All
night the ways of Heaven were desolate, Long roads across a gleaming empty sky,
Outcast and doomed and driven, you and I.
--Rupert Brooke, Victory
***
"Hey sweetheart, got a minute?"
You look up from a page outlining the demonic properties of eggs, unfortunately
slanted towards the organic rather than the metal variety. "Certainly, if it's important."
"Oh, I'm afraid it is." Lorne leans over the desk, lowers his voice. "It's our
legal eagle. All specially-enhanced-systems are not go. The operating system of
shady origin cannot be found."
"Ah. So it happened again? Gunn forgot something?" Lorne nods, so you ask, "Are
you suggesting that the Senior Partners are removing his legal knowledge?
Possible, I suppose. But perhaps he's simply ill. . ."
Lorne shrugs. "All I know is
something's wrong. Very wrong. But our
friend wouldn't stand still long enough for me to read more than that." He
pierces you with those red eyes. "That's why I'm here."
"Ah," you say, looking away, "of course."
Alone again, you rub a hand over your face. You could walk over to Legal, draw
Gunn aside for a quiet word. Ask him if everything's okay, listen when he
assures you it is, then say, "We liked you just the way you were, Charles. We needed you just the way you were. You know
that."
You could, and should, but your face would turn every 'we' into an 'I' and you can't.
So you don't.
You close your eyes instead
and behind your lids are threads of red, twisting in and around, across Los
Angeles, across California,
across the world. Roads you've taken and roads you haven't, roads that have led
to heartbreak, to fleeting joy, to nowhere at all.
The door slides open once more on expensive, silent hinges, but you're still
looking up as she enters.
"Wesley? I'm going to watch tapes of the show in the lab, to check for mystical
fingerprints, if felt made prints, that is.
Which I suppose it does, really, in that fibers are traceable, although
that's not exactly what I meant. And, I
could really use your help, if you have a minute, but I need to make a couple
stops on the way."
You're smiling before she runs out of breath, and you stand, ready to follow
wherever she leads.
"But of course, Fred."