Chapter 15
Angel was dragging the chair with Linwood still tied to it up the stairs. Buffy was right at Angel's side.
"Lilah! Do something!" Linwood cried.
"Angel, killing this creep isn't going to solve anything. You don't wanna do this." Lorne said.
"That's where you're wrong." Angel said.
"Angel, we had a deal! I gave you everything you asked for. What more do you want from me? Buffy, please reason with him!" Linwood asked.
"I want my son back just as much as Angel does. I carried him through nine months. I went through the pain of labor and delivery. Did you know that Conner and I could have died that day?" Buffy said.
"Lilah!" Linwood cried.
Lilah came running, cell phone in hand. "Hey, whoa! Flag on the play. The firm's tech team just registered a sever bio-plasmic disturbance at Tabor and National at the same time as the spell."
"Sahjhan?" Angel asked.
"Whatever it was flipped a two ton truck like a Tonka toy."
Angel looked at Buffy, she nodded, and he let go of the chair. Linwood tumbled down the steps, the chair breaking to pieces, and landed at Lilah and Lorne's feet.
Fred and Gunn came running in, stopping Buffy and Angel at the bottom of the steps.
"We need to talk." Fred said.
"Not now." Angel replied.
Angel tried to steer him and Buffy past her, but Fred stepped in his way again.
"Fred!" Buffy said agitated.
"There's something you need to know before..." Fred started, but Buffy and Angel moved around her and ran for the doors.
"The father will kill the son!" Fred called.
Buffy and Angel stopped on the landing and slowly turned around.
"There is a prophecy in the Nyazian Scrolls. Wesley checked the translation, the commentaries, even went to the mystical oracles, but he couldn't disprove it."
"They already fed you Conner's blood, bro. You said it yourself. He smelled like food." Gunn said.
"He was trying to protect Conner." Fred said.
"He was trying to protect you two, same as we're doing right now."
After a moment Buffy and Angel turned back to the doors. Fred hurried to step between them and the doors.
"Angel, the prophecy..." Fred started.
"It's a lie. I'd never hurt Connor." Angel said.
"How can you know that for sure?"
"I'd never hurt someone I care about. Now move."
With a sigh Fred stepped aside and allowed Buffy and Angel to leave.
Fred hurried to Gunn. "We have to go after them."
"We can't. Angel or Buffy lays a finger on you, I'll have to kill them myself."
Gunn turned and saw Lilah help Linwood to his feet.
"What are they doing here?"
"There was kidnapping, a spell, dark magic. It's bad, kids." Lorne answered.
"He's gonna to pay for this." Linwood said.
"Really bad."
As Buffy and Angel walked out of the Hyperion, a Crossbow bolt buried itself in Angel's shoulder. Angel looked up and saw Justine shooting a second bolt at him. Buffy caught the bolt as Angel twisted to avoid the second shot while he pulled out the first bolt. He threw down the bolt and they continued on their way. The remainder of Holtz' men attack them and they take them down in short order, then they resumed their exit. As they stepped out through the gate, Justine hits Angel with a hard right cross.
"Don't run off now. The fun's just staring."
Buffy intercepts the stake headed for Angel's chest and Angel pushed Justine up against the fence.
"I'm not your boyfriend. Find somebody else to smack you around."
Angel tossed Justine to the ground and by the time she rolled onto her back, hands raised to parry the next blow, Buffy and Angel were nowhere in sight.
Angel and Buffy arrived at the scene of the accident that Sarjhan might have caused. The driver of the pickup sat hunched up on the curb of the street. They walked up to him. Angel decided to let Buffy talk to the guy. He would probably open up to a beautiful woman like Buffy faster than he would Angel.
"Are you alright?" Buffy asked.
"I tried to stop it. It's all my fault." The driver said.
Buffy crouched down next to him. "Hey. What's your name?"
"Uhm, Al Stokley. Not even my truck."
"Hey, Al, can you tell me what happened here?"
"Ah, I hit... Oh god. I, I hit a guy, a man."
"This man you hit, where is he?"
"I don't know. There, there's no way he could have gotten up." He looked over at where paramedics were working on a guy on a stretcher. "God, those poor people."
"You didn't do anything wrong."
"It's all my fault."
"No. No, it isn't."
Angel walked over to look at the underside of the overturned pickup. He reached to touch the front bumper then examined his fingers.
"What's ya got?" Buffy asked, coming up behind him.
"It was Sarjhan, I can feel it. Plus there's some demon blood here." Angel said.
"Let's go get the bastard."
Justine sat down on the edge of a table, slowly lifting her hand and looking at it. A grate slid to the side and Gunn and Fred entered.
"Where is Wes?" Gunn asked.
"He's not coming back." Justine stated.
"What?"
"It was all lies, every bit of it. All he wanted was that kid to punish Angel. He never cared about anything else."
"I'm talking about Wesley. His car is parked up top here. You obviously took it from him. Where is he?"
"We just wanna hear his side." Fred said.
"His side? His side's kinda funny. He sacrificed everything he believed in to save that kid."
"By helping Holtz take him to hell? I'd like to hear it from the horse's mouth." Gunn said.
"Your friend's innocent."
"Is he alive?" Fred asked.
Justine didn't answer.
"Where is he?! Will you just tell us?!"
"Heaven? Hell? I slit his throat."
Fred hit Justine. Justine tried to hit back, but Gunn stepped between them and intercepted the hit, then tossed Justine off the table. Justine came back up and attacked Gunn. Gunn tossed her on the ground.
"Stay down!"
"Um, no." Justine jumped back up and launched herself back at Gunn. After a quick exchange of blows, Justine again ended up on the floor.
"I trusted the wrong man." She cried.
Gunn grabbed her by the lapels. "You're gonna take us to him and he better be alive!"
"You call that a fight?" They all turned to see Shajhan standing in the doorway. "Let me show you how we used to do it." Sajhan started to come towards them. "So. My home. Uninvited guests. This can't end well."
"That's the guy right?" Gunn asked.
"Uh-huh." Fred said.
"Hi Justine. I remember you. One of Holtz' groupies. You tried to cut off my head." Shajahn hit Justine and she went flying across the chamber. "Can't tell you how much I missed doing that." He turned to face Fred and Gunn. "I also missed gravity, friction, and smashing things to pieces." He picked up a chair and smashed it to pieces on the table. "Let's start with your skulls."
"Or yours." Angel said as he and Buffy entered the room.
"Angel! Buffy! Nice of you to join us. I'm guessing I have you two to thank for the whole mortal coil thing."
"Yeah. Tell you what: you take me and my wife to the Quor-toth world, help me find my son, we'll call it even."
"Really? You, me, and the pretty blond? Buddy cop, summer release? We iron out our wacky differences and bond? I don't think so."
"You're taking us there."
"Couldn't, even if I wanted to."
"You're lying." Buffy said.
"No. That I'm telling the truth about. Your kid's gone, for good. I could open the Quor-toth exactly one time. That's why I chose it. Try again; the whole universe could go kaplooey. Bad for me, bad for America."
"So, what are you lying about?" Buffy asked
"Oh, well, I don't like to brag, but read any good prophecies lately?"
"You wrote the prophecies."
"More a re-write."
"The father will kill the son." Fred said.
"Yeah. I flitted back and forth in time. Changed the one that threatened me, polished some others. Flitted in a manly way, just so we're clear." To Angel he said, "You're not really my enemy. Your in my home and I'm gonna kick your ass, but you where never the point."
"It was Conner."
"Boy! Can't put one over on you, can you? Oh, wait - already did. It's pretty freaky the first time you see your name in a true prophecy all carved in blood on an official scroll. The one made by the vampire with a soul and the vampire slayer will grow to manhood and kill Sahjhan.' Me!"
"So you planted false prophecies, that Angel would kill his son, and Wesley believed them." Fred asked.
"Thank god he had some spine. Holtz was useless. He wanted to raise your kid as his own! I'm living with a knife over my heart for eleven hundred years and he's into petty revenge! If he'd just killed the damn thing while it was still in its mother we could have avoided all this!" Angel morphed and attacked Sahjhan, but Shajhan deflected him into the wall. Buffy hit Shajhan and gotknocked down. Before Shajhan can do any more to her, Angel is back and the two of them start slugging each other.
Fred took a hold of one of the fire bowls and tossed the burning coals into Sahjhan's face. Sahjhan shook them off and looked at Fred. "Do I look like I need more skin problems?" Sahjhan went to attack Fred, but Buffy knocks her out of the way.
"Fred!" Gunn cried running over to the two girls.
"Watch her Gunn." Buffy warned.
Angel attacked again. They exchanged more blows, then Sahjhan tossed Angel against the wall. Buffy attacked and got thrown hard against the same wall and landed next to Angel. Sahjhan came over and grabbed Angel by the throat and threw him around a bit more, in the end tossing Angel onto the table. Angel's face morphed back to human. Sahjhan picked up one of the legs from the broken chair and raised it to stake Angel.
"Had to put your boy down. Pity. The kid had a big future. I mean big." Sajhan said.
"Angel!" Buffy cried.
Justine appeared in the door behind Sajhan, cradling something in her arms.
Shajhan said to Angel, "Oh well, we all gotta go sometime. You're bitch is gonna be next."
As Sahjhan got ready to stake Angel, Justine opened the jar she held and Sahjhan was sucked into it in a swirl of light.
"No. No! Don't do that! Nooo!" Sajhan cried.
Justine closed the lid of the urn and set it on the floor as the others picked themselves back up.
"Holtz left it." Justine said.
"What about Wesley?" Fred asked.
"The park next to his place, that's where I left him."
Buffy helped Angel stand straight as he tried to stand and nearly fell. He put his arm around her and kissed her forehead. They walk out silently.
Gunn, Fred, Angel, and Buffy looked around the area where Wesley was earlier, but he was nowhere to be found.
"Maybe she was lying." Fred said.
Angel and Buffy were standing where Wes had fallen, Angel staring at the sky.
"No. He was here." Angel said.
"How can you..." Fred started.
"The blood." Buffy said.
"We should get going." Gunn said/
"He can't be dead." Buffy said.
"We'll keep looking. Lorne's been calling hospitals all night." Fred said.
"We'll call Faith and we'll find him." Gunn said.
Angel kept staring at the lightning sky.
Angel stared at Wesley's tea set in his office. Buffy sat on the desk next to him, stroking his hair. He had his hand on her waist. He felt like he should say something to her. She was going through more than he was. He had never seen Buffy more torn apart by anything before than he had when her child was kidnapped and taken to hell in front of her very eyes. She had been keeping a straight demeanor since she stopped crying that night they went after Linwood, cracking every now and then only to reel it all back in. She was strong, but he was afraid that if she held all this stuff in, he might lose her like he lost their son. As he started to say something, Lorne walked in.
"Hey, I, ah, cleaned the pentagram as best I could. The dried blood, well, that's starting to be a look out there."
"Thanks." Angel said.
"Yeah, well, you know me. Like to keep busy."
Angel leaned forward in the chair onto the desk. "It's not right. All I could think about was getting my hands on Sahjhan. Fred and Gunn tried to keep us from..."
"Going to far?"
"Nearly got them killed."
"Yeah, you did. I'm glad it didn't work out that way."
Angel stood and walked over to the sideboard and picked up one of the teacups. "You think Wesley is..."
"I don't know. I hope for the best. You know, there is a bigger picture here, guys. And in that bigger picture there is a glass."
"If the words 'glass is half full' are about to come out of your mouth don't."
"No. No, this is more a glass half full of spiked blood. If Sahjhan and that lady lawyer pulled off their feeding plan, you'd have Conner's blood on your hands."
"Don't I anyway?"
"No! You think there is something more you could have done? You did everything you could with the knowledge you had. Just like Wesley. You know, maybe the way to start forgiving yourself is by starting to forgive him."
The telephone rang and Buffy picked it up.
"Angel Investiga... Hey, Fred! They did? And? Okay, where? Uh-huh. Yeah, he's right here. I'll tell him. Okay, thanks." Buffy said into the phone. "They found Wesley."
Angel and Buffy walked into a hospital waiting room to find Fred, Gunn, Faith getting up from a couch.
"Hey. It's good you guys came." Faith said.
Angel let out a sigh. "He ask for us?"
"Nah, he can't speak yet. Trachea is all messed up. Lost a lot of blood. It's just good you two came."
"He's not completely out of the woods yet. You're being here can only help." Fred said.
"Can we see him?" Buffy asked.
"I'm sure he'd like that." Fred said.
Buffy and Angel moved past them, hand in hand, to the door of room 319 and opened it. They walked into Wes' hospital room. There were x-rays of his throat hanging on the wall. Wesley, an IV in the back of his left hand and a bandage around his throat, was lying on the bed with his eyes closed. A heart monitor was beeping in the steady rhythm of his heart.
Angel closed the door and walked over to the bed by Buffy as Wes' eyes blinked open.
"Hey Wesley." Buffy said. "I'm sorry for what you're going through. I know that you were trying to protect our son, but you should have come to me. Truthfully, I'm the only protection Conner needed from Angel. Angel never would have touched Conner or me. Just don't ever do it again." Buffy smiled tightly.
Wesley looked back and tried to smile a little. Then he looked at Angel who started to talk.
"Hey, Wes. I just, I want you to know I understand why you did it. I know about the prophecies and I know how hard it must have been for you to do what you did. You thought I was gonna turn evil and kill my son. I didn't. It's important you know that. This isn't Angelus talking. It's me, Angel. You know that, right?"
Wesley blinked his eyes once.
"Good."
Then suddenly, Angel pulled the pillow out from under Wes' head and pushed it down on Wes' face.
"Angel no!" Buffy screamed. She tried to pull Angel off, but she couldn't budge him. He shook her off against the wall and she sunk to the floor.
"You son of a bitch, you're gonna pay for what you did! You took my son! You son of a bitch! You bastard!" Angel screamed.
"Gunn! Faith!" Buffy shouted, getting back up and grabbing Angel's arm.
Gunn, Faith, and Fred's heads jerked up out in the waiting room as they hear Buffy screaming for them and a heart monitor alarm going off. Orderlies ran past them to reach Wes' room.
"You think I'd forgive you?! No! Never! You're gonna die! You hear me? You're gonna pay!"
Wes' hands fumbled over Angel's arms and shoulders.
"Angel no!"
The first orderly ran in and helped Buffy pull Angel and the pillow off Wes' for a moment. Angel shrugged them off and pushed the pillow back down on Wes' face.
"You took my son! You took my son!"
"Stop it!" Buffy yelled.
"Get off him!" Faith screamed.
"You took my son!"
Gunn grabbed a hold of Angel with Buffy and Faith and they pulled him off Wesley.
"Angel! Stop!" Buffy and Gunn yelled.
"Never! Never!"
"Come on, man, stop!" Gunn yelled.
"I'll kill him! You're dead!"
Gunn, Buffy, and Faith wrestled Angel backwards out of the room.
"Angel, stop!" Buffy yelled.
Wes was lying on his bed, gasping for breath.
"You're dead! You're a dead man, Pryce! You're dead! I'll kill you! I'll kill you. You're a dead man! Dead!" Angel screamed, "Dead!"
They got him out in the hall and the orderlies slammed the door to Wesley's room. Gunn and Faith let go of Angel and Buffy jerked him to the elevators. They rode down in silence. When they got outside and turned the corner a block away from the hospital, heading back to the Hyperion, Buffy punched Angel harder than she had ever punched before. He went flying backwards into the wall and slammed to the ground. Buffy started to cry, angry tears falling down her face.
"What the hell did you think you were doing?" she yelled at him.
"That bastard deserves to die for what he did to my son!" Angel yelled back, not trying to get up because he knew she would just put him back down on the ground.
"OUR son you stupid son of a bitch! OUR SON!"
"You weren't gonna do anything to him!"
"No, I wasn't! He's suffering enough Angel. We were in a hospital! You never think Angel." Buffy sobbed. He got up and tried to hug her, but she shoved him back against the wall. "Stop it! You're not the man I married!"
"Buffy, please!"
"Our son is gone Angel! Did you think killing Wesley was going to bring him back? Our son is.Conner, he's gone!"
This time when Angel came to hug her, she let him. She sobbed into him. "I want him back. I want my son back." Angel started to cry with her. They sank to the ground.
"I'm sorry. Buffy, I'm so sorry. I love you. Shh, please, God, don't cry."
"Conner! I want him back."
They sat there crying as it started to rain. Buffy cried like she had cried the night she had destroyed the Master's bones. This time was a little bit worse than that. She was finally breaking down over her lost son and all Angel could do was cry with her and try to comfort her.
Angel was dragging the chair with Linwood still tied to it up the stairs. Buffy was right at Angel's side.
"Lilah! Do something!" Linwood cried.
"Angel, killing this creep isn't going to solve anything. You don't wanna do this." Lorne said.
"That's where you're wrong." Angel said.
"Angel, we had a deal! I gave you everything you asked for. What more do you want from me? Buffy, please reason with him!" Linwood asked.
"I want my son back just as much as Angel does. I carried him through nine months. I went through the pain of labor and delivery. Did you know that Conner and I could have died that day?" Buffy said.
"Lilah!" Linwood cried.
Lilah came running, cell phone in hand. "Hey, whoa! Flag on the play. The firm's tech team just registered a sever bio-plasmic disturbance at Tabor and National at the same time as the spell."
"Sahjhan?" Angel asked.
"Whatever it was flipped a two ton truck like a Tonka toy."
Angel looked at Buffy, she nodded, and he let go of the chair. Linwood tumbled down the steps, the chair breaking to pieces, and landed at Lilah and Lorne's feet.
Fred and Gunn came running in, stopping Buffy and Angel at the bottom of the steps.
"We need to talk." Fred said.
"Not now." Angel replied.
Angel tried to steer him and Buffy past her, but Fred stepped in his way again.
"Fred!" Buffy said agitated.
"There's something you need to know before..." Fred started, but Buffy and Angel moved around her and ran for the doors.
"The father will kill the son!" Fred called.
Buffy and Angel stopped on the landing and slowly turned around.
"There is a prophecy in the Nyazian Scrolls. Wesley checked the translation, the commentaries, even went to the mystical oracles, but he couldn't disprove it."
"They already fed you Conner's blood, bro. You said it yourself. He smelled like food." Gunn said.
"He was trying to protect Conner." Fred said.
"He was trying to protect you two, same as we're doing right now."
After a moment Buffy and Angel turned back to the doors. Fred hurried to step between them and the doors.
"Angel, the prophecy..." Fred started.
"It's a lie. I'd never hurt Connor." Angel said.
"How can you know that for sure?"
"I'd never hurt someone I care about. Now move."
With a sigh Fred stepped aside and allowed Buffy and Angel to leave.
Fred hurried to Gunn. "We have to go after them."
"We can't. Angel or Buffy lays a finger on you, I'll have to kill them myself."
Gunn turned and saw Lilah help Linwood to his feet.
"What are they doing here?"
"There was kidnapping, a spell, dark magic. It's bad, kids." Lorne answered.
"He's gonna to pay for this." Linwood said.
"Really bad."
As Buffy and Angel walked out of the Hyperion, a Crossbow bolt buried itself in Angel's shoulder. Angel looked up and saw Justine shooting a second bolt at him. Buffy caught the bolt as Angel twisted to avoid the second shot while he pulled out the first bolt. He threw down the bolt and they continued on their way. The remainder of Holtz' men attack them and they take them down in short order, then they resumed their exit. As they stepped out through the gate, Justine hits Angel with a hard right cross.
"Don't run off now. The fun's just staring."
Buffy intercepts the stake headed for Angel's chest and Angel pushed Justine up against the fence.
"I'm not your boyfriend. Find somebody else to smack you around."
Angel tossed Justine to the ground and by the time she rolled onto her back, hands raised to parry the next blow, Buffy and Angel were nowhere in sight.
Angel and Buffy arrived at the scene of the accident that Sarjhan might have caused. The driver of the pickup sat hunched up on the curb of the street. They walked up to him. Angel decided to let Buffy talk to the guy. He would probably open up to a beautiful woman like Buffy faster than he would Angel.
"Are you alright?" Buffy asked.
"I tried to stop it. It's all my fault." The driver said.
Buffy crouched down next to him. "Hey. What's your name?"
"Uhm, Al Stokley. Not even my truck."
"Hey, Al, can you tell me what happened here?"
"Ah, I hit... Oh god. I, I hit a guy, a man."
"This man you hit, where is he?"
"I don't know. There, there's no way he could have gotten up." He looked over at where paramedics were working on a guy on a stretcher. "God, those poor people."
"You didn't do anything wrong."
"It's all my fault."
"No. No, it isn't."
Angel walked over to look at the underside of the overturned pickup. He reached to touch the front bumper then examined his fingers.
"What's ya got?" Buffy asked, coming up behind him.
"It was Sarjhan, I can feel it. Plus there's some demon blood here." Angel said.
"Let's go get the bastard."
Justine sat down on the edge of a table, slowly lifting her hand and looking at it. A grate slid to the side and Gunn and Fred entered.
"Where is Wes?" Gunn asked.
"He's not coming back." Justine stated.
"What?"
"It was all lies, every bit of it. All he wanted was that kid to punish Angel. He never cared about anything else."
"I'm talking about Wesley. His car is parked up top here. You obviously took it from him. Where is he?"
"We just wanna hear his side." Fred said.
"His side? His side's kinda funny. He sacrificed everything he believed in to save that kid."
"By helping Holtz take him to hell? I'd like to hear it from the horse's mouth." Gunn said.
"Your friend's innocent."
"Is he alive?" Fred asked.
Justine didn't answer.
"Where is he?! Will you just tell us?!"
"Heaven? Hell? I slit his throat."
Fred hit Justine. Justine tried to hit back, but Gunn stepped between them and intercepted the hit, then tossed Justine off the table. Justine came back up and attacked Gunn. Gunn tossed her on the ground.
"Stay down!"
"Um, no." Justine jumped back up and launched herself back at Gunn. After a quick exchange of blows, Justine again ended up on the floor.
"I trusted the wrong man." She cried.
Gunn grabbed her by the lapels. "You're gonna take us to him and he better be alive!"
"You call that a fight?" They all turned to see Shajhan standing in the doorway. "Let me show you how we used to do it." Sajhan started to come towards them. "So. My home. Uninvited guests. This can't end well."
"That's the guy right?" Gunn asked.
"Uh-huh." Fred said.
"Hi Justine. I remember you. One of Holtz' groupies. You tried to cut off my head." Shajahn hit Justine and she went flying across the chamber. "Can't tell you how much I missed doing that." He turned to face Fred and Gunn. "I also missed gravity, friction, and smashing things to pieces." He picked up a chair and smashed it to pieces on the table. "Let's start with your skulls."
"Or yours." Angel said as he and Buffy entered the room.
"Angel! Buffy! Nice of you to join us. I'm guessing I have you two to thank for the whole mortal coil thing."
"Yeah. Tell you what: you take me and my wife to the Quor-toth world, help me find my son, we'll call it even."
"Really? You, me, and the pretty blond? Buddy cop, summer release? We iron out our wacky differences and bond? I don't think so."
"You're taking us there."
"Couldn't, even if I wanted to."
"You're lying." Buffy said.
"No. That I'm telling the truth about. Your kid's gone, for good. I could open the Quor-toth exactly one time. That's why I chose it. Try again; the whole universe could go kaplooey. Bad for me, bad for America."
"So, what are you lying about?" Buffy asked
"Oh, well, I don't like to brag, but read any good prophecies lately?"
"You wrote the prophecies."
"More a re-write."
"The father will kill the son." Fred said.
"Yeah. I flitted back and forth in time. Changed the one that threatened me, polished some others. Flitted in a manly way, just so we're clear." To Angel he said, "You're not really my enemy. Your in my home and I'm gonna kick your ass, but you where never the point."
"It was Conner."
"Boy! Can't put one over on you, can you? Oh, wait - already did. It's pretty freaky the first time you see your name in a true prophecy all carved in blood on an official scroll. The one made by the vampire with a soul and the vampire slayer will grow to manhood and kill Sahjhan.' Me!"
"So you planted false prophecies, that Angel would kill his son, and Wesley believed them." Fred asked.
"Thank god he had some spine. Holtz was useless. He wanted to raise your kid as his own! I'm living with a knife over my heart for eleven hundred years and he's into petty revenge! If he'd just killed the damn thing while it was still in its mother we could have avoided all this!" Angel morphed and attacked Sahjhan, but Shajhan deflected him into the wall. Buffy hit Shajhan and gotknocked down. Before Shajhan can do any more to her, Angel is back and the two of them start slugging each other.
Fred took a hold of one of the fire bowls and tossed the burning coals into Sahjhan's face. Sahjhan shook them off and looked at Fred. "Do I look like I need more skin problems?" Sahjhan went to attack Fred, but Buffy knocks her out of the way.
"Fred!" Gunn cried running over to the two girls.
"Watch her Gunn." Buffy warned.
Angel attacked again. They exchanged more blows, then Sahjhan tossed Angel against the wall. Buffy attacked and got thrown hard against the same wall and landed next to Angel. Sahjhan came over and grabbed Angel by the throat and threw him around a bit more, in the end tossing Angel onto the table. Angel's face morphed back to human. Sahjhan picked up one of the legs from the broken chair and raised it to stake Angel.
"Had to put your boy down. Pity. The kid had a big future. I mean big." Sajhan said.
"Angel!" Buffy cried.
Justine appeared in the door behind Sajhan, cradling something in her arms.
Shajhan said to Angel, "Oh well, we all gotta go sometime. You're bitch is gonna be next."
As Sahjhan got ready to stake Angel, Justine opened the jar she held and Sahjhan was sucked into it in a swirl of light.
"No. No! Don't do that! Nooo!" Sajhan cried.
Justine closed the lid of the urn and set it on the floor as the others picked themselves back up.
"Holtz left it." Justine said.
"What about Wesley?" Fred asked.
"The park next to his place, that's where I left him."
Buffy helped Angel stand straight as he tried to stand and nearly fell. He put his arm around her and kissed her forehead. They walk out silently.
Gunn, Fred, Angel, and Buffy looked around the area where Wesley was earlier, but he was nowhere to be found.
"Maybe she was lying." Fred said.
Angel and Buffy were standing where Wes had fallen, Angel staring at the sky.
"No. He was here." Angel said.
"How can you..." Fred started.
"The blood." Buffy said.
"We should get going." Gunn said/
"He can't be dead." Buffy said.
"We'll keep looking. Lorne's been calling hospitals all night." Fred said.
"We'll call Faith and we'll find him." Gunn said.
Angel kept staring at the lightning sky.
Angel stared at Wesley's tea set in his office. Buffy sat on the desk next to him, stroking his hair. He had his hand on her waist. He felt like he should say something to her. She was going through more than he was. He had never seen Buffy more torn apart by anything before than he had when her child was kidnapped and taken to hell in front of her very eyes. She had been keeping a straight demeanor since she stopped crying that night they went after Linwood, cracking every now and then only to reel it all back in. She was strong, but he was afraid that if she held all this stuff in, he might lose her like he lost their son. As he started to say something, Lorne walked in.
"Hey, I, ah, cleaned the pentagram as best I could. The dried blood, well, that's starting to be a look out there."
"Thanks." Angel said.
"Yeah, well, you know me. Like to keep busy."
Angel leaned forward in the chair onto the desk. "It's not right. All I could think about was getting my hands on Sahjhan. Fred and Gunn tried to keep us from..."
"Going to far?"
"Nearly got them killed."
"Yeah, you did. I'm glad it didn't work out that way."
Angel stood and walked over to the sideboard and picked up one of the teacups. "You think Wesley is..."
"I don't know. I hope for the best. You know, there is a bigger picture here, guys. And in that bigger picture there is a glass."
"If the words 'glass is half full' are about to come out of your mouth don't."
"No. No, this is more a glass half full of spiked blood. If Sahjhan and that lady lawyer pulled off their feeding plan, you'd have Conner's blood on your hands."
"Don't I anyway?"
"No! You think there is something more you could have done? You did everything you could with the knowledge you had. Just like Wesley. You know, maybe the way to start forgiving yourself is by starting to forgive him."
The telephone rang and Buffy picked it up.
"Angel Investiga... Hey, Fred! They did? And? Okay, where? Uh-huh. Yeah, he's right here. I'll tell him. Okay, thanks." Buffy said into the phone. "They found Wesley."
Angel and Buffy walked into a hospital waiting room to find Fred, Gunn, Faith getting up from a couch.
"Hey. It's good you guys came." Faith said.
Angel let out a sigh. "He ask for us?"
"Nah, he can't speak yet. Trachea is all messed up. Lost a lot of blood. It's just good you two came."
"He's not completely out of the woods yet. You're being here can only help." Fred said.
"Can we see him?" Buffy asked.
"I'm sure he'd like that." Fred said.
Buffy and Angel moved past them, hand in hand, to the door of room 319 and opened it. They walked into Wes' hospital room. There were x-rays of his throat hanging on the wall. Wesley, an IV in the back of his left hand and a bandage around his throat, was lying on the bed with his eyes closed. A heart monitor was beeping in the steady rhythm of his heart.
Angel closed the door and walked over to the bed by Buffy as Wes' eyes blinked open.
"Hey Wesley." Buffy said. "I'm sorry for what you're going through. I know that you were trying to protect our son, but you should have come to me. Truthfully, I'm the only protection Conner needed from Angel. Angel never would have touched Conner or me. Just don't ever do it again." Buffy smiled tightly.
Wesley looked back and tried to smile a little. Then he looked at Angel who started to talk.
"Hey, Wes. I just, I want you to know I understand why you did it. I know about the prophecies and I know how hard it must have been for you to do what you did. You thought I was gonna turn evil and kill my son. I didn't. It's important you know that. This isn't Angelus talking. It's me, Angel. You know that, right?"
Wesley blinked his eyes once.
"Good."
Then suddenly, Angel pulled the pillow out from under Wes' head and pushed it down on Wes' face.
"Angel no!" Buffy screamed. She tried to pull Angel off, but she couldn't budge him. He shook her off against the wall and she sunk to the floor.
"You son of a bitch, you're gonna pay for what you did! You took my son! You son of a bitch! You bastard!" Angel screamed.
"Gunn! Faith!" Buffy shouted, getting back up and grabbing Angel's arm.
Gunn, Faith, and Fred's heads jerked up out in the waiting room as they hear Buffy screaming for them and a heart monitor alarm going off. Orderlies ran past them to reach Wes' room.
"You think I'd forgive you?! No! Never! You're gonna die! You hear me? You're gonna pay!"
Wes' hands fumbled over Angel's arms and shoulders.
"Angel no!"
The first orderly ran in and helped Buffy pull Angel and the pillow off Wes' for a moment. Angel shrugged them off and pushed the pillow back down on Wes' face.
"You took my son! You took my son!"
"Stop it!" Buffy yelled.
"Get off him!" Faith screamed.
"You took my son!"
Gunn grabbed a hold of Angel with Buffy and Faith and they pulled him off Wesley.
"Angel! Stop!" Buffy and Gunn yelled.
"Never! Never!"
"Come on, man, stop!" Gunn yelled.
"I'll kill him! You're dead!"
Gunn, Buffy, and Faith wrestled Angel backwards out of the room.
"Angel, stop!" Buffy yelled.
Wes was lying on his bed, gasping for breath.
"You're dead! You're a dead man, Pryce! You're dead! I'll kill you! I'll kill you. You're a dead man! Dead!" Angel screamed, "Dead!"
They got him out in the hall and the orderlies slammed the door to Wesley's room. Gunn and Faith let go of Angel and Buffy jerked him to the elevators. They rode down in silence. When they got outside and turned the corner a block away from the hospital, heading back to the Hyperion, Buffy punched Angel harder than she had ever punched before. He went flying backwards into the wall and slammed to the ground. Buffy started to cry, angry tears falling down her face.
"What the hell did you think you were doing?" she yelled at him.
"That bastard deserves to die for what he did to my son!" Angel yelled back, not trying to get up because he knew she would just put him back down on the ground.
"OUR son you stupid son of a bitch! OUR SON!"
"You weren't gonna do anything to him!"
"No, I wasn't! He's suffering enough Angel. We were in a hospital! You never think Angel." Buffy sobbed. He got up and tried to hug her, but she shoved him back against the wall. "Stop it! You're not the man I married!"
"Buffy, please!"
"Our son is gone Angel! Did you think killing Wesley was going to bring him back? Our son is.Conner, he's gone!"
This time when Angel came to hug her, she let him. She sobbed into him. "I want him back. I want my son back." Angel started to cry with her. They sank to the ground.
"I'm sorry. Buffy, I'm so sorry. I love you. Shh, please, God, don't cry."
"Conner! I want him back."
They sat there crying as it started to rain. Buffy cried like she had cried the night she had destroyed the Master's bones. This time was a little bit worse than that. She was finally breaking down over her lost son and all Angel could do was cry with her and try to comfort her.