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All parts linked to from Story Notes


Temps Perdu, Part Eight

It was justice, of course. Angel couldn’t deny that. He knew they were all thinking it even though no one was tactless enough to say it. But then no one was saying anything much. A strange melancholy had fallen over everyone. They’d saved Wesley and lost him in the same instant. Now they sat around despondently, in the lobby mostly, although Willow and Giles were murmuring quietly to one another from the office as they turned the pages of their spell books. Spike was chain smoking pensively and taking occasional swigs from the bottle by his feet. Buffy sitting at the foot of the stairs, Illyria standing listening; Lorne, ironically, sitting on the seat in the lobby to which they’d duct-taped him on the last occasion that a precious part of their memories had been lost. Gunn – cheerleader for the group who had wanted to decapitate Lorne during those crowded and confusing few hours – sat next to him, polishing his axe. Presumably he found that action as comforting as did Lorne the sipping of his ever-present cocktail. Xander was drinking beer next to Gunn. He looked unusually grim, the eyepatch a reminder to anyone who might have been unwise enough to forget, that this was a man who had looked into the face of death more than once.

Wesley didn’t remember him. Didn’t know who he was. Who any of them were. Looked at him and saw only a vampire with a terrible reputation for carnage. Wesley was afraid of him. Yesterday he had been the one Wesley called for; the one he needed to fight off the nightmares. Now, to a Watcher, he probably was the nightmare. He closed his eyes and remembered demonstrating his strength to the person Wesley now thought he was.

Because this is how fast I could take you if I wanted to...

Christ, he’d been a macho prick in those days; resentful because the fragile human dared to be scared. No, resentful because the uppity human dared to challenge him with a cross. But that had just been the outward sign of Wesley’s very understandable fear. He hadn’t even allowed him that.

Wesley gazing up at him with all that hope and excitement:

“…it’s saying – that you get to live until you die. It’s saying – it’s saying you become human.”

All those moments of shared triumph and despair; sitting either side of Cordelia’s hospital bed, willing her back to sanity. Those fleeting good times and those oh so bad times. The pillow in the hospital. The taste of Wesley’s blood in his mouth. Him bawling out Wesley while the guy looked at him in bewilderment because he didn’t know what he’d done, only that if it had made Angel this pissed with him it must clearly have been something very wrong. Not getting that sometimes Angel was just an unreasonable bastard or that the thing that had flicked his erstwhile leader on the raw was a memory Wesley no longer shared.

And there it was, of course. The part that served him right. He’d high-handedly stolen all their memories to safeguard Connor. How had he justified it to himself? They were better off without them. They didn’t need to remember all that crap. Wes didn’t need to carry the burden of that guilt any longer. Daddy knows best...

And now his ass was well and truly bitten. This time he hadn’t been able to stipulate which memories were taken and which were left and he hadn’t been one of the memories that stuck. None of them had. A new beginning with a vengeance; except it hadn’t even been his just punishment handed out by a higher power, just an accidental result of Willow’s mystical lateral thinking.

“It could be temporary, right?” Gunn looked up. “Wes not remembering us?”

“Could be.” Angel looked at the floor of the lobby. It needed sweeping. Cordelia had always been the one who made sure the place stayed clean. Not that she did it all herself, but she put her foot down about chores like the Soccer Mom from Hell somedays. Cordelia. Wesley didn’t even know who she was. Or Fred. He looked across at Illyria… Illyria – he’d looked right at her and he hadn’t flinched. Not even healing tissue; just no memory of that wound at all. She was just this strange blue-haired creature who didn’t blink. If he came down and didn’t escape out of a window to get away from the freak show, they would introduce him to her and he wouldn’t feel a single pang. That was strange to think about.

He’d stolen so many memories in his time. Buffy, so she wouldn’t remember their perfect day of him being human. Connor, so he could have a new life. Wesley, so he wouldn’t remember the reason why Connor needed a new life or that he had even existed. One signature and it was gone, all of it, the pain, the pillow, the agonizing over that terrible decision that had cost them both so much, the rejection, the bleak time in the wilderness. Had he stolen some of Lorne’s ability to read people? He wasn’t sure about that. Even now. Not completely familiar with all the ins and outs of his betrayal of the people around him, the full extent of his crime. Had Fred died because of something he had done? He knew she had died because of something he had failed to do. He and Spike had stood there on that damned bridge over the abyss and waited it out, let the time trickle past them as the dead god kings of the old world disappeared into dots in the infinity. Would Gunn have taken the upgrade anyway? He didn’t know the timing precisely; not the moment when they’d made the fatal decision to sign up for the Wolfram & Hart Fast Track to Corruption and Certain Misery Course. Had Wesley killed his father because his mental nuts and bolts had been loosened in the mindwipe? Angel had spent a century trying to look into the full horror of his past crimes, shouldn’t that give a guy a head start on not committing any new ones? Why hadn’t he proven better at keeping his people safe? Why had Doyle and Cordelia and Fred had to die? That was why he’d had to dive into that hell dimension after Wesley. He couldn’t fail another fragile human who had pledged his life to Angel’s cause.

Maybe it was better this way. Wesley had forgotten both of their failures. He could walk out of this hotel right now and know nothing of stealing Connor or stabbing Gunn or feeling Fred die in his arms.

“Red will get him back.” Spike tossed another cigarette butt onto the floor. A century and a half walking the earth and the guy couldn’t use an ashtray? “This is small stuff to her.”

“Damned straight.” Xander sipped his beer as if he didn’t much care for the taste of it.

Gunn abruptly got to his feet. “Maybe we should see how she’s doing.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Lorne turned to Illyria and Buffy. “Going to join us for the inevitable angsty pow-wow, SuperWomen?”

“Couldn’t we just take it as a said?” Spike shrugged wearily, but he was getting to his feet all the same.

“What?” Xander enquired.

“The ‘do-we don’t-we, maybe we should, maybe shouldn’t, new start over free will over how much free will does anyone have when their memories have already been pissed about with once anyway?’ arguments.”

Buffy frowned. “Is that an issue?”

“Everything’s an issue,” said Gunn heavily.

Lorne nodded. “It’s kind of inevitable when you sign up to work for a guy who is atoning for a dozen lifetimes of sin. Comes with the perpetual blackout and no crucifixes in the office deal.”

Spike shrugged. “All the moral ins and outs to agonize over, love. I suggest you get yourself a drink.”

“I’ve been thinking....” Angel began tentatively.

Spike groaned. “Better make it a large one.”

***

Wesley came down the stairs in his socks, carrying the shoes which he presumed were his; narrow fitting, Italian leather. His clothes were an odd mixture. He and Angelus appeared to be sharing a wardrobe and there had been a clear gap of several inches in the middle between the one set of clothes and the others. Angelus wore a lot of black. Occasionally purple. Mostly black. Wesley – the Wesley he couldn’t remember being – seemed to vacillate between blue, grey, or green sweaters of no particular style, or what appeared to be designer shirts, mostly in plain colours: moss green, mauve, dark blue, silver grey. There was a tuxedo, oddly enough, but none of the suits that Wesley had liked to wear in the past. The motorcycle leathers had also given him pause. He’d assumed at first they must belong to Angelus, but they had been very emphatically in what seemed to be the ‘Wesley’ side of the wardrobe. They were rather cool. He’d opted for wearing the clothes on the chair in the end. It seemed the least confrontational; the most inclined to show that he was willing to meet them halfway, believed them even. Here he was at least trying to show a link between himself and the Wesley they wanted him to be. The Wesley who apparently wore jeans, white t-shirts, and this rather raggedy looking green sweater. Better that than the pyjamas and dressing gown combination anyway. He didn’t want to look like Arthur Dent.

He moved as quietly as he could, not sure how to deal with them en masse, these strangers who claimed to know him, and was simultaneously relieved and disconcerted to find that he apparently wasn’t going to have to as none of them were in sight.

In hearing however....

He caught his breath as he heard them, and immediately sat down on the third step from the bottom so as to be less visible, automatically putting on his shoes as he listened to them:

“…chance to start over again....” That was Angelus. He sounded earnest and defeated at once. Passionate and yet…depressed.

“Man, I can’t believe we’re going through this again....”

“Gunn, I told you, it’s not the same situation.”

“It’s exactly the same situation. You’re talking about taking away from Wes who he is.”

“No, I’m talking about letting him stay who he is. Who he is right now, instead of making him go back to being who he was.”

Wesley felt a chill go through him. Good grief, what kind of a person was he that these people who claimed to be his friends didn’t want him to be the man they knew?

“Who he was is who he is – who he really is, anyway. Didn’t you learn anything from the mindwipe? We are what we are, and part of that is what we remember. Supposing someone took all your memories away tomorrow and you didn’t remember you had anything to atone for, what would that make you?”

“Happier.” Angelus sounded sad to Wesley and he felt a little pang as he heard it – not liking to hear that note in his voice; even though this was a vampire he was listening to, and not even just any vampire, but a notoriously vicious, sadistic, and amoral vampire, and it was surely nothing to him if it was happy or sad. “We have a choice here. We can see this as a blessing or a curse.”

“I see it as a spell gone wrong myself.” Spike shrugged. “I’m with Chuck and his lawyer knowhow on this. You already tried fixing it so Wes didn’t have all the guilt and the angst and the whatever. All that meant was that he got hit all the harder when the memories came back again. You can’t change the past.”

“But you can.” Wesley thought how haunted Angelus sounded and how terribly…sad. “I did. With Connor. He’s happy now. I don’t think any of you realize what we’re going to give back to Wesley if we ask Willow to do this....”

“The truth.” The man called Gunn was stolidly determined. Standing against the wall with his arms folded as if no one could shift him without the use of heavy machinery. Wesley could see him through the window of the office. “Didn’t we learn at Wolfram & Hart that you have to stay true to yourself?”

“Look at the reality of what we’re giving back to him if we go through with this. He’ll remember that one of his closest friends is dead, that the woman he loved is dead, that he was tricked by a demon and a man bent on vengeance into stealing my son and causing him to be brought up in a hell dimension. That I tried to kill him for it. That we all turned on him. That none of his so-called friends ever gave him a chance to explain his side of things. We just shut him out. That he started sleeping with a woman he knew to be evil. That he kept a woman chained up in his closet. That when my soul was removed – at his insistence – I got out and drank from the corpse of the woman he’d been sleeping with for the previous six months, meaning he had to cut off her head. That she came back from the dead to offer him the keys to the kingdom of hell incorporated. That I, the noble champion whose cause he has spent the past five years of his life supporting, turned out to be willing to sell all of you down the river if I could save my son in the process. That Fred died in his arms. That Illyria wears her face now....”

Wesley found he was having trouble breathing as he listened to this catalogue of failures and disasters.

“Did I miss anything out?” Angelus demanded.

Giles said quietly: “Yes. Everything that matters.”

There was a pause before Angelus said defensively, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He found somewhere to belong, Angel. And he earned the love and trust of every one of you. Do you think someone like Wesley would really be stronger for not knowing that?”

“I can’t give all that crap back to him! All that misery and those mistakes and the times I....”

“Look, we made this mistake with Cordy, remember?” Gunn said intently. “Tried to give her a load of guff instead of coming out and telling the truth, and I think we all remember how that turned out. Not saying Wes is going to run off and sleep with your hellspawn if we’re not straight with him but I think even if we can’t get his memories back we ought to tell him the truth about what’s been going on. That way, if the memories do come back he’s only going to be remembering stuff he already knew about. It’s not going to hit him like a Sherman tank.”

Angel shook his head. “Why do we have to tell him anything? I just want him to be happy. Why can’t you all just let him be happy? He can go home with Giles and be a Watcher. He’s a good Watcher, he just never got the chance before. Faith would have him as her Watcher again. Then he’d be back on his right path. He could help her train those new Slayers. They’d listen to him. No one would.... They wouldn’t know about the other....”

“We just got him back!” Gunn said and Wesley flinched at the passion in his voice; having to snatch a breath because it made no sense that this man he didn’t know should sound like this about him. That anyone should sound like this about him. “You’re asking Lorne and Illyria and Spike and me to give up our friend because you say so?”

“This is unacceptable to me.” That was Illyria.

“Well, if you actually cared about him instead of just wanting to fuck him, it might be a little more acceptable to you.”

“Is that aimed at me or Illyria, because I’m still holding an axe…?”

“Kids, shall we back away from the yawning precipice of who has the purest motives here?” He had to risk lifting his head to take a look to see who that was talking, and it was, oddly enough, the green-skinned demon. The horned creature took a strengthening sip from the glass in his hand before saying, “Let’s take it as read that everyone here loves Wesley and wants the best for him....”

Wesley felt his jaw drop, because how on earth could anyone just say that, like that, so casually, as if of course that was how it was. That was never how it was. It had never been that way. It never would be that way. What was that horned creature drinking to think it could possibly be that way? He felt shaken to the core of his foundations by that casually insane assertion. That upset him more than the catalogue of failures. That had at least been on some level expected, but this was just…wrong.

“…and therefore let’s just take it as read that every suggestion someone makes is coming from a good place for Wesley, okay? And when I say ‘take it as read’, remember I’m the one who did the reading and who you will therefore be insulting if you start casting nasturtiums.”

“She does want to fuck him....”

He’d never realized that scourges of Europe had it in them to mutter quite so petulantly. No one had ever mentioned anything about sulking and pouting when he’d been researching Angelus.

“And shall we recap whose bed he’s been sleeping in for the past I don’t know how many months?”

“Didn’t have a bed on Askaroth.” Another petulant mutter. “We slept on the ground. And we weren’t sleeping together. We were just…sleeping. But together.”

“The fact that nothing…penetrative took place, Angel....”

“Okay, can we stop this conversation now?” That was Buffy; he recognized her voice. “If there’s going to be any talk of Angel and Wesley and penetration, I’m going to have to bail.”

“Me too.” The other human male.

“And me three.” Gunn again.

“Why is it so hard for everyone to grasp that I just want him to be happy?”

“Everyone does get that,” Spike countered. “We just also think you’re an asshole who can’t learn from his mistakes.”

“We can give Wesley back a life that isn’t fucked up. He can go back with Giles, and the Watchers’ Council will be damned grateful to have him back.”

“What if they’re the ones that sent the cyborgs?” Gunn countered. “Whoever they were, they were a force for good. Not too ethical, but they were killing the bad guys. They wanted to make you their puppet instead of the puppet of the Senior Partners. They treated Wesley like a traitor who didn’t matter. That robot pretending to be his father would have killed him if Wesley hadn’t shot him first....”

Wesley felt as if someone had punched him in the guts. The air just whooshed straight out of him and he doubled over, gasping for air. Shot him.... Robot.... Pretending to be his father....

From a long way off the voices spiralled back to him, slowly gaining ascendancy over the whooshing in his ears. “…another memory we’ll be giving back to him if we let Willow reverse the spell.”

“It’s his life, Angel. He’s entitled to it.” Gunn again.

“It isn’t the way his life was meant to go.”

“You don’t know that.” Giles. He sounded so reasonable.

“Lorne – Wesley is off his path, isn’t he?”

“Angel, thanks to you we’re all off our path. Our original path anyway. The Senior Partners saw to that when they brought back Darla and you helped them every step of the way by sleeping with her. Connor wasn’t meant to happen. And then he was. That’s the way these things go. You know that. A memory doesn’t exist and then it does. Buffy’s sister never was and then she had always been there. Connor’s like that. But as soon as you slept with Darla you set a chain of events in motion that was always going to lead to the Senior Partners unleashing the apocalypse. All I knew was that Wesley had a part to play in preventing it. And he did. So, perhaps none of us are off our path. Maybe sleeping with Darla wasn’t the moment when the Powers That Weren’t Jasmine washed their hands of you and maybe it was pre-destined. All I know is that he’s on the same path we are right now. He’s with us.”

“Being with us is what’s nearly gotten him killed half a dozen times already.” Angel spoke passionately. “You don’t want to hear it, I know. Do you think I like saying it? Do you think I like admitting that the worst thing that ever happened to Wesley was…me? I used to think I was helping him. That his life was better because of me. That because of me he had a purpose and a family and a job he was doing that no one else could do better. A sense of place in the world.”

“You were, Angel,” Lorne said. “You still are. You followed him into a hell dimension because you couldn’t bear to lose him. Don’t you think Wesley would like to remember that?”

“I’m a vampire. That’s all I am to him now. And maybe it’s better that way. Maybe Watchers aren’t meant to be friends with Vampires any more than Slayers are.” Angel sounded so sad that Wesley felt an irrational desire to go in there and tell him everything was okay. “Maybe I wasn’t just cursed with a soul by those gypsies, maybe I was cursed with the ability to make a living hell out of the lives of everyone I dare to love.” He looked across at Buffy. “We both know that my loving you was probably the worst thing that ever happened to you.”

“No. It wasn’t. Having to kill you was the worst thing.”

“I tried to kill him....”

“No, you didn’t.” Gunn again.

“I put a pillow over his head and....”

“Yeah. You put a pillow over his head when he was hooked up to a machine with an alarm on it that told everyone in the vicinity he’d stopped breathing. How long does it take to snap a human neck, Angel? Come on, you’ve had enough practise. How long? Two seconds? One? If you’d wanted him dead he would have been dead. You weren’t trying to kill him, you were trying to make him suffer.”

“Do you think it’s going to be good for his mental health to have that memory back? What about the way you treated him? What about Fred? What about Cordy? It was bad enough after he broke the Orlon Window, but at least he only got some of the bad memories back. He already remembered Lilah. He remembered Cordy and what she’d done and how she was in a coma now. This time he doesn’t have any memories at all and you’re proposing that we just hit him with them all at once. Sunnydale. Faith. Connor. Cordy. Lilah. Fred. Killing his father. If we do that to him he’ll end up insane. He’ll end up....”

“Roaming the alleyways, eating rats?” Spike sounded surprisingly compassionate. “Angel, we’re not gypsy cursing him here. We wouldn’t be giving him his memories back as a punishment. We’d be giving them back to him because they’re his. And weren’t there any good times at all? You just emotionally abused him in between bouts of the world kicking him in the head for the past five years?”

“The good times make it worse. The good times are the things we have to protect him from.”

“Okay. Let’s keep this simple, shall we?”

“Well, you’re certainly the guy for that job, Xander.”

Angelus was a bit of a bitch, Wesley had to concede. As someone who could be a bit of a bitch himself, he understood the need for it sometimes. It just seemed an odd trait in someone so…powerful.

“You’re all the great and noble champions, I know. And I’m the guy with the eye patch and no special skills. But I always thought lying was wrong. Oh yes, and that free will was important.”

“Free will is important.” That was Gunn. “It’s so damned important that we ended world peace to preserve it. Something it would have been nice if Angel here had thought about when he was screwing around with ours five minutes later.”

Spike said, “Well, you see, Gunn, Angel’s a superhero and the laws are different for them. They can do whatever the hell they like and it’s okay because only kryptonite can hurt them.”

“I will not practise any deception upon Wesley.” That was Illyria. “He told me that he needed his memories to be himself.”

“His memories nearly got him killed!”

“Doing the right thing nearly got him killed,” Lorne countered. “He didn’t jump into that hell dimension because he had a death wish, Angel. He did it because it was the only way to stop demon legions overrunning the earth. He is always going to do the right thing, whether it’s misguided or heroic and involves kidnapping your son or saving the whole world. That’s who he is. With his memories or without them that is always who he’s going to be. He can just make more informed decisions with them.”

“We don’t have the right to decide for him.” The one Angel had called ‘Xander’ again. “He isn’t your kid. Maybe you had the right to make that decision for Connor and maybe you didn’t. Maybe it turned out well and he forgives you. That isn’t relevant here. You don’t have the right to make Wesley’s decisions for him. You did it once and it was wrong. You do it again, it will still be wrong. As far as I’m concerned it will always be wrong.”

“I wish you would....”

“He’s here.”

Wesley felt a shiver of fear as Spike said that. Instinctive and unreasonable as none of them seemed to mean him any harm. It was just the thought of being scented. Being sensed by a prey animal that fed upon his kind. He hastily got to his feet and walked a few paces into the lobby. They spilled out of the office to meet him, awkward or smiling falsely, looking guilty and furtive.

“Hello, Wesley.” That was Giles being a little over hearty. “Can I get you a cup of tea?”

“Can you introduce me to everyone first?” There was far too much to take in so he wasn’t going to try. His heart was hammering with the stress of it all; those overheard remarks that had knocked the breath from his body and left him scared to look at his own reflection for fear of what he might see. Murderer. Kidnapper. Madman. But there was also the passion to deal with; that ache in Angel’s voice. Angelus’s voice. Had he been calling him Angel in his mind for a while there? When had that happened?

“Charles Gunn.” The tall black man held out a hand and Wesley took it a little tentatively. He looked like a guy who could administer a crushing handshake but Gunn only squeezed his hand gently, like Wesley was fragile and too easily bruised.

“Xander Harris.” Another handshake, this one from the man with the eye patch.

“I’m Lorne, sweetpea.”

Wesley shook the demon’s hand and then said inanely: “You’re a demon.”

“Yes.”

Wesley gazed at him intently. “ Karathmama...nyuhg family…?”

“Oh please.” Lorne rolled his eyes. “Crumpet, do I look like I live on raw sewage?”

“He’s Pylean.” Gunn explained. “Heart in his ass deal. Lovely singing voice.”

“I’m anagogic,” Lorne added, after a withering look at Gunn.

“Oh.” Suddenly some of the things he’d overheard made sense. “You can sense the way in which each soul is striving for its own perfection?”

“I prefer to think of it as someone’s true path, handsome, but, yes, that’s pretty much it. If they sing I can read them and try to set them on their way.”

The blue-haired woman almost elbowed Lorne out of the way to gaze intently into Wesley’s eyes. “I am Illyria, god-king of the fallen worlds.”

“Oh.” Wesley had to swallow the urge to laugh hysterically. “Not a local girl then?”

“I am one of the Old Ones. I existed before humans infected this world like germs.”

“And you and I we’re…friends?”

She continued to gaze at him, intent and unblinking. “You said that we were allies of a kind. I asked you to be my teacher. You have been instructing me in the ways of this world and your kind.”

“Watcher to a demon of immeasurable age and evil?” Wesley nodded. It seemed the appropriate thing to do. “I see.”

“I wear the form of a woman you once loved. That is why you agreed to assist me. But although I could take that form at all times, you do not allow me to do so. I still do not understand why.”

“Blue, we’ve been through this.” Spike took her elbow and moved her away. “And you’re giving him way too much information there. He’s still trying to get the names and faces sorted out.”

“But I wish him to remember me.”

“Well, he doesn’t.” Spike turned back to him. “You know who I am. But what Rupert the Librarian said about me having a soul is true. I’m on the side of the good guys now.”

“Ah, I see. So it only looks as if I’ve joined forces with a group of vampires and demons?”

Gunn winced. “I’m human.”

“An do we all peacefully co-exist in this hotel?” Wesley looked up the staircase to the innumerable bedrooms.

“We’re actually two different groups.” Buffy stepped forward a little awkwardly. “My people are from Sunnydale. Giles, you’ve met, and Willow, and Xander. We don’t live here. We don’t live in Sunnydale any more either on account of it being a big smoking crater but… The others are your people.”

“My people.” He looked at Angel who was gazing at him miserably, Spike who was lighting a cigarette, Lorne who raised his glass in a rueful grimace, Illyria, who stared at him unblinkingly, and Gunn, who gave him a somewhat sheepish smile. “Two vampires, an Old One, a demon from a different dimension, and an American.”

“I don’t think being an American is as bad as being a demon,” Gunn protested.

“And why not?” Lorne demanded. “We weren’t the ones who drove out the Native Americans.”

“Your kind used humans as slaves.”

“Well, thank goodness that never happened here.”

Wesley sighed. “And we do…what exactly?”

“Help the helpless,” Angel said, shoulders slumped dejectedly.

“Fight evil wherever it may lurk,” Spike said, slightly facetiously, Wesley suspected.

“Kill vampires and demons,” Gunn added.

“Except for the ones with whom we work presumably?” Wesley observed.

There was a general feel of people shuffling their feet. “Pretty much,” Gunn admitted. “But part of what makes us better than people who just go around say, calling Lorne a green bitch, and suggesting we chop his head off just because, is that we differentiate between the good and bad demons. We’re…discriminating.”

“It was kind of your idea,” Angel said. “You’re the one who found Caritas and first met Lorne.”

“Oh.” Wesley gave Lorne a wan smile, stifling the instinctively facetious comment that rose to his lips. Being nervous and feeling at a loss always tended to make him behave snippily and he didn’t really think it was a good idea to start alienating these people out of the starting blocks.

“Shall we have some breakfast?” Giles suggested in that somewhat forced headmaster-at-a-bad-school-play manner he seemed to be adopting for the duration. “Wesley must be hungry after…well, after everything.”

“I could make eggs.” Angel looked at him a little shyly. “You used to like my eggs.”

Wesley had no idea how to respond to this person, who set every instinct he possessed screaming ‘run!’ and yet who looked at him with that quiet yearning expression and who seemed to care so passionately about his happiness. He took refuge in basic politeness. “Thank you. That would be…very nice.”

Angel looked so relieved, beaming at him in a way that so was entirely…dork-like that Wesley found himself wondering if this could really be the Angelus. Had there perhaps been another one who had only been the scourge of, say…small furry rodents?

He followed Giles blindly through one big door along a corridor and into a dining room. There was a white cloth spread still and plates and cutlery put ready. Spike looked at Giles in surprise. “You…?”

“We may as well be civilized.”

Spike looked at Wesley. “I suppose we do have company.”

“Sit here, sweetpea.” Lorne pulled out a chair for him and Wesley automatically sat down. He suspected that his father would hate him permitting a horned demon – or indeed anyone else – to call him ‘sweetpea’ and that was enough to make him decide that he would not only permit it but would positively learn to like it.

There was a general flutter of activity around him, and although he knew it was a deliberate ploy to make the extraordinary seem more normal, it did help – the orange juice in the glasses, the milk in the jug, the teapot, the toast rack. The cutlery and cruets were all subtly art deco and he examined one with interest. “Are they original?”

“I guess.” Gunn again. “Angel would probably know. Or…well, you’re the one who did the research originally, on the history of this place.”

“Why do you – we – live here?”

“It was abandoned after some paranoia demon took up residence here. Angel stayed here for a while in the fifties ‘til the residents tried to stretch his neck and he stomped off in a huff. You did the spell to make the demon, you know…”

“Manifest?”

“Yeah. Can’t remember its name now. Which is odd because I got a lot of demon info downloaded into my brain when I.... I guess those particular demons don’t put anything in writing. They feed off human fears.”

“A Thesulac?” Wesley suggested.

“Yeah, that’s the one. Lots of tentacles. Southern accent.”

Wesley blinked. “I think that as with human beings the accent would probably vary depending on its birthplace. I don’t think I’ve researched the spell for disposing of one of those. Did you take notes?”

Gunn looked at him as if he were a little insane. “No, but you did, all the time. Lots of them. In scarily neat handwriting.”

“Watcher training, Gunn,” Giles put in as he poured them both a cup of tea. “One is always told to record everything. Tea, anyone?” There was a muted ‘Yes, please’ from Willow. Everyone else nervously sipped orange juice, except for Lorne, who nervously sipped something alcoholic, Illyria who kept on with the head tilting and not blinking thing, and Spike who just smoked.

“It can be of invaluable assistance to one’s replacement,” Wesley explained, sipping his tea.

Gunn grimaced. “Watchers get replaced a lot, do they?”

“Well, killing her Watcher is an obvious way to disorientate a Slayer, especially if she has unwisely formed an emotional attachment to him or her. That’s why the Watchers’ Handbook makes such a point of insisting that a good Watcher remains emotionally detached.” He glanced across at Giles then, suddenly realizing that he’d been tactless. “Sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“The Watchers’ Handbook is written by robots for robots,” Buffy said shortly. “How are you supposed to face death every day and not care about the people facing it with you?”

“Well, it’s a technique, you see, which is taught by…” Wesley abruptly remembered the ragged misery in Angel’s voice; the distressed expressions on their faces when they realized he didn’t know who they were. He dropped his gaze to his plate. “I suppose that may be one of those theories that doesn’t test quite as well in the field.”

“You got that right.” Gunn poured him some orange juice. “Are there waffles? Who’s doing the cooking anyway?”

“Angel and Xander.” Willow looked up. She was a very pretty girl, Wesley thought, with glorious hair, but he didn’t really understand how she could be the powerful witch they seemed to think. She looked about seventeen. She frowned. “Angel and Xander in a kitchen. Together. With lots of sharp implements. I’m not sure that’s a very good idea.”

“Could be worse,” Buffy pointed out. “Could be Spike and Xander.”

“All I care about is, do they know how to make waffles?”

Xander’s return seemed to answer that question. As they all looked at him in accusation, he shrugged. “Me and Angel in a kitchen together? With lots of sharp implements? Why didn’t anyone point out what a bad idea that was?”

“I want waffles,” Gunn told him.

“And I ordered you some as I walked out of the kitchen – that place along the block delivers. There are pancakes, there are waffles. There is maple syrup. There is everything but porridge.” He said ‘porridge’ in an English accent, Wesley noted.

“No porridge?” Giles looked up. “That’s disappointing.”

“Don’t start,” Xander warned him. “Everyone knows you only pretend to like oatmeal to gross out the rest of us.”

“Where’s Angelcakes?” Lorne drained his glass and then looked at the last melting ice cube sorrowfully.

“Still making eggs and toast while burning himself on the range. Who knows if Wesley even liked his eggs? Maybe he was just being polite?”

As everyone looked at him, Wesley faced his or her inquisitive gazes and felt awkward. “I don’t know. I don’t remember what Angel’s eggs…taste like.”

The delivery boy and Angel arrived at the same time; Angel hotfooting it up from the bowels of the hotel where the kitchen was evidently situated with a pan of eggs in one hand and plate of toast in the other. Wesley couldn’t help gaping at the sight of a vampire playing waiter, and chef apparently on his behalf.

“You ordered in?” Angel demanded witheringly of Xander as the delivery boy followed him tentatively into the dining room.

“Hey, it was cheap at half the price compared with sharing a kitchen with you.”

Angel turned to Wesley with what was evidently meant to be a reassuring smile. At least his teeth were normal when he was like this, although Wesley still felt poised on a nerve hair trigger where he kept expecting the demon’s face to change into some ridged browed sharp-fanged visage of horror before ripping out his throat. Angel seemed to sense that, sighing as he carefully ladled scrambled eggs onto Wesley’s plate and pushed the toast within easy reach.

“Thank you,” Wesley managed. “It’s very kind of you to go to so much trouble.” The expression in the vampire’s eyes made him realize how inadequate those thanks were. However much this creature might insist he wanted Wesley to stay as he was now, uncontaminated by memories of the past five years, it was difficult to look into his brown eyes and not see what seemed to be an incalculable depth of pain at being forgotten.

Wesley hastily buttered the toast and spread the eggs onto it, grateful that the arrival of the delivery boy meant there was a covering fire of pancakes being identified and muffins and waffles handed around so he wouldn’t be sitting there in silent state trying to eat without dribbling eggs down his chin while everyone watched him expectantly. He picked up his knife and fork, having to fight down this feeling of hysteria that kept threatening to overwhelm him. He had lost five years as carelessly as he had habitually lost his loose change down the back of the settee. Somewhere between setting off to be the best Watcher the Council had ever produced and waking up naked in the bed of a vampire he had thrown his hat into the ring with a bunch of demons and strangers; apparently scattering friends and sanity as he went. And now here he was eating scrambled eggs on toast as prepared for him by Angelus and having his teacup replenished by the colleague he had been sent to replace.

Conversationally he said: “Would anyone mind telling me why I’m no longer working for the Council or apparently as a Watcher?”

There was an abrupt cessation of cutlery and passing of foodstuffs. Their awkwardness made him feel a little better. Perhaps it was the incipient hysteria, but he felt that distant feeling kick in again; the one that made him feel that this situation was so inherently absurd that it couldn’t have any real power to hurt him.

Wesley cleared his throat. “I appreciate that I’ve probably made innumerable mistakes over the past five years that you may wish to keep from me, but if I have a say in this matter I would really prefer to be told the truth. So…the last thing I remember is setting out for Sunnydale with every intention of becoming Watcher to Buffy and Faith, and no intention whatsoever of becoming affiliated to a group of demon-killing…demons. Perhaps, someone would be kind enough to tell me what happened during my time in Sunnydale?”

He noticed that everyone was looking at Giles, who paled slightly and then cleared his throat. “Well, you arrived in Sunnydale at a difficult time…”

“Giles being fired by the Council,” Buffy put in. “Not a popular decision with me. And Faith…”

“Yes. Faith…”

There was a general feeling of faltering.

“Did I get her injured?” Wesley enquired.

“No!” Buffy said quickly. “Faith is fine…now. She just wasn’t while you were....”

“There was an accident,” Giles explained. “She stabbed a human by mistake. It sent her a little off the rails. She temporarily…allied herself with our enemy but she’s rehabilitated now. It did however make your life as a new Watcher somewhat more difficult than…”

“It was an impossible situation,” said Angel emphatically. “Buffy wasn’t willing to accept you as her Watcher, and Faith was having a long slow dangerous nervous breakdown.”

Wesley felt the familiar sense of inevitability overwhelm him. “I screwed up and the Council fired me?”

“That would be the short version,” Xander admitted.

“It’s debateable if you ‘screwed up’ or not, Wesley,” Giles insisted. “As Angel said, Buffy wasn’t feeling at her most cooperative and…”

“So, it’s my fault?” Buffy demanded.

“Well, technically, Wesley being fired by the Council was your fault,” Willow pointed out reasonably. “They only fired him because you resigned from the Council, and with Faith in a coma that meant there wasn’t anyone left to…Watch.”

Wesley closed his eyes. “So, let me get this straight – during my stay in Sunnydale I managed to mismanage one Slayer to the point that she defected to the other side and got herself so badly injured she ended up in a coma, and to alienate the other to the point that she rejected the Council’s authority?”

“It was a complicated situation,” Giles insisted. “You really had to…be there.”

“Faith tried to kill Angel. You tried to get the Council to help him but when they wouldn’t I resigned,” Buffy explained. “But you helped us against the Mayor even though the Council had fired you. You came through when it counted.”

A terrible suspicion began to surface. Wesley moistened his lips. “And I came to LA…why…exactly?”

“Well, Angel and I… You know, we had a thing. And there was the curse. And he lost his soul…and I had to kill him, and then he came back from hell, and we tried to you know – with the not touching…but it was hard…” Buffy darted a glance at Angel. “I mean it was difficult. And then he said he was leaving. So he went to LA. And Cordy’s father had been arrested for tax evasion – Cordy really liked you, by the way, you and her kind of had a thing, only it never really…it was like the beginning of a thing…a pre-thing – so she went to LA, too. And meanwhile the Council had done the firing thing and you didn’t want to go back to England so you went to LA and hooked up with Angel and Cordy, and then Faith woke up and she was kind of crazy. And she came after me for putting her in the coma and then she went after Angel, so she went to LA. And she kidnapped you and did things to you to make Angel come after her and so he went after her to rescue you and there was a big fight and then… Well, I think there were probably heaving bosoms and pouty lips as well, but the point is she didn’t want to kill Angel, she wanted Angel to kill her because of all the self-hatred and the guilt and everything. And the Council, they wanted to capture Faith so they told you they’d reinstate you if you helped them, and you pretended you were helping them but you came to warn Angel and you helped hold them off while we tried to rescue Faith and there was a big fight and she gave herself up and it was very much of the good what you did, and she’s all rehabilitated now, but the Council didn’t like you so much after that. And that’s why you’re not a Watcher any more.” Buffy snatched a much needed breath and took refuge in her orange juice while Wesley thought over what she’d said. The more he thought about it, the more that dawning suspicion was looking like a reality.

“So, I annoyed the Council by asking them to help Angelus....”

“It’s Angel,” Buffy said in obvious irritation. “Angelus is the demon inside him.”

“Surely that’s semantics?” Wesley said reasonably.

“No,” Gunn assured him. “The difference is you eating eggs or Angelus eating you. Two completely different guys.”

“Plus, Angelus wears a lot more leather,” Lorne added helpfully.

Wesley took a deep breath. “Fine. I annoyed the Council by asking them to help Angel. Abandoned my hereditary calling to follow him to LA instead of returning to England to await my next assignment. Gave up the opportunity to be reinstated to warn him and the murderous rogue Slayer he was assisting of the Council’s rather sensible plan to capture her before she could commit further crimes and unsurprisingly was told never to darken their doorstep again.”

Angel’s eyes widened. “No, Wes, it wasn’t like that. You didn’t follow me here. You followed a demon called Barney here. He was an empath demon.”

“Like Lorne?”

“No, he was a killer. Well, you weren’t actually following him. You were following the Kungai who was following Barney. You didn’t know Cordelia or I were in LA until you tracked Barney to his apartment and met up with me there.”

Spike gazed across the table at Wesley. “You were thinking you had a crush?”

Wesley tried not to blush but doubted that he succeeded. Still, he had no memory of those events and should feel no connection to the person he had been but didn’t remember being. Really, as far as he was concerned that idiot had hijacked his body for five years and he’d only just got it back. “Did I?”

“No!” Angel said at once and then grimaced. “Well....”

No one else said anything for a painfully long half a minute.

“It wasn’t why you came to LA,” Angel repeated. “Not that there was one. A crush, I mean. But even if there had been, it would just have been a kind of hero-worshipping, father-substitute kind of… No, there was no crush.”

“Absolutely,” Gunn said quickly and unconvincingly.

“Oh, good.” Wesley took another bite of scrambled eggs on toast; chewed, and swallowed. “I feel so much better now.” He decided that he definitely needed to cultivate a state of mind where he felt absolutely no responsibility of any kind for anything he had done that he didn’t remember. It would probably save on one or six nervous breakdowns. “You know, these really are excellent eggs.” He looked up and was taken aback by the way Angel was positively beaming at the praise. Vampires of legendary viciousness were surely never supposed to care quite that much what a skinny useless ex-Watcher thought of their culinary abilities. He felt another of those uncomfortable pangs.

“You really like them?” Angel pressed. “You’re not just saying it?”

His resolution about disowning any previous versions of himself wavered under the begging look in those brown eyes. “Yes,” Wesley found himself saying gently. “I really like them. Very…tasty.”

“He also kills demons,” Spike put in.

“And he’s clean around the house,” Buffy said brightly.

“And he consumes the blood of butchered swine,” Illyria added.

Willow murmured: “For humans, Illyria, that’s not really so much of the selling point.”

Illyria gazed at Willow. “I know.” Something that was almost a smile flickered across her face.

Angel gave her a look of dislike and muttered something under his breath that could easily have been ‘Bitch’.

“Angelcakes…” said Lorne in mild reproach.

“Yeah,” said Gunn. “We’re just one big happy family here.”