A/N I am sorry for the delay. As a lot of you already know, I have been preparing to move, have started a new job, and have had limited computer time, as of late. I will try to update more regularly, and am sure that my ASSB family will hound me so that I stick to that. Feedback, as always, is food for a writer's soul.

Stepping Forward

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The mood hung heavy in the hotel. Fred had thought that Cordelia's return would have bolstered Angel out of his depression. And there was no doubt in Fred's mind that he was depressed. In the clinical sense of the word.

He barely left his room, he showed no interest in their cases, he would barely speak to them, barely speak to Cordelia. And, worst of all, he had given up on Connor. Written the boy off as dead.

That truly upset her.

Angel had tried one spell, one, to get his son back from Quortoth.

She was heartbroken at the thought. She had been against what Wes had done, because there was no way that Fred could believe that Angel would kill his son.

But she wouldn't have thought that he'd give up so easily either. That he'd listen to an enemy about there being only one way. That he'd stop trying to open a portal he succeeded or died trying to get his son back. That he would accept that there wasn't any hope.

After all, dimension hopping may be traumatic, but it didn't cause death. If anyone knew that, Fred did. And after all, Angel hadn't given up when he needed to find a way to get to Pylea and get Cordelia back.

But then again, he had Wesley behind him then. Wesley, who knew what books to look in and where to start looking in the first place when they had gone to Pylea.

Fred knew now that with Angel giving up, they needed Wesley's expertise to find the baby.

The need to put their fractured family back together.

They needed to hear from Wesley, to understand his side, to learn the truth.

But Fred wasn't close enough to either man to be able to mend that breach.

Cordelia would have to do it.

And Fred was planning on talking to her about it. Today. As they tried to scrub that horrible symbol off of the lobby floor.

* * * * *

Wesley Wyndham-Pryce sat on a hard, wooden bench in a slightly run down gym, in a not so great neighborhood in L.A. He was trying to get a lead on Connor by doing what he did best. Research. But could research really help when he was so short on facts? He believed that it has something to do with Sahjhan, but for all Wesley knew, Holtz was just your run of the mill, redneck kidnapper, and had taken the baby to live on a compound in Texas.

To make matters worse, he was trying to find an answer in the one book and two journals that he had managed to throw into a backpack, along with some workout clothes for both him and Faith, before his slayer had dragged him out to look for a gym, flinging the bag onto her own back.

After al, he couldn't wear it with her behind him on the bike, now could he?

And the bike was his only remaining piece of transportation.

Faith loved the bike on sight. She was not, however, very happy with the pink helmet.

And now he say, in the aforementioned gym, on a wooden bench with his books spread around him, trying to research, In truth, he spent most of the time watching his slayer. It was funny. She'd been in back in his life in a constant, rather than sporadic, prison visitation way, less than two days, and already she was his slayer again. His.

And it didn't bother him in the least. In fact, he felt surprisingly food about it. It was the only thing in his life that he did feel good about.

So he sat and read his books, looking for whatever it was that he might have missed. He had brought his workout clothes, but Faith had insisted that he bring books as well, saying that he wasn't well enough to be getting physical with a slayer.

And that had been another statement that made him realize that he needed to go out on a date, or at least go into a bar and pick somebody up, or something. Anything that stopped his brain from going in a direction that it should never go in regards to his charge when she said things that should have been taken in an innocent fashion.

Faith was currently jumping rope and trying to get back into the watcher/slayer routine. She may have been keeping up with her slayer physicality in prison. And she has also been reading whatever books Wesley had sent her that had managed to get through the censors. And yes, they'd even had slayer-like conversations. But it felt different that with her last watcher.

And it felt different than with Giles.

Was it being in prison? Had she just forgotten how it was supposed to go?

Because she was pretty sire that a slayer wasn't supposed to think the way she had been thinking about her watcher since she had thrown herself back into his life.

She wasn't supposed to feel all momma bear protective of him, demanding that he rest. And cooking for him? What the hell was that about? Was it because she had lost her first watcher, and now she was overprotective?

That could be it.

But that sure as hell didn't account for the heat that had coiled in her belly when she had straddled his motorcycle, and pressed herself up to his back.

He wasn't the wimpy Wesley she had known, anymore.

It had just been too long. Almost 2 years in prison She needed to get laid. When she did, she'd stop seeing Wesley as a man, and start seeing him as a watcher again. That's all it was. That's all it could be, considering how little time she had been out, had been with him. It was lust, pure and simple. And he was the only male body she has come into contact with for any length of time, so naturally, that need was just spilling onto him. She'd have to go bar hopping and take care of that. Before something in her snapped and she did something stupid.

But for now, she was busy trying to exhaust the need right out of her body. She was currently jumping rope in an effort to do just that. What she really wanted to do was spar with someone.

That was something that a slayer would usually do with her watcher. But he had just gotten out of the hospital. And there were other reasons that it wouldn't be a good idea. But Faith didn't want to explore those feelings. So she thought about how weak he still was. And she was glad that she had made him bring the books.

Faith didn't want to hurt him. Or do anything else to him.

She paused in her jumping to once again roll up the too long sle4eves of her borrowed t-shirt. She really needed to go shopping, to get her own clothes.

But working out had been more important than clothes shopping. She hadn't worked out in almost a week, and she had been ready to bust with the excess energy.

But that meant wearing whichever workout clothes that Wesley could scrounge up for her. Her black jeans and motorcycle boots just wouldn't have cut it.

But Wesley had found some of Cordelia's things, and some of Fred's. Apparently, Angel Investigations tended to leave extra clothes in all the locations where they might end up, wounded or slimed, after a fight.

So Faith had to choose from, the guys' clothes, which were all too big, Fred's, which were too small, and Cordelia's, which fit. Sort of. Well, at least the track shoes fit.

The dark slayer pushed up the sleeves again in exasperation. "Ok, that's it!" She tossed the jump rope on the floor, as Wesley looked up at her, questioningly.

"I know Fred's smaller than me. I've seen the girl. But her clothes have got to be better than this." She glared down at the long t-shirt she was wearing, plucking at them hem that hung nearly to her knees.

She marched over to where Wes was sitting and plunges her hands into the backpack. She looked at the garments for a second, leggings and a cutesy t-shirt with a kitten on the front, and then dug out the dagger she had stashed in the bag, as well.

"Be right back, watcher man," Faith threw over her shoulder as she stood and headed for the change rooms, leaving Wesley wondering what exactly it was that she was going to do with the knife.

Little more than five minutes later she emerged, and as he looked at her, again feeling the low down lick of heat, he knew why she had taken the dagger.