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Harrogate, Part Four

Giles looked at the photographs again. Disconcerting those images of himself, black and white and then colour, the terrible fashions, the long hair, the attitude. Dear God, the seventies had a lot to answer for. Rupert Giles, wannabe warlock, wannabe rockstar, wearing eyeliner and defiantly smoking a joint while Miranda, despite not being on the way to San Francisco at the time, had actual flowers in her long blonde hair, at least some of which was flyaway from too much friction with an afghan coat that he remembered had stunk of patchouli oil. No wonder Alicia had warned her mother never to get out the photograph album when her schoolfriends came round.

Looking back, he supposed that Miranda was probably the reason why he was more or less heterosexual. He was embarrassed about it now, that simplistic act of reasoning that had taken place that had led him to decide that sleeping with men was mad, bad and dangerous to do, whereas sleeping with women was Safe and Good. Even at the time he had probably been aware that at least half of Ethan’s attraction had been that he was so very unsuitable. Exactly the kind of person the Watcher’s Council, his father, his university lecturers, everyone who had his future mapped out for him, would most wholeheartedly disapprove of. Fucking Ethan had felt defiant and daring, an act of independence, every French kiss a two-fingered salute to everyone staid and square who thought they had the right to lecture him about ‘duty’. The fact that Ethan was not in any way a good human being had somehow seemed unimportant. He was the perfect person with whom one could signal rebellion. Miranda had been a sanctuary. There was a choice to be made when the person you were with witnessed a death for which you were both partially responsible and did little more than shrug. Either one embraced amoral indifference to the fates of others, gave oneself up to chaos, and became his other half forever, or turned around and walked the other way.

Miranda had liked him for some time before they had lived together. There been the kind of one night stands that meant less to him than to her. She had been on the periphery of their magic circle; someone who knew they weren’t pulling rabbits out of hats, who had annoyed and bored him at several gatherings by telling him that he was playing with forces he couldn’t control, that he didn’t even properly understand. When being cool and dangerous had seemed the most fun way to live his life, he had resented her goody-goody white witch outlook on the world. But in the wake of Randall’s death, he had fled straight to the bosom of her certainties. He had never needed quite so much to wake up in the arms of someone who knew right from wrong. Nor could he have borne to be alone. The only thing worse would have been waking up next to Ethan and realizing that he had been having sex for all these months with someone who wasn’t just pretending for the instamatic cameras that he didn’t care about Good and Evil or which side of it he was on, but someone who genuinely was indifferent to the difference.

He and Miranda had been on-again-off-again for a while. Eighteen months together seriously and exclusively, almost four years apart, then three years together-but-seeing-other-people. In one of their off-again times, Miranda had dabbled briefly with conventionality, living in a flat, instead of in a tepee or a communal house, with an estate agent who neither played an instrument nor knew how to cast spells. Alicia had been conceived, as Miranda always put it, on a piece of Axminster very close to a lava lamp that had already been a little passé. The estate agent had later married his secretary. Alicia had been born on the day Margaret Thatcher came to power and Giles had visited Miranda in the hospital on the way back from the polling station where he had cast his ultimately useless vote, thinking at the time how much his previous self would have sneered at the man he had become, someone who had turned away from anarchy to embrace the political process, a Watcher, after all his declarations about never going down that road. It hadn’t even been an act of penance; embarrassed as he was to admit it, finding himself a traitor to his rebellious self, he even enjoyed it. For the first time in his life he felt this was something he could do better than anyone else. It had been very annoying to discover that, after all, his father had been right and there was something about bending one’s life to duty and tradition and Right that was more satisfying than smoking marijuana and dabbling in magic. Not that he didn’t still light up every now and then, but at least he felt he’d earned his occasional joint these days.

He had taken Miranda balloons and flowers in the hospital where she had been bullied into giving birth on the grounds that no woman could possibly know better than a doctor where she wanted to undergo arguably the most important experience of her life. He had been stereotypically astonished by the smallness of the baby’s fingernails, the way his friend had suddenly turned from one uncomfortably large person into two, one of which was a whole new life. For the first time he realized why people wallowed in clichés when babies appeared; nothing about them should have been in any way surprising and yet the fact of them, when they were a three-dimensional squirming bundle placed in unready arms, was almost impossible to comprehend.

Alicia had been three when Giles had started seeing her mother again. It had never been that committed a venture, but it had been fun, and friendly, and there had been kindness and respect and companionship. He had picked up Alicia from school more than once, and been included in birthdays and outings. He had been a semi-permanent fixture in her life in those early years, until Miranda had gone off to study under someone Giles had assumed was a charlatan but who had turned out to be a witch of considerable - albeit benevolent - power. When Alicia had been eight, Miranda had moved into a communal house with a man who had later introduced her to the other witches of the coven. When she had broken up with him, the coven had welcomed her. She had been there ever since.

Her relationship with Alicia had often been tempestuous, Giles remembered that. They had loved each other, but Alicia had resented what she called the long line of ex-hippies and freaks who had been such a feature of her childhood, craving the stability of a house and a dog and a father who came home every day and called her ‘princess’. She had turned against the magic that was such a part of her life as Giles had rejected his calling as a Watcher. She had taken up smoking, and drinking, and then started sniffing glue. A rebellion Giles could understand if not condone.

When Miranda had called him out of the blue, sobbing down the line to him that she feared Alicia was going to kill herself with that stuff, he had thrown a suitcase into his battered old car and driven up to Blackpool where Alicia was at university. They had met on the pier under a multitude of flashing lights and he had told that he didn’t understand why she was choosing to have her out of body experiences that way, by a method so sordid and unimaginative when she had it in her to ride the astral plane to a high better than any heroin kick or solvent abuse dream.

“I don’t believe in that witchcraft crap,” she’d told him fiercely.

“That’s like not believing in fire engines. You can pretend you don’t hear the sirens, but the fact is that they exist.”

“My mother’s delusional and you’re just making her worse.”

They’d stood and watched the sea going out, the lovers walking hand in hand along the beach, romantic and faintly ridiculous at once, a solitary dog barking as it chased a stick. “You used to love magic spells when you were a little girl.”

“Well, I grew up. It’s time you and Mum did the same.”

“It must be in you. It’s very rare that a witch doesn’t pass on the power to a daughter. I rejected control when I was your age. I turned away from everything that my parents wanted me to be, so it’s not as if I don’t understand the need to establish your own identity, separate from everyone’s expectations.”

“Spare me the empathy, please. I’m not riding a broomstick for anyone.”

“You have power, Alicia. You can use it for good or evil, or you can squander it completely. You also have compassion and intelligence and the ability to know right from wrong. The universal problem of teenagers since the dawn of time is their paralysing terror of the world and their place in it. You can sidestep the possibility of failure by choking on your own vomit on a park bench somewhere or you can have courage enough to face your fears and live in the world that frightens you and all your friends so very much that you can’t even look at it except through a haze of solvent. I’m staying here.” He handed her a postcard with the name and address of the hotel and his room number. “I’ll be in town for three days. If you would like to find out if you have inherited your mother’s magical abilities or not, I’ll be happy to teach you how to cast a simple spell. If not, goodbye.”

As he had turned to go, she had said: “I don’t see why you couldn’t have stayed. I don’t see why you and Mum couldn’t have made a go of it.”

Giles had hesitated, seeing the lights behind her head, her fair hair red and orange and green in the winking lights, wondering if this was always going to be his last sight of her. “I don’t either, now. But at the time it made sense to both of us to be together when we were together and apart when we were apart. It was certainly no fault of hers or yours. I missed you very much, Alicia.”

He had hoped it wasn’t just his imagination that there had seemed to be a glint of tears in her eyes as he turned and walked away.

She had called him on the second day, a long pause as he waited for the caller to speak, hoping it was her, and then that rush of words: I want to try it. I’m not promising anything. But I want to see if I can. I just want to know. I’m not saying you’re right…

They had eaten fish and chips out of newspaper and then cast a simple spell in the privacy of his room that confirmed that her mother’s powers had indeed been passed on. In truth, Miranda had never been a witch of any particular power, although she had been disciplined and measured, always, in the way she used what she had, and Alicia had possessed less power again, but there had been something there, enough to feel the magic catch and flow and spark and then ignite. Giles thought of the wonder on her face when she was eighteen and so behind in her coursework she didn’t know how to cope, but had just made a candle float across the room. He remembered her fair hair haloed and the flame of that floating candle casting light and shadow on her face. She had laughed in shock and delight, gazing across at him, and he had remembered her being six years old, on her birthday, sitting amidst a mound of torn wrapping paper, clapping her hands delightedly because he had made her cake rise up and spin…

Somewhere in the house a clock struck three. Too early even for the first birdsong, that weighty silence, as heavy as the water that flowed through a shipwreck. Tears spattered onto his hand and Giles wiped them away impatiently. He lifted another photograph, and there was Alicia on her sixth birthday party, her hair so much lighter than it had become later, clapping her hands together in excitement, so full of life and fun and with so many years ahead of her. Except her life had stopped at twenty-five, and she would never again go back to her strange little flat over the tea shop that she had described to him in a postcard; or take the bus into Knaresborough to visit her friend at the bookshop; or get a coach back to the White Horse to visit her mother and tell her not to fuss. She would never do anything again, because someone had strung her up by the ankles in a deserted cave, and cut her throat, and bled her like a pig and then written on the wall in Alicia’s blood: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

***

There was a different quality of morning light here. Gunn was used to the brightness of the California sun shimmering on a crowded sidewalk; the smog that rose up on the heat haze every morning and blocked out the stars every night but which made every sunset something so spectacular no Turner could have captured it. The sky was wide and open in California, like it knew it was covering a land that went on forever. It was mellower here, the sky washed out like a faded watercolour, the sunlight faint and slightly apologetic, like it was sorry for being even this much of an exhibitionist and it would soon be doing the British thing and slipping back behind a cloud. With the weak tea and the weaker sunlight, perhaps it was no wonder that the blood of the natives was so damned thin.

Gunn found Willow in the herb garden. She was picking rosemary and dropping the fragrant grey-green leaves into a basket. He thought she should have really been dressed in something with embroidery and long sleeves, instead of jeans and that little t-shirt. She didn’t even have a black cat winding its way around her ankles. It was a relief to look across to the house and see that there was a cat sunning itself on the flags. It wasn’t black, more like crumple-eared and ginger, but at least someone was trying to give a broomstick feel to the place.

“Hey,” he said awkwardly.

She gave him a welcoming smile. “How are you feeling?”

“A lot better than I should be.” He pulled up his sweater vest and showed her the faint scar. “I’m no doctor but I’m figuring nearly-fatal wounds don’t tend to heal that fast unless someone’s…helping them out.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Do you mind?”

“Not having to be in a wheelchair and then hobbling around with a stick being in all kinds of pain for all kinds of time? Not so much.” There was a seat set in among the chequerboard of herbs and old flags and he sank down onto it. “Just wanted to say thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She cut some chives. “How’s Wesley?”

Gunn grimaced. “You know…the same.”

He’d heard Wesley talking to himself the night before when he went past his room to the bathroom. This morning, as they were taking breakfast together in one of the back rooms that looked out onto the garden he’d asked the man who he’d been talking to.

“Fred.”

Gunn had been afraid of that but he tried to get with the crazy and not freak. “How did she sound?”

“Like my doubts.” Wesley had stared fixedly at the table for a moment while Gunn waited for him to say something philosophical about where Fred was now or what she was now post her fusion with Illyria. Instead he’d said: “Would you mind passing the marmalade?” Gunn had done so, eaten his toast, drunk his tea, and then come out here in search of someone sane to talk to.

“Have you seen Giles this morning?” he asked.

Willow shook her head. “He’s with Miranda. They’ve been talking about when Alicia was a little girl. I haven’t seen Giles this upset since Buffy died.”

“So, he’s not always like this then?” Gunn couldn’t help feeling relieved by that. A Giles on this short a fuse and a Wesley this high maintenance could make for a life that was way too…interesting.

“No, he’s just…frustrated.” Willow sat back on her heels. “Angel should have told someone what he’d done, why he took the job at Wolfram & Hart.”

“He was trying to do some good.”

“Well, from our point of view, ever since Angel arrived in LA there’s this big evil law firm that’s been trying to corrupt him and get him to give into his dark side and one day we find out that he’s CEO of their Los Angeles branch. He doesn’t give anyone - not even Buffy - any kind of explanation as to why and the only time we hear from him is when he wants something.”

“One of the times when he wanted your help was clearing up one of Buffy’s messes,” Gunn pointed out. “And I don’t remember you guys giving us the heads up about Buffy empowering every potential in the land, crazy or not. You didn’t run every decision you made past us, so why should Angel keep you informed of his plans?”

Willow sighed. “Giles is just upset about what happened to all of you.”

Gunn had to take a moment to readjust to that idea. “He doesn’t even know us.”

“He knew Cordelia and Wesley, and now Cordy’s dead and Wesley’s…not himself. He’s sorry that it happened. He thinks some of it might be his fault.”

Gunn wondered if Watchers were just programmed from birth to think everything had to be their fault. “How could it possibly be his fault?”

“He’s wondering if he’d been nicer to Wesley in Sunnydale, if he’d made more of an effort to keep in touch…”

“That’s bull,” Gunn told her firmly. “You’re seeing Crazy Wesley, but this isn’t who he’s been for the past five years. Wes was doing fine without you guys. We all were. And as to how things went down - we were going up against the earthly representatives of the Senior Partners - we knew what we were getting into and we knew we probably weren’t going to make it out alive. I’m not saying we’re not grateful for what you did, but no one asked for your help.”

Willow rolled her eyes. “Oh, so we’re doing a whole y chromosome thing now?”

“Damned straight.”

“I suppose you don’t ask for directions either?”

“I’m just saying - the world I come from, a guy doesn’t have to hide behind a teenage girl if he sees a vampire in a dark alley. You don’t have to be superhuman to make a difference. You get a truck, you trick it out for dusting, you find people who feel the same way. You go out there and you do your bit for the rest of the human race. You don’t need to wait around for some mystically supercharged cheerleader to do it for you.”

“You’re not the only people without super powers to try to make a difference.”

Gunn remembered Spike telling him about Xander’s missing eye, those two pictures on Willow’s dresser - three teenagers smiling at the camera as if they didn’t have a care in the world contrasting with those three haggard-looking adults, Buffy with that look in her eyes as if she’d seen things no one should have to look at, Willow so frail-looking, and Xander with a patch where his left eye had been. Feeling a little ashamed of himself, he inclined his head. “I know.”

“We’ve all lost people.” The sun came out again and Willow squinted up at him from her place among green and silver herbs. “Buffy has lost Angel three times now. She’s never loved any other guy the way she loved him and she probably never will. I lost Tara. She was the love of my life. There will never be anyone for me like her again. Xander lost Anya. Giles lost Jenny. Just because we were still standing when the only home some of us had ever known fell into a big crater in the ground, doesn’t mean we didn’t pay a price too.”

“I’m sorry.” Gunn snapped off a piece of sage and held it out to her as a peace offering. “I just… This isn’t my home turf. I don’t know where I fit. The only thing I recognize is Wes, and half the time I don’t think he knows who I am. The whole time we were in that hospital I wanted to get him away from LA, and now we’re here I don’t remember why. I keep thinking we should go back, set up as detectives again, pay the mortgage on the Hyperion even, hope we get some of our old clients back…”

Willow took the sage from him and added it to the basket. “Wait for Angel?”

Gunn bowed his head. “Damn. No. Or yes, maybe. I don’t know. At least if we were in LA we could fold blankets for Anne. Do some good for someone. I don’t know how to live my life just for myself. I’ve been fighting vampires since I was twelve years old. I need something to do.”

“Well, shall we give it a couple of days until you can walk further than ten yards before you have to sit down? Because I’m thinking we’re going to have to let the vampires get pretty close before you’re going to be much use in a fight right now.”

He kind of liked her waspish. Sweetness and light was only going to take you so far and it was nice to know she had a little bite in there as well. “Do they even know what yards are over here or have they gone all metric?”

She snorted. “They’re supposed to have gone metric but no one over thirty understands the new system so they have to put everything in two sizes. You know - not to totally change the subject or anything but there’s a spell I know that can help people to perceive the truth.”

“No.” He didn’t even have to think about that one.

“It’s not dangerous and it doesn’t have any side-effects, I promise.”

“Wes is going to get better, you just need to give him more time.”

Willow sighed. “I don’t know if it’s good for him to…”

Gunn thought about sitting down with Fred again; being able to tell her that he was sorry, that he had never meant to be any part of what had happened to her; that he would have died in a heartbeat in her place if it could have saved her; telling Cordy that he missed her every fuckin’ day. “Maybe it’s something he needs right now.”

“Giles thinks he won’t start to get better until he can differentiate between fantasy and reality.”

Gunn bowed his head to really look at her; the sunlight was playing on her hair, making it look edged with flame but her green eyes were full of doubt. “But you don’t agree with him, do you?”

“I’m not sure. Giles makes a pretty good argument for getting Wesley more with the sane program. What do you think?”

Gunn looked around at the herbs in their neat little beds, the pale yellowish stone of the farmhouse, the horses grazing in the fields, all of it much too neat and nice and pretty given all the horror there was in the world. How would you even remember what was out there if you lived like this? He snatched a breath. “I’ve never told anyone else this, not even Alonna. Not even Fred when we were… I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to my parents. They never had a night out, you know? But it was their anniversary - thirteen years, unlucky for some, my mother said, only she thought she was joking… So they asked the old lady over the hall to sit with us. They went to the movies. I don’t even remember what it was they went to see, but they walked home because they didn’t have that much money and it was only four blocks, no point in getting a cab. Only they never made it home because a gang of vampires ripped their throats out a hundred yards from our building.”

She reached out and squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry, Gunn.”

“The thing was I didn’t say goodbye. I was pissed that they made old Mrs Lancaster come over and sit with us when I could take care of Alonna. I wasn’t a little kid like her. I didn’t need no sitter. And the first thing I thought when the cops told us was that I was never going to get a chance to say goodbye.”

Willow said breathlessly, “I’m sure they knew you loved them.”

“The thing is I did get a chance to say goodbye, because I dreamed about them every night. And first they were alive in my dreams and I was so relieved it was just a mistake; the cops had mixed them up with someone else, and then the doubts would start to creep in, because there had been Dad’s wallet and that watch Mom wore, so, how could they make a mistake? I’d meet them in the park or on the edge of the practice field at school while a game was going on, and Mom would say she couldn’t stay but she wanted just to say goodbye and Dad would tell me he knew I was going to make him proud. And then I started to know - that they were dead - even in the dream, and I’d tell them I was sorry and I missed them but I was going to take care of Alonna.” He found there were tears in his eyes, just as he’d always feared there would be if he told this damned story to anyone, but somehow he didn’t mind as much as he’d expected with Willow. He wiped his eyes and shrugged. “The point is, I know it wasn’t them. I know my parents didn’t visit me in my dreams. But I still feel like I got closure, like I got to say goodbye, and that’s what my subconscious or whatever was doing, trying to help me out. So, what if this is helping Wes? What if this is what he needs to do before he can let go and move on? Who’s it hurtin’ to let him say his goodbyes?”

A crunch on the gravel made him look over his shoulder. Giles was standing against the sun, looking grim and bespectacled and worn out with grief, but also, for the first time, as if he understood. “I was afraid it might be hurting him.”

“Maybe he just needs to let go in his own way and his own time.”

Giles nodded. “I understand. I’m not prepared to let this situation continue indefinitely, but I am prepared to give him a little longer if you think it may be beneficial to him.”

The guy used so many more words than were actually necessary. Gunn thought of his past-self mocking Wesley’s: ‘Yes, give us that ‘purpose of an inventory’ speech...’ Not that it had made much difference. He’d done his best to get Wes trained up and God knows Cordy had tried too, but at the end of the day Wesley had still been pompous and stuffy and used ten two dollar words where two ten cent ones would work just as well. He guessed Watchers couldn’t help the way they talked. With a sudden pang he thought how much he would love it if Wesley started mouthing off about the purpose of an inventory now, standing there like he had a stick up his ass pontificating about the correct way to catalogue bladed weapons… The more he saw of Giles, the more he thought that Wesley had just been raised British and that was an incurable condition. “Yeah, I think it would be…beneficial to him.”

“I need to go to Harrogate. Alicia wasn’t the only victim of these people or demons, whoever they were. Two women she knew from Knaresborough were murdered as well. We’re either dealing with a deranged serial killer or else someone with a more logical and even more malevolent purpose. I’ve promised Miranda that I’ll investigate and…”

“You shouldn’t go alone,” Gunn said in the same breath as Willow’s: “I want to come with you.”

Giles looked between them in shock. “I don’t think it would be…”

“Safe for you to go there by yourself?” Willow countered. “Nor do I.”

“I’m not a witch, Willow.”

“You live in a coven and you’re technically a warlock.”

“I most certainly am not,” Giles said in indignation.

“Either way, I’m coming with you.” She stood up and folded her arms. “And this is my stubborn face.”

Gunn looked between her face and Giles’ and shrugged. “Man, I worked with Cordy for long enough to know when a chick isn’t going to be changing her mind whatever you say. May as well accept the inevitable, and if you think I’m letting you two go off and have all the fun of chasing the bad guys without me, you can think again.”

“What about Wesley?” Giles enquired.

“Change of scenery might be just what he needs,” Gunn tried to sound as if he was sure this was a good idea, when he so wasn’t.

Giles took off his glasses, cleaned them and then placed them back on his nose. “Fine. We’ll go together. But please be ready first thing in the morning. I want to leave by six am. It’s a five hour drive and we’re probably going to hit the rush hour traffic to Sheffield as it is. If we could waste as little time as possible I’d appreciate it.” He turned on his heel and walked away, the gravel crunching crisply underfoot.

“He’s grieving,” Willow said again, gently.

Gunn watched him go, all ramrod straight, and a big empty space inside him where living people were meant to be. There was no part of him that didn’t know how that felt. “Aren’t we all?” he said quietly.

***

Wesley awoke with a start and the sound came again, the squeak of something snatched up in feathered talons. He got up and went to the window. It was a full moon and the gardens were blue-lit, every tree and bush ablaze with silver. No doubt if Illyria had been visiting she could have told him about more beauteous worlds that she had overwhelmed with her might; vast kingdoms conquered and set aflame while she bestrode their fallen armies like a colossus. But he wondered if she had truly seen anything more beautiful than the silhouette of that old oak with the full moon behind it, or the white pillar of a weeping birch, its leaves shivering silver in the breeze. He wondered if this was the real reason why Giles had insisted on bringing him here; as if the landscape alone could heal him with its familiarity. He could hear the stream that ran through the woods from here, the sound of its shallows over stones. The yew would be a vast darkness in the moonlight, half-hollowed out with age; a place where Fred might be waiting.

“She’s not there, Wes.”

The voice was a shock sharper than a swordpoint. He turned slowly, hardly daring to breathe, and then the air gushed out of him in sheer disbelief.

That slow familiar smile as the man stepped out of the shadows into the moonlight so that Wes could see for himself that he was whole and here.

“Angel…?” His laugh was incredulous and he sounded half-unhinged but he couldn’t help his delight and disbelief showing. “Illyria said she didn’t know where you were.”

The vampire shrugged. “We got separated. I guess she has her own atonement to work through. Not that I can see her being big on atonement. That would probably clash with her whole ‘when you were muck’ thing.”

Wesley darted forward. “Are you…human…?”

The vampire shook his head. “Fraid not, Wes. Not yet. Apparently I still have tasks to perform. Are they looking after you okay?”

“Yes, of course. Gunn’s in the next room, do you want me to fetch him?”

Angel shook his head. “No, I can’t stay long. I just wanted to see how you were, let you know I wasn’t dusted in that alley.”

“Is Spike okay?”

Angel rolled his eyes. “Who cares?”

“Well, I think Buffy might and Willow and Giles would probably like to know.”

“Well, he’s not where I am, which makes me happy, but he didn’t die in the alley either. Still, it can’t all be good news.”

Wesley smiled despite himself. “I’m glad to see passing to the other side or the higher plane or wherever you’ve been hiding out hasn’t made you any less petty. Are you…?” He wasn’t sure how to phrase it. “Are you really you…?”

Angel looked hurt. “I’m not Angelus.”

“No, I mean, are you…you?”

“Who else would I be?” Angel sniffed the air and then gave him a look of reproach. “You didn’t?”

Wesley felt a twinge of guilt. “Didn’t what?”

“With Lilah, Wesley? That’s necrophilia.”

“Well, technically, it was necrophilia when you slept with Darla and when Buffy slept with you and I don’t imagine you were throwing that word around then.”

“What is it with you and walking corpses? Why don’t you just double date with Lilah and Illyria? Throw in a bottle of embalming fluid and you’re away.”

“Angel, please, that really is in the worst possible taste. And I’m not the only person to be tempted by walking corpses as I’m sure Buffy could testify.” He had to take a moment to drink the man in; the relief at finding that he had survived overwhelming. “How did you find us? Did you see Cordelia?”

Angel took a glowing sphere out of his pocket. “No, the Oracles gave me some kind of mystical tracking device. It’s linked to your soul-waves or something. Brought me straight here. I told them I wasn’t going off on some damned vision quest without seeing for myself that you were okay.” Angel pocketed the sphere and squeezed his shoulders lightly, that smile as warm as a winter fire. “I really thought I’d lost you. Is Gunn okay? He was bleeding pretty badly…”

“He’s fine,” Wesley assured him. “Willow’s been healing him. I’m fine too. Well…” He thought about telling Angel that he was so confused at the moment that he wasn’t even sure that the vampire was real, and then decided that Angel really didn’t need to be bothered by those kind of doubts right now. “I still miss Fred and Cordelia.”

Angel squeezed his shoulders again. “You and me both, Wes. Sure you’re okay? You look tired.”

“I’m still on LA time. When you travel by ordinary jet plane instead of direct transportation it’s a little difficult to adjust.”

Angel opened his hand and the sphere glowed more brightly, a swirl of white and crimson. “Hey, this thing is no picnic either. You know me and technology.”

“Are you…all right?” Wesley pressed anxiously. “You’re really on an astral plane, not a…?”

“Hell dimension?” Angel grimaced. “I think I may have to travel through one. The Powers seem to need a champion to perform all kinds of fun tasks for them. How come objects of power are never just lost in the umbrella stand like in the old days anyway?”

“Don’t you need to research where you’re going?” Wesley asked anxiously, already looking around for books. “If you’re going to the equivalent of Quor’toth you should really know what you’re up against. Sometimes the fabric between different dimensions can be as thin as paper, even a slight deviation from a set path can…”

“Don’t fuss,” Angel reassured him. “I’m going to be fine. I’ve got my glowy sphere thing, a sword that’s impressively big and shiny and can cut through the walls between demon worlds, and then there’s the whole ‘my strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure’ thing I have going for me.”

Wesley felt his anxiety recede a little and the relief and happiness well up that Angel was still alive and still serving the Powers; that his last stand hadn’t cost him his soul or his destiny. “Did the Powers talk about your reward, Angel?”

“It can’t be for the reward, Wes.” Angel gazed into his eyes with all the old tenderness, the memories between them of the time when they had been separated by so much grief and rage just making this time of perfect understanding more precious. “Remember? If nothing that we do matters…?”

“Then all that matters is what we do?” Wesley sighed. “I know you can’t want that reward, Angel. I know it has to be about the work, about the people you save, but I can still want it for you.”

“I know you do, Wesley. And one day maybe we’ll both be able to take a walk in the sunlight, but it’s not going to happen yet.” He reached out and clasped Wesley on the shoulder, still gazing intently into his eyes. “Someone has to fight the good fight, right? Tell Gunn I was asking after him, and take care of yourself…” And then Angel stepped out of the window and dropped gracefully onto the lawn, before walking along the path, a tall dark figure, his coat flapping behind, bathed in moonlight. He walked under the weeping willow and then passed into the woods where Wesley could no longer see him. He kept on looking, of course, still hoping to see a last glimpse, but even though he could make out nothing but the fields of silver grass and the dark shadows of the trees, in his heart was now the knowledge that he and Gunn weren’t the only ones to survive their battle with the Black Thorn.

***
Part Five