Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or the setting of the story. All things I borrowed from the Buffyverse are a creation of and belong to Joss Whedon. I have also borrowed several ideas and concepts from to J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, I used some in this chapter, some will be in the rest of the story. (the mirror of Erised, the Room of Requirement)
Also, Demonologie Malyfycorum of Henchanse thee Unsatisfactory – is a made up book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.
"Brilliantine stick insect" is one of my favorite phrases from the classic sitcom British " Fawlty Towers".
Timeline: more two years after NFA ("Angel"), less than two years since Faith and Spike began their partnership.
Beta: Rachael, aka kiwilass - than you so much for taking the time to do this.
Chapter 2 – part 1
The memory of her encounter with 'Wesley' had tormented Faith for the past two years. She had expected the memories to fade as time passed. They did not. They kept haunting her dreams. When she tried to suppress them with medication, they started to bleed through into her waken hours. She tried to drown them in denial, and it almost drove her insane.
She decided to face her fear. She became an avid researcher, much to Spike's dismay. She hid from him the real nature of her research, but the changes in her were visible.
During their visit to Cleveland, Faith snuck into the New Watchers' Council offices and photocopied every piece of paper written by or about Wesley that they had. She had passed right through curiosity and reached the level of obsession in a matter of months. She had even accepted a relic hunter job in England to have the chance to look deeper into Wesley's background. His family, his upbringing, the tweed-wearing Watchers factory they called the Academy.
Instead of satiating her interest, the more she found out about him, the more intense the dreams became, the stronger became the urge to see him again.
Two years after the conception of her son, Faith went back to the cave. As much as she had come to trust Spike, it was still difficult for her to leave her child with him. But the compulsion to go back had grown beyond her ability to resist it.
Faith had been walking around that mountain for hours. She found the entrance of the cave when the sun was beginning to set. She took in a deep breath and stepped in, steeling herself for another encounter with Wesley and another stay in her cell. She was therefore deeply shocked when the cave did not morph into her narrow cell, but it became the spacious old Sunnydale High library. She expected Giles and the old Scooby gang to appear. She turned around and tried to open the doors that lead into the hallway of the long flatten high school. They didn't budge.
"Good morning, Faith. Are you ready for training?"
She turned around at the sound of Wesley's voice. Her jaw dropped slightly at the sight of him coming down the stairs with an armful of books. She gawked at him, unable to believe her eyes. Wesley Wyndham-Pryce in all his pompous innocence. The realization hit her - this was the way Wesley was around the time he had written the official Watcher Diaries she had just read.
The Sunnydale Wesley. Still Watcher Wesley.
She studied him attentively, trying to see him without prejudice. But this Wesley was only a creation of her distorted memory of him and her lecture of the Diaries.
"Is there something the matter, Faith?"
There wasn't even a trace of concern in his words. He was still perfect-Watcher Wes, who only saw the Slayer as a tool of the Council. He didn't even think of her as "his" Slayer.
"You're so young."
She couldn't stop the comment. He couldn't be more than four or five years older than her, and he looked incredibly young and innocent.
Wesley bristled at this apparent attack against his authority.
"I'll have you know that..."
He stopped. He looked Faith up and down and did a double take.
"You seem quite... different," he eventually settled on an epithet.
Faith smiled looking down at her outfit. She had to admit she was not dressed for slaying. She wasn't wearing a pink skirt like the Buffy bot (the story of the sex bot had been the most entertaining confession of a thoroughly drunk Spike). She was, however, dressed for a date. Granted, she had envisioned a date with Marlboro Man-Wesley, not whimpy-Wes. Wussly would probably have a heart attack at the mere idea of dating his Slayer.
"How are you feeling, Wes? Anything out of the ordinary?" she asked gently.
His first reaction should be in part a classic English stiff-upper-lippedness, and a classic Wesley tirade of polysyllabic fancy words, Faith ventured a guess. But he appeared to have sensed the strangeness of the situation and swallowed the words.
"What's wrong, Faith? Did something happen?"
"Well..."
She stopped. How could she explain him?
"If you're not going to tell me, maybe you care to sit down and read. If at all possible, try to get past the first page of the 'Demonologie Malyfycorum' without falling asleep on it."
Faith smiled. She remembered this conversation. It was strange to remember how much she resented him when he was talking down at her like that. How much she hated him and everything he represented, and how clearly she was seeing him now. A very young, very inexperienced man who was trying to perform a job he knew to be of the utmost importance in the battle between good and evil. She snapped out of her musings when she heard Wesley's shocked exclamation.
"What the hell is going on here!"
He wasn't talking to her, she noticed. He was staring at the book in front of him, turning pages impatiently.
"Wes? What is it?"
He looked up at her as if he was just noticing that she was there.
"This cannot be," he said and climbed the few stairs of the library in one leap.
She heard him pull books off the shelves, rifle through the pages and let them fall to the floor. She ran to him to see what was happening.
"These books... they're all empty. The 'Demonologie' had the first page written the rest were blank. Most of these don't have anything in them. Look, even some of the titles are wrong," he said, pointing at the spines of several books.
"Umm... Wes, there's something I have to tell you," she said hesitantly.
"Not now, Faith. Do you not grasp how serious this is?"
"Yes, about what's going on... I think I know why the books are empty," she said.
"What? You know?" he asked incredulous. "Well, go on then. Tell me!" he demanded.
"You'd better sit down," she said, trying to play for time, but at the sight of his exasperated look she went on reluctantly. "They're not real. Nothing here is real. It's all created out of my memories. It's how I remember the library."
"Poppycock!" he exclaimed. "This may be fun to you, but to me this is very serious. Just let me try to work out what's going on."
He resumed his frantic examination of the books. Faith put her hand gently on his arm, trying to calm him down. He shrugged it off and went on.
"The library isn't real," she told him. "The doors don't open. I'm betting that the windows won't open either. Come on, see for yourself!" she urged him, pulling him toward the doors.
"If this is your idea of a joke..."
He shut up when the doors did not move no matter how much he pushed and pulled. He ran to the windows, and tried all of them, with the same result.
"This is impossible. Something's terribly wrong," he kept muttering as he ran around the room, trying to find an exit.
Faith sat down at the table and opened a book at random. Blank pages. She wondered how the library would look if it had been created from Wesley's memories.
"All right. Tell me what you know. We'll have to find a way out, if the others don't come looking for us."
"No one's going to be looking for us," she said. "This is not happening when you think it's happening. It's 2006, and this is not Sunnydale."
"Don't be ridiculous!" he chided in that insufferable tone that had always driven her bonkers. "Of course it's Sunnydale. It's just a trick of the Hellmouth."
She was getting fed up with his weakness. This was not the Wesley she wanted. She got even more annoyed at her mental slip up. She did not want Wesley. She wanted answers. She had come back for answers.
"The real Wesley could always tell when something wasn't real," she told him abruptly.
She regretted it instantly. He froze, and all of a sudden looked even younger. She had read about his time in the Watchers' Academy, and she guessed he must have looked very similar to the defenseless boy she had in front of her now.
"I'm real," he said.
His voice was low and diffident. She walked to him, burdened with guilt. Somehow, she always ended up hurting him.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Wes."
"NO!" he shouted at her. "NO! I'm not letting you do this to me anymore. You trying to make a fool of me, and I shall not have it. I am sick and tired of your constant insubordination. Your bad manners. Your impertinent attitude. You are a Slayer and you act like a common tart! This is not 2006 and you are going to keep your mouth shut and let me try to find out what is happening!"
"Really, Wes? Not 2006? Then how do you think I know that you just called Quentin Travers and told on Giles yesterday? How do I know that your favorite sandwich is roast beef and chutney? How do I know that you hated the way your parents' cook prepared the oatmeal or porridge as you call it, but loved it at the Academy? How do I know that you slept with Rollo's mom during the Christmas holiday and when he found out and punched you when you went back to the Academy you told on him and got him expelled?"
Wesley's complexion went through a wide range of nuances, going from white to ashen grey and at the last rash words he turned bright scarlet. He took a step backwards, distancing himself from her. Ripples of guilt went through her when she saw the fear in his eyes.
"Wes," she whispered.
"Stay away from me. How do you know all this? What are you?"
"It's me. Just me."
"I'm real," he said softly.
She watched him try to take a step back from the situation, and analyze it coolly. He must have found enough inconsistencies in his memories because his face grew less frightened. He gradually began to acquire that flinty quality he had had in LA.
"Tell me everything," he said.
"I don't know everything," Faith said.
Wesley grabbed her left wrist painfully hard and drew her closer. The innocent sparkle that had been in his eyes only minutes earlier was replaced by that brutal determination she had seen when he was trying to extract information from that junkie. She reached out with her free hand to touch his face, wanting to wipe away that hard expression with a caress. He caught her right hand as if she had tried to slap him.
"Then tell me what you do know," he said looking into her eyes.
Faith was caught in his gaze for a while, but she snapped out of it. Who was he to talk to her like that? This was not even useless Watcher Wesley. He was only a figment of her imagination. She owed him no respect. No obedience. She pulled out of his grasp with ease.
"This is a magic cave. I stepped in it by mistake. It turned into this. That's it."
"That's hardly it," he said derisively. "Why did it turn into Sunnydale High library of... seven years ago of all times and places?"
"No idea," she replied. "Magic."
"And of all the people you knew at that time... you're seeing me. Come on. Tell me what is this all about?"
"You know what? I don't have to tell you shit. You're part of the cave, part of the magic. So why don't you tell me?"
"Because I don't know! I don't know anything!" he shouted at her.
He went to look out the window. Faith watched his boyish figure outlined against the bright, if fake, California sky. How did she think of him as an adult, she wondered. He looked like a little boy dressed in a suit. Well, maybe not exactly like that, but he was certainly not the obnoxious grown up she remembered.
She went to stay by his side. She could see the school yard. That was good illusion.
"You're awfully calm for someone who is stuck in a place with no apparent exits," he remarked without taking his eyes from the false view.
Faith shrugged. From her previous experience, there was one way to make the exit reappear. If she had to have sex with a Brilliantine stick insect like Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, it was a small price to pay for freedom. When she was seventeen, she had cast Wesley on the extreme bottom part of the list of men she would sleep with. She hadn't placed him on the list of the men she would never sleep with though. Maybe it was the accent. She thought at the recordings of Wesley's interrogation of Angelus. How had the old vampire phrase it? He's all proper and English. And that accent... oh, chicks just love a good accent. Makes 'em all buttery in their nether regions.
"Nothing to do, but wait. Something's gonna come up."
"What happens to me, Faith? In the future."
"You mean after you leave Sunnyhell?"
"I leave? Soon?"
"Yeah. You mess things up so badly that they kick you out of the Council."
She felt him shiver. She had guessed that Wesley's worst fear was failing. Publicly. She wondered why she was torturing him. It was her time to feel a shiver down her spine. Torturing him. That was still to come. Sort of. She thought about Alex, and the dread that one day her son will find out about her dark days and he would hate her came back full force. This fear and her obsession Wesley obsession had consumed her for the past year.
"Are you all right, Faith? You're shivering," Wesley said, and extended his arm tentatively toward her.
Faith sneaked under his arm, and put her head on his chest. She felt Wesley's arm close around her shoulders instinctively. He was awkward and stiff, and his heart was beginning to beat faster. She could hear it hammering under her cheek. She put her arms around his waist and closed her eyes.
"I missed you," she confessed.
"That's... nice," he said in a strangled voice. "Faith, this is not appropriate."
"Shut up."
When he tried to disentangle himself from her embrace, she felt it. She looked at him turning red as she pasted herself even more insistently against him. Cold bastard as he had always been, he was a man, and he was interested in her. He put his hands on her shoulders to push her away, but he didn't once she rubbed herself against that part of him that refused to submit to reason or propriety. He closed his eyes. His fingers dug deep into her flesh. He held his breath. Faith could see his education oppose his natural urges. She watched his reason lose the battle. Against his will, he leaned his head to kiss her. Faith pulled away with a wicked smile.
"A common tart, Wes? I guess slumming it once in a while is ok even for you."
Faith shook her head. Why was she doing this? Why couldn't she just take what he was offering? He was just another man.
She looked back at him. She understood.
Because he was not like other men. Not to her. He had been there when she had begun her slide into darkness. He had been the victim of her darkest hour. He had been there when she began the rocky road to redemption. He had been stronger than anyone else she had ever met during those sunless days in Los Angeles. He had fathered her child...
She was reeling from this realization of the depth of her feelings, when he pushed her against the window and kissed her. Not quite as bad as his description of that awkward kiss with Cordelia, but a far cry from the refined attention he had bestowed on her during her first visit to the cave. If he had tried it when she was seventeen, she would've been merciless. Now she was aware of his potential. She was going to have so much fun training him.
To be contined...