"I should be the one to tell her."
"Why's that, Peaches? Because you're the eternal bloody hero? Because you're so damned and determined to shoulder the burdens for every soddin' person you meet?"
"Because she loved him, and I'm her friend, and I was his friend."
"I was her friend, too. Think she wouldn't handle it as well from me, 's that it?"
"Spike, she shared cigarettes and braggart bullshit with you. When it came to any of the heavy emotional stuff, it was me she ran to."
Spike sat back in the chair, considering the point. He wanted to scoff at Angel's pretentious self-importance, but he had to give the man his due. Faith had always clung to Angel when her emotional world was out of whack. She'd need his strength when she found out.
"What makes you think she was in love with him, anyway? From what I heard, those two were always at each other's throats."
"When they first knew each other, yeah, maybe." Angel paused reflectively. "You didn't see them when he busted her out, trying to put me under. I saw them work together when I was Angelus. There was a newfound respect for each other. He got to Faith. She wouldn't have taken the Orpheus for just anyone, not even to take me out."
"So that's supposed to guarantee that our bird's head over feet for tall dark and broody?" Spike smirked. "Again?"
Angel shook his head, frustrated. "Not just that. It was how she looked at him, how she trusted him. And when she was in my head, well, she couldn't keep secrets from me any more than I could keep them from her. She and Angelus may have been busy kicking each others' asses ten ways from Sunday, but he saw right through her."
"So it's pretty much going to break her heart when she finds out our Wes took one to the gut and bled to death?"
Angel nodded heavily. "She wouldn't tell anyone. She might not even let us see it on her face. But she'll feel like she took one to the gut. Another one," he added, remembering vividly the events that led up to Buffy stabbing her.
"So there's your answer right there," Spike said triumphantly. "I should be the one to tell her."
Angel frowned. "What in the hell did I say that made you draw that conclusion?"
"She doesn't need you, ya big poof. She won't want your shoulder to cry on, and she'll just bitch her bloody head off if you try and psychoanalyze her. She'll want to share a cig and a pint to give him proper send-off. That's a job for me, not you."
Angel started to argue, then fell silent. Much as he hated to admit it, Spike was right. Faith would mourn Wes on her own time, and she would resent it if he tried to console her. She and Spike could share stories, make wisecracks, and smoke and drink in silence while they remembered their friend.
Maybe, eventually, Faith would seek him out, and he could be her shoulder to cry on. When she was ready.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
He supposed it was only natural that they'd given Faith the Vegas assignment. No one else belonged there quite as much as she did.
Spike slid the DeSoto into one of the parking spaces in the mammoth garage behind the Luxor. It wasn't the hotel he'd have picked for Faith, but it was vastly better than the Bellagio, or the Venetian, for example. At least it had a decent nightclub, which he'd wager his duster she spent at least four nights a week in.
He skirted the edges of the casino, wanting to make his way to her room as quickly as possible. Night had just fallen and he didn't imagine she was out patrolling yet, but in Vegas, it was highly probably that she hadn't even returned from last night. If that was the case, he'd just have to set up shop and wait her out.
He took the elevator to the top of the pyramid and stepped out on what was the closest thing to a penthouse floor as the building could come. Knocking on her door, he waited. He was in luck. He could hear her moving about, bitching as she made her way closer to the door. He chuckled as he made out the words.
"Fucking illiterate morons," she griped as she swung the door open. "You can't read the Do Not Disturb-." She blinked, then a grin spread across her face. "Spike! What are you doing here?"
"Thought I'd try and find myself a game of kitten poker," he said easily, extinguishing his cigarette against the door jamb. "Now are you going to invite me in, love, or am I going to stand out here in the hallway all bleeding night?"
She stared at him suspiciously. "How do I know you're not evil?"
"You don't. But I'd imagine you could kick my ass to next week if you find out I am. How about it?"
She laughed. "Sure, come on in," she invited, and he crossed the threshold.
His observant gaze took in the entire length of the room, noting several closed doors and the opulence he'd associated with a penthouse. "Nice digs, Pet," he noted as he sank down onto one of the couches.
Faith grabbed two beers out of the refrigerator and handed one to him as she plopped back onto the opposite couch. "Not bad," she agreed. "I could be living worse."
"How'd you come to get this place?"
"Haggled with the hotel manager," she said with a shrug, tilting her head back as she took a healthy swig of beer. "They had some demons running around, causing problems. Only no one noticed 'cause they're pretty human-looking, with the exception of their royal blue skin. But they've got those damn Blue Men here 24-7, so no one thought anything of it. I got rid of the demons, and sold my slaying skills to the guy in charge in exchange for room and board. I even get an allowance at the shops downstairs." She laughed. "Queen C would have a royal conniption if she knew how much Prada I own, free of charge. Pretty sweet deal, if you can get it."
Spike nodded. "I'll say."
Faith regarded him warily. He was being unusually quiet, especially for Spike. "So, what's up?" she asked, her tone deliberately unconcerned. "You just wanted to drop in and say hi, or what?"
He shook his head, looking uncomfortable. He'd really thought he was the vamp for the job, but now that he was here, he wished he'd handed the whole mess over to Angel and let him deal with it. "Have some bad news for you, Pet."
Faith stood up, her unease growing in leaps and bounds. "Have you talked to B lately?" she asked, knowing that her changing the subject only emphasized her discomfort. "Last I heard she was hooked up with some big Italian kahuna."
"The Immortal," Spike said between clenched teeth.
She nodded. "That's the one. You don't sound like you're thrilled."
He scowled. "I'll never be singing that one's praises," he agreed. "One of the few things Angel and I can agree on." He shook his head, annoyed that he'd let her sidetrack him. "But back to what I came here for."
"Let's not," she said bluntly. "Look, I don't want to know, okay? I got two girls here who I'm in charge of. It's pretty fucking cool to be a mentor. And I got this set-up here," she continued, gesturing widely with her arms to encompass the suite. "I'm good with that. I don't need anything else intruding, including whatever news Angel messengered you out here for."
Spike stood up, laying a hand on her arm. "It's Wes," he said gently.
Her eyes went blank. "Whatever he wants me to know, he can damn well tell me himself," she gritted out.
"He can't."
"Yes, he can," she contradicted him, her voice almost desperate.
Spike's voice was heavy with pity. "There was a battle," he started to explain, but Faith interrupted him.
"I don't want to know!" she said angrily, her voice rising in pitch. Her dark eyes were furious, angry storms that swirled and flashed dangerously. Her teeth were bared. "I don't want your problems, okay? I have enough of my own."
He ignored her. "Angel thumbed his nose at the Senior Partners, as it were. He wanted to strike a heavy blow to evil. He had a plan. We all agreed to it. Including Wes."
She fell to the couch, her knees not wanting to support her. She closed her eyes as he sat down beside her, taking her hand.
"He was brave, Faith. He fought, and he did damage, just like we all did. It rained hell on earth in L.A. You might have heard about it."
The tiny, almost imperceptible motion of her head was the only acknowledgement he got.
"He went down a hero. We all were, you might say. Illyria made sure he died with a smile on his face."
"No," she whispered, and Spike's heart broke at the anguish in her voice.
"Angel thought you should know, and I agreed with him." He hesitated. "Angel thinks you might have been in love with him."
She stood up, walked over to the window, and looked over the chaotic city of lights and colors and sound. She saw none of it. "I don't know how to be in love," she said brokenly. "But if I could be, Wes was it."
He was surprised she'd admitted it. "He would have liked knowing that."
She laughed, a sharp, hollow sound. "No, he wouldn't have. He would have been angry, or he would have been cold, or he would have just ignored it. Wes never wanted me to love him. He just wanted me to prove that I wasn't his failure." She turned around, taking in a deep, shuddering breath. "I can't stay here. I need…" She trailed off, her arm waving around aimlessly. "I need something that isn't this."
"You want a drink?" he asked quietly.
She nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I think I do."
"You know the best places around here. Lead on."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
It was a tiny bar off the Strip that she led him to, but he approved her choice. It was almost a pub, serving good ale and boasting three dartboards, the old-fashioned kind, on a back wall. They huddled into a cozy wooden booth and sipped their drinks.
"He was a bastard, you know," she said softly. "I hated him so much. He used me, told me I was simply his tool to bring down Angelus. I think that's when I respected him the most. He didn't care anymore, not about me, or himself. He just wanted to take down that murdering demon. I could understand that."
"It's our job," Spike pointed out.
She shook her head. "It was more than that. We all have the job, and we all look at it differently. For me it's fun, a rush. For B it's a pain in the ass. For Angel, it's a sacred duty that he's personally made his mission to uphold." She paused. "For Wes, it was the center of his existence. Nothing else mattered."
"Just Fred," Spike pointed out, then swore. "Bugger all, Faith. I didn't mean to bring her up."
Faith's expression went neutral. "I knew Wes had a thing for Twig Girl. Couldn't help it. She was all bubbly and perky and everything he needed. I was too dark for him. I would have dragged him back down." She forced her voice to lighten. "Besides, how can I be jealous of someone who's dead? It's not like either of them are going to get the happily ever after they both wanted."
Spike watched her carefully. She wouldn't look at him, concentrating instead on drawing designs with her finger in the condensation left on the table from her once-frosty beer mug. "You doing okay?" he asked gently. She wasn't fragile, anything but, but he knew from what he'd been told that she could only hold it in for so long before she snapped. He wanted her to know that he could take it if she suddenly launched herself at him and just started hitting.
She shrugged, lifting her head but staring at a point just over his left shoulder. "Worse than some, better than most."
He recognized it for what it was. She didn't want to talk about her feelings, and was politely telling him to sod off.
He lifted his mug and held it out to her, waiting for her to lift hers as well. They clinked together and Spike smiled fondly. "To Wes. Damn bloody hero."
A ghost of a smile flitted across her face. "To Wes."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
I'm living without you I used to adore you
I know all about you
I have run you down into the ground
Spread disease about you over town
I couldn't control you
There was nothing that I wouldn't do
To keep myself around and close to you
Faith was curled up on the couch, her knees tucked under her chin, as she stared sightlessly across the room. She hadn't moved since Spike took her back to her hotel room, leaving her with a chaste kiss to the forehead and an unspoken promise to be there for her if she needed him. She'd barely noticed his departure, her mind circling around and around the only thought in her head.
Wes was gone.
It didn't seem right. He was the one who was supposed to live beyond her. Wasn't that the way it worked? The Slayer died, the Watcher moved on.
It wasn't fair that she had to be the one to survive him.
She wondered idly why it hurt so badly. Why it felt like her heart had been wrung out like a wet sponge and then twisted inside out. She'd cut him out of her life over a year ago, hadn't she? Made no attempt to contact him, didn't ask anyone how he was doing, didn't make sure that someone let him know what she was up to. For all she knew, she never crossed his mind.
Honestly, that wouldn't surprise her.
She'd never been on his radar, really. Not like that. Not at all, if she was brutally honest with herself. He'd dismissed her entirely when she joined up with the Mayor. She was merely the enemy at that point. He'd forgotten her again after she'd turned herself in to the LAPD. Maybe he remembered her occasionally when his ribs ached. Finally, he'd put her out of his mind once she'd failed to do what he broke her out of prison to do. They'd had to call Willow to get the job done right. He had no use for her when he realized she wasn't even any good as a weapon.
Maybe that was why it hurt so badly. She'd never been anything to him other than a tool, something he had to use to get the job done. When she'd turned out defective, he'd moved on to the next available resource. She'd never been a person in his eyes.
And he'd been a hero in hers.
Okay, so if she was honest, he hadn't been at first. She'd thought he was the world's biggest shmuck, but he'd still been the man who was supposed to guide her. Even if she'd never admitted it to anyone, least of all herself, she'd wanted his acceptance. His approval. She wanted him to be proud of her, to look at her and see his Slayer. She didn't want to be B, Jr. Wes was her only shot at that.
Hadn't quite worked out the way she wanted it.
She figured she'd started seeing the man inside, the real Wes, when she'd tortured him. He'd stood up to her, hadn't buckled and cried and begged like she'd been expecting him to. Then, despite that, he'd assisted Angel in keeping her out of the Council's hands. She'd never been able to get over that. If her actions themselves weren't enough to riddle her with guilt during the endless days, weeks, months, and years in prison, his response would have done the trick.
She thought she might have started to love him, just a little, during her incarceration. No one had ever been so unnecessarily kind to her, unless she counted Angel. He'd only been her savior because he knew what she was facing if she kept heading in the direction she'd unwittingly chosen. She'd been a sort of form of atonement for Angel. Just one more life saved, in the grand scheme of things.
Wes hadn't had that kind of incentive. In fact, he'd had every reason to let the Council take her and use her as a lab rat. He could've gotten pleasure in knowing she'd be paid back a thousand times over for what she'd done to him.
Yeah. It was definitely love that had begun.
She hadn't expected the sensation of being punched in the stomach when he showed up out of the blue. He'd been extraordinarily sexy and she got the flutter-by feelings she hadn't had since she was much younger, before she got so jaded and cynical. When she'd made that crack about riding a biker, she'd secretly hoped it would get the gears in his brain turning.
Unfortunately, they were already turning, and they only had one track. Angelus. Stop him. Get Angel back. Use Faith to do it.
Well, she hadn't done it. Willow had. And Faith was sent away.
She'd taken the hint. She'd been discarded. So she'd walked away from him. She'd pretended to never look back, but she couldn't stop herself from glancing in the rearview every now and then.
Which brought her to now. For someone who'd tried awfully hard not to think about 'the one she'd left behind', she couldn't stop thinking about him now.
It was okay, wasn't it? After all, he only lived in memories now. If she didn't allow herself those, he would die all over again. She couldn't let that happen. It wasn't fair to him, to the man he'd been.
"Okay, Wes," she murmured aloud, letting her lips curve up in a fond smile. "You got it. I'm here for ya." She wouldn't forget him. This time, she wouldn't let him down.
She picked up her beer, touched it to the curve of her forehead just near her temple, and extended it out in a silent salute to a departed comrade. Then she tipped it back and drained it, sealing her promise to the man she'd failed too many times.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
It was precisely a month later that Faith showed up in L.A., a duffle bag slung over one shoulder and a case of nerves like she hadn't had in a long time residing in her chest. It had taken the last four weeks to convince herself that it wasn't creepy, stalker-ish, or pathetic for her to come back and say goodbye to him properly.
She knew where he'd be. He'd made it clear that he was done with England. He wouldn't have wanted to be sent back there, buried in the family plot, and Angel would have known it just as much as she did. He would have wanted to be buried here, with his family. His real family.
L.A. had a lot of cemeteries. She figured with her job, she could afford to give each one a quick whirl. She'd check out the stones, stake any vamps that tried to slow her down, and make her way from cemetery to cemetery until she found the one he was buried in. It gave her a productive, healthy way to work out her anger.
She was mildly surprised that she hit pay dirt on her sixth cemetery. He was buried near the back of the perimeter, underneath a tall tree. The headstone was small, the epitaph simple. "Fallen hero."
"Too damn true," she muttered to herself. He'd been the best kind of hero, the quiet one that didn't command attention to his actions.
She sat down Indian-style on the grave, her fingers idly sifting through the loose dirt. She took in the little tokens that had been left on graves around her, noting flowers and ribbons and letters. She tightened the fingers of her left hand, the one wrapped around her own offering.
Faith sat there for over an hour, her eyes closed, her mind floating. She felt lethargic, drifting languorously through memories. Times when he'd smiled at her, given her a few words of praise. She'd pretended they meant nothing, had ridiculed him. No one had ever known how she'd clung to any bit of approval he offered. She'd detested the thought of being vulnerable, more, of them knowing it.
She recalled her trip on Orpheus. It had been the one time she'd ever done anything to endear her to him. He'd taken care of her after that. He'd treated her like the warrior instead of the weapon. It had been enough for her. She'd have gone through a hundred trips on Orpheus to have him look at her that way again, to protect and care for her.
So, she supposed in a way she hadn't failed him. She'd done what it took to bring Angelus down. It had been Willow who got him back, but she'd held him long enough for Willow to do her thing.
Opening her eyes, Faith lifted her face to the warm sunshine pouring over her. Pulling herself to her feet, she reached down and laid a hand on the stone standing sentinel over Wes's body. I thought you were special. I thought you should know, she told him silently, rubbing her fingers over the smooth, sun-warmed granite.
Bending down, she opened her left hand and let the necklace fall to the hard-packed earth beneath her feet. It was something he'd given her when he first came to Sunnydale. He'd been so stiff and pretentious as he explained that the pendant was a symbol worn by female warriors throughout history to protect them from harm. He'd meant only to arm her with any kind of good luck he could come by, but she'd treasured it long after she'd realized what an ass he was. It was the first time anyone had given her something and didn't expect anything but her best in return.
She'd given him her best, whether he knew it then or not. She hoped that wherever he was, he knew it now.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
It was later that night when she made her next stop. She'd been thinking about it all day, if she should go, what she would say. She knew she couldn't put it off, and she was resigned to knowing that she couldn't just skip out on the visit and hightail it back to Vegas and her Slayers.
Faith rubbed her arms to chase away the chill that swept over her. Her skin prickled, goosebumps raising up as she looked up at the immense building. She'd never seen it before but she'd heard about it plenty of times. It was as imposing as she'd imagined it to be. It beckoned to her, invited her in.
She swung the door open and walked in, her footsteps echoing in the cavernous room. It was dark, dusty. Too many months of neglect had taken their toll on the beautiful furnishings, the paintings that graced the walls, the dark wood of the banisters.
"Anyone home?" she asked, her voice resonating in the high-ceilinged room.
Footsteps sounded from above and she tilted her head up, anticipating his reaction.
"Faith."
It's surprise, relief, pleasure. Not things that she'd ever thought people would associate with her. She smiled, giving him a little wave.
"I didn't think you'd come here."
"Aww, Angel, you know me. Can't stay away," she responded dryly.
He didn't take the bait, but finished descending the stairs. "Spike's out at the moment," he informed her, crossing the Hyperion's lobby and standing just out of arm's reach.
She shook her head. "I'm not here to see Spike and you know it."
He gave her a cool, assessing look. "I lied. I knew you'd come here. I just didn't think it'd be this soon."
"Guess I got ready a whole lot quicker than I expected," she admitted with a shrug.
He remained quiet, waiting her out. It didn't take more than a minute before her face fell.
"Oh God, Angel," she broke, the tears streaming down her cheeks. "He's gone. He's really gone."
Angel held his arms open and Faith flew into them. She buried her face in his chest and let him hold her, stroking her hair and murmuring in her ear. He'd hold her until the tears stopped, until the hurt lessened. He'd be her friend.
She grieved for the man she'd loved, in her own way, and let Angel be the eye of her storm.