looked down at the kite in his hands. It was a complicated model that must have taken hours to put together. All that effort, and the fun part – painting it in bright colours – had been sacrificed so that Angel could see it fly, even though it was hard to imagine that Angel would have cared. Yet as he glanced across at the vampire, he could only wonder why he was so sure that it had been worth it.
“You have to throw it high,” Xander persisted quietly, glancing across at Willow as he did so.
Knowing that it was bound to plummet ignominiously to the earth, Wesley nevertheless gathered the string into one hand and took the kite in the other, tossing it as high into the air as he could. He saw the green flicker of magic speed it on its way, snatching it up like a friendly breeze, and glanced across at Willow in shock, just in time to see her hastily shove her hands back down. He didn’t know whether to be amused or indignant that she considered him so emotionally fragile that he needed to be shielded from even the disappointment of a kite not flying first time, and found that he was too moved to leave room for any other emotion.
It was bizarre and troubling to have these semi-strangers suddenly wanting to smooth the path ahead of him all the time, to blindside his father and distract him from depression and now even to ensure that his kite flew first time. It couldn’t last, of course, sooner or later they were going to have to permit him to stand on his own two feet. But it warmed him inside that they were trying, all the same, even though it was absurd, even though he was a grown man who had tried so hard since he arrived here to convince them that he was someone whose authority they should respect…. As he carefully let out the kite string, letting it climb higher and higher, a glowing dragon dancing on a night breeze in the glitter-light of stars, he felt a new lightening in his mind and body. He realized he had been weighed down by too much armour since he arrived here; adding layer after layer after every setback or disappointment that did nothing but make him feel burdened and clumsy, and yet which was useless as tissue paper whenever anyone tried to penetrate it with an unkind word. He wondered how it would feel to just let it all go; to be what he truly was, unready, perhaps, and insecure, and not necessarily able to do this entirely by himself, and yet with knowledge and skills that could be useful if they would only allow him to be so.
And then the kite danced in front of the moon, the long tail of the dragon undulating across spits of cloud, and he knew that he had done this before; exactly this; but he had been sitting on Angel’s shoulders and he had been eight years old.
Stumbling back in confusion, more memories danced around him like friendly ghosts – the tug of the kite string as he held it as the wind caught up that glowing chinese dragon and tossed it amongst the clouds…. He let go of the string in shock. A gasp from Willow, an unsuccessful jump and snatch by Xander, and the kite was free. It spun up into the night sky, swept into skeins of cloud and starlight, a pale undulation growing smaller and smaller. He turned to Giles in confusion. “But, how…?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Wes…?”
Xander. He had been here, too. It was Xander who had put the kite together, who had painted the kite with that special paint so it would glow in the dark. It was Xander who had taken him to the zoo and bought him ice cream as well. No…. He shook his head, trying to shake free images that made no sense. He was taller than Xander, so it made no sense that in these memories he should always be looking up at him, Xander crouching down to talk to him, or picking him up….
“Wesley, are you okay? You’ve gone a funny colour….”
And then he remembered being in Buffy’s arms, the scent of her perfume the most comforting thing he had ever inhaled; a soft curl of hair caressing his cheek, her lips warm on the top of his head, not even aware that she was kissing him, she did it so often. Knowing he was safe as long as he was with her because she would never let any harm come to him.
“Give him some air. I think he’s feeling a little faint….”
And this time when he opened his eyes to find that Giles was still holding him steady even as there was a cluster of people around him, saying his name in concern, he clearly remembered Giles carrying him into the office in the school while he gulped and sobbed with fear, sitting him down on the desk and fetching him a chocolate biscuit from the drawer. Not scolding him even though he had spilled sticky fizzy cola all over important reference books, just handing him that biscuit, then fetching him tea and gazing at him with eyes full of sympathy.
The world spun away from him and even with Giles’s hands tightening on his shoulders he knew that he was falling now, and then there were arms around him and a quiet voice saying: “It’s okay, Wesley.”
Angel, the vampire with a soul; Buffy’s boyfriend; who he had first met in the Bronze when he hadn’t known his name…except that he had a clear memory of seeing him as a pair of feet a mirror would not reflect, a hand that he had splashed with holy water, and then a vampire changing from demonic face to human face as he jumped down from a table.
“I don’t understand,” he said desperately. Why could he remember events in which he could not possibly have participated? Why did he have the memories of Giles’s nephew?
He must have said it aloud because Giles’s expression changed, and suddenly everyone who had been firing questions at him fell silent. He looked at their faces, oddly pale in the twilight, and they looked different now, no longer looking like the children who hung out in the Library and refused to take him seriously, but adults who had taken care of him, who were older and stronger and wiser than he was. People who spent their money on clothes and food and treats and toys for him, and read to him, and played with him, and who had all risked their lives to keep him safe.
“Because you were my nephew, Wesley,” Giles said quietly. “Or rather, we told people that you were my nephew to explain why you were staying with me.”
And then all the memories came back at once and he rocked backwards, feeling his mind billowing like a sail in a storm. He would have fallen if Angel had not still been holding him up, the vampire’s broad chest against his back, but no breath against his neck, of course, as there would have been if it were Giles who held him. He knew how it felt to be held by Giles now, and Angel, and Buffy, and Xander, and Willow, and Oz, and even…Miss Chase, who it now felt more natural to call Cordelia.
He must have closed his eyes again, because when he opened them again, Buffy was standing in front of him, looking at him anxiously. “Are you okay?” she asked.
He remembered waking up in a dark unfamiliar room, in which he recognized nothing at all, and, when he called out, no one came. He had sat there, a frightened child, whimpering in confusion, until there had come that knock upon the door, strangers demanding that he answered so imperiously that he had not been able to disobey them. He remembered how his hands had shaken as he dragged a chair across the room with so much difficulty, fingers fumbling with the locks before he could open the door. That was when he had seen Buffy for the first time. Her eyes had been full of warmth and sympathy for him and her voice had been gentle. He could perfectly recall her crouching down to introduce herself to him; the way she had picked him up and carried him out of that scary unfamiliar room and how everything had at once felt less frightening because, wherever he was, there was someone to take care of him. He had known at once that he could trust her. “I was a child.” He didn’t understand how or why, and a part of him knew that it was impossible, but it was also true. “You took care of me.”
Buffy had tears rolling down her cheeks and he stared at them in fascination. Glittering in the moonlight, her teardrops looked like the jewels a princess in a fairy story might cry. He had known this girl for weeks now and this was the first time he had realized that she was beautiful. He had known that from the first moment he saw her when he was a child; he had known that she was kind too. In many ways he had apparently been wiser then. She didn’t seem to know she was crying; she wasn’t sniffing or wiping her eyes, just gazing at him with all that intensity and an ache in her voice that was only there for him: “Yes. We took care of you. We liked taking care of you.”
Giles said: “It was the amulet, Wesley. Ethan Rayne sent it.”
“Mr. Rayne?” And he hadn’t called him that for so many years. Watchers called the chaos mage ‘Rayne’ or on occasion ‘bloody Rayne’. One never admitted one had ever liked him, or thought his magic fun, or that he had never done one any harm and that one’s favourite uncle had always liked him.
“It was intended to make me…younger, but it made you a child.”
Willow was biting her lip anxiously. “You remember?”
And he did now. He seemed to remember everything, and he realized that his headache was gone. The memories, having succeeded in tearing themelves loose, were no longer hurting him. In fact they were filling him with a strange unfamiliar warmth. He and Willow had won a battle together; they had pretended to be enchanting the wood while all the time it was the dragon they were setting free. He wanted to gaze and gaze at her and tell her that her hair was the prettiest he had ever seen, and blush when she smiled at him and purr like a kitten when she picked him up and cuddled him.
Oz cleared his throat tactfully and he realized he must indeed have been gazing at her for a rather long time. He hastily averted his eyes. “Yes, I remember.”
“Don’t be sorry.” That was the lovely Miss Chase, who pushed past Buffy to look right into his eyes. “Don’t look as if you did something wrong. Please don’t wish it hadn’t happened.” And now she was crying as well and he had no idea how to respond to her; seeing her as at once a beautiful young woman he would like to have the courage to kiss and at the same time a friend in pyjamas with her dark hair loose, reading him a story as they sipped hot chocolate together.
“I’m not sorry.” It was a kaleidoscope of memories, playmobil archers firing their arrows into the air as the pirate ship swept into a bay of silver paper; a shopping trolley piled high with toys just for him; Cordelia combing his hair while Willow buttoned his shirt; Giles reading to him in a room where the night light was a moonlit galleon that kept all fears at bay. He had never been less sorry for any memories in his life. “Not at all sorry.”
“Oh….” And this time when Cordelia threw her arms around him it had nothing to do with wanting him to take her to dinner; even he, with his limited experience of women, could tell the difference. “I’m so glad.”
He felt the warmth of her body against his and found he had a billow of her vanilla-scented hair in his mouth. She seemed to realize she was being undignified and tossed her hair back quickly, stepping away and wiping the tears from her cheeks, giving him an embarrassed smile that made his heart do peculiar things. It was then, in the turmoil of that moment – when he realized that it had been her breasts that he had felt through the thin cotton of his shirt, and that her perfume smelt expensive and mingled perfectly with the conditioner she used – that he perceived, for the first time, quite apart from how much she made him feel overheated and confused and gave him a tingling sensation in his stomach, just how much he liked her.
“You really remember?” Buffy reached for his forehead automatically, and this time he let her, more grateful to her for every hug and cuddle and whispered assurance than he could ever say.
“Yes.” He realized they weren’t the only ones getting all choked up with emotion. They had been so kind to him. It was hitting him like the second wave of an incoming tide. It had been entirely his own fault that he had been turned into a child who needed their attention and protection, and they not uttered a single word of reproach. He turned to Giles, feeling absurdly young before the man, memories of him tucking him up in bed too fresh for him to quite meet his eye. Giles had been everything to him that his father never had; the man had gone in an instant from being a colleague who had saved his life under sufferance, to someone whose opinion mattered to him above all others. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We thought you might be…embarrassed.”
He found that he was laughing in a way that was possibly a little hysterical. “Embarrassed? To recall the only time I ever spent as a child when I truly remember being happy…?”
He broke off before he humiliated himself even further, and yet he did feel a sense of betrayal. He and Giles had become friends while the man had been ‘Uncle Giles’; they had shared confidences and established a relationship; one that he would never have known about if these precious memories had not torn themselves loose. Hadn’t Giles wanted him to remember? Had Giles wished those events had never happened? The man was gazing at him as if there were a great many things he wanted to say, but Giles had to avert his eyes, take off his glasses and clean them quite assiduously before he could manage: “I’m glad you were happy, Wesley.”
“We would have kept you if we could.”
He turned to find Buffy gazing up at him with heart-rending intensity. “Willow and I were all for kidnapping you and telling your parents you were dead so we could keep you. But Giles wouldn’t let us.”
She looked so tragic that he felt some of his swirling feelings of confusion and betrayal coalesce into something that was definitely tinged with amusement. “I suspect that would have been a somewhat…impractical solution.”
“No, but we would have told people that Giles’ imaginary sister had died and he was now your legal guardian. Then we could have gone on taking care of you and kept you safe.” It was a clear that a part of the girl had not entirely given up the scheme.
He found that his smile was unable to be repressed now. He had always wondered how it felt to be a loved child – if that gave one a bank of warmth and confidence to carry a man through the difficult days, a certain resilience and elasticity before the worst things that life could throw at one, that he did not possess. Now, he realized that it must indeed be the case, because, armoured by memories of being wrapped in the embrace of people who undoubtedly loved him, he felt very different. “You do realize, Buffy, that I would certainly have sneaked out after you on a patrol before too long.”
Her gasp of horror was definitely amusing, no question about it. Wesley grimaced apologetically even as a part of him enjoyed himself. “And if you’d noticed me in time I would just have bided my time and followed Angel instead.”
The vampire looked equally aghast. “I would have picked up your scent.”
“Not if I kept downwind of you.”
Willow looked no less horrified than Buffy and pointed rapidly at Giles. “But, no, because we would have known and Giles would have used the Stern Voice.”
He remembered Giles scolding him, and how upsetting it had been; wanting the man’s approval and affection more than anything in the world, but, on the other hand, he had so very much wanted to see Buffy slay a vampire. He shrugged regretfully. “That wouldn’t have held me for ever. Look at the components under discussion – the chance to see a Slayer on a patrol – an eight year old boy – I’d give it a month of obedience at the most.”
They were all exchanging looks of dismay. Xander said: “Window locks.”
“Some kind of magical wards,” Giles added thoughtfully.
“Some kind of location spell,” Willow added.
“What’s wrong with a leash?” Angel demanded.
He was definitely amused now. He cleared his throat. “It didn’t happen, remember? Nature intervened and restored me to adult size.”
Buffy said grimly: “Don’t think we’re just talking about the child version of you.”
Even an hour ago he would have been affronted, but now he just felt warmed by it. No wonder she had been fussing over him so absurdly; it was no reflection on his competence, after all, just residual concern for the little boy he had been. The little boy she had…loved.
“If you agree not to go on patrol with Buffy, I’ll buy you an ice cream,” Xander offered.
“Several ice creams,” Oz added.
“As a member of the Watcher’s Council, I don’t think I’m permitted to accept bribes.” He looked around at them again and it was like seeing them from two different perspectives at the same time, from his adult stance, and yet also as they had been when he came up to their waists and they put their own lives on hold to try to make his better. “I am, however, very grateful to you all for all you did for me….”
No, that way undoubtedly would lead to unmanly displays of emotion. He had to swallow hard because it mattered too much, not just to him, but to them; he could see it in their eyes, and more than that, he could remember how much he had mattered to them. And, bizarrely, the look in Angel’s brown eyes as he tucked him up in bed for the last time was not very different from the look in his eyes now. Wesley blinked hard and Giles put a handkerchief in his hand.
“Perhaps…pizza all round…?” Giles suggested a little diffidently. “At my house.”
In the melee of agreement from teenagers, and the scramble to decide who was travelling with whom, Wesley found himself gently eased away from the crowd. “Are you all right?” Giles asked him in an undertone.
He nodded. “Yes.” For some reason he still found it difficult to meet the man’s eyes and kept his head bowed even as he automatically walked back through the sand towards Giles’s car.
“I know this must be awkward for you.”
“It is rather.”
Giles grimaced, ducking his head to try to get a glimpse of Wesley’s face. “Is this because I gave you…a bath?”
Wesley jerked his head up in shock, astonished that the man could be so far off the mark. When Wesley had been a child, Giles would have known what was wrong. “No....” The betrayal he was feeling must have shown in his eyes because Giles stopped in his tracks.
“What is it?”
He couldn’t keep the hurt and accusation out of his voice. “Didn’t you want me to remember? Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”
Giles stepped back as if Wesley had slapped him. “Of course I… I just thought you had enough to contend with without….” He sighed. “Buffy wanted to tell you. I thought you might be embarrassed. I couldn’t think of a way to tell you that wouldn’t…. Without your memories to soften it, I thought it would sound as if were making fun of you. It’s not as if you liked any of us very much, telling you that you’d spent a week being eight years old in the company of people who you had no reason to regard as friends….”
“What if I’d never remembered?”
“I’m sure Buffy would eventually have stopped trying to take your temperature every time you sneezed and life would have…gone on.”
He felt a little faint at the thought of never having remembered any of it; never understanding why they all looked so sad sometimes when they gazed at him, and why Oz unscrewed bottles and opened cans and Xander unwrapped chocolate bars for him. Why Buffy was so over-protective and why Cordelia had straightened his collar for him, not as one would with a man one found desirable, but a child one wanted to make presentable. He remembered her leading the vampires away from him and Willow, and Willow holding him so tightly in her arms until there was nothing to do but leave him alone if she was to have any hope of saving him. He could remember how she smelt, the taste of her hair as it touched his mouth, could remember the comfort of her body heat as he curled up next to her in bed while they waited for Buffy to come back on patrol. And yet she would just have been some odd little redhead to him again. As if none of it had ever happened.
“I don’t think we got off on the right foot,” Giles said quietly. “I wanted to give us another chance to work together – to be friends if it was possible. I had a great deal of affection for the child that you had been, but you had no reason to like me. I couldn’t see a way for us to be colleagues and equals if we began anew with me telling you about the times I’d taken you to the zoo.”
He had wanted that, Wesley remembered, now the first pang of betrayal had faded a little – to be friends and colleagues, and, indeed, to work together as equals. He had thought he wanted that more than anything, to discover that there was one Watcher in the world who didn’t think he was a complete waste of space. And yet now he found that what he wanted was to remember being a child who someone had loved.
“I understand.” It wasn’t a lie, although a part of him still felt wounded. “But I’m glad I remember, and I’m very grateful to you for….”
The beach turned into a smear of salt and he had to bite his lip quite hard. He could remember too vividly snuggling up sleepily against the comforting warmth of Giles’ tweed jacket while the man read to him of things that were not demons or vampires or duties that he had to perform. His father had never done that, not even once. “You were very kind,” he managed huskily.
“Wesley, please don’t keep saying that,” Giles said hoarsely. “I cared for that little boy – for you – so very much and giving you up was the hardest thing I’ve…. A part of me still wonders if we were wrong; if we should have let Ethan try to stabilize you as an eight year old and find a way to give you a better childhood.”
“You did give me a better childhood, Giles.” Wesley wiped his eyes surreptitiously. “You gave it to me for ten days. That’s ten days more than anyone else ever did.”
“Your father does care for you in his own way, Wesley,” Giles added. “That’s his problem. He’s too emotionally immature to deal with the prospect of feeling affection for someone who may die. He’s been pushing you away probably since the day you first smiled at him or held his finger. But there is no reason for his problems to be yours for your entire life.”
Wesley laughed a little shakily as the sand crunched underfoot. “I think the dye may already be cast there.”
“Don’t say that.” Giles caught his arm. “Or I’ll call Ethan back myself.”
“I know he’s a cad of the first water, but he did once offer to turn my father into a stickleback. I’ve always been rather grateful to him for that.”
“He does have his moments….” The sideways look Giles shot in his direction was half amused and half wary, clearly wondering if the man Wesley now was had joined the dots the child he had been had not even noticed.
“There were…rumours.” Wesley risked a glance at the man beside him, a part of him still feeling like a little boy now, who wanted his approval and wanted to be Good so that he would continue to be loved. “At the Council, I mean. About you and… Well, why exactly did he want you to be twenty again anyway?”
Giles cleared his throat. “If you ever hope to play with those playmobil knights again I suggest you choose another topic of discussion.”
“I distinctly remember that you bought them for me, so, technically, aren’t they already mine?”
Giles gave him a narrow look. “I still have the till receipts, you know.”
Wesley opened his mouth to protest, feeling a sharp pang of loss not just at them going back but at the thought that Giles could let them go, and then remembered Giles and Buffy fighting over which of them got to have him stay with them for the night, the obvious pleasure Giles had taken in their quiet evenings together without the others around. It was the oddest feeling to realize that he had been wanted to that extent, that he was empowered by it now because they would be prizing those toys out of Giles’s cold dead hand before he gave them up.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t let you play with them too.” Wesley darted him another glance, trying to see if he was reading this right.
Giles’s smile suggested that he was. “You’d better or I’ll tell Buffy it’s too dangerous for you to go on patrol with her.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“Watch me.” Giles opened the car door for him, still smiling as if he couldn’t quite help himself.
As Wesley climbed in, he realized that it could only have been hours ago that his father had left. Strange, usually the cold feeling his father left behind lingered for days, and yet here he was feeling as warm as if he had been sipping brandy. When he looked over his shoulder, the sea was still rolling in, smoothing the sand with every breaker, while far off in the distance there was a twist of light in the darkness that was a Chinese dragon set free to fly as high as the wind would take it.
***
Giles had not realized how much the deception had been weighing on him until that weight was lifted. One moment he was a man in mourning for a child he had lost, and the next, the pain was almost gone; the child grown up, yet with his memories intact. Perhaps that had been the problem all along, that the child had gone so completely that he did not even remember the events that were so precious to Giles. That was truly what happened with death; the dead one carried the past with them, the other half of shared memories lost forever, and the ones left behind with the living at once too thinned by absence and too precious to bear.
With a living, healthy adult Wesley sitting across the other side of the table, eating what Buffy was trying to teach him to call ‘fries’ with his fingers and laughing at some joke of Xander’s, he could see the child grown up. Wesley’s hair was tousled and when he laughed he could see the same crinkle around his eyes that he had seen in the little boy. He and Willow were recalling their victory at playmobil warfare while Xander was insisting that he and Oz had been on the point of their own tactical breakthrough.
“So, Wes.” Buffy reached across and sat Cuthbert on the table between them. “I think you need to spit it out.”
“Spit what out?” He licked some pizza cheese from his fingers – eating with fingers had been ordered by Xander, who had prevented Giles from putting out any cutlery on the grounds that they could never retrain Wesley as a proper Scooby while he insisted on eating with a knife and fork.
She held up Cuthbert’s shoulder bag. “Little Wes said that he didn’t make Cuthbert the shoulder bag. He thought you must have done it at boarding school. So, when exactly was it?”
Wesley wiped his fingers on a napkin and looked slightly shifty. “Well…a long time ago, obviously.”
“How long ago?” Cordelia asked curiously, eating from Xander’s plate without noticing she was doing it.
Wesley scratched his jaw. “Well…I can assure you that it was days before I came to Sunnydale.”
Xander almost spat out his mouthful of coke. “You were twenty six when you made your teddy bear an anti-vampire pack?”
“We were coming to a Hellmouth. I thought he should have some protection.” Wesley picked up the teddy bear and despite his obvious embarrassment, sat him on his lap.
Willow gave Wesley an impulsive hug. “It was a very good idea.” She noticed that he still had some pizza left and leant over his shoulder to snag a piece.
“The lack of a mirror was an oversight though.” Wesley nodded to Cordelia with old fashioned courtesy. “One that Miss Chase was kind enough to correct.”
“I should propose it as a business plan for extra credits: vampire-attack ready teddy bears for kids growing up in Sunnydale.”
“Their parents would have to admit they’re growing up in a town full of vampires first,” Oz pointed out.
Buffy grimaced. “Yeah, adults in Sunnydale are usually pretty happy in their denial place.”
“I meant to ask you about that.” While addressing Buffy, Wesley lifted up his plate so Willow could more easily reach the last piece of pizza. “Why is it that no one in this town seems to be aware that the night is filled with the evil undead?”
“It’s not that we didn’t notice how many of us used to disappear.” Xander snagged the last can of Coke. “We just liked to think they’d gone to live in Florida rather than having their entrails ripped out.”
Willow nodded. “This is the town where your parents tell you that your friends have gone to live on a farm, and they really believe it and you really try to.”
Cordelia thoughtfully ate another of Xander’s chips. “I did notice that the Bronze seemed to have a lot of people who dressed really badly. But I mean, when a guy is still doing the Duran Duran thing you tend to assume that eyeliner and big hair is coming back, not that he’s been hanging around in graveyards for twenty years sucking the life out of your classmates.”
Giles was still thinking about the adult Wesley taking the time to make his teddy bear safe from vampires. He wondered if never having the child inside you nurtured, didn’t so much as starve it out as keep it lingering into adulthood. Looking across at the man now, without his suit and brylcreem to hide behind, Wesley certainly did look very young and very much like the little boy who had been here a few days before. So, probably still an emotionally immature young man in desperate need of validation from a male authority figure. Glancing across at Angel, he thought he saw the vampire making the same assessment. Somehow, those aspects of Wesley’s character didn’t seem anything like as annoying when one had met the child he had once been, and then met the father who had made him like that. In fact, they didn’t seem annoying at all.
“So, Buffy…?” Giles leaned across the table. “We need to fix a date for Wesley coming on patrol with you or Angel?”
“I work alone,” Angel said firmly, clearly not ready to put the young man in danger yet. Wesley looked hurt and Angel said quickly: “Buffy’s used to working with other people.”
“But Wesley really wanted to go on patrol with you the most. And he had all those questions he wanted to ask you about…people you killed and stuff.”
Angel glowered at the love of his life. “But he’s a Watcher, and they’re trained to help Slayers, not vampires.”
“But you’re a vampire with a soul. That makes you a…warrior for good, and Watchers help those too.”
“You’re stronger than I am. He’d be safer with you.”
“But the demons don’t come after you the way they do after me, because they think you’re one of them, so he’d be safer with you.”
Wesley was watching the two arguing with his mouth slightly open. Giles cleared his throat. “Next Wednesday then.”
Angel and Buffy stopped arguing and gaped at him. “What?” Buffy demanded.
Giles looked across at Wesley. “All right with you, Wesley?” He made an entry in his diary as he did so. “About eight o’clock? We can go straight from the library to the graveyard of Buffy’s choice. Probably best if Angel’s there, too, wouldn’t you say? It would be a good idea to compare their fighting techniques and offer them advice afterwards.”
“I don’t need a Watcher,” Angel said a little petulantly. “I fight alone.”
“Except when you don’t,” Oz observed.
“Or when you do and get captured by bad guys,” Willow put in.
“Yeah, Buffy probably wouldn’t have to rescue quite so often if you weren’t always off doing the lone avenger thing,” Cordelia said thoughtfully.
Wesley looked up curiously. “So Buffy needing to rescue Angel is something of a regular occurrence?”
“Oh, man, he’s the original vampire in distress.” Xander shook his head. “We all got pretty sick of the ‘Oh no, Angel’s in peril again, I must save him!’ thing.”
“I didn’t mind so much,” Willow said hastily.
“That isn’t how it was!” Angel protested.
“Yes, Xander,” Giles said solemnly. “Be fair now. How is a vampire supposed to maintain his mysterious brooding creature of the night persona if we recount all the times that he had to be…”
“Saved by a girl?” Xander finished cheerfully. “I guess it does put a bit of a crimp in his perfectly coiffured style.”
Clearly some of the hero-worship Wesley had felt for the vampire when he was a child had lingered onto adulthood because he looked shocked and a little dismayed. Seeing Wesley’s expression, Xander sighed but bit the bullet: “But, okay, yeah, he does tend to be the rescuer more than the rescue..ee.”
This was clearly much more what Wesley needed to hear. “I remember him saving all of us. He was very impressive.” He darted a look at Angel that suggested his memories returning had put the vampire back on the pedestal upon which his eight year old self had been wont to place him. Although Giles did mentally sigh a little, he could imagine that the vampire had probably been very impressive indeed, if one was eight years old, and very frightened, and every other adult between you and a gang of evil blood suckers had been rendered unconscious.
Angel preened while trying to appear cool and aloof, and said kindly: “I guess I could make it on Wednesday. It’s probably best if we all stick together with the Ascension coming up anyway.”
Mention of the Ascension had them all focusing on the matter in hand. Giles and Xander cleared away the pizza boxes and cans – Xander obligingly drinking the last of all of them as he did so – so that they could begin to strategize. It took some time to convince his swing bin that it really wanted to swallow quite so much fast food-related debris, and by the time he had finished battling it, the mood had changed from a party atmosphere to council of war.
He had expected reference books, but returned to find Xander solemnly placing the fairytale castle and the dragon in the centre of the table. “Okay, so this is the school and this is the Mayor. Where are we and how do we stop him? And let’s bear in mind that if we don’t, he’s going to be eating the graduating class of Sunnydale High.”
Buffy had a faraway look in her eyes and Xander snapped his fingers. “Hey, Buff. Any time you want to chip in with the big town-saving strategy would be good….”
Still with that abstracted expression on her face, Buffy rose to her feet and began to pick up handfuls of playmobil knights, plonking them down in front of the dragon in rows. Seeing what she was doing, Cordelia and Willow hurried to help her, while Oz spent some time picking a suitably squat-looking pirate to stand in for Snyder. “I couldn’t find a troll,” he explained.
Cordelia picked out a dark-haired princess in a yellow dress to represent her. Holding it aloft, she said: “Just in case anyone isn’t clear – this one doesn’t die.”
Xander was examining a small plastic person with a frown. “I’m liking the crossbow – not so much love for the feather in the helmet motif. Any knights in there who don’t look totally gay?”
Angel plucked the black knight from the box before Oz could reach it and smugly placed it in the front row. “That’s me.”
Xander took it from him. “Not in daylight it’s not, Mr. Fiery Ball of Ash. I get to be the Black Knight.”
For a moment it looked as if Angel and Xander were going to have a tug-of-war over a playmobil person when Wesley thankfully intervened to say: “Oh, that was what my friend in Germany was telling me when we were…interrupted. Apparently the ascenscion is traditionally accompanied by an eclipse.”
Angel triumphantly tugged the knight from Xander’s fingers and set it down in the middle of the first row. “Like I said – that’s me.” Oz tactfully supplied Xander with a knight in grey chainmail whose helmet was thankfully feather-free.
Cordelia had found a blonde princess to represent Buffy and was tut-tutting over the lack of any red-headed females. She held up a red-headed page. “Could we say that Willow’s going to be dressed like a boy on the day? Or a pirate?”
“We can say she’s going to be dressed as the cookie monster for all I care,” Giles observed with some acerbity. “Can we please get to the point?”
Cordelia put a redheaded page in the row to represent Willow and was in the act of adding a plastic dog that Giles very much feared was meant to represent Oz when Xander’s expression stopped her. Rolling her eyes, she said: “He changes his hair colour three times a week. Really the only constant is him being a werewolf.”
Xander snatched up a knight at random and tossed the dog back into the box. “Cordy, if we can pretend that, come Graduation Day, Willow is going to be dressed as a boy, Angel’s going to look like Ivanhoe, and you and Buffy are going to be wearing wimples, I think we can make the leap of imagination required to think Oz is going to be blond.”
With Wesley’s help, Buffy had been quietly filling in rows of spear holders and pirates, and piling extra weapons next to them. “I think you guys are missing the point.”
“Defeating the mayor isn’t dependent on my hair colour?” Oz observed.
Buffy smiled at him but held out her hands to indicate the rows and rows of plastic people all facing the dragon. “Wesley…?”
Thinking of how the little boy he had once been tended to go to pieces when put on the spot, Giles looked at him anxiously, but Wesley was gazing between the playmobil people and the green dragon with dawning comprehension. “It may be bigger, but there are more of us.” He picked up a page and clipped a bow into his hand, dropping a quiver over his neck. “Especially if we’re all armed.”
Buffy beamed at him proudly. “Exactly.”
Xander nodded. “Way to make the Mayor’s food not agree with him, Buffy.”
She gazed at the boy who had been forced to stake his own best friend, and said gently: “I think the teenagers of Sunnydale have been dying for long enough, don’t you?”
“Whereas by this method they can at least die fighting?” Giles observed. Much as he approved of this idea of empowering the people who were more usually victims in this town, if two hundred and fifty burghers of small town Germany could disappear without a trace, he suspected that the Mayor in his ascended state would make equally short work of the graduating class of ’99.
Buffy held up a finger. “That’s just stage one. Wes – can you hand me something that looks like it could blow up with a really big bang?”
Perhaps it was having had the memories of being an eight year old so recently returned to him, but he happily plucked out five bags of pirate gold and some of the wizard’s potions and held them aloft without a word of protest at the inanity of their actions.
“Good enough.” She took them from him and he sat down next to her, clearly curious. Placing the potions and bags of pirate gold squarely inside the fairytale castle she looked up at Giles. “And this is stage two….”
Even as she explained the plan to them all, stressing the importance of Xander’s military skills as she did so, and Giles understood how dangerous it would be for her, and everyone else in the vicinity, a part of him was noticing the way Wesley was as much a part of this discussion as the rest of them. As the younger Watcher, with Xander’s eager assistance, obediently moved around the playmobil people as Buffy’s plan was related – including having the wimple-clad Buffy sprint through the fairytale castle while pursued by a green dragon – Giles realized that somehow he really had become that little boy grown up – someone accepted as one of them, surrounded by a circle of people who considered themselves his friends. Even as Giles was making rapid notes on his tablecloth about the amount of explosives required to bury a creature of sufficient size to swallow Sodom as an aperitif, he became aware that he had his right hand resting on Wesley’s shoulder and neither he nor Wesley had noticed.
“And that’s when I blow up the school.” Buffy sat back and looked around at them expectantly; all of them, Giles noticed, Wesley included, who, having had the dragon fall onto its back with its legs in the air was now, with Xander’s help, having the fairytale castle fall down on top of it, apparently completely on board with this strategy of Buffy’s.
“So, we’re keeping Oz’s humus plan as a fallback option then?” Cordelia enquired. “Cause – not looking so crazy to me now.”
“I think it’s a wonderful plan.” Wesley gazed up at Buffy in a way far too reminiscent of that little boy who had thought she could walk on water.
“Yes, and can we hear from the people who weren’t until recently small children?” Giles suggested.
“As the entire plan pivots on my military skills, I’m all for it,” Xander explained.
Sighing to disguise how very proud he was of Buffy and all these other young people – even Cordelia – who put their own lives on the line for the greater good every night, Giles said: “Well, let’s try to refine it a little. Wesley – perhaps you and Xander could rebuild Sunnydale High and retrieve the Mayor and we can run through it again….”
“This time I get to be Buffy,” Wesley told Xander.
Giles nodded quietly to Buffy as the others rebuilt everything and stood up the playmobile people who had been knocked down in the melee. “Well done.”
“I noticed you didn’t back away from the ‘crazy’ word when I mentioned it.”
Giles acknowledged that with a shrug. “I’m still not ruling it out. No, Buffy, it was your child-rearing I was applauding.”
They both looked over at Wesley, who was pointing out to Xander how to clip the towers back together.
“I know, I’m so proud.” She smiled at Giles, and for all her lightness of tone, her eyes looked a little bright. “Although I’m not sure how much credit I can claim really. He’s grown up just like a cross between you and Xander.”
“Yes.” Giles grimaced. “I’m hoping that’s a temporary aberration – the Xander part. Growing up like me would, of course, be entirely acceptable.”
They watched together as Wesley tossed the dragon to Xander and received the Buffy-in-a-wimple in return, then began to stack up piles of pirate gold and a skull that Oz offered to them for dramatic effect. Looking at the man now, Giles could still see the child playing at this same table, but it no longer hurt to think of him; in fact it made him smile with nothing other than happiness. Wesley’s father had come and gone and instead of gibbering under the adult equivalent of a desk somewhere – the bottom of a whiskey bottle perhaps? – the man was here with them, being useful, and surrounded by friends. Punching Roger Wyndam-Pryce on the jaw for what he had done to that little boy might have been momentarily satisfying, but reducing his shadow to such a faint stain was so much better.
Perhaps the Ascension was coming, and undoubtedly more people were going to die, but he still felt as if they had saved a soul today. As he glanced out of the window, he could see the moon shining behind torn clouds, and imagined that, far away, he could just glimpse the distant gleam of that Chinese dragon, climbing higher and higher on the breeze.
The End.
Part One,Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten, Part Eleven, Part Twelve, Part Thirteen, Part Fourteen, Part Fifteen
New All Over, Part Sixteen
Wesley was in a despondent daze from when Giles picked him up until they arrived at the beach, needing to be asked every question twice before he took it in. He was always like this after a visit from his father, reminding him, too late, of how foolish he had been to agree to a social occasion when in this kind of state. It always took a few days for the white hot licks of remembered humiliation to fade from their first painful lash. In time, they did eventually recede, albeit leaving a few more emotional scars in their wake, of course, and by then he might have been fit company even for a group of American schoolchildren.
But as he stepped onto the beach, Wesley realized that he had been here before. He could recall the salt on his tongue, the crunch of sand under his shoes, luring him to take them off and walk barefoot, the cry of the gulls overhead, snatching their last mouthfuls of food from the sea, the sense of the night wrapping itself around him as the sun sank far away on the horizon line. He remembered standing here and thinking that the only thing that could make the night more perfect would be if he saw the arching silhouette of a sea serpent before that sinking sun. And yet he was equally certain that he had never been here before in his life.
“Are you okay?”
He became aware of Buffy gazing at him anxiously. She seemed to do that a lot these days. Everyone was looking at him again, not just Buffy but also Angel, Xander, Willow, Oz and even the lovely Miss Chase, all with the same expression on their faces, as if they expected him to keel over or sprout horns any minute. It was very disconcerting.
“Fine.” He tried to find a smile, but the déjà vu was stronger than ever. Scents, sounds, the breeze ruffling his hair –
I think it was my fault, because I let you go out with wet hair.... We took you to the beach before it was dry....
He collected himself with an effort. That was why then. They had brought him here when he was in a coma. No doubt Giles’s nephew had wanted to come to the beach, and they had brought Wesley along, kind of them, in its own way, not to just leave him behind in his self-inflicted trance, and go and have fun without him. That was why this beach felt so familiar to him.
“Was it Giles’ nephew who wanted to fly a kite at night?” he asked.
There was that look in Xander’s eyes again. “He wanted Deadboy to see it. We painted it with glow-in-the-dark paint.”
“Oh…” And finally it made sense. Not an exercise thought up by Giles to learn awareness of objects in darkness, after all, as he had been assuming, and not just the ‘Scoobies’ being eccentric. They had been acceding to the whims of a younger child.
“Aren’t children generally afraid of vampires?”
And there must be something wrong with the child. Xander was looking so full of regrets as he said: “He was big with the Angel love.”
Wesley glanced around at all their faces and saw the way Oz put an arm around Willow’s shoulders, rubbing her arm gently, while she leaned her head on his shoulder as if seeking comfort. Cordelia turned her head away and he saw her reaching for a handkerchief. Angel looked as if he were brooding even more than usual, the breeze daring to lick at his perfectly gelled hair and making his coat flap in a way that was all too appropriate to a creature of the night. Buffy looked a breath away from crying; even Giles was cleaning his glasses with unnecessary concentration.
“Is he ill…?” Wesley asked breathlessly.
Buffy seemed to get his meaning. “Oh no…well, he had a cold, but he’s getting better now.”
“You all seem so….”
“He had to go away.” Buffy kept gazing at him with too much intensity. “And we miss him.”
Wesley thought of those toys in Giles’ flat; that echo of a child’s laughter that he kept hearing; those taut murmurs from Giles about the over-strictness of the little boy’s home-life. He felt a sudden sense of sadness at another boy having to go through a childhood like his. What would it have been like, in the midst of all those lessons and punishments and lectures, to spend ten days in the warm, chaotic company of these vivid, irreverent teenagers? Even if the home-life of Giles’ nephew was only half as austere as Wesley’s own had been, it must have been like sunlight after rain for that child. “I bet he misses you more,” he said.
“No one could,” Buffy said. Something that sounded very like a sniff came from Willow.
“Here.” Xander put a kite into his hands. It was in the shape of a Chinese dragon, and glowed white with phosphorescent paint. “It’s your turn.”
Wesley looked down at the kite in his hands. It was a complicated model that must have taken hours to put together. All that effort, and the fun part – painting it in bright colours – had been sacrificed so that Angel could see it fly, even though it was hard to imagine that Angel would have cared. Yet as he glanced across at the vampire, he could only wonder why he was so sure that it had been worth it.
“You have to throw it high,” Xander persisted quietly, glancing across at Willow as he did so.
Knowing that it was bound to plummet ignominiously to the earth, Wesley nevertheless gathered the string into one hand and took the kite in the other, tossing it as high into the air as he could. He saw the green flicker of magic speed it on its way, snatching it up like a friendly breeze, and glanced across at Willow in shock, just in time to see her hastily shove her hands back down. He didn’t know whether to be amused or indignant that she considered him so emotionally fragile that he needed to be shielded from even the disappointment of a kite not flying first time, and found that he was too moved to leave room for any other emotion.
It was bizarre and troubling to have these semi-strangers suddenly wanting to smooth the path ahead of him all the time, to blindside his father and distract him from depression and now even to ensure that his kite flew first time. It couldn’t last, of course, sooner or later they were going to have to permit him to stand on his own two feet. But it warmed him inside that they were trying, all the same, even though it was absurd, even though he was a grown man who had tried so hard since he arrived here to convince them that he was someone whose authority they should respect…. As he carefully let out the kite string, letting it climb higher and higher, a glowing dragon dancing on a night breeze in the glitter-light of stars, he felt a new lightening in his mind and body. He realized he had been weighed down by too much armour since he arrived here; adding layer after layer after every setback or disappointment that did nothing but make him feel burdened and clumsy, and yet which was useless as tissue paper whenever anyone tried to penetrate it with an unkind word. He wondered how it would feel to just let it all go; to be what he truly was, unready, perhaps, and insecure, and not necessarily able to do this entirely by himself, and yet with knowledge and skills that could be useful if they would only allow him to be so.
And then the kite danced in front of the moon, the long tail of the dragon undulating across spits of cloud, and he knew that he had done this before; exactly this; but he had been sitting on Angel’s shoulders and he had been eight years old.
Stumbling back in confusion, more memories danced around him like friendly ghosts – the tug of the kite string as he held it as the wind caught up that glowing chinese dragon and tossed it amongst the clouds…. He let go of the string in shock. A gasp from Willow, an unsuccessful jump and snatch by Xander, and the kite was free. It spun up into the night sky, swept into skeins of cloud and starlight, a pale undulation growing smaller and smaller. He turned to Giles in confusion. “But, how…?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Wes…?”
Xander. He had been here, too. It was Xander who had put the kite together, who had painted the kite with that special paint so it would glow in the dark. It was Xander who had taken him to the zoo and bought him ice cream as well. No…. He shook his head, trying to shake free images that made no sense. He was taller than Xander, so it made no sense that in these memories he should always be looking up at him, Xander crouching down to talk to him, or picking him up….
“Wesley, are you okay? You’ve gone a funny colour….”
And then he remembered being in Buffy’s arms, the scent of her perfume the most comforting thing he had ever inhaled; a soft curl of hair caressing his cheek, her lips warm on the top of his head, not even aware that she was kissing him, she did it so often. Knowing he was safe as long as he was with her because she would never let any harm come to him.
“Give him some air. I think he’s feeling a little faint….”
And this time when he opened his eyes to find that Giles was still holding him steady even as there was a cluster of people around him, saying his name in concern, he clearly remembered Giles carrying him into the office in the school while he gulped and sobbed with fear, sitting him down on the desk and fetching him a chocolate biscuit from the drawer. Not scolding him even though he had spilled sticky fizzy cola all over important reference books, just handing him that biscuit, then fetching him tea and gazing at him with eyes full of sympathy.
The world spun away from him and even with Giles’s hands tightening on his shoulders he knew that he was falling now, and then there were arms around him and a quiet voice saying: “It’s okay, Wesley.”
Angel, the vampire with a soul; Buffy’s boyfriend; who he had first met in the Bronze when he hadn’t known his name…except that he had a clear memory of seeing him as a pair of feet a mirror would not reflect, a hand that he had splashed with holy water, and then a vampire changing from demonic face to human face as he jumped down from a table.
“I don’t understand,” he said desperately. Why could he remember events in which he could not possibly have participated? Why did he have the memories of Giles’s nephew?
He must have said it aloud because Giles’s expression changed, and suddenly everyone who had been firing questions at him fell silent. He looked at their faces, oddly pale in the twilight, and they looked different now, no longer looking like the children who hung out in the Library and refused to take him seriously, but adults who had taken care of him, who were older and stronger and wiser than he was. People who spent their money on clothes and food and treats and toys for him, and read to him, and played with him, and who had all risked their lives to keep him safe.
“Because you were my nephew, Wesley,” Giles said quietly. “Or rather, we told people that you were my nephew to explain why you were staying with me.”
And then all the memories came back at once and he rocked backwards, feeling his mind billowing like a sail in a storm. He would have fallen if Angel had not still been holding him up, the vampire’s broad chest against his back, but no breath against his neck, of course, as there would have been if it were Giles who held him. He knew how it felt to be held by Giles now, and Angel, and Buffy, and Xander, and Willow, and Oz, and even…Miss Chase, who it now felt more natural to call Cordelia.
He must have closed his eyes again, because when he opened them again, Buffy was standing in front of him, looking at him anxiously. “Are you okay?” she asked.
He remembered waking up in a dark unfamiliar room, in which he recognized nothing at all, and, when he called out, no one came. He had sat there, a frightened child, whimpering in confusion, until there had come that knock upon the door, strangers demanding that he answered so imperiously that he had not been able to disobey them. He remembered how his hands had shaken as he dragged a chair across the room with so much difficulty, fingers fumbling with the locks before he could open the door. That was when he had seen Buffy for the first time. Her eyes had been full of warmth and sympathy for him and her voice had been gentle. He could perfectly recall her crouching down to introduce herself to him; the way she had picked him up and carried him out of that scary unfamiliar room and how everything had at once felt less frightening because, wherever he was, there was someone to take care of him. He had known at once that he could trust her. “I was a child.” He didn’t understand how or why, and a part of him knew that it was impossible, but it was also true. “You took care of me.”
Buffy had tears rolling down her cheeks and he stared at them in fascination. Glittering in the moonlight, her teardrops looked like the jewels a princess in a fairy story might cry. He had known this girl for weeks now and this was the first time he had realized that she was beautiful. He had known that from the first moment he saw her when he was a child; he had known that she was kind too. In many ways he had apparently been wiser then. She didn’t seem to know she was crying; she wasn’t sniffing or wiping her eyes, just gazing at him with all that intensity and an ache in her voice that was only there for him: “Yes. We took care of you. We liked taking care of you.”
Giles said: “It was the amulet, Wesley. Ethan Rayne sent it.”
“Mr. Rayne?” And he hadn’t called him that for so many years. Watchers called the chaos mage ‘Rayne’ or on occasion ‘bloody Rayne’. One never admitted one had ever liked him, or thought his magic fun, or that he had never done one any harm and that one’s favourite uncle had always liked him.
“It was intended to make me…younger, but it made you a child.”
Willow was biting her lip anxiously. “You remember?”
And he did now. He seemed to remember everything, and he realized that his headache was gone. The memories, having succeeded in tearing themelves loose, were no longer hurting him. In fact they were filling him with a strange unfamiliar warmth. He and Willow had won a battle together; they had pretended to be enchanting the wood while all the time it was the dragon they were setting free. He wanted to gaze and gaze at her and tell her that her hair was the prettiest he had ever seen, and blush when she smiled at him and purr like a kitten when she picked him up and cuddled him.
Oz cleared his throat tactfully and he realized he must indeed have been gazing at her for a rather long time. He hastily averted his eyes. “Yes, I remember.”
“Don’t be sorry.” That was the lovely Miss Chase, who pushed past Buffy to look right into his eyes. “Don’t look as if you did something wrong. Please don’t wish it hadn’t happened.” And now she was crying as well and he had no idea how to respond to her; seeing her as at once a beautiful young woman he would like to have the courage to kiss and at the same time a friend in pyjamas with her dark hair loose, reading him a story as they sipped hot chocolate together.
“I’m not sorry.” It was a kaleidoscope of memories, playmobil archers firing their arrows into the air as the pirate ship swept into a bay of silver paper; a shopping trolley piled high with toys just for him; Cordelia combing his hair while Willow buttoned his shirt; Giles reading to him in a room where the night light was a moonlit galleon that kept all fears at bay. He had never been less sorry for any memories in his life. “Not at all sorry.”
“Oh….” And this time when Cordelia threw her arms around him it had nothing to do with wanting him to take her to dinner; even he, with his limited experience of women, could tell the difference. “I’m so glad.”
He felt the warmth of her body against his and found he had a billow of her vanilla-scented hair in his mouth. She seemed to realize she was being undignified and tossed her hair back quickly, stepping away and wiping the tears from her cheeks, giving him an embarrassed smile that made his heart do peculiar things. It was then, in the turmoil of that moment – when he realized that it had been her breasts that he had felt through the thin cotton of his shirt, and that her perfume smelt expensive and mingled perfectly with the conditioner she used – that he perceived, for the first time, quite apart from how much she made him feel overheated and confused and gave him a tingling sensation in his stomach, just how much he liked her.
“You really remember?” Buffy reached for his forehead automatically, and this time he let her, more grateful to her for every hug and cuddle and whispered assurance than he could ever say.
“Yes.” He realized they weren’t the only ones getting all choked up with emotion. They had been so kind to him. It was hitting him like the second wave of an incoming tide. It had been entirely his own fault that he had been turned into a child who needed their attention and protection, and they not uttered a single word of reproach. He turned to Giles, feeling absurdly young before the man, memories of him tucking him up in bed too fresh for him to quite meet his eye. Giles had been everything to him that his father never had; the man had gone in an instant from being a colleague who had saved his life under sufferance, to someone whose opinion mattered to him above all others. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We thought you might be…embarrassed.”
He found that he was laughing in a way that was possibly a little hysterical. “Embarrassed? To recall the only time I ever spent as a child when I truly remember being happy…?”
He broke off before he humiliated himself even further, and yet he did feel a sense of betrayal. He and Giles had become friends while the man had been ‘Uncle Giles’; they had shared confidences and established a relationship; one that he would never have known about if these precious memories had not torn themselves loose. Hadn’t Giles wanted him to remember? Had Giles wished those events had never happened? The man was gazing at him as if there were a great many things he wanted to say, but Giles had to avert his eyes, take off his glasses and clean them quite assiduously before he could manage: “I’m glad you were happy, Wesley.”
“We would have kept you if we could.”
He turned to find Buffy gazing up at him with heart-rending intensity. “Willow and I were all for kidnapping you and telling your parents you were dead so we could keep you. But Giles wouldn’t let us.”
She looked so tragic that he felt some of his swirling feelings of confusion and betrayal coalesce into something that was definitely tinged with amusement. “I suspect that would have been a somewhat…impractical solution.”
“No, but we would have told people that Giles’ imaginary sister had died and he was now your legal guardian. Then we could have gone on taking care of you and kept you safe.” It was a clear that a part of the girl had not entirely given up the scheme.
He found that his smile was unable to be repressed now. He had always wondered how it felt to be a loved child – if that gave one a bank of warmth and confidence to carry a man through the difficult days, a certain resilience and elasticity before the worst things that life could throw at one, that he did not possess. Now, he realized that it must indeed be the case, because, armoured by memories of being wrapped in the embrace of people who undoubtedly loved him, he felt very different. “You do realize, Buffy, that I would certainly have sneaked out after you on a patrol before too long.”
Her gasp of horror was definitely amusing, no question about it. Wesley grimaced apologetically even as a part of him enjoyed himself. “And if you’d noticed me in time I would just have bided my time and followed Angel instead.”
The vampire looked equally aghast. “I would have picked up your scent.”
“Not if I kept downwind of you.”
Willow looked no less horrified than Buffy and pointed rapidly at Giles. “But, no, because we would have known and Giles would have used the Stern Voice.”
He remembered Giles scolding him, and how upsetting it had been; wanting the man’s approval and affection more than anything in the world, but, on the other hand, he had so very much wanted to see Buffy slay a vampire. He shrugged regretfully. “That wouldn’t have held me for ever. Look at the components under discussion – the chance to see a Slayer on a patrol – an eight year old boy – I’d give it a month of obedience at the most.”
They were all exchanging looks of dismay. Xander said: “Window locks.”
“Some kind of magical wards,” Giles added thoughtfully.
“Some kind of location spell,” Willow added.
“What’s wrong with a leash?” Angel demanded.
He was definitely amused now. He cleared his throat. “It didn’t happen, remember? Nature intervened and restored me to adult size.”
Buffy said grimly: “Don’t think we’re just talking about the child version of you.”
Even an hour ago he would have been affronted, but now he just felt warmed by it. No wonder she had been fussing over him so absurdly; it was no reflection on his competence, after all, just residual concern for the little boy he had been. The little boy she had…loved.
“If you agree not to go on patrol with Buffy, I’ll buy you an ice cream,” Xander offered.
“Several ice creams,” Oz added.
“As a member of the Watcher’s Council, I don’t think I’m permitted to accept bribes.” He looked around at them again and it was like seeing them from two different perspectives at the same time, from his adult stance, and yet also as they had been when he came up to their waists and they put their own lives on hold to try to make his better. “I am, however, very grateful to you all for all you did for me….”
No, that way undoubtedly would lead to unmanly displays of emotion. He had to swallow hard because it mattered too much, not just to him, but to them; he could see it in their eyes, and more than that, he could remember how much he had mattered to them. And, bizarrely, the look in Angel’s brown eyes as he tucked him up in bed for the last time was not very different from the look in his eyes now. Wesley blinked hard and Giles put a handkerchief in his hand.
“Perhaps…pizza all round…?” Giles suggested a little diffidently. “At my house.”
In the melee of agreement from teenagers, and the scramble to decide who was travelling with whom, Wesley found himself gently eased away from the crowd. “Are you all right?” Giles asked him in an undertone.
He nodded. “Yes.” For some reason he still found it difficult to meet the man’s eyes and kept his head bowed even as he automatically walked back through the sand towards Giles’s car.
“I know this must be awkward for you.”
“It is rather.”
Giles grimaced, ducking his head to try to get a glimpse of Wesley’s face. “Is this because I gave you…a bath?”
Wesley jerked his head up in shock, astonished that the man could be so far off the mark. When Wesley had been a child, Giles would have known what was wrong. “No....” The betrayal he was feeling must have shown in his eyes because Giles stopped in his tracks.
“What is it?”
He couldn’t keep the hurt and accusation out of his voice. “Didn’t you want me to remember? Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”
Giles stepped back as if Wesley had slapped him. “Of course I… I just thought you had enough to contend with without….” He sighed. “Buffy wanted to tell you. I thought you might be embarrassed. I couldn’t think of a way to tell you that wouldn’t…. Without your memories to soften it, I thought it would sound as if were making fun of you. It’s not as if you liked any of us very much, telling you that you’d spent a week being eight years old in the company of people who you had no reason to regard as friends….”
“What if I’d never remembered?”
“I’m sure Buffy would eventually have stopped trying to take your temperature every time you sneezed and life would have…gone on.”
He felt a little faint at the thought of never having remembered any of it; never understanding why they all looked so sad sometimes when they gazed at him, and why Oz unscrewed bottles and opened cans and Xander unwrapped chocolate bars for him. Why Buffy was so over-protective and why Cordelia had straightened his collar for him, not as one would with a man one found desirable, but a child one wanted to make presentable. He remembered her leading the vampires away from him and Willow, and Willow holding him so tightly in her arms until there was nothing to do but leave him alone if she was to have any hope of saving him. He could remember how she smelt, the taste of her hair as it touched his mouth, could remember the comfort of her body heat as he curled up next to her in bed while they waited for Buffy to come back on patrol. And yet she would just have been some odd little redhead to him again. As if none of it had ever happened.
“I don’t think we got off on the right foot,” Giles said quietly. “I wanted to give us another chance to work together – to be friends if it was possible. I had a great deal of affection for the child that you had been, but you had no reason to like me. I couldn’t see a way for us to be colleagues and equals if we began anew with me telling you about the times I’d taken you to the zoo.”
He had wanted that, Wesley remembered, now the first pang of betrayal had faded a little – to be friends and colleagues, and, indeed, to work together as equals. He had thought he wanted that more than anything, to discover that there was one Watcher in the world who didn’t think he was a complete waste of space. And yet now he found that what he wanted was to remember being a child who someone had loved.
“I understand.” It wasn’t a lie, although a part of him still felt wounded. “But I’m glad I remember, and I’m very grateful to you for….”
The beach turned into a smear of salt and he had to bite his lip quite hard. He could remember too vividly snuggling up sleepily against the comforting warmth of Giles’ tweed jacket while the man read to him of things that were not demons or vampires or duties that he had to perform. His father had never done that, not even once. “You were very kind,” he managed huskily.
“Wesley, please don’t keep saying that,” Giles said hoarsely. “I cared for that little boy – for you – so very much and giving you up was the hardest thing I’ve…. A part of me still wonders if we were wrong; if we should have let Ethan try to stabilize you as an eight year old and find a way to give you a better childhood.”
“You did give me a better childhood, Giles.” Wesley wiped his eyes surreptitiously. “You gave it to me for ten days. That’s ten days more than anyone else ever did.”
“Your father does care for you in his own way, Wesley,” Giles added. “That’s his problem. He’s too emotionally immature to deal with the prospect of feeling affection for someone who may die. He’s been pushing you away probably since the day you first smiled at him or held his finger. But there is no reason for his problems to be yours for your entire life.”
Wesley laughed a little shakily as the sand crunched underfoot. “I think the dye may already be cast there.”
“Don’t say that.” Giles caught his arm. “Or I’ll call Ethan back myself.”
“I know he’s a cad of the first water, but he did once offer to turn my father into a stickleback. I’ve always been rather grateful to him for that.”
“He does have his moments….” The sideways look Giles shot in his direction was half amused and half wary, clearly wondering if the man Wesley now was had joined the dots the child he had been had not even noticed.
“There were…rumours.” Wesley risked a glance at the man beside him, a part of him still feeling like a little boy now, who wanted his approval and wanted to be Good so that he would continue to be loved. “At the Council, I mean. About you and… Well, why exactly did he want you to be twenty again anyway?”
Giles cleared his throat. “If you ever hope to play with those playmobil knights again I suggest you choose another topic of discussion.”
“I distinctly remember that you bought them for me, so, technically, aren’t they already mine?”
Giles gave him a narrow look. “I still have the till receipts, you know.”
Wesley opened his mouth to protest, feeling a sharp pang of loss not just at them going back but at the thought that Giles could let them go, and then remembered Giles and Buffy fighting over which of them got to have him stay with them for the night, the obvious pleasure Giles had taken in their quiet evenings together without the others around. It was the oddest feeling to realize that he had been wanted to that extent, that he was empowered by it now because they would be prizing those toys out of Giles’s cold dead hand before he gave them up.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t let you play with them too.” Wesley darted him another glance, trying to see if he was reading this right.
Giles’s smile suggested that he was. “You’d better or I’ll tell Buffy it’s too dangerous for you to go on patrol with her.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“Watch me.” Giles opened the car door for him, still smiling as if he couldn’t quite help himself.
As Wesley climbed in, he realized that it could only have been hours ago that his father had left. Strange, usually the cold feeling his father left behind lingered for days, and yet here he was feeling as warm as if he had been sipping brandy. When he looked over his shoulder, the sea was still rolling in, smoothing the sand with every breaker, while far off in the distance there was a twist of light in the darkness that was a Chinese dragon set free to fly as high as the wind would take it.
***
Giles had not realized how much the deception had been weighing on him until that weight was lifted. One moment he was a man in mourning for a child he had lost, and the next, the pain was almost gone; the child grown up, yet with his memories intact. Perhaps that had been the problem all along, that the child had gone so completely that he did not even remember the events that were so precious to Giles. That was truly what happened with death; the dead one carried the past with them, the other half of shared memories lost forever, and the ones left behind with the living at once too thinned by absence and too precious to bear.
With a living, healthy adult Wesley sitting across the other side of the table, eating what Buffy was trying to teach him to call ‘fries’ with his fingers and laughing at some joke of Xander’s, he could see the child grown up. Wesley’s hair was tousled and when he laughed he could see the same crinkle around his eyes that he had seen in the little boy. He and Willow were recalling their victory at playmobil warfare while Xander was insisting that he and Oz had been on the point of their own tactical breakthrough.
“So, Wes.” Buffy reached across and sat Cuthbert on the table between them. “I think you need to spit it out.”
“Spit what out?” He licked some pizza cheese from his fingers – eating with fingers had been ordered by Xander, who had prevented Giles from putting out any cutlery on the grounds that they could never retrain Wesley as a proper Scooby while he insisted on eating with a knife and fork.
She held up Cuthbert’s shoulder bag. “Little Wes said that he didn’t make Cuthbert the shoulder bag. He thought you must have done it at boarding school. So, when exactly was it?”
Wesley wiped his fingers on a napkin and looked slightly shifty. “Well…a long time ago, obviously.”
“How long ago?” Cordelia asked curiously, eating from Xander’s plate without noticing she was doing it.
Wesley scratched his jaw. “Well…I can assure you that it was days before I came to Sunnydale.”
Xander almost spat out his mouthful of coke. “You were twenty six when you made your teddy bear an anti-vampire pack?”
“We were coming to a Hellmouth. I thought he should have some protection.” Wesley picked up the teddy bear and despite his obvious embarrassment, sat him on his lap.
Willow gave Wesley an impulsive hug. “It was a very good idea.” She noticed that he still had some pizza left and leant over his shoulder to snag a piece.
“The lack of a mirror was an oversight though.” Wesley nodded to Cordelia with old fashioned courtesy. “One that Miss Chase was kind enough to correct.”
“I should propose it as a business plan for extra credits: vampire-attack ready teddy bears for kids growing up in Sunnydale.”
“Their parents would have to admit they’re growing up in a town full of vampires first,” Oz pointed out.
Buffy grimaced. “Yeah, adults in Sunnydale are usually pretty happy in their denial place.”
“I meant to ask you about that.” While addressing Buffy, Wesley lifted up his plate so Willow could more easily reach the last piece of pizza. “Why is it that no one in this town seems to be aware that the night is filled with the evil undead?”
“It’s not that we didn’t notice how many of us used to disappear.” Xander snagged the last can of Coke. “We just liked to think they’d gone to live in Florida rather than having their entrails ripped out.”
Willow nodded. “This is the town where your parents tell you that your friends have gone to live on a farm, and they really believe it and you really try to.”
Cordelia thoughtfully ate another of Xander’s chips. “I did notice that the Bronze seemed to have a lot of people who dressed really badly. But I mean, when a guy is still doing the Duran Duran thing you tend to assume that eyeliner and big hair is coming back, not that he’s been hanging around in graveyards for twenty years sucking the life out of your classmates.”
Giles was still thinking about the adult Wesley taking the time to make his teddy bear safe from vampires. He wondered if never having the child inside you nurtured, didn’t so much as starve it out as keep it lingering into adulthood. Looking across at the man now, without his suit and brylcreem to hide behind, Wesley certainly did look very young and very much like the little boy who had been here a few days before. So, probably still an emotionally immature young man in desperate need of validation from a male authority figure. Glancing across at Angel, he thought he saw the vampire making the same assessment. Somehow, those aspects of Wesley’s character didn’t seem anything like as annoying when one had met the child he had once been, and then met the father who had made him like that. In fact, they didn’t seem annoying at all.
“So, Buffy…?” Giles leaned across the table. “We need to fix a date for Wesley coming on patrol with you or Angel?”
“I work alone,” Angel said firmly, clearly not ready to put the young man in danger yet. Wesley looked hurt and Angel said quickly: “Buffy’s used to working with other people.”
“But Wesley really wanted to go on patrol with you the most. And he had all those questions he wanted to ask you about…people you killed and stuff.”
Angel glowered at the love of his life. “But he’s a Watcher, and they’re trained to help Slayers, not vampires.”
“But you’re a vampire with a soul. That makes you a…warrior for good, and Watchers help those too.”
“You’re stronger than I am. He’d be safer with you.”
“But the demons don’t come after you the way they do after me, because they think you’re one of them, so he’d be safer with you.”
Wesley was watching the two arguing with his mouth slightly open. Giles cleared his throat. “Next Wednesday then.”
Angel and Buffy stopped arguing and gaped at him. “What?” Buffy demanded.
Giles looked across at Wesley. “All right with you, Wesley?” He made an entry in his diary as he did so. “About eight o’clock? We can go straight from the library to the graveyard of Buffy’s choice. Probably best if Angel’s there, too, wouldn’t you say? It would be a good idea to compare their fighting techniques and offer them advice afterwards.”
“I don’t need a Watcher,” Angel said a little petulantly. “I fight alone.”
“Except when you don’t,” Oz observed.
“Or when you do and get captured by bad guys,” Willow put in.
“Yeah, Buffy probably wouldn’t have to rescue quite so often if you weren’t always off doing the lone avenger thing,” Cordelia said thoughtfully.
Wesley looked up curiously. “So Buffy needing to rescue Angel is something of a regular occurrence?”
“Oh, man, he’s the original vampire in distress.” Xander shook his head. “We all got pretty sick of the ‘Oh no, Angel’s in peril again, I must save him!’ thing.”
“I didn’t mind so much,” Willow said hastily.
“That isn’t how it was!” Angel protested.
“Yes, Xander,” Giles said solemnly. “Be fair now. How is a vampire supposed to maintain his mysterious brooding creature of the night persona if we recount all the times that he had to be…”
“Saved by a girl?” Xander finished cheerfully. “I guess it does put a bit of a crimp in his perfectly coiffured style.”
Clearly some of the hero-worship Wesley had felt for the vampire when he was a child had lingered onto adulthood because he looked shocked and a little dismayed. Seeing Wesley’s expression, Xander sighed but bit the bullet: “But, okay, yeah, he does tend to be the rescuer more than the rescue..ee.”
This was clearly much more what Wesley needed to hear. “I remember him saving all of us. He was very impressive.” He darted a look at Angel that suggested his memories returning had put the vampire back on the pedestal upon which his eight year old self had been wont to place him. Although Giles did mentally sigh a little, he could imagine that the vampire had probably been very impressive indeed, if one was eight years old, and very frightened, and every other adult between you and a gang of evil blood suckers had been rendered unconscious.
Angel preened while trying to appear cool and aloof, and said kindly: “I guess I could make it on Wednesday. It’s probably best if we all stick together with the Ascension coming up anyway.”
Mention of the Ascension had them all focusing on the matter in hand. Giles and Xander cleared away the pizza boxes and cans – Xander obligingly drinking the last of all of them as he did so – so that they could begin to strategize. It took some time to convince his swing bin that it really wanted to swallow quite so much fast food-related debris, and by the time he had finished battling it, the mood had changed from a party atmosphere to council of war.
He had expected reference books, but returned to find Xander solemnly placing the fairytale castle and the dragon in the centre of the table. “Okay, so this is the school and this is the Mayor. Where are we and how do we stop him? And let’s bear in mind that if we don’t, he’s going to be eating the graduating class of Sunnydale High.”
Buffy had a faraway look in her eyes and Xander snapped his fingers. “Hey, Buff. Any time you want to chip in with the big town-saving strategy would be good….”
Still with that abstracted expression on her face, Buffy rose to her feet and began to pick up handfuls of playmobil knights, plonking them down in front of the dragon in rows. Seeing what she was doing, Cordelia and Willow hurried to help her, while Oz spent some time picking a suitably squat-looking pirate to stand in for Snyder. “I couldn’t find a troll,” he explained.
Cordelia picked out a dark-haired princess in a yellow dress to represent her. Holding it aloft, she said: “Just in case anyone isn’t clear – this one doesn’t die.”
Xander was examining a small plastic person with a frown. “I’m liking the crossbow – not so much love for the feather in the helmet motif. Any knights in there who don’t look totally gay?”
Angel plucked the black knight from the box before Oz could reach it and smugly placed it in the front row. “That’s me.”
Xander took it from him. “Not in daylight it’s not, Mr. Fiery Ball of Ash. I get to be the Black Knight.”
For a moment it looked as if Angel and Xander were going to have a tug-of-war over a playmobil person when Wesley thankfully intervened to say: “Oh, that was what my friend in Germany was telling me when we were…interrupted. Apparently the ascenscion is traditionally accompanied by an eclipse.”
Angel triumphantly tugged the knight from Xander’s fingers and set it down in the middle of the first row. “Like I said – that’s me.” Oz tactfully supplied Xander with a knight in grey chainmail whose helmet was thankfully feather-free.
Cordelia had found a blonde princess to represent Buffy and was tut-tutting over the lack of any red-headed females. She held up a red-headed page. “Could we say that Willow’s going to be dressed like a boy on the day? Or a pirate?”
“We can say she’s going to be dressed as the cookie monster for all I care,” Giles observed with some acerbity. “Can we please get to the point?”
Cordelia put a redheaded page in the row to represent Willow and was in the act of adding a plastic dog that Giles very much feared was meant to represent Oz when Xander’s expression stopped her. Rolling her eyes, she said: “He changes his hair colour three times a week. Really the only constant is him being a werewolf.”
Xander snatched up a knight at random and tossed the dog back into the box. “Cordy, if we can pretend that, come Graduation Day, Willow is going to be dressed as a boy, Angel’s going to look like Ivanhoe, and you and Buffy are going to be wearing wimples, I think we can make the leap of imagination required to think Oz is going to be blond.”
With Wesley’s help, Buffy had been quietly filling in rows of spear holders and pirates, and piling extra weapons next to them. “I think you guys are missing the point.”
“Defeating the mayor isn’t dependent on my hair colour?” Oz observed.
Buffy smiled at him but held out her hands to indicate the rows and rows of plastic people all facing the dragon. “Wesley…?”
Thinking of how the little boy he had once been tended to go to pieces when put on the spot, Giles looked at him anxiously, but Wesley was gazing between the playmobil people and the green dragon with dawning comprehension. “It may be bigger, but there are more of us.” He picked up a page and clipped a bow into his hand, dropping a quiver over his neck. “Especially if we’re all armed.”
Buffy beamed at him proudly. “Exactly.”
Xander nodded. “Way to make the Mayor’s food not agree with him, Buffy.”
She gazed at the boy who had been forced to stake his own best friend, and said gently: “I think the teenagers of Sunnydale have been dying for long enough, don’t you?”
“Whereas by this method they can at least die fighting?” Giles observed. Much as he approved of this idea of empowering the people who were more usually victims in this town, if two hundred and fifty burghers of small town Germany could disappear without a trace, he suspected that the Mayor in his ascended state would make equally short work of the graduating class of ’99.
Buffy held up a finger. “That’s just stage one. Wes – can you hand me something that looks like it could blow up with a really big bang?”
Perhaps it was having had the memories of being an eight year old so recently returned to him, but he happily plucked out five bags of pirate gold and some of the wizard’s potions and held them aloft without a word of protest at the inanity of their actions.
“Good enough.” She took them from him and he sat down next to her, clearly curious. Placing the potions and bags of pirate gold squarely inside the fairytale castle she looked up at Giles. “And this is stage two….”
Even as she explained the plan to them all, stressing the importance of Xander’s military skills as she did so, and Giles understood how dangerous it would be for her, and everyone else in the vicinity, a part of him was noticing the way Wesley was as much a part of this discussion as the rest of them. As the younger Watcher, with Xander’s eager assistance, obediently moved around the playmobil people as Buffy’s plan was related – including having the wimple-clad Buffy sprint through the fairytale castle while pursued by a green dragon – Giles realized that somehow he really had become that little boy grown up – someone accepted as one of them, surrounded by a circle of people who considered themselves his friends. Even as Giles was making rapid notes on his tablecloth about the amount of explosives required to bury a creature of sufficient size to swallow Sodom as an aperitif, he became aware that he had his right hand resting on Wesley’s shoulder and neither he nor Wesley had noticed.
“And that’s when I blow up the school.” Buffy sat back and looked around at them expectantly; all of them, Giles noticed, Wesley included, who, having had the dragon fall onto its back with its legs in the air was now, with Xander’s help, having the fairytale castle fall down on top of it, apparently completely on board with this strategy of Buffy’s.
“So, we’re keeping Oz’s humus plan as a fallback option then?” Cordelia enquired. “Cause – not looking so crazy to me now.”
“I think it’s a wonderful plan.” Wesley gazed up at Buffy in a way far too reminiscent of that little boy who had thought she could walk on water.
“Yes, and can we hear from the people who weren’t until recently small children?” Giles suggested.
“As the entire plan pivots on my military skills, I’m all for it,” Xander explained.
Sighing to disguise how very proud he was of Buffy and all these other young people – even Cordelia – who put their own lives on the line for the greater good every night, Giles said: “Well, let’s try to refine it a little. Wesley – perhaps you and Xander could rebuild Sunnydale High and retrieve the Mayor and we can run through it again….”
“This time I get to be Buffy,” Wesley told Xander.
Giles nodded quietly to Buffy as the others rebuilt everything and stood up the playmobile people who had been knocked down in the melee. “Well done.”
“I noticed you didn’t back away from the ‘crazy’ word when I mentioned it.”
Giles acknowledged that with a shrug. “I’m still not ruling it out. No, Buffy, it was your child-rearing I was applauding.”
They both looked over at Wesley, who was pointing out to Xander how to clip the towers back together.
“I know, I’m so proud.” She smiled at Giles, and for all her lightness of tone, her eyes looked a little bright. “Although I’m not sure how much credit I can claim really. He’s grown up just like a cross between you and Xander.”
“Yes.” Giles grimaced. “I’m hoping that’s a temporary aberration – the Xander part. Growing up like me would, of course, be entirely acceptable.”
They watched together as Wesley tossed the dragon to Xander and received the Buffy-in-a-wimple in return, then began to stack up piles of pirate gold and a skull that Oz offered to them for dramatic effect. Looking at the man now, Giles could still see the child playing at this same table, but it no longer hurt to think of him; in fact it made him smile with nothing other than happiness. Wesley’s father had come and gone and instead of gibbering under the adult equivalent of a desk somewhere – the bottom of a whiskey bottle perhaps? – the man was here with them, being useful, and surrounded by friends. Punching Roger Wyndam-Pryce on the jaw for what he had done to that little boy might have been momentarily satisfying, but reducing his shadow to such a faint stain was so much better.
Perhaps the Ascension was coming, and undoubtedly more people were going to die, but he still felt as if they had saved a soul today. As he glanced out of the window, he could see the moon shining behind torn clouds, and imagined that, far away, he could just glimpse the distant gleam of that Chinese dragon, climbing higher and higher on the breeze.
The End.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2006-10-02 12:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-02 12:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-02 01:15 am (UTC)hmmm...lovely
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Date: 2006-10-02 08:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-02 03:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-02 08:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-02 04:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-02 08:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-02 03:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-02 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-02 05:06 pm (UTC)*hugs*
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Date: 2006-10-02 05:25 pm (UTC)*hugs* back. :)
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Date: 2006-10-02 05:35 pm (UTC)I'll have you know that you kept me up until 1:30 this morning finishing this. It was worth it though!
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Date: 2006-10-02 05:55 pm (UTC)Sorry for the late night, but it does serve you right for straying away from Daniel Jackson fic. *g* Your icon is totally adorable btw.
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Date: 2006-10-03 03:54 am (UTC)Thank you very much for finishing this!
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Date: 2006-10-03 08:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-03 06:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-03 08:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-03 07:16 pm (UTC)A lovely ending to a lovely story. I'm so glad you finished it! Your stories have become a small obsession of mine. I love them so! Just one question. When's the next one coming along? ;)
*hugs*
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Date: 2006-10-03 10:45 pm (UTC)*hugs* back
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Date: 2006-10-03 11:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-03 11:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-05 09:13 am (UTC)i've read all your fic and i was worried that you'd disappeared and it's so good to see this completed! I enjoyed reading your story very much! Thank you!
:)
e
please please please write more!
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Date: 2006-10-05 09:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2006-10-11 05:34 pm (UTC) - Expandno subject
Date: 2006-10-24 09:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-24 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-06 01:37 am (UTC)I really enjoyed this (you are keeping me up at night, woman, and degrading my work performance! Evildoer!). Thanks so much.
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Date: 2006-11-06 11:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-28 07:23 am (UTC)This is just such a wonderful story. I plan to read it all over again soon.
:Clap clap:
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Date: 2006-12-31 12:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-31 09:53 am (UTC)Wonderful story! Simply wonderful.
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Date: 2006-12-31 12:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-12 02:46 am (UTC)Thank you so much for writing and sharing the story.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-30 10:28 am (UTC)fb - New All Over (little wesley)
Date: 2007-07-02 08:39 am (UTC)I'm so glad you had Wesley remember, and that it was a positive reaction--so perfect that it involved the beach and, letting go of the kite. (The image of the kite flying freely in the moonbeams was perfect). I cried that whole chapter on the eve of the 10th day and all the way through the next. Wept for Giles, and the loss that was so palpable. And then I wept for Wesley, because he didn't remember that ten days of what childhood really should be. And of course the others couldn't let him go - and so they still reacted to adult Wes as they did child Wes. And poor Wesley so bewildered by how they are all acting, but feeling that warmth of acceptance. I love the section where he and Giles sip brandy. And then I cried at the end in happiness.
I love that they used the toys to strategize, that Wesley picked up a bit of Xander to balance his own nature. That little moment in Giles' office when Xander makes the comment about learning to hit back and Giles realizing that he has been ignoring the clues about the young man's home life just as he didn't look beyond the surface of Wesley when he first appeared. Loved the zoo trip with Xander so Xander and little Wesley so delighted with the silliness and teaching Xander in response. And Giles grinning his head off at both of them. Everyone listening to Giles read from the Narnia book, just as enthralled as little Wesley.
And Cuthbert, dear Cuthbert. The image of Wesley carefully preparing the bear's own bag for protection on the Hellmouth just kills me.
Wonderfully done story on every level. Your character voices are so true, and as I read I could 'see' the story so clearly. Felt the emotions so keenly. The perfect kind of fic to print out, curl up with the cat with and read. I will re-read this more than once, because there can never be enough warm & cozy fics where everyone likes Wesley.
Re: fb - New All Over (little wesley)
Date: 2007-07-02 08:58 am (UTC)That little moment in Giles' office when Xander makes the comment about learning to hit back and Giles realizing that he has been ignoring the clues about the young man's home life just as he didn't look beyond the surface of Wesley when he first appeared.
This is something I really wanted Giles to get on the show, more with Xander than with Wesley, as he really didn't see the best of Wesley, but he had so many clues that Xander's home-life was awful and I'm still upset that none of the others knew about Xander sleeping outside on Christmas Day to get away from his parents' arguments. I definitely want to write a fic where Giles is concerned for Xander and realizes how bad his home-life is as I was always so hungry for that on the show and, as with people being nice to Wesley, it's just a need I have that needs to be satisfied.
Thank you again so much for this incredible feedback. You really have made my day, indeed, my week. :)
Re: fb - New All Over (little wesley)
From:no subject
Date: 2007-07-27 06:41 pm (UTC)Nice work. I'd say more but I have to run off to meet a friend who's just had her wallet nicked. I shall be back to leave a better review.
Thank you for writing this. Awesome.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-10 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-08 08:40 pm (UTC)Wonderful story, and you had excellent characterization and character voices all the way through. Perfect.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-09 10:09 am (UTC)Daddy Wes
Date: 2008-05-10 10:59 pm (UTC)The inside on Faith is absolutely heart-breaking, and there is no way a person could not fall inlove with Liam's obsession with sheep. Not to mention it has bits of Uncle Spike :-D
You should also try Small Fry and Son of Small Fry. Especially Son of Small Fry, as it has LOTS of cute little Wesley and plenty of Gunn and Wes undertones. Not to mention the SWEETEST tiny little scene with Spike and little Tara. In fact MANY of cute scenes with the two. Both are by James Walkswithwind and Mad Poetess. I'm sure you've heard of the last two before, but just incase ... :-D
Re: Daddy Wes
Date: 2008-05-10 11:16 pm (UTC)Re: Daddy Wes
From:Oh and More wee!Liam
Date: 2008-05-10 11:05 pm (UTC)Almost missed this
-tAI
no subject
Date: 2008-09-06 09:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-24 10:15 pm (UTC)I love well-executed kidfic, no matter what the fandom. This is a lovely take on little!Wes. You seem to have captured what would make adult Wes the way he is when he arrives in Sunnydale. The other characters ring true as well, particularly the men.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-02 11:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-03 12:24 am (UTC)