Title: You Can Sleep While I Drive
Author: Rachel
Email: Edgechick816aol.com
Category: BtVS/Angel
Pairings; Willow/Wes, mentions of Wes/Fred and Willow/Tara (non-slash)
Disclaimer: Joss own's everyone, I own nothing but the idea. I'm simply taking them out to play with.
Distribution: Ask please
Rating: An angsty PG. (You've been warned)
Spoilers: Post-Chosen, Angel S5, major ones for Hole in The World and Shells, if you haven't seen these episode or don't know what happened, Don't Read This
Notes: The title comes from a Trisha Yearwood song of the same name.
Summary: After Fred's death, Willow decides to take Wesley away.
Feedback: Is loved and much appreciated :)
Stretched out across the backseat, he stared at the passing blue sky, his mind wondering. He could remember a time in his life when not wearing a seatbelt seemed like it was the greatest sin, along with Slayers dating Vampires and civilians fighting in the demon world. How much simpler things had been, before Sunnydale, before LA, before the lines of right and wrong began to twist and turn, before a Vampire helped them save the world, while a Slayer tried to kill them all. Death was simple, or so he'd like to think, but not in his world, here death meant the loss of a warrior, a friend... a lover. Here existed demons, and darkness but also here existed loves so great they could destroy the world. He knew what that felt like now, he also knew he wasn't alone in that feeling.
The redhead kept her eyes on the road, though there wasn't much to see, the occasional tumbleweed along the dirt covered roadside, but other than that, just asphalt, blue sky and sun. Pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, she glanced back her companion who was still lost in his thoughts; she turned back to the road with an inaudible sigh. Giles had called her two days ago with the news of Angel's call and Fred's death, along with the special circumstances. 24 hours later she was in LA and while she could do nothing about Fred's death, there was something she could do. It involved her, Wesley Wyndham-Pryce and a car.
It was a Scooby tradition; Buffy had gone to LA after she sent Angel to Hell. Angel had gone to Tibet with the news of Buffy's death while Giles had gone to England. She recalled her own trip to England after Tara got shot; she knew that even if Giles hadn't taken her to Westbury, she would have gone off on her own anyway. Then there was Xander, who'd gone to New York after they'd closed the Hellmouth; he said it reminded him of Anya, loud and abrasive, but soothing in it's own right. After that, he surprised everyone by heading to Spain in the wake of Cordy's death; no one would have guessed she still meant that much to him.
Some part of her knew that Wesley wouldn't leave on his own, though he made very few objections when she decided to take him, but she knew from experience with Buffy that there was a difference between having someone die and having a demon walk around with your lover's face. It wasn't going to force him to deal, just mourn, and probably drink.
"Where are we?" The first words he had spoken the whole trip shook her from her musing, she looked back at him, he was still gazing out the window, his attention on her seemed unforced, but she answered him anyway.
"Arizona...I think."
"Oh." He nodded absently, longing for the discarded whiskey bottle that lay on the floor, but unwilling to expend the energy to get it, or to actually sit up and drink, he stayed there, wondering just how the bloody hell he'd gotten here. He ached for death in a non-direct manner, it surrounded him. His Fred, his poor sweet, darling Fred was lost to him forever.
"She was from Texas." he commented. Willow looked at him through the rear view mirror, she could see the faintest of smiles on his lips. "Her accent faded, but you could still hear it when she got excited about something, a new project or..." He trailed off, thinking of the last time he saw her smile and heard that extra twang in her voice. "Or when she sang." he finished softly.
Shaking his head, he changed the subject, "Where are we going?"
She shrugged, "You tell me, I'm just driving."
He arched eyebrow at her. "I never figured you for the cryptic type, Miss Rosenberg."
A half smile found her lips, "I suppose enough prophecies and a couple of years around Angel will do that to a person."
"Yes it will." She watched him again, this was not the Wesley she'd met her senior year of high school. She still remembered the first day she walked into the library and saw him, clean shaven in his crisp clean suit. Now that same young man was lying in the backseat of her car, blue jeans, an untucked button down shirt, two days worth of beard growth and the smell of whiskey on this breath. This Wesley was older and wise, he'd seen the world and the evil in it, and he still chose to fight.
Though she wasn't the same person she was five years ago either.
"It doesn't seem fair really, her death or Cordy's or..."
"Tara's." she finished for him. She tucked back a strand of hair that a fallen from her ponytail, "The thing about Tara, I still miss her so much but, I realized she accidently saved my life, that if I had been standing there, it would have been me instead. And I can't say that there weren't days where I wish it had been, but she gave me a second chance, whether she meant to or not, and I'm not gonna let it go to waste." she shrugged again, "I suppose it's a weird way to look at it but.."
"No, it's quite fine actually; I wish I could find something to make it feel like it was worth anything at all."
'You will," she said, "Scoobies are for life, we fight as much for each other as we do for the world, you'll find your reason."
"You think so?"
She met his eyes in the rear view mirror. "You have to, it's the only way to keep going." she said truthfully. They lapsed into silence again.
"I killed a man." he said solemnly "I think we would have had to anyway, but that's not doing much for my conscience."
"Nothing really does." Was all she said, Warren's death was still haunting her dreams. She could give him the big speech about taking a life later.
"And I stabbed Gunn."
"You'll have to talk to him about it."
He nodded, "I know, I just couldn't, not now, just..." His voice choked with tears. She reached an arm around, taking his hand in hers, "She didn't deserve it, she didn't deserve to die."
Willow gave his hand a squeeze, tears forming in her own eyes. "I know, I know it sucks and it hurts and you feel helpless, a-a-and you do things, things you regret. It's why I came, to help you get away, to heal a little."
He leaned forward, pressing a kiss into the back of her hand. "Thank you."
She gave him a teary smile, "So, where are we going?"
He sighed, "I hear New England's nice."
"New England it is." she brought their coupled hands to rest between the front seats. "You can sleep while I drive."
He closed his eyes letting the world around him fade away, all but the touch of a red haired wicca and memory of a tiny Texas girl who stole his heart.
A/N: My First "Angel" fic, let me know how I did.