Fic: The Aftermath (Angel the Series) [1/1]
Title: The Aftermath
Author: girlupnorth
Rating: PG-13
Length: 1,660 words
Fandom: Angel the Series
Characters: Wesley, Illyria, Spike, Angel, Lorne, Gunn, Cordelia, Fred, Connor, Lilah
Spoilers: AtS 5x22, Buffy 7x22, AU to After the Fall
Summary: There is yet hope for this world.
Warnings: character death(s), Biblical references, some angst
Notes: Many thanks to novin_ha for beta-reading.
In some moments, this story is a twin to novin_ha’s Koniec (despite having been conceived before I read novin_ha’s fic). Which only proves that great minds think alike.
The major concepts stem from Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, and possibly also Terry Pratchett’s Discworld.
The Aftermath
And there is no hell like an old hell - David Bowie, The Motel
They leave what used to be Los Angeles and is now a gaping hole in the ground in the early morning hours. In the front of the van, Spike is criticizing Gunn’s driving. In the back, Illyria watches impassively as Angel and Lorne are trying to tend to Wesley’s wounds.
Following the example set by Buffy, they blew up Los Angeles: an effective, if radical solution to all their problems. The miracle is not that they all survived, but that nobody except for Wesley was wounded.
The Senior Partners have lost all means of reaching this plane of existence, there is no Wolfram and Hart to speak of, and they are all alive (or as good as, in the case of Angel and Spike). There is yet hope for this world.
*
They install themselves in a small town in Nevada, in a house that belonged to Wolfram and Hart until just a few days ago. There are apple, pear, cherry and plum trees everywhere in this town, and they are all covered with fruit; an enchanting sight.
In the morning Gunn drags Wesley out for grocery shopping. Wes finds himself enjoying the fine weather and the presence of Illyria, who joins them without a word.
The old woman in the shop smiles at them when they reach the counter.
“New here, aren’t you?” she asks, packing their shopping into paper bags.
“Yeah, just arrived,” says Gunn.
The woman nods. “Thought I would’ve noticed a company like yours,” she says, and looks from blue-haired Illyria to wheelchair-bound Wesley. Then she returns to business, and names the sum on their bill.
“That’s a bit much,” says Wesley, and begins to search his pockets for some money.
“Sorry, love,” says the woman. “It’s the fruit - we have to get them from outside the city. Anything that grows here’s poisonous.”
“Tough luck,” comments Gunn.
*
They are greeted at the door by a very agitated Lorne.
“You’ll never guess who’s come to visit,” he says, rushing them inside.
He is right, they wouldn’t. On the couch, right next to a positively glowing Angel, there is Cordelia.
“Cordelia!” say both Wesley and Gunn, and the three of them greet among many exclamations and smiles. Illyria stays in the doorway, uncertain, distrustful, until Cordelia comes to her, and hugs her tightly.
“I’ve missed you all so much,” she says.
*
“There’s a message I have for you from The Powers That Be,” says Cordelia when they have finished eating an early dinner. “It seems that it is possible to return Fred to us after all.”
“What? How?” asks Wesley immediately.
The solution involves Angel and Spike siring a vampire out of Illyria. The new vampire is supposed to be merged with Illyria’s spirit, and removed to Illyria’s old temple at once, while Fred’s soul will be called from beyond to inhabit her body again.
It seems a certain, pain-free, TPTB-approved way of getting Fred back, so the vampires set to the task immediately.
And this is where it all goes wrong.
*
Cordelia’s words seem to be coming true at first. Having drunk blood out of Angel’s and Spike’s veins, Illyria reverts to Fred, losing the blue tinge to her skin and all supernatural powers. She opens her eyes and looks around for a moment, surprised, taking in all the familiar faces. Then she gets up and throws herself into Wesley’s arms.
They are all very happy, for a day. They go for a walk, sit in the park and bathe in the sun.
In the evening, Fred’s skin hardens and turns blue again.
“Wes?” she says, and Wesley’s heart clutches when he hears the fear in her voice. “What is happening to me? It hurts so much.”
*
“How could you allow this to happen?” Wesley asks through clenched teeth. Cordelia shrugs.
“This is what The Powers told me to do,” she says.
Wesley is not sure what happens next, but suddenly Spike’s hands are around Cordelia’s neck, and Cordelia gasps, suffocating, until her face turns as blue as this creature’s who is neither Fred nor Illyria, and whom they are now forced to live with.
The moment Cordelia is dead, Angel throws Spike against the wall, and stakes him before the other vampire has a chance to say a word.
“It hurts so much,” says Illyria in Fred’s voice, and Angel looks at her only once, before turning to leave the house.
When some time later Gunn arrives at the doorstep with a bullet hole in his stomach, bringing news that some locals killed Lorne and shot him, Wesley hides his head in his hands. He wants to pray for this nightmare to end, but can find no words to express his feelings.
*
Before the end of the week, they are all dead. Gunn, from the gunshot wound; Angel, from Fred's, or maybe Illyria’s hands; and the monstrous mixture of the woman he had loved and the God-King who stole her body, from Wesley’s own stake.
When it is all finished, Wesley goes for a walk, not caring about the wound in his side opening anew. He climbs a hill at the end of the town, and stands there for a while, looking at the moon between cherry trees.
He notices her upon turning to leave; she is leaning against a tree.
“Hello, Wesley,” she says, and he finally understands.
“This is hell, isn’t it?” he asks, and Lilah gives him an unhappy little smile.
“Well, what did you expect?” she asks.
*
This is what happens the first time around.
The second time, there is no turning Illyria into a vampire. When Gunn, Illyria and Wesley come home from their grocery shopping, they find Lorne and Cordelia dead. Angelus dusts Spike off himself, and then goes for them.
He snaps Gunn’s neck before the man even begins to fight. Then, however, he takes his time to torture Illyria, and Wesley has no choice but to watch.
The power released when Illyria dies manages to kill Angelus, and Wes, left to himself, goes for a walk to the hills.
On seeing Lilah, he manages to recall the first week of his stay in the city, and, furious, punches the tree until his fist turns bloody.
“You signed the contract,” says Lilah, and Wesley wonders if it is possible that he hears a tiniest note of sympathy in her voice. “You made your bed.”
“I know,” he says.
*
At one point, he meets Cordelia with a bloodied knife in her hands, telling him that he had read the prophecy wrong.
“The seer will kill the son,” she says with an infuriatingly calm smile. “And everyone else after that.”
At another, Cordelia brings him Fred, real Fred, who, however, does not even want to talk with him.
“You’ll hurt me, Wes,” she tells him, averting his eye. “You’ve hurt Lilah. She’s loved you, you know.”
Spike loses his soul; Gunn is turned into a vampire; Illyria returns to her natural form; Lorne’s subconscious breaks free and murders everyone around. Once, Connor arrives in town and slaughters them all, except for Wesley.
They suffer before they die, they always do. It is his fault, always his fault.
*
It is a quiet night when he stands on the top of the hill again.
Lilah waits for him under the cherry tree.
“How are you?” she asks, and Wesley shrugs. Here, on the hill, where he has the clarity of mind, it does not matter all that much.
Lilah goes towards the tree, and picks some cherries from a heavy branch.
“Want some?” she says, gesturing towards Wesley.
“They’re poisonous,” he replies, but takes the fruit nonetheless.
“They can’t hurt you, you know,” says Lilah. “You cannot leave hell.”
When he takes a cherry into his mouth, Lilah smirks.
*
Blood is rushing in his ears, black and white spots are dancing before his eyes.
There is an angry howl, and a double roar, coming from somewhere far away.
There is silence, and darkness.
There is the monotonous hum of the elevator, and red digits on the screen above the door.
The lift stops at the floor where all their offices are. Wesley gets out.
*
“Bloody hell,” says Spike.
Illyria comes towards Wesley, and for a longest while just stares, without blinking even once.
“He is alive,” she declares at last. “I felt him die, but he is alive again.”
“Yes, love, we’ve noticed,” tells her Spike. “Bloody hell.”
They look terrible, both of them, battered and bloodied. Illyria has a knife mark through the left side of her face, and Spike’s features are disfigured by black-and-blue bruises.
Angel is sitting behind this desk, and when he doesn’t get up, Wesley realizes he must have been hurt as badly as those two.
“Where’s Gunn?” he asks, to say something.
“On a table in the lab,” says Angel, and, on Wesley’s look, adds, “Healing. We had nowhere else to put him.”
“And Lorne?”
“Missing,” says Illyria. She still stands just a foot away from Wesley, staring at him intently.
Wes thinks a moment before asking the next question, but there is no way to avoid it.
“Have we won?”
“Had any doubts about it?” asks Spike, and then laughs manically. “Four people against a giant horde of demons. Right. Good thing this one”- he gestures towards Illyria -“recalled how to use her powers, and got us out of there in time.”
“We didn’t lose, though,” says Angel, stubbornly. “There will be more battles.”
Wesley turns towards Illyria, who looks as if she wanted to say something. She hesitates, and then closes her mouth. Instead, in what seems like a conscious effort, she moves the muscles of her face to form a smile. It is uncertain and a little shy, and so very much like Fred’s smiles.
Wes closes his eyes and smiles, because there is nothing else to do.
There is no hell like the old hell.
Author: girlupnorth
Rating: PG-13
Length: 1,660 words
Fandom: Angel the Series
Characters: Wesley, Illyria, Spike, Angel, Lorne, Gunn, Cordelia, Fred, Connor, Lilah
Spoilers: AtS 5x22, Buffy 7x22, AU to After the Fall
Summary: There is yet hope for this world.
Warnings: character death(s), Biblical references, some angst
Notes: Many thanks to novin_ha for beta-reading.
In some moments, this story is a twin to novin_ha’s Koniec (despite having been conceived before I read novin_ha’s fic). Which only proves that great minds think alike.
The major concepts stem from Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, and possibly also Terry Pratchett’s Discworld.
The Aftermath
And there is no hell like an old hell - David Bowie, The Motel
They leave what used to be Los Angeles and is now a gaping hole in the ground in the early morning hours. In the front of the van, Spike is criticizing Gunn’s driving. In the back, Illyria watches impassively as Angel and Lorne are trying to tend to Wesley’s wounds.
Following the example set by Buffy, they blew up Los Angeles: an effective, if radical solution to all their problems. The miracle is not that they all survived, but that nobody except for Wesley was wounded.
The Senior Partners have lost all means of reaching this plane of existence, there is no Wolfram and Hart to speak of, and they are all alive (or as good as, in the case of Angel and Spike). There is yet hope for this world.
*
They install themselves in a small town in Nevada, in a house that belonged to Wolfram and Hart until just a few days ago. There are apple, pear, cherry and plum trees everywhere in this town, and they are all covered with fruit; an enchanting sight.
In the morning Gunn drags Wesley out for grocery shopping. Wes finds himself enjoying the fine weather and the presence of Illyria, who joins them without a word.
The old woman in the shop smiles at them when they reach the counter.
“New here, aren’t you?” she asks, packing their shopping into paper bags.
“Yeah, just arrived,” says Gunn.
The woman nods. “Thought I would’ve noticed a company like yours,” she says, and looks from blue-haired Illyria to wheelchair-bound Wesley. Then she returns to business, and names the sum on their bill.
“That’s a bit much,” says Wesley, and begins to search his pockets for some money.
“Sorry, love,” says the woman. “It’s the fruit - we have to get them from outside the city. Anything that grows here’s poisonous.”
“Tough luck,” comments Gunn.
*
They are greeted at the door by a very agitated Lorne.
“You’ll never guess who’s come to visit,” he says, rushing them inside.
He is right, they wouldn’t. On the couch, right next to a positively glowing Angel, there is Cordelia.
“Cordelia!” say both Wesley and Gunn, and the three of them greet among many exclamations and smiles. Illyria stays in the doorway, uncertain, distrustful, until Cordelia comes to her, and hugs her tightly.
“I’ve missed you all so much,” she says.
*
“There’s a message I have for you from The Powers That Be,” says Cordelia when they have finished eating an early dinner. “It seems that it is possible to return Fred to us after all.”
“What? How?” asks Wesley immediately.
The solution involves Angel and Spike siring a vampire out of Illyria. The new vampire is supposed to be merged with Illyria’s spirit, and removed to Illyria’s old temple at once, while Fred’s soul will be called from beyond to inhabit her body again.
It seems a certain, pain-free, TPTB-approved way of getting Fred back, so the vampires set to the task immediately.
And this is where it all goes wrong.
*
Cordelia’s words seem to be coming true at first. Having drunk blood out of Angel’s and Spike’s veins, Illyria reverts to Fred, losing the blue tinge to her skin and all supernatural powers. She opens her eyes and looks around for a moment, surprised, taking in all the familiar faces. Then she gets up and throws herself into Wesley’s arms.
They are all very happy, for a day. They go for a walk, sit in the park and bathe in the sun.
In the evening, Fred’s skin hardens and turns blue again.
“Wes?” she says, and Wesley’s heart clutches when he hears the fear in her voice. “What is happening to me? It hurts so much.”
*
“How could you allow this to happen?” Wesley asks through clenched teeth. Cordelia shrugs.
“This is what The Powers told me to do,” she says.
Wesley is not sure what happens next, but suddenly Spike’s hands are around Cordelia’s neck, and Cordelia gasps, suffocating, until her face turns as blue as this creature’s who is neither Fred nor Illyria, and whom they are now forced to live with.
The moment Cordelia is dead, Angel throws Spike against the wall, and stakes him before the other vampire has a chance to say a word.
“It hurts so much,” says Illyria in Fred’s voice, and Angel looks at her only once, before turning to leave the house.
When some time later Gunn arrives at the doorstep with a bullet hole in his stomach, bringing news that some locals killed Lorne and shot him, Wesley hides his head in his hands. He wants to pray for this nightmare to end, but can find no words to express his feelings.
*
Before the end of the week, they are all dead. Gunn, from the gunshot wound; Angel, from Fred's, or maybe Illyria’s hands; and the monstrous mixture of the woman he had loved and the God-King who stole her body, from Wesley’s own stake.
When it is all finished, Wesley goes for a walk, not caring about the wound in his side opening anew. He climbs a hill at the end of the town, and stands there for a while, looking at the moon between cherry trees.
He notices her upon turning to leave; she is leaning against a tree.
“Hello, Wesley,” she says, and he finally understands.
“This is hell, isn’t it?” he asks, and Lilah gives him an unhappy little smile.
“Well, what did you expect?” she asks.
*
This is what happens the first time around.
The second time, there is no turning Illyria into a vampire. When Gunn, Illyria and Wesley come home from their grocery shopping, they find Lorne and Cordelia dead. Angelus dusts Spike off himself, and then goes for them.
He snaps Gunn’s neck before the man even begins to fight. Then, however, he takes his time to torture Illyria, and Wesley has no choice but to watch.
The power released when Illyria dies manages to kill Angelus, and Wes, left to himself, goes for a walk to the hills.
On seeing Lilah, he manages to recall the first week of his stay in the city, and, furious, punches the tree until his fist turns bloody.
“You signed the contract,” says Lilah, and Wesley wonders if it is possible that he hears a tiniest note of sympathy in her voice. “You made your bed.”
“I know,” he says.
*
At one point, he meets Cordelia with a bloodied knife in her hands, telling him that he had read the prophecy wrong.
“The seer will kill the son,” she says with an infuriatingly calm smile. “And everyone else after that.”
At another, Cordelia brings him Fred, real Fred, who, however, does not even want to talk with him.
“You’ll hurt me, Wes,” she tells him, averting his eye. “You’ve hurt Lilah. She’s loved you, you know.”
Spike loses his soul; Gunn is turned into a vampire; Illyria returns to her natural form; Lorne’s subconscious breaks free and murders everyone around. Once, Connor arrives in town and slaughters them all, except for Wesley.
They suffer before they die, they always do. It is his fault, always his fault.
*
It is a quiet night when he stands on the top of the hill again.
Lilah waits for him under the cherry tree.
“How are you?” she asks, and Wesley shrugs. Here, on the hill, where he has the clarity of mind, it does not matter all that much.
Lilah goes towards the tree, and picks some cherries from a heavy branch.
“Want some?” she says, gesturing towards Wesley.
“They’re poisonous,” he replies, but takes the fruit nonetheless.
“They can’t hurt you, you know,” says Lilah. “You cannot leave hell.”
When he takes a cherry into his mouth, Lilah smirks.
*
Blood is rushing in his ears, black and white spots are dancing before his eyes.
There is an angry howl, and a double roar, coming from somewhere far away.
There is silence, and darkness.
There is the monotonous hum of the elevator, and red digits on the screen above the door.
The lift stops at the floor where all their offices are. Wesley gets out.
*
“Bloody hell,” says Spike.
Illyria comes towards Wesley, and for a longest while just stares, without blinking even once.
“He is alive,” she declares at last. “I felt him die, but he is alive again.”
“Yes, love, we’ve noticed,” tells her Spike. “Bloody hell.”
They look terrible, both of them, battered and bloodied. Illyria has a knife mark through the left side of her face, and Spike’s features are disfigured by black-and-blue bruises.
Angel is sitting behind this desk, and when he doesn’t get up, Wesley realizes he must have been hurt as badly as those two.
“Where’s Gunn?” he asks, to say something.
“On a table in the lab,” says Angel, and, on Wesley’s look, adds, “Healing. We had nowhere else to put him.”
“And Lorne?”
“Missing,” says Illyria. She still stands just a foot away from Wesley, staring at him intently.
Wes thinks a moment before asking the next question, but there is no way to avoid it.
“Have we won?”
“Had any doubts about it?” asks Spike, and then laughs manically. “Four people against a giant horde of demons. Right. Good thing this one”- he gestures towards Illyria -“recalled how to use her powers, and got us out of there in time.”
“We didn’t lose, though,” says Angel, stubbornly. “There will be more battles.”
Wesley turns towards Illyria, who looks as if she wanted to say something. She hesitates, and then closes her mouth. Instead, in what seems like a conscious effort, she moves the muscles of her face to form a smile. It is uncertain and a little shy, and so very much like Fred’s smiles.
Wes closes his eyes and smiles, because there is nothing else to do.
There is no hell like the old hell.