TITLE: Babes in the Wood

AUTHORS: Eloise and Bethy

RATING: PG13

DISCLAIMER: Joss and ME own Wes and all things BtVS/AtS. We're only playing with him. We promise not to hurt him. Much. Nigel is a product of Eloise's fevered imagination.

SPOILERS: Set post AtS S5, but no real spoilers

NOTES: Part 1 of 6. Baby Watchers, lost in London. Title quote from traditional folk song; chapter titles and quotes from various Duran Duran songs. After all, it is the eighties…Huge thanks to my co-writer Bethy for the wonderful plot bunny and the superb writing, and to the lovely Lonely Brit, who did sterling beta work.

'Oh, don't you remember, a long time ago
Those two little babes, their names I don't know
They strayed far away one bright summer's day
These two little babies got lost on their way'

('Babes in the Wood' – Traditional)

Prologue – Careless Memory

So easy to disturb
With a thought...
With a whisper...
With a careless memory...

(Careless Memory – Duran Duran)

Nigel ffoulkes brushed his hand over the top of the box, and was immediately seized by a paroxysm of coughing that threatened to bring Mrs McAlister into the inner office to offer her assistance. He leaned on the desk and tried to take a deep breath; considered opening the window to let in some fresh air, but given the inner city location of the new Council Offices, the air outside could hardly be described as fresh.

He eyed the door nervously, but the formidable Mrs McAlister remained at her desk, collating invoices and rubber stamping stationary requests. She was an excellent secretary; efficient, organized and supremely confident, but she did remind him somewhat of Matron back at the Academy. His memories of Matron weren't particularly pleasant ones.

He thought briefly of the tall willowy twenty-somethings back in the main office, whose typing was appalling, and whose tea tasted like tar, but who flicked their long hair away from their high-cheek bones and flashed him bone-melting smiles when they murmured "Good morning, Mr ffoulkes…"

Mrs McAlister could type faster than he could dictate, and her tea tasted divine, but he was convinced that her steel grey perm could withstand gale force eight unscathed, and her rare smiles were more bone-chilling than melting. It was the price he paid, he supposed, for the long awaited promotion.

Thirteen years he had slogged down in Prophecies and Translations, constantly overlooked in favour of his better-connected co-workers. The Council had certain standards, and nepotism was one sure way of maintaining them. His applications for field work had been constantly overlooked, his painstaking work on historical lexicography ignored.

And then, slightly over a year ago, he had heard an unconfirmed report that most of his peers had been killed in the explosion at Council Headquarters. Through the grace of a deity he hadn't acknowledged since boyhood, he had been dispatched to attend the Eleventh International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, and had been sunning himself on the extraordinarily appropriately named Costa de la Muerte when he received the news.

He had returned home to find the council in disarray; several generations of watcher families wiped out at a single stroke. Opportunities for promotion were extensive. He continued with this work in the department, as diligently as always, only now his efforts were noticed, commented on. And here he was at last, in his own office, head of the Prophecy and Translations department, reporting directly to none other than Rupert Giles.

He couldn't help the warm blush that suffused his cheeks at the thought. He was rather glad he was alone in his office, considering the physical reaction he was displaying at the mere thought of the Senior Watcher. He straightened his shoulders and chided himself mentally. You're a grown man, Nigel. There's no call to be acting like a giddy schoolboy.

He wiped his eyes, and swallowed a few times, and when no further wheezing occurred, opened the box and began to unpack the books. They were mostly grammars and dictionaries, with the odd archaic text that his previously meagre salary had allowed. However, the final item at the bottom of the box was none of these. It was a small hard backed volume that he had kept with him since his days at the Academy. He opened it, and smiled at the copperplate inscription on the frontispiece.

"Diary of Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, Watcher in Training. (Academic Year 1984-85)"

He flipped forward a few pages and found what he was looking for. There were several pages of neat indigo script, then a single line of text, followed by both their signatures in a rusty-brown ink. He smiled then, rather sadly, the image of his friend suddenly very clear in his mind. He flicked back to the beginning of the account and began to read.

Journal of Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, concerning the events of 10th-11th of April 1985.

We left in the Academy in good spirits, little suspecting what evils would beset us before we returned again to its hallowed halls. The afternoon was mild, warm for early April, and the journey to the station passed in pleasant conversational anticipation of a slap-up tea in Tuffnell Park…

"Mr ffoulkes?" The office door opened, and Mrs McAlister hovered on the threshold, appointment book in hand.

"Sorry… yes?" He looked up from the account.

"It's Mr Giles, sir. He'd like to see you. At your earliest convenience, sir." Which was McAlister speak for 'Get your arse upstairs to the boss' office pretty bloody sharpish'.

"Um… right. Right away." He closed the notebook rather regretfully and placed it on his desk for further perusal.

Mrs McAlister gave one of her face-creaking smiles and held the door open for him. As he passed her, she put her hand on his arm and stopped him. He froze under her touch and for one awful moment he imagined her dabbing at his face with a moistened handkerchief to remove any unseemly jam splodges. Thankfully she contented herself with the mere adjustment of his tie.

"There you are. That's much better."

"Er… thank you." He escaped into the corridor and made his way to the stair well. He didn't trust the lifts in this place. They had a tendency to deposit their occupants at random floors, bearing little or no relation to the desired destination. Not to mention that the lift rarely hit a floor first time; you considered yourself lucky if you didn't have to jump down or step up several inches to access the corridor.

It was typical of the Council. There was enough of the old guard left to ensure that the new Council building was anything but new. The importance of tradition and ritual were reflected in the very architecture of the structure, a restored early eighteenth century library that oozed history from every hand-carved oak panel and delicately leaded stained glass window. The money for the purchase had almost certainly come from the older established families; which went a long way to explaining the large suite of offices that one Roger Wyndam-Pryce occupied on the top floor.

Rupert Giles' office was not quite so grand, but it was well-known that this was where the true work of the new Council was carried out. Nigel knocked on the door of the outer office, and was ushered in by Mrs Masterson, a secretary in the McAlister tradition. He decided then that the willowy twenty-somethings were matured downstairs in the main offices until their blonde hair was grey enough to perm, and their typing and shorthand skills were matched only by their tea-making abilities.

Mrs Masterson gave him a thin-lipped smile and pressed a button on the telephone. "Mr Giles will see you now." Nigel marvelled at the amount of condescension imbued within that simple phrase. He moved to the large oak door, which was suddenly and unexpectedly opened from the inside.

"Rhodes! Come in, please. There's something I've been meaning to discuss with you."

Rhodes. He knew, he bloody well knew. Nigel blushed to the very roots of his hair, and followed the older watcher into the inner sanctum.


April 3rd 1985

"Wesley!" Nigel skidded round the corner and ran full tilt into Evans Major, who was coming from the direction of their study bedroom. He appeared to be carrying their radio.

"Ah, ffoulkes. Running in the corridor. And yelling. That's two demerits." He waved the radio gleefully in Nigel's face. "Although you're already in enough trouble."

Nigel thought briefly of their housemaster's reaction to this violation of school rules. It wasn't happy thought. But even the contemplation of a painful reunion of his rear end with a cane wielded by the ex-Yorkshire batsman wasn't enough to completely dampen his enthusiasm. He waited until the senior prefect had finished gloating, then scooted into their room to find Wesley sitting glumly on the bed.

"Wesley, guess what?" Nigel waved the letter in his friend's face.

"They found the radio." Said with the sort of gravitas normally reserved for royal death announcements.

"I know, I met Evans, but never mind that now."

"What do you mean never mind that?" Wesley was indignation personified. "You do realize what this means?"

Nigel sighed inwardly, recognizing the signs of one of Wesley's most common conversational motifs.

"My father is going to kill me."

"No, he's not." Nigel sat down on his bed. "How's he going to find out? It's only a radio, Wes. I bet McCrea won't even tell Dr Harrington."

"He always finds out." There was a grim acceptance in Wesley's face, and Nigel felt a pang of sympathy for his friend. His own father had been killed in the line of duty when Nigel was only two years old, so his experience of paternal relationships was rather lacking. He had spent a wonderfully carefree childhood with his mother and younger sister; his first experience of the Council came at age eleven, when his paternal grandfather insisted that he be sent to the Academy, just as his father would have wished.

"You'll thrive, my lad," the old man had affirmed with a vehement pat to his back which had almost sent him sprawling across the entrance hall of the Academy. "Your mother's coddled you far too long. It's about time you fulfilled your destiny."

His destiny, it seemed, was to spend a great deal of time upside down in the third form toilets. Things improved slightly as the years progressed, but he still had moments of desperate heartrending homesickness, when he would press his face into his pillow to stifle his tears.

Wesley never seemed to pine for home, but he understood that Nigel did. He never laughed, never teased him. He'd prop his head on his elbow and whisper in the darkness, soft words of comfort, meaning nothing, and everything. And in return Nigel would tell him about his home in Dorset, with his mum and Izzy, and Wesley would get this wistful faraway look in his eye, almost as if he was homesick for Dorset too.

Nigel knew the Wyndam-Pryces were an old watcher family, with a long and illustrious history, and he gathered that Wesley's father was determined that Wesley should continue in the family tradition. He really didn't envy Wesley one little bit.

He opened the letter and handed it to Wesley, who shoved his glasses up to the bridge of his nose and read it dutifully.

"You lucky sod. A whole weekend." There was undisguised envy in his voice.

Nigel leaned over and punched his arm. "Are you blind?" That was mean, but as his own shortsightedness rivalled Wesley's he didn't really care. "She said I could bring a friend!"

Wesley's forehead wrinkled in a frown. "Who're you going to ask?"

Sometimes he wondered how Wesley could be top of the class but have the common sense of a peanut.

"You, you daft idiot. Who do you think?"

A grin of surprised delight spread across his friend's face, and two pink spots appeared on his cheeks. "Really?"

Nigel nodded and jumped off his bed. "We're going to London. And my Granny is the best cook in the world." That was something of an exaggeration, but considering the standard of food served in the school refectory, Granny's Dundee cake and butterfly buns would seem like Dorchester cuisine.

Wesley's face fell. 'Hang on. This weekend. That's Home Sunday."

He'd forgotten that. The one weekend each month they were allowed out on parole. That meant Wesley would have to go home. Crap.

"Look, write to your father and tell him you've been invited home with me." He recognized the ridiculousness of his suggestion even before Wesley rolled his eyes.

"Pryce! ffoulkes!" The senior prefect was standing in their doorway, smirking ominously. "Dr McCrea requests the pleasure of your company in his evening study. Unless one of you wants to claim ownership of the radio?"

They answered together. "It's mine." Then grinned at each other. Solidarity in the face of the enemy.

"Fine. Both of you get your arses up there now."

Evans' choice of phrasing was unfortunate, to say the least.


"Do you think he really was capped for England?" Nigel walked carefully along the corridor.

"Bloody well feels like it." Wesley moved in a similar fashion. "I swear the man must practice. I think he hit the same spot three times."

Nigel winced sympathetically. "At least you only got the six."

Wesley's eyebrows lifted. "One for flinching?"

Nigel nodded glumly. "As usual."

It was Wesley's turn to grimace in sympathy. "You okay?"

They had finally made it back to their study. Nigel nodded and lowered himself carefully onto his bed, rolling onto his stomach. Wesley, however, paused and reached into his trouser pocket and removed a cream vellum envelope.

"What's that?" Nigel squinted over the top of his spectacles.

"McCrea gave it to me. It came in the late post this afternoon." Wesley turned it over. "It's from home."

Wesley's expression did not change, but Nigel saw his back stiffen just a little. He opened the letter, and scanned the contents quickly, relaxing slightly as he read.

"Is everything okay?"

Wesley nodded curtly. "My father and mother are away this weekend. Father has Council business in Switzerland, and Mum's going with him."

"Oh." Nigel tried to imagine how he'd feel if his mum wrote and told him she didn't want to see him on Home weekend. "I'm sorry."

"No, really, it's fine." Wesley pulled a couple of sheets of foolscap out of the envelope. "Father has sent me some translations to keep me occupied."

"Wesley! You know what this means?" Nigel rolled over and sat up, then leapt up. "Ow! You can come with me to Granny's house!"

Wesley's smile was genuine. "So I can."

"Oh, this is going to be brilliant. She makes the best cakes, and she'll let us watch TV and stay up late." They both stood for a moment, the full realization of their extreme good fortune finally sinking in.

Wesley's face was alight with joy. "Nigel, this is going to be the best weekend ever."