Hi there everyone… so this is my very first Angel fic, so please be nice grin This is just an idea I had pop into my head while I was at work, so I wrote this over a few lunch breaks. As usual, the characters aren't mine… except for Mike… and Joss is my hero, even if he does kill off everyone I like… no matter what the show it is…
…oooOOOooo…
Wesley stood at the entrance to Wolfram and Hart's science department. Everything in him told him to turn around and walk away, every inch of his skin crawled. The last time he had been in the lab, he had left with her, to take her home. The broken glass could still be seen from the doorway, shattered on the floor. It broke his heart not to see Fred's smiling face waiting for him, that is, if his heart could break anymore then it already was.
It was late Saturday night, he'd chosen then because he didn't want to actually... talk... to people. No more I'm sorry's or It wasn't your fault's. He should have been able to do more... something... anything, and all he could do was watch as evil ate at her from the inside. All he could do was hold her and that didn't seem like enough to him.
A waterfall sound of falling papers ripped him from his trance. He cocked his head slowly, attempting to locate the source of the sound without actually going inside. "Shit!" and exasperated cry sounded. Wesley slowly finally took a step inside, and then another, felt like he was entering a tomb. Looking up, he found where the sounds emanated from: Fred's office. For a second, anger boiled though him, who the hell was in Fred's office, what do they want, what are they stealing? He silently leaped his way up the stairs and froze. In the middle of the floor was a woman with her back to Wesley and a box fallen sideways next to her, papers raced away across the floor. The only sound that came from her was the soft clinking of her bracelets as she held her head and ran a hand though her blonde hair. Her shoulders shuttered with quick breaths.
"Hello?" Wesley placed his hand on the door frame, instinctively blocking her from being able to run out.
She spun and was on her feet in a split second with a gasp of shock, "Oh... hi... Wesley, it's you. You scarred me to... You scarred me." sniffing as she wiped away her red eyes, her long green skirt still spinning around her ankles.
"Do I know you?" his voice was low and quiet.
"Not directly no," bending back to clean up the spilt paperwork. "I think we only talked... once" pausing and tilting her head in thought. "Yeah... once, but you came down here quite often, and Fred was always talking about you." She stood up with her box and smiled a sad smile at Wesley. After an awkward moment of silence, "I was just... just organizing some of her things, you know how she hates everything all disorganized. I don't know what to do with most of the stuff, I think I figured if I moved it around enough that maybe something would happen." She sat the box down and collapsed in a chair. "Honestly, most of the time I just sat and cried, or tried to think of some excuse as to wh... and why am I telling you all this." slapping her thighs with her hands. "I am so sorry... when I get like this I just ramble and... well... okay I ramble most of the time, but... " Standing up "You'd be much better then I am at this. I mean you might know where to... put it... now."
Wesley hadn't moved. "I'm sorry, I don't recall your name." he said flatly.
"Michaella... Mike."
"Mike?"
"Yeah, I think the whole name thing was one of the few things we actually had in common." she started talking quickly again to cover her boiling emotions again. "Look, I'm sure you don't want to be bothered right now... I'm just going to... " Mike walked past the coat rack near the door and stopped at Fred's lab coat. Picking it up "... um... You don't mind if I keep this do you... I don't know why but I..."
"Go ahead" Wesley said lowering his arm and stepping aside to let her pass, still eyeing her suspiciously.
Mike stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked up at Wesley's back. "She was happy you know, these past days, happier then I've ever seen her." Her mouth opened as if to say more, instead she turned and quickly walked out. Wesley stood at Fred's doorway for minutes after she left. Then turned himself and walked out. He couldn't do it. Packing up her things would just be admitting to himself she was gone, at the moment he couldn't handle that. He'd come back in the morning.
...oooOOOooo...
All day Monday Mike avoided the now empty office. Not being able to stand looking up and finding that what she was trying to deny was true, Fred was gone. She was alone again. It's hard to get up in the morning and come into work knowing you got caught up in evil and have no way of escaping. The last person she know who had quit Wolfram & Hart, well, let's just say he didn't live long enough to find a new job. So this was it, because of one bad choice out of grad school and taking the shiny offer, she had plunged her life in to darkness.
Wolfram and Hart had offered her a job before she even graduated with her Masters. They showed her everything, the state of the art lab, the paycheck she had dreamed of, the apartment, car. There was no way she could turn it down. It was how they got many of the top people, the ones that didn't search them out, knowing the company's reputation. Mike had found that out on her own. Her walls came crashing down slowly, another trick to get you, don't show all your dice quickly, draw it out and you become complacent and oblivious to what's going on around you. She didn't have the courage to leave. Telling her self over and over again that even though she is working there, she is still alive, and that's something.
Then, almost two years into her dark tunnel of a career, the LA branch came under new management. Writing it off in the beginning, nothing will change she told herself. But the science department also got a new leader. A woman who ended up being only a few years older and showed her she could fight within the system. Winifred Burkle.
They really didn't have much in common, Fred a physicist and Mike a biologist. Fred, shy and innocent seeming, Mike, loud and seemingly had given up. In the past years she had turned almost in the corporate clone, trying to blend in, in a place where she didn't want to stand out. Lost touch with her old friends, hadn't watched TV in months, used the internet only for research. She had become a hollow shell of what she once was, and was ashamed of it. Mike envied Fred, everyone loved her and she seemed to have everything. And was so beautiful, not the tall, clumsy, 'clothes never seem to fit right' problems Mike had. She looked up to Fred as what she could become, that even in it was small, there was a shred of hope and goodness at work. It seemed maybe Fred saw the same in her, actually having real conversations when they had to stay in the lab late. Not just about research and assignments, but the world outside. For the first time Mike found herself enjoying work. Her whole demeanor had changed in the months Fred was there. She remembered the free spirited self that was inside of her from before this damn job, when she was still happy. Color came back into her life. Fred had showed her how to hold her head up proudly again, and she could never thank her enough for that. Monday would have been Mike's day to bring coffee in for the two of them.
When she had heard Fred had died, it hit her like a rock, she was alone again and came into work hours late that Monday, only one coffee in hand.
Mike sat at a computer in the far corner of the lab, fingers flying quickly over the keys writing a new case study she had put off for weeks. She froze at sound of someone knocking on the metal table behind her. Turning in her chair she was stunned to find Wesley standing there. "Wesley... didn't expect to see you again. Can I help you with anything?"
"No, I just wanted to give you this." He held out a blue and white scarf, "I think you forgot it the other day in the office." Mike stood up and took it from him. "I didn't recognize it as Fred's."
Mike forced a laugh, "No, not quite her style is it, bit heavy." she draped the thick knitted scarf on her chair.
"No... no it's not." His face was on a man with nothing left in his life, the lack of sleep and Mike was sure the effects of a spectacular hang over were evident. His eyes were dead, a far cry from the depth Fred had loved.
"Thank you."
"No problem I ju..." he was cut off.
"I have been looking for you." Illyria said flatly as she marched into the lab.
"Well, oh look, you found me." He sighed, clearly not wanting to deal with her.
"Who is this vermin." the Godking glared at Mike.
"Please Illyria, not now." forcibly and deadpan.
Mike stood stunned, this...thing had her face, the voice was different, hair straight and blue, cold eyes and an expressionless face... but it was Fred's face. "What is that?" she said slow and quiet.
"Illyria, the Old One who..."
"That's what killed her."
Wesley paused for a second, "Yes." he said barely audible.
Mike's hand swept across the table behind her, trying not to be noticed. She wasn't thinking rationally, the thing that had killed one real friend she had in this world was standing in front of her. She knew the pen now sitting in her hand wouldn't do anything. but she swung it around her and lunged at Illyria before she could stop herself. Wesley stuck his arm out instinctively, not for Illyria's protection, but her own. Illyria didn't even think twice, One arm shot out and stuck Mike, sending her flying across the room, the pen landing on the ground where she once stood. Mike was unconscious before she even got to the wall.
...oooOOOooo...
Mike's alarm clock wouldn't stop, no matter now far she reached to hit it, it wouldn't stop. beeb... beeb... beeb... beeb... She was so tired she didn't have the strength to actually get out of bed to turn it off. So she just laid there, beeb... beeb... beeb ...beeb... Another sounds, the door opening. Footsteps coming up to her bed, scrapping of a chair across the floor. Why would there be scrapping, there's carpet in her room. Trying to open her eyes, she found them stuck, unwilling to open. Once she was able to pry them open, the past came rushing back to Mike. This wasn't her apartment, she remembers that now. The medical wing of Wolfram & Hart, that thing had thrown her across the room. Heart monitor, not an alarm clock. No wonder everything hurt. Looking up she noticed who was standing by her bed. "You just don't seem to want to leave me alone" she slurred.
"I just wanted to make sure you were alright." Wesley said, was that actual concern in the corner of his voice?
"It hurts just to lay here, but at least I'm not dead." yet, she added.
"You should get them to bump up your morphine, trust me, it works wonders. Look, I'm sorry for what Illyria did, she..."
"That thing has a name. Why is it just walking around here like... just anyone? Why is it not dead yet?" Mike tried to sit up, then decided against it.
"It's not that simple."
"Why."
"Because we don't know how to kill her. We don't even know how to contain her." He crossed his arms, looking back at the door.
"She killed Fred..." Mike's hands slowly curled into fists at her side.
Wesley didn't say anything.
"And I wanted... want... to kill her. I guess that's the difference between the two of us."
"Pardon?" He looked back.
"Me and Fred, I've been working here too long, and I don't see a way out. I've don't think I've ever wanted to actually physically hurt someone... thing... until now. I don't think I ever cared enough." A tear rolled down her face. "Another difference with me and Fred, she was strong, she actually fought back against that..." She trailed off, "and me, Illyria just tossed aside like a fly."
"She does that... I understand your anger, trust me. I feel it too, if I could I would strangle the life out of her right now. But I can't."
"It's her face... Why her, why one of the few good people in this place?"
"Apparently it was Knox, he brought Illyria here, said that because he loved her," Wesley's voice choked at that word. "that she would be the perfect vessel to bring his god into the world."
"Bastard." She closed her eyes, another tear.
"Don't worry he's been taken care of."
"Him, I could have actually taken... Pathetic, goddamn..." she shook, not been able to vocalize her hatred. "I knew there was something up with him, from the first time I met him. I kept telling Fred to stay away from him, that she couldn't trust him. She always told me she could handle him. My only regret is that I couldn't get my own shots in..."
There was silence between them for a moment. "Yes, well... I'm glad that you're okay. I'll do my best to keep Illyria away from the lab, but for some reason she's drawn there it seems."
"Do you think... maybe..."
"No, there's nothing inside. Fred is gone." He interrupted and turned to leave.
"Wesley..." he stopped and turned back. "I... I need to ask a favor."
"What?"
"I need to leave this company, it's already stolen enough of my life. This is the last straw. But if I just leave they'll... I've seen it happen, they will find me."
"Yes, of course... I'll take care of things."
"Thank you." Then she was alone, the room suddenly got much larger and everything got quieter. Mike sat alone, and cried.
...oooOOOooo...
The next day Mike was ripped from her thoughts when Wesley walked though her door again. This time with a large bad slung over his shoulder and a look of determination on his face. Without any pleasantries he got to the point. "You need to get up and change, we don't have a lot of time."
"What's going on?"
"You wanted to get out of here, out of the company, here's your one and only chance."
Mike winced and let a small yelp as she pulled out her IV, alarms started to ring from the monitor machines as she peeled away the sensors from her skin. They were cut short as Wesley ripped their plugs from the wall. He pulled the curtain across as Mike set about changing into the clothes in the bag he's thrown on to the bed. He must have gone to her apartment, these where her own clothes. When she pulled the curtain back again, Wesley handed her a necklace. A flat, shiny, dark green stone, small carvings covered it's surface. "Put this on."
"What is it."
"It's what's going to keep you from being found. As long as it's with you, they aren't going to find you. Trust me." She looked at him for a moment; his eyes were almost as dead as the day before, save for a fierceness and determination she had never seen before in anyone.
Mike tied the string around her neck and stood up. She was hit by a wave of dizziness, her vision went white, head felt like it was going to pop and gripped the side of the bed. Wesley caught her arm. "You up for this?" the corner of concern was back for a split second.
"You said this was my only chance, sure as not going to waste it." Mike stood up again shaking off his arm. "Let's go."
Once in the hallway, they acted like nothing was going on, the less suspicious you looked, the less people gave you a second glance. Mike followed Wesley without a word. The decent in the elevator seemed to last forever, Wesley never took his eyes off the doors, while Mike stole glances between the two.
Their footsteps echoed in the silence of the concrete structure. A car halfway down the row flashed it's lights, It's driver got out as they approached the car. "Mike, this is Lorne. He's going to take you to the airport," He took an envelope out of his pocket. "And this is a one way ticket back home to Chicago."
She took it in disbelief, "How did you know."
"This is where we work, remember. Take care of yourself." and with that he turned and walked back to the elevator.
"Why," she yelled out."
"Why what?"
"Why are you helping me?"
"For Fred." He never turned to face her.
Lorne opened the passenger door for her. "Come on Chickadee, we should get going if you're going to make your flight." His voice was unusually solemn.
...oooOOOooo...
Three hours later Mike sat in her plane seat on her way East. Fingering her new necklace she reached down and brought her bag out from under the seat in front of her. There was still more things in the bag, she didn't have time to look at them before she got to the airport, and too much in shock while she waited for her plane, she'd been almost catatonic the entire time, Lorne had been worried about leaving her. On the top of the small pile inside of the bag was her scarf, the one Wesley had found in Fred's office. She wrapped it around her neck with shaking hands as she tried to hide her tears from the other passengers. Under that was a white lab coat, she could tell from it's small size and lingering sent that it had been Fred's, she had kept perfume hidden in her desk for when she would go down and see Wesley.
When she ran her hand over the fabric, something crinkled. There was a piece of paper stuck in the side of the bag. In clear handwriting:
She talked about you too. Don't let her sprit die also.
Mike made her way to the small bathroom. She have herself five minutes. Five minutes to cry, that was it. When it was over she washed the tears off her face, and pulled her front hair back with a clip she had left in her jeans pocket days before. Forcing the face staring back at her in the mirror into a sad smile a soft knock sounded though the door. "Ma'am, are you alright?"
Opening the door, for the first time in a long time "Yes."
…oooOOOooo…
Well… there it is… hope you like it… Please let me know if you did!