TITLE: From L.A. With Love
AUTHOR: Eloise
RATING: PG13
DISCLAIMER: Joss and ME own Wes, and all things Angel. I'm only playing with them. I promise not to hurt them. Honestly. I also do not own Bond. I still wish I did.
SPOILERS: through episode 4.2 – Ground State
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Chapter title from Ian Fleming. And here we would go slightly AU… Many thanks to LonelyBrit for the lovely beta
Chapter 2: On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Wesley Wyndam-Pryce woke up, and then sincerely wished he hadn't.
Every part of him hurt. Every muscle, every sinew, every joint; every damn cell in his body resonated with quite unbelievably impressive agony. He would be hard pressed to single out which particular area of his anatomy ached most.
Perhaps his legs, which felt as if they had been operated on by a demented child wielding a rusty chainsaw. Or his chest, which had apparently been used as a trampoline by some overly energetic elephants. No, he decided. It was the little ice picks hacking away at his brain that were currently causing the most pain.
He foolishly opened an eye, and instantly regretted it, as someone jabbed a red hot needle into his eyeball. Closed it again and waited for the pain to subside. Then repeated the action, with an infinite degree of care. This time the needle that pierced his eyeball was an altogether more comfortable room temperature. He allowed himself time to adjust to the pain before attempting to open his other eye.
He remembered a martial arts instructor at the Watcher's Academy who'd expounded the doubtful theory that pain was something you did to yourself. Other people did the pain-causing things to you; hit you, stabbed you, burned you, tortured you, blew you up and shot you in the gut; but the experience of that pain was of your own volition.
Therefore, he had postulated, it was within your own power to stop the pain.
Even as an excessively eager sixteen year old, desperate to succeed, Wesley had known that this was a complete load of bollocks.
Pain was an actual physical event, and all you did was cope with it in the best way you could. It was possible to manage pain; he'd had enough experience in that area both recently and in his past; but you didn't stop it, any more than you stopped a runaway juggernaut on a forty-five degree gradient.
And so he waited until the pain was slightly less acute, and then took a careful look at his surroundings. The recurring motif in the room's décor was the colour white. Walls, window frames, blinds, curtains around the bed… and now he realized with a sense of disillusionment that this was not heaven. The curtains around the bed were a sure sign that he was, once again, and rather depressingly, in hospital.
Another clue to his surroundings was the large and exceedingly formidable nurse who had just sailed into his room like the Ark Royal returning victorious from battle. She marched over, her white apron positively rustling with starch, and seized his wrist in a firm grip.
'If we're going to arm wrestle, I'll warn you now, I'm not much competition in this state.' His voice sounded high pitched and croaky at the same time, as if his vocal chords had regressed to their pre-adolescent timbre. They also hurt like hell.
She gave him a stern look, and consulted her watch as she took his pulse.
'So, we're awake, are we? Doctor will be pleased. How are we feeling?'
'Don't know about you, but I'm feeling that death would be a preferable alternative to my current state.'
She tutted at him, and gave his wrist an impatient little shake as she eyed her watch.
'Now then, there'll be none of that. There's to be no feeling sorry for ourselves, Mr Pryce.'
He was suddenly reminded of Matron in the school sanatorium. Who had regarded any symptoms other than actual clinical death as simply an excuse for malingering. He recalled with painful clarity the acute appendicitis which she had misdiagnosed as nervous stomach, and had treated with two large tablespoons of castor oil. As if in protest at this negligence, the inflamed and highly offended organ had given up the ghost and ruptured dramatically in the middle of second period Latin. Resulting in a swift trip to the local hospital, where the remains of the appendix were duly extracted surgically.
He had spent three days in intensive care receiving treatment for blood poisoning, and a further three weeks in hospital recovering from the operation. And he had received a stiff and rather severe reprimand from his father, who had been called away from official council business to sign the surgical consent forms. The gist of the lecture being that Wesley was somehow to blame for not making his illness apparent enough.
He eyed the nurse with blatant ill-will, hoping that she would take the hint and leave him alone. She pursed her lips and pulled out a thermometer, which she shoved into his mouth quite firmly.
'Now, Mr Pryce. Doctor is on his way. Let's get you ready.' She pronounced Doctor with a very definite capital letter, affording the man the sort of reverence usually reserved for major deities. The thermometer prevented him from protesting as she lifted the pillows from under his head and began to fluff them up.
(and suddenly the white is gone everything is black he is drowning under the sea)
He blinked and looked again at the nurse, who had settled him into a sitting position. A strange moment of déjà vu, but it was gone as quickly as it came, and he wriggled himself into a more comfortable position before the arrival of The Doctor. He fully expected to see Sir Lancelot Sprat come strolling through the door, complete with three piece suit, pocket watch and at least four terrified medical students in tow.
The entrance of a fresh faced sixth former was therefore a surprise to him, although not as much of a surprise as the deference with which the battleship treated this callow youth. It took a few moments for the realization to dawn that this was indeed The Doctor, and not one of his interns.
'Ah, Sister, he's awake, then. And how are we feeling today?'
Wesley wondered if there was a script that all health care professionals had to follow, as he had repeated almost word for word Sister's little speech. There was also something else niggling at the back of his mind, something about their speech patterns. His use of the term Sister, her brisk no-nonsense matronly demeanour.
Their accents. That was it. They were both English. And what were the odds that two ex-pats would be working in the same hospital in LA.? He removed the thermometer from his mouth.
'Where am I?' His voice still held that muppet-like quality, but it no longer felt as if he was swallowing broken glass.
'In hospital,' the Doctor replied and Wesley sighed.
'I'm well aware of that, Doctor,' he leaned on the title, making it clear that he wasn't impressed. 'I was just wondering where in the world I was.'
The teenager looked completely non-plussed, making Wesley long for the sharp retorts of Sister. At least she gave the impression of being in command.
'Don't be ridiculous, Mr Pryce,' she tutted. 'You know perfectly well where you are. St. Thomas' Hospital, Lambeth.'
Lambeth. London. England. Not L.A.
'But I was in the tunnel, with Angel…'
The Doctor shook his head and threw Sister a worried look. 'I didn't realize he'd had a near-death experience.' He addressed Wesley directly. 'Was there a bright light at the end of the tunnel? This angel, did he say anything?'
Wesley groaned audibly. The man was clearly an imbecile. He shifted his gaze to Sister and appealed to her instead.
'I was injured… at work.' As good a deception as any. 'Perhaps my... um… colleagues explained?'
She gave him a surprisingly perceptive smile. 'Oh yes, your colleagues were very insistent that you get the best of treatment.'
The last thing Wesley remembered was himself, Angel and Gunn in the sewer tunnel, on the trail of the demon from Cordelia's most recent vision. He had heard a noise and gone off down a tunnel on his own to investigate. Rather foolishly, he now realized, remembering how his foot had snapped the trip wire.
'How long have I been here?' He almost didn't want to know the answer to that question.
'You've been here for almost three weeks. Unconscious for the first week, then delirious.' The Doctor eyed him with suspicion. 'This is the most lucid you've been so far.' He seemed somewhat unconvinced.
'And my… colleagues, have they visited?' Even to his own ears that sounded pathetically pleading.
'Oh, come now, Mr Pryce, surely you know that would be impossible.' Sister gave him another worryingly knowing look. She busied herself with making his bed, despite the fact that he was still in it, tucking the corners of the blanket under the mattress and giving it a firm pat.
'Don't worry, you'll see your colleagues soon enough. We'll have you back at work in no time. Now, do try and get some rest. You have some physiotherapy scheduled for this afternoon, and you'll need all your strength for that.'
With that, she pulled the blinds and folded her arms across her impressively ample bosom, clearly waiting for him to comply.
Wesley sighed in resignation and closed his eyes obediently. Hoping that when he woke again, this would all simply turn out to be a rather unpleasant dream.
*~*~*~*
The discovery that this was in fact reality, was depressing in the extreme.
He spent three further painful weeks in the hospital, undergoing physical therapy under the care of an ardent devotee of the Marquis de Sade. These rounds of torture were regularly punctuated with meals that had obviously been prepared by a descendant of Dr Crippen. If the physio didn't kill him, the bloody food would.
So when The Doctor informed him that he was well enough to be released, he should have been ecstatic.
But he wasn't. For one thing, he hadn't a clue where he was going to go now, or for that matter how he would get there. During the three weeks he'd spent with the Spanish Inquisition, he'd had no visitors. No 'phone calls to see how he was. No word from his friends. That thought, more than any other, chilled him to the bone.
He knew that something was very wrong. Each time he tried to enquire as to why he'd ended up in St. Thomas'; he was met with blank stares, or worse, shrewd looks and perceptive nods. As if they were privy to some vital piece of information that he had somehow forgotten. When he finally got up the nerve to ask about his friends, he had been told that his colleagues would call to collect him this afternoon.
'Wesley Wyndam-Pryce."
He turned at the sound of the voice, somehow familiar, yet alien, as if the past was indeed a foreign country. A voice from three years ago, full of false sympathy then, now bitter with barely concealed displeasure.
'Collins.' His own voice was still gravely from an injury on his neck. The one he didn't remember getting.
'The firm have sent a car.'
The man must have been seriously demoted after the Faith debacle, if he was reduced to the role of chauffeur. For a man the council had fired over three years ago.
'I'm sorry, Collins, but you're wasting your time. I don't work for the 'firm' any more.' He leaned a little on the euphemism.
'Don't be stupid, Pryce. No one blames you for what happened in L.A. It was unavoidable.'
Wesley wondered how he could lie so blatantly. Unavoidable was not how his father had described the incident during their subsequent 'phone conversation. No, he had used words like betrayal, failure, and disgrace. And, of course, disappointment. One of his favourites.
'They want you brought in. There's a… situation.' His mouth twisted on the last word, as if he didn't want to admit to himself that Wesley was needed.
Wesley would have fallen over if he hadn't already been leaning on the wall for support. The thought that the Council might require his assistance was so improbable that he had to bite his lip to prevent threatening hysteria.
'And what if I don't want to be 'brought in'?' He raised his chin defiantly and hoped to God he sounded convincing. Collins slipped his hand into his jacket and produced a small, but still fairly deadly handgun.
'Afraid you don't get a choice, Pryce. You're the only one that can handle this particular situation.'
Wesley grinned triumphantly. 'Hah! Then you can't shoot me!'
Collins threw him a look of bored disgust. 'Right. But I can hit you over the head and drag your unconscious body back to HQ.' He rolled his eyes. 'Now which would you prefer? Because either is good for me.'
Wesley knew that in his current physical state he was in no condition to provide any sort of resistance to Collins. He sighed heavily and pushed himself away from the wall.
'Very well. I'll come quietly.'
And he couldn't help but notice the disappointment in Collins' eyes.
*~*~*~*
The journey to Council Headquarters had been short, but far from sweet. Collins had maintained a grimly determined silence, despite Wesley's attempts to goad him into letting slip any details. In the end he too had lapsed into a matching sullen ill humour, rivalling that of a certain brooding vampire.
They had now arrived in a parking garage and Collins had ushered him into the lift, his hand hovering over the butt of his gun. As the lift ascended, Wesley felt the butterfly-winged flutter of nerves in this stomach. He had not been in this building since he had been ordered to report to Sunnydale, and he was not relishing the prospect of confronting his then superiors now. A wave of dizzying nausea swept over him as the lift rose to the eighth floor. The floor on which his father's office was situated. He chewed on his lip, a childhood habit that had infuriated his father, then tried to relax as he noticed the mocking glance that Collins gave him. There was a tastefully quiet metallic ping and the lift doors opened.
'I think you know your way from here.' Collins gave him a sly little grin that really needed to be punched from his smug face. But this was neither the time nor the place. Wesley squared his shoulders, knocked firmly on the heavy oak-panelled door, took a deep breath and entered the room.
'Wesley! How are you feeling?'
Of all the people he had been expecting to see, he had to admit that she had not been one of them. Her hair was wound into a tight knot at the nape of her neck, and a pair of glasses perched rather incongruously on the end of her nose. He blinked and put his hand up to adjust his own no longer present spectacles.
'Cordelia! What the hell…?'
'Language, Wesley…' She frowned in mock severity and jerked her thumb over her shoulder at a large door, which bore a brass plate inexplicably inscribed with the legend 'Universal Exports'. 'You know what he's like…'
'Wha…wher…who…whe…how…' he ran through the gamut of interrogatives, his jaw flapping like a fish stranded on dry land. She lifted a finger and pushed her own chin up.
'Mouth closed, Wesley. You're catching flies…' she said, sounding for all the world like his mother. 'And you'd better get in there. He's not in a good mood.' As if to attest to her words, the intercom on her desk buzzed impatiently.
'Is that Pryce now, Miss Chasepenny? It's about damn time! Send him in!'
Cordelia gave him an apologetic smile. 'Better not keep him waiting.'
Wesley tried again. 'Cordelia…you… I…uh,' he floundered.
The voice on the intercom was icy.
'Pryce! If you would be so kind as to stop chatting up my secretary and get yourself into my office this instant!'
There came a point, Wesley mused, when you stopped questioning and reasoning and trying to find a logical explanation; and just embraced the welcome knowledge that you had finally succumbed to complete and utter lunacy. As he opened the door, Wesley reached that point.
Behind the large leather-topped desk, sat one Rupert Giles, wearing exactly the same expression that his Prep school headmaster had worn after Wesley had been caught out of bounds in the school library after lights out. It had been done for a dare, and Wesley had not sat easily for a number of days after that particular misdemeanour.
Looking at the exasperated expression on Giles' face, Wesley couldn't help but wonder if something similar was in store for him now, his current surroundings reminding him of his headmaster's study not a little. He couldn't quite control the little shudder that ran through his body at that thought. He folded his hands behind his back almost automatically and waited.
'Ah. At last.' Giles looked at him sternly over the top of his spectacles. 'How are you feeling now?' There wasn't much sincerity in his enquiry, but as he seemed to expect a response, Wesley answered.
'Much better, thank you.' Almost as an afterthought he added 'Sir.'
'Good, good.' Giles was clearly relieved to have the tricky interpersonal part of the conversation over with, so he could press on with more important things. 'Fighting fit, then?'
Wesley didn't dare disabuse him of that notion.
'It's just…' Giles paused and removed his glasses, polishing them with a crisp square of linen he produced from the pocket of his waistcoat. 'Well, we've got a bit of a situation.'
'So Collins informed me.'
'Oh, he did, did he?' The older man's voice was edged with steel, and Wesley barely managed to smother a grin of delight at having inadvertently dropped Collins in it.
'And what else did Collins tell you?' Giles' eyes flashed dangerously and Wesley suddenly remembered the tales of Ripper that had been whispered around the Watcher's Academy. He controlled the shake in his voice quite successfully.
'That was really all, sir. Just that there was a situation. And that apparently I was necessary.'
'I would have preferred not to use you, so soon after your…accident, but I'm afraid we have no choice. This problem requires your… particular assistance.' He looked up, and this time there was a softness in his gaze. 'Oh, do sit down, Pryce, for God's sake!'
Wesley obeyed immediately, seating himself stiffly in one of the leather club chairs opposite the broad desk. Giles rose from behind it and went to the decanter and tray on the sideboard, pouring two generous measures of Dimple Haig into heavy cut crystal tumblers. He handed one to Wesley and sat down in the adjacent armchair, sloshing the alcohol around the glass morosely. Wesley took a tentative sip of his scotch and waited politely for the man to continue.
'You're well aware of our links with the American branch of the 'firm'?' Using the euphemism that both Collins and the Sister had. Wesley nodded, although truthfully nothing was making much sense to him at the moment. 'One of our agents…' Giles hesitated and looked into his glass as if searching for inspiration there. 'A man you've worked with… on a… well, fairly frequently, has gone missing.'
There could only be one man.
'Angel.'
'That would be his code name, yes.'
'Angel… is missing?' That explained it. Why they hadn't been to see him in the hospital, why there had been no contact. And then the joyous relief was replaced with cold dread. 'What happened?'
Giles took a deep swallow of his scotch. 'We suspect he has been abducted. By whom, we're not entirely sure. You knew, of course, that the SPECTRE organization had splintered into factions after that Russian debacle…'
'Er… Spectre?' Wesley couldn't keep the incredulity out of his voice.
''Really, Pryce! Do pay attention! The Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion. Well, we suspect one of the two main splinter groups…'
'Which are?'
Giles suddenly looked obscurely embarrassed. 'The Special Unit for Revenge and Torture,' he halted briefly, his face reddening even further, 'and the Prime Executive for Recreational Vengeance and Extortion.'
'SPURT and PERVE?'
Dear God, he mustn't laugh. Wesley surreptitiously pinched the skin under the wristband of his watch in an effort to control his laughter.
'Look, Pryce,' Giles' voice was stern and briskly business-like once more. 'It doesn't matter what they're called. The fact is they have one of our men. One who is in possession of information we'd rather didn't fall into enemy hands. You've worked with this agent for three years and you probably know him better than anybody. If anyone can trace his whereabouts, then it's you.'
Giles stood again and fetched a leather bound folder from the desk top.
'In there you'll find details on the case, information we have managed to gather. Unfortunately, it isn't much.' He passed the folder to Wesley, who sat immobile, trying to absorb all of this. 'You're booked on a flight to Florida early tomorrow morning. There you'll rendezvous with another American agent and pursue any leads he has.'
'Pryce!' Wesley jumped, and shook himself out of his reverie. 'You'll report immediately to section Q for equipment and weaponry. And do try not to break anything expensive this time,' he warned wearily.
Wesley realized that he was being dismissed and he stood up, clutching the file to his chest protectively.
'I'll do my best, sir.' He hoped his reply was adequately non-committal and moved towards the study door.
'One more thing.' Wesley half-turned to face the elder man.' This is important. The fate of the free world rests with you, 007.'
Wesley blinked. Slowly. That confirmed it. He had obviously fallen into some strange parallel dimension where everyone was clearly labouring under some form of paranoid delusional fantasy. Either that, or he was indeed officially and certifiably insane.
And what was it that Giles had said?
Oh, yes.
'The state of the free world rests with you.'
So, no pressure, then.