Title: More Than a Lifetime
Author: Settiai
Disclaimer: "Angel," "Fray," "Firefly," and other related characters are all properties of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and other related corporations. No infringement is intended. This story, such as it is, was written as a sign of respect and love for the characters, the show, and their creator. I claim no ownership of the aforementioned show and characters.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Over five hundred years later, he's still fighting the good fight.
Feedback: Comments and helpful criticisms are always appreciated.
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"I—I love you."
Even though he had known that the face looking down at him was an illusion, a mockery of the woman he had loved, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce hadn't cared. There had been times in the past when he had thought he would die, but in the end he had always been mistaken.
As soon as Vail's knife had punctured his skin, Wesley had known he was dead.
So he had given into his weakness. He told Illyria to do the one thing he had hated, and because of his failing the last thing he had seen was Fred's face. Then his vision had darkened, and he had given in.
He should have known it wouldn't be so simple.
Wesley had never been a particularly religious man, but he had began wondering what might lay in the next life after hearing about Buffy Summer's brief experience in the matter. Although he suspected that her time in "heaven" had been a result of the dimensional portal that she had fallen through, he couldn't help but wonder. He was also fairly certain that, if there was life after death, he would be going somewhere considerably warmer.
To be honest, though, he had been thinking of hell rather than Buenos Aires.
Thinking back, he should have known that Wolfram and Hart wouldn't let him go that easily. And not just him….any of them. They had signed the contracts….had literally signed over their souls.
And they weren't exactly the kind of demons to just let that slide.
So instead of finding himself living in an apartment right in the middle of downtown hell, Wesley found himself somewhere even worse. It was an odd way of living. They'd send him where his knowledge was needed, to the various offices around the world. Days felt like years, years felt like days, and he had almost no concept of the passing of time unless he made the mistake of asking someone the date.
Every so often, he'd hear rumors of Slayers, Watchers. werewolves, witches, vampires with souls, and the humans that worked with them. Names were never mentioned, though, so he couldn't never be certain who was still alive.
Then, almost thirty years after his new life began, everything changed.
Something happened. He didn't know the exact details….no one did. All he knew was that it involved a Slayer and her friends, and he had a fair idea just what name that Slayer went by. Whatever they did, it brought an end to the demon's reign on Earth. Every demon on the planet, good or evil, was gone. And so was almost all of the magic.
Wesley had hoped that would be the end of Wolfram and Hart.
He should have known better.
The Senior Partners had left his dimension millennia in the past, so the banishment of all demons hadn't truly affected them. Although magic was weakened, almost nonexistent, it still existed. They couldn't rule over their domain with the iron hand they once had, but the humans who worked for them were still bound by contracts. That magic wasn't broken.
Wolfram and Hart didn't die. It changed as the decades, and then the centuries, passed, but it still lived. Their clients, once an equal number demon and human, became entirely human, and the magic that they worked with was a mere fraction of what it had once been, but it still existed.
Then, almost two hundred years after magic was all but banished from the world, it started to trickle back. Vampires and demons began slipping through the dimensional cracks, but the white magic that had once protected the Earth didn't return. Even though the darkness returned, a new Slayer wasn't called.
Not at first.
Rumors began flying again, and stories of a girl with powers unlike anything seen in centuries began to spread through the various Wolfram and Hart offices around the world. Tales of battles, of magic, of death….
Earth slowly started to become what it had once been. Good and evil were equally matched, mixing at points to become a shade of gray that fit the human world they existed in. Wesley found himself being used more often, and he even discovered that he didn't mind it as much as he once had.
Then, without warning, everything changed.
Over three hundred years after Fred's face faded from his vision while he lay on a cold floor, Wesley found himself in charge of his own life. Earth was dying, and every bit of magic that drew its power from her core died with her as the planet's life faded away. Including standard perpetuity clauses.
Except instead of dying, all of the men and women who had been forced to do Wolfram and Hart's dirty work for ages were made mortal.
Wesley managed to slip onto one of the last ships to leave the planet, and he never looked back. He had always suspected that he hadn't been the only one to find themselves trapped in Wolfram and Hart's snare, but there had never been a way to find out. And, while he had yearned to know at first, the passing of centuries had made it fade away.
At first, he assumed that he had been given a second chance at life. He found himself a small apartment on one of the new human colonies, started working at a halfway decent job, and made sure not to draw too much attention to himself.
Ten years after Earth had been destroyed, Wesley realized that he hadn't aged a day.
As more and more years went by, he began traveling from city to city. Then, as even more time went by, from planet to planet. He stayed somewhere until people began to get suspicious, until they began to realize that nothing could explain why he stayed the same while everyone grew old around him, and then he left.
The Alliance, a minor organization before the fall of Earth, became more and more powerful, and records of the planet humankind had once called home began to disappear. As memories faded, more and more information about Earth just….disappeared. Earth-That-Was became a legend, a bedtime story that parents told to their child….and Wesley realized that he—and anyone out there like him—were the only ones who still remembered what had once been.
Darkness slipped back into the midst of mankind, and Wesley knew that war was coming. He knew that it would never reach the Core planets where he lived, though, so he didn't worry.
Then one day, he saw a holoimage of the newly elected leader of the Alliance.
With Lilah's face imprinted in his mind, identical to how it had appeared centuries earlier when he held up a flaming piece of paper, Wesley slipped into the darkness. He made a new life for himself, staying out on the Rim for the most part and only venturing into the outermost edges of the Core.
And, as he saw how different life was for the humans living out on the Rim, he realized that he had been hiding. For the first time in five centuries, he remembered what it meant to fight the good fight.
Wesley traveled among the various border worlds, never staying anywhere for long. He helped those he could, avoiding the Alliance as much as he could. Even though he doubted they would be looking for them, he knew better than to risk it. Instead, he kept a low profile and did his best to help the helpless.
When tales of men gone wild began spreading throughout the various Rim worlds, he knew in his heart that the Alliance had something to with the otherworldly Reavers. He didn't have any proof, and he knew that the odds of the truth ever coming out were slim to none. But he knew.
Then the war started.
Wesley didn't fight for the Browncoats, but he made no secrets where his loyalties lied. He did what he could to help the cause, both during the war and after its end.
A few years later, Wesley found himself sitting in a small room with a few men and women he had met over the years. He hadn't trusted the Alliance in over a century, had known that they were doing things he didn't even want to imagine….but he had never had proof. A small data crystal, filled to the brim with information about a program known as the Academy, changed all that.
Three months later, he met a young man willing to do anything to save his sister.
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Wesley stared at the young girl standing in the middle of the room, a terrified look shining in her eyes. He had seen images of her before, of course. While preparing for the mission to rescue her, he had learned everything there was to know about one River Tam: daughter of one of Osiris's leading families, sixteen on the cusp of seventeen, victim of the Academy since she was fourteen, and younger sister of a surgeon by the name of Simon who he had gotten to know quite well over the past few months.
It hadn't prepared him to see her in person.
The clothes she was wearing were drab and plain, and there were marks on her forehead from whatever technology had been attached to her skin. Even though she was scared and confused, she moved with a grace that Wesley recognized almost immediately. A grace that he hadn't seen in person for almost six hundred years.
The grace of a Slayer.
Wesley knew that there wasn't any way she could possibly be one. It was impossible, since the magic that had created the Slayer had died with Earth. There was something about her that was ethereal, though, as if she didn't belong among mere humans.
Admittedly, the scalpel she was holding in her hand had him just a little worried.
"I thought you said she seemed normal," Wesley hissed, shooting a look at the young man standing beside him.
Simon Tam glanced over at him, a shocked look on his face. "She did," he said weakly. "She recognized me, and she did everything I told her to while we escaped."
Wesley jerked his head as two of the other men in the room pulled out stun weapons. "Don't use those unless you absolutely have to," he called out, flinching as River turned toward him with wild eyes. "We don't know what kind of drugs they have in her system."
He glanced over at Simon and gave him an exasperated look. "What are you waiting for?" he asked irritably. "Try to calm her down."
Simon jerked in surprise, and he quickly took a step forward. "River, I need you to calm down," he said gently. "You're going to hurt yourself."
She waved the scalpel at him, and he quickly stepped back. "You're not real," she hissed. "Never real. He doesn't come. No one comes. Only hands, hands of blue. They hide in the shadows, waiting for the darkness."
"River," Simon said, slowly holding up his hands. "Mèimei, you know it's me. It's Simon."
River stared at him for a moment before narrowing her eyes. "No!" she exclaimed, just as she rushed at him.
With a loud whistling sound, the stunners fired.
Simon rushed over to where she was laying and quickly felt her neck, his face visibly relaxing when he found a pulse. Wesley slowly made his way over to him and rested a hand on his shoulder. "Let our doctors take a look at her," he said gently. "We've got to get the two of you out of here as soon as we can, before the Alliance shows up on our doorstep."
For a minute, he thought the younger man was going to fight him. Then Simon finally nodded and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet and steered toward the nearest door.
"She'll be fine," Wesley said, giving Simon's shoulder a comforting squeeze as they stopped in front of a closed door. "They'll do what they can to flush the drugs out her system, and then they'll get her ready for transport."
Simon glanced at him, a confused look on his face. "Transport?" he asked. "What do you mean by transport? Won't we just….leave?"
Wesley frowned as he pushed open the door in front of them. "Not exactly," he said reluctantly, walking in.
Simon stared at Wesley for a second before following him into the room. Then he froze, a look of startled realization of his face as he stared at the scene in front of him. A woman in her mid-forties was kneeling beside a large box, working on the controls of what was obviously a cryo-chamber.
Wesley nodded at her. "Simon, you've met Nadia."
Simon stared at the cryo-chamber, and a cold look appeared on his face. "No," he said firmly. "There is no way in hell that you're going to put River in there."
"We don't have any choice," Nadia said irritably, not even looking up as she fiddled with the container's control systems. "This is the only way to smuggle her off of Persephone without there being a risk of someone seeing her and remembering her face sometime in the future."
She paused for a moment and looked up. "Besides," she added, "the girl's completely crazy, and we don't want to risk anything happening to her while she's so close to us."
Simon's face hardened. "Don't call her that," he said coldly. "She might be a little out of it at the moment, but it's not permanent. I'll find a way to help her."
Nadia gave him a dirty look as she pulled herself to her feet. "Trust me, the odds of you finding a way to fix…."
"Hâo le ma," Wesley snapped, glaring at her. "Let me handle this."
Nadia rolled her eyes, but she didn't complain as she turned and left the room. As soon as she left, he turned toward Simon and gave him a reasoning look.
"You saw what your sister was like earlier," Wesley said gently. "Even if it is only temporary, you know that you can't risk her reacting like that in the middle of the Eavesdown Docks. The Alliance would be on you in seconds."
Simon looked like he wanted to protest, but there was a hint of weariness in his eyes that let Wesley know that he was getting through to him. "You know that I'm right," Wesley said, giving him a reassuring look.
"I suppose," Simon said after a moment's pause.
Wesley smiled at him. "It will probably make it easier for you to find transport," he added. "Most captains would be more likely to take on a young doctor with some large cargo than a young doctor traveling with a girl who's obviously….off."
Simon gave him a weak smile. "I wish you wouldn't use that word."
At that, Wesley frowned just a bit. "You're going to have to accept the fact that you might never get her completely back," he said cautiously. "It's a possibility, Simon."
"I know," Simon said softly, closing his eyes for a moment.
After a few seconds had passed, Wesley reached out and touched the side of Simon's face. "Ni meí shì bà?" he asked.
Simon opened his eyes and managed to give the other man a weak smile. "Your accent is atrocious," he said lightly.
Wesley gave him a sheepish grin. "Let's just say I grew up somewhere where Mandarin wasn't quite as common."
Simon blinked. "Mandarin," he repeated. "I haven't heard the language called that except in…."
"I'm from far, far away," Wesley cut in. "Let's just leave it at that."
Simon reluctantly nodded.
Wesley leaned in and pressed his lips against Simon's for just a second. "You should rest," he said pointedly as he pulled away. "River should be ready to be moved in a few hours, and they'll want the two of you to leave as soon as she's in stasis."
Simon shook his head, but he still made his way toward the door. "I'll rest once River and I are safe on some transport ship heading as far from the Alliance as possible," he said. "Not until then."
That was the last time Wesley saw him in person.
A few years later, however, when the truth came out about the Reavers and the powers of the Alliance began crumbling, Wesley was one of the few who knew the truth. Rumors flew all over the 'verse, and stories of a brave captain and his courageous crew began spreading like wildfire. A girl with fighting abilities unlike anything anyone had ever seen…. No names were mentioned, but that didn't matter.
Wesley could read between the lines.
Even though he knew the Alliance would only be weakened, not defeated, Wesley felt hope for the first time in ages. Stories he had heard centuries before, about a small handful of warriors fighting to save the world they loved, echoed in his mind. Faces that he had almost forgotten once again became crystal clear, and friendships he had cherished once again found their way into his heart.
From that day on, he made sure to look up at the stars every night. It didn't matter where he was: the Core, the Rim, a ship somewhere in the black. "Still fighting the good fight, huh?" he'd whisper, though he was never certain who exactly he was asking.