Chapter Thirteen – I'd Sure Hate to Break Down Here
(Thanks to Julie Roberts)
Wesley turned to look his former lover in the eyes. "Lilah."
"Look who was a bad boy. You really push those boundaries, don't you?"
"Are you going to spank me or tell me why you brought me here?"
Lilah glided over to where he appeared not moments before. The room was richly appointed, fire roaring, the best of everything. If he was guessing, this must be hell. Of course, with Lilah appearing, that was his biggest clue.
"I could do both."
Lilah always knew how to make the most of a situation. Even in death, she was still beautiful and still deadly. If one could be more deadly after death. He reached out to grab her by the neck to stop her forward progress.
"No games, Lilah. I'm not in the mood."
"I want to make you a deal."
Wesley sighed at her comment. This is the way she always started a conversation with him. It was when she didn't start a conversation that got him into trouble in the first place.
"And I want to see if that head is firmly attached to your body. Want to test that theory?"
A little fear passed through her eyes, until she was able to tamp down on it, which she did quickly. But he knew her well enough to know that something else was brewing with her. She just didn't want him to join her.
"Wes, I just want to talk to you. I've missed you."
He let go of her, roughly shoving her away. As he paced the room, he thought about what kind of punishment this was. That must be why he was there. And maybe to test his loyalty? Why weren't things just simple in the afterlife?
"Get on with it. I haven't the time to listen to your drabble."
Lilah pouted a little, and then went into lawyer mode. "We've been watching you. The people in this dimension think that you would make a wonderful addition. You would have everything you would ever want."
"Oh, then I want Fred and Cordelia back, plus no Wolfram and Hart to speak of."
By the look on Lilah's face, that wouldn't happen. "A little out of our realm. But you would have all the comforts . . . ."
"Not making an impression, Lilah. Send me back to wherever I was before."
"You would have me also, to do whatever you wanted."
Lilah actually smirked when she said this. Wesley actually laughed after she said it. Her eyebrows knitted together when she was royally pissed off at him. He must have hit a nerve to cause that to happen.
"Listen, Lilah. Let's not pretend that what we had was anything but convenience. I knew that, you knew that."
The look on her face said it all. She didn't think that he was a convenience. And he was just saying it to make her angrier, so she would blurt out the real reason he was wherever he was.
"Fine. Play it your way. But when it all goes to shit, you'll be burning in hell along with good ole' Knox. You both can pine away for something you can never have."
"Don't you ever speak to me about her again. Send me back," he growled at her, voice low and menacing.
"Wes, she can't hurt you," Cordelia said from behind him.
In an instant, he was back in the cozy cottage, birds chirping, sun shining through the windows, him sitting in his chair. It should have cheered him up to be away from Lilah. Instead, it just reminded him more of the many reasons why he was in the situation he was in.
"Why is it that people like her can go on, exist in some other dimension, when Fred . . . ." Wesley couldn't get out the rest of the sentence before putting his hand over his face.
"It's so not fair, I know. There was nothing any one of us up here could have done to prevent it. I am so sorry it happened. I loved Fred too."
Kneeling down to his level, Cordelia took his hand away, and replaced it with her own, on each side of his face. "Every time you took a drink out of that bottle, every time you cried yourself to sleep, I wanted to go to you, but I couldn't. She didn't deserve any of it, you didn't deserve any of it. When I gave Angel that vision, I thought it would all turn out for the best. But every time I picked the vision apart, the more I saw. The more I knew, he knew. I watched my friends die one by one. And there was nothing anyone could do to prevent it. The vision was crap."
Cordelia started crying in earnest now, matching the look of pain on Wesley's face. She buried her head on his chest, just like Faith had not long ago. Whereas he didn't join Faith with tears, he did with Cordelia. It felt good to finally release all of that pent up emotion welling up inside of him.
As Cordelia started calming down, Wesley's mind started working again. She gave the vision to Angel. He knew how to take the Circle of the Black Thorn down. He may have even known the outcome. Which meant he knew that Wesley would die.
"He knew, didn't he?" Wesley whispered his revelation to Cordelia.
"Yeah, he knew. That was one of the reasons why he didn't bring you in until the last minute. It all made sense to him right after Illyria tried to go all Chernobyl on you guys. Every single thing that I showed him in that vision happened."
"He knew that Fred would die."
"I don't think he understood at that point that she would die. He knew about Illyria. He knew that she looked like Fred."
Wesley got up to pace the room, leaving Cordelia still kneeling in front of his chair. Could Angel have prevented Fred from opening the sarcophagus? Could he have prevented that last battle from being as bloody and damaging to the rest of them?
"He could have prevented it."
"I know what you're thinking. No, he couldn't. And as I said, neither one of us figured it out until the very end. And yes, he did know that you would die."
Wesley was hurting now. Cordelia had given Angel a vision, to carry on the mission they each had sworn to uphold. If Angel had come to him, told him that he was going to die that night, Wesley would have told him that he already knew. His lie to Illyria was just that, a lie. He fully expected to not succeed in taking down Vail. He expected to do a little more damage to the evil mage. But he never expected to walk away. It would have just been a bonus if he actually had.
He didn't know what to think about Cordelia's involvement in the whole vision thing. If she hadn't given him that vision, could things have been different? There probably would have been some other crisis that might have taken the whole team out, not that fighting most of the worst demons in the world hadn't done that job already.
"I'm surprised that Lorne didn't know any of this."
"Blocked him. He couldn't see any of it. Not something I agreed to, mind you. Not fair to him."
"What do we do now?"
"Well, first. You need to stop with all the book flinging. You know how much trouble that could get us in?"
"Not much anyone can do to us now. Already dead, you know."
"You wanna go back with Lilah?"
That scared him. To spend eternity tormented by her gave him the chills. And it had nothing to do with whether he had feelings for her or not.
"Not exactly the position I want to be in. One more thing, Cordy. Did Angel tell anyone about his vision and what it contained?"
"I was the only one who knew what was in the vision. No one else knew. Made for really scary, hellish dreams, let me tell you."
Wesley helped Cordelia back up to her feet, tears fast drying on her face.
"Because if anyone else did . . . ."
"Yeah, I know. Hell to pay. Little Ms. Slays-a-lot would stake him on sight."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
Faith gathered up all the books that might help and made her way to the hotel. As she walked in, she noticed that Spike was showing Illyria how to use the toaster. She didn't think that the blue demon needed to eat. Well, neither did Spike, except for blood, but he did all the time.
"So, when it's done, it pops up. Takes a little experimentin' to figure out how you like it."
"How I like it? I do not understand," Illyria answered back, turning her head to study him.
"Well, some people like it practically burnt to a crisp, while others like it lightly toasted."
Faith laughed at the vampire's explanation of taste. "And how would you know this Spike?" she called out as she dropped the books on the counter.
"Living with those damn girls for as long as I did, you learned to do things to survive. Such as fixing them food whenever they wanted."
"What? So they wouldn't stake your ass?"
"Anyone knows that to stake a vampire, you must hit the heart."
Faith snorted at Illyria's comment. Living with all those potentials in the mist of the crisis they all went through was hard on everyone concerned. In the end, all of the potentials became slayers, and Faith's destiny became the destiny of thousands. Being the chosen one or two as the case may be made Buffy and herself carry a big burden. Now the burden was lighter. So why didn't she feel any different? Maybe because the slayer power had still made her unique. And since she didn't have that power at the moment, she really was just a girl.
"Any progress?" Faith asked the two.
"Angel might have a line on a spell book with something that could help."
Finally, progress. Angel may come through for her again. She hated feeling useless.
"Good. Then I'm going to visit Gunn. I'm sure he could use some company."
"I would like to see Gunn also," Illyria announced to the two.
"I don't know if that is such a good idea, Blue." Spike was right. Faith thought it was a terrible idea.
"He just came out of the coma. I don't want you to put him back into one."
"I'll come too. I'll have to take the sewers to get there. Blue, you're with me."
Spike stuck his finger up at Faith, like he was trying to will her to behave. Faith did as she pleased, which at the moment was not liking Spike's pet demon one iota.
As Faith walked into Gunn's room, she realized that the blinds were closed so the sunlight could not shine in. Sitting by the bed was Angel, watching Gunn sleep away the day.
"Hey. Didn't know you came to visit."
"First time. He hasn't woken up since I've been here. Are you sure this coma thing is over?"
"I don't know about you, but the sleep thing was kinda important until two dumbasses came in and woke me up from a dream about J.Lo."
"OK, now that's just gross, Chuck."
Gunn opened his eyes, looking around at the two beside his bed. "You told me this wasn't hell, so why does he look it?"
"Never takes care of himself. He will now, or I'll kick his butt."
Spike peeked in the door, with Illyria right behind him. She was dressed in clothes, blue tint gone from her face, but not from her hair. Sort of made her look a little punk, Faith thought as they entered the room.
"Hey, Charlie boy," Spike waved as Gunn turned his head.
"Oh, look. The other vampire that makes my life a living hell, plus his blue demon. Wow, you guys really know how to show a man a good time."
Angel winced at Gunn's sarcastic comments. He obviously was still raw around the edges, Faith concluded, for Gunn's comments to actually mean anything to him.
"We thought we'd throw a party in your honor. But you have to not be in a coma," Faith quipped back at the demon fighter.
"I don't intend on bein' in a coma anytime soon, thank you very much. Been there, done that, need the pain killers."
Gunn's face drew up in pain as he tried to move a shoulder.
"Do we need to call a nurse or a doctor?" Angel said quickly, ready to hunt one down for him.
"Nah. I'm good. It feels good to feel pain. At least I'm feelin' something. So, when was the funeral? I miss it?"
Faith swallowed a gasp, trying to not let on to anything that Angel did not want to tell Gunn. The mask on Illyria's face dropped considerably to reveal a look of anguish. Spike just looked away all together.
"We didn't have one. There wasn't a body to have one for," Angel told him.
Gunn closed his eyes in grief. "Oh God. Could this get any worse?"
"The body was gone when I went to retrieve it. Only the jacket remained," Illyria answered.
"Probably wanted to bend, spindle and mutilate the body just to humiliate us. Although you think they would have shown their cards by now," Spike added to the conversation.
"Spike, not liking the visual, thank you," Faith wanted the vampire to know.
It made her sick to her stomach thinking about what a sick fuck demon could do to a human body. The human body that she happened to care a great deal about. He needed a proper burial.
"So we need to figure out what happened to it, and retrieve it if we can. And we need to get Faith's slayer abilities back on track. And figure out why Illyria's blood is changing." Angel sighed at the thought of all that work.
"Y'all really are lost, aren't you?" Gunn retorted.
"Oh, yeah. Just like old times, huh?" Angel answered him.
"You have a plan in the works?" Gunn asked the vampire.
"Yeah, I'll find my best friend's body, have a damn funeral at night, because, hey, a vampire. And then I'll sit down to read a bunch of dead languages that I couldn't understand if my undead life depended on it so I can save what's left of my crew. Just what I'll do."
Silence reigned in the room while Angel twisted his hands together. Faith didn't want him to apologize for the comment. But she knew he would.
"I'm sorry. That was uncalled for."
Everyone shook their heads, knowing what he was going through, even Illyria on some level.
"If we split up, maybe we could make more progress?" Faith suggested, hoping the vampire would take her help now.
"Hey, good idea. You up for it?" he asked Faith.
"Yeah, I'm good."
"Take Spike and nose around Vail's place. Maybe you'll come up with something."
Illyria moved to stand beside Spike, like she wanted to go with them. Faith did not want her tagging along for anything.
"Illyria, if you could, I'll need your help with some of the texts."
Illyria shook her head in agreement.
"I'll just lie here and have the nurses pamper me." Gunn tried to move again and was rewarded with more pain. "And have them give me more drugs."
Angel smiled just a little at Gunn's attitude.
"He died in the main hall. You will see the stain of his blood on the demon's floor."
"How do you know this, Illyria?" Faith asked her.
"Because I was there when he died. I could not prevent it from happening."
So he hadn't died alone, Faith thought. Although dying in the arms of your love's body that was inhabited by a demon must have been surreal in the greatest. Looking over at Angel, she could see the look of pain and something else in his eyes. Like there was something he wasn't revealing to her. She'd find out in time. If they had time, that is.
TBC
Next: I did promise Wood, and he will arrive shortly. I'm too tired to type anymore. And Spike and Faith do a little investigating. Evil is coming their way. Will they be ready for it?
Author notes: Well, wasn't that fun (the author types sarcastically). Angst is so hard to write. And many thanks to the reviewer who pointed out that I had totally blown off Fred. You were so right, hence the whole section with Cordy. It rounds the fic out nicely too. I'm taking liberties here people. I'm figuring that vision said a lot more than Angel was willing to reveal. It had to. Whether he understood it all, that's a point I'd like to make.
Thanks to: Caity, Imzadi, Illiyra (yay, new reviewer), Uberwicca (another new reviewer), pari106, tp96, WhiteRabbit, and all the others who are keeping up with this! I told my husband that I felt like I was digging myself into a hole. You guys have been so great to me, I feel that I need to update often. Of course, that means not enough sleep. Can't you tell?
Answers to Questions:
Imzadi – sorry, no Fred in this fic. She really is gone in this universe. If Lilah can reappear, maybe Lindsey will too. She was a surprise to me too. You so busted me on Fred. I went too long without mentioning her. Thanks for making me really think!!