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Harrogate Part Two

Willow sipped yet another cup of hospital dispensing machine tea and reminded herself that it would be an abuse of magic to make it drinkable. She looked across at Gunn again, just checking that his chest was still rising and falling the way it was meant to. They had given up trying to get Wesley to stay in his bed. She had used reason and understanding and Giles had used exasperation and Wesley had just looked through them until they stopped making that incomprehensible and irrelevant noise, and then returned once more to the chair by Gunn’s bed. If he was left unattended he lay down on the bed next to Gunn and curled up next to him. The last time it had happened the nurse had told them they would have to be separated if Wesley couldn’t restrain himself. Today, Wesley had fallen asleep in the uncomfortable visitor’s chair his head resting on his arms slumped half onto Gunn’s bed.

She suspected that some part of Wesley was still in the process of making its way back from the Other Side. At least she hoped it was on its way, because his perception of reality, not to mention time, didn’t seem to have made the trip back with him. He kept looking at things over their shoulders, giving half-smiles of recognition to things that weren’t there. She didn’t know if he was remembering the past or was just in a whole ‘I see dead people’ place. She missed Xander.

The guilt kicked in a second after that thought because she knew Kennedy was probably missing her right now, and yet she was missing Xander. She wanted someone to discuss this situation with who wouldn’t either obsess about Angel and what had happened to him, ask questions she couldn’t answer about what it all meant, or be so weighed down with guilt and responsibility that he was turning grey with it. Someone who made inappropriate jokes and performed small acts of unexpected kindness. Someone who wasn’t in Africa right now.

She had called Buffy, of course, to tell her the little they knew. Buffy had offered to come back from Italy but Willow hadn’t really seen the point of the girl flying all this way to keep her company in a hospital room for two sick people that Buffy didn’t really know, or in the case of Wesley, really didn’t like that much either. The conversation had been awkward, Buffy trying so hard not to make this All About Angel, but ultimately, that was where her interest lay. Had Angel survived? Had Spike? Had Gunn any memory of what had happened in that alley? Had Wesley said anything that might cast some light on what had become of Angel? Had the vision sent to Willow explained where Angel was now? The answer to all of those questions was ‘I don’t know’ and Willow couldn’t really see the point in Buffy making a trip of several thousand miles just to be told that no one knew anything in person. The call was unsatisfactory, both of them so full of love for one another and yet knowing they weren’t giving the other person what they needed from this conversation. Willow couldn’t wave a magic wand and produce Angel, alive and well, and preferably human, and Buffy couldn’t truly care as much for a man she didn’t really know and a man she didn’t really like as she could for a trusted ally who had ultimately proved himself to be a soldier for the army of Good and the vampire she loved.

“I’ll come if you want,” Buffy had said, gently, but the trouble was that it would be as a favour to Willow, and Willow found herself suddenly in need of someone who would come because of Wesley and Gunn, not because of her.

Calling Faith in Cleveland was an impulse she couldn’t really have explained, she just found herself dialling the number and it mattering out of all proportion that it should be Faith and not Wood who picked up the phone. Not that she didn’t like Wood, of course she did. A part of her was still disappointed that it was Faith he had ended up with instead of Buffy, who had seemed to need a nice relatively normal guy so much more. But he didn’t know Wesley or Gunn. Faith was the only person whose telephone number she possessed who had met them, worked with them; who might, conceivably, care whether they lived or died.

The phone rang and rang and then finally a familiar voice said in a sing-song: “Wood and Lehane Slayer Babysitting Service, how may I help you?”

Willow gripped the phone tighter in sheer relief. “Faith, it’s Willow. I have some bad news…”

Faith turned out to be exactly the right person to have called. She was the one who asked after Wesley and Gunn as if they mattered as more than a conduit to information about Angel. She asked about Angel as well, of course, but she seemed to care almost as much about them.

“Do you want me to come? Would it help?

Willow had never thought that she would find Faith a comforting person to talk to, but today she was. She reluctantly told her that, no, she wasn’t needed yet, that they didn’t know where to begin to look for Angel and the impression she’d gotten was that he wasn’t their concern, the Powers were looking out for him, but it was difficult; the unexpected urge to say ‘Please, come’ was very strong.

“Are you looking for Angel?”

“I can’t risk a summoning spell - even if I had the power to send one across dimensions, which I don’t think I do.”

“Hey, you got Wes and Gunn back from the dead. That’s probably enough for one day’s work. How’s Buffy taking the news?”

“She said she can’t do it any more. Deal with not knowing if people are or aren’t gone forever.” Her voice hitched a little because she had so hated being the one who had to tell Buffy that Angel was possibly dead again and that Spike was possibly dead, too, only this time no one had seen either of them die who was conscious, and so for all she knew they were dust in a rainswept alley or suffering in a hell dimension, half-deafened by the screams of all their victims, or in another time and another place doing something else entirely. She had thought that they were ‘needed’, that was the word that had flashed into her mind, like information received, all the time she was being swamped by images of Wesley dying in the arms of a woman she knew was already dead, and dragons winging their way over the streets of LA.

Faith said: “If Gunn makes it or if he doesn’t, you need to take Wesley away from LA. You know that, right? Too much shit went down in that town. Get Giles to take him somewhere else. Somewhere…green.”

Willow gripped the phone tighter in relief at hearing another human voice that asked the right questions and said the right things and wasn’t exhausted or insane. She knew there was nothing left to say, really, but this connection with Faith was the nearest thing she had come to feeling normal again.

Faith said awkwardly: “You want to talk to Kennedy?”

“Not really.” Willow grimaced. “I think it’s better…this way, because of the awkward silences and not knowing what to say to each other and…stuff.”

“Is Gunn gonna make it?”

Willow looked over at the bed where Gunn was lying so very still, but the monitors were bleeping a reassuring rhythm. “The doctors think he’s going to be okay. It was close but… I just wish he’d wake up. He may be able to talk to Wesley, which would be good, because when Wesley looks at us and when he looks at the vending machine I’m not seeing a whole lot of difference, and it’s kind of disconcerting when someone treats like you’re a diet Pepsi he never asked for, if you know what I mean.”

“You sure you don’t want me to come? I could look for the green guy. What about Connor? Was he in the alley?”

“I don’t think so. Wesley doesn’t know. Wesley doesn’t really know anything right now except that Gunn nearly died and Angel and the others aren’t here. No, actually, he doesn’t know that either, because sometimes I think he thinks they are here, and he has conversations with them - which is more than he does with me or Giles.”

Another pause before Faith said in a rush: “I’d come. I’d come right now, but if Wes is confused and getting the past mixed up with the present he might think I was there to…hurt him… But I’ll come anyway if you think it will help.”

It would help me. Willow had no idea why she was so sure of that, but she knew it all the same. She forced herself to say instead: “No, it’s fine. We’re just waiting for Gunn to wake up. Then we’ll decide what to do next.” That was the point where she should really be saying ‘Goodbye’ and putting down the phone, but she kept the connection open, hoping Faith might say something else.

“Hey, did you get your memories of Connor back out of the blue too?”

“Yeah, that was so weird. I didn’t know it and then I’d always known it. Like with Dawn. Only this time I actually felt it happen which was kind of…creepy - being able to remember not remembering. I think the spell must have ended when Cyrus Vail died or when the Senior Partners decided Angel had broken his contract. I hope Connor’s okay.”

“Well, the kid is super human. And, even if he wasn’t, if he’s got his memories back and he’s in any kind of trouble he should be able to open a phonebook and call one of us. Does Wes remember him too?”

“I don’t know. Like I said, to him we’re the coke the soda machine gives you when you’ve pushed it for root beer.” She glanced across at where Wesley was slumped on Gunn’s bed, those horrendous circles of shadow under his eyes and all the stubble on his jaw that he hadn’t shaved in days, his hair looking like it hadn’t been combed for a week. No one could have looked less at peace than him or more in need of a rest. She remembered the agonizing splinter of pain Buffy’s voice had embedded in her heart as she sang so purely and with such anguish of how she had been, before her resurrection, not in a hell dimension, but in heaven.

She realized what she had been waiting to say, lowering her voice to whisper: “I don’t know if I did the right thing. I was so sure. I didn’t have any doubts. But when I did it to Buffy it was wrong. What if I was wrong?”

“Bringing Wes back?” Faith sounded so certain, so strong. “I don’t know if it was ‘right or wrong’, Willow, I never was too sure about any of that shit, I’m just glad you did it. Give me a choice between someone I care about lying on a slab or walking and talking I’m going for walking and talking every time. Aren’t you? And maybe Buffy was happy in heaven but she ain’t exactly miserable here, is she? I mean have you seen that guy she’s screwing?”

Willow laughed, wondering in shock as she did it how long it had been since the last time she had laughed about…anything.

“You sure you’re okay?” Faith asked, a little awkwardly. “You sound so fuckin’ tired.”

“You should see Giles.” Willow realized she felt better; not just better, felt like…Willow. She had separated herself into strands, atoms, glittering pieces of perspective, while on that higher plane and come back complete and yet with a stronger sense than she had known for years that she had no idea what she wanted to do next. She knew who she was and yet she had no idea where she fitted into the scheme of things. Perhaps that was why she had been so grateful for that sense of certainty that had come to her when she knew she had to go to LA; being set a task she could perform. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next.”

She had certainly not intended to say that aloud but Faith didn’t seem surprised. She snorted an agreement. “Hey, you and me both. Try waking up from a killing and torturing spree to find you’re still not dead and now you have all this new shit to live around as well as the old shit.”

“Been there, done that,” Willow said softly.

She could imagine Faith grimacing, could hear her muttering ‘fuck’ under her breath, and found it oddly comforting. “Sorry, I forgot I wasn’t the only chick in Sunnydale to go ape.”

“Think we can blame it on the whole Hellmouthy experience?”

“I think you can, not so sure it works for me. I was pretty fucked up before I got there and I did some bad stuff in LA as well. Most of it to Wes. One day at a time, eh?”

Willow smiled. “Hello, my name’s Willow, and I’m a magiholic.”

“ ‘On reaching this step, we have admitted our prior life has been out of control and we have not received the internal peace and external success we have been seeking. With this prayer we are asking our higher power to remake us into another and changed person.’ ” There was some mockery in Faith’s voice but less than Willow would have expected.

“You can say it from memory?”

“In prison they can find you an AA meeting, not so easy with the rogue slayer support group. It’s someone around to nod in the right places, you know? I just changed it so it was drink that made me do those things instead of… you know - being a freak of nature.” There was a pause before she said: “I get why Angel used to think about what he did. You’ve gotta know that inside that’s still who you are and you could do those things again. All you’d have to do is start thinking it was okay because those dumb rules that apply to everyone else, they don’t apply to you.”

Willow found herself nodding in agreement. “And maybe sometimes you have to have a lot to make up for before you just get on with doing good. Maybe it stops you thinking ‘Why me? Why am I having to do this? Why isn’t it someone else’s job instead?’

“I think that’s a Slayer thing,” Faith admitted. “You know you either go ‘fuck, this gig blows - why do I have to go out every night and scare myself stupid?’ or you go ‘what doesn’t rule about being stronger and faster and better than everyone else?’ Sometimes you do both at the same time and then you’re really screwed.”

“Are you telling all those baby Slayers that?” Willow giggled at the idea.

“I’m trying to dress it up a little - put a bow on it. It’s like ‘Hey, sometimes you’re not going to like being you, but that’s why we’re here to talk it through’. I’m the fun one, Kennedy’s the scary one, Buffy’s the had-the-sense-to-get-herself-off-to-Italy-and-screw-the-Immortal one - so, naturally Buffy’s the one they all want to be when they grow up.”

“Don’t they drive you crazy?”

“No, they’re okay. Some of them are from some pretty crappy backgrounds, so I identify with that. I think I’m doing some good here, maybe stopping a few of them from getting themselves killed on their first patrol, helping them not to make the same mistakes I did.”

There was a silence as they thought about Faith’s mistakes. It was strange to remember feeling such a hot rush of anger towards the person on the other end of the phone when now her feelings were so very different. “You’re not the only one to make mistakes. I flayed a man alive. Spike and Angel killed so many people even the Watchers’ Council lost count and those people know how to cross-reference.”

“That’s what’s got me worried about Angel. He’d have to save a lot of puppies to make up for all the shit he did, and what with the brooding and the rat eating and the moping around after Buffy, I don’t think he had time. Which means he could still be damned. I was thinking - there are some demon mages around here I could put the squeeze on. Some of them jump dimensions all the time so I could make it clear they found out where he was being held or I turned them inside out. Angel never gave up on me, maybe even when he should have done, when everyone else had, me included. If he’s trapped in a hell dimension...”

“I don’t think he’s in a hell dimension this time.”

“Is this the bedtime story we’re telling B or is this what you really think?”

Willow tried to remember the clarity of her thoughts as she had felt that first vision flowing through her, flooding her with information there was no time to properly assimilate. She closed her eyes and tried to chase that knowledge that had inhabited her so briefly and so absolutely.

“He could be dead or he could be in a hell dimension. I don’t have any proof, but I think Angel and Spike and Illyria have been claimed as warriors for the Powers, and as warriors for the Powers they still have work to do. So, I don’t think they’re...dead-dead just undead. I think maybe the demons who had crimes to make amends for had to finish their work, whereas the humans didn’t have to make amends and were left behind to...” Rest. Except now they can’t because you took that from them when you made them live, just like you took Buffy away from heaven when you brought her back...

But Faith was following a very different train of thought, her voice a jolt of indignation on the other end of the line: “To die? Just because they weren’t demons? What kind of sick higher power decides you only get to live if you’ve killed enough people? How is that any kind of justice?”

She could hear an echo behind that voice, something being explained to her that she had forgotten even as it was told to her, meant to forget because all she needed to remember was that she had to go to LA, go now, find Wesley, and bring him back. She lowered her voice so that Wesley wouldn’t hear her: “If I say I think it was Cordelia who sent us to save Wesley and Gunn, do I sound crazy?”

“No,” Faith said with such certainty that Willow almost caught her conviction. “Why would you?”

“Because I don’t think Wesley’s at home to Mr Sane at the moment and I think he thinks it too.”

“Hey, someone must have sent you and it sounds like Cordelia’s kind of gig to me. Wes and Cordy were tight - had that whole brother-sister thing going. When he used to come and see me, Angel was always telling me about their dumb little fights; he said it was like having kids, like it was this pain in the ass he had to put up with, but you wouldn’t believe how happy he looked when he talked about them. He was so fuckin’ proud of them, you know? Would have been funny except it wasn’t. It really wasn’t.”

There was a painful pause as they both thought about Angel, Willow remembering that rain swept alley that might or might not contain his last dustly remains. “Thank you,” Willow said awkwardly. “I think I really needed someone to talk to.”

“Hey, any time. I mean that. And keep me posted about Wes and Gunn, will you? However it goes down I want to know what happens.”

“I promise.”

When Willow put down the phone she felt better than she had since Wesley had been jolted back to life and she had found herself wondering if she had just done a terrible thing. She crossed over to the bed and gently touched his hair. “Wesley…?”

He gazed up at her out of those tortured-looking blue eyes. She couldn’t tell if he really didn’t recognize them, as Giles was thinking, or if it was just a case of finding them…irrelevant; there being people he was waiting for and they weren’t it. “Would you like some tea?” She thought about mentioning the crick he was going to get in his neck if he kept falling asleep with his head on Gunn’s bed but thought perhaps the tea was a better way to make him sit up straight. She offered him her own cup, not thinking he would care that much about germs.

He looked at it for a long moment before he took it and sipped at it. He said, “Thank you” as if he wasn’t absolutely sure if those were the right words.

“You’re welcome.” She gave him what she hoped was an encouraging smile. “I spoke to Buffy. She says she hopes you get well soon. And Faith…”

He looked around in confusion. “Faith’s here?”

“No, but she could come if you like…?”

“Has she seen Angel?”

Willow sighed. Perhaps she should have asked Buffy to come after all. She and Wesley could sit in Gunn’s hospital room and obsess over Angel together. “No.”

“I think he was here before. Cordelia wasn’t going to tell me.” He looked back at the man on the bed. “Illyria came in earlier.”

She just knew that Giles would be insisting that she told Wesley he was wrong, ensuring that he started to separate the past and the present in his tangled mind. Instead she said brightly: “Oh, really?”

“She said Gunn was pleasing to her eyes.”

Looking back at the sleeping man, Willow thought Illyria had a point. “Well, I would think he would be - to anyone’s eyes, really. He’s very handsome.”

Wesley gazed at the man intently and then sighed as if the task was beyond him. “I don’t think I could ever see any of us the way that she did - from so very far away. He just looks like Gunn to me. Illyria looks like…what she isn’t any more.”

She rested a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry about Fred.”

“It’s the difference between consumed and destroyed. It’s the difference between never being herself again on any plane, and being part of what’s restored the day Illyria cracks apart.” He blinked as he focused on Willow, seeming surprised to find her here, as if she had used up her allotted time yet lingered still. “Do you think it’s blue?”

“What?” Willow asked in confusion.

“The colour of a human soul?”

She thought of a milky swirl in a glass orb. “It’s white. Like a cloud.”

“All souls or just Angel’s?”

That was a tricky one. She tried to remember. “Angel’s is the only soul I’ve ever seen, on account of most people not keeping theirs in jars.”

Wesley felt his chest and looked down at intently. “Do I still have mine?”

“Do you feel as if you…don’t…?”

He gazed into her eyes, his oddly calm within the shadows that surrounded them. “I feel empty.”

“I don’t think that’s the place where your soul was. I think that’s the place where your friends used to be. I think you’re missing them.”

“Yes.” He gazed straight through her. “I would think I probably am.”

She bit her lip. “You’re not alone, Wesley. I know you don’t know us very well but Giles and I - we’ve both lost people that we love. We know what that’s like.”

For the first time he seemed to focus on her properly and she wondered just how many weeks of sleep he was going to need before he looked normal. “It’s like being dead while you’re still alive.”

When his attention passed from her it was like a light winking off. She was still gasping for a breath he had knocked out of her lungs, trying to tell herself he was just describing grief, the terrible numbness of days with no light in them, that overwhelming absence; that this was nothing she had done to him.

He gave her back the polystyrene cup of tea and took Gunn’s hand in his, holding it against his chest, against the place where he had worried that his soul no longer was, gazing unblinkingly at the man’s face as he waited for him to wake up.

***

Gunn opened his eyes and got stabbed by way too much light. He squeezed them shut, wondering if anyone had gotten the number of the truck that had clearly backed over him a couple of dozen times. No, more likely a demon. Or a vampire. He clasped a hand to his neck and felt for a pulse. He couldn’t feel one but perhaps he wasn’t looking in the right place. He didn’t feel like a vampire. He felt like Charles Gunn…only a version of himself that had been run over by a truck.

“Gunn…?”

Wesley’s voice. And behind it the sound of those machines they hooked you up to in the hospital. Except this was the wrong way round. Wes was the one who got hooked up to the machinery. Gunn was the one stuck in the uncomfortable chair waiting for him to wake up and -

A rain drenched alley in the middle of the night. Spike and Angel standing there, soaking and bleeding, but looking ready for whatever the demon world might throw at them. Spike telling Wolfram & Hart to bring it on despite the blood pouring down his face and Angel looking as close to peace as Gunn had seen in a long time, because after this there really was nothing but silence and they’d made a difference; in the teeth of the corruption Wolfram & Hart had represented, still, they’d made a difference. Gunn feeling his strength running out like sand through a sieve, but also feeling like himself again, the guy that kicked vampire ass.

Damn! How did I know the fang boys would pull through? You're lucky we're on the same side, dogs, 'cause I was on fire tonight. My game was tight.

You're supposed to wear the red stuff on the inside, Charlie boy.

Any word on Wes?

Illyria dropping from the sky, dripping with rainwater, shaking with anger and grief.

Wesley's dead.

He opened his eyes, blinking as the light made them water. A Wesley-shaped blur gazed back at him anxiously. Another blink and he was streaked with clarity. Unwashed hair, unshaven jaw, racoon eyes from what look like a week without sleep, the shock of all that blue. Yeah, that was Wes. He looked like every kind of crap but he didn’t look dead.

“Wes…?” Gunn had to swallow hard before he could make the words climb past the sandpaper in his throat. “Illyria said you were dead.”

“I was.”

“Dear Lord…”

A voice he didn’t recognize from some other English guy and a little squeak that sounded decidedly feminine. Gunn reached up to touch Wesley’s face, wanting to feel for himself if he was real and warm, and noticed the way the back of his hand was blurry as well as having some kind of tubing stuck into it.

He touched Wesley’s face and the man moved his head into the warmth of Gunn’s hand. His skin felt the way it always did, the roughness of the stubble, the angle of his cheekbone. Wesley closed his eyes, like one of those exotic cats he half-resembled, putting dignity aside for a moment to enjoy being petted. Wesley clasped his hand over Gunn’s and for a moment Gunn could feel the warmth of Wesley’s palm and the texture of his stubble on either side of his hand, and yet…

“Are you a ghost?” he breathed.

“I could be.” Wesley inclined his head cautiously at the other two, adding confidentially: “I don’t think they’re real.”

“Gunn. How are you feeling?”

Gunn freed his hand gently and focused with difficulty on a tweedy-looking guy with intense green eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. “Better than I was expecting, seeing as the last thing I remember is bleeding to death while facing fifty thousand slavering demons.”

“You remember?”

He recognized the redhead. Willow from Sunnydale. The one who’d ensouled Angel that time when Cordelia had been taken over by a higher power and she and Connor - Christ, Connor. Fred holding a baby, Lorne singing lullabies, him and Fred looking everywhere for Wes after Justine left him for dead. Connor turned into the world’s most difficult teenager. Cordy with an evil bun in the oven who had turned out to be Jasmine. Jasmine. All the warm fuzzy love that was just another lie. He’d forgotten it. All of it. Until this moment. He had to snatch a breath to try to get himself steady. “Yeah. I remember. Any word on Angel?”

“We were hoping you could tell us.” She smiled at him in relief. “We’re so glad you’re awake. Aren’t we, Wesley?”

He wondered why she was using that ‘talking to the crazy guy’ voice on Wesley and then remembered him skittering around his office in his socks and guessed she probably had reason.

“What about the demons? Are they all over LA? Angel, Spike and Illyria got game, no question, but they weren’t going to hold them longer than a few minutes.”

The English guy shook his head. “There was no sign of them either.”

“Were you dead too?” Wesley was still gazing at him intently. Gunn wished he’d go ahead and blink.

“I don’t think so. Last thing I remember is a dragon the size of a jetplane screaming overhead, Spike telling the demons to try and take him if they could, Illyria saying she wanted to do more violence, and Angel shoving me behind him. Then it’s swirly white light time and next thing I know I’m here.”

Wesley looked a little disappointed. “You didn’t see Cordelia?”

Willow gazed at him anxiously. “Did you see her, Wesley?”

“She said she was sorry.”

Gunn was grateful for the cup of ice chips the other English guy handed him, the chill of them soothing his aching throat although nothing was touching that road drill in his head short of a bottle of aspirin. He let one ice chip slip down slowly, glad of that cool melt against his hot throat. “You’re talking about when she came to Wolfram & Hart, right? When we thought she was out of the coma but she was really already dead?” Wesley didn’t answer him and Gunn caught Willow’s eye, grimacing apologetically in Wesley’s direction. If it was squirrelly time for Wes again it was just as well he’d woken up before someone carted him off to the funny farm. “Is Lorne around?”

“He wasn’t in the alley where we found you,” the English guy told him. “Rupert Giles, by the way.”

Gunn shook hands with him awkwardly around the various drips going in and out of his veins. “Oh, yeah, we spoke on the phone. Buffy’s Watcher?”

Giles looked at Wesley uncomfortably. “One of them, yes. I need to call for a nurse. The doctors will want to see you.”

“Why don’t we wait outside for a minute, Wesley?” Willow said in that bright upbeat voice.

Gunn caught Giles’s arm before the man headed after them. “How long was I out?”

“About twenty-four hours. We brought you in last night.”

“And there’s no word on Angel and the others?”

“I’m sorry, no.”

“How come Wesley ain’t dead? Not that I’m complaining. I’m just wondering…? Did Illyria get it wrong or…?”

Giles looked as if he expected a row but was going to tough it out anyway. “He was technically dead when we found him but Willow brought him back. She felt that a higher power wanted her to do so and the magical assistance was lent to her for that purpose.”

“Cordy.” Gunn felt the relief flood through him. He’d been almost afraid to believe it despite the evidence of his own eyes, worried this was just a dream and then he’d wake up back in that alley with those demons coming and Wesley still dead. But Cordelia deciding to interfere made perfect sense - a lot more sense, in fact, than her not interfering. “I guess those Higher Powers figured they owed her another one. Did Willow save me too - cause I should probably thank her for that?”

“She did what she could and I think she may have bought you some time but she had very little power left after resurrecting Wesley. The surgeons here were the ones who saved your life. And I really do need to call for a doctor.”

Gunn let him go but said: “Is Wes…okay…?”

And that wasn’t a happy face from Giles. “He seems to know who you are. He was very…concerned for you. He’s obviously distressed about the disappearance of Angel and the others of your group and he still seems to be mourning the loss of Miss Burkle.”

“Adjustment.” Gunn thought of that guy in the office with the books and papers everywhere, obsessing over Illyria.

“What?”

“He said that was what it was. Him being…you know…like this.”

“Well, to the uninformed observer it could look like…clinical insanity. They keep running tests and they can’t find a head injury. I think they’d be relieved if they could.”

“He just needs time.” Gunn thought about how much time it would probably take and winced. “Although adjusting to a world that doesn’t revolve around Angel. Realistically speaking, that could take Wes…forever.”

Giles reached across and clasped Gunn briefly on the shoulder. “We really are very pleased that you made it, Gunn.”

The man went off in search of a doctor and Gunn found himself gazing at the ceiling of a hospital room. He had been ready to die. There had even been a kind of peace at the end, knowing this was it, his last battle, and he was going to go out swinging. It had felt like the right time to die, for all of them. Not Cordy and not Fred. They’d been guilty of nothing and that had just been tragic, and Lorne had been guiltless of anything except crimes against fashion, but the rest of them had all done things…things they could never put right, and Wes was so tired and fucked up, and this was their chance to make some amends and have a brief blaze of glory and get some rest. And now here he was, still alive, full of morphine, and with Fred still dead and Wes still crazy at least partly because of him. He thought he was grateful, on the whole, more grateful than not, and perhaps he’d get more grateful when he had a little time to think about it, but there was a part of him that was also wondering where the hell he went from here?

“If this is your idea, Cordy,” he murmured as he heard the doctor hurrying towards him, “I hope you know what you were doing.”

***

She had been secretly helping Gunn to heal. Willow couldn’t see how that was in any way a misuse of magic. If there had been enough power when they had found him in the alley she would have done a great deal more than repair enough of his flesh to turn him from mortally wounded to critically injured. After a couple of days for them all to recover, she had her strength back and Gunn was just lying there, alive, but having to be on morphine for a wound that still had so much healing to do, and it was going to be months of recovery for him, wheelchairs and pain every time he had to bend or turn and…

She had given him a little healing help the night before, working from within so that the surface wound looked the same but inside the deep layers of stitched and bruised skin were gently repaired. This morning she had waited for the nurse to come and go, letting them change the dressing on Gunn’s wound before she moved over to mend some more of his traumatized flesh.

She slipped her fingers through his. He had long sensitive fingers, not what one might expect of a demon killer. Wesley’s were the same although the two men were very different in other ways. Gunn was more athletic-looking, with broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist whereas Wesley was narrow all over. And, of course, there was the fact of Gunn being about eight feet tall. She could see how useful Gunn would have been in all those many fights; what a difference it must have made to Wesley and Cordelia when he arrived, someone to bridge the physical gap between Angel and the two fragile humans. In the same way that Riley, without being as strong as Buffy, had still been stronger than any of the rest of them. She remembered how much safer she had felt when going on patrol with Riley, even if his approach could be kind of tiresome, with all the emphasis on military hand signals and co-ordinated flank attacks and so on; graveyards had still felt like less scary places when they were accompanied by Riley and Buffy. So, she could imagine how Wesley had felt as if someone had lifted a burden from him when Gunn had turned up; someone else to do the fighting as well as him and Angel; someone who understood the limitations of human strength. She closed her eyes and concentrated, connecting to him, to his wound, to the tissue that needed to heal, the skin that needed to grow, the bruises that could be soothed away so gently…

“I’ve received some bad news, Willow.”

She jumped guiltily as Giles came back into the room, snatching her hand away from Gunn’s as though they were teenagers caught canoodling in a math class. “I was just…” Then she saw his face and hurried over to him. “What’s happened?”

Giles was looking impossibly weary. “My god-daughter, Alicia, has been…murdered. Rather horribly.”

“Oh, Giles, I’m so sorry.”

“She’s the daughter of Miranda, at the coven, who isn’t satisfied with the police’s efforts. She’s asked me to go and investigate it as soon as possible.”

She thought of Miranda, a small fair woman with a birdlike precision of movements, who was always calm and never judged. One of the witches who had tried not to show the anxiety she had undoubtedly felt when Willow had first been brought to them; who had forced herself to smile and offer cups of tea and flapjacks, instead of flinching in fear. She thought of Miranda refilling the herbs in the kitchen, the way she always did, trying to be normal and a rock for everyone else, because that was her self-appointed task, to be the calm one, the coper, and then breaking down, sobbing and sobbing. Alicia had been her only child. Her photographs had been on the corkboard in the kitchen, a toddler with a bucket and spade in her hand, and a plump pretty girl of fourteen with flyaway fair hair, shielding her eyes against the sun by a sea wall somewhere. There had been a later one of her somewhere else, looking awkward in her graduation gown. Willow looked at the mask of grief on Giles’ face and tried to think what she could do to help the most. “I’m so sorry. What can I…? Do you want to fly straight back? I can stay and take care of Wesley and Gunn while…?”

He looked at Wesley, who was, for once, asleep in his own bed, and Gunn who was still sleeping to the purring and bleeping background rhythm of the machines to which he was attached. “I don’t think that’s an option. Wesley must be in serious danger of getting committed if no one is willing to take responsibility for his care, and Gunn is going to be in a wheelchair for weeks. I think the only solution is to take them to England with us. It would solve the problem of the scenery change that Wesley needs, and it would get them away from any enemies they have in this city who may be looking to get even. They’re certainly too vulnerable to leave here, given Gunn’s physical condition and Wesley’s mental one.”

Willow gazed across at Wesley. “I think he’s waiting for Angel.”

“Angel isn’t coming back.”

“He did before.”

“And he may again, but it won’t be to what it was before. Even if Angel is disgorged from whatever hell dimension or higher plane he may currently be inhabiting he can’t magically put Wesley’s life back together. They can’t go back to the Hyperion and make it be how it was before. Cordelia is dead, Winifred Burkle is dead, and Wesley is no longer sane. I think the sooner he gets away from this place and stops thinking about the past and looking toward the future, the quicker he will get well again. And I hope Gunn will agree with me.”

Gunn had agreed with him. And, if asked, he would have never expected to - let some English guy he didn’t know and who had never had any time for Wes walk into their lives and tell them this was how it was going to be? No way in hell. But this was more complicated than that. Gunn could feel the necessity of shedding their old lives as quickly as possible. The Senior Partners were probably not going to be forgiving them any time soon for what they’d done to the LA branch of Wolfram & Hart or the Circle of the Black Thorn. With Angel, Illyria, and Spike whisked out of reach there was only him and Wes left to take their payback, and neither of them was well enough to pick up an axe right now. And there were too many ghosts in this city: Alonna, Cordelia, Fred; every sister he’d ever had by birth or adoption had died here. Maybe if they stuck around Anne would end up dead as well.

He felt chewed up and spat out and in need of a change. He was almost grateful that his wound had been so serious that there was no question of him being able to take charge. He could put the responsibility onto Giles and not feel like a shirker. It wasn’t his fault his guts had been ripped open and he didn’t have energy enough to walk across a room right now. He needed someone to look doctors in the eye and tell them Wes was going to be taken care of, he was going to get help, and someone was assuming responsibility for him who wasn’t hooked up to a morphine drip. Giles was willing to do that. Maybe he was only doing it out of a sense of duty or guilt, and not cause he cared about Wes as a friend, but it was still someone stepping up to the plate and taking responsibility, and right now Gunn was grateful. And, yeah, he just knew that give it a month or so, he was going to be resentful as hell about Giles thinking he knew what was best for Wes and telling him what to do, but right now, he didn’t have the energy or the mental clarity to cope with Wesley twenty-four-seven and if Giles was willing to arrange everything and make the move happen, Gunn was willing to agree to whatever the guy said.

“I don’t want to leave LA.”

Wesley was refusing to meet everyone’s eye as he sat on his bed in the hospital room and acted out. He wasn’t enough himself to manage the whole passive aggressive shit he’d used to pull on Angel, but he was in that stubborn crazy place that meant reasoning with him was going to take a while. Gunn hoped he could stay awake until the end of it, because the morphine was pushing his eyes closed already.

Giles already looked as if he was reaching for the last of his patience, and they’d only been doing this for ten minutes. “Wesley, I’m trying to keep you out of the mental institution to which you will undoubtedly be committed if someone doesn’t take responsibility for your health and well being. Now, Gunn, Willow and I are willing to do that but I absolutely can’t do it here. You need to come back to England and…get well. Once you’re well you can choose for yourself if you want to return to Los Angeles. Although, personally, I think you would be very ill advised to do so it will then be your choice, right now, it isn’t.”

“I need to wait for Angel.”

“Angel’s gone.” Having to deal with his own grief was making Giles all kinds of brutal and, looking at Willow, Gunn saw he wasn’t the only one wincing. Giles just kept going though: “Whether he’s dust, in hell, or ascended to a better place, he isn’t here and there is no guarantee that he ever will be again.”

“If he were dead he’d be with Cordelia and she hasn’t seen him.”

Giles raised his eyes to heaven as if seeking patience. Gunn figured that if Wes had ever been allowed to be a normal kid, the kind that didn’t do what he was told sometimes - refused to pick up his toys or to stay in bed after lights out, instead of a child that had always been too busy trying to make Daddy love him to go through the usual rebellions, then he would have recognized the signs of an adult on his last nerve.

Giles spoke through gritted teeth: “Wesley, I’m not prepared to have this conversation with you any longer. I have too much to do. You all have apartments full of possessions and ridiculous amount of things still left in a hotel whose mortgage is no longer being paid. I have a dozen people I need to see and two dozen things I need to arrange to try to get your possessions into a storage facility and the two of you out of this country without being killed or arrested. And I have to tell you that if you had renewed your visa even once in the past four years that task would be considerably easier.”

“Call David Nabbit.” Gunn reached for a pen, wondering how even that action could feel so strange. Willow hurried to supply him with a pad of paper, a pen, and an encouraging smile that made him feel a little like a toddler trying to take its first steps. He wrote down the number laboriously. “He owed Angel and he liked Cordy. He’s got lots of money and he knows how to tapdance around all kinds of red tape. Explain the situation and ask him to help. This is his private number. He may be able to keep hold of the hotel just in case…” He looked across at Wesley. “You know…”

Giles took the number with an exhausted sigh. “Thank you.”

“When was the last time you slept?” Gunn winced at the shadows under his eyes.

“I don’t remember.” He turned back to Wesley. “You have great gifts as a linguist. You have been extensively - and expensively - trained as a Watcher. That gives you a responsibility, Wesley, to use your skills in the fight against evil, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because, when you are yourself again, you will remember that your whole life has been dedicated to that cause. You cared about that fight before you ever met Angel, and you will care about it again in the future. For the moment, your judgement is not something that you can trust so I am asking you to rely upon mine. Either way you will be coming to England with us.”

Willow gave him another apologetic wince as Giles picked up his coat and strode out of the room. Gunn guessed that Giles wasn’t usually that abrasive but his grief at what had happened to his god-daughter and his frustration at being in LA when he wanted to be back in England lending some help was making him a lot more ornery than he would usually have been. At least Gunn hoped the guy wasn’t usually this crabby, or living with him in England was going to be all kinds of not-fun. He sighed. “Wes, Giles just lost someone he cares about. You and me both know how that feels. Just come to England with us and get well and then we’ll worry about what we’re going to do next, okay?”

Wesley looked at the floor. “I want to stay in LA.”

Gunn tried to move and the pain jolted through him. “Well, you can’t,” he heard himself snapping. He wondered how on edge his temper was right now, what with the pain and the sickening sense of failure, and maybe his resentment at not being dead, after all, of being forced to fight more battles when he’d thought his particular war was over. He sighed and closed his eyes, unable to fight off the exhaustion any longer. “Wes, just do as you’re damned well told, will you? I’m too tired to deal with you right now.”

***

Illyria was the most frequent visitor in the hospital. Today had been so stressful that Wesley was more than usually pleased to see her, even if she was somewhat inclined to stalk around the small hospital room like a hungry leopard on the lookout for an antelope. The morning had been taken up with everyone talking at him at once, Giles telling him lots of things he hadn’t wanted to hear about what was being done about the Hyperion and their remaining possessions and their passports, and the trip to England that Giles was insisting that they took as soon as Gunn was well enough to travel. Willow had chimed in with lots of chirpy little smiles that were evidently meant to reassure him but just made him more and more convinced that she was probably some sort of astral projection. Problematic and emotionally and mentally exhausting as Illyria’s visits could be, today she was a welcome distraction from the panic he felt whenever he thought about leaving LA. She walked around Gunn’s bed as he was sleeping, examining him curiously from all angles.

“I am content that he is restored. His wound was mortal when we faced the demon hordes of the Wolf, Ram and Hart together.”

Wesley couldn’t answer her when there were other people watching, but if Willow was busy meditating and Giles went out to fetch more of the undrinkable tea from the dispensing machine they could have a conversation. He was assuming the tea was undrinkable because it came from a dispensing machine anyway. It could be part of having come back from the dead, some hell-punishment - fluid that tasted revolting however thirsty he was. There had been no solid evidence either way as yet as to whether or not this was really LA or just another outpost of hell. The only thing he absolutely knew for a fact was that the blow Cyrus Vail had struck him had been mortal and he had died. If this was an afterlife he was not sure how much energy he should logically expend upon it, but he was trying to interact with his surroundings with as much conviction as he could. It just sometimes seemed a somewhat pointless exercise. So far Giles and Willow had not noticed when Illyria joined them, but he was not sure if it was going to stay that way.

“I would have regretted his death. As I regretted yours. It caused me considerable pain.”

“It caused me quite a lot of pain, too,” Wesley pointed out. He gestured to her to lower her voice. “You can’t…declaim in here. You’ll wake Gunn.”

“I would have made those demons grovel before my majesty and cringe in terror of my wrath.”

“Of course you would. Illyria, do you know where Angel is?”

She shrugged dismissively. “The half-breed is no concern of mine.”

“But he’s a concern of mine. Please…? Have you seen him? Is he where…you are…? And where are you?”

She leaned across to run her fingers through Wesley’s hair, becoming Fred, a familiar, welcome pain in his heart as Illyria’s blue eyes became Fred’s brown ones, that smile he could have drawn from memory, before she pressed a kiss onto his forehead. “In your memories, of course, silly.” And then she was gone.

It was always a shock when she did that. She seemed so solid, and he could feel her lips against his skin, her fingers in his hair; and then she dissolved into light and air and there was nothing remaining of her. So far Gunn had not done any dissolving in front of him, but that didn’t mean the man was permanent fixture. It could be a hell torment of refined cruelty to make it seem as if Gunn was alive and with him, and then just snatch him back into shadow. It sounded like something that Wolfram & Hart would do to him. He wasn’t sure about Willow or Giles either. He often turned around and found them absent when he hadn’t heard them leave, and as for the way they used door handles and handed him cups of weak and bilious tea, Illyria sometimes visited for long periods of time and handled things during her stay. So did Cordelia.

“So, Wes…? Has the Blue Meanie gone?”

He turned to find Cordelia sitting on the end of Gunn’s bed. She looked wonderful.

“You’ve grown your hair.”

She beamed at him. “I knew I’d get you trained up to notice things like that eventually. I’m trying out a new look. You need a wash and brush up, by the way. You’re starting to look a little sleeping-in-a-dumpster-not-so-chic.” She nodded to the bed, expression tender as she gazed at Gunn: “How’s our guy?”

“They say he’s going to be okay. Did you send me back?”

“Willow called you back. Maybe I helped a little. But it wasn’t your time.”

“I didn’t mind,” he admitted. “I was quite looking forward to a rest.”

She shrugged. “Sorry, Wes, no can do. You haven’t clocked enough field-time yet.”

“And you had? Cordelia, you were only twenty-four.”

She conceded the point. “I didn’t want to go.”

“We didn’t want to lose you. We miss you.”

“I know.” She took his hand in hers turning it over so she could look at his lifeline, tracing its contours with one immaculately manicured finger. “But some things can’t be changed. You weren’t meant to die when you did. I was.”

He was surprised by how perfect her hands were. “They have nail varnish in heaven?”

“Well, what kind of a heaven would it be without it?” she snorted. “You think I’d check into any afterlife where I couldn’t get a manicure?”

He gazed at her with longing, thinking how much easier it would be to just take Gunn’s hand and her hand, and go with her, back to wherever it was she lived now. The three of them together again, just as in the old days. “Is Fred with you?”

Cordelia shook her head sadly. “Everything that’s left of Fred is part of Illyria now, Wes, and Illyria isn’t here either.” She rested her head on his shoulder for a moment, her breath warm against his neck. “I know you’re tired. But there are other ways to rest than being dead.”

“In my experience, the only times I ever got a good night’s sleep was when on morphine after a near-fatal injury.”

“That’s why Giles is going to take you away from LA.”

“I don’t want to go with Giles.” He felt panicked at just the thought. “I want to stay with Gunn.”

“Gunn’s going too, remember? They talked it over with you this morning? Told you about the nice coven with the nice witches? Don’t make a fuss, will you, Wes?”

“Do I usually?” he countered, a little hurt, tracing a line along the blanket covering Gunn’s bed to avoid her eye.

She reached up and turned his face around so that he had to meet her gaze. “Just do what they say. Get on the plane. Say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ as if everyone you meet is real. Go with Giles and Willow and Gunn, and do what you’re told.”

He felt a sulk coming on. “I don’t want to ‘do what I’m told’, thank you, Cordelia. I’m not six.”

“You’re not mentally competent either. You’re talking to a dead woman right now. How sane is that?”

“If you stay away from me I won’t have to talk to people who aren’t here, will I?” he countered, regretting his words a moment later. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Don’t go.” He lowered his gaze again. “If I go to England with Giles, how will I see you again?”

“I’m on a higher plane, remember? I can go anywhere. Just imagine I’m Daniel Day Lewis and you’re Madeleine Stowe.”

“You will find me?”

She straightened his collar. “Someone really needs to take you shopping. What happened to all those great shirts you had, anyway? Sometimes the wages of sin are Ralph Lauren and Moschini and I don’t see what’s so wrong with that, and, yes, I’ll find you. So will anyone else who wants to. Angel will know where you are, Wes.”

And now it was said. He looked away again; it was just too painful to contemplate otherwise.

“Hey…” She stroked his hair gently. “I know it hurts. You think I don’t miss him too?”

“You left us, Cordelia. You chose to leave us. And nothing has been right since you left. No, that’s not fair, nothing has been right since I…”

“Don’t even think about saying it.”

“If I hadn’t taken Connor then Angel would never have had to take the deal with Wolfram & Hart. Fred would still be…”

“Blown up three years ago when Holtz firebombed the hotel? Wes, you don’t know what would have happened if you or anyone else had done something different. We all did what we did. We all thought we were acting for the best. I let them demonize me. You kidnapped Connor. Tell me either one of us did it because we wanted to turn our own lives and those of the people we loved best to total crap? Did you get handed some kind of road map showing you how to live your life in the dramarama of Angel’s mythic destiny? Because I know I didn’t. I thought I was doing the right thing. Would I do it over the same way? Hell, no. But, we don’t have an undo button. We have to go onto the next thing. All those years working with Angel and you’re telling me you don’t know that?”

“I’m afraid of the next thing.” He gazed into her brown eyes, and felt his own well with tears. He missed her so much, and had missed her for so long before she had been finally lost to them. He reached out and touched her face and she felt as warm and alive as Gunn.

“I know, sweetie.” She had tears in her eyes too. “But it’s never as bad as you think. Take it from someone who had her body hijacked by a rogue higher power so it could give birth to itself and ended up in a mystical coma before dying at the peak of her physical hotness. Ultimately, what you need to remember is that there are Manolo Blahniks in heaven.”

“I want to stay with you…” he protested. “We can wait for Angel together.”

“Not your time, remember?” she repeated gently, through the tears. She pressed her lips to his in farewell and he wrapped his arms around her, feeling her warmth, her solidity, inhaling her scent, the softness of her hair under his hand, her cheek against his, so soft against the rasp of his stubble. She hugged him hard, whispering: “You have to let me go, Wes. You have to let us all go and let go of everything’s that happened, and move on to the new place. This isn’t your life now.”

“Don’t go…” he pleaded.

“I will find you, remember?” She was trying to smile through the tears, the way she had used to smile through the migraines of a vision headache. She pressed a last kiss to his forehead, her lips touching the place where Illyria had also bid him farewell. And then, as he was still reaching for her, she was gone.

“Cordelia…?” But there was no answer and he turned to find Gunn awake and looking at him with concern in his brown eyes. It occurred to him that he had never loved anyone who didn’t have brown eyes.

“Wes? You okay? Why are you crying?”

He wiped his eyes. “What if Angel comes back to the alley? What if he goes back to the Hyperion and we’re not there? How will he find us? What if he loses his memory like the time he came back from hell? We should wait for him.”

“Angel’s gone.” Gunn sat up, wincing at the pain, tubes dangling from his hands, reaching out to clasp Wesley’s arm to steady himself. “Maybe he’s coming back and maybe he ain’t but he’s not here any more and we can’t spend the next ten years waiting for him to show up. We have to get our lives together - without Angel.”

Wesley flinched from the thought of that; a big empty space where their purpose had been.

“Hey, remember when he fired us and went off on his kill the lawyers kick? We still did some good, didn’t we? Still helped some people? Saved some lives? We can do that again. But, man, you’ve got to get well because I need you. Forget about what Giles said this morning, about your training and the knowledge you have and the languages you can read. I need you because you’re you and you’re the only damned thing I have left. But we can’t stay here. We’ve got too many enemies in this town and not enough friends.”

Wesley sighed, knowing that if Gunn was determined to go to England with Giles that he would have to go as well. As the only thing left that he recognized, the man was necessary to him, and, hallucination or not, at least Gunn didn’t disappear every time they had a conversation. “Cordelia said she could find us wherever we were.”

Gunn looked more troubled than relieved by that information and then forced a smile. “Well, there you go then. If Cordy can find us you bet Angel can too. In the meantime, we need to disappear and Giles can cover our tracks.”

Wesley rested his head on his arms on Gunn’s bed, feeling the solid contours of the man’s body against his elbows. “I’m tired.”

“Wes, don’t sleep like that, you’re going to put your neck out. Lie down in your own bed.”

“I want to stay here.” He closed his eyes and drifted into a peaceful sleep while Gunn or at least the hallucination that looked like Gunn told him that whether Wesley liked it or not they were going to England’s green and goddamned pleasant land.

Part Three

***