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Temps Perdu, Part Three
Angel took most of Wesley’s weight as they made their way back to the bedroom. It was a little scary, although not unexpected, the way Wesley’s energy tended to run through the soles of his feet after about an hour of being up and about. It was frustrating for him, but it did at least prevent him from overtaxing himself, his body’s way of insisting that he rested.
“Is Illyria…?” Wesley winced. “I have a feeling I treated her rather badly. There were so many gaps in my memory.”
“She claims not to have human feelings, remember?” Angel had never liked Illyria and he wasn’t going to start changing his mind now. “Humans are dust motes and mayflies and she’s so far above them that they’re just ants to her. Except for you, who, for some reason, she has a bit of a thing for.”
“That’s not very grammatical,” Wesley murmured.
“You need to undress.” Angel arrested his graceful fall towards the bed. “You don’t have to sleep in your clothes anymore, remember?”
“Oh yes.” Wesley looked down at his shirt and jeans and sighed. “Perhaps Buffy has a point about those pyjamas.”
Angel had to unbutton and unzip him and more or less peel him out his clothes, so low had Wesley’s energy levels fallen during his time up. “From now on, you can stay up for an hour at a time and that’s it.”
“Don’t you start nagging, too.”
“Hey.” Angel gazed intently into his eyes. “Remember, I know what you went through in that place.”
“It wasn’t so bad.” Freed from his clothes, Wesley crawled gratefully under the covers. “You were there....”
He was asleep as his head hit the pillow. Angel bent down and stroked a hand through his hair; it felt strange to feel it clean and short again after so long that it had been tangled and too long; he almost missed the familiar texture of those dreadlocks at the back. He suspected Willow had worked some kind of untangling spell on them when she’d been removing the sigils; a pain relief spell as well.
“How is the one called Wesley?”
He felt that familiar chill at Illyria’s presence. This must be what it was like for humans when he showed up without a reflection to announce him - a demon with no scent, no warmth, no sound. But when he turned to look, her gaze was fixed on Wesley wistfully.
“Still tired but getting better.”
Illyria came into the room, head tilted, unblinking pale blue eyes always focused on Wesley; her thin body in its leather clothing even less of an indicator of her true strength than Buffy’s slender form.
The glance she darted at Angel was suspicious and hostile. “Why do you share a bed chamber with him? Is he your catamite now? Do you use him for your pleasure?”
Angel glowered at her, not troubling to hide his dislike. “I share a bed with him because he has nightmares that only I can help him with, because only I was there with him and understand what his nightmares are about.”
She flinched. “It is wrong that demons should be trapped inside the heads of humans.”
“In this world they’re not.” Angel was glad to see Giles in the doorway, as he had often been glad to see Giles in recent days, the man quietly intervening when Wesley had truly had enough, or being there to lend a hand or a word of advice when Angel was fretting over his recovery. “In this world they’re our way of working through the conflicts in our subconscious mind, dealing with grief and fear and love and hate.”
“Then these nightmares are unstable and deceptive.” Illyria crossed to the bed and gazed down at Wesley with something that was almost tenderness. “We were not enemies when he left.”
“We’re not enemies, Illyria,” Wesley murmured, although Angel wasn’t sure if he was even awake. “We’re allies of a sort.”
She sat upon the bed and reached out tentatively to touch his face. “There is heat where the skin is discoloured; you heal so slowly. How could you ever have come to rule this world?”
“A mass extinction wiped out our nearest competitor leading to the rise of the mammals,” Wesley mumbled into the pillow, going into auto-teach mode apparently even from the depths of sleep. “And changes of habitat caused the ape-like ancestors of homo erectus to make their way down from the trees, the need to see approaching predators leading to walking upon two legs, freeing up the hands to increase dexterity, the fashioning of tools leading to....”
She bent and pressed her mouth against his, fierce and yet still tender. Angel barely resisted the urge to punch her hard in the head, because it might feel like Fred’s lips against his, rather than the demon who had killed her, and it might undo all that careful sanity he had worked to keep inside Wesley’s occasionally fragile head. She pulled away from the kiss as if ashamed. “Is this all you have evolved to become?” she whispered angrily. “Unstable creatures, driven by hormones and strange fancies? Your weakness is a contagion. It contaminates even the strong.”
Angel took her by the arm and pulled her away from him. “Illyria. Get over yourself. You stole a human body when you decided to come back into the world, of course it’s going to affect the way your…essence manifested itself this time around. Just as Wesley in a hell dimension couldn’t hang onto everything he was in this world. We adapt to survive. He needed to be a little insane over there just as he needed to be a little insane after you killed the woman he loved and he found out I’d taken away half of his most important memories. Now he needs to be normal. He needs people who want to fuss over him and give him cookies. He doesn’t need the blue-haired god-king of the universe pontificating at him while wearing his dead lover’s corpse as a skin. Got it?”
She looked down her beautifully proportioned nose at him. “You speak out of jealousy. You have always wanted Wesley as your own. Your disciple. Your follower. Yours to command. Always you have desired that he should love only you.”
“Oh, that’s rich coming from ‘bow down before me, o minions of the earth’ girl. In case it’s slipped your mind, you killed Wesley; stabbed him in the back when he was trying to save your life.”
“And it bothers you, doesn’t it? That he lied to you to protect me…?”
“Now isn’t the time,” Giles said sharply. “And it certainly isn’t the place. Wesley needs his sleep.”
“Giles is right,” Angel told her shortly. “Get out.”
“Why may you watch over him but I may not?”
“Because - news flash - this is my bedroom, not yours.”
“It is because you desire to make him entirely yours. Your motives are not disinterested.”
“Out!” Giles said. “Both of you.”
“It’s my bedroom!” Angel protested.
“I don’t care. Wesley’s my responsibility. He’s exhausted and he needs to rest. Something he can’t do while you two are playing the Caucasian Chalk Circle over his head.”
Illyria rose to her full height, gazing at Giles disdainfully. “What is this circle you speak of? Is there a ritual that needs to be performed?”
Giles ushered them both out of the room, Illyria lofty, Angel sulky, closed the door on Wesley and said quietly, “It’s a play by Brecht. Two women dispute over which should keep a little boy they both love, one of them his true mother. It’s agreed that they place him in a chalk circle upon the ground, each takes hold of him and whoever pulls him from the circle can keep him. The mother, however, loves him too much to pull him with all her strength, fearing he will be torn in two.” He looked between them. “Wesley is slowly getting better but he has enough conflicts of his own to process without having to deal with yours as well.”
“You speak like him. Are you of the same tribe?”
“You could put it like that, yes.”
“And as an elder of his tribe you consent that this vampire should be his protector and bedmate?”
Giles looked at Angel and said quietly, “I consent.”
Illyria turned away. “Wesley has told me that I must accept the customs of this world even when they are foolish. If even the elders of his tribe think the vampire is trustworthy then I may concede my claim to his. But it should be remembered that Wesley himself lost his trust for you after you betrayed him to the Wolf Ram and Hart for the sake of your own kin.”
She moved away, decisive and graceful, and Angel rolled his eyes. “As demons go I really wish Illyria would.”
“What did she mean?” Giles demanded. “When did you betray Wesley?”
“I was trying to protect him as well as Connor. There were memories that weren’t doing him any good.”
“Of when he tried to save your baby and ended up losing him? I remember you didn’t take it well.”
“I’d lost my son, Giles. I was mad with grief. My baby boy had just been taken into a hell dimension from which as far as I knew there was no coming back.”
“I wish Wesley had contacted me over that business. I’m sure it wasn’t good for him to be alone. These are the memories you took from Wesley? This is the betrayal Illyria speaks of?”
“Those and a whole lot more. Everything to do with Connor I took from him. No guilt, no responsibility, no memory that he and I were ever anything except friends.”
“A lie,” Giles said coldly.
“A kind lie.” Angel shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand. Connor had lost it. He was over the edge. He was going to kill himself, Cordelia, and a whole lot of innocent bystanders. I couldn’t let that happen. I made the deal with Wolfram & Hart and…”
“I lost my integrity, Wes lost his sanity, and Fred lost her life.”
They both turned to find Gunn standing in the corridor. “The only winner from that deal was Connor, Angel. That’s the reality. When it came to him or us, you chose him. And I don’t even blame you for wanting him to have a new life at any cost. But I still don’t get why you couldn’t let us keep our memories of him.”
“It sounds as if Illyria isn’t the only one around here who likes to play god.” Giles gazed at Angel levelly. “Perhaps you were trying to protect them from themselves, but also from the memories of how you had ill-used them.”
“I told Wes things were okay between us,” Angel told him shortly. “I sought him out and I told him that. I never mentioned what he’d done again. We’ve never discussed it since. He never told me he was sorry for taking Connor and I never told him that I was sorry for trying to kill him. It’s water under the bridge.”
Gunn met his gaze. “We are our memories, Angel, and you left us floating in hostile waters without a compass. We lost ourselves because we weren’t ourselves any more; only the parts of us you chose to leave.”
“Wes went crazy after he got his memories back.”
“He’d already worked through those events, Angel. You weren’t protecting him. Just laying up trouble. But that’s the past and in the present you’re the guy who kept him alive in a hell dimension and who he needs now more than he needs the rest of us.”
“Hey....” They turned to find Willow and Buffy standing at the end of the corridor weighed down with shopping bags. The redheaded witch was frowning. “We leave the hotel for a few hours and when we come back it’s all angry and accusations....”
“Illyria was here,” Angel said. “She’s always bad news.”
Giles said, “It seems Angel and Illyria have a grudge match over Wesley. Both think the other is an evil bitch with a god complex. Both have something of a point.”
“Hey!” Angel protested.
Gunn reached out and hit his fist lightly against Giles’ hand in approval, before heading off.
Willow glowered at Angel. “Well, I don’t think you should be filling the hotel with bad vibes when Wesley is so sensitive to his surroundings. He needs to be recovering in a place of positive energy and…”
“Good vibrations,” Buffy supplied.
Giles looked at her in disbelief. “You think playing old Beach Boys hits is going to be just the tonic he needs?”
“You could be quiet now,” she told him. “In fact there could be no one speaking but Willow and I for quite long periods of time and that would be only of the good.”
“Someone else with a god complex,” Giles murmured. “I wonder if it’s contagious?”
As they headed for Angel’s bedroom, Angel caught Willow’s arm. “He’s asleep.”
She held up their shopping bags. “But we have jammies!”
“He can wear then when he wakes up. I promise I’ll even make him wear the robe that you’re bound to have bought to go with them - as long as it isn’t pink or in any way fluffy.”
“It’s blue and warm,” Buffy returned. “And he’ll look really cute in it.”
Giles sighed. “Do try to remember he’s a grown man, Buffy. The poor chap has enough identity and self-esteem issues as it is without you entirely undermining his sense of self.”
“I’ll put up with you buying him clothes,” Angel added. “But you don’t get to dress him.”
Buffy pouted. “Angel gets all the fun.”
“One of the benefits of being sent to hell twice. I get to see my friend’s scar tissue before anyone else, not to mention count every rib. Lucky me.”
Buffy and Willow looked at one another and sighed then handed over the shopping bags.
“We were in a happy pyjama-buying place,” Willow reproached him.
“Yeah, you really know how to bring the brood in,” Buffy added.
“He’s a vampire with a soul, Buffy,” Giles sighed. “What do you expect from him? A cabaret act?”
“Lorne’s a demon. He can still mix a neat cocktail and perform a rousing medley of show tunes.”
“I suspect that as demons go, Lorne is probably a one-off.”
“I certainly am and accept no substitutes.”
Turning around once again, Giles thought he was going to get a permanent crick in his neck if people kept arriving from different ends of the corridor.
Lorne plucked the shopping bags from Angel. “I’m going to check on Wesley. I may sing him a lullaby. Either way I’ll be sending out positive vibes, a total absence of brooding, and, unlike some people in this corridor who really ought to know better, I won’t be trying to sneak a peek at his naked body.”
“I don’t…” Angel began and then realized that it was Willow and Buffy who were shuffling their feet and looking guilty under the force of Lorne’s glare. “Fine.” He shrugged. “Knock yourself out. You go and keep watch over Wes - just don’t let Illyria in there or she’ll be pawing at him again.”
As Angel went off, Lorne shook his head. “Those two have serious sharing issues.” He held up the shopping bags. “I’m sure you’ve shopped wisely and well, my cherubs. And in a few short hours you get the pay-off of seeing Wesley all warm and clean and snug in his jammikins. Until then, this corridor is a no fly zone. Wes needs his sleep and you all need to leave him the hell alone.”
Giles found himself shooed back down the corridor in the company of a despondent Buffy and Willow; Gunn, Illyria and Angel presumably all having taken themselves off to other parts of the Hyperion to brood. Thinking of the various conflicts he’d just witnessed, Giles shook his head. “I swear these people make even the Scoobies look sane....”
***
Temps Perdu, Part Three
Angel took most of Wesley’s weight as they made their way back to the bedroom. It was a little scary, although not unexpected, the way Wesley’s energy tended to run through the soles of his feet after about an hour of being up and about. It was frustrating for him, but it did at least prevent him from overtaxing himself, his body’s way of insisting that he rested.
“Is Illyria…?” Wesley winced. “I have a feeling I treated her rather badly. There were so many gaps in my memory.”
“She claims not to have human feelings, remember?” Angel had never liked Illyria and he wasn’t going to start changing his mind now. “Humans are dust motes and mayflies and she’s so far above them that they’re just ants to her. Except for you, who, for some reason, she has a bit of a thing for.”
“That’s not very grammatical,” Wesley murmured.
“You need to undress.” Angel arrested his graceful fall towards the bed. “You don’t have to sleep in your clothes anymore, remember?”
“Oh yes.” Wesley looked down at his shirt and jeans and sighed. “Perhaps Buffy has a point about those pyjamas.”
Angel had to unbutton and unzip him and more or less peel him out his clothes, so low had Wesley’s energy levels fallen during his time up. “From now on, you can stay up for an hour at a time and that’s it.”
“Don’t you start nagging, too.”
“Hey.” Angel gazed intently into his eyes. “Remember, I know what you went through in that place.”
“It wasn’t so bad.” Freed from his clothes, Wesley crawled gratefully under the covers. “You were there....”
He was asleep as his head hit the pillow. Angel bent down and stroked a hand through his hair; it felt strange to feel it clean and short again after so long that it had been tangled and too long; he almost missed the familiar texture of those dreadlocks at the back. He suspected Willow had worked some kind of untangling spell on them when she’d been removing the sigils; a pain relief spell as well.
“How is the one called Wesley?”
He felt that familiar chill at Illyria’s presence. This must be what it was like for humans when he showed up without a reflection to announce him - a demon with no scent, no warmth, no sound. But when he turned to look, her gaze was fixed on Wesley wistfully.
“Still tired but getting better.”
Illyria came into the room, head tilted, unblinking pale blue eyes always focused on Wesley; her thin body in its leather clothing even less of an indicator of her true strength than Buffy’s slender form.
The glance she darted at Angel was suspicious and hostile. “Why do you share a bed chamber with him? Is he your catamite now? Do you use him for your pleasure?”
Angel glowered at her, not troubling to hide his dislike. “I share a bed with him because he has nightmares that only I can help him with, because only I was there with him and understand what his nightmares are about.”
She flinched. “It is wrong that demons should be trapped inside the heads of humans.”
“In this world they’re not.” Angel was glad to see Giles in the doorway, as he had often been glad to see Giles in recent days, the man quietly intervening when Wesley had truly had enough, or being there to lend a hand or a word of advice when Angel was fretting over his recovery. “In this world they’re our way of working through the conflicts in our subconscious mind, dealing with grief and fear and love and hate.”
“Then these nightmares are unstable and deceptive.” Illyria crossed to the bed and gazed down at Wesley with something that was almost tenderness. “We were not enemies when he left.”
“We’re not enemies, Illyria,” Wesley murmured, although Angel wasn’t sure if he was even awake. “We’re allies of a sort.”
She sat upon the bed and reached out tentatively to touch his face. “There is heat where the skin is discoloured; you heal so slowly. How could you ever have come to rule this world?”
“A mass extinction wiped out our nearest competitor leading to the rise of the mammals,” Wesley mumbled into the pillow, going into auto-teach mode apparently even from the depths of sleep. “And changes of habitat caused the ape-like ancestors of homo erectus to make their way down from the trees, the need to see approaching predators leading to walking upon two legs, freeing up the hands to increase dexterity, the fashioning of tools leading to....”
She bent and pressed her mouth against his, fierce and yet still tender. Angel barely resisted the urge to punch her hard in the head, because it might feel like Fred’s lips against his, rather than the demon who had killed her, and it might undo all that careful sanity he had worked to keep inside Wesley’s occasionally fragile head. She pulled away from the kiss as if ashamed. “Is this all you have evolved to become?” she whispered angrily. “Unstable creatures, driven by hormones and strange fancies? Your weakness is a contagion. It contaminates even the strong.”
Angel took her by the arm and pulled her away from him. “Illyria. Get over yourself. You stole a human body when you decided to come back into the world, of course it’s going to affect the way your…essence manifested itself this time around. Just as Wesley in a hell dimension couldn’t hang onto everything he was in this world. We adapt to survive. He needed to be a little insane over there just as he needed to be a little insane after you killed the woman he loved and he found out I’d taken away half of his most important memories. Now he needs to be normal. He needs people who want to fuss over him and give him cookies. He doesn’t need the blue-haired god-king of the universe pontificating at him while wearing his dead lover’s corpse as a skin. Got it?”
She looked down her beautifully proportioned nose at him. “You speak out of jealousy. You have always wanted Wesley as your own. Your disciple. Your follower. Yours to command. Always you have desired that he should love only you.”
“Oh, that’s rich coming from ‘bow down before me, o minions of the earth’ girl. In case it’s slipped your mind, you killed Wesley; stabbed him in the back when he was trying to save your life.”
“And it bothers you, doesn’t it? That he lied to you to protect me…?”
“Now isn’t the time,” Giles said sharply. “And it certainly isn’t the place. Wesley needs his sleep.”
“Giles is right,” Angel told her shortly. “Get out.”
“Why may you watch over him but I may not?”
“Because - news flash - this is my bedroom, not yours.”
“It is because you desire to make him entirely yours. Your motives are not disinterested.”
“Out!” Giles said. “Both of you.”
“It’s my bedroom!” Angel protested.
“I don’t care. Wesley’s my responsibility. He’s exhausted and he needs to rest. Something he can’t do while you two are playing the Caucasian Chalk Circle over his head.”
Illyria rose to her full height, gazing at Giles disdainfully. “What is this circle you speak of? Is there a ritual that needs to be performed?”
Giles ushered them both out of the room, Illyria lofty, Angel sulky, closed the door on Wesley and said quietly, “It’s a play by Brecht. Two women dispute over which should keep a little boy they both love, one of them his true mother. It’s agreed that they place him in a chalk circle upon the ground, each takes hold of him and whoever pulls him from the circle can keep him. The mother, however, loves him too much to pull him with all her strength, fearing he will be torn in two.” He looked between them. “Wesley is slowly getting better but he has enough conflicts of his own to process without having to deal with yours as well.”
“You speak like him. Are you of the same tribe?”
“You could put it like that, yes.”
“And as an elder of his tribe you consent that this vampire should be his protector and bedmate?”
Giles looked at Angel and said quietly, “I consent.”
Illyria turned away. “Wesley has told me that I must accept the customs of this world even when they are foolish. If even the elders of his tribe think the vampire is trustworthy then I may concede my claim to his. But it should be remembered that Wesley himself lost his trust for you after you betrayed him to the Wolf Ram and Hart for the sake of your own kin.”
She moved away, decisive and graceful, and Angel rolled his eyes. “As demons go I really wish Illyria would.”
“What did she mean?” Giles demanded. “When did you betray Wesley?”
“I was trying to protect him as well as Connor. There were memories that weren’t doing him any good.”
“Of when he tried to save your baby and ended up losing him? I remember you didn’t take it well.”
“I’d lost my son, Giles. I was mad with grief. My baby boy had just been taken into a hell dimension from which as far as I knew there was no coming back.”
“I wish Wesley had contacted me over that business. I’m sure it wasn’t good for him to be alone. These are the memories you took from Wesley? This is the betrayal Illyria speaks of?”
“Those and a whole lot more. Everything to do with Connor I took from him. No guilt, no responsibility, no memory that he and I were ever anything except friends.”
“A lie,” Giles said coldly.
“A kind lie.” Angel shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand. Connor had lost it. He was over the edge. He was going to kill himself, Cordelia, and a whole lot of innocent bystanders. I couldn’t let that happen. I made the deal with Wolfram & Hart and…”
“I lost my integrity, Wes lost his sanity, and Fred lost her life.”
They both turned to find Gunn standing in the corridor. “The only winner from that deal was Connor, Angel. That’s the reality. When it came to him or us, you chose him. And I don’t even blame you for wanting him to have a new life at any cost. But I still don’t get why you couldn’t let us keep our memories of him.”
“It sounds as if Illyria isn’t the only one around here who likes to play god.” Giles gazed at Angel levelly. “Perhaps you were trying to protect them from themselves, but also from the memories of how you had ill-used them.”
“I told Wes things were okay between us,” Angel told him shortly. “I sought him out and I told him that. I never mentioned what he’d done again. We’ve never discussed it since. He never told me he was sorry for taking Connor and I never told him that I was sorry for trying to kill him. It’s water under the bridge.”
Gunn met his gaze. “We are our memories, Angel, and you left us floating in hostile waters without a compass. We lost ourselves because we weren’t ourselves any more; only the parts of us you chose to leave.”
“Wes went crazy after he got his memories back.”
“He’d already worked through those events, Angel. You weren’t protecting him. Just laying up trouble. But that’s the past and in the present you’re the guy who kept him alive in a hell dimension and who he needs now more than he needs the rest of us.”
“Hey....” They turned to find Willow and Buffy standing at the end of the corridor weighed down with shopping bags. The redheaded witch was frowning. “We leave the hotel for a few hours and when we come back it’s all angry and accusations....”
“Illyria was here,” Angel said. “She’s always bad news.”
Giles said, “It seems Angel and Illyria have a grudge match over Wesley. Both think the other is an evil bitch with a god complex. Both have something of a point.”
“Hey!” Angel protested.
Gunn reached out and hit his fist lightly against Giles’ hand in approval, before heading off.
Willow glowered at Angel. “Well, I don’t think you should be filling the hotel with bad vibes when Wesley is so sensitive to his surroundings. He needs to be recovering in a place of positive energy and…”
“Good vibrations,” Buffy supplied.
Giles looked at her in disbelief. “You think playing old Beach Boys hits is going to be just the tonic he needs?”
“You could be quiet now,” she told him. “In fact there could be no one speaking but Willow and I for quite long periods of time and that would be only of the good.”
“Someone else with a god complex,” Giles murmured. “I wonder if it’s contagious?”
As they headed for Angel’s bedroom, Angel caught Willow’s arm. “He’s asleep.”
She held up their shopping bags. “But we have jammies!”
“He can wear then when he wakes up. I promise I’ll even make him wear the robe that you’re bound to have bought to go with them - as long as it isn’t pink or in any way fluffy.”
“It’s blue and warm,” Buffy returned. “And he’ll look really cute in it.”
Giles sighed. “Do try to remember he’s a grown man, Buffy. The poor chap has enough identity and self-esteem issues as it is without you entirely undermining his sense of self.”
“I’ll put up with you buying him clothes,” Angel added. “But you don’t get to dress him.”
Buffy pouted. “Angel gets all the fun.”
“One of the benefits of being sent to hell twice. I get to see my friend’s scar tissue before anyone else, not to mention count every rib. Lucky me.”
Buffy and Willow looked at one another and sighed then handed over the shopping bags.
“We were in a happy pyjama-buying place,” Willow reproached him.
“Yeah, you really know how to bring the brood in,” Buffy added.
“He’s a vampire with a soul, Buffy,” Giles sighed. “What do you expect from him? A cabaret act?”
“Lorne’s a demon. He can still mix a neat cocktail and perform a rousing medley of show tunes.”
“I suspect that as demons go, Lorne is probably a one-off.”
“I certainly am and accept no substitutes.”
Turning around once again, Giles thought he was going to get a permanent crick in his neck if people kept arriving from different ends of the corridor.
Lorne plucked the shopping bags from Angel. “I’m going to check on Wesley. I may sing him a lullaby. Either way I’ll be sending out positive vibes, a total absence of brooding, and, unlike some people in this corridor who really ought to know better, I won’t be trying to sneak a peek at his naked body.”
“I don’t…” Angel began and then realized that it was Willow and Buffy who were shuffling their feet and looking guilty under the force of Lorne’s glare. “Fine.” He shrugged. “Knock yourself out. You go and keep watch over Wes - just don’t let Illyria in there or she’ll be pawing at him again.”
As Angel went off, Lorne shook his head. “Those two have serious sharing issues.” He held up the shopping bags. “I’m sure you’ve shopped wisely and well, my cherubs. And in a few short hours you get the pay-off of seeing Wesley all warm and clean and snug in his jammikins. Until then, this corridor is a no fly zone. Wes needs his sleep and you all need to leave him the hell alone.”
Giles found himself shooed back down the corridor in the company of a despondent Buffy and Willow; Gunn, Illyria and Angel presumably all having taken themselves off to other parts of the Hyperion to brood. Thinking of the various conflicts he’d just witnessed, Giles shook his head. “I swear these people make even the Scoobies look sane....”
***