Disclaimer: With the exception of Aurora Halley, all characters in this story belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.

This takes place sometime between Season 3's "Tomorrow" and Season 4's "Deep Down."

Feedback sent to slayerbelle@go.com would be much appreciated.

CHAPTER 3

She Needs Help

"I remember the last time we were both here."

Her eyes lit up at that. "You were amazing. You saved that little girl."

"We both did. And you lost your powers that day. Here."

"I see we both have selective memory."

Aurora pulled over by a bluff overlooking the ocean. The sun was beginning to set, and it did remind him of the day he and Aurora were talking about. At least, the parts he could remember. When he wasn't passed out on the sand.

She had become silent over there, on her side of the car. She seemed to have become rougher around the edges, having to survive in the same demon-infested world without the powers she had started with. He had lost touch with her as well, and he hadn't even realized it. It angered him then, how he let people come and go in his life.

"What was it like?" Aurora asked suddenly, cutting the engine and plunging them in an even uneasier silence. "Dying."

"You're a master of small talk, Aurora."

She lifted a hand and pulled back her dark hair, revealing to him the jagged scars on her neck, twin slashes into skin, injured by Angel's fangs. He tore at her skin, rather than puncture it. She had bled herself to death that night.

Just as he almost did.

"Tell me what it was like," she said quietly, drawing him out for his own benefit.

He felt like he had been lying there forever. The searing pain in his neck radiated all over his body until he was overcome by just a numbness and a dull ache, could have been his wound, could have been regret.

Wesley imagined himself getting up, walking away, walking to safety, catching up to that bitch Justine, taking Connor away from her, hush Connor don't worry it's uncle Wes you're safe with uncle Wes, taking his gun to the bitch's head--

Over and over again.

But he would seemingly wake up, still lying there, helpless.

As he recalled the event, tried to describe the shadows of it in his mind, Aurora reached across and gently touched his forearm. "I'm sorry. It took me a while to talk about-- to think about it without reliving it. I think I still do, sometimes. Relive it."

"I have no one to talk to about this." In spite of himself, he laughed. "And one reason why I don't want to is because I don't like how I sound when I recount it."

"You sound fine. Several counties past Broody, but you're well within your right."

"What should I be seeing, Aurora?"

"Ah, the point." Aurora stared out into the open ocean. Her fingertips, she realized, were cold. Numb. She was nervous. "I need your help. "

"You needn't ask. Unless you know you..."

Aurora nodded, apprehensively. "It's about Angel."

A sharp pain emerged in his back, likely psychosomatic. Wesley knew Aurora's mission, what she was capable of doing. He also knew that she pulled strings in such a way that choices laid themselves out as destiny.

She saw him tense up, so she jumped in quickly. "I know how hard this must be, and I have no right to impose this decision on you. But I have to do this, and I don't really know who else to turn to."

She felt she didn't have the right. He couldn't help but feel humbled by that. If anything, Angel had violated her more and yet here she was.

"Why do you need my help?" he asked, gently. Cautiously.

To be continued...