Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters except for the ones that I created like Audrey.
Author's Note:
Jess-yeah it is a bad way to end a chapter, this chapter doesn't start out much better…but ya gotta love them cliffhangers
J-Yeah The Immortal loves to appear to be the good guy, Illyria's on the warpath as she's not sure what's going on, and the only person that she'd believe to tell her what's going on isn't in any shape to right now
Tamara-Andrew was just being himself and got scared, he didn't know that he was being watched
CHAPTER 10-PLENTY OF TIME
She forced her eyes to open and fought back the urge to vomit. Through the tears and the blood she could just barely make out Wesley's frame lying next to her. After having tortured them for several hours they had been thrown into a cell in the bottom of a dungeon that rather than being cold was often stiflingly hot. That had all been a week ago, as each day the guards would come and take one of them out of the cell and up to the interrogation room. Whoever was chosen for that day would come back looking worse than when they had left, cuts that had only just begun to heal were violently torn open again and made that much more painful.
They had just brought Wesley back in about an hour earlier and despite her not wanting to cause him any more pain she was forced to remove his clothes, being thankful that he had remembered to wear boxers. During the day the two would strip down to their underwear due to the heat. At night they would painfully pull their clothes back on to keep warm as at times the temperature got cold enough for them to see their breath. Over the course of the week Faith had held up better to the torture because every night her body would begin to heal itself. Wesley, on the other hand, was not so lucky. At first he had held up well against the torture. But as the days wore on Faith could see his strength ebbing away. Because of that by the middle of the week she had done all that she could to make sure that the guards would pick her instead of Wesley.
"Nnh…Faith," Wesley softly mumbled out, almost delirious, as he coughed up a little bit of blood and winced in pain as she pulled his shirt off.
"I'm here Wes, it's just me, you're safe now," Faith said back softly with a hopefully soothing tone of voice as she delicately brushed some dirt off of his face.
"I didn't…I didn't tell them," Wesley mumbled out weakly as he tried in vain to shake his head and remain defiant.
"I know you didn't, you're to strong for them," Faith said back with a nervous hitch in her voice as she tried to console him to the best of her abilities.
"Have to go, have to help Angel," Wesley choked out softly with a very painful wince before the effects of the round of torture caught up with him and he passed out.
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"Would you sit down for a minute, please," Nina stated with a nervous and scared look on her face as she grabbed Angel's arm and stopped him from pacing back and forth. After Wesley and Faith had not come back from the pickup Angel had gone out the moment that the sun had gone down and discovered what had happened. For the entire week since he, Nina, and Spike had been scouring the city, desperately trying to find out any little piece of information that could help them locate Wesley and Faith. Spike had gone and talked to Andrew again, this time when the former nerd turned new watcher had gone out to a club with some lady friends. Spike had cornered him in the bathroom and roughed him up a bit before Andrew had squealed and admitted that he had gotten scared and hadn't been able to get the book. But he had sworn on his collection of action figures that he didn't know what happened to Wesley and Faith. Begrudgingly Spike had to admit that he was telling the truth and leave him be, but not before making him promise to not say a word to Buffy or Giles.
"I can't sit down Nina, they're out there somewhere," Angel snapped back with a furious and almost seething scowl on his face as his level of frustration and anxiety was growing by the day.
"You're right, but you won't do them any good if you wear yourself out with this guilt trip, it's not your fault Angel," Nina shot back with a very serious look on her face as she refused to let go of Angel's arm and made him face her.
"You should listen to her, she's got a point," Spike chimed in with a calm and almost bored expression on his face as he walked into the room, popping open a cold beer as he walked.
"Stay out of this Spike," Angel snapped back with an overwhelmed and frustrated scowl on his face before Nina shook him hard.
"Stop it Angel, stop it right now, he's just trying to help you," Nina growled with an angry and fed up expression on her face as she squeezed Angel's arm as hard as she could while staring him straight in the eye.
"So you're on his side now," Angel mumbled out softly with an embarrassed look on his face as he looked all around, refusing to meet Nina's gaze.
"No, it's just that you've spent the last two days in this room, moping about everything under the sun, you said yourself that no one's going to help us out on this one so we're going to have to do everything ourselves, which is why I'm going to talk to Andrew tonight," Nina continued with a very serious look on her face as she shook Angel a bit to make him listen to her.
"Hold on there, what good's that going to do," Spike asked with a surprised and confused look on his face as he hurriedly swallowed a large sip of the beer.
"He doesn't know me, maybe I can get something out of him about what happened to Wesley and Faith," Nina answered with a subtly sly smile on her face as she turned her head and looked over at Spike.
"But he was there when we crashed the party, he'll recognize you," Angel stated with an unconvinced and concerned frown on his face as now he looked straight down at her.
"No he won't, he was to busy trying not to pee his pants during our attack, and besides I don't think that he gave me much thought if he even saw me, he was to busy cowering," Nina replied as she shook her head and smiled up at Angel as Spike mulled it over in his head.
"Could work, you and I are instantly recognizable to any of the Scooby gang, she might learn something," Spike said with a honest tone to his voice as Angel started to growl back at him but stopped when he noticed that Spike wasn't trying to make a joke of any kind and was truly trying to be helpful.
"I still don't know, it could be to dangerous for you," Angel started to say with a confused look on his face as he tried to regain control of the situation.
"Nothing good is free right, I knew that this wasn't going to be a picnic when I didn't go with my sister and niece Angel, I'm in this all the way, so it doesn't really matter if you like it or not I'm doing it, I just thought that you should know," Nina replied with a confidant and calm expression on her face before she pulled Angel down far enough for her to be able to give him a quick kiss and then she walked out of the room.
"Once again, a petite blonde has the might Angelus by the shorthairs, truly pitiful," Spike joked with an overly sly grin on his face before he shook his head and began to chug the beer, seemingly caring less about the hellacious glare that Angel sent his way.
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"What am I supposed to tell their parents Will, sorry ain't going to cut it," Buffy asked with a very somber pout on her face as she wiped away a tear.
"I don't know, I'm still in shock, I don't understand what happened," Willow replied with an unsure frown on her face before she pulled Buffy into a short comforting hug.
"I thought you said that Fred was nice, that she wouldn't hurt a flea," Dawn asked with a scared look on her face as she tried not to stare at the place on the floor where the new slayers bodies had been.
"That was not Fred, it's name was Illyria," Giles replied with a grave scowl on his face as he awkwardly slipped his glasses off and then wiped them off with a white handkerchief from his pocket.
"That's right, she said that she was Illyria right before she jumped through the window and ran away," Buffy added with a confused and scared look on her face as she and Willow broke the hug.
"So who's Illyria," Dawn asked with a confused and slightly annoyed frown on her face as she turned to Giles.
"A being that should have stayed where she was, dead and buried in the deeper well," Roger replied with a frustrated and anxious expression on his face as he walked into the room and slid his hands into his pockets.
"That doesn't make any sense, if she…it was dead then how did she kill the new slayers," Buffy asked with a confused look on her face as she turned to Roger and laid her hands on her hips.
"Quite the forceful one eh, well I wish that I could be the one to explain all of this to you but council business takes me elsewhere, I just came in to tell Rupert and then leave, he can tell you what you need to know," Roger replied without missing a beat as he calmly answered Buffy, nodded to Giles, and then walked out of the room.
"Well," Dawn quipped with a curious expression on her face as she crossed her arms in front of her chest and turned an inquisitive eye towards Giles.
"Yes well…Illyria, one of a race of demons that existed centuries ago, before mankind, before the dinosaurs, even before vampires and the other demons, Illyria existed in a time where it was only her kind and their armies, they could travel from one dimension to another and were insanely powerful, and insanely evil," Giles answered with an uncomfortable look on his face as he put his glasses back on and then tried to look innocent, it didn't work.
"Did Wesley's father tell you that or," Willow started to say with an odd frown on her face before Giles interrupted.
"No, I first heard the name several weeks ago shortly after receiving a telephone call from Angel," Giles interjected with a grim and increasingly guilty look on his face as he slid his hands into his pockets and awaited the coming outburst.
"What, Angel called…you never said anything about Angel calling," Buffy exclaimed with a surprised and confused look on her face as she walked up to Giles and glared up at him.
"Because at the time I thought that it was merely a ploy of some type, an attempt to get us to go to LA, in retrospect I see that my assessment was wrong," Giles answered with an uncomfortable and unhappy frown on his face as he tried not to get Buffy to angry.
"What exactly did Angel say Giles," Willow asked with a forced look of calm on her face as she laid a hand on Buffy's shoulder to try and keep her from losing her cool.
"He said that a foreign organism had infected one of his team…Fred, and unless something happened her prognosis wasn't good, it appears that he and his associates at Wolfram and Hart were unable to save her," Giles replied with a regretful look in his eyes as he pulled his hands out of his pockets while walking past Buffy and Willow and to the broken out window.
"Ya think," Dawn grumbled with an unhappy pout on her face as she glared across the room at Giles' back before she turned towards Buffy as she spoke.
"Did he ask for me directly or," Buffy started to ask with a nervous and slightly angry scowl on her face before Giles half turned around and answered her.
"No, he asked for Willow's help, he said that the organism was magical in nature and if anyone had the knowledge or power to save Fred it was her, I told him that you were unavailable and then put him on hold…repeatedly, by the time that you walked in he had hung up, he didn't call again," Giles replied with a sincere look of regret and embarrassment on his face as he looked briefly at Buffy at first and then shifted his gaze back over her shoulder to Willow, who looked disappointed for not having gotten the call.
"Well it looks like you were wrong Giles, Angel needed our help and we let him down, he called us for help even after Andrew told him that I didn't trust him anymore, we failed him…we were wrong, makes me wonder what else we've been wrong about," Buffy said back with a slightly humiliated and guilt stricken look on her face as she walked out of the room and out onto the balcony.
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"Wake up Wes, time to eat," Faith said with a scared look on her face as she cautiously shook Wesley awake.
"What," Wesley mumbled out softly with a painful wince thrown in as Faith helped him to sit up before she went over and brought the plates of food over to where he was sitting.
"Breakfast…or is supper, pretty hard to tell anymore," Faith replied with a scared laugh as she sat down beside him while her stomach growled mightily, though none of the foods on her plate looked very appealing.
"It's dinner, it's to hot in here to be breakfast," Wesley said back with a weak smile on his face before he picked a grape up off of his plate and popped it into his mouth, thankful that it had some taste to it.
"You still with me…Wes," Faith started to ask with a concerned look on her face before Wesley momentarily almost passed out.
"Nnh yeah, I'm still here, bloody pitiful excuse for a prisoner, here I am looking a frightful mess, can't keep up with you though," Wesley replied through the pain and fog in his head before he pushed his shoulders further up the wall and popped another grape into his mouth.
"Just call me Prometheus," Faith joked with a sly grin on her face before the grin turned into a genuine smile of embarrassment.
"What," Wesley asked with a confused and amazed look on his face as he studied Faith's reaction through his one good eye as the other had swelled shut and stayed that way.
"Prometheus, you know the titan that stole fire from the gods and gave it to man," Faith replied with a light hearted laugh before she reached over and took one of Wesley's grapes and then bit off half of it. She silently sat there, chewing on part of the grape and watching him, as he seemed to mull over his words for a moment.
"I know who he is, I just didn't know that you knew who he was," Wesley said back with a pleasantly surprised look on his face before coughing a bit.
"Yeah well, I had a lot of time to kill on the boat ride over here, and what with Angel and Nina not leaving each others side for more than five minutes the whole time and Spike hording all of his cigarettes I had to do something, so I started reading," Faith said softly with her usual confidant and proud tone of voice as she shrugged her shoulders and then popped the rest of the grape into her mouth.
"I'm glad that you took the time to further your education, you didn't seem to give it much though while in Sunnydale, and then once you were in LA you…," Wesley started to say with a proud smile on his face before he cast his gaze down towards the ground as he found it hard to continue.
"Before I tortured you, that what you were going to say," Faith said with a suddenly guilty and upset frown on her face as she shrank away from Wesley a bit and took a big bite of her small piece of bread.
"Yes, I wasn't sure that you would want to talk about it…given our current run of luck," Wesley replied with a nervous look on his face as he looked up at Faith and was relieved to see that she had remained calm.
"No problem here, I didn't want to bring it up because I thought that it'd upset you to much, after what I did to you in LA I thought," Faith started to say with a steadily increasing look of guilt and self loathing on her face before Wesley reached out and laid a hand on her knee, even though the action sent lighting bolts of pain through his arm.
"That I hated you, that I never wanted to see you again unless it was behind bars…I have to admit that when Angel confronted you in the alley I was ready to kill you, I even went so far as to take a knife from the apartment," Wesley interjected with a nervous tone to his voice as he got Faith to look him in the eye as he spoke. He stopped speaking briefly as he saw the look of surprise on her face at his revelation that he had brought a knife down with him that night. "I was going to get my revenge on you right then and there in that alley, but then everything changed, I dropped the knife and walked away, and if we're talking about who did what to whom then I should be apologizing as much if not more than you, I should have been a better watcher, a better friend, I was so much of a prick that I didn't," Wesley added with an honest tone of voice as he held his plate still with his other hand while at the end giving Faith's knee an awkward squeeze.
"No…it was all my fault, I was so angry and confused that I didn't know what was going on, no wait, I did know, I knew exactly what I was doing and loved every minute of it, I did, I really did," Faith said back with a forced look of toughness on her face and tone to her voice before at the end her voice began to quiver ever so slightly.
"No you didn't, sure you got off on the power trip, but inside of you somewhere you knew what you were doing was wrong, just like when you killed the man that worked for the Mayor back in Sunnydale, like it or not you're a good and honest person at heart, it's just that you've been hurt badly so many times that you protect yourself from the world at all costs, you never let anyone in for fear of being hurt, besides if you were truly a monster then you wouldn't have felt bad about torturing me, you're not a horrible woman Faith, despite what you might think about yourself you're not, you're a young and beautiful woman with her whole life ahead of her," Wesley replied with a clear and honest look in his eyes as he looked straight at Faith, his tone of voice and words making her instantly uncomfortable, but in a good way. When he said the word beautiful she cocked an eyebrow and felt her heart skip a beat at the realization of what he had said. She at first thought that she had heard him wrong, but the look in his eye proved her wrong.
"They must have hit you pretty hard in there, must have knocked something loose," Faith joked softly, in a clear attempt to break the tension in the moment, before she took another grape from off of Wesley's plate.
"Maybe, but I think that you beat them to it back in LA, you're the reason that I'm who I am today, you unleashed the real me," Wesley joked with a cheesy grin on his face as he looked away from Faith and pulled his hand back off of her knee before he used it to pick up three grapes and then pop them all into his mouth at the same time.
"No, I'm the reason that you're here right now, I should have been able to sense them coming, we shouldn't be here," Faith grumbled back with an unhappy pout on her face before she angrily stuffed the rest of her bread into her mouth.
"I don't blame you for this Faith, anymore than you should be blaming me, I'm as much at fault here as you, we were both taken by surprise, but now that leaves us with plenty of free time to talk," Wesley stated back in reply with a very clear and serious look on his face as he finished chewing the grapes.
"About what," Faith asked with a fake not interested look on her face as she scooted over and sat down right beside him, copying exactly how he was sitting.
"Well I never did catch your last name," Wesley replied with a crooked smile on his face as he lightly bumped Faith with his elbow before she couldn't help but half smile. She took in a deep breath before beginning a conversation that wouldn't end until several hours later when both fell asleep
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She threw the covers off and got up out of bed. She walked across the room and stared at the streets below. She knew that she shouldn't be where she was, doing what she was doing. But she couldn't help herself. She knew that her love was busy with one council matter or another but Willow had been so busy recently that she hadn't had much time for a personal life. They hadn't been in Rome long before the two had met. They met at one of The Immortal's parties. She had almost not gone after Willow had gotten sick. But true to her nature the redhead had told her girlfriend to go. Their gazes had met across the dance floor and after some awkward moments the two had struck up a conversation, and soon a friendship. She had done her best to keep anyone from noticing their connection. Willow had come the closest but she had been stymied each and every time by a kiss or a special night out.
Kennedy sighed softly as she turned and looked back to the bed and the redhead and the blonde softly snoring away in the middle of the day. The blonde was the woman that she had met at the party, a low level lawyer on The Immortals staff. The redhead was a vampire that had worked for The Immortal for several years, though Kennedy still wasn't completely sure exactly what her job was. The night before had started out innocent enough, just a long night helping The Immortal with his latest legal problem before the vampiress had suggested that they raid the wet bar. Hours later they wound up in bed, to wrapped up in each other to hear the calls about Illyria's attack. If she had to tell the truth she would have admitted that what she was doing was wrong but ever since they had all arrived in Europe she had felt that she and Willow were drifting apart. After a heated argument one night The Immortal had offered to help and smooth things over by letting her do some legwork for him. That legwork was how Kennedy had first come into contact with the two beauties in the bed behind her.
She was about to return to the bed, but only after getting something for her hangover, when her cell phone rang. It was Giles calling her to say that something very bad had happened and that she was needed. She lied and said that she had eaten some bad food the night before and been busy all day running around Rome for The Immortal. But in the end she said that she'd be right there and hung up. She left a note on the dresser before pulling her clothes back on and heading out of the suite.
END OF CHAPTER 10
Note: I put Kennedy's age at almost or right at seventeen or possibly seventeen and a half given that the ages of those first few potentials wasn't really given. There was that joke about them being fifteen when they met Clem in the demon bar but I doubt that they were all exactly fifteen, more like that they were all somewhere in between fifteen and sixteen with Kennedy being closer to sixteen, and it's been about a year since the destruction of Sunnydale so to me Kennedy is close to legally being an adult, though it doesn't excuse her actions. Anybody have any ideas for the blonde lawyer and redheaded vampire that Kennedy is with, names wise.